UNCOMMON MEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1049, 2 October 1959, Page 11

UNCOMMON MEN

Sir,-In his interesting review of the latest Supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography, published in The Listener under the heading "Uncommon Men," A.S.F. stated "Angus Ross deals with the facts, if not the character, of the career of Sir James Allen" and suggested that he learned little of the man from my article. Opinions may, of course, vary widely on what is required in a DNB‘article, but it is worth recalling that the original editor, Leslie Stephen, insisted on "giving the greatest possible amount of information in a thoroughly business-like form" and that "dates and facts should be given abundantly and precisely." The motto of Sir Sydney Lee, another DNB editor, is reported to have been "No flowers, by request," a guiding maxim which has been overlooked by some contributors. That the requirements of Stephen and Lee still appeal to some people, especialiy when the articles have to be compressed into a limited number of words, may be seen from Evelyn Waugh’s review of the volume reviewed by A.S.F. Inter alia Mr Waugh wrote: ". . . many of the articles lack the completeness and precision of their predecessors. It is for facts, not for opinions that we go to the DNB." He added, as his own opinion of certain contributors, "The more accomplished the writer in general literature, the less they seem able to master the dry, impersonal style required for this work." While I gladly plead guilty to concentrating on the facts for what was a

brief article in a Dictionary-and it is sometimes dangerous or unfair to attempt to describe and dismiss a complex character in a sentence of two-lI thought that something of Allen’s character, of his tenacity of purpose and breadth of interest, might have been deduced from the facts given, for example, from his successful opposition to Mr Winston Churchill and from the variety of important offices held in an active political career of over fifty

years.

ANGUS

ROSS

(Dunedin),