f labour-agitating and strike-backing is skilfully conveyed
(that of Oxford donship undoubtedly is), but I can't tell you how
antique it all seems. These scornful quotations from an imaginary
Capitalist press and the fierce denial that industrial strife was ever
assisted by foreign agencies--it all sounds like a voice from ancient
history. One rubs one's ears at it. Eventually militant Socialism
wearies _John_ as much as academic torpor had done, and to escape from
both he marries a wife. More atmosphere, this time of a dreary little
seaside town and its so-called society. But _John_ fares no better here;
and at last, on his return from a walking holiday, he finds that _Mrs.
John_, unable to put up with him any longer, is putting up without him
at a London hotel in company with Another. That seems a situation
insecure enough to satisfy the most exacting. But even from this nothing
results, and husband and wife drift together again. I like to think that
nowadays, what with Zeps and other things, poor old _John_ may grow
really contented. Meanwhile, clever as it is, the tale seems oddly
anaemic and unreal. It is like those tragically trivial journals of 1914
that still survive in the dusty waiting-rooms of dentists. I don't
suggest that Mr. BROWN, whose previous book I much admired, should write
about the War; but I could wish him a little more in tune with the
spirit it has produced.

* * * * *

_Faith Tresilion_ (WARD, LOCK) is a book of brave and of some diabolical
deeds, but as Mr. EDEN PHILLPOTTS sees to it that his murderers and
wreckers get their due he leaves me with the hopeful feeling that what
happened to super-criminals a hundred years or so ago will also be their
fate in this year of grace. _Faith_ is the type of heroine with whom
readers of this amazingly industrious author are familiar--a fearless
girl who does a man's work without for a moment becoming unsexed. She
was in a difficult position enough, for her brother was a smuggler and
she was in love, head to heels, with the local gangster. There are other
complications, but this is the chief one, and it is worked out in Mr.
_Phillpotts_' best West-country manner. I accept _Faith_ and salute her,
but it is before her mother that I completely bow the knee. Mrs.
_Tresilion_ was paralysed up to her waist, which was just as well, for
if her activities had not been limited she would have swamped the whole
book. As it was she lay