Comment on New Books

Literature and Criticism. The fifth volume of the new edition of Poe, under the charge of Messrs. Stedman and Poe, contains The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and The Journal of Julius Rodman. We shall give the entire work more careful notice when it is complete. (Stone & Kimball, Chicago.) — The new series of Thomas Hardy’s novels is continued by the issue of The Mayor of Casterbridge, to which a humorous little preface is prefixed, and which is adorned with a frontispiece etched by H. Macbeth-Raeburn and a map of the Wessex of the novels. (Harpers.) — The Women of Shakespeare, by Louis Lewes, Ph. D. Translated by Helen Zimmern. (Putnams, New York ; Hodder Brothers, London.) The good sense shown by the author in his preface, in which he emphatically disclaims any attempt to discover recondite systems of philosophy in the great dramas, and evinces other signs of critical sanity, and the modest candor of the avowal that he cannot promise to say much that is new, naturally prepossess the reader in favor of what proves a rather commonplace book and a hardly needed addition to English Shakespearean literature, whatever may have been its usefulness in its original form. The persons likely to be attracted by the volume will find the sketch of the poet’s life and time and of the rise of the English drama an oft-told tale, while Mrs. Jameson has anticipated all that is best in the studies of Shakespeare’s women. It is noticeable that while generous space is accorded to some of the characters of early or doubtful plays, little more than three pages of most ineffective criticism is found sufficient for Rosalind (with Celia thrown in), — still another illustration of the truth which the editor of the Variorum Shakespeare has set forth, that As You Like It, that “ almost flawless chrysolite of a comedy,” is so essentially English that it is well-nigh incomprehensible to the readers of other races.— The seventh and eighth volumes of the attractive new edition of Defoe’s Romances and Narratives are occupied with The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders. (Dent, London; Macmillan, New York.) — The latest addition to Messrs. Macmillan & Co’s. series of standard novels is a volume containing Annals of the Parish and The Ayrshire Legatees. We hardly like to speak of this reprint as a revival of tales which, with one other of their author’s, The Provost, should surely take a high place among Scottish classics, yet we fear that nowadays, even to the tolerably well read, Galt is often little more than a name, Had he been a less voluminous — and unequal — writer, his few altogether admirable works probably would not have been, out of Scotland, so nearly forgotten. If it were not so, it would be almost an impertinence, at this late day, to praise the stories here given, and recount some of their excellent qualities, their insight, humor, freedom from exaggeration of every kind, and above all their lifelikeness ; for in these studies Galt was a realist of the best sort, two generations before the use and abuse of the term. Canon Ainger contributes an appreciative introduction, and the book is very well illustrated by Charles E. Brock. — The third and concluding volume of The Best Plays of Ben Jonson, in the Mermaid Series (imported by Scribners), contains Volpone, Epicœne, and The Alchemist. Brief but sufficient introductions are prefixed to each play, and an etched portrait of William Cartwright, from the picture in the Dulwich Gallery, serves as frontispiece. — The July number of the Oxford English Dictionary, which with all its comprehensiveness modestly calls itself A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, covers the words from Deject to Depravation. (Macmillan.) — Old Pictures of Life, by David Swing. (Stone & Kimball.) The title of these two little volumes is somewhat misleading ; they should have been called, rather, Pictures of Ancient Life. Light essays in a simple, picturesque style, they reproduce for us some of the familiar scenes of history and fiction. A Greek Orator, A Roman Gentleman, Cordelia and Antigone, Thoughts on Greek Literature, — these are some of the subjects in the first volume ; while the contents of the second are somewhat more contemporary and varied. The Submerged Centuries, An Injured World, Excess, The Novel, — in these and a few more essays we have the meditations of a sane and hopeful mind, set down with an orderliness that is quite charming ; the last utterance of one of those courageous, helpful men who are the backbone of a nation. — Literature of the Georgian Era. (Harpers.) The late Professor Minto, in these lectures to students, now posthumously published, has not made it convincingly clear that the time of the four Georges was a distinct literary period. Nor was Mr. Minto’s hand unsubdued by journalism, in which he worked so long. After these two statements of exception, which may seem important to a few readers, it is a pleasure to observe that the book is far more readable than most volumes of its sort ; and a method that is now too discursive, and again too anecdotic, for effective concentration, will but serve to heighten the interest of the unstudious and uncritical public in a series of lively papers which has Pope and Shelley for its temporal limits. The fact of Minto’s extraordinary power as a teacher is little or not at all displayed in his written word, and only those who knew the man can read between not infrequently commonplace lines the tone of his voice, the glance of his eye, and the intimate, inspiring force of the spoken word.

Finance. Government and Co., Limited, an Examination of the Tendencies of Privilege in the United States, by Horatio W. Seymour. (McClurg.) A small volume, in which the writer endeavors to arouse the attention of what he calls the great middle class to the dangers which lie in the way of the American republic through privileges due chiefly to a protective tariff. His voice is loud, but his cry is somewhat inarticulate. — Honest Money, Coin’s Fallacies Exposed, by Stanley Waterloo. (The Equitable Publishing Co., Chicago.) —A Freak in Finance, or The Boy Teacher Taught, Answer to Coin’s Financial School, by J. F. Cargill. (Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago.) — Cash versus Coin, an Answer to Coin’s Financial School. (Chas. H. Kerr & Co., Chicago.) — Coin at School in Finance, by George E. Roberts. (W. B. Conkey Co., Chicago.) — Money : Gold, Silver, or Bimetallism, by Melville D. Landon, “ Eli Perkins.” (Chas. H. Kerr & Co.)

Fiction. An Experiment in Altruism, by Elizabeth Hastings. (Macmillan.) Half a dozen characters are set forth, showing various attitudes toward the solution of the problems which confront earnest-minded men and women in our great cities, —a woman doctor, an altruist, a reformer, an anarchist, the writer herself who tells the story, a sort of old-maid-of-all-work, as nearly as one can say, besides two or three characters who are bystanders. A little love-story is inwoven, but the main purpose of the book appears to be to fire off epigrams. Every character except the baby has a cartridge-box full. There is much smoke, and now and then a wounded person is carried off the field ; but after the cartridge-boxes are emptied and the air is clear, the impartial reader is not quite sure just what the battle has been about, or whether it is not a sham fight. With so much cleverness as the author shows, her characters are little more than unembodied souls with names.— The Master, by I. Zangwill. (Harpers.) It is impossible not to regret the misdirected labor which has been expended upon this ponderous book. We have seldom met a novel, so excellent at its best, in which padding, sometimes brilliant, sometimes journalistic, sometimes commonplace or even trivial in quality, forms so appreciable an element. The work has little of the spontaneity of the writer’s Jewish tales, nor docs it compare favorably with them in sincerity, graphic power, insight, humor, and pathos. As we have intimated, the melancholy story of Matthew Strang is in parts exceedingly well told ; but the volume as a whole impresses the reader as simply a task in bookmaking set himself by a clever man who holds the pen of a ready writer. — Those who find The Master disappointing can turn for solace to The Children of the Ghetto, a new edition of which has been issued by Messrs. Macmillan & Co. In this form the book will probably be seen for the first time by many American readers, to whom it can be heartily commended as a work which, notwithstanding faults of construction, fairly compels interest and admiration, so vivid, sympathetic, and forcible are its sketches of a peculiar people. — Almayer’s Folly, a Story of an Eastern River, by Joseph Conrad. (Macmillan.) In spite of plainly evident marks of inexperience on the writer’s part, there is undeniable power in this tale, as well as a somewhat unusual measure of freshness and originality. The weak, visionary Almayer, if not an attractive, is a very real figure. Having early wrecked his life in marrying a Malay woman, whose thin veneer of civilization rapidly disappeared, thinking through her to obtain wealth which never comes, though he dreams of it unceasingly, he drags out twenty years of miserable existence amongst half-savage Malays and Arabs, on the banks of the Pantai in Borneo. The story tells of his final and fatal disappointment, when, as the last hope of fortune vanishes, his daughter, the only creature dear to him, leaves him for a husband of her mother’s race. The scene, a new one in fiction, of this wretched tragedy is depicted with a vividness which must make it visible even to an unimaginative reader. — Maureen’s Fairing, and Other Stories, by Jane Barlow. Iris Series. (Dent, London ; Macmillan, New York.) The eight stories in this little volume should have been but seven, for An Escape is quite out of place in this collection of Irish sketches, and its merits hardly entitle it to longer life than is to be found in the pages of a magazine. Otherwise the book is, speaking with some reservations, a not unfit successor of Irish Idylls, showing the same delicacy of touch and fine artistic sense, the same genuine but restrained pathos and delightful humor. The latter quality predominates, for the village of Ballyhoy, where several of these little dramas are enacted, is a more cheerful place than Lisconnel. A love of orderliness, a trait which the inhabitants of either hamlet would hold in small esteem, makes us regret that the two pleasant childstories should not have been placed next each other and in their proper sequence, as the one given last should really serve as an introduction to the other. — Jacqueline, par Th. Bentzon. (Calmann Lévy.) The lady whose pen-name is Th. Bentzon is perhaps best known in this country as an admirable translator and critic of the higher class of American fiction, of which she has a rarely sympathetic and accurate knowledge. But work of this kind is only an incident in her literary career, which has been mainly that of a novelist. She is hardly at her best in her latest tale, though it shows throughout the ease and skill of a graceful writer and an accomplished story-teller. As often before, her heroine is a young girl, in this case one well born and bred, but as unlike as possible the conventional jeune fille. Indeed, through a succession of painful experiences, her personal knowledge of the evil of the world at last far exceeds that likely to be acquired by her English and American compeers. There are many deft touches in the portraiture of Jacqueline, and true ones as well, as for instance in the intimations given of her love for Hubert Marien, the imaginary sentiment of a schoolgirl for a mature man ; but often the persons concerned in her history, however cleverly described, exist for the story, and somehow fail to strongly impress the reader with their vitality. — The sixth and seventh volumes of the Incognito Library (Putnams) are, A Gender in Satin, by Rita, and Every Day’s News, by R-. Rita’s novelette is, as usual, of a conventional “ modern ” sort, and of course introduces us to the giddy, elegant, heartless woman of fashion, and the gifted, fascinating cynic whom we know so well. Naturally, the latter destroys the peace of mind of the good heroine, but she has a husband still better than herself, whose love and patience, we are led to believe, will in the end win the victory. Thus, the tale, though of today, is moral. The author has skill enough to make it readable, and it will be forgotten as soon as read. Every Day’s News is a much better book. The superficially clever, cold-hearted, and vulgar young writer, who catches the tone of the day, and produces novels, psychological, immoral, and worthless, which are widely praised and pecuniarily successful, is very well and truly sketched, as are all the other women who figure in the story. Mr. Henry James’s influence is plainly perceptible in the author’s manner and style. — The Countess Bettina, the History of an Innocent Scandal. (Putnams.) The inspiration of this tale is not far to seek. If The Prisoner of Zenda and some of its successors had not been written, we probably should never have had The Countess Bettina. The hero, though naturally less brilliant and entertaining, bears a strong family resemblance to the self-possessed, ready-witted man of the world with whom Mr. Anthony Hope has made us acquainted, and the adventures of Jack Dalton are to the full as improbable as those of his prototype, if not quite so skillfully conceived and worked out. His story is told until considerable spirit, and is always readable. — Jack O’Doon, by Maria Beale. (Holt.) A story of the North Carolina coast, wherein