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THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1TCWYORK   •    BOSTON  *  CHICAGO  •    1'ALLAS 
ATLANTA  *  SAN 

MACMILLAN  &  CO. 

LONDON  <  BOMBAY  ' 
UK  L BOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO,  OP  CANADA,  LT&, 

TORONTO 


^* 

-.     * 

READER'S     DIGEST 

t  •»      4 

OF     BOOKS 


BY 

HELEN    REX    KELLER 

INSTRUCTOR    IN    LIBRARY    ECONOMY    AT    COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY 


flew 

THE   MACMIIXAN   COMPANY 
1924 

All  rights  reserved 


.  PRINTED  .Itf  TH»5,  VSITJ5B  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


Copyright,  1896,  by  R.  &  JVafc-  <wl  J,  A.  #i 

Copyright,  M®,  fy  /,  A.  ttiU 
Copyright,  MIS*  by  H  Wrr  Library  t  \vnpmy 
Copyright,  1917,  by  United  Rtato  PuMithrrt 
All  Right*  Rfirrxd 

Published  JttHwry,  / XV 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 


ABBE  CONSTAJSTTIN,  THE,  by  Ludovic  Hal<§vy.  The  great  estate  of  Longueval, 
consisting  of  the  castle  and  its  dependencies,  two  splendid  farms  and  a  forest,  is 
advertised  for  sale  by  auction.  The  Abbe*  Constantin,  a  generous,  genial,  self- 
sacrificing  priest,  who  has  been  thirty  years  the  cure"  of  the  little  villge,  is  disconso- 
late at  the  thought  that  all  his  associations  must  be  broken  up.  His  distress  is 
increased  when  he  learns  that  the  whole  property  has  been  bought  by  an  American 
millionaire.  He  is  about  to  sit  down  to  his  frugal  dinner  in  company  with  his  godson 
Lieutenant  Jean  Renaud,  the  orphaned  son  of  the  good  village  doctor,  when  his 
vicarage  is  invaded  by  two  ladies  who  have  just  arrived  by  train  from  Paris.  On 
their  arrival  the  plot  hinges;  simple  as  it  is,  it  has  a  great  charm,  and  the  style  is 
delightful.  It  sparkles  with  light  and  graceful  epigrams:  "The  Frenchman  has 
only  one  real  luxury  —  his  revolutions. "  "In  order  to  make  money  the  first  thing 
is  to  have  no  need  of  it. "  "It  is  only  the  kings  of  France  who  no  longer  live  in 
France."  "The  heart  is  very  little,  but  it  is  also  very  large;"  "Love  and  tran- 
quillity seldom  dwell  at  peace  in  the  same  heart."  First  published  in  1882,  it  has 
had  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  editions  and  still  enjoys  uninterrupted  popu- 
larity both  in  France  and  in  English-speaking  countries. 

ABBE  MOUKET'S  TRANSGRESSION,  THE,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

ABBOT,  THE,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  (1820).  A  sequel  to  'The  Monastery/  but 
dealing  with  more  stirring  and  elevated  situations  and  scenes.  The  time  of  the  action 
is  1567-68,  when  Shakespeare  was  a  boy  of  three,  and  Elizabeth  was  newly  estab- 
lished on  the  throne  of  England.  While  the  action  goes  on  partly  at  Avenel  Castle, 
and  Halbort  Glendinning  of  'The  Monastery/  as  well  as  his  brother  Edward  (now 
an  abbot),  figure  prominently  in  the  story,  the  reader  finds  that  he  has  exchanged  the 
humble  events  of  the  little  border  vale  by  Melrose  for  thrilling  and  romantic  ad- 
ventures at  Lochleven  Castle  on  its  island  in  the  lake,  north  of  Edinburgh,  where 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots  is  imprisoned;  and  in  place  of  the  braw  and  bonny  Scotch  of 
Tibb  and  Dame  Elapeth,  we  have  the  hearty  English  of  Adam  Woodcock  the  falconer, 
—  as  masterly  a  portrait  in  Scott's  gallery  as  Gurth,  Hal  o'  the  Wynd,  or  Dandie 
Dinmont*  The  chief  interest  centres  around  the  unfortunate  queen;  and  the  frame- 
work oC  the  tale  is  historically  true.  The  masterpiece  of  description  in  'The  Abbot ' 
is  the  signing  of  the  abdication  by  Mary  at  the  stern  insistence  of  the  commissioners 
Lindsay  and  Ruthven,  —  a  scene  made  famous  by  more  than  one  great  painting 
and  by  more  than  one  historian. 

ABSAI0M  AND  ACOTTOPHEL,  a  satirical  poem  in  heroic  couplets  by  John  Dryden, 
published  in  November,  i68t;  a  second  part  by  Dryden  and  Nahum  Tate  (1652- 
1715)  was  published  a  year  later*  The  poem  was  undertaken  by  Dryden  at  the 
request  of  Charles  II.  in  support  of  the  royal  party  against  the  machinations  of  the 


2          .  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Whigs.  Under  the  leadership  of  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  Earl  of  ShaftesMiry  1,1621-* 
1683),  they  were  attempting  to  exclude  the  king's  brother  James,  Duke  of  York, 
from  the  throne  on  the  ground  of  his  Roman  Catholicism  and  to  transfer  the  succcv 
sion  to  the  king's  illegitimate  son,  James,  Duke  of  Monmouth.  Their  cause  w...- 
advanced  by  a  skillful  use  of  the  discovery  of  an  alleged  'Popish  Plot'  to 
murder  the  king,  enthrone  his  brother,  and  suppress  Protestantism  ^K'^-S,.  For  a 
time  they  were  in  control  of  the  government  and  nearly  succeeded  in  excluding 
James  and  making  Monmouth  the  king's  heir.  But  a  reaction  set  in,  Charles  >!is- 
missed  Shaftesbury,  recalled  James,  and  rallied  the  Tories  about  him,  driving  Mon- 
mouth and  Shaftesbury  into  an  attitude  of  rebellion.  At  this  point  Dry  don  wn  ;tc  his 
'Absalom  and  Achitophel,'  skillfully  adapting  the  Biblical  narrative  of  Axiom's 
rebellion  against  King  David  to  the  political  situation.  Under  the  gitist1  of  the 
crafty  Achitophel,  Shaftesbury  plies  Monmouth,  who  appears  as  the  handsome  an»i 
popular  Absalom,  with  arguments  for  claiming  the  throne.  He  yields  to  the  u»tv,j-t;i- 
tion  and  begins  a  progress  through  the  kingdom,  corresponding  to  an  actual  progroi 
made  by  Monmouth  in  defiance  of  the  king's  orders  in  1680.  An  enumeration  of  the 
chief  supporters  of  Monmouth  and  of  the  king  under  the  thin  disguise  of  appropriate 
Hebrew  names  emphasizes  the  gravity  of  the  contest,  gives  new  opj>ort  \snit  y  at 
stating  the  principles  involved,  and  illustrates  Dryden's  skill  in  portraiture  and  in 
verse-argument.  Especially  vigorous  are  the  descriptions  of  Achitophel  (the*  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury),  Zimri  (the  Duke  of  Buckingham),  and  Corah  (Titus  Oate>>  The 
poem  ends  with  a  dignified  and  manly  speech  by  David  (Charles  IL)  asserting  hin 
prerogative  but  promising  forgiveness  if  Absalom  will  repent.  I>yden's  known 
contributions  of  the  second  part  are  confined  to  lines  310-509,  in  which  he  satirizes 
two  poets  of  the  opposite  party,  Doeg  (Elkanah  Settle,  1648-1724)  and  Og  ;Thonus 
Shadwell,  1642-1692,  already  pilloried  in  Dryden's  'Mac  Flecknoc/  October  4,  i68l>, 
As  a  writer  of  brilliant  satire  or  panegyric  and  as  a  vigorous  controversialist  Drydtm 
is  unsurpassed,  and  this  poem  is  a  fine  instance  of  his  power. 

ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT:  'A  Summer's  Journey  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the 
Mormons,  and  the  Pacific  States '  (May-September,  1865),  by  Samuel  Bowles  (1#6$). 
A  volume  of  newspaper  letters  and  supplementary  papers,  by  an  exceptionally  able 
journalist,  designed  to  give  to  Eastern  American  readers  an  account  of  thv  nature* 
the  material  resources,  and  the  social  and  industrial  development  of  the  vast  region 
between  the  Mississippi  River  and  the  Pacific  Ocean;  and  with  this  to  make-  revela* 
tions  and  raise  discussion  on  such  themes  as  the  Pacific  Railroad,  the  Morrwms,  and 
the  mines.  Bowles  spent  another  summer  vacation,  1869,  in  travel  and  exploration 
among  the  mountains  of  Colorado,  and  made  a  second  book  of  newsj>a|»er  letters  nn 
Colorado  as  'The  Switzerland  of  America.'  He  then  incorporated  the  two  sketch*;-* 
of  far  west  journeyings  in  what  was  designed  to  be  a  new  and  permanent  work.  The 
papers  were  carefully  revised,  amplified,  and  illustrated,  and  a  work  made  with  the 
title  'Our  New  West,'  1869,  in  which  the  author  attempted  to  convoy  some  true  idea 
of  the  condition  and  promise  of  the  western  half  of  the  continent.  Thoroughly 
well  executed,  Bowles's  narrative  of  natural  resources  and  of  industrial  developments 
remains  full  of  interest.  His  vigorous  style,  keen  insight,  unfailing  Ken«e  of  humor, 
and  judicial  mind  made  him  an  almost  unrivaled  observer  and  reporter. 

ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES  ('Actes  des  Ap6tres')  (9  vols.  1789-91),  a  sera*  of 

satirical  pamphlets  directed  against  the  French  Revolutionists,  by  Peltier,  who  «*» 
assisted  by  several  royalist  writers.  It  is  full  of  witty  attacks  on  the  leader*  of  the 
Revolution,  and  especially  on  the  framers  of  the  constitution  of  '89,  who  ar* 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  3 

sented  as  rope-dancers  performing  their  feats  on  a  very  thin  wire.  It  attacks  all 
new  ideas,  ridicules  reforms  of  every  kind,  and  boldly  defends  the  principles  of  the 
aristocracy. 

ADAM  is  a  dramatic  work  of  the  twelfth  century  by  an  unknown  author.  It  is 
written  in  French,  with  the  exception  of  the  responses  and  canticles,  which  are  in 
Latin;  and  it  derives  its  chief  importance  from  the  fact  that  it  is  the  oldest  drama  in 
the  language.  It  gives  the  history  of  the  fall  of  Adam  and  the  murder  of  Abel, 
followed  by  a  procession  of  all  the  prophets  who  foretold  the  coming  of  the  Messiah. 
The  piece  was  played  on  the  public  square  in  front  of  the  church.  The  platform 
upon  whirh  it  was  represented  must  have  been  backed  against  the  portal;  for  in  the 
stage  directions,  the  actor  who  takes  the  part  of  God  is  told  to  return  at  once  to  the 
church,  whenever  he  leaves  the  stage.  Some  of  the  scenes  are  managed  with  con- 
siderable skill;  and  there  is  a  good  deal  of  clever  character-drawing  and  vigorous 
dialogue.  The  scene  where  the  serpent  tempts  Eve  is  especially  noteworthy  for  its 
simplicity  and  animation. 

ADAM  BEDE,  the  earliest  of  George  Eliot's  novels,  was  published  in  1859,  as  "by 
the  author  of  'Scenes  of  Clerical  Life.' "  The  story  was  at  once  pronounced  by  the 
critics  to  be  not  more  remarkable  for  its  grace,  its  unaffected  Saxon  style,  and  its 
charm  of  naturalness,  than  for  its  perception  of  those  universal  springs  of  action  that 
control  society,  and  for  that  patient  development  of  character  and  destiny  that 
inferior  novelists  slight  or  ignore.  The  chief  scene  is  the  Poyser  farm  in  the  Mid- 
lands, a  delightful  place  of  shining  kitchens,  sweet-smelling  dairy-houses,  cool  green 
porches,  wide  barns,  and  spreading  woods.  Here  Mrs.  Poyser,  a  kind-hearted  woman 
with  an  incorrigibly  sharp  tongue,  has  taken  her  husband's  niece,  Hester  Sorrel, — 
an  ambitious,  vain,  empty-headed  little  beauty, — to  bring  up.  Adam  Bede,  the 
village  carpenter,  an  admirable  young  fellow,  is  her  slave. 

A  skeleton  of  the  plot  would  convey  no  impression  of  the  strength  and  charm 
of  the  story.  It  seems  to  have  been,  in  the  author's  mind,  a  recognition  of  the  hero- 
ism of  commonplace  natures  in  commonplace  surroundings,  of  the  nobility  of  noble 
character  wherever  found.  But  Adam  Bedc,  intelligent,  excellent,  satisfactory 
though  he  is,  is  quite  sulx>rdinated  in  interest  to  the  figure  of  poor  Hetty,  made 
tragic  through  suffering  and  injustice.  Her  beauty,  her  vanity,  her  very  silliness, 
cndeur  her.  Dinah  Morris,  the  woman  preacher,  is  a  study  from  life,  serene  and 
lovely.  Mr.  I r wine,  the  easy-going  old  parson,  is  a  typical  English  clergyman  of  the 
early  nineteenth  century;  IJartle  Massey,  the  schoolmaster,  is  one  of  those  humble 
folk,  full  of  character,  foibles,  absurdities,  and  homely  wisdom,  whom  George  Eliot 
draw?;  with  loving  touches;  while  Mrs.  Poysor,  with  her  epigrammatic  shrewdness, 
her  untiring  energy,  her  fine  pride  of  respectability,  her  acerbity  of  speech,  and  her 
charity  of  heart*  belongs  to  the  company  of  the  Immortals. 

ADAM  BLAIR,  by  John  Gibson  Lockhart,  Seott's  son-in-law,  who  wrote  the  famous 
Life  of  Sir  Wrtltcr,  is  a  Scotch  story  of  rural  life  in  the  last  century.  It  gives  inti- 
mnte  descriptions  of  native  manners,  and  has  tragic  power  in  the  portrayal  of  the 
human  heart.  Thi«  novel,  the  lxj«t  of  the  three  written  by  Loekhart,  was  published 
in  i£tf,  the  full  title  being  'Some  Passages  in  the  Life  of  Mr,  Adam  Blair,  Minister 
of  the  Gospel  at  Crostt-Meikle.' 

ADMIRABLE  CIUCHTOir,  THE,  by  Sir  J.  M.  Barrie  (1902).  The  Earl  of  Loam, 
a,  widower  and  a  believer  in  the  equality  of  man,  gives  practical  shape  to  his  ideas  by 
insisting  that  his  daughters  should  receive  the  servants  at  monthly  teas,  an  arrange- 


4  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ment  heartily  disliked  by  both  the  young  ladies  and  the  servants.  In  a  monthly 
address  to  the  servants  Lord  Loam  expresses  a  wish  that  the  artificial  barriers  of 
society  could  be  swept  away  and  announces  that  in  less  than  forty-eight  hours  he 
and  his  daughters  will  start  on  a  voyage  to  distant  parts  of  the  world,  and  in  order  to 
show  active  opposition  to  the  prevailing  luxury  of  the  day,  he  has  decided  to  allow 
the  three  daughters  only  one  maid  among  them.  Crichton,  the  butler,  whose  ideal 
is  a  haughty,  aristocratic  English  house,  with  everyone  kept  in  his  place,  and  who 
says  that  servants  like  disdain  from  their  superiors,  at  first  refuses  to  go,  but  is 
afterwards  persuaded  to  go  in  the  capacity  of  valet  to  Lord  Loam.  After  a  voyage 
of  two  months  the  yacht  is  wrecked  on  a  desert  island,  where  there  is  an  opportunity 
of  putting  theories  of  equality  to  the  test.  In  a  short  space  of  time  Crichton,  who 
thinks  there  must  always  be  "one  to  command  and  others  to  obey,"  becomes  vir- 
tually the  master.  Lady  Mary,  the  least  docile  of  the  Earl's  three  daughters,  be- 
comes his  fiancee.  A  ship  comes  to  the  island,  and  all  leave  Crichton  except  Lady 
Mary,  who  says  she  will  never  give  him  up.  On  the  return  to  England  to  their 
former  set,  Crichton  informs  Lady  Brocklehurst,  whose  son  is  engaged  to  Lady  Mary, 
that  on  the  island  there  was  as  little  equality  as  elsewhere,  that  all  the  social  distinc- 
tions were  preserved,  and  the  servants  had  to  keep  their  place. 

ADOLESCENCE,  'its  psychology,  and  its  relations  to  physiology,  anthropology  f 
sociology,  sex,  crime,  religion,  and  education,'  a  monumental  psychological  and 
sociological  treatise  by  G.  Stanley  Hall,  was  published  in  1904.  The  first  three 
chapters  are  devoted  to  the  general  physical  changes  of  adolescence,  chapters  four 
and  five  to  its  diseases  and  crimes,  chapters  six  and  seven  to  sexual  changes  and 
perils,  and  the  eighth  to  the  records  of  adolescence  in  literature  and  autobiography. 
The  remaining  chapters,  which  constitute  the  second  volume,  are  occupied  with  the 
genetic  psychology  of  adolescence,  "  beginning  with  sensation  and  proceeding  to 
feelings,  will,  and  intellect."  The  new  susceptibility  of  the  senses,  the  development 
of  love,  and  of  the  sentiment  of  nature,  the  psychology  of  conversion,  the  rise  of 
social  instincts,  and  the  characteristics  of  adolescent  intellect  form  the  principal 
topics  discussed  in  this  volume.  Abundant  illustrative  detail,  thorough  grasp  of 
physiological,  psychological,  and  sociological  principles,  sympathetic  entrance  into 
,the  troubles  and  enthusiasms  of  youth,  and  wise  suggestions  for  its  direction  and 
education  are  some  of  the  merits  of  this  valuable  book. 

ADOLPHE,  a  romance  by  Benjamin  Constant  (1816).  The  story  has  very  little 
incident  or  action.  The  whole  plot  may  be  summed  up  in  a  few  words:  Adolphe 
loves  Ele*onore,  and  can  be  happy  neither  with  her  nor  without  her.  The  beauty  of 
the  author's  style  and  the  keenness  and  delicacy  with  which  he  analyzes  certain 
morbid  moods  of  the  soul  have  placed  this  work  among  the  masterpieces  of  French 
literature.  The  romance  is  almost  universally  believed  to  be  an  autobiography,  in 
'which  Constant  narrates  a  portion  of  the  adventures  of  his  own  youth. 

ADRIENNE  LECOUVRETO,  a  play  by  Scribe  and  Ugouve*,  which  first  appeared 
in  1849,  possesses  witty  dialogue  and  strong  dramatic  situations.  The  scene  is 
laid  in  Paris,  in  March,  1730.  Maurice,  Count  de  Saxe,  a  former  admirer  of  the 
Princess  de  Bouillon,  now  loves  and  is  loved  by  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  a  beautiful 
actress  of  the  Come*die  Franchise;  who,  not  knowing  his  real  name  and  rank,  believes 
him  a  poor  soldier  of  fortune.  Though  the  action  resulting  from  this  mistake  occu- 
-pies  the  space  of  two  days  only,  it  is  very  complicated;  yet  the  unity  of  the  play  is 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  7 

meets  the  beautiful  Theagenes,  and  after  innumerable  adventures,  marries  him.  The 
pair  live  happily  for  a  while,  and  then  encounter  dangers  of  the  most  varied  character. 
They  are  about  to  be  killed,  when  Chariclea  is  recognked  and  restored  to  her  proper 
station.  This  interminable  romance  enjoyed  a  great  reputation  from  the  Renais- 
sance down  to  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

AFFECTED  LADIES,  THE,  see  PRECIEUSES  RIDICULES. 

AFTER  THE  PARDON  ('Dopo  il  Perdone '),  by  Mathilde  Serao  (1906).  In  this 
romance,  Donna  Maria,  who  has  left  her  husband  for  her  lover,  returns  home  after 
three  years'  absence.  Her  husband,  realizing  that  the  fault  was  his  in  part,  desires 
her  return,  and  offers  her  his  pardon.  The  great  passion  of  her  life,  "  beyond  all  laws 
and  duties,"  is  over,  and  she  wishes  only  to  atone  to  her  husband  for  his  suffering 
by  devoting  herself  to  his  happiness.  She  advises  her  lover,  Count  Marco,  to  marry 
the  betrothed  he  had  deserted  for  her  sake.  The  second  part  of  the  book  is  the 
story  of  their  failure  to  escape  from  the  past.  Count  Marco  fails  to  make  his  young 
bride  happy,  because  she  is  jealous  of  his  past,  and  refuses  to  be  content  with  the 
fond  affection  he  offers  her.  Donna  Maria's  husband,  also,  is  unwilling  to  accept 
less  than  his  wife  has  given  to  another.  His  love  is  jealousy  and  suspicion,  and  the 
pardon,  becomes  a  tragic  farce  of  daily  accusation  and  condemnation.  He  wishes 
Donna  Maria  had  never  returned.  Traveling  alone  in  Switzerland,  Donna  Maria 
meets  Count  Marco,  whose  wife's  coldness  has  driven  him  from  her.  They  have 
learned  that  they  can  never  bring  happiness  to  the  two  they  have  wronged,  who 
desire  the  impossible.  United  by  the  memory  of  their  dead  love,  they  are  still  dear 
td  each  other,  and  decide  it  is  their  destiny  to  spend  the  rest  of  their  lives  together 
since  their  only  happiness  is  the  remembrance  of  the  happiness  they  have  lost. 

AFTERMATH,  see  KENTUCKY  CARDINAL. 

AGAMEMNON,  a  tragedy  by  ^Eschylus,  setting  forth  the  theme  of  retribution  with 
a  dramatic  power,  a  depth  of 'religious  insight,  and  a  splendor  of  diction  unequaled  in 
Greek  literature.  The  play  is  the  first  of  a  trilogy,  which  includes ' The  Choe>phorae' and 
'  The  Suppliants  '  and  which  is  concerned  with  the  purging  of  the  ancestral  guilt  of  the 
house  of  Atreus,  Because  of  the  crime  of  that  king  in  feeding  his  brother,  Thyestes, 
with  the  flesh  of  his  own  children,  destiny  has  involved  Agamemnon,  the  son  of 
Atreus,  in  another  crime.  He  has  sacrificed  his  daughter,  Iphigenia,  in  order  to 
obtain  favorable  winds  for  the  Greek  expedition  to  Troy.  As  a  vengeance  upon  her 
husband  for  this  cruelty,  his  wife,  Clytsemnestra,  becomes  the  paramour  of  ^Egistheus, 
the  son  of  Thyestes,  and  plans  to  murder  Agamemnon  upon  his  return. 

The  situations  in  this  play  are  exceptionally  striking.  The  lonely  figure  of  the 
watchman  on  the  palace  roof  in  the  opening  scene,  waiting  for  the  beacon  light  that 
shall  announce  the  fall  of  Troy,  and  muttering  that  all  is  not  well  at  home,  creates 
expectancy  and  suggests  trouble.  Qytaemnestra's  jubilant  description  of  the  fires 
that  carried  the  news  from  height  to  height  until  it  reached  the  palace  at  Argos  is  one 
of  the  most  stirring  speeches  in  literature,  and  is  significant  of  her  forceful,  dominating 
character*  She  is  magnificent  in  the  calm  assumption  of  wifely  fidelity  with  which 
she  welcomes  home  Agamemnon  and  the  conquering  blandishments  by  which  she 
induces  him  to  commit  the  irreverence  of  walking  into  the  palace,  on  purple  embroider- 
ies sacred  to  the  gods  in  order  that  he  may  be  in  their  eyes  a  fitter  subject  for,  her 
vengeance.  Greatest  of  all,  however,  is  the  scene  in  which  Cassandra,  Agamem- 
non's captive,  left  in  the  courtyard  with  the  chorus,  recognizes  by  her  prophetic  gift 


8  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  divine  vengeance  that  broods  upon  the  palace,  and  in  shuddering  outbursts  of 
horror  foretells  Agamemnon's  murder  and  her  own  sacrifice  to  the  jealousy  of  Cly- 
taemnestra.  Then  immediately  follows  the  deep  groan  of  Agamemnon,  smitten  by 
Clytaemnestra  in  his  bath  behind  the  scene. 

The  chorus  in  this  play,  consisting  of  old  counselors  of  Argos,  is  of  unusual  im- 
portance. Not  only  are  the  choric  odes  weighted  with  thoughts,  rich  in  poetic 
expression,  and  intensely  significant  in  their  references  to  divine  retribution,  but  in 
the  more  purely  dramatic  scenes,  especially  at  the  close,  the  chorus,  through  its 
leader,  takes  a  resolute  part  in  the  action,  denouncing  the  crime  of  Clytsemnestra, 
and  the  compliance  of  ^gistheus,  who  now  accepts  the  kingship,  and  prophesying 
that  vengeance  will  be  taken  by  Agamemnon's  absent  son,  Orestes,  whose  name 
points  the  way  to  the  other  plays  of  the  trilogy. 

AGE  OF  CHIVALRY,  THE,  or,  THE  LEGENDS  OF  KING  ARTHUR,  by  Thomas  Bui- 
finch,  was  published  in  1858.  More  than  twenty  years  after,  an  enlarged  edition 
appeared  under  the  editorship  of  Edward  Everett  Hale.  In  Part  First,  the  legends 
of  King  Arthur  and  his  knights  are  considered.  Part  Second  deals  with  the  Ma- 
binogion,  or  ancient  prose  tales  of  the  Welsh;  Part  Third  with  the  knights  of  English 
history,  King  Richard,  Robin  Hood,  and  the  Black  Prince.  From  the  time  of  its 
first  publication  the  popularity  of  the  book  has  been  great.  No  more  sympathetic 
and  fitting  introduction  could  be  found  to  the  legends  of  chivalry.  The  book  is 
written  in  a  youthful  spirit  that  commends  it  to  the  young. 

AGE  OF  FABLE,  TBOS,  or,  THE  BEAUTIES  OF  MYTHOLOGY,  by  Thomas  Bulfinch, 
was  published  in  1855,  and  republished  in  1882  under  the  editorship  of  Edward 
Everett  Hale.  It  has  become  a  standard  work  upon  mythology,  by  reason  of  its 
full  and  extensive  yet  delicate  treatment  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  myths.  While 
especially  adapted  for  young  people,  it  possesses  qualities  which  commend  it  alike 
to  the  scholar  and  to  the  general  reader. 

AGE  OF  REASON,  THE,  by  Thomas  Paine,  was  first  published  in  a  complete  edition 
on  October  25th,  1795.  IB  I793  the  First  Part  appeared,  but  no  copy  bearing  that 
date  can  be  found.  When  it  went  to  press  the  author  was  in  prison,  in  France, 
having  been  arrested  almost  at  the  hour  of  its  completion.  Referring  to  this  in  the 
preface  to  the  Second  Part,  he  writes:  "Conceiving  .  .  .  that  I  had  but  a  few  days 
of  liberty,  I  sat  down  and  brought  the  work  to  a  close  as  speedily  as  possible;  and  I 
had  not  finished  it  more  than  six  hours,  in  the  state  it  has  since  appeared,  before  a 
guard  came  there  about  three  in  the  morning,  with  an  order  signed  by  the  two 
committees  of  Public  Safety  and  Surety  General  for  putting  me  in  arrestation  as  a 
foreigner,  and  conveying  me  to  the  prison  of  the  Luxembourg.  I  contrived  on  my 
way  there  to  call  on  Joel  Barlow,  and  I  put  the  manuscript  of  the  work  into  his 
hands,  as  more  safe  than  in  my  possession  in  prison;  and  not  knowing  what  might 
be  the  fate  in  France  either  of 'the  writer  or  the  work,  I  addressed  it  to  the  protection 
of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States."  His  motive  in  writing  the  boo"!:  is  thus  set 
forth  in  the  first  chapter:  "It  has  been  my  intention,  for  several  years  past,  to 
publish  my  thoughts  upon  religion;  .  .  .  the  circumstance  that  has  now  taken  place 
in  France  of  the  total  abolition  of  the  whole  national  order  of  priesthood,  and  of 
everything  appertaining  to  compulsive  systems  of  religion,  and  compulsive  articles 
of  faith,  has  not  only  precipitated  my  intention,  but  rendered  a  work  of  this  land 
exceedingly  necessary,  lest,  in  the  general  wreck  of  superstition,  of  false  systems  of 
government  and  false  theology,  we  lose  sight  of  morality,  of  humanity,  and  of  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  9 

theology  that  is  true."  He  goes  on  to  state  his  creed,  his  belief  in  one  God,  in  the 
future  life,  in  the  equality  of  man,  and  in  the  duty  of  benevolence.  Part  First 
consists  of  an  inquiry  into  the  bases  of  Christianity,  its  theology,  its  miracles,  its 
claims  of  revelation.  The  process  is  destructive  and  revolutionary.  In  Part  Second, 
the  author  makes  critical  examination  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  to  support 
the  conclusions  and  inferences  of  Part  First.  Yet  the  work  is  not  wholly  negative. 
"The  Word  of  God  is  the  creation  we  behold."  Lanthenas's  French  rendering  of 
Part  First  contains  this  remarkable  reference  to  Jesus,  found  presumably  in  the  lost 
original  version:  "Trop  peu  ixnite1,  trop  oubli^,  trop  m<Sconnu." 

AGNES  GREY,  Anne  Bronte's  first  novel,  was  published  in  December,  1847,  a  year 
and  a  half  before  her  death,  when  she  was  twenty-seven  years  old.  Her  talents  were  of 
the  moonlight  order.  The  book  is  but  a  pale  reflection  of  the  brilliant  Bronte*  genius. 
The  heroine,  Agnes  Grey,  the  daughter  of  a  clergyman  in  the  North  of  England, 
becomes,  through  reverses  of  fortune,  a  governess.  Her  experiences  are  those  of 
Anne  Bronte  herself,  the  unpleasant  side  of  such  a  position  being  set  forth.  The 
book,  however,  ends  happily  in  the  marriage  of  Agnes  to  a  clergyman.  Although  well 
written,  it  lacks  the  elements  of  strength  and  warmth.  It  lives  by  the  name  of  the 
author  rather  than  by  its  intrinsic  merit. 

AGNES  OF  SORRENTO,  a  romance  by  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  (1862).  The  scene 
is  laid  in  central  Italy  during  the  time  of  the  infamous  Pope  Alexander  VI.  (from 
1492  to  1503).  Agnes  is  the  daughter  of  a  Roman  prince  who  secretly  marries,  and 
then  deserts,  a  girl  of  humble  parentage.  The  young  mother  dies  of  grief,  and  Elsie, 
the  grandmother,  takes  Agnes  to  Sorrento,  where  she  lives  by  selling  oranges  in  the 
streets.  Her  beauty  and  her  purity  attract  to  her  many  lovers,  worthy  and  un- 
worthy, and  involve  her  in  many  romantic  and  dramatic  incidents.  The  story  is 
delightfully  told,  the  Italian  atmosphere  is  well  suggested,  and  the  book,  though  not 
Mrs.  Stowe's  best,  takes  good  literary  rank. 

AGRICULTURE  ('De  Re  Rustica'),  by  Columella  in  the  first  century.  It  consists 
of  twelve  books,  of  which  the  tenth  is  in  verse  and  devoted  to  gardens.  The  work  is 
preceded  by  an  introduction,  in  which  the  author  deplores  the  contempt  into  which 
agriculture  has  fallen.  He  sees  on  all  sides  schools  open  to  teach  rhetoric,  dancing, 
and  music.  Even  mountebanks,  cooks,  and  barbers  are  fashionable,  and  infamous 
houses  in  which  gambling  and  all  sorts  of  vices  that  ruin  youth  are  patronized;  while 
for  the  art  of  fertilizing  the  earth  there  are  neither  masters  nor  pupils,  neither  justice 
nor  protection.  The  author  begins  with  general  views  on  agriculture  and  rural 
economy,  and  concludes  with  a  sort  of  agricultural  calendar,  in  which  he  points  out 
the  labors  to  be  performed  according  to  the  order  of  the  seasons.  The  work  is  much 
consulted  by  scholars,  who  find  in  it  many  valuable  details  on  important  points  of 
Roman  civilization.  The  style  has  all  the  purity  of  the  Augustan  age. 

AGRICULTURE  ('L' Agriculture'),  a  French  translation  by  Clement  Mullet  of  the 
Book  of  Ibn-el-Awam,  written  in  Arabic,  in  the  twelfth  century.  Besides  preserving 
a  multitude  of  quotations  from  lost  Latin  and  Greek  authors,  it  gives  very  interesting 
details  of  the  life  and  domestic  economy  of  the  Arabs  in  Spain.  It  enters  fully  into 
the  administration  of  rural  property,  the  interior  life  of  the  household,  the  treatment 
of  workmen,  and  the  position  of  the  wife.  The  author  discusses  everything  con- 
nected with  agriculture;  but  is  especially  instructive  on  aromatic  plants,  and  the 
different  methods  of  distilling  perfumes  from  them.  We  have  also  an  account  of 
the  superstitions  that  prevailed  among  the  Moors  of  the  period  in  the  rural  districts. 


io  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

AGRICULTURE  ('L' Agriculture'),  a  didactic  poem  by  Rosset  (1774-82).  It  is 
remarkable  as  being  the  first  georgic  poem  in  the  French  language.  The  subjects 
dwelt  on  are  fields,  vineyards,  woods,  meadows,  plants,  kitchen-gardens,  ponds,  and 
English  gardens.  While  it  contains  some  very  fine  descriptive  passages,  the  work  on 
the  whole  is  cold  and  monotonous. 

AGRICULTURE  ('Agricultural,  by  Terentius  Varro  (116-27  B.C.).  The  best 
work  on  this  subject  that  has  come  down  from  the  ancients.  It  is  divided  into  three 
books,  preceded  by  a  long  preface  addressed  to  Fundania,  the  author's  wife.  The 
first  book  contains  sixty-nine  chapters,  and  treats  of  agriculture  in  general:  the  nature 
of  soils;  the  places  most  suitable  for  a  farm;  the  attention  that  ought  to  be  given  to 
sheepfolds,  stables,  and  cattle-sheds;  the  right  kind  of  casks  for  wine,  oil,  etc.;  the 
necessary  domestic  animals,  including  the  watch-dogs.  The  author  then  turns  his 
attention  to  the  cultivation  of  the  vine,  of  the  olive,  and  of  gardens.  He  designates 
the  work  of  each  season,  and  tells  when  and  how  seed  should  be  sown,  and  crops 
gathered  in  and  preserved.  In  the  eleven  chapters  of  the  second  book,  Varro  speaks 
of  the  care  and  training  of  beasts,  and  their  profitableness.  The  third  book,  con- 
sisting of  seventeen  chapters,  is  devoted  to  the  villatica  pastiones,  —  that  is,  to  the 
care  of  the  poultry-yard,  and  to  hunting,  fishing,  the  keeping  of  bees,  and  the  propa- 
gation and  care  of  fish.  The  book,  once  a  great  favorite,  now  belongs  among  the 
curiosities  of  literature. 

AGRICULTURE  AND  PRICES,  'A  History  of,  in  England  from  the  year  after  the 
Oxford  Parliament  (1259)  to  the  commencement  of  the  Continental  War,'  (1793). 
By  James  E.  Thorold  Rogers  (8  vols.,  1866-98).  This  work  opened  up  a  field  oi 
immense  research  and  monumental  significance,  undertaking  to  recover  aspects  of 
the  history  of  the  people  of  England  which  contemporary  records  of  prices  of  every 
kind  give  the  means  of  knowing.  Through  this  and  subsequent  researches,  it  has 
become  possible  to  study  almost  every  particular  of  the  lives  of  the  occupants  of  the 
soil  of  England;  particulars  as  to  the  land,  as  to  farms  and  farming,  and  as  to  every 
fact  of  the  daily  life  of  the  landlord,  the  farmer,  and  the  laborer.  There  is  thus 
recovered  for  history  no  small  portion  of  the  bygone  life  of  the  English  people;  and 
with  this,  much  light  is  thrown  on  principles  of  political  and  social  economy  which 
must  be  taken  account  of,  not  only  by  the  philanthropist,  but  in  all  wise  govern- 
mental administration. 

AIDS  TO  REFLECTION",  by  S.  T.  Coleridge,  which  appeared  in  1825,  is  a  collec- 
tion of  moral  and  religious  aphorisms,  with  commentaries.  While  these  are  not 
sequentially  connected,  they  are  yet  so  arranged  as  to  illustrate  the  author's  purpose, 
to  address  his  thought  to  the  unspiritual  but  reflecting  mind  of  the  supposed  pilgrim, 
who  is  led  from  worldly-mindedness  to  the  acceptance  of  spiritual  religion.  Coleridge 
takes  up  the  argument  on  the  pilgrim's  (imputed)  principles  of  worldly  calculation. 
Beginning  with  religion  as  Prudence,  resultant  from  the  sense  and  sensuous  under- 
standing, he  ascends  to  the  ground  of  morality,  as  inspired  by  the  heart  and  con- 
science, and  finally  to  Spiritual  Religion,  as  presented  by  reason  and  the  will. 

This  argument  is  by  no  means  patent  to  the  casual  reader,  for  the  author  ad- 
dresses himself  to  the  heart  rather  than  to  the  reasoning  faculties.  The  doctrines 
of  the  book  are  held  to  be  those  of  the  Church  of  England,  broadly  interpreted. 
The  language  is  choice;  and  notwithstanding  the  philosophical  and  somewhat  sen- 
tentious nature  of  the  treatment,  the  book  is  eminently  readable,  exhibiting,  in 
several  passages,  Coleridge's  prose  at  its  best 


.  THE    READER^'  DIGEST   OF   BOOKS  .  I  £ 

L'AIGLON,  a  play  by  Edmond  Rostand  (1900).  After  Napoleon's  downfall,  his 
son,  the  Duke  of  Reichstadt,  is  virtually  a  prisoner  at  the  court  of  hib  grandfather, 
the  emperor  of  Austria.  Metternich  tries  to  keep  him  in  ignorance  of  his  father's 
triumphs,  lest  he  dream  of  greatness  and  trouble  the  peace  of  Europe.  Bonapartists 
from  Paris  succeed  in  escaping  the  vigilant  Metternich,  and  disguised  as  servants,  a 
tailor,  a  milliner,  and  a  dancer,  watch  over  the  little  "eaglet,"  teach  him  to  fight 
Wagram  and  Marengo  over  again  with  painted  wooden  soldiers,  and  encourage  him 
to  take  the  leadership  of  a  conspiracy  to  seize  the  throne  of  France.  He  contrives  to' 
win  over  his  grandfather  to  his  plans,  but  is  checkmated  by  Metternich.  Metternich 
ruthlessly  forces  the  Duke  of  Reichstadt  to  the  mirror,  and  shows  him  he  has,  not 
the  features  of  Napoleon,  but  the  pale  face  of  a  descendant  of  the  Hapsburgs,  whose 
weakness  and  impotence  he  inherits.  This  dramatic  scene  is  given  in  the  LIBRARY. 
The  pathetic  little  shadow  of  the  mighty  Napoleon  reaches  the  field  'of  Wagram  on 
the  flight  to  France,  but  in  anxiety  over  the  peril  of  his  cousin,  the  "Countess  Cama- 
rata,  who  is  impersonating  him  at  a  masked  ball,  he  hesitates  and  delays  and  is 
overtaken  by  Austrian  soldiers.  Left  alone  in  the  night  on  the  battlefield,  he  has  a 
vision  of  the  battle.  He  hears  the  moans  and  groans  of  the  wounded  and  dying,  and 
is  overcome  with  the  realization  of  the  cost  of  his  father's  imperial  ambition.  He 
begs  heaven  to  forgive  his  attempt  to  raise  again  the  standard  of  war,  and  offers  his 
own  life  in  expiation.  The  captive  "eaglet"  dies  amid  the  trivialities  and  dullness 
of  the  court,  in  the  prime  of  his  young  manhood,  heartbroken  at  his  failure  to  imitate 
and  avenge  his  great  father. 

