o facilitate respiration, and kissed her
"little feet." She honestly thought herself the victim of a satyr; but,
though she was a widow, with several years of marriage behind her, she had
been quite mistaken on this point. You see, she was English.

* * * * *

"His Hour" is a sexual novel. It is magnificently sexual. My quotations,
of course, do less than justice to it, but I think I have made clear the
simple and highly courageous plot. Gritzko desired Tamara with the extreme
of amorous passion, and in order to win her entirely he allowed her to
believe that he had raped her. She, being an English widow, moving in the
most refined circles, naturally regarded the outrage as an imperious
reason for accepting his hand. That is a summary of Mrs. Glyn's novel, of
which, by the way, I must quote the dedication: "With grateful homage and
devotion I dedicate this book to Her Imperial Highness The Grand Duchess
Vladimir of Russia. In memory of the happy evenings spent in her gracious
presence when reading to her these pages, which her sympathetic aid in
facilitating my opportunities for studying the Russian character enabled
me to write. Her kind appreciation of the finished work is a source of the
deepest gratification to me."

* * * * *

The source of the deepest gratification to me is the fact that the
Censorship Committee of the United Circulating Libraries should have
allowed this noble, daring, and masterly work to pass freely over their
counters. What a change from January of this year, when Mary Gaunt's "The
Uncounted Cost," which didn't show the ghost of a rape, could not even be
advertised in the organ of The _Times_ Book Club! After this, who can
complain against a Library Censorship? It is true that while passing "His
Hour," the same censorship puts its ban absolute upon Mr. John Trevena's
new novel "Bracken." It is true that quite a number of people had
considered Mr. Trevena to be a serious and dignified artist of rather
considerable talent. It is true that "Bracken" probably contains nothing
that for sheer brave sexuality can be compared with a score of passages in
"His Hour." What then? The Censorship Committee must justify its existence
somehow. Mr. Trevena ought to have dedicated his wretched provincial novel
to the Queen of Montenegro. He painfully lacks _savoir-vivre_. In the
early part of this year certain mysterious meetings took place, apropo