Comment on New Books

Literature. The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, with the Characters ; edited, with Introduction, Notes, and Index, by John Bradshaw, M. A,, LL. D. (Imported by Scribners.) This new edition of Lord Chesterfield’s Letters conies most opportunely at a time when the Letters to his Godson and the comment to which they have given rise have awakened a fresh interest in a correspondence which will not always be satisfied by a small volume of “ selections ” therefrom. There are still readers, we trust, who delight in the space and freedom of unabridged classics, and feel competent to select their own best . These volumes are practically a reprint of Lord Mahon’s edition, now a rather scarce book. His arrangement of the letters has been followed, and nearly all his footnotes have been retained. The notes added by the present editor are to be commended as clear, concise, and to the point. While the series of letters in which Lord Chesterfield vainly labored with such patience, persistency, fertility of resource, and consummate tact for his sou’s worldly salvation is still tolerably well known actually, and very widely known by repute, we think that the miscellaneous letters will be new to many readers. His comments on public affairs are invariably interesting, and at the same time keenly intelligent. But, politically as well as paternally, Chesterfield was a disappointed man, and from first to last he never held a position at all commensurate with his undoubtedly great abilities in certain directions. We suspect that one effect of a careful reading of the letters addressed to his most intimate friends will be a considerable modification of some preconceived opinions in regard to the writer.

Fiction. The Reflections times of a Married Man, by Robert Grant. (Scribners.) We like Mr. Grant’s papers ; and we like them better in this form than in the magazine where at intervals they first appeared. As a volume they gain greatly in unity of effect, and form an intensely natural record of the common and thus unrecorded experiences of a married man. It is a question whether every one would care to write such self-revealing reflections ; but these revelations of what we must believe is the writer’s own “ interior ” are always honorable to him. The book will delight the married, and will amuse the unmarried ; although it may act as a gentle deterrent on those who indiscreetly and unadvisedly think (A entering upon a certain holy ( though financially unprofitable) estate. — Ear from To-Day, by Gertrude Hall. (Roberts.) We have seldom to confess being utterly routed by a book of short stories, but Far from To-Day contains some of the hardest reading that we have ever found outside an improving book. The stories are laid in periods as remote as the days of King Wamba, the characters enjoy names of archaic rarity,—those in the first tale being Triflor, Hatto, Kahilde. Kabiorg, Tristiane, lb, otherwise called Magnus Magmisson, Snorro, Knut, Erik, Swevn, — and the style is strained and unnatural. If the author had not tried so hard to be far from to-day, her book would be interesting, for the stories are sufficiently good. Their manner, not their matter, discourages the reader. A strong flavor of William Morris’s tales, early French romaunts and classical lore, and an assemblage of knights, goatherds, minstrels, maidens, jesters (who, like most literary jesters, never say anything amusing), all acting parts in a nebulous atmosphere, without recognizable time or place, cause us to close the book with the impression that it contains a series of librettos for the more recondite passages in the music of the excellent Herr Brahms, — That Angelic Woman, by James M. Ludlow. (Harpers.) The angelic woman is a nurse in a hospital ; while the very unheroic hero is a rich and vulgar person, who, after various escapades, falls in love with her,— she having saved his life. The angelic woman declines to compromise selfrespect by marrying so rich a man, whereat the hero’s money, inherited* from his father, promptly turns out to have been stolen from the angelic woman’s pupa. The pair then wed. The tale is not at all improved by the introduction of much pietistic talk by the frequenters of a Home for Discharged Convicts. But this crude and ill-constructed story has at least tlie merit of right-mindedness. — Marionettes, by Julien Gordon. (Cassell.) We prefer countless hosts of “ angelic women ” to a single set of Marionettes. The author, representing her second-best heroine in deep emotion, while dressing to go out, informs us, with pleasing explicitness, that “ Lollia St. Clair drew on a pair of black side stockings and slipped her feet into black shoes. As she leaned forward, her tightly laced satin corset cracked on her hip. The room was filled with the throbbing sound of her heaving bosom.” In future, high-bred heroines should allow their maids to dress them,—at least in this author’s novels. — Improbable. Tales, by Clinton Ross. (Putnams.) He is a hold man who, in this day of fiction à la Kipling, dares to name a volume of stories Improbalde Tales ; and in this case Mr. Clinton Ross’s tales are not phenomenally improbable. If remarkable at all, they are so for a certain air of probability ; and thus it comes to pass that the title of this book rather effectually discounts its contents. The first story, The Pretender, is much the best of the three, and possesses an element of excitement not shared by the other incongruous sketches which make up the volume. — The Venetians, by M. E. Braddou. ( Harpers.) Owing, we suppose, to international copyright, Miss Braddon’s latest novel readies her American readers in a more attracti ve guise than any of its numerous predecessors. It is in the author’s later (and better) manner, and shows her accustomed easy mastery of the mechanism of story-telling. It will appeal to a large, if not judicious, body of readers. — The Magic Ink, and Other Stories, by William Black. (Harpers.) Three short tales written in the mannered and somewhat perfunctory style which nowadays often causes Mr. Black’s readers to remember regretfully the unfailing charm and occasional power of his earlier work.

