30 APRIL 1932, Page 28

LEAVES FROM LIFE .

By Dr. E. J. Dillon

Dr. Dillon, as his other books have already conveyed to a wide pill:die, has lead an interesting life in most of the countries of Europe and in touch with almost all elegies of society. In this book, Leaves from Life (Dent,-7s. 6d.) he casts some of the more bizarre of his experiences into the form of shod stories and essays, complete in themselves. Though in some cases-they have not the "artistic unity of fiction their strange- ness and the inexplicable:naturalness of the charaeters (a_ real character is always less consistent than any that a novelist dare preseht) justifies the author's use, in his preface,- of the tag, • fiction:lags after truth." Dr. Dillon's writing is quiet, symprithetia;-and above all clear.