Long Journey
From the Angle of Eighty-Eight. By Eden Phillpotts. (Hutchinson.
los. 6d.) •
IN a book of reminiscences which tells us next to nothing about himself, Mr. Eden Phillpotts discourses upon the people he has Met and loved on his long journey. Loved is not too strong a word ; the understanding, the sympathy, the tolerance, the curiosity with which he surveys friends and colleagues pass beyond mere liking. The mellow light of age in which he is writing, while it nowhere robs him of discrimination or of humour, has no place for small emotions. All his life Mr. Phillpotts has been blessedly free from resentments, whether personal or professional. Even the fact that he has made more money from the theatre •than from what he feels to be his best work has provoked no more than a wry smile froM him. Here are recollections of writers from BlackmOre, Hardy and Hewlett to Sir Walter Raleigh, Conan Doyle and E. M. Delafield ; of the theatre, with stories of Shaw, Granville-Barker, Sir Barry Jackson; Irving, Ellen Terry, Cyril Maude and many more ; of musicians, scientists and others, famous or forgotten, who move in -the generous pageant. The whole is quickened by many a wise comment and by those touches of individual humour, often unexpected, always stimulating, of which Mr. Phillpotts has always held the secret. The last chapter, as is fitting, he devotes to Dartmoor.
Two things astonish us in these records—their liveliness and the author's modesty. Reading them, one might gather that Mr. Phill- potts was some sort of minor writer who had been lucky enough to- meet a number of interesting people. Of his own position, of the affection and respect in which he is so widely held, he seems to have no idea at all. That is the one complaint we can make ; 'there is not nearly enough here about himself and his work.
L. A. G. STRONG.
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