THE BRENNER PASS.
The Brenner Pass. By Constance Leigh Clare. Illustrations by J. F. Leigh Clare. (The Century Press. 6s. net.) —I t is hardly fair to bring out such a book as this in the autumn publishing season. London is resigning herself as best she may to three months of fog and rain and mud; and then Miss Leigh Clam comes with stories of valleys full of yellow leaves, and folk-songs, and frescoed churches, and sunny borderland villages, whose very smell is the smell of Italy; and the long walks, right across Tyrol, from Kufstein to His-a, make us long for the twenty holidays which have gone to the making of this book. And Miss Clare has gathered from the lips of guide and postilion, of priest and peasant, a wonderful collection of legend and folklore, of singular charm in this prosaic, scientific age of ours ; for the devil is lurking everywhere, and his horns and hoofs may show in a moment round the corner, and the hillsides are crowded with witches and spirits and Holy Maidens. But the most unkind temptation of the book lies in its illustrations ; there are brilliant little drawings and water-colour sketches, vivid with blues and greens, and, best of all, one or two old carved inn-signs which of themselves are enough to draw us away from England over the Brenner Pass.
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