  Milton Bronner, literary critic and journalist, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, November 10, 1874. He was graduated from the University of Virginia, in 1895, when he returned to his home to join the staff of the old Louisville Commercial. In 1900 Mr. Bronner removed to Covington, Kentucky, to become city editor of The Kentucky Post, of which paper he is now editor-in-chief. Mr. Bronner's first book, called Letters from the Raven (New York, 1907), was a work about Lafcadio Hearn with many of Hearn's hitherto unpublished letters. His second and most important volume so far, Maurice Hewlett (Boston, 1910), is the first adequate discussion of the novels and poems of the celebrated English author. His method was to treat the works in the order of their publication, together with a brief word upon Mr. Hewlett's life. His little book must have pleased the novelist as much as it did the public. Mr. Bronner seems to have a flair for new writers who later "arrive." Thus years ago Poet-Lore published his paper on William Ernest Henley, before Henley's fame was so firmly established. Some years later The Independent had his essay on Francis Thompson, whom all the world now declares to have been a great and true poet. Still later The Forum printed his criticism of John Davidson, in which high estimates were set upon the unfortunate fellow's works; and The Bookman has printed a series of his critical appreciations of such men as John Masefield, Ezra Pound, Wilbur Underwood, W. H. Davies, W. W. Gibson, and Lionel Johnson, which introduced these now celebrated poets to the American public.
MR. HEWLETT'S WOMEN [From Maurice Hewlett (Boston, 1910)] Mr. Hewlett is mainly interested in his women. They are the pivots about whom his comedies and tragedies move. And his treatment of them differs from all the great contemporary novelists. Kipling gives snapshot photographs of women. He shows them in certain brief moments of their existence, in vivid blacks and whites, caught on the instant whether the subjects were laughing or crying. Stevenson's few women are presented in silhouette. Barrie and Hardy give etchings in which line by line and with the most painstaking art, the features are drawn. But Meredith and Mr. Hewlett give paintings in which brush stroke after brush stroke has been used. The reader beholds the finished work, true not only in features, but in colouring. Now Mr. Hewlett is purely medieval. The Hewlett woman is forever the plaything of love. She is always in the attitude of the pursuing who is pursued. She is forever the subject of passion, holy or unholy. Men will fight for her, plunge kingdoms and cities in war or ruin for her, die for her. Sometimes, as in "The Stooping Lady," she is the willing object of this love and stoops to enjoy its divine benison; sometimes she flees from it when it displays a satyr face as in "The Duchess of Nona;" sometimes she is caught up in its tragic coil as in "The Queen's Quair," and destroyed by it. Hewlett's women, like Hardy's, are stray angels, but like Meredith's they are creatures of the chase. And, note the difference from Meredith!—this, according to the gospel of Mr. Hewlett, is as it should be. Since it is woman's proper fate to be loved, it would seem to be impossible for Mr. Hewlett to write a story in which there is not some romantic love interest. And in each case there is a stoop on the part of one. The stoop may be happy or the reverse, but it is there. He recurs to the idea again and again, but each time with a difference that prevents monotony. In the main, Mr. Hewlett's women are good women. They are loyal and loving, ready alike to take beatings or kisses. There |
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