Nature and Travel. The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, and Other Kentucky Articles, by James Lane Allen. (Harpers.) Mr. Allen had a good subject for his book, but he has not made the most of it. Persons who know nothing of Kentucky life will not get a very definite idea of the blue-grass region and its relation to Kentucky ; and no one who knows much of the district will be likely, from this book, to know more. The best papers are Uncle Tom at Home, County Court Day in Kentucky, Kentucky Fairs, and A Home of the Silent Brotherhood ; but this last account of the Trappist monastery represents it as a more picturesque and peaceful spot than we have reason to believe it to be. As a whole, although the book is tilled with description, these descriptions leave no clearcut image on the mind ; and, while very fully illustrated, the pictures, like the text, lack that touch of actuality which alone gives life. It is, we fear, a volume containing much more writing than reading. The printing of the title on the title-page in blue ink is a kind of typographic pun too obvious to be clever. — A Tramp across the Continent, by Charles F. Lummis. (Scribners.) This is the record of a walk of one hundred and forty-three days from Cincinnati to Los Angeles ; as the author says, “a truthful record of some of the experiences and impressions of a walk across the continent, — the diary of a man who got outside the fences of civilization, and was glad of it.” It is an interesting book ; and, in spite of an irritating newspaper style, it would be hard to lay it down until one had finished it. The author’s adventures were many and thrilling ; and the horrors of the final stages of his journey furnish him with an effective climax. There is a fine cocksureness about Mr. Lummis, however, which, while it undoubtedly greatly aided him on his journey, is the chief defect of an otherwise bright and spirited book.— English Pharisees. French Crocodiles, and other Anglo-French Typical Characters, by Max O’Rell. (Cassell.) We thought Max O’Rell had “written himself out ” on Anglo-Franco-American comparisons, but his first chapter has enough clever things in it to dissipate this idea. There is, to be sure, some repetition in this new book, but none the less it is a very amusing and rather keen analysis of the differences between English and French humbugs, with an occasional thrust at some American absurdities. Dedicated “To .Jonathan,” it suggests some queries fo a people whom the author believes the Old World can teach “ how to he happy without rolling in wealth, — not how to work, hut how to live.” — A Too Short V acation, by Lucy Langdon Williams and Emma V. MeLouglilin. (Lippincott.) Now that the highways and byways of foreign travel have been so mercilessly written up, there is not much that is new to be said about a trip of three mouths’ duration, in which fifty places were visited and which cost three hundred and fifty dollars, taken by t wo rather independent young women armed with a kodak camera and the minimum of luggage. Just the sort of book is produced that one would suppose would be produced after a journey of this sort ; and just the kind of pictures illustrate it that these travelers would naturally take. If the species of volume is not already apparent, we advise reading it, but not otherwise. — The Third Annual Report of the Missouri Botanical Barden is issued by the Trustees (St. Louis), and is far more than a mere perfunctory work. Besides Mr. Trelease’s report to t he directors, and reports of sermon and banquet, in the latter of which Mr. Shaw’s services are gratefully remembered, there are two important scientific papers by Messrs, Trelease and Riley, as well as a body of notes, all liberally illustrated.

