Has not a passage like this—with its freedom of invocation—a beauty unattainable by serious literature? It is so funny and charming, so iridescent yet so profound. Criticisms of human nature fly through the book, not like arrows but upon the wings of sylphs. Towards the end—that dreadful end often so fatal to fiction—the book rather flags: the suicide of all the undergraduates of Oxford is not as delightful as it ought to be when viewed at close quarters, and the defenestration of Noaks almost nasty. Still it is a great work—the most consistent achievement of fantasy in our time, and the closing scene in Zuleika’s bedroom with its menace of further disasters is impeccable.
And now with pent breath and fast-beating heart, she stared at the lady of the mirror, without seeing her; and now she wheeled round and swiftly glided to that little table on which stood her two books. She snatched Bradshaw. We always intervene between Bradshaw and anyone whom we see consulting him. “Mademoiselle will permit me to find that which she seeks?” asked Melisande. “Be quiet,” said Zuleika. We always repulse, at first, anyone who intervenes between us and Bradshaw. We always end by accepting the intervention. “See if it is possible to go direct from here to Cambridge,” said Zuleika, handing the book on. “If it isn’t, then—well, see how one does get there.”