SOURCE: "Much Ado About Nothing," in The Nation & Athenaeum, January 3, 1931, pp. 461-62.

In the following excerpt, Woolf pans In Defence of Sensuality for its prolixity.

One must begin a review of this book by taking one's hat off to and acknowledging Mr. Powys's obvious sincerity. His book contains so much quackery and gush, such an enormous k of words for so small a kernel of matter, that it would be easy to make a great mistake and think that the author must be posturing. That is clearly not the case; Mr. Powys is terrifically in earnest and believes every word that he says. But sincerity is not enough. The youth of seventeen who discovers that moonlight is romantic and, under the influence of the discovery, writes many thousand lines of sentimental verse, may be quite sincere. That, however, does not prevent us recognizing that he is suffering from...