No More Learning

It presents a vivid picture
of the days of the Terror; a realistic
portrayal of the inhumanities and self-
sacrifices of that lurid period. The
meetings of Citoyenne Jacqueline with
Charlotte Corday, and with Lydia, daugh-
ter of Laurence Sterne, are interesting
episodes of her Paris life.
name.
Notre-Dame of Paris, by Victor
Hugo, relates a romance growing
up in and around the cathedral of that
More than this, the mighty
building, dating back at least to the
eleventh century, and enriched with
thirteenth-century glass, seems to fill
the author's vision and dominate his
mind from beginning to end; just as it
dominates, from its immemorial island,
the overflowing city for which he wrote.
Among his different conceptions of
Notre-Dame — folding over and fitting
into each other — he brings out most
clearly of all the truth that the cathe-
dral of the Middle Ages was the book
of the people; and that since the dawn
of printing, books have taken the
place of those marvelously involved
and inexhaustible carvings, where the
smoldering passions of the multitude,
their humor and irreligion as well as
their religion and poetic emotion, found
continual expression. Even necromancy
and astrology wreathed themselves in
fantastic figures around the great door-
way of Notre-Dame.
To the reader who loses himself in
the atmosphere thus created, the world
is France, France is Paris, Paris is the
cathedral. He is taken through the
aisles and galleries, out on the roof, up
in the towers, and into every nook and
corner of the church; then lovingly,
faithfully, scrupulously through the
squares or cross-roads of the old city,
along crooked streets that have van-
ished, and thoroughfares still existing,
like Rue Saint-Jacques or Rue Saint-
Denis, which it calls the arteries of
Paris. Thus it may be taken as
fifteenth-century guide-book of the town,
answering all the purposes of a Baede-
ker; not only giving the general topog-
raphy, but touching on nearly every
structure then standing, from the Bastile
to the gibbet of Montfaucon.
To Quasimodo, the deaf and deformed
bell-ringer of the cathedral, «stunted,
limping, blind in one eye,” the great
church is an object of extravagant de-
votion and superstitious awe. Its arch-
deacon alone had pity on him when he
lay, a miserable foundling, at its door;
it is all the home he has ever known,
and he leads a strange existence among
the statues and gargoyles within and
without. Sometimes, when he is skulk-
ing among them, the great interior
seems alive and trembling, like some
huge animal - an elephant, perhaps, but
-
not an unfriendly one. In such passages
the poet romancer gives his wild fancy
full rein.
No less than Faust,' the story is a
phantasmagoria, in which a learned goat
has a rôle of importance, everywhere
accompanying the heroine, Esmeralda,
a beautiful, innocent, and incorruptible
singer and dancer of sixteen summers.
This many-sided book may also be
regarded as an eloquent condemnation
of capital punishment; of all forms of
capital punishment, perhaps, or the
writer would hardly say in 1831 that the
vast resources of the chamber of torture
have been reduced in his day to a
sneaking guillotine that only shows its
head at intervals. Or, quite as fairly,
the book may be regarded as a sermon
against celibacy, since it never loses
sight of the effect of monastic vows on
the ardent though ascetic archdeacon
of the cathedral, Claude Frollo. The
avowed motive of the story is the work-
ings of fate, in whose toils nearly all
the chief characters inextricably
caught. The keynote is given in the
word anágke, the Greek equivalent of
kismet or fate, which the author - if
his introduction is to be taken seriously
- found rudely scrawled on the wall of
a cell in one of the cathedral towers.
Like Walter Scott's Quentin Durward,
and Théodore de Banville's exquisite
play of (Gringoire,' Notre-Dame) con-
tains a searching study of the treacher-
ous but able monarch, Louis XI. , and
his barber Olivier-le-Daim.
are
a
as
French Traits, by W. C. Brownell
(1889), appeared first a series
of essays in Scribner's Magazine. These
essays offer
an unusually astute yet
sympathetic study of the French nation
in everything which makes its members
French, and not German or Italian. The
instinct of the author guides him un-
erringly to the selection of those qualities
which are the most perfect medium of


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164
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
ners.
men.
Cities
national characteristics. He considers
the city. It is to a large extent a story
first the most prominent endowment of of regions unknown to travel, and not
the French people, -- the social instinct. reported upon in any of the guide-books.
This explains their kind of morality, of It is so written, moreover, as to serve
intelligence; their standards of sense and the purpose of those who must travel
sentiment; the peculiarity of their man- only as readers. The author added to
Above all it explains the French his Days) a third work of like character
woman, destined from her cradle to be and interest, on (Cities of Northern and
a woman and not a hybrid. She re- Central Italy,' designed to be a companion
fuses to be separated or to separate to all those parts of Italy which lie be-
herself from
She lives in the tween the Alps and the districts, described
family, as the family lives in the na- in the Days. ) The three works tell the
tion. Four remaining essays treat of present story of the city and of Italy,
the art instinct, of the provincial spirit, whether for the traveler or for the reader.
of democracy, and of New York after
Paris.
ities of Northern and Central Italy,
The author has evidently studied his
by Augustus J. C. Hare. In this
subject at close range.
His treatment
work, consisting of three volumes, not
of it is brilliant, epigrammatic, and at
only the cities but the towns and even
the same time solid.
the villages of Northern and Central Italy
receive the careful and comprehensive
attention of the writer. Entering Italy
Journeys through France, by H.
Taine. (1897. ) This book is one of
by the Cornice Road at Mentone, the
the French critic's earlier works, written
reader is plunged at once into the land
in the form of a diary. In the sixties,
of the citron and myrtle. The district
M. Taine, then an official examiner in
described embraces the whole country
the government schools, traveled about,
from the Alps to the environs of Rome:
up and down France, taking notes as
Genoa, Turin, Milan, Venice, Bologna,
Verona, Padua, and Florence are treated
he went, upon all the features of life in
the provinces: agriculture and landscape,
at length. Nothing of interest has been
market-places and shops, castles and
omitted: cathedrals, palaces, homes and
town-halls, professors and officers, peas-
haunts of great men, the Old Masters
ants and bourgeois, as these existed in
and their works, all have place, while
the years preceding the downfall of the
well-known names of history and legend
have been studied with painstaking care.
