THE • INHERITOR. By E. F. Benson. (Hutchinson. 7s.- 6d.)—In
The Inheritor Mr. Benson is very much himself. He shows the same enthusiasms, the same easy skill in narrative, the same interest in life. The sub-title of the hook is " A Story of Youth," and this well describes it : though it is possible that the story will be more acceptable to Mr. Benson's contemporaries than to the generation portrayed. Its chief characters are Steven, a beautiful but soulless and heartless undergraduate, and Maurice, a young don, who prefers undergraduates to his colleagues. We follow their fortunes from King's to Cornwall. Steven marries :— He could hear footsteps now and then in the next room, and now and then a few words rapped out, and now and then a soft moaning sound. Then for a time all was silent, and the silence WILS broken by the noise, not of a crying child, but of something bleating."
Why it bleated, and why Steven had neither heart nor soul, you must read The Inheritor to find out.
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