AINO  FOLK-TALES,  by  Basil  H.  Chamberlain  (1888).  Twelve  hundred  years  ago 
a  Chinese  historian  wrote  that  "  on  the  eastern  frontier  of  Japan  there  exists  a  barrier 
of  great  mountains,  beyond  which  is  the  land  of  the  Hairy  Men."  These  were  the 
Aino,  so  called  from  the  word  in  their  language  signifying  "man.  "  In  the  dawn  of 
history  they  appear  living  far  to  the  south  and  west  of  their  present  haunts,  century 
by  century  retreating  eastward  and  northward,  as  steadily  as  the  American  Indian 
has  retreated  westward.  In  this  collection  of  stories  Professor  Chamberlain  ,  has 
sought  to  preserve  those  strange  folk-tales  which  were  told  in  the  -huts  of,  this  un- 
tutored people  ages  ago,  and  retold  to  each  succeeding  generation.  The  interest  in 
these  stories  consists  in  their  pictures  of  Aino  ideas,  morals,  and  customs.  '  The 
stories  of  'The  Salmon-King/  'The  Island  of  Women,'  and,  others,  are  based  on 
episodes  of  Japanese  tales,  sometimes  belonging  to  world-wide  cycles  of  myth,  as 
in  the  theme  of  the  mortal  who  eats  the  deadly  food  of  the  underworld.  On  the- 
other  hand  there  is  much  genuine  Aino  matter  in  the  collection. 


AIRY  FAIRY  LILIAN,  by  Mrs.  Hungerford  ("The  Duchess")  (1879),  aeeds  -no- 
elaborate  plot  to  make  it  interesting.  Its  slender  thread  of  story-  -traces*  the-  -willful 
though  winsome  actions  of  Lilian  Chesney.  An  orphaned  heiress  —  piquant,-  -airy',. 
changeful,  lovable  —  she  lives,  after  the  death  of  her  parents,  with  Lady  Chetwbo,de.. 
Sir  Guy  Chetwoode,  her  rather  young  guardian;  Cyril,  his  'brother,  and  Florence. 
Beauchamp,  his  cousin,  complete  the  household.  Sir  Guy/staid,  earnest,  and  manly  j. 
alternately  quarrels  with  and  pays  sincere  court  to  his  ward,  winning,  her  after-  she 
has  led  him  a  weary  chase,  the  details  of  which  form  the  chief:  charm  of  -  the  story. 
Cyril,  twenty-six,  pleasant  but  headstrong,  finds-  his  love  in  a  fair  young  widow,  Mrs. 
Arlington,  about  whose  character  an  unfortunate  haze  of  doubt  has  been  cast  —  to 
be  dissipated,  however,  in  the  end.  The  ambitious  Florence,  as  vapid  as  she  is 
designing,  fails  to  impress  Sir  Guy,  and  contents  herself  with-  a  Mr.  3oer,  appro- 


12  THE  HEADER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

priately  named.  Two  of  Lilian's  cousins,  Arthur  Chesney  (a  vain  suitor  for  her 
hand),  and  Taffy  Musgrave  (a  young  British  red-coat  whom  everybody  likes),  add 
no  little  interest  to  the  group,  who  are  of  a  marrying  mind  generally.  Wholesome, 
pretty,  not  too  serious,  the  story  maintains  its  interest  to  the  last  without  introduc- 
ing any  startling  episodes.  It  paints  a  pleasant  picture  of  English  country  life  at 
that  time  with  sufficient  fidelity  to  detail  and  an  agreeable  variety  of  light  and  shadow. 

AJAX,a  tragedy  by  Sophocles  (495-406  B.C.).  After  the  death  of  Achilles,  the 
Greek  leaders  decide  to  give  his  arms  to  Ulysses,  as  the  most  worthy  to  bear  them. 
The  neglected  Ajax  is  furious,  and  goes  forth  in  the  night  to  avenge  the  affront. 
Minerva  deprives  him  of  reason,  and  he  attacks  the  flocks  of  sheep  in  the  Greek 
camp,  mistaking  them  for  his  enemies.  When  exhausted  with  slaughter,,  he  leads 
the  surviving  sheep,  chained  as  prisoners,  to  his  tent.  When  he  recovers  his  senses 
he  sees  into  what  abysses  the  wrath  of  the  gods  has  plunged  him.  He  must  become 
the  jest  of  the  army  if  he  remains  before  Troy;  he  will  shame  his  old  father  if  he  returns 
to  Salamis:  he  resolves  to  end  his  dishonored  life.  The  prayers  of  Tecmessa,  his 
captive  mistress,  and  of  his  Salaminian  comrades,  are  unavailing.  Yet  it  is  with 
regret  that  he  quits  this  beautiful  world.  The  monologue  in  which  he  bids  it  farewell, 
and  which  is  the  most  remarkable  passage  in  the  drama,  contains  entrancing  pictures 
of  the  life  he  is  about  to  abandon.  He  takes  leave  of  his  country,  his  father's  hearth, 
the  companions  of  his  childhood,  and  of  glorious  Athens.  He  has  tears  even  for 
Troy,  a  land  he  lately  called  his  foe,  but  become  for  him  now  a  second  country,  by 
reason  of  so  many  years  of  combats  and  of  glory.  The  names  of  his  beloved  parents 
are  his  last  words  on  earth;  the  next  will  be  uttered  in  Hades.  Then  follow  the 
attempt  to  prevent  his  burial,  which,  if  successful,  would  doom  him  to  wander  forever, 
an  unhappy  and  restless  ghost,  through  the  infernal  regions;  the  despair  of  his  brother 
Teucer,  Teucer's  vehement  invectives  against  the  enemies  of  the  hero,  and  the  noble 
generosity  of  Ulysses,  who  undertakes  the  defense  of  the  dead. 

AKBAR-NAHMAH,  by  AbG-al-Fazl  (1605).  A  history  in  Persian  of  the  nearly 
fifty  years*  reign  of  Akbar,  Mogul  emperor  of  India  (a  contemporary  of  Queen 
Elizabeth) ;  the  greatest  Asiatic  monarch  of  modern  times,  and  in  genius  and  charac- 
ter one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  that  ever  lived.  A  modern  'Life'  has  appeared 
an  the  English  'Rulers  of  India'  series,  edited  by  Sir  W.  W.  Hunter.  According  to  this 
history,  Akbar  was  the  grandson  of  Baber,  the  first  of  the  Great  Moguls  in  India. 
He  succeeded  his  father,  Baber's  eldest  son  Humayun,  when  barely  fourteen.  At 
Akbar's  birth,  October  I4th,  1542,  Humayun  had  lost  his  dominions,  and  had  only 
begun  after  twelve  years  of  exile  to  recover  them,  when  his  death  in  1556  left  Akbar 
the  throne  of  Delhi,  with  an  able  but  despotic  Turkoman  noble  acting  as  regent. 
Akbar  at  seventeen  took  the  government  into  his  own  hands;  and  by  his  vigilance, 
energy,  and  wisdom,  with  a  magnanimity,  toleration,  and  generosity  rarely  seen  in 
powerful  rulers,  extended  and  consolidated  his  empire  on  a  scale  of  territory  and 
strength,  and  to  a  degree  of  order,  peace,  and  prosperity,  wholly  unexampled.  In 
addition  to  economic  and  social  reforms  of  the  most  enlightened  and  equitable 
character,  Akbar  rose  far  above  his  age,  and  above  his  own  creed  as  a  Moslem,  in 
establishing  absolute  toleration.  He  gave  the  Hindus  freedom  of  worship,  only 
prohibiting  inhuman  barbarities.  ,  He  had  Christian  teacfiers  expound  their  faith 
at  his  court,  and  made  Hindu,  Moslem,  and  Christian  meet  in  a  parliament  of  re- 
ligions, to  study  the  sympathy  of  faiths.  He  even  founded  a  new-departure  faith 
for  uniting  all  believers  in  God.  He  promoted  schools  for  Hindus  as  well  as  Moslems, 
and  was  a  munificent  patron  of  literature. 


-  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  15 

ALICE,  OR,  THE  MYSTERIES,  see  ERNEST  MALTRAVERS. 

ALICE-FOR-SHORT,  by  William  De  Morgan  (1907).  The  scene  of  this  story  is 
laid  ,in  London,  where  Alicia  Kavanagh,  called  Alice-for-short,  is  introduced  as  a 
neglected  child  overwhelmed  with  grief  at  the  breaking  of  a  beer-jug  with  which  she 
is  returning  to  her 'drunken  mother.  The  child  is  befriended  by  Charles  Heath,  a 
young  artist  whose  studio  proves  to  be  in  the-  same  house  in  which-  the  Kavanagh 
family  occupy  the  cellar.  A  drunken  brawl  ensues  in  which  Kavanagh  first  kills  his 
wife  and  then  takes  poison,  after  which  the  frightened  child  is  conveyed  by  the  artist 
to  his  own  London  home  where  his  family  adopt  her.  His  sister  Peggy  devotes  herself 
to  the  sick  and  exhausted  Alice  and  later  falls  in  love  with  Rupert  Johnson,  the  young 
doctor  who  comes  to  tend  the  child.  Eventually  the  doctor  risks'  his  life  to  rescue 
Alice  from  a  perilous  fall  over  a  cliff,  and  Peggy,  who  has  frowned  upon  his  suit, 
relents,  owns  that  she  loves  him,  and  their  marriage  takes  place.  Charles  is  entrapped 
by  a  scheming  model,  whom  he  marries,  and  who  elopes  with  another  man  after 
having  led  the  artist  a  wretched  existence.  News  of  the  death  of  the  erring  wife  is 
soon  followed  by  the  illness  of  their  only  son  Pierre,  who  is  stricken  with  small-pox. 
Alice,  now  a  lovely  young  woman,  has  studied  nursing  and  at  once  takes  her  place 
by  the  boy's  bedside;  she  nurses  him  back  to  health  and  then  succumbs  to  the  disease. 
Charles  who  has  loved  Alice  from  childhood,  is  frantic  at  the  catastrophe  and  devotes 
himself  to  furthering  her  welfare,  but  refrains  from  making  love  to  her  thinking  she 
.  must  prefer  some  younger  man.  In  tne  end,  he  discovers  that  she  prefers  him  to  any 
of  the  others  and  they  are  joyfully  united.  Throughout  the  tale  runs  a  ghost-story 
connected  with  the  house 'in  which  Charles  has  his  studio,  and  interwoven  with  the 
history  of  Alice's  forebears.  'The  tenants  see  visions  of  a  lovely  lady  of  long  ago  who 
has  been  murdered  in  the  house.  At  last  her  skeleton  is  found  in  the  cellar  and  the 
mystery  is  cleared  up  which  is  connected  with  a  curious  ring  found  on  the  premises 
by  Alice's  mother  and  left  to  the  little  girl.  Documents  are  introduced  which  make  it 
clear  that  Alice  is  the  descendant  of  the  titled  family  that  once  lived  in  this  house,  and 
her  possession  of  the  ring  entitles  her  to  a  valuable  property,  for  which,  however,  she 
has  no  desire  to  enter  a  claim. 

ALICE    IN  WONDERLAND   (1865),  and  THROUGH  THE  LOOKING-GLASS 

(1871),  by  Lewis  Carroll  (Charles  L.  Dodgson).  ALICE'S  ADVENTURES  IN  WONDER- 
LAND>  —  Alice,  a  bright  'well-behaved  little  girl,  quite  normal  in  every  way,  is  the 
heroine  of  this  fantastic  tale,  the  great  charm  of  which  consists  in  the  perfect  plausi- 
bility of  all  its  impossibilities. '  By  following  an  extraordinary  rabbit  down  into  a 
rabbit  hole,  she-finds  herself  in  a  land  where  unreal  things  seem  real.  But  however 
absurd  the  doings  of  the  inhabitants  of  Wonderland,  she  is  never  surprised  at  them. 
Her  mistakes  at  first  barely  save1  her  from  drowning  in  her  own  tears;  but  afterwards 
she  meets  many  queer  animal  friends  besides  a  crusty  old  Duchess,  a  mad  Hatter,  a 
sleepy  Dormouse,  and  a  March  Hare  with  whom  she  has  strange  experiences,  and 
finally  they  take  her  to -play  croquet  with  the  Queen  of  Hearts.  During  a  trial  by 
jury  at  the  court  of  the  Queen,  Alice  becomes  excited  and  calls  everyone  there 
nothing  but  a  pack  of  cards.  As  they  rise  into  the  air  and  come  flying  down  upon  her, 
she  awakes  and  finds  herself  beside  her  sister  on  a  bank'  where  she  had  fallen  asleep. 
THROUGH  THE  LOOKING-GLASS.  —  The  next  time  Alice  dreams,  she  steps  through 
the  looking-glass ;  in  this  land  the  people  are  all  chessmen,  and  the  country  is  divided 
up  like  a  chessboard,  with  little  brooks  and  hedges  marking  the  squares.  She  travels 
extensively  as  she  moves  in  the  game,  and  is  crowned  queen  at  the  end.  This  dream 


•  i6  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

also  comes  to  a  climax  by  the  violence  of  her  resentment  against  so  much  nonsense, 
and  she  wakes  suddenly.  Besides  longs,  knights,  pawns,  and  the  other  pieces  of  the 
game,  there  are  more  eccentric  animals  and  people  who  have  something  to  say.  The 
careless  White  Queen  and  the  fiery-tempered  Red  Queen  are  very  amusing,  and 
Tweedledum  and  Tweedledee  are  responsible  for  the  song  of  'The  Walrus  and  the 
Carpenter';  where,  to  quote  the  Duchess,  one  has  to  'Hake  care  of  the  sense,  and  the 
sounds  will  take  care  of  themselves." 

ALICE  OP  OLD  VINCENNES,  by  Maurice  Thompson,  was  published  in  1900. 
The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid  in  old  Vincennes  on  the  Wabash,  in  1778,  and  describes 
the  life  of  the  northwest  during  the  Revolutionary  period.  The  heroine,  Alice 
Roussillon,  by  birth  a  Tarleton,  and  therefore  a  member  of  one  of  the  "first "  Colonial 
families,  has  been  stolen  in  her  infancy  and  educated  as  a  Creole  girl  amid  the  hard- 
ships of  pioneer  life  and  the  uncertainty  of  Indian  warfare.  Her  adopted  father  is 
Gaspard  Roussillon,  a  successful  French  trader  with  the  Indians,  and  Alice  grows  up 
strong  and  beautiful  and  an  expert  with  gun  and  sword.  Lieutenant  Beverly,  Alice's 
lover,  is  a  man  of  aristocratic  birth  whose  affection  for  one  he  considers  a  simple 
creole  girl  portends  a  hard  struggle  between  his  patrician  feelings  and  his  love. 
However,  this  obstacle  is  removed  by  the  discovery  of  Alice's  true  lineage,  and, 
after  many  exciting  adventures,  she  and  Beverly  are  at  length  united.  There  are 
many  thrilling  episodes  described  in  the  story,  among  which  may  be  mentioned  the 
rescue  of  the  settlement  by  the  young  American  Colonel  George  Rogers  Clark,  who 
puts  the  British  soldiers  to  route  after  one  of  the  most  trying  marches  ever  described 
in  fiction.  Among  the  conspicuous  characters  in  the  tale  is  good  old  Pere  Beret, 
who  is  a  mountain  of  strength  in  more  ways  than  one,  and  his  duel  with  Colonel 
Hamilton  over  the  supposed  dead  body  of  Alice  is  powerfully  described.  The  Indians 
are  most  graphically  pictured  and  "Long  Hair,"  with  his  craft  and  cruelty,  savage 
nobility  and  meanness,  and  splendid  but  hideous  physique,  is  one  of  the  most  pic- 
turesque figures  in  the  book.  Old  frontier  life  in  all  its  rudeness  and  simplicity  is 
vividly  portrayed,  and  the  stirring  times  when  men  went  about  with  scalps  hanging 
at  their  belts  are  brought  forcibly  before  the  reader. 

ALKAHEST,  or,  THE  HOUSE  OF  CLA£S  ('La  Recherche  de  1'Absolu' — The 
Search  for  the  Absolute),  is  a  striking  novel  by  Honore*  de  Balzac.  The  scene 
is  laid  in  the  Flemish  town  of  Douai  early  in  the  last  century;  and  the  tale  gives, 
with  all  the  author's  care  and  richness  of  detail,  a  charming  representation  of  Flemish 
family  life.  The  central  character,  Balthazar  Claes,  is  a  wealthy  chemist,  whose 
ancestral  name  is  the  most  respected  and  important  in  the  place.  His  aim,  the  dream 
of  his  life,  is  to  solve  the  mystery  of  matter.  He  would  by  chemical  analysis  discover 
the  secret  of  the  absolute.  Hence  he  toils  early  and  late  in  his  private  laboratory: 
everything  is  given  up  to  the  god  of  science.  Gradually  the  quest  becomes  a  fixed 
idea,  for  which  money,  family,  health,  sanity,  are  sacrificed.  Claes  dies  heart-broken 
and  defeated;  —  a  tragic  figure,  touching  in  its  pathos,  having  dignity  even  in  its 
downfall.  As  foils  to  him  stand  his  devoted  wife  and  his  eldest  daughter  Marguerite, 
noble  women,  the  latter  one  of  the  finest  creations  of  Balzac's  genius.  They  sym- 
pathize sorrowfully  yet  tenderly  with  his  ideal,  and  bear  with  true  heroism  the  misery 
to  which  his  mad  course  subjects  them.  Simple  in  its  plot,  the  story  displays 
some  of  the  deepest  human  passions,  and  is  a  powerful  romance.  It  belongs  to 
that  series  of  the  Human  Comedy  known  as  'Philosophical  Studies/  and  appeared 
in  1834. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  17 

ALL  FOOLS,  by  George  Chapman.  'All  Pools,'  the  original  name  of  which  was 
'The  World  Runs  on  Wheels,'  was  completed  at  least  as  early  as  1599,  though  not 
printed  until  1605.  The  later  title  suggests  the  nature  of  the  plot,  which  plays  off 
one  set  of  characters  against  another.  Fortunio,  elder  son  of  Marc  Antonio,  "an 
honest  knight,  but  much  too  much  indulgent  to  his  presuming  children'1  loves 
Bellonora,  daughter  of  Gostanzo,  "  the  wretched  Machiavellian,  the  covetous  knight/' 
whose  son  Valerio  has  secretly  married  Gratiana.  Gostanzo  thinks  that  Valerio  is 
"the  most  tame  and  thrifty  groom  in  Europe, "  though  he  is  really  devoted  to  dice, 
cards,  tennis,  and  even  more  questionable  activities.  Rinaldo,  a  younger  son  of  Marc 
Antonio,  a  woman  hater  who  is  by  way  of  being  a  scholar,  persuades  Gostanzo  that 
Fortunio  and  Gratiana  are  secretly  wedded.  Gostanzo  informs  Marc  Antonio,  at 
the  same  time  offering  to  take  them  to  his  house  that  Fortunio  may  be  reformed  by 
his  precepts  and  by  the  example  of  the  chaste  Valerio.  During  their  stay  at  his 
house  Gostanzo  seeing  the  intimacy  between  Valerio  and  Gratiana  resolves  to  send 
her  away,  but  is  persuaded  by  the  scheming  Rinaldo  to  send  her  to  Marc  Antonio,  on 
the  plea  that  she  is  wife  of  Valerio,  married  without  bis  knowledge.  In  the  end 
Rinaldo  himself,  whose  "fortune  is  to  win  renown  by  gulling"  the  others,  is  "gulled  " 
by  his  own  greed. 

ALL  FOR  LOVE,  or,  THE  WORLD  WELL  LOST,  by  John  Dryden  (1678).  In 
the  preface  to  this,  which  most  critics  would  agree  is  Dryden's  finest  play,  the 
author  claims  that  "the  unities  of  time,  place,  and  action  are  more  exactly  observed 
than  perhaps  the  English  theatre  requires."  While  endeavoring  to  follow  the 
practice  of  the  ancients,  he  thinks  that  their  models  are  too  little  for  English  tragedy 
which  requires  larger  compass.  On  the  other  hand  he  thinks  that  the  French  poets, 
while  strict  observers  of  the  punctilios  of  manners,  lacked  the  genius  which  animated 
the  English  stage.  In  style  he  professes  "to  imitate  the  divine  Shakespeare,  and  in 
order  to  "perform  more  freely"  disencumbers  himself  from  rhyme.  The  play  is  to 
some  extent  based  on  Shakespeare's  'Antony  and  Cleopatra,'  and  enters  into  com- 
petition with  it.  In  accordance  with  the  suggestion  of  the  title,  'All  for  Love,1  he 
represents  Antony  and  Cleopatra  as  being  more  under  the  sway  of  passion  than  in 
Shakespeare's  play.  In  the  older  drama  Antony  in  the  mid-tide  of  his  passion  has 
thoughts  of  other  and  higher  ties  of  duty  and  country.  In  Dryden  he  is  completely"* 
enslaved  and  reacts  to  no  other  impulse.  Cleopatra  is  also  so  completely  enslaved 
that  she  has  no  wit  left  over  to  devise  the  meretricious  arts  by  which  the  Shakespear- 
ean heroine  tried  to  draw  her  lover  to  herself.  Another  great  difference  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  theme  is  that  Dryden  confines  the  action  to  Alexandria  and  to  a  period 
of  a  few  days,  whereas  Shakespeare  allows  several  years  and  a  great  variety  of 
scene  for  the  development  of  the  denouement.  The  play  of  passion  is  therefore 
much  more  circumscribed  in  Dryden  than  in  Shakespeare. 

ALL  SORTS  AND  CONDITIONS  OF  MEN,  by  Sir  Walter  Besant  (1882).  The 
famous  People's  Palace  of  East  London  had  its  origin  in  this  story;  and  because  of  it 
mainly  the  author,  Walter  Besant,  was  knighted.  The  story  concerns  chiefly  two 
characters,  —  the  very  wealthy  orphan  Angela  Messenger,  and  Harry  Goslett,  ward 
of  Lord  Joscelyn.  Miss  Messenger,  after  graduating  with  honors  at  Newnham, 
resolves  to  examine  into  the  condition  of  the  people  of  Stepney  Green,  Whitechapel 
region,  where  she  owns  great  possessions  (including  the  famed  Messenger  Brewery). 
To  indicate  t6  the  workmgwomen  of 'East  Loridbri  &  ?my  of  eseape  from  the  meanness, 
misery,  and  poverty  of  their  lives,  she  sets  up  among  them  a  co-operative  dress- 


iS  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

making  establishment,  she  herself  living  with  her  work-girls.  Her  goodness  ant 
wealth  bring  happiness  to  many,  whose  quaint  stories  of  poverty  and  struggle  form  « 
considerable  portion  of  the  novel.  The  book  ends  with  the  opening  of  the  People' 
Palace,  and  with  the  heroine's  marriage  to  Harry  Goslett,  whose  dramatic  story  £ 
clearly  interwoven  with  the  main  plot. 

ALLAN  QUATERMAIN,  by  H.  Rider  Haggard  (1888),  rehearses  the  adventures  o 
the  old  hunter  and  traveler  who  tells  the  story,  and  whose  name  gives  the  title  to  th< 
book.  He  is  accompanied  from  England  on  an  African  expedition  by  Sir  Henrj 
Curtis  —  huge,  fair,  and  brave  —  and  Captain  Good,  a  retired  seaman.  They  take 
with  them  Umslopogaas,  a  trusty  and  gigantic  Zulu,  who  has  served  before  undei 
Quartermain.  At  a  mission  station  the  party  leads  an  expedition  to  rescue  tht 
daughter  of  the  missionary,  Flossie  Mackenzie,  who  had  been  captured  by  hostile 
blacks.  The  interest  of  the  book  is  found  in  the  swift  movement  of  the  narrative 
and  the  excitement  of  incessant  adventure. 

ALL'S  WELL  THAT  ENDS  WELL,  by  Shakespeare  (1602)  is  a  play,  the  story  oi 
which  came  to  the  poet  from  Boccaccio,  through  Paynter's  'Palace  of  Pleasure, 
although  he  introduces  variations.  It  tells  how  Helen  de  Narbon,  a  physician's 
daughter,  and  orphaned,  forced  her  love  on  a  handsome  and  birth-proud  young 
French  nobleman,  Bertram  de  Rousillon,  with  whom  she  had  been  brought  up  from 
childhood.  It  is  a  tale  of  husband-catching  by  a  curious  kind  of  trick.  Helena 
heals  the  king  with  her  father's  receipt,  asks  for  and  accepts  Bertram  as  her  reward, 
and  is  married.  But  the  proud  boy  flies  to  the  Florentine  wars  on  his  wedding-day, 
leaving  his  marriage  unconsummated.  Helen  returns  sorrowfully  to  Rousillon;  and 
finds  there  a  letter  from  her  husband,  to  the  effect  that  when  she  gets  his  ring  upon 
her  finger  and  shows  him  a  child  begotten  of  his  body,  then  he  will  acknowledge  her 
as  his  wife.  She  undertakes  to  outwit  him  and  reclaim  him.  Leaving  Rousillon  on 
pretense  of  a  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of  Saint  Jacques  le  Grand,  she  presently  con- 
trives to  have  it  thought  she  is  dead.  In  reality  she  goes  to  Italy,  and  becomes  Ber- 
tram's wife  in  fact  and  not  mere  name,  by  the  secret  substitution  of  herself  for  the 
pretty  Diana,  with  whom  he  has  an  assignation  arranged.  There  is  an  entanglement 
of  petty  accidents  and  incidents  connected  with  an  exchange  of  rings,  etc.  Butr 
finally,  Helen  makes  good  before  the  King  her  claim  of  having  fulfilled  Bertram's 
conditions;  and  she  having  vowed  obedience,  he  takes  her  to  his  heart,  and  we  may 
suppose  they  live  happily  together  "till  there  comes  to  them  the  destroyer  of  delights 
and  the  sunderer  of  societies."  One's  heart  warms  to  the  noble  old  Countess  of 
Rousillon,  who  loves  Helen  as  her  own  daughter.  She  is  wise  and  ware  in  worldly 
matters,  and  yet  full  of  sympathy,  remembering  her  own  youth.  Parolles  is  a  cross 
between  Thersites  and  Pistol,  —  a  volte-faced  scoundrel  who  has  to  pull  the  devil  by 
the  tail  for  a  living.  His  pretense  of  fetching  off  his  drum,  and  his  trial  blindfolded 
before  the  soldiers,  raises  a  laugh;  but  the  humor  is  much  inferior  to  that  of  *  Henry 
IV.'- 

ALMAGEST,  THE,  by  Ptolemy  of  Alexandria,  about  150  A.D.  This  great  astronomi- 
cal and  mathematical  work  established  the  "Ptolemaic  System"  as  astronomical 
science  for  1400  years,  until  the  Copernican  overthrew  it,  and  gave  to  celestial  calcu- 
lations the  permanent  basis  of  trigonometrical  methematics.  Hipparchus,  nearly 
ihree  hundred  years  before,  had  made  those  advances  in  astronomy  and  mathematics 
Df  which  Ptolemy's  work  is  the  only  existing  report.  It  was  mainly  as  a  systematic 
expounder,  correcting  and  improving  earlier  work,  that  Ptolemy  became  so  great  a 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  19 

representative  figure  in  the  literature  of  science.  The  system  which  bears  his  name 
was  implicitly  held  by  earlier  philosophers,  but  his  statement  became  the  authority 
to  which  it  was  referred.  His  work,  entitled  'The  Great  Composition/  was  called 
by  the  Arabs  magiste,  "greatest,"  and  with  al,  "the,"  the  name  'Almagest'  came 
into  use.  —  The  Geography  of  Ptolemy,  in  which  he  was  more  original  than  in  his 
other  great  work,  was  the  geographical  authority  in  science  even  longer  than  the 
'Almagest'  was  in  astronomy.  The  materials  of  the  work  were  derived  in  great 
part  from  Marinus  of  Tyre,  who  lived  shortly  before  him,  but  the  skill  with  which 
Ptolemy  used  them  gave  his  work  its  high  authoritative  character.  A  series  of 
twenty-six  maps,  and  a  general  map  of  the  world,  illustrated  the  'Geography.'  'See 
also  "Geography"  of  Ptolemy. 

ALMAYER'S  FOLLY,  by  Joseph  Conrad  (1895),  is  a  novel  of  Eastern  life,  whose 
scene  is  laid  on  a  little-known  river  of  Borneo,  and  whose  personages  are  fierce  Malays, 
cunning  Arabs,  stolid  Dutch  traders,  slaves,  half-breeds,  pirates,  and  white  renegades. 
Almayer,  the  son  of  a  Dutch  official  in  Java,  has  been  adopted  in  a  sort  of  way  by 
one  Captain  Lingard,  a  disreputable  English  adventurer,  who  persuades  him  to 
marry  a  Malay  girl,  whom  also  he  has  adopted,  the  sole  survivor  of  a  crew  of  Malay 
pirates  sent  by  Lingard  to  their  last  account.  The  story  is  crowded  with  adventure, 
and  the  characters  stand  out,  living  creatures,  against  a  gorgeous  tropical  background. 
But  its  merit  lies  in  its  careful  rendering  of  race  traits,  and  in  its  study  of  that  dry-rot 
of  character,  indecision,  irresolution,  procrastination.  It  is  quite  plain  that  the  sins 
Mr.  Conrad  imputes  to  his  "frustrate  ghosts"  are  "the  unlit  lamp  and  the  ungirt 
loin." 

ALONE,  by  Mrs.  Mary  Virginia  Terhune  (who  is  better  known  by  her  pen-name, 
"  Marian  Harland  "),  was  her  first  novel,  and  appeared  in  1854,  when  she  was  twenty- 
four.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Richmond,  Virginia,  where  Ida  Ross,  an  orphan  of  fifteen, 
goes  to  live  with  her  guardian  Mr.  Read,  and  his  daughter  Josephine,  a  girl  of  her 
own  age.  With  the  Reads,  who  are  cold,  worldly,  and  reserved,  the  impulsive  and 
affectionate  Ida  is  extremely  unhappy.  Fortunately  her  life  is  changed  by  friendship 
with  a  schoolmate,  Carry  Carleton.  In  the  well-bred  and  kindly  households  of  the 
Carletons  and  their  relatives,  Ida  finds  friends  and  lovers.  When  the  girls  enter 
society,  Josephine  becomes  jealous  of  Ida's  greater  attractiveness,  chiefly  because  a 
certain  Mr.  Lacy  falls  in  love  with  her.  Misunderstandings  ensue.  Ida  gives  up  her 
lover,  and  returns  to  the  home  of  her  childhood  to  devote  her  life  to  philanthropy. 
But  the  misunderstandings  are  explained,  and  the  well-disciplined  recluse  is  married 
to  Mr.  Lacy.  The  book  had  a  very  great  vogue,  and  made  a  reputation  for  the 
author.  It  is  simple  in  plot,  contains  a  transcript  of  every-day  life,  and  is  deeply 
religious  in  tone,  but  belongs  to  a  fashion  in  fiction  which  no  longer  prevails. 

ALTON  LOCKE,  by  Charles  Kingsley,  was  published  in  1850,  when  the  author  was 
thirty-one.  It  was  his  first  novel,  and  like  'Yeast,'  which  closely  followed  it,  showed 
Kingsley's  broad  humanitarianism,  unconventionality,  interest  in  and  sympathy  for 
the  wrongs  of  the  English  working  classes.  It  made  a  great  stir,  and  did  much  in 
England  to  turn  the  thoughts  of  the  upper  ranks  to  their  responsibility  for  the  lower. 
Its  hero  is  a  poet-tailor  of  a  mystic  turn —  'Alton  Locke,  Tailor  and  Poet,'  is  the 
full  title;  he  feels  deep  in  his  soul  the  horrors  of  the  sweating  system  and  other  abuses 
which  grind  the  poor,  and  devotes  himself  to  their  amelioration.  "  I  am, "  he  says  of 
himself,  "a  Cockney  among  Cockneys":  he  is  sketched  from  his  boyhood  in  a  mean, 
suburban  quarter  of  the  city,  through  his  struggle  for  education  and  maintenance, 


2O  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

which  brings  him  into  contact  with  the  case  of  the  toiling  city  masses,  to  his  leader 
ship  of  their  cause,  his  advocacy  of  Chartism,  and  final  failure  to  realize  his  dreams 
The  purity,  ideality,  and  altruism  of  Locke  and  his  friends  Crossthwaite,  MacKaye 
Lady  Ellerton,  and  Eleanor,  make  them  inspiring  prophets  of  the  war  of  the  Emanci 
pation  of  Labor.  The  story  is  full  of  vigorous,  earnest,  eloquent  preaching,  anc 
would  now  be  called  "problem  fiction"  of  the  frankest  sort;  and  it  is  also  ofter 
dramatic  and  thrilling. 

ALZIRE,  a  well-known  tragedy  by  Voltaire  (1736).  The  time  is  the  sixteenth 
century.  Monteze,  the  native  king  of  a  part  of  Potosi,  has,  with  his  daughter  Alzire 
and  a  large  number  of  American  Indians,  fallen  into  the  power  of  Guzman,  the 
Spanish  governor  of  Peru.  The  Spaniard  falls  in  love  with  Alzire,  who  has  become 
a  Christian.  Having  been  betrothed  to  an  Indian  chief  now  believed  to  be  dead, 
she  hesitates  to  marry  the  governor,  but  is  persuaded  by  her  father,  and  by  Alvares 
the  father  of  Guzman.  After  the  marriage,  Zamore,  her  first  lover,  reappears  among 
a  crowd  of  prisoners.  His  fury  becomes  uncontrollable  when  he  learns  that  Guzman, 
who  has  already  wrested  from  him  everything  else  he  valued,  —  power,  wealth,  and 
liberty,  —  has  now  deprived  him  of  his  betrothed.  In  vain  does  Alzire  contrive  the 
captive's  escape.  He  will  not  fly  without  her.  In  disguise  he  penetrates  to  the 
chamber  of  his  enemy,  and  mortally  wounds  him.  Both  Alzire  and  Alvares  seek  to 
save  him,  but  cannot  unless  he  adopts  Christianity.  He  refuses;  but  when  his  rival 
Guzman  says,  "Your  God  has  enjoined  on  you  vengeance  and  murder:  mine  com- 
mands me  to  pity  and  forgive  my  murderer, "  he  is  overcome,  and  makes  a  profession 
of  faith.  Dying,  Guzman  unites  the  lovers.  This  play  is  often  rated  as  Voltaire's 
dramatic  masterpiece.  In  elegance  of  diction,  in  picturesqueness  and  vigor  of  con- 
ception, it  leaves  little  to  be  desired.  The  dramatist's  intention  was  to  contrast  the 
noble  but  imperfect  virtues  of  the  natural  man  with  those  of  the  man  trained  under 
the  influences  of  Christianity  and  civilization. 

AMADIS  OF  GAUL,  formerly  attributed  to  Vasco  Lobeira.  Robert  Southey,  in  the 
introduction  to  his  English  version  of  this  romance,  says:  "'Amadis  of  Gaul'  is 
among  prose  what  'Orlando  Furioso'  is  among  metrical  romances,  not  the  oldest 
of  its  kind  but  the  best. "  It  is  however  so  old  as  to  have  belonged  to  the  age  of  the 
fairest  bloom  of  chivalry,  the  days  of  the  Black  Prince  and  the  glorious  reign  of 
Edward  III.  in  the  two  realms  of  England  and  France.  It  is  a  tale  of  the  knightly 
career  of  Amadis  and  his  two  brothers,  Galaor  and  Florestan,  the  sons  of  King  Perion 
of  Gaul.  The  name  of  the  knight's  mistress  is  Oriana;  but  many  are  the  damsels, 
ladies,  and  queens,  whom  he  rescues  in  peril,  not  without  wounding  their  hearts,  but 
remaining  loyal  to  the  last  to  his  liege  lady  — •  his  marriage  with  whom  terminates,  in 
Southey 's  opinion,  the  narration  of  the  original  author.  The  remaining  adventures 
after  the  Fourth  Book  are,  as  he  thinks,  added  by  the  Spanish  translator  Garcia 
Ordonez  de  Montalvo,  and  exhibit  a  much  lower  type  both  of  literary  style  and  of 
morals.  The  author  is  a  Portuguese  who  was  born  at  Porto;  fought  at  Aljubarrota, 
where  he  was  knighted  by  King  Joao;  and  died  at  Elvas,  1403.  The  oldest  version 
extant  is  that  of  Montalvo  in  Spanish,  and  the  oldest  edition  is  supposed  to  be  that 
of  Seville,  1 526.  But  the  romance  was  familiar  to  the  Spanish  discoverers  of  America, 
and  must  have  enjoyed  a  wide  popularity  since  the  time  when,  in  the  reign  of  Joao  L, 
the  Infante  Dom  Pedro  wrote  a  sonnet  in  praise  of  Vasco  Lobeira,  "the  inventor  of 
the  Books  of  Chivalry/'  Cervantes,  whose  own  romance  was  the  death-knell  of 
these  unnatural  and  preternatural  extravaganzas,  names  this  as  one  of  the  three 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  21 

romances  spared  in  the  burning  of  Don  Quixote's  library,  "because  it  was  the  first 
of  the  kind  and  the  best. "  It  depicts  a  time  "not  many  years  after  the  passion  of 
our  Redeemer,"  when  Garinter,  a  Christian,  was  King  of  lesser  Britain,  Languines 
King  of  Scotland,  Perion  King  of  Gaul,  and  Lesuarte  King  of  Great  Britain.  The 
scene  is  laid  in  such  mystic  parts  of  the  earth  as  the  island  of  Windsor,  the  forest  of 
Angaduza,  and  "Sobradisa  which  borders  upon  Serolis."  The  manly  love  of  the 
three  brother  knights,  their  honor,  fidelity,  and  bravery,  are  noble  types  of  the  ideal 
of  the  chivalric  romance.  It  is  to  the  interpolations  and  additions  of  the  Spanish 
and  French  translators  through  whom  the  romance  has  come  down  to  us,  that  we 
owe  the  gross  and  offensive  passages  which  mar  the  otherwise  pure  and  daarming 
narrative. 

