In Spite Of. By John Cowper Powys. (Macdonald. 15s.) This
book is a collection of lengthy, breezy, common-sensical and hortatory essays which, although they resemble sermons, neverthe- less also somewhat resemble the philosophic and poetic outpourings of the late Dr. Joad and Walt Whitman respectively. " Well,. my lonely friend, well, my overcrowded friend, you are not yet dust and ashes. You are a living creature with a human conscious- ness ; and moreover you have the power of ravishing, or of being ravished by, die whole mass of the material-immaterial cosmos around you." And so it goes on. The effect is less diluted, however, thin one would at first imagine, for Mr. Powys has a fine sense of humour. His net is cast fairly wide; he writes on loneliness, pride, orthodoxy and heresy, madness, class distinction—this is a particularly good essay—insecurity, beliefs and, lastly, other people." And his volume seems to be the avuncular out- pourings of a life-time. It is certainly the fruit of a vast amount of meditation written with an apparent speed that has no further patience with suffering. Mr. Powys is in a hurry to tell the world his excellent recipes for happiness. (They are oddly penetrating.) He is now an old man well used to showing his vigorous mind to the public ; and it is perhaps for that very reason that In Spite Of can show to the humblest of laymen those truths which are most con- solatory to him in the long run. Mr. Powys is completely sincere, and his charm, in this book, although almost conversational, has a lasting pungency. It is the result of a long, courageous and highly piaiseworthy
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