27 APRIL 1918, Page 16

Paris through an Attic. By A. Herbage Edwards. (J. M.

Dent and Sons. 6s. net.)—Two students, a man and a girl, having a capital of £140, decided to marry and pursue their post-graduate studies at the Sorbonne for two years. This lively book shows how they did it, living the simple life in two attic rooms at Mont Parnasse for which they paid £13 a year. Mrs. Edwards describes her house- keeping in intimate detail, but the best chapters are those on French manners and- customs, and on the delightful excursions that one could make from Paris on the smoky steam.tramsor the queer little river-steamers. The author was impressed, as are all foreigners who form an idea of the French people by reading French novels, with the difference between the lax standards of theif fiction and the stern conventions of their real life. The self-sacrifice that every French family habitually requires of its members is shown in this war on a grander scale in the determination of all Frenchmen to sacrifice their all for their country. The general. conception of duty is ever present to the French mind, combined with the passionate desire for intellectual freedom which the German unhappily lacks.