Naturally he found that he had something to write about on his return. _The Land of Footprints_, _African Camp Fires_, _Simba_, and _The Leopard Woman_ were books that grew out of his African trip. Mr. White next planned to write a series of three novels dealing with the romantic history of the state of California. The first of these books, _Gold_, describes the mad rush of the Forty-Niners on the first discovery of gold in California. _The Gray Dawn_, the second of the series, tells of the days of the Vigilantes, when the wild life of the mining camps slowly settled down to law and order. The coming of the World War was a fresh challenge to his adventurous spirit, and he saw service in France as a major in the U. S. Field Artillery. From this sketch it is apparent that Mr. White's books have all grown out of his experience, in the sense that the background is one that he has known. This explains the strong feeling of reality that we experience as we read his stories. NEW ENGLAND GRANITE _From the day the Pilgrims landed on a rockbound coast, the name New Englander has suggested certain traits of character. It connotes a restraint of feeling which more impulsive persons may mistake for absence of feeling; a reserve carried almost to the point of coldness; a quiet dignity which to a breezy Westerner seems like "stand-offishness." But those who come to know New England people well, find that beneath the flint is fire. Dorothy Canfield suggests the theme of her story in the title--"Flint and Fire."_ FLINT AND FIRE BY DOROTHY CANFIELD My husband's cousin had come up from the city, slightly more fagged and sardonic than usual, and as he stretched himself out in the big porch-chair he was even more caustic than was his wont about the bareness and emotional sterility of the lives of our country people. "Perhaps they had, a couple of centuries ago, when the Puritan hallucination was still strong, a certain fierce savor of religious intolerance; but now that that has died out, and no material prosperity has come to let them share in the larger life of their century, there is a flatness, a mean absence of warmth or color, a deadness to all emotions but the pettiest sorts----" I pushed the pitcher nearer him, clinking the ice invitingly, and directed his attention to our iris-bed as a more cheerful object of contemplation than the degeneracy of the inhabitants of Vermont. The flowers burned on their tall stalks like yellow tongues of flame. The strong, sword-like green leaves thrust themselves boldly up into the spring air like a challenge. The plants vibrated with vigorous life.