at
once recognized. Inevitably he chose Kentucky for the scene of his
stories, knowing and loving, as he did, her characteristics and her
history. While preparing his articles on 'The Blue-Grass Region,' he had
studied the Trappist Monastery and the Convent of Loretto, as well as
the records of the Catholic Church in Kentucky; and his first stories,
'The White Cowl' and 'Sister Dolorosa,' which appeared in the Century
Magazine, were the first fruits of this labor. A controversy arose as to
the fairness of these portraitures; but however opinions may differ as
to his characterization, there can be no question of the truthfulness of
the exposition of the mediaeval spirit of those retreats.

This tendency to use a historic background marks most of Mr. Allen's
stories. In 'The Choir Invisible,' a tale of the last century, pioneer
Kentucky once more exists. The old clergyman of 'Flute and Violin' lived
and died in Lexington, and had been long forgotten when his story
"touched the vanishing halo of a hard and saintly life." The old negro
preacher, with texts embroidered on his coat-tails, was another figure
of reality, unnoticed until he became one of the 'Two Gentlemen of
Kentucky.' In Lexington lived and died "King Solomon," who had almost
faded from memory when his historian found the record of the poor
vagabond's heroism during the plague, and made it memorable in a story
that touches the heart and fills the eyes. 'A Kentucky Cardinal,' with
'Aftermath,' its second part, is full of history and of historic
personages. 'Summer in Arcady: A Tale of Nature,' the latest of Mr.
Allen's stories, is no less based on local history and no less full of
local color than his other tales, notwithstanding its general
unlikeness.

This book sounds a deeper note than the earlier tales, although the
truth which Mr. Allen sees is not mere fidelity to local types, but the
essential truth of human nature. His realism has always a poetic aspect.
Quiet, reserved, out of the common, his books deal with moods rather
than with actions; their problems are spiritual rather than physical;
their thought tends toward the higher and more difficult way of life.

A COURTSHIP
From 'Summer in Arcady'

The sunlight grew pale the following morning; a shadow crept rapidly
over the blue; bolts darted about the skies like maddened redbirds; the
thunder, ploughing its way down the dome as along zigzag cracks in the
stony street, filled the caverns of the