“The stories are not bad, considered as magazine stories. They show, most of them, something of Mrs. Atherton’s characteristic qualities—a certain rough power of presentation and an insight into character, especially feminine character. But there is no unifying thought running through all this miscellany. In some we are taken to that mysterious borderland, the ‘great pale world.’ But Mrs. Atherton’s art is not delicate enough for such a theme; neither, to speak plainly, is her mastery over the English language sufficient.”
| + — | Acad. 68: 127. F. 11, ‘05. 260w. |
“All are characterized by the sort of passionate virility, the picturesque materialism, with which Mrs. Atherton’s previous books have made us familiar. Its faults are want of balance, judgment and restraint.”
| + — | Ath. 1905, 1: 238. F. 25. 390w. |
“The dominant note of the book is—uncanny. The stories, needless to say, are told by one who can tell them well, but they are the result of introspection rather than of observation.”
| + | Cath. World. 29: 129. Ap. ‘05. 140w. |
“The method is careless, there is no delicacy of touch, and the dialogue in almost all the stories is preposterous.”
| — — | Critic. 46: 477. My. ‘05. 150w. |
“[The first is] a charming tale, having that touch of the occult always so fascinating—a faraway suggestion of Poe’s ‘Lady Ligeia.’ The other nine stories vary in everything save in the artistic manner of their handling.... Like Mr. Howells, Mrs. Atherton gives such imaginings the perfect touch by leaving everything vague and unexplained, and by placing them in a setting of real people and things thrown upon her canvas with her own surpassing skill.”
| + | N. Y. Times. 10: 114. F. 25, ‘05. 600w. | |
| Outlook. 79: 704. Mr. 18, ‘05. 40w. |