The reader must not imagine that he is to find in
it wisdom, brilliancy, fertility of invention, ingenuity
of construction, excellence of form, purity of style,
perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness of
statement, humanly possible situations, humanly pos-
sible people, fluent narrative, connected sequence
of events--or philosophy, or logic, or sense. No; the
rich, deep, beguiling charm of the book lies in the
total and miraculous absence from it of all these
qualities--a charm which is completed and per-
fected by the evident fact that the author, whose
naïve innocence easily and surely wins our regard,
and almost our worship, does not know that they are
absent, does not even suspect that they are absent.
When read by the light of these helps to an under-
standing of the situation, the book is delicious--
profoundly and satisfyingly delicious.

I call it a book because the author calls it a book,
I call it a work because he calls it a work; but, in
truth, it is merely a duodecimo pamphlet of thirty-
one pages. It was written for fame and money, as
the author very frankly--yes, and very hopefully,
too, poor fellow--says in his preface. The money
never came--no penny of it ever came; and how long,
how pathetically long, the fame has been deferred--
forty-seven years! He was young then, it would
have been so much to him then; but will he care for
it now?

As time is measured in America, McClintock's
epoch is antiquity. In his long-vanished day the
Southern author had a passion for "eloquence"; it
was his pet, his darling. He would be eloquent, or

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