By Joel
Chandler
Harris.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v30 - Guide to Systematic Readings
He
pensing the advocate liberally. The would admire it still more if it were
domestic life of Cicero was embittered not for the rigid canons of propriety,
by the unhappy marital experiences of which forbid all public expression of
his daughter Tulliola, the extravagances individuality. The sturdy Englishman,
of his first wife Terentia, and the dis- so fond of asserting his independence,
solute character of his Marcus. is after all curiously sensitive to pub-
But in his household was one faithful lic opinion; and hence his conservatism
servitor, his slave and amanuensis Tiro, and apparent snobbishness. There is a
whom he loved with parental affection. pleasant description of life at Oxford,
In one of his letters to Tiro he writes: which makes that college seem like a
(( You have rendered numberless great genial club; and one where the
services at home, in the forum, at Rome, undergraduate is a person of far less
in my province, in my public and private importance than at Harvard or Cam-
affairs, in my studies and my literary bridge.
work. ” Tiro survived his master many Mr. Nadal touches lightly upon the
years; but to the day of his death he social life at court; the Queen's draw-
labored to perpetuate the fame of Cicero ing-room at Buckingham Palace, and
by writing his life and preparing editions the Prince of Wales's less grand but
of his works. The Friends of Cicero, of pleasanter levees at St. James's Palace.
whom notices are given in the volume, In its genial, homely, cultivated charm,
are Atticus, Cælius, Julius Cæsar, Brutus, he finds English scenery very different
and Octavius.
from American: for «there [England]
man is scarcely conscious of the pres.
Macaulay's Critical and Miscellane- ence of nature; while here nature is
ons Essays were published origi- scarcely conscious of the presence of
nally in the Edinburgh Review; begin-
man. ”
ning with the essay on Milton, in the
August number, 1825, and continuing for Mary Queen of Scots, by James F;
.
, when
This is distinctly and
series ended with the paper on the Earl frankly a polemic history of the unfortu-
of Chatham, in the October number, 1844. nate Queen of Scots, written in contro-
These essays, of which the glory is but version of Froude's account of her life
a little tarnished, run the gamut of great and death in his History of England. '
historical and literary subjects. They Every chapter is headed with a motto
include reviews of current literature, his- telling what a history ought to be, or
torical sketches and portraits, essays in ought not to be, with application to
criticism. They are distinguished by a Froude's theory and practice; or with
certain magnificent cleverness; but they apt quotations from all sources, designed
are lacking in human warmth, and in to show the intellectual and moral in-
the sympathy which rises from the heart competence of Froude as historian of
to the brain. They remain however any events with which his prejudices are
a monument of what might be called concerned. Mr. Meline's work closes
a soldierly English style, with all the with a quotation from Froude's history,
trappings and appurtenances of military in which that historian declares that
rank.
(those who pursue high purposes) –
XXX-33
## p. 514 (#550) ############################################
514
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
man-
-a
((
among them Queen Elizabeth — through magnificent materialism of the Renais-
crooked ways deserve better of
sance overdid itself. The work as a
kind, on the whole, than those who pick whole is a wonderfully sympathetic and
their way in blameless inanity, and if scholarly record of one of the most fas-
innocent of ill are equally innocent of cinating periods of Italian development.
good. Mr. Meline writes a criticism of It is adapted at once to the uses of the
Froude, not a history of Mary Queen of scholar and to the general reader.
Scots. It is much more interesting than
any formal, history, and quite as likely Romola, by George Eliot (1864. ) The
scene historic
Froude's pages are in effect the advo- of the author is laid in Florence at the
cate's plea for Elizabeth. Meline gives end of the fifteenth century, and its
the other side, at the same time expos- great historic figure is Savonarola. The
ing the fallacious arguments of his ad- civic struggle between the Medici and
versary, and his suppression and dis- the French domination, the religious
tortion of evidence. In one chapter, struggle between the dying paganism
Froude's declaration that he knows and the New Christianity, crowd its
more about the history of the sixteenth pages with action.
The story proper
century than about almost anything follows the fortunes of Tito Melema,
else » gives his critic opportunity to ex- Greek, charming, brilliant, false, - his
hibit the historian's (multifarious ignor- fascination of Romola, his marriage, his
ance » of the criminal law of that very moral degradation and death. The in-
period in England. Froude has Mary cidents are many, the local color is rich,
brought up “at the court of Catherine but the emphasis of the book is laid
de Medicis ): Meline shows that there on the character of Tito.
was no court) of Catherine till after The working out of this is a subtle
Mary had left France; besides, Mary showing of the truth, that the depres-
had always shown an invincible dislike sion of the moral tone by long indul-
for Catherine. Froude calls the Queen's gence in selfish sin is certain to cul-
secretary, David Riccio, “youth, minate in some overshadowing act of
and «a wandering musician,” thus gra- baseness. «Tito was experiencing that
tuitously building a foundation for the inexorable law of human souls, that we
scandalous report of illicit relations be- prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by
tween him and Mary; but contemporary the reiterated choice of good or evil that
authorities are quoted as to the emi- gradually determines character. ) This
nence of Riccio as a man of learning, is the key to the book, which is strongly
and as being «old, deformed, and ugly. ” ethical; but which is not the less pro-
And thus statement after statement of foundly interesting as a story. In Flor-
Froude's is examined and contradicted, ence as in Loamshire, the lower classes
in very many cases by the authorities are to the novelist unceasingly pictur-
he himself more or less garbled.
esque; and the talk of the crowd, in the
squares and streets, full of humor and
The
che Renaissance in Italy, the most reality. In Romola) appears her one
comprehensive work of John Ad- attempt (in the case of Savonarola) to
dington Symonds, was published in five show a conscience taking upon itself
volumes, each dealing with a different great and novel responsibilities. Always
phase of the great era of New Life in studies of conscience, her other books
Italy. Vol. i. , (The Age of the Des- depict only its pangs under the sting of
pots, presents the social conditions of
the memory of slighted familiar obliga-
the time, especially as they were em- tions. Her own saying that our deeds
bodied and expressed in the cultured des- determine us as much as we determine
pots of the free cities. In Vol. ii. , (The our deeds,” is the moral lesson of Romola.
Revival of Learning,' the brilliant mun-
dane scholarship of the era is exhaust Studies in Media val Life and Liter:
considered.
and
Tomkins
devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts Laughlin, professor of rhetoric and belles-
as reflecting the spirit of the times. lettres in Yale University. (1894. ) Pub-
Vol. v. treats of the Catholic reaction, lished after the author's untimely death,
the revulsion of feeling, the reversal of and without the revision that he in-
judgment, which followed when the tended giving to these papers, they are,
a
»
## p. 515 (#551) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
515
race.
notwithstanding, among the most delight-
ful of their kind, possessing scholarship,
philosophical grasp, delicate fancy, a
sense of humor, literary feeling and ex-
pression, and beautiful form. The sub-
jects are: (The Mediæval Feeling for
Nature,) (The Memoirs of an Old Ger-
man Gallant, Neidhart von Reuenthal
and his Bavarian Peasants,? (A German
Farmer of the Thirteenth Century,'
"Childhood in Mediæval Literature,' (A
Mediæval Woman. The first essay con-
trasts with the modern feeling for nature
— what Ruskin somewhere calls the
« sentimental love » of it, and von Hum-
boldt the “mysterious analogy between
human emotions and the phenomena of
the world without us ». the medieval
feeling, which in everything saw only
religion. The second essay is on the
trials and tribulations of Ulrich
Lichtenstein; whose thirteenth-century
autobiography is declared to contain
“the most detailed example of that
«mediæval gallantry » which has had
no equal in the world before or since.
The essay is both instructive and amus-
ing. The third and fourth essays are on
the rural life of the Middle Ages. The
fifth, while taking the view that, using
the race a scale. all mediæval folk
were children, gives much curious in-
formation on the status of the young
during the Middle Ages. The mediæ-
val woman) of the last essay is Héloise.
The essay is eloquent and touching, and
shows that the author is able to do what
not all scholars can, — comprehend a
woman's heart, as well as musty medi-
æval chronicles. Abélard is described as
an egoist, but also as one of the most
striking characters of his time. Some of
the author's translations of verse show
the touch of a true poet.
immortality. In other ways he escaped
from the coldness and formalism of the
eighteenth century, only to fall into pits
of dreary sentiment and bathos. Cole-
ridge, Mr. Johnson considers as a many-
sided genius, whose prose and poetry alike
he used for noble purposes. He was a
good logician and a great poet, and he
never mixed the two offices together.
His prose is plain, argumentative prose;
and his poetry is purely an imaginative
product of a high order. (The Ancient
Mariner) is a poem without a fellow
in any tongue. ” Both Coleridge and
Shelley were men apart; their genius
was unlike other men's; they seemed no
logical outcome of English thought and
There have been other poets as
great as Shelley, but never one like
him. He stands as the representative
of the idea of youth. His chivalry, his
hot enmity to injustice, his hatred of
conventionalisms, his failure to under-
stand the necessity of slow painful ef-
forts if society is to be reformed, are the
attitude of a noble, impulsive boy. Haw-
thorne, Mr. Johnson calls the first dis-
tinctly American writer. Irving copied
Addison, and Cooper was a reflection of
Scott. Poe wrote of a life that never
really was in any country. But Haw-
thorne, though he deals with the things
of the soul, is yet entirely American.
The great poet and seer of our land,
far the greatest poet in Mr. Johnson's
opinion, is Emerson. Longfellow is dis-
tinguished for his broad culture, his
beautiful workmanship, and his sweet
and sane views of life, rather than for
lofty and original thought.
von
as
Three Americans and Three English.
men, by Charles F. Johnson, is a
volume of six lectures on six of the great
figures in the literature of the century:
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Haw-
thorne, Emerson, and Longfellow. With
a critical and dispassionate mind, the
essayist attempts to fix the place in
final judgment of each of these men.