Empire. He constantly accompanies his
entertaining descriptions by social
The volumes contain hotel and pension
economic inferences, and neat generali- rates, omnibus and railway fares, and
zations of French life and habits of
catalogues of the exhibits in the various
thinking. Brilliantly written, and full of
galleries, – that of the Pitti Palace being
insight as to the relation of the institu-
particularly noteworthy. Yet they are
tion or the custom examined to the
not guides » merely; for they offer the
idea which it incarnates, the whole vol-
reader not only the excellent comments
ume is
of Mr. Hare, but whole pages of quota-
illustration of M.
Taine's formula of the effects of hered-
tions from famous art critics and histor-
ical authorities, such as Ruskin, Goethe,
ity and environment.
Gautier, Dickens, Symonds, Freeman,
Perkins, Story, and others. The writer's
Days Near Rome, by Augustus J. C.
love for his subject produced a delightful
Hare. (1875. ) A very pleasant and
work.
instructive record of excursions into the
country around Rome. The book is sup- Italian Republies: "THE ORIGIN, Pro-
plementary to the author's Walks in
GRESS, AND FALL OF ITALIAN FREE-
Rome,' which supplies an excellent hand- DOM. ) By J. C. L. de Sismondi. (1832. )
book of the city and environs of Rome. An extremely useful story of Italy from
As that work treated, more fully and the beginning of the twelfth century to
carefully than the usual guide-book, the 1814 A. D. , with an introductory sketch
most interesting aspects of the ancient of the history from 476 A. D. to 1138.
city, and especially the latest discoveries The work was prepared for Lardner's
of the recent explorers, so the Days) Cabinet Cyclopædia, after its author
gives an interesting story of what can be had told the arger story in an elaborate
seen in a variety of journeys away from work extending to sixteen volumes.
or
>
one
more


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SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
165
to
was
Marco Polo. The record of the ad-
ventures of the Venetian merchant
Marco Polo, as dictated by him to a
fellow-prisoner in Genoa, is one of the
most remarkable books of travel ever
written. Marco Polo was born at Ven-
ice about 1254.
His father, a
man of
noble rank, in 1275 had taken young
Marco with him on a trading expedition
to China and the East. The youth of
twenty entered the service of the Em-
peror of China, and traveled extensively
through the neighboring regions. Re-
turning, later, to Venice, he was cap-
tured in the struggle between that city
and Genoa. It was in the year 1298
that Rusticiano or Rustichello of Pisa
wrote for him the history of his wander-
ings.
The “young bachelor's » experience
made an interesting book. (Ye shall
find therein) (says the prologue) (all
kinds of wonderful things.
Some
things there be indeed therein which he
beheld not; but these he heard from
men of credit and veracity. ”
It is said that a French version of the
book made under his direction.
Though his narrative made a great sen-
sation, it was for many years regarded
as a mass of fabrications and exaggera-
tions, It had an undoubted effect,
however, upon exploration; and later re-
searches have confirmed the truth of
many of the author's descriptions. This
may be taken as a sample of its style: –
“Book iii. , Chap. ii. DESCRIPTION OF
THE ISLAND OF CHIPANGU.
“Chipangu is an Island toward the
east in the high seas, 1500 miles distant
from the continent; and a very great
Island it is.
« The people are white, civilized, and
well-favored. They are idolaters and
are dependent on nobody. And I can
tell you the quantity of gold they have
is endless.
“I will tell you a wonderful thing
about the Palace of the Lord of that
Island. You must know that he hath, a
great palace which is entirely roofed
with gold.
Moreover, all the
pavement of the palace, and the floors
of its chambers, are entirely of gold, in
plates like slabs of stone, a good two
fingers thick,
so that the rich-
ness of this palace is past all bounds
and all belief. "
The work was published in English in
1818. The most valuable edition to the
student is that of Colonel Henry Yule,
in two volumes, London, 1875.
Hernando Cortez, The Life of, by
Arthur Helps, English historian and
essayist, was published in 1871, being
dedicated to Thomas Carlyle.
It is a
clear, simple, scholarly account of the
picturesque conquest of Mexico —a con-
quest by a gallant gentleman and war-
rior, who was no better than his age.
The author seeks neither to extenuate
nor to conceal the doubtful qualities in
the character of Cortez, but accepts him
in the impersonal spirit of the historian.
Columbus Christopher, History of
the Life and Voyages of, by Wash-
ington Irving. This history, published
in three volumes, was written by Irving
in 1828, during his residence in Madrid.
He was at the time an attaché of the
United States legation, having been sum-
moned there by Alexander H. Everett,
then minister to Spain, who desired him
translate Navarrete's Voyages of
Columbus,' which were then in course
of publication. Irving entered upon this
work with much interest, but soon came
to the conclusion that he had before him
rather a mass of rich materials for history
than a history itself; and being inspired
by the picturesque aspect of the subject
and the great facilities at hand, he at
once gave up the work of translation
and set about writing a Life of Colum-
bus) of his own. Having access to the
archives of the Spanish government, to
the royal library of Madrid, to that of
the Jesuits' college of San Isidoro, and
to many valuable private collections, he
found numberless historic documents and
manuscripts to further his work. He
was aided by Don Martin de Navarrete,
and by the Duke of Veraguas, the de-
scendant of Columbus, who submitted
the family archives and treasures to his
inspection. In this way he was enabled
to obtain many interesting and previously
unknown facts concerning Columbus. He
was less than a year in completing his
work, which has been called “the noblest
monument to the memory of Columbus. »
This history, a permanent contribution
to English and American literature, is
clear and animated in narrative, graphic
in its descriptive episodes, and finished
in style. Recent historians have dif-
fered from Irving with regard to the
character and merits of Columbus, and
have produced some evidence calculated
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166
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
to shatter a too exalted ideal of the imposed. The darkest curse brought by
great discoverer; but despite this, his the Inquisition, in Mr. Lea's view, was
valuable work still fills an honored place the application of its unjust and cruel
in all historic libraries.
processes to all criminals, down to the
closing years of the eighteenth century;
Inquisition of the Middle Ages, A and not to criminals only, but to all
History of the, by Henry Charles accused persons.
