various contributors

“ Cassandra chokes over a fish-bone! That what I meant about Mrs. Vaizey's courage. And the reward of it is that, after your first moment of incredulity, the fish-bone isn't in the least absurd. Poor Cassandra comes quite near to expiring of it; and Dane, having thumped and battered her into safety, sobs out his wild and whirling passing, while Grizel and poor Teresa have just to sit about and listen. It really is rather a striking and original climax; incidentally it is far the best scene in an otherwise not very brilliant tale. ”

“ I am so constituted that I cannot but be prejudiced in favour of a writer so gifted with so profound a judgment.
The creatrix of Pam must look to her laurels. Slovenliness is the aptest word to apply to the workmanship of Maria (Hutchinson) , the latest heroine of the Baroness Von Hutten. Maria has the air of having been contracted for, while that fastidious overseer who lurks at the elbow of every honest craftsman, condemning this or that phrase, readjusting the other faulty piece of construction, has frankly abandoned the contractor. ”

“ For the ready writer material is not wanting in the Near East; a fine theme is provided in the national ambition of the Greek, who cannot forget his glorious past and be content with his less conspicuous present. As for the love interest, who should supply this better than the Turk? In these days of cosmopolitanism there are bound to be romantic complications in the lives of a polygamous people situate in a monogamous continent. ”