PICTURE OF YOUTH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22350, 22 February 1936, Page 35 (Supplement)

PICTURE OF YOUTH

THE GOVERNING CLASS Antony, Lord Knebworth, son of the Earl of Lytton, was killed while receiving instruction in flying at the age of 29, thus prematurely ending a life of almost radiant promise. The bond and understanding between father and son had been singularly intimate and complete, and Antony, unusually free from self-consciousness on paper, had all his life been in the habit of writing to hi 3 father of his hopes, fears and difficulties.

These letters, together with many others written to his friends, have now been published with a commentary by his father, and form the only possible memorial to a splendid personality, and what is of more general interest, a complete picture of a young man of the contemporary governing class. Antony Knebworth was indeed born in the purple. Wealth, position, influence and physical beauty, were all his. Eton, Oxford, a pleasant job in India as A.D.C. to his father, all follow each other as a matter of course. Always like a young god, he drinks life as it comes, enjoying it to the dregs. Snow, ponies, mountains, water —what are they made for but for Antony and his like to disport themselves with? He accepts them with both hands. But inevitably nature joins issue with him —he must pay. Life has been too easy; success has fallen into his lap and lost its eavour. It would have done Lord Knebworth a world of good to have deprived him of food for a week; put him in gaol among the world's outcasts. It would have made him aware of suffering, failure and despair. It would have given him something else to dread, in place of the dread of being tied to an office desk. So much he had: so much he was wholly aware of. He had the mentality, of the English governing class, which often surmounts difficulties by being unaware, of them. His letters show him to be a delightful person, intelligent and romantic. Yet his_ careless assumption of place brings irritation to the reader. How pleasant it would have been to have seen Knebworth in the stokehold of a ship, and how good for him. The stagnant atmosphere of the aristocracy _ did not sharpen his intellect by pitting it against anything keener than itself. Ho greatly desired to write a book, but circumstance, which had given him almost everything else, including literary facility, had not fitted him for the task, because his path had been too smooth. : Had he lived he would doubtless have been a brilliant figure among British rulers, but this is all, and he had enough intellect to have been dissatisfied with this husk. His letters, in the midst of success, Bhow a weakness of our social system. It will be noted that a tone of irritation, possibly bred of envy, has crept into this review, which is exactly the mood which the book induces. Yet the intention was .to give it high praise. "Antony," by his Father, the Earl of Lytton. (Davies)