-heap of fiction by virtue of its intense sincerity and its
frequent flashes of fine descriptive writing. The question of sex
dominates it, and those of us who still think that such problems are
merely sustenance for the prurient-minded may cast it impatiently
aside. But others who like to watch a clever man feeling his way
towards the light, and regard a novel as neither a bait nor a bauble,
can be confidently advised to read it. They may be irritated, but they
will be intrigued.

* * * * *

On the cover of _One Woman's Hero_ (METHUEN) you will read that "This
book has been designed to cheer and strengthen those for whom, from
bereavement owing to the War, the days and nights are sometimes only
a procession of sad and torturing visions." Which of course disarms
criticism, other than what may be expressed in a question whether a
book less exclusively preoccupied by the War might not more surely
have attained this end. But again, of course, maybe it wouldn't. The
tale (for all our pretendings) is not yet written that can actually
bring oblivion to bereavement, so perhaps the next best thing is
topical chatter of the bright and unsentimental kind with which SYBIL
CAMPBELL LETHBRIDGE has filled her entertaining pages. Chatter is
the only term for it, though it is quite good of its style; the form
being a series of letters written to a friend by the young wife of a
soldier at the front. Her neighbours, their households and dinners and
affectations and courage, are what she writes about; especially do I
commend her handling of the "Let us Forget and Forgive" tribe. To all
such (and most of us know at least one) I should suggest the posting
of a copy of _One Woman's Hero_, with the page turned down (an act
permissible in so good a cause) at the report of the annihilation
of one of these well-intentioned but infuriating philosophers. The
combined logic and equity of this suggest that the Government might
do worse than commandeer the services of Miss LETHBRIDGE as a
dinner-table propagandist.

* * * * *

I think BEATRICE GRIMSHAW tortures overmuch her tough bronzed
Australian hero, who "could fight his weight in wild cats," and
her beautiful slender heroine, "daughter of castles, descendant of
crusaders." First the twain fall desperately in love, and _Edith_,
the Catholic, discovers _Ben_ to be an innocent _divorce_. Marriage
impossible, they part. But it is app