[In "Evening in Spring" the] idyl of Steve and Margery is full of wistful beauty, enhanced by the author's unfailing consciousness of the poetic qualities of the background. The poet in August Derleth is always near the surface, whether he is writing poetry, fiction, or biography. Skies, hills, trees, marsh, rivers, and wild life make clear images on his sensitive intelligence and affections. The fragrance of corn and clover, of mint and oak leaf are in his nostrils. Hawks riding the wind, owls softly sobbing in the dark, hills surging upward to the sky, trees pressing close upon small houses are constantly in his memory. Through this book winds are ever stirring, a west wind touching Steve's eyes and lips, small breezes scuttering the dry leaves and growing into a wind that tears at the autumn foliage, "a wind that blows over all the earth, a wanderer, too, alone." Loneliness is the motif of this book, the essential loneliness of Steve, despite his love, his boy companions, his myriad kinsfolk and his responsiveness to village life.
Contrasted with a delicate lament for the shattered crystal of first love and with the poetic background is a full gallery of comedy characters, even of burlesques. The people of Sac Prairie are a collection of oddities, not all of them malign but many of them eccentric even in their good nature. In Steve's own family his grandparents and possibly his father are exceptions. Altogether the village characters give proof that August Derleth is humorist as well as poet. His book is both ethereal and, frankly, without abashment, earthy.
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