Novel-writing, despite some signs to the contrary, makes real progress as an art; but it is not often that the new art is combined with the old magic so effectively as in A. S. M. Hutchinson's If Winter Comes. There is nothing experimental in this novel; it is written with a sure hand. Any dissatisfaction we may be inclined to feel with the modern "novel of ideas", or with the too artful drama of other modern novels, is prevented from the outset in Mr. Hutchinson's book. Nor, if we fear to encounter the engaging, rambling method of a De Morgan, or the daintily discursive manner of a Locke, do we find even these slight apprehensions justified. Yet Mr. Hutchinson's novel is a subtly contrived, artfully dramatic novel of the modern school; it is entertainingly casual and discursive in manner; it is a novel with an idea—and in addition it has practically all the "sure-fire" effects of a story by Dickens!
