Through Wood and Dale by James Lees-Milne
This volume of JL-M's incomparable diaries sees him cope with publication of the earliest two, Ancestral Voices and Prophesying Peace. Most friends are amused and delighted, a few claim to be mortified. Even comparisons with Pepys, however, can scarcely calm the author's misgivings. Old age too appears among the characters. 'It is a little sad,' says Harold Acton, 'having to pay even for affection on top of everything else. But what can we expect at our age, my dear? 'Friends' deaths grow frequent, but perhaps death is to be preferred. 'Extreme old age is an extremely melancholy business,' Bloggs Baldwin says before his wife's funeral, 'I have given a few broad hints to the Almighty. Whether he will heed them is another matter.' These diaries like the others are full of surprises. Over dinner, Winston Churchill re-enacts the battle of Jutland with wine glasses and decanters, puffing cigar smoke to represent the guns. Anthony Powell admits an attraction to girls who look as if they might have slept out for a week, perhaps under a hedge. The old Princess Royal's helpless laughter is quenched by her maid, who hurriedly reads random verses from the Bible. Nor is JL-M's eye less sharp as he observes Bob Boothby's pleasure in describing the drawbacks of fame, or Graham Sutherland's fear of being too gracious to the undeserving. Logan Pearsall Smith once wrote that we need a little malice to prevent our affection for those we love from becoming flat. These diaries perfectly illustrate that truth.
James Lees-Milne, who died in December 1997, wrote several biographies as well as his classic evocation of his youth, Another Self, and memoirs of People and Places and Fourteen Friends. His previous volumes of diaries were Ancestral Voices, Prophesying Peace, Caves of Ice, Midway on the Waves, A Mingled Measure and Ancient as the Hills. A new volume, Deep Romantic Chasm: Diaries 1979-1981, has recently been published.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780719562013 |
| ISBN 10 | 0719562015 |
| Title | Through Wood and Dale |
| Author | James Lees-Milne |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | John Murray Press |
| Year published | 2001-03-08 |
| Number of pages | 331 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |