MILLENNIUM. By Temple Thurston. (Cassell. 7s. 6d.)— Mr. Temple Thurston's
new book is a psychological study of a young girl's sex-consciousness and fears. The life of Anne Pendred is a series of jolts and shocks. As a child of eight she is first made aware of a lurking nastiness in life, because her father was seandalized at her immodesty in bathing naked in a pool with her small brother. The memory remains. As a school-girl she becomes aware that her mother is in love with her father's curate. Mrs. Pendred commits suicide, and Anne becomes engaged to a friend of her brother, but he shocks her by his ardour. Then her father marries his dead wife's nurse, and once more Anne is startled by visions of surreptitious and elderly love-making. She escapes to London, where she is perpetually dogged by a bogy of sex, which assumes many different guises. Mr. Thurston spares us nothing in this dreadful study of a young girl, very afraid and defiantly fas- tidious. The account of her miserable adventures is admirably told, but it is difficult to regard her as entirely normal, or to feel that her abnormality is quite justified. So far as one can gather, Mr. Thurston's purpose is to show up the folly of parents who refuse to tell their children the facts of life, but he does not allow for the development of natural instincts. Anne is undoubtedly the victim of very bitter circumstances, but she is a victim who receives no vestige of help from herself—until the very last chapter.
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