Wordsworth he celebrates as the first
democrat in poetry; almost the first Eng-
lish writer of good birth who had not
the point of view of the aristocrat. His
love of nature, and his love of child-
The
"he Romance of a Poor Young Man,
by Octave Feuillet. This very pop-
ular novel, which first appeared in 1857,
is one on which the attacks of the fol.
lowers of the school of naturalism » have
most heavily fallen. They claim that the
plot is exceedingly improbable and melo-
dramatic. Maxime Odiot, Marquis de
Champcey, by the rash speculation of his
father, is left without fortune. Through
the intercession of his old notary, he be-
comes steward of the Château des La-
roque. His intelligence wins the esteem
of all; but leaving all in ignorance of his
noble birth, he confines his intimacy to
an old lady, Mademoiselle Porhoël Goël,
an octogenarian. Marguerite, the daugh-
ter of Laroque, treats him with the
greatest consideration; but he professes
were Wordsworth's two doors to
ren,
## p. 516 (#552) ############################################
516
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
was
marry him.
to
the greatest indifference for her. Finally, standard occurred around Dr. J. H.
through the machinations of Madame Newman's famous No. 90, On the
Aubry and Mademoiselle Hélonin, sus- Thirty-nine articles of the English
picions are raised as to the loyalty of Church,” which aroused the English pub-
Maxime's intentions. Marguerite is made lic. It states that «The English Church
to believe that Maxime seeks to make leaves marriage to the judgment of the
himself the heir of Mademoiselle Porhoël clergy, but the Church has the right to
Goël, and is warned that he may so order them not to marry. ” The strong
compromise her as to oblige her to point with the Tractarians that
Entering the tower of an the Prayer Book was not a Protestant
old ruin one evening, she there finds book, but was framed to include Cath-
Maxime. After conversing with him, she olies; and the leaders determined
seeks to go, and finds the door locked. push this point. Newman, in No. 90,
She believes that Maxime hopes to com- says, with pitiless logic and clear state-
promise her by obliging her to remain ment, that « The Protestant confessions
with him all night in the tower, and were drawn up to include Catholics,
accuses him of treachery. He acknowl- and Catholics will not be excluded.
edges his love for her; but to save her What was economy with the first Re-
honor, leaps from the tower, in spite of formers is a protection to us. What
her attempts to detain him. It is found would have been perplexing to us then
that Marguerite's grandfather had for- is perplexing to them now. We could
merly been the steward of Maxime's not find fault with their words then:
family, and had enriched himself from they cannot now repudiate their mean-
the estate during the Revolutionary ing. ” As an example of skill in dia-
period. Madame Laroque restores the lectics, these Tracts are worth studying.
fortune to Maxime, and he marries Mar- They were the utterances of master-
guerite.
minds dead in earnest. The leaders
were such men 'as Keble, author of
Tract:
racts for the Times. These papers, the Christian Year); Dr. Pusey, Re-
published at Oxford between 1833 gius Professor of Hebrew; Dr. J. H.
and 1841, have become part of English Newman; R. H. Froude; Rev. Isaac
history; for it meant much to the Eng- Williams; and Rev. Hugh Rose, of
lish people, who held that their liber- Cambridge.
ties were concerned with the limitation The Tracts have done much to re-
or extension of ecclesiastical power. The store artistic symbolism as well as ear-
Church, in its reaction against Ro- nestness to the Church; on the other
manism, became, in many instances hand they have alienated the bulk of
negligent in ritual and meaningless in Protestant Dissenters, who are willing
decoration. There were no pictures of to admit the claims of the Tractarians
saints, but memorial busts of sinners; to rule the Church of England, but not
no figures of martyrs, but lions and to rule them. Fellowship with the
unicorns fighting for the crown; and pope was earnestly deprecated by the
Tract 9, on (Shortening the Service, Tractarians, who have done good work
says “the Reformation left us a daily in the Anglican Church since; but New-
service, we have now a weekly serv- man and some others found their way
ice; and they are in a fair way to be- to the Roman communion, and gave
come monthly. The impetus to the some color to Punch's Puseyite hymn :-
Tractarian movement was given partly
« And nightly pitch my moving tent
by the changes contemplated in the
A day's march nearer Rome. ”
Irish episcopate.
The British Parlia-
ment, which was all-sufficient to pass Tess of the D'Urbervilles, a remark-
the Act of Uniformity in 1662, was, in able novel by Thomas Hardy, is an
the minds of the Tractarians, incompe- embodiment in fiction of the Tragedy
tent to modify that act in 1832. The of the Woman, — the world-old story of
so-called Tracts varied from brief her fall, and of her battle with man
sketches, dialogues, etc. , to voluminous to recover her virginity of soul. Te-s,
treatises like those on Baptism and a beautiful village girl, is a lineal de-
(No. 89) «On the Mysticism Attrib- scendant of the ancient D'Urberville
uted to the Early Fathers, which make family. Her far-off gentle blood shows
about a volume each. The fight for the itself in her passionate sensitive nature.
>>
## p. 517 (#553) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
517
mere
ure.
By a mere accident she becomes the tram Shandy) reminds us, now of Cer-
prey of a young man of gross instincts, vantes, now of Rabelais, now of Swift;
returning to her home soiled and but it is sui generis nevertheless. Cole-
dismayed. Her child is born and dies. ridge praised especially Sterne's power of
«Her physical blight becomes her mental giving significance to the most evanes-
harvest;” she is lifted above the grop- cent minutiæ in thought, feeling, look,
ing mental state of the people about and gesture. The work has always been
her. This etherealization has fatal re- popular, perhaps never more so than to-
sults. As she was once the victim of day, when the development of realism in
man's vices, she is destined to become English fiction is receiving so much at-
the victim of his conventional virtues. tention.
At a farm far removed from the scene
of her sufferings, she meets Angel | Onephef
Cleopatra's Nights, by
Clare, a gentleman's son. Their mu-
Théophile Gautier. In this charm-
tual love ends in marriage. On their ing short story, published in 1867, in
wedding-day Tess tells Clare of her a collection of Nouvelles,' the author
past. From that hour she ceases to be shows the exhaustive study which he
for him «enskied and sainted,” becom- had made of Egypt and its ancient
ing a
soiled thing which had customs. He introduces Cleopatra to
drifted in its perilous beauty across his his readers as she is being rowed down
path. He leaves her; and her struggle the Nile to her summer palace. In
with her anguish of spirit, with her describing the cause of her ennui to
poverty, and her despair, has a fearful Charmian, Cleopatra graphically pictures
ending: «The President of the Immor- the belittling, crushing effect of the gi-
tals » had finished his sport with her. gantic monuments of her country. She
(Tess) is well-nigh primeval in its treat- bewails the fate of a Queen who can
ment. A novel created apparently by never know if she is loved for herself
inexorable forces of nature, it is joined alone, and longs for some strange advent-
by its strength and pitilessness to the
She has been followed down the
blind powers of the world. Yet it is Nile by Meiamoun, a young man who is
not without sunny spaces, revelations violently infatuated with the Queen, but
of warm nooks of earth hidden from whom she has
noticed. That
the blasts of the tempest.
night she is startled by an arrow which
enters her window bearing a roll of
Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne. papyrus on which is written, "I love
The Life and Opinions of Tristram you. ” She looks from the window and
Shandy, Gent. , is <a heterogeneous sort sees a man swimming across the Nile,
of whimsical humorous memoirs. ) The but her servants are unable to find him.
first volume appeared January ist, 1760, Soon after, Meiamoun dives down into
when Sterne was forty-six. Up to this the subterranean passage which conducts
time he had lived the life of an easy- the waters of the Nile to Cleopatra's
going fox-hunting churchman, utterly bath; and the next morning, as she is
obscure, but this, his first effort, so enjoying her bath, she finds him gazing
amused the public, that he
was per-
at her. She condemns him to death,
suaded to compose further in the same and then pardons him. He begs for
strain; and he published in all nine vol- death, and she yields, but tells him he
umes, the last in January, 1767. The shall first find his most extravagant
work is full of domestic comedy, «char- dream realized: he shall be the lover of
acters of nature,” “the creations of a Cleopatra. «I take thee from nothing-
fine fancy working in an ideal element, ness; I make thee the equal of a god,
and not mere copies or caricatures of and I replunge thee into nothingness. ”
individualities actually observed,” like “It was necessary to make of the life of
those of Dickens. Here live old Uncle Meiamoun a powerful elixir which he
Toby, Corporal Trim, Dr. Slop, and the could drain from a single cup. ” Then
Widow Wadman; and who does not en- follows the description of the feast. After
joy their garrulous gossip, and that of a night of magnificent splendor, a cup
Sterne himself in his frequent whimsical of poison is handed to him. Touched
digressions, so full of keen observation by his beauty and bravery, Cleopatra is
and gentle ridicule? Sterne had evi- about to order him not to drink, when
dently studied the humorists well: (Tris- the heralds announce the arrival of Mark
never
a
## p. 518 (#554) ############################################
518
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
»
a
seem
Antony. He asks: «What means this
corpse upon the foor? ” “Oh! nothing,”
she answers; – “a poison I was trying,
in order to use it should Augustus make
me prisoner. Will it please you, my
dear, to sit by me and watch the
dancers ? »
Uncle Remus: His Songs and His
SAYINGS.
By Joel Chandler Harris.
(1880. ) These quaint and humorous
folk-lore fables are told night after
night to a little boy by an old negro
who has nothing but pleasant memories
of the discipline of slavery, and who
has all the prejudices of caste and pride
of family that were the natural results
of the system. The animals talk and
show their native cunning, - Brer Rab-
bit, Brer Fox, Brer 'Possum, and the
rest. These characters, as delineated by
Mr. Harris, have won world-wide fame,
and are familiar in all literature and
conversation. Their adventures
directly drawn from the darkey's vivid
and droll imagination; though in the
preface Mr. Page gives data received
from ethnologists, which seem to prove
the existence of like stories - some of
them identical - among Indian tribes in
both North and South America, and the
inhabitants of India, Siam, and Upper
Egypt. But in his preface to a later
collection of "Uncle Remus Stories) Mr.
Harris lightly scoffs at such learned dis-
sertations; and suggests one's pure en-
joyment, like his own, of the stories for
themselves.
