Books: Huntsman

(2 of 2)

The Significance. The pleasant British hunting world with all its appendages has not often been accurately reported—its members not being the sort who think transcendentally, or even observantly. Author Sassoon is however not only an able fox-huntsman, but a poet into the bargain, with the result that he has caught the peculiar rhythm of riding to hounds. A quadruped's points, the tying of a stock, the imminence of frost, the perfect groom —these things he records with charm and with leisurely humor. Then, in sharp contrast, a few chapters on the War—told with such tragic bitterness of restraint that the effect is more appalling than the usual statistics of lice and mud. His hunting world is shattered, his hunting friends are killed—even Dixon, the perfect groom.

The Author. Coupled with Rupert Brooke as one of England's war-time poets, Siegfried Sassoon produces in the Memoirs his first prose, a distinguished piece of writing. The first English edition appeared anonymously, such was its autobiographical nature; but with quick succeeding editions the author grew appar-ently bolder, affixed his signature.