2 OCTOBER 1897, Page 25

Interludes. By Maud Oxenden. (E. Arnold.)—What is an "interlude" ?

" Short, merry, and farcical," says Webster. That is not by any means the article which Miss Maud Oxenden exhibits. It is the old dreary story,—men and women loving as they ought not or when they ought not. Just as the average minor poet is always dreary—it is so much more easy to be dreary than cheerful—so the minor novelist has nothing to tell us of but bad faith, or bad luck. Who can be found to read all this melancholy stuff ?