The Pelicans. By E. M. Delafield. (W. Heinemann. 6s. net,)—
The satirist must always maintain a detached attitude to life, and Miss Delafield's detachment is so complete as to render her novels a little inhuman. It is hardly decent that poor human nature should be shown to be so silly, even when it is as well meaning as are most of the characters in this book. The author is in her element in describing the inhuman world of a convent, and the ordinary Protestant reader will be filled with amazement at the extraordinary waste of energy caused by the rule which does not allot sufficient hours of sleep to both novices and nuns. The agony which Frances Severing, the unfortunate little novice of the story, suffers from want of sleep is so graphically described that the reader will be quite relieved by her death from anaemia brought on by the utter in- attention to the Rules of Health prescribed by the convent authori- ties. The worldly people of the story are all exceedingly exasper- ating from different points of view, the two prominent elder women, Bertha Tregaskis and Nina Severing, being highly finished portraits. Mrs. Tregaskis, full of energy and good work, but intolerable in her family, proves in the end less objectionable than the widowed Mrs. Severing, whose life is a succession of poses. Miss Delafield is so able a writer, and her latest novel is so brilliant, so vivii, and so full of entertainment, that it is worth while to express the hope that she may some day acquire some of the sympathy of comprehension. She will then give us a really fine novel.
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