The New York herald., 1922-11-26

is ike the Hight of bird; gesture
free and beautiful. moving in a long,
harmonious sweep that carries you from
beginning to end without halt or lar. 1t is
love story. in especial the woman's love
story. a love incapable of alteration. built
into the very fiber of her being, beginning
in childhood and continuing through many
hazards, yet love held with courage and
a high heart in absolute unselfishness
Anne is modern. but she is not the hard,
self-suff1cient modern; she is a creature
generous and warm, absolutely honest, able
to sacrifice herself without a whimper. with
out the least pose of martyrdom, caring
nothing for the opinions or the structures
of those who were not dear to her, but
caring immensely for realities.
Miss Sinclair is a writer who is con-
stantly interesting. Not merely because of
her story but because she is intensely ia
terested in her art She is not wrapped
in the bonds of what she has done. She
approaches each new piece of work with
mind clean washed of anything else but
the immediate problem. She gave us two
books last year. extraordinarily different
from each other and different from what
she had done before. Different in manner.
in the way she thought of each, in the
method by which she reached into the
vitals of the story she was telling. And
in this new book she is fresh again. Her
style is more flowing, and it has a clarity
and directness she has not shown before
She has always had love for and an
appreciation of natural beauty, a power to
put scene into words and make it live
She shows this same power in her latest
work and with it a suaver handling
kind of glow. 1t is the same effect as that
perceptible when. having seen view from
some window on gray. chill day, you see
it again bathed in sunlight, fervent with
summer. This book has a beauty that the
preceding books did not have, a beauty
that belongs to Anne herself and to all
that touches her.
Anne is not of course, the only woman
in the novel. There is the mother of the
three Fielding men,, there are the young
women two ofthem marry Each is vitality
conceived. Mrs. Fielding is the kind of
woman who would sacrifice any one or
anything for her personal comfort, yet
who never could admit this even in her
most intimate moments with herself She
must be surrounded by happy people, not
that she cared a Whit for them. but that
any distress or sullenness or bw spirits
annoyed her. She could not remain in the
room with her husband when he was dying
because she would not bear the sight of
suffering. He adored her, and she loved
him because he adored her; she revelled in
the effect of her beauty upon him. But
except in his relation of ministering to her
he did not exist. Nor did anything else
exist except in that relation. We have all
known such women, and, knowing them
we can the more admire the fairness, the
lack of exaggeration. with which Miss Sin
clair has painted her.
Then there is Maisie
Maisie is one of those gentle and ex-
quiste souls who is made to be happy and
to give happiness. Who can be so cruelty
hurt through her affections that often,
where the substance is lacking, she will
be given the shadow, for fear that she
cannot bear the truth. for sheer inability
10 thrust a knife into anything so deli
cately kind and trusting Yet Maisie is
too fine to live on anything but the truth.
Suffer she must, but she viii choose which
sort of suffering. and her courage is not
less than Anne's. fragile and yielding as
she is. Between two such women any con-
test viii be filled with amazing generosities.
and she who wins viii feel herself the
loser, however happiness may fall. If