AN IRONICAL SCEPTIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 11, 13 January 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN IRONICAL SCEPTIC.

THE LAST OF LYTTON STRAOHEY. A collection of estoaye written by Lytton Strachey at various times, and now issued by hie brother and Chatto {and.'Windus, comes to remind us of «the, loss to ; letters when that inventor !of:a new biographical method died in his j prime. The volume contains almost all I the remainder of his contributions to periodicals, except for a long eeriee of unsigned reviews that he wrote for the "Spectator," so it is probable that this is the last volume that will be published with his name upon it. "Queen Victoria" and "Eminent Victorians" have ceased to be delicioue, or annoying surprises, and it is easier to deal with tlie author judicially than it was ten years ago. His fine qualities as a writer remain solid and clear, but his faults, which sprang mainly from imperfect sympathies, are plain. He is the ironical, sceptic in excelsis. He gi»cfl us learning, a fastidious style, aiid a rare insight into many characters and books, but his reaction against Victorianism went too far. He cannot quite understand, an age that was so serious, so religious. When he died it was advanced as ail explanation of his attitude towards the official world—Lord Cromer, for instance, whom he could not appreciate—that he was the son of an eminent Anglo-Indian and that up-bringing in an atmosphere of officialdom produced a strong reaction. This may account for a good deal, yet in this volume there is an eloquent defence of the first Earl of Lytton, the minor poet who became Viceroy of India and in whoee term of office occurred the second Afghan war. On John Morley his comment is, characteristic: "Only a Victorian, having made his. reputation by writing tho lives of Diderot, Kousseau and Voltaire, would, on his return from a vieit to Paris, have thrown, in horror, two French novels out of the railway carriage window. Slich details, slight as they are, depict a period. The Victorian age, great in so many directions, was not. great in criticism, in humour, in the .realistic apprehension of life. .■. .

Even its atheists (Lord Morley was one of them) were religious." But was the Victorian age weak.in"'criticism and in humour? There was Matthew Arnold, but Matthew Arnold was too serious for Lytton Straehey's likfng.

There ie. good measure and great variety In this volume. He defends Pope vigorously; describes how in Sarah Bemhardt's art there was thunder and lightning, . Heaven and hell; thinks Matthew Arnold mistook his vocation and should not have been a critic —which is more odd than anything lie finds odd in Arnold; and ranges from Voltaire to Shakespeare, from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Disraeli. «