"The gray twilight gives to the long, pale stretches of sand the sense of something strangely unreal. As far as the eye can reach, it curves out into the mist, the last vanishing garments of some fleeing ghost. The sea comes smoothly, quite silently, over the breast of it; there is a trembling whisper as it catches the highest stretch of sand and drags it for a moment down the slope; then, with a little sigh, creeps back again a defeated lover." Or, if you will have the soul of the gay city, here it is in a quotation from _Fortitude_: "The street stirred with the pattering of dogs out for an airing. The light slid down the sky--voices rang in the clear air softly as though the dying day besought them to be tender. The colours of the shops, of the green trees, of slim and beautifully dressed houses, were powdered with gold-dust; the church in Sloane Square began to ring its bells." But it is not so much beautiful imagery, not so much interesting people, that distinguish _Fortitude_ and make it a great-hearted book, as the courage for life, the demand for fortitude. "_Fortitude_ is a book in which the writer has put much passionate intensity of thought and conviction. It has no faults of insincerity, weakness, nor poverty of mind or heart. It is fascinating. It is the expression of a born writer. One reads it all. There is humor, there is generosity; as of some big man overflowing with ideas. There is a noble spirit in the book that blows fresh upon one, like a wind from the sea. The wind may have blown through desperate places and seen bitter things, but it is clean and bracing, and one is glad of it."--_Hildegarde Hawthorne In The New York Times_. "_Fortitude_ is a story that one will like to linger over after it is read. It is reminiscent of Thackeray at his best, mellowed with the charity of well-proportioned truth."--_New York American_. "_Fortitude_ is impressive. Its revelations of life strike deeply into those springs of youth from which are filled the wells of manhood."--_The New York World_. "This novel is a genuine performance. All is worked out in the finest detail, like the careful etching of a great, stone-made cathedral."--_The Chicago Evening Post_.