Castle, Mrs. Agnes (Sweetman), and Castle, Egerton. [If youth but knew.] †$1.50. Macmillan.
The time and rule of Jerome Bonaparte furnish the “occasion and material of this romance.... The period chosen by the authors is just anterior to the fall of Jerome, and the critical part of the narrative passes in Cassel at the King’s court. The atmosphere clothes this story as a garment from the very outset, when we make the acquaintance of the young Anglo-Austrian count and his chance companion, the wayfaring fiddler, Geiger-Hans. It begins to be romantic, it continues in the true vein of romance, and ends sweetly upon a proper romantic note, to the accompaniment of Geiger-Hans’s fiddle.” (Ath.)
“From the opening pages of the present story the stage and its machinery are always in sight. But once accept the book as a glorified libretto of a romantic opera, clever, dainty, delicately treated, and all runs smoothly and delightfully to the end.”
+ – Acad. 70: 358. Ap. 14, ’06. 420w. + Ath. 1906, 1: 474. Ap. 21. 400w. + Critic. 48: 571. Je. ’06. 60w.
“It is a story throbbing with life, instinct with poetic feeling, and bearing the stamp of a creative power that is closely akin to genius.” Wm. M. Payne.
+ + Dial. 40: 364. Je. 1, ’06. 180w. + Ind. 60: 1488. Je. 21, ’06. 120w.
“This is one of the prettiest of the stories of Agnes and Egerton Castle.”
+ N. Y. Times. 11: 270. Ap. 28, ’06. 630w. + N. Y. Times. 11: 384. Je. 16, ’06. 130w.
Reviewed by Louise Collier Willcox.