Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-12
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the BookIocer

work, narrative of what was at
| tempted-where there was success,
where failure, and what in the writer's
| view was the meaning of life which
was at least one Of constant and stren-
uous endeavor" With these words
Elizabeth Haldane begins her short
preface to her brothers autobiography
Haldane): An Autobiography" The
| book grew, she explains, out Of her re-
quest to her brother to write a consec-
utive account of his life to aid her In
| taking charge of papers and letters
which he was intrusting to her, in an
| ticipation of his death. The last CHAP
ter was written shortly before his death.
Miss Haldane says, HAD my protnsr
| lived, he would, think. have made
certain additions, especially touching
the influences of his home life and Of
| the friends who meant so much to him.
OF this, indeed, he spoke"
The public life Of Lord Haldane was
| full of distinction and hard work. For
| rs years he practiced at the bar, with
| steadily rising fees, and with great
success, handling cases from all over
| the British Empire, including India.
| After only Ave years as a junior bar
rister he was elected to Parliament as
a Liberal, when Gladstone was prime
minister. In 1905 he became secretary
| for war in the Campbell Bannerman
cabinet. Here he reorganized the army,
| to provide for an expeditionary force
of six divisions with the possibility Of
quick mobilization. In 1912 he was
made lord chancellor In the Asquith
! cabinet and remained in that ONCE
until 1915, when Asquith formed his
coalition ministry. Before then, at the
beginning of the World War in 1914.
Lord Haldane had offered to resign: He
section of the public here had turned
against me. I did not think that this
was good for the government" The
reason for this attitude on the part OF
| the war-hysterical public was that Lord
Haldane had been partly educated in
| Germany, that he had many German
| friends, and that he had been in
| trusted with several diplomatic missions
! to Germany before the war, the rec
ords of which would have shown con-
clusively how much he had done both
| to avoid war and to prepare his own
country; but Asquith and Sir Edward
GREY did not consider 1t advisable to
make the records public at the time.
| Lord Haldane'S return to ONCE, fve
years before his death. was as lord
| chancellor in the Labor government OF
| Ramsay Macdonald. at have said
enough to show why during the period
down to 1928 was gradually heading
| toward the party of Labor, being moved
by the ideal Of more complete ana gem
| eral equality of opportunity wi which
that party was associated. L had not
| embraced and never did adopt the de-
| tails of the changing programs which
were put forward in its name" After
the fall of the Macdonald government
| Lord Haldane became leader OF the La
Dor opposition in the House of Lords.
He died in 1928.
On the personal side. Lord Haldane's
| life was the pleasant, but by no means
leisurely, one of an English gentle
man of wealth and family. In London
he lived during most Of his public lie
at Queen AnneS Gate, where his sister
often lived with him, as he never mar
ried. But his real home was at Cloan,
the family estate In Perthshire, near the
Eastern Highlands Of Scotland. There
his mother, who lived to be well over
90, was 1.-The dominating influence. !"
Many visitors came to Cloan, politicians,
men of letters, scientists, university pro-
fessors and philosophers. The family
spent their spare time In reading and
cared little for purely social activities.
In London, however, Lord Haldane went
much into society and was frequent
diner-out and welcome guest at week
end parties. He was often q guest at
meeting Of 'the Souls" the group
formed by Balfour and Margot Tenant
.(the second Mrs. Asquith) and others.
In his youth he had been absorbed in
the study of philosophy, which he had
pursued at the University of Gottingen,
and the philosophical outlook remained
his through life. He differed from most
Englishmen of his class in not being
interested in any sport and in not taking
exercise. In spite of this, contrary to
the theories of hygienists. he had q
fairly long life. About 1910 he de-
veloped diabetes. which was held in
check by diet, and later, after its dis
covery. by insulin. Only once in his
the United States, in August 1918, when
/ he addressed the American and Cana
dian Bar Association at Montreal in
| celebration of the centenary OF the
Treaty of Client and he remained on
land only a week end. The auto
biography of Lord Haldane includes
"reminiscences of some Of his many
| Gord Oxford. Lord Morley, Lord Bal
four, Sir Edmund Gosse, George Mere
dith, Lord French, Earl Haig, Baron
Rothschild, Mr.. and Mrs. Sidney Webb
and King Edward VII.
" y
Eleanor Mercein (1rs. Kelly. whose
romance, "Basquerie," delighted most
schoolgirls and others for whom senti-
ment In fiction cannot be overdone, but
would probably have astonished the
Basques themselves as picture of their
life, has written another Basque book,
1.-The Book of Bette" a collection of five
stories. The Urruty family again ap-
pears with its matriarch, the grand
mother of the tribe. The question is
now of the marriage of Bette, a child
in "Basuuerie" The whole family must
participate in the selection of the mate,
so they all journey to Spain to inspect
the grandsons of an old friend and
sutton of the grandmother. They do
not meet approval and Bette takes
matters into her own hands. The
theory of evolution, and especially Of
ape ancestors, makes no appeal to old
Mime. Urruty. but neither does 1t alarm
her She simply knows that it cannot
apply to the Basques. THAT may well
be true of other peoples descent from
apes) but for ourselves, we de-
scend in the direct line from Adam, as
you well know. And that Is why
we still speak among ourselves the
Euskara, true speech of Eden, which
have reason to believe was located in
this vicinity-probably in our Valley OF
climate for it."
Some women, perhaps the majority,
go to Paris not to spend long mornings
In the Louvre and the Luxembourg
and shorter afternoons rambling about
the historic buildings of the Latin
Quarter, but to visit continuously the