The Footprints in the Snow, and other Tales. By U.
P. W. Tatham. (Macmillan and Co. Be. 6d. net.)—Mr. A. C. Benson's Memoir of the author interests us more than the tales. Yet it was right to publish them. They give a glimpse into the personality of the writer which will be infoiming, we imagine, to his friends as well as to strangers. Mr. Tatham was a master at Eton for twenty-three years ; for the latter part of the time he had a boarding-house. In 1909 he met his death by an accident in Switzerland,—Mr. Benson thinks that it was caused by a temporary failure of strength.. lie was a strong, easy-going man,
an athlete, a fine scholar, wholly without ambition, upholding "a high moral ideal tranquilly and unaffebtedly,' in religion "of all men I have known," says his biographer, "the least troubled by speculations or doctrinal dilemmas." The tales; which he-had Prepared for publication, show another side of the man. He had speculations, if not dilemmas, though they did not trouble him. Take, for instance, "The Ordeal." A missionary rashly challenges the modicine-man of a heathen tribe to a trial such as that which was held on Mount Carmel. Neither Can bring down fire ; both are condemned to die. But the missionary's humble follower, one of a notoriously cowardly race, comes forward and offers to die fbr him. Then there is "Brother Ambrose." Tho manewhe wrote this, however remote from ambition, knew what ambition meant.
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