to reflect how Mr. THOMAS HARDY, to
whose plots the present bears some resemblance, might have handled it. Had
_Lewis Seymour_ pursued his education in womanhood under the guidance of
the wizard of Dorchester there would probably have been less of the
atmosphere of holiday humour; but, on the other hand, we should almost
certainly have been spared the quite superfluous naughtiness of the
Parisian scenes. By the way, talking of Paris, surely I am right in
supposing that the vision of a revived Versailles was an experience of two
ladies? It is unexpected to find Mr. MOORE denying anything to "the sex."

* * * * *

Of the late Mr. JACK LONDON'S alternative methods of writing, the defiantly
propagandist and the joyously adventurous, I, being an average reader, have
always preferred the latter; so that, remembering how separate and distinct
he usually kept his two styles, I expected, in taking up _The Strength of
the Strong_ (MILLS AND BOON), to be immediately either disappointed or
gratified. But, as it turns out, the half-dozen essay-stories that make up
this slender volume are by no means characteristic, for there is very
little plot in any, and even less attempt forcibly to extract a moral; and
amongst them are two not very successful North of Ireland studies that seem
to have no connection at all with the author's usual manner. The volume is
made up of social pictures, all (as Mr. LONDON liked to pretend) within his
own experience, presented impartially for you to study, and draw, if you
choose, your own conclusions. That experience ranges, comprehensively
enough, from a first-hand sketch of primeval man attempting rather
unhappily to group himself in clans and tribes, to a journalistic note of
the Yellow Peril that materialised, we learn, somewhere late in the
twentieth century and was overcome by science liberating disease--a Hunnish
method no longer novel. Of the series I like best the tale of the San
Francisco professor of dual personality, who by dint of much practical
study of labour problems came at last to cut loose from his own circle and
disappear in the army of industry. In this chapter alone is there a spark
of the volcanic fire, now unhappily no longer in eruption, that blazes in
such great stories as _The Sea Wolf_, _Adventure_ and _Burning Daylight_.

* * * * *

Though there may be no very particular reason why you should be invited to
read _