The Rothschild Family
Lady de Rothschild and her Daughters, 1821-1931. By Lucy Cohen. (John Murray. 12e.) THOSE who arc so readily deluded by the facile misdemeanours and odd American gabble of the talking picture would be well advised to read from time to' time, by way 'of corrective, a few of those plain, unimaginative books which deal with actual facts and with real documents. The mere pungency of the " talkie " medium, with its conventional technique of spicing or trimming, should be enough to put the spectator on his guard. But the public is only too willing, it would seem, to encourage the toleration of any spurious novelty or shoddy pretence. That is why a corrective is obviously desirable. Without such restorations of sanity and of authentic lineament we arc in danger of accepting a distorted image of great events and of great characters in which fraud and ignorance take an equal share. I emphasize the point, which I believe to be of considerable importance, because this hook about the Roth- schild family is the sort of hook which does reveal the contrast between the mobilized impertinence of talkie-twaddle and the actual events of life.
The House of Rothschild,' built by a ruthless genius for capitalization, with typical recoils of charity or philanthropy, typical essays in respectable atonement, provides an obvious theme for drama. For this reason, a sober, documented book on the Rothschild fat-idly Li likely to be of some value. The centre of the tableau will always remain a rather grim financial edifice, defiantly rococo, but we are delighted to perceive a herbaceous border of elegant and often lovable women, pre- serving and extending the more gracious humanities. '
This 'book has no literary pretension, and it can hirdly be described as a biographical work ; its value and interest (and it has a considerable degree of both) depend entirely upon the numerous -letters or diaries which are reproduced or quoted. If we question the editor's discrimination- in a good many instances, and if we deplore frequently her awkward methods of clipping or dissecting, we can have no doubt as to the interest of her material. The larger part of this interest, for most readers, will probably be found less in the Rothschild family itself than in the references to many of the significant figures of the nineteenth century. We are not greatly enter- tained by the manufactured love-letters of Anthony de Roth- schild to his " best Lou;" or by the primly correct replies of Miss Montefiore. But the meeting with Mr. Thackeray, who admitted that he had a bad opinion of Jews, is unquestionably interesting ; and ..1107,are the first impressions of Russell, Gladstone (always a Rothschild idol), Disraeli and his wife. From the first, our sympathies are with Louisa de Rothschild, a sweet-and intelligent woman, who was really so unaffected by the " financial affairs " of her scheming Anthony. Her figure makes a graceful; redeeming appearance in the family scene, never tremendously • impressive, though invariably charming. But the portrait is undeveloped, the narrative is incomplete. Mere references excite our frustrated curiosity, mere glimpses leave us guessing or bewildered. We anticipate some remarkable news about the revolutions of 1848, and we are disappointed when the grievously. curtailed passages abruptly come to an end. An unhappy system of chronological order, with alternations of advance and return, keeps jerking us backwards and forwards until we begin to lose our sense of direction. The journals of the Rothschild daughters, Constance and Annie, are delightful fragments, with odd Victorian pictures of " the photographs Man " (who was " not polite ") and of the emotional French governess who excited them so much about her " intended marriage." Like other little Jewish girls, Constance and .Annie were intelligent and prema- turely emotional. It is unexpected to find these young ladies, when they have grown up, delighting in " a chance cigar," though agreeing that it was improper for a woman to smoke regularly. The diaries and letters of the two girls are of much interest as evidence of the outlook of a cultured Jewish family in Victorian England. Unhappily, the- clippings and other dislocations are perpetually confusing and often bring the reader to a pause. The chronological asides are the chief cause of the trouble : on page 147, for example, a quotation from a letter of 1849 is followed by one of 1886, which, in its turn, is followed by a' resumption of narrative in 1871, while on the next page we find ourselves in. 1878. A very much fuller 'annotation is needed to explain many allusions which, to the younger readers of the present day, will remain obscure. Again, greater frankness in reproducing the documents would have increased our entertainment ; as, for example, in the lively account by Constance of the Court at Vienna in 1873, where prudish dots evidently attest the removal of some amusing gossip about Princess Metternich and others.
In 1877 Constance married the delicately flamboyant Cyril Flower, one of the prettiest of the bearded Victorian gentlemen, who had a fine taste in marbles, poetry, boots, declamation, politics and overcoats. He was elected as the Member for Brecon in 1880. This brought Constance into touch with many of the notable statesmen of the 'eighties, while the fine taste of Cyril naturally made him acquainted with poets and painters as well. But Mr. Flower was not always fine enough. and when he met Tennyson he was rebuked for saying that he was " awfully glad." In 1892 Flower, who had become remarkably efficient Liberal, was offered, and accepted, a peerage. He became Lord. Battersea. When he was offered the governorship of New South Wales in 1893 his wife and mother-in-law induced him to refuse. " Lady de Rothschild had hoped for a political career for her son-in-law," the editor observes, " but an upheaval such as a governorship of one of the colonies had never crossed her mind." Battersea's reluctant sacrifice of this " upheaval," and his wife's inconvenient failure to appreciate the sacrifice, led to a temporary coolness, if not to an incurable dislocation of sentithent. The reader could spare many. of.the trivial details of family lifeat -Overstrand, which are of no inherent interest, and he will regret the expur- gation of a talk with Meredith. But the book is a social docu- ment of peculiar value, and its value is chiefly evident in the
Victorian scraps. Undoubtedly the arrangement of the material is erratic and the method of excision is regrettable ; but this, however annoying it may be, will not prevent the reader from enjoying most of it and from delighting in many encounters, many discoveries.
The Index is totally inadequate, and conveys the unfair impression that the book is of no importance. In the event of a second edition, a proper Index might well be provided.
C. E. VULLIAMY.
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