elder woman, noted for a great reader of books. And after
many days, and after (I suppose) much fruitless toil on the part of my
friend, the volume was returned to me with this single comment, "It
seems very racily written." I tell you the story, which being true is
without point, because I have been wondering what the same critic would
have found to say about another slender booklet called _The Word of
Teregor_ (Nisbet). My idea of it is that Mr. Guy Ridley, the author,
knows and admires his Kipling and delights in his Maeterlinck to such
extent that (possibly after a visit to _The Blue Bird_) he felt himself
inspired to sit down and write these Forest-Jungle-Book tales of an
earlier world, wherein Man and Beast and all created things were subject
to the benevolent rule of _Teregor_, the Oak-tree; when everything
living had a voice and used it, pleasantly enough, in rather mannered
prose of the "Yea, Nay and Behold" type; and when all the old legends
had yet to be started in ways of which Mr. Ridley gives his own most
original explanations. So if you care about this kind of thing (and I
had quite a pleasant half-hour from it myself) get it. You will at least
find here a book entirely different from anything else in the
library-box; printed in type that is a pleasure to the eye, and having,
moreover, the classic excuse of being a very little one.

* * * * *

I have for some time watched a steady improvement in the work of Mr.
Ralph Straus. It is therefore a pleasure to greet _The Orley Tradition_
(Methuen) as his best yet. The _Orley_ tradition was to do nothing
whatever, and, like the House of Lords in _Iolanthe_, to do it very
well. They were, as a family, noble, of ancient lineage, and fine
stupidity. _John Orley_, the hero of the tale, starts out to follow
worthily in the footsteps of his race, as a brainless but agreeable
country magnate. Then comes an accident, which thwarts his physical
ambitions and awakens his mental. Thereafter he essays the life of
affairs--and fails all round; is defeated for Parliament, and equally
worsted in the lists of Art. So, being now recovered of his hurt, he
says a graceful farewell to the career intellectual and resumes the
traditional _Orley_ existence. This, in brief, is his story; but I give
it without the pleasant style of Mr. Straus's telling. There are many
very happily touched scenes; more especially had I a guilty sympathy
roused by one in w