Bibliography: Ariadne: The Story of a Dream by Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramee)

In an 1895 Courier article Cather writes: "Sometimes I wonder why God ever trusts talent in the hands of women, they usually make such an infernal mess of it. I think He must do it as a sort of ghastly joke. Really, it would be hard to find a better plot than is in that same Under Two Flags, and the book contains the rudiments of a great style, and it also contains some of the most driveling nonsense and mawkish sentimentality and contemptible feminine weakness to be found anywhere." Also mentioned: A Village Commune, Pascarel, Ariadne, Wanda, and Friendship; each has merits, but "I hate to read them."

According to an 1899 Leader article, Ouida's Ariadne "is full of display of this sort and of information and misinformation on Greek sculpture, dispensed with haughty assurance. To realize fully the garish superficiality of such work one has only to compare it with a masterpiece like George Moore's Evelyn Innes, which deals understandingly with the art which is its central theme."