2 APRIL 1927, Page 28

THE THREE SITWELLS. By R. L. Megroz. Richards Press. 8s.

6d. net.)—Mr. Arnold Bennett, some ago, said of the Sitwells : They are educated in wo Though he was (if a little guardedly) praising their w there is in this judgment something of condemnation, They have turned, for their subject-matter, to the memo of childhood ; and, to reproduce those memories in clearest light, they have evolved such an imagery as a c (could it retain its bright eye and, at the same time, win to adult's mastery over words) might choose. Thus, stars like cloves, hair like hissing geese, snow on the trees point-lace, and so on. That, perhaps, was well worth triving ; but it does not carry us very far ; and we have yet discover that the Sitwells, as a whole, have any vital eonte with which to load the gay medium they have evolved. far their performance is rather like an amusing harlequinad a beautiful relaxation, but little more. ` We have all remote air of a legend," sings Miss Edith Sitwell, and the co fession is as revealing as Mr. Megroz's parenthetical ill • tion when he likens their work to that of Debussy—t delectable painter in sounds thin as gossamer, bright as sum clouds.