Philip Curtiss

“ On the other hand, if the rest of the story is to be called "Renunciation," the first part must be called "Youth," and, say what you like, Bellsmith was unmistakably thirty-five.
Also there is this difficulty: To merit division into "books" and "episodes" and "phases"—the little chevrons of earnest ideas—a story must really consider itself to be somber and searching. But Bellsmith was a trifler, and all actors are shadowy stuff at best. No vision which loves flippancy for its own sake can give any possible interpretation of "life." ”