SHORTER NOTICES
BUT is it a good self-portrait ? Only those who knew Lady Kennet can offer an opinion,- but the ordinary reader may well ask the question, for this is at once an interesting and an irritating book. Interesting, for the events and people it mentions, and more especially for the complex character of Lady Kennet ; irritating, because, with few obvious reticences, the writer succeeds in eluding the reader time and again. It is divided into two parts : an auto- biography which begins at her childhood and terminates with the birth of her first son and the departure of her husband, Captain Scott, on the Antarctic expedition from which he never returned, and a series of extracts made by her second husband, Lord Kennet, from the diaries she kept from Captain Scott's departure until the close of her own life over thirty-five years later. The diaries in particular are very personal, and, as the editor points out, have been considerably cut and shortened for the present publication. Perhaps this is why they are, on the whole, unsatisfactory. A woman so outspoken and single - minded as Lady Kennet cannot bz
adequately represented by extracts from her writings. Too many of these, although they serve to carry on the thread of narrative, add little or nothing to the promised portrait. Many revealing passages need, one feels, a little more explanation. A distinguished artist, a remarkable woman, this much we knew. It is difficult to be certain, but it is at least possible to think that this book would have done her memory a greater service if it had been more outspoken, more complete. In its present form it is sometimes disturbing, puzzling, irritating, and the reader is left wishing he knew of Lady Kennet either more—or less.
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