Tue, Cocnpit oF Peace."—By Fertin and Tuohy. John Murray, London. 1026.
Indiseretion is"7-word that, somehow or other and in spite of itself, denotes a certain charm, ingenuous: ness, and the frankness that belongs te very young children. When you describe someone as being indiscreet you very often paint the picture of charming, generous, impulsive person, whose heart is ever 30 much stronger than his head. Mr. Tuohy is not indiscreet in this way, land yet there is no other word to escribe him, for even frankness will not tell fully of his attitude to his friends and those with whom, in rts and the scenes London a little wooden. They as it the author were inventing.
But the Gescription of life in Moscow after' the Bolshevik coup d'état of October, 1917, is brilliant. The Bolsheviks come into the picture very little. "Only one feels them as an ever present menace in the background, just indeed as Moscow Fociety'must have felt them, when, all mani the deluge, its care by wilder dissipations, ud. drinking while it may' for tomorrow we die. These chapters fare less an account of day to day events than a sort of general impressionism. And in this the author has contrived wisely. If we look back on any period of cris through which we ha passed, the effect' isa sort. of general haze with one or two incidents out in grotesque prominence a background of darkness. and horror and bewilderment. With rare skill the author shows how this atmosphere enters into Michael's feeling, throwing him off his balance, leading him into the society of the Savins, whom normally he would have passed by with contempt, making him an easy prey to Irina. In this, the centre of the story, the succeeding scenes and characters are drawn with rare skill And if Michael suecumbed, who will be bold enough to blame him? Altogether, with the exceptions noted above, one of the finest pieces of work we have seen for some time. bath Europe and America, he ha become acquainted in his ite as a Mr. Tuohy, says the "Daily News," gives us a picture of Car-elite House as it was in Lord Northeliffe's day, as fantastic as anything Mr. Bennett ever wrote about in "The Card." Correspond. ents are bundled off to the ends of the earth at a moment's notice, saddled with gold pieces like any minute they are in the listening to a flood of praise and good advice; the next minute they are being guyed in his lordahip's Gread morning bulletin posted up in Carmelite House. Everything is in a whirl. One only. hears the rending cry of Mr. Tuohy at this stage, "It is the greatest of ities that journalism has not yet reached the siege where Jone can tell the truth."
The chief delight of Mr. Tuohy's took is its collection of many, many pretty little scandale—how Miss Laurette Taylor once refused to take part in a ship's. concert, and how members of the Firemen's Unidn, a week or two later, ruined the opening night of "One Night in Rome" at the Garrick; of how Anatole France was '"goga" for many months before his death; of how a famous "Times" correspondent, travelling with Lord North:
fe, who had objected to his manner of dressing, replied to his lord-snip, "As my appearance does not please you, I propose, therefore, leaving the train at the next station." Which, we are told, he did. He holds' curious post mortem on President Harding:
The President died. from
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.