The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-09
THE LAUGHING MUSE" :"

HE IAUGHlNCT MI SE.
 By Arthur Guiterman. Harper Broth
 CTS, publishers, New York.
 MT. Arthur Guiterman, whose book, ''The Laughing Muse," has just been published, has fairly earned the right to a place beside such acknowledged masters of light verse as w. s. Gill bert and the immortal e. s. C." The Gilbertian smoothness and ingenuity Of his meters, the touch of real poetic feeling here and there in the midst of his fun, which reminds one of Cal yerly, the unexpectedness and natural ness of his rhymes, which suggest no one but himself, are all marks of one of the rarest of talents. Mir. Guiterman can add to jest the grace of a jingle that doubles the point of the witti- cism or redeems a pun from it's na- tive banality and makes it thing of grotesquerie and delight Rhyme gives an edge to his satire and careless lit doubles the effect of his antitheses.
 It Is remarkable fact that the stories MT. Guiterman tells in verse are better told than they could well be told in prose-there is satisfying completeness and perspicuousness al- ways in the authors tripping lines. Like the older masters-and especially the Englishmen-he understands the value of simplicity and a startling clearness. And his matter is always worth taking pains with. Oriental tales, expectations of well known authors, DOCK reviews, comments upon the passing show, fanciful humoresques- all his subjects have meat of some kind in them and all are handled with con- summate ease. One is sorry only that more of Mr. Guiterman's ''rhymed re- views" were not included in the pres ent volume. The author is so adept in untangling the action of story and hitting off it's traits in verse that he puts to shame the pressing of the pedestrian reviewer.
 "A RIPPING GIRL"
 By May Baldwin. Six colored illus
 trations. J. B. Lppincott Co.,, pub
 fishers, Philadelphia
 Miss Baldwin certainly knows how to write a girls book in which there is combined all the ingredients that go to make healthy, cheerful tale Sackville Nicholsons career as a schoolgirl told to us in "A Ripping Girl" is worth the while of every mother to obtain for her daughters IedulHS DOOk Snell-1I TOT no OCner reason than it is so bright and cheer ful that the mother herself will prob ably obtain great pleasure in read ing it.
 Sackville is the daughter of young and beautiful widow, who upon the death of her husband had been left almost penniless. For a time affairs look rather black for them but the sun shines when relation offers them vacant manor house, rent free. Mrs. Nicholson, rather helpless mother her 14-year- old daughter, Sacky, and Hannah, the ever amusing, always de- licious maid, with their few articles of old furniture, admist much excitement move to administer and settle under the guardianship of Tom Atwell, the 
 Sacl1ville immediately begins to consider methods of earning more money and soon hits upon the plan of raising chickens for the market She saves a little money, buys some matching eggs and soon there is a troop of little fuzzy clfeepers running about. On the advice of her paternal grandfather she goes to Blackstead's S Girls school and it is there that she first obtains the nickname of "a rip-i l ping girl" At cricket she soon proves star and in fact at every girlish or mind, she is successful. It was not only her classmates, but also in her work l and everyday life. There are many entertaining adventures in which the l