Fisher Ames, Jr., is a well-known author of stories for boys. Mr. Ames has been appointed the official historian of the Red Cross Society and has gone to Europe (1918) as a commissioned officer in the United States Army.
In _Sergt. Warren Comes Back from France_ the author makes us see very clearly the heroic figure of the blind soldier, and we realize that under the spell of such a personality the voters would unanimously decide to spend their money in France and relinquish the idea of making their town more beautiful. In the words of one of the villagers, “Sergt. Warren can see straight even if he is blind,” and the crowd will always respond to such leadership.
Arthur Guy Empey is an American and a soldier of the Great War, who after a life at the Front in which he did all that a brave man can do for the cause of humanity and survive, has written of some of his adventures in _Over the Top_, one of the best-known books of the war. In the chapter which we have called “The Coward” he shows the splendid regeneration of a despicable man.
The “hero” in this story is an Englishman, as Mr. Empey fought in the British army before America entered the war, but the phase of human nature portrayed in “The Coward” must have been observable in all the belligerent armies.
The cowardice of the few, however, was entirely concealed and atoned for by the splendid bravery of the many, and considerable numbers of men, who, when drafted, might have been designated as cowards, are leaving the army with a record of brave action in times of great danger.
Frederick Orin Bartlett, the author of _Chateau Thierry_, was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1876 and was educated in the public schools of that city, in a private school abroad, at Procter Academy, Andover, New Hampshire, and at Harvard. He has been connected with several Boston newspapers and is a well-known writer of short stories.
In _Chateau Thierry_ he has portrayed very clearly a certain type of easy-going, prosperous American,—the American who was aroused to the knowledge of higher ideals and to the exigencies of a world at war by the shock and the thrill that followed upon the active participation of the American forces in the great conflict.