POST VICTORIANS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19332, 9 June 1928, Page 13

POST VICTORIANS.

PORTRAITS BY E. T. RAYMOND.

i«r P W. Wilson In the (1 Bene York Times.") «,.,« recently in the iSSut'BtaUrd" of London an ?Lon, among the most brilliant of British journalists, had '£ ideniy In his bed. By this ■■'•£ttea event bis full identity, never ':£» concealed, has been disclosed. X books by Mr "Kaymond," deV'Ajtive 1 of contemporary personalities, Straits of the New Century" is not pffftha jatest but, we fear, the last. WfW total of his achievement is *3?»fne has bad every opportunity . JritiflU that which should be read is i«foni S nch an editor » entrenched « Tjffldon can meet every one and can »7all that there is to be-heard,, &V the trouble with him is that, as S foresaw, his "daily," when it r«one to press, remaps his only srr» It is not reminiscence, then, fit Jfc Baymond offers us, but interaction. His estimates of public men '■£ based upon those factors which a£igs public, and to tittle-tattle he is is excellent company, the /.rtisdue to a practiced and usually a 'Sued us* of the P 6ll - I ndeed » eyen Urate descends to an ordinary paraph' Ms information is abundant. It : ™tai that on this occasion he offers us deemed not with supermen, but with •'asbrlties. But any one who wishes a nodding acquaintance m-tbe the Milners, and ywmers, with the Carsons, Lord •filing and their brethren in the law, and Kitchener, with Garland. may well spend ffe or two in Mr Raymond's salon. - %'TiortTaiture, whether it be paint or ''H&fc'there are styles. A Holbein tells lOTerytliing that there is to be .told, vSng light around the figure, mould"siii features, fashioning the hands, Siasising the jewels and glorying in Zjbstnme. Suoh a biographer was r .Such an autobiographer was S&ito Cellini. It is with this nitliwe of expression that Kay Stanigpiaker is surrounding Woodrow 'iwjo'j{ artist, Mr Eaymond be---St? a later period. His portraits ■;;s(fecomplete, but selective. An giajj.nces; a high cheekbone catches «£Mt; the rest is to bo inferred. Kfply this is not in itself a criticism. ;: ; ;fflj{4re' must be selective, and the P'lfP May achieved immortality by if gp that he eliminated. It is the fijjjglgh points in personality that 5 ; WMnoiid also points out. His eye truly where the light vMphe fails, it is", if we may bo in the handling of wh.it he seem ,a far cry from a Eay- :■ !&i?t6 a Rembrandt, but why not? '.■Jifiandt also is severely selective. l H®o'limits himself to the high : Wj!fr ■';' But consider his background. #a fathomless mystery, out of which depths there peers forth the 'We face. Mr Eaymond agrees with fast who held that Rembrandt gpetched his mother's picture beSphe: thought it a pretty subPfor light and shade. That is Svision of a man whose pwn backHinds are the paper which he does if-happen to have used. What was Lressfble to .Rembrandt 'becauseit I mystery is unexpressed .by Mr i^«/.tomateriial. , W&v seJectivoVportraiturevtherei -is ffin uncertainty. It is true that J&Siiues are sharp and clear, but, I»wy «ason, they depend upon Wffim. from whiclr the light is MifDraw aside a different curuli©bur studio and the face » "M#V'mot less clearly, not less :4iPbttt,how changed! What had Wsimificant has vanished, but into the hidden has emerged. ;?pPwo of a trade and both efficiffltiPlr Raymond and Mr A. I*. Winer: entertain a respect, each tor «Shir:i But they see with different >&hvGardiner, as a Liberal, holds Screed;- -Mr Raymond has dined at arTrate with the Tories. Hence, ot MrGardiner's characterisations, Mr Rsiond deolares that "fundamentals up'jnimmised into incidentals (ana) incidentals are exaggerated notals." It is what, in private, bjr might have said of Mr >%stus John and vice versa. '■ foMr Gardiner King Edward "must 'Wigtown very weary of the sound or %Save the King.' »< Mr Raymond ttonts'tbat "a writer .who is at once i %al subject and a fairly conventouTßadical would feel obliged to of the sort." But he WJ tint "the touching picture" is wily false." King Edward •"WW in pomps and ceremonies. . . . No I m'«r Buffalo, or Forester, or Druid evor *WiMi .vestments o£ office with more compf convinced reverence. He gloried.in "jQtoptre, He wss fascinated by the Orb. Jlji.Ttith Lord Bryce. On a desert Gardiner would desire no Jwacompanion. But Mr Raymond W» ••the vision it calls up of Vis9§»Bryoe in his pyjamas soothing a and one tropical nights with of the Hohenstaufen «™ and acute dissections of the 'Swa polity." It is not easy to Jmommon denominator for our and oar Goyas. f' ently Mr Raymond's phrases ikes of the pen. Sir James with "his eyes, big and sorrowPMseal's" is warned "that PairySL» an excellent place for a day %M that one should never lose »rn his ticket." Mr GalsJ 0 ™?! Jfhose characters are "seldom reminds Mr Raymond of "the "?» » 'PraterniV whose pity for a Fi was prevented from growing into ff&wcause she had dirty finger nails. R'Cneaterton and Mr Belloc have S?«ged to get on barking or fciting with almost everybody else.' &™;ftll» "is even capable of hating 2?,f«jr things on which as a rule he S* to dote, such as moving roads , fcii? with a particularly pert accuMr Arnold Bennett is rapped :SL*I» knuckles. This "tradesman TISW who "is not afraid of being M* leas than faultless" but deliv- &«• ."neatly written 'copy' with what may bs described as vlrCS Wthont innocence; a sort of vestal ajWMi. He has kept alive in Mm; ijr! v P«ception ot his own England. Old as??. »r-off chiffoniers and glass-cased lijStS)l nlrds ol long ago are at once a SP«SI * W e »««d memory; they work up IjlgW* msgio than the choicest Cbippenwe are told that "the ESPnest was accounted a narrow \S?P\ Defending the absence of (OTUsm" in the Archbishop of •JpOnry, Mr Raymond asks the "JSnon:— J S )t ,. th 9 canala of Holland of greater l »tl,t^.™ n »nity than the rushing tor**fletil, ". where Nature has been less "tolled by mant" !?C^^ n « the late Sir Arthur PearHfcffi, wagnate" with Lord North#|pj Raymond quotes the saying: MisZb!?y& hi * h p° H «cs had b,, pWiim !?? i! 10 Ottoman Nation, the "Daily.Mail" would be $ fflN?la^,v m , 1 < ' on » t •ntinople! , and- tho ' : M 4 D »»y Express" "Turkish f s>&£ 8^« e and the army. "The k sfiii lwnn osetings," so we

