The Literary World hight of his performance, the organ failed, that melancholy which is not wholly sad, No. 2 of the keyboard's vintage; then, at the very trospective in tone, and slightly tinged with To delight in this book requires a certain 19 20 21 21 22 22 23 24 24 OUTINGS AT ODD TIMES.* TH LONDON LETTERS.* HESE two large and handsome volumes, in library style, contain about a thousand pages of matter selected from the columns of the New York Tribune, of which Mr. Smalley has been for a long time the London correspondent. His regular letters in that great newspaper are one of its most valuable WHOEVER takes an outing with Dr. features. They are especially welcome, we WHOE Abbott is sure to encounter some un- suppose, to its readers who are more interexpected phase of that multiform life whose ested in news about literary and social life in unceasing activity underlies the apparent England than in the small details of home quietude of the country landscape. Though politics. Mr. Smalley writes with the ad25 almost universally ignored, this persistent vantages of wide personal acquaintance and activity is distinguishable, even through the long observation of English affairs. He has 25 death-like coma of mid-winter. Dr. Abbott a style at once fluent and forcible, and his 26 not only shares his discoveries, but shows us how to repeat the delight for ourselves. In these brief essays, each apparently the product of a single mood or hour, we have 26 sometimes the record of a walk; sometimes a reminiscence of the fun or the freedom and newspapers, though Mr. Smalley's range of 26 bold intimacy with animate and inanimate sympathies and judgment must be con 27 27 nature that belonged to the boy brought sidered, for these are not such as to make 27 27 up on an old farm; sometimes a half-whimsi-him preeminent. The reader of the Tribune 27 cal dissertation on such suggestive topics does well never to neglect Mr. Smalley's 27 as "Old Almanacs," "Wayside Trees," or As an observer of the ways of animals and creeping things, Dr. Abbott has that 31 good fortune which is probably another day, one is compelled to pause in his praise. name for patience. Enthusiasm must always be at least half faith, and the author who It is a Life is short, and two large volumes are long. Moreover, Mr. Smalley, bound up, invites and compels comparison with observers of English life like Emerson and M. Taine, and this he cannot bear. The question at once arises, Why should not Mr. his details about the dressing-gowns of Smalley have spared his readers many of THE CHEVALIER OF PENSIERI-VANI.* speaks confidently of "fun-loving minnows," FICTION is indebted to Mr. Stanton and sees in the "impatient flirt" of a herPage for a new departure, really new, on's feather's " annoyance and not fear," can and yet not violent. The Chevalier of Pen- never fail to find entertainment in the woods sieri-Vani is a book that will appeal to a and fields. He interprets so liberally every small audience of accomplished readers; indication of sensibility or sagacity in the without any pose of cosmopolitanism, it has creatures he sees that their movements take an old-world distinction and harmoniousness on a proportionate importance. of manner; its sustained ease is proof that drama of conscious intelligence in which the author is not only competent and well nothing is small that reveals a step in the versed in regard to his theme, but has also development of the perpetual miracle of a fund of reserved force that makes itself being. This attitude toward the whole world unmistakably felt. of physical nature is strongly characteristic of all Dr. Abbott's work. Though one may sometimes smile incredulously at the interpretation, the zealous warmth of the natural-journalistic; but it might have been made ist rests upon a deep truth which we must notable terial for history. It would have been supervastly entertaining and instructive as maficial, for Mr. Smalley rarely gets below the surface; but the surface has its rights, and the surface view is always needed. The Chevalier is of the number of Italy's lovers, who are drawn to her from afar, and love her with a patriotism sustained by the esthetic instinct that delights in her traditions, her nature, and her art. He had won respect. his patent of cavalier by a superb performMost of the papers here included have ance on the organ in the cathedral of Or- previously appeared in various weekly pubvieto, when his feet trod out (in the words lications; they make the circuit of the year of his romancist) the red wine of harmony, in a natural division corresponding to the and his fingers dripped with the rich juices seasons. While many are more or less reLondon Letters and Some Others. By George W. *Outings at Odd Times. By Charles C. Abbott, M.D. Smalley. In two volumes. Pp. 45, 507. Brothers. $6.00 D. Appleton & Co. $1.50. The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani. J. G. Cupples Co. 50c. By Stanton Page. As, however, Mr. Smalley has not written such a book as we wish he had, for his own Harper & sake and the American public's, we advise our readers to exercise their jumping powers if they take up these volumes. To read seriatim a thousand pages of reprinted newspaper can be profitable to few minds. Many pages chronicle decidedly small beer; others show the author on a scale of proportion by the side of Gladstone, Gambetta, and Matthew Arnold, for instance, which raises an obvious smile at Mr. Smalley's generous estimate of himself; certainly he lacketh not the assur viewer's outfit, and he does not place too low an estimate on the value of his own opinions. numerous pleasant hours with him, and for MY STUDY FIRE.