5 MAY 1923, Page 23

A study of a dilettante American who, always intending to

produce a work of great value in literature, dies before he gets further than his preparations. While containing several ingenious passages of literary analysis—particularly the sentence as to Jane Austen's novels—the book is in itself an example of the phrase used by Peter Whiffle " : "Art in this epoch is too self-conicious." For Art read Fiction.