... healthful, masterful intellect that some men put into politics, some into science and a few, a very few, into literature. Both "Gloria Mundi" and "The Market Place" bear unmistakable evidences of the slack rein and the hasty hand. Both of them contain considerable padding, the stamp of the space writer. They are imperfectly developed, and are not packed with ideas like his earlier novels. Their excellence is in flashes; it is not the searching, evenly distributed light which permeates his more careful work. There were, as we know too well, good reasons why Mr. Frederic ... — A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather