SOURCE: “This Petty Pace,” in The Nation (New York), Vol. 130, No. 3387, June 4, 1930, p. 654.

In the following review of Brief Candles, Hazlitt argues that Huxley brings a message to his stories—that if one tries to be superhuman, one becomes subhuman.

After half a dozen volumes Aldous Huxley has returned to the short story, but he does not bring his old irresponsibility with him. He has acquired a Message, and he insists that we shall hear it. It is the same message that raised its head in nearly every one of the essays in “Do What You Will,” to wit, that if one tries to be superhuman one ends by being subhuman, that the best way of turning a child into a devil is to try to bring it up as an angel. Against the ideal of superhumanness he pleads for the ideal of perfected humanity. Mr. Huxley's, in...