It is Professor Ayer's peculiar gift that he can say
so many things that matter so clearly, im- partially and intelligently in so short a compass. Those who have read Mr. Gellner's Words and Things, about which there was all that fun a year or so ago, will do well to hear Professor Ayer on the same theme: it is Hyperion to a satyr.
R. A. BECHER Follow Me
The Path to Leadership. By Field-Marshal Montgomery. (Collins, 21s.) Covenant with Death. By John Harris. (Hutchin- son, 21s.)
'THE. point that now matters is this-.—has anything emerged from this study?' In his jauntily inhibited style—as if he had learned by Pelman- ism, old school magazines and Daily Express leaders to overcome a shameful impediment in the speech of his mind—the Field-Marshal throws the question at us early. It is the only interesting one he raises in this book. Does the book amount to anything but the fantastic and pathetic 'rigmarole of an old man haranguing himself in a sound-proof box and thinking that he is addressing the world?
Cliches and banalities one had expected from a man whose undoubted mechanical intelligence has been trained to fight shy of intellect. But can anyone . have anticipated ever—not just from Field-Marshal. Montgomery, but anywhere in print--such banalities as these? Banalities of such unbelievable. 'whopping dudnessithat one has
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