the lovely and refined daughter of a rough and eccentric retired sea-captain, a lowly born but sublimely heroic sailor, and a well-born but rather unheroic artist work out their destinies. In this case, the artist wins. The tale is not without cleverness, but is weak in characterization, somewhat mannered in style, and drags in the telling. In brief, it is amateurish, but promising. — Doctor Izard, by Anna Katharine Green [Mrs. Charles Rohlfs]. (Putnams.) The story of the making, career, and unmasking of a Claimant, wherein the writer shows her usual skill in the fabrication and unraveling of mysteries. — The Idiot, by John Kendrick Bangs. (Harpers.) A volume of amusing conversation at a boarding-house table. The character who gives the title to the book does most of the talking, and his monologues are generally readable. The author shares the common fate of humorists who are prolific writers in that his fun sometimes appears forced ; but as a whole this little volume affords most entertaining reading, and makes one wish for more from the same source. — Princeton Stories, by Jesse Lynch Williams. (Scribners.) A collection of college stories meriting more than passing comment. Beside being well constructed and well told, they breathe a spirit of commendable vigor and manliness. They naturally possess the interest incident to sketches of picturesque student life, but aside from this they betray an unusual aptitude for story-telling on the part of the author. Princeton men are fortunate in having the life of their college so favorably presented to the outside world, — Foam of the Sea, and Other Tales, by Gertrude Hall (Roberts), will strengthen its author’s title to that place among our most careful and imaginative writers which her first volume of stories won for her. These fairy tales for grown-ups are more mystic, more remote from common humanity than the earlier little romances ; they are godchildren of the Twice-Told Tales, and with their Hawthornesque flavor they have occasionally something of Hawthorne’s power. But the book cannot be called an improvement on Far From To-Day; and one must hope that Miss Hall will not forget the rich dramatic life of those earlier creations, to lose herself in dreams, even though they should be as beautiful as Garden Deadly. — A Street in Suburbia, by Edwin Pugh (Appleton), is in some respects an English counterpart of Chimmie Fadden, The cockney dialect, however, is not likely to win so many readers in this country as the more familiar Bowery lingo ; and the Englishman’s humor is not so compelling as Mr. Townsend’s.

Travel and Description. Lotos-Time in Japan, by Henry T. Finck (Scribners), is an interesting record of the author’s experiences and observations in Japan during the months of July and August. Mr. Finck took a pair of keen but friendly eyes with him and kept them wide open, and he tells his story in a racy and entertaining style, though his pages are marred by at least one particularly bad pun, We should expect the author of Romantic Love and Personal Beauty to have something worth saying about Japanese women, and it is interesting to know that he found them remarkably pretty and charming, and, except while walking, graceful. In summing up, Mr. Finck considers the civilization superior to ours in the most essential points. “Japanese civilization is based on altruism, ours on egotism.” The book has sixteen fullpage illustrations from photographs. But what becomes of the Japanese smile, when these people are being photographed ? Can it be that they are never told to look pleasant? — Attractive and inexpensive summer books are Macmillan’s Miniature Series in paper covers. The first volumes reissued in this form are Winter’s Shakespeare’s England, and The Friendship of Nature, by Mabel Osgood Wright.—The Boston Picture Book. (Irving P. Fox, 8 Oliver St., Boston.) An oblong paper-covered book, containing over one hundred views of buildings, monuments, portraits, and bits of scenery in and about Boston, from photographs. The points are well chosen, and the general effect is good.

