eem to me to be masterpieces of their kind. Personally my
choice would rest on the last, "The Thrush in the Hedge," a simple
history of how the voice of a young tramp was revealed by his chance
meeting with a blind and drug-sodden fiddler who had once played in
opera--a thing of such unforced art that its concluding pages, when
the discovery is put to a final test, shake the mind with apprehension
and hope. A writer who can make a short story do that comes near to
genius.

* * * * *

If you wish to play the now fashionable game of
newspaper-proprietor-baiting you can, with Miss ROSE MACAULAY, create
a possible but not actual figure like _Potter_ and, using it for
stalking-horse, duly point your moral; or, with Mr. W. L. GEORGE in
_Caliban_ (METHUEN), you can begin by mentioning all the well-known
figures in the journalistic world by way of easy camouflage, so as to
evade the law of libel, call your hero-villain _Bulmer_, attach to
him all the legends about actual newspaper kings, add some malicious
distortion to make them more exciting and impossible, and thoroughly
let yourself go. Good taste alone will decide which is the cleaner
sport, and good taste does not happen to be the fashion in certain
literary circles at the moment. Of course Mr. GEORGE, being a novelist
of some skill, has provided a background out of his imagination. The
most interesting episode, excellently conceived and worked out, is
the only unsuccessful passage in _Lord Bulmer's_ life, the wooing of
_Janet Willoughby_. The awkward thing for Mr. GEORGE is that he has so
splashed the yellow over _Bulmer_ in the office that there is no
use in his pretending that the _Bulmer_ in _Mrs. Willoughby's_
drawing-room is the same man in another mood. He just isn't.
Incidentally the author gives us the best defence of the saffron
school of journalism I've read--a defence that's a little too good
to believe; and some shrewd blows above (and, as I have hinted,
occasionally below) the belt.

* * * * *

I want to give the epithet "lush" to _The Breathless Moment_ (LANE),
and, although the dictionary asks me as far as in me lies to reserve
that adjective for grass, I really don't see why, just for once, I
shouldn't do what I like with it. Lush grass is generally long and
brightly coloured--"luxuriant and succulent," the dictionary says--and
that is exactly what MISS MURIEL HINE'S book is. She tells the