Education and Textbooks. Fifteen years ago Dr. R. P. Keep translated and adapted Autenrietli’s Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, and we commended the book with little reserve. Now a new and revised edition of the same book, under the editorship of Professor Isaac Flagg (Harpers), is issued, and we have been interested, in comparing the two, to see how thorough the revision has been. A few pages in’ the total number have been saved, but in the revision there has not always been condensation ; some entries have been expanded in the interest of clearness and precision. Altogether the book demands a new lease of life, and remains, as its predecessor was, the handiest accompaniment to the study of Homer which we possess.— Methods of Instruction and Organization of the. Schools of Germany, for the Use of American Teachers and Normal Schools, by John T. Prince. (Lee & Shepard.) Mr. Prince, who had won a good name as one of the agents of the Massachusetts Board of Education, interrupted his work to spend a year or more in Germany, for the purpose of studying the methods in use there, especially in normal schools. He illustrates the proverb that one must carry the wealth of the Indies thither, if he would bring it back. His familiarity with methods here made him a most admirable observer and comparer, so that he has produced a thoroughly orderly, well-digested report. He has done his work unflinchingly when it has led him to results which show the superiority of German methods, but he is so fair in his discrimination that no one will he misled by his praise of those methods ; for he is not a blind enthusiast, but a well-balanced, thoughtful student. His book should be of real service to American educators. — Colloquial German, by Thomas Bertrand Bronson. (Holt.) A brief handbook, of which the first part consists of a series of exercises in conversation, the material being the requirements of one in traveling, shopping, eating, drinking, theatre-going, and the like, followed by notes and a vocabulary, and closing with a compact summary of German grammar. It would seem most useful as a drill-book for those who have already made some progress in the language. — Academic Algebra, for the Use of Common and High Schools and Academies, with Numerous Examples, by Edward A. Bmvser. (Heath.) The book, which is one of a half dozen mathematical works by the same author, professes to be a complete treatise up to and through the Progressions, and including Permutations and Combinations and the Binomial Theorem. Its name is intended to indicate that it prepares thti way for a college algebra, but we think the customary use of the term “ academic ” makes this restricted use of doubtful expediency.— In the series University Extension Manuals (Scribners), Hugh Robert Mill’s The Realm of Nature strikes us as much the most satisfactory volume yet produced. It is described further as An Outline of Physiography, and takes up in orderly succession such topics as The Substance of Nature, Energy, The Power of Nature, The Earth a Spinning Ball, The Earth a Planet, The Solar System and Universe, The Atmosphere, Climates of the World, The Bed of the Oceans, The Crust of the Earth, Action of Water on the Land, The Record of the Rocks, The Continental Area. The last two chapters, Life and Living Creatures, Man in Nature, may disappoint the reader by their brevity, but they are hardly out of proportion to the main subject, and leave opportunity for further volumes in which they may be expanded. The book has bad the advantage of a revision for American students by Professor Shaler, and has a number of very interesting charts and illustrations. — Reading and Speaking, Familialr Talks to Young Men Who Would Speak Well in Public, by Brainard Gardner Smith. (Heath.) This manual differs from most of its class by the adoption of a colloquial style, and the calling in of a number of witnesses upon the several points. There is some disposition to invent a specific terminology, but on the whole one would say that Mr. Smith, who is a professor at Cornell, has with some success transferred to the pages of a book the lively instruction which he gives in the class-room. — Number Lessons, a Book for Second and Third Year Pupils, by Charles E. White. (Heath.) A collection of examples and problems graded as to difficulty, and twisted ingeniously into every conceivable form of presentation. The compiler appears to think this book can be used also as offering exercises in spelling and in drawing. — A Study in Corneille, by Lee Davis Lodge, A. M. (John Murphy & Co., Baltimore.) A somewhat impassioned and rhetorical tribute to the great french dramatist, interspersed with translations, which in their bald literalness will hardly fulfill even the writer’s modest aspiration to give to American readers unacquainted with the French language “ something like a fair conception” of the genius of Corneille,

Books for the Young. Friendly Letters to Girls, Friendly Talks with Boys, by Helen A. Hawley. (Randolph.) Two small hooks of advice, written by a sensible, plain-spoken woman, who has, it may be, adopted a curt, direct form of speech, and eschewed grace and persuasiveness. The matter is good, and certainly no girl or boy could be the worse who took the advice to heart. — With Scrip and Staff, by Ella

