LITERARY NOTES
LAST DAYS
RASPUTIN
OF
When His Daughter
Hid His Boots.
ATTEMPT TO KEEP HIM AT HOME
How Rasputin's two daughters hid his boots to prevent him going out on the night he was killed, is told by one of them, Maria Ras putin, in her book "My Father." which
published recently. (Cassoll 's).
Was
Severni times, she says, he had been warned to be on his guard. but, in order to avoid being fol lowed by the police responsible for
his safety, he went out preferably at night.
On the night of his death, she continues, in order to force him to stay at home.
"My sister (Varvara) and I had hidden his boots before we went to bed at about ten o'clock..
My father hade us 'Good-night.' We asked him if he intended to IIe replied go out that night.
off-handedly that he was invited to Youssopoľa.
"At about midnight the bell of the door of the servants' quarters rang out, announcing some caller. The faithful Katia (a servant) had to help my father find his boots. 'It's those children again,
them. they have hidden
They don't want me to go out,' he said; to his visitor whom he then follow.) ed out...
The writer, who states that she
THE CHINA MAIL, MONDAY, JULY 30, 1934.
Carrying her son, Buzzie, in her arms, Mrs. Anna Roosevelt Dall, daughter of the United States President, is pictured leaving the train at Truckee, Cal, escorted by Attorney Bam Phatt, en route to Lake Tahoe, Nev., where she has taken up residence at the home of Mrs. E. A. Vallis, below, preparatory to seeking s divorce from Curtis Dall, New York and Chicago broker.
is earning her living as a trainer LIGHTER SIDE OF
of wild animals, annouces her de. sire to consecrate her life to the task of revealing her father's true personality and character.
"Peace Letter" to "Tsar.
AIR FORCE LIFE
Entertaining Stories Of The Service,
AN AMUSING PICTURE
RONALD FIRBANK'S
LAST WORK
Delicate And Witty Volume.
"THE ARTIFICIAL PRINCESS"
Ronald Firbank is an arresting figuro. Most people who were born before 1900 belong to a by gone age, The odd thing about Ronald Firbank was that he be longed to two bygons ages. Emo tionally, he belonged to the Beards- ley period, whereas fatellectually
he belonged to the Sitwell period. He managed, in his strange fashion, to fuse "Wheels" with "Under the Hill." He managed,
in his strange fashion, to the fantastle and the ordinary, It is this which gives auch vitality to
his archale style,
;
Firbank possessed a talent at the same time undulating and in cisive. Being a shy man with acute instincts, he indulged, in innuendo. It was not the demure innuendo of Samuel Butler, nor yet the hearty Innuendo of Norman Douglas; it was a baroque type of Innuendo. He dealt in porcelain hinta. Yet, in his own medium- he was almost a supreme artist. His posthumous work, "The Art!- ficial Princess" (Duckworth, 68), shows him at his best.
Note-Book Style.
Sir Coleridge Kennard has writ ten an introduction to this fragile little book. Anything which can tempt Sir Coleridge into print has fulfilled its function. Admirers of "Public Gardens" or "Suhsil”
£2,500 WAGER ON will welcome this introduction.
A COCKROACH
An Entertaining And Instructive Book.
CUSTOMS OF CROOKS
which, as was to be expected,' is humane and sharp.
He discloses that Firbank wrote on a system of detached notes, a system which Proust regarded as the Inat infirmity of noble minds. A phrase, however lovely it may be, which is inserted artificially must often carry with it a fainti breath of decay: when there are several of such preserved phrases Atted into a continuous book the That a cockroach could lose a whole work has a dead flavour. It
- What she describes as "the last' letter that my father wrote to Nicholas 11. berure the declaration of war" in 1914, begins with the words "My Friend," and showe Sound Easy. By B. J. Hurren, R.IStacked Cards. By Dare Phillips,
Rasputin urging the Tsar to do all
in his power to avoid war:
A. F. (John Long. 12s. 6d.).
It is a cheerful and amusing
"I knew that all desire war of picture that the author paints in you, even
(Bodley Head 8s 61.)]
the most faithful this account of the lighter side of man £2,500 seems rather surpris-is merely the impulsive, the almost But that is what happened boyish, element In Firbank which they do not see that they rushlife in the Air Force, though he ing. towards the abyss.... You are has a slight lapse into something in one of the many incidents re- prevented his work from becoming
like gloom over the. Air Pageant
the Tsar, the Father of our people. Do not let foole triumph, do not let them throw themselves and us into the abyss. Perhaps we will conquer Ger. many, but what will become of
Russia?...
The continual antagonism and hatred with which Rasputin was
at Hendon, in which he finds a corded by the author in this both stagnant.
A certain immortality alwaya at- | gladiatorial aspect.
entertaining and instructive book taches to writers who art inspired "One day there will be a nas-about the crooked ways of card-by one period and forecast an- ty accidents. An aircraft will sharpere and confidence men.'
Ronald Firbank, even to- other. crash in the crowd, and kill. a The "mug" in the case few dozen of the closely-packed Benson, the celebrated: "Jubilea important literary figures. As was day, is regarded in America as an multitude. Then, perhaps, they Plunger," and the scene a bar in a specimen of all that is most de- will cry stop."
