Faint Perfume

Now and then a novel, or play, or poem, which reminds us of the great authors of the "past and of the great tradition in literature, comes to our hands, and then we count ourselves and our times fortunate indeed. By this likeness is not meant similarity of story or of plot by way of imitation, but likeness of the theme which forms the substance of the book.In this small class of novels we number "'Faint Perfume," for it deals with one of those great human themes which are as universal as literature itself - the old story of lives that are frustrated by reason of the very height and purity of the ideals which govern them; a theme as old as the story of the Antigone of Sophocles and as recent as the story of Dorothea Brooke of George Eliot. The clear intelligence of Eliot has given us the universal bearing of her theme in general terms: It is the story of St. Theresa, who was defeated by "domestic reality." The original Theresa won success later; but "many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant --The Wisconsin Magazine, Volume 1