History of the War

1915

"When the history of this war comes to be written," is a constantly recurring journalistic phrase, as if the story of this great conflict could ever be written.

You may be fairly certain that no one under the rank of an archangel, in close touch with omniscience, will ever write the full history of the world war. Down below there isn't the knowledge, and there isn't the time. There will come sectional accounts. But if in the fullness of time a world syndicate succeeds in getting some million tons of print within covers, the public will (one hopes) be thinking of something else. Yet the literature of the war as a personal drama is the domain of the private soldier, and the best letters from the front have been written by the private soldier.

On that side of the literature of war the editor of the Book Monthly has his eye. He is a specialist on the "Epistles of Atkins," and already he has been gloating and gleaning with some thousands of soldiers' letters before him. — London Chronicle.


Magnificent Volume

The most sumptuous copy of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in existence was recently sent from England to a purchaser abroad. The value of the book is between $5,000 and $7,500. It has been reproduced as an illuminated manuscript on vellum, and the volume is notable as being the entire work of one artist, Alberto Sangorski, who was engaged upon it for 18 months. The title is in pearls set in gold, and the cover is embellished with 214 rubies and 36 amethysts.