"Mr. Cale Young Rice is acknowledged by his countrymen to be one of their great poets. There is great charm in his nature songs (of this volume) and in his songs of the East. Mr. Rice writes with great simplicity and beauty."--_The Sphere (London)._
"Mr. Rice's forte is poetic drama. Yet in the act of saying this the critic is confronted by such poems as _The Mystic_.... These are the poems of a thinker, a man of large horizons, an optimist profoundly impressed with the pathos of man's quest for happiness in all lands."--_The Chicago Record-Herald._
"Mr. Rice's latest volume shows no diminuition of poetic power. Fecundity is a mark of the genuine poet, and a glance through these pages will demonstrate how rich Mr. Rice is in vitality and variety of thought.... There is too, the unmistakable quality of style. It is spontaneous, flexible, and strong with the strength of simplicity--a style of rare distinction."--_Albert S. Henry, (The Book News Monthly, Philadelphia)._
It is great art--with great vitality. _James Lane Allen._
In the midst of the Spring rush there arrives one book for which all else is pushed aside.... We have been educated to the belief that a man must be long dead before he can be enrolled with the great ones. Let us forget this cruel teaching.... This volume contains four poetic dramas all different in setting, and all so beautiful that we cannot choose one more perfect than another.... Too extravagant praise cannot be given Mr. Rice. _The San Francisco Call._
Four brief dramas, different from Paola & Francesca, but excelling it--or any other of Mr. Phillips's work, it is safe to say--in a vivid presentment of a supreme moment in the lives of the characters.... They form excellent examples of the range of Mr. Rice's genius in this field. _The New York Times Review._
Mr. Rice is quite the most ambitious, and most distinguished of contemporary poetic dramatists in America. _The Boston Transcript (W. S. Braithwaite.)_
The vigor and originality of Mr. Rice's work never outweigh that first qualification, beauty.... No American writer has so enriched the body of our poetic literature in the past few years. _The New Orleans Picayune._
Mr. Rice is beyond doubt the most distinguished poetic dramatist America has yet produced. _The Detroit Free Press._