GERTRUDE BELL

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 120, 18 February 1928, Page 16

GERTRUDE BELL

HER LETTERS PUBLISHED

Miss Gertrude Bell and Irak are in British diplomacy. Synonymous terms. Iler published letter (edited by Lady Bell), make fine reading. Her first adventurous journey (says a reviewer) was made when she was thirty-one. when she travelled in the desert from Jerusalem, and on the journev she really learnt Arabic. Here is a pleasant incident which occurred at Salkhad, which has a great castle “of dateless antiquity, they say; it is one of the places that is mentioned as belonging to Og, King of Baslian”:- — I returned the call of the Shiekh’s son, and while I was drinking coflee the old Sheikh arrived. He had been to see Yahya Beg, and half expected me, because the Beg had asked after me in the following terms“ Have you seen a queen travelling, a consuless?” fhey offered me a sheep, but I refused it. I hope I did right; one never knows, and I’m terribly afraid of committing solecisms. I feel it would be too silly, under the exceptional conditions, not to see all I can in a country which so few people have seen. It’s extraordinarily enjovable too,. They* took me to see the Klielweli, which is’bigger and better than any I have yet seen. It was divided into two parts by a thin black curtain, one being the Harem for the women. The straw'objects are for putting the holy books on. . . .. There came a m ntleman with a poem in /Arabic which he had composed in my honour. I said I didn’t know the custom in his country, but in mine, if anvone wrote a poem about me, I should certainly give- him a shilling. He said, “Yes, it would happen.” I gave him a quarter of a medjideh, and he presented me with a copy of the poem, so we were both pleased.

Already, one feels, she had acquired that ease of intercourse, that formal courtesy and genuine kindness, which appear always to have marked her dealings with tile Arabs. There is not a trace of superiority in her attitude to any of the people slip met; she was too good a judge of people to need to show off, and never indulged in that aggressive, studied arrogance which is always the mark of a weak and undetermined character. Her visits to the desert may have been inspired by curiosity, and love of adventure; they were continued, one feels, from affection for the people. Gertrude Bell carried practical sense to the point of genius; and even in the darkest days of the war she concentrated on the thing to be done. There is no trace of any doubt in these letters; and yet her positiveness has a soothing, not an irritating, quality, because it was not applied in regions of which she was ignorant. It was her assurance, her dominating good-will, her entire selflessness and devotion which enshrined her in the heart of the children of the desert; and the litter trust shown to her made her extraordinarily happy. She writes in 1923 to her father: —

“I’ve gone back now to the wild fee! ing of joy in existence—l’m happy in feeling I’ve got the love and confidence of a whole nation, a very wonderful and absorbing thing—too absorbing, perhaps. ... I can’t think why all these people here turn to me. for comfort and encouragement ; if I weren’t here they would find some one else, of course, but being accustomed to come to me, they come. And in their comfort I find iny own.”