Butterscotch
Unforgettable, Unforgotten. By Anna Buchan (0. Douglas). (Hodder and Stoughton. 12s. 6d.)
IT is not necessary to be a Scot, nor a reader of " O. Douglas' " novels, nor even—though this failure the author would deplore—an enthusiastic admirer of her brother John Buchan, in order to enjoy this warm, spontaneous and singularly unpretentious autobiography. Reading it in the corridor of a crowded train, with none of the qualifications above, I still found that Waterloo arrived much too soon. Miss Buchan has a gift for discoursing and conveying plea- sure in every sort of activity, from spring-cleaning to travelling in the grandeur of a Governor-General's private train: most refresh- ing to those who remain unconvinced that discontent is invariably a sign of superiority.
But I suppose that it is not only the author's delight in her own memories that makes this book so agreeable: it is partly her evoca- tion of a world familiar in the literature of our nurseries ; a world in which large families, refired on the Bible and border ballads, were free alike from the inspection of the psychologist and from the in- trusive zeal of the educator (" the only real education I ever had was listening to Father and the boys talking "), in which tragedy was straightforward and simply met, and hard work faithfully performed (and no one, after learning how the Buchan brothers worked, will wonder again why we are all ruled by the Scots) might lead in time to a Governor-Generalship or the supreme glory of residence in Holyrood house as Lord High Commissioner to the Genetal Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The same houses, one on the bridge in Peebles, another among the green hills of the Tweed, welcomed generation after generation with little more change. than a new wallpaper or the disappearance of a much-loved stuffed pheasant with a medal round its neck. Family affection was warm and unsentimental, family criticism frank. " What a drab speech! " observed Mrs. Buchan on one occasion, after her daughter had opened 'a church bazaar ; and as to her son's adventure stories, she found them incomprehensible in plot and far too full of swear-words. We are still comfortably near the world of Louisa M. Alcott and remote from that of Mr. Huxley.
"My brother John used to say that when he wrote stories_.he invented, but that I in my books was always remembering," says Miss Buchan, and the books, when written, the spelling corrected and the quotations excised with fraternal ruthlessness, were such as to -give her mother no qualms of taste or morality, " as pure and almost as sweet as home-made toffee." This, the novel's raw material, has the same flavour, with all its associations of fire-guards' family jokes, a favourite aunt in supervision, and " tell us what you did when you were in India (or Canada or Stratford-on-Avon)." Let the high- brows turn aside to the caviar: the rest of us will thoroughly enjoy this crisp and wholesome slab of butterscotch.
LETFICE FOWLER.
Previous page
