BOOKS.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARGOT ASQUITH.* BY far the best thing in the second book of Mrs. Asquith's autobiography is the account of the last days of July and the first days of August, 1914. The subject exactly suits the author's vivid style of narration, and the events are so sensa• tional that there is no temptation to heighten them. Whether the chief characters in the drama which she puts before us will admit the accuracy of the facts and deductions is another matter. At any rate, the ordinary reader will find them extra- ordinarily poignant, and those who know the dramatis persona will experience no little ironic amusement not only in the actual observations, but in the unconscious picture of her- self given by Mrs. Asquith when she was confronted at first hand with the beginnings of the greatest storm which humanity has ever encountered.

It would not be fair to say that when the poles crashed and the world turned to fire and blood that Mrs. Asquith, like some of the actors at the beginning of the Drama of Hell, mistook the sounds of war for the dinner-gong. She had evidently an instinctive feeling that the Earth was trembling. Yet still, at first what interested her was the personal, or shall we say the Downing Street, view of the great tragedy. Her War chapter opens characteristically with an account of how Mr. Asquith told her that he had sent the precautionary telegram to every part of the Empire ; the telegram which in effect says, " Get out your sealed and secret war book and act by it." After such an opening one is a little disappointed to find such a sentence as this : " Deeply moved, and thrilled with excitement, I observed the emotion in his face (i.e., Mr. Asquith's) and said, ` Has it come to this ? ' " To use such language either shows a curious insensitiveness in the writer or else Mrs. Asquith has seen very few melodramas and read very few popular novels. However, Mrs. Asquith's style distinctly improves as she goes on, and when we reach July 81st and the description of the dinner at Downing Street on that night—a dinner at which Sir Edward Grey was present— we come to the real thing. Here is Mrs. Asquith well in her stride :— " I watched Grey's handsome face and felt the healing freshness of his simple and convinced personality. He is a man who thinks to scale,' as Lord Moulton once said to me of Rufus Reading, and obliges one to reconstruct the meaning of the word Genius. In the middle of our languid talk, messengers came in with piles of Foreign Office boxes and he jumped up and left the room. Mr. Montagu (Financial Secretary to the Treasury) came in, and, after exchanging a few words, he seized me by the arm and said in a violent whisper : ' We ought to mobilize to-morrow and declare it ! I wish X— and Z— could be crushed for ever I their influence is most pernicious : would you believe it, they • The Autobiography of lIargog Asquith : Book II. Loudon: Thornton Butterworth. 125e. net.]

are all against any farm of action 1 " How about. McKenna ' I asked ; to which he replied : Oh I he's all right, and in perfect agreement with the Prime Minister. X— is mad not to see that we must mobilize at once I' Don't fret ' I said calmly,. ' neither X,— nor Z— will have the smallest influence. over Henry ; his mind has been made up from the first and no one snit be able to change it now.'

Where Mrs. Asquith fears to tread we are a little doubtful about rushing in, but probably a certain number of readers of this review, especially abroad, will be anxious to know exactly who X— was. The context appears to show that X— is Mr. Lloyd George ; but about Z— we are in hope- less doubt. Therefore, we will not even hazard a guess. When we reach the description of the fatal Sunday the picturesqueness and characteristic nature of the narrative is even more remarkable. After going to the Communion Service at St. Paul's with her daughter, Mrs. Asquith was destined to witness a strange scene at the German Embassy :- " I dropped Elizabeth at 10 Downing Street on my return and went across the Horse Guards to Carlton House Terrace to ask if I could see the Liehnowskys [the German Ambassador]. It was the habit of the Germans to choose men of honour for their Ambassadors in London, and to appoint as First Secretaries men

versed in political intrigue capable of keeping the Kaiser informed

of every facet of our domestic policy. Prince Lichnowsky followed the footsteps of his predecessor, Count Metternich, and was a

sincere and honest man. He had a pointed head, a peevish voice, and bad manners with servants. He combined in his personal appearance a look of race and a Goya picture. His wife was a handsome woman of talents and character, who from perversity,

lack of vanity, and love of caprice, had allowed her figure to get fat ; a condition that always prejudices me. But in Princess

Lichnowsky I found so much nature, affection and enterprise that, in spite of black socks, white boots and-crazy tiaras, I could not but admire her. She detested the influence of the Prussian Court ; and the Kaiser—to whom her husband had always been loyal—was a forbidden subject between them. When the Prince first arrived in London, he told me that, on the occasion of his appointment as British Ambassador, he had said to the Kaiser that if he intended making trouble in England he had got hold of the wrong man. On hearing this, I asked if he thought there was much feeling against us in Germany ; at which he assured me with perfect sincerity that the relations between the two countries were excellent; that there was a great deal of exaggera- tion in the talk, and that he himself had never observed any ill- feeling, but added with an innocent smile : Our Kaiser is a man of impulse.' That Sunday morning I found Princess Lichnowsky lying on a green sofa with a dachshund by her side ; her eyes starved and

swollen from crying,, and her husband, walking up and down the room, was wringing his hands. On seeing me he caught me by the arm and said in a hoarse, high voice : Oh I say there is surely not going to be war ' (he pronounced war as if it rhymed with far). Dear Mrs. Asquith, can nothing, be done to prevent it ? ' I sat down on the sofa and putting my arms round Mechtilde Lichnowsky we burst into tears. She got up and pointing out of the window to the sky and green trees said with impulse :

To think that we should bring such sorrow on innocent happy people 1 Have I not always loathed the Kaiser and his brutes of friends 1 One thousand times I have said the same, and .1 will never cross his threshold again.'

