well. Thornt Jfe won't bear thinking about," says one of the characters of this Jbook; and it is a continent that must be echoed by the reader several times during the reading. For this latest novel from Mr. Maxwell old style of ruthless of more than usual interest, It has been written since Conrad's death, and will be published by Duckworth towards the end of the present month. So anxious were the publishers to avert any unnecessary delay in issuing the work that they ent the manuscript to the printer immediately on its receipt from the author. The contents of the volume must in consequence remain a mystery for the present, but it is understood that a mass of new material for the student of Conrad will be available.
The hope we entertained after reading "Spinster, of This Parish"
apparently, not to be fulfilled.
ince that delightful romance this the second book returning to the author's old manner. Te is as if in writing the Spinster he took a hol day, and tried his hand at painting life, preventing it in bright colours, but! was disappointed with such frivolity and has now returned to the serious vocation of photography his powerful lens record for us verisimilitudes in herb defiltion of black and white, 'The favourite, hobby of Mr. Alec' Waugh, author of "The Loom of Youth," is cricket, During the last few weeks, however, Mr. Waugh} hae been scorning delights—including ericket—and living laborious days, He is engaged upon a new novel which Grant Richards will publish early next year, and, in order to be free from' the' dis-true tions of the town, he has taken room in an inn Giles, where he is his Titerary labours undisturbed. The novel, he tells me, will deal teamly with post-war conditions London, and the period will over! the (we years 1928 and 1924, "The Scots Magazine" for Oct ber, which ix the first art of new "volume, is as into sting as usual. An article by David, Mac-Ritchie, "The Beginnings of the Britivh Navy," will be read interest, 'There is an article by John Wight on the. "Buchan and Aberdeenshire Dialect," and "The play by Lain Cameron, being' a satire on Glas-ow noviety, will be read with much interest and amusement by those who know Glasgow. Those, and other articles make the number a very readable one. to make dull rending, being gener:
jographies of bishops are apt
thy overlouded. With ecslesisrea deta of inherent only to the pert. "The recollections, of" Di. Tunilt Walefil, who recently signed the Bishopric' of Biraingfam, will almost certainly. be. exception to the rule. Dr. Wake-fie is broadminded ecclesiastic wwno has. touched. life "at mang fants aod Se cee coe friends some of the most dis-ied_-men and women of time, When a London! vicar he was keenly. interested, in rounieipal polities and on two! vecusions filled the office Mayor of Marylebone. A keen} student of the theatre, he was at one time rarely absent from any important first night in the West-id, and he was written on the sub-tot Sliahespearean drama, The The predominating character of this novel is a personality with attraeting the minds and hearts of men and women, especially women. So otherwise convincingly expose But of his unpleasant attributes fare left in no doubt whatever. His unattractive manner in all his dealings with people is over-stressed throughout the book. Women, we are told, have no attraction for him, sexually, He just uses them to got money and help for his rel mission.
To this end he marries Elaine, waurs her down to agree to it, order that she may help him his work in the East end of London. It is upon the understanding that it is to be a ma only. When the mi revulsion of footing with regard to their pact cornies, his lustful persecution of his wife is set forth in auch ugly detail that it must completely annihilate any remnant sympathy that any reader may have been able to cling to, up to the time of this horrible episode It in trae, devastatingly true, to the character as drawn. But it" serves only to convince us of what we have hitherto suspected, that the man is of a low moral type, utterly unfit for the work he is sup: posed to perform. -It is [mpossibe, after, this, to believe in the." bility" (though we are assured of it) of any of his subsequent a:- tions.
A great deal of ente has bee:
ikon by the author in the expo on of this unpleasant character, and one ins a feeling.at the end of the reading that he is interested only in the unpleasant. The only other outstanding personality is hat of @ young suburban woman addicted to drink. The pleasant, folk, such as Elaine and her foster-mother, are shown blurred, out of focus, and no care has been expend-fed in their development. Also it is to be toted that there is no touch of humour la the book. The pictures of the East end of London show nothing. of "that Cockney brightness which snakes the" drab
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.