Memories of East and West
Sin. VALENTINE CHIROL has not given us an autobiography, but a series of essays in which, with some regard to chrono- logy, he reflects upon public affairs as he has watched them during half a century. Never without interest, if now and then a little heavy, an impatient reader who puts the book down after the first few pages will miss much which cannot fail to delight and charm him. Here are two delightful stories, one gay, the other grave, taken at random from among many as arresting.
Laurence Oliphant, who was dining with Edward VII., then Prince of Wales, confessed in the course of conversation that he had sold oranges on a Californian railway station in order to keep his pride down. " I can get that done for me," said the Prince, " without going all the way to California. I've only got to step across to Buckingham Palace."
The Chinese Minister at the end of the last century, Lo Fung-luh, was a great favourite in London society, and was deeply versed in Western thought and literature. During his last illness, which occurred in London, Mr. Chirol visited him in his bedroom. To his surprise he found a wizened little Chinaman crouched upon the ground over a smoking brazier. This medicine man chanted monotonously in a full nasal voice, and made passes and incantations and sprinkled ashes over different parts of Lo Fung-luh's body. After a while he went away, and the Chinese Minister turned to his English friend. " I thought," he said, " that it might interest you to see how a Chinaman steeped in your Western literature and saturated with your Western science dies—a Chinaman " Sir Valentine probably knows more about the political history of the East during the last century, as it affects Great Britain, than any man living. From this fact alone his book would be interesting ; but it has other virtues which are all its own, and it should enjoy a big public. It is one of the best volumes of reminiscences published in recent years.
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