Llewelyn Powys

“ So much is this the case that, for the first time, one comes to appreciate how invaluable can be, on occasions, the old-fashioned device of using archaic language in this sort of writing. For example, when Mrs Mitchison causes Meromic and Fiommar to indulge in the following dialogue one feels one's sense of the appropriate thoroughly outraged. In historic fiction the mere suspicion of jocosity is dangerous and when it is suggestive of any modern variety of facetiousness all but fatal. ”

“ Indeed this art of plausibly reconstructing the mood and atmosphere of the dead past is a most subtle one. Strangely enough any attempt at exact realism almost inevitably destroys the sense of reality, the best effects being won, it would seem, by vagueness and omission. ”

“ However, in those backgrounds of her story which reflect certain aspects of nature, where infallibility is as a rule assumed, her work is often marred by inaccuracy of observation. Lerrys, the Gaul, is led to a Druidical Grove in Britain to take a false oath, but one's conviction as to the reality of the scene is in no way increased by being told that the "foxgloves rocked in the breeze" when any one who is familiar with the woods of England in the late summer knows that these particular flowers have long passed their time of blooming by the latter end of August. ”

“ However much one may regret in his poems the presence of a certain note of hard artificial and insensitive cynicism, one cannot but accede that he is able in his own facile way better almost than any other English poet to indicate the unwisdom of putting too high a value upon the ungenerous temptation of inordinate chastity. The iniquity of thus capriciously damming up one of the main streams of human happiness seems to have lodged itself very firmly in this Dorset man's brain. ”

“ THE writing of a first-rate historical novel demands not only a thorough knowledge of the selected period, but also considerable imaginative power, and, most important of all, a high order of literary tact. It is extremely doubtful whether Mrs Mitchison is sufficiently endowed with the two latter qualifications. ”

“ He conceives the fortunate idea of issuing a "tall folio" of his poems done on "paper imperial and the largest in England." He manages to interest innumerable people in his project: Jonathan Swift even exerts himself and extracts not less than £200 from what he called the "hedge country" of his residence. ”