AN AMIABLE CHRONICLER.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1097, 8 April 1911, Page 9

AN AMIABLE CHRONICLER.

"Leaves from the Note-Books of Lady ■ Dorothy Nevill." Edited by Ralph Nevill. Maomillan. Is. net. This is Lady Dorothy Nevill V second book of reminiscences. She is of the family of the Walnoles, whose chief literary ornament was Horace, of the famous letters, and whose fortunes were founded bv the great-Sir Robert, the first and last eminent- statesman whom the family produced. Most of -'them were "too iiidolent-to grasp the political laurels, .which their intellects were in several eases easily capable of winning." "Nevertheless"—the quotation' is from tho last paragraph of the "Leaves"— "there,is .a compensation in that verynature which has rendered serious effort sounattractive to us, for with the child's dislike of order and restraint, we have also the counter-balancing advantage of tho child's buoyancy of disposition and easy forgetfulness of trouble, retained in some cases to an age when others of more serious temperament have long ceased to take an interest in, anything at all." Such an one does tl\o Lady Dorothy show herself'in this refreshing little book. She retains, in old age, the child's buoyancy of disposition, and takes an.-interest in- everything. Opening tho book at any page, one gets immediately. the. impression of a- very charming old lady actually there present and ".talking; -Like -all really , and properly old people, she is ratherproud of her. years';,the' temptation, of tho rensus paper', for such as she, is not to subtract from them but to add. -She likes to recall tlie period when "smoking rooms in country houses were almost entirely unknown,, aiid such gentlemen as-wished to-smoke after the ladies had gone to bed, ; j)ped,, as, a matter,of course, to go gilhe'ty tooth's servants' hall, -or-- te'-tEe hSfSDDis. rourii .in tire stabk>s. ; !'^"'A r n'adj' who told her, that -the, late -Diike -of Sutherland '.had been Seen smoking acigar in the Park "spoke of it as -if- she had been present at- an earthquake." When, she was a child, there were still deer in Hyde Park, "for the.v were finally removed in 1831." Among tho many great people who figure in these reminiscences .are, Beaeonsfield, Cobdeii, Gladstone, Darwin, and many others. It is part of tho pleasant conversational informality of the little hook that tho author does not, confine herself to* her own recollections,,'but.every, liow and then tells. a : good story at-second-hand, | or repeats a curious bit : of book-know-ledge. One'thing leads to another in those printed, talks, just as it does at an afternoon tea. Thus, wheii "the decay of conversation" is the topic, tho opportune, though audacious, remark of Mjss Gordon Cumming concerning the "lucid interval" between the waistcoat and trousers of Munro of Novar is kept waiting, as it were, on the next page, while we are told how Novar's fine collection of pictures was sold by. his heir, and how the latter's promising career was suddenly cut short. There is not a malicious or scandalous line in LadyDorothy's book. Humour, and good humour, arc at play together on every page. She is a dear old lady. And she is still collecting impressions of'people and affairs; the present reviewer has just noticed in the social column of a London weekly paper that Lady Dorothy Nevill and Jliss Meresia Nevill were among those who "looked in" at a bazaar at Devonshire House.

In the April "Lone Hand" Messrs. J. Barr and 0. A. Jeffries continue their articles 011 sweating in Sydney, tho present subject being "Tho Syrian Sweater." It is a pitiful and shameful story. Other contributors to an interesting number include Nornian Lindsay (an illustrated article on "Port Said," arid a frontispiece), J. H. M. Abbott, Edward Dyson, Randolph Bedford, D. 31. Kermode, H. Sullivan, and James Wattle.