"Gene" Rhodes had the "right tune." He achieved a style that
can be called literary. _The Hired Man on Horseback_, by May
D. Rhodes, is a biography of the writer. Perhaps "Paso Por
Aqui" will endure as his masterpiece. Rhodes had an intense
loyalty to his land and people; he was as gay, gallant, and
witty as he was earnest. More than most Western writers,
Rhodes was conscious of art. He had the common touch and also
he was a writer for writing men. The elements of simplicity
and the right kind of sophistication, always with generosity
and with an unflagging zeal for the rights of human beings,
were mixed in him. The reach of any ample-natured man exceeds
his grasp. Rhodes was ample-natured, but he cannot be classed
as great because his grasp was too often disproportionately
short of the long reach. His fiction becomes increasingly
dated.
_The Best Novels and, Stories of Eugene Manlove Rhodes_,
edited by Frank V. Dearing, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1949,
contains an introduction, with plenty of anecdotes and too
much enthusiasm, by J. Frank Dobie.
RICHARDS, CLARICE E. A _Tenderfoot Bride_, Garden City, N.
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