I shall stop here with the review of Miss Cather’s works. All of them stand high as literary achievements. She belongs to that small group of novelists who honor American letters and who are specialists of what may be called “optimistic realism”: Ellen Glasgow, Mary Austin, Dorothy Canfield, and Zona Gale, of the latter of whom I shall speak now. * * * * * Zona Gale was born in Wisconsin. She began with journalism and published short stories and novels. She is the chronicler of American life in the small towns of the Middle West. Her art recalls that of Willa Cather. For the critics there are two Zona Gales. There is the author of popular tales, such as “The Village of Friendship,” “Mother of Men,” “When I Was a Little Girl,” “The Neighbors”; but “Birth” and “Miss Lulu Bett” are her true masterpieces. “Miss Lulu Bett” appeared in 1920 and won the author a wide reputation. It had a sensational vogue on the screen. It is a classic. But let me begin with “Birth.” Before speaking of it I want to recall what I have already mentioned of that sensibility peculiar to Americans. While the Frenchman, supposedly a domestic person, makes little of family life on the stage and in his novels, the American idealizes it. The father, the mother and the child, those are the corners of his “eternal triangle.” Zona Gale has gratified the tastes of that particular public. “Birth” is a work of original analysis, a good psychological document for the study of certain maladies of personality. The novel portrays a curious case of sentimental aphasia. The hero of the book is a simple sort of soul. He married a woman his superior in education. Awkward, _gauche_, even grotesque, he is at bottom the best of men. His heart is paved with good intentions, but unfortunately he knows not how to disclose them. Pitt--that is his name--acts like a man, who knowing two languages, would be incapable of translating one into the other. Failing to be able to express himself, he buries himself in a sort of psychological twilight where he vegetates and suffers in silence. Unable to express his sentiments to others, he is reduced to acting for his own benefit what was meant for them. His life is henceforward but a fiction, a novel which would never have been read had not Zona Gale played the part of the publisher. Pitt would make an excellent Pirandello character. Externally but a grotesque clown, inside goodness and delicacy incarnate, he seemed to come out of the shadows at the birth of his son. Pitt adores his child, but as a father he continues to be a victim of Freudian inhibitions. He feels every paternal sentiment, but he is unable to find the words and gestures which correspond to his emotions. Little by little the distance between father and child lengthens, and one day poor Pitt disappears, misunderstood by his own child.