Memones Axo 7 Benson Pon xiv, 33%
Mr. A. C. Benson has, of course, been during most of his life in a fortunate position for meeting 1 number of interesting people. Of these he has already written from time to time in various books. In the present volume he has chosen to deal with 18 figures, most of whom, as Mr. Benson says in his preface, "left no deep mark upon the world"—people whom he himself knew intimately, in whose often deliberately-limited circle he was persona grata. There are other figures also, of course. Henry James and Ruskin a with Sir Cecil Spring.
Oliphant, Dr. Warre, names more exclusively Etonian. But on the whole the effect of the book on an average reader is a little curious. He is introduced to a nun-ber of small cliques and clienteles, all of them delightful and highly cultured, to which he would profably not have been"actually admitted in the flesh, and the atmosphere he is invited to breathe seems sometimes, in consequence, rather more stagnant than merely calm. It iz perhaps natural that Mr. Benson should seem most happy, affection. ate, and at ease when living over again the hours spent in the society of those whose intimacy meant most to him; and even in dealing with those larger figures before mentioned he most explicitly refuses to do more than state his own imipressions—not a rounded, complete figure of a man, but his figure just as Mr. Benson' saw it. Thus the book is very largely. about ite author, and there are few readers, nowadays who do not know what a delightful maker of books atr. Benson is., They will not be disanpointin' this volume. Mr. Renzon's recollections are as vivid as over, his impressions as detailed, and old Etonians especially will read these records gladly.
Perhaps the most interesting impression for the general reader wil be the one contained in the closing pages on Rupert Brooke—a chapter which especially shows how Mr. Benson can mingle sound judgment. with true appreciation—"Manchester Guardian."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.