A PSYCHOLOGIST'S MEMORIES.•
DR. SuLtv's new volume belongs to that class of books, unhappily rare, which are much more pleasant to read than to criticize. Its merits, like those of a well-baked cake, are diffused imperceptibly throughout the whole mass ; it does not lend itself to quotation ; there are many plums, but to savour their true excellence they have to be taken in their original environment. It is not, on the one hand, a mere collection of miscellaneous anecdotes, or, on the other, " a chronological series of actions and preferments." It is a very charming picture of the life of a notable man, and the chief complaint we have to make against its author is that he had not • My Life and Friehde. By James Sully, LLD, London : T. Fisher Unwhi. (1b. Od, net.1
enough courage to be more egotistic. We are compelled to trace the development of his mind rather by inference than by any direct statements. Now and again, of course, Dr. Sully marks the big turning-points in his career, but he does not give us the full history of the mental evolution .which brought about these changes. He accuses himself indirectly of " unclubbability," but he knew too many people intimately to be lacking in the social sense, and we learn more of his character from his reaotion on his friends than from the slight account he gives of his own growth. A man who could love, and was loved by, persons so individual and different as Leslie Stephen, Henry Sidgwick, and George Meredith—to name only three out of the characters which are here drawn for us— must have been endowed with singularly catholic sympathies, and we greatly regret that he did not enter more in detail into the relation of his special work to his life and tell us how far it was suggested or modified by nature and circumstances.
The one event in Dr. Sully's life which seems to have struck him as extraordinary was that not merely did he once write a story, but that it was actually accepted and paid for at a high rate by an American magazine :-
" Hitherto," he says, " I had retained some of my boyish awe for the creator of fiction. Yet here was I, wholly unpractised in the art, with a firmly organized bent of mind towards abstract thought—that is to say, the polar opposite of imaginative realiza- tion—succeeding on my very first attempt."
In this he hardly does justice either to the art of fiction or his own powers. The invention of episode is after all only one part, and that by no means the most important, of the necessary equip- ment of the novelist ; and with some of the other gifts the present volume is witness that Dr. Sully is richly endowed. He has the instinct for narrative ; he can keep his story moving with the slightest material ; and he knows how to sweep collateral episodes into his main current without interrupting its flow. He can create atmosphere ; he reproduces without apparent effort the mellow sleepiness of Nonconformist life in Bridgewater in the middle of the last century, and the homely simplicity of Gottingen before Hanover was completely Prussianized. Best of all, he has an observant eye for character ; he has illuminating things to say not only about the great men with whom he was brought into contact, but even about the casual strangers he came across in German lodging-houses or Italian hotels. " In one of these places I happened at the lunch- table to hear of J. S. Mill's death. The announcement was met by the question Who's Mill ? ' to which our news-bringer replied in a drawling voice, Oh, don't ye know, he's the fellow that wanted to upset the Constitution.' "
Of the many celebrities whom Dr. Sully knew and talks about so charmingly, Herbert Spencer perhaps lends himself most readily to piquant description. His well-known foibles and colossal self- absorption are here depicted with (we are afraid) more than a touch of malicious humour ; but we cannot deny ourselves one illustra- tion. Dr. Sully had accepted an invitation to an after-lunch interview :— " I had hardly sat down and ventured a few words, when ho began to betray all the signs of post-prandial somnolence. I at once came to the rescue by saying, Now, Mr. Spencer, will you please be quite frank with me, and tell me whether you are not in the habit of taking a rest after lunch ? ' A heavenly smile answered my inquiry."
Leslie Stephen, on the other hand, we are glad to find, presented to Dr. Sully no traces of that moroseness which sometimes slightly marred the fineness and sympathetic quality of his character. The sketch of Henry Sidgwick, too, reveals a much more winning person- ality than we had otherwise been led to expect ; and with one quotation from this chapter we must conclude what we are con- scious is a very inadequate outline of a singularly charming book
By the end of the autumn afternoon the daylight had fallen to a misleading degree of tenuity, and upon stepping down from the platform I slipped and fell. Sidgwick, who was behind me, hastened up and at once brushed away every trace of annoyance by sweetly remarking, How kind of you, Sully ! But for your warning 1 should certainly have fallen ! "
There are two minor errors which deserve correction in future editions. The name of John Leech (the Punch artist) is twice spelt " Leach " ; and the historian of the Crimean War is consistently referred to, both in the text and under his photograph, as Arthur," instead of " Alexander William " Kinglake.
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