Doings. and Dealings. By Jane Barlow. (Hutchinson & Co. 6s.)—Whether
Miss Jane Barlow represents truly or not the life and thought of that present-day Ireland where party politics seem more at home than humour, her Irish tales are already too well known to need further comment, and Doings and Dealings is at least as delightful as its predecessors. Apart from the delicacy of Miss Barlow's craftsmanship, the clay in which she has chosen to work is itself steeped in romance, with the half-ashamed belief in the supernormal, the curiously vivid interest in death and in grim tragedy that are found in the men and women of whom she writes, and the pliant, generous, Irish tongue. Miss Barlow is, however, wise enough to know that we do not look for plot or thrilling events in her stories, and is content to feed us gently with little sketches and portraits, and with one tiny dialogue which, in thought and language, reminds us irresistibly of the Irish players. The chief delight of the book lies in its swift transi- tion from grave to gay : here is a discussion in the railway waiting-room, packed full of the merriest humour ; here is thunder and hatred and sudden death. But the moving spirit of every story is that of a superstition whose influence is so strong that, as a motto for the whole book, might stand the prayer: "From all ghaisties, googlies, long-leggity beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us."
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