Pi nee Liclmowsky sat down beside us in great agitation :

But I do not understand what has happened 1 What is it all about ? ' he asked.

To which I replied : I can only imagine the evil genius of your Kaiser . . . ' at this the Prince interrupted me

He is ill-informed—impulsive, and must be mad he never listens, or believes one word of what I say ; he answers none of my telegrams.' I told him that Count Metternich had been treated in precisely the same manner ; Mechtilde Lichnowsky adding with bitterness.: Ah I that brutal, bard war-party of ours makes men fiends I '

I remained for a few moments doing what I could to console them but felt powerless, and when I said good-bye to the Am-

bassador tears were running down his cheeks. Mr. Montagu dined wi,th us that night. Though gloomy and depressed he was less excited than he had been on the previous Friday.

Till last night,' he said, I had hoped against hope that we might have been able to keep out of this war, but my hopes have vanished. All the men I've: seen feel like me except X—, who is intriguing with that scoundrel Z—.' "

Having quoted so much of the mysterious X— and Z— references we had better add yet one more passage. Half a page down from the end of our last quotation Mrs. Asquith asks the Attorney-General if he really thought X— and Z— would resign at the next day's Cabinet

" Ws were interrupted by 0— coming into the room, and, not having seen him for some days, and knowing that he knew the inner workings of X—'s mind,-I asked him-if it was really true that X— was intriguing with the Pacifists, to which 0— replied : ' He has always loathed militarism, as you know, since the days of the Boer War, and has an inferior crowd round him, but. until

he knows how much backing he will have in the country, I doubt if he will commit himself.'

After this scene follows a passage which contains one of the ablest and most amusing reflections in the whole book :—

" It is always interesting to speculate on the motives that move men, and after considerable experience I have come to the con. elusion that self-love or self-consciousness of some kind lies at the root of most resignations. At every stage in life men are to be found on the point of resigning. They start in the nursery, and continue in the servants' hall. We are all familiar with such phrases as : Oh I very well, then, I shan't play ! ' or : In that case, ma'am, I had perhaps better go.' Unself-centred people do not suffer from the same temptations : they are simple and dis- engaged, willing to help and ready to combine or stand aside. Threatening to resign is a mild form of blackmail equally common to both sexes."

The suggestion that resignation is a mild form of blackmail is an excellent one, and yet, curiously enough, a truth which few people bear in mind. The present writer well remembers Lord Cromer telling him that on principle he always accepted the resignation of any person under him at once, and that, unless the resignation was caused by ill-health, it was almost always withdrawn within twenty-four hours.

And now comes another reflective passage which is dis- tinctly curious when we remember the past history, social and political, of the Liberal leader and his family

We had men of every temperament and every persuasion in our Government : orators, windbags, funks and fighters, Jews, Celts and non-Conformists. I have never understood why anyone

should be proud of having either Jewish or Celtic blood in their veins. I have had, and still have, devoted friends among the Jews, but have often been painfully reminded of the saying, A Jew is round your neck, at your feet, but never by your side ' ; Celtic blood is usually accompanied by excited brains and a reckless temperament, and is always an excuse for exaggeration. When

not whining or wheedling, the Celt is usually in a state of bluff or fuuk, and can always wind himself up to the kind of rhetoric that no housemaid can resist. Nor can I say that the non-Conformist Conscience has never disappointed me. At one time it was the backbone of this country, nobly presented as it was in old days by the Manchester Guardian ; but the Government policy in Ireland of an Eye for an Eye, or two teeth for one, dignified by the name of Official Reprisals,' stirred little indignation in the breasts of the non-Conformists or their Press ; and the men I know who claim to have it to-day are maidenly, mulish and misled."

That is a very significant passage.

We cannot find room to extract any more of the salient passages from Mrs. Asquith's books. Though there is still much good copy unquoted, we are bound to say that, take it altogether, the secpnd book is not quite so amusing as the first. Still, there are some excellent things in it, one of the best being Mrs. Asquith's account of her last riding adventure. Mrs. Asquith is always invigorated in style and in matter by contact with a horse. Another chapter which contains some very good things in it is the third, " My Theories Upon Children and My Baby." We will add from this chapter a quotation which may well stand as the last word of this notice :—

" 'You may live on haddocks' heads and think you flatter Christ ; or call yourself or your Order a Free Mason, a Free Forester, a Free Thinker, or by any other name : you may wear the Green or the Primrose, and dress your baby in blue and vow her to the Virgin, but a true mother must arm herself first and then her child,

if she wishes to challenge the world. . . . ' "

The context, however, shows this passage to be not quite so wild as it reads. Everyone will, however, admit that 'the haddocks' heads is a really brilliant touch.