Lea, 3 vols. , 1888. A work at once com- In his second volume Mr. Lea follows
prehensive in scope, complete in learn- the story of the Inquisition in the sev-
ing, and judicious in thought. It tells eral lands of Christendom. The third
the story of the organized effort against he devotes to special fields of Inquisi-
heresy made by the Christian Church of torial activity. It is a story, not only of
the Middle Ages, or for about three how those whose motives, by the stand-
centuries previous to the Reformation ard of their age, were only good, in-
(1215-1515 A. D. ). For the entire his- flicted the worst wrong and cruelty
tory of this effort Mr. Lea makes two upon their fellow-creatures under a false
periods, that of the old or medieval In- idea of the service of God, but how
quisition, before the Reformation, and ambition and avarice took advantage of
that of the new or reorganized Inquisi- the system. At the best it was a non-
tion coming after the Reformation, ex- strous application of mistaken zeal to
cept in Spain, where Ferdinand and keep men from following their honest
Isabella «founded the New Inquisition. ” thoughts into paths of desirable pro-
This famous institution is not viewed gress. Mr. Lea's masterly treatment of
by Mr. Lea as an organization arbitra- the whole history makes his work an
rily devised and imposed upon the ju- authority second to none.
dicial system of Christendom by any
ambition of the Church of that age or Pepita Ximenez, by Juan Valera.
any special fanaticism. It was a nat- The scene of this vivid story is in
ural development, an almost inevitable Andalusia. Pepita Ximenez, when six-
expression of the forces universally at teen years old, is married to her rich
work in the thirteenth and following uncle, Don Gumersindo, then eighty
centuries. To clearly understand it and years old. At the end of three years,
judge it fairly, Mr. Lea carefully exam- she finds herself a widow, with many
ines the whole field of intellectual and suitors for her hand, among them, Don
spiritual developments, and the condi- Pedro de Vargas. At this time his son
tion of society, in the Middle Ages. He Luis comes to pay him a visit before
makes of chief importance an examina- taking his last vows as a priest. Hav-
tion of the jurisprudence of the period, ing lived always with his uncle, he is
as a means of ascertaining the origin learned in theology and casuistry, but
and development of the inquisitorial little versed in worldly affairs.
The
process: some of the worst features of acquaintance with Pepita arouses senti-
which would have been a blot upon the ments which he had never known; and
history none the less if there had never he soon recognizes that he loves her,
been any quest for heresy; while the and that she returns his affection. Hor-
idea of heresy was one of the deepest rified at his position, both in regard to
seated, not only of the period, but of his profession and to his father, he re-
later generations, and as relentlessly solves never to see Pepita. Visiting the
applied under Protestantism, in
club, he meets Count de Genazahar, a
special instances, as under Catholicism. rejected suitor of Pepita, who speaks
Mr. Lea devotes an entire volume to slightingly of her. He expostulates with
«The Origin and Organization of the him on the sin of slander, but is only
Inquisition, the sad story of how the derided. The expected departure of
giving way in jurisprudence of the old Luis has so affected Pepita that she is
barbarisms was arrested by the use of ill; and her nurse, Antonona, goes to
those made by the Church; and how the Luis and obliges him to come to bid
worst of these barbarisms were given a farewell to her mistress.
He goes at
consecration which kept them in force ten o'clock at night, and is left alone
five hundred years after they might with Pepita. She tries to convince him
have passed away; and in force without that he is ill adapted for a priest. If
the restraints which Roman law had he has allowed himself to be charmed
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SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
167
a
by a plain country girl, how much more the house. He grants Mansour's three
are to be feared the beautiful, accom- wishes: 'that Omar shall be healthy and
plished women he will meet in future wealthy, and love no one but himself.
life. Her self-condemnation causes him On Abdallah he lays a charge to seek the
to praise her; and when he leaves her, at four-leaved clover. Omar is reclaimed
two o'clock in the morning, he is obliged at fifteen by his father, and immediately
to confess his own unworthiness. He begins a career of selfish and heartless
learns that Genazahar owes Pepita a greed. To Abdallah a wise Jew explains
large sum of money; and goes to the that the four-leaved clover was a mys-
club, where he finds him gambling. He tic flower, which Eve had hastily snatched
enters the game and finds a chance to on her expulsion from Paradise. One leaf
insult him. In a duel they are both was of copper, one of silver, the third of
wounded, the Count, dangerously. When gold, and the fourth a diamond. Eve's
Luis recovers he marries Pepita.
hand trembled as the fiery sword touched
The novel is regarded in Spain as her, and the diamond leaf fell within the
modern classic.
gates of Paradise, while the other three
leaves, swept away by the wind, were
Berber, The; or, The Mountaineer scattered over the earth. The deeds by
of the Atlas, ‘by William Starbuck which Abdallah seeks to win the succes-
Mayo (1850), is a tale of Morocco. It is sive leaves — and especially the crisis of
full of incidents of the most stirring char- his fate when revenge against Omar, who
acter; and read after a course of modern has irreparably injured him, is weighed
psychological novels, is refreshing as a against the diamond leaf — form the ma-
sea-breeze, because it has no purpose save terial of the story. This book of the great
that of amusement. The author draws a scholar and scientist Laboulaye is likely
vivid picture of the lawless existence of to be remembered when his more ambi-
the Sultan, and the free, danger-loving tious labors are forgotten. The stories
life of the mountaineers; and contrasts breathe the very atmosphere of the East;
characters with sufficiently bold strokes, while the Oriental character is studied
while his plot is excitingly romantic. and rendered with the accuracy of the
Edward Carlyle, a rich Englishman at naturalist and the imaginative charm of
Cadiz, fancies himself in love with Isabel,
the poet.
