A STUDENT IN ARMS.* WE are glad to say that

the series of articles published by us over the signature of "A Student in Arms" has been reprinted in book form, together with two other articles by the same writer which originally appeared in the Westminster Gazette. As the articles were not by a member of the regular Spedator staff, we may be allowed, if not to praise them, at any rate to put up a signpost to them and remind our readers how pleasant is the road on which they are invited to walk once more.

An excellent choice of a first chapter has been made in " Kitchener's Army," reprinted from the Westminster Gazette. It is very much shorter than the majority of the essays, and is little more than a sketch, though a graphic one, of the men who make up " ICitchener's Army." Indeed, it might very well be taken as a description of the dramatis personae of the book :— " We are a mixed lot—a triumph of democracy, like the Tubes. Some of us have fifty years to our credit and only own to thirty ; others are sixteen and claim to be eighteen. Some of us enlisted for glory, and some for fun, and a few for fear of starvation. Some of Us began by being stout, and have lost weight ; others were seedy and are filling out. Some of us grumble, and go sick to escape parades ; but for the most part we are aggressively cheerful, and wore never fitter in one lives. Some miss their glass of claret, others their fish-and-chips ; but as we all sleep on the floor, and have only one suit, which is rapidly becoming very disreputable, you would never tell t'other from which." In another chapter, "An Experiment in Democracy," this theme is amplified and handled with that sympathetic and philosophic obser- vation which is so characteristic of the writer. In the course of this article he gives an amusing picture of the " gentleman " turned recruit. The embarrassment of the uneducated suddenly thrust among the educated is a common topic of study and ridicule. It is rarely that we see the situation reversed. Indeed, it seems to be assumed that the "gentleman," like the hero in a novel, is never seen at a disadvantage. Wherever he is placed he brings his own atmosphere, so to speak, and can breathe easily. The " Student " has the courage to go against a popular tradition :— " Even the gentleman, who had prided himself on his freedom from the snobbishness of the suburbs,' felt ill at ease. Of course he had been to working men's clubs ; but there he had been Mr. Thingumy.' Here he was mate.' He told himself that he did not mind being mate,' in fact he rather liked It; but he fervently wished that he looked the part. He felt as self-conscious as if he had arrived at a dinner party in a Norfolk jacket. A little later on, when ho sat, one of four nude men, in a cubicle awaiting medical inspection, he did feel that for tho moment they had all been reduced to the common denominator of their sheer humanity ; but embarrassment returned with his clothes and

• A Student in Arms. London ; Andrew Melrose. ps. net.] stayed with him all through the march to the station and the journey to the depot. At the depot he fought for the prize of a verminous blanket, and six foot of floor to lie on. When he awoke the next morning his clothes were creased and dirty, his collar so filthy that it had to be discarded, and his chin unshaven. He perceived with something of a shock that he was no longer conspicuous. He was no more than the seedy unit of a seedy crowd. In any other circumstances he would have been disgusted. As it was, he sought the canteen at the earliest opportunity and toasted the Unity of the Classes in a pint ! "

As Mr. St. Loe Strachey says in the introduction, "the special quality of mind that the Student in Arms has brought to his anatomy of the mind and soul of the British soldier—the Elizabethans would have called his book The Soldier Anatomized—is his sense of justice. That is the keynote, the ruling passion, of all his writing. There is plenty of stern- ness in his attitude. He by no means sinks to the crude antinomianism

of to understand all is to pardon all.' His ideal of justice is, however, clearly governed by the definition that justice is a finer knowledge

through love." But with all his detachment of observation the " Student" does not disdain sentiment. One of the most moving articles in the book is "The Beloved Captain," which many of our readers will recall to mind :—

"Then he started to drill the platoon, with the sergeant standing by to point out his mistakes. Of course he made mistakes, and when that happened he never minded admitting it. He would explain what mistakes he had made, and try again. The result was that we began to take almost as much interest and pride in his progress as he did in ours. We were his men, and he was our leader. We felt that he was a credit to us, and we resolved to be a credit to him. There was a bond of mutual confidence and affection between us, which grew stronger and stronger as the months passed. . . . He was good to look on. life was big and tall, and held himself upright. His eyes looked his own height. He moved with the grace of an athlete. His skin was tanned by a wholesome outdoor life, and his eyes were clear and wide open. Physically he was a prince among men. We used to notice, as we marched along the road and passed other officers, that they always looked pleased to see him. . . . We knew that we should lose him. For one thing, we knew that he would be promoted. It was our great hope that some day he would command the company. Also we knew that he would be killed. He was so amazingly unself-conscious. For that reason we knew that he would be absolutely fearless. He would be so keen on the job in hand, and so anxious for his men, that he would forget about his own danger. So it proved. He was a captain when we went out to the front. Whenever there was a tiresome job to be done, he was there in charge. If ever there were a moment of danger, he was on the spot. If there were any particular part of the line where the shells were falling faster or the bombs dropping more thickly than In other parts, he was in it. It was not that he was conceited and imagined himself indispensable. It was just that he was so keen that the men should do their best, and act worthily of the regiment."

We understand this to be a composite portrait. It says much for the officers of the British Army that many people have claimed to

Identify the "Beloved Captain." A similar note of emotion is found In several other articles, notably "The Honour of the Brigade" and "Of Some Who were Lost, and Afterward Found."

