FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   >>  
) might have brought off their _Paul_. As a matter of fact, so I believe could Mr. LOCKE; that is just the pity of it. I merely record the fact that he has not done so. * * * * * There are, of course, short stories and short stories. On a perusal of those that Mr. RICHARD DEHAN has collected in volume form under the title of _The Cost of Wings_ (HEINEMANN), I am bound to record my conviction that most of them are profoundly unworthy of the author of _The Dop Doctor_. Few of them even aspire to anything beyond "first serial" quality; and though there is often present a certain easy flippancy of phrase it impressed me only as the crackling of thorns in a pot-boiler. Perhaps the best is the first or title tale, which tells of a young wife goaded to hard words by her constant anxiety for an aviator-husband. There is some genuine feeling here; but the climax, in which the pair decide only to fly in company, was dangerously like the end of a stage duologue. Moreover, so swift now-a-days is the flight of time--or the time of flight--that aviation stories very soon come to sound antiquated. Still, after all, there is at least plenty of variety in this volume, and it will be hard if, in a collection of twenty-six brief tales, you do not come upon something to your individual taste. But one word of gentle protest. I fancy the stage has at last agreed upon a close time for supposed infants, against whose arrival from India nurses and rocking-horses are engaged, and who turn out on appearance to be young persons of mature years. Well, I am convinced that it is high time for a similar prohibition in fiction. Mr. DEHAN at least has proved himself far too clever for me to tolerate this threadbare theme, not very illuminatingly treated, from his valuable pen. * * * * * _Mr. Anthony Venning_ was a young man of remarkable tact. Taking advantage of his position as a consultant engineer, at the beginning of _The Sentence Absolute_ (NISBET), he pocketed an advance commission for recommending the tender of a certain firm of contractors to the Welsh mill-owner who was employing his professional services. Whether this practice is common amongst engineers, as the authoress would seem to suggest, I cannot say, but at any rate it was hardly to be expected in the circumstances that _Mr. Venning_ should not fall in love with _Mr. Powell's_ extremely beautiful daughter, or that the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   >>  



Top keywords:
stories
 

flight

 

Venning

 
record
 

volume

 
proved
 

similar

 

gentle

 

prohibition

 

fiction


protest

 
threadbare
 

individual

 

tolerate

 

clever

 

rocking

 

illuminatingly

 

horses

 

nurses

 
infants

arrival

 

supposed

 
engaged
 

agreed

 

mature

 

persons

 

appearance

 
convinced
 

Taking

 
suggest

authoress

 

engineers

 

Whether

 

services

 
practice
 

common

 

Powell

 
extremely
 

beautiful

 

daughter


expected

 
circumstances
 

professional

 

employing

 

position

 

advantage

 

consultant

 

engineer

 

beginning

 

valuable