Uncle Tom's
Cabin, by Harriet
Beecher Stowe. This world-famous
story was written in 1851, and appeared
originally, from week to week as writ-
ten, in the National Era, an aboli.
tion paper published at Washington.
Brought out in book form, when com-
pleted as a serial, its popularity was
immediate and immense. Its influence
during the last decade of slavery was
great, and its part in the creation of
anti-slavery sentiment incalculable.
It opens in Kentucky, and closes in
Canada. The chapters between
chiefly located in Ohio, in New Or-
leans, beside Lake Pontchartrain, and
down
upon
the Red River. Their
chief purpose is to depict slavery, and
the effects of it, by portraying the ex-
periences of Uncle Tom, and of those
with whom he
or less
nected, through the space of some five
years. Their chief personages, rather
in the order of interest than of intro-
duction, are Uncle Tom, the pious and
faithful slave, and little Eva, to whom
he is devoted; Augustine St. Clare,
father of Eva, and his complaining
wife; Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, from whose
old Kentucky home » Uncle Tom is
sold South; George Shelby, their son,
who finally seeks him for repurchase,
and finds him dying of brutality on
that remote Red River plantation; Si-
mon Legree, who bought Tom after St.
Clare's death (which followed not long
after that of Eva), who owns him
when he dies, and who represents the
brutal slaveholder as St. Clare repre-
sents the easy and good-humored one;
Cassy, once Legree's favorite, now
half-crazed wreck of beauty; Emeline,
bought to succeed her, but who escapes
with Cassy at last; Eliza, who proves
to be Cassy's daughter, and to whom
she is finally reunited; George Harris,
Eliza's husband, who follows her along
the “Underground Railway) in Ohio,
after her wonderful escape across the
Ohio River on the ice, carrying her
boy Harry; Tom Loker, Haley, and
Marks, the slave-catchers, who hunt
these runaways and are overmatched;
Simon Halliday and Phineas Fletcher,
the Quakers, with their families; and
Senator and Mrs. Bird, and John Van
Trompe, all of whom assist the fugi-
tives; Miss Ophelia, the precise New
England spinster cousin in St. Clare's
home; Topsy, the ebony limb of mis-
chief,” who never was born but just
“growed; and Aunt Chloe,
Uncle
Tom's wife back there in (old Ken-
tuck, whose earnings were to assist in
his return to her, but to whom he
returns. Other but incidental
characters, field and household servants,
swell the number to fifty-five.
In a Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin,'
its author gave matter to sustain both
the severe and the mild pictures of
slavery which her story had drawn.
Being once introduced as the writer of
that story, Mrs. Stowe disclaimed its
authorship; and to the question, «Who
did write it then? » she answered rev-
erently — "God. ”
(
never
are
:
Lº
orna Doone: A ROMANCE OF Ex-
MOOR, by R. D. Blackmore, is its
author's best-known wor and is re-
markable for its exquisite reproduction
more
## p. 519 (#555) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
519
>>
of the style of the period it describes.
«To a Devonshire man it is as good as
clotted cream, almost,” has been said of
it; and it is Blackmore's special pride
that as
a native he has «satisfied na-
tives with their home scenery, people,
life, and language. But the popularity
of the brilliant romance has not been
local, and has been equally great on
both sides of the Atlantic. Even with-
out so swift a succession of exciting in-
cident, the unhackneyed style, abounding
in fresh simile, with its poetic apprecia-
tion of the fairest county in England,
combined with homely realism, would
make it delightful reading. Much as
Hardy acquaints us with Wessex, Black-
more impresses Exmoor upon us, with a
comprehensive Englishness) of setting
and character. It is out-of-door Eng-
land, with swift streams, treacherous
bogs, dangerous cliffs, and free vinds
across the moors. The story is founded
legends concerning the robber
Doones, a fierce band of aristocratic
outlaws, who in revenge
for
them by the government, lived by
plundering the country-side. Regarding
their neighbors as ignoble churls and
their legitimate prey, they robbed and
murdered them at will. John Ridd,
when a lad of fourteen, falls into their
valley by chance one day, and is saved
from capture by Lorna Doone, the fair-
est, daintiest child he has ever
When he is twenty-one, and the tallest
and stoutest youth on Exmoor, great
John Ridd) seeks Lorna again. He
hates the Doones who killed his father,
but he loves beautiful innocent Lorna;
and becomes her protector against the
fierce men among whom she lives. If
slow to think, he is quick to act; if
«plain and unlettered,” he is brave and
noble: and Lorna welcomes his placid
strength. Scattered through the swift
narration, certain scenes, such as Lorna's
escape to the farm, a tussle with the
Doones, the attempted murder in church,
the final duel with Carver Doone, and
others, stand out as great and glowing
pictures.
larity, not only among English speaking
people but on the continent of Europe
also. During the publication of these
papers Mr. Scott preserved his incognito
even towards his publisher. The author
spent some sixteen years of his life
(1806 to 1822) in the West Indies, in
connection with a mercantile house in
Kingston, Jamaica. The travels among
the neighboring islands and to the Span-
ish Main, gave him not only great fa-
miliarity with the social life of the West
Indies, but also a knowledge of the wild
and adventurous nautical life of the
times, and of the scenes and aspects of
a tropical climate which he has so faith-
fully and vividly portrayed. There is no
plot; but the book contains a series of
adventures with pirates, mutineers, pri-
vateersmen and men-of-war, storms,
wrecks, and waterspouts, interspersed
with descriptions of shore life and
customs. The time chosen is one full of
historical interest; for the book opens
with an adventure in the Baltic in which
the reader is brought into contact with
Napoleon's army, and later on there are
adventures with American men-of-war
and privateersmen, during the War of
1812,- the celebrated frigate Hornet play-
ing a small part.
Few, if any, sea writers have exhibited
such a remarkable power of description;
and the book will stand for many years
as one of the most accurate pictures of
West-Indian life, both afloat and
shore, during the early part of the nine-
teenth century.
The publication of "Tom Cringle's
Log' was followed in 1836 by "The
Cruise of the Midge); and these two
were the only books written by Michael
Scott, who died in 1835, before the pub-
lication of the latter work.
on
wrongs done
seen.
on
((
Middlemarch, by George Eliot. (1872. )
This, the last but one of George
Eliot's novels, she is said to have re-
garded as her greatest work. The novel
takes its name from a provincial town
in or near which its leading characters
live. The book is really made up of
two stories, one centring around the
Vincy family, and the other around Dor-
othea Brooke and her relatives. On
account of this division of interest, the
construction of the story has been se-
verely criticized as clumsy and inartistic.
Dorothea Brooke, the most prominent
figure on the very crowded canvas, is an
as
Tºm
om Cringle's Log, by Michael Scott.
This work was originally published
a series of papers in Blackwood's
Magazine, the first of them appearing in
1829. They were afterwards published
(in 1834) in two volumes; and have
enjoyed a wide and well-sustained popu-
## p. 520 (#556) ############################################
520
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
orphan, who, with her sister Celia, lives Dorothea, nevertheless, is a sweet and
with her uncle Mr. Brooke, a man of upright character, and her second hus-
vacillating and uneven temperament. band, Ladislaw, is in every way to be
Dorothea's longing for a lofty mission admired. Two secondary love stories in
leads her to marry an elderly and Middlemarch) are those of the witty
wealthy clergyman, Rev. Edward Casau- Mary Garth and the spendthrift Fred
bon, who has retired from the ministry Vincy, and of Celia Brooke and Sir
to give his time to an important piece James Chettam. The chorus, which con-
of literary work. Dorothea, though not stantly reflects Middlemarch sentiment
yet twenty, hopes to be his amanuensis at every turn of affairs, is a large one,
and helper; and is greatly grieved to including Mrs. Fitchett, Mrs. Dill, Mrs.
find that her husband sets slight value Waule, Mrs. Renfrew, Mrs. Plymdale,
on her services. In other ways she has Mrs. Bulstrode, Mrs. Vincy; and among
been disillusioned before the death of the men, Mr. Dollop, Mr. Dill, Mr. Bro-
Mr. Casaubon, a year and a half after throp Trumbull, Mr. Horrock, Mr. Wrech,
their marriage. A rather insulting pro- Mr. Thesiger, and Mr. Standish.
vision of his will directs that his widow More carefully drawn are the caustic
shall lose her income if she marries Will Mrs. Cadwallader, the self-denying Mr.
Ladislaw, a young cousin of Mr. Casau- Farebrother, hypocritical Mr. Bulstrode,
bon's. Ladislaw is partly of Polish the miser Featherstone, and the honor-
descent; and both his mother and his able Caleb Garth and his self-reliant
grandmother had been disinherited by wife.
their English relatives for marrying for-
eigners. Ladislaw owes his education to Life of Goethe, The, by George Henry
,
Mr. Casaubon; but not until after the Lewes. (1864. ) The first important
death of the latter does the friendship biography in English of the greatest of
between the younger man and Dorothea German writers, this book still holds its
take the tinge of love.
place in the front rank of biographical
Rosamond Vincy, who may be called literature. The volume is a large one,
a minor heroine, is the daughter of the and the detail is infinitely minute, be-
mayor of Middlemarch. She is a beauti- ginning with the ancestry of the poet,
ful girl, whose feeling that she is much and ending with his death in 1832. His
more refined than her commonplace rel- precocity, the school-life and college-life
atives, leads her to lofty matrimonial of the beautiful youth, his welcome in
aspirations. She wins the love of Dr. society, his flirtations, the bohemian
Lydgate, who, though nephew to a bar- years that seemed prodigally wasted, yet
onet, has a hard struggle to esta ish that were to bear rich intellectual fruit
himself as a Middlemarch physician, with when the wild nature should have so-
Dr. Sprague and Dr. Minchin as rivals. bered to its tasks, his friendships, his
Neither he nor his wife knows how to travels, his love-affairs, his theories of
economize; and the latter, feeling her life, his scientific investigations, his
husband's poverty an insult to herself, is dramatic studies, criticisms, and produc-
a hindrance to him in every way.
