PLACES AND PERSONS

Caravansary and Conversation. By Richard Curie. (Jonathan Cape. 7s. 6d.) Caravansary and Conversation. By Richard Curie. (Jonathan Cape. 7s. 6d.)

" I AM content," says Mr. Richard Curie, in his envoi to this fragrant bouquet of reminiscences—" well, ' content ' is not the precise word, shall I say resigned ' ?—to have lived a fairly full life, travelled a good deal and met a number of remarkable persons. What more could one reasonably ask of existence ? " It is a comfortable mood in which to complete one's tenth lustrum ; and its spirit fills every chapter of this book with charm. ' This is a writer's book, addressed to those who relish the writer's art ; and its presiding personality lends unity and character to what upon the surface might seem a somewhat haphazard collection of essays. Haphazard, however, it certainly is not ; the writer's craftsmanship weaves it into a harmonious pattern.

Travel-pictures and character-portraits alternate with one another, and a chain of brief prefaces bridges the intervals. But, happy as the book is in its craftsmanship, its vital charm lies in the play of its author's mind upon his material. His dual theme is places and persons, and he draws them into a circle of intimate relationship. If he is writing of a person, he sets him in his place : if of a place, he invests it with personality. He is one of that elect tribe of observers who penetrate and interpret ; and it is the contribution of his own temperament that gives life to the scene. Often in a phrase he will Crystallise 'a reflection which fixes itself in the memory.

" A Frenchman usually has an air of being slightly lost, when he is out of France."

Or, "To free a slave is to leave him penniless in a country where poverty is not a recommendation."

Oftener still, perhaps, a coloured miniature restores a faded figure into life. As this of Queen Victoria at Wellington College :

" Very still and small, in black bonnet and black dress, she looked for all the world like a retired housekeeper who, after years of faithful service, had been given an outing in the family landau."

And then, in a flash, lest his humour should be misprized, he will turn rapidly on his heel :

"But she was not a retired housekeeper, she was grander in her simplicity than all the grandees about her, she was grand with the Divine Right of Kings."

There you have the Victorian secret in a nutshell.

The same atmosphere pervades all his pictures of Travel— Fez, " The city full of secrets, of a licentious sterility of imagina- tion " ; Norway, " oblivious to the cosy tameness of the clustering farmhouses and sloping little fields, where the hay is spread on hurdles like family washing hung out to dry " ; Buenos Aires, " in the pallor of its endless stucco, which fades into the haze of distance . . . as though it were washed for ever by an emollient, cleansing air."

Certainly the " places " of Mr. Curie's remembrance are fixed indelibly upon the page ; but perhaps his gallery of " persons " is still richer in quiet revelation. He gives a memorable study in contrast of W. H. Hudson in town and in the country—in town, so ready to offer hospitality, at home, so absorbed by the bird-life around him that his visitor's presence became an unwelcome violation of privacy. . . . " I came between him and his birds, I brought the gross atmosphere of- towns into his rural retreat." . . . Prospero must be left alone with his enchantments.

The memories of Conrad are especially significant, and the witty but not unkindly estimate of Watts-Dunton does tardy justice to -the more amiable qualities of a man much wronged. There is a characteristic picture of Meredith, who " into old age carried with him—sideways—the look of a Greek gad " ; and no better account exists of R. B. Cunningl3ame Graham, whose "life was one long adventure,

and about whose name there lingered the glamour of intrepid achievements." In effect, the personal portion of the book is the record of a cluster of friendships, of which any man might well be proud.

" ' Friends,' Mr. Curie writes, ' grow away from one another, as lovers grow cold, and it is melancholy to reflect how many friends one makes, how many potential friends one meets, who become, in time, no more than fading, pleasant memories.' "

That is very true ; but, so long as friendship keeps touch with remembrance, and has at its command such rare gifts of expression and interpretation as dignify these eloquent records,

the Caravansary and Conversation of Life will never lack