* Tittle cell have something in their HE graceful essays which make up this dreamy, meditative quality akin to the favor- in the navy. There are, moreover, letters from S. T. Coleridge and the Wordsworths, from Professor Wilson and Charlotte Bronté. The whole will form an interesting supplement to the Biography; the volumes will be illustrated by several portraits of De Quincey and the members of his family. THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF MADISON.* Iance which is an essential part of the inter- fire burns which Rosalind has lit, and into R. HENRY ADAMS has continued, in these two volumes, the history of our which golden-haired children gaze with won-country from 1801 to 1817, which he will dering eyes. Here, surrounded by his books, complete in three volumes devoted to Madithe man of letters counts his joys, and gives son's second term of office. The story of the first place to that sweet content which is these four years, 1809-18.3, has never been the peculiar and perfect blessing of hearth told so well before. But it is not in itself and home. Yet books are the chief theme. attractive, for it is a recital of the diplomacy Life and art, especially the life and art ex- of confusion in which France and England pressed in literature, are the topics peren- played at foot-ball with American interests; nially discussed around this cheerful study of hesitation, embarrassment, and division at fire. Mr. Mabie touches them at a hundred home; of peace with England strangely propoints of view, glancing off, and returning longed when there was every reason for war, and lingering still, in close fellowship with and of war declared when there was nearly the books upon the shelves and the dancing, every reason for continuing the policy of elusive light that comes and goes by flashes. peace. No such remarkable personality as The wisdom of books, for which the author that of Jefferson was at the helm in Washhas all a student's fondness, is scrutinized in ington, and it was the heyday of mediocrity the light of present experience, and truth in Congress. Naturally, Mr. Adams cannot embodied in noble living acknowledged as be expected to make a narrative of absorbing man's one fit object and end. says: The forty or so personal sketches in the first volume are the most important part of the matter. Gossipy to a degree, they often give information which the admirer of Louis Blanc, Mr. Morley, or George Eliot, for example, may vainly search for elsewhere. Of Gambetta's "opportunism" Mr. Smalley "No word has brought greater reproach on him. It ought to be inscribed on his tomb as an epitaph and a eulogy." And he describes with animation the great scene when Gambetta replied to the Duc de Broglie: "Je suis un homme de mon temps; vous n'êtes pas un homme de votre temps." "There is no social question," he said on another occasion; "there are social questions." Minister Phelps' bon mot, that "the man who makes no mistakes seldom makes anything," made him famous, according to Mr. Smalley. The papers on George Eliot, Browning, the Arnold, and John Stuart Mill, are among most interesting and important; but the fullest sketch is of John Bright, and it presents He ada good picture of the whole man. mired Whittier immensely, and could quote him by the hour; but this is surely one of the most curious criticisms on Shakespeare, I whom he did not read- ever uttered by mortal man: "It is the dialogue that spoils him for me. The break from sentence to sentence, the question and answer, the continual interruption of the thought, divert the attention and impair the interest. The flow of thought is not sustained; the style goes to pieces." One evening Mr. Bright said to an American, introduced to him as a friend of Mr. Greeley: "Ah, does your friend Mr. Greeley still cling to that idiotic doctrine of Protection?" There are no fixed and permanent.social conditions, because society is slowly moving toward a nobler ordering of its duties and its rights; there are no final books, because the human spirit, of which the greatest books are but imperfect expressions, is always passing through manifuld experiences into larger knowledge of itself and of the world about it; there are no final forms of art, because truth has always new beauty to reveal, and beauty new truth to illustrate. Let the fire on the new hearth sing its lusty song of the summers that are past; its music has no note of forgetfulness; memory and prophecy are the burden of its song." Surely this is a genial and suggestive comBut another American got the bet-panion, whom we may well invite to join the ter of him, when he began combatively on group around the evening fire. the subject at dinner: "Well, Mr. Bright, when I talk on Protection with a Free Trader, I always begin by admitting that I am an idiot!" interest out of such material. When he reaches actual hostilities in 1812, the burden of his history is