The tions, his momentary absorption in edu-
story of his efforts to maintain his fam- cational problems, his official distinc-
ily, and at the same time to be true to tions, his intellectual dictatorship, his
his ambition to add to the science of his ever-recurring sentimental experiences, -
profession, is a sad one. In the charac- all the changing phases of that many-
ters of Dorothea and Lydgate George
sided life are made to pass be re the
Eliot develops the main purpose of this reader with extraordinary vividness.
novel, which is less distinctly ethical Like almost all biographers of imagina-
than some of the others. Her aim in tion and strong feeling, Mr. Lewes, who
(Middlemarch) was to show how the means to maintain a strict impartiality,
thought and action of even very high- becomes advocate. He presents
minded persons is apt to be modified Goethe's wonderful mentality without ex-
and altered by their environment. Both aggeration. He does no more than just-
Dorothea and Lydgate become entangled ice to the personal charm which seems
by their circumstances; though in his to have been altogether irresistible. But
the disaster is greater than in it is in spite of his biographer's admis-
hers, and in each case it is a moral and sic rather than because of them, that
not a social decline which is pointed out. Goethe appears in his pages a man from
an
case
## p. 521 (#557) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
521
was
in the Salem witchcraft trials.
No man
of the time was better furnished with
material to keep a diary, and his was
well done. Its pages afford many a
vivid picture of the early colonial per-
sonages, – their dress and their dinners,
their funerals and weddings, their town
meetings, their piety, their quarrels, and
the innumerable trifles which together
make up life. Mr. Chamberlain finds
this diary a match for Evelyn's and
-
(2
is concerned. He has drawn most of
the material for his book from the three
huge volumes of the journal, following
the career of the diarist from his first
arrival in the colony to his death in
1729. The pages are studded with quo-
tations delightfully quaint and charac-
teristic; and the passages of original
narrative nowhere obscure these invalu-
able (documents. ”
a
whose vital machinery the heart
omitted. Perfect taste he had, exquisite
sentiment, great appreciation, a certain
power of approbation that assumed the
form of affection, but no love,- such the
Goethe whom his admiring disciple
paints. The book presents the senti-
mental German society of the late eigh-
teenth century with entire understand-
ing, and is very rich in memorabilia of
many sorts.
Voltaire, Life of, by James Parton.
vols. , 1881. ) A well-executed at-
tempt to tell the story of the most ex-
traordinary of Frenchmen, and one of
the most extraordinary of human be-
ings”; a writer whose publications count
more than two hundred and sixty in
number, and whose collected works fill
a hundred volumes. Mr. Parton's work
extends to more than 1,200 pages of care-
fully selected biographical evidence,
autobiographical in fact, presenting the
remarkable man and the great writer
delineated by himself. For more
concise work the reader may take John
Morley's (Voltaire, the keynote of
which, on its first page, is the declara-
tion that Voltaire is almost more than
one man, is in himself a whole move-
ment of human advance, like the Re-
vival of Learning, or the Reformation;
an extraordinary person whose existence,
character, and career, constitute in them-
selves a new and prodigious era.
Samuel Sewall, and the World He
Lived In, by N. H. Chamberlain,
is an account of one of the most notable
of the early Puritan worthies, who was
graduated from Harvard College in 1671,
only fifty-one years after the landing of
the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Sewall came
of a good family of English non-con-
formists, who came to this country when
he was a boy of nine. He grew up to
be a councilor and judge, highly es-
teemed among his contemporaries; but
his fame to-day rests not on his achieve-
ments in his profession, but on the re-
markable diary which he kept for fifty-
six years, chronicling minutely the
events of his daily life. He saw all
there was to be seen in public and so-
cial life. As a man of position, con-
nected with the government, he made
many journeys, not only about the col-
ony but over seas to court. As a judge,
he knew all the legal proceedings of the
country, being concerned, for example,
Voyage Around my Chamber, by Xa-
vier De Maistre. (1874. ) A charm-
ing group of miniature essays, polished
like the gems of a necklace, the titles
of which were suggested by the familiar
objects of the author's room.
It was
written during his confinement for forty-
two days under arrest in Turin, while
holding the position of an officer in the
Russian army.
He treats his surround-
ings as composing a large allegory, in
which he reads the whole range of
human life. He depicts with delight
the advantages of this kind of “fire-
side travel," in its freedom from labor,
worry, and expense; and then he shows
under the vast significance of such ob-
jects as the Bed, the Bookcase, the
father's Bust, the Traveling-Coat, and
the instruments of Painting and Music,
the wide range of reflection and delight
into which the soul is thus led. The
bed is the beginning and the end of
earthly life; the library is the pano-
rama of the world's greatest ideals; and
here he reflects on the grandeur and
attractiveness of Lucifer as depicted by
Milton. The traveling-coat suggests the
influence of costume on character, which
is illustrated by the effect of an added
bar or star of an officer's coat on the
wearer's state of mind. (The Animal)
is the heading of the chapter defining
the body as the servant of the soul,
a mistress who sometimes cruelly goes
away and neglects it, as when, while
the mind is absorbed in some entran-
## p. 522 (#558) ############################################
522
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
White Company, The, a
cing thought, the hand catches up heed- an old man
anuscript which he discovers.
lessly the hot poker. The most subtle His ancestor, a priest of Isis, had been
of these interpretations is that of the slain by an immortal white sorceress,
portrait of a fair lady whose eyes fol- somewhere in Africa; and in the an-
low the gazer; but foolish is the lover cient record his descendants are exhorted
who thinks them bent on him alone, for to revenge his death. The sorceress, no
every other finds them gazing equally other than «She, is discovered in a re-
at him even at the same moment. markable country peopled by marvelous
beings, who, as true servants of the sor-
romantic
tale of the fourteenth century, by
ceress, present an exaggerated picture
of the barbaric rites and cruelties of
A. Conan Doyle. Alleyne Edricson, a
Africa. To this strange land comes the
gentle, noble-spirited youth, who has
been sheltered and educated among a
handsome and passionate Englishman,
with two companions who share his
company of white-robed Cistercians in
England, leaves the abbey to make his
many thrilling experiences. A mysteri-
ous bond exists between the young Eng.
way in the world. Together with two
lishman and the sorceress: the memory
sinewy and gallant comrades, Hordie
of the ancient crime and the expectation
John and Samkin Aylward, he attaches
of its atonement. The climax of the
himself to the person and fortunes of
story is reached when the travelers and
Sir Nigel Loring, a doughty knight, the
mirror of chivalry, ever in quest of a
the sorceress together visit the place
where the mysterious fire burns which
passage-at-arms for the honor of his
gives thousands of years of life, loveli-
lady and his own advancement in chiv-
ness, strength, and wisdom, or else swift
alry.
death. She ) for the second time dares
In vigorous phrase and never-flagging
to pass into the awful flame, and so
interest, the tale rehearses how that Sir
meets her doom, being instantly con-
Nigel heads the “White Company, a
sumed. The weird tale does not lack a
band of sturdy Saxon bowmen, free
fitting background for its scenes of ad-
companions, and leads them through
venture, the author choosing an extinct
many knightly encounters in the train
volcano for the scene of the tragedy;
of the Black Prince, in France and
so vast is its crater that it contains a
Spain. The story rings with the clash
great city, while its walls are full of
of arms in tourney lists, during way-
caves containing the marvelously pre-
side encounters and on the battle-field,
served dead of
of a prehistoric people.
and reflects the rude but chivalric spirit
Mr. Haggard's practical knowledge and
of the century.
experience of savage life and wild lands,
Many characters known to history are
his sense of the charm of ruined civili-
set in lifelike surroundings. The move-
zation, his appreciation of sport, and his
ment is rapid, stirring episodes follow
faculty of imparting an aspect of truth
each other rapidly and withal there is
to impossible adventures, find ample ex-
presented a careful picture of the tumult-
pression in this entertaining and wholly
uous times in which the varied scenes
impossible tale.
are laid.
squire, Alleyne, wins his spurs by gal? Uarda, by Georg Moritz Ebers. (1876. )
This is a study of ancient Egyp-
lant conduct, thrillingly told in a passage
tian civilization in the city of Thebes,
which will rank with the author's ablest
in the fourteenth century before Christ,
efforts. Alleyne lives to return, with a
under Rameses II. A narrative of He-
few comrades of the decimated White
rodotus, combined with the Epos of Pen-
Company, and claims the hand of Lady
taur, forms the foundation of the story.
Maude, Sir Nigel's daughter, who has
We have a minute description of the
long loved the young squire, and gladly
weds him as a knight.
dress, the food, the religious customs
and
of the ancient Egyptians.
She, by Rider Haggard. (1887. ) This There are three separate love stories:
is å stirring and exciting tale. Mr. that of Bent-Anat, daughter of Rameses,
Haggard has pictured his hero as going who loves Pentaur, the poet-priest; that
to Africa to avenge the death of an of Nefert, wife of Mena, the king's chari.
Egyptian ancestor, whose strange his- oteer; and that of L'arda herself, who has
tory has been handed down to him in many adorers, for only one of whom she
wars
## p. 523 (#559) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
523
SO
cares,– Rameri, the king's son. Pentaur
Usurper, The, by Judith Gautier. This
is sent into exile, rescued by Uarda, fol- interesting novel, which was first
lowing in Bent-Anat's train. He saves published in 1875, in two volumes, is
the king in battle, and is rewarded with founded on an episode in Japanese his-
the princess's hand.
Nefert is pur-
tory. The author, who had numbered
sued by Paaker, but is true to her hus- among her instructors a Chinaman, gives
band. Paaker plots to betray Rameses, a most accurate and painstaking descrip-
and perishes in his own trap. It then tion of the feudal and social life and
becomes known that he is the son of a customs of Japan. Taiko-sama, one of
gardener, and Pentaur the true son of the great soldiers of Japan, had reduced
the noble, they having been exchanged the power of the Mikado to a shadow,
at birth. Uarda (The Rose) proves to be and was himself the real ruler with the
grandchild to the king of the Danaids, title of Shogun. Before dying, he mar-
her mother having been taken captive ried his son Fidé-Yori to the grand-
many years before. She marries Ram- daughter of Hyeas, and made the lat-
eri; and after her grandfather's death, ter regent until his son should be of
they rule over many islands of the Med- age.
iterranean and found a famous race.
