to the whole setting. There are two letters from an older bishop to
_Dr. Scrope_, the one, yieldingly tolerant, to dissuade him from
resignation, the other, written after the accomplished fact, with
touches of exquisitely restrained yet palpable malice, which strike
me as masterly projections. Mr. WELLS also contrives a wonderful
impressiveness in certain passages of the bishop's three visions. But
I can't, even after careful re-reading, see the point of making the
bishop's enlightenment depend upon a mysterious drug. This has an
effect of impishness. There is nothing in _Dr. Scrope's_ development
that might not have taken place without this fantastic assistance....
I suppose the general suggestion of this rather wayward and hasty but
conspicuously sincere book is, that if only an occasional bishop would
secede it would make it easier for the plain man to listen to the
rest. And there may be something in this.

To those who are in love with Mr. W.J. LOCKE'S incurable romanticism
or who have a taste for heroines that "stiffen in a sudden stroke
of passion looking for the instant electrically beautiful," let me
commend _The Red Planet_ (LANE). As a matter of fact _Betty_, the
heroine, is quite a dear, and the narrator, _Major Meredyth_, a maimed
hero of the Boer War, who looks at this one from the tragic angle of
an invalid chair, is, apart from a habit of petulant and not very
profound grousing at Governments in _The Daily Rail_ manner, a sport
who thoroughly deserves the reward of poor widowed _Betty's_ hand
on the last page but one. Perhaps he does not show a very ready
understanding of the phenomenon of physical cowardice in the case of a
brother-officer, though later he makes amends. But I take it that it
was Mr. LOCKE'S idea to present a very ordinary decent sort with the
common man's prejudices and frank distrust of subtleties. A sinister
mystery of love, death and blackmail runs, a turbid undercurrent,