18 JULY 1914, Page 24

A Child Went Forth. By Toy Pawlowska. (Duckworth and Co.

5s. net.)—From beginning to end of A Child Went Forth we are hampered by the suspicion that its author has an uncertain grasp of the English language. The style of the book is curiously stilted, and near akin to the " penknife of the gardener's aunt" of oar early days. Like the illustra- tions, it is executed with the roughest of shading, with a lack of design, and a simplicity so childlike as to seem deliberate ; and the writer's understanding of a child is rare and true. Little Anna is the real thing, not one of those stage -children, with a soul among the stars, who can yet show a reasonable motive for every action. Even she falls now and then from her humanity, but the account of her wonder at the limbless beggar is admirable : " It was not altogether fear for herself, as Elizabeth imagined, but a sudden terror for the thing in front of her. The gipsies had done that, done what, she thought; what had they done, what was he P He was not a man; be was not a woman, he was not a child; what was he F She felt that he belonged to the supernatural, was one with' ghosts and vampires; he was a thing of horror and to fly, from."