THE CLEARER SIGHT
Ernest Starr, a writer of occasional stories, lives in North Carolina.
The most interesting element in Mr. Ernest Starr's narrative is the dramatic conflict of emotions. Placed first in the gnomish atmosphere of a chemical laboratory, the tone soon changes from scientific to ethical—each interest being intensified and directed by the deep emotion of romantic love. A serious accident in the laboratory creates the crisis; it reveals to Noakes, the young scientist, the inexcusable baseness in his character—a baseness which allowed him to act with direct disloyalty to his employer and with somewhat obvious disloyalty to the ideals cherished by the girl whom he loved. The situation is finally relieved by his confessions and by the physician's hope that the young scientist's physical blindness is not necessarily permanent.
The author shows unusual skill in dialogue, in analysis, and in the handling of both conventional and dramatic situations.
THE GARDEN OF MEMORIES
C. A. Mercer is an American author who has, unfortunately, been altogether silent of late years.
In this story the traditions and influence of Hawthorne are picturesquely revived. The experience is one which is a bit fragile and tenuous, but to readers who reproduce in their fancy the more delicate picturings of their childhood, who delight in the re-creation of mood, who frequently re-live their childhood sentiments—to all such will come a sense of pleasure in the contemplation of the tracery here so artistically etched.
THE CLEAREST VOICE