SOURCE: Rhys, E. “A Celtic Contrast.” The Bookman 67, no. 400 (January 1925): 224–25.

In the following review of In the Land of Youth, Rhys discusses Stephens's conception of the World's Fable.

One uses the word “Celtic” for want of a better, writing in a Dutch train where languages and races are confused in the mid-Europa perspective. Mr. Stephens is a past-master of the Irish illusion put into amenable English; and he has full opportunity in this new book, In the Land of Youth. …

[T]he words fairly dance to the Irish pipe of James Stephens, as they did in his Crock of Gold or Demi-Gods; where the humour chases the imagination and a touch of irony lies in wait to relieve the strain of sentiment. When he tells of the Feast of Samhain (pronounced Sow'in) and All-Hallows E'en, or the Feast of Lugnasa, and confuses by art-magic the planes of real...