His English Wife. By Rudolph Stratz. Translated by A. 0.
Curtis. (Edward Arnold. 6s.)—Since August we have heard so much of the brutal hatred of the Germans towards us English that we were surprised to find an admittedly popular German novelist dealing out to us the most generous justice. The hero of His English Wife, one Helmut Merker, is a Lieutenant in the Prussian Army, who at first is torn between idealistic patriotism and an admiration of our wide- spread Imperialism and of that liberty of thought and action which he sees to be the keynote of British life; later, of course, he perceives the error of our ways, and his "German" instincts are victorious. Half the scenes are laid in Englund and half in a German garrison town. Now and then the writer makes mistakes—we do not hold that "a man who works for his living is no gentleman," nor do our officers play hockey in white flannels—but he possesses, on the whole, a shrewd insight and a true understanding of the average English girl, although she appears to him, strangely enough, less vivacious than her German contemporary. It only remains to add that Mr. Curtis has given us a perfectly adequate, if not inspired, translation of a book which, in spite of our natural prejudices, interested us immensely.
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