THE VENTURE BOOK. By Elinor Mordaunt. (The Bodley Head. 15s.)
THE touchstone of the quality of travel for Mrs. Elinor Mordaunt (better known as a novelist) is, " Was it won- derful ? " and not " Was it comfortable ? " :- " All is not goldo that hath a glistering hiow.
But what if touchstone tries and findeth true."
And truth for her was found in the insidious loveliness of Guadeloupe and the flashing emerald-green of Martinique, and, above all, in the happy islands of the South Seas, where moral ideas become blunt in the edge-- do not indeed for the islanders exist, for what seems wrong and degrading in the stricter colder climes of the North takes on somehow a beautiful naturalness in these magic isles. The book moves in " an altogether apart world of flesh-white sands and blazing seas ; palm trees, schooners, ketches ; pearlers, planters, and sea-captains." Idealize the finest islands of the West Indies, throw in a dash of Ceylon, and you have the coral islands of the Pacific, in one of which for a time the author reigned as queen. Hers is a travel-book of particular note ; the tiresome information-loving reader may not like it, but it will savour sweetly to all who love imagination, colour, unconventionality and charm.
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