... servility towards the toffs who take his social educa tion in hand but an eagerness to learn their customs of behaviour and to speak proper. All this conveyed with that engaging quality which is Mr. Steele's particular gift to the theatre. Arthur Kipps is ...

... the Spanish Ambassador described this artist as one of the best (he may even have said greatest) in Spain it is my duty to speak up and contradict him. Durancamps is at best a sort of third-rate Frank Brangwyn, at worst a painter of the kind of furnishing ...

... bought them for well over thirty years, during our married life, in which work and leisure have been synonymous. When we speak of The Impressionists we are inclined to think only of the handful of great ones and to forget the many very good painters ...

... choices of word: sanguine, for instance, hasn't the same meaning as sanguinary, and British Am bassadors are unlikely to speak of being given jolly old what-for, but these must be very minor slips in a book of these dimensions and, I would say, sincerity ...