AMATEUR  POACHER,  THE,  by  Richard  Jefferies,  was  published  in  1889.  Like 
the  other  works  by  this  author, '  The  Gamekeeper  at  Home,' '  Wild  Life  in  a  Southern 
Country,1  etc.,  it  displays  a  genius  for  the  observation  of  nature,  yet  its  scope  is 
narrow  and  simple.  "The  following  pages,"  says  the  author,  "are  arranged  some- 
what in  the  order  of  time,  beginning  with  the  first  gun  and  attempts  at  shooting. 
Then  come  the  fields,  the  first  hills  and  woods  explored,  often  without  a  gun  or  any 
thought  of  destruction;  and  next  the  poachers  and  other  odd  characters  observed 
at  their  work." 

The  book  opens  with  a  tempting  sentence:—  "They  burned  the  old  gun  that 
used  to  stand  in  the  dark  corner  up  in  the  garret,  close  to  the  stuffed  fox  that  always 
grinned  so  fiercely."  The  narrative  goes  on  in  the  same  familiar,  brisk,  hunting- 
morning  style,  carrying  the  reader  far  afield,  into  damp  woods,  and  over  sweet,  rich 
pastures.  In  conclusion  the  author  writes:  "Let  us  go  out  of  these  indoor,  narrow, 
modern  days,  whose  twelve  hours  somehow  have  become  shortened,  into  the  sunlight 
and  pure  wind.  A  something  that  the  ancients  called  divine  can  be  found  and  felt 
there  still. "  The  book  is  cheerful  and  wholesome,  possessing  the  charm  of  nature 
itself. 

AMBASSADORS,  THE,  a  novel  by  Henry  James  (1902-03).  Lambert  Strether  comes 
from  Woolett,  Massachusetts,  on  an  embassy  from  the  wealthy  Mrs.  Newsome  to 
bring  back  her  son  Chad  from  Paris  to  the  business  he  has  inherited,  and  to  discover, 
if  possible,  what  is  the  sinister  influence  which  has  prevented  him  from  returning 
heretofore.  It  is  inferred  that  Strether  has  been  selected  to  many  Mrs.  Newsome 
and  her  fortune.  He  finds  Chad  greatly  changed  for  the  better  by  his  intimacy  with 
the  Countess  de  Vinnoet,  a  woman  of  inexpressible  charm,  and  becomes  converted 
to  their  relations  as  beyond  the  comprehension  and  standards  of  Woolett,  Massa- 
chusetts. It  is  long  before  he  learns  their  secret,  and  his  reaction  is  to  be  ashamed  of 
his  mission,  and  to  urge  Chad  not  to  return.  The  second  embassy  is  composed  of 
Mrs.  Pocock,  Chad's  sister,  her  husband,  and  young  sister-in-law,  who  come  to  find 
out  what  is  keeping  Strether  in  Paris,  and  call  him  to  account  for  his  failure  as 
ambassador.  Chad  tries  to  divert  his  sister  by  attentions  and  entertainments,  but 
Europe  has  no  effect  on  her  New  England  conscience.  She  convinces  Strether  of 
his  own  delinquency,  and  he  returns  to  Woolett;  but  Chad  remains >  faithful  to  the 
ties  he  has  formed  in  Paris, 

AMBER  GODS,  THE,  a  novel  in  miniature,  by  Harriet  Prescott  Spofford,  was 
published  in  11863.  It  is  remarkable  neither  for  plot  nor  for  character-drawing,  but 
for  a  magnificent  depth  and  richness  of  color,  like  a  painting  by  Titian.  An  amber 
amulet  or  rosary,  possessing  mysterious  influences,  gives  the  title  to  the  story. 


22  JUtUS     KJbAJJJbK  &    JJlUJti/S  l     ur     JDV^VX^VJ 

AMBITIOUS  WOMAN,  AN,  a  novel  by  Edgar  Fawcett,  appeared  in  1883.  It  ^is  a 
,  keen,  yet  sympathetic  analysis  of  an  American  female  type  whose  dominant  trait  is 
social  ambition.  Claire  Twining  is  reared  in  the  ugly  poverty  of  a  Brooklyn  suburb. 
She  is  clever,  capable,  with  a  great  desire  for  the  luxuries  of  life.  Through  the  good 
offices  of  a  schoolmate  she  gains  a  social  foothold.  If  Claire's  transformation  seems  a 
little  sudden,  there  is  yet  much  genuine  strength  in  the  story  and  much  truthful 
observation  of  city  life  in  New  York. 

AMBROSIO,  see  MONK. 

AMELIA,  by  Henry  Fielding,  was  published  in  1751,  and  was  the  last  of  that  novelist's 
works  of  fiction,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  famous  novels  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
He  was  forty-four  when  it  appeared,  and  in  impaired  health.  It  has,  perhaps  for 
this  reason,  less  of  the  exuberant  vitality  which  characterized  'Tom  Jones/  a  novel 
preceding  it  by  two  years.  The  plot  is  more  serious;  but  in  a  rich,  quiet  fund  of 
humor  it  is  not  far  behind  that  masterpiece.  In  'Amelia/  Fielding  drew  the  portrait 
of  a  virtuous  and  lovely  wife;  his  own,  it  is  believed,  furnishing  the  model.  It  is  a 
story  of  married  life.  Mr.  Booth,  the  husband  of  the  heroine,  an  impoverished 
gentleman,  is  introduced  to  the  reader  in  prison,  where  he  has  been  taken  for  par- 
ticipation in  a  street  quarrel.  His  companion  there,  Miss  Matthews,  is  a  handsome 
young  woman  of  easy  virtue,  who  has  murdered  her  betrayer.  The  relations  of 
Booth  and  this  woman  are  improper;  but  the  husband  is  saved  from  this,  as  from 
other  faults  of  conduct,  by  the  purity,  goodness,  and  devotion  of  Amelia,  whom  he 
devotedly  loves.  Eventually  she  brings  him  a  fortune,  he  is  released  from  prison, 
and  happiness  reigns.  In  contrasting  Booth's  poorer  nature  with  the  noble  character 
of  his  wife,  Fielding  is  supposed  to  have  had  himself  in  mind.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
the  novelist,  in  depicting  her,  emphasized  her  beauty  of  mind  and  heart  by  stating 
that  her  bodily  beauty  was  marred  through  the  disfigurement  of  her  nose  in  a  carriage 
accident.  The  story  is  strong  in  portraiture  of  character,  in  sincerity,  in  analysis  of 
motive,  and  in  wit. 

AMENITIES  OF  LITERATURE,  by  Isaac  Disraeli,  father  of  Lord  Beaconsfield, 
was  published  in  1841,  when  the  author  was  seventy-five  years  old.  The  title  was 
adopted  to  connect  it  with  two  preceding  volumes,  'Curiosities  of  Literature'  and 
'  Miscellanies  of  Literature.'  As  the  author  relates  in  the  preface,  it  forms  a  portion 
of  a  great  work  projected,  but  never  accomplished.  "A  history  of  our  vernacular 
literature  has  occupied  my  studies  for  many  years.  It  was  my  design,  not  to  furnish 
an  arid  narrative  of  books  or  of  authors,  but  following  the  steps  of  the  human  mind 
through  the  wide  track  of  time,  to  trace  from  their  beginning  the  rise,  progress,  and 
decline  of  public  opinions.  ...  In  the  progress  of  these  researches  many  topics 
presented  themselves,  some  of  which  from  their  novelty  and  curiosity  courted  investi- 
gation. Literary  history,  in  this  enlarged  circuit,  becomes  not  merely  a  philological 
history  of  critical  erudition,  but  ascends  into  a  philosophy  of  books. "  In  the  midst 
of  his  studies  toward  the  working-out  of  this  design,  Disraeli  was  arrested  by  loss  of 
sight.  The  papers  in '  Amenities  of  Literature '  form  a  portion  of  the  projected  history. 
The  first  volume  consists  of  thirty-eight  chapters  on  subjects  connected  with  early 
English  life  and  literature;  among  them  The  Druidical  Institution;  Cacdmon  and 
Milton;  Dialects;  Early  Libraries;  The  Ship  of  Fools;  and  Roger  Ascham.  The  second 
volume,  possessing  less  unity  of  design,  has  thirty-two  chapters  on  subjects  strange, 
familiar,  and  quaint:  Rhyming  Dictionaries  are  treated  of;  Allegories  and  the  Rosi- 
crucian  Fludd  are  discussed.  There  are  chapters  on  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  on  Si>enser, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  23 

Hooker,  and  Drayton,  and  a  dissertation  on  Pamphlets.  The  book  as  a  whole  is  a 
pleasant  guide  into  the  half-hidden  by-paths  of  English  literary  history.  It  is  a 
repository  of  much  curious  book-gossip  and  of  authors'  lore. 

AMERICA,  DISCOVERY  OF,  see  DISCOVERY  OF  AMERICA. 

AMERICA,  NARRATIVE  AND  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF,  see  NARRATIVE,  ETC. 

AMERICAN,  THE,  by  Henry  James,  was  published  in  1877.  It  was  the  novelist's 
third  book  of  fiction,  a  volume  of  short  tales  and  a  novel  preceding  it.  The  central 
character,  Christopher  Newman,  is  a  typical  product  of  the  United  States:  cool,  self- 
confident,  and  able,  impressing,  by  the  force  and  directness  of  his  nature,  all  who 
come  in  contact  with  him.  Having  made  his  fortune,  he  is  traveling  in  Europe  for 
pleasure.  He  falls  in  love  with  a  Parisian  lady  of  noble  birth,  who  is  half  English,  — 
Madame  de  Cintre',  a  widow;  and  she  comes  to  care  for  "him  enough  to  engage  herself 
to  him.  The  obstacles  in  the  way  of  their  marriage  give  rise  to  many  dramatic 
incidents. 

AMERICAN  COMMONWEALTH,  THE  (1888.  New  ed.,  rev.  2  vols.  1913),  by 
Viscount  James  Bryce  (the  eminent  historian  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire),  is  a 
study  of  the  political,  social,  and  economic  features  of  what  its  author  calls  "the 
nation  of  the  future";  and  the  most  important  study  since  De  Tocqueville's  'Democ- 
racy/ Lord  Bryce  deals  with  his  subject  in  six  grand  divisions:  Part  i.  treats  of  the 
federal  government,  —  its  executive,  legislative,  and  judiciary  departments,  with  a 
survey  of  their  powers  and  limitations;  the  relation  existing  between  the  federal 
government  and  the  State  governments;  constitutional  development  and  its  results. 
Part  ii.  considers  the  State  governments  (including  rural  and  city  governments), 
their  departments,  constitutions,  merits,  and  defects.  Part  iii.  is  devoted  to  the 
political  machinery  and  the  party  system,  giving  a  history  of  the  origin  and  growth 
of  political  parties;  their  composition;  their  leaders,  past  and  present;  and  their 
existing  conditions  and  influences.  Part  iv.  is  concerned  with  public  opinion,  —  its 
nature  and  tendencies;  the  means  and  causes  for  its  control  of  all  important  issues  in 
the  various  sections  of  the  Union.  Part  v.  gives  concrete  illustrations  of  the  matters 
in  the  foregoing  chapters,  together  with  a  discussion  of  the  "  strength  and  weakness 
of  democratic  government  as  it  exists  in  the  United  States. "  Part  vi.  is  confined 
to  non-political  institutions;  the  aspects  of  society,  the  intellectual  and  spiritual 
forces  upon  which  depend  the  personal  and  political  welfare  of  unborn  generations  of 
American  citizens;  and  upon  whose  success  or  failure  rests  the  promulgation  of 
American  democratic  ideals  and  principles  among  the  nations.  The  work  is  lucidly' 
written,  free  from  technicalities,  and  fluent  in  style,  so  that  it  is  as  easy  for  the  laity 
to  comprehend,  as  for  those  initiated  by  practical  experience  into  the  workings  of  our 
government.  The  chapters  dealing  with  the  professional  and  social  sides  of  American 
life,  and  especially  those  devoted  to  the  American  universities,  have  been  enthus- 
iastically received  by  Americans,  —  some  American  universities  accepting  the  work 
as  a  text-book  in  their  schools  of  law,  economics,  and  sociology. 

AMERICAN  CONFLICT,  THE,  by  Horace  Greeley  (1864-66).  This  history  is 
not  restricted  to  the  period  of  armed  conflict  between  the  North  and  South  in  the 
sixties;  but  purports  to  give,  in  two  large  volumes,  an  account  of  the  drift  of  public 
opinion  in  the  United  States  regarding  human  slavery  from  1776  to  the  close- of  the 
year  1865.  The  most  valuable  feature  of  this  history  is  the  incorporation  into  it  of 
letters,  speeches,  political  platforms,  and  other  documents,  which  show  authentically 


24  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  beyond  controversy  the  opinions  and  dogmas  accepted  by  political  parties  and 
their  chiefs,  and  approved  by  public  opinion  North  and  South;  as  the  author  justly 
remarks,  nothing  could  so  clearly  show  the  influences  of  slavery  in  molding  the 
opinions  of  the  people  and  in  shaping  the  destinies  of  the  country.  Thus  the  work  is 
a  great  magazine  of  materials  for  the  political  history  of  the  United  States  with 
regard  to  slavery;  and  whatever  judgment  may  be  passed  on  its  author's  philosophy 
of  the  great  conflict,  the  trustworthiness  of  his  volumes,  simply  as  a  record  of  facts 
and  authentic  declarations  of  sectional  and  partisan  opinion,  is  unquestionable. 

AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  CIVILIZATION,  and  Other  Essays  and 
Addresses,  by  Charles  W.  Eliot  (1897).  A  collection  of  miscellaneous  addresses  and 
magazine  articles,  written  during  the  previous  twenty-five  years  by  the  presi- 
dent of  Harvard;  not,  however,  including  any  educational  papers.  The  'American 
Contributions '  is  the  subject  of  the  first  only,  out  of  about  twenty  papers.  There  are 
included  also  the  remarkable  set  of  inscriptions  prepared  by  Mr.  Eliot  for  the  Water 
Gate  of  the  World's  Pair  at  Chicago,  1893 ;  that  for  the  Soldiers'  Monument  on  Boston 
Common;  and  those  for  the  Robert  Gould  Shaw  monument,  commemorating  the 
54th  Regiment  Massachusetts  Infantry.  Through  the  entire  volume  there  appear  a 
grasp  of  conception,  a  strength  and  refinement  of  thought,  and  a  clearness  and  vigor 
of  style,  very  rarely  found  in  writers  on  themes  not  involving  imagination  or  making 
appeal  to  feeling. 

AMERICAN  CRISISi  THE,  is  the  general  name  given  to  a  series  of  political  articles 
by  Thomas  Paine.  These  articles  are  thirteen  in  number,  exclusive  of  a  'Crisis 
Extraordinary '  and  a  '  Supernumerary  Crisis.'  The  first  and  most  famous,  published 
in  the  Pennsylvania  Journal,  December  igth,  1776,  began  with  the  famous  sentence, 
"These  are  the  times  that  try  men's  souls."  "It  was  written  during  the  retreat  of 
Washington  across  the  Delaware,  and  by  order  of  the  commander  was  read  to  groups 
of  his  dispirited  and  suffering  soldiers.  Its  opening  sentence  was  adopted  as  the 
watchword  of  the  movement  on  Trenton,  a  few  days  after  its  publication,  and  is 
believed  to  have  inspired  much  of  the  courage  which  won  that  victory. "  The  second 
'Crisis'  is  addressed  to  Lord  Howe  on  the  occasion  of  his  proclamations  to  the 
American  people,  in  the  interests  of  Great  Britain.  The  third  '  Crisis '  is  dated  April 
I9th,  1777,  two  days  after  the  appointment  of  Paine  to  the  secretaryship  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Foreign  Affairs.  The  fourth  appeared  shortly  after  the  battle  of  Brandy- 
wine,  in  the  fall  of  1777.  The  fifth  was  addressed  to  General  William  Howe,  and 
was  written  when  Paine  was  employed  by  the  Pennsylvania  Assembly  and  Council 
to  obtain  intelligence  of  the  movements  of  Washington's  army.  The  sixth  was 
addressed  to  the  British  Commissioners  appointed  to  "treat,  consult,  and  agree,  upon 
the  means  of  quieting  the  Disorders"  in  the  colonies.  The  seventh  and  eighth 
addressed  the  people  of  England;  and  the  ninth,  no  particular  person  or  body  of 
persons.  The  tenth  was  on  the  King  of  England's  speech  at  the  opening  of  Parlia- 
ment, November  27th,  1781.  The  eleventh  considered  the  Present  State  of  News, 
The  twelfth  was  addressed  to  the  Earl  of  Shelburne.  The  thirteenth  and  last,  pub- 
lished April  igth,  1783,  bears  the  title,  'Thoughts  on  the  Peace,  and  the  Probable 
Advantages  thereof.'  It  opens  with  the  words,  "The  times  that  tried  men's  souls 
are  over. "  The  pamphlets  throughout  exhibit  political  acumen  and  the  common- 
sense  for  which  Paine  was  remarkable.  As  historical  evidence  of  the  underlying 
forces  in  a  unique  struggle,  and  as  a  monument  to  patriotism,  they  possess  great  and 
lasting  value. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  25 

AMERICAN  LAW,  see  COMMENTARIES  ON. 

AMERICAN  MUNICIPAL  PROGRESS,  by  Charles  Zueblin  (latest  ed.  1915). 
A  revised  edition  of  this  book,  first  published  in  1902,  was  needed,  as  it  is  just  in  the 
years  since  1900  that  the  municipal  idea  has  been  most  extensively  developed  both 
in  Europe  and  America.  What  steps  have  been  taken  in  the  direction  of  municipaliza- 
tion  in  the  western  world  may  be  seen  from  a  concise  statement  in  the  preface. 
"Already  this  century  has  witnessed  the  first  municipalized  street  railways  and 
telephone  in  American  cities;  a  national  epidemic  of  street  paving  and  cleaning;  the 
quadrupling  of  electric  lighting  service  and  the  national  appropriation  of  display 
lighting;  a  successful  crusade  against  dirt  of  all  kinds  —  smoke,  flies,  germs  —  and 
the  diffusion  of  constructive  provisions  for  health  like  baths,  laundries,  comfort 
stations,  milk  stations,  school-nurses,  and  open  air  schools;  fire  prevention;  the 
humanizing  of  the  police  and  the  advent  of  the  policewoman;  the  transforming  of 
some  municipal  courts  into  institutions  for  the  prevention  of  crime  and  the  cure  of 
offenders;  the  elaboration  of  the  school  curriculum  to  give  every  child  a  complete 
education  from  the  kindergarten  to  the  vocational  course  in  school  or  university  or 
shop;  municipal  reference  libraries;  the  completion  of  park  systems  in  most  large 
cities  and  the  acceptance  of  the  principle  that  the  smallest  city  without  a  park  and 
playground  is  not  quite  civilized;  the  modern  playground  movement  giving  organized 
and  directed  play  to  young  and  old;  the  social  centre;  the  democratic  art  museum; 
municipal  theatres;  the  commission  form  of  government;  the  city  manager;  home  rule 
for  cities;  direct  legislation  —  a  greater  advance  than  the  whole  nineteenth  century 
compassed. "  The  book  is  a  mine  of  information  for  civil  and  social  workers,  munici- 
pal officials,  and  intelligent  citizens  generally,  and  its  value  is  enhanced  by  a  full 
bibliography. 

AMERICAN  PAINTING,  THE  HISTORY  OF,  by  Samuel  Isham  (1915).  The 
plan  of  the  editor  and  author  of  this  book  is  to  present  the  history  of  a  particular  art 
in  a  given  area  from  the  artist's  point  of  view.  As  the  United  States  is  the  youngest 
of  the  great  nations,  the  student  must  not  expect  to  find  in  the  history  of  its  art 
cither  organic  growth  or  logical  development,  but  rather  the  continual  desertion  of 
one  set  of  models  for  another,  with  the  retention  at  each  change  of  hardly  any  tradi- 
tion of  former  ideals.  American  painting,  however,  may  roughly  be  classified  in 
three  periods  —  the  Colonial,  during  which  the  inspiration  was  mainly  English;  the 
Provincial,  when  English  influence  waned  and  painters  looked  for  guidance  to.Dussel- 
dorf,  Rome,  or  Paris;  the  Cosmopolitan,  immediately  succeeding  the  Civil  War,  when. 
American  painting  took  its  place  in  rivalry  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  present 
tendency,  which  is  proceeding  with  extraordinary  rapidity,  is  the  attempt  to  develop 
an  indigenous  painting  adapted  to  native  needs  and  tastes.  The  aim  of  the  author 
has  been  to  trace  the  development  of  painting  and  of  the  appreciation  of  painting. 
Particular  artists  and  their  works  are  mentioned  at  such  length  as  will  record  the 
growth  of  the  country  in  intelligence  and  culture,  and  show  how  the  painter  has  been 
inspired  or  at  least  influenced  by  his  environment  and  how  later  ,he  has  reacted  upon 
it.  The  evolution  of  the  art  in  the  .United  States  from  Copley  and  Benjamin  West, 
the  latter  of  whom  got  his  first  colors  from  the  painted  savages  of  the  foresj;,  to  the 
superb  craftmanship  of  Whistler  and  Sargent  is  skillfully  traced  with  proportion, 
candor,  and  clarity. 

AMERICAN  PROSE  MASTERS,  by  William  Crary  Brownell  (1909).  A  series 
of  critical  essays  on  Cooper,  Ha^tborae,  Emerson,  Poe,  Lowell,  and  Henry  James, 


20  ,  THE    READER  S    DIGEbT    OF 

With  great  acufceness  the  author  applies  to  these  authors  a  rigid  critical  standard, 
considering  in  turn  their  substance,  philosophy,  culture,  and  style.  Cooper 
he  places  unusually  high,  but  depreciates  Hawthorne -as  lacking  in  substance.  Emer- 
son he  praises  as  an  apostle  of  refinement  to  an  age  of  democracy.  Poe  is  a  consum- 
mate artist  but  without  intellectual  content  and  "therefore  valueless."  Lowell's 
criticism  he  condemns  as  dilettante  because,  though  based  on  sound  scholarship,  it 
was  impressionistic  and  pictorial  rather  than  intellectual.  Henry  James  he  values 
for  his  penetrative  analysis  of  the  complicated  relations  of  modern  life.  This  critic 
is  somewhat  over-fastidious,  but  his  conscientiousness,  perspicuity,  precision,  and 
impartiality  are  valuable  contributions  to  American  criticism,  relieving  it  from  the 
suspicion  of  provincial  partiality  and  holding  favorite  authors  up  to  the  highest 
standards. 

AMERICAN  REVOLUTION,  THE,  by  John  Fiske  (1891).  This  volume,  origin- 
ally intended  for  beginners  in  history,  owes  its  vogue  to  the  author's  terse  and  flexible 
vernacular;  his  sense  of  harmonious  and  proportionate  literary  treatment;  and  that 
clear  perception  of  the  relative  importance  of  details,  and  firm  yet  easy  grasp  of 
principles  and  significant  facts,  resulting  from  the  trained  exercise  of  his  philosophic 
powers.  'The  American  Revolution*  was  first  published  in  1891 ;  but  the  edition  of 
1896  is  "illustrated  with  portraits,  maps,  facsimiles,  contemporary  views,  prints,  and 
other  historic  materials."  This  work  exhibits  a  delightful  vivacity  and  dramatic 
skill  in  the  portraiture  of  Washington  as  the  central  figure  of  the  American  revolt 
against  the  arbitrary  government  of  George  the  Third.  A  full  treatment  of  the 
earlier  tyranny  of  the  Lords  of  Trade,  leading  up  to  the  crisis,  is  followed  by  Wash- 
ington's entrance  on  the  scene,  at  Cambridge,  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  American 
forces.  The  military  gains  of  Washington  in  spite  of  the  enemy's  large  resources, 
and  the  varying  fortunes  of  the  patriot  army,  leading  down  through  the  discourage- 
ments of  Valley  Forge  and  up  again,  through  the  campaigns  of  the  South  and  of 
Virginia,  to  final  success,  are  shown  by  Mr.  Fiske  with  remarkable  clearness  and  skill. 
Finally  he  points  out  the  broad  results  to  all  future  civilization  of  the  triumph  of  the 
Colonial  cause,  in  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis.  His  point  of  view  is  one  with  that  of 
John  Morley,  who  says:  "The  War  of  Independence  was  virtually  a  second  English 
Civil  War.  The  ruin  of  the  American  cause  would  have  been  also  the  ruin  of  the 
Constitutional  cause  in  England;  and  a  patriotic  Englishman  may  revere  the  memory 
of  Patrick  Henry  and  George  Washington,  not  less  justly  than  the  patriotic 
American." 

AMERICAN  REVOLUTION,  LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  THE,  see  LITERARY, 
ETC. 

AMERECANS  AND  OTHERS,  'a  collection  of  essays  on  contemporary  manners'  by 
Agnes  Repplier  (1912).  The  point  of  view  is  that  of  an  educated  gentlewoman, 
witty,  satirical,  gracious,  and  refined,  a  valiant  upholder  of  sane  and  wholesome 
ideals.  Her  essays  ridicule  the  defects  and  strive  to  encourage  the  merits  of  American 
social  life.  'A  Question  of  Politeness'  attacks  the  common  delusion  that  rudeness 
is  a  mark  of  sincerity.  In  '  The  Mission  of  Humor '  she  criticizes  the  cheap  wit  of  the 
comic  supplements  and  the  lack  of  intellectual  content  in  American  humor.  'Good- 
ness and  Gayety'  pleads  for  the  union  of  wit  and  sanctity.  'The  Nervous  Strain' 
attempts  to  check  the  American  habit  of  rush  and  worry  by  an  appeal  to  common- 
sense  and  to  the  sayings  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  'The  Greatest  of  these  is  Charity '  is  a 
satire  on  the  charitable  enterprises  of  wealthy  American  women.  .Other  essays  are 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  27 

|The  Girl  Graduate/  'The  Estranging  Sea,'  'The  Customary  Correspondent/  and 
'The  Condescension  of  Borrowers.'  The  style  is  finished,  and  refined,  and  attrao 
tively  combines  gayety  and  seriousness. 

AMIEL'S  JOURNAL,  a  selection  of  daily  meditations  from  the  diary  of  Henri 
Fre"de*ric  Amiel,  who  was  a  professor  of  aesthetics  and  later  of  philosophy  at  the 
University  of  Geneva,  but  published  little,  putting  his  best  work  into  this  'Journal 
Intime,'  which  extends  from  1848  to  1881,  the  year  of  his  death,  and  appeared  in  1882. 
A  good  English  translation  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  was  published  in  1889.  The 
work  consists  of  detached  meditations  of  a  philosophic,  religious,  descriptive,  and 
personal  character  written  in  a  lucid,  aphoristic  style.  Amiel  was  a  man  of  reflective 
temperament  and  had  the  habit  of  introspection,  fostered  by  a  skeptical  and  analyzing 
age.  Four  years  of  philosophical  studies  in  Germany  had  intensified  this  tendency, 
and  directed  his  contemplations  too  exclusively  to  the  infinite,  paralyzing  his  will 
and  his  power  of  seeking  positive  truth.  Some  of  the  entries  in  the  journal  express  a 
yearning  for  Nirvana,  for  absorption  in  the  universe;  in  others  he  attempts  to  fuse 
into  one  the  most  diverse  systems  of  thought.  Others  are  nicely  discriminating 
appreciations  of  literature  and  art,  or  penetrating  criticisms  of  society  and  national 
life.  Concerning  religion  Amiel  disbelieves  in  the  permanency  of  dogma  but  holds 
that  an  element  of  faith  is  essential  if  religion  is  to  retain  its  power  over  the  masses. 
He  maintains  the  unity  of  the  religious  aspirations  beneath  diverse  creeds.  His 
descriptions  of  Genevan  landscape  show  genuine  power  of  suggesting  the  spiritual 
presence  immanent  in  nature. 

AMOS  JUDD,  by  J.  A.  Mitchell  (1895).  0*  the  outbreak  of  civil  war  in  a  prov- 
ince of  Northern  India,  the  seven-year-old  rajah  is  smuggled  away  to  save  his  life, 
by  three  faithful  followers,  two  Hindoos  and  an  American;  and  for  absolute  safety  is 
taken  to  the  Connecticut  farmhouse  of  the  American's  brother.  Under  the  name  of 
Amos  Judd  he  is  brought  up  in  ignorance  of  his  origin.  The  most  dramatic  incidents 
of  his  life  hinge  upon  his  wonderful  faculty  of  foreseeing  events.  In  this  story  the 
atmosphere  of  a  world  invisible  seems  to  surround  and  control  that  of  the  visible 
world ;  and  the  shrewd  and  unimaginative  Yankee  type  is  skillfully  and  dramatically 
set  against  the  mystical  Hindu  character,  to  whom  'the  unseen  is  more  real  than  the 
actual.  The  story  is  well  told. 

L* AMOUR,  by  the  noted  French  historian  Michelet,  was  published  in  1859,  when 
he  was  sixty-one  years  old.  In  the  Introduction  he  writes:  —  "The  title  which 
would  fully  express  the  design  of  this  book,  its  signification,  and  its  import,  would  be 
1  Moral  Enfranchisement  Effected  by  True  Love.' "  Judged  by  the  standards  of  the 
present  day,  *L' Amour'  seems  old-fashioned;  its  ideals  of  women  obvious.  At  the 
time  of  its  publication,  however,  it  appeared  revolutionary  and  daring.  Yet  it  was 
merely  an  attempt  to  establish  reverence  for  the  physical  life  of  woman.  Her  in- 
tellectual life  was  considered  only  as  a  kind  of  appendage  to  the  physical.  Michelet 
apparently  had  no  other  conception  of  woman  and  her  destiny  than  as  maiden,  wife, 
mother,  housekeeper.  Of  the  end-of-the-century  woman  he  had  no  foreknowledge. 
The  conception  of  his  work  rested  on  a  sentimental  basis.  It  was  the  fruit  of  a  philan- 
thropic motive.  He  saw  about  him  not  a  nation  of  families,  but  of  individuals.  He 
wished  to  hold  before  his  countrymen  an  ideal  of  family  life.  This  ideal  was  noble 
but  narrow.  Woman  was  to  frfrn  a  fragile  plant  to  be  cared  for  and  cherished  by 
man.  One  muscular  girl  playing  golf  would  have  destroyed  his  pretty  conception, 
but  the  athletic  college  woman  did  not  belong  to  the  fifties.  The  work  however 


28  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

served  its  purpose.  As  far  as  it  went  it  was  good.  Its  conception  of  love,  though 
one-sided,  was  sufficiently  in  advance  of  contemporary  thought  on  the  subject  to 
render  the  book  remarkable. 

ANABASIS,  THE  ('Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand,'  401-399  B.  C.),  by  Xenophon. 
The  word  means  the  going  up  or  expedition, — i.  e.,  to  Babylon,,  the  capital  of  the 
Persian  Empire;  but  most  of  the  narrative  is  occupied  with  the  retreat.  The 
occasion  of  the  famous  expedition  was  the  attempt  of  Cyrus  the  Younger  to 
unseat  his  elder  brother  Artaxerxes  from  the  throne  of  Persia  by  aid  of  a  Greek  army, 
which  he  gathered  in  or  near  his  satrapy  in  Asia  Minor,  and  then  moved  swiftly 
across  Persia  against  the  miscellaneous  barbarian  hordes  of  his  brother  with  their 
small  centre  of  disciplined  Persian  guards.  The  plan  succeeded,  and  Cyrus  was  about 
to  win  the  great  battle  of  Cunaxa,  when  he  was  killed  in  the  fray,  and  the  Ten  Thou- 
sand were  left  leaderless  and  objectless  in  the  heart  of  a  hostile  empire  a  thousand 
miles  from  their  kin.  To  complete  their  ruin,  all  the  head  officers  were  decoyed 
into  a  mock  negotiation  by  Artaxerxes  and  murdered  to  a  man.  In  their  despair, 
Xenophon,  a  volunteer  without  command,  came  forward,  heartened  them  into  hold- 
ing together  and  fighting  their  way  back  to  the  Euxine,  and  was  made  leader  of  the 
retreat ;  which  was  conducted  with  such  success,  through  Persia  and  across  the  snow- 
clad  Armenian  mountains,  against  both  Persian  forces  and  Kurdish  savages,  that  the 
troops  reached  Trapezus  (Trebizond)  with  very  little  loss.  Even  then  their  dangers 
were  not  over:  Xenophon  had  now  to  turn  diplomatist;  to  gain  the  good  graces  of  the 
Greek  cities  on  the  Black  Sea,  and  to  negotiate  with  Seuthes  the  Thracian  king  who 
tried  to  assassinate  him,  and  with  the  governors  of  the  different  cities  subject  to 
Sparta.  At  last  the  adventure  was  over.  Many  of  the  survivors  went  back  to  Greece ; 
but  the  larger  number  took  service  under  Spartan  harmosts,  and  were  subsequently 
instrumental  in  freeing  several  Greek  cities  in  Asia  Minor. 

Merely  as  a  travel  sketch  the  tale  is  highly  interesting.  The  country  traversed 
in  Persia  was  almost  utterly  unknown  to  the  Greeks:  and  Xenophon  makes  mem- 
oranda in  which  he  enumerates  the  distances  from  one  halting-place  to  another; 
notes  the  cities  inhabited  or  cities  deserted;  gives  a  brief  but  vivid  description  of  a 
beautiful  plain,  a  mountain  pass,  a  manoeuvre  skillfully  executed,  or  any  amusing 
episode  that  falls  under  his  eye.  And  we  find  that  camp  gossip  and  scandal  were  as 
rife,  as  rank,  and  as  reliable  as  in  other  ages.  He  is  especially  delightful  in  his  por- 
traits, sketched  in  a  few  sentences,  but  vigorous  and  lifelike:  Cyrus,  a  man  at  once 
refined  and  barbarous,  an  impressive  picture  of  a  Persian  prince  brought  in  contact 
with  Greek  civilization;  Clearchus,  the  type  of  an  excellent  general,  upright  but 
harsh;  Proxenus,  a  fine  gentleman,  but  too  soft  and  weak;  the  unscrupulous  Merion,  a 
natural  product  of  civil  dissension.  Xenophon  tells  the  story  in  the  third  person, 
after  the  fashion  in  the  classic  times;  and  if  he  makes  himself  out  a  most  eloquent, 
courageous,  resourceful,  and  self-sacrificing  leader,  his  other  work  makes  one  willing 
to  accredit  him  cheerfully. 

ANACHARSIS,  THE  YOUNGER,  see  PILGRIMAGE  OF. 

ANALOGY  OF  RELIGION,  THE,  by  Bishop  Joseph  Butler,  first  appeared  in  1736, 
and  has  ever  since  been  held  in  high  esteem  by  orthodox  Christians.  The  full  title 
is  'The  Analogy  of  Religion,  Natural  and  Revealed,  to  the  Constitution  and  Course 
of  Nature/  The  argument,  which  is  orderly  and  concise,  is  briefly  this:  The  author 
lays  down  three  premises,  —  the  existence  of  God;  the  known  course  of  nature;  and 
the  necessary  limitations  of  our  knowledge.  These  premises  enable  him  to  take 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  29 

common  ground  with  those  whom  he  seeks  to  convince  —  the  exponents  of  a  "loose 
kind  of  deism. "  He  then  argues  that  he  who  denies  the  Divine  authorship  of  the 
Scriptures,  on  account  of  difficulties  found  in  them,  may,  for  the  same  reason,  deny 
the  world  to  have  been  created  by  God:  for  inexplicable  difficulties  are  found  in  the 
course  of  nature;  therefore  no  sound  deist  should  be  surprised  to  find  similar  difficul- 
ties in  the  Christian  religion.  Further,  if  both  proceed  from  the  same  author,  the 
wonder  would  rather  be,  that  there  should  not  be  found  on  both  the  mark  of  the 
same  hand  of  authorship.  If  man  can  follow  the  works  of  God  but  a  little  way,  and 
if  his  world  also  greatly  transcends  the  efforts  of  unassisted  reason,  why  should  not 
His  word  likewise  be  beyond  man's  perfect  comprehension?  In  no  sense  a  philosophy 
of  religion,  but  an  attempt  rather  to  remove  common  objections  thereto,  the  work  is 
necessarily  narrow  in  scope:  but  within  its  self-imposed  limitations  the  discussion  is 
exhaustive,  dealing  with  such  problems  as  a  future  life;  God's  moral  government; 
man's  probation;  the  doctrine  of  necessity;  and  most  largely,  the  question  of  revela- 
tion. To  the  'Analogy'  there  are  generally  subjoined  two  dissertations:  one  on 
Personal  Identity,  and  one  on  The  Nature  of  Virtue. 

ANALYSIS  OF  BEAUTY,  THE,  an  essay  on  certain  artistic  principles,  by  William 
Hogarth,  was  published  in  1753.  In  1745  he  had  painted  the  famous  picture  of 
himself  and  his  pug-dog  Trump,  now  in  the  National  Gallery.  In  a  corner  of  this 
picture  appeared  a  palette  bearing  a  serpentine  line  under  which  was  inscribed: 
"The  Line  of  Beauty  and  Grace."  This  inscription  provoked  so  much  inquiry  and 
comment  that  Hogarth  wrote  '  The  Analysis  of  Beauty '  in  explanation  of  it.  In  the 
introduction  he  says:  "I  now  offer  to  the  public  a  short  essay  accompanied  with  two 
explanatory  prints,  in  which  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  what  the  principles  are  in 
nature,  by  which  we  are  directed  to  call  the  forms  of  some  bodies  beautiful,  others 
ugly;  some  graceful  and  others  the  reverse."  The  first  chapters  of  the  book  deal 
with  Variety,  Uniformity,  Simplicity,  Intricacy,  Quantity,  etc.  Lines  and  the  com- 
position of  lines  are  then  discussed,  followed  by  chapters  on  Light  and  Shade,  on 
Proportion,  and  on  Action.  The  *  Analysis  of  Beauty '  subjected  Hogarth  to  extrava- 
gant praise  from  his  friends  and  to  ridicule  from  his  'detractors.  Unfortunately  he 
had  himself  judged  his  work  on  the  title-page,  in  the  words  "written  with  a  view 
of  fixing  the  fluctuating  ideas  of  taste."  This  ambition  it  was  not  possible  for 
Hogarth  to  realize.  The  essay  contains,  however,  much  that  is  pertinent  and 
suggestive. 

ANASTASIITS  or,  MEMOIRS  OF  A  MODERN  GREEK,  WRITTEN  AT  THE  CLOSE  OF  THE 
EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  by  Thomas  Hope  (1819).  The  author  of  this  romance,  a 
rich  retired  merchant,  woke  one  morning,  like  Byron,  to  find  himself  famous.  He 
was  known  to  have  written  some  learned  books  on  furnishing  and  costume;  but 
'Anastasius'  gave  frjtn  rank  as  an  accomplished  painter  of  scenery  and  delineator  of 
manners.  The  hero,  a  young  Greek  ruined  by  injudicious  indulgence,  is  an  apostate, 
a  robber,  and  a  murderer.  To  avoid  the  consequences  of  a  disgraceful  love  affair,  he 
runs  away  from  Chios,  his  birthplace,  and  seeks  safety  on  a  Venetian  ship.  This  is 
captured  by  the  Turks,  and  Anastasius  is  haled  before  a  Turkish  magistrate.  Dis- 
charged, he  fights  on  the  side  of  the  Crescent,  and  goes  to  Constantinople,  where  he 
resorts  to  all  sorts  of  shifts  for  a  livelihood,  —  jugglery,  peddling,  nostrum-making; 
becomes  a  Mussulman,  visits  Egypt,  Arabia,  Sicily,  and  Italy.  His  adventures 
"dizzy  the  arithmetic  of  memory":  he  goes  through  plague  and  famine,  battle  and 
accident,  and  finally  dies  young,  a  worn-out  and  worthless  adventurer.  He  is  a  man 


30  THE    READER'S    DIGEST   OF    BOOKS 

of  the  world,  and  through  his  eyes  the  reader  is  made  to  see  the  world  that  he  lives  in. 
The  book  has  passages  of  great  power,  often  of  brilliancy  and  wit;  but  it  belongs  to 
the  fashion  of  a  more  leisurely  day,  and  is  now  seldom  read. 

