t grotesque
ineptitude.

* * * * *

In _Graduation_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS) there is an essential femininity
about Miss IRENE RUTHERFORD McLEOD'S style and general attitude that
imposes limitations; it is a quality that shows itself not only in
her plot, but in her characters, the three reputed males who figure
therein being as fine examples of true womanliness as you need wish
to meet. _Frieda_ was the heroine (a name somehow significant); and of
the trouser-wearers, the first, _Geoffrey_, was a cat-like deceiver,
who fascinated poor _Frieda_ for ends unspecified, pretended (the
minx!) to be keen on the Suffrage movement, which he wasn't, and
concealed a wife; the second was a Being too perfect to endure beyond
Chapter 10, where he expires eloquently of heart-failure, leaving
_Alan_, the third, to bear the white man's burden and clasp _Frieda_
to his maidenly heart. This sentimental progress is, I suppose, what
is implied by the title and the symbolic staircase (if it _is_ a
staircase?) on the wrapper. But my trouble was that I could never
discern in the sweet girl-graduate any development of character from
the pretentious futility of her earliest appearance. Perhaps I am
prejudiced. Undeniably Miss McLEOD can draw a certain type of prig
with a horrible facility. But the antiquated modernity of her scheme,
flooded as it is with the New Dawn of, say, a decade ago, and its
bland disregard of everything that has happened since, ended by
violently irritating me. Others may have better luck.

* * * * *

Spring has been slow in coming, but I got something more than a whiff
of actual summer when _Under Blue Skies_ (HUTCHINSON) came my way. Mr.
DE VERD STACPOOLE is at the top of his form, and it is a real pleasure
to recommend an author who brings to his tales of adventure so nice
a sense of style and so keen a feeling for character. In "The Frigate
Bird" the rapscallions who seize a schooner and, without any knowledge
of navigation, sail the high seas, are full-blooded adventurers; but
there is all the difference in the world between the character of the
educated _Carlyon_ and that of the simple-minded and ignorant _Finn_.
This yarn occupies nearly half of the book, and the other stories
should give food for thought to those who allege that no Englishman
can write a short story. Apart from one charming little tale of a
haunted French _chateau_ Mr. STACPOOLE allows