Note 4 — I BOOK-COLLECTING ABROAD

I had a letter from Mr. Dobell early in the war, telling me that business was very bad in his line, and that he had taken to writing bad war-poems, which, he said, was a harmless pastime for a man too old to fight. I am not sure that the writing of bad poetry is a harmless pastime, and I was just about to write and tell him so, when I read in the Athenæum that he had passed away quite suddenly.