8 Tyepeemsarave wen Caer lock Ellis (Constable. 1:
When he was in Athens Mr. Havelock Ellis noticed one trait of the Athenians which, as he says, really amused him, His pleasure at, or amusement in, the trait, his wicondescending attitude towards it, is symbolic of his whole approach to life. The Athenians, it seems, carry in their hands "a string of amber beads, real or imitation, in the fashion of a rosary"
One may see a distinguished and well-dressed old gentleman with his hand held in front of him and from it a of yellow bends quietly pendent, More often the beads re in constant motion, especially when carried men of the lowest middle class, whicl seem the class most apt for this habit, All the time as they walk these men @re nervously and automatically counting the beads backwards and forwards on the string. Sometimes a man will join his hands behind his back and waggle the beads at the place where some of our better-endowed _fellow-creatures carry a tail, so that I am reminded of thy Own ancient desire to such an organ of expression for the emotions that are too subtle or not subtle enough for words, Mr, Ellis has always thought the beode of life worthy of notice. He is an expert in many sciences, critic of literature whose eminence has not been sufficiently recognized, a publicist of rare honesty; but he is, above all, human, and has not only an eye for, but sympathy with, sides of life which the scientist too often despises or merely categories and the artist is too apt to use only a3 the embroidery for comedy or tragedy. It is the genuine quality hig interest in little things which gives to his slighter efforts end his more trivia] musings an impo: tarve which does not attach te the more philosophic considerations of other en-lookers at life. He is, indeed, never the on-looker. For him life 13 never a spectacle—he is always in the arena, and if his interest has occasionally taken kuni into corners where most of us are unwilling to follow, we can never doubt the sincerity of his intertions.
Tue Beaps or Lire.
This volume of scattered thoughts, the form of a diary, covers the ars 19]4—1920. It covers, that is, a period when no philosopher 2 from his diary the note of exultation, of ional despair and of unwary ranted, perhaps unwarrantable, hopes, In the few entries before the war began Mr, Ellis is shown occasionally in the role of philo-hic anarchist; he has the artist's impatience at legal restrictions, at all forms of compulsion, and cries out passionately: "What is the thirst for aleokol and morphia and al] the poisons of the apothecary cemrared with the soul-destroying \thirst for the pi on of Laws??? Yot we find him passionately for the war, which ultimately is only law acti Perhaps ho would find a reconciliation, as did the vo'untarists, in m eeveptance of laws ions rather thea national, for the declares that "when we have rut aside these people who are congenially non-religious and. eternally excommunicate from the Mystery of the World. I find that Religion is natural to Man. Peorlo religion are always dangerous." Yet the best of this book is that one cannot easily dissocinto the '"impressions" from the "comments"; jror does one seek overmuch to jdc so, On every page there is evidence of a sensitive, humorous, extraordinarily kindly' personality, fingering the amber beads of life, now quietly, now more hurriedly, and occasionally seeking to express things too subtle for words, There is not so much about books as we would wish; there are four pages on Miss Dorothy Richardson which put the objection to the extremely detailed novel as finely as it can be put, and make the reader remember yet again what literature lost when Mr. Ellis turned to science. He discourses, always briefly, on many subjects, from bishops to artichokes, from the buna] service to the way women walk. One can disagree with him, find him at times a little unfair, but he never fails to quicken one's interest in his subject and in the character of the commentator.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.