SOURCE: “Two or Three Graces,” in Aldous Huxley: The Critical Heritage, edited by Donald Watt, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975, pp. 137-38.

In the following review of Two or Three Graces, originally published in the Saturday Review in 1926, Hartley calls Huxley a “literary acrobat” whose perfect execution of difficult feats sometimes leaves readers disappointed because there is little to glean behind the lucidity of his words.

However good Mr. Huxley's work may be one rarely reads it without a small pang of disappointment. To surpass themselves is for many novelists a comparatively easy task; but here is one who has contrived to set his own standard so high that, captivate and divert us as he may, he still seems to fall short of a proposed excellence. The shadow of a commanding talent and a distinguished mind is thrown across each page, but though Mr. Huxley has many altitudes that are...