W. Peattie. (Randolph.) A story of the German portion of the Children’s Crusade, rather prettily told, but too painful, we think, for the little folk for whom it is written. A word on the reasons why the Crusaders enterprise, through its dependence on the violently miraculous answer of God to its petitions, was doomed to failure, although undertaken in a spirit of faith and sacrifice, might have been added with advantage. To the childish mind, the book would, as it stands, prove an admirable argument for not believing in the efficacy of saying one’s prayers. — Stories from English History for Young Americans. (Harpers.) On the whole, this is an excellent book of its kind. The most salient events of English history, from the invasion of Julius Cmsar to the present day, are epitomized with considerable skill, and with a simplicity of style which makes the narrative easily within a child’s comprehension. It was a wise thought, and quite in the line of the best methods of teaching, to scatter through the work so many well-selected historical and national poems. The illustrations are numerous, and usually very good.

Music. Manual of Musical History, by James E. Matthew. (Putnams.) Phis handsome volume is practically the author’s Popular History of Music (now out of print) recast and brought down to date. Mr. Matthew begins with the early history of music and of musical instruments, and then traces the history of music in England and the various European countries, with accounts of the rise of the opera and oratorio. We have seldom met with a better book of the kind. The whole subject is well digested, the volume well arranged, and (what is not always the ease in books on music) the style is simple, direct, and unaffected, as if the author eared too much for his subject to have time for display or Self-consciousness in treating of it. A very valuable feature of the Manual is the bibliography which follows each of the sixteen chapters. The work also contains illustrations, portraits, fac-similes, etc. ; and an index of thirty-five double-column pages completes a book of reference which for careful workmanship deserves the warmest praise. — My Thoughts on Music and Musicians, by H. Heathcote Statham. (Chapman & Hall, London.) Mr. Statham, who is editor of The Builder, has brought together in this octavo volume various related essays which he has published for the most part in leading English periodicals. After a long and fundamental paper, On Form and Design in Music, he deals successively with Händel, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, Sterudale Bennett, and concludes with a sketchy paper, About the Organ. He is an independent writer, of much vigor of thought. His essays are chiefly critical, hut have an admixture of biographic details, and are enlivened by much frank comment on current criticism and by the spice of anecdotage. His paper on Wagner may especially be eotnmended as tending to discriminate the substantial contribution of Wagner to the development of music from that which is the mere demonstration of untenable theories. — A Child’s Garland of Songs, gathered from a Child’s Garden of Verses, by Robert Louis Stevenson, and set to Music by C. Villiers Stanford. (Longmans.) Nine of Mr, Stevenson’s charming child poems are here given a musical setting ; but we fear they will hardly prove, to quote from the poet’s introductory verses, songs children “ love to sing.” The accompaniments are too complicated, and the music is too mature, and not sufficiently melodious, to attract very youthful singers. The composer has been most successful, we think, in My Shadow, My Ship and Me, and, almost perforce, in the Marching Song.

Poetry. The Poetic Works of Frank Cowan. In three volumes. Vol. I. (The Oliver Publishing House, Greeusburg, Pa.) An octavo of four hundred pages or so, including notes. Mr. Cowan has been a traveler in many lands, and his travels have given him plenty of themes, and plenty of time in which to work them up. There is a great deal of time on one’s hands when traveling, and verse-making becomes one of the most agreeable of diversions. Besides the travel poems, there is. a great variety of epigrams, and longer or shorter fights of Mr. Cowan’s fancy, which is an exuberant one. Mr. Cowan’s philosophy, also, is stored in his verse.

