MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
T0 be displeased by what is universally esteemed suggests a shabby mind. There arc people who, in discontent with this vivid but distracting world, seek compensation in dis- covering fresh examples of human malignity or error. We all know those mean men who are unable to conceal their pleasure at such misfortunes as the alleged evasion of income tax on the part of dentists or the disinclination of Tanganyika Territory to produce groundnuts. Even more viperish is the man or woman who ministers to his or her vanity by searching for the motes in every eye, by examining the flecks which may mar the loveliest countenance. These Colorado beetles will spend hours searching for a misprint in the Oxford English Dictionary or selecting proofs of inconsistency from speeches made by politicians in 1932. I have known people who, although not by temperament envenomed by jealousy, will delight in detecting errors or lack of proportion in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, that massive work to which I am so frequently indebted and which enables me with but slight research to convey the impres- sion of a rich and varied erudition. I have known people who, although their lives are not in fact clouded by their inability to express themselves or to find scope for their activity, will derive actual pleasure from some mistake of fact or pronunciation on the part of a B.B.C. announcer. There are those who, when they read a book, arc unable to surrender themselves to the enjoyment of what they are reading, but in whose brains a little demon sits with pencil poised, hoping to catch the author out. Such people are apt to write postcards to the author in which, under the guise of helpfulness, they demonstrate their own superior precision, advertence or know- ledge. Yet although these doryphores may achieve the short delight of proving that an author has made a mistake on page 479, they can never know the slow, long pleasure of writing a large book with con- tinuous application. They pick and nibble, do these doryphores. And if one of them reads these words, immediately the little demon in his brain will begin asking whether the word " doryphore " is a word which any English writer should legitimately use. Let me ease his pain ; it is not.
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Yet even the most glistening and hard-shelled beetle finds it difficult to denigrate the Dictionary of National Biography. How- ever alert may be the demon in his brain, however urgent the need to increase his own self-esteem, he is forced to admit that this stupendous work is one of the most valuable and accurate com- pilations.that even Oxford has produced. I have been reading this week the latest supplement to the D.N.B. which covers the bio- graphies of those who died between 1931 and 1940. Mr. Wickham Legg, as editor, has been able to maintain the high standards of impartiality and precision laid down by Leslie Stephen and carried on by Sidney Lee. His task, in a sense, has been rendered more difficult than that of the original editors. They, for the most part, were dealing with people whose memory had been shrouded by the forgiving mists of history ; he, in supervising these biographies of the recently dead, has had to cope with the vestiges of active con- troversy, with the ground-swell of still remembered passions. More- over, although there were few left to mind what a biographer may have said about Simon de Montfort, Ansehn or the venerable Bcdc, the close relations of those mentioned in this supplement are still alive. Impartiality, for Mr. Wickham Legg, must have been a hard rule to inculcate ; precision and veracity he could insist upon ; but how was he to prevent the friends of all these eminent people making the very most of all favourable fact ?
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It is evident that Mr. Wickham Legg, in editing this volume, has resolutely adhered to the teleological principle and has never allowed his controlling spirit to be diverted from the essential question:— "What purpose is the D.N.B. intended to serve ?" All students arc well aware of what they want the D.N.B. to give them. They do not want opinions, imaginative evocations of atmosphere, eulogies, invectives, irony or purple passages: they want the facts in con-
venient form. They want to know when and where a man was born, the dates of his appointments or publications, the salient events in his public or private life, and when and where he died. They also want to be told what other more detailed sources should be con- sulted, whether these sources are or are not reliable, and where they can find portraits of these eminent people. All this information and guidance will be found in the present volume. Mr. Wickham Legg, I can suppose, must have had difficulty with some of his con- tributors. It must have required great tact and resolution on his part to induce Sir Osbert Sitwell to curb his fine gift of imagery, Lord Dunsany to clip the wings of fancy, or Sir Ronald Storrs to mitigate his doxology. It must be a serious problem for any editor to find the initial tags which describe in one or two words the essences of any career. When, for instance, does a politician become a " states- man "? If Mr. George Barnes is to be accorded that high title, then why is it denied to Sir Laming Worthington-Evans ? Such captions, although essential, may become invidious. Nobody could say that they do not possess an infinite variety. A whole kaleidoscope of human energy is evoked by such headings as " astrophysicist," " grocer and yachtsman," " genealogist and gardener," " ecclesiologist and controversialist," " circus proprietor," " caricaturist " and " parlaeobotanist." I present the last entry to the doryphores.
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This volume contains many striking biographical essays. We have Sir Owen Morshead's long, detailed, and admirably balanced study of King George V. We have Gilbert Murray on H. A. L. Fisher, George Trevelyan on Edward Grey, Mr. Ensor on Philip Snowden, each of which is a model of what such entries in the D.N.B. ought to be. Some of the shorter notices also are of very high quality. I have already praised Sir Osbert Sitwell for his neat portrait of Philip Sassoon. I should add Lord David Cecil's sketch of Lady Ottoline Morrell, Lord Brand's excellent account of Lord Lothian, and Mr. Arundell Esdaile's quick and incisive reference to Thomas Wise. Mr. W. W. Hadley, in his biography of Mr. Neville Chamberlain, has been faced with the difficulty which I have already mentioned, namely that of dealing objectively with controversial matters which arc still in living memory: he seems to me to have surmounted this difficulty with great impartiality. Lord Elton, in the case of Ramsay MacDonald, had to deal with a problem of similar invidiousness. What is so curious, when one reads the volume as a whole, is the very high proportion of eminent literary figures who died during those nine years. One had scarcely realised hitherto how rich was the literary harvest of King George's reign. Arnold Bennett, Gals- worthy, Chesterton, Lady Gregory, A. E. Housman, Kipling, George Moore and Yeats all died between 1931 and 1940. In the minor category we have Lowes Dickinson, Cunninghame Graham, Anthony Hope, Henry Newbolt, Stella Benson, E. V. Lucas, Pinero, Lytton Strachey and Ethel M. Dell. Compared to this long list of poets and writers, compared also to the equally shining category of scientists, the statesmen of the epoch were less numerous and less resplendent.
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I challenge the doriphores to find cause for denigrating this excel- lent addition to a national institution. The D.N.B. has been my friend and companion for almost half a century. I have derivcd from it much expert assistance, constantly revived interest, and many philosophic reflections. It is sad, perhaps, that the hopes and energies of a lifetime should be reduced to a few cold lines upon a printed page or that the stress and strain of a whole generation should be com- pacted alphabetically. Life and achievement are both more intense and more uncertain than the telephone directory. Yet the Dictionary of National Biography is the most dignified of all cenotaphs, and there are none among us who would not desire to be included in this solemn pantheon. I admit that, when one reads the volume as a whole, there remains in one's cars a sound of obituary bells tolling. But to the eminent it must give what Byron called " that posthumous feel."
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