Evening star., 1933-10-01

shire, which had come down in unbroken male
line since 1060, when he was only 16 He
was educated at Eton and Magdalene College,
Cambridge, and then began his career of
travel and exploration which ended only with
MS death In Africa, In 1928. His widow is the
great granddaughter of the eighth Duke of st.
Albans and the daughter of the late w. Nell
thorpe Beauclerk, British Minister in Peru
Ecuador and Bolivia. She and Talbot Clifton
met in Peru IN 1906 and were shortly afterward
married. She then joined him in his travels,
with intervals Of living at Lytham Hail. Ian
cashire, and at Kildalton Castle, on the Island
OF lslay In the Hebrdes. Her biography of her
husband is no ordinary story Of the exploits
and dangers Of an explorer. It Is a portrait
OF an unusual personality, but the personality
OF the writer Is even more unusual and pers
vades the book. The style is in places almost
Ellzabethan. Violet Clifton says Of herself
that, brought up in foreign lands by her
father man righteous but unbeleving," she
had become a complete skeptic. She is now
evidently Roman Catholic mystic.
The account of her husbands travels in Mex
leo, California, Alaska and the Arctic regions
beyond, and Africa, before their marriage
mucH more objective than that of the later
life after she had joined him. She writes of
hersen In the third person, as Violet" and
seems only little less interested in her own
personality than in his. She says that her
children must often have felt "forlorn" because
Before she became accustomed to being tho
squire's lady in an England about which she
knew little she made many blunders which
amused her husband and shocked others. She
offered money, for example, to the matron of
their local hospital, to be used to put out Of
their suffering those who were hopelessly III.
She attempted to purchase a pair of pygmies
brought from Central Africa to England in
order to for them and make them happy,
and was surprised when she discovered that
under English law people could not be bought
Soon after their marriage they went to the
East-Burma, Malaga, the Andaman Islands
to hunt for orchids, of which they brought back
a large collection to their English home. Next
to their orchids music was their greatest
pleasure at Lytham. Talbot played the organ
and the pipes were all over the house" Tho
house shook with music" The World War in-
terrupted their cultured life Of apparently per-
feet happiness. Talbot drove his big car a.
an ambulance in Belgium and Violet, always
near him, worked in garment distribution and
hospital Kitchens. She was with him in Africa
when, after being confessed by the Bishop Of
Teneriffe he died. In writing of her husband.
Violet Clifton writes as of a saint and she dediS
Gates her book ITO God for Talbot"
THE GHOST STORY OMNIBUS Selected b.
Joseph Lewis French. With Foreword BY
James H Hyslop, IL. D. New York: Dodd.
Mead & Co.
A FORwORD by Hyslop guarantees thae
" the stories in this anthology-omnibus =
the more popular word now-have at least
psychic probability. OF the "a tales the majority
belong to the nineteenth century. From the
historical point of view the collection might
well have started with Defoe's masterpiece Of
versimilitude, the earliest of modern ghost
stories. THE Apparition Of Mrs. Veal" It u
also to be regretted that Henry James Turn
of the Screw" greatest Of ghost stories, has
not been included. Some Of the well known
older favorites IN the volume are 1.-The House
and the Brain" by Bulwer-Lytton; THE Roll.
Call Of the Reef" by CUTLER Couch; The
Open Door," by Mrs. Oliphant; "The Mysteris
out Sketch" by Erckmann- -Chatrian; THE
Were Wolf" by H B. Marryat; "The Withered
Arm" by Thomas Hardy Zone of his best short
stories); 1.-THE Feast OF Redgauntlet," by Sir
Walter Scott Cfrom his novel "Redgauntlet")f
and "On the River" by Guy de Maupassants
Some Of more recent authorship are "A PsyA
chical Invasion" by Agernon Blackwood; "On
the Staircase" by Katharine Fullerton Gerould;
"The Ghost of Fear" by H. G. Wells, and THE
Middle Toe Of the Right Foot" by Ambrose
Bierce.