12 NOVEMBER 1927, Page 51

THE CAP OF YOUTH. By John A. Steuart. (Sampson Low.

7s. 6d.)—Robert Louis Stevenson, Mr. Steuart tells us, had, in early manhood, a passionate love affair with a young Highland girl, who was devoted to him, but refused, on com- mon-sense grounds, to marry him. Years later, Stevenson himself wrote the story of this romance, but it " was not then, and cannot now be published." Mr. Steuart has en- deavoured with this novel to fill the gap. But his attempt is a very tame and, to be frank, a very irritating one. It is painfully prolix and sentimental. We grow tired of hearing that his hero's pulses " danced deliriously," and, though " Louis " may have talked as Mr. Steuart here makes him talk, we feel quite sure that he did not I