An Exquisite Miniature
Mary Cholmondeley : a Sketch from Memory. By Percy. Lubbock. (Cape. 3a. 6d.) Tins .is an elegiac portrait, painted in sombre tones, by a -hand whose skill is heightened by the care and sensibility of friendship. - Friendship ! It is a word glibly used, and we are led to overlook the disciPline of time; patience, and humility and the subtle balance of self-assertion and reticence, which must be discovered in a true recognition of this, the crown 'of human relationships.
Mr. Percy Lubbock, before undertaking this portrait; has submitted himself to this necessary scrutiny; and has searched every corner of his mind for the minutiae which, by' their accumulation, form the complete portrait of thiS gentle aristo.; crat, who by a coincidence of temperament and intellect became also the successful- author of Red Pottage and the ten other novels on which her reputation rests.
She was born at Hodnet, in Shropshire, in 1859 ; the oldest daughter. of a vicar whose. Jiving was near the family seat to which. he, finally. succeeded. In .1896 the family came to LoridOn, 'where Hie. novelist lived principally until her death
in 1025; ' • ' •
As an tender,' scrupulouS, yet bold. and original; she miiSt haVe been ti'Perionglity worth knoWing. We can
quote an extract from her -journal which gives in brief the story
of . her and shows the :spiritual conquest. of mind over monotony, of faith over the dreary inertia of every day
" If I had been a- pretty -graceful girl who had danced herself into a fairly happy, entirely commonplace marriage, if I had had any degree of popularity then, when oh ! how I should have valued it, I should never, I could never have arrived where I am to-day. It is not my talent which has placed me where I am, but the repression of my youth, my unhappy love-affair, the having t6 .confront a hard dtill life, devoid of anything I cared for intellectually, and being hampered at every turn 'I feebly made by constant illness. Rliat' I haVe thought, ' what I have felt, what I have suffered in those past years has been the kindling ' that year after year fed the flame which kept me alive."
R. C.
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