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Tms short memoir is a work of piety, an offering to the memory of a friend. Such a book, neither biography nor criticism, is not accessible to the comments of strangers. The reader feels himself an eavesdropper, or— more exactly—one of those who are condition- ally suffered to make the tour of a historic home under the eyes of its owners. The less he says the better, but his memory is enriched, not so much by the great show-pieces, which he is too much invited to admire, as by endear- ing oddities seen in passing; glimpsed here in the rememberecj talk and the casual letters of Belloc. Below I quote three typical say- ings; their flavour would be destroyed by comment.
(In a steamer) `. . . north of the Azores, where that detestable mean and treacherous ruffian, Richard Grenville, got caught on the Revenge, because he couldn't handle his ship and missed stays.'
(From America) 'A priest at Baltimore asked me whether the Faith was not now looked at
more favourably in England. I said, "No." He asked me where the chief centre of opposition was and I said "Oxford." Then he said, "I see, something like the Ku Klux Klan." '
(No dateline)4The guzzling at Geneva is paid for by you and me. The authorities have asked Snowden to come back quietly and not to make a fool of himself and his country. There is no other news except that the Spectator has called the Catholic Church a miasma.'
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