Belles Lettres

Rigid Britisher
Personality and Other Essays, by James Scott (Richards, 5s.) This book will not take the world by
storm. It contains a good essay on Dickens which might have been better if it had dealt less with Dickens the humanitarian and more with Dickens the writer. There is, of course, an essay on Personality, and something is said about the British Civil Service, "and its general-if slowefficency."
But whether talking of flowers or collars, or fur and feather, Mr. Scott remains a rigid Britisher who will have no nonsense. Dictators and the totalitarian state make him see red.
J. W.
The Best of Me, by Basil Maine (Hutchinson, 18s.) There must be very few things Mr. Maine has not at least tried in his life. At most of them he seems to have succeeded. He is a composer, a music critic, a broadcaster, a biographer of Royalty; he is an orator, an actor and a gramo
phone recordist. All these activities are described to us with a liberal flavouring of humour.