ant young man predestined by
nature to have a bad, but very exciting time: that is Mr Cannan. More
clearly still, in _Little Brother_, he takes himself up again, himself
wondering in Cambridge 'what it's all for,' as Mr Wells would say,
wondering still more, and still more vainly, when he enters London's
cultured circles, from which he escapes through an obscure byway of
Leicester Square. And then again, in _Round the Corner_, it is, a very
little, Mr Cannan in Manchester, incredulously examining, and through
Serge commenting upon the world. Were it not for _Devious Ways_ one
would be inclined to think that Mr Cannan had nothing to say except
about himself, and, indeed, it is disquieting to think that the book
which saves him from such a conclusion is inferior to his subjective
work. Still, it is not altogether a bad book; it is not the sort of book
with which Mr Cannan will bid for fame, but it represents the streak of
detachment which is essential if this author is to show himself able to
stand outside his own canvas; moreover, in _Round the Corner_, Mr Cannan
was less limited by himself than he was in his previous books. The
praise that has been showered on this novel was perfervid and
indiscriminate; it was not sufficiently taken into account that the
book was congested, that the selection of details was not unerring, and
that the importation of such a character as Serge laid the author open
to the imputation of having recently read _Sanin_; but, all this being
said, it is certain that _Round the Corner_, with its accurate
characterisation, its atmospheric sense and its diversity, marked a
definite stage in the evolution of Mr Cannan. Though refusing to accept
it as work of the first rank, I agree that it is an evidence of Mr
Cannan's ability to write work of the first rank: he may never write it,
but this book is his qualification for entering the race. His later
novels, _Young Earnest_ and _Mendel_, have done him no good; they are
too closely related to his own life; his private emotions are also too
active in his pacifist skit, _Windmills_, which is inferior to _The Tale
of a Tub_. Other novels, too, such as _Three Pretty Men_ and _The Stucco
House_, exhibit painful superiority over the ordinary person; lacking
humour, it seems that Mr Cannan has taken himself too seriously, one
might almost say, too dramatically; those sufferings, misunderstandings,
isolations, and struggles of his youth have been to him too vivid