incapacity and blundering on the part of the War Department and the generals in charge of operations. For the President, Mr. Adams has few words of praise. "The conventionality of his thought nowhere betrayed itself more plainly" than in his inaugural address, full of expressions from which no policy of peace or war could be deduced. His just reputation has quite another reason than his official papers: "If Madison's fame as a statesman rested on what he wrote as President, he would be thought not only among the weakest of Executives, but also among the dullest of men, whose liveliest sally of feeling exhausted itself in an epithet, and whose keenest sympathy centered in the tobacco crop; but no statesman suffered more than Madison from the constraints of official dress." In his dealings with Robert Smith, his first Secretary of State, "Madison's resemblance to a cardinal was not wholly imaginary." This Smith-nonentity remained in office until forced to resign in 1811: "For ten years Robert Smith had been one of the most powerful influences in politics, trusted *My Study Fire. By Hamilton Wright Mabie. Dodd, with the highest responsibilities and duties, seemMead & Co. $1.25. ing, more than any other single Cabinet officer, to affect the course of public affairs; when, at a breath from the President, his official life was The memorials of the De Quincey family, snuffed out, his reputation for ability vanished, which the United States Book Company is about and the Republican party, which had so long flattered him, suddenly learned to belittle him. to publish will be of unusual interest. Among Under the shadow of absolute or monarchical the letters are several from De Quincey's mother governments such tales of artificial greatness were common, and their moral was worn thin by ages of repetition; but in the democratic United Mr. Smalley describes Mr. Gladstone's two Midlothian Campaigns — in 1879 and 1884 in great detail, and his second volume is made up of notes on social life, on during his school days, and many from his brother Parliament, pictures of numerous pageants Richard, confirming what De Quincey has told in London, and some miscellaneous letters. of his sensational life as a runaway from school, If he is never very philosophical, he is rarely as a cabin boy on a South Sea whaler, as a pris dull. By selecting judiciously one may pass oner among pirates, and finally as a midshipman First Administration of James Madison. By Henry Adams. * History of the United States of America during the Two volumes. Charles Scribuer's Sons. $4.00. States, and from the bosom of Jefferson's political family, this experience of Robert Smith was a singular symptom." Mr. Adams is inclined to severity in his treatment of these times; but while he says that "a less competent administrative system seldom drifted, by reason of its incompetence, into war with a superior enemy," and that "no department of the government was fit for its necessary work," he declares that "Madison's embarrassments rose from causes that only time could cure, and were inherent in American society itself." The second volume smells strongly of the Princeton library. It is not the work of one who knew the great editor; but the writer has reconstructed the story out of books and newspapers. The work is respectable, and as dull as it is respectable. matist. Of John Quincy Adams he remarks: Lost Arts," "Daniel O'Connell," and "The "Anxious by temperament, with little con- Scholar in a Republic." Our recollection of fidence in his own good fortune fighting the great orator compels a sharp contrast his battles with energy, but rather with between his calm pose and stately ease, and that of despair than of hope- the younger the rhapsody of his latest biographer. Adams never allowed himself to enjoy the full relish of a triumph before it staled, while he never failed to taste with its fullest flavor, as though it were a precious wine, every drop in the bitter cup of his defeats." With two more of Mr. Adams' judgments on matters which have a present application we must close our notice of these volumes, Of the progress of our country these vol-indispensable to all future students of our umes have little to say beyond the indication early career as a nation. The battle of Tipthat the manufacturing interests of New Eng-pecanoe, Tecumthe, as he should be styled, land were created by the embargo; but the described as an "unfortunate transaction exigencies of his subject compel the his- that took place between the white people and torian to take his stand often in London and a few of our young men at our village," and Paris, to trace there the complex fortunes of Mr. Adams declares that "nothing in the Orders in Council and Napoleonic Decrees American account contradicted his version affecting American commerce. Canning here of the affair." Such was the origin of the appears in a bad light in his dealings with reputation which has made two Presidents the United States through Erskine. The of the United States. Of one of the notable duel in which Lord Castlereagh shot him defects in our Constitution this is said: through the thigh "was a natural result of such an Administration; but as concerned the United States, Canning had already done all the harm possible, and more than three generations