Shorter Notice
The Legend of the Master. Edited by Simon Nowell-Smith. (Constable. 12s. 6d.) Tilts is the most intimate of the recent books about James, for the subject is his character and personality, not his work. In his long introduction Mr. Nowell-Smith says : "This book arose in the first place from a suspicion that some of the familiar stories about James and sayings ascribed to him might be apocryphal, and from an attempt to trace suspicious anecdotes to contemporary sources."
But even this admirable idea does not give cohesion to something which, after all, is merely an anthology, the raw material written by half-a-hundred Boswells for a possible biography. The reader will see James reflected in the eyes and glancing remarks of most of the well-known figures of his day—William Rothenstein, Edmund Gosse, Desmond McCarthy, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Edith Wharton, Percy Lubbock and A. W. Mason, to mention a few—and no detail has been considered tootrivial for inclusion. From the utter- ance of a four-year-old—' Oh, mamma dear! isn't he an elegant fowl! "—to the final sentences describing how he missed being buried in the Abbey, James comes ponderously to life. It is sur- prising how little love James seemed to inspire ; there are malicious thoughts here in this book, witty thoughts, angry thoughts, accurate epigrams, hiths, exasperation, homage, even fear, but little affection. And, of course, almost everyone contradicts everyone else; so in the end James escapes behind a blanket of verbiage, aloof in his loneli- ness (the great James loneliness which he recommended to young authors as he would have introduced them to his tailor). However, this book will supply a good deal more material for critical or bio- graphical sharpshooting.
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