29 APRIL 1911, Page 13

THE LIFE OF "JOHN OLIVER HOBBES."

afterwards Mrs. Craigie. Her father, Mr. John Morgan Richards, contributes a biographical sketch, and we have a number of lettere which supply various details of literary and social life, and there is a chapter on " The Religion of Mrs. Craigie," from the pen of her spiritual director, Father Gavin, S.J., of which we will only

say that its inclusion seems to us a great mistake. We are not at all sure that the book itself is one which we are glad to have. Those who admire the literary gifts of "John Oliver Hobbes" will not find their admiration increased when they come to see the discordant personality of Pearl Mary-Teresa Craigie ; those who are impressed with this personality may feel something like a shock when they read "John Oliver Hobbes." The strangest

contradictions occur. She had a high ideal of womanhood, yet she thought that " Tom Jones " should be given to every girl on her eighteenth birthday (we cannot see that the context given on p. 281 at all explains away the paradox) ; she had literary taste, yet she thought Robert Louis Stevenson " very vulgar " and William Morris "vulgarity itself."