• All my life I have been bored by people
who make pets ot Balkan countries. The animosities of South-Eastern Europe are • such that most men cannot love one Balkan country without hating all the others. Even Rebecca West, for whom Yugoslavia is a symbol rather than a cause, is not immune to these partisan prejudices. She is not agreeable about the Greeks or the Bul- garians ; her criticism of Austrian administration is exaggerated ; her treatment of Professor Sidney Fay is most ungenerous ; and she is really horrid about the Turks. But I do not detect in her bdok that self-complacency which afflicts Most Balkan-fanciers, who all too often are flattered by acquiring among the citizens of Philippopolis an esteem which is not accorded to them at Torquay. Her book would be less important or opportune had she told us only how much she loved the Yugoslays, how happy were the Montenegrins under the Belgrade administration, or how wonderful were the evening shadows upon Lake Ochrida. There is far more in it than this. Rebecca West, being a woman of stringent intellectual honesty, is constantly puzzled by the startling effect produced by Yugoslavia upon herself. Of course, the scenery appeals to her, and of course she describes it well ; there are moments of beauty or farce when she forgets that she is a love- sick maiden and remembers that she is a woman of letters, who can weave the prettiest and gayest patterns in her native tongue. All this was to be expected, but what renders this book so interest- ing is that throughout its texture runs a small 'thread of perplexity. It is this thread which makes her book something far more important than a travel-story, and which rivets the interest of the reader. "Why," one asks oneself, "should this most sophisticated woman, this Mona Lisa of contemporary English letters, have become as excited as a school-girl when she gets to Monastir? " The fact that Miss West is equally puzzled by this rejuvenation gives to her work that companionable quality which is one of greatest merits. The book is very long indeed ; but when I goodbye to h, I felt a pang of absence, as when one returns the dining-room after seeing off a friend.
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