I am bound to admit that for all my appreciation of Mr. J.D.  BERESFORD as a literary craftsman I did find The Jervaise Comedy (COLLINS) a bit slow off the mark.  Here is a quite considerable volume, exquisitely printed upon delightful paper, all about the events of twenty-four hours, in which, when you come to consider it afterwards, nothing very much happened.  The heroine thought about eloping with the chauffeur, and the onlooker, who tells the tale, thought about falling in love with the sister of the same.  In both cases thought is subsequently translated into action, but only after the curtains fall.  Meanwhile an affair of hesitations, suggestions, moods and (as I hinted above) rather too many words.  It is a. tribute to Mr. BERESFORD’S art that out of all this we do eventually emerge with some definite idea of the characters and a pleasantly-amused interest in their fate.  There is, of course, plenty of distinction in the writing.  But I could have wished more or earlier movement.  Even the motor-car, whose appearance promised a hint, the merest far-off possibility, of farcical developments, shared in the general lethargy and refused to move from its ditch.  In spite, however, of this procrastination I wish it to be understood that the story is in some ways one of unusual charm; it has style, atmosphere and a very sensible dignity.  But, lacking the confidence that I fortunately had in my author, I question whether I should have survived to the point at which these qualities became apparent.

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An author who in his first novel can deliberately put himself in the way of temptation and as unhesitatingly avoid it must be worth following.  And so, if for no other reason, one might look forward to Mr. BERNARD DUFFY’S next book with uncommon interest.  His hero comes into the story as a foundling, being deposited in a humble Irish home and an atmosphere of mystery by some woman unknown; he is supported thereafter by sufficiently suggestive remittances, and he passes through a Bohemian boyhood and a more normal though still intriguing early struggle and fluctuating love-story to eventual success, always with the glamour of conventional romance about him, only to turn out nobody in particular in the end.  Congratulations!  One was horribly afraid he would be compelled to be at least the acknowledged heir to a title.  Quite apart from this, too, Oriel (FISHER UNWIN) is after an unassuming fashion one of the most easily and happily read and, one would say, happily written books that has appeared for many a long day, with humour that is Irish without being too broadly of the brogue, and with people who are distinctive without ever becoming unnatural.  The dear old tramping quack-doctor, Oriel’s foster-father, in particular might well be praised in language that would sound exaggerated.  Mr. DUFFY’S work, depending as it does mainly on a flow of charming and even exquisite side incident, suggests that he is no more than beginning to tap a most extensive reservoir.  I greatly hope that this is the case.