g ones. Her heroine represents the
too-much-sheltered girl alone in an elderly circle, her hero the
lonely young man who has no means of getting to know people of his own
sort (I can't say class, because the authoress seems rather uncertain
about that herself). Her story is written in alternate instalments by
"the boy" and "the girl," a method which encourages intimacy in the
telling as well as a sort of gushing attention to the reader not so
pleasant. Miss NORA SCHLEGEL has drawn a pretty picture of _Julia_ and
_Jack_ to adorn the wrapper, and I can assure everyone who cares to
know it that they are just as nice as they look; _Jack's_ passion for
abbreviation ("rhodos" for rhododendrons) being the only ground of
quarrel I have with them or their creator.

***

In _Passion_ (DUCKWORTH) Mr. SHAW DESMOND desperately wants to
say something terrific about love, money and power. His violence makes
one feel that one is reading under a shower of brickbats, and it is
the effort of dodging these which perhaps distracts the mind from his
message. (Is he a Marinettist, I wonder?) There are not enough words
in the language for him, so he invents fresh ones at will; while as
for grammar and syntax he passionately throttled them in Chapter I.;
nor did they recover. I will own that notwithstanding all this the
author has a way of making you read on to find out what it is all
about. You don't find out; but there, life's like that, isn't it? The
author's ideas of the operations of high finance are ingenuous. The
_Mandrill_ (do I rightly guess this to be a portrait distorted from
the life?), who is out to corner copper and "do down" the _Squid_
(head of the opposing copper group), is, if you are to judge by his
passionate exuberance at board meetings, about as likely to corner the
green cheese in the moon. I imagine the author saying, "_Mandrills_
mayn't be like that, but that's how I see 'em. It's my vision and mood
that matter. Take it or leave it." Well, on the whole I should advise
you to take it, first putting on a sort of mental tin hat. You'll at
least have gathered that Mr. DESMOND is a lively writer.

***

Of a war-story reviewed in these pages some months ago I remember
taking occasion to say that the author had damaged his effect by a too
obvious wish to injure the reputation of a certain cavalry brigade
(or words to that effect). Well, a book that I have just been
reading, _The Squadroon_ (LANE), might in s