It is at this time (1614) that the action
of the novel begins.
pensing the advocate liberally. The would admire it still more if it were
domestic life of Cicero was embittered not for the rigid canons of propriety,
by the unhappy marital experiences of which forbid all public expression of
his daughter Tulliola, the extravagances individuality. The sturdy Englishman,
of his first wife Terentia, and the dis- so fond of asserting his independence,
solute character of his Marcus. is after all curiously sensitive to pub-
But in his household was one faithful lic opinion; and hence his conservatism
servitor, his slave and amanuensis Tiro, and apparent snobbishness. There is a
whom he loved with parental affection. pleasant description of life at Oxford,
In one of his letters to Tiro he writes: which makes that college seem like a
(( You have rendered numberless great genial club; and one where the
services at home, in the forum, at Rome, undergraduate is a person of far less
in my province, in my public and private importance than at Harvard or Cam-
affairs, in my studies and my literary bridge.
work. ” Tiro survived his master many Mr. Nadal touches lightly upon the
years; but to the day of his death he social life at court; the Queen's draw-
labored to perpetuate the fame of Cicero ing-room at Buckingham Palace, and
by writing his life and preparing editions the Prince of Wales's less grand but
of his works. The Friends of Cicero, of pleasanter levees at St. James's Palace.
whom notices are given in the volume, In its genial, homely, cultivated charm,
are Atticus, Cælius, Julius Cæsar, Brutus, he finds English scenery very different
and Octavius.
from American: for «there [England]
man is scarcely conscious of the pres.
Macaulay's Critical and Miscellane- ence of nature; while here nature is
ons Essays were published origi- scarcely conscious of the presence of
nally in the Edinburgh Review; begin-
man. ”
ning with the essay on Milton, in the
August number, 1825, and continuing for Mary Queen of Scots, by James F;
.
, when
This is distinctly and
series ended with the paper on the Earl frankly a polemic history of the unfortu-
of Chatham, in the October number, 1844. nate Queen of Scots, written in contro-
These essays, of which the glory is but version of Froude's account of her life
a little tarnished, run the gamut of great and death in his History of England. '
historical and literary subjects. They Every chapter is headed with a motto
include reviews of current literature, his- telling what a history ought to be, or
torical sketches and portraits, essays in ought not to be, with application to
criticism. They are distinguished by a Froude's theory and practice; or with
certain magnificent cleverness; but they apt quotations from all sources, designed
are lacking in human warmth, and in to show the intellectual and moral in-
the sympathy which rises from the heart competence of Froude as historian of
to the brain. They remain however any events with which his prejudices are
a monument of what might be called concerned. Mr. Meline's work closes
a soldierly English style, with all the with a quotation from Froude's history,
trappings and appurtenances of military in which that historian declares that
rank.
(those who pursue high purposes) –
XXX-33
## p. 514 (#550) ############################################
514
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
man-
-a
((
among them Queen Elizabeth — through magnificent materialism of the Renais-
crooked ways deserve better of
sance overdid itself. The work as a
kind, on the whole, than those who pick whole is a wonderfully sympathetic and
their way in blameless inanity, and if scholarly record of one of the most fas-
innocent of ill are equally innocent of cinating periods of Italian development.
good. Mr. Meline writes a criticism of It is adapted at once to the uses of the
Froude, not a history of Mary Queen of scholar and to the general reader.
Scots. It is much more interesting than
any formal, history, and quite as likely Romola, by George Eliot (1864. ) The
scene historic
Froude's pages are in effect the advo- of the author is laid in Florence at the
cate's plea for Elizabeth. Meline gives end of the fifteenth century, and its
the other side, at the same time expos- great historic figure is Savonarola. The
ing the fallacious arguments of his ad- civic struggle between the Medici and
versary, and his suppression and dis- the French domination, the religious
tortion of evidence. In one chapter, struggle between the dying paganism
Froude's declaration that he knows and the New Christianity, crowd its
more about the history of the sixteenth pages with action.
The story proper
century than about almost anything follows the fortunes of Tito Melema,
else » gives his critic opportunity to ex- Greek, charming, brilliant, false, - his
hibit the historian's (multifarious ignor- fascination of Romola, his marriage, his
ance » of the criminal law of that very moral degradation and death. The in-
period in England. Froude has Mary cidents are many, the local color is rich,
brought up “at the court of Catherine but the emphasis of the book is laid
de Medicis ): Meline shows that there on the character of Tito.
was no court) of Catherine till after The working out of this is a subtle
Mary had left France; besides, Mary showing of the truth, that the depres-
had always shown an invincible dislike sion of the moral tone by long indul-
for Catherine. Froude calls the Queen's gence in selfish sin is certain to cul-
secretary, David Riccio, “youth, minate in some overshadowing act of
and «a wandering musician,” thus gra- baseness. «Tito was experiencing that
tuitously building a foundation for the inexorable law of human souls, that we
scandalous report of illicit relations be- prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by
tween him and Mary; but contemporary the reiterated choice of good or evil that
authorities are quoted as to the emi- gradually determines character. ) This
nence of Riccio as a man of learning, is the key to the book, which is strongly
and as being «old, deformed, and ugly. ” ethical; but which is not the less pro-
And thus statement after statement of foundly interesting as a story. In Flor-
Froude's is examined and contradicted, ence as in Loamshire, the lower classes
in very many cases by the authorities are to the novelist unceasingly pictur-
he himself more or less garbled.
esque; and the talk of the crowd, in the
squares and streets, full of humor and
The
che Renaissance in Italy, the most reality. In Romola) appears her one
comprehensive work of John Ad- attempt (in the case of Savonarola) to
dington Symonds, was published in five show a conscience taking upon itself
volumes, each dealing with a different great and novel responsibilities. Always
phase of the great era of New Life in studies of conscience, her other books
Italy. Vol. i. , (The Age of the Des- depict only its pangs under the sting of
pots, presents the social conditions of
the memory of slighted familiar obliga-
the time, especially as they were em- tions. Her own saying that our deeds
bodied and expressed in the cultured des- determine us as much as we determine
pots of the free cities. In Vol. ii. , (The our deeds,” is the moral lesson of Romola.
Revival of Learning,' the brilliant mun-
dane scholarship of the era is exhaust Studies in Media val Life and Liter:
considered.
and
Tomkins
devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts Laughlin, professor of rhetoric and belles-
as reflecting the spirit of the times. lettres in Yale University. (1894. ) Pub-
Vol. v. treats of the Catholic reaction, lished after the author's untimely death,
the revulsion of feeling, the reversal of and without the revision that he in-
judgment, which followed when the tended giving to these papers, they are,
a
»
## p. 515 (#551) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
515
race.
notwithstanding, among the most delight-
ful of their kind, possessing scholarship,
philosophical grasp, delicate fancy, a
sense of humor, literary feeling and ex-
pression, and beautiful form. The sub-
jects are: (The Mediæval Feeling for
Nature,) (The Memoirs of an Old Ger-
man Gallant, Neidhart von Reuenthal
and his Bavarian Peasants,? (A German
Farmer of the Thirteenth Century,'
"Childhood in Mediæval Literature,' (A
Mediæval Woman. The first essay con-
trasts with the modern feeling for nature
— what Ruskin somewhere calls the
« sentimental love » of it, and von Hum-
boldt the “mysterious analogy between
human emotions and the phenomena of
the world without us ». the medieval
feeling, which in everything saw only
religion. The second essay is on the
trials and tribulations of Ulrich
Lichtenstein; whose thirteenth-century
autobiography is declared to contain
“the most detailed example of that
«mediæval gallantry » which has had
no equal in the world before or since.
The essay is both instructive and amus-
ing. The third and fourth essays are on
the rural life of the Middle Ages. The
fifth, while taking the view that, using
the race a scale. all mediæval folk
were children, gives much curious in-
formation on the status of the young
during the Middle Ages. The mediæ-
val woman) of the last essay is Héloise.
The essay is eloquent and touching, and
shows that the author is able to do what
not all scholars can, — comprehend a
woman's heart, as well as musty medi-
æval chronicles. Abélard is described as
an egoist, but also as one of the most
striking characters of his time. Some of
the author's translations of verse show
the touch of a true poet.
immortality. In other ways he escaped
from the coldness and formalism of the
eighteenth century, only to fall into pits
of dreary sentiment and bathos. Cole-
ridge, Mr. Johnson considers as a many-
sided genius, whose prose and poetry alike
he used for noble purposes. He was a
good logician and a great poet, and he
never mixed the two offices together.
His prose is plain, argumentative prose;
and his poetry is purely an imaginative
product of a high order. (The Ancient
Mariner) is a poem without a fellow
in any tongue. ” Both Coleridge and
Shelley were men apart; their genius
was unlike other men's; they seemed no
logical outcome of English thought and
There have been other poets as
great as Shelley, but never one like
him. He stands as the representative
of the idea of youth. His chivalry, his
hot enmity to injustice, his hatred of
conventionalisms, his failure to under-
stand the necessity of slow painful ef-
forts if society is to be reformed, are the
attitude of a noble, impulsive boy. Haw-
thorne, Mr. Johnson calls the first dis-
tinctly American writer. Irving copied
Addison, and Cooper was a reflection of
Scott. Poe wrote of a life that never
really was in any country. But Haw-
thorne, though he deals with the things
of the soul, is yet entirely American.
The great poet and seer of our land,
far the greatest poet in Mr. Johnson's
opinion, is Emerson. Longfellow is dis-
tinguished for his broad culture, his
beautiful workmanship, and his sweet
and sane views of life, rather than for
lofty and original thought.
von
as
Three Americans and Three English.
men, by Charles F. Johnson, is a
volume of six lectures on six of the great
figures in the literature of the century:
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Haw-
thorne, Emerson, and Longfellow. With
a critical and dispassionate mind, the
essayist attempts to fix the place in
final judgment of each of these men.
