Page:Owen Wister - The Virginian.djvu/544

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"Each strikes a different note, but each is faithful to the taste of his time, which means a stout belief in the Saints, and perhaps as genuine a fear of 'Old Legion,' a delight in chivalrous deeds, in mundane pomp and might. And behind them is the author's genius for the creation of character and drama, so that these Old World fancies, full of the glamour of ancient legend, in some cases all compact of a curious, mediaeval quaintness, seem somehow extraordinarily human and true."—New York Tribune.

"With each successive volume there is added proof, if such proof were needed, that for real fineness of touch and true artistic instinct Mr. Hewlett stands quite by himself in his country and generation."—The Commercial Advertiser, New York.


THE NEW AMERICANS

By ALFRED HODDER

Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

It has been said in derogation of the realism of Balzac that all his dramatis personae are people of genius, are at least far above the average in energy and intelligence. The same criticism may be brought against the dramatis personae of this novel. The justification lies in the fact that the book deals with the new generation in the new America; with their energy, their confidence, their audacity, their gayety and intelligence, their sheer determination "to have their fling," their sense that they are the children of a nation rising in power. The plot turns on the conflict between the purposes and ideals of the old generation and of the new, on the conflict between the purposes and ideals of the women of the new generation and of the men, on the hard unsentimentality which for the present distinguishes both the men and women of the new. The hero and the heroine are a Benedick and a Beatrice, in that they both "made light of love"; a Benedick and Beatrice who have made light of it too long and have been taken in its snare too late for the course of true love to run smooth.


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK