The Young Saki SIR,—Miss Munro speaks of " the extraordinary
delusion that some writers on Saki have had, that he had ' a miserable childhood '." Miss Munro seems to look now through far more rosy spectacles at her brother's childhood and her own than she did when she wrote the short biography of Saki which was included in the collected short stories. if writers on Saki suffer from delusions, the delusions are all based on her own writing: " We slept in rooms with windows shut and shuttered, with only the door open on to the landing to admit stale air. All hygienic ideas were to Aunt Augusta, the Autocrat, chot rot, a word of her own invention."
" Our grandmother, a gentle, dignified old lady, was entirely over- ruled by her turbulent daughters, who hated each other with a ferocity and intensity worthy of a bigger cause."
" The other aunt, Augusta, is the one whb, more or less, is depicted in Sredni Vashtar. She was the autocrat of Broadgate—a woman of ungovernable temper, of fierce likes and dislikes, imperious, a moral coward, possessing no brains worth speaking of, and a primitive dis-
position. Naturally the last person who should 'have been in charge of children."
" Well do I remember those fearsome silences' ! Nothing could be said, because it was certain to sound silly, in the vast gloom. With Aunt Tom alone we should have fared much better ... but as we could not obey both aunts (I believe each gave us orders which she knew were contrary to those, issued by the other), we found it better for ourselves, in the end, to obey Aunt Augusta."
" We had early learnt to hide our feelings—to show enthusiasm or emotion were sure to bring an amused smile to Aunt Augusta's face. It was a hateful smile, and I cannot imagine why it hurt, but it did; among ourselves we called it the meaning smile.' " " Both aunts were guilty of mental cruelty: we often longed for revenge with an intensity I suspect we inherited from our Highland ancestry."
" Charlie really came off worst—Aunt Augusta never like him, and positively used to enjoy whipping him."
" I think Aunt Augusta must have mesmerised us—the look in her dark eyes, added to the fury of her voice, and the uncertainty as to the punishment, used to make me shiver."—Yours faithfully, 5 St. James's Street, S.W.1. GRAHAM GREENE.
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