BRIEFER MENTION
The Worldings, by Leonard Merrick (8vo, 334 pages; Dutton), would not bear reprinting except in this complete uniform edition of the author, of which it is the sixth volume to be issued. It is best-seller stuff—a commonplace yarn of financial intrigue, almost devoid of the Merrick grace and humour. Neil Munro's introduction, a little more discerning than the description on the jacket, will make it no more palatable to the Merrick taste.
Souls Divided, by Matilde Serao (12mo, 298 pages; Brentano), is probably a better novel than the translator has managed to project, yet even with this allowance its theme and substance tend toward emotional futility. The story of a "sudden, fantastical, and absurd love" is developed through a man's letters; but there is a lack of subtlety and stamina in the performance.
The Professor's Love-Life: Letters of Ronsby Maldclewith (12mo, 182 pages; Macmillan) is a group of letters made public at the wish of a woman of the old South who died some years ago. They express with a simplicity rarer than their theme the courage and the devotion of the young man who, because of poverty and ill health and a quixotic regard for the conventionalities, is unable to marry the girl he loves.
The Rolling Stone, by C. A. Dawson-Scott (12mo, 383 pages; Knopf). "You wanted what other men wanted; not for its own sake, but because they wanted it. And you wanted it just as long as you had to fight in order to keep it." That is the spirit which animates the hero of this deftly handled narrative.
The Blower of Bubbles, by Arthur Beverley Baxter (12mo, 338 pages; Appleton), is a collection of short stories of love and adventure with the war as a background. They are whimsically written. But the regularity with which the various characters undergo a metamorphosis under the stimulus of the patriotic impulse becomes wearisome.