Nothing could be more de-
daughter of Don Pedro d'Estivan; and lightful than the invention displayed in
through the machinations of Don Diego the way of incident, and nothing sweeter
d'Orsolo, who himself desires to marry
than the unwritten moral of the wisdom
her, is discovered on a clandestine visit. of goodness.
He escapes capture by plunging into the
water from his boat; is picked up by a Annals of a Sportsman, by Ivan Tur-
pirate craft belonging to Hassan, the sea- geneff, consists of number of
rover, who proves to be Edward's long- sketches of Russian peasant life, which
lost brother Henry; and together they go
appeared in book form in 1852, and es-
to Morocco, where there are adventures
tablished the author's reputation as
enough of love and piracy to satisfy any
writer of realistic fiction. Turgeneff rep-
reader.
resents himself with gun on shoulder
tramping the country districts in quest
Abdallah; or, The Four-Leaved
Clover of game and, in passing, noting the local
(French, (Abdallah; ou, Le Trèfle à life and social conditions, and giving
Quatre Feuilles)), an Arabian romance closely observed, truthful studies of the
by Edouard Laboulaye (1859). An Eng- state of the serfs before their liberation
lish translation by Mary L. Booth was by Alexander II. ; his book, it is believed,
published in 1868.
being one of the agencies that brought
Abdallah is the son of a Bedouin woman, about that reform. Twenty-two short
widowed before his birth. Hadji Man- sketches, sometimes only half a dozen
sour, a wealthy and avaricious merchant pages long, make up the volume.
Peas-
of the neighboring town of Djiddah, con- ant life is depicted, and the humble Rus-
fides to her care his new-born son Omar; sian toiler is put before the reader in
and fearing lest the evil eye shall single his habit as he lived in the earlier years
out his child, he charges her to lay the boys of the present century; contrast being
in the same cradle and bring them up as furnished by sketches of the overseer,
brothers. An astrologer is summoned to the landed proprietor, and representatives
a
a


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168
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
.
of other intermediate classes. The gen- checkered career there, becoming the pro-
eral impression is sombre: the facts are tégée of a prince and a conspicuous act-
simply stated, leaving the inference of ress; but eventually she prefers to come
oppression, cruelty, and unenlightened back to the mine, don her old working
misery to be drawn. There is no preach-clothes to show her humility, and marry
ing: The best of the studies — The Ivan. Very graphic scenes in the stock
Burgomaster, Lgove,' (The Prairie,' exchange, in the underground world of
(The Singers,' (Kor and Kalmitch,' (The the miner, and in the fashionable society
District Doctor) - are little masterpieces life of Vienna and Pesth, are given; the
of analysis and concise portrayal, and a author being thoroughly familiar with
gentle poetic melancholy runs through Hungary, high and low, and crowding
all. Especially does the poetry come out his book with lively incidents, and varied
in the beautiful descriptions of nature, clearly drawn characters.
which are a relief to the poignant pathos
of some of the human scenes.
A slauga’s Knight, a romantic tale of me-
a
diæval chivalry, by Friedrich Fouqué,
Arn
rne, by Björnstjerne Björnson, was
Baron de la Motte, was published in 1814:
published in 1858, when the author
Aslauga was a golden-haired Danish
was twenty-sis. It was the second of
queen, whose memory was preserved in
the delightful idyllic tales of Norwegian an illuminated volume that told of her
country life with which Björnson began good and beautiful life. The fair knight
his literary career.
It is a simple, beau- Froda read in this book, and made a vow
tiful story of the native life among the that Aslauga should be his lady, the object
fiords and fells, with a charming love of his love and worship. She thereupon
interest running through it. There is
appears to him, an entrancing visionary
no intricacy of plot, and the charm and form. From that day forth he often sees
power come from the sympathetic insight her, in the dimness of the forest, or min-
into peasant character and the poetical gling with the glory of the sunset, or glid-
way it is handled. Arne is a typical son ing in rosy light over the winter sea.
of the region, sketched from his days of She protects him in a great tournament,
boyhood to his happy marriage. The where the bravest knights of Germany
portrayal of Margit, Arne's mother, is a fight for the hand of the Princess Hilde-
pathetic and truthful one; and many of gardis. Only Froda contends for glory,
the domestic scenes have an exquisite not for love, and wins. Froda's dear
naturalness.
friend Edwald desires to win the prin-
cess; but as he is second, not first, she
Black
lack Diamonds, by Maurice Jokai, scorns him. Froda is to wed the prin-
the famous Hungarian novelist, is cess; but on the day of their nuptials,
a strong story of industrial and aristo- Froda's skyey bride, Aslauga, again ap-
cratic life in Hungary, with a complicated pears in her golden beauty to claim her
plot, and dramatic- - even sensational - faithful knight; he dies that Edwald and
features. It was published in 1870. Its Hildegardis may be one.
interest centres around the coal-mining The pretty story is told with simplicity
business; the black diamonds are coal -
It has about it the same
also, by a metaphor, the humble folk air of unreality and remoteness that give
who work in the mines and exhibit the charm to Undine.
finest human virtues. The hero is Ivan
Behrends, owner of the Bondavara coal
Bride of Lammermoor, The, is included
mine; a man of great energy and abil- in the group of Waverley Novels)
ity, with a genius for mechanics. He called "Tales of my Landlord. The plot
does a small conservative business, and a was suggested by an incident in the fam-
syndicate of capitalists try to crush him ily history of the earls of Stair. The
by starting an enormous colliery near scene is laid on the east coast of Scotland,
by; only to make a gigantic failure, after in the year 1700.
