THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT. By L. Adams Beck. (T. Fisher
Unwin. 7s. 6d.)—There is a creative energy of the strong ; there is a fatal fluency of the weak. Without applying the second statement to Mrs. L. Adams Beck, it may surely be suggested that she writes far too much for the quality of her style. Under her own name she discourses enthusiastically on the severe mysticism of the Buddha ; as E. Barrington she exploits the love affairs of the famous; under yet another name she merely writes stories. In this romance she seems to have reassembled her split personalities ; but probably all of them are tired, for the result is disappoint- ing and the fervent high-pitched tale of the mysterious initi- ations of some unreal Western people into Buddhist mysteriei in a remote Tibetan lamassery, complicated with the develop- ment of a transcendental love affair, does not carry conviction. One gets the impression that she does not know enough about the West to report lucidly the spiritual achievement of the East, and that her philosophy is too vague to be illuminating. But her sentimentalized style would falsify even a true impres- sion. Her descriptions of the amazing scenery of the Himalayas and of the monastery in Little Tibet, however, reveal that, if she wrote less, she would probably write well. The book contains matter that is of real interest ; it should be more austerely presented.
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