e happy writers once in a lifetime (and to many
never at all) when the moving hand seems gloriously in gear with
the tremulous and busy mind, and all the spinning earth stands
hearkeningly still waiting for the perfect expression of the
thought. It is the work of a hand trained in laborious task-work
and then set magnificently free, for a few blessed months, under
no burden save that of putting its captaining spirit truthfully
on paper. And this book--in which there is a sea passage that not
even Mr. Conrad has ever bettered--this book, which makes the
utmost self-satisfied heroics of the Prominent Writers of our
market place shrivel uncomfortably in remembrance--this book, we
repeat, though published in this country in 1913, has been long
out of print; and the copy which we were lucky enough to lay hand
on through the courtesy of the State Librarian of Pennsylvania
had not previously been borrowed since November 18, 1913. Someone
asks us if this man can really write. Let us choose a paragraph
for example. This deals with the first day at sea of the tramp
steamer _Capella_:

It was December, but by luck we found a halcyon morning which had
got lost in the year's procession. It was a Sunday morning, and
it had not been ashore. It was still virgin, bearing a vestal
light. It had not been soiled yet by any suspicion of this
trampled planet, this muddy star, which its innocent and tenuous
rays had discovered in the region of night. I thought it still
was regarding us as a lucky find there. Its light was tremulous,
as if with joy and eagerness. I met this discovering morning as
your ambassador while you still slept, and betrayed not, I hope,
any grayness and bleared satiety of ours to its pure, frail, and
lucid regard. That was the last good service I did before leaving
you quite. I was glad to see how well your old earth did meet
such a light, as though it had no difficulty in looking day in
the face. The world was miraculously renewed. It rose, and
received the newborn of Aurora in its arms. There were clouds of
pearl above hills of chrysoprase. The sea ran in volatile flames.
The shadows on the bright deck shot to and fro as we rolled. The
breakfast bell rang not too soon. This was a right beginning.

The above is a paragraph that we have chosen from Mr. Tomlinson's
book almost at random. We could spend the whole afternoon (and a