The Letters and Diaries of John Bailey (1864-1931). Edited by
his wife. (John Murray. 108. 6d.) Trim is a very exceptional book. In type it, conforms to the " acts of piety " all too often dedicated,_, after death, to the relatively obscure. But in this case the deed is. amply justified ; for John Bailey was one of those men the intense priVacy of whose lives, in spite of much ptiblielictlysity,"ternels to reserve their wonderful gifts of intellect ands feeling ..for. the memories of those who happened to be their: personal friends. John Bailey deserved a wider ,fate, and,' it to be hoped that this admirable selection from his let iers and diaries will confer it ; for he was that very rare ..thing, a ' completely good man who communicated the quality of his mind without making others feel inferior. A `disciple of Wordsworth and of Matthew Arnold, he represents' all Heat is best in nineteenth-century culture—lofty idealism, in Lel- _. leetual integrity, a deep sense of poetry, a love of family life and is genius for friendship. As the son of a well-to-do solicitor of Norwich, he was pressved from the intellectually. • ruinous pursuit of money and able to devote his life to *— furnishing of his mind, preparatory to writing the books.: which brought him a discreet fame. The story emerges clearly from the letters and diaries, and the 'steps in the progress of so really distinguished a mind are'. aseinating follow. " I hope you don't look on me as a sort of cultured dilettante, because I am sure no one feels more than- I dos that we have all got a duty to do in these days," he wrote to his great friend, the Revd. F. G. Ellerton, in 1886 ; and is few years later he recorded in his diary : " And if I believe, as I certainly do, that the existence of a class of cultivated,' intelligent people is of vital importance to a country, I May. surely accept this as nry part and not wish for a more ambitious or more obviously useful one "—a view for the acceptance Of a' m which Europe in general would now be more Civilised; and therefore better, place than it is In those .claY. view was not so violently challenged, and John Bailey amply achieved his ambition.
• The quality of his mind is well indicated by the following sentence from a letter of 1928: " But he was of the cyniCally, jocose sort which is not exactly the ethos . . . of the Bailey family." Nor yet of the Lytteltons, into which family John Bailey married, and the very special, somewhat rarefied spiritual atmosphere of which thenceforward wrapped him round like a cloak. It is one facet of the Oxford mind which is .here presented with vividness. He looked upon Oxford as his spiritual home and it will be found at the basis of all his judgements—his distaste for Nietzsche, his remarks on the voluntary limitations of education, in his complaint that " it is one of the perpetual disillusions of criticism : that of find- ing how often a special affection for an author leaves you with nothing whatever to say about him,"' and in his fundamental criticism of Shaw, Wells and Arnold Bennett, that they fatally lack a sense of poetry. It is probably also respon- sible for one of the few weaknesses—as it seems to me—of John Bailey's spiritual position : that he appears to have been able to accept the " consoling " but fundamen- tally inadequate religion—as apart from the poetry--of In Memoriam.
.. The book abounds in humour and good stories. John Bailey moved constantly in the high literary and political circles of the Edwardian era, being a prominent member of the Literary Society and The Club, and (from 1923 till his death) Chairman of the executive of the National Trust. His records of the conversation of such men as the late Lord Balfour show the worth, to subsequent generations, of reporting stories and remarks at second, as well as first, hand.
Like all who have attained true wisdom, he was unfailingly. kind to and understanding of young people. I only met him once,'' and I was but a bOY at the time ; but I have never forgotten his charm, his mildness, his scholarly humour, his beautiful urbanity, the exactness of his statements—and the fact that he was the first person who told me of the greatness' of Madame Bovary., His qualities were mostly those, which- arc underrated by the virulent generation's' of yesterday and- today, but they were of the kind which can afford to bide their time.
EDWARD SACKVILLE WEST.
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