My Yews or Exe. By Edward Bernstein. Translated by Bernard Miall.
Leonard Parsons. 15s. net.
Exiles have one advantage in that, being driven from home, they are compelled to travel. Socialists in particular have had_ necessity thrust upon them, and it is probable that the opportunity thus afforded different nationalities has done much to strengthen their cause and widen their influence. There is, indeed, much to be said for the English theory that political exile is a double-edged weapon, which in the long run can be used against the party which originally used it.
Herr Bernstein spent most of his days of exile in Switzerland-England, and very attached he became to both countries. Of England and its people he gives a very shrewd and sympathetic analysis, and as we are always in-in hearing what others about us, some of his conclusions are worth recording. Our careless habit of never registering our luggage and the immunity from trouble which nevertheless followed from it struck him with amazement, though, as a matter of fact, many Englishmen are now beginning to doubt whether this carelessness in quite so magnificent and justifiable after all. English cookery strikes him as " crudely empirical." He has something to say about its monotony and its absence of incentives to appetite," and he accords it the faint praise of not being '"'without its advant-He was greatly tickled by large number of abstainers among working men leaders, and particularly by a definition of Air. Will Thorne during a visit to Germany of lager beer as "a temperance drink." He was shrewd enough to notice how untrue are the stereotyped conceptions of Englishmen and Irishmen. Thus, at a famous meeting addressed by Mr. Parnell at St. James's Hall, Piccadilly, he noticed the extraordinary contrast between the warmth of the welcome accorded to Parnell and the chill tone of the speech of the man who enjoyed! it. "Parnell accepted it unmoved, returned not a word of thanks to those who offered it, and spoke only of Ireland, of her grievances, her rights, and her demands." As a rule he thinks that the English working man has had less education than his German comrade, and this fact, coupled with his insularity, explains much in his behaviour which "is apt at first to repel the foreigner." He lays great stress more than once in his book on a piece of advice which was given to him by a German friend who knew the English well. This friend said "If you ever get into a hand-to-hand fight with anyone the best thing to do, if you can't get the better of your opponent, is to let him knock you down. As long as you keep your fect no one will interfere. But anyone who touched a man who was lying on the ground would be set upon by the people." He noticed in all classes of English society a certain lack of balance. "The self-discipline of the cultured Englishman has been developed to a degree hardly to be seen elsewhere; but it is capable, when once it breaks down, of giving place to an oxtravagance which is likewise almest unique. A great deal in the novels of Charles Dickens, which to the German reader seems boundless exaggeration, strikes us as less unfamiliar when we have lived for some time in England."
Naturally Herr Bernstein has a great deal to say about the English Socialist worthies and the exiled foreigners whom he met during his Long sojourn here, and his picture recalls that which the savage Mr. Wells has given us concerning the personal idiosyncraises and the general elect. His of the tragedy of Eleanor 's life with Dr, Aveling is pathetic in the extreme, and it is not surprising to learn that its dramatic possibilities were seized upon by Mr, Shaw, whose Dubedat in The Doctor's Dilemma" was inspired by Aveling. It is also not surprising, as Herr Bernstein says, that Mr. Shaw should have taken a marriage which ended so tragically as a basis of a comedy. There is, indeed, considerable truth in Herr Bernstein's description of Mr. Shaw "as a laughing Ibsen."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.