read "between Irving and GUdatone ufiest encounters between potentates ftS China and Peru .whose interest in one another was mainly philosophic cSrfositv " If Kitchener "was all iron STt&rJf" it -as because in the, military sense, he , had broken rules. "The men who tell have rarely kissed, so we 2£. "The men who have kissed do not tell if they are men^^; and the rule of Venus holds good of Mars. Kitchener held his tongue because as f talkative man, "he was conscious of the nee Sty?' One disastrous evening, t 'talked too freely to Morley and lost the Viceroyalty of India. These pages indicate that even the Britain of the twentieth century, with her Victorians dying put, is rich in personality. It is a land without a Sack list, where a man is encouraged to be himself. Mr Raymond is as interested in Keir Hardie th| Boo** as he is in Kipling of the Hecea sional " "In the inner circle,, says he of Hardie, "this turbulent person was always the conciliator; the venom he distilled was for outside application only."

? t f T„ n uVtrthe £ Cmpote°nrsute: ino e tn« B mi g ht proSnd "doctrines of pure

So with Shaw. He is "quite conventionally rich." And why?

TTn has always boen, so to speak, topically anticipatory! He has had an assured eye ?o7tt»e ve P ry next thing coming and he has eot all out of it before others made it tirefeme Ha has always been enough in advance of his age to extort respect as a tipI?£ never enough to. be accounted,, except t y r hys?erical admirers, as among the major prophets.

As for the eyesight; enriches ATr Shaw it is "unhealthily Keen 2l "is fust too good for the purposes of seeing.". For this reason,

of common sense.

Well, whatever may he said about the Victorians, no one in their day ever dared to write of them s Mr Raymond writes of the Post-Victorians. The Victorians not only achieved fame but measured up to it. The tamecS the post-Victorians may be, ">*■«» further flung. But vogues are merely Sides tci oblivion. What is to happen to the high spota in Mr Raymond's personalities when an unseen hand silently switches. off the and all the picture is reduced to background. Portraits of tic New Century. By E. T. Eaymond.