... “A well-written and thoroughly interesting novel.”

... “Adds to its attractiveness, as a novel, the charm of elevated sentiment,
expressed in elegant and forcible English.”

... “A story of life in Kentucky some twenty or thirty years ago, and as a
picture of the life of that epoch, this book possesses great merit. It is faithful, vivid,
and spirited, without being overdone.”

... “It may be said of `Lord of Himself,' that it is a good story. After the
reader has gone a few pages into it, he is curious to know what is to happen in the last
chapter. It is also a full story. There is not a chapter in it which is not worth
reading.... Mr. Underwood has entertained and instructed us. He has given
us some admirable pictures of particular people, and a very life-like representation of
a society and a period.”

... “The scene of the story changes only temporarily from the neighborhood
of Beech Knoll, but the author finds there abundant variety of character and incident
to enrich the story. And of the studies of character, it ought to be said that they are
excellent. Uncle Ralph Beauchamp, the Fleemister family, Howard, the New Englander,
Adams, the Hoosier lawyer, the Wyndham family, and Miss Shelburn and the
slaves, are all careful studies in character delineation, distinctly individualized, natural
in action, and neither in faults nor virtues beyond the reasonable capacity of human
beings. Their relations to each other are distinctly defined, and they severally act
their parts as if inspired by their own proper motives.”