The hero is Edgar,
floating the company by tricky stock- Master of Ravenswood, a young man of
exchange methods. Ivan outwits them noble family, penniless and proud. He
by sticking to honest ways and steady has vowed vengeance against the pres-
work. Edila, the pretty little colliery ent owner of the Ravenswood estates, Sir
girl whom Ivan loves, goes to the city William Ashton, Lord Keeper, whom he
as the wife of a rich banker, and has a considers guilty of fraud; but foregoes
and grace.


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SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
169
his plans on falling in love with Lucy, were unable to marry, and her infant
Sir William's daughter. There is a se- she believes to have died at birth. Her
cret betrothal; the ambitious Lady Ash- sister, however, has brought up the child
ton endeavors to force her daughter to under the name of Esther Summerson.
marry another suitor; and in the strug- Esther becomes the ward of Mr. Jarn-
gle Lucy goes mad, and Ravenswood,
dyce, of the famous chancery law case of
thinking himself rejected, comes to an Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, and lives with him
untimely end. The most famous char- at Bleak House. Her unknown father,
acter in the book is the amusing Caleb the Captain, dies poor and neglected in
Balderstone, the devoted old steward of London. A veiled lady visits his grave
Ravenswood, who endeavors constantly at night; and this confirms a suspicion
to save the family honor and to conceal of Mr. Tulkinghorn, Sir Leicester Ded-
his master's poverty by ingenious devices lock's lawyer, already roused by an act of
and lies, and whose name has become Lady Dedlock. With the aid of a French
the symbol of “the constant service of maid he succeeds in unraveling the mys-
the antique world. Though sombre and tery, and determines to inform his friend
depressing, the Bride of Lammermoor) and client Sir Leicester of his wife's
is very popular; and the plot has been youthful misconduct. On the night before
used by Donizetti in the opera Lucia. ' this revelation is to be made, Mr. Tulk-
inghorn is murdered. Lady Dedlock is
Boris
oris Lensky, a German novel by Ossip suspected of the crime, disappears, and
Schubin, was published in an Eng- after long search is found by Esther and
glish translation in 1891. The story is a detective, lying dead at the gates of
centred in the career of a famous musi- the grave-yard where her lover is buried.
cian, whose name gives the title to the The story is told partly in the third .
book. A violinist of world-wide reputa- person, and partly as autobiography by
tion, a man to whom life has brought Esther. Among the other characters are
golden gifts, he is yet unhappy, as forever the irresponsible and impecunious Mr.
possessed with a craving for the unattain. Skimpole; Mrs. Jellyby, devoted to for-
able. The most unselfish love of his bar- eign missions; crazy Miss Flite; Grand-
ren life is for his beautiful daughter father Smallweed; Krook, the rag-and-
Mascha. Her downfall, when little more bottle dealer; Mr. Guppy, who explains
than a child, becomes a means of testing all his actions by the statement that
this love. Nita von Sankjévich, a woman
« There are chords in the human mind »);
whom Lensky had once sought to ruin, the odiously benevolent Mrs. Pardiggle;
comes to his rescue in Mascha's trouble, Mr. Turveydrop, the model of deport-
and procures the girl's marriage to her ment; Mr. Chadband, whose name has be-
false lover. The book closes with Len. come proverbial for a certain kind of
sky's death; when his son Nikolai, who loose-jointed pulpit exhortation; Caddy
had cherished a hopeless love for Nita, Jellyby, with inky fingers and spoiled
begins a new life of calm renunciation, temper,-- all of whom Dickens portrays in
free from the selfishness of passion.
his most humorous manner; and, among
The book is strong and realistic. The the most touching of his children of
depiction of the temperament of genius the slums, the pathetic figure of poor Jo,
is remarkably subtle and faithful. the crossing-sweeper, who don't know
nothink. ” The story is long and compli-
A novel by Charles cated; but its clever satire, its delightful
Dickens. (1853. ) One theme of this humor, and its ingrained pathos, make
story is the monstrous injustice and even it one of Dickens's most popular novels.
ruin that could be wrought by the No other has an equal canvas.
delays in the old Court of Chancery,
which defeated all the purposes of a
European Morals, History of, from Au.
court of justice; but the romance proper gustus to Charlemagne, by W. E. H.
is unconnected with this.
The scene Lecky, 1869. An elaborate examination,
is laid in England about the middle of
first of the several theories of ethics; then
this century.
Lady Dedlock, a beau-
of the moral history of Roman Paganism,
tiful society woman, successfully hides
under philosophies that successively flour-
a disgraceful secret. She has been en- ished, Stoical, Eclectic, and Egyptian;
gaged to a Captain Hawdon; but through
the changes in moral life introduced
circumstances beyond their control, they | by Christianity; and finally the position
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170
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
of woman in Europe under the influence
of Christianity. In tracing the action of
external circumstances upon morals, and
examining what moral types have been
proposed in different ages, to what degree
they have been realized in practice, and
by what causes they have been modified,
impaired, or destroyed, Mr. Lecky's dis-
cussion, with illustrations found in the
period of history covered, is singularly
instructive and not less interesting.
