Coy

TWENTY-FIVE: Being a Young Man's Candid Recollections of his Elders and Betters -- Beverley Nichols--Doran ($2.50). Beverley Nichols is one of those beamish young men of whom England and the U. S. were so full in the early, hearty days of the English Speaking Union. A product of that downy nest of Britain's prime ministers, diplomats, barristers and wind-bags--the Oxford Union--he came to the U. S. on the British Universities Mission. Some impressions:

Of Nicholas Murray Butler: "My God, what a mind! . . . The epitome of the commonplace." Of the White House: "Like going to see a dentist." Of Woodrow Wilson: "Very clean. Immaculate. . . . He was like a dentist. Or a distinguished surgeon." Of William Howard Taft: "A sort of Pippa Passes spirit." Of Elihu Root: "'A veray parfit gentil knight."'

There is rather too much of Mr. Nichols' coy self, but he has travelled about a lot for his years. He reveals close-to: the generosity of "Jack" Pierpont Morgan; G. K. Chesterton's commanding little wife; elocutionary secrets of Great Living Statesmen; the witty Sit-wells (calling attention to Osbert's note in Who's Who: "Fought in Flanders and farmed with father") ; the misunderstood royalty of Greece; moony Poet W. B. Yeats; emotional Margot Asquith; wry Painter "Willie" Orpen; Georges Carpentier, Rudolph Valentino, H. L. Mencken, Michael Arlen, Elinor Glyn. . . .

His last line: "And was there not a man called Browning, who wrote:

'Grow old along with me, The best is yet to be'?"