Biles, 18 shiiings net have already written too much about my own doings," says Sir Francis Younghusband, and assuredly there is matter in this book which will be familiar to some readers.
But Sir Francis may be forgiven a little repetition. As subaltern, explorer, "newspaper correspondent, Political President, and frontier officer, he has seen and done we many things that a new volume from his pen is always welcome. Moreover, have here, he tells us, his "mature Views." If these views, written "in Tight of experience," are sometimes controversial, so much the tion: Olive Heseltine in the "Daily News."
Madame de Cailavet's wit and talents won her an enviable social reputation; but her claim to fame is based on something more enduring] than the salon over which she} brilliantly presided till her death in 1910, In 1883 she was introduced to Anatole France. The impression produced on her by this shy and ymmering genius was unfavour-like neither his manners hor his character?" she told. Jules Lematre, one of the first to discover France's greatness. Nor was she singular in her antipathy.
Anatole France was ugly and awkward, with a long, heavy horse-face. a thick nose, a grey, coarse-grained] skin. In speech he was timid and confused, losing his ideas in disgressions and the faint of his stories by his stammer, Strange as it may seem for the writer of the most limpid prose in French literature, the first flow of his thoughts was always turgid.
Yet in, spite of her preliminary] aversion, Madame Cailavet became for: Anatole France what Madame Recammier was to Chateaubriand, and Madame For twenty fidante, counsellor, collaborator, inspiration, will, and conscience. ' She! organised his' material existence, smoothed his days, kept his promises, made his appointments, found hi pen, disturbed his slumbers in working hours, and, when he was pressed for time, wrote his articles. "She haa," Charles Maurras, passion for France'y fame and the mont penetrating appreei of his his art, his genius.
Tt was} smplary but very rare case of first-rate soul and. mind content, to identify itself with another personality."
Madame do Cailavet was able to devote herself exclusively to. her protege by the divorce of Anatole France from his wife in. 1801
Readers of "Lo Mannequin d'Osier" know M, Bergeret's account of this unhappy marriage. Madame France was probably the harsh and dominate ing shrew that men of imaginative genius usually elect to marry: it is certain that she deceived him, and that she kept a wicker-work stand in his study. Nevertheless Madame France has the support of practical husband would not Srna ina wet la He would not keep ippeintments "He would net for diner. ie would not fess he fet meined Ite was Mloveniy. ud. unconventional broke Her down by refusing to speak to her oni he quilted ner hoose tbruptiy and for ever in his dress ingrown and shul ep, earzying his mmanteript and inkpot in lis hands, the cords of his gieue tailing n the ests behind his "The letters of Anatole France to Madawe de. Cailavet "reveal the harm the sweetness and the gress rene of thi "vague, vated, vagrant ook He' writen to het oon the country, which delights. him even when it it cold an ete "Io nek Tave only its Joy. 1 Tave it becasee Tave its affection fon, and Profound understanding of, animals fan he doubted by none who remem, ber "amic" anther ahd courteous to the peasants ad to quel." He was invariably gent
the priests, asking. then fons and listening Zo their se, plies with deferential attention. He -fwas Interested it everything. and better. They add a piquancy and est. to his varied reminiscences, writes "A.L.0." in the "Manchester Guardian."
Sir Francis is, of course, a staunch! believer in the' efficiency of the subaltern as opposed to the civilian. Life is for him a battle: he is no upholder of examinations as a test for fitness. He likes hig men to be young, since the young are not too cautious Ho was himself a wonderful young, man. Before he was twenty-four he had traversed Manchuria and Mon~ golia and the Gobi Desert. scrambled over the Himalayas, and crossed the Chinese Empire. When he returned to his regiment his fellow-subalterns suggested that "it was about time he did some work.'
Hee has done some work since then <Hunza and Chitral, Lhasa, Rajputana. Kashmir—and-. skime jover it once more. with f¥equent pauses, "in the light of experience, for comment and reflection both on men and places. The accounts the frontier and of Indian States are admirable, and: there is pungency as well in his tales of Curzon and Kitchener and Geeil Rhodes and the other "notabilities™ with whom he has been in contact or in conflict. But deeper vein in Sir his readers. Know, nal inst part of the book deals with matters of more seriousness, the slow progress of a soul in search religion that will yield it satisfaction. These pages are written with sympathy and reverence.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.