.)

During the past few years the plays and stories, especially
the stories, of ANTON TCHEHOV have so triumphantly captured
English-speaking readers that there must be many who will welcome with
eagerness the volume of his _Letters_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS). This happy
chance we owe, of course, directly to Mrs. CONSTANCE GARNETT, who here
proves once again that in her hands translation ranks as a fine art.
Both the _Letters_ and the Biographical Sketch that precedes them are
of extraordinary charm and interest. Because TCHEHOV'S stories are
so conspicuously uncoloured by the personality of their writer (his
method being, as it were, to lead the reader to a window of absolute
transparency and bid him look for himself), it comes almost as a shock
to find how vivid and many-hued that personality in fact was. Nor
is it less astonishing to observe a nature so alive with sympathy
expressing itself in an art so detached. More than once his letters to
literary friends are concerned with a defence of this method: "Let the
jury judge them; it's my job simply to show what sort of people they
are." They are filled also with a thousand instances of the author's
delight in nature, in country sights and scents, and of his love and
understanding for animals (from which of the Tales is it that one
recalls the dog being lifted into the cart "wearing a strained
smile"?) Throughout too, if you have already read the eight little
volumes that contain the stories--which I certainly advise as a
preliminary--you will be continually experiencing the pleasure of
recognising the inspiration for this or that remembered scene. In
short, one of the most fascinating books that has come my way for a
long time.

I needn't pretend that _Bed and Black_ (METHUEN), by GRACE S.
RICHMOND, is what is known to the superior as a serious work of art or
that the men (particularly) of her creating are what would be called
likely. But there's a sincerity about the writing which one has to
respect. Of her two heroes, _Red_ is _Redfield Pepper Burns_, the rude
and rugged doctor, and _Black_ is the _Rev. Robert McPherson Black_,
the perfect paragon of a padre in an American provincial town. The
author's main thesis is that padres are made of the right stuff.
_Black_, who was all for getting into the War from the beginning,
rushes off to Europe as chaplain with the first American drafts, gets
wounded, decorated and married. The conversion of _Red Pepper_, the
doctor, and