me of the tender flesh shut up in
her magnificent garments or of the tender spirit schooled by flawless,
immemorial discipline to an absolute decorum. That such glimpses come
just preserves her from appearing a mere figure of tapestry, a fine
mechanical toy. The Salem which before her arrival seems quaintly formal
enough immediately thereafter seems by contrast raw and new, and her
beauty glitters like a precious gem in some plain man's house.

Much the same effect, on a less vivid scale, is produced in _The Three
Black Pennys_ by the presence on the Pennsylvania frontier--it is almost
that--of Ludowika Winscombe, who has always lived at Court and who
brings new fragrances, new dainty rites, into the forest; and in
_Mountain Blood_ by the presence among the Appalachian highlands of that
ivory, icy meretrix Meta Beggs who plans to drive the best possible
bargain for her virgin favors. Meta carries the decorative traits of Mr.
Hergesheimer's women to the point at which they suggest the marionette
too much; by his methods, of course, he habitually runs the risk of
leaving the flesh and blood out of his women. He leaves out, at least,
with no fluttering compunctions, any special concern for the simpler
biological aspects of the sex: "It was not what the woman had in common
with a rabbit that was important, but her difference. On one hand that
difference was moral, but on the other aesthetic; and I had been
absorbed by the latter." "I couldn't get it into my head that
loveliness, which had a trick of staying in the mind at points of death
when all service was forgotten, was rightly considered to be of less
importance than the sweat of some kitchen drudge."

Such robust doctrine is a long way from the customary sentimentalism of
novelists about maids, wives, mothers, and widows. Indeed, Mr.
Hergesheimer, like Poe before him, inclines very definitely toward
beauty rather than toward humanity, where distinctions may be drawn
between them. In Linda Condon, however, his most remarkable creation, he
has brought humanity and beauty together in an intimate fusion. Less
exotic than Taou Yuen, Linda, with her straight black bang and her
extravagant simplicity of taste, is no less exquisite. And like Taou
Yuen she affords Mr. Hergesheimer the opportunity he most desires--"to
realize that sharp sense of beauty which came from a firm, delicate
consciousness of certain high pretensions, valors, maintained in the
face of imminent destruct