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modern into the dress of the Middle
Ages. The spiritual adventure
of Mr. Fortune in the South Sea is
a comedy of perfected story telling.
The paradoxical and genial Chesterton 
has worked his magic spell
again in “The Return of Don 
Quixote.” He has returned to the 
manner of his “Man Who Was
Thursday,” “Manalive” and “Napoleon 
of Notting Hill.” He stages
a revolution against present-day industrial 
life by putting England
into Lincoln green. His robust humor, 
the spell of his fancy, make 
practical jokes of maternity and
bring love, chivalry, romance and
beauty to replace a hard and dirty
civilization. 

Virginia Woolf is the exponent of
the experimental fiction in England. 
Commanding a subtle and 
resilient style, she has carried her
experiment to the point of achievement. 
“To the Lighthouse” is a 
novel of more complex construction 
than the previous “Mrs. Dalloway.” 
Here the “stream of consciousness”
—of reverie—is employed
in an analysis of domestic psychology. 
Mrs. Woolf’s novels are written 
out of the intellect; for all her
versatile craft, she seems to have
reached the limitation of this 
method and still leaves something
to be desired. She stands as the 
chief figure of modernism in England 
and must be included with
Joyce and Proust in the realization
of experimental achievements that
have completely broken with tradition.

A posthumous novel by the late
Olive Schreiner has evoked the 
memory of her African protest.
From “Man to Man” was left unfinished 
by Olive Schreiner, but she
had been considering it and working 
on it for nearly fifty years. It
is the story of two sisters and sexual 
injustice. What with feminism
and modern life, it is already dated.
It is saved from being solely a thesis 
novel by the bitter sincerity and
ability to evoke memorable incidents 
in clearly shown pictures.
The difference in attitude is obvious 
when one turns to Pauline
Smith’s tale of Little Karoo. “The
Beadle” is a tale of imposed simplicity 
and compassionate feeling.
It projects the Boers as they never
have been done before—a homely,
kindly folk of simple fate, living
close to the soil. It tells a story of
youthful love, and the visiting 
stranger, that is free of protest and
moves with insight and understanding 
of character. It marks Miss
Smith as a young writer of potentiality 
and a fine performance.

Warwick Deeping in “Doomsday”
appears to be nothing more than a 
competent, popular novelist. W. B.
Maxwell continues to mix up modern 
life with Victorian sensibility
in novels where plot dominates the 
material. In “The Marionette” Edwin 
Muir has evoked fantasy in his
pathetic and precisely etched 
chronicle of the tragedy of a father
and son. Compton Mackenzie in
“Rogues and Vagabonds” turns
back to the nineteenth century and
writes of stage folks in a long, diffuse 
novel. It is something in the
manner of his earlier novels, but
strive as he may, the old spark and
fire of them is not here.
_______________

It is possible to find anything in 
New York—even a model to sit for
a portrait of the devil. That, at
least, is the verdict of Mahlon
Blaine, and he should know, for he
drew the devils which serve as decorations 
in “The Sorceror’s Apprentice,” 
by Hanns Heinz Ewers, published 
by the John Day Company.
One of Mr. Blaine’s models was a 
tax driver; another was a motion 
picture director; a third was a chef
in a spaghetti kitchen; a fourth
was the proprietor of a Greek restaurant, 
and a fifth was Mr. Blaine 
himself.