The Little French Girl — Anne Douglas Sedgwick

WHERE are novels a few which give the reader the same feeling of deep and unalloyed satisfaction that comes from the soft green of perfect turf or the outline of trees finely etched against a primrose sky. Such a novel is this one by Anne Douglas Sedgwick The Little French Girl. One does not want to shout over it nor to proclaim its merits with a flourish of trumpets rather one closes it with a sigh of profound contentment over a beautiful thing beautifully done and goes quietly to impart the glad tidings of new and exquisite work to those whose own discrimination has that fineness of quality which will insure a true and worthy appreciation. This American woman whose right to a place among the fore most writers of the day it would seem impossible to dispute has probed surely delicately and with an admirable appreciation of both far into the differences between the French temperament and the English. Here are no crude manifestations, no sweeping statements and superficial views such as one too often finds in books which profess to display and describe national characteristics. The people who move through these pages are interesting and likable. Many of them French and English alike have little or nothing of the narrower forms of prejudice and they discuss their differences good temperedly and in a way which for the reader throws a flood of light on them both. Nor does the of language separate them to any appreciable extent since the more important among them speak each other's tongue. --The Literary Digest