["To the Islands"] is a simple story that rises close to greatness because its possibilities are so perfectly realized that it becomes a kind of epic of old age and death. The struggle within Heriot between the will to live and the wish to die is rendered with the most agonizing concreteness. The journey is both an arduous passage towards death and a pilgrimage from hate to love.

Stow's perceptions are deep and true, and he has miraculously found the way to communicate what he understands. His style, never merely pretty and never lush, is truly poetic and perfectly suited to his theme. "Universal" is a large word, but if it can ever be used, it can be applied to "To the Islands."…

Granville Hicks, "Integrity—Theory and Practice," in Saturday Review (copyright © 1959 by Saturday Review; all rights reserved; reprinted by permission), Vol. XLII, No. 37, September 12, 1959, p. 22.∗