Excellently as the " Student " can portray the feelings of the men of " Kitchener's Army," the present writer confesses to a preference for him in his more philosophic mood. Conspicuous among the essays in this vein is "An Englishman Philosophizes "—the first to appear in the Spectator—which shows the" Student's" originality of thought and style at their best. It is a study of the mental and moral attitude of "the Average Englishman" in peace and in war. Living through his uneventful routine before the war, the "Average Englishman" could hardly be said to possess a philosophy at all, but rather "a code of honour and morals, based partly on tradition and partly on his own shrewd observation of the law of cause and effect as illustrated in the lives of his neighbours." When war came and he found himself " some- where in France," he discovered that this easygoing philosophy "did not quite fit in with the new demands made on his personality.

Much against his will, he had to try and think things out" :— " It was an unmitigated nuisance. His equipment was so poor. • He had read so little that was of any use to him. All that he could remember were some phrases from the Bible, some verses from Omar Khayyam, and a sentence or two from the Latin Syntax. And then his brain was so unaccustomed to this sort of effort. It made him quite tired ; but it had to be done. A man couldn't sit in a trench hour after hour and day after day with shells whizzing through the air over his head, or bursting thunderously ten yards from him, without trying to get some grip of his mental attitude towards them. He could not see his comrades killed and maimed and mutilated without in some way defining his views on life and death and duty and fate. He could not shoot and bayonet his fellow-men without trying to formulate some justification for such an unprecedented course of action. His Mind was compelled to react to the new and extraordinary situations with which it was confronted."

But when he found himself in a support trench heavily shelled by

German guns, Omar, who "lived before the days of high explosives," was of little comfort ; and as for the Bible, "it didn't seem quite playing the game to go to it now when he had neglected it so long." At this crisis "he very nearly became a Mohammedan "—in effect, though he could not have given his attitude of mind a definition. In face of the dropping shells he repeated "Kismet 1" "thinking in a moment of

inspiration of Oscar Asche." From fatalism he was driven to the gospel of "the will to prevail," and was very near "to becoming s

disciple of the Hunnish Nietzsche." But this philosophy of the ego, though useful at moments of crisis, failed lamentably in days of rain in a

trench without dug-outs, and he fell back on the motto of a Boys' Cluk, "Keep Smiling." This worked very well for a time, but it was not till many days had passed, and he had endured much weariness of mind and body, that he seemed to find anything like a real philosophy :— " At length the battalion was relieved, and marched back to a rest, camp, where it spent three weeks of comparative peace. In the intervals of presenting arms and acting as orderly corporal the Average English- man thought over his experiences, and it suddenly struck him that durine° his fortnight as a section commander he had actually forgotten to be afraid, or even nervous ! It was really astounding. Moreover, his mind rose to the occasion, and pointed out the reason. He had been so anxious for his section that he had never once thought of himself. With a feeling of utter astonishment, he realized that he had stumbled upon the very roots of courage —unselfishness. He, the Average Englishman, had made an epoch-making philosophical discovery 1" "A Book of Wisdom" follows much the same lines ILI the article kid mentioned, but the individual who is the subject of analysis is of a special type. The extracts from his diary, which is the "book of wisdom" of the title, show him always introspective, thoughtful, eager, but humble in his search for truth. The conclusion to which his ex- periences bring him seems the only possible one to a mind such as his. In June, 1914, he is dealing more or less with abstractions :—

" Agnosticism is a fact, it is the starting-point of the man who has realized that to study Infinity requires Eternity."

Perhaps, as a youthful philosopher, he is here rather preoccupied with words, but that he is not a mere word-spinner is shown by another sentence :—

"Agnosticism is no excuse for idleness ; because we cannot know all, it does not follow that we should remain wholly ignorant."

Immediately after war has begun his philosophy is influenced by his experiences ' "The philosopher who is a bad citizen has studied in vain."

"The Gospel says : Love your enemies.' That means : Try to make them your friends.' It may be necessary to kick one's enemy in order to make friendship possible. A nation may be in the same predicament and be forced to fight in order to make friendship possible."

"Here are two contemptible follows : a philosopher without courage and a Christian without faith."

"To have a wide experience is to inherit the earth ; with a narrow horizon a man cannot be a sound thinker."

"Experience is the raw material of the philosopher ; the wider hie experience, whether personal or borrowed, the more sure the basis of his philosophy."

By October, 1914, " philosophy " seems to be largely giving place to religion :— "Religion means being aware of God as a factor in one's environment ; perfect religion is perceiving the true relative importance of God and the rest."

"Religion is feeling and aspirational theology is the statement of its theoretical implications."

"In the hour of danger a man is proven ; the boaster hides, the egotist trembles, only ho whose care is for honour and for °there forgets to be afraid."

"True religion is betting one's life that there is a God."

The entry of June 1st, 1915, closes the extracts :— " I have seen with the eyes of God. I have seen the naked souls of men, stripped of circumstance. Rank and reputation, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, manners and uncouthness, those I saw not. I saw the naked souls of men. I saw who were slaves and who were free: who were beasts and who men : who were contemptible and who honourable. I have seen with the eyes of God. I have seen the vanity of the temporal and the glory of the eternaL I have despised comfort and honoured pain. I have understood the victory of the Cross. 0 Death, where is thy sting I Nuns Domine. . . ."

The " Student's " religious sense is very strong, and ho is therefore naturally interested in a, high degree in the relationship of the Church to the Army. He deals with it very frankly in several articles, notably in "The Religion of the Inarticulate," and has a good deal of criticism to offer—criticism which seems to us sound and useful. In summing up our notice of the book we may quote once more from the intro- duction, where Mr. Strachey defines the work of "A Student in Arms" :—

"What is his task ? Consciously or unconsciously, I know not which it is, to interpret the British soldier to the nation in whose service he has laid down his life, and dared and done deeds to which the history of war affords no parallel. One rises from the Student's book with a sense that man is, after all, a noble animal, and that though war may blight and burn, it reveals the best side of human nature, and sanctifies as well as destroys."