Music and the Drama. Letters of a Baritone, by Francis Walker. (Scribners.) From letters written during his student days in Florence Mr. Walker has made an exceedingly readable and interesting volume. Heartily believing in Italy as the land to which students of singing should continue to resort, he also owns that “the unscrupulous, plausible wrecker of voices is to be found everywhere,” and it is with the hope — a hope that should be largely justified — of saving other aspirants from some of the difficulties he encountered that he publishes this record of his experiences. Not only are his technical hints and suggestions eminently wise and sound, but he gives information as to ways and means which must prove helpful and encouraging to the rather numerous company of impecunious American students. His good sense, and enthusiastic and at the same time intelligent devotion to his art command the respect of the reader, whom, as we have before intimated, he never fails to interest, even when he writes of life in Italy other than in its musical aspects. — Mr. William Winter, who writes criticisms of the modern stage as if he loved to, and not as if he had to, publishes a third series of his Shadows of the Stage (Macmillan), a collection, well ordered, of his occasional comment. In one or two instances, as in the final chapters, he gives broad generalizations which are interesting, but start more questions than they answer. It is refreshing to meet with such honest, old-fashioned views as those which run amuck of Ibsen. The universal stage includes this gentleman, but the orthodox stage reads him out of meeting with a delightful serenity of faith.

Nature and Science. Introduction to Elementary Practical Biology, a Laboratory Guide for High-School and College Students, by Charles Wright Dodge. (Harpers.) The object of this book is to promote original investigation in the study of biology. To this end, the directions for dissecting each organism are followed by a series of questions which are to be answered from the student’s own observations. It will easily be seen that this is entirely different from the old-fashioned plan of question and answer in the text. The design is, of course, to make the student more independent of “ the book,” and at the same time more thorough in his examination of specimens. Unicellular organisms, animals (from sponges to frogs), and plants (from the lowest to the highest) are taken up in order. The volume is intended to be used with the assistance of an instructor.—Insects and Insecticides, a Practical Manual concerning Noxious Insects and the Methods of Preventing their Injuries, by Clarence M. Weed. Revised Edition. (Orange Judd.) Almost every useful plant — herb, shrub, or tree — has one or more insect enemies against which eternal warfare must be waged, and this excellent handbook in its enlarged and improved form, with nearly two hundred illustrations, can hardly fail to be of the greatest value to farmers and horticulturists. While the author’s name is a sufficient guarantee of scientific accuracy and thoroughness, the book is emineatly practical in method, and insects affecting fruits, shade - trees, ornamental plants, vegetables, etc., are treated of in turn, without reference to technical classification. By way of criticism, it seems to us that sufficient stress is not laid on the value of birds as destroyers of insects, and the great importance of protecting them. The good work of the cuckoos among tent caterpillars and of the rose-breasted grosbeak with the potato beetles, for instance, should not have been ignored. — Lectures on the Darwinian Theory, delivered by the late Arthur Milnes Marshall. Edited by C. F. Marshall. (Macmillan.) This is a remarkably lucid exposition of Darwinism, given in eight interesting lectures, aided by many illustrations, both verbal and pictorial. The first lecture is on the history of the theory of evolution, and the volume closes with a chapter on Darwin’s life and work. The author seems to share Wallace’s opinion as to sexual selection, and dismisses it with very few words, but otherwise he is in entire sympathy with his subject.

Poetry. Ad Sodales, by Frank Taylor (B. H. Blackwell, Oxford),is a little papercovered volume of forty pages of very graceful and finished society verse. The sureness of touch and lightness of fancy betoken a new scholar in the school of Locker and Praed. — The End of Elfintown, by Jane Barlow. Illustrated by Laurence Housman. (Macmillan.) This is a little fairy tale done in a fitting verse form, delicate and easy. It is another tiny straw to show us which way the wind of romance is blowing. So, at least, no doubt, Mr. W. B. Yeats and the younger Celts would have us believe. Mr. Housman’s drawings are a delightful addition to the volume. — First Poems and Fragments, by P. H. Savage (Copeland & Day), is a modest first hook, with the virtues of sincerity and simplicity, of that school of meditative verse whose traditions (and inspirations, indeed) are mainly derived from Emerson or Wordsworth, - the school to which Mr. William Watson and Mr. Archibald Lampman belong. Mr. Savage, however, has none of the felicity of phrase of his Canadian contemporary, while he has all of the Londoner’s perilous lack of magnetism. One admires the seriousness of such a first volume, but one misses the ruddy drop of human blood.