Familiar Studies of Men and Books,
by Robert Louis Stevenson, (1882,)
is a collection of essays, remarkable for
a certain youthful originality and dar-
ing in the expression of opinion. In
truth, the author writes, these are but
the readings of a literary vagrant. One
book led to another, one study to an-
other. The first was published with trep-
idation. Since no bones were broken,
the second was launched with greater
confidence. So, by insensible degrees, a
young man of our generation acquires
in his own eyes a kind of roving judi-
cial commission through the ages;
sets himself up to right the wrongs of
universal history and criticism. ”
This he does with his usual charm and
gentleness, but not without exercising
sturdy criticism, even at the risk of run-
ning full tilt against conventional opinion.
In the essay on Thoreau he boldly inti-
mates that the plain-living, high-think-
ing code of life, of which the Walden
recluse was an embodiment, may lead
a man dangerously near to the border-
land of priggishness. He challenges Walt
Whitman's relations with the Muse of
Poetry as illicit, but does full justice to
the honest brain and the sweet heart
back of the lumbering verse. For Villon,
poet and scamp, he has no praise and
little patience,- the scamp outweighing
the poet.
The other essays treat luminously and
with much power of suggestion, of Vic-
tor Hugo's romances, of Robert Burns,
of Yoshida-Tora Jiro, of Charles of
Orleans, of Samuel Pepys, and of John
Knox. The men he tries by the touch-
stone of his own manliness, the poets by
the happy spirit of romance that was
his. The book is altogether readable
and pleasant.
Ess
ssays in Criticism, by Matthew Ar-
nold. These essays are characterized
by all the vivacity to which the author
alludes with mock-serious repentance, as
having caused a wounding of solemn
sensibilities. They illustrate his famous
though not original term,- sweetness
and light. ” So delicate, though sure, was
his artistic taste, that some of his phrases
were incomprehensible to those whom he
classed with the Philistines. But the
essays were not so unpopular as he mod-
estly and perhaps despondently declared.
In collected form, the First Series in-
cludes: The Function of Criticism at the
Present Time,- a dignified defense of
literary criticism in its proper form and
place; The Literary Influence of Acade-
mies — like that in France of the Forty
Immortals — upon
national literatures;
an estimate, with translations from his
posthumous journal, of the French poet
Maurice de Guérin; a paper on Eugè-
nie de Guérin, « one of the rarest and
most beautiful of souls »); a paper on
Heine, revealing him less as the poet of
no special aim, than as Heine himself
had wished to be remembered, — "a brill-
iant, a most effective soldier, in the Liber-
ation War of humanity”; essays on Pagan
and Mediæval Sentiment; a Persian Pas-
sion Play; Joubert, a too little known
French genius, who published nothing in
his lifetime, but was influential during
the Reign of Terror and Napoleon's
supremacy; an essay on Spinoza and the
Bible; and last, a tribute to the Medi-
tations) of Marcus Aurelius, pointing out
that “the paramount virtue of religion
is that it lights up morality; that it has
supplied the emotion and inspiration
needful for carrying the sage along the
narrow way perfectly, for carrying the
ordinary man along it at all: » that that
which gives to the moral writings of the
Emperor Marcus Aurelius their peculiar
character and charm, is their being suf-
fused and softened by this very senti-
ment whence Christian morality draws its
best power. ” The Second Series opens
with a Study of Poetry, which draws a
clear though subtle line between what is
genuine and simple, and what does not
ring absolutely true in even the masters
of English verse. The rest are studies of
some of these masters in detail: Milton,
Gray, Keats, Wordsworth, and Shelley:
with an essay under the title (Count Leo
Tolstoy,' concerning the Russian novel
and its vogue in Western Europe, par-
ticularly Tolstoy's (Anna Karenina”;
and last, a well-balanced estimate of
Amiel's Journal,' showing its beauties
and faults impartially, with that judicial
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SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
171
fairness which, notwithstanding his native
warmth of temperament, prevails through
most of Matthew Arnold's critical writ-
ings.
»
minent Authors of the Nineteenth
Century, translated from the Dan-
ish of Brandes by Rasmus B. Anderson,
is a collection of nine critical essays,
literary portraits, from the German,
Danish, English, French, Swedish, and
Norwegian literatures. «In all of them,”
says the author, «the characteristics of
the individual are so chosen as to bring
out the most important features of the
author's life and works. ” In a close and
brilliant analysis, influenced by Taine's
method of reference to race, environment,
and moment, Brandes develops what was
most individual in the production of each.
His subjects are all men whose maturest
productions appeared during the middle
or earlier half of the century, and exer-
cised a formative influence upon modern
literature. He shows the German poet
Heyse abandoning traditional methods of
thought to follow the voice of instinct,"
and thus inaugurating the reign of indi-
viduality.
Hans Christian Andersen is the dis-
coverer of the child in Northern literature,
the man with the rare gift of viewing
nature with childlike eyes; John Stuart
Mill is the strong yet insular Englishman
with a matter-of-fact mind » which made
him intolerant of German mysticism, yet
wearing an invisible nimbus of exalted
love of truth”; Renan is the patient
philosopher, hater of the commonplace,
lover of the unfindable ideal, “a spectator
in the universe »; Tegnér is the human-
istic lyrist of the North; Flaubert the
painful seeker after perfection of form;
the Danish Paludan-Müller, a poet, who
with a satiric realization of earthly dis-
cords, clings to orthodox religious ideals;
Björnson, the poet-novelist of Norway, is
the cheerful practical patriot, loving and
serving his people in daily life; while
his fellow-countryman Henrik Ibsen is
the literary pathologist of the North, who
diagnoses social evils without attempting
to offer a remedy. The fact that they
were all modern in spirit, all longed to
express what is vital or of universal ap-
plication, has made their work as valu-
able to foreign readers as to their own
countrymen. Its local color and feeling
endeared it at home, and heightened its
charm abroad.
