CURRENT LITERATURE
WANDERINGS AND EXCURSIONS, By J. Ramsay MacDonald. (Cape. 6s.)
IT is not quite easy to define the charm of this book. That it has charm is certain, for it has many grave defects and yet is so pleasant and readable that it must have a com- pensating charm. Take the defects first. For one thing, it is not a book at all, but a mere collection of articles dug up mostly out of old copies of Forward—so that they may be commended to readers of the Spectator, for this reason, at least, that they have probably never read them before. Then the style is often overdone with that tiresome tendency to rhetoric which is the curse of the orator—and not least of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald—when he takes to writing ; he cannot say a simple thing simply. The thought is often vague, and at times obscure ; the jokes are often tedious ; the Seotticisms are too frequent ; ,the allusions out of date. _ Where, then, lies the charm ? Well, in a remarkably sympathetic per- sonality that makes itself felt through these pages, even through their rhetoric. You cannot help liking the man. He-is so cultivated, so full of the historical sense, so genuinely fond of travel and with a kind of gentle melancholy that is very attractive. If there is any reader of this paper who feels at all weak in his political allegiance, we would warn him earnestly against this book. It would infallibly make him—or herimpatient to serve under so charming a leader. How picturesque, for instance, is the account of the day In Oxfordshire and the description of Broughton Castle ; how just the description of the Channel Islands as a place of exile ; how admirable are the two biographical essays, especially the essay on Jean Jauros. It is a book, as Mr. MacDonald says in his introduction, of miscellaneous moods and subjects, spread over nearly twelve years, but
through them all there is the same attractive personality— sympathetic, cultivated, sincere.
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