Two short stories by Vita Sackville West. The first The Seducers in Ecuador the the story of Lomax and the odd effects of wearing colored glasses. Sackville-West said the story was written as a joke and does contain some weird humor or even some of Camus' absurdism. The story's end is told at the beginning and then recreates the events that lead to the end.

The second story, The Heir concerns Mr. Chase, a city man, whose aunt, a country woman, dies and and leaves him the family land and mansion. The property is in debt and is scheduled to be auctioned off. The story turns into what can only be called a love story between a man and a house. Or, more probably Sackville-West's lament over losing her Knole House, the place of her birth, to a male cousin. ( )

The introduction to these two novelettes tells us that the first was written for Sackville-West's friend and fellow author, Virginia Woolf, and the latter was a tribute to her beloved childhood home, Knole, which she could not inherit simply because of her sex.In Seducers in Ecuador, Arthur Lomax is asked to join people he hardy know on a yacht cruise to Egypt. Well, why not? Arthur has taken to wearing blue, brown, or black lenses that not only protect his eyes from the sun but have changed his view of the world. Suddenly, everything seems fine with him. Marry a woman who was seduced and impregnated by a man who ran off to Ecuador? Why not? Poison a man who claims to have a terminal illness at his request? Why not? Unfortunately, not all turns out well for Arthur, but he accepts the consequences--why not?

The Heir is perhaps a bit more conventional, but I enjoyed it more. The author's love for her family estate and its gardens comes through in Peregrine Chase, a man transformed by the inheritance of a Tudor estate. Perhaps that is what she hoped for the cousin who inherited Knole as well. The descriptions of a fading way of life are lovely but bittersweet. Already, in 1922, the upkeep of a family estate was an expensive matter, and many took advice similar to that offered by Chase's aunt's lawyer: break it into pieces and sell it.

On the whole, these were less than stellar stories, more notable for their social and historical commentary than as literature. ( )