Thalassa! Thalassa!
Iv' R. ROBERT LIDDELL'S account of the islands of the Aegean is !herough, delightful and informative. It will please not only Plose who are lucky enough to be able to follow in his footsteps VOL also the much greater number who, from choice or necessity, en.joY their travel at second hand. Some of these will enjoy their Y,learious voyages all the more because of Mr. Liddell's agreeable 41Ehilkness about the discomforts which the reality involves. For, Pugh he claims to "love Aegean travel as much as anything else life" he admits that "the miseries can hardly be exaggerated" 11,d he makes us feel that he may be right. Indeed one wonders Whether his 'enjoyment' is not some form of masochism when one reads of the 'delays, the difficulties or impossibilities of securing accommodation, the sea-sickness and all the other horrors. The kroblern of accommodation on board a steamer is, in fact, insoluble. As many first- or second-class tickets will be sold as there arc people 'Inner life,' have not only afforded him such great pleasure but have inspired him to write so admirable a book.
In fact Mr. Liddell has the charm of the melancholy Jacques. For instance, "Monemvasia has gone down in the world, and is going further down. It is a place only to be visited in bright weather, and in a mood of invincible optimism. Otherwise, if one sits among the ruins in the sage and asphodel, watching a lizard on a rock, or a sail far down upon the sea below—one will be driven to reflect on the way the world has gone, and the way it is going, on blighted hopes and on everyone's death." Yet, if reflections such as these constitute at least part of Mr. Liddell's' inner life,' he is also capable of a kind of rueful gaiety and of much wit and humour. His knowledge of his subject is very great and when his publishers, who, by the way, have produced the book and its illustrations excellently, tell us that he claims it to be "the most complete book on the Aegean in English," one believes the claim to be fully justified. The work is not only informative but beautiful. The author has the great gift of seeing things clearly and also feeling the history and legend, old or new, with which they are associated.
There is something for the reader to enjoy on every page of this excellent book. And every now and then one is glad to note thv even Mr. Liddell is enjoying himself. Sometimes, it seems, almost against his will. "I grew fond of the little town though I still could discover nothing of beauty or interest there." Sometimes only because of a kind of alleviation. "Both towns are dirty, but Pothia does not smell of rotten fish." And once, sipping muddy coffee outside a cafe which "later I learned . . . was of the fifth cate- gory," he "experienced one of those short, sudden moments of pure bliss that are too often as suddenly forgotten."
He has succeeded in showing us how such moments are possible and, with his great knowledge and his carious charm, in writing a book that should become a classic of Aegean travel.
REX WARNER
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