The Captain is a man of strong personality and firm integrity. He is an organizer of the colony’s defense; his voice prevails at the council; he is a resolute and able defender, who rises equal to emergencies of sudden and imminent danger. He is also capable of entertaining sentiments of tenderness (58-60) and magnanimity (949-973). Yet the author has indicated that, in the conventional sense, he is not to be taken as the hero. The personal description of him (11) points to this; so also his almost ludicrous inconsistency (36-115 and 163-168). His avowed affection for Priscilla could not have struck deep roots in his heart, for only two or three months have passed since he sustained the loss that made his life “weary and dreary” (36). Moreover, this matter could not have been upper-most in his mind very long, for he would then have observed that Alden had frequently gone on a lover’s errand in his own behalf (252-258). Neither could his inclinations have been very ardent, for while Alden is gone he spends the hours without anxiety, absorbed in the campaigns of Cæsar. He misunderstands and underestimates the sterling nature of Priscilla when he thinks that the winning of her is largely and mainly a matter of phrases (169) and elegant language, “such as you read of in books in the pleadings and wooings of lovers.” All this helps us to become reconciled to the Captain’s discomfiture. John Alden is the most typical Puritan of the leading characters. His tendency towards a fatalistic view of life and to self-accusation seem almost too strange to be accounted for by any doctrine or belief. As a Puritan he had been brought up and trained in submission to his elders, which may partly explain his lack of self-assertion. His position as a dependent in the household of Miles Standish made him more ready than he otherwise could have been to go on the Captain’s delicate errand. There are situations in which we find Alden insufficient (182, 558, 559). He has little opportunity, in so far that the part assigned to him is mainly passive. Yet there are possibilities of stern manhood in him; and, with reference to the main issue, he is certainly strong in those very respects where Miles Standish is weak. Priscilla presents a contrast to the other two. She is full of healthy, joyous life. Neither the sternness of her associates nor the hardships of the pioneer life that she had experienced had been able to detract from her cheerful, buoyant disposition. During the winter she had become an orphan, and yet she appears to have been potent as a ray of sunshine amid the gloom and distress incident to the condition of the colonists. The fact that she is a trifle more frank in her conversation with John Alden than strict conventional form would require detracts nothing, but rather places her among such ideals of women as Miranda, Imogen, and Elaine. I.