Rom
omances of the East (Nouvelles
Asiatiques'), by Count Joseph Ar-
thur de Gobineau. (1876. ) In both style
and matter, these stories are among the
gems of the world's literature: their pen-
etrating insight, their creative portrayal
of character, their calm irony, their ex-
quisite grace and charm of expression,
set them quite apart. The author was
a man at once of affairs, of the world,
and of letters, an acute thinker and close
observer, who applied a literary gift of
the first order to wide experience and
digested speculation. In these "Nou-
velles) he had a theory to uphold,- that
of the essential diversity of human na-
ture, in opposition to that of its essential
unity,— but it does not obtrude itself. He
was for several years French minister at
the court of the Shah of Persia; and in-
stead of embodying his views of Ori-
ental character in the form of essays, he
conceives a set of characters displaying
their racial traits in action. The first of
the stories is “The Dancing Girl of Sha-
makha”; a study in the racial traits of
the Lesghians of the Caucasus, with
side-lights on Russian frontier life, the
slave-trade, and other things. Next fol-
lows (The History of Gamber-Aly,' illus:
trating the unstable, volatile, fanciful
Persian character, at the mercy of every
passing gust of emotion and wholly
given over to it while it lasts. Third
and grimmest of all is “The War
against the Turkomans); the
same
theme continued, but with special ref-
to the utter corruption of the
governmental fabric, based wholly on
personal influence, with neither public
spirit
ordinary forecasting
common-sense. Both these shed a flood
of light on Persian social life; a signifi-
cant feature, as also in the next, is the
supreme power of the women in it, exer-
cised with as little conscience as the
men exercise their public functions — nat-
urally. The impression left would be
most depressing and rather cynical, were
it not that in the last two he gives with
fairness another and nobler side of the
Oriental nature. (The Illustrious Magi-
cian) shows the passionate longing of
the Eastern mind for the ultimate truths
of the universe and of God, its belief
that the crucifixion of sense and steady
contemplation by the soul can attain to
those primal secrets, and its willingness
price for knowledge. The
final story, of great tragic force but
erence
nor
even
pay th


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172
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
unbelief. In the portraiture of the differ-
ing camps there are no sharp contrasts,
no unfair caricaturing, but an impartial-
ity, a blending of one into the other,
that makes one of the strongest claims
of the book to attention.
sweet and uplifting, is of Afghan life,-
(The Lovers of Kandahar. '
Le etters to His Son, by Philip Dor-
mer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield.
(1774. ) These letters were not written
for publication, but were intended by
Chesterfield to aid in training his son
and forming his character; and were
first given to the public after the Earl's
death. They are characterized by a mix-
ture of frivolity and seriousness, justness
and lightness. Begun when the boy was
but seven years old, the earlier ones
are filled with rudimentary instruction
regarding history, mythology, and the
use of good language; later follows what
has been called “a charming course of
worldly education, in which mingle
philosophical truths, political sophistries,
petty details regarding wearing apparel,
and so on. Almost every page contains
some happy observation or clever pre-
cept worthy to be remembered. Chester-
field endeavors to unite in his son the
best qualities of the French and Eng-
lish nations; and provides him with a
learned Englishman every morning, and
a French teacher every afternoon, and
above all, the help of the fashionable
world and good society. ” In the letters
the useful and the agreeable are evenly
blended. “Do not tell all, but do not
tell a lie. The greatest fools are the
greatest liars. For my part, I judge of
the truth of a man by the extent of his
intellect. » «Knowledge may give weight,
but accomplishments only give lustre;
and many more people see, than weigh. ”
«Most arts require long study and ap-
plication; but the most useful art of all,
that of pleasing requires only the de-
sire. ” The letters show evidences of the
lax morality of the times; but are
markable for choice of imagery, taste,
urbanity, and graceful irony.
Child
uildren of the World, by Paul Heyse,
published in 1873, obtained immedi-
ate popularity, and caused great contro-
versy over the fearless treatment of the
theme. The children of the world are
represented by a young doctor of philos-
ophy, a strong, well-balanced character;
his younger brother, an almost Christlike
idealist; and their circle of friends and
fellow-students, who, in spite of mistakes
and eccentricities, bear the stamp of true
nobility of soul. They are all either on
the road to, or have already reached, what
the children of God are pleased to call
Nathan the Wise, by, Gotthold Eph-
In this book we see
embodied Lessing's ideal of the theatre
as the pulpit of humanity. The theme
is the search for truth under all creeds,
the protest of natural kinship against
the artificial distinctions and divisions of
mankind on religious grounds, and the
elevation of neighborly love to the high-
est place in the Divine favor. The
play is called A Dramatic Poem in Five
Acts. ' The scene is in Jerusalem. The
plot turns upon the fortunes of a cer-
tain Christian knight in wooing for his
bride Recha, the supposed child of the
Jew Nathan. He had saved her life in
a conflagration, and the Jew in grati-
tude assents to the knight's suit; know-
ing, as the knight does not know, that
his ward is a baptized Christian child.
The Patriarch; learning of the Jew's
concealment of Recha's Christian origin,
and of her attachment to Nathan and
his faith, is ready to have the Jew com-
mitted to the flames for this crime
against religion. The matter is brought
before the Sultan Saladin for adjust-
ment; and the moral of the drama is
focused in the beautiful story related
by the Jew to Saladin, of The Father
and his Ring. ) A father had a certain
very precious ring, which on dying he
bequeathed to his favorite son, with the
instruction that he should do likewise,
— that so the ring should be owned in
each generation by the most beloved
At length the ring comes into the
possession of a father who has three
equally beloved sons, and he knows not
to which to leave it. Calling a jeweler,
he has two other rings made in such
exact imitation of the original one that
no one could tell the difference, and at
his death these three rings are owned
by the three brothers. But a dispute
very soon arises, leading to the bitterest
hostilities between the brothers, over the
question which of the rings is the first
and genuine one; and a wise judge is
called in to settle the controversy. See-
ing that the rings only breed hatred
instead of love, he suggest that the
father may have destroyed the true one
re-
son.


