The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-02-08

1t atmosphere by presenting a graphic vivid picture of Roman society. In ad- dition Cecilia" is fluent in evolution, pen etrating in analysis and absorbing in in- terest. The characters in Cecilia l believe, are as strong and individual as any the author ever portrayed The theme is unique, although not a new one We have read number of stories with the theory of metempsychosis basis. But MT. Crawford in using the
 idea, also uses to greatest advantage his peculiar ability to describe the artistic temperament and the artistic environ ment. He has combined the theory of metempsychosis with the modern idea of telepathy in the most graceful plaus- ible way, and the reader feels that it could never have been so used by any one less sensitive to the current of modern thought and progress than MT. Crawford or one less able to clothe his thoughts in a beautiful and suggestive literary style. There is a liberal sprinkling, too of philosophical theories and beliefs, and the charming young heroine speaks of "Kaut's Categorical Imperative" as if it were the most natural subject in the world But there Is not enough of all this to make the story tiresome or to compel the reader to exclaim with Guido,
 My dear young lady, you have led mo quite out of my depthr Just enough to give the story individuality and flavor of originality-just the keynote that will place Cecilia" above the ordinary plane of novel interest.
 Cecilia" is written in Mr. Crawfords s most characteristic vein It is a love story of absorbing interest, connected with the narration of this story are some of the most thrilling emotional expe- riences of which the human heart is ca pable. The characters are strong and l genuinely real. l am sure I shall never 1 visit Rome and the Forum that I do not i seek to discover Cecilia the Vestal, rest 1 ing one hand upon the fluted column of 1 the house of the Vestals. The narrative | is fluent and spirited, and at times highly dramatic and tense MT, Crawford has 1 the beauty the heart and the soul of
 Italy at the tips of his fingers, and he writes of it all in style that is capti- vatlng. His descriptions are beautiful. MT. Crawfords stories are always pecu- l liarly satisfying. It is not because of the l happy, cheerful ending, I think, so much as the conviction the reader feels that | the author knows the end from the be- l ginning. We would not have our hero and heronine marry and live happy 1 ever afterward" invariably, and yet it is very pleasant when it all happens as , naturally as MT Crawford directs. He l never gets his characters into hopeless l tangle that makes the reader feel that he does not know what to do with them
 Yet his plots and his climaxes are as artistic as others we recall that are very, very dreary So dreary that Art for Arts Sake" is quoted as their only apol- ogy.
 In the recent death of Julian Ralph,
 
 ent, America has sustained distinct loss It is seldom that literary talent IS evineed so early as in the case of MT. Ralph. Fer, at the age of thirteen years he went to work as printers "devl'' on little paper published at Red Bank, New Jersey. His work there indicated a future, and two years later he and a boy friend started the Red Bank Leader. When but seventeen years old, he became editor of a Massachusetts paper; then he went to New York; advancing steadily until he reached the top of his profession It is sorrowful to remember that he went into the Boer war a sound, hearty man. and came out of it cripple and a con firmed invalid. Of 1t. MT. Ralph wrote in the London Daily Mail upon his return: {: T look upon this war as having i'll re- paid me for the kindly and JublIant tone in which have dealt with it. The long months of sand diet and hard faring un- der Methuen took from me stomach which an ostrich would have envied, and exchanged for it a secondhand worn out apparatus which turns upside down at | the approach of any food except skinned | milk A bit of Boer shell which hit me | in the chest made me faint and weary | for many days, and then novel method | of alighting from a Cape cart into a 1 trench, with the cart on top of me. left me one-legged for five weeks, after which | 1 found myself with a low class, no &C., l count limb in which I have no confi- dence. Then my horse shot me into q | wire fence. which tore both arms into shreds, painted one thigh like an omelet and the other like a South African sum
 set. and left me an internal fracture | whici l must keep as a perpetual souven-
 ir of what we are all beginning to speak of. as ''the Boer war" Mr Ralph has
 published many volumes, among them
 being "On Canada's Frontier "Our
 Great West" Chicago and the World 8
 Fair" Dixie" and many others.
 l An order received by Harper and Bro- l thers the. other day read: Napoleon; the Last Faze' by Rosenberg: Heroines of | Affection. by Howls'" This would seem the most unkindest blow Lord Roseberry 1 and MT. Howells have ever received in the stress of literary life. remarks a face tious paragrapher.
 | Not over-reading is harmful. but su- l perficial reading; that kind where only 1 words are seen by the eye, and not I thought by the mind