could wholly repair." When, at last, war was proclaimed between England and America, it was a war of the strangest kind to be declared by a country enjoying a republican form of government. We quote a portion of Mr. Adams' charac terization of it: "The war of 1812 was chiefly remarkable for the vehemence with which, from beginning to end, it was resisted and thwarted by a very large number of citizens who were commonly considered, and who considered themselves, by no means the least respectable, intelligent, or patriotic part of the nation. That the war was as just and necessary as any war ever waged, seemed so evident to Americans of another generation, "The American system of prolonging the existence of one Legislature after electing another, never worked worse in practice than when it allowed this rump Congress of 1809, the mere scourings of the Embargo, to assume the task of preparing for the War of 1812, to which it was altogether opposed, and in which it could not believe." THES AMERICAN REFORMERS.* HESE three volumes belong to a series to which an ambitious title has been given. The dozen or so of lives of American Reformers are to be edited by Rev. Carlos Martyn. Although they are issued by a house which publishes many religious books, our belief in the speedy coming of the millennium is not increased after examining this trio of biographies. They are certainly not We do not know how his fellow buyers and sellers will like the title of the biography of William E. Dodge. Why Christian merchant? Are business and Christianity necessarily opposed, or even so far different as to make a Christian in commercial life rare and wonderful? Mr. Dodge lived to be nearly eighty years old, and his statue in New York shows the regard of his fellow merchants. This volume is the best of the three, as it is written in a comparatively natural style, and Mr. Dodge is allowed to speak for himself. Nevertheless, a fervid rhetoric often mars the otherwise good work. The series, so far, reminds us irresistibly of the Sunday school "memoirs " and "biographies" of a generation or two ago. To be helpful to present-day readers, more truth and judicial fairness would be a better flavoring. Each volume has a good portrait and an index, but in all mechanical features these volumes are a great contrast to the good work of the Riverside Press on the several series of American biographies manufactured there; at the same time, the price of each volume is higher. The inferiority of the make-up is not so patent as the poorer intellectual quality. WORMWOOD.* ET le nom de cette étoile était ABSINTHE ! that only with an effort could modern readers constructed on the Biblical model, which sets Such is the startling cry of denunciagrasp the reasons for the bitter opposition of large and respectable communities which left the down a man as a liar when he has told a fib, tion, taken from the Apocalypse as a motto, government bankrupt, and nearly severed the even though he be a saint, for they are full to arraign the vice of Paris. This strong Union; but if students of national history can of rhapsody. All three have the unmistak-romance, by Miss Marie Corelli, is a study bear with patience the labor of retaining in mind the threads of negotiation so thoroughly tangled able stamp of the book-maker upon them, extremely realistic, yet saved by the honbefore breaking, they can partially enter into the and some parts of the contract work, hastily est and clean mind of the author from needfeelings of citizens who held themselves aloof from Madison's war. . . . .. Even Gallatin, who in done, are decidedly disagreeable. Accuracy less offense of the horrible demoralization 1809 had been most decided for war, was be- is not their strong point, and the charm of and the reversion to brute types of the modlieved in 1812 to wish and to think that it might true perspective, which is a first necessity in ern Parisians, caused by the absinthe habit. be avoided. Probably four fifths of the American people held the same opinion. Not merely biography, but which comes only after long The pallid green liquor, that seems like had the situation in every other respect changed study of the man and his varying environ- the soul of a serpent, establishes its power for the worse, but the moral convictions of the almost immediately, and leads the victim a country were outraged by the assertion of a contract with Napoleon-in which no one believed witch-dance of brilliant and diabolical illuas the reason for forcing religious and peaceful sions, terminating in lesion of the brain, a citizens into what they regarded as the service of fixed idea, idiocy, and death. France." In 1812 "the nation as a whole saw nothing of actual warfare. . . . The country refused to take the war seriously." Two of Mr. Adams' personal estimates are of special interest coming from one of his family. Of Pinkney, who was Minister to England for the five years ending in 1811, he asserts that" America never sent an abler representative to the Court of London," whether as a speaker, a writer, or a diplo ment, is notably absent. In treating Wendell Phillips, Mr. Martyn Wendell Phillips, the Agitator By Carlos Martyn. Funk & Wagnalls. Each, $1.50. Miss Corelli has handled her terrible theme with true vigor and efficiency, together with artistic reserve and moderation. Beauvais, it is impossible to deny our interEven to the fallen hero of the story, Gaston est and compassion; a deadly wrong done him by his friend had made the world totter around him, and left him an easy prey to the Wormwood. By Marie Corelli. United States "Book Company. 