Wordsworth he celebrates as the first
democrat in poetry; almost the first Eng-
lish writer of good birth who had not
the point of view of the aristocrat. His
love of nature, and his love of child-
The
"he Romance of a Poor Young Man,
by Octave Feuillet. This very pop-
ular novel, which first appeared in 1857,
is one on which the attacks of the fol.
lowers of the school of naturalism » have
most heavily fallen. They claim that the
plot is exceedingly improbable and melo-
dramatic. Maxime Odiot, Marquis de
Champcey, by the rash speculation of his
father, is left without fortune. Through
the intercession of his old notary, he be-
comes steward of the Château des La-
roque. His intelligence wins the esteem
of all; but leaving all in ignorance of his
noble birth, he confines his intimacy to
an old lady, Mademoiselle Porhoël Goël,
an octogenarian. Marguerite, the daugh-
ter of Laroque, treats him with the
greatest consideration; but he professes
were Wordsworth's two doors to
ren,
## p. 516 (#552) ############################################
516
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
was
marry him.
to
the greatest indifference for her. Finally, standard occurred around Dr. J. H.
through the machinations of Madame Newman's famous No. 90, On the
Aubry and Mademoiselle Hélonin, sus- Thirty-nine articles of the English
picions are raised as to the loyalty of Church,” which aroused the English pub-
Maxime's intentions. Marguerite is made lic. It states that «The English Church
to believe that Maxime seeks to make leaves marriage to the judgment of the
himself the heir of Mademoiselle Porhoël clergy, but the Church has the right to
Goël, and is warned that he may so order them not to marry. ” The strong
compromise her as to oblige her to point with the Tractarians that
Entering the tower of an the Prayer Book was not a Protestant
old ruin one evening, she there finds book, but was framed to include Cath-
Maxime. After conversing with him, she olies; and the leaders determined
seeks to go, and finds the door locked. push this point. Newman, in No. 90,
She believes that Maxime hopes to com- says, with pitiless logic and clear state-
promise her by obliging her to remain ment, that « The Protestant confessions
with him all night in the tower, and were drawn up to include Catholics,
accuses him of treachery. He acknowl- and Catholics will not be excluded.
edges his love for her; but to save her What was economy with the first Re-
honor, leaps from the tower, in spite of formers is a protection to us. What
her attempts to detain him. It is found would have been perplexing to us then
that Marguerite's grandfather had for- is perplexing to them now. We could
merly been the steward of Maxime's not find fault with their words then:
family, and had enriched himself from they cannot now repudiate their mean-
the estate during the Revolutionary ing. ” As an example of skill in dia-
period. Madame Laroque restores the lectics, these Tracts are worth studying.
fortune to Maxime, and he marries Mar- They were the utterances of master-
guerite.
minds dead in earnest. The leaders
were such men 'as Keble, author of
Tract:
racts for the Times. These papers, the Christian Year); Dr. Pusey, Re-
published at Oxford between 1833 gius Professor of Hebrew; Dr. J. H.
and 1841, have become part of English Newman; R. H. Froude; Rev. Isaac
history; for it meant much to the Eng- Williams; and Rev. Hugh Rose, of
lish people, who held that their liber- Cambridge.
ties were concerned with the limitation The Tracts have done much to re-
or extension of ecclesiastical power. The store artistic symbolism as well as ear-
Church, in its reaction against Ro- nestness to the Church; on the other
manism, became, in many instances hand they have alienated the bulk of
negligent in ritual and meaningless in Protestant Dissenters, who are willing
decoration. There were no pictures of to admit the claims of the Tractarians
saints, but memorial busts of sinners; to rule the Church of England, but not
no figures of martyrs, but lions and to rule them. Fellowship with the
unicorns fighting for the crown; and pope was earnestly deprecated by the
Tract 9, on (Shortening the Service, Tractarians, who have done good work
says “the Reformation left us a daily in the Anglican Church since; but New-
service, we have now a weekly serv- man and some others found their way
ice; and they are in a fair way to be- to the Roman communion, and gave
come monthly. The impetus to the some color to Punch's Puseyite hymn :-
Tractarian movement was given partly
« And nightly pitch my moving tent
by the changes contemplated in the
A day's march nearer Rome. ”
Irish episcopate.
The British Parlia-
ment, which was all-sufficient to pass Tess of the D'Urbervilles, a remark-
the Act of Uniformity in 1662, was, in able novel by Thomas Hardy, is an
the minds of the Tractarians, incompe- embodiment in fiction of the Tragedy
tent to modify that act in 1832. The of the Woman, — the world-old story of
so-called Tracts varied from brief her fall, and of her battle with man
sketches, dialogues, etc. , to voluminous to recover her virginity of soul. Te-s,
treatises like those on Baptism and a beautiful village girl, is a lineal de-
(No. 89) «On the Mysticism Attrib- scendant of the ancient D'Urberville
uted to the Early Fathers, which make family. Her far-off gentle blood shows
about a volume each. The fight for the itself in her passionate sensitive nature.
>>
## p. 517 (#553) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
517
mere
ure.
By a mere accident she becomes the tram Shandy) reminds us, now of Cer-
prey of a young man of gross instincts, vantes, now of Rabelais, now of Swift;
returning to her home soiled and but it is sui generis nevertheless. Cole-
dismayed. Her child is born and dies. ridge praised especially Sterne's power of
«Her physical blight becomes her mental giving significance to the most evanes-
harvest;” she is lifted above the grop- cent minutiæ in thought, feeling, look,
ing mental state of the people about and gesture. The work has always been
her. This etherealization has fatal re- popular, perhaps never more so than to-
sults. As she was once the victim of day, when the development of realism in
man's vices, she is destined to become English fiction is receiving so much at-
the victim of his conventional virtues. tention.
At a farm far removed from the scene
of her sufferings, she meets Angel | Onephef
Cleopatra's Nights, by
Clare, a gentleman's son. Their mu-
Théophile Gautier. In this charm-
tual love ends in marriage. On their ing short story, published in 1867, in
wedding-day Tess tells Clare of her a collection of Nouvelles,' the author
past. From that hour she ceases to be shows the exhaustive study which he
for him «enskied and sainted,” becom- had made of Egypt and its ancient
ing a
soiled thing which had customs. He introduces Cleopatra to
drifted in its perilous beauty across his his readers as she is being rowed down
path. He leaves her; and her struggle the Nile to her summer palace. In
with her anguish of spirit, with her describing the cause of her ennui to
poverty, and her despair, has a fearful Charmian, Cleopatra graphically pictures
ending: «The President of the Immor- the belittling, crushing effect of the gi-
tals » had finished his sport with her. gantic monuments of her country. She
(Tess) is well-nigh primeval in its treat- bewails the fate of a Queen who can
ment. A novel created apparently by never know if she is loved for herself
inexorable forces of nature, it is joined alone, and longs for some strange advent-
by its strength and pitilessness to the
She has been followed down the
blind powers of the world. Yet it is Nile by Meiamoun, a young man who is
not without sunny spaces, revelations violently infatuated with the Queen, but
of warm nooks of earth hidden from whom she has
noticed. That
the blasts of the tempest.
night she is startled by an arrow which
enters her window bearing a roll of
Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne. papyrus on which is written, "I love
The Life and Opinions of Tristram you. ” She looks from the window and
Shandy, Gent. , is <a heterogeneous sort sees a man swimming across the Nile,
of whimsical humorous memoirs. ) The but her servants are unable to find him.
first volume appeared January ist, 1760, Soon after, Meiamoun dives down into
when Sterne was forty-six. Up to this the subterranean passage which conducts
time he had lived the life of an easy- the waters of the Nile to Cleopatra's
going fox-hunting churchman, utterly bath; and the next morning, as she is
obscure, but this, his first effort, so enjoying her bath, she finds him gazing
amused the public, that he
was per-
at her. She condemns him to death,
suaded to compose further in the same and then pardons him. He begs for
strain; and he published in all nine vol- death, and she yields, but tells him he
umes, the last in January, 1767. The shall first find his most extravagant
work is full of domestic comedy, «char- dream realized: he shall be the lover of
acters of nature,” “the creations of a Cleopatra. «I take thee from nothing-
fine fancy working in an ideal element, ness; I make thee the equal of a god,
and not mere copies or caricatures of and I replunge thee into nothingness. ”
individualities actually observed,” like “It was necessary to make of the life of
those of Dickens. Here live old Uncle Meiamoun a powerful elixir which he
Toby, Corporal Trim, Dr. Slop, and the could drain from a single cup. ” Then
Widow Wadman; and who does not en- follows the description of the feast. After
joy their garrulous gossip, and that of a night of magnificent splendor, a cup
Sterne himself in his frequent whimsical of poison is handed to him. Touched
digressions, so full of keen observation by his beauty and bravery, Cleopatra is
and gentle ridicule? Sterne had evi- about to order him not to drink, when
dently studied the humorists well: (Tris- the heralds announce the arrival of Mark
never
a
## p. 518 (#554) ############################################
518
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
»
a
seem
Antony. He asks: «What means this
corpse upon the foor? ” “Oh! nothing,”
she answers; – “a poison I was trying,
in order to use it should Augustus make
me prisoner. Will it please you, my
dear, to sit by me and watch the
dancers ? »
Uncle Remus: His Songs and His
SAYINGS.
By Joel Chandler Harris.
(1880. ) These quaint and humorous
folk-lore fables are told night after
night to a little boy by an old negro
who has nothing but pleasant memories
of the discipline of slavery, and who
has all the prejudices of caste and pride
of family that were the natural results
of the system. The animals talk and
show their native cunning, - Brer Rab-
bit, Brer Fox, Brer 'Possum, and the
rest. These characters, as delineated by
Mr. Harris, have won world-wide fame,
and are familiar in all literature and
conversation. Their adventures
directly drawn from the darkey's vivid
and droll imagination; though in the
preface Mr. Page gives data received
from ethnologists, which seem to prove
the existence of like stories - some of
them identical - among Indian tribes in
both North and South America, and the
inhabitants of India, Siam, and Upper
Egypt. But in his preface to a later
collection of "Uncle Remus Stories) Mr.
Harris lightly scoffs at such learned dis-
sertations; and suggests one's pure en-
joyment, like his own, of the stories for
themselves.
Uncle Tom's
Cabin, by Harriet
Beecher Stowe. This world-famous
story was written in 1851, and appeared
originally, from week to week as writ-
ten, in the National Era, an aboli.
tion paper published at Washington.
