or with
puritanical prejudices and the mind of a sparrow. He and his rather
futile wife were enough to make anyone rebellious; but too much irony is
spent upon them, and it would have been less difficult to sympathise
with _Philip_ if his parents' point of view had been more fairly stated.
After many domestic frictions the son rushes away from London and lives
a Bohemian life (extremely well described) on the Continent, until he
marries a delightful and penniless wife. All the marks for charm go to
_Athenee_, unless a few of them can be spared for their child, _Blaise_,
who had, or so it seems to me, great trouble in thrusting his way upon
the scenes. _Philip_ and _Athenee_ were going to do great things for
their son, but unfortunately both of them were killed while he was still
a little child, and he had to be retrieved to the bosom of the _Brown_
family. The change from freedom to rigorous conventionality did not suit
poor _Blaise_, and I could not be very sorry when he annoyed most of the
_Browns_ by catching measles and petrified all of them by not
recovering. Still, he lived long enough to get his name into the title,
though this, I feel, was a bit of favouritism.

* * * * *

_The Way Home_, by BASIL KING (METHUEN), describes the spiritual
wanderings of a New Yorker, _Charlie Grace_, destined for the ministry;
rejecting it, because of his disillusionment through the practice of the
professing Christians about him, in favour of a hunt for the money which
alone he finds can earn respect; adopting in business the inverted
Christian motto, "Down the other fellow before he downs you"; drifting
in and out of loves clean and sordid; and finally, broken in health,
discovering the way, through the bitterness of a deeper disillusionment,
back to an estranged wife; and yet another way to somewhere near the
faith of his childhood and the peace of resignation. Barely is so
serious a theme treated by a novelist with such simplicity, sincerity
and eloquent reticence. Nobody need fear the dulness known as "pi-jaw."
The story is full of interest. The characterisation, extraordinarily
careful and balanced, is conveyed not only in description but in the
cleverly-constructed dialogue. It is part of the author's skill to
represent _Hilda_, _Charlie's_ wife, with her charming reserve and
dignity, as not a little difficult and exacting, and so to divide our
sympathies fairly between the two. There are many