" ... A highly clever performance with little touches that recall both Balzac and Meredith ... is endowed with exceeding originality. In this 1893 novel, a young poet, Dale Bannister, suddenly finds himself possessed of fame and fortune. He moves to the town of Denborough, where he acquires an enemy, Squire Delane, and an equally unwelcome acolyte, Dr. Roberts. In his speech at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy in 1894, among many other good things, Mr. Andrew Lang said:"The thrifty plan of giving us sermons, politics, fiction, all in one stodgy sandwich, produces no permanent literature, produces but temporary 'tracts for the times ..."--