50C. sophistries of a devotee of absinthe. "The green fairy," having driven from his brain the instincts of human rectitude, peopled its cells with demons, and the poor Beauvais goes ruining toward his death. The characters are drawn with strong dramatic contrast: Gaston, at first the type of the best Parisian youth—a type which is not yet extinct; Pauline, like a lily that retains its whiteness under the filth beaten upon it by a storm; the fathers of these two, delicately differentiated individuals of the class of père noble; and the priest, Silvion Guidèl, with his great error. The scenes are saved from sensationalism by the excellent art with which they are expressed, and by the firm purpose which animates the book. Miss Corelli has written nothing superior to Wormwood, and the moral of this story is not alone for Paris or for France, but for every other nation where the curse of absinthe enters, either in its direct form, or in its more widespread and subtle secondary phase the corruption and debasement of literature and art. Because a novelist or poet on the Boulevards spurs his jaded wit by absinthe, a crowd of imitators copy, and even highten, his false and evil effects in art, with the hope of appearing expert and brilliant. There is, for example, a little group of New York fictionists (quite apart from the real and excellent littérateurs there) who have busied themselves with offering to the public the rinsings of the absinthe-glasses of their Parisian masters. It should not be difficult for these men to reform a habit which, it is to be hoped, exists in them as harmlessly as in the mirrors of the absinthe shops, a mere reflection of the attitude without the actual imbibing of the liquid. Perhaps, if one knew how to look for it, there is a physiological cause for every literary phase. Seek for the nerve, excited or atrophied and you may find the formula of difference between Baudelaire and Dr. Watts ! Miss Corelli's preface should be noted, in which she sets right, in her lively fashion, several injustices done her by pirated editions, with their hasty proof-reading and "maddest misprints," especially of Italian idiomatic phrases. She does well to warn the readers, who are to trace with her the destruction of a soul possessed by absinthe, against the misapprehension which awaits a writer who paints to the life indefensible personages and scenes - that the author is represented by the dramatic utterances of those characters, or has witnessed the details which are described. In Wormwood, Miss Corelli has scored a real success, employing to a worthy end an art in the line of the most popular French writers. drama is named, is a type of resolute and un- laxed her rule thenceforward never any more. . . . That wedding to the fortunes of his sister was his life-long union, and haply saved him from any other, which would have harmed rather than have helped this man; and would have sacrificed this vivid person ality on the altar of the greatly glorified god, the infestive Humdrum." Dr. Martin follows the Lambs through all their removals, from No. 2 Crown Office Row in the Inner Temple, to Little Queen Street, Holborn, back to the Temple, to Islington, Enfield, and Edmonton; he pleasantly describes the neighborhoods and the houses, but not in excessive detail. Bluecoat School, the East India House where Lamb passed "thirty-three years of slavery" (but it tended "in all ways for his good"), Blakesware, where he spent his vacations as a boy, and the taverns of his favor The A "TOPOGRAPHICAL BIOGRAPHY" ite resort in London, are also pictured by has been wanting in all the abundance of the literature pertaining to Elia. Dr. Martin set out to fill this void, and in doing this pious duty he has not been able to avoid treating "the man himself from our more modern and more humane point of view." But in all that he tells us there is no need for "apology or homily." The fuller details which he gives concerning the insanity in the family, and Lamb's fondness for gin, do not shake his hold upon our respect or love. For "he was no drunkard. He could not have been a drunkard with his delicate organization. I believe that he suffered, unknowingly withal, from the malady now named nervous dyspepsia, to which he was a victim, partly by inheritance, largely by his own indiscretions. He was careless in his habits, in his diet, in his exercise - walking often at unfitting hours and for excessive hours and he had no regard at all for any sort of proper precautions." Dr. Martin and his two artist helpers. His charming narrative shows him an apt disciple of the fine spirit whose wanderings from house to house he celebrates; the only fault we find with him is his unnecessary depreciation of Wordsworth and Coleridge, in his amusing account of the gatherings at the Temple house. This strikes a jarring note in the kindly volume which, otherwise, fitly celebrates the man of whom Crabb Robinson said: "Of all men of genius I ever knew, Charles Lamb was the one most intensely and universally to be loved." The admirable Wageman portrait is the frontispiece of the book, which the publishers have issued in a very tasteful style; the white binding, stamped in gold, the wide margins, and the firm paper make a volume which Lamb himself would have rejoiced to look upon, despite his preference for the interiors of books to their external show. A very full bibliography, by Mr. E. D. North, adds to the value of a delightful volume, which closes well with Wordsworth's lines: At the center of his being lodged A soul by resignation sanctified; Oh, he was good, if e'er a good man lived!" LETTERS OF RICHARD WAGNER.