Mr. Cabell has a profound creed of comedy rooted in that romance which is his regular habit. ... only gradually did his gaiety strengthen into irony. Although that irony was the progenitor of the comic spirit which now in his maturity dominates him, it has never shaken off the romantic elements which originally nourished it. Rather, romance and irony have grown up in his work side by side. ... He allows John Charteris in Beyond Life - for the most part Mr. Cabell's mouthpiece - to set forth the doctrine that romance is the real demiurge, 'the first and loveliest daughter of human vanity,' whereby mankind is duped - and exalted.