ery substance of art, and which are so
constantly missed in the fiction of extreme sophistication."

Our final opinion, that of James McArthur when he was editor of the
_Bookman_ carries some weight both on account of the position of the
writer and also by reason of his keen literary sense.

"... Poetry, 'the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge,'
according to Wordsworth, the impassioned expression which is in the
countenance of all science'--that poetry irrespective of rhyme and
metrical arrangement which is as immortal as the heart of man, is
distinctive in Mr. Allen's work from the first written page. Like
Minerva issuing full-formed from the head of Jove, Mr. Allen issues
from his long years of silence and seclusion a perfect master of
his art--unfailing in its inspiration, unfaltering in its classic
accent.... So that when we arrive at _The Choir Invisible_ we find
there a ripeness of matured thought, an insight into the moral
depths of passion, and an entrance into the larger, deeper
movements of life, a realizing power, a broader sense of humor, as
well as humor itself, a concentrated and universal human interest;
all of which is not so much the result of finer art as of a greater
absorption of life, which comes not from more knowledge, but from
more wisdom. _The Choir Invisible_ is like an inward realization of
the 'Domain of Arnheim!' More than in his other books there rests
upon this work that unembarrassed calm, where truth sits Jove-like
'on the quiet seat above the thunder,' where the spirit is
dignified, is priest-like, and inspired; where beauty dwells in a
harmony of thought and expression that subdues and haunts us. In
short, in _The Choir Invisible_ Mr. Allen has come to that stage of
quiet and eternal frenzy in which the beauty of holiness and the
holiness of beauty burn as one fire, shine as one light, which, as
Sidney Lanier has demonstrated, denotes the great artist. _The
Choir Invisible_ undeniably places its author among the foremost in
American letters. Indeed, we venture to say that it would be
difficult to recall any other novel since _The Scarlet Letter_ that
has touched the same note of greatness, or given to one section of
our national life, as Hawthorne's classic did to another, a voice
far beyond singing.

A word, however, about Mr. Allen's _Summer in A