... to Miss Compton-Burnett for what might be called superficial realism- her children (in this case Francis, Alice and Adrian) speak, for instance, with the sagacity and irony of particularly grown-up grown ups, and servants (in this case Bates, the parlourmaid) ...

... Salome, who wanted the head of John the Baptist. In this book, however, Charles Dunscomb never lets us actually hear Jesus speak, though at every silent contact we get that queer thrill, that sort of sudden sob down our spmes a planned assault on our twentieth ...