read in the papers "Balfour accepts Peerage: will
enter Lords as Earl."

We were entertained at lunch by Mr. Arthur Brisbane, a famous journalist
and friend of Elizabeth's. I sat between him and Mr. Hapgood and had an
excellent conversation. They both spoke in high praise of "I Have Only
Myself to Blame." In connection with this I will quote an American
review out of the _New Republic_.

"MODERN LOVE

"'I Have Only Myself to Blame,' by Elizabeth Bibesco.

"This book is a collection of pictorial sketches and stories. Its field
is restricted. It isn't about life in general. It leaves out religion
and science, and illness and wars, animals and politics, and business,
and children, and crime. It's only about lovers and loving.

"It is an unsettling book. Just as you have privately made up your mind,
perhaps, to be sensible, and be satisfied with what you have--or
haven't--and to forget about a oneness with somebody, and are feeling
rich enough with much less, this book tells you a story which reaches
into some inner part of you that was getting dried up, and makes you
feel painfully aware of the things you are missing.

"Here for instance is part of a letter that one woman writes:

"'In a way I don't see why you should ever want to kiss me again. Do you
understand what I mean, that I feel so merged, so eternally in your arms
that I can hardly believe in the process of being taken into them again
and again? Oh my dear, do you notice how one never can use superlatives
when they really would mean something? They seem to slink away ashamed
of their loose lives. After all we can't "make love" to one another. We
both do it too well. This is not an incident, a game, an art; ours is
not a love affair, it is life.'

"Another extract: 'I can't sleep. There is something oppressive in the
atmosphere.... There is always a tenseness when you are not there, a
cumulative unreality. I have felt it all day.... I seemed to be a ghost
wandering about in some meaningless void. It was not only that I
couldn't believe in the people, I could not even believe in the chairs
and tables; it was tiring. You know how in fairy tales the lovely
Princess is turned into a toad and has to wait for a kiss to release
her, that was what I felt like--that nothing but your touch could make
me into a human being again.'

"Her trueness is so exquisite, it really doesn't need any plots. For
example, she is describing a man who has fa