THE CRIMSON BOOKSHELF

WITH the recent deaths of Lytton Strachey and Gamaliel Bradford, Andre Maurois remains as the most prominent living biographer. (Apologies to Mr. Philip Guedalla who, fortunately or unfortunately, has not been accorded notice equal to Mr. Maurois). The members of this trio had much in common: they were the leaders in the art of "modern biography" and together they stood far aloof from all their cheap, novelizing imitators. Mr. Maurois began writing biography much later than either of his late contemporaries and he probably owes much to both of them. But he has a purpose and a method all his own, both particularly suited to his temperament.

For Mr. Maurois biographical writing is a method of escape. Emile Herzog (he adopted the pseudonym since his first book, a war novel, was published while he was still an officer in the French army) was destined for the role of a "chef d'industrie" in his father's cloth factory in Elbeuf. But an active business career did not interest him. He turned novelist and for a while he was known as the "humorous author of a pair of war books." That was hardly satisfactory, but "from the entanglement of passion we escape by action." Action: where was it? Mr. Maurois found it by accompanying his heroes on their every exploit. The argument is put clearly by Mr. Larg: "Put all your men of action in a row. Describe them to yourself and to the godless public. Learn lessons from them on how to hold the soul in leash like a well-trained hound. What then? A hound goes hunting. Of what use is hunting except to exercise the hound?" There lies Mr. Maurois's purpose. That is why he likes Kipling. Carnehan and Dravot have made Disraeli and Byron live again for us.

Mr. Maurois's method is inextricably bound up with his purpose. He immerses himself in the character of his hero. He studies his own reactions before describing those of his subject. Often they are his own feelings, as in fiction and he writes like a novelist merely because he still is a novelist. But "Ariel" is his only biography which can be accused of being "novelized." If he has any faults, his chief one, as he himself admits, is probably politeness. Mr. Maurois has become too well acquainted with his subject to be other than grateful. That is why the aloof sarcasm of Strachey is largely absent. Mr. Maurois attempts at all times to understand. In "A Private Universe" he gives advice to young Frenchmen departing for England and America. "Give logic a rest while you are over there," he tells the first. "But enjoy the general spectacle." To the second: "Fashion within yourself an America of which you will be worth: that is the only America you will discover."

A specific word about the two books. Mr. Larg's short biographical sketch was first published in 1930 and is now reissued. It is at times extremely esoteric. He pictures Andre Maurois through his books, largely through his novels, which are not so well known in America. But it is understanding and sympathetic, appropriately so to Mr. Maurois; perhaps because it contains so many of his own words.

"A Private Universe" is the most recently personal book which Mr. Maurois has published. Large fragments from his diary are reprinted; his temperment and personality are exposed on every page. Here is the human, optimistic, romantic spirit; here is the humorous, the mildly ironic pen.