ANATHEMA,  a  drama  by  Leonid  Andreyev  (1909).  Anathema  is  the  Devil, 
the  tempter  of  man.  In  the  prologue  he  stands  outside  the  gates  of  eternity,  and 
calls  on  the  silent  Guardian  to  open  them  for  an  instant  that  he  may  have  a  glimpse 
of  the  mysteries  to  illumine  the  way  for  the  Devil  and  for  man,  alike  groping  in 
darkness.  The  Guardian  bars  the  way,  and  in  anger  Anathema  swears  to  return  to 
earth  and  ruin  the  soul  of  David  Leizer.  David  Leizer  is  not  a  Faust  or  a  Job,  but  an 
insignificant  Jewish  shopkeeper  dying  of  poverty  in  a  Russian  town.  Anathema 
appears  to  him  as  a  lawyer  to  announce  that  he  has  inherited  a  fortune.  David 
divides  his  wealth  among  the  poor  and  outcast.  His  attempt  to  help  his  fellow-man 
results  in  strife  and  bloodshed.  His  millions  are  not  sufficient,  and  the  mob  stones 
him  to  death  because  he  does  not  work  miracles  to  clothe  and  feed  them  and  bring 
back  the  dead  to  life.  Anathema  in  an  epilogue  again  approaches  the  eternal  gates 
and  challenges  the  Guardian  to  answer  him.  Did  not  David  manifest  in  his  life  and 
death  the  powerlessness  of  love  and  create  a  great  evil?  The  Guardian  replies  that 
David  has  attained  immortality,  but  that  Anathema  will  never  know  the  secret  of  life. 

ANATOL:  A  SEQUENCE  OF  DIALOGUES,  by  Arthur  Schnitzler  (1893).  A 
cycle  of  seven  different  love  affairs  of  a  young  Viennese  man  of  fashion,  ending  with 
his  marriage.  He  flirts  from  heart  to  heart,  and  such  is  his  incurable  sentimentality 
that  anticipations  and  retrospects  are  often  more  to  him  than  the  sweetheart  of  the 
moment.  Suffering  agonies  of  doubt  as  to  whether  his  mistress  is  true  to  him  or  not, 
he  proposes  to  hypnotize  the  lady  and  ask  the  fatal  question;  but  when  the  oppor- 
tunity comes,  he  lacks  courage  to  put  his  happiness  to  the  test.  A  most  amusing 
episode  is  "  The  Farewell  Dinner."  While  waiting  for  Mimi  to  come  from  the  ballet, 
he  confides  to  his  friend  Max  that  he  is  on  with  a  new  love  before  he  is  off  with  the  old, 
and  finds  it  too  inconvenient  to  have  two  suppers  every  evening,  so  intends  to  break 
the  news  to  Mimi  that  all  is  over.  His  amazement  and  pique  are  delightful  when 
Mimi  anticipates  his  announcement  with  her  own  farewell  and  her  new  love  affair. 
Another  episode,  at  once  amusing  and  pathetic,  is  given  in  the  LIBRARY.  A 
last  lapse  on  the  eve  of  his  wedding  almost  prevents  him  from  meeting  his  bride  in 
time  for  the  ceremony. 

ANATOMIE  OF  ABUSES,  by  Philip  Stubbes,  was  entered  upon  the  Stationers' 
Register  in  1582-83;  republished  by  the  New  Shakspere  Society  in  1877-79  under 
the  editorship  of  Frederick  J.  Furnivall. 

This  most  curious  work  —  without  the  aid  of  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  editor, 
"no  one  can  pretend  to  know  Shakspere's  England"  —  is  an  exposure  of  the  abuses 
and  corruptions  existing  in  all  classes  of  Elizabethan  society.  Written  from  the 
Puritan  standpoint,  it  is  yet  not  over-prejudiced  nor  bigoted. 

Little  is  known  of  Philip  Stubbes.  Thomas  Nash  makes  a  savage  attack  on  the 
'Anatomie'  and  its  author,  in  a  tract  published  in  1589.  Stubbes  himself  throws 
some  light  upon  his  life,  in  his  memorial  account  of  his  young  wife,  whose  "right 
virtuous  life  and  Christian  death"  are  circumstantially  set  forth.  The  editor  be- 
lieves him  to  have  been  a  gentleman  —  "either  by  birth,  profession,  or  both";  to 
have  written,  from  1581  to  1610,  pamphlets  and  books  strongly  on  the  Puritan  side; 
before  1583  to  have  spent  "seven  winters  and  more,  traveling  from  place  to  place, 
even  all  the  land  over  indifferently. "_  It  is  supposed  that  in  1586  he  married  a  girl  of 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  31 

fourteen.  Her  death  occurred  four  years  and  a  half  afterwards,  following  not  many 
weeks  the  birth  of  a  "goodly  man  childe."  Stubbes's  own  death  is  supposed  to 
have  taken  place  not  long  after  1610. 

'The  Anatomie  of  Abuses'  was  published  in  two  parts.  These  are  in  the  form 
of  a  dialogue  between  Spudens  and  Philoponus  (Stubbes),  concerning  the  wickedness 
of  the  people  of  Ailgna  (England).  Part  First  deals  with  the  abuses  of  Pride,  of 
Men's  and  Women's  Apparel;  of  the  vices  of  whoredom,  gluttony,  drunkenness, 
covetousness,  usury,  swearing,  Sabbath-breaking,  stage-plays;  of  the  evils  of  the 
Lords  of  Misrule,  of  May-games,  church-ales,  wakes,  feasts,  of  "pestiferous  dancing," 
of  music,  cards,  dice-tables,  tennis,  bowls,  bear-baiting;  of  cock-fighting,  hawking, 
and  hunting,  on  the  Sabbath;  of  markets,  fairs,  and  foot-ball  playing,  also  on  the 
Sabbath;  and  finally  of  the  reading  of  wicked  books;  the  whole  being  followed  by  a 
chapter  on  the  remedy  for  these  evils. 

Part  Second  deals  with  corruptions  in  the  Temporalty  and  the  Spiritualty. 
Under  temporal  corruptions  the  author  considers  abuses  in  law,  in  education,  in 
trade,  in  the  manufacture  of  apparel,  in  the  relief  of  the  poor,  in  husbandry  and 
fanning.  He  also  considers  abuses  among  doctors,  chandlers,  barbers,  apothecaries, 
astronomers,  astrologers,  and  prognosticates. 

Under  matters  spiritual  the  author  sets  forth  the  Church's  sins  of  omission  rather 
than  of  commission;  but  he  treats  of  wrong  preferment,  of  simony,  and  of  the  evils 
of  substitution. 

The  entire  work  is  most  valuable,  as  throwing  vivid  light  upon  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  time,  especially  in  the  matter  of  dress.  An  entire  Elizabethan  ward- 
robe of  fashion  might  be  reproduced  from  Stubbes's  circumstantial  descriptions. 
Concerning  hose  he  writes: 

"The  Gally-hosen  are  made  very  large  and  wide,  reaching  downe  to  their  knees 
onely,  with  three  or  four  guardes  a  peece  laid  down  along  either  hose.  And  the 
Venetian  hosen,  they  reach  beneath  the  knee  to  the  gartering  place  to  the  Leg, 
where  they  are  tyed  finely  with  silk  points,  or  some  such  like,  and  laied  on  also  with 
reeves  of  lace,  or  gardes  as  the  other  before.  And  yet  notwithstanding  all  this  is  not 
sufficient,  except  they  be  made  of  silk,  velvet,  saten  damask,  and  other  such  precious 
things  beside," 

ANATOMY  OF  MELANCHOLY,  by  Robert  Burton  (1621),  is  a  curious  miscellany, 
covering  so  wide  a  range  of  subjects  as  to  render  classification  impossible.  This 
torrent  of  erudition  flows  in  channels  scientifically  exact.  Melancholy  is  treated  as 
a  malady,  first  in  general,  then  in  particular.  Its  nature,  seat,  varieties,  causes, 
symptoms,  and  prognosis  are  considered  in  an  orderly  manner,  with  a  great  number 
of  differentiations.  Its  cure  is  next  examined,  and  the  various  means  discussed 
which  may  be  adopted  to  accomplish  this.  Permissible  means,  forbidden  means, 
moral  means,  and  pharmaceutical  means  are  each  analyzed.  After  disposing  of  the 
scholastic  method,  the  author  descends  from  the  general  to  the  particular,  and  treats 
of  emotions  and  ideas  minutely,  endeavoring  to  classify  them.  In  early  editions  of 
the  book,  there  appear  at  the  head  of  each  part,  synoptical  and  analytical  tables, 
with  divisions  and  subdivisions,  —  each  subdivision  in  sections  and  each  section  in 
subsections,  after  the  manner  of  an  important  scientific  treatise.  While  the  general 
framework  is  orderly,  the  author  has  filled  in  the  details  with  most  heterogeneous 
material.  Every  conceivable  subject  is  made  to  illustrate  his  theme :  quotations,  brief 
and  extended,  from  many  authors;  stories  and  oddities  from  obscure  sources;  literary 
descriptions  of  passions  and  follies;  recipes  and  advices;  experiences  and  biographiesc 


32  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ANCIENT  LAW,  by  Henry  Sumner  Maine  (1861).  In  his  remarkable  work  on 
'Ancient  Law:  Its  Connection  with  the  Early  History  of  Society,  and  Its  Relation 
to  Modern  Ideas/  Sir  Henry  Maine  attempted  to  indicate  some  of  the  earliest  ideas 
of  mankind,  as  reflected  in  ancient  law,  and  to  point  out  the  relation  of  those  ideas  to 
modern  thought.  To  a  large  extent  the  illustrations  were  drawn  from  Roman  law, 
because  it  bears  in  its  earliest  portions  traces  of  the  most  remote  antiquity,  and  at  the 
same  time  it  supplies  many  elements  of  modern  culture.  A  principal  contention  of 
Maine  was  that  patriarchal  or  fatherly  authority  was  the  earliest  germ  of  social  order. 
The  distinction  given  the  author  by  this  work  led  to  his  having  a  seven  years'  period 
of  service  in  India  as  legal  member  of  the  Council;  and  on  his  return  to  England  and 
appointment  to  a  professorship  of  jurisprudence  at  Oxford,  his  first  course  of  lectures 
was  published  as  'Village  Communities'  (1871).  It  was  another  course  of  Oxford 
lectures  which  gave  the  substance  of  his  'History  of  Early  Institutions'  (1875);  in 
which,  as  in  'Village  Communities,'  he  drew  from  knowledge  gained  in  India  to  throw 
light  upon  ancient  social  and  political  forms.  Not  only  were  these  works  among  the 
first  examples  of  thorough  historical  research  into  the  origins  of  social  order  and 
political  organization,  but  the  skill  in  exposition  and  admirable  style  in  which  they 
are  executed  make  them  of  permanent  interest  as  models  of  investigation.  The  work 
of  Maine  on  the  origin  and  growth  of  legal  and  social  institutions  was  completed  by 
a  volume  in  1883  on  'Early  Law  and  Custom.'  His  effort  is  still  to  reconcile  the 
growth  of  jurisprudence  with  the  results  obtained  by  modern  anthropology,  while 
each  study  is  made  to  explain  and  illuminate  the  other.  Beginning  with  the  primi- 
tive religion  and  law,  as  disclosed  in  the  earliest  written  monuments  preserved  in 
the  sacred  Hindoo  laws,  the  rise  of  the  kingly  power  and  prerogative  and  the  meaning 
of  ancestor- worship  are  discussed.  The  book  closes  with  a  study  of  the  feudal  theory 
of  property,  and  its  effect  upon  modern  systems  of  rental  and  landholding. 

ANCIENT  MARINER,  see  RIME  OF  THE, 

ANCIENT  POTTERY,  HISTORY  OF,  GREEK,  ETRUSCAN,  AND  ROMAN,  by  H. 

B.  Walters  (1905).    The  importance  of  ceramics  to  the  historic  student  is  obvious. 
"Among  the  simplest  yet  most  necessary  adjuncts  of  a  developing  civilization,"  says 
Mr.  "Walters,  "Pottery  may  be  recognized  as  one  of  the  most  universal.    The  very 
earliest  and  rudest  remains  of  any  people  generally  take  the  form  of  coarse  and 
common  pots,  in  which  they  cooked  their  food  or  consumed  their  beverages. "    More- 
over the  evidence  supplied  by  ceramics  is  contemporary,  and  from  this  study  we 
not  only  learn  what  were  the  common  everyday  lives  of  a  people,  but  see  the  first 
beginnings  and  the  gradual  evolution  of  such  artistic  instinct  as  they  may  have 
possessed.     The  scope  of  the  book  is  to  trace  the  history  of  the  art  of  working  in  clay 
from  its  use  among  the  oldest  nations  of  antiquity  to  the  period  of  the  decline  of  the 
Roman  Empire.    The  importance  of  Greek  ceramics  is  twofold.     In  grace  of  artistic 
form  the  Greeks  excelled  all  nations,  either  past  or  present.    So  rapid  and  successful 
in  recent  years  has  been  the  progress  of  investigation  that  no  branch  of  classical 
archeology  has  become  so  firmly  established  or  so  fertile  in  results  as  the  study  of 
fictile  art  among  the  Greeks.     Moreover  to  the  Greek  art  was  the  language  by  which 
he  expressed  his  ideas  of  the  gods.    The  pottery  of  the  Etruscan  epoch,  that  is  the 
period  previous  to  the  Roman  domination  of  Italy,  was  characterized  by  a  develop- 
ment of  geometrical  decoration,  probably  under  Eastern  influence.     The  work  of  the 
Roman  period,  from  the  second  century  onwards  and  including  the  remains  of  similar 
pottery  from  Gaul,  Britain,  and  other  countries  over  which  Roman  sway  extended, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  33 

was  in  nearly  all  respects  inferior  to  Greek.  It  had  less  artistic  skill,  and,  generally 
speaking,  bore  the  same  relation  to  Greek  ceramic  products  as  all  Roman  art  did 
to  Greek  art.  It  was,  in  other  words,  more  mechanical  and  less  imaginative  and 
inspired.  Mr.  Walters  has  enriched  his  history  with  a  large  number  of  valuable 
illustrations  which  really  elucidate  the  text. 

ANCIENT  REGIME,  THE,  by  H.  A.  Taine  (1875).  A  study  of  the  France  which, 
after  twelve  hundred  years  of  development,  existed  in  1789;  the  part  which  clergy, 
nobles,  and  king  played  in  it ;  the  organization  of  politics,  society,  religion,  and  the 
church;  the  state  of  industry,  education,  science,  and  letters;  and  the  condition  of  the 
people:  with  reference  especially  to  the  causes  which  produced  the  French  Revolution, 
and  through  that  catastrophic  upheaval  created  a  new  France.  Not  only  the  more 
general  facts  are  brought  to  view,  but  the  particulars  of  industrial,  domestic,  and 
social  life  are  abundantly  revealed.  First  the  structure  of  society  is  examined;  then 
the  habits  and  manifestations  of  character  which  were  most  notably  French;  then 
the  elements  of  a  dawning  revolution,  the  representative  figures  of  a  new  departure, 
master  minds  devoted  to  new  knowledge;  philosophers,  scientists,  economists,  seeking 
a  remedy  for  existing  evils;  then  the  working  of  the  new  ideas  in  the  public  mind; 
and  finally  the  state  of  suffering  and  struggle  in  which  the  mass  of  the  people  were. 
A  masterly  study  of  great  value  for  the  history  of  France  and  for  judgment  of  the 
future  of  the  French  Republic.  Taine's  phenomenal  brilliancy  of  style  and  pictur- 
esqueness  of  manner,  his  philosophical  contemplation  of  data,  and  his  kean  reasoning, 
have  never  been  more  strikingly  exhibited  than  in  these  volumes,  which  are  as  ab- 
sorbing as  fiction. 

ANCIENT  ROME  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  RECENT  DISCOVERIES,  by  Rodolfo 
Lanciani,  Professor  of  Archaeology  in  the  University  of  Rome,  and  Director  of  Ex- 
cavations for  the  National  Government  and  the  Municipality  of  Rome  (1888).  In 
his  character  of  official  investigator,  Professor  Lanciani  has  grouped,  in  this  volume, 
various  illustrations  of  the  life  of  ancient  Rome  as  shown  in  its  recovered  antiquities, 
—  columns,  capitals,  inscriptions,  lamps,  vases;  busts  or  ornaments  in  terra-cotta, 
marble,  alabaster,  or  bronze ;  gems,  intaglios,  cameos,  bas-reliefs,  pictures  in  mosaic, 
objects  of  art  in  gold,  silver,  and  bronze;  coins,  relics  in  bone,  glass,  enamel,  lead, 
ivory,  iron,  copper,  and  stucco:  most  of  these  newly  found  treasures  being  genuine 
masterpieces.  From  these  possessions  he  reads  the  story  of  the  wealth,  taste,  habits 
of  life,  ambitions,  and  ideals  of  a  vanished  people.  The  book  does  not  attempt  to 
be  systematic  or  exhaustive,  but  it  is  better.  It  is  full  of  a  fine  historic  imagination, 
with  great  charnTof  language,  and  perennial  richness  of  incident  and  anecdote  which 
make  it  not  only  delightful  reading,  but  the  source  of  a  wide  new  knowledge.  With 
the  true  spirit  of  the  story-teller,  Professor  Lanciani  possesses  an  unusual  knowledge 
of  out-of-the-way  literature  which  enriches  his  power  of  comparison  and  illustration. 
*  Pagan  and  Christian  Rome'  (1892)  made  up  in  part  of  magazine  articles,  and  inten- 
tionally discursive,  attempts  to  measure  in  some  degree  the  debt  of  Christian  art, 
science,  and  ceremonial  to  their  Pagan  predecessors.  'Ruins  and  Excavations  of 
Ancient  Rome,  a  Companion  Book  for  Students  and  Travelers'  (1897)  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  systematic  treatise  on  modern  discovery,  supplied  with  maps,  diagrams, 
tables,  lists,  and  a  bibliography.  The  descriptions  begin  with  the  primitive  palisades, 
and  come  down  to  the  present  time,  treating  prehistoric,  republican,  imperial,  medi- 
aeval, and  modern  Rome;  and  the  book,  though  more  formal,  is  hardly  less  entertain- 
ing than  its  predecessors. 

3 


34  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ANCIENT  STONE  IMPLEMENTS,  WEAPONS,  AND  ORNAMENTS  OF  GREAT 

BRITAIN,  THE,  by  Sir  John  Evans  (1872).  The  various  forms,  probable  uses 
methods  of  manufacture  and  in  some  instances  the  circumstances  of  discovery  o 
these  relics  of  the  Stone  Age  are  the  theme  of  this  volume.  Stone  instrument; 
found  in  ossiferous  caves  and  ancient  alluvial  deposits  and  associated  with  the  re 
mains  of  a  fauna  now  largely  extinct  are  said  to  belong  to  the  palaeolithic  as  distin 
guished  from  the  neolithic  period,  the  remains  of  which  are  usually  found  on  or  nea 
the  surface  of  the  soil.  The  discoveries  of  Dr.  Schmerling  in  the  caves  of  Belgium 
first  published  in  1833  an<i  confirmed  by  later  investigators,  showed  that  human  bones 
worked  flints,  and  bone  instruments  were  often  found  close  to  the  remains  of  extinci 
animals.  Sir  John  Evans  describes  in  detail  a  number  of  stone  implements  of  the 
earlier  and  later  periods,  which  had  been  manufactured  for  use  as  flints,  hatchets 
arrowheads,  grinding  utensils,  or  for  other  purposes  of  war,  the  chase,  or  peace, 
Stone  celts,  which  at  first  were  universally  believed  to  have  been  thunderbolts  and 
therefore  to  possess  medical  or  preservative  virtues,  were  in  the  early  stages  of  theii 
evolution  chipped  or  rough  hewn,  then  ground  at  the  edge  only,  then  polished,  then 
hafted.  Axes  and  hammers  were  first  employed  as  weapons  and  only  later  served 
as  tools.  Knives,  occasionally  perhaps  used  as  lanceheads,  were  sometimes  oval, 
sometimes  circular  or  triangular.  Javelin  and  arrowheads,  supposed  to  have 
fallen  from  heaven,  and  therefore  worn  as  amulets,  sling-stones,  roughly  chipped 
from  flint,  or  the  ornamented  balls  which  prehistoric  Scotland  used  as  missiles;  the 
implements  of  war,  the  chase,  and  domestic  use  are  described  with  a  wealth  of  his- 
toric evidence  and  a  large  number  of  admirable  illustrations. 

ANDES  AND  THE  AMAZON,  THE,  or,  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA. 
by  James  Orton  (1870).  In  1868,  under  the__auspices  of  _the^  Smithsonian  Institu- 
tion, Mr.  Orton,  who  for  many  years  was  professor  of  natural  history  in  Vassar 
College,  led  an  exploring  expedition  to  the  equatorial  Andes  and  the  river  Amazon; 
the  experiences  of  the  party  being  vivaciously  set  forth  in  this  popular  book.  Before 
this  exploration,  as  Mr.  Orton  explains,  even  central  Africa  had  been  more  fully 
explored  than  that  region  of  equatorial  America  which  lies  in  the  midst  of  the  western 
Andes,  and  upon  the  slopes  of  those  mountain  monarchs  which  look  toward  the 
Atlantic.  A  Spanish  knight,  Orellana,  during  Pizarro's  search  for  the  fabled  city  of 
El  Dorado  in  1541,  had  descended  this  King  of  Waters  (as  the  aborigines  called  it); 
and  with  the  eyes  of  romance,  thought  he  discovered  on  its  banks  the  women  warriors 
for  whom  he  then  newly  named  the  stream  the  "Amazon, "  —  a  name  still  used  by 
the  Spaniards  and  the  Portuguese  in  the  plural  form,  Amazonas.  Except  for  one 
Spanish  exploration  up  the  river  in  1637,  the  results  of  which  were  published  in  a 
quaint  and  curious  volume,  and  one  French  exploration  from  coast  to  coast  eastward 
in  1745,  and  the  indefatigable  missionary  pilgrimages  of  Catholic  priests  and  friars, 
the  great  valley  remained  but  vaguely  known.  National  jealousies  had  kept  the 
river  closed  to  foreign  navigation,  until,  by  a  larger  policy,  it  was  made  free  to 
the  flags  of  all  nations  in  1867.  '  The  Andes  and  the  Amazon '  is  not  intended  to  be 
a  scientific  record  of  newly  discovered  data.  Whatever  biological  or  archaeological 
contributions  it  offers  are  sufficiently  intelligible  and  accurate,  and  there  is  scattered 
through  the  three  hundred  and  fifty  pages  of  the  book  a  large  amount  of  general 
information,  such  as  a  trained  observer  would  instinctively  gather,  and  an  intelligent 
audience  delight  to  share. 

ANDROMACHE,  a  tragedy  by  Euripides.    The  heroine  (Hector's  widow)  is  part 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  35 

undergone  the  usual  fate  of  feminine  captives,  and  has  borne  her  master  a  son  named 
Molossus.  Hermione,  the  daughter  of  Menelaus  and  lawful  wife  of  Pyrrhus,  is 
furiously  jealous  of  this  Trojan  slave;  and  with  the  aid  of  her  father,  resolves  to  kill 
Andromache  and  the  child  during  the  absence  of  her  husband.  Fortunately  the  aged 
Peleus,  the  grandfather  of  Pyrrhus,  arrives  just  in  time  to  prevent  the  murder. 
Orestes,  a  cousin  of  Hermione,  to  whom  she  had  formerly  been  betrothed,  stops  at 
her  house  on  his  way  to  Dodona.  Hermione,  fearing  the  resentment  of  her  spouse, 
flies  with  him.  Then  they  lay  an  ambuscade  for  Pyrrhus  at  Delphi  and  slay  him. 
Peleus  is  heart-broken  when  he  learns  the  tidings  of  his  grandson's  fate;  but  he  is 
visited  by  his  wife,  the  sea-goddess  Thetis,  who  bids  him  have  done  with  sorrow, 
and  send  Andromache  and  her  child  to  Molossia.  There  she  is  to  wed  Helenus,  the 
son  of  Priam,  and  for  the  rest  of  her  life  enjoy  unclouded  happiness.  Thetis  orders 
the  burial  of  Pyrrhus  in  Delphi.  Peleus  himself  will  be  released  from  human  griefs, 
and  live  with  his  divine  spouse  forever  in  the  palace  of  Nereus  beneath  the  sea,  in  the 
company  of  his  son  Achilles. 

ANDROMACHE  ('Andromaque'),  a  tragedy  by  Racine  (1667),  suggested  to  him 
by  some  lines  in  the  ^Eneid  of  Virgil.  The  play  owes  very  little  to  the  'Andromache ' 
of  Euripides  except  the  title.  In  Euripides,  everything  is  simple  and  true;  in  Racine, 
everything  is  noble,  profound,  and  impassioned.  The  Andromache  of  the  French 
poet  is  a  modern  Andromache,  not  the  real  Andromache  of  antiquity;  but  the  drama 
is  one  of  his  greatest  works,  and  wrought  a  revolution  in  French  dramatic  art  by 
proving  that  the  delicate  shades  and  almost  imperceptible  movements  of  the  passion 
of  love  could  be  an  inexhaustible  source  of  interest  on  the  stage.  The  drama  was 
parodied  by  Subligny  in  his  'Folle  Querelle.'  Racine  suspected  that  the  parody  was 
written  by  Moliere,  and  the  affair  was  the  occasion  of  a  serious  breach  between  them. 

ANGEL  IN  THE  HOUSE,  THE,  Coventry  Patmore's  most  noted  poem,  was  pub- 
lished in  four  parts  between  1854  and  1862.  'The  Betrothal'  appeared  in  1854, 
'The  Espousals'  in  1856,  'Faithful  Forever'  in  1860,  and  'The  Victories  of  Love'  in 
1862.  The  entire  poem  is  idyllic  in  form.  It  is  a  glorification  of  domestic  life,  of  love 
sheltered  in  the  home,  and  guarded  by  the  gentle  and  tender  wife.  In  consequence 
it  has  been  extremely  popular  in  British  families  of  the  class  it  describes,  —  high- 
bred gentlefolk,  to  whom  the  household  is  the  centre  of  refining  affection. 

ANIMAL  SYMBOLISM  IN  ECCLESIASTICAL  ARCHITECTURE,  by  E.  P.  Evans 
(1896).  A  work  of  curious  interest,  designed  to  trace  the  very  wide  use  of  animal 
symbols  in  religious  relations.  The  famous  work  of  an  Alexandrian  Greek,  known 
as  the  '  Physiologus '  or  The  Naturalist,  became  at  a  very  early  date  a  compendium  of 
current  opinions  and  ancient  traditions  touching  the  characteristics  of  animals  and 
of  plants,  viewed  as  affording  moral  or  religious  suggestion.  The  mystical  meaning 
of  the  various  beasts  grew  to  be  a  universally  popular  study,  and  the  'Physiologus' 
was  translated  into  every  language  used  by  readers.  "  Perhaps  no  book, "  says  Mr. 
Evans,  "except  the  Bible,  has  ever  been  so  widely  diffused  among  so  many  peoples 
and  for  so  many  centuries  as  the  'Physiologus.' "  The  story  of  this  symbolism  in  its 
application,  with  modifications-,  in  architecture,  is  told  by  Mr.  Evans  with  fullness  of 
knowledge  and  sound  judgment  of  significance  of  facts.  It  is  a  very  curious  and  a 
singularly  interesting  history. 

ANNA  KAKENINA,  a  famous  novel  of  contemporary  life,  by  Count  Lyof  Tolstoy 
(1873-76),  was  first  published  as  a  serial  in  the  Russian  Contemporary,  an  English 


36  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

translation,  appearing  in  1886.  The  remarkable  character  of  the  book  pkces  it  in 
the  category  of  world-novels.  Its  theme  —  the  simple  one  of  the  wife,  the  husband, 
and  the  lover  —  is  treated  with  a  marvelous  perception  of  the  laws  of  morality  and 
of  passion.  The  author  depicts  the  effect  upon  a  high-bred  sensitive  woman  of  the 
violation  of  the  moral  code,  through  her  abandonment  to  passion.  The  character  of 
Anna  Karenina  is  the  subject  of  a  subtle  psychological  study.  A  Russian  noble- 
woman, young,  beautiful,  and  impressionable,  she  is  married  to  a  man  much  older 
than  herself.  While  visiting  in  Moscow,  in  the  household  of  her  brother  Prince 
Stepan  Oblonsky,  she  meets  Count  Vronsky,  a  brilliant  young  officer.  He  loves  her, 
and  exercises  a  fascination  over  her  which  she  cannot  resist.  The  construction  of  the 
novel  is  intricate,  involving  the  fortunes  of  many  other  characters;  fortunes  which 
present  other  aspects  of  the  problems  of  love  and  marriage.  The  interest  is  centred, 
however,  in  Anna  Karenina.  No  criticism  can  convey  the  powerful  impression  of 
her  personality,  a  personality  colored  by  the  mental  states  through  which  she  passes, 
—  dawning  love,  blind  passion,  maternal  tenderness,  doubt,  apprehension,  defiance, 
sorrow,  and  finally  despair.  The  whole  of  a  woman's  heart  is  laid  bare.  The  realism 
of  Anna  Kare'nina  is  supreme  and  merciless.  Its  fidelity  to  the  life  it  depicts,  its 
strong  delineation  of  character,  above  all  its  masterly  treatment  of  a  theme  of  world- 
wide interest,  place  it  among  the  first  novels  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

ANNALS  OF  A  FORTRESS,  by  E.  Viollet-le-Duc:  translated  by  Benjamin  Bucknall 
(1876).  A  work  of  highly  practical  fiction,  telling  the  story  through  successive  ages 
of  an  ideal  fortress,  supposed  to  have  been  situated  at  a  point  on  a  branch  of  the 
Sa6ne  River  which  is  now  of  special  importance  in  view  of  the  present  eastern  fron- 
tier of  France.  The  story  follows  the  successive  ages  of  military  history  frcm  early 
times  down  to  the  present,  and  shows  what  changes  were  made  in  the  fortress  to 
meet  the  changes  in  successive  times  in  the  art  of  war.  The  eminence  of  the  author, 
both  as  an  architect  and  military  engineer,  enabled  him  to  design  plans  for  an  ideal 
fortress,  and  to  give  these  in  pictorial  illustrations.  The  work  is  as  entertaining  to 
the  reader  as  it  is  instructive  to  the  student  of  architecture,  and  the  student  of  war 
for  whom  it  is  especially  designed. 

ANNALS  OF  A  PUBLISHING  HOUSE,  see  BLACKWOOD,  WILLIAM. 

ANNALS  OF  A  QUIET  NEIGHBORHOOD,  by  George  Macdonald  (1866),  records 
a  young  vicar's  effort  to  be  a  brother  as  well  as  a  priest  to  his  parishioners;  and  tells 
incidentally  how  he  became  more  than  a  brother  to  Ethelwyn  Oldcastle,  whose 
aristocratic,  overbearing  mother,  and  madcap  niece  Judy,  have  leading  r61es  in  the 
story.  At  first  Judy's  pertness  repels  the  reader;  but  like  the  bad  boy  who  was  not 
so  very  bad  either,  she  wins  increasing  respect,  and  is  able,  without  forfeiting  it,  to 
defy  her  grandmother,  the  unlovely  Mrs.  Oldcastle,  whose  doting  indulgence  has 
come  so  near  ruining  her  disposition.  Anyone  wishing  to  grasp  the  true  inwardness, 
as  well  as  the  external  features,  of  the  life  of  an  English  clergyman  trying  to  get  on 
to  some  footing  with  his  flock,  has  it  all  here  in  his  own  words,  with  some  sensational 
elements  intermingled,  for  which  he  makes  ample  apology.  But  the  book  on  the 
whole  is  free  from  puritanical  self-arraignment.  The  constant  moralizing  never 
becomes  tiresome,  as  in  some  of  the  author's  later  work.-  "If  I  can  put  one  touch 
of  rosy  sunset  into  the  life  of  any  man  or  woman  of  my  cure,  I  shall  feel  that  I  have 
woiked  with  God,"  mutters  the  young  vicar  on  overhearing  a  lad  exclaim  that  he 
should  like  to  be  a  painter,  because  then  he  could  help  God  paint  the  sky;  and  this 
hope,  the  first  the  clergyman  dares  form,  is  equally  carried  out  in  the  case  of  rich  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  37 

poor.  With  regard  to  both  these  divisions  of  society  there  is  much  wholesome  plain- 
speaking,  as  where  it  seems  to  the  vicar  "as  if  the  rich  had  not  quite  fair  play;  .  .  . 
as  if  they  were  sent  into  the  world  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  the  cultivation  of  the  virtues 
of  the  poor,  and  without  much  chance  for  the  cultivation  of  their  own. "  From  this 
acute  but  pleasant  preamble  to  his  heart-warming  "God  be  with  you"  at  the  end, 
this  mellow  character,  capable  of  innocent  diplomacy  and  of  sudden  firmness  upon 
occasion,  only  loses  his  temper  once,  and  that  is  when  the  intolerable  Mrs.  Oldcastle 
makes  a  sneering  reference  to  the  " cloth." 

ANNALS  OF  A  SPORTSMAN,  by  Ivan  TurgSneff,  consists  of  a  number  of  sketches 
of  Russian  peasant  life,  which  appeared  in  book  form  in  1852,  and  established  the 
author's  reputation  as  a  writer  of  realistic  fiction.  Turge"neff  represents  himseJf 
with  gun  on  shoulder  tramping  the  country  districts  in  quest  of  game  and,  in  passing, 
noting  the  local  life  and  social  conditions,  and  giving  closely  observed,  truthful 
studies  of  the  state  of  the  serfs  before  their  liberation  by  Alexander  II.;  his  book,  it 
is  believed,  being  one  of  the  agencies  that  brought  about  that  reform.  Twenty-two 
short  sketches,  sometimes  only  half  a  dozen  pages  long,  make  up  the  volume.  Peas- 
ant life  is  depicted,  and  the  humble  Russian  toiler  is  put  before  the  reader  in  his 
habit  as  he  lived  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  nineteenth  century;  contrast  being  furnisherl 
by  sketches  of  the  overseer,  the  landed  proprietor,  and  representatives  of  other  inter- 
mediate classes.  The  general  impression  is  sombre:  the  facts  are  simply  stated, 
leaving  the  inference  of  oppression,  cruelty,  and  unenlightened  misery  to  be  drawn. 
There  is  no  preaching.  The  best  of  the  studies  —  'The  Burgomaster,'  'Lgove,' 
'The  Prairie,'  'The  Singers/  'Kor  and  Kalmitch,'  'The  District  Doctor'  —  are  little 
masterpieces  of  analysis  and  concise  portrayal,  and  a  gentle  poetic  melancholy  runs 
through  all.  Especially  does  the  poetry  come  out  in  the  beautiful  descriptions  of 
nature,  which  are  a  relief  to  the  poignant  pathos  of  some  of  the  human  scenes. 

ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL  (1868,  5th  ed.  1872),  and  its  sequel  ORISSA  (2  vols., 
1872),  by  Sir  William  Wilson  Hunter.  In  these  volumes  one  of  the  most  admirable 
civilians  that  England  ever  sent  to  India  displays  his  finest  qualities:  not  alone  his 
immense  scholarship  and  his  literary  charm,  but  his  practical  ability,  his  broad 
humanity  and  interest  in  the  "dim  common  populations  sunk  in  labor  and  pain," 
and  his  sympathy  with  religious  aspiration.  The  first  volume  is  a  series  of  essays  on 
the  life  of  the  peasant  cultivator  in  Bengal  after  the  English  ascendency:  his  troubles 
over  the  land,  the  currency,  the  courts,  the  village  and  general  governments,  the 
religious  customs,  and  the  other  institutions,  all  bearing  directly  on  his  prosperity. 
A  valuable  chapter  is  on  the  rebellion  of  the  Santal  tribes  and  its  causes.  It  is 
interesting  to  know  that  he  ranks  Warren  Hastings  very  high  as  a  sagacious  and 
disinterested  statesman,  and  says  that  no  other  name  is  so  cherished  by  the  masses 
in  India  as  their  benefactor.  'Orissa'  is  a  detailed  account  of  all  elements  of  life 
and  of  history  in  a  selected  Indian  province;  a  study  in  small  of  what  the  government 
has  to  do,  not  on  great  theatrical  occasions  but  as  the  beneficial  routine  of  its  daily 
work.  Incidentally,  it  contains  the  best  account  anywhere  to  be  found  of  the 
pilgrimages  of  "Juggernaut"  (Jaganath);  and  an  excellent  summary  of  the  origins 
of  Indian  history  and  religions. 

ANNALS  OF  THE  PARISH,  by  John  Gait,— a  native  of  Ayrshire,  Scotland,— 
was  published  in  1821.  In  the  spirit,  if  not  in  the  letter,  this  work  is  the  direct  an- 
cestor of  the  tales  of  Maclaren  and  Barrie.  Although  it  cannot  properly  be  called 
a  novel,  it  is  rich  in  dramatic  material.  It  purports  to  be  written  by  Mr.  Balwhid- 


38  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

der,  a  Scottish  clergyman,  who  recounts  the  events  in  the  parish  of  Dalmailing 
where  he  ministered.  He  carries  the  narrative  on  from  year  to  year,  sometimes 
recording  an  occurrence  of  national  importance,  sometimes  a  homely  happening, 
as  that  William  Byres's  cow  had  twin  calves  "in  the  third  year  of  my  ministery." 
There  was  no  other  thing  of  note  this  year,  "saving  only  that  I  planted  in  the  gar- 
den the  big  pear-tree,  which  had  two  great  branches  that  we  call  the  Adam  and 
Eve."  Concerning  a  new-comer  in  the  parish  he  writes:  "But  the  most  remarkable 
thing  about  her  coming  into  the  parish  was  the  change  that  took  place  in  the  Chris- 
tian names  among  us.  Old  Mr.  Hooky,  her  father,  had,  from  the  time  he  read  his 
Virgil,  maintained  a  sort  of  intromission  with  the  nine  Muses  by  which  he  was  led 
to  baptize  her  Sabrina,  after  a  name  mentioned  by  John  Milton  in  one  of  his  works. 
Miss  Sabrina  began  by  calling  our  Jennies  Jessies,  and  our  Nannies  Nancies.  .  .  . 
She  had  also  a  taste  in  the  mantua-making  line,  which  she  had  learnt  in  Glasgow; 
and  I  could  date  from  the  very  Sabbath  of  her  first  appearance  in  the  Kirk,  a  change 
growing  in  the  garb  of  the  younger  lassies,  who  from  that  day  began  to  lay  aside 
the  silken  plaidie  over  the  head,  the  which  had  been  the  pride  and  bravery  of  their 
grandmothers." 

