Spendthrift Summer. By Margery Williams. (W. Heinemann. 6s.)—This novel is
a most dreary presentation of the effects of the most dreary of passions,—jealousy. And this jealousy is not the fierce struggle of a man in the defence of his honour, but the mean dislike of a young wife for the brother whom her husband has brought up and educated. It must be said in excuse for Sydney (the young wife in question) that it certainly would be very unpleasant to have a brother-in-law who performed as a Pierrot in a troupe of "seaside entertainers," but this is not the aspect of the case which she dislikes. What she resents so passionately is that her husband is very much amused by his brother's society, which cannot be said to be an amiable state of mind. The "spendthrift summer" is exceedingly wet, which is in itself a depressing thing to read of just now, and altogether the book is one which cannot be recommended either as amusing or edifying.
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