" See-Saw." By G. B. Stern. (Hutchinson and Co. 6s.)-
Caprice, up among the gods, pulls the strings, and the puppets of this earth must dance to her tune. This way and that, up and down, go the fortunes and favours of Iaconne and her fellow-players : now there is laughing Comedy behind the foot- lights of the Acropolis, now grim Tragedy, and Death, and the music stops with a crash. And ever as a back scene stands the dreary inn on the road to Paris, where lives that little company of failures, the artist and the poet and the diplomat, and others who have never found success, whence came Iaconne, whither she must return, by the same failing road as they. But here in London they are merry folk, these variety artists, and kindly, humorous, disreputable folk ; and Mr. Stern's wit is as light and brilliant as was Iaconne's first appearance on a circus horse. He is, indeed, a most engaging writer: more modern than the modernists, yet of the anti- realist school, he draws with a brush rather than with a pen, and is, wonderful to relate, not afraid to be clean-minded and pure. He has, above all, the power which was denied to Ambrose, who "often said, Thank Heaven, I can see things as they are !' instead of praying for the gift of seeing things as they aren't."
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