A FAIRY LEAPT UPON MY KNEE. By Bea Howe. (Chatto
and Windus. 6s.)—This is a pretty piece of enchant- inent—and much more. It is a tale of two shy and delicate lovers and a very odd fairy, taken by William, who was an entomologist, when he was out mothing one fragrant night under a new moon. Miss Howe's mind is evidently steeped in the lyric mysticism of Blake ; and there is something Blakish about this decidedly original fairy, who, though small as a hand, could communicate to Evelina a kind of cosmic ecstasy. Evelina is the gay, tender, and entirely captivating heroine ; and William, that arrogant, indolent entomologist, 'was inclined to think that she had too much in common with the fairy. But that quaint atom of natural magic, after some trouble, really brought the hidden fairy part of Evelina into comprehension of the hidden melancholy part of William, so that they were truly harmonized in the end. The little book is a casket of sweet notions,—Seagrey, the dovelike dreamy house, sleeping trees, white magnolias, moon-magic, lambs lying under the poplars, things of emerald, the fairy colour, and moths, of course, moths mysterious and lovely. A deal of moth and fairy love is caught in the fine texture of these pages. But the story is not entirely woven of intangible evasive fancies. Much sensitive divination of the wordless changes in the souls of pure young lovers informs the best passages of the candid diffident prose. Something of simplicity, some- thing of subtlety, g3 to the making of this essay in fairy realism. There is a ripple and stir of mirth even in its tenderest places, so that it never cloys. It is charmed and wistful, like the tears in the cup of the crown-imperial, or the opening of evening primroses.
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