Mr. Duncan “lets heaven into the attic shekinah of a vaudeville actress, where she kept her child. Her love for him was the holy effulgence that covered her pitiful, painted life, and sanctified her. It is a fine argument for the way to heaven in women, dramatically expressed and quaintly proved, even if we leave out the philosophy of the ‘dog-face’ man, which to appreciate one must read.”—Ind.
[*] “The treatment is at once realistic and idealistic, and the two elements do not at all times blend quite harmoniously.”
| + — | Critic. 47: 577. D. ‘05. 170w. |
“Norman Duncan’s new story, ‘The mother,’ gives the impression that he wrote it with his light turned a trifle too high and with his keynote of pathos taken an octave above where the reader’s sympathies reach comfortably.”
| + — | Ind. 59: 986. O. 26, ‘05. 130w. |
[*] “Altogether, in delicate balance of humor and pathos, in quick clutch upon the heartstrings, in revealing vividness of imagination, the art and spirit of ‘The mother,’ put it in the noble class of ‘Rab and his friends.’”
| + + | Lit. D. 31: 753. N. 18, ‘05. 540w. | |
| * | Outlook. 81: 683. N. 18, ‘05. 60w. | |
| * | + — | Outlook. 81: 711. N. 25, ‘05. 50w. |
“Mr. Duncan has consistently progressed in his art, but in no instance more than in ‘The mother.’”
| + | Pub. Opin. 39: 574. O. 28, ‘05. 200w. |
Duncan, Robert Kennedy. New knowledge: a popular account of the new physics and the new chemistry in their relation to the new theory of matter. [**]$2. Barnes.