with a volume of such short tales, stories of situation, one gets too
familiar with the method--as, for example, in "The Folding Doors,"
where a lady's husband and lover had played out their scene before the
closed doors (with an alleged cut finger for the husband), and I
knew only too well in what state the flinging open of the doors would
reveal the lady herself. But perhaps I am exceptionally cursed in this
matter; and, anyhow, a volume that contains even one story so good as
"The Pond" is a thing for gratitude and rejoicing.

* * * * *

I may have been wrong in turning to a novel for mental relief; anyhow,
I have just come through one of the toughest bouts of relaxation I can
remember, and my only solace for the slight weariness of such repose
is the thought how much more tired the author, Mr. BASIL CREIGHTON,
must be. With such a hail-storm of metaphor and epigram constantly
dissolving in impalpable mist of mere words has he assaulted _The
History of an Attraction_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS) that the poor thing,
atomised, vaporised and analysed to the bone, lies limp and lifeless
between the covers, with hardly a decent rag of incident or story to
cover it. And there one might perhaps be content to let it rest, but
for the fact that _Anita_, the lady of the "Attraction," is worthy of
a better fate. The principal man of the book, who, after much wobbling
consideration, and in spite of his quite fortuitous marriage with some
one else in the meantime, discovers at last that he does love _Anita_,
is the merest peg on which to hang endless philosophisings; and so
is his impossible wife _Janet_ herself, the lady who, after having
accepted his dubious courtship for no particular reason, fortunately
deserts him without any better excuse, thus clearing the way for a
most decorous divorce and readjustment. Neither is the writer's inner