Idle isle is one of the Bermudas whither a New England college president and his granddaughter go to live in seclusion. The adventures that befall the heroine who is being reared away from the wicked world and the madding crowds suggest those of Miranda before Ferdinand awakens her.
“The one extraordinary thing in the book is the language in which its characters converse and soliloquize. It is surely the strongest mixture of grandiloquence and nonsense ever put down in sober print and attributed to people in their right minds. He promises quite plainly that there are further ‘annals yet to be written.’ It is to be hoped that he will think better of it and continue his ‘leisure.’”
| − | N. Y. Times. 12: 564. S. 21, ’07. 900w. | |
| N. Y. Times. 12: 670. O. 19, ’07. 60w. |
Van Norman, Louis Edwin. Poland, the knight among nations; with an introd. by Helena Modjeska. **$1.50. Revell.
7–32871.
“Because of his intimate relations with Poles of the best class, Mr. Van Norman’s opportunities for studying both town and country life in all sections of the tripartite kingdom were exceptional, and his comments on Polish music and art, the national psychology and political and social problems are well worth considering; but his account of his pilgrimages to the scenes of Sienkewicz’s three great historical novels, and his picture of the great interpreter of Poland himself in his home among the Carpathian mountains are perhaps of the greatest interest to readers of contemporary literature.”—N. Y. Times.
“If Madame Modjeska has briefly prepared the reader for much, Mr. Van Norman has made himself admirably accessory after the fact, by telling the whole story in a vivid, impressive and scholarly manner.” Dolores Bacon.
| + + | Bookm. 26: 414. D. ’07. 590w. |