Brought out in book form, when com-
pleted as a serial, its popularity was
immediate and immense. Its influence
during the last decade of slavery was
great, and its part in the creation of
anti-slavery sentiment incalculable.
It opens in Kentucky, and closes in
Canada. The chapters between
chiefly located in Ohio, in New Or-
leans, beside Lake Pontchartrain, and
down
upon
the Red River. Their
chief purpose is to depict slavery, and
the effects of it, by portraying the ex-
periences of Uncle Tom, and of those
with whom he
or less
nected, through the space of some five
years. Their chief personages, rather
in the order of interest than of intro-
duction, are Uncle Tom, the pious and
faithful slave, and little Eva, to whom
he is devoted; Augustine St. Clare,
father of Eva, and his complaining
wife; Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, from whose
old Kentucky home » Uncle Tom is
sold South; George Shelby, their son,
who finally seeks him for repurchase,
and finds him dying of brutality on
that remote Red River plantation; Si-
mon Legree, who bought Tom after St.
Clare's death (which followed not long
after that of Eva), who owns him
when he dies, and who represents the
brutal slaveholder as St. Clare repre-
sents the easy and good-humored one;
Cassy, once Legree's favorite, now
half-crazed wreck of beauty; Emeline,
bought to succeed her, but who escapes
with Cassy at last; Eliza, who proves
to be Cassy's daughter, and to whom
she is finally reunited; George Harris,
Eliza's husband, who follows her along
the “Underground Railway) in Ohio,
after her wonderful escape across the
Ohio River on the ice, carrying her
boy Harry; Tom Loker, Haley, and
Marks, the slave-catchers, who hunt
these runaways and are overmatched;
Simon Halliday and Phineas Fletcher,
the Quakers, with their families; and
Senator and Mrs. Bird, and John Van
Trompe, all of whom assist the fugi-
tives; Miss Ophelia, the precise New
England spinster cousin in St. Clare's
home; Topsy, the ebony limb of mis-
chief,” who never was born but just
“growed; and Aunt Chloe,
Uncle
Tom's wife back there in (old Ken-
tuck, whose earnings were to assist in
his return to her, but to whom he
returns. Other but incidental
characters, field and household servants,
swell the number to fifty-five.
In a Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin,'
its author gave matter to sustain both
the severe and the mild pictures of
slavery which her story had drawn.
Being once introduced as the writer of
that story, Mrs. Stowe disclaimed its
authorship; and to the question, «Who
did write it then? » she answered rev-
erently — "God. ”
(
never
are
:
Lº
orna Doone: A ROMANCE OF Ex-
MOOR, by R. D. Blackmore, is its
author's best-known wor and is re-
markable for its exquisite reproduction
more
## p. 519 (#555) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
519
>>
of the style of the period it describes.
«To a Devonshire man it is as good as
clotted cream, almost,” has been said of
it; and it is Blackmore's special pride
that as
a native he has «satisfied na-
tives with their home scenery, people,
life, and language. But the popularity
of the brilliant romance has not been
local, and has been equally great on
both sides of the Atlantic. Even with-
out so swift a succession of exciting in-
cident, the unhackneyed style, abounding
in fresh simile, with its poetic apprecia-
tion of the fairest county in England,
combined with homely realism, would
make it delightful reading. Much as
Hardy acquaints us with Wessex, Black-
more impresses Exmoor upon us, with a
comprehensive Englishness) of setting
and character. It is out-of-door Eng-
land, with swift streams, treacherous
bogs, dangerous cliffs, and free vinds
across the moors. The story is founded
legends concerning the robber
Doones, a fierce band of aristocratic
outlaws, who in revenge
for
them by the government, lived by
plundering the country-side. Regarding
their neighbors as ignoble churls and
their legitimate prey, they robbed and
murdered them at will. John Ridd,
when a lad of fourteen, falls into their
valley by chance one day, and is saved
from capture by Lorna Doone, the fair-
est, daintiest child he has ever
When he is twenty-one, and the tallest
and stoutest youth on Exmoor, great
John Ridd) seeks Lorna again. He
hates the Doones who killed his father,
but he loves beautiful innocent Lorna;
and becomes her protector against the
fierce men among whom she lives. If
slow to think, he is quick to act; if
«plain and unlettered,” he is brave and
noble: and Lorna welcomes his placid
strength. Scattered through the swift
narration, certain scenes, such as Lorna's
escape to the farm, a tussle with the
Doones, the attempted murder in church,
the final duel with Carver Doone, and
others, stand out as great and glowing
pictures.
larity, not only among English speaking
people but on the continent of Europe
also. During the publication of these
papers Mr. Scott preserved his incognito
even towards his publisher. The author
spent some sixteen years of his life
(1806 to 1822) in the West Indies, in
connection with a mercantile house in
Kingston, Jamaica. The travels among
the neighboring islands and to the Span-
ish Main, gave him not only great fa-
miliarity with the social life of the West
Indies, but also a knowledge of the wild
and adventurous nautical life of the
times, and of the scenes and aspects of
a tropical climate which he has so faith-
fully and vividly portrayed. There is no
plot; but the book contains a series of
adventures with pirates, mutineers, pri-
vateersmen and men-of-war, storms,
wrecks, and waterspouts, interspersed
with descriptions of shore life and
customs. The time chosen is one full of
historical interest; for the book opens
with an adventure in the Baltic in which
the reader is brought into contact with
Napoleon's army, and later on there are
adventures with American men-of-war
and privateersmen, during the War of
1812,- the celebrated frigate Hornet play-
ing a small part.
Few, if any, sea writers have exhibited
such a remarkable power of description;
and the book will stand for many years
as one of the most accurate pictures of
West-Indian life, both afloat and
shore, during the early part of the nine-
teenth century.
The publication of "Tom Cringle's
Log' was followed in 1836 by "The
Cruise of the Midge); and these two
were the only books written by Michael
Scott, who died in 1835, before the pub-
lication of the latter work.
on
wrongs done
seen.
on
((
Middlemarch, by George Eliot. (1872. )
This, the last but one of George
Eliot's novels, she is said to have re-
garded as her greatest work. The novel
takes its name from a provincial town
in or near which its leading characters
live. The book is really made up of
two stories, one centring around the
Vincy family, and the other around Dor-
othea Brooke and her relatives. On
account of this division of interest, the
construction of the story has been se-
verely criticized as clumsy and inartistic.
Dorothea Brooke, the most prominent
figure on the very crowded canvas, is an
as
Tºm
om Cringle's Log, by Michael Scott.
This work was originally published
a series of papers in Blackwood's
Magazine, the first of them appearing in
1829. They were afterwards published
(in 1834) in two volumes; and have
enjoyed a wide and well-sustained popu-
## p. 520 (#556) ############################################
520
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
orphan, who, with her sister Celia, lives Dorothea, nevertheless, is a sweet and
with her uncle Mr. Brooke, a man of upright character, and her second hus-
vacillating and uneven temperament. band, Ladislaw, is in every way to be
Dorothea's longing for a lofty mission admired. Two secondary love stories in
leads her to marry an elderly and Middlemarch) are those of the witty
wealthy clergyman, Rev. Edward Casau- Mary Garth and the spendthrift Fred
bon, who has retired from the ministry Vincy, and of Celia Brooke and Sir
to give his time to an important piece James Chettam. The chorus, which con-
of literary work. Dorothea, though not stantly reflects Middlemarch sentiment
yet twenty, hopes to be his amanuensis at every turn of affairs, is a large one,
and helper; and is greatly grieved to including Mrs. Fitchett, Mrs. Dill, Mrs.
find that her husband sets slight value Waule, Mrs. Renfrew, Mrs. Plymdale,
on her services. In other ways she has Mrs. Bulstrode, Mrs. Vincy; and among
been disillusioned before the death of the men, Mr. Dollop, Mr. Dill, Mr. Bro-
Mr. Casaubon, a year and a half after throp Trumbull, Mr. Horrock, Mr. Wrech,
their marriage. A rather insulting pro- Mr. Thesiger, and Mr. Standish.
vision of his will directs that his widow More carefully drawn are the caustic
shall lose her income if she marries Will Mrs. Cadwallader, the self-denying Mr.
Ladislaw, a young cousin of Mr. Casau- Farebrother, hypocritical Mr. Bulstrode,
bon's. Ladislaw is partly of Polish the miser Featherstone, and the honor-
descent; and both his mother and his able Caleb Garth and his self-reliant
grandmother had been disinherited by wife.
their English relatives for marrying for-
eigners. Ladislaw owes his education to Life of Goethe, The, by George Henry
,
Mr. Casaubon; but not until after the Lewes. (1864. ) The first important
death of the latter does the friendship biography in English of the greatest of
between the younger man and Dorothea German writers, this book still holds its
take the tinge of love.
place in the front rank of biographical
Rosamond Vincy, who may be called literature. The volume is a large one,
a minor heroine, is the daughter of the and the detail is infinitely minute, be-
mayor of Middlemarch. She is a beauti- ginning with the ancestry of the poet,
ful girl, whose feeling that she is much and ending with his death in 1832. His
more refined than her commonplace rel- precocity, the school-life and college-life
atives, leads her to lofty matrimonial of the beautiful youth, his welcome in
aspirations. She wins the love of Dr. society, his flirtations, the bohemian
Lydgate, who, though nephew to a bar- years that seemed prodigally wasted, yet
onet, has a hard struggle to esta ish that were to bear rich intellectual fruit
himself as a Middlemarch physician, with when the wild nature should have so-
Dr. Sprague and Dr. Minchin as rivals. bered to its tasks, his friendships, his
Neither he nor his wife knows how to travels, his love-affairs, his theories of
economize; and the latter, feeling her life, his scientific investigations, his
husband's poverty an insult to herself, is dramatic studies, criticisms, and produc-
a hindrance to him in every way.
