t to get at grips with the
problems of real life, forgetting (as few authors can) the fictionists
who went before him. In _Was It Worth While?_ he seems to have
thought, for a change, of almost nothing else. The book is a weird
salad of remembered scenes, an olla podrida of episodes we wish we
could forget. It would be wasting time and space indeed to attempt
synopsis of Mr. Brett's astounding tale--for it is not a novel, however
one define that vaguest of all literary products. By lumping together
the worst and cheapest portion of all the bad and clap-trap tales which
have seen light since printing was unhappily invented, one may arrive
at a far better notion of this book than can be gained by wading
through its crowded pages. The process, let us add, is also less
fatiguing.

"But this is where Mr. Brett has done us, we repeat, a service. _Was
It Worth While?_ (the name alone is symptomatic) has all the qualities
of its successful predecessors: the well-worn types, that call for no
brain-effort after work; the utterly untrammelled sentiment; the
shapeless slices of religion: he has put into his salad all the right
ingredients, except one, which he, less lucky than the other cooks, did
not possess. And that ingredient, we now believe, is no less than
sincerity. The other writers have done this sort of thing well,
because they could do no better; and whilst the large public applauded,
we have pitied. Mr. Brett has done this sort of thing, although he can
do better; and whilst the public will see through him, we despise his
effort. Into his motives it would be impertinent to enquire. Perhaps,
after all, the book is a mere literary squib. Mr. Brett, it well may
be, has no desire to gull the public into a belief in his weak
sentiment and crude religion: he wishes to deride those qualities in
others. If so, we congratulate and thank him once again: we understand
at last the essential quality (and it is, we confess, a fine one) in
the Library big-seller. On any other ground, however, it certainly was
not _Worth While_."

Helena did not dare to read all down the column. She read the last
words and she bit her lips to keep back tears of which she was ashamed.
She knew that it was true--and she hated, loathed the man or woman who
had written it. She would give anything, all she possessed, all that
poor Hubert had thought he would make from the horrid book, to spare
him this review: to shield him from the pain