to tell truth she has chosen a difficult and dangerous if alluring art
form. Of course letters enable you to evade some of the difficulties
of the novelist's task, to be discursive, allusive and incomplete. But
you can't be let off anything of the precision and subtlety of your
characterisation. On the contrary. And _Joan_ makes everyone in Pelton
(except the rustics, whose authenticity I gravely suspect) talk
as _Joan_ writes. They have nearly all seen her commonplace book,
I judge. Then, again, you must not have (like _Joan_) a large list
of acquaintances, or you breed confusion and dissipate interest
accordingly. _Joan_ is very young in many ways. She is extravagant in
the matter of the equipment of her heroes. _Bob Ingleby_, the farmer
(a gentleman, because he had been at Winchester), is a "great comely
giant," yet wins events one and three of the Hunt Steeplechase, though
thrown badly in number two. I have a suspicion that this work is
really _Joan's_ tee shot, and that after a notable recovery, which on
the best of her present form I can safely prophesy, she will reach her
green year next time.

* * * * *

Mrs. T.P. O'CONNOR has written a fascinating book. _My Beloved South_
she calls it, and PUTNAMS publish it. There is not a lifeless page
in the 427 that make up a bountiful feast. Every one contains vivid
reproductions of incidents in social life in the South "befo' de
wa'" and after. At the outset we make the acquaintance of a typical
Southron, Mrs. O'CONNOR's grandfather, Governor of Florida when it
was still a Territory, with native Indians fighting fiercely for their
land and homes. Mrs. O'CONNOR was, of course, not to the fore in those
early days. But so steeped is she in lore of the South, much of it
gained from the lips of nurses and out-door servants, so keen is her