Just as one may say of certain novelists that they write at the top of their voices, so, I think, one might describe Miss VIOLA MEYNELL as writing in a whisper. This certainly is the effect that _Modern Lovers_ (SECKER) produced upon me. The gentle method of it invested the story--which of itself is a very slight thing--with an odd significance almost impossible to communicate in criticism; but the reading of a few pages will show you what I mean. The title is apt enough, for the tale is about nothing but love, as it affects a group of five young people, three men and two girls. Of the girls, who are sisters, _Effie Rutherglen_ is the more important and detailed figure. _Effie_, in the time before the story opens, had an affair with _Oliver Bligh_; then, summoned North to live with her futile and uncomprehending parents, she fell (as did her sister _Milly_ and most of the local spinsters) under the fascination of one _Clive Maxwell_, who was an author and had appealing eyes and obviously a way with him. Then _Oliver_ turned up again, and poor _Effie_ didn't know which of them she wanted. I speak lightly, but, if you think all this made for comedy, your conception of Miss MEYNELL's methods is very much at fault. Love to her is very much what it was to _Patience_ in the opera--by no means a wholly enviable boon. I can hardly praise too much the exquisite refinement and restraint of her treatment of commonplace things. But one small point baffled me: _Oliver_ appears to have been a professional diver and bath-keeper--we are told, indeed, that he had occupied that position at Rugby (a statement that I have private and personal reasons for discrediting)--yet we find him staying as a welcome and honoured guest in the house of the _Rutherglens_, whom I take to be more or less "county." Surely this, though of no real importance, is at least remarkable? * * * * *