Economics and Sociology. In Questions of the Day (Putnams), a recent issue is Money, Silver, and Finance, by J. Howard Cowperthwait. A vigorous protest, in somewhat homely diction, against a current policy regarding silver, and especially against the Bland bill. Mr. Cowperthwait writes as a business man, and draws many examples from his own observation and experience. Still, without a thorough examination of the hook, it strikes us that Mr. Cowperthwait has not quite got at the bottom of the present movement, and that lie is mistaken if he thinks there ever will be a return to the previous condition. — The Impossibility of Social Democracy, by Dr. A. Selraffie ; with a Preface by Bernard Bosampiet. (Imported by Scribners.) A volume in the Social Science Series. It is somewhat difficult to present this writer’s position briefly, for his essay is so entangled by references to himself and his former writings, and to movements in Germany which have not taken oil a marked historic character, that the reader trudges along through the Germanesque sentences with a bewilderment which is not greatly lessened by the occasional waymarks in the form of italicized paragraphs. However, it may be said in general that the author holds philosophically to a conception of the state which invests it with organic life, and contends that socialism is only intensified individualism, and would use the state as a mechanical contrivance. He believes that socialism accomplishes its best work in exposing the defects of current industrial society, but that the development of society will not he along the lines of dogmatic socialism. — Another volume in the Social Science Series (imported by Scribners) is I’ovyty, its Genesis and Exodus, an Enquiry into Causes and the Method of their Removal, by John George Godard. The inquiry is confined to conditions of life in England, and the author announces, as the practical programme by which poverty is to be abolished, the extension of the suffrage and other electoral reforms ; the further development of the National Education movement ; a wider dissemination of the truths of economics ; a diminution in the consumption of luxuries, and especially of alcoholic beverages ; a judicious control of population ; an eight-hours labor day ; an increased and cumulative taxation of land values ; a differentiated and graduated income-tax ; an equalization and graduation of the death duties ; a radical reform of the Poor Law system ; the increased acquisition of land and capital by the state and municipalities ; and the gradual extension of industrial collectivism. So, if any one is in favor of poverty, he may take courage when he sees this long list of remedies which are to be secured, —a list which oddly mingles economical legislation with the development of the individual conscience. — Germanic Origins, a Study in Primitive Culture, by Francis B. Gummere. (Scribners.) A close examination of authorities, at first and second hand, regarding the Germanic sources of English-speaking people. That is to say, since the students of early England agree in recognizing the Germanic element, though they differ in their estimate of its relative importance, Mr. Gummere rightly judges that a true contribution to English history may be made by a careful study of Germanic people and their institutions as seen at home previous to their direct influence upon English life, He treats his subject under such heads as Land and People, The Home, The Family, Trade and Commerce, Government and Law, Social Order, The Worship of Nature, The Worship of Gods, and throughout brings to bear a critical and sympathetic temper. He is moreover a generous scholar, and the reader, undeterred by the bristling array of authorities at the foot of the page, is led along by the lively, occasionally humorous style of the writer.

Domestic Economy. The House Comfortable, by Agnes Bailey Ormsh.ec. (Harpers.) A useful little book on the furnishing and equipment of houses of persons of modest means, simply and plainly written ; with the aim to make the house comfortable and beautiful, and not beautiful and uncomfortable, as the manner of some is.

Politics. Parliamentary Procedure and Practice, with a Review of the Origin, Growth, and Operation of Parliamentary Institutions in the Dominion of Canada, by J. G. Bourinot. (Dawson Brothers, Montreal.) Although this important work, which is at! enlarged and revised edition of that first published eight years ago, has for its main purpose a clear exposition of the practical working of the Canadian Parliament, it gives so admirable an historical survey of parliamentary government in Canada, and makes in many ways so sagacious a contribution to the study of comparative politics, that no student of American political history should neglect it. It has become the authority in its field, and is a model of what such a book should be.

Religion. The Unseen Friend, by Lucy Larcom. (Houghton.) Miss Lareom has special qualifications for writing on religious themes, in the simplicity of her style, the poetic sense, and above all the unaffectedness of her speech. For the most part, the book is rather devotional than speculative, hut in one chapter, at least, The DivineHuman, she strikes out fresh and penetrating thought, without any assumption of a philosophical system. The temper of the book is idealistic and catholic.

Occultism. The Rationale of Mesmerism, by A. P. Sinnett. (Houghton.) Mr. Sinnett’s book is in form a criticism of the modern theory of hypnotism in its assumption of scientific displacement of the earlier theory of mesmerism, but his examination of the two theories leads him into a close examination of mesmerism in its phenomena, and a constructive treatment of this occult force, with a view to reestablishing its philosophical character.