16 AUGUST 1940, Page 5

No one who did not know Dr. Eileen Power personally

can quite realise what the world of scholarship, and still more the world of human relationships, have lost by her sudden death. Her learning, her mental vigour, her personal charm, were, it is not too much to say, unique in their combination, and her capacity as a speaker has often been demonstrated, not least when she proposed the toast of the evening at the dinner given by the School of Economics to Mrs. Sidney Webb on the occasion of Mrs. Webb's 8oth birthday two or three years ago. Only two days before her death Dr. Power sent me a note about a quotation that has been much disputed in this column in the past week. I at once rang her up and got engaged in a characteristically animated conversation—every conversation with her was animated, for she could stimulate the dullest mind —on the subject. Then we rang off for ever.

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