The Other Side of the Lantern

Abstract

AN admirable book; a book written in terse and epigrammatic style, as full of cleverness as anything written by Kipling, and intensely interesting as illustrative of the first impressions conveyed to a highly trained and observant mind by the familiar and superficial details of eastern life. But there is nothing deeper in the book than first impressions, and it was perhaps inevitable that to the student of human nature under those aspects of sorrow and suffering which shadow the sick bed and the hospital, those first impressions should be tinged with the pathos and sadness rather than with the brightness and fulness of the east, and that the general tone of the book should be almost pessimistic. It is as if the lantern had proved to be no better than a common “bull's eye,” with nothing on the far side but deep shadow and the policeman. Not that the book is wanting in humour by any means. On the contrary, some of the quaint outlines of men and things sketched in by the artist's hand are as full of humour as anything drawn by Phil May; but it is the grim humour of the man who complained in South Africa of the “plague of women and flies” rather than that of the ordinary holiday tourist infected with the light and sunshine of the eastern world.

The Other Side of the Lantern.

By Sir Frederick Treves, Bart. Pp. xvi + 424. (London: Cassell and Co., Ltd., 1905.) Price 12s. net.