CURRENT LITERATURE Mr. Nicolson concludes one of these essays (Constable,
6s.) with, " There ! I have actually written an essay which is not disagreeable," and one wonders, surprised by such self-misinterpretation, whether he considers all his readers to be as those Americans who, he says, " have one skin less than the Europeans and wince at a tickle." For from any point of view Mr. Nicolson is one of the most agreeable of writers : urbane, mellow, impartial, are the adjectives which most readily describe these pleas- ant entertainments and opinions. It is true he is not a dispenser of wholesale candy : when he praises, dispraise is not unlikely to follow, as in the article " Our Youngers and Betters " : " They are kindly and gentle and austere. But how loathsome in the young is conscious austerity." Mr. Nicolson's small talk has always a flavour to it, a flavour either of irony or uncommon common sense and impatience of humbug : one sits in an arm-chair to listen, but one never goes to sleep. His special talent for the creation of odd character is shown" to advantage here in the brief sketch of Byron's devoted Fletcher, the servant becoming vivid by reason of the incongruous juxtaposition with his mas- ter ; and in the story of his meeting with what seemed the perfect pattern of American snob in culture and knowledge of the famous. But at the last moment and after all the pretender turns out to have seen Shelley—or his equivalents— plain.
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