Education and Textbooks. Foundation Studies in Literature, by Margaret S. Mooney (Silver, Burdett & Co.), gives in briefest outline some of the best known classic myths, illustrating each with extensive quotations from modern poetry and half-tone reproductions of famous pictures. “ This volume has been prepared for students who are old enough to understand that literature is one of the fine arts.” — Selections from Herrick, edited by Edward Everett Hale, Jr. (Ginn), in the Athenæum Press Series, is a careful piece of work. If the editor gives us no new criticism of this master of the lyric, he is at least sane and free from pedantry. There is a glossary, a bibliography, and a good introduction, beside notes in plenty. — Endymion, by John Lyly. Edited by George P. Baker. (Holt.) Mr. Baker’s introduction to this play is so scholarly and thorough that one is not disposed to quarrel with the fact that it occupies two thirds of the volume. It is really an exhaustive essay on Lyly and his relation to Elizabeth’s court, and makes an extremely valuable addition to this series of English Readings. — Specimens of Exposition, selected and edited by Hammond Lament (Holt), is one of the series of textbooks, English Readings. The authors presented for study include Matthew Arnold, Burke, James Bryce, Professor Huxley, John Richard Green, Mommsen, Frederick Denison Maurice, William Archer, George C. V. Holmes, Adam Smith, and Josiah Royce. — Rhetoric, its Theory and Practice, by Austin Phelps and H. A. Frink. (Scribners.) Another illustration of the educational truth that the letter is deadly, and that a teacher, if he hopes to be present in spirit, must also be present in the flesh, is copiously offered by this new-old textbook of rhetoric. The basis of it is the late Professor Austin Phelps’s English Style in Public Discourse ; the superstructure, by Professor H. A. Frink, of Amherst College, has been raised upon Phelps’s well-known lectures, with the hope of making the whole work serve all the usual purposes of instruction in rhetoric. “The essential elements of literary power and beauty,” says Mr. Frink, “ are indefinable, illusive, and are not to be communicated by direct instruction.” Yet Mr. Frink quotes twice and with approval Professor Earle’s remark that “ the oral is the source and parent of all that is developed in the literary,” and we are consequently the more surprised at his constant implication that the art of what he calls oral address can be better taught than skill in writing. As a matter of fact, in the present case, the original element of Phelps is much more valuable than the added element of Frink ; and therefore, so far as the joint book is concerned, Mr. Frink’s implication is justified. The many examples of good English have been chosen with judgment, but the authors use too often the dangerous expedient of bad English as a warning. Neither author shows a feeling for style in his own manner of writing. Mr. Frink often permits himself the “ periodic ” inversion dear to rhetoricians; and in one instance of this, at least, he has come perilously near what the natural man will think bad grammar. The distinctions between words are sometimes arbitrary, and in the article of “ memory” used for “reminiscence ” Mr. Frink has the great example of Landor against him.

Practical Religion. Master and Men, or The Sermon on the Mountain Practiced on the Plain, by W. B. Wright. (Houghton.) This volume is one of the signs of the times, for it is an earnest translation of the sermon on the mount in the terms of modern life. We say modern life, though among the biographical studies which intercalate the studies of the several texts are St. Paul, Moses, Socrates, King Alfred, and George Fox, along with George Macdonald and General Gordon; for these older worthies are conceived in the spirit of the present day. Mr. Wright looks with almost painful clearness into the direct sun of righteousness. — The Heresy of Cain, by George Hodges. (Thomas Whittaker, New York.) A score of discourses refreshingly direct, candid, and practical. They are the words of a man to men, who is not less a man for being a clergyman, and no less a minister of God for being a sympathetic, almost homely man. The book rings true, and comes from a nature generously alive to the needs and cries of the struggling human being who is enmeshed in modern industrial society.