It is interesting to contemplate side by side in the reader's mind the wife of the Rector and the wife of the Pastor. Both are good women--their only similarity. Lady Ruth, a born aristocrat, with a "temperamental inability to comport herself as the busy wife of a busy clergyman" is one of the most gracious and lovely figures created by our novelist, which means that her charm is irresistible. The less admirable, but more energetic wife of Dr. Merrow is so perfect a representative of the busy city pastor's helpmate that we can only wonder how it is possible to put on paper any creation so real. There is not a false touch in this picture. William Allingham wrote in his diary after reading one of Browning's poems, "Bravo, Browning!" Upon finishing _The Greatest of These_, which I confidently call a great novel, I could hardly refrain from a shout of applause. IX Mr. Marshall is a twentieth century novelist, because he is happily yet alive, and because he writes of twentieth century scenes and characters; but he is apart from the main currents of twentieth century fiction, standing indeed in the midst of the stream like a commemorative pillar to Victorian art. He has never written historical romance, which dominated the novel at the beginning of our century; he has never written the "life" novel--beginning with the hero's birth and travelling with plotless chronology, the type most in favour since the year 1906; he has never written a treatise and called it a novel, as so many of his contemporaries have done. Every one of his novels, except the two unfortunate burlesques, is a good story, with a good plot and living characters; and he has chosen to write about well-bred people, because those are the people he knows best. It is also well to remember, that although his best novels are parochial, he himself is a citizen of the world. He has seen the North Cape, he has lived in the Australian bush, in various European cities, and has traveled extensively in America. One reason why he can describe English country life so clearly is because he sees it in the proper perspective. He is at home in any community on earth.