2 JUNE 1933, Page 6

I find it difficult to believe that 50 years have

passed since Mr. H. W. Nevinson "began his literary career by writing his first book, a scholarly study of Herder" (to repeat the words of the group of distinguished friends who announce the intention of honouring him at a public luncheon on June 30th). For Mr. Nevinson does not talk or write or look like a man who is getting old. He is intensely and enthusiastically alive to the issues of today, and as ready as ever to go off to the ends of the earth on a new adventure, or to espouse a forlorn cause nearer home, and fill the intervals between these activities in writing books and articles in a pure prose which belongs to the higher order of literature. He is one of the best living examples of the combination of man of action and man of letters.