Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods_ is Stewart Edward White in a somewhat
unusual but entirely taking role. Here we have Mr. White writing what is
essentially a comedy; and yet there is an element of fantasy in the story
which, in the light of a few opening and closing paragraphs, can be taken
seriously, too.

The story sounds, in an outline, almost baldly implausible. Here are
certain people, including a young woman, the daughter of a captain of
industry, stranded in the redwoods. Here is a young man out of nowhere,
who foretells the weather in a way that is uncannily verified soon
afterward. Here also is the astonishing engine which the young man has
brought with him out of nowhere,--an engine likely to revolutionise the
affairs of the world....

I suppose that the secret of such a story as _On Tiptoe_ lies entirely in
the telling. I know that when I heard it outlined, the thing seemed to me
to be preposterous. But then, while still under the conviction of this
preposterousness, the story itself came to my hand and I began to read.
Its preposterousness did not worry me any longer. It had, besides a
plausibility more than sufficient, a narrative charm and a whimsical
humour that would have justified any tale. The thing that links _On
Tiptoe_ with Stewart Edward White is the perfect picture of the
redwoods--the feeling of all outdoors you get while under the spell of the
story. I do not think there is any doubt that all lovers of White will
enjoy this venture into the field of light romance.

=iii=

Stewart Edward White was the son of T. Stewart White and Mary E. (Daniell)
White. He received the degree of bachelor of philosophy from the
University of Michigan in 1895 and the degree of master of arts from the
same institution in 1903 (_Who's Who in America: Volume 12_). He attended
Columbia Law School in 1896-97. He married on April 28, 1904, Elizabeth
Grant of Newport, Rhode Island. He was a major with the 144th Field
Artillery in 1917-18. He lives in California. But these skeletal details,
all right for _Who's Who in America_, serve our purpose poorly. I am going
to try to picture the man from two accounts of him written by friends. One
appeared as an appendix to White's novel _Gold_, published in 1913, and
was written by Eugene F. Saxton. The other is a short newspaper article by
John Palmer Gavit (long with the New York Evening Post) printed in the
Philadelphia Ledger for May 20, 1922.

Mr. Saxton had a talk wit