662 



The Review of Reviews. 



DISRAELI'S BROTHER. 



Sir Henry I.ucv, writing in Cornliill for June, 

 transcribes Irom his dairy in 1S90 entries which describe 

 a person Httle known to fame : — 



Fibnia)-}' II. — The House of Lords meeting to-day misses a 

 long-familiar presence. For many years there sat at the Table 

 a little old gentleman in wig and gown. When the House rose 

 the little old gentleman, divested of wig and gown, generally 

 walked across the corridors to the House of Comn.ons. 

 Unchallenged he passed the watchful doorkeepers, and, if 

 there was room, took his seat under the gallery, listening 

 awhile to the debate, and then went off to dinner. 



This was Mr. Disraeli, brother of the famous Conservative 

 Premier, whose influence secured him the comfortable berth he 

 has occupied for more than a generation as Clerk-assistant. He 

 drew a salary of ;^l,8oO a year, with an allowance of ^f 300 a 

 year for rent. Having now retired from office, he will have a 

 snug pension. 



Anyone more diametrically opposed to his brother in appear- 

 ance and manner could not be imagined. A quiet, retiring, 

 common-place old gentleman, he was admirably fitted for the 

 highly paid not mentally exhausting office he filled. Not 

 brilliant, he was always courteous. Many at Westminster will 

 regret this severance of a link with a name that will ever be 

 associated with Parliament and its history. 



THE EVOLUTION OF A DANCER. 



In the Pall Mall Magazine for June Miss Anna 

 Pavlova gives some pages from her Hfe. When she was 

 eight years old she was taken to the Marinsky Theatre 

 to see " The Sleeping Beauty," set to music of 

 Tchaikovsky. There and then the little girl resolved 

 that she would be a, ballerina — a title restricted offi- 

 cially to some five dancers in Russia. Driven by the 

 persistency of the child, her mother applied to a school 

 of dancing, and was informed that they could not take 

 any children until ten years of age. The child dreamed 

 through the two intervening years, and on her tenth 

 birthday applied for entrance to the school. She was 

 crazy with delight when the Director promised to give 

 her a place. The school was often visited by the 

 Emperor. When a little friend of hers was taken up 

 by the T.sar Alexander and kissed, Anna burst into 

 tears. The Grand Duke Vladimir tried to comfort her. 

 She said, " I want the Emperor to kiss me." 



PERSONAL INITIATIVE AND HARD WORK. 



One of the first tasks of the future dancer, she says, 

 is to learn how to jjalaricc herself on the tips of the 

 toes. Then the pupil learns a, variety of different steps. 

 Besides the classical ballet, numbers of national and 

 historical dances must be learnt. Success depends very 

 largely on personal initiative and hard work. Even a 

 successful ballerina, to preserve her technique, must 

 dance exercises every day, on the same principle as a 

 pianist plays scales. At the Imperial Ballet School the 

 history of dancing is now taught, and careful instruc- 

 tion is given in the art of make-up. 



A LIFE OF IRON SELF-CONTROL. 



The writer began her first foreign tour at Riga in 

 1907. Speaking of her visit to Stockholm, she says she 

 was greatly flattered by the King's receptioii and 

 decoration, but the homage of an enormous crowd 

 which accompanied her from the theatre to the hotel 



one night seemed to her still more charming. The v.riter 

 then rectifies a common mistake : — • 



Some people think the life of a d.incer is thoroughly frivolous. 

 In point of fact fri\'olity and dancing are imcompalible. If a 

 dancer lets herself go, if she does not exercise an iron control, 

 she cannot go on dancing. .She must sacrifice herself to her 

 art. If, as a result, she can make those who come to see her 

 forget the sorrows and weariness of life for a little, she has 

 her reward. 



WH.\T IS SLXCESS ? 



She says that the English public is exceedingly kind 

 and exceedingly impressionable. It has been a great 

 delight to her to find that the English show the 

 greatest appreciation of those dances which she loves 

 most herself, and in which she puts her whole self. 

 She adds : — 



Pe pie ask me why I do not marry. The answer is very 

 •simple. In my opinion the true artist must sacrifice herself to 

 her art. Like the nun, she cannot lead the life most women 

 desire. She cannot embarrass herself with the cares of a family 

 and of a household. She must not demand of life the peaceful 

 happiness of home and fireside wliicli most women enjoy. 



To follow, without halt, one aim ; there is the secret of 

 success. And success? What is it? I do not find it in the 

 applause of the theatre ; it lies rather in the satisfaction of 

 accomplishment. When I wandered among the pine trees in 

 childhood I thought that success was happiness. I was wrong. 

 Happiness is a butterfly, which charms for a moment and flies 

 away. 



A GIRL'S ATTEMPT ON ARARAT. 



Cornhill contains a charming girl's paper by Mary 

 Meinertzhagen, describing how she and her brother 

 went from the Caspian Sea in the hope of climbing 

 Ararat. This young English girl very vividly describes 

 both what she taw and what she felt in passing through 

 the Caucasus. She says : — 



Suddenly out of the dawn, Kazbek ! Beautiful Mount 

 Kazbek appeared, all rosy and glowing with the rising sun. 

 One by one the white crests of the mountains come bursting 

 out of the darkness until we can see the entire range stretching 

 along the southern horizon to Mount Elbruz, the dull while 

 masses standing out in sharp contrast to the clear and trans- 

 parent morning sky. They are angry savage mountains, and 

 do anything but smile down on you, and as we slowly cliirib up 

 the deep narrow gorge of the Terek we can say nothing to eacJi 

 other, we are so overawed with the endlessness of their beauty. 

 The incessant rattle of the swift and tawny Terek completely 

 drowns whatever sense of loneliness one might have in the midst 

 of this savage scenery. Today even at some 600 feet above the 

 gorge, the "clatter reached us of the river rolling on in its 

 irresistible mass down the valley. 



We climbed 5,000 feet up to the Kazbek Glacier, and sitting 

 on a great overhanging rock, an extraordinary unreasonable joy 

 came over me and I was filled with love and light. I w.as 

 changing every second from something minute and microscopic 

 to something huge and expansive, and then 1 was everything 

 and everybody. In fact I was in the world, and infinity was in 

 my hand. 



I am radiantly happy and simply love the universe. 



Evervone tried to dissuade her, and pictured the 

 perils of the way and the desperate character of the 

 Kurds. But she went on through the heterogeneous 

 people of the population and the changing landscape :— - 



The terrible storm, the dense blizzard and bitter blast that 

 W.1S blowing up at Sardar Bulakh the following morning, l.irced 

 us sorrowfully to retrace our ste])s down to the great plain 

 again, and to abandon all hope of perhaps reaching the summit 

 of the great mountain. 



