y, let me recommend this rambling, which is by no means to
say aimless, account of the wanderings of the MS. of _Almayer's Folly_,
some queer entertaining scraps of the author's family history, a
description of the encounters with the original _Almayer_, and those
vignettes of Marseilles which obviously were used as the background of _The
Arrow of Gold_. This record is one of those quiet friendly books that
flatter the devotee by a sense of peculiar intimacy with his hero. It is
also engagingly characteristic. Mr. CONRAD here unravels the fine threads
of his personal history and philosophy with the same artful reserve and
exquisite elaboration with which he evolves the creatures of his
resourceful imagination.

* * * * *

_The Life of Liza Lehmann_ (UNWIN), written by herself, and finished, as
her husband tells in a pathetic foot-note, "scarcely two weeks before her
death," is a book holding many special bonds of association with _Punch_,
not least the fact that her father-in-law, Deputy J.T. BEDFORD, was the
author of that _Robert, the City Waiter_, who was among the most famous and
popular of Mr. Punch's early creations. The volume that the writer has put
together is the record of a busy, successful and, on the whole, happy life,
passed in the company of interesting people, about many of whom Madame
LEHMANN has remembered some entertaining story. Chiefly, as is natural, the
persons recorded are the musical folk of the last half-century, from JENNY
LIND to Sir THOMAS BEECHAM; though in the allied Arts I was taken by a
pleasing and new anecdote of ROBERT BROWNING reciting _How they Brought the
Good News_ into an Edison phonograph, and overcome by loss of memory
halfway through the ordeal. One wonders if this rather surprising record
exists to-day. I am not going to assert that the non-technical reader may
not find the pages devoted to reprinted criticism rather over-numerous; old
newspaper files, like old theatrical photographs, too quickly fade. But the
author's humour endured; and I like to think that she could appreciate a
joke made at her own expense; witness her quotation from the gushing friend
who, at the moment of the first triumph of _The Persian Garden_,
overwhelmed the composer with the tribute, "_Do_ let me thank you! The
local colour is _too_ wonderful. I simply felt _as if I was at Liberty's_!"

* * * * *

To the jaded reader I recommend _The