The  'Annals'  are  written  in  a  good  homely  style,  full  of  Scotch  words  and  Scotch 
turns  of  expression.  The  book  holds  a  permanent  place  among  classics  of  that 
country. 

ANNE,  a  novel,  by  Constance  Fenimore  Woolson,  appeared  serially  in  1882.  It 
immediately  took,  and  has  since  maintained,  high  rank  among  American  novels. 
The  story  traces  the  fortunes,  often  sad  and  always  varied,  of  Anne  Douglas,  a 
young  orphan  of  strong  impulses,  fine  character,  and  high  devotion  to  duty.  The 
plot  centres  in  Ward  Heathcote's  ardent  and  abiding  love  for  Anne,  and  her  equally 
constant  affection  for  him.  It  is  managed  with  much  ingenuity,  the  study  of  char- 
acter is  close  and  convincing,  and  the  interest  never  flags.  Like  all  Miss  Woolson 's 
work  it  is  admirably  written. 

ANNE  OF  GEEERSTEIN,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  (1829).  This  romance  finds  its 
material  in  the  wild  times  of  the  late  fifteenth  century,  when  the  factions  of  York 
and  Lancaster  were  convulsing  England,  and  France  was  constantly  at  odds  with 
the  powerful  fief  of  Burgundy.  When  the  story  opens,  the  exiled  Earl  of  Oxford 
and  his  son,  under  the  name  of  Philipson,  are  hiding  their  identity  under  the  guise 
of  merchants  traveling  in  Switzerland.  Arthur,  the  son,  is  rescued  from  death  by 
Anne,  the  young  countess  of  Geierstein,  who  takes  him  for  shelter  to  the  home  of 
her  uncle,  Arnold  Biedermann,  where  his  father  joins  him.  On  their  departure 
they  are  accompanied  by  the  four  Biedermanns,  who  are  sent  as  a  deputation  to 
remonstrate  with  Charles  the  Bold,  concerning  the  oppression  of  Count  de  Hagen- 
bach,  his  steward.  When  the  supposed  merchants  reach  the  castle,  they  are  seized, 
despoiled,  and  cast  into  separate  dungeons  by  order  of  Hagenbach.  The  Black 
Priest  of  St.  Paul's,  a  mysterious  but  powerful  personage,  now  appears  on  the'  scene; 
and  Charles,  Margaret  of  Anjou,  Henry  of  Richmond,  and  other  great  historic 
personages,  are  met  with  —  all  living  and  realizable  personages,  not  mere  names. 

The  story  is  filled  with  wild  adventure,  and  the  reader  follows  the  varying  for- 
tunes of  its  chief  characters  with  eager  interest.  It  presents  vivid  pictures  of  the 
still-Hngering  life  —  lawless  and  picturesque  —  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

L'ANNEATJ  D'AMETHYSTE,  see  L'EISTOIRE  CONTEMPORAINE. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  39 

ANNIE  KILBURN,  a  novel  of  New  England  life,  by  W.  D.  Howells,  was  published 
in  1888.  Its  heroine,  a  woman  in  her  later  youth,  returns  to  her  native  New  Eng- 
land village  after  a  prolonged  sojourn  in  Rome,  terminated  by  the  death  of  her 
father.  Her  foreign  environment  has  unfitted  her  for  sympathetic  residence  with 
the  friends  of  her  girlhood,  yet  it  has  not  diminished  the  insistency  of  her  Puritan 
conscience.  She  does  good  with  malice  prepense,  and  labors  to  be  a  power  for  well- 
being  in  the  community.  Her  acquaintance  with  a  fervid  young  minister  increases 
her  moral  intensity.  She  makes  many  mistakes,  however,  and  grieves  over  them  with 
feminine  uselessness  of  emotion.  At  last  she  finds  her  balance-wheel  in  Dr.  Morrell, 
a  healthy-minded  man.  Annie  is  an  excellent  portrait  of  a  certain  type  of  woman. 
Her  environment,  the  fussy  "good  society"  of  a  progressing  New  England  village, 
is  drawn  with  admirable  realism;  while  the  disintegrating  effect  of  the  new  industrial 
order  upon  the  older  and  simpler  life  of  narrow  ambitions  and  static  energy  is  skill- 
fully suggested. 

ANTARCTIC,  THE  HEART  OF  THE,  see  HEART  OF  THE  ANTARCTIC. 

ANTE-NICENE  LIBRARY,  THE.  'Writings  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers  Prior 
to  325  A.D.,'  by  Drs.  A.  Roberts  and  J.  Donaldson  (24  vols.,  1867-72).  A 
work  giving  in  English  translation  the  writings  of  the  leading  Christian  authors 
for  three  centuries  after  Christ.  It  includes  apocryphal  gospels,  liturgies,  apologies, 
or  defenses,  homilies,  commentaries,  and  a  variety  of  theological  treatises;  and  is  of 
great  value  for  learning  what  Christian  life  and  thought  and  custom  were,  from  the 
time  of  the  Apostles  to  the  Council  of  Nicsea.  To  supplement  the  '  Ante-Nicene 
Library,*  Dr.  Philip  Schaff  edited  a  'Select  Library  of  Nicene  and  Post-Nicene 
Fathers/  14  vols.  ("1890-1908),  beginning  with  Augustine  and  ending  with  Chrysos- 
tom.  This  covers  some  of  the  most  important,  and  is  of  great  value.  A  second 
series  of  14  vols.  (1890-1903)  begins  with  the  historians  Eusebius  and  Socrates, 
and  ends  with  Ephraem  Syrus. 

ANTHJA  AND  HABROCOMUS,  or,  THE  EPHESIACA,  a  Greek  romance,  by 
Xenophon  of  Ephesus,  written  during  the  fourth  century  of  the  Christian  era.  It 
was  lost  until  the  eighteenth  century,  and  then  found  in  the  Florentine  library  by 
Bernard  de  Montfaucon.  It  was  at  once  translated  into  most  modern  languages. 
The  subject  of  the  story  is  the  lot  of  two  lovers  united  by  marriage,  but  separated 
by  destiny,  and  coming  together  again  only  after  a  long  series  of  misfortunes*  Their 
beauty  is  the  cause  of  all  their  afflictions,  lighting  the  fires  of  passion,  jealousy,  and 
revenge,  and  constantly  endangering  the  fidelity  they  have  sworn  to  each  other. 
But,  by  marvelous  stratagems,  they  triumph  over  all  the  attempts  made  to  compel 
them  to  break  their  vows,  and  escape  unharmed  from  the  most  difficult  situations. 
At  length,  after  many  wanderings  over  land  and  sea,  they  meet  once  more.  Anthia 
declares  that  she  is  as  faithful  as  when  she  first  left  Tyre  for  Syria.  She  has  escaped 
unscathed  from  the  menaces  of  brigands,  the  assaults  of  pirates,  the  outrages  of 
debauchees,  and  many  a  threat  of  death.  Habrocomtis  assures  her,  in  reply,  that 
no  other  young  girl  has  seemed  to  him  beautiful,  no  woman  has  pleased  him,  and  he 
is  now  as  devotedly  hers  as  when  she  left  him  a  prisoner  in  a  Tyrian  dungeon.  The 
faults  of  the  story  are  the  grotesque  improbability  of  many  of  its  inventions  and 
its  want  of  proportion;  its  merits  are  pithiness,  clearness,  and  elegance  of  style. 

ANTHROPOLOGY,  'An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Man  and  Civilization/ 
by  E.  B.  Tylor  (1881).  A  work  designed  to  give  so  much  of  the  story  of  man  *% 


40  *   THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

can  be  made  interesting  to  the  general  reader.  It  tells  what  is  known  of  the  earliest 
appearance  of  man  on  the  globe;  of  the  races  of  mankind;  of  languages  and  writ- 
ing; of  the  various  arts  of  life  and  arts  of  pleasure,  as  they  were  developed;  of  the 
beginnings  of  science;  of  the  earliest  stages  of  religion,  mythology,  and  literature; 
and  of  the  first  customs  of  human  society.  The  work  is  a  valuable  contribution 
to  popular  knowledge  of  the  origins  of  human  culture.  Like  all  Professor  Tylor's 
books,  it  is  eminently  readable,  though  now  somewhat  out  of  date. 

ANTIDOSIS,  or,  EXCHANGE  OF  PROPERTIES.  An  oration  by  Isocrates  (436-338 
B.  C.)»  Three  hundred  of  the  richest  citizens  of  Athens  were  obliged  by  law  to 
build  and  equip  a  fleet  at  their  own  expense,  whenever  it  was  needed.  If  one  of  the 
three  hundred  was  able  to  show  that  a  citizen,  not  included  in  the  list,  was  wealthier 
than  he,  he  could  compel  him  to  take  his  place  or  else  make  an  exchange  of  property. 
Megacleides,  a  personal  enemy  of  Isocrates,  being  ordered  to  furnish  a  war  vessel, 
insisted  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  latter  to  do  so,  adding  that  he  was  a  man  of  bad 
character.  In  the  trial  that  ensued,  Isocrates  was  condemned  to  deliver  the  tri- 
reme, or  else  exchange  his  property  for  that  of  Megacleides. 

The  defense,  written  after  the  trial,  has  the  form  of  a  forensic  oration  spoken 
before  an  imaginary  jury,  but  is  really  an  open  letter  addressed  to  the  public.  Isoc- 
rates not  only  shows  why  he  should  not  be  condemned,  but  vindicates  his  whole 
career;  he  describes  what  a  true  "sophist"  ought  to  be,  and  gives  his  ideas  of  the 
conduct  of  life.  Megacleides  (called  Lysimachus  in  the  discourse)  is  termed  a 
"miserable  informer,"  who,  by  an  appeal  to  the  vulgar  prejudice  against  the  Sophists, 
would  relieve  himself  from  a  just  obligation  at  the  expense  of  others.  Isocrates 
goes  into  a  detailed  account  of  his  conduct  as  statesman,  orator,  and  teacher.  "  My 
discourse  shall  be  a  real  image  of  my  mind  and  life."  He  enters  minutely  into  his 
views  on  philosophy  and  education.  The  object  he  has  always  set  before  himself 
has  been  to  impart  a  general  culture  suitable  for  the  needs  of  practical  life.  He 
despises  the  people  who  "teach  justice,  virtue,  and  all  such  things  at  three  minse 
a  head."  By  philosophy  he  understands  culture,  simply;  and  the  chief  elements 
of  culture  are  the  art  of  speaking,  and  whatever  trains  the  citizen  for  social  and 
political  success.  He  attaches  the  utmost  importance  to  the  art  of  expression,  for 
it  is  absolutely  essential  to  any  scheme  of  general  culture.  To  instruct  his  pupils 
how  to  act  in  unforeseen  emergencies  should  be  the  great  aim  of  the  teacher.  "As 
we  cannot  have  an  absolute  knowledge  of  what  will  happen,  whereby  we  might  know 
how  to  act  and  speak  in  all  circumstances,  we  ought  to  train  ourselves  and  others 
how  we  should  act,  supposing  such  or  such  a  thing  occurred.  The  true  phi- 
losophers are  those  who  are  successful  in  this.  Absolute  knowledge  of  what  may 
happen  being  impossible,  absolute  rules  for  guidance  are  absurd."  To  prove  the 
success  of  his  system,  he  calls  attention  to  the  number  of  illustrious  Greeks  he 
has  taught. 

ANTIGONE,  a  tragedy  by  Sophocles  (495-406  B.C.).  Thebes  has  been  be- 
sieged by  Polynices,  the  dethroned  and  banished  brother  of  Eteocles,  who  rules  in 
his  stead.  The  two  brothers  kill  each  other  in  single  combat,  and  Creon,  their  kins- 
man, becomes  king.  The  play  opens  on  the  morning  of  the  retreat  of  the  Argives, 
who  supported  Polynices.  Creon  has  decreed  that  the  funeral  rites  shall  not  be 
performed  over  a  prince  who  has  made  war  upon  his  country,  and  that  all  who  con- 
travene this  decree  shall  be  punished  with  death.  Antigone  declares  to  her  sister 
Ismene  that  she  herself  will  fulfill  the  sacred  ceremonies  over  her  brother's  corpse 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  41 

in  spite  of  the  royal  proclamation.  The  tragedy  turns  on  the  inexorable  execution 
of  the  law  by  Creon,  and  the  obedience  of  Antigone  to  the  higher  law  of  love.  Apart 
from  its  beauty  and  grandeur  as  a  picture  of  the  woman-hero,  the  'Antigone'  has  a 
political  value.  It  contains  noble  maxims  on  the  duties  of  a  citizen,  and  on  the 
obligation  imposed  on  the  head  of  a  State  to  be  always  ready  to  sacrifice  his  private 
feelings  to  the  public  good.  While  the  poet  attacks  anarchy  and  frowns  on  any 
attempt  to  disobey  the  laws  or  the  magistracy,  he  sees  as  clearly  the  danger  of 
mistaken  tyrannical  zeal.  There  have  been  several  imitations  of  this  great  drama. 
In  Alfieri's,  all  the  minor  personages  who  add  so  much  to  the  excellence  of  Sophocles's 
play  disappear,  and  only  Creon,  Hsemon,  and  Antigone  are  left  on  the  stage;  it 
has  many  beauties  and  the  dialogue  is  forceful  and  impassioned.  Rotrou  imitates 
the  'Thebaid'  of  Seneca  and  'The  Phoenicians'  of  Euripides  in  the  second  part  of 
his  'Antigone, '  and  Sophocles  in  the  first. 

ANTIQUARY,  THE,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  (1816).  'The  Antiquary'  is  not  one 
of  Scott's  most  popular  novels,  but  it  nevertheless  ranks  high.  If  it  is  weak  in  its 
supernatural  machinery,  it  is  strong  in  its  dialogue  and  humor.  The  plot  centres 
about  the  fortunes  and  misfortunes  of  the  Wardour  and  Glenallan  families.  The 
chief  character  is  Mr.  Jonathan  Oldbuck,  the  Antiquary,  whose  odd  sayings  and 
garrulous  knowledge  are  inimitably  reported.  Sir  Arthur  Wardour,  the  Antiquary's 
pompous  friend,  and  his  beautiful  daughter  Isabella,  suffer  reverses  of  fortune  brought 
about  mainly  by  the  machinations  of  Herman  Dousterswivel,  a  pretended  adept 
in  the  black  arts.  Taking  advantage  of  Sir  Arthur's  superstition  and  antiquarian 
vanity,  he  dupes  that  credulous  gentleman  into  making  loans,  until  the  hero  of  the 
tale  (Mr.  William  Lovel)  comes  to  his  rescue.  He  has  already  lost  his  heart  to 
Miss  Wardour,  but  has  not  put  his  fate  to  the  test.  His  friend,  and  host,  the  Anti- 
quary, has  a  nephew,  the  fiery  Captain  Hector  M'Intyre,  who  also  loves  Miss  War- 
dour.  Their  rivalry,  the  machinations  and  exposure  of  Dousterswivel,  a  good 
old-fashioned  wicked  mother-in-law,  and  other  properties,  make  up  a  plot  with 
abundance  of  incidents  and  a  whole  series  of  cross-purposes  to  complicate  it.  The 
best-remembered  character  in  the  book  is  the  daft  Edie  Ochiltree. 

ANTIQUITIES  OF  THE  JEWS,  see  JEWS,  HISTORY  OF  THE. 

ANTONINA,  by  Wilkie  Collins  (1850).  A  romance  of  the  fifth  century,  in  which 
many  of  the  scenes  described  in  the  'Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire'  are 
reset  to  suit  the  purpose  of  the  author.  Only  two  historical  personages  are  intro- 
duced into  the  story,  —  the  Emperor  Honorius,  and  Alaric  the  Goth;  and  these 
attain  only  a  secondary  importance.  Among  the  historical  incidents  used  are  the 
arrival  of  the  Goths  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  the  Famine,  the  last  efforts  of  the  be- 
sieged, the  Treaty  of  Peace,  the  introduction  of  the  Dragon  of  Brass,  and  the  col- 
lection of  the  ransom,  —  most  of  these  accounts  being  founded  on  the  chronicles  of 
Zosimus.  The  principal  characters  are  Antonina,  the  Roman  daughter  of  Numa- 
rian;  Hermanric,  a  Gothic  chieftain  in  love  with  Antonina;  Goisvintha,  sister  to 
Hermanric;  Vetranio,  a  Roman  poet;  Ulpius,  a  pagan  priest;  Numarian,  a  Roman 
Christian,  father  of  Antonina  and  a  fanatic;  and  Guillamillo,  a  priest.  This  book 
does  not  show  the  intricacy  of  plot  and  clever  construction  of  the  author's  modern 
society  stories;  but  it  is  full  of  action,  vivid  in  color,  and  sufficiently  close  to  history 
to  convey  a  dramatic  sense  of  the  Rome  of  Honorius  and  the  closing-in  of  the  bar- 
barians. 


42  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ANTONIO  AND  MELLIDA,  History  of,  The  First  Part,  and  Antonio's  Revenge, 
The  Second  Part,  by  John  Marston  (1602).  Both  parts  of  this  play  appear  to  have 
been  acted  as  early  as  1600,  though  not  printed  till  1602.  In  1601  they  were  ridi- 
culed in  "Poetaster"  by  Ben  Jonson,  who  satirized  the  pomposity  which  abounds 
in  them.  Lamb  speaks  with  approval  of  the  "passionate  earnestness"  of  some 
passages,  and  later  critics,  while  agreeing  that  the  style  and  matter  are  unequal, 
accord  to  Marston 's  work  the  power  of  moving  the  reader  by  scenes  of  tragedy  and 
mystery.  Antonio,  son  of  Andrugio,  Duke  of  Genoa,  and  Mellida,  daughter  of 
Piero,  the  Duke  of  Venice,  are  in  love.  Andrugio  is  defeated  by  Piero,  and  compelled 
to  fly  for  refuge  to  the  marshes  with  an  old  nobleman,  Lucio,  and  a  page.  The 
Duke  of  Venice  offered  a  reward  for  the  capture  of  Andrugio  and  Antonio  and  the 
latter  "to  apprehend  the  sight  of  Mellida,"  daughter  of  Piero,  with  whom  he  is  in 
love,  appears  in  the  guise  of  an  Amazon  at  Piero's  court.  Mellida  flees  but  is  cap- 
tured again  by  her  father.  Andrugio,  seeing  his  son  fall  dead  to  all  appearance, 
offers  himself  to  Piero,  who  pretends  to  be  appeased  and  gives  the  gold,  which  he 
had  promised  as  a  reward  for  the  heads  of  Andrugio  and  Antonio,  to  solemnize  the 
unity  of  the  two  houses.  'Thus  "the  comic  crosses  of  true  love"  seem  to  meet  with 
a  happy  ending.  In  the  second  part  the  prologue  sounds  "a  tragic  note  of  prepara- 
tion" for  an  orgy  of  crime.  Piero  poisons  Andrugio,  murders  Antonio's  friend 
Feliche,  and  places  the  corpse  by  the  side  of  Mellida,  that  she  may  be  supposed 
guilty  of  unfaithfulness  to  Antonio.  He  then  plots  to  compass  the  death  of  Antonio 
and  to  win  the  hand  of  Antonio's  mother,  Maria.  Mellida  dies  of  grief,  and  Antonio 
with  the  help  of  Pandulfo  (father  of  Feliche)  and  Alberto  (friend  of  Feliche)  plans 
revenge.  They  appear  as  maskers  at  a  banquet  given  by  Piero  on  the  evening 
before  his  wedding,  and,  having  by  a  ruse  got  the  hall  cleared  of  the  guests  and 
servants,  they  bind  the  tyrant  in  his  chair,  taunt  him,  and  finally  cut  him  to  pieces 
with  their  swords.  The  avengers  are  invited  by  a  grateful  people  to  accept  high 
offices,  but  they  prefer  "to  live  enclosed  in  holy  verge  of  some  religious  order." 

ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA,  written  about  1607,  is  the  second  of  Shakespeare's 
Roman  plays,  'Julius  Caesar*  being  the  first.  For  breadth  of  treatment  and  rich- 
ness of  canvas  it  excels  the  latter.  There  is  a  splendid  audacity  and  self-conscious 
strength,  almost  diablerie,  in  it  all.  In  Cleopatra,  the  gipsy  sorceress  queen,  the 
gorgeous  Oriental  voluptuousness  is  embodied;  in  the  strong-thewed  Antony,  the 
stern  soldier-power  of  Rome  weakened  by  indulgence  in  lust.  There  is  no  more 
affecting  scene  in  Shakespeare  than  the  death,  from  remorse,  of  Enobarbus.  In 
the  whole  play  the  poet  follows  North's  'Plutarch7  for  his  facts.  The  three  rulers 
of  the  Roman  world  are  Mark  Antony,  Octavius  Caesar,  and  their  weak  tool,  Lepidus. 
While  Antony  is  idling  away  the  days  in  Alexandria  with  Cleopatra,  and  giving 
audience  to  Eastern  kings,  in  Italy  things  are  all  askew.  His  wife  Fulvia  has  died. 
Pompey  is  in  revolt  with  a  strong  force  on  the  high  seas.  At  last  Antony  is  shamed 
home  to  Rome.,  Lepidus  and  other  friends  patch  up  a  truce  between  him  and 
Caesar,  and  it  is  cemented  by  Antony  marrying  Caesar's  sister  Octavia,  to  the  bound- 
less vexation  of  Cleopatra.  What  a  contrast  between  the  imperial  Circe,  self-willed, 
wanton,  spell-weaving,  and  the  sweet,  gentle  Octavia,  wifely  and  loyal!  From  the 
time  when  Antony  first  met  his  "serpent  of  old  Nile,"  in  that  rich  Venetian  barge 
of  beaten  gold,  wafted  by  purple  sails  along  the  banks  of  the  Cydnus,  up  to  the  fatal 
day  of  Actium,  when  in  her  great  trireme  she  fled  from  Caesar's  ships,  and  he  shame- 
fully  fled  after  her,  he  was  infatuated  over  her,  and  she  led  him  to  his  death.  After 
the  great  defeat  at  Actium,  Enobarbus  and  other  intimate  followers  deserted  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  43 

waning  fortunes  of  Antony.  Yet  once  more  he  tried  the  fortune  of  battle,  and  on 
the  first  day  was  victorious,  but  on  the  second  was  defeated  by  sea  and  land.  Being 
falsely  told  that  Cleopatra  is  dead,  Antony  falls  on  his  sword.  Cleopatra  has  taken 
refuge  in  her  monument,  and  she  and  her  women  draw  up  the  dying  lover  to  its 
top.  But  the  monument  is  forced  by  Caesar's  men,  and  the  queen  put  under  a 
guard.  She  has  poisonous  asps  smuggled  in  a  basket  of  figs,  and  applies  one  to  her 
breast  and  another  to  her  arm,  and  so  dies,  looking  in  death  "like  sleep,"  and 

"  As  she  would  catch  another  Antony 
In  her  strong  toil  of  grace."  , 

ANTS,  BEES,  AND  WASPS,  'a  record  of  observations  on  the  habits  of  the  social 
hymenoptera,'  by  Sir  John  Lubbock  (Baron  Avebury),  was  published  in  1882. 
Based  on  painstaking  research  and  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  previous  investiga- 
tions and  written  in  a  clear  and  attractive  style  with  an  abundance  of  interesting 
anecdotes  and  curious  information,  this  is  a  book  which  appeals  both  to  the  scientist 
and  to  the  general  reader.  The  author  had  kept  numerous  colonies  of  ants  under 
continuous  observation  and  made  some  important  experiments  which  are  carefully 
recorded  in  the  appendix.  He  is  impressed  by  the  keen  instincts  of  ants,  their  social 
organization,  and  their  constructive  ability.  Numerous  experiments  prove  their 
power  to  distinguish  colors  and  scents,  to  find  their  way,  and  to  recognize  and 
communicate  with  members  of  their  own  colony.  They  are  organized  in  elaborate 
social  groups,  including  queens,  sterile  female  workers,  and  males.  Among  the 
workers  a  division  of  labor  prevails,  some  caring  for  the  young  ants  or  larvae,  and 
the  pupas  which  will  later  turn  into  full-grown  ants,  others  capturing  and  milking 
the  aphides,  which  serve  the  ants  as  cattle  and  are  domesticated  by  them,  some 
caring  for  the  beetles  which  are  kept  as  pets,  others  guarding  the  queen  or  going  out 
to  make  war  on  other  ants  and  bringing  them  back  as  slaves.  Among  the  numerous 
species  of  ants  the  author  distinguishes  three  stages  of  organization,  corresponding 
to  three  periods  in  man's  social  development.  There  are  the  ants  which  live  in 
small  communities  and  subsist  mainly  by  preying  upon  insects,  like  man  in  the 
savage  state,  who  lives  in  the  woods  and  supports  life  by  hunting;  there  are  the  ants 
which  have  developed  large  social  groups,  constructed  elaborate  dwellings,  and 
domesticated  the  "aphides  "  whom  they  "milk."  These  are  like  man  in  the  pastoral 
age,  who  lived  on  his  flocks.  Lastly  there  are  ants  which  cultivate  rice  about  their 
dwellings  and  store  up  grain.  These  correspond  to  the  agricultural  stage  of  man's 
progress.  The  worker-ants,  being  wingless,  are  of  less  value  than  bees  in  securing 
cross-fertilization  of  flowers,  since  in  crawling  from  one  flower  to  another  they  often 
take  pollen  from  one  blossom  to  another  on  the  same  plant.  On  the  other  hand, 
by  devouring  harmful  insects  ants  render  growing  things  an  extremely  beneficial 
service.  The  book  is  completed  by  two  chapters  recording  some  experiments  with 
bees  and  wasps.  Both  can  distinguish  color  and  recognize  members  of  their  own 
hive  or  colony,  but  there  is  no  evidence  of  family  affection.  A  book  of  facts  so 
remarkable  and  so  reliably  and  pleasantly  stated  is  deservedly  the  most  popular 
of  the  author's  productions. 

APOCRYPHAL  GOSPELS,  and  other  Documents  relating  to  the  History  of  -Christ. 
Translated  from  the  originals  in  Greek,  Syriac,  Latin,  etc.,  by  B.  H.  Cowper.  A 
trustworthy,  scholarly,  and  complete  collection  of  the  writings,  not  included  in  the 
New  Testament,  which  sprang  up  in  various  quarters  as  attempts  to  recover  the 
story  of  Christ.  They  form  a  singular  body  of  curious  stories,  mostly  legendary 


44  THE    READER'S    DIGEST    OF    BOOKS 

fictions  without  historical  value,  but  very  interesting  and  significant  as  show- 
ing how  legends  could  arise,  what  form  they  could  take,  and  what  ideas  they 
embodied. 

APOLLO,  :an  Illustrated  Manual  of  the  History  of  Art  throughout  the  Ages/  by 
Salomon  Reinach  U9°4i  new  ed-  1913)-  This  illustrated  record  of  the  evolution  of 
art  is  a  reproduction  of  twenty-five  lectures  delivered  at  the  Ecole  du  Louvre.  Pro- 
fessor Reinach  assumes  that  art  is  a  social  phenomenon  and  not  merely  the  efHores- 
cence  of  individual  genius.  He  therefore  traces  the  growth  of  the  artistic  faculty 
from  the  stone  and  bronze  ages,  the  civilizations  of  Egypt,  Chaldea,  and  Persia,  and 
the  later  products  of  Greece  and  Rome  to  the  masterpieces  of  Romanesque  and  Gothic, 
the  architecture  of  the  renaissance  and  modern  times,  the  painting  of  the  Nether- 
lands, Italy,  France,  and  Germany,  and  the  varied  products  of  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries.  The  work  is  written  by  a  master  and  an  expert  for  students  and 
learners.  The  variety  of  subjects  upon  which  it  touches  is  amazing  and  no  less 
astonishing  is  its  unfailing  sure-footedness  and  sense  of  proportion.  M.  Reinach 
concludes  with  a  prophecy  that  the  social  mission  of  art  is  far  from  coming  to  an 
end,  that  in  the  twentieth  century  greater  importance  than  ever  will  be  attached  to 
the  study  of  art  as  a  branch  of  education.  "The  art  of  the  twentieth  century," 
he  says,  "will  be  idealistic  and  poetical,  as  well  as  popular;  it  will  translate  the 
eternal  aspiration  of  man,  of  all  men,  towards  that  which  is  lacking  in  daily  life, 
and  that  which  completes  it,  those  elements  of  superfluity  and  luxury  which  our 
sensibility  craves  and  which  no  mere  utilitarian  progress  can  supplant. "  There 
are  nearly  six  hundred  clear  and  appropriate  illustrations. 

APOLOGIA  PRO  VITA  SUA,  Cardinal  Newman's  famous  justification  of  his 
religious  career,  was  published  in  1865.  The  occasion  of  his  writing  it  was  the 
accusation  by  Charles  Kingsley  that  he  had  been,  in  all  but  the  letter,  a  Romanist 
while  preaching  from  the  Anglican  pulpit  at  Oxford.  This  accusation  was  incor- 
porated in  an  article  by  Kingsley  upon  Queen  Elizabeth,  published  in  January, 
1864,  in  a  magazine  of  wide  circulation.  In  Newman's  preface  to  his  'Apology' 
he  quotes  from  this  article  a  pivotal  paragraph:  —  "Truth,  for  its  own  sake,  has  never 
been  a  virtue  with  the  Roman  clergy.  Father  Newman  informs  us  that  it  need 
not  and  on  the  whole  ought  not  to  be;  that  cunning  is  the  weapon  which  heaven 
has  given  to  the  saints  wherewith  to  withstand  the  brute  male  force  of  the  wicked 
world,  which  marries  and  is  given  in  marriage.  Whether  his  notion  be  doctrinally 
correct  or  not,  it  is  at  least  historically  so."  A  correspondence  ensued  between 
Kingsley  and  Newman,  which  appeared  later  in  the  shape  of  a  pamphlet.  Kingsley 
replied  in  another  pamphlet.  Newman  then  deemed  the  time  ripe  for  a  full  and 
searching  justification  of  his  position,  and  of  the  position  of  his  brother  clergy. 
The  'Apologia'  appeared  the  next  year.  In  it  Newman  endeavors  to  show  that 
from  his  childhood  his  development  was  a  natural,  logical,  instinctive  progress 
toward  the  Catholic  Church;  that  the  laws  of  his  nature,  and  not  intellectual  trick- 
ery or  sophistry,  led  him  to  Rome.  His  reason  was  one  with  his  heart,  his  heart 
with  his  reason.  Yet  he  does  not  neglect  the  recital  of  the  external  influences 
which  marked  the  changes  in  his  religious  life.  For  this  reason  the  'Apologia' 
casts  remarkable  light  upon  the  religious  England  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century;  and  especially  upon  its  concentrated  expression,  the  Oxford  movement. 
Its  supreme  value,  however,  is  its  intimate  revelation  cf  a  luminous  spirituality, 
of  a  personality  of  lofty  refinement  and  beauty. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  45 

APOLOGY  FOR  HIS  LIFE.  Colley  Gibber's  autobiography  was  published  in 
1740,  when  the  author,  poet-laureate,  actor,  and  man-about-town  was  in  his  seven- 
tieth year.  In  the  annals  of  the  stage  this  curious  volume  holds  an  important 
place,  as  throwing  light  upon  dramatic  conditions  in  London  after  the  Restoration, 
when  the  theatre  began  to  assume  its  modern  aspect.  Gibber,  born  in  1671,  had 
become  a  member  of  a  London  company  when  only  eighteen  years  of  age. 

Gibber  gives  a  very  full  account  of  famous  contemporary  actors  and  actresses: 
Mrs.  Oldfield,  Mrs.  Barry,  Mrs.  Bracegirdle,  Betterton,  Kynaston,  Mountford, 
and  others.  His  record  is  valuable  also  as  revealing  the  relations  between  the  stage 
and  the  State,  indicated  by  the  various  laws  and  restrictions  in  regard  to  the  drama. 

The  'Apology'  is  brimful  of  personal  gossip.  Gibber  talks  a  great  deal  about 
himself,  his  friends,  his  enemies,  his  plays,  his  acting,  but  in  a  good-humored,  non- 
chalant way.  The  ill-nature  of  Pope,  who  had  placed  him  in  the  Dunciad,  only 
moves  him  to  an  airy  protest.  Altogether  his  autobiography  reveals  an  interesting 
eighteenth-century  type  of  character,  witty,  worldly,  without  a  gleam  of  spirituality, 
almost  non-moral,  yet  withal  kindly  and  companionable.  Such,  by  his  own  confes- 
sion, was  the  man  who  became  poet-laureate  to  George  II. 

APOSTOLIC  FATHERS,  THE:  Revised  Texts,  with  English  Translations  (2  pts.f 
2d  ed.  1889-90),  by  J.  B.  Lightfoot.  A  collection  of  about  twelve  of  the  earliest 
Christian  writings,  directly  following  those  of  the  Apostles,  made  with  great  care 
and  learning  by  the  ablest  of  recent  English  Biblical  scholars.  The  writings  gathered 
into  the  volume  represent  those  teachers  of  Christian  doctrine  who  stand  in  the 
history  nearest  to  the  New  Testament  writers,  and  the  account  of  them  given  by 
Dr.  Lightfoot  is  not  only  the  best  for  students,  but  it  is  of  great  interest  to  the  general 
reader. 

APRIL  HOPES,  a  novel  of  two  young  people,  by  W.  D.  Howells,  was  published 
in  1887.  In  the  heroine,  Alice  Pasmer,  he  has  portrayed  the  high-bred  New  England 
girl  with  the  Puritan  conscience.  The  hero,  Dan  Mavering,  a  Harvard  graduate 
of  good  family,  has  this  conscience  to  contend  with  in  his  wooing  of  Alice  and  dur- 
ing his  engagement  with  her.  Their  most  serious  misunderstandings  arise  from 
the  girl's  iron-clad  code,  which  "makes  no  allowance  for  human  nature."  The 
book  is  well  written,  exhibiting  the  author's  characteristic  realism  of  style  and  treat- 
ment. 

ARABIA,  Central  and  Eastern:  A  Personal  Narrative  of  a  Year's  Journey  through 
(1862-63),  by  William  Gifford  Palgrave:  2  vols.,  1865.  One  of  the  best  reports  of 
travel  ever  made.  The  author  was  a  brilliant  Englishman,  who,  after  graduating 
at  Oxford  with  great  distinction,  and  a  very  short  connection  with  military  service 
in  India,  became  a  priest  in  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and  was  sent  as  a  missionary  to 
Syria.  Here  he  perfectly  mastered  the  Arabic  language,  and  the  Syrian  and  Arab 
customs.  Napoleon  III.  called  him  to  France  in  1860  to  report  on  the  Syrian  mas- 
sacres; and  upon  this  he  undertook  to  make,  at  the  Emperor's  expense,  an  expedi- 
tion through  Arabia,  where  no  Christian  could  safely  risk  his  life.  He  assumed 
the  guise  of  a  Syrian  physician  and  a  Mohammedan,  and  succeeded  in  going  through 
the  kingdom  under  fanatical  Wahabee  rule,  making  observations  of  the  greatest 
value. 

ARABIAN  NIGHTS,  or,  THE  THOUSAND  AND  ONE  NIGHTS,  a  collection  bi 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  stories,  romantic  and  realistic,  enclosed  in  a 
frame-story  of  a  cruel  king  who  postpones,  night  after  night,  the  execution 


46  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

of  his  queen  through  interest  in  her  narratives,  which  she  takes  care  to  leave 
unfinished,  when  the  hour  of  execution  arrives.  The  idea  of  the  frame  comes 
from  India  and  many  of  the  stories  also,  though  other  oriental  countries  have 
also  contributed.  The  fourteenth  or  fifteenth  century  was  the  approximate  date 
of  the  collection  as  we  know  it.  For  fuller  information  see  the  essay  on  'The 
Arabian  Nights'  in  the  LIBRARY. 

D'ARBLAY,  MADAME,  DIARY  AND  LETTERS  OF.  The  diary  and  letters  of 
Madame  d'Arblay,  the  gifted  Fanny  Burney,  surpass  in  modern  estimation  the  rest 
of  her  writings.  The  record  begins  with  'Evelina.'  The  success  of  her  first  effort, 
the  dinings,  winings,  and  compliments  that  followed,  are  recorded  with  a  naive  gar- 
rulousness  perfectly  consistent  with  simplicity  and  sincerity.  The  three  periods  of 
the  authoress's  life  —  her  home  life,  her  service  as  maid  of  honor  to  Queen  Char- 
lotte, and  her  subsequent  travels  and  residence  abroad  with  General  D'Arblay  — 
are  described.  She  draws  portraits  of  her  friends:  Johnson,  Burke,  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  Thrale,  Boswell,  and  her  "Dear  Daddy  Crisp."  Outside  their  talk  of 
literary  celebrities,  these  memoirs  describe  court  etiquette  under  the  coarse  Madame 
Schwellenberg,  the  trial  of  Warren  Hastings,  the  king's  insanity  during  1788-89, 
and  many  other  incidents  which  were  the  talk  of  the  town.  In  later  life,  after  her 
husband  had  regained  his  command,  the  stay  of  the  D'Arblays  in  Waterloo  just 
before  the  day  of  the  battle  furnishes  a  passage  upon  great  events.  From  this 
source,  Thackeray,  when  describing  the  departure  and  death  of  George  Osborne 
in  'Vanity  Fair/  probably  drew  his  material.  Lively,  talkative,  gossipy,  full  of 
prejudices,  the  book  is  as  interesting  as  little  Frances  Burney  herself  must  have 
been. 

ARCADIA,  a  rpastoral  romance  by  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  was  begun  in  1580,  while 
he  was  in  retirement  at  the  seat  of  his  brother-in-law,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke;  and 
published  in  1590,  four  years  after  his  death.  Composed  with  no  thought  of  publica- 
tion, but  as  an  offering  to  a  beloved  sister,  the  Countess  of  Pembroke,  the  '  Arcadia ' 
bears  the  character  of  a  work  intended  for  no  harsher  judgment  than  that  of  love 
and  intimacy.  It  seems  to  have  been  written  in  a  dreamy  leisure,  filling  the  idle 
spaces  of  long  summer  days,  sheet  after  sheet  passing  from  the  poet's  hand  without 
revision,  sometimes  without  completion.  It  is  a  pastoral  of  the  artificial  order: 
Arcadia  is  in  Greece;  its  inhabitants  are  half -gods  in  mediaeval  dress,  knights  and 
shepherds,  princes  and  helots;  fair  maidens  who  worship  Christ  and  Apollo  and 
other  people  of  the  same  order,  who  never  lived  save  in  the  fair  and  bright  imagina- 
tion of  a  poet-soldier.  That  the  'Arcadia'  is  formless  and  without  plot  constitutes 
much  of  its  charm.  In  fairy-land  there  are  no  direct  roads;  and  no  destinations, 
since  it  is  all  enchanted  country.  There  the  shepherd-boy  pipes  "as  though  he 
should  never  be  old,"  in  meadows  "enameled  with  all  sorts  of  eye-pleasing  flowers"; 
there  the  "humble  valleys"  are  comforted  with  the  "refreshing  of  silver  rivers"; 
there,  there  are  "pretty  lambs"  and  "well-tuned  birds." 

