FISHER UNWIN). Even now I can't make up my mind whether I like it or
not. The first half, which might be called a satire on the folly of
being forty and not realising it, depressed me profoundly. I need not
perhaps enlarge upon the reason. Later, Mr. BENSON made a very clever
return upon the theme; and, with a touch of real beauty, brought
solace to poor _Mr. Teddy_ and consolation to the middle-aged reader.
I need give you only a slight indication of the plot, which is
simplicity itself. Into the self-contained little community of a
provincial society, where to have once been young is to retain a
courtesy title to perpetual youth, there arrives suddenly the genuine
article, a boy and girl still in the springtime of life, by contrast
with whom the preserved immaturity of _Mr. Teddy_ and his partner,
_Miss Daisy_, is shown for an artificial substitute. Baldly stated,
the thesis sounds cynical and a little cruel; actually, however,
you will here find Mr. BENSON in a kindlier mood than he sometimes
consents to indulge. He displays, indeed, more than a little fondness
for his disillusioned hero; the fine spirit with which _Mr. Teddy_
faces at last the inevitable is a sure proof of the author's sympathy.

* * * * *

You will hardly have traversed the passages of our underground railway
system without being hurriedly aware in passing of a picture in reds
and browns, representing a faun-like figure piping to an audience of
three rather self-conscious rabbits. This pleasing group does not
portray an actual scene from _Autumn_ (LANE), but is rather to be
taken as symbolic of the atmosphere of Miss MURIEL HINE'S latest book.
The faun, I imagine, stands for _Rollo_, the middle-aged lover of the
country, into whose happy life other, more human, loves break with
such devastation. What the rabbits mean is a more difficult problem. I
jest; but as a matter of fact I should be the first to admit that Miss
HINE has written a story that, despite a certain crudity of colouring,
is both unconventional and alive. The attitude of the characters
towards their parents, for example, is at least original. _Deirdre_,
the heroine, frankly despised her mother, to whom she owed a marriage
with the man whom she hated. The gift of a country cottage enabled
her to escape from him to rabbits (figurative) and the simpler life.
There, however, she fell in with _Rollo_, who loved her at sight,
and whose daughter, _Hyacinth_,