various contributors

“ No, let me be just; perhaps Richard Bryce, the wicked betrayer, does strike a somewhat new note, at least in his beginnings. Richard was the product of art super-imposed upon dollars. He was so cultured that the humanity in him had dwindled to a negligible quantity; and thus, when poor Phoebe wanted him to "do the right thing by her," he sent her instead some charmingly modern French verse—which she could not understand—and finally took ship for Europe in mingled alarm and boredom. You will have gathered that the scene is laid in America. ”

“ If memory serves me, the publishers of World's End (Hurst and Blackett) described its theme as one of unusual delicacy, or words to that effect. I should like to reassure them. The particular kind of marriage of convenience which it concerns (marriage for the convenience of the wronged heroine, by which the virtuous hero gives his name to the child of the villain) may be, indeed is, a delicate matter, but—in fiction at least—by no manner of means unusual. Nor can I see that its present treatment by Amélie Rives (Princess Troubetzkoy) lends it any degree of novelty. ”

“ He was, moreover, so strong that, when eventually the theme of their relations with Phoebe did crop up between himself and Richard, the latter spent some months in hospital as a consequence. However, he recovered, and things were thus able to reach the kind of ending which was expected of them. There are parts of World's End that are worthy of a better whole, but that is the best I can say for it. ”