ROBERT HICHENS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23269, 11 February 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

ROBERT HICHENS

•'THE JOURNEY UP" "Later at the station, ho found Eustace waiting for him. Their short interview on the platform was constrained and difficult for both of them, liut just as Halliwell was going to mount into the train, Eustace said: " 'Arthur, 1 want you to know that I was awfully sorry about missing that climb.'

" 'Then why miss it. —old chap?' " 'lf I'd gone Ida would have been so unhappy.' " 'Oh. 1 seel Well, good-bye!' "As the train went out, Halliwell thought: " 'To live only for the happiness of another isn't manly! There are other tilings that a man should live for' . . ." #**#■#

"This perpetual meeting of women and men together brought little of good to tho world; this cocktail-drinking, dining, dancing, this talkv-talky varied by vacant laughter, instead of building up character scented to him to do just the opposite, to send brains to waste, tend to the hardening of hearts, even to the poisoning of the wells of life. He was-, of course, judging narrowly from n painful and intimate personal experience. He was judging the mass from obscuration of oiib woman, one man." The above two extracts will give some idea of tlie motive of Mr. Robert Hichens in l;is latest novel "The Journey Up." Brayburn, the eminent surgeon, has an ambitious wife, and he tries to gratify her desire to move in society. This story of "dead sea fruit" with an "operation" incident which lias a crushing effect is written with power, and reveals this famous author in his best form.