Plots. By Bernard Capes. (Methuen and Co. 6s.)—Under the title
of Plots Mr. Bernard Capes gives us a volume of collected stories which may be taken as an example of the artificial realism of the day. A great deal of ingenuity has evidently been spent on the invention of the gruesome incidents and bizarre personages of the tales. The style is violent and comfortless ; the humour desiccated to the point of inhumanity ; and in the first story audacity is pushed to a point very near to blasphemy, with a result that suggests circumstances gone mad. The book is difficult to read, and we cannot honestly say that there is good enough stuff in it to make it worth while for any- body but a conscientious reviewer to take the trouble to get over the difficulty. The pity of it is that only an author clever enough to write something better could have produced it.
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