audience need desire. I wish I could explain how the DUKE plays with his
enemies, and finally--but no, I said I wouldn't, and I will keep my word.
Two little carpings, however. Surely it is wrong to speak of "catch
half-penny" journalism in the time of WELLINGTON. My impression is that the
journalists of those days caught at least fourpence by their wares. And I
confess to an emotion of disappointment when the heroine bounced up at the
court-martial and said that the hero couldn't have committed the murder
because he was "in her arms" at the time. Of course he hadn't been; and I
very much doubt whether any Court would have believed her for two minutes.
But leading ladies love saying it, so I suppose the very out-worn device
will have to be retained in the stage version. I look forward to this with
much pleasure.

* * * * *

That clever lady, ELINOR MORDAUNT, has collected into the volume that she
calls _Before Midnight_ (CASSELL) a series of short stories of a psychic
(though not always ghostly) character, which, while not very eerie, or on
the same high level, are at their best both original and impressive. The
first of them, which affords excuse for a highly-intriguing cover-picture,
is at once the most spooksome and the least satisfactory. That is to say
that, though it opens with a genuine and quite horrible thrill, the
"explanation" is obscure and tame. Far more successful, to my mind, is "The
Vision," a delicate little idyll of a Midland schoolmarm, to whom is shown
the death of Adonis and the lamenting of his goddess-lover. The writing of
this touches real beauty (the high-fantastic, instead of the merely
high-falutin', which in such connection would have been so fatally easy).
To sum up, though one at least of these "dreams before midnight" may quite
possibly become a nightmare after it, I fancy that, to all lovers of the
occult, the game will be found well worth the bed-room candle.