Such  was  the  popularity  of  the  '  Arcadia, '  that,  previous  to  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  upwards  of  ten  editions  were  published;  a  French  translation 
appeared  in  1624. 

ARCHITECTURE,  A  HISTORY  OF,  in  all  Countries,  from  the  Earliest  Times  to 
the  Present  Day,  by  James  Fergusson  (ist  ed.  1867-76;  3d  ed.,  5  vols.,  1891-99). 
The  method  of  treatment  in  these  volumes  is  historical,  and  the  aim  is  to  trace  every 
form  from  its  origin  and  note  the  influence  one  style  has  had  upon  another.  AT- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  47 

chitecture  thus  becomes  "  one  of  the  most  important  adjuncts  of  history,  filling  up 
many  gaps  in  the  written  record  and  giving  life  and  reality  to  much  that  without 
its  presence  could  with  difficulty  be  realized."  Still  more  important  is  its  ethno- 
graphic use,  for  if  studied  in  this  way  it  may  be  made  a  more  trustworthy  and 
intelligible  guide  even  than  language  to  discriminate  between  different  races  of  man- 
kind. A  valuable  section  of  the  book,  "Ethnography  as  Applied  to  Architectural 
Art,"  shows  how  the  religion,  government,  morals,  literature,  arts,  and  sciences 
are  reflected  in  the  architectural  remains  of  the  Turanian,  Semitic,  Celtic,  and  Aryan 
races.  Following  the  historical  method,  Dr.  Fergusson  then  proceeds  to  deal  with 
the  architecture  of  ancient  times,  under  the  headings  (i)  Egyptian,  (2)  Assyrian, 
(3)  Grecian,  (4)  Etruscan,  Roman,  and  Sassanian*  Christian  architecture  is  discussed 
topographically  and  the  great  masterpieces  of  France,  Flanders,  Germany,  Scandina- 
via, England,  Spain  and  Portugal,  Italy,  and  Byzantine  countries  are  described  and 
criticized.  Saracenic  and  ancient  American  buildings  are  also  included  in  a  work 
of  vast  scope  and  immense  learning.  The  author  thus  replies  to  the  charge  that 
he  has  criticized  Gothic  architecture  with  undue  severity:  "My  faith  in  the  exclu- 
sive pre-eminence  of  mediaeval  art  was  first  shaken  when  I  became  familiar  with 
the  splendid  remains  of  the  Mogul  and  Pathan  emperors  of  Agra  and  Delhi,  and  saw 
how  many  beauties  of  even  the  pointed  style  had  been  missed  in  Europe  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  My  confidence  was  still  further  weakened  when  I  saw  what  rich- 
ness and  variety  the  Hindu  had  elaborated  not  only  without  pointed  arches,  but 
indeed  without  any  arches  at  all.  And  I  was  cured  when,  after  a  personal  inspec- 
tion of  the  ruins  of  Thebes  and  Athens,  I  perceived  that  at  least  equal  beauty 
could  be  obtained  by  processes  diametrically  opposed  to  those  employed  by  the 
mediasval  architects." 

ARCTIC  BOAT  JOURNEY,  AN,  in  the  autumn  of  1854,  by  Isaac  Israel  Hayes, 
M.D.  (1860.  Enlarged  edition,  1867).  The  record  of  a  boat  journey  of  nearly 
four  months,  amid  perils  of  ice  and  storm  and  extreme  cold,  the  object  of  which 
was  to  carry  intelligence  to  Upernavik,  in  North  Greenland,  of  the  peril  in  which 
Dr.  Kane's  second  Grinnell  expedition  found  itself,  with -their  vessel  hopelessly 
fast  in  the  ice.  The  simple  story  of  adventures  is  a  thrilling  one,  and  with  it  Dr. 
Hayes  gives,  in  his  final  edition,  information  in  regard  to  the  Open  Polar  Sea  discov- 
ered in  1854;  the  great  Mer  de  Glace  of  Northern  Greenland,  of  which  he  was  one 
of  the  discoverers  in  1853;  and  Grinnell  Land,  the  most  northern  known  land  of  the 
globe,  his  own  discovery  in  1854. 

ARCTIC  EXPLORATIONS,  the  Second  Grinnell  Expedition  in  search  of  Sir  John 
Franklin,  1853-55,  by  Elisha  Kent  Kane  (2  vols.,  1856).  Dr.  Kane's  first  Grinnell 
Expedition  voyage,  which  he  made  as  a  surgeon  under  E.  J.  DeHaven,  1850-51, 
was  described  in  his  'TL  S.  Grinnell  Expedition'  (1854).  It  was  by  the  second 
expedition,  under  his  own  command,  that  his  fame  as  an  Arctic  explorer  was  made. 
The  incidents  of  the  voyage  along  the  coast  of  Smith  Sound  to  a  latitude  never 
before  attained,  78°  43'  N.;  the  winter  spent  in  that  far  region;  the  discovery  of  the 
Humboldt  glacier  of  Greenland,  and  the  attempt  the  next  spring  to  follow  its  course 
northward;  and  the  series  of  adventures  following,  until  the  frozen-in  ship  had  to 
be  abandoned,  and  the  party  escaped  perishing  only  through  Kane's  indefatigable 
exertions,  supplied  rich  materials  for  the  book  in  which  Kane  told  the  story  of  tne 
more  than  two  years'  voyage.  In  the  additions  made  to  geographical  knowledge 
also,  and  in  many  accurate  and  valuable  scientific  observations,  Kane's  work  was 


48  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

exceptionally  interesting  and  valuable.  It  brought  him  both  popular  applause 
from  delighted  readers,  and  honors  from  societies,  English  and  French,  representing 
the  scholars  of  the  time. 

ARCTIC  SERVICE,  see  THREE  YEARS  OF* 
L' ARGENT,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART, 

ARGONAUTICA,  an  epic  poem  in  four  cantos,  by  Apollonius  of  Rhodes,  a  con- 
temporary of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus.  Apollonius  found  all  the  elements  of  his  poem 
in  the  legendary  traditions  of  the  Greeks;  the  expedition  of  the  Argonauts  being, 
next  to  the  siege  of  Troy,  the  most  famous  event  of  the  heroic  ages,  and  the  most 
celebrated  poets  having  sung  some  one  or  other  of  its  heroes.  The  first  two  cantos 
contain  an  explanation  of  the  motives  of  the  expedition,  the  election  of  Jason  as 
commander-in-chief,  the  preparations  for  departure,  and  a  narrative  of  the  inci- 
dents that  marked  the  voyage  from  Chalcis.  The  third  describes  the  conquest  of 
the  Golden  Fleece,  and  the  beginning  of  Medea's  love  for  Jason,  the  development 
of  which  forms  the  finest  portion  of  the  poem.  Her  hesitations  and  interior  strug- 
gles supplied  Virgil  with  some  of  his  best  material  for  the  fourth  book  of  the  ^Eneid. 
In  the  fourth  canto  Medea  leaves  her  father  to  follow  Jason.  This  book  is  full  of 
incident.  The  Argonauts  go  through  the  most  surprising  adventures,  and  encounter 
perils  of  every  description,  before  they  are  able  to  reach  the  port  from  which  they 
started.  These  various  events  have  allowed  the  poet  to  introduce  brilliant  mytho- 
logical pictures,  such  as  his  account  of  the  Garden  of  the  Hesperides.  The  work 
has  been  frequently  translated  into  almost  every  modern  language,  and  is  admit- 
tedly the  masterpiece  of  Alexandrian  literature.  The  'Argonautica'  of  Valerius 
Flaccus  is  an  imitation  of  that  of  Apollonius,  while  the  style  is  that  of  Virgil.  Quin- 
tilian  and  other  contemporaries  of  the  author  considered  the  imitation  superior 
to  the  original.  Most  modern  scholars,  however,  regard  it  as  without  originality 
or  invention,  and  as  a  mere  tasteless  display  of  erudition. 

ARISTOTLE'S  WORKS.  An  English  translation  of  the  works  of  Aristotle  is  now 
being  published  by  the  Oxford  University  Press  with  funds,  left  by  Professor  Jowett, 
"to  promote  the  study  of  Greek  literature,  especially  by  the  publication  of  new 
translations  and  editions  of  Greek  authors"  (Pref).  The  series  was  begun  in 
1907  under  the  general  editorship  of  Professors  J.  A.  Smith  and  W.  D.  Ross  of  Oxford 
university,  with  the  co-operation  of  various  scholars.  The  editors  hope  to  include 
translations  of  all  extant  works  of  Aristotle.  Those  which  have  appeared  are  — 
The  'Parva  naturalia,'  translated  by  J.  I,  Beare  and  G.  R.  T.  Ross;  'De  mundo/ 
translated  by  E.  S.  Forster;  'De  spiritu/  translated  by  J.  F.  Dobson;  'Historia  ani- 
maHum/  translated  by  D.W.Thompson;  '  De  partibus  animalium'  translated  by  Wil- 
liam Ogle;  'De  motu  animalium/  *De  incessu  animalium,'  translated  by  A.  S.  L. 
Farquharson;  'De  generatione  animalium,'  translated  by  A.  Platt;  'Opuscula/  'De 
coloribus/  'De  audibilibus/  'Physiognomonica/  'DeMelisso,'  'Xenophane/  'Georgia/ 
translated  by  T.  Loveday  and  E.  S.  Forster;  'De  plantis/  'Mechanica/  'Ventorum 
situs  et  cognomina/  translated  by  E.  S.  Forster;  'Demirabilibusauscultationibus/ 
translated  by  L.  D.  Dowdall;  'De  lineis  insecabilibus/  translated  by  H.  H.  Joachim; 
1  Metaphysica, *  translated  by  W.  D.  Ross ;  '  Magna  moralia, '  translated  by  St.  George 
Stock;  'Ethica  eudemia/  'De  virtutibus  et  vitiis/  translated  by  J.  Solomon.  Among 
books  of  chief  importance  are  the  following: 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  49 

'The  Parts  of  Animals/  translated,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  W.  Ogle 
1 882,  opens  for  the  reader  a  special  field  of  interest.  One  of  the  subjects  of  Aristotle's 
interest  and  research  was  animal  life,  the  phenomena  of  which  he  carefully  observed, 
and  a  theory  of  which  he  endeavored  to  form.  In  his  work  on  the  parts  of  animals, 
following  that  on  their  history,  he  undertook  to  find  the  causes  of  biological  pheno- 
mena, and  set  forth  his  physiological  conclusions.  He  showed  profound  scientific 
insight  in  recognizing  the  importance  of  comparative  anatomy  as  the  foundation 
of  biology,  and  was  one  of  the  first  to  look  for  the  laws  of  life  in  all  organic  beings. 
Although  making  but  little  approach  to  the  exact  knowledge  of  to-day,  Aristotle's 
study  of  animals  is  of  great  interest  from  its  anticipation  of  the  best  modern  method, 
and  to  some  extent  from  the  material  which  it  furnishes.  The  whole  work  is  care- 
fully translated  and  explained  in  Mr.  Ogle's  volume. 

Aristotle's  'History  of  Animals,'  in  ten  books,  is  counted  one  of  his  greatest 
achievements.  It  shows  an  acquaintance  with  about  500  species,  and  enumerates 
observations  very  remarkable  for  the  time  at  which  they  were  made.  A  transla- 
tion in  two  volumes  is  given  in  Bonn's  Library. 

'On  Youth  and  Old  Age;  Life  and  Death  and  Respiration/  translated,  with 
Introduction  and  Notes,  by  W.  Ogle,  1897,  is  the  latest  of  the  treatises  devoted  by 
Aristotle  to  the  phenomena  of  animal  Hfe;  and  a  specially  important  one  as  con- 
taining ideas  of  vitality,  of  the  soul,  of  youth  compared  with  age,  of  the  contrast 
of  life  and  death,  and  of  respiration  or  the  breath  of  life,  and  its  function  in  the 
animal  system.  Even  the  errors  of  Aristotle  are  curiously  interesting,  and  in  some 
of  his  ideas  there  are  remarkable  suggestions  of  truth  as  modern  research  has  estab- 
lished it.  Not  a  little  of  Aristotle's  reference  of  the  phenomena  of  life  to  fire  would 
prove  sound  science  if  a  doctrine  of  electricity  as  the  cause  of  vitality  should  be 
adopted.  The  translator  of  the  work  devotes  an  elaborate  introduction  to  a  careful 
review  of  all  the  points  made  by  Aristotle,  and  he  further  appends  full  notes  to  hi? 
translation  of  Aristotle's  text.  It  is  easy  now  to  correct  the  errors  of  Aristotle,  but 
even  as  wrong  guesses  at  truth  they  are  interesting.  In  his  conception  of  the  animal 
system  the  play  of  the  heart  causes  heat;  heat  causes  the  lungs  and  chest  to  expand; 
and  cold  air  rushing  in  checks  this  expansion  by  neutralizing  the  heat. 

*  The  Metaphysics*  is  one  of  Aristotle's  most  famous  works  and  enjoyed  a  particu- 
lar popularity  in  the  Mediaeval  Universities.     The  title  would  have  mystified  Aris- 
totle for  it  means  merely  "a  supplement  to  the  '  Physics,* "  and  was  given  to  the  work 
by  an  editor  in  Roman  times.     It  deals  with  being  as  being;  its  properties  and  causes, 
and  with  God,  the  first  mover  of  all  things.     The  earlier  portions  contain  an  impor- 
tant review  of  previous  Greek  thought.     It  is  not  a  finished  work  but  a  rather 
confused  and  repetitious  compilation  from  various  essays  and  discourses  in  which  the 
author  was  grasping  toward  a  coherent  metaphysical  theory.    By  far  the  best  trans- 
lation is  that  by  Ross,  in  the  Oxford  edition. 

*  On  the  Soul,'  the  'De  Anima,'  as  it  was  called  in  the  Middle  Ages,  is  a  species  of 
psychology,  dealing  with  the  vital  principle  in  men,  animals,  and  even  plants.    After 
a  review  of  the  objections  to  the  prevailing  conception  of  the  soul  and  a  historical 
retrospect  of  earlier  theories  the  author  deals  with  the  five  powers  of  the  soul,  nutri- 
tion,, desire,  perception,  movement  from  place  to  place,  and,  finally,  thinking.    Much 
attention  is  given  to  the  nature  and  organs  of  sensation  and  to  the  deep  philosophic 
problems  involved  in  thought.     There  are  many  obscure  and  dislocated  passages 
which  have  left  readers  in  doubt  as  to  whether  Aristotle  believed  in  the  immortality 
of  the  soul;  and,  if  he  did,  in  what  sense  and  to  what  extent.    Translated  by  R.  D. 
Hicks  in  1907. 


50  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Aristotle's  'Politics,'  G.  Bekker's  Greek  Text  of  Books  L,  iii.,  iv.  (vii.),  with  an 
English  translation  by  W.  E.  Boiland,  and  short  Introductory  Essays  by  A.  Lang, 
gives  a  good  introduction  to  this  part  of  Aristotle's  writings.  The  essays  by  Lang, 
extending  to  105  pages,  give  an  excellent  view  of  Greek  political  ideas  represented 
by  Aristotle.  The  fine  two- volume  edition  of  Jowett's  'Polities'  of  Aristotle,  trans- 
lated into  English  with  an  elaborate  Introduction,  a  whole  volume  of  critical 
notes,  and  a  very  full  Index,  puts  the  reader  in  complete  possession  of  the  means  of 
thoroughly  knowing  what  Aristotle  taught  on  politics.  In  every  respect  the  work 
is  one  of  the  most  admirable  presentations  ever  made  of  a  masterpiece  of  Greek 
antiquity.  A  second  work  of  great  value  is  the  elaborate  'Politics  of  Aristotle,' 
by  \V.  L.  Xewman,  who  devotes  an  introductory  volume  of  580  pages  to  a  very  care- 
ful study  of  the  political  theories  of  Aristotle,  in  comparison  with  other  Greek  polit- 
ical teaching,  and  in  his  second  and  third _volumes  gives  the  Greek  text  of  the 
'Polities'  with  very  elaborate  and  valuable  notes.  A  less  expensive  work  than 
Jowett's,  for  a  good  English  translation  of  the  'Politics,'  is  J.  E.  C.  Welldon's;  a 
complete  English  version,  with  an  analysis  in  96  pages,  and  some  critical  footnotes. 
To  scholars  a  work  of  elaborate  learning  will  be  found  in  'The  Politics  of  Aristotle: 
A  Revised  [Greek]  Text,  with  Introduction,  Analysis,  and  Commentary, '  by  Franz 
Susemihl  and  R.  D.  Hicks,  of  which  the  first  volume,  of  700  pages,  was  published 
in  1894. 

Aristotle's  'Constitution  of  Athens1  —  Translation,  Introduction,  and  Notes,  by 
F.  G.  Kenyon,  1891;  also  an  edition,  translated,  by  E.  Poste  —  is  an  important 
recent  addition  to  our  knowledge  of  Greek  politics. 

'  The  Nicomachean  Ethics  of  Aristotle, '  newly  translated  into  English,  by  Robert 
Williams,  1869-91,  is  the  most  important  to  the  modern  reader  of  all  that  Aristotle 
has  left  us.  The  work  is  a  brief  and  methodical  system  of  moral  philosophy,  with 
much  in  it  of  connection  with  modern  thought.  The  translation  here  given  is  de 
signed  to  reproduce  the  original  in  an  intelligible  and  connected  form  for  the  benefit 
of  the  general  reader.  J.  A.  Stewart's  '  Notes  on  the  Nicomachean  Ethics  of  Aris- 
totle1 is  a  two- volume  work  of  more  than  a  thousand  pages,  devoted  to  notes  dis- 
cussing and  explaining,  from  the  Greek  text,  the  thoughts  of  Aristotle  and  the 
exact  meaning  of  the  Greek  terms  employed  by  him.  It  can  be  used  by  the  English 
reader,  without  reference  to  knowledge  of  Greek. 

The  'Rhetoric  of  Aristotle,'  with  a  Commentary;  by  Edward  Meredith  Cope: 
Revised  by  John  Edwin  Sandys:  (3  vols.,  1877),  gives  Aristotle's  work  in  the  original 
Greek,  with  very  full  and  valuable  notes.  Mr.  Cope  published  in  1867  an  'Intro- 
duction to  Aristotle's  Rhetoric, ;  in  which  he  gives  a  general  outline  of  the  contents 
of  the  treatise  and  paraphrases  of  the  more  difficult  portions.  With  the  four  volumes 
the  English  reader  can  readily  find  the  points  and  arguments  of  Aristotle's  treatment 
of  the  art  of  rhetoric. 

'Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry  and  Fine  Art,'  with  a  Critical  [Greek]  Text  and  a 
Translation  of  the  'Poetics,'  by  S.  H.  Butcher  (1895),  is  an  excellent  treatment  of 
Aristotle's  theory  of  poetry  in  connection  with  other  aspects  of  his  comprehensive 
thought.  The  insight  of  Aristotle  in  his  conception  of  the  essential  character  of 
poetry,  his  penetrating  analysis  of  the  imaginative  creations  of  Greece, '  and  his 
views  of  tragedy,  limited  by  the  theatre  of  his  time,  give  a  special  interest  to  Dr. 
Butcher's  volume. 

ARMADALE,  by  Wilkie  Collins  (1866).    The  plot  of  this,  like  that'of  'The  New 
Magdalen/  and  other  of  its  author's  later  novels,  is  a  gauntlet  of  defiance  td' the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  51 

critics  who  had  asserted  that  all  the  interest  of  his  stories  lay  in  the  suspension 
of  knowledge  as  to  the  denouement.  The  machinery  is  in  full  view,  yet  in  spite  of 
this  disclosure,  the  reader's  attention  is  held  until  he  knows  whether  the  villain  or 
her  victims  will  come  out  victorious.  This  villain  is  one  Lydia  Gwilt,  who,  as  a  girl 
of  twelve,  has  forged  a  letter  to  deceive  a  father  into  letting  his  daughter  throw 
herself  away.  Hateful  and  hideous  as  is  her  character,  Lydia  is  so  drawn  as  to 
exact  a  certain  pity  from  the  reader,  by  reason  of  her  lonely  childhood  and  her  strong 
qualities.  The  few  minor  characters  of  the  book,  though  distinct  enough,  do  not 
detain  the  reader,  eager  to  know  the  fate  of  poor  Ozias,  the  hero,  who  is  a  lovable 
fellow.  Among  the  few  minor  characters  in  this  novel  are  Mrs.  Oldershaw,  Mr. 
Felix  Bashwood,  and  Mr.  Pedgift  the  lawyer. 

ARMOREL  OF  LYONESSE,  by  Sir  Walter  Besant,  published  in  1884.  The  scene 
is  the  Stilly  (or  Lyonesse)  Isles  (twenty-five  miles  south  of  England).  Alone  on 
one  of  these  (Samson)  lives  an  old  woman  of  nearly  a  hundred,  Ursula  Rosevean, 
with  her  great-great-great-granddaughter  Armorel  and  the  Tryeth  family  of  four. 
To  them  come  Dick  Stephenson  and  Roland  Lee,  the  latter  an  artist  saved  from 
shipwreck  by  Armorel.  Roland  finds  a  strong  attraction  in  Armorel,  and  remains 
at  the  islands  three  weeks.  He  returns  to  London,  where,  later,  Armorel  is  instru- 
mental in  extricating  him  from  a  network  of  evil  in  which  he  has  become  involved 
through  one  false  step.  The  intricacy  of  the  plot  is  worthy  of  Wilkie  Collins. 

ARMY  LIFE  IN  A  BLACK  REGIMENT,  by  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson 
(1870).  The  First  South  Carolina  Volunteers  was  the  first  slave  regiment  mustered 
into  the  service  of  the  United  States  during  the  late  Civil  War.  It  was  viewed  in 
the  beginning  more  in  the  light  of  an  experiment  than  as  an  actual  factor  in  the 
war,  and  Colonel  Higginson,  who  left  a  company  of  his  own  raising  to  take  command, 
tells  the  story  of  this  experiment  in  the  form  of  a  diary,  the  first  entry  being  dated 
Camp  Saxton,  Beaufort,  South  Carolina,  November  24th,  1862;  the  last,  February 
29th,  1864.  While  the  regiment  did  not  engage  in  any  great  battles,  it  made  many 
minor  expeditions,  was  on  picket  duty,  engaged  in  constructing  forts,  etc.,  all  these 
duties  being  described  in  detail.  The  diary  is  valuable,  in  the  first  place,  for  the 
account  of  camp  life,  its  privations  and  pleasures,  work  and  recreation;  secondly, 
for  the  description  of  the  colored  man  as  a  soldier,  and  the  amusing  accounts  of  his 
peculiarities  before  freedom  had  made  him  "more  like  white  men,  less  naive,  less 
grotesque."  Many  quaint  negro  songs  are  given,  and  stories  told  in  dialect. 
The  diary  displays  great  moderation  and  good  taste,  —merits  never  absent  from 
Colonel  Higginson's  work;  and  had  it  no  other  merit,  it  would  be  delightful 
reading,  from  its  vivid  description  of  Southern  scenes  and  its  atmosphere  of 
Southern  life. 

ARNE,  by  Bjornstjerne  Bjornson,  was  published  in  1858,  when  the  author  was 
twenty-six.  It  was  the  second  of  the  delightful  idyllic  tales  of  Norwegian  country 
life  with  which  Bjornson  began  his  literary  career.  It  is  a  simple,  beautiful  story 
of  the  native  life  among  the  fiords  and  fells,  with  a  charming  love  interest  running 
through  it.  There  is  no  intricacy  of  plot,  and  the  charm  and  power  come  from  the 
sympathetic  insight  into  peasant  character  and  the  poetical  way  it  is  handled. 
Arne  is  a  typical  son  of  the  region,  sketched  from  his  days  of  boyhood  to  his  happy 
marriage.  The  portrayal  of  Margit,  Arne's  mother,  is  a  pathetic  and  truthful  one; 
and  many  of  the  domestic  scenes  have  an  exquisite  naturalness. 


52  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ARNOLD,  THOMAS,  LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF,  by  A.  P.  Stanley 
(1844).  Dean  Stanley's  vivid  and  fascinating  personality  will  perhaps  best  be 
remembered  as  a  magnetic  influence  rather  than  as  a  figure  in  literature.  His 
first  work  of  importance,  and  by  common  consent  his  best  and  the  one  most  likely 
to  live,  is  his  Life  of  the  famous  head-master  of  Rugby  School.  Arnold's  greatness 
as  a  schoolmaster  consisted  in  his  recognizing,  to  use  Stanley's  words,  "in  the 
peculiar  vices  of  boys  the  same  evils  which,  when  full  grown,  become  the  source  of 
so  much  social  mischief";  "  he  governed  the  school  precisely  on  the  same  principles 
as  he  would  have  governed  a  great  empire";  "constantly,  to  his  own  mind  or  to  his 
scholars,  he  exemplified  the  highest  truths  of  theology  and  philosophy  in  the  simplest 
relations  of  the  boys  towards  each  other,  or  towards  him."  "The  business  of  a 
schoolmaster,"  he  used  to  say,  "no  less  than  that  of  a  parish  minister,  is  the  cure  of 
souls."  The  lads  were  treated  as  schoolboys,  but  as  schoolboys  who  must  grow  up 
to  be  Christian  men.  The  aim  of  the  teacher  was  to  foster,  first,  religious  and 
moral  principles;  second,  gentlemanly  conduct;  third,  intellectual  ability.  As  a 
scholar  Arnold  was  one  of  the  first  to  introduce  into  England  the  -  historic  methods 
of  men  of  the  school  of  Niebuhr,  the  historian  of  Rome.  In  his  view  the  aim  of 
education  should  be  to  attain  to  Christianity  without  sectarianism.  Similarly, 
Church  and  State  should  be  coterminous  and  the  aim  of  the  Church  should  be  "to 
Christianize  the  nation,  to  introduce  the  principles  of  Christianity  into  men's  social 
and  civic  relations,  and  expose  the  wickedness  of  that  spirit  which  maintains  the 
game  laws,  and  in  agriculture  and  trade  seems  to  think  that  there  is  no  such  sin 
as  covetousness,  and  that  if  a  man  is  not  dishonest,  he  has  nothing  to  do  but  to 
make  all  the  profit  of  his  capital  that  he  can."  Stanley  has  adopted  the  unfortunate 
method  of  appending  Arnold 's  letters  at  the  end  of  each  chapter,  instead  of  weaving 
them  into  the  narrative. 

AROUND  A  SPRING  ('Autour  d'une  Source'),  by  Gustave  Droz,  is  a  French  idyl 
of  country  life  in  the  last  century,  charming  in  its  truthful  presentation  of  a  village 
community.  It  was  published  in  1869.  The  hero  is  the  Abb£  Roche,  a  middle- 
aged  priest  in  a  mountain  town.  He  is  a  man  of  noble,  vigorous  nature,  and  fine 
presence,  with  no  experience  of  the  outside  world.  To  the  long-untenanted  chateau 
of  Manteigney  comes  its  count,  with  his  pretty  young  wife,  a  rather  light  fashion- 
able Parisian,  whose  money  has  enabled  her  husband  to  rehabilitate  his  ancestral 
possessions.  She  is  a  strange,  alluring  apparition  to  the  priest,  and  he  loves  her, 
to  his  sorrow.  She  is  a  somewhat  cynical  study  of  a  social  butterfly.  The  attrac- 
tion of  the  tale  lies  in  the  romantic  nobility  of  the  Abbe",  the  poetry  with  which  the 
country  scenes  are  depicted,  —  the  fact  that  Droz  was  originally  a  painter  comes 
out  in  his  picturesque  descriptions,  —  and  the  light  touch  with  which  the  frivolous 
folk  of  the  chateau  are  portrayed.  The  title  of  the  story  refers  to  a  medicinal 
spring  that  is  discovered  on  the  Manteigney  estate. 

AROUND  THE  WORLD  IN  EIGHTY  DAYS,  by  Jules  Verne  (1873).  Phileas 
Fogg,  a  respectable  English  gentleman  of  phlegmatic  temperament  and  methodical 
habits,  maintains,  during  a  discussion  at  his  club  in  London,  that  a  man  can  travel 
around  the  world  in  eighty  days;  and  to  prove  it,  he  makes  a  wager  of  half  his  fortune 
that  he  can  do  it  himself  in  that  time.  The  bet  is  accepted,  and  he  starts  the  same 
night,  taking  his  French  servant  Passepartout  with  him.  He  wins  his  wager,  after 
a  series  of  adventures  in  which  nature,  man,  accident,  and  the  novelist  combine  to 
defeat  him,  but  are  all  baffled  by  his  unfailing  resource,  iron  will,  invincible  coolness, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  53 

and  Napoleonic  readiness  to  sacrifice  everything  else  to  the  one  essential  point;  — 
everything  except  humanity,  in  whose  behalf  he  twice  risks  defeat,  first  to  save  from 
suttee  the  beautiful  young  Hindoo  widow  Aouda,  and  second  to  save  Passepartout 
from  murder  by  a  Chinese  mob.  His  virtue  is  rewarded  by  success  and  Aouda. 

ART,  LECTURES  ON,  by  H.  A.  Taine  (1865).  M.  Taine  in  this  volume  applies 
to  art  the  same  theory  as  to  literature  in  his  '  Histoire  de  la  Litte*rature  Anglaise. ' 
A  work  of  art  is  not  an  isolated  creative  act  but  is  the  product  of  (i)  the  sum  total  of 
the  author's  artistic  tendencies;  (2)  the  school  to  which  he  belongs;  (3)  the  society 
amid  which  he  lives.  Hence  we  speak  of  Greek  tragedy,  or  Gothic  architecture,  or 
Flemish  painting,  or  French  tragedy.  M.  Taine  divides  art  into  two  groups,  (i) 
painting,  sculpture,  poetry,  and  (2)  architecture,  music.  "The  end  of  a  work  of  art," 
he  says,  "is  to  manifest  some  essential  or  salient  character,  consequently  some  im- 
portant idea,  clearer  and  more  completely  than  is  attainable  from  real  objects.  Art 
accomplishes  this  end  by  employing  a  group  of  connected  parts,  the  relationships  of 
which  it  systematically  modifies.  In  the  three  imitative  arts  of  sculpture,  painting, 
and  poetry,  these  groups  correspond  to  real  objects. "  The  remainder  of  the  lectures 
are  devoted  tp  an  exposition  of  the  philosophy  of  art  in  Italy,  the  Netherlands,  and 
Greece.  In  Italy  the  special  object  of  classic  art  was  to  express  the  ideal  human 
form.  In  the  Netherlands  art  was  intimately  associated  with  the  national  life  and 
rooted  in  the  national  character  itself.  Greek  art  was  marked  by  a  sensitiveness  to 
delicate  relationships,  propriety  and  clearness  of  perception,  and  love  of  beauty. 

ART  IN  ANCIENT  EGYPT,  A  HISTORY  OF,  from  the  French  of  Georges  Perrot 
and  Charles  Chipiez;  translated  and  edited  by  Walter  Armstrong.  2  vols.,  1883.  — 
Art  in  Chaldea  and  Assyria.  2  vols.,  1884.  —  Art  in  Phoenicia  and  its  Dependencies. 
2  vols.,  1885.  —  Art  in  Sardinia,  Judasa,  and  Asia  Minor.  2  vols.,  1890.  —  Art  in 
Persia,  i  vol.,  1892.  — Art  in  Phrygia,  Lydia,  Caria,  and  Lycia.  I  vol.,  1892. — 
Art  in  Primitive  Greece.  3  vols.,  1894. 

This  entire  series  not  only  constitutes  a  monumental  contribution  to  the  history 
of  art  in  its  earlier  and  more  remote  fields,  but  serves  most  admirably  the  purpose  of 
a  realistic  recovery  of  the  almost  lost  histories  of  the  eastern  originators  of  human 
culture.  Perrot  as  author  of  all  the  narratives,  and  Chipiez  as  the  maker  of  all  the 
drawings  and  designs,  have  together  put  upon  the  printed  and  pictured  page  a 
conscientious  and  minutely  accurate  history,  fully  abreast  of  the  most  recent  re- 
search, —  French,  English,  German,  and  American,  -*-  and  supplying  revelations  of 
the  life,  the  worship,  the  beliefs,  the  industries,  and  the  social  customs  of  the  whole 
eastern  group  of  lands,  from  Egypt  and  Babylonia  to  Greece. 

ART  OF  JAPAN,  THE  ('L'Art  Japonais'),  by  Louis  Gonse.  This  standard  work, 
published  in  1886,  treats  successively  of  painting,  architecture,  sculpture,  decorative 
work  in  metal,  lacquer,  weaving,  embroidery,  porcelain,  pottery,  and  engraving. 
It  points  out  the  unity  and  harmony  of  all  artistic  production  in  a  country  where  no 
distinction  is  made  between  the  minor  and  the  fine  arts,  where  even  handwriting  — 
done  with  the  most  delicate  of  implements,  the  brush  —  is  an  art  within  an  art,  and 
where  perfect  equipment  implies  a  universality  of  aptitudes.  But  painting  is  the 
key  to  the  entire  art,  and  the  book  dwells  upon  all  that  is  indigenous  or  not  due  to 
Chinese  influence.  It  traces  the  development  of  the  parallel  schools  of  painting :  the 
Tosa,  dependent  on  the  fortunes  of  the  imperial  family,  and  the  Kano,  following 
Chinese  tradition  and  supported  by  the  shogunate.  The  shrines  of  Nikko  are 
regarded  as  the  culminating  point  of  architecture  and  painting:  there  is  nothing  in 


54  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  modern  Tokio  to  compare  with  them.  Many  pages  are  devoted  to  Hokusai; 
long  disdained  by  his  countrymen,  but  now  become  so  important  that  a  painting 
with  his  signature  is  the  white  blackbird  of  European  and  Japanese  curiosity.  Kiosai, 
who  was  fifty-two  at  the  time  of  writing,  is  commended  for  his  resistance  to  European 
influence.  Among  the  abundant  illustrations,  several  examples  of  colored  prints 
are  given,  as  well  as  reproductions  of  bronzes  and  lacquer.  Still  more  interesting  is 
the  reproduction  —  a  bronze  nine  feet  in  height,  now  in  Paris  —  of  the  colossal 
Buddha  of  Nara,  the  largest  statue  ever  cast  in  bronze.  Throughout  the  book  all 
materials  and  processes  are  clearly  explained.  The  method  of  casting  is  the  same 
as  in  Europe,  the  perfection  of  the  workmanship  constituting  the  only  difference. 
The  best  ivory  is  of  a  milky  transparency,  —  the  reader  is  warned  against  netzkes 
that  have  been  treated  with  tea  to  make  them  look  old.  Cherry-wood  lends  itself  to 
the  most  minute  requirements  of  the  engraver.  A  Japanese  connoisseur  could  judge 
the  aesthetic  value  of  a  piece  of  lacquer  by  the  quality  of  the  materials  alone.  The 
etiquette,  significance,  and  wonderful  temper  of  the  Japanese  blade  are  discussed, 
and  the  deterioration  of  art  since  the  revolution  of  1868  lamented. 

ART  OF  PHEIDIAS,  ESSAYS  ON  THE,  see  PHEIDIAS. 

ART  OF  POETRY,  THE  ('L'Art  Poe*tique'),  a  didactic  poem,  by  Boileau  (1674). 
The  work  is  divided  into'four  cantos.  In  the  first,  the  author  intermingles  his  pre- 
cepts with  an  account  of  French  versification  since  Villon,  now  taking  up  and  now 
dropping  the  subject,  with  apparent  carelessness  but  with  real  art.  The  second 
canto  treats  of  the  different  classes  of  poetry,  beginning  with  the  least  important: 
eclogue,  elegy,  ode,  epigram,  sonnet,  etc.  The  third  deals  with  tragedy,  comedy, 
and  the  epic.  In  the  fourth,  Boileau  returns  to  more  general  questions.  He  gives, 
not  rules  for  writing  verse,  but  precepts  addressed  to  the  poet;  and  points  out  the 
limits  within  which  he  must  move,  if  he  wishes  to  become  perfect  in  his  art.  Although 
his  work  is  recognized  as  one  of  the  masterpieces  of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.,  Boileau 
has  prejudices  that  have  long  been  out  of  date.  He  ridicules  the  choice  of  modern  or 
national  subjects  by  a  poet,  and  would  have  him  confine  himself  exclusively  to  the 
history  or  mythology  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

ART  OF  POETRY,  OF  THE  ('Ars  Poetica'),  by  Horace  (65-8  B.C.).  The 
name  by  which  this  famous  work  is  known  is  not  the  name  given  it  by  its  author,  who 
called  it  simply  a  *  Letter  to  the  Pisos.'  It  does  not  pretend  to  be  a  didactic  treatise 
and  is  rather  in  the  nature  of  a  friendly  talk  by  a  man  of  exquisite  taste  and  discern- 
ment. It  has  become  the  type  of  all  works  of  a  similar  character.  In  the  first  part 
Horace  treats  of  the  unity  that  is  essential  to  every  composition,  and  the  harmonious 
combination  of  the  several  parts,  without  which  there  can  be  no  lasting  success. 
The  metre  and  style  must  also  be  in  unison  with  the  particular  kind  of  poetry  m 
question:  the  form  of  verse  suited  to  tragedy  not  being  suited  to  comedy,  although  it 
is  allowable  for  a  tragic  hero  to  use  occasionally  the  speech  of  ordinary  life.  The 
language  must  be  adapted  to  the  situation  and  passions  of  the  character,  and  must 
be  consistent  throughout  with  the  disposition  assigned  him  by  history  or  fable  and 
with  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  In  the  second  part,  the  poet  confines  himself  to  the 
form  of  the  drama,  the  principles  he  has  already  established  being  so  general  that 
they  apply  to  every  class  of  composition.  This  form  is  the  representation  of  the 
action  itself,  and  he  points  out  the  limits  beyond  which  the  dramatic  writer  may  not 
go.  In  the  third  part  Horace  shows  how  a  young  poet  will  find  ample  material  for 
his  works  in  the  writings  of  the  philosophers,  and  above  all  in  a  careful  observation 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  55 

of  life  and  society.  He  then  traces  the  character  of  a  perfect  poem.  But  perfection 
is  not  to  be  expected.  Faults  are  excusable  if  they  are  rare  and  unimportant. 
What  neither  gods  nor  publishers  will  excuse  is  mediocrity.  Yet  mediocrity  is  the 
order  of  the  day.  One  of  the  causes  of  this  is  that  poets  do  not  take  their  art  seriously. 
But  poetry  is  of  more  importance  than  many  think.  Horace  concludes  by  counsel- 
ing the  author  not  to  be  in  a  hurry  to  publish,  and  to  seek  the  advice  of  some  sate 
guide  and  critic. 

ARTEVELDE,  see  PHILIP  VAN. 
ARTHUR,  see  MORTE  D'ARTHUR. 

