MR. E.F. BENSON, seizing occasion as it flies, has given us, in _Across the Stream_ (MURRAY), a story on the very topical subject of spiritualism and communication with the dead. As a practised novelist, with a touch so sure that it can hardly fail to adorn, he has made a tale that is interesting throughout and here and there aspires to real beauty of feeling; though not all the writer's skill can disguise a certain want of unity in the natural and supernatural divisions of his theme. The early part of the book, which tells of the boyhood of _Archie_ and the attempts of his dead brother _Martin_ to "get through" to him, are admirably done. As always in these studies of happy and guarded childhood, Mr. BENSON is at his best, sympathetic, tender, altogether winning. There was lung trouble in _Archie's_ record--_Martin_ indeed had died of it (sometimes I wonder whether any of Mr. BENSON'S protagonists can ever be wholly robust), and there is a genuine thrill in the scene at the Swiss sanatorium, where the dead and living boys touch hands over the little _cache_ of childish treasure buried by the former beneath a pine-tree in the garden. Later, when _Archie_ had recovered from his disease and grown to suitor's estate, I could not but feel, despite the sardonically observed figure of _Helena_, the detestable girl who nearly ruins him, that the whole affair had become conventional, and by so much lost interest for its creator. Apart, however, from the bogie chapters of Possession (which I shall not further indicate) the most moving scenes in this latter part are those between _Archie_ and his father. I have seldom known a horrible situation handled with more delicate art; it is for this, rather than for its slightly unconvincing devilments, that I would give the book an honourable place in the ranks of Bensonian romance. * * * * *