Jottings

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 8, 4 September 1931, Unnumbered Page

Jottings

"MY: Life Story: From Archduke to y Grocer," is the arresting title of what with truth may be termed a human. document, the author of which is Leopold Wolfiing (ex-Archduke J.eopold.of Tuscany). From the first senterice, "I take up my pen. with the painful suspicion , that in the eyes of the world I rank as one of Europe’s had boys" .to the last, "Down and out though I may be, I am seldom downcast: I still ‘travel; singing," our attention. is.riveted on the good and _iil"fortune, mostly the latter, of this scion of theslouse of Hapsburg. A democrat from youtb up. the Arch. duke passed a Bohemian existence in Berlin, Paris, and the Riviera, expetimented. for a short space with colony of back-to-nature cranks, married twice (each time unhappily), for a time acted as. salesman in a clothier’s.. shop, awked sausages in Berlin,.and at long ‘t, when, fifty years. of age, ran & grocery business’ in Vienna. "To be’s successful grocer," says the Royal writer’ with. engaging naivete, "one must haye brains, and-I can only speak from my own first-hand observation---brains. are a commodity which few Royal personages possess. I myself was never more conscious of my lack when, after I- had slaved away as a small grocer. for nearly a year in Vienna, my ereditors swooped down on me and f -had te put up shop." In’ this extraordinarily interesting yolume there are vivid pen pictures ot Cojfitinental royalties who figured in world history during past couple of decades. Frank, vivacious, transparently sincere, and without a trace of mauvaise honte, the chronicler gives away intimate secrets of the court circle of which he was a member and hpbitue before he cast off for ever the tgmmels of its hidebound regulations, * thout fear or favour are limned the * portraits of that tragic pair, the illfated Archduke Francis Ferdinand and Sophie, his consort: also the Emperor Francis Joseph (with whom the youthful democrat was far from popular), and his only son, the unhappy Crown Prince Rudolf. We are given unvarnished statements anent army and nayy, unfair treatment in each of these services, and -consequent marriage of the ‘Royal raconteur to the fatally incompatible Johanna, from which indiscre- . tion ensured banishment from the imeror’s éntourage. An exile, he wanderéd many cities of thé. world, usually in- dire financial ‘straits, meeting the strange bedfellows ‘that poverty brings, and like the ver‘est guttersnipe, scraping a living in mean streets. In Berlin one day casually he makes the acquaintance of the beautiful Claire; and... the episode of his

friendship: with this young working girl, her selfless devotion, gaiety, and spiritual © apneal, makes a fragrant memory amid much that is tragie and sad and bad.

Assuredly this "ower true tale" proves anew the platitude that a life history, candidly revealed, is infinitely more fascinating than. ‘the wildest sweep of imagination. ::

JN "Dark Bridwell" a bully and a wastrel removes his houseliold to some lonely hills and valleys in the. . United States, the better to enable... Charles Bridwell to-Jive the life of a. loafer and a coward. He heats hischildren, quaffs the good red wine, and. is happy in his own. wild way. ‘The time comes, however, when his peace is shattered, and his dreams, such as they. are, go down the wind. Forsaken py. his children, his wife’s love turned to revulsion, the climax is reached when a younger son returns and tries to mur der him, Nothing very new in this piot, perhaps, but the story is told. ‘with much intriguing embellishment, and all the characters, good and bad, are alive to their finger-tips. ‘There are pleniy of thrills in the story, which is to be recommended to those who like excii¢ ment in fiction if not in fact. * * 2. [Zz is not necessary to get annoyed over ‘any remarks of General Pershing in "My Experiences in the World War," which seem to belittle the part played ‘in the final victory by the British and -the French. It is much better to. cite the facts. The Army that broke the Hindenburg line needs no apology for its morale. The object of the genecal, of course, is to emphasise how vital was the assistance of his countrymen, and he does go so far as to say: "There is credit for.all of us in the final triumph of our united arms. The struggle of the Allies was much longer, their sacrifices .much greater than ours." Perhaps when he comes to revise his Hook he will keep in front of him the official map of the Front ‘in the last months of.the war. He will then be reminded. of where the strain was grcatest and will rewrite some of his sentences, — s = i i "Blue Ghost"-an intriguing title and.curiously apposite-Miss Jean Lemple writes of that restless genius, ‘Lafcadio. Hearn. An ‘elusive and fugitive personality, from his birth on a Greek, island and childhood in Dublin, to death in Japan and burial, in a Buddhist cemetery-his was a life full of strange -exotiec whims and brilliant fantasy, and, far too erratic to abide with suecess amid Western civilisation. He was given the post of lecturer in English literature in the Imperial University at Tokio, married a Japanese wife and became a Japanese citizen. But these bald facts convey. no idea of the fascination of his books; their wide range of imagery, their quale -ity of exotic beauty, and the genius that informed his literary ways and works,