* THIS Dr. Martin felicitates himself that nearly every house in which Lamb lived - and they were not few is still standing. Of these his artists, Herbert Railton and John Fulleylove, have given admirable pen-and-ink drawings. From Enfield, where Charles and Mary Lamb came to live in 1827, he wrote to Tom Hood, hoping that they were settled HIS collection of the letters written by for life, and saying that it was “with some Wagher to his friends, Theodor Uhlig, pains that we were evulsed from Colebrook Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine of [the last residence]. You may find some of Dresden, is a valuable supplement to the our flesh sticking to the door-posts. To volume, previously published, of his correchange habitations is to die to them, and in spondence with Abbé Liszt. The period inmy time I have died seven deaths." But cluded may be stated as 1849-60, although there were two changes of house yet to a few of the letters are of earlier and later make, one to the next door only, and the dates. More familiar and unrestrained than second to Edmonton, where Lamb lies in the his communications to Liszt, with whom he same grave with his sister. His supreme seems to have been somewhat ill at ease, devotion to that sister, Dr. Martin believes, these letters are the intimate expressions was his own mental salvation. "Such is the of Wagner's intellect and life. potency of this intangible tonic of unselfish not of the cult of Bayreuth, the personality self-sacrifice that his tremulous nerves grew of the master appears neither attractive nor tenser under its action, and his reason re Henrik Ibsen's latest play, Hedda Gabler, is about to be published by the United States Book Company. It is a tragedy which at the first reading recalls The Wild Duck, in its mystical In the Footprints of Charles Lamb. By Benjamin effect. The principal character, after whom the Ellis Martin. Illustrated. Charles Scribner's Sons. $2.50. To a reader * Richard Wagner's Letters to his Dresden Friends. Translated, with a preface, by J. S. Shedlock. Scribner & Welford. $3.50. clearly defined. Vast ambition and self-es- effacement which is so good a sign in a At Paris, where he went intending to reveal himself and make himself understood, TOLSTOI LITERATURE. 66 of the Russian peasant, Timothy Bondareff, to which Count Tolstoï has supplied an introduction. Bondareff has so far surpassed other reformers as to demonstrate, to his own satisfaction, that forty days' work a year is all that should be asked of any one. His qualifications as a reformer seem to be limited to a verbal knowledge of the Old Testament only; this he has studied out painfully, line by line, but spelling is expressly stated to be beyond him. The reconstruction of civilized society is a small matter to a reformer thus plentifully equipped with ignorance.-Charles H. Sergel & Co. 50c. HINTS FOR CRITICS. I. Have no opin ions; deal with the realities in the book before 2. Present these realities in the plainest manner possible, say, as you would present an author to invited guests. they were not much interested. His sojourn THE HE issue of seven or more volumes in there was deeply disappointing, and he writes this country, within the last few weeks, finally to his friend Uhlig, "My Parisian art- does not appear to indicate that the "Tolstoï wallowings are given up since I recognized craze" has yet run its course. The notoriety their profane character." Bitter indeed were of The Kreutzer Sonata has excited various the mortifications, the failures, and the denials firms to publish minor productions of the of those days passed in Paris. Wagner re- Count in order to turn a penny, quite careturned to Switzerland to plan the Ring des less of their moral effect or their intellectual Two dramatic productions of Count TolNibelungen, confiding this bold dream in a value. But, beyond a doubt, Count Tolstoï, stoï's are The Fruits of Culture and The letter to Uhlig, dated a week before the let as a moral teacher, has seen his best day with Dominion of Darkness. The former, a comter on the same subject, addressed to Liszt. persons whose opinions of books are worthy edy of a rather heavy order of humor, is a An especially attractive expression of the of regard, and he is gradually revealing him take-off on Spiritism, in which the credulity affectionate side of Wagner's character is in self plainly as one of the unbalanced proph- of Leonid Fedorovitch, the chief believer, the letter which relates the death of his pet ets whom it is not safe to follow. Gospel would seem to be beyond possibility, did not parrot; the glimpse it gives is worth much