- - Triviality and Truth
Sherborne, Oxford, and Cambridge. By Mrs. Ernest Stewarel
Tun first secret about a good autobiography is the fact that there is no such, thing as triviality, if only the author is endowed with sincerity and truth. In the map of life incidents count for very little, character for very much and the best autobiography is that in which character emerges froni reminiscence and reflection. Here are some ' sufficiently suggestive' examples to the point.
It would be difficult to imagine a simpler, serener life than that of Mrs. Roberts, yet" its 'friendly, fragrant, rather old- fashioned record is replete with personality and charm. She was a daughter of Dr. Harper, the founder of the fortunes of Sherborne School ; and her early recollections relate,:- from the standpoint of a bright, observant girl, the story of a headmaster's strenuous, creative genius. The author' was just of age when her father was transferred` to the headship of - Jesus College, Oxford, and she was soon im- mersed in the mild pleasures of University Society. In her thirtieth year she married a Cambridge don, who became - Master 'of Caius amid her entire life has thus been spent in the comparatively calm backwaters of scholastic and academic interests. On the surface such a record might seem to promise triviality ; but the natural sincerity and quiet humour of Mrs.. Roberts's brief autobiography fill every page with nttraction. Her picture of Sherborne will delight. all Old Shirburnians of whatever generation, even those who, with the present reviewer, could put up a better case for the difficult headmastership of Canon Young. The .9xford j chapter sparkles with shrewd little character-:'. about the' account of a Master's WIfe in her relations with undergraduates and their elders. The femininity which peeps out in the descriptions of dresses and parties recalls a world of fashion long since out .of date, while at every turn a delightfully sympathetic temperament, playing upon shrewd reflection, inspires a book which will not easily be forgot ten.
" A chronicle of small parochial beer," says Canon Hannay in his tale of Pleasant Places, "'would make dull reading," and forthwith proceeds to prove the contrary by infusing a good deal of parochial record with the vitality of humour and worldly wisdom. An - Irishman born, Canon Hannay has spent much of his time in his native country, and he appreciates its people as only a native can. He began his cdueatidn hi England,- at Temple GrOve and Haileybury, and has returned there in his ministry at Mells and in London ; but he was never very happy or successful at school, and, though lie made many friends at Mells, and learnt in time to love the placid rural charm of Somerset, his " spiritual home " was always among the hills of Connemara and the affectionate Irish peasantry of whom he writes with genial, humorous zest. All the world knows " George A. Birming- ham " as a man of humour and goodwill, and his humour has helped him round many an awkward corner. " Even being very poor is good fun," he says; " if you take it the right way, and- being burnt in effigy has its amusing side, if you do not get angry about it." And through these varied reminiscences of country ministry, dramatic authorship, novel-writing, travel, and war-service, there radiates con- tinually the golden gift of " taking things the right way," refusing to " get angry about " the trivial annoyances of the day's work, and of preserving; through good days and bad a constant faith in the growing pattern of life, which might conceivably be misjudged as superstition, if it were not true that some sort of superstition nestles perennially in the heart of all religious belief.
One Crowded Hour transports us into a very different atmosphere, with incident, ith,enture," excitement and noise on every other page. Indeed one might be tempted to say that it is not one hour alone of the Count de Castellane's auto- biography that is crowded, but every hour that passes in -his swift review. Though still a young man, the Count has seen enough of the raw of life to furnish half a dozen volumes. His family has an heroic heritage. In Provence it can trace its historical record for 11-100 years, while the Polish branch to which he belongs has been settled in that distressful country since the middle of the sixteenth century. In his home in the Ukraine he was first put on horse-back at eight months old_; -his boyhood was familiar with wolf- hunts and all-night cabarets, under the conduct of a gay old uncle ; and he was still an undergraduate when his father's -death left- him almost penniless. How he made his way by virtue of his own ability, until he became King's Messenger to the last of the Romanoffs ; what he saw and understood of Russian Imperial life, and of the execrated Raspoutin, to whom he is more generous than the common judgement ; and how he escaped from his ruined country, with his life in his hand, all these things make up a record of thrilling intensity and force. Nothing trivial here, to be sure ; but, after all, the true antiseptic of literature is charm. One reads the Count de Castellane with avidity ; but it is to the Sherborne of Dr. Harper's daughter and to the Westport of Canon Hannay that one will return again.
ARTHUR WAUGH.
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