"Sruxex."—By, Olive Moore, Jarvolds, Ltd, London.
Spleen is a tale of trifle less coordinated than its heroine, a Indy [whose mental aberrations concerning potential child and its subsequent birth cause her to uproot herself from her family, friends, and luxury ious mode of living, and go to a Mediterranian island where she lives among peasants and farmers for twenty two years. During that time she makes no serious effort to become one of them but is content to sit and watch them from the sidelines, contrasting them with certain Hellenic figures. The child, incidentally, is deformed and muga. There is one vivid incident in the story wherein the mother comes suddenly upon the child and hears him laugh hideously and madly. [She stands before him and mocks m, laughing as insanely as the child, In that instance only does he give signa of distinguishing her apart from the other figures of ry. That episode, while disturbingly uglier than the remainder of those contained within the lady's life, is indicative of her trend of thought, which fills the greater portion of her days and nights somewhat as follows:
"She smiled thinking of what. Minos must have said on being pre: sented "with the. Infant sinotatvos wife had woods of his of Crete, iidand_ milk-white bul across the At the ere Raunches and tufted hin and' hsien for the sound of his shepherd's pipe, And Hero, that malignant and much: tried "sister spouse of Zeus. What were her thoughts when the infant centaur burst from that, clow fashioned to deceive the" lovelorn And so on. The book is written poetically, vividly, and bewildering ly, Tangled within tke meshes of classical illusions and the heroine's illusions there breaths the whisper of a plot which dies away scarcely before it makes itself heard. It is of without merit for those who are interested in any' of: the many symptoms and results of mania— ata, perial Library is intended exclusi ly for Protectorates and Crown Colonies. If Great, Britaiv's solfgoverning possessions have 39 legislation affecting' the question, the word Dominions might'be added with advantage—F.LP,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.