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· who find their way to it'll never be turned aside, You've got a giving , band, not a taking one." '. And so it proved thru life. Kate's : wisdom, at times, might be ques- ! tioned, but never her loyalty ori 'her loving devotion; her entire unselfishness of spirit and unquestioning willingness to bear the bur~ i dens love put upon her. "You'll' work things out your own way in secret," was Old Lady Phibben's truthful forecast, "No one'll ever tell you what. road to take. You'll find it alone. and it won't be easy going. Miss F'ield is equally skillful in her portrayal of Nat, an entirely different type Of character-Al l fire and air as Kate was all earth," as Old Lady Phtbben ·exPressed it. · Nat 'l'\'1l.S one of tnoi;,e .people fated t1>, bf! mu<J,h lovell imd to bring sorrow ..and lllisfortune to those Who l1;1'Ved him, 'f{e kept tWO WOm• en fl'<}.nt. PlM't.1~e t9, m~.who loved tlle!_l! ~amt· was . miserable. wtth ttie .wom!l.n · M' m"a.t'riM:",. "r~; t~' iti:.. 'th~r 'ihakes"lt p1.ali\. C 'b~~*:ll.s 'tid't:' 't~
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blame, an« he s\,tflered · even more himself than he 'made others suffer. It was to Nat, from the night she first saw him. small and impish,'·Everything peaked and startled about his face, brows like two black feathers above meny brown eyes; tumbled spikes of dark ! hair and a small triangular chin," ! as she records her first impression-to the night of Ms death, that Kate gave her unfaltering devotion,. welling up, fuller and deeper, in those months of his despair, when he had the most need of it. For him ,she sacrificed home and a , life of security with Jake Bullard; i the regard of her neighbors, her 1 [ position in the community, and the affection of Rissa, her friend since childhood. Yet there is no repining 01· bitterness of spirit in this woman who records so poignantly a life lived deeply, if not widely, when there is nothing left to look forward to. "For it was a . .strange, high tide that took our three lives and flung them together, to mine-le in salt , and sun and the fierce currents of our youth. I think there must always be Fortunes and Fernalds wherever there are people in the world whether they go by thos-e nan1es or not. Miss Field has given a memorwble picture of the love ·between a slstei: and brother; the sister's protective and defiant · in child,hood; in maturity so all-absorbing and dominating that it stifled what it would have cherished.
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One of the finest tning &bout : Miss Field's novel is its com1ist- ! ency. Not a single note of inconsistency creeps into any one of the characters or their actions. An'.1, next, perhaps. comes the un~~m, able literary quality of the writing, ~Miss Field has an unerring J.nsttnct for the right word and the right \ expression. She can evoke memories as poignantly and as sure}y as can certain perfumes associated with one's past. If her boo~ ~s rOIIlance, who shall not say it 11!1 not also realism, for the scenes and the emotions it portrays are ver_y real and true to life .. The bitter 1s i mingled with the sweet in large ! 'quantities, but it never embitters its heroine and it never becomes hopeless or sordid, Surely, consistently and inevitably the story moves alon.g to the 1dramatic trial in which Kate's action on the tragic night which is the story's climax, is vindicated. Maine readers peruse the book with deep contentment. The places, the vernacular, the people, the traditions, all are familiar.· We seem to be participants with her in the evening launching 1>f the "Rainbow," one of those events celebrated for miles up and down 1 the coast, now forever past. Some of the thlng.s described, like the launching, are seen thru th.; glamour of childish eyes; other,~ thru the eyes of maturity, stripped of all illusion. Only once does the writer's eye& stray, in retrospect, from the salty pine lands, the shipyards 3:nd the tiny harbor village, to winch Kate has persistently clung, and that is when she lives over again, in memory, that glorified and tri,• umphant night in New York, whet\ she saw Nat directing a great or~ chestra and swaying a whole theatre . by the composition which she knew as did no other but its com.. poser. . Sitting in her little room she fleets with calm conviction that it would make Nat happy to know that sometimes they play his 'SlhiI> Symphony,' it coming to me acrosa miles of air from a far-away con• cert hall. I knew when I heard the drums begin their familiar beat of !hammers on wooden hulls, what I
- had known l!O surely that night of
his concert and out there alon~ with him in the storm, that noth.:-. ing which has ever · iitirred ~ heart can be lost to us." Macmillan Co., New York, &"41 publishers of the oook. , E. B. W.
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