+ − Nation 110:557 Ap 24 ’20 550w
“Unfortunately, Mr Masters frequently fails to sing because he fails to simplify. He is a thinker, first of all, and the thinker is naturally more discursive than the singer. And now a word for the best of the book. It is a poem about Roosevelt, called At Sagamore Hill. Here is a poem which has in it truth, dignity, vision, vitality.” Marguerite Wilkinson
+ − N Y Times 25:4 Mr 7 ’20 1100w
“In ‘Starved Rock,’ the reader will not starve, though he will scarcely feast. There are the usual monologues, of which only two are slimy. There are bulky and hazy philosophies, cosmicisms, idealisms, feeble sedatives for bitter griefs. There is an excellent bit of journalism, self-described in the title, Sagamore Hill. There are landscapes of an alluring but unsatisfying picturesqueness. There are instances of that lyric pliancy and invitation which surprise the ear among the ruder notes of Mr Masters, and there are rare moments of true inspiration.” O. W. Firkins
+ − Review 2:519 My 15 ’20 650w
“Mr Masters is the same versatile narrator who builds poems of facts rather than of fancies, and who presents carefully analyzed characters and situations in a cold, direct and fearless way. He is still at his best as an analyst or narrator, and he is still unsatisfactory and unconvincing when he wanders from matter-of-fact or satirical verse.”
+ − Springf’d Republican p10 F 20 ’20 850w
MATHEWS, BASIL JOSEPH. Argonauts of faith: the adventures of the “Mayflower” Pilgrims. il *$1.50 Doran 974.4
20–10629
In this book for boys and girls, with a foreword by Viscount Bryce, there is a prologue comparing the embarking of the Pilgrims on their quest for liberty to the ancient Argonauts’ quest of the Golden fleece. The epilogue suggests that the Pilgrim fathers had their counterparts in the heroes of “Pilgrim’s progress,” and that they laid the keel for a new Argo—the ship of state of a new commonwealth. The stories told are: On the great north road: The stormy passage; The land of threatening waters; The house with the green door; The ship of adventure; The adventures of scouting; A clearing in the waste; Builders in the waste; Greatheart, Mr Standfast, and Valiant-for-truth. There are a chronology, an index, illustrations and maps.