SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Fotios in this column does not toscesswily preclude subssessent review.]
Through the Fourth Wall. By W. A. Darlington. (Chapman and Hall. 12s. 6d. net.)—The signal feature of these articles on plays, players, and the stage, collected from the Daily Telegraph, is the genial candour of their author. He has a habit of taking his reader into his confidence about the hairbreadth escapes from disaster he is having in his attempts to write readable essays. But the reader need have no fear ; for it is quite evident that Mr. Darlington is competent and aware of his competence ; a pardon- able weakness in a sober-minded, hardworking, professional writer. Mr. Darlington's qualities are those of common sense and capable humanity combined with the expertise of the man who knows his work. One feels, therefore, that he can be relied upon as one relies upon one's broker or one's bank manager. He radiates that after-dinner feeling, that one-man-to-another humorous indulgence, which induces the thought that, after all, the social ship is still good for another few thousand years. We recommend particularly the articles on Mr. Drinkwater's Cromwell, First Night Audiences, Children and Pantomime, On Speaking Up, and Maurice Moscovitch.
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