28 NOVEMBER 1931, Page 28

FIL E OLD PEOPLE. By J. D. Beresford. (Collins. 7s. 6d.)—Mr.

Beresford is too competent a novelist not to interest and his characterization is, as usual, excellent, but this first volume of a new trilogy lacks force and liveliness. The story of the Hillingdon family begins in 1867 and ends, rather flatly, in 1895, when we leave the hero of it " content with the explanation of God and the Universe that had satisfied his forefathers ; and no new stir of conscience came to trouble him with an uneasy sense of his own futility."