10 DECEMBER 1927, Page 32

Current Literature

VIGNETTES OF MEMORY. -By Lady Violet- Creville. (Hutchinson. 18s.)-Some of Lady Violet Greville's "

nettes " are charming ! We like best the furthest back memories-those which concern her childhood, and youth. Her stories of catty Vietarian c amtry life wonli Make one long to put the clock back-if one had heard no others. Seriously, however, it is worth while, and in this instance it is exceedingly pleasurable, to look at that life through the eyes of a child who saw only the very best side. She thought the poor were happy, and she knew the rich -were kind. The dignity of the quiet but extraordinarily stately life of her aunts at Powis Castle seemed rightly set amid the beauty of the Malvern Hills. The grey carriage horses and the white heads and pink liveries of the servants are part of the 'fairy atmosphere with which " fond memory" endows the scene. Something of the same golden haze surrounds her early life in Ireland, and her remarkable literary gift keeps the reader in a mood of pleased acceptance. Later on in the book we hear too much about sport, about that regrettable exhibition of Victorian curiosity which led to the light-hearted practice of "slumming," and too much about the War. The pleasant pages, however, even in the later chapters far outnumber the dull ones.