Holmes,  at  the  request  of  the  committee
of  the  ^International  Arbitration  and
Peace  Association^^  —  under  the  title
<Lay  Down  Your  Arms.*

The   story  is  told   in    the  form  of  a
journal  kept  by  a  German  noblewoman.
SYNOPSES  OP  NOTED  BOOKS


423


whose  life  covered  the  period  of  Ger-
many's recent  wars.  This  lady  relates
the  emotional  and  spiritual  life  of  a
woman  during  that  terrible  experience,
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  her  story  an
appeal  for  the  cessation  of  war.  Hav-
ing lost  her  young  husband  in  the  war
with  Italy,  she  has  lived  only  for  her
son  and  her  grief.  In  her  maturity  she
meets  and  marries  Friedrich  von  Tilling,
an  Austrian  officer,  who,  after  years  of
close  companionship,  is  forced  to  leave
her  and  her  unborn  child,  at  the  new
call  to  arms.  The  Schleswig-Holstein
difficulty,  the  Austro-Prussian  war,  and
finally  the  war  with  France,  tear  the
family  apart  The  wife  endures  the
fear  of  her  husband's  death,  the  actual
suffering  of  sympathy  with  his  wound,
the  horrors  of  plague,  famine,  and  the
sickening  sights  of  a  besieged  city;  and
at  last,  when  Von  Tilling  has  retired
from  active  service,  and  is- with  her  in
Paris  for  the  winter,  the  blind  hatred  of
the  French  towards  their  conquerors
overtakes  their  new  dream  of  happiness.
The  Austrian  is  seized  and  shot  as  a
Prussian  spy.  Not  only  has  the  author
presented  a  convincing  picture  of  the
untold  suffering,  the  far-reaching  loss
and  retrog^ression  involved  in  war,  but
she  shows  the  pitiful  inadequacy  of  the
causes  of  war.  Many  a  German  woman
recognizes  in  Martha  Tilling's  tragical
journal  the  unwritten  record  of  her  own
pain  and  despair.
Richard  Cable,  by  S.  Baring-Gould.
