Page:Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads (1892).djvu/235



“If considered only as a semi-love story, it is exceptionally fascinating; but when judged as a literary effort, it is truly great.”—Home Journal.

“Under an unpretentious title we have here the most brilliant novel, or rather romance, that has been given to the world for a very long time.”—The American.

“No story of human experience that we have met with since ‘John Inglesant’ has such an effect of transporting the reader into regions differing from his own. ‘Mr. Isaacs’ is the best novel that has ever laid its scenes in our Indian dominions.”—The Daily News.

“A work of unusual ability. It fully deserves the notice it is sure to attract.”—The Athenæum.

“A story of remarkable freshness and promise, displaying exceptional gifts of imagination.”—The Academy.

“An interesting and attractive story, and in some directions a positive advance upon ‘Mr. Isaacs.’”—New York Tribune.

“‘Dr, Claudius’ is surprisingly good, coming after a story of so much merit as ‘Mr. Isaacs.’ The hero is a magnificent specimen of humanity, and sympathetic readers will be fascinated by his chivalrous wooing of the beautiful American countess.”—Boston Traveller.

“The novel opens with a magnificent description of the march of the Babylonian court to Belshazzar’s feast, with the sudden and awful ending of the latter by the marvellous writing on the wall which Daniel is called to interpret. From that point the story moves on in a series of grand and dramatic scenes and incidents which will not fail to hold the reader fascinated and spell-bound to the end.”—Christian at Work.

“The field of Mr. Crawford’s imagination appears to be unbounded. In ‘Zoroaster’ Mr. Crawford’s winged fancy ventures a daring flight. Yet ‘Zoroaster’ is a novel rather than a drama. It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly do.”—The Times.

“It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story. It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue.”—Critic.