The tions, his momentary absorption in edu-
story of his efforts to maintain his fam- cational problems, his official distinc-
ily, and at the same time to be true to tions, his intellectual dictatorship, his
his ambition to add to the science of his ever-recurring sentimental experiences, -
profession, is a sad one. In the charac- all the changing phases of that many-
ters of Dorothea and Lydgate George
sided life are made to pass be re the
Eliot develops the main purpose of this reader with extraordinary vividness.
novel, which is less distinctly ethical Like almost all biographers of imagina-
than some of the others. Her aim in tion and strong feeling, Mr. Lewes, who
(Middlemarch) was to show how the means to maintain a strict impartiality,
thought and action of even very high- becomes advocate. He presents
minded persons is apt to be modified Goethe's wonderful mentality without ex-
and altered by their environment. Both aggeration. He does no more than just-
Dorothea and Lydgate become entangled ice to the personal charm which seems
by their circumstances; though in his to have been altogether irresistible. But
the disaster is greater than in it is in spite of his biographer's admis-
hers, and in each case it is a moral and sic rather than because of them, that
not a social decline which is pointed out. Goethe appears in his pages a man from
an
case
## p. 521 (#557) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
521
was
in the Salem witchcraft trials.
No man
of the time was better furnished with
material to keep a diary, and his was
well done. Its pages afford many a
vivid picture of the early colonial per-
sonages, – their dress and their dinners,
their funerals and weddings, their town
meetings, their piety, their quarrels, and
the innumerable trifles which together
make up life. Mr. Chamberlain finds
this diary a match for Evelyn's and
-
(2
is concerned. He has drawn most of
the material for his book from the three
huge volumes of the journal, following
the career of the diarist from his first
arrival in the colony to his death in
1729. The pages are studded with quo-
tations delightfully quaint and charac-
teristic; and the passages of original
narrative nowhere obscure these invalu-
able (documents. ”
a
whose vital machinery the heart
omitted. Perfect taste he had, exquisite
sentiment, great appreciation, a certain
power of approbation that assumed the
form of affection, but no love,- such the
Goethe whom his admiring disciple
paints. The book presents the senti-
mental German society of the late eigh-
teenth century with entire understand-
ing, and is very rich in memorabilia of
many sorts.
Voltaire, Life of, by James Parton.
vols. , 1881. ) A well-executed at-
tempt to tell the story of the most ex-
traordinary of Frenchmen, and one of
the most extraordinary of human be-
ings”; a writer whose publications count
more than two hundred and sixty in
number, and whose collected works fill
a hundred volumes. Mr. Parton's work
extends to more than 1,200 pages of care-
fully selected biographical evidence,
autobiographical in fact, presenting the
remarkable man and the great writer
delineated by himself. For more
concise work the reader may take John
Morley's (Voltaire, the keynote of
which, on its first page, is the declara-
tion that Voltaire is almost more than
one man, is in himself a whole move-
ment of human advance, like the Re-
vival of Learning, or the Reformation;
an extraordinary person whose existence,
character, and career, constitute in them-
selves a new and prodigious era.
Samuel Sewall, and the World He
Lived In, by N. H. Chamberlain,
is an account of one of the most notable
of the early Puritan worthies, who was
graduated from Harvard College in 1671,
only fifty-one years after the landing of
the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Sewall came
of a good family of English non-con-
formists, who came to this country when
he was a boy of nine. He grew up to
be a councilor and judge, highly es-
teemed among his contemporaries; but
his fame to-day rests not on his achieve-
ments in his profession, but on the re-
markable diary which he kept for fifty-
six years, chronicling minutely the
events of his daily life. He saw all
there was to be seen in public and so-
cial life. As a man of position, con-
nected with the government, he made
many journeys, not only about the col-
ony but over seas to court. As a judge,
he knew all the legal proceedings of the
country, being concerned, for example,
Voyage Around my Chamber, by Xa-
vier De Maistre. (1874. ) A charm-
ing group of miniature essays, polished
like the gems of a necklace, the titles
of which were suggested by the familiar
objects of the author's room.
It was
written during his confinement for forty-
two days under arrest in Turin, while
holding the position of an officer in the
Russian army.
He treats his surround-
ings as composing a large allegory, in
which he reads the whole range of
human life. He depicts with delight
the advantages of this kind of “fire-
side travel," in its freedom from labor,
worry, and expense; and then he shows
under the vast significance of such ob-
jects as the Bed, the Bookcase, the
father's Bust, the Traveling-Coat, and
the instruments of Painting and Music,
the wide range of reflection and delight
into which the soul is thus led. The
bed is the beginning and the end of
earthly life; the library is the pano-
rama of the world's greatest ideals; and
here he reflects on the grandeur and
attractiveness of Lucifer as depicted by
Milton. The traveling-coat suggests the
influence of costume on character, which
is illustrated by the effect of an added
bar or star of an officer's coat on the
wearer's state of mind. (The Animal)
is the heading of the chapter defining
the body as the servant of the soul,
a mistress who sometimes cruelly goes
away and neglects it, as when, while
the mind is absorbed in some entran-
## p. 522 (#558) ############################################
522
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
White Company, The, a
cing thought, the hand catches up heed- an old man
anuscript which he discovers.
lessly the hot poker. The most subtle His ancestor, a priest of Isis, had been
of these interpretations is that of the slain by an immortal white sorceress,
portrait of a fair lady whose eyes fol- somewhere in Africa; and in the an-
low the gazer; but foolish is the lover cient record his descendants are exhorted
who thinks them bent on him alone, for to revenge his death. The sorceress, no
every other finds them gazing equally other than «She, is discovered in a re-
at him even at the same moment. markable country peopled by marvelous
beings, who, as true servants of the sor-
romantic
tale of the fourteenth century, by
ceress, present an exaggerated picture
of the barbaric rites and cruelties of
A. Conan Doyle. Alleyne Edricson, a
Africa. To this strange land comes the
gentle, noble-spirited youth, who has
been sheltered and educated among a
handsome and passionate Englishman,
with two companions who share his
company of white-robed Cistercians in
England, leaves the abbey to make his
many thrilling experiences. A mysteri-
ous bond exists between the young Eng.
way in the world. Together with two
lishman and the sorceress: the memory
sinewy and gallant comrades, Hordie
of the ancient crime and the expectation
John and Samkin Aylward, he attaches
of its atonement. The climax of the
himself to the person and fortunes of
story is reached when the travelers and
Sir Nigel Loring, a doughty knight, the
mirror of chivalry, ever in quest of a
the sorceress together visit the place
where the mysterious fire burns which
passage-at-arms for the honor of his
gives thousands of years of life, loveli-
lady and his own advancement in chiv-
ness, strength, and wisdom, or else swift
alry.
death. She ) for the second time dares
In vigorous phrase and never-flagging
to pass into the awful flame, and so
interest, the tale rehearses how that Sir
meets her doom, being instantly con-
Nigel heads the “White Company, a
sumed. The weird tale does not lack a
band of sturdy Saxon bowmen, free
fitting background for its scenes of ad-
companions, and leads them through
venture, the author choosing an extinct
many knightly encounters in the train
volcano for the scene of the tragedy;
of the Black Prince, in France and
so vast is its crater that it contains a
Spain. The story rings with the clash
great city, while its walls are full of
of arms in tourney lists, during way-
caves containing the marvelously pre-
side encounters and on the battle-field,
served dead of
of a prehistoric people.
and reflects the rude but chivalric spirit
Mr. Haggard's practical knowledge and
of the century.
experience of savage life and wild lands,
Many characters known to history are
his sense of the charm of ruined civili-
set in lifelike surroundings. The move-
zation, his appreciation of sport, and his
ment is rapid, stirring episodes follow
faculty of imparting an aspect of truth
each other rapidly and withal there is
to impossible adventures, find ample ex-
presented a careful picture of the tumult-
pression in this entertaining and wholly
uous times in which the varied scenes
impossible tale.
are laid.
squire, Alleyne, wins his spurs by gal? Uarda, by Georg Moritz Ebers. (1876. )
This is a study of ancient Egyp-
lant conduct, thrillingly told in a passage
tian civilization in the city of Thebes,
which will rank with the author's ablest
in the fourteenth century before Christ,
efforts. Alleyne lives to return, with a
under Rameses II. A narrative of He-
few comrades of the decimated White
rodotus, combined with the Epos of Pen-
Company, and claims the hand of Lady
taur, forms the foundation of the story.
Maude, Sir Nigel's daughter, who has
We have a minute description of the
long loved the young squire, and gladly
weds him as a knight.
dress, the food, the religious customs
and
of the ancient Egyptians.
She, by Rider Haggard. (1887. ) This There are three separate love stories:
is å stirring and exciting tale. Mr. that of Bent-Anat, daughter of Rameses,
Haggard has pictured his hero as going who loves Pentaur, the poet-priest; that
to Africa to avenge the death of an of Nefert, wife of Mena, the king's chari.
Egyptian ancestor, whose strange his- oteer; and that of L'arda herself, who has
tory has been handed down to him in many adorers, for only one of whom she
wars
## p. 523 (#559) ############################################
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
523
SO
cares,– Rameri, the king's son. Pentaur
Usurper, The, by Judith Gautier. This
is sent into exile, rescued by Uarda, fol- interesting novel, which was first
lowing in Bent-Anat's train. He saves published in 1875, in two volumes, is
the king in battle, and is rewarded with founded on an episode in Japanese his-
the princess's hand.
Nefert is pur-
tory. The author, who had numbered
sued by Paaker, but is true to her hus- among her instructors a Chinaman, gives
band. Paaker plots to betray Rameses, a most accurate and painstaking descrip-
and perishes in his own trap. It then tion of the feudal and social life and
becomes known that he is the son of a customs of Japan. Taiko-sama, one of
gardener, and Pentaur the true son of the great soldiers of Japan, had reduced
the noble, they having been exchanged the power of the Mikado to a shadow,
at birth. Uarda (The Rose) proves to be and was himself the real ruler with the
grandchild to the king of the Danaids, title of Shogun. Before dying, he mar-
her mother having been taken captive ried his son Fidé-Yori to the grand-
many years before. She marries Ram- daughter of Hyeas, and made the lat-
eri; and after her grandfather's death, ter regent until his son should be of
they rule over many islands of the Med- age.
iterranean and found a famous race.
It is at this time (1614) that the action
of the novel begins.
