s_ hopeless married life is spent--all these and more
are realised with an art that is almost devastating in its unforced
effect. Sometimes I hoped that such universal drabness was too bad to be
true; one caught touches of manipulation, times in which these poor
_Captives_ seemed bound less by the chains of circumstance than by the
wires of Mr. WALPOLE. The queer result was that I found myself believing
in his compellingly human characters, but protesting that such unbroken
misfortune could not, or need not, have encompassed them. To take an
example, when _Maggie's_ "tipsy" uncle was shown into the Vicarage
drawing-room on her "At Home day," no other guests had yet arrived.
Surely therefore (save for peremptory orders from Mr. WALPOLE) she might
somehow have removed the culprit to another room, or at least denied
herself to subsequent callers, who included (of course) the most
influential and scandal-mongering of the parish ladies. That is the kind
of rather piled-up agony that made me suspect Mr. WALPOLE of letting his
fortitude get at times the better of his commonsense. But he has written
a big book.

* * * * *

Mr. E. F. BENSON, of whom it might justly be said that he produces not
books but libraries (and the quality of his output under these
circumstances remains for me amongst the literary wonders of the age),
has been at it again. Hardly have I finished laughing over _Queen
Lucia_, when I find him claiming a wholly different interest with a
volume of personal recollections called _Our Family Affairs_ (CASSELL).
By its theme and treatment this is work standing naturally a little
outside criticism; but I can say at once that Mr. BENSON has never
written with a more sympathetic charm than in these pictures of the
childhood of himself and his sister and brothers; of the various
scholastic and ecclesiastical homes to which the increasing dignities of
that rather alarming parent, the Archbishop, transported his family; and
(quite the best and most attractive portrait in the collection) of the
mother whom all of them united to adore. There is an actual photograph
of her here, taken at the age of twenty, which goes far to explain how
she came to be the heroine of the story; the lurking gaiety and laughter
of it quaintly foretelling the great ecclesiastical lady who, on one
occasion when the Archbishop was absent, could announce to her
enraptured children that family prayers should be remit