Curzon

Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.

THE LIFE OF LORD CURZON. BY THE RT. HON. THE EARL OF RONALDSHAY. London: Benn. New York: Horace Liveright. 3 vols. 1928.

WE live today in an age of catch-words and the edges of our daily awareness are blunted to uniformity. We employ these slogans with democratic indolence, scarcely realizing that they possess an affective quality which disturbs our reason. "Imperialist" we say, not pausing to consider what we mean by the expression, too lazy even to discount the depreciatory effect which the word produces. "Reactionary" we say again, confident that we are implying something discreditable, confident that progress is good absolutely, that to be retrograde is absolutely to be bad. Such habits of thought and expression are perhaps inevitable: we are too busy, in this lively world of ours, to resist the temptation of verbal fore-shortening, to struggle against the intellectual label. At times, however, something occurs to arrest our attention: these familiar words, with their trite emotional connections, are by some sudden alteration of lighting, thrown into relief: we see them with fresh eyes, we are bewildered by the altered angle of familiarity, even as we are puzzled for a moment by an envelope which we have addressed to ourselves. "Imperialist" we again murmur, and the word detaches itself from its background; it becomes the symbol of something wider and deeper; it awakes enquiry; it makes us pause and think...