SOURCE: Carducci, Philip. “Fiction: Gaiety and Cynicism.” The Spectator 133 (8 November 1924): 704.

In the following review of In the Land of Youth, Carducci views the work as varied and paltry, but entertaining.

Maeve the Queen entertained the guests at the court of Cruachan with tales of their ancestors and the Gods. And though the guests would interrupt now and then to question a detail or ask for some point to be cleared up, so that once Maeve was forced to cry out, “Are you telling this tale or am I?” she surpassed other story-tellers in wit as she did in beauty. It was no wonder that everyone there felt high-spirited and good-natured. Perhaps the dinner that they had just completed, roast meat and boiled, fish and birds, puddings, broths, wine, mead, ale, and apples, had tranquillized and cheered them; but the dinner was to Maeve's credit too. And, anyhow, I...