ARTIST'S  LETTERS  FROM  JAPAN,  AN,  by  John  La  Farge  (1887).  "The  pale 
purple  even  melts  around  my  flight/'  ran  the  author's  telegram  at  the  moment  of 
turning  his  face  toward  those  islands  where,  as  he  afterwards  wrote  from  Nikko, 
"everything  exists  for  the  painter's  delight."  And  the  telegram  struck  the  keynote 
of  the  journey;  for  it  is  atmosphere  even  more  than  varied  information,  that  renders 
these  letters  remarkable.  The  wonderful  whiteness,  the  "silvery  milkiness,"  of  the 
atmosphere  was  the  first  "absorbingly  new  thing"  that  struck  the  painter  when  he 
landed  at  Yokohama.  He  erects  a  series  of  brilliant  toriis  or  gateways  (literally 
bird-perches  of  the  gods),  the  reader  getting  the  most  exquisite  glimpses  of  life  and 
art  in  the ' '  land  of  inversion, ' '  where  "  art  is  a  common  possession. ' '  Like  the  shrines 
to  which  they  lead,  the  letters  are  enriched  with  elaborate  carving  and  delicate  de- 
signs. But  unlike  the  actual  toriis,  they  do  not  of  necessity  point  out  any  place, 
pleased  rather  with  some  tone  "of  meditation  slipping  in  between  the  beauty  coming 
and  the  beauty  gone."  Or  they  serve  as  a  frame  to  a  "torrent  rushing  down  in  a 
groove  of  granite"  between  "two  rows  of  dark  cryptomeria, "  or  a  garden  or  a  sunset: 
"a  rosy  bloom,  pink  as  the  clouds  themselves,  filled  the  entire  air,  near  and  far, 
toward  the  light."  The  idealist  easily  passes  to  the  effect  of  the  moral  atmosphere. 
The  whole  drift  of  the  book  is  toward  a  purer  art;  but  it  contains  much  lively  matter, 
—  accounts  of  the  butterfly  dance  in  the  temple  of  the  Green  Lotus,  and  of  fishing 
with  trained  cormorants.  A  thread  runs  through  the  letters,  tracing  the  character 
and  progress  of  the  usurping  Tokugawa  family,  from  the  cradle  of  their  fisherman 
ancestors  to  the  graves  of  the  great  shogun  and  his  grandson  in  the  Holy  Mountain  of 
Nikko.  In  Nikko  the  interest  culminates:  there  was  written  the  chapter  on  Tao, 
serene  as  the  peculiar  philosophy  it  diffuses,  and  perhaps  the  best  part  of  the  book, 
which  sets  forth  the  most  serious  convictions  on  universal  as  well  as  Japanese  art. 
Yet  the  letters  were  written  without  thought  of  publication  or  final  gathering  into 
this  unique  volume,  with  its  various  addenda  and  the  "grass  characters"  of  its 
dedicatory  remarks  peeping  out  irregularly,  like  the  "lichens  and  mosses  and  small 
things  of  the  forest"  that  "grow  up  to  the  very  edges  of  the  carvings  and  lacquers." 

ARYAS,  SACRED  LAWS  OF  THE,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OP  THE  EAST. 

AS  IT  WAS  WRITTEN,  'a  Jewish  Musician's  Story/  by  Sidney  Luska  (Henry 
Harland).  This  story  is  as  fatalistic  as  the  Rubdiyat,  though  the  scene  is  laid  in 
modern  New  York.  Ernest  Neumann,  a  young  violinist  of  great  promise,  but  of 
painfully  sensitive  temperament,  falls  in  love  with  a  beautiful  girl  of  his  own  race, 
Veronika  Pathzuol,  living  with  her  uncle  Tibulski,  a  kindly  old  dreamer  and  an  un- 
successful musician,  whom  she  supports  by  singing  and  teaching.  Ernest  and  Veron- 
ika are  shortly  to  be  married,  when  she,  in  the  absence  of  her  uncle,  is  murdered  in 


56  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

her  bed.  The  mystery  of  this  murder  is  the  motive  of  the  ensuing  plot.  Sombre 
and  tragic  though  it  is,  the  romance  shows  unusual  vigor  of  conception  and  execution, 
and  extraordinary  intuitive  knowledge  of  the  psychology  of  an  alien  race. 

AS  YOU  LIKE  IT  (1600).  In  this  happiest  of  his  middle-period  comedies,  Shake- 
speare is  at  no  pains  to  avoid  a  tinge  of  the  fantastical  and  ideal.  Its  realism  lies  in  its 
gay  riant  feeling,  the  fresh  woodland  sentiment,  the  exhilaration  of  spirits  that  attend 
the  escape  from  the  artificialities  of  urban  society.  For  one  reason  or  another  all  the 
characters  get  exiled,  and  all  meet  in  the  Forest  of  Arden,  where  "as  you  like  it"  is 
the  order  of  the  day.  There  is  the  manly  young  Orlando,  his  villainous  elder  brother 
Oliver,  and  their  servant  Adam.  At  court  is  the  reigning  duke,  his  daughter  Celia, 
her  cousin  Rosalind,  and  Touchstone  the  clown.  In  the  forest,  the  banished  elder 
duke  (father  of  Rosalind)  and  the  melancholy  Jacques,  and  other  lords  who  are 
blowzed  with  sun  and  wind  a-chasing  the  dappled  deer  under  the  greenwood  tree; 
the  pealing  bugle,  the  leaping  arrow,  the  al  fresco  table  loaded  with  the  juicy  roast 
of  venison,  and  long  idle  summer  hours  of  leisurely  converse.  On  the  outskirts  of 
the  forest  are  shepherd  swains  and  lasses,  —  old  Conn,  Silvius  (in  love  with  Phebe), 
and  the  wench  Audrey.  Orlando  has  had  to  fly  from  his  murderous  brother.  Rosa- 
lind has  been  banished  the  court  by  her  uncle,  and  she  and  Celia  disguised  as  shepherd 
men  have  slipped  away  with  Touchstone.  Now  Rosalind  has  been  deeply  smitten 
with  Orlando  since  she  saw  him  overcome  the  duke's  wrestler,  and  he  is  equally  in 
love  with  her.  We  may  imagine  her  as  "a  nut-brown  maid,  tall,  strong,  rustically 
clad  in  rough  forest  garments, "  and  possessing  a  perennial  flow  of  cheerful  spirits,  a 
humor  of  the  freshest  and  kindliest.  Touchstone  is  a  fellow  of  twinkling  eye  and 
dry  and  caustic  wit,  his  face  as  solemn  as  a  churchyard  while  his  hearers  are  all  agrin. 
He  and  Jacques  look  at  life  with  a  cynical  squint.  Jacques  is  a  blase  libertine,  who  is 
pleased  when  things  run  counter  and  athwart  with  people,  but  is  after  all  not  so  bad 
as  he  feigns  to  be.  Like  a  series  of  dissolving  views,  scene  after  scene  is  glimpsed 
through  the  forest  glades  —  here  the  forester  lords  singing,  and  bearing  the  antlers 
of  the  stag;  there  lovesick  Orlando  carving  verses  on  the  bark  of  trees,  or  rescuing 
his  brother  from  the  lion.  The  youth  Ganymede  (really  Rosalind)  pretends  she  can 
cure  Orlando  of  his  lovesickness  by  teaching  him  to  woo  him  as  if  he  were  Rosalind, 
all  of  which  makes  a  pretty  pastoral  picture.  Anon  Touchstone  passes  by,  leading  by 
the  hand  the  captive  of  his  spear,  Audrey,  who  has  never  heard  of  poetry;  or  in 
another  part  of  the  woodland  he  is  busy  mystifying  and  guying  the  shepherd  Conn. 
Ganymede  gets  the  heartless  coquette  Phebe  to  promise  that  if  she  ever  refuses  tc 
wed  him  (with  whom  she  is  smitten)  she  will  wed  her  scorned  and  despairing  admirer 
Silvius,  and  makes  her  father  promise  to  give  Rosalind  to  Orlando;  then  retires  and 
comes  back  in  her  own  garments  as  Rosalind.  The  play  ends  with  a  fourfold  marriage 
and  a  dance  under  the  trees. 

ASLAUGA'S  KNIGHT,  fa  tale  of  mediaeval  chivalry/  by  Friedrich  Fouque*,  Baror 
de  la  Motte  (1814) .  Aslauga  was  a  Danish  queen,  whose  memory  was  preserved  in  ar 
illuminated  volume  that  told  of  her  good  and  beautiful  life.  The  fair  knight  Frods 
read  in  this  book,  and  made  a  vow  that  Aslauga  should  be  his  lady,  the  object  of  his 
love  and  worship.  She  thereupon  appears  to  him,  an  entrancing  visionary  form 
From  that  day  forth  he  often  sees  her,  in  the  dimness  of  the  forest,  or  mingling  witl 
the  glory  of  the  sunset,  or  gliding  in  rosy  light  over  the  winter  sea.  She  protect; 
him  in  a  great  tournament,  where  the  bravest  knights  of  Germany  fight  for  the  han< 
^r  ft,  A  pn*r>rAc*  mMporarrhV  Onlv  Froda  contends  for  glory,  not  for  love,  and  wins 


Froda's  dear  friend  Edwald  desires  to  win  the  princess;  but  as  he  is  second,  not  first, 
she  scorns  him.  Froda  is  to  wed  the  princess;  but  on  the  day  of  their  nuptials, 
Froda's  skyey  bride,  Aslauga,  again  appears  in  her  golden  beauty  to  claim  her 
faithful  knight;  he  dies  that  Edwald  and  Hildegardis  may  be  one. 

ASMODEUS,  THE  LAME  DEVIL  ('Le  Diable  Boiteux').  A  novel  by  Alain  Rene* 
Le  Sage,  first  published  in  1707,  and  republished  by  the  author,  with  many  changes 
and  additions,  in  1725.  It  is  sometimes  known  in  English  as  'Asmodeus,'  and 
sometimes  as  'The  Devil  on  Two  Sticks,'  under  which  title  the  first  English  transla- 
tion appeared,  and  was  dramatized  by  Henry  Fielding  in  1768. 

The  title  and  some  of  the  incidents  are  borrowed  from  'El  Diablo  Cojuelo' 
(1641)  of  the  Spanish  Luiz  Veloz  de  Guevara.  But  after  the  first  few  chapters  Le_ 
Sage  departs  widely  from  his  predecessor.  The  very  plan  is  abandoned,  and  the  new 
episodes  and  characters  introduced  are  entirely  original  with  Le  Sage.  Guevara 
ends  his  story  with  awkward  abruptness;  while  the  French  romancer  winds  up  with  a 
graceful  romance,  dismissing  Don  Cleofas  to  happiness  with  his  beloved  Seraphina. 
In  short,  where  the  two  diverge  the  advantage  is  wholly  with  the  later  comer  in  style, 
wit,  and  ingenuity  of  invention.  Nevertheless  the  conception  is  Guevara's.  Don 
Cleofas,  a  young  Spanish  profligate  of  high  lineage,  proud  and  revengeful  but  brave 
and  generous,  delivers  from  his  imprisonment  in  a  bottle  the  demon  Asmodeus;  who 
in  gratitude  assists  him  in  his  pranks,  and  carries  him  triumphantly  through  a  series 
of  amusing  adventures.  Especially  does  the  demon  bestow  on  his  deliverer  the  power 
of  sailing  through  the  air,  and  seeing  through  the  roofs  what  is  going  on  within  the 
houses  of  Madrid.  Le  Sage  introduced  into  his  story,  under  Spanish  names,  many 
anecdotes  and  portraits  of  Parisian  celebrities.  These  were  all  immediately  recog- 
nized, and  contributed  greatly  to  the  contemporary  vogue  of  the  novel,  which  was 
greater  even  than  that  of  'Gil  Bias/  It  is  one  of  the  famous  traditions  of  the  book 
trade  that  two  young  French  noblemen  actually  fought  a  duel  in  a  book-store  for  the 
possession  of  the  only  remaining  copy. 

ASPECTS  OF  FICTION,  AND  OTHER  VENTURES  IN  CRITICISM  (1896),  by 
Brander  Matthews,  is  a  collection  of  crisp  articles  relating  largely  to  novelists  and 
novel-writing.  A  clever  practitioner  in  the  art  of  short-story  writing,  the  author 
speaks  here  as  of  and  to  the  brothers  of  his  own  craft,  with  an  eye  especially  for  good 
technique,  that  artistic  sense  of  proportion  and  presentation  so  dear  to  his  own  half- 
Gallicized  taste.  'The  Gift  of  Story-Telling,'  'Cervantes,  Zola,  Kipling  &  Co.,' 
are  brilliant  analyses,  fresh,  original,  pregnant,  and  spiced  with  a  just  measure  of 
sparkling  wit;  by  means  of  his  close  study  of  the  history  of  fiction,  he  often  brings  the 
traits  and  practices  of  older  authors  to  illuminate  by  a  felicitous  application  those  of 
contemporary  novelists,  discovering  permanent  canons  of  art  in  fresh,  elusive  guises. 
A  lighter  vein  of  humor  and  observation  renders  the  paper  in  'Pen  and  Ink'  upon  the 
'Antiquity  of  Jests'  an  interesting  and  amusing  bypath  of  research.  'Studies  of  the 
Stage'  is  the  fruit  of  many  years'  intimacy  with  the  history  of  the  stage  and  stage 
conventions,  aided,  enriched,  and  deepened  by  an  experience  with  such  present 
methods  of  stagecraft  behind  the  footlights  as  falls  to  the  lot  of  a  practical  playwright. 
Mr.  Matthews  writes  of  'The  Old  Comedies'  and  'The  American  Stage'  in  a  happy 
tone  of  reminiscence  and  sympathetic  observation.  '  The  French  Dramatists  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,'  the  best  work  accessible  on  the  subject  in  English,  is  a  scholarly 
contribution  to  the  history  of  the  French  stage  from  the  Romantic  movement  to 
the  present  day.  A  lifelong  familiarity  with  French  people  and  literature  gives  the 


58  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

judgments  of  Professor  Matthews  an  especial  convincingness.  His  'Americanisms 
and  Briticisms'  contains  a  series  of  telling  strokes  at  the  provincialism  that  still 
characterizes  some  aspects  of  our  literature. 

L'ASSOMMOIR,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

ASTORIA,  OR,  ANECDOTES  OF  AN  ENTERPRISE  BEYOND  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS, 
by  Washington  Irving  (1836;  revised  ed.  1849).  An  early  work,  of  a  somewhat 
rambling  and  disjointed  nature,  comprising  stories  of  expeditions  by  land  and  sea,  but 
presenting  the  history  of  a  grand  scheme,  devised  and  conducted  by  a  master  mind, 
the  national  character  and  importance  of  which  fully  justified  the  interest  which 
Irving  was  led  to  take  in  it.  The  characters,  the  catastrophe  of  the  story,  and  the 
incidents  of  travel  and  wild  life,  were  easily  made  by  Irving  to  have  the  interest  of  a 
novel;  and  in  that  light,  not  less  than  as  a  chapter  of  Far  West  history,  the  work 
does  not  lose  its  value  by  the  lapse  of  time. 

ASTREA  ('L'Astr^e'},  by  Honore*  d'Urfe*,  a  famous  French  novel,  is  in  five  volumes. 
The  first  volume  appeared  in  1609,  the  second  was  published  in  1616,  the  third  in 
1619,  and  in  1627  his  posthumous  notes  and  manuscripts  were  compiled  into  the 
fourth  and  fifth  volumes,  and  published  by  his  secretary  Baro.  Probably  no  other 
novel  was  ever  so  successful,  all  cultivated  Europe  being  enthusiastic  over  it  for  many 
years.  The  period  is  the  fourth  century.  Celadon,  a  shepherd,  lover  of  the  beautiful 
shepherdess  Astrea,  lives  in  the  enchanted  land  of  Foreste.  While  their  marriage 
awaits  parental  sanction,  a  jealous  shepherd  persuades  Astrea  that  Celadon  loves 
Aminthe.  She  therefore  angrily  repulses  him.  Celadon  throws  himself  into  the 
river  Lignon,  and  Astrea  faints  on  the  bank.  Her  parents  sorrow  so  bitterly  over  her 
grief  that  both  soon  die.  Astrea  may  now  weep  unreservedly  without  being  suspected 
of  mourning  for  Celadon.  But  Celadon  lives.  He  has  been  succored  by  the  Princess 
Galatea  and  her  attendant  nymphs,  taken  to  court,  and  tenderly  cared  for.  Thence 
he  escapes  to  a  gloomy  cavern,  where  he  spends  his  time  bewailing  Astrea.  Meeting 
a  friendly  shepherd,  he  sends  a  letter  to  "the  most  beautiful  shepherdess  in  the 
world."  Astrea  at  once  sets  out  to  find  him.  Thus  the  story  rambles  on,  a  long, 
inconsequent  sequence  of  descriptions,  adventures,  and  moral  reflections.  War 
breaks  out  in  Foreste.  Celadon,  who,  disguised  as  a  druidess,  has  become  Astrea 's 
friend,  is  with  her  taken  prisoner,  but  both  escape.  At  last  he  reveals  himself,  but  is 
repulsed.  Once  more  he  resolves  to  die;  all  the  characters  accompanying  him  to 
the  Fountain  of  Truth,  whose  guardian  lions  devour  hypocrites  and  defend  the  vir- 
tuous. They  spare  him;  and  Astrea,  looking  into  the  truth-revealing  water,  is  at 
last  convinced  of  his  fidelity.  Everybody  is  a  model  of  virtue,  and  the  story  ends 
with  a  general  marriage  f£te.  Whether  'L'AstreV  requires  a  key  is  not  important. 
Euric  may  have  been  Henri  IV.,  Celadon  and  Astrea  other  names  for  D'Urf£  and  his 
wife  Diane;  but  probably  the  story  is  fanciful.  Its  charm  lies  in  its  pastoral  setting, 
and  its  loftily  romantic  conception  of  love.  It  is  a  day-dream,  which  solaced  the 
soldier-author  himself.  The  story  is  written  in  straightforward,  fluent  French,  and 
is  full  of  sentiment  and  ingenuity;  but  like  so  many  other  immortal  works  of  fiction, 
it  lives  only  in  the  limbo  of  the  forgotten. 

ASTRONOMY,  THE  DAWK  OF,  see  DAWN  etc. 

AT  THE  RED  GLOVE,  by  Katharine  S.  Macquoid  (1885).  The  scene  of  this 
slight  but  pleasant  story  is  laid  among  the  bourgeois  of  Berne.  Madame  Robineau. 
a  mean  and  miserly  glove-dealer,  takes  her  pretty  orphan  cousin,  Marie  Peyrolles, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  59 

to  serve  in  her  shop.  The  girl  finds  two  admirers  among  her  cousin's  lodgers,  — 
one  Captain  Loigerot,  an  elderly  retired  French  officer,  the  very  genius  of  rollicking 
fun  and  kindness;  the  other  a  handsome  young  bank  clerk,  Rudolph  Engemann. 
The  chief  interest  in  the  story  follows  the  clever  character-study  of  Madame  Carouge 
and  the  simple  life  of  the  homely  Bernese. 

ATALA,  a  romance  of  the  American  wilderness,  by  Chateaubriand,  was  published 
in  1 80 1.  In  a  letter  in  the  Journal  des  DSbats,  the  preceding  year,  the  author  makes 
this  reference  to  it :  —  "In  my  work  upon  the  ' Genius  of  Christianity,  or  the  Beauties 
of  the  Christian  Religion,'  a  certain  portion  is  devoted  exclusively  to  the  poesy  of 
Christianity;  .  .  .  the  work  is  terminated  by  a  story  extracted  from  my  'Travels  in 
America,1  and  written  beneath  the  very  huts  of  the  savages.  It  is  entitled  ' Atala.'" 
'Atala'  is  an  extravagant  and  artificial  but  beautiful  romance  of  two  lovers,  —  a 
young  Indian  brave,  Chactas  (i.e.,  Choctaw),  and  an  Indian  maiden,  Atala.  Chateau- 
briand drew  his  conception  of  Chactas  —  a  savage,  half  civilized  by  contact  with 
European  culture  —  from  the  tradition  of  an  Indian  chief,  who,  having  been  a  galley- 
slave  at  Marseilles,  was  afterwards  liberated  and  presented  to  Louis  XIV.  The 
pivot  of  the  romance  is  the  power  of  Christianity  to  subdue  the  wildest  passions  of 
man.  Atala,  a  Christian,  has  taken  the  vow  of  virginity  by  the  death-bed  of  her 
mother.  Afterwards  she  finds  herself  in  love  with  Chactas,  who  has  been  taken 
prisoner  by  her  tribe.  She  aids  him  to  escape,  and  together  they  roam  through  the 
pathless  forests  of  the  New  World  surrounded  by  luxuriant  nature,  haunted  by  the 
genius  of  the  wilderness,  the  genius  of  productive  life.  Chactas  would  fain  be  one 
with  nature  in  his  abandonment  to  instinct;  but  Atala,  although  she  is  consumed  with 
love  for  him,  is  obedient  to  what  she  believes  to  be  a  higher  law.  In  a  great  tempest 
of  lightning  and  rain  they  lose  their  way,  being  found  and  sheltered  by  a  pious  hermit, 
Father  Aubrey,  who  takes  them  to  his  cave.  Atala  tells  him  the  story  of  her  vow, 
and  of  her  temptation.  He  replies  that  she  may  be  released,  but  his  assurance  comes 
too  late.  She  has  taken  a  poison,  that  she  may  become  death's  bride  ere  she  has  given 
herself  to  another.  The  hermit  fills  her  last  hours  with  the  comfort  of  his  ministra- 
tions, and  she  departs  reconciled  and  soothed.  Chactas  carries  her  in  his  arms  to  the 
grave  prepared  by  the  hermit,  the  wind  blowing  her  long  hair  back  against  his  face. 
Together  they  leave  her  to  her  sleep  in  the  wilderness.  'Atala,'  despite  its  arti- 
ficiality, retains  its  charm  to  this  day.  Chateaubriand's  savages  are  Europeans,  his 
forests  are  in  Arcadia;  nevertheless  the  narrative  has  a  fascination  which  gives  it  a 
place  among  the  fairy-tales  of  fiction,  —  due  not  only  to  its  charm  of  style  but  its 
noble  elevation  of  thought. 

ATALANTA  IN  CALYDON,  by  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne  (1865),  is  a  tragedy 
dealing  with  a  Greek  theme,  and  employing  the  Greek  chorus  and  semichorus  in  its 
amplification.  To  this  chorus  are  given  several  songs,  which  exemplify  the  highest 
charms  of  Swinburne's  verse,  —  his  inexhaustible  wealth  of  imagery,  and  his  flawless 
musical  sense.  The  story  is  as  follows:  Althaea,  the  daughter  of  Thestius  and  Eury- 
themis,  and  wife  to  CEneus,  dreams  that  she  has  brought  forth  a  burning  brand.  At 
the  birth  of  her  son  Meleager  come  the  three  Fates  to  spin  his  thread  of  life,  prophesy- 
ing three  things:  that  he  should  be  powerful  among  men;  that  he  should  be  most 
fortunate;  and  that  his  life  should  end  when  the  brand,  then  burning  in  the  fire, 
should  be  consumed.  His  mother  plucks  the  burning  brand  from  the  hearth  and 
keeps  it;  the  child  grows  apace  and  becomes  in  due  time  a  great  warrior.  But 
Artemis*  whose  altars  CEneus,  King  of  Calydon,  has  neglected,  grows  wroth  with 


6o  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

him,  and  sends  a  wild  boar  to  devastate  his  land,  a  beast  which  the  mightiest  hunters 
cannot  slay.  Finally  all  the  warriors  of  Greece  gather  to  rid  GEneus  of  this  plague. 
Among  them  comes  the  Arcadian  Atalanta,  a  virgin  priestess  of  Artemis,  who  for  his 
love  of  her  lets  Meleager  slay  the  boar;  and  he  presents  her  the  horns  and  hide.  But 
his  uncles,  Toxeus  and  Plexippus,  desire  to  keep  the  spoil  in  Calydon,  and  attempt 
to  wrest  it  from  Atalanta.  In  defending  her,  Meleager  slays  the  two  men.  When 
Althaea  hears  that  Meleager  has  slain  her  brothers  for  love  of  Atalanta,  she  throws 
the  half-burned  brand  upon  the  fire,  where  it  burns  out,  and  with  it  his  life.  The 
feast  becomes  a  funeral.  Althaea  dies  of  sorrow,  but  Meleager  has  preceded  her;  his 
last  look  being  for  the  beautiful  Atalanta,  whose  kiss  he  craves  at  parting,  ere  the 
night  sets  in,  the  night  in  which  "shall  no  man  gather  fruit." 

ATBLAXIE,  a  tragedy,  by  Racine  (1691).  The  drama  is  founded  on  one  of  the 
most  tragic  events  in  sacred  history,  described  in  2  Kings  xi.,  and  in  2  Chronicles 
xxii.  and  xxiii.  Athaliah  is  alarmed  by  a  dream  in  which  she  is  stabbed  by  a  child 
clad  in  priestly  vestments.  Going  to  the  Temple,  she  recognizes  this  child  in  Joash, 
the  only  one  of  the  seed  royal  saved  from  destruction  at  her  hands.  From  that 
moment  shck  bends  all  her  efforts  to  get  possession  of  him  or  have  him  killed.  The 
interests  and  passions  of  all  the  characters  in  the  play  are  now  concentrated  on  the 
boy,  whose  restoration  to  the  throne  of  his  fathers  is  finally  effected  through  the 
devotion  of  his  followers.  The  drama  is  lofty  and  impressive  in  character,  and  well 
adapted  to  the  subject  with  which  it  deals. 

ATLANTIS,  a  novel  by  Gerhart  Hauptmann  (1912).  A  German  physician, 
Frederick  von  Kammacher,  is  the  victim  of  a  morbid  passion  for  a  depraved  young 
girl,  Ingigerd,  who  has  made  a  sensation  on  the  stage  in  a  dance  which  portrays  the 
struggle  and  surrender  of  a  spider's  victim.  He  has  recently  placed  his  wife  in  an 
insane  asylum;  a  scientific  monograph  he  has  written  has  been  ridiculed  by  other 
scientists;  and  in  the  psycho-pathological  state  induced  by  depression,  he  is  obsessed 
by  Ingigerd 's  fascination.  He  takes  passage  on  the  ship  with  her  to  America  where 
she  is  to  appear  in  vaudeville.  The  action  takes  place  almost  entirely  on  shipboard. 
It  is  a  stormy  passage,  and  they  are  shipwrecked  in  mid-ocean,  possibly  on  a  moun- 
tain peak  of  the  lost  Atlantis.  The  narration  of  events  leading  up  to  the  wreck, 
the  description  of  the  wreck  itself,  and  the  struggle  for  the  lifeboats  is  vivid  realism. 
He  saves  Ingigerd  and  becomes  her  lover.  In  New  York  they  meet  theatre  managers, 
and  artists,  and  Ingigerd  begins  her  professional  career.  Frederick  escapes  from  her 
to  a  log  cabin  in  the  country,  recovering  from  his  obsession  after  an  attack  of  brain 
fever.  His  wife  dies,  and  he  marries  an  artist  whose  sane,  normal  comradeship  had 
helped  him  to  free  himself  from  Ingigerd 's  toils;  together  the  newly  married  pair 
return  to  Europe.  The  description  of  American  personalities  attracted  attention 
because  some  of  them  seemed  to  be  taken  from  the  life  during  Hauptmann 's  visit  to 
this  country  in  1892,  and  the  account  of  the  shipwreck  was  notable  as  a  kind  of 
prophetic  version  of  the  loss  of  the  Titanic,  which  followed  in  1912. 

ATTIC  PHILOSOPHER,  AN  ('Un  Philosophe  sous  les  Toits'),  appeared  in  1850. 
The  author,  Emile  Souvestre,  then  forty-four,  was  already  well  known  as  a  writer 
of  stories;  but  this  book  was  less  a  story  than  a  collection  of  sympathetic  moralizings 
upon  life,  "the  commonplace  adventures  of  an  unknown  thinker  in  those  twelve 
hostelries  of  time  called  months. "  He  shows  us  one  year  in  the  life  of  a  poor  working- 
man  who,  watching  brilliant  Paris  from  his  garret  window,  knows  moments  of  envy, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  61 

ambition,  and  loneliness.  For  these  moods  he  finds  a  cure  in  kindness  to  others,  in  a 
recognition  of  his  own  limitations,  and  in  a  resolve  to  make  the  best  of  things.  The 
voice  is  that  of  Souvestre  himself,  deducing  from  his  own  experience  lessons  of  con- 
tentment, brotherly  love,  and  simplicity.  His  character  sketches  include  the  frail 
and  deformed  Uncle  Maurice,  learning  self-abnegation;  the  drunken  Michael  Arout, 
regenerated  through  love  and  care  for  his  child;  the  kind  and  ever-youthful  Frances 
and  Madeleine,  middle-aged  workwomen,  cheerful  under  all  hardships;  and  many 
more  vivid  personalities.  He  excels  in  presenting  the  nobility  hidden  under  common- 
place exteriors,  and  the  pathos  involved  in  commonplace  conditions.  In  1851  the 
French  Academy  crowned  the  'Attic  Philosopher';  and  in  1854,  after  the  death  of 
Souvestre,  it  awarded  his  widow  the  Lambert  prize,  which  is  always  bestowed  upon 
the  most  useful  author  of  the  year. 

AUCASSIN  AND  NICOLETTE,  a  twelfth-century  cante-fable,  or  tale  in  alternating 
prose  and  verse,  composed  by  an  unknown  minstrel  probably  of  the  borders  of  Cham- 
pagne and  Picardy.  Its  subject,  the  idyllic  love  of  a  youthful  pair  separated  by 
religion,  birth,  and  romantic  vicissitudes,  bears  a  general  resemblance  to  that  of  the 
lay  of  Floire  et  Blanche/or.  The  narrative  medium,  a  simple  prose  giving  way  at 
intervals  to  seven-syllable  verses  with  refrain,  though  unique  in  Old-French  litera- 
ture, is  well  known  to  students  of  the  popular  ballad  and  tale  in  various  countries. 
The  style  has  an  apparently  artless  grace  and  a  freshness  suitable  to  the  portrayal  of 
young  love;  and  there  is  a  whole-souled  almost  pagan  devotion  to  worldly  beauty 
which  anticipates  the  Italian  Renaissance.  Aucassin,  son  of  the  Count  de  Biaucaire, 
falls  in  love  with  Nicolette,  a  Saracen  maiden,  brought  up  a  Christian  in  the  home  of 
his  father's  captain.  On  learning  of  Aucassin 's  passion  the  Count  orders  the  captain 
to  remove  her,  and  the  latter  shuts  her  up  in  his  own  house.  Aucassin 's  efforts  to  find 
Nicolette  are  frustrated  by  the  captain,  who  warns  the  youth  that  a  liaison  with  her 
would  conduct  him  to  Hell.  At  this  Aucassin  bursts  out  that  Hell,  the  abode  of  fine 
knights  and  ladies  and  minstrels,  would  be  preferable  to  Paradise,  the  home  of  beggars, 
priests,  and  monks.  Later  he  does  valiant  service  against  his  father's  enemy,  Count 
Bougars  de  Valence,  on  the  promise  of  a  short  interview  with  Nicolette;  and  when  the 
promise  is  broken,  he  releases  the  Count,  whom  he  has  made  prisoner.  For  this  act 
Aucassin  is  imprisoned  in  a  tower.  Through  a  crevice  in  the  wall  he  is  addressed 
by  Nicolette,  who  has  escaped  by  letting  herself  down  from  her  window.  As  she  is 
telling  him  of  her  resolution  to  flee  the  country  and  he  is  begging  her  to  be  true,  they 
are  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  the  city  guards.  Nicolette  manages  to  cross  the  wall 
and  ditch  and  to  escape  to  the  neighboring  woods.  With  some  shepherd  boys,  who 
take  her  for  a  fay,  she  leaves  a  message  for  Aucassin  and  then  constructs  a  bower  of 
boughs  and  leaves,  where  she  lives  in  hiding.  Meanwhile  her  escape  becomes  known 
and  Aucassin  is  released  from  prison.  Riding  through  the  forest  he  meets  the  shep- 
herd boys,  who  inform  him  of  Nicolette's  presence  there;  and  after  a  long  search,  and 
a  meeting  with  a  gigantic  swain  to  whom  he  gives  money  to  replace  a  lost  ox,  Aucassin 
reaches  the  bower.  The  meeting  of  the  lovers  is  described  in  a  strain  of  simple, 
idyllic  beauty  and  is  followed  by  an  account  of  their  journey  to  the  land  of  Torelore,  a 
topsy-turvy  realm,  where  the  king  lies  in  child-bed  and  the  queen  goes  out  to  a  battle 
in  which  apples,  eggs,  and  cheeses  are  used  for  missiles.  Carried  off  in  separate 
vessels  by  Saracens  the  lovers  are  brought  to  their  respective  countries.  Aucassin 
finds  his  parents  dead  and  rules  in  their  place;  Nicolette  is  restored  to  her  father,  the 
King  of  Carthage.  When,  however,  he  arranges  a  marriage  for  her  she  steals  away 
disguised  as  a  jongleur,  reaches  the  palace  of  Aucassin,  relates  to  him  her  own  story 


62  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

in  the  form  of  a  lay,  and  at  last  reveals  herself.  Their  happy  marriage  ends 
the  tale.  'Aucassin  and  Nicolette'  was  charmingly  translated  by  Andrew  Lang 
in  1887. 

AUDREY,  by  Mary  Johnston,  published  in  1902,  has  taken  its  place  with  the  other 
successful  historical  novels  of  that  day.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Virginia  in  the  early  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  where  Marmaduke  Haward,  a  wealthy  young  man,  res- 
cues a  little  orphan  girl  Audrey,  whose  parents  have  been  killed  by  the  Indians,  and 
makes  her  his  ward.  He  puts  her  in  the  care  of  the  minister  Darden,  and  his  wife 
Deborah,  who  take  charge  of  her  during  Haward's  absence  of  ten  years  in  England. 
Darden  proves  himself  dissolute  and  Audrey  receives  but  scant  kindness  from  her 
guardians.  Haward  returns  to  his  country  estate,  Fairview,  and,  upon  finding 
Audrey  grown  into  a  girl  of  wondrous  beauty,  begins  to  take  a  deep  interest  in  her. 
At  this  time  he  is  paying  his  addresses  to  Mistress  Evelyn  Bird,  a  charming  woman 
of  wealth  and  position  who  really  loves  him,  but  hesitates  about  accepting  'his  ad- 
vances, fearing  they  may  not  be  sincere.  Hugon,  a  half-breed  trader,  whose  atten- 
tions to  Audrey  are  most  distasteful  to  her,  feels  he  has  a  rival  in  Haward  and  his 
plot  to  kill  him  is  only  prevented  by  the  prompt  action  of  Audrey  and  McLean,  the 
storekeeper  of  Fairview.  Haward  and  Audrey  are  much  together  and  gossip  is 
already  rife,  when  the  former,  piqued  by  Evelyn's  refusal  to  dance  with  him  at  the 
Governor's  ball,  in  a  fit  of  feverish  bravado  determines  to  make  Audrey  his  partner 
at  the  Palace.  In  doing  this  he  draws  upon  himself  and  upon  her  the  anger  of  the 
guests,  especially  of  Evelyn,  and  Audrey  is  publicly  rebuked  in  the  church  the  follow- 
ing Sunday.  She  is  completely  crushed  when  she  realizes  the  position  in  which  she 
has  been  placed  by  Haward  and  her  faith  in  him  is  destroyed.  He  has  a  long  illness 
and  upon  his  recovery  endeavors  to  persuade  Audrey  that  he  loves  her  and  wishes 
her  to  become  his  wife,  but  she  eludes  him  and  repulses  him  on  every  occasion. 
Audrey  becomes  an  actress  and  her  beauty  and  talents  bring  the  world  to  her  feet. 
Haward  is  unceasing  in  his  efforts  to  win  back  her  love  and  has  just  succeeded  in 
doing  so,  when  the  blow  of  the  assassin  Hugon,  which  was  intended  for  him,  is  inter- 
cepted by  Audrey,  who  sacrifices  her  life  for  his. 

AUI/B  LIGHT  IDYLLS,  by  Sir  James  M.  Barrie  (1888),  is  a  series  of  twelve  sketches 
of  life  in  Glen  Quharity  and  Thrums.  In  all  of  them  the  same  characters  appear, 
not  a  few  being  remtroduced  in  the  author's  later  books,  —  notably  Tammas  Hag- 
gart,  Gavin  Ogilvy,  and  the  Rev.  Gavin  Dishart,  "the  little  minister,"  who  figures 
in  the  novel  of  that  name.  The  titles  of  the  sketches  suggest  the  nature  of  their 
contents:  The  School-House;  Thrums;  The  Auld  Licht  Kirk;  Lads  and  Lasses;  The 
Auld  Lichts  in  Arms;  The  Old  Dominie;  Cree  Queery  and  Mysy  Drolly ;  The  Courting 
of  T'nowhead's  Bell  (reprinted  in  this  LIBRARY)  ;  Davit  Lunan's  Political  Reminis- 
cences; A  Very  Old  Family;  Little  Rathie's  "Bural";  and  A  Literary  Club.  Humor 
and  pathos  mingle,  and  the  characters  are  vividly  real.  The  charm  of  the  sketches  — 
the  author's  earliest  important  work  —  lies  in  their  delineation  of  rural  Scottish 
character.  Barrie's  peculiar  characteristics  are  well  illustrated  in  the  'Idylls/ 

ATTLULARIA  (from  Aulula,  a  pot),  a  comedy  by  Plautus  (254-184  B.  C.). 
Although  an  old  miser  is  the  principal  character  in  the  play,  the  real  hero,  or  heroine, 
is  the  pot.  The  favor  of  his  Lar,  or  household  god,  enables  Euclion  to  dig  up  a  pot 
of  gold,  buried  beneath  the  hearth  by  his  grandfather.  No  sooner  has  he  become  rich 
than  avarice  takes  hold  of  him.  With  trembling  hands  he  buries  the  pot  deeper 
still:  he  has  found  it,  others  may;  the  very  thought  makes  his  hair  stand  on  end.  The 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  63 

dramatic  situations  of  the  play  turn  on  this  dread  of  Euclion's  that  aomeone  will 
rob  him  of  his  new-found  treasure.  The  fifth  act  is  supposed  to  have  been  written 
by  Antonius  Urceus  Codrus,  a  professor  in  the  University  of  Bologna,  sometime 
during  the  fifteenth  century.  Moliere's  'L'Avare'  is  an  imitation  of  the  'Aulularia.' 
It  has  been  imitated  also,  at  least  in  the  principal  character,  by  Le  Mercier  in  his 
'  Come'die  Latine. '  See  also  '  L'Avare. ' 

AURELIAN,  a  historical  novel  by  William  Ware,  an  American  author  born  in  1797, 
was  first  published  in  1838  under  the  title  'Probus.'  It  was  a  sequel  to  'Letters  of 
Lucius  M.  Piso,'  published  the  year  before;  and  like  that  novel,  it  is  written  in  the 
form  of  letters.  The  full  title  reads  'Aurelian;  or,  Rome  in  the  third  century.  In 
Letters  of  Lucius  M.  Piso,  from  Rome,  to  Fausta,  the  daughter  of  Gracchus,  at 
Palmyra/  The  novel  presents  a  singularly  faithful  picture  of  the  Rome  of  the 
second  half  of  the  third  century,  and  of  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  of  the  time 
as  expressed  in  both  Christians  and  pagans.  The  Emperor  Aurelian  figures  promi- 
nently in  the  story,  which  closes  with  the  scene  of  his  assassination.  The  style  of 
'Aurelian'  is  dignified  and  graceful,  with  enough  of  the  classical  spirit  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  the  narrative. 

