The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-30
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The Prise te the Hardy. By Alice winter.-From out the West there are coming some virile books. It seems that place lately held by the South as
 the foundry of true. new. strong American literature. For twenty years or more almost every new and interest impelling book has come from the pen of a Southerner. This season the West is to the front. The joyousness, strength. originality Of
 this new group of Western writers cannot be commended too highly. It is in vivid contrast to the inane stun that Is coming in such floods from the press, the tally of a heroine's poems. the valets list of a mans trousers and ties, the pages cut out of books or eti- quette, manuals of sport and primers of riding, driving and hunting and pieced out with puppets cut to fit the prevailing idea of what smart set peo- pie are.
 Alice winter has put real American life into her novel. real American peo- ple, real talk she has put into her fiction folks mouths Her heroine Is heir to millions. but that fact does not TO bher of charms or wit.
 The conversations of the book are bright, revealing, wise and witty. IL were a pflNlicSc tO AhSSs ouSh poo- pie every day.
 The Prize to the Hardy is one of the best American novels ever written. The writer handles with equal ease and felicity a prairie fire; ball, a club wo- mans vagaries, a millionaire's schemes, a slump in the market, ice-boating on Lake Imnijaska, buying up wheat. rid ing up gravel-cars, dancing the two- step at balls. love-making on snow- shoes.
 The evolution of Mrs. Lyell Is a de- licious study. Mrs. Lyell lived on a plane where sordid every day constd- erations played a minor part, she had attached her trolley to some celestial wire that whirled her along the heav- enly way"
 Her conversion as by fire to simple The whole tone of the book is one of cheer, health, vigor, joy.
 It pictures an America that we are proud for the world to know. Vera Is a heroine to hold all hearts. The old millionaire Nicholas Waidson is the best type of our wealthy Amer ican, the man who has made millions
 for himself and who holds a helping
 hand to hundreds. The type of man | who developes country, rears city. plants industries, starts progress, cre- ates prosperity.
 Young Lenox is a drummer come in- to romance. He is a veritable victor in all fields.
 He is type of what a bold. upright, true young American can accomplish. Hepburn is the contrast, the incom- potent one who always misses never letting the hook find the hasp in the problem of life.
 Kemyss is the born rascal. he makes of every opportunity a scheme, of ev- cry scheme a cheat. and so is caught in his own tolls.
 The interspersed sketches of Wes- tern types and life are deliciously fine. The marriage of Eric Svenson, brother to the great Swedish wheat planter, Sven Svenson, to the golden -haired maiden whose name was Peterson"
 Rarely has a book come to hand with so many quotable bits therein:
 Nuggets from "A Prise to the Hardy"
 America, the land of the everyday man"
 On the making of an American: TWO generations will see the work complete. Pole or Italian. Swiss or Swede. we are all dipped in some magic alembic and come out Ameri- cans. The country sets new star in her flag for each new State, and the new one blends with the same con- StelIdtlOH as lHt oiu. CO ohC tdhcS 'H all races and mngles them to make her new solar system. and our likeness becomes greater than our differences.
 "One can hardly have too much caper sauce to life"
 "Only when you're unmitigatedly lighthearted may you be assured that your body and soul are perfectly well,
 Life is made hard on purpose to strengthen the arm that conquers 1t"
 ssYour trra American likes things all the better because they're hard. -s
 Of the Autumn of the West: The one lovely thing that perpetuates the memory of the red man-1ndian Sum mer, painted as no impressionist ever dared, a whirling vision of color-the pale yellow of poplars. the dull red orange of oaks. the flame of the scarlet sumach, which gleams in paru-colored birch and maple and beech. piled In careless and impossible harmony. Like an accent, mans handiwork helped na- ture's. The rich brown of freshly blow ed land on the hill-sides, the yellow stut ble and green pasture the stacked corn, where golden cannon balls or pumpkins glowed in consciousness of their own mellowness, interrupted the woodland Here was the open meadow, with its racing shadows and lights. Goldenrod, wind-swept and holding, al ready turned to a pale sh idow of It. self, perhaps in envy of the cowpeas. whose splendor 1t had never rivaled. An errant Scotch thistle shook his pur- pie bonnet and spikey coat of mall, and the wild grasses reared strong and high their dainty heads. that one of these days they might raise their seeds above the winters snows, and provide a repast for the wandering snowbirds and hungry cotton-ta
 We've got a long row to hoe, and