A Gentleman of the Old School

Long Shadows, by Shane Leslie. British Book Centre, $9.00

Like Nelson’s column and the sentries outside St. James’ Palace, Sir Shane Leslie, striding along in his kilt and with his tall stick, has long been one of the sights of London. He carried with him, I always felt, an echo of the past and of Ireland, of more robust times and places. He once (when already in his mid-seventies) kissed my secretary on the steps of our office. Being a sensible girl, she was delighted. He has now written a very characteristic volume of reminiscences, Long Shadows. Unkind critics might say it was mere formless anecdotage. Wiser men will welcome and relish it for what it is: uninhibited and extremely entertaining conversation of an Irish gentleman whose birth and background gave him admission to the best company of his time, whose energy and warm heart gave him a boundless interest in places and people, and whose deliberately chosen faith made him a _ staunch, though not unamused, champion of the Catholic Church. To listen to him is both a pleasure and an education. The mood of his life story was set at the very beginning. He was baptized eighty-one years ago “by our fat and amorous Chaplain, Canon John Hudson, who once fell into our fountain on the way to church, enticed it was supposed by a naked nymph, as pictured in the Family Scrapbook.” As children, the young Leslies were threatened by their father that, if they misbehaved, he would have them made into bishops when they grew up—‘“at which chastening thought we always burst into tears and promised to be good.”

AL

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Anthony Lejeune

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Long Shadows, by Shane Leslie. British Book Centre, $9.00

Like Nelson’s column and the sentries outside St. James’ Palace, Sir Shane Leslie, striding along in his kilt and with his tall stick, has long been one of the sights of London. He carried with him, I always felt, an echo of the past and of Ireland, of more robust times and places. He once (when already in his mid-seventies) kissed my secretary on the steps of our office. Being a sensible girl, she was delighted. He has now written a very characteristic volume of reminiscences, Long Shadows. Unkind critics might say it was mere formless anecdotage. Wiser men will welcome and relish it for what it is: uninhibited and extremely entertaining conversation of an Irish gentleman whose birth and background gave him admission to the best company of his time, whose energy and warm heart gave him a boundless interest in places and people, and whose deliberately chosen faith made him a _ staunch, though not unamused, champion of the Catholic Church. To listen to him is both a pleasure and an education. The mood of his life story was set at the very beginning. He was baptized eighty-one years ago “by our fat and amorous Chaplain, Canon John Hudson, who once fell into our fountain on the way to church, enticed it was supposed by a naked nymph, as pictured in the Family Scrapbook.” As children, the young Leslies were threatened by their father that, if they misbehaved, he would have them made into bishops when they grew up—‘“at which chastening thought we always burst into tears and promised to be good.”