Tue Avo Dowomon. By Mary John gen, By Orman op vin Coxranr. By Johnston. Thornton, Butterworth not each.
Tt was with something of a shock Sha 1 Sided, om miking sp thems Se. prints, that a quarter of a posed since T rat read the rst jand not much less since I read the [second. Upon that disconcerting. discovery it was interesting to try whether the thrill I enjoyed—it seemed but yesterday,—could " be recaptured from a re-reading. Two important things seemed to be involved in the issue. Not Mary Johnston's claim to mame. That is surely, by now, put beyond doubt. But two jings important to me seemed to hang upon the result of the test: my own taste in fiction and a possible clue to the discovery of an injgredient of fiction essential to lasting enjoyment. It seemed to me that here should be a test one does not often get the chance of. There fare, of course, many books of fiction we read first 25 and even more years ago and still read. But then we {have been reading them on and off during the whole of the period; Dickens, Merivale and one or two others. "So that they have become Jold friends, usual and near, and no answers to portant questions of literary taste and the essential quality in fiction to lasting enjoyment may now be extracted from their comfortable perusal. Here, in Mary Johnston's "Old Dominion," test. 'a book I read seemed the opportunity of the real
all years ago. Would the old thrill return? And lo! It was #0. It shook with the same force. Nay, more; I'll swear it shook the same youth—that if I could have looked up from the reading into a mirror, T would have seen a crown of brown hair atop of an unlined, eager face.
But I could not look up until I came to the end and to the answers to my questions: that literary taste does not matter very much and that the only essentials in literature to permanent enjoyment are Youth and Romance, No very great discovery? Maybe not; but very satisfying to me. Mary Johnston. I thank you a thousand times.
Joun Lorrinc,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.