In any day-to-day diary one must be prepared to meet
many trivialities and some errors of judgment, but with all deductions the late Lord Sandhurst's From Day to Day (Arnold, 18s.) does succeed in painting a live picture of manners, aims, and thought in England in the momentous years of 1914 and 1915. Holding the high office of Lord Chamberlain, the author enjoyed abundant opportunities of meeting or hearing about things and people that mattered, about Prince Lichnowsky, for instance, who was certain in 1914 that civil war and revolution in Ireland were inevitable. Plenty of good stories, too, creep in : of a mess-caterer in France ordering stores pour la masse ; of an Irish linesman who appeared with two German prisoners, and who, when asked how he had got them, replied, " I surrounded them " ; or a report whispered about some little time before the War that " someone said to Asquith, ' Why should not Morley have the Garter ? ' and Asquith replied, ' If he would only go, I would give him one for each leg.' " The book has a distinct value from the historical side, and, if it does at times arouse memories both bitter and sad, is very readable.
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