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SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
173
and given them all only imitations; but religious and political reaction which fol.
if this be not so, let each one of the lowed the death of Napoleon I. , that Man-
brothers vindicate the father's honor by zoni — who had already become famous
showing that the ring he owns has truly through his (Sacred Hymns, and his tra-
the power of attracting not the hatred gedies the Adelchi) and (Carmagnola,
but the love of others. The magna- both relating to remote periods of the
nimity and justice of the Sultan suggest past — now produced a colossal romance
that he is the judge prefigured in the which combined in one narrative a com-
legend; but the moral of the play points plete picture of Italian life. The scene of
to the one Divine Arbiter, who alone the story is laid within the country around
can read the motives and know the true Milan, and the plot concerns only the
deserts of men, and declare who is the troubled and impeded but at last happily
possessor of the father's ring.
liberated course of true love between the
The play was performed in Berlin two humble peasant Renzo and his already
years after the author's death, and was betrothed Lucia, the village maiden for
coolly received; but it was brought out whom Don Rodrigo, the chief of a band
with success by Goethe and Schiller in of outlaws, has laid his snares. On this
Weimar in 1801, and has long since simple scheme the author manages to
taken its place among the classics of introduce a graphic picture of the Italian
German literature.
robber-baron life, as represented by the
outlawed but law-defying Don Rodrigo
Elective Affinities, by Goethe, was pub- and his retainers; of various phases of the
1809.
clerical and monastic life, as represented
principal characters: Edward, a wealthy | by the craven village curate Abbondio,
nobleman, and his wife Charlotte; her the heroic priest Cristoforo, and the gen-
niece Ottilie; and a friend of Edward, tle and magnanimous Cardinal Borromeo;
known as the Captain. These four being of a devastating plague in an its terrors
together at Edward's country-seat, Ottilie and demoralizing power, as witnessed by
falls in love with Edward, Charlotte with the lover in searching the great city and
the Captain. The wife, however, remains the lazaretto for his beloved; of the
faithful to her husband; but Ottilie yields «monatti,” the horrible band of buriers
to her passion, expiating her sin only with of the dead; of the calming and restor-
her death. The tragedy of the book ing influence of the Church in bringing
seems designed to show that “elective order out of tumult, the wicked to pun-
affinities » may be fraught with danger ishment and virtue to its reward. The
and sorrow; that duty may have even a story is like a heritage of Boccaccio, De-
higher claim than the claim of the soul. foe, and Walter Scott, in a single superb
The novel is throughout of the highest panorama of which Salvator Rosa might
interest in the delineation of character have been the painter. The religious mo-
and of the effects of passion.
tive of the book is sincere but not exag-
gerated, and never runs to fanaticism.
Betrothed, The, by Alessandro Man- Its original publication was in three vol-
zoni. — (I Promessi Sposi. A Milan- umes, and occupied two years, 1825–26,
ese Story of the 17th Century. Discov- during which time it awakened a wide
ered and Retold by Alessandro Manzoni. interest in European circles; and having
Milan, 1825–26. Paris, 1827,' is the title of been soon translated into all modern lan-
a book which, the author's only romance, guages, it has become probably the best
sufficed to place him at the head of the known of all Italian romances to foreign
romantic school of literature in Europe. readers.
The purity and nobility of his life and
thien spiel fita cotone of his wisiting make Letters to an unknowned by a fperos pais
the companion of compatriot
, was published
Mazzini in morals and politics. He wrote death, in 1873, under the editorship of
little, but all was from his heart and be- Taine. The Inconnue was Mademoiselle
spoke the real man. Skeptical in early | Jenny Dacquin, the daughter of a
life, and marrying a Protestant woman, she tary of Boulogne, whose friendship with
in restoring him to the Christian church Mérimée extended over nearly forty
herself became Roman Catholic, and their years. For some time after the publica-
union was one of both heart and faith. It tion of the letters her identity remained
was under these influences, and amid the
a mystery to the public, as it had been
no-


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174
SYNOPSES OF NOTED BOOKS
a
a
She pre-
to Mérimée during the first nine years
of their correspondence.
The letters have double value.
They throw ght upon two complex
types of modern character. They re-
cord subjective impressions of contem-
porary persons and events — impressions
all the more valuable because of the rare
individuality that received them. They
reveal a man whose intellect was not in
league with his heart; who was as fear-
ful of the trickery of the emotions as
the English are of (scenes); a man of
the world who had a secret liking for
other-worldliness; a cynic who made his
cynicism a veil for tenderness,
The woman is a more elusive person-
ality. She knew the power of mystery,
of silence, of contradiction.
ferred to keep friendship by careless-
ness, than to lose it by intensity. The
letters begin before 1842, and continue
until Mérimée's death in 1870. They
touch lightly and surely upon every
event of importance in political, literary,
and social circles. Many are written
from Paris, many from Cannes; some
from London; some from the Château
de Fontainebleau. They mention every-
body, everything, yet in a spirit of de-
tachment, of indifference, sometimes of
weariness and irony: -«Bulwer's novel
(What will He Do with It? ) appears to
me senile to the last degree; neverthe-
less it contains some pretty scenes, and
has a very good moral. As to the hero
and heroine, they transcend in silliness
the limits of romance. ” « The latest, but
a colossal bore, has been Tannhäuser. '
The fact is, it is prodigious. I
am convinced that I could write some-
thing similar if inspired by the scam-
pering of my cat over the piano keys.
Beneath Madame de Metternich's
box it was said by the wits that the
Austrians were taking their revenge for
Solferino. These extracts fairly illus-
trate the keen observation and good say-
ings of the Letters. )
a brigand or a philanthropist depends
purely on chance, crime and virtue being
mere accidents.