“As an artistic whole ‘The altar fire’ suffers from the use of too ambitious a scene. The book is sure of a large and respectful public; but the remnant of reactionaries, the classical people whose eyes have been dazzled by gazing upon the sun, will still see patent blots in Mr. Benson’s work—if indeed it is Mr. Benson and not the mask which comes between.”
| + − | Sat. R. 104: sup. 5. N. 16, ’07. 980w. |
Benson, Arthur C. Beside still waters. **$1.25. Putnam.
7–15922.
“Meditations and recollections of a man who, after a busy life, settles down into a kind of epicurean seclusion from the world. ‘He found a small, picturesque, irregularly-built house crushed in between the road and the river, which, in fact, dipped its very feet in the stream.’... Could a better lodge be found for a recluse who likes to season his days of solitude with an occasional dinner in Hall with his old college friends! And presently the college takes him back into its fold, while the house by the waters is kept as a place of retreat and quiet work.”—Nation.
| A. L. A. Bkl. 3: 159. O. ’07. |
“It is difficult to write so completely introspective a book as this. We wonder at the end of it how we have interested ourselves with it for so long, till we reflect on Mr. Benson’s easy flow of undistracting thoughts, raised just a little above commonplace by a certain sanity or breadth of view which no doubt is a gospel in itself.”
| + | Ath. 1907. 1: 539. My. 4. 330w. |
“Those who have enjoyed the charm of ‘From a college window,’ with sweet spirit, lofty thought, and exquisite tenderness expressed in limpid delightful English, will find a similar treat in Mr. Benson’s present work.”