THE THRESHOLD OF WAR.•
MR. Ilorsurs was in Belgium, Germany, and Russia just after the Sarajevo murders, and in France on the declaration of war and during the anxious days that followed. He thus has many interest. ing impressions to recount of the arrogance and complacency of Berlin ; of St. Petersburg. all ceremonial and secrecy under the regime of the ill-fated Romanoffs ; of France, throwing aside the cloak of gaiety which her enemies supposed covered only a bon vivant, but which, unhappily for those enemies, disclo'ed the polio of Verdun. Mr. Hopkins also came to London, but whether from discretion or from lack of time spent here he has little to say about the visit. We should have liked to know more in detail how London in war time strikes the visitor from overseas. After the fall of Liege and Namur Mr. Hopkins was again in Antwerp and Berlin, and the criticism we have passed on his impressions of London may be repeated here, particularly in regard to the latter city. One paragraph sums up his whole comment, leaving the reader both tantalized and disappointed. Indeed, the whole book is a little sketchy, and reads somewhat as if it were a study for a longer volume. The most thrilling thing in it is the description of the retreat from Mons. On Red Cross service with a detachment of French artillery, Mr. Hopkins was an eye- witness of one of the first battles of that famous retreat. The French were making a stand at a position south-east of St. Quentin,
masked hastily by boughs and trees." " Some old overturned carts formed, with a low stone wall, part of our defences " :-
" I lay quite fiat and peered through an opening in the wall ; there was a spider there, motionless in his web. The wind still blew with violence, and the shrubbery and greens about our barricade rustled and swished in the freshening breeze. . . . In the fog- like faint grayr dawn the enemy sent a line stealthily across the open field to locate our position—to ascertain if possible of what we con- sisted, infantry, cavalry or artillery. . . . I thrilled, and my • Over the Threshold of if By Nei% Monroe Hopkins. London : J. B. Lippin- cott Company. (218. net.]
heart pounded, as through a mist in that faint gray dawn I saw the German line advance ! "
The book is illustrated by numerous attractive drawings by Mr. Edmund Frederic, photographs, and reproductions of some of the Proclamations made by German Commandants to the unfortunate people of Luneville and Saint-Die, Brussels, Lille, Sro.
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