RED ROVER, The
tations of life in Newport seem less veracious, pointed even though they are with the author's customary sharpness toward the faults of New England. Fortunately, the action takes place largely at sea and is abundantly varied with chases and storms which succeed each other with exciting speed. What secures to the book, however, its position of excellence is something richly imaginative, something finely poetical, about the conception of the sea which colors the entire narrative. The ocean here plays a great part. It is the voice of the very tumult of nature, which romantically frees men from the narrower limits of existence on land and yet at the same time shapes their characters with a firm and noble discipline.