The Lots of Lachesis
The Memoirs of Count Apponyl. (Heinemann. 16s.) Robert Somervell : Chapters of Autobiography (Faber and Collections and Recollections. By James Henry Duveen. (Jarrolds. 18s.) WHEN Er the Pamphylian, in the Platonic legend, arrived at the meadow where the spirits of the dead were given a second chance of choosing their lots, he found that most of them were so disenchanted by past experience that they hastened to choose a fate as remote as possible from their first. The fancy Seems reasonable enough ; yet it is perpetually belied by the testimony of autobiographers. It may be that only men with happy memories have the courage to recover the ground in retrospect, but at any rate autobiography is commonly a cheerful form of literature, suggesting that chance and choice have a knack of co-operating to promote the honourable work of the world. Here, for example, is a quartet of careers, than which the lucky-bag of Lachesis could scarcely contain more varied samples—an international diplomat, a public schoolmaster. an Army doctor, and a professional art collector. Different gifts indeed : but the same spirit. For whatever rebuffs their courses may have encountered, they all close with the mellow philosophy of Gordon's dying stock-rider. They would live the same life over, if they had to live again: . The diplomat claims pride of place, both for the importance of his sphere and for the wise integrity with which he filled it. Count Apponyi will live in history as Hungary'S representative' at Versailles, in the League of Nations, and at the conference upon disarmament, where he proved himself, in his widow's words, " a statesman whose views were based on catholic Principles, whose way of thought was philosophical, and whose glowing patriotism did not blind him to the rights, conceptions, and feelings of others." More intimately, he will live in the inernory of those who knew him best as a high example of noble character, devoted to -the pursuit of truth and the service of his fellow-men. " I love my own times," he wrote, ". without being blind to their unhappy errors " ; and these Simple, direct, and modest memoirs abound in proof of his- Penetrating appreciation of men, and his broad and sympa- thetic judgement of manners.- " If I have no difficulty," he says, " in coming to terms with the social evolution now taking place, the reason is probably that my-thoughts as a young man tended in that direction " ; and the firm consistency of his: career is its chief cause of strength. All his life he held fast to religion, and fostered his love of music and of nature. His simplicity was crystal-clear, but .it was not the simplicity that allows itself to be beguiled. His pages are full of keen estimates • Of men as widely different as Manning and Roosevelt, Taft and
Mussolini, while he plumbs the profundity of the Vatican atmosphere as surely as the troubled waters of American politics. His study of post-War ." Peace " will stand as a foot-note to history, and the chord of hope upon which it Closes rings with the sincerity of conviction: 'Count Apponyi's career was forecast for him from birth ;
Robert Somervell found his by the intervention of mature Choice. His brief autobiography, supplemented by narrative kOrn his sons, reveals a very remarkable example of compara- tiiely late arrival in a naturally congenial environment. For: thirty-three years a master and bursar at Harrow, Somen-ell did not begin his university training till he was 27; and was *his thirty-sixth year when Dr. Welldon appointed him to hid appropriate place upon the Hill. Leaving school at 15, he 141 served an apprenticeship in the family business at Kendal,' Where " K " boots were invented, and turned out in thousands. 'fe vigour of his intellect is suggested by the fact that this eilheational set-back had. no harmful effect upon his degree, for he was placed top of the first class in the History Trip,: _after four years at Liverpool,.: he found his niche _14'1 Marton', where he Li -never;•• eli-4i-igAi:g4416:: _::4-.11,2*ts"z one of those'' rare s_pirits," 'said:a-contemporary, ‘5 who could display all the Roinari virtues and make them all human." In the form-room, in his house; or in the bursary he won the confidence and esteem of boys and masters alike. " He taught English," Mr. Winston Churchill has said, " as no one die has ever taught it " ; and Yonnger masters found his worldly wisdom and business grasp a tower of strength in moments of perplexity. Above all, he made the path of duty pleasant. ".Both the great and the small things of life contributed, to make him always and fundamentally a happy man."
Compared with these two beneficent careers, the more light- hearted records of the :Indian army doctor and the art collector may seem to breathe a trivial atmosphere ; but there is plenty of good, sound thought behind the lively sport and anecdotage of • Colonel O'Meara's cheery reminiscences. He also was destined by heredity to his career, being a descendant of Barry O'Meara, who attended Napoleon in exile, and the title of his book, I'd Live It Again, provides his own patent of happy satisfaction. Col. O'Meara passed into the Indian Medical Service in the strenuous days when there were a hundred candidates for less than twenty vacancies ; he took his profession seriously, and has many moving confidences to relate. Particularly informative are his records of native character, their love of litigation, their loyalty to the obliga- tions of caste and religion, together with grim glimpses of rifle thieves, blood feuds, Thugs, earthquakes, famine and cholera.
Finally, we arrive at the world of art and art-commerce, with the bearer of a name well-honoured in every company of connoisseurs. If ever a man had his lot in life fixed from birth it was Mr. Duveen, who played with odds and ends of porcelain in Haarlem from the age of five, and by his sixteenth year could decipher every European and Chinese mark, and reel off the history of most of the craftsmen of the ages. While still of schoolboy standing he deputized for his grandfather at a sale, and bought for £7 10s. two Ching Hoa vases which one of his uncles immediately took off his hands for £300. The career, thus fortunately inaugurated, affords material for any number of good stories of commercial adventures and misadventures, triumphs and disappointments, racily recounted. Looking back, Mr. Duveen confesses to being struck not so much by the number of his lucky deals as by the times that a promising trail has led to a blank wall. But that reflection is probably no more than a passing mood. More chiracteristic of the spirit of a thoroughly entertaining book are Mr. Duveen's reflection that " the profession of art-dealer brings one into intimate contact with comedy, melodrama and pathos," and his final verdict that, after much illness and a hard fight for recovery, " the world is still very beautiful, it is still very much worth
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