* * * * *
To few of those who visit Switzerland, with its incomparable
mountains, can it have occurred that, once a man is kept there against
his will, it can be a prison as damnable as any other; possibly even
more damnable by reason of those same inevitable mountains. British
prisoners of war interned there knew that. Mr. R. O. PROWSE, in _A
Gift of the Dusk_ (COLLINS), speaks with subtle penetration for those
other prisoners, interned victims of the dreadful malady. Of necessity
he writes sadly; but yet he writes as a very genial philosopher,
permitting himself candidly "just that little cynicism which helps
to keep one tolerant." He is of the old and entertaining school of
sentimental travellers, but he is far from being old-fashioned. The
story running through his observations and modern instances is so
frail and delicate a thing that I hesitate to touch it and to risk
disturbing its bloom. All readers, save the very young and the very
old, will do well to travel with him, from Charing Cross ("I have a
childlike fondness for trains. I like to be in them, I like to see
them go by") to the peaceful, almost happy end, at the mountain refuge
by the valley of the Rhone.
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