SOURCE: “Arnold Bennett on ‘Little Mexican,’” in Aldous Huxley: The Critical Heritage, edited by Donald Watt, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975, pp. 106-07.

In the following excerpt from his journals, the noted author and critic Bennett generally approves of the characterization in the tales in Little Mexican but says the stories have no proper end and the characters are drawn a little too thoroughly.

About ‘Uncle Spencer’. This is the first book of Aldous Huxley's that I have really liked. Character drawing in it, for the first time in his books. Uncle Spencer is drawn, emphatically. But technically the story is clumsy. The story nearly ends artistically. Aldous doesn't finish; he ceases. But another perfect page and the end would have been good. He shirks the final difficulty and so there is no end. Same with the next best story ‘Little Mexican’. No end to it. But the character drawing...