these she flounders awkwardly, and especially when she describes the Poorer Classes. Lacking a broad scope, she could find salvation in technical variety, but in her second volume she seems to strive for that no longer.
To read her first book was to make a voyage of adventure, or maybe even to open Chapman's Homer. She had borrowed a little from her English contemporaries, but not enough so that one could identify her sources. She had borrowed a great deal from Chekhov, but her characters were other and more familiar. In general the stories were her own experiments and successful experiments; that is why it was exhilarating to read them. One did not quite know what she would write next. . . . The Garden Party has answered that question. It is almost as good as Bliss, but not much different; from Katherine Mansfield it is immensely disappointing.
