A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE.t
CERTAIFLY Mr. Harvey's pencil jottings go as near as need be to justify- ing the thrilling title given to his little book. They are at any rate refreshing in their direct first-handedness after the °ratio obliqua of
the ordinary stay-at-home artist's synthetic war-pictures :— " I don't think I'm a bit sentimental in the matter of souvenirs, and anyway I can't need anything to remind me of the unforgettable,
• The Three Pearls. By the Hon. J. W. Forteacue. With Illustrations by Alice B. Woodward. London : Macmillan and Co. Os. net.] t A Soldier's Sketches under Fire. fly Harold Harvey. London : Sampson Low, Idasstan, aafi Co. the Bib add
but all the same there's one souvenir of my experiences in the trenches and the firing line that I shall never part with—and that's the little notebook (measuring 5i ins. by 3i ins., bought in Armentires) which I carried with me through everything, and in which are the originals of the sketches here collected, taken under fire,' either literally or in the sense that they were taken within the zone of fire. In the nature of things I might have been finished myself by shot or shell before I could have finished any one of them. Sketched in circumstances that certainly had their own disadvantages as well as their special advantages, I present these drawings only for what they arc. There were many happenings—repulsions of sudden attacks, temporary retirements, charges, and things of that sort—that would have made capital subjects, but of which my notebook holds no pictured presentment,' because I was taking part in them."
Thus does the author modestly tell of the scope as well as of the limitations of his work. And very vivid and real it all is, both the capital matter-of- fact little sketches and the happy straightforward text. They ring true, and well they may—for Private Harold Harvey, of the Royal Fusiliers, saw his full share of fighting until shrapnel and poison-gas put an end to his soldiering and sent him home from the Ypres Salient to console himself and entertain us by the making of this little book.
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