Stories, indeed, belongs to the earlier and one know of instances as extreme in this more than some of the formal manifestations better Tolstoï, but they are not new; most very city (Benjamin R. Tucker). The latter of his nature. One is quite in accord with of them were published in connection with is a vulgar drama of peasant life in Russia, the translator's admission that, after all, it is Ivan Ilyitch four years ago. The Long wherein seduction, murder, and poisoning hardly fair to the memory of a great man to Exile" and "What Men Live By" are re- are a few of the agreeable elements. It corpublish his familiar letters, written quite off printed from other plates; the volume thus roborates what Mr. E. B. Lanin has been writguard, and full of colloquialisms. On the appears in two different sizes of type. It is ing lately, in the Fortnightly Review, on the other hand, the reader can make due allow-well to have in one neat book such admirable gross immorality of the mudjik; but the ance for the hasty expressions which, after and touching stories as, "Where Love Is," drama is far more sickening than the articles. all, permit closer approach to an eminent and "Ilyas," but the translator should have - Charles H. Sergel & Co. 25c. personality. made plainer, in his introductory note, their Not a few of Wagner's critical remarks relation to previous volumes, and should here are valuable and acute; among these is have welcomed the opportunity to excise his note upon the efficiency of non-profes- much needless Russian from the text of you. sional hearers of Beethoven as propagand- some of the tales.-T. Y. Crowell & Co. ists of his works. But Wagner seems to $1.25. have lacked some of the first requisites of a your Work While Ye Have the Light, transcritic, such as catholicity and the power of lated by E. J. Dillon, Ph.D., is said, by the entering into the sentiment and art of others. United States Book Company, to be copyHe was always himself -huge, compelling, righted in this country, but this fact has not and occupying the entire foreground of his prevented two other publishers in New York point of view. He appears to have con- and Chicago from issuing the same translasidered other persons with kindliness and tion. It is a story of the early Christians. attachment only if they held an attitude of Julius, the son of a wealthy merchant of faithfulness or pecuniary or artistic advan- Tarsus, is twice so far persuaded, by his tage toward himself. Entire confidence in friend Pamphilius, to join the new religion his genius was a pedestal upon which he as to set out for their village, leaving behind stood to receive tribute. This may go far to the vices in which he had been plunged. But explain the willingness with which he owed twice he is dissuaded by a philosopher who his entire support at one time to two gentle- points out to him the greater wisdom of remen whose positions indicate very moderate maining at home to play a good part in the means, and took a regular subsidy from life of his city. After many years have come another family. His letters show a decided upon him, he actually embraces the Christian grasp upon honoraria, and a curious unwill- faith, and finds peace in the equal and quiet ingness that others should deem him inter- lot of the believers. The arguments of the ested in his just dues, while his hand was philosopher and the Christian are set forth always wide open to receive. It is, indeed, with power and simple eloquence. While an unsatisfying image of the great composer the moral that Count Tolstoï would have us which these letters create. Perhaps his aco- draw is evident, the argument of his philosolytes will do better to admire at a distance pher needs but little reënforcement from the his Titantic proportions and his genius, one experience of the Christian centuries to give reason of the success of which is that it it the predominance. The Christian spirit was not purely musical, but rather a general will never conquer the world by withdrawing art-instinct expressing itself in composite from it. United States Book Co.; the Waverly Co.; and Charles H. Sergel & Co. form. 3. Have no views of your own; take the public view, or the author's; say farewell to all likes and dislikes; if they stick to you, don't publish them, lest they be smiled at. 4. Shrink from criticising books and authors as you would shrink from criticising your friend's sister or her new dress. Don't ever say what you don't really know; don't, for sweet heaven's sake, label books as one and D "Whatsoever is more than 6. If you can, bear in mind that reviewers have but one function to tell readers precisely what the new books offer. this cometh of evil." The world wants to know something about new books; it does not care a rap for reviewers. C. W. Ernst, in The Critic, Mr. W. M. Griswold, 25 Craigie Street, Cam, bridge, is now printing the second part of his Descriptive List of Novels and Tales, Novels and Tales dealing with American City Life; it will include notices of a few works belonging in Part I, but accidentally omitted, and, altogether, will describe over two hundred books. He will Toil is the incoherent and valueless work | be pleased to receive advance orders. Mr. J. S. Shedlock has done his work with | 25c. the utmost conscientiousness and that self |