[There] is a discomforting tone to the first paragraph of [To the North], strongly suggesting that the material world in which it has its being is to be undermined. The knowing information about the Anglo-Italian express [traveling north] sounds a little ominous. (p. 130)

Violent deaths … are symptoms of betrayal in Elizabeth Bowen's work, and mark' the passing of innocence, whether personal or national. In order that their moral significance should not be blurred by the dramatic shock of feeling the deaths evoke, Elizabeth Bowen establishes from the start a pattern of images which will necessitate them. That the pure-hearted Emmeline should be driven to what is, in effect, murder and suicide, is a badge of her innocence. But the ending of this novel is not therefore grotesquely sensational…. Rather it has an air of classical formality: the motifs are seen to accumulate and finally cohere in a formulation...