Jottings

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 14, 16 October 1931, Unnumbered Page

Jottings

the most charming and accomplished of our younger writers, whose 1930 novel, "The Hdwardians," was widely acclaimed for its accurate psychology and skilful craftsmanship, has achieved in "All Passion Spent" a further success in an entirely different genre. This is a study, wise, witty, balanced and beautiful, of old age and its reactions to past and present conditions. The central figure, Lady Slane, ». through much of her long ife of 90 years has lived in social limelight. and high honours have been heaped upon her as wife of a brilliant maia who was humanist, sportsman, scholar and statesman by turns, left a widow, aged, frail as. porcelain, but still .of an aloof loveliness, Lady Slane is gently determined to bid farewell to power, glory and clamour of the world’s ways, and shake herself free from trammels of her large, managing and pompously absurd family. Yor. peace her soul was yearning, like that of the lovely lady in "Requiescat, " and it she sought and found in a small’ sweet house in Hampstead, surrounded by trees like a Constable painting, where, after a long life of much adventuring, tranquilly she awaited the greatest adventure c* all, for which all others are but a preparation. Here she escaped from obvious pettinesses of a finicking life, her callers a quaint triumverate, composed of eccentric and unworldly house agent; Gosheron, the builder, who looked so respectable, and, inside and out, wore an ancient bowler hat, green with age; fe d an old and undeclared lover of & girlhood, world-known art connoissecur and multi-millionaire: Far and far indeed was she from vivid youth that will burn the rivers and whose beauty sets the belfries of ‘the _world a-ringing; but in her face, as sometimes may be seen in those of the old. who are attuned with the unseen, there was reflected a shining loveliness of spirit beyond familiar beaute du diable; for "the face of youth is’an unwritten page; and youth can never sit still, in absolute repose, as though ail movement were over and: nothing left but waiting and acquiescence." Throughout there prevails an atmosphere of calm acceptance, of high thought unspotted from the world and embalmed reminiscences of human. experience. There is penetrating analysis of value of that which the world sets high, and subtle conclusions anent hurly-burly of life, the whole presented in a style that is cultivated, arin ah ly and-wholly delightful, oe, , ISS V. SACKVILLE-WEST, one of

N. "Murder ‘in the Embassy," by ‘Diplomat," action is concentrated alike in time.and space and the centra" situation. is intensely dramatic Imagine a group of persons shut up in a supposedly deserted Embassy in the intense heat of the Washington summer. One of them has murdered -a Japanese Royal Prince, whose body lies upstairs, The Ambassador grants a delay of twenty-four hours, at the end of which he will do justice on the suspect. We have grown 42 little tired of the. theme of the house isolated by floods or snow. But the isolation here rises quite naturally and plausibly out of the crime itself, and is used to great effect. ‘Diplomat’ writes well and draws his characters deftly. This is a book distinctly out of the ordinary class, ® * * es "Wnter the Actress" Miss Rosamund Gilder writes with a lively enthusiasm of the woman who pioneered.in the drama. ‘The women who spoke first and not necessarily loudest or most finely are those who have oceupied her research. The drama has had more diverse history than any other of the arts; it has been most sacred and most profane. What began as solemn ritual at the tomb has ended largely as an industry of entertainment. Accordngly in this volume we meet such -widely contrasted figures'as Hrotsvitha, the nun of Ganderheim, who wrote of "things not to be named in order to glorify the innocent," and of Aphra Behn, whose treatment of the unnameable had scarcely the same. purpose. She pioneered as a professional whereas the nun had naturally no financial ambitions; so. they take -their place as partners in innovation. The manageresses are represented by La Montansier, by Carolina Neuber of Germany, and by our own Madam Vestris, whose engaging history elicits a charming chapter on the taste and finance of the English theatre a century ago. Vestris was a pioneer of realism as well as a victorious. singer of ballads and a gay romp of breeches parts; she established realistic production, and could be a careful artist in a world of fantastic showmanship; the English theatre owes more to her than is usually acknowledged, and the debt is here rightly paid. Miss Gilder gives Vestris justice; her gallery of notables carries her over the foreign stages of the Middle Ages; in addition, she honours the Englishwomen who obtained equality of grease-paint for their sex in the time of the Restoration. They were colourful creatures, and Miss Gilder’s research has not resulted in prose that lacks paint.