The first book in which Miss Glasgow established her right to serious consideration as an American novelist--as a novelist picturing American life--was _The Voice of the People_, published in 1900. She has referred in after years to _The Descendant_ as “a mere schoolgirl effort,” although it was not received as such, not by a long shot! But she could not so characterize _The Voice of the People_, nor could any one else. It is a competent picture of the Virginia of the ’80s with its class distinctions and its political maneuvering, framing a specific and dramatic story. The novel exhibits a considerable knowledge of political machinery and a characteristic tale relates how Miss Glasgow got some of the necessary “atmosphere.” In 1897 she drove over twenty miles in the hottest August weather in order to sit through two days of a Democratic State convention. An old family friend, a delegate to the convention, smuggled Miss Glasgow and her sister on to the stage of the opera house in which the sessions were held. They were the only women in the building and the ordeal of listening to two days of Southern oratory must have been as severe as the ordeal of sitting, obscurely and uncomfortably, in a sun-baked theater. It is also said of Miss Glasgow that she remarked one day to a friend--Mr. Marcosson, if we are not mistaken: “I am going to write a novel of New York life.” “But why New York life when you know Virginia and the South so well?” “For the simple reason that art has no locality. It is universal. I do not believe that any writer should be confined to any particular locality.” A reply which throws light on Miss Glasgow’s earnestness and seriousness of purpose. But she was, while entirely right in what she said, not answering the question. Art has no locality, but the artist has necessarily only a few localities--those he knows tolerably well. Miss Glasgow’s pictures of New York life never carry the conviction that her Virginia settings do. Her own Virginia setting is a very lovely one. Number One West Main Street, Richmond, is a square old white house, “hemmed in by trees that cast shade over the soldiers of the Confederacy.” Behind it is a garden in which walks and composes a beautiful woman with red-gold hair, the real Titian shade or simply red-brown, as you may decide. It is wavy and has gold and copper gleams. “Once more you get the touch of Jane Austen,” explains Mr. Marcosson. He tells us that Miss Glasgow writes every morning and always behind a locked door; “a door that is not locked has always given her a hint of possible intrusion. The only animate thing that has ever shared the comradeship of her work is her dog, Joy. She writes rapidly and in a large, masculine hand.”