- - MEMORIES OF JOHN GALSWORTHY By his Sister, M.
E. Reynolds .
How much against the odds it was that John Galsworthy should sail; on the Torrens ' when Joseph Conkad was first mate, so beginning their friend- ship 1 It. 'is unexpected, and yet not
incongruous, that Galsworthy should have been a masseur in France during the War. Mrs. Reynolds' memoir
(Robert Hale, 5s.) records other inter- esting things, gives one the tone of
the agreeable and roomy family life in which he grew up, and expresses her own deep affection for him. But she does not focus her picture very sharply ; one feels that perhaps she was ham- pered by having more material than would go into such a small compass. There is a good selection of his letters in the second half of the book. Most of them seem to be very characteristic. They are direct, objective, energetic, robust. He discusses his artistic aims and methods, and the technique of the stage, as a craftsman rather than a theorist. He writes passionately against the evils which he was fighting in every Way he could. One sees that his toler- ance did not shrink even during the War. The letters show a creative artist who was well adjusted to his environment, and happy in all his re- lationships.
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