Unless Mr. S.P.B. MAIS learns to curb his enthusiasms and to rid himself of certain prejudices he will be wantonly seeking trouble. _Rebellion_ (GRANT RICHARDS) is in some respects a more thoughtful and promising book than _Interlude_, but it is marred by what can only be called the same narrow point of view. With everybody and everything modern Mr. MAIS shows an ardent sympathy, but if he is ever to give a comprehensive picture of life he must contrive to be more patient with the old-fashioned. Here his strong personality obtrudes itself too often, and he is inclined to forget that he is a novelist and not a preacher. I could imagine him throwing off a fine comminatory sermon from the text, "Cursed be he who does not admire the genius of Mr. COMPTON MACKENZIE." This homily is drawn from me with reluctance, because in the main I am a strong believer in Mr. MAIS, and (with his connivance) have every intention of retaining that attitude. With all its faults _Rebellion_ remains gloriously distinct from the rubbish-heap of fiction by virtue of its intense sincerity and its frequent flashes of fine descriptive writing. The question of sex dominates it, and those of us who still think that such problems are merely sustenance for the prurient-minded may cast it impatiently aside. But others who like to watch a clever man feeling his way towards the light, and regard a novel as neither a bait nor a bauble, can be confidently advised to read it. They may be irritated, but they will be intrigued.
On the cover of _One Woman's Hero_ (METHUEN) you will read that "This book has been designed to cheer and strengthen those for whom, from bereavement owing to the War, the days and nights are sometimes only a procession of sad and torturing visions." Which of course disarms criticism, other than what may be expressed in a question whether a book less exclusively preoccupied by the War might not more surely have attained this end. But again, of course, maybe it wouldn't. The tale (for all our pretendings) is not yet written that can actually bring oblivion to bereavement, so perhaps the next best thing is topical chatter of the bright and unsentimental kind with which SYBIL CAMPBELL LETHBRIDGE has filled her entertaining pages. Chatter is the only term for it, though it is quite good of its style; the form being a series of letters written to a friend by the young wife of a soldier at the front. Her neighbours, their households and dinners and affectations and courage, are what she writes about; especially do I commend her handling of the "Let us Forget and Forgive" tribe. To all such (and most of us know at least one) I should suggest the posting of a copy of _One Woman's Hero_, with the page turned down (an act permissible in so good a cause) at the report of the annihilation of one of these well-intentioned but infuriating philosophers. The combined logic and equity of this suggest that the Government might do worse than commandeer the services of Miss LETHBRIDGE as a dinner-table propagandist.