The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-01-05

wit, irony, sentiment, a delicate sense OF
character, are concentrated in this story
which tells itself so smoothly and grace
fully In a succession of natural speeches
The author brilliantly suggests the scene
and the period-France in the time of
the Revolution-and the underlying hui
NOR fthe American point of view illu
inmates the whole like a transparency
"'thout intruding in any way that spo'ls
the illusion. The people of the story are
as Individual as people in real life are TO
tho Gsuerning. as crisp and felicitous in
speech as people in books and plays ought
to be.
The fugitive aristocrats-Louis de
Laseyne. his sister, and his sweetheart,
whcm he has returned from England to
rescue-are as lifelike as they are charac-
teristically French and aristocratic, as
full of natural trepidition as OF pride
and ironic wit Then the spy who has
followed them from Paris. really the
powerful commissioner of the district
yalsin, who has arranged their escape
and caught them in a trap--is a human
monster imagined with wonderful natural
ness ingenuously cruel, yet amusing in
his wit and in his unconscious self-revela-
ton. His elaborate humiliation of Eloise
d. AWHILE (who despises the love of Louis
and mistakenly believes herself popular
with the people, and his subtle revenge"
IN bringing the lovers to an understand
ing and allowing the party TO escape are
the motives of a scene that 1t would not
be easy TO match in contemporary fiction
or drama. Beauty and the Jacobin' is
a masterpiece of its kind, worthy of the
author of NJ. Beaucaire.
THE BOOK OF WOODCRAFT'
By Ernest Thompson Seton. Doubleday
Page a. Co. New York.
Mr. Seton In "The Book of Wood
craft" has developed the woodcraft
principles set forth in his earlier in
teresting manual. "The Birch Bark
Roll" BY woodcraft he means nature
study, certain kinds of hunting. the
art Of camping and all good outdoor
athletics. Photography is recognized as
branch of nature work and camper
craft is made to include the simplest
methods of triangulation star-craft,
finding ones way, sign language as
well as many branches of fndian-craft
No writer deals with outdoor life in
so fascinating way as Mr.. Seton and
the present development of his wood
craft ideas has the strong appeal which
marks all his work
SARA"
BY Frances Stocker Hopkins. The Neale
Publishing Company, New York.
The terms Historical novel, and ''his-
torcal romance" have come to mean, al
most entirely, a story OF love and ex-
ternal adventure against a background of
war, Of religious strife. or of court in
trigue. The terrible. vivid. erotic periods
OF history are the fayorite-and conven-
acknowledgements against which nov
elists place their tales of Individual strug-
gle and romance. From the English
speaking fiction of the last quarter of a
century one might Judge that the English,
nations have known no fallow seasons
wher men are sane, and have time to
be quiet. %f
|ty it opens to the imagination! Clean
hedgerows level fields, standing grain
and long afternoons when slanting
shadows lie across the country roads;
when men go straightly about the life
they have elected to lead. buying and
selling. sowing, reaping, and resting
when the rivers run with unstained tide
and in the untroubled. sky drift clouds
of heavens own making. for no cursing
cannon mar the velvet hills. The fall
low season--how tenderly II should ap-
peal to every English heart.
In Sara" Miss Hopkins has used.
for background. the richest "fallow
season" in American history. In do
ing so she has proved that she pos
sesses rare insight into her own genius
and type. With unerring taste and a
restraint that recalls Jane Austen, she
has etched the country life Of the first