Conrad in Quest of. his Youth. By Leonard Merrick. (Grant
Richards. 6s.)—In the first part of this book Mr. Merrick expounds an original and amusing idea. The hero having come into money, and returning from the Colony in which his working life has been passed, thinks that he can bring back the emotions and feelings of youth by hiring a house in which he had been happy as a child, and persuading the cousins who had then shared his delights to come and stay with him. As the season is winter, the house in a peculiarly dreary seaside place, and, worse than all, as his cousins have grown up very detestable people, his plan is a most ludicrous failure. After this, however, his search for his youth resolves itself into a search for some one to make love to. He has not the slightest scruple in making love to married women;; indeed, it does not appear to occur to the author that such a pastime is morally questionable. In the end he finds, to his relief, that the woman with whom he finally falls in love is married, and he cannot therefore be expected to marry her, and the author complacently takes leave of him on the eve of his first assignation. It is a pity that a book which begins so amusingly should end in such an unpleasant manner, especially as after the opening episode the story becomes insufferably tedious. There is nothing either amusing or original about Conrad's gallant ad- ventures, and the amusement of the beginning cannot redeem the end.
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