TIME PAST
Current Literature
By Marie Scheikevitch
The title Time Past (Thornton Butterworth, 15s.) is intended to recall Marcel Proust, who is a prominent figure in the, gallery- of British and French celebrities collected in this boOk. Madame Scheikevitch, a Russian by birth; came to Paris as a child in the early 'nineties; and has lived third. ever since. There is unfortunately nothing Proustian in the character of her reminiscences. She-his n:et nearly everyene who has counted in the French literary world of the last forty years. But the impressions "she_ records seldom penetrate, the surface ; and Allure biographers of the great will come to her pages for incidental facts rather than for colour. There are some vivid, though not very edifying, details about the laSt years of Anatole France, and scraps of conyersation with Julds Lemaitre, Paul Valery, George Moore, Lord Balfour (the oily politician in the collection) and a host of others. A remark of Rudyard Kipling, more illuminating than most, helps to explain why his genius failed to survive the " I am .not a pessimist, but I have been accustomed to less speedy ,evolutions. So I find in the country that calm which is an absolute necessity', for me now." , The original French version of this book received a prize from the Academy. ItS author enjoys a rarer distinction. She is one of the few
possessors of the ," Star of Fiume order created by D'Aimunzio _in .1919.
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