Clifford-street, off Bond-street. licate and witty in Ronald Firbank Flying Officer Hurren tells some Here some crooks engaged him in this surrounded, his daughter writes, entertaining stories not only of the childish but Innocent-locking scarcely be surpassed. Yet would "Artificial Princess" could influenced his character, and to his own arm, but of the Navy and pastime of racing cockroaches any serious reader, however far- obtain relaxation and calm, he be-the-Army, to both of which he has across dinner plates to a pile of cinated he may momentarily be by gan to drink.
been attached in the course of his caster sugar "Everything pushed him towards duties. One is of. a sergeant who Benson's
on the outer rim. the cachinnations of Ronald Fir- particular copkroach bank, contend that he is anything
Had he lived longer he would
it. Society in St. Petersburg was was Instructing a party of cadets showed itself much the fastest, more than a literary curiosity? notoriously intemperate and truly, in the correct burial drill.
If there is anything to be astonish- ed at. it is that a simple peasant, suddenly transplanted into such surroundings of luxury and intem- perance, should have resisted 80 long...."
To the question whether Raa- putin had any love intrigues, his daughter answers:
"Surrounded by pretty, elegant, seductive women, it may be that he fell to temptation. Efforts were even made to compromise him by placing in his path women charged with seducing him in order to bring about his ruin. ... I only know that he was al- ways an affectionate husband to my mother, that she adored him and was never jealous, having perfect confidence in him; and that he was a good father to us,"
IF SERAJEVO HAD NOT HAPPENED
Good Theme Poorly Handled.
By
No Poppies in Flanders.
George C. Foster. (Ivor Ni- cholson, and Watson, 78, 6d)
-The-mai-idea of "No Popples
and after winning
A
few
"On the command "Fix' he hundred pounds he was induced to certainly have written something said in stentorian tones, "the back it in a big match for £2,500 of lasting value; his talent, how right" and man of the front
a side.
ever variable, was authentic and rank will not, I said Not, take
while still in his experimental
three paces forward, and for To his consternation It was unexpectedly wise; yet he died why, because If 'e did 'e'd fall easily beaten, and he paid up. right into the grave and break Afterwards the explanation was period; he achieved several bril- 'is flaming neck. Stop larfing discovered; for a £10 bride, a bar-liant improvisations on the theme in the rear rank, Mr. Fletcher. man had privately put the plate of Beardsley in plus-fours; and:
brilliance is .an" evanescent
and that brings me to another used by the winners In a hot oven point. The cortege will proceed for half an hour before the race. quality.
in a stately and orderly fashion. A variation of the usual method!
The party will assume 'appy yet was that of a confidence trickster Borrowful countenances....who bought a bracelet for 125,000f
appy because their late lament- from a Biarritz jeweller and paid CHARMING CHINESE
POET
Autobiography Of Tu Fu.
ed comrade 'as departed to 'ap-by cheque. This was on a Satur pier lands, and sorrowful be-day, and the jeweller beard the cause 'e 'ae porn without paying same afternoon that the crack had 'is mesa bill.”
offered to sell the bracelet for Some curious "Test" cricket 80,000f.Greatly agitated, and methods at Corfu are recorded at now cortain that the cheque the fruit of a Mediterranese would not be honoured when the cruise:
Travels of a Chinese Poet, Vol. "They always beat the vialting Jeweller get the man arrested and Ayscough (Cape, 216.).—The banks opened on Monday, the II, A.D. 769-770, by Florence English sides, and they employ had to pay him. 500,000f. to avoid Chinese regard Tu F as one of a fine technique. The opponents an action for wrongful arrest and their graatest poets, and ble ver are always allowed to win the defamation of character." toss and their bowlers achievej
ses, chronologically arranged and
in Flanders" is so good that it is depressing to have to record that a
remarkable success. When it be The cheque wea perfectly good, linked with brief notes by Miss comes their turn to bat they are and the crook had banked this Ayscough, constitute a charming careful to take up the matting time on the jeweller's non-con- autobiography to the period and remove the stones that were Adence." previously placed there. What price body-line bowling compar- ed with that "
NEW SHORT STORY: COLLECTION.
G. B. Stern Book.
covered by this volume he was the "guest of rivers, and lakes wanderer, withdrawn from official life, in which he had earned the reputation of being completely in3 corruptible
Everything Interested him in his travels. When he came to Kuel the City of the Three legged Monster, he noticed not only the fall Pelican Walking By G. B. Stern, "triumphant viwe" but the me
This is a collection of short writes:
He
nedr
ifying Em
A world, which over extensive it is inadequately handled. Mr. has an occasional: imaginativé Foster boldly kills off in his first flash, as where, at the end, the chapter Lenin, Trotsky and Prin presents an obscure house-painter cip, before this last bas had his named Hitler dying from opportunity of murdering the from a ladder. But he has seen (Helnemann;: 7s__6d.) (thod of procuring water. Archduke at Serajevo and so prefit to mix up his ideas on the Wo cipitating the Great War. What mente Suffrage Movement and the stories would have happened during the Irish question with the career of merit next twenty- years of Eurypean a rather tiresome young history
who, by virtue of her Highland **The answer la not beyond spe- cestry, is privilered- culation, and Mr. Foster makes an the world in which the Intelligent at reconstructing, razlly was murdered.
They are of unequal Mo Some, such as A Nect
good if others, T
quisitor
Ing. But M
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