In this remarkable book Mr. W. Somerset Maugham surpasses by a long
distance the average novels of recent appearance. The portion of the
book which deals with Paris, especially with that mad poet there, who
expounds the philosophy of the "Pattern," is as suggestive a piece of
literature as any we have seen for half a dozen years.
The passage towards the end of the book on the subject of the genius
of El Greco is also profoundly interesting; and the sentences which
comment so gravely and beautifully upon the cry of the Christ,
"Father, forgive them; they know not what they do," have a rare and
most moving power.