“The writer has made no attempt, in these discreet articles, to treat her subject profoundly or from an original point of view.”
+ – Critic. 47: 573. D. ’05. 120w. + – N. Y. Times. 11: 3. Ja. 6, ’06. 540w.
Winter, Alice Ames. [Jewel weed.] †$1.50. Bobbs.
In the foreground of this story with a middle west setting is a quartette of young people composed of Dick Percival of substantial family connections, his college friend Ellery Norris who is striving to make good his heralded efficiency, Madeline Elton, a finely bred young woman, and Lena Quincy whose gilded vulgarity finds fit expression in the jewel weed. The “jewel weed” becomes Dick’s protege, later his wife, and as such a foreign element in the refined atmosphere of his mother’s home. In contrast to her selfishness which menaces her husband’s social, financial and political career is the fine loyalty of Madeline, which champions everybody’s cause—Ellery Norris more than all others.
“Though not a great novel, this is an excellent love-story written in a bright and pleasing style and very rich in human interest. More than this, it is for the most part true to the life it depicts.”
+ Arena. 36: 687. D. ’05. 300w.
Wise, John Sergeant. Recollections of thirteen presidents. **$2.50. Doubleday.
From the political atmosphere surrounding him in boyhood, the author absorbed the personalities of the presidents of his father’s day, Tyler, Pierce and Buchanan; and of the men following down to the present day he is able to write out of the fulness of his intimate knowledge of them. The author is a Southerner, fought with the confederacy, and does not neglect to make prominent the just position from which to view the work of Jefferson Davis.