AURORA  LEIGH,  a  poem  by  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  which  appeared  in 
1857.  She  called  it  the  "most  mature"  of  her  works,  the  one  in  which  "the  highest 
convictions  upon  life  and  art  are  entered."  It  is  in  reality  a  novel  in  blank  verse. 
The  principal  characters  are  Aurora  Leigh,  who  is  supposed  to  write  the  story; 
Romney  Leigh,  her  cousin;  Marian  Earle,  the  offspring  of  tramps;  and  a  fashionable 
young  widow,  Lady  Waldemar.  The  book  discusses  various  theories  for  the  re- 
generation of  society.  The  cnief  theme  is  the  final  reconcilement  of  Aurora's  ideals 
with  Romney's  practical  plans  for  the  improvement  of  the  masses.  Bits  of  scenery, 
hints  of  philosophy,  and  many  of  Mrs.  Browning's  own  emotions  and  reflections 
regarding  art  are  interspersed  through  the  narrative.  Aurora  Leigh,  the  child  of  a 
cultivated  and  wealthy  Englishman,  is  at  his  death  sent  from  Tuscany  to  England, 
and  put  into  the  care  of  a  prim  maiden  aunt.  She  devotes  herself  to  study;  refuses 
the  hand  of  her  rich  cousin  Romney,  who  has  become  a  socialist;  and  goes  to  London 
to  gain  a  livelihood  by  literary  work.  Rornney  Leigh  wishes  to  afford  society  a  moral 
lesson  by  a  marriage  with  Marian  Earle,  a  woman  of  the  slums,  who  becomes  in- 
volved in  a  tragedy  which  renders  the  marriage  impossible,  when  Romney  retires  to 
Leigh  Hall.  Through  an  accidert  he  becomes  blind,  and  these  misfortunes  reveal  to 
Aurora  her  love  for  him;  and  the  poem  closes  with  a  mutual  exchange  of  vows  and 
aspirations.  It  is  filled  with  passages  of  great  beauty,  and  ethical  utterances  of  a 
lofty  nature. 

AUSTRALASIA.  Vol.  i.:  Australia  and  New  Zealand,  by  A.  R.  Wallace  (1893); 
with  14  Maps  and  91  Illustrations.  Vol.  ii. :  Malaysia  and  the  Pacific  Archipelagoes, 
by  F.  H.  H.  Guillemard;  with  16  Maps  and  47  Illustrations.  The  first  of  these 
volumes,  by  an  eminent  English  naturalist  and  traveler,  describes  from  full  informa- 
tion the  remote  southern  regions  in  which  the  expansion  of  England  is  going  on  upon  a 
scale  very  inadequately  understood  in  America.  These  regions,  moreover,  are  of 
extreme  interest,  from  their  natural  features,  and  from  the  part  which  they  have 
played  in  the  history  of  mankind.  It  would  be  difficult  to  have  their  story  from  a 
hand  more  competent  than  that  of  A.  R.  Wallace.  The  second  volume  supplies 
by  far  the  most  interesting  and  accurate  account  extant  of  the  tropical  portion  of  the 
great  eastern  Archipelago,  the  northern  part  of  which  is  really  a  portion  of  Asia. 


64  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  SLANDER,  THE,  by  Edna  Lyall  (1887).  The  slander 
is  born  in  a  small  dull  English  country  town,  called  Muddlelon,  in  the  summer  of 
1886.  It  is  introduced  to  the  world  by  an  old  lady,  Mrs.  O'Reilly,  a  pleasant, 
talkative  woman,  who  imagines  it  and  puts  it  into  words  over  the  teacups  to  her 
young  friend  Lena  Hough  ton.  "I  assure  you,  my  dear,"  she  says,  "Mr.  Zaluski  is 
nothing  less  than  a  Nihilist."  Sigismund  Zaluski,  a  young  Polish  merchant  of 
irreproachable  character,  has  recently  come  to  Muddleton,  achieved  an  instant 
popularity  in  its  society,  and  won  the  affections  and  promised  hand  of  Gertrude 
Morley,  one  of  the  village  belles.  Miss  Houghton  repeats  this  slander  to  the  young 
curate,  who,  jealous  of  the  Pole's  success,  tells  it  to  Mrs.  Milton  Cleave,  his  gossipy 
hostess,  who  writes  it  to  a  friend  in  London.  It  makes  its  next  appearance  at  a 
dinner  party,  where,  with  the  additions  it  has  gained,  it  is  related  to  a  popular  novelist. 
Struck  with  its  dramatic  possibilities,  he  repeats  it  to  a  friend  at  the  Club,  where  it  is 
overheard  by  an  uncle  of  Gertrude,  who  writes  to  St.  Petersburg  to  find  out  the  truth. 
By  this  time,  in  addition  to  being  a  Nihilist,  the  young  Pole  is  an  atheist,  an  unprin- 
cipled man,  besides  being  instrumental  in  the  assassination  of  the  Czar.  The  letter 
is  found  by  the  police;  and  Zaluski,  returning  to  St.  Petersburg  on  business,  is 
arrested,  and  dies  in  a  dungeon.  The  story  is  strongly  told,  its  probabilities  seeming 
often  actual  facts.  It  needs  no  commentary;  its  truth  is  epitomized  in  the  apt 
quotation  of  the  author:  "Of  thy  words  unspoken  thou  art  master:  thy  spoken  word 
is  .master  of  thee." 

AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST  TABLE,  THE,  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
(1858), —  a  series  of  essays  appearing  first  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  —  consists  of 
imaginary  conversations  around  a  boarding-house  table,  and  contains  also  many  of 
his  most  famous  poems:  'The  Deacon's  Masterpiece,  or  the  Wonderful  One-Hoss 
Shay7;  'The  Chambered  Nautilus';  'The  Old  Man  Dreams';  'Contentment'; 
'Estivation';  the  bacchanalian  ode  with  the  teetotal  committee's  matchless  altera- 
tions; and  others.  The  characters  are  introduced  to  the  reader  as  the  Autocrat,  the 
Schoolmistress,  the  Old  Gentleman  Opposite,  the  Young  Man  Called  John,  The 
Landlady,  the  Landlady's  Daughter,  the  Poor  Relation,  and  the  Divinity  Student; 
but  Holmes  is  far  too  good  an  artist  to  make  them  talk  always  the  "patter"  of  their 
situations  or  functions,  like  automata.  Many  subjects  —  art,  science,  theology, 
philosophy,  travel,  etc.  —  are  touched  on  in  a  delightfully  rambling  way;  ideas  widely 
dissimilar  following  each  other,  with  anecdotes,  witticisms,  flowers  of  fact  and  fancy 
plentifully  interwoven.  This  is  the  most  popular  of  Dr.  Holmes  rs  books;  and  in 
none  of  them  are  his  ease  of  style,  his  wit,  his  humor,  his  kindly  sympathy  and  love 
of  humanity  more  clearly  shown.  While  there  is  no  attempt  to  weave  these  essays 
into  a  romance,  there  is  a  suggestion  of  sentimental  interest  between  the  Autocrat 
and  the  Schoolmistress,  which  affords  an  opportunity  for  a  graceful  ending  to  the 
conversations,  when,  having  taken  the  "long  walk"  across  Boston  Common,  —  a 
little  journey  typical  of  their  life's  long  walk,  —  they  announce  their  approaching 
marriage  to  the  circle  around  the  immortal  boarding-house  table. 

L'AVAHE  ('The  Miser'),  one  of  the  most  famous  of  Moliere's  prose  comedies,  first 
produced  September  Qth,  1668.  It  is  founded  on  the  'Aulularia'  of  Plautus  (which 
see  above),  and  was  paraphrased  by  Fielding  in  his  comedy  of  'The  Miser.'  Har- 
pagon,  a  sexagenarian  miser  who  incarnates  the  spirit  of  avarice,  has  determined  to 
marry  a  young  woman  named  Mariane,  who  lives  in  obscure  poverty  with  her 
invalid,  mother.  He  has  likewise  determined  to  bestow  the  hand  of  his  own  daughter 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  65 

Elise  upon  Anselme,  a  friend  and  companion  of  his  own  age,  who  has  consented  to 
take  her  without  a  dot  or  marriage  portion.  But  the  young  women  prefer  to  choose 
their  own  lovers.  Harpagon's  son,  Cl&inte,  is  the  favored  suitor  of  Mariane.  Valere 
is  desperately  smitten  with  Elise,  and  for  the  purpose  of  wooing  her  has  introduced 
himself  into  the  Harpagon  household  under  the  guise  of  the  house-steward.  Har- 
pagon's dearest  possession  is  a  casket  containing  ten  thousand  francs,  which  he  has 
buried  in  his  garden,  and  with  which  his  thoughts  are  ever  occupied.  La  Fleche,  a 
valet,  discovers  the  chest.  Harpagon's  despair  and  fury,  the  complications  ensuing, 
and  the  disentanglement  necessary  to  a  successful  stage  ending,  are  given  with  all 
Moliere's  inexhaustible  verve  and  humor.  See  also  'Aulularia.' 

AVE,  see  HAIL  AND  FAREWELL,  by  George  Moore. 

AVERAGE  MAN,  AN,  by  Robert  Grant  (1883),  is  a  New  York  society  story;  a 
novel  of  manners  rather  than  plot,  concerning  itself  more  with  types  than  with  in- 
dividuals. Two  young  men,  both  clever  and  of  good  family,  educated  at  Harvard 
with  an  after- year  of  Europe,  settle  down  in  New  York  to  practice  law.  One  of  them, 
Arthur  Remington,  is  content  to  win  a  fair  income  by  hard  work  at  his  profession, 
and  finally  marries  a  poor  but  charming  girl,  who  has  always  represented  his  ideal, 
and  who  refuses  a  millionaire  for  his  sake.  His  friend,  Woodbury  Stoughton,  eager 
for  money  and  fame,  dabbles  in  stocks  and  loses  most  of  his  small  fortune.  He 
marries  for  her  money  the  beautiful  uncultivated  daughter  of  a  railway  king,  who 
loves  him  devotedly,  and  to  whom  he  is  indifferent.  He  is  elected  to  the  Assembly 
as  a  leader  of  the  "better  element"  in  politics;  but  his  ambition  to  get  into  Congress 
leads  him  into  such  double-dealing  that  the  Independents  desert  him,  and  he  is 
overwhelmingly  defeated.  Qn  the  eve  of  election,  also,  his  young  wife  learns  of  his 
infidelity  to  her,  and  leaves  him.  The  story  is  slight,  but  the  portraiture  of  a  certain 
phase  of  New  York  fashionable  society  is  vivid,  and  the  study  of  the  inevitable 
deterioration  of  life  without  principle  is  searching  and  dramatic. 

AVESTA,  THE  ZEND-,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

AWAKENING  OF  HELENA  RICHIE,  THE,  by  Margaret  Deland  (1906).  The 
scene  of  this  story  is  laid  in  Old  Chester  and  depicts  many  of  the  same  characters 
that  have  appeared  in  previous  tales  by  the  author.  Helena  Richie  is  an  attractive 
and  fascinating  woman  who  is  something  of  a  mystery  to  her  neighbors.  She  has 
recently  moved  to  the  town  and  settled  herself  in  a  comfortable  home,  where  she 
lives  alone  with  her  servants  and  holds  herself  aloof  from  the  residents  of  Old  Chester. 
She  is  known  as  a  widow  and  her  only  visitor  is  Lloyd  Pryor,  who  passes  as  her  brother. 
This,  however,  is  not  the  truth,  as  he  is  in  reality  Helena's  lover  and  she  in  her  desire 
for  happiness  blinds  herself  to  her  wrongdoing.  She  has  been  separated  for  thirteen 
years  from  her  husband  whom  she  despises,  and  expects  in  the  event  of  his  death  to 
marry  Pryor.  He,  however,  is  selfish  and  cruel  and  in  spite  of  her  intense  love  for 
him  his  affection  for  her  has  cooled.  Helena  adopts  a  small  boy  named  David,  who 
is  brought  to  her  notice  by  her  two  friends  Dr.  William  King  and  Dr.  Lavendar,  and 
becomes  passionately  attached  to  him.  She  has  an  unsought  admirer  in  Sam  Wright, 
a  village  youth  of  artistic  temperament,  who  shoots  himself  when  lie  learns  her 
secret.  This  tragedy  makes  a  deep  impression  on  Helena  and  she  decides  to  marry 
Pryor  at  once,  as  her  husband  has  died  at  last,  and  she  feels  this  act  will  restore  her 
womanhood.  However,  Pryor  is  not  at  all  anxious  for  this  step,  partly  on  account 
of  his  daughter  Alice,  a  girl  of  nineteen,  who  is  in  completp  ignorance  of  her  father's 


66  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

past,  and  partly  because  his  feelings  for  Helena  have  undergone  a  change.  He 
consents  with  rather  bad  grace  to  the  plan,  stipulating,  however,  that  she  part 
with  David.  This  Helena  refuses  to  do,  and  when  called  upon  to  choose  between 
them  takes  David.  Her  plan  is  frustrated  by  Dr.  King,  who  convinces  her  she 
is  not  qualified  to  bring  up  a  child.  She  confesses  everything  to  Dr.  Lavendar, 
renounces  David,  and  becomes  so  chastened  that  he  restores  the  child  to  her 
care. 

AWAKENING  OF  SPRING  ('Fruhlings  Erwachen'),  by  Frank  Wedekind  (1891). 
This  "children's  tragedy"  is  "one  of  the  documents  in  a  paper  war  which  has 
resulted  ...  in  having  the  physiology  of  sex  taught  in  many  of  the  German 
schools"  (Translator's  preface).  The  play  is  a  frank  but  withal  artistic  presenta- 
tion of  the  necessity  of  enlightening  the  child  with  regard  to  the  problems  of  sex. 
In  the  story,  two  boys,  the  sensitive  Moritz  and  the  more  assertive  Melchior,  specu- 
late about  sex,  and  Melchior  promises  to  write  out  the  physiological  facts  with 
drawings  for  his  friend.  Wendla,  one  of  the  group  of  school-children,  questions  her 
mother  about  her  sister's  new  baby,  but  her  mother  evades  the  question,  and  seems 
interested  only  in  the  flounces  to  lengthen  her  growing  daughter's  dress.  Later 
Wendla  and  Melchoir  take  refuge  from  a  thundershower  in  the  hayloft,  and  being, 
in  the  author's  view,  as  innocent  as  mating  birds  and  spring  flowers  are  exposed  to  the 
dangers  of  their  ignorance  at  this'critical  period.  The  play  is  also  an  indictment  of 
the  cramming  system  of  education.  Moritz  fails  in  his  examinations  and  commits 
suicide.  The  paper  Melchior  had  written  for  Moritz  is  judged  by  his  parents  and 
teachers  to  be  a  contributing  cause  to  his  suicide.  One  of  the  few  touches  of  humor 
is  the  scene  in  which  the  faculty  of  the  Gymnasium  pass  judgment  on  Melchior  and 
spend  the  time  quarreling  over  the  opening  and  closing  of  a  window.  Melchior  is  not 
allowed  to  defend  himself.  In  vain  he  says  he  has  written  nothing  obscene.  He  is 
sent  to  a  reformatory  by  his  unintelligent  parents.  Wendla  dies  at  fourteen  in  giving 
birth  to  a  child,  from  the  abortives  given  her  to  avoid  a  scandal.  She  says  reproach- 
fully, "Oh  mother,  why  didn't  you  tell  me  everything?"  and  her  mother  replies: 
"My  mother  told  me  no  more."  In  the  last  scene,  Melchior,  escaping  from  the 
reformatory,  discovers  Wendla's  tombstone  in  the  graveyard.  Moritz  appears  car- 
rying his  head  under  his  arm,  and  tries  to  induce  Melchior  to  kill  himself.  A  masked 
man,  typifying  the  spirit  of  Life  as  Moritz  symbolizes  Death,  urges  Melchior  to  trust 
to  him.  The  contest  in  the  soul  of  Melchior  is  externalized  in  this  duel  between 
Life  and  Death,  and  Life  wins  him. 

AZTEC  TREASURE-HOUSE,  THE,  by  Thomas  A.  Janvier  (1890),  is  a  narration  of 
the  thrilling  adventures  of  a  certain  Professor  Thomas  Palgrave,  Ph.D.;  an  archae- 
ologist who  goes  to  Mexico  to  discover,  if  possible,  remains  of  the  early  Aztec  civiliza- 
tion. The  reader  is  hurried  with  breathless  interest  from  incident  to  incident;  and 
the  mingling  of  intense  pathos  and  real  humor  is  characteristic  of  the  author  of  'The 
Uncle  of  an  Angel '  and  other  charming  books.  Professor  Palgrave,  in  company  with 
Fray  Antonio,  a  saintly  Franciscan  priest;  Pablo,  an  Indian  boy;  and  two  Americans, 
—  Young,  a  freight  agent,  and  Rayburn,  an  engineer,  —  starts  in  search  of  the  treas- 
ure-house of  the  early  Aztecs.  The  professor  goes  to  advance  science;  Fray  An- 
tonio to  spread  his  faith;  Pablo  because  he  loves  his  master;  and  the  rest  for 
gold.  What  befell  them  in  the  search  must  be  learned  from  the  story.  This 
volume,  considered  either  as  a  piece  of  English  or  as  a  tale  of  adventure,  deserves 
a  high  place. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  67 

BABYLONIAN  INFLUENCE  ON  THE  BIBLE  AND  POPULAR  BELIEFS,  by  A. 

Smythe  Palmer,  D.D.  (1897).  A  small  volume  specially  devoted  to  showing  how 
the  Hebrew  Mosaic  books  evince  "familiarity  with  the  great  religious  epics  of  Baby- 
lonia, which  go  back  to  the  twenty-third  century  B.C,,  —  to  a  date,  that  is,  about 
800  years  earlier  than  the  reputed  time  of  Moses";  and  how,  in  consequence  of  this 
familiarity,  "Babylonian  ideas  were  worked  into  these  early  Hebrew  documents, 
and  were  thus  insured  persistence  and  obtained  a  world- wide  currency."  That 
"Babylon  still  survives  in  our  culture,"  is  Dr.  Palmer's  general  conclusion.  He 
especially  devotes  his  work  to  showing  how  the  Babylonian  conception  of  Tiamat 
was  reproduced  in  the  Hebrew  conception  of  Tehom,  "the  Deep";  how  the  Baby- 
lonian idea  of  the  Deep,  suggesting  the  Dragon  of  the  Deep,  gave  the  Hebrew  mind 
its  idea  of  Satan;  and  how  again  the  idea  of  the  Deep  became,  first  to  the  Babylonians, 
and  then  to  the  Hebrews,  the  idea  of  a  Hades,  or  Tartaros,  or  Hell.  Dr.  Palmer 
makes  prominent  these  points:  (i)  that  "the  Hebrew  record  of  the  creation  is  based 
on  the  more  ancient  accounts  which  have  been  preserved  in  the  Babylonian  tablets"; 
(2)  that  "religious  conceptions  of  the  Babylonians,  suggested  by  phenomenal  aspects 
of  nature,  especially  the  Sun,  lay  at  the  base  of  the  Hebrews'  early  faith";  (3)  that 
"the  Great  Deep  was  constituted  a  symbol  of  lawlessness,"  "was  personified  as  a 
dragon  or  great  serpent,"  and  "became  a  symbol  of  moral  evil";  (4)  that  "among 
the  Hebrews  this  serpent  or  dragon  introduces  sin";  and  (5)  that  "this  Chaos- 
Dragon  contributed  shape  to  later  conceptions  of  the  Devil."  He  further  says,  with 
reference  to  "the  mediatorial  god,  Merodach"  of  Babylonian  belief:  "It  has  often 
been  remarked  that  Merodach,  as  mediator,  healer,  and  redeemer,  as  forgiving  sin, 
defeating  the  Tempter,  and  raising  the  dead,  in  many  of  his  features  foreshadowed 
the  Hebrew  Messiah";  and  also:  "The  Babylonians  themselves  seem  to  have 
considered  their  Merodach  (or  Bel)  and  the  Hebrew  Ya  (Jah  —  Jehovah)  to  be  one 
and  the  same."  In  such  suggestions  of  study  as  these,  Dr.  Palmer's  pages  are  very 
rich. 

BABYLONIAN  TALMUD,  see  TALMUD. 

BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE,  by  Robert  Browning,  see  ALCESTIS. 

BALLADES  AND  VERSES  VAIN,  by  Andrew  Lang  (1884).  Mr.  Lang's  light 
and  graceful  touch  is  well  illustrated  in  this  little  volume,  containing  some  of  his 
prettiest  lyrics.  He  is  fond  of  the  old  French  verse  forms,  and  the  sentiments  which 
belong  to  them.  The  gay  verses  are  wholly  gay;  the  serious  ones  are  pervaded  with 
a  pensive  sadness  —  that  of  old  memories  and  legends.  Mr.  Lang's  sober  muse  is 
devoted  to  Scotland,  and  after  that  to  old  France  and  older  Greece;  but  whether 
grave  or  gay,  his  exquisite  workmanship  never  fails  him. 

BALLADS,  English  and  Scottish  Popular,  by  Francis  J.  Child  (Ten  Parts,  or  Five 
Volumes,  Imperial  Quarto.  1897.)  A  complete  collection  of  all  known  English 
and  Scottish  popular  ballads;  every  one  entire  and  according  to  the  best  procurable 
text,  including  also  every  accessible  independent  version;  and  with  an  introduction 
to  each,  illustrated  by  parallels  from  every  European  language.  In  its  recovery  and 
permanent  preservation  of  songs  which  date  far  back  of  modern  civilization,  —  songs 
which  show  the  thought  and  feeling  of  the  child-life  of  humanity,  and  the  seed  from 
which  the  old  epics  sprang,  —  the  collection  is  of  the  highest  value  to  the  student  of 
primitive -history.  It. is  a  storehouse  of  language,  of  poetry,  of  fiction,  and  of  folk- 
lore, so  many  times  the  richest  ever  made,  so  complete,  learned,  and  accurate,  as  to 


68  THE    READER'S   DIGEST    OF    BOOKS 

occupy  a  final  position.  It  is  a  monument  of  research,  scholarship,  and  laborious 
service  to  literature,  —  and  of  the  essential  unity  o£  all  races  and  peoples  in  their 
popular  poetry,  —  to  have  raised  which  was  the  work  of  a  noble  life. 

BALLADS  AND  BARRACK-ROOM  BALLADS,  by  Rudyard  Kipling  (1892). 
This  volume  is  about  evenly  divided  between  poems  written  in  English  and  those 
written  in  cockney  dialect.  The  first  half  is  serious;  and  most  of  its  themes  are  found 
in  Hindoo  legends  and  wild  sea-tales.  The  last  half  deals  with  the  joys  and  woes  of 
Tommy  Atkins,  and  the  various  experiences  of  the  British  private,  from  the  "arf- 
made  recruity"  to  the  old  pensioner  on  a  shilling  a  day.  No  such  vivid  portraiture 
of  the  common  soldier,  with  his  dullness,  his  obedience,  and  his  matter-of-course 
heroism,  has  ever  been  drawn  by  any  other  artist.  The  book  contains,  among  other 
favorites,  'Danny  Deever,'  'Fuzzy  Wuzzy,'  and  'The  Road  to  Mandalay,'  besides 
the  grim  story  of  Tomlinson,  too  ineffective  either  in  virtue  or  sin  to  find  place  in 
heaven  or  hell. 

BANQUET,  THE,  a  dialogue  by  Plato  (427-347  B.C.).  'The  Banquet'  is 
usually  considered  the  finest  of  Plato's  dialogues,  because  of  its  infinite  variety,  its 
vivid  and  truthful  discrimination  of  character,  and  the  ease  with  which  the  author 
rises  naturally  from  the  comic,  and  even  the  grotesque,  to  the  loftiest  heights  of 
sublimity.  A  number  of  guests  assemble  at  the  house  of  Agathon.  The  subject  of 
love  is  introduced ;  they  proceed  to  discuss,  praise,  and  define  it,  each  according  to 
his  ideas,  disposition,  and  character.  Socrates,  summoned  to  give  his  opinion,  re- 
lates a  conversation  he  once  had  with  a  woman  of  Mantinea  named  Diotime.  This 
artifice  enables  Plato  to  make  Socrates  responsible  for  ideas  that  are  really  his  own. 
In  the  opinion  of  the  Mantinean  lady,  the  only  way  to  reach  love  is  to  begin  with  the 
cultivation  of  beauty  here  below,  and  then  rise  gradually,  by  steps  of  the  ladder,  to 
supreme  beauty.  Thus  we  should  proceed  from  the  contemplation  of  one  beautiful 
body  to  two,  from  two  to  several;  then  from  beautiful  functions  and  occupations  to 
beautiful  sciences.  Thus  we  come  at  last  to  the  perfect  science,  which  is  nothing 
else  but  the  science  of  supreme  beauty.  A  man  absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of 
pure,  simple,  elementary  beauty  —  beauty  devoid  of  flesh,  color,  and  all  other  perish- 
able vanities;  in  a  word,  divine  beauty,  one  and  absolute  —  could  ne\er  endure  to 
have  his  ideas  distressed  by  the  consideration  of  ephemeral  things.  Such  a  man  will 
perceive  beauty  by  means  of  the  organ  by  which  beauty  is  perceptible;  and  will 
engender  here  below,  not  phantoms  of  virtue,  because  he  does  not  embrace  phantoms, 
but  true  virtues,  because  he  embraces  truth.  Now,  he  who  engenders  and  fosters 
true  virtue  is  loved  by  God;  and  if  anyone  deserves  to  be  immortal,  surely  it  is  he. 
The  end  of  the  dialogue  is  almost  entirely  devoted  to  the  praise  of  Socrates,  and  to  a 
picture  of  his  life  as  a  man,  a  soldier,  and  an  instructor  of  youth.  It  is  Alcibiades  who 
draws  the  portrait  of  his  master.  He  has  just  entered  the  banquet  hall  with  some  of 
his  boon  companions,  and  is  himself  tipsy.  His  potations,  however,  serve  to  add  fire 
and  energy  to  his  description  of  the  philosopher,  whom  he  says  he  knows  thoroughly, 
and  of  whom  he  has  also  a  good  many  personal  reasons  to  complain.  Socrates,  he 
continues,  is  not  unlike  those  Silenuses  you  find  in  the  studios  of  the  sculptors,  with 
reed-pipes  or  flutes  between  their  fingers.  Separate  the  two  pieces  composing  a 
Silenus,  and  lo!  the  sacred  figure  of  some  god  or  other,  which  was  hidden  by  the  outer 
covering,  is  revealed  to  your  eyes.  As  far  as  outward  appearance  goes,  then,  Socrates 
resembles  a  Silenus  or  satyr.  Indeed,  anyone  who  looks  closely  can  perceive  clearly 
that  he  is  the  very  image  of  the  satyr  Marsyas,  morally  as  well  as  physically.  Can  he 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  69 

deny  that  he  is  an  unblushing  scoffer?  If  he  does,  witnesses  are  within  call  ready  tc 
prove  the  contrary.  Is  he  not  also  a  flute-player,  and  a  far  better  one  than  Marsyas, 
too?  It  was  by  the  potency  of  the  sounds  which  the  satyr's  lips  drew  from  his 
instruments  that  he  charmed  men.  The  only  difference  between  him  and  Socrates 
is  that  the  latter,  without  instruments  and  by  his  discourses  cimply,  produces  the 
same  effects.  Alcibiades  next  dwells  on  the  oracles  that  predicted  the  advent  of  his 
divine  teacher,  and  their  mutual  relations  at  Athens  during  the  military  expedition  tc 
Potidaea  and  in  the  defeat  at  Delium.  He  then  returns  to  his  comparison  between 
Socrates  and  a  Silenus,  and  declares  that  his  discourses  also  are  Silenuses.  With  all 
his  admiration  for  the  philosopher,  he  must  acknowledge  that  at  first  his  language 
seemed  to  him  as  grotesque  as  his  person.  The  words  and  expressions  forming  the 
exterior  garb  of  his  thought  are  quite  as  rugged  and  uncouth  as  the  hide  of  some 
repulsive  satyr.  And  then  he  is  always  talking  of  such  downright  asses  as  black- 
smiths, cobblers,  curriers,  and  so  forth,  and  he  is  always  saying  the  same  thing  in 
the  same  terms.  But  a  person  has  only  to  open  his  discourses  and  take  a  peep  inside, 
and  he  will  discover,  first,  that  there  is  some  meaning  in  them  after  all;  and  after  closer 
observation,  that  they  are  altogether  divine,  and  enshrine  the  sacred  images  of  every 
virtue  and  almost  of  every  principle  that  must  guide  anyone  ambitious  to  become  a 
good  man. 

BANQUET,  THE,  a  dialogue  by  Xenophon  (430-357  B.C.),  is  the  third  work 
directly  inspired  by  the  author's  recollections  of  Socrates,  and  was  probably  written 
with  the  view  of  giving  a  corrector  idea  of  his  master's  doctrines  than  is  presented  in 
'The  Banquet'  of  Plato.  The  scene  takes  place  at  the  home  of  the  wealthy  Callias 
during  the  Panathenaic  festival.  Callias  has  invited  a  large  party  to  a  banquet 
arranged  in  honor  of  young  Autolycos.  Socrates  and  a  number  of  his  friends  are 
among  the  guests.  The  extraordinary  beauty  of  Autolycos  has  such  an  effect  on  the 
assembly  that  everyone  is  struck  dumb  with  admiration.  The  buffoon  Philippos 
makes  vain  efforts  to  dispel  this  universal  gravity;  but  he  has  only  poor  success,  and 
complains  with  mock  solemnity  of  his  failure.  When  the  tables  are  removed,  three 
comedians,  a  harper,  a  flute-player,  and  a  dancer  enter,  and  with  them  their  manager. 
The  artists  play,  sing,  and  dance;  while  the  guests  exchange  casual  remarks,  which,  on 
account  of  the  distraction  caused  by  the  entertainment,  become  more  and  more  dis- 
connected. Socrates  proposes  that  conversation  take  the  place  of  music  entirely, 
and  that  each  describe  the  art  he  cultivates,  and  speak  in  praise  of  it.  Then  several 
discourses  follow.  The  most  important  of  them  are  two  by  Socrates,  in  one  of  which 
he  eulogizes  the  dignity  of  the  trade  he  himself  has  adopted.  In  the  other,  he  speaks 
of  lo\  e.  The  love,  howev  er,  which  he  celebrates,  is  the  pure  love  that  has  the  heavenly 
Aphrodite  for  its  source,  and  has  no  connection  with  the  popular  Aphrodite,  After 
these  discourses  an  imitative  dance  is  given  by  the  artists,  in  which  the  loves  of 
Bacchus  and  Ariadne  are  portrayed. 

BARABBAS:  'A  Dream  of  the  World's  Tragedy,'  by  Marie  Corelli  (1893),  is 
briefly  the  story  of  the  last  days  of  Christ,  his  betrayal,  crucifixion,  and  resurrection. 
The  scene  opens  in  a  Syrian  prison  where  Barabbas,  a  convicted  murderer  and  thief, 
is  awaiting  sentence.  It  being  the  feast  of  the  Passover,  according  to  the  Law  the 
Jews  can  demand  the  release  of  a  prisoner.  Fearful  that  Christ  will  be  given  up,  they 
ask  the  freedom  of  Barabbas.  Leaving  his  cell,  he  joins  the  crowd  in  the  Hall  of 
Judgment,  is  present  on  the  journey  to  Calvary,  at  the  crucifixion,  and  at  its  tragic 
ending.  The  crimes  of  Barabbas  had  been  instigated  by  the  -wiles  of  Judith  Iscariot, 


70  THE    READER  S    DIGEST   OF    BOOKS 

a  beautiful  wanton,  who  also  prompts  her  brother  to  the  betrayal  of  his  Lord.  Judas 
Iscariot  is  described  as  a  weak-minded  youth,  a  willing  tool  in  his  sister's  hands.  His 
self-destruction  and  her  ruin  by  Caiaphas  unite  in  driving  her  insane.  During  her 
madness  she  attempts  to  kill  the  High  Priest;  who  however  escapes,  and  hating 
Barabbas  for  his  rivalry  in  Judith's  affections,  has  him  imprisoned  on  the  false 
charges  of  attempted  murder  and  the  theft  of  Christ's  body  from  the  tomb.  Barab- 
bas dies  in  prison,  after  being  converted  to  Christianity.  He  is  depicted  as  a  "type 
of  Human  Doubt  aspiring  unto  Truth." 

The  story  is  dramatically  told,  but  gives  the  author's  imaginary  conception  of 
persons  and  events  rather  than  historic  portraits.  It  shows,  however,  a  certain 
amount  of  study  of  Jewish  manners  and  customs.  The  style  is  florid  and  meretricious. 

BARBARA'S  HISTORY,  by  Amelia  Blandford  Edwards,  appeared  in  1864.  It  is 
the  romance  of  a  pretty  girl,  clever  and  capable,  who,  passing  through  some  vexa- 
tions and  serious  troubles,  settles  down  to  an  unclouded  future.  Barbara  Churchill 
is  the  youngest  daughter  of  a  selfish  widower,  who  neglects  his  children.  When  ten 
years  old,  she  visits  her  rich  country  aunt,  Mrs.  Sandyshaft,  with  whom  she  is  far 
happier  than  in  her  London  home.  Here  she  meets  Hugh  Farquhar,  owner  of  the 
neighboring  estate  of  Broomhill;  a  man  of  twenty-seven,  who  has  sowed  wild  oats 
in  many  lands  and  reaped  an  abundant  harvest  of  troubles.  He  makes  a  great  pet 
of  Barbara,  who  loves  him  devotedly.  The  story  thenceforth  is  of  their  marriage, 
her  jealousy  in  regard  to  an  Italian  girl  whom  her  husband  has  protected,  and  an 
explanation  and  reconciliation.  It  is  well  told,  the  characterization  is  good,  and 
Barbara  is  made  an  extremely  attractive  little  heroine. 

BARBER  OF  SEVILLE,  THE,  by  Pierre  Augustin  Caron  (who  later  assumed  the 
nom  de  guerre  "Beaumarchais"),  appeared  in  1775  as  a  five-act  French  comedy. 
It  is  the  first- of  the  Figaro  trilogy,  the  later  plays  being  the  'Marriage  of  Figaro'  and 
the  'Guilty  Mother/  The  whole  drift  of  the  'Bar bier,'  as  of  the  'Mariage,'  is 
to  satirize  the  privileged  classes,  from  the  political  and  "rights-of-man"  point 
of  view  rather  than  from  that  of  the  social  moralist.  The  plays  proved  to  be  formid- 
able political  engines. 

Full  of  sparkling,  incisive,  and  direct  dialogue,  eminently  artistic  as  a  piece  of 
dramatic  construction,  yet  lacking  the  high  literary  merit  which  characterizes  some 
of  the  author's  other  work,  the  'Barbier,1  the  embodiment  of  Beaumarchais's  viva- 
cious genius,  lives  to  the  world  in  its  leading  character,  Figaro  the  inimitable.  The 
simple  plot  follows  the  efforts  and  "useless  precautions"  of  Bartholo,  tutor  and 
guardian  of  Rosine,  —  a  coquettish  beauty  loved  by  Count  Almaviva,  —  to  prevent 
his  pupil-ward  from  marrying,  for  he  himself  loves  her.  But  Bartholo  is  outwitted, 
though  with  difficulty,  by  younger  and  more  adroit  gallants,  whose  schemes  form 
the  episodes  of  the  comedy.  Don  Basilio,  an  organist  and  Rosine's  teacher  of  singing, 
is  the  typical  calumniator,  operating  by  covert  insinuation  rather  than  by  open  dis- 
paragement. Figaro  is,  as  the  title  indicates,  a  barber  of  Seville,  where  the  action  is 
laid,  though  the  play  has  an  air  unmistakably  French.  He  is  presented  as  a  master 
in  cunning,  dexterity,  and  intrigue,  never  happier  than  when  he  has  several  audacious 
plots  on  hand.  "Perpetually  witty,  inexhaustibly  ingenious,  perennially  gay," 
says  Austin  Dobson,  "he  is  pre-eminently  the  man  of  his  country,  the  irrepressible 
mouthpiece  of  the  popular  voice,  the  'cynical  and  incorrigible  laugher  .  .  .  who 
opposes  to  rank,  prescription,  and  prerogative,  nothing  but  his  indomitable  audacity 
or  his  sublime  indifference." 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  71 

BARCHESTER  TOWERS,  by  Anthony  Trollope  (1857),  is  the  second  of  the  eight 
volumes  comprised  in  his  'Chronicles  of  Barsetshire.1  The  noteworthy  success  of 
1  The  Warden '  led  him  to  continue  his  studies  of  social  life  in  the  clerical  circle  cen- 
tring at  the  episcopal  palace  of  Barchester.  He  gives  us  a  pleasant  love  story  evolved 
from  an  environment  of  clerical  squabblings,  schemes  of  preferment,  and  heart- 
burnings over  church  government  and  forms  of  service.  The  notable  characters  are 
Bishop  Proudie,  his  arrogant  and  sharp-tongued  wife  Mrs.  Proudie,  and  Eleanor 
Bold,  a  typical,  spirited,  loving  English  girl.  Trollope  excels  in  showing  the  actuating 
motives,  good  and  bad,  of  ordinary  men  and  women.  In  a  book  as  thoroughly 
"English  as  roast  beef,"  he  tells  a  story  of  every-day  life,  and  gives  us  the  interest 
of  intimate  acquaintance  with  every  character.  A  capital  sense  of  the  "Establish- 
ment" pervades  the  book  like  an  atmosphere. 

BARFUSSELE,  see  LITTLE  BAREFOOT. 

BARLAAM  AND  JOSAPHAT,  one  of  the  most  popular  of  early  mediaeval  romances, 
is  supposed  to  have  been  written  by  St.  John  of  Damascus,  —  or  Damascenus,  as 
he  is  sometimes  called,  —  a  Syrian  monk  born  about  the  end  of  the  seventh  century. 
The  name  of  Barlaam  and  Josaphat  appear  in  both  the  Greek  and  Roman  lists  of 
saints.  According  to  the  narrative  of  Damascenus,  Josaphat  was  the  son  of  a  king 
of  India  brought  up  in  magnificent  seclusion,  to  the  end  that  he  might  know  nothing 
of  human  misery.  Despite  his  father's  care,  the  knowledge  of  sickness,  poverty, 
and  death  cannot  be  hidden  from  him:  he  is  oppressed  by  the  mystery  of  existence. 
A  Christian  hermit,  Barlaam,  finds  his  way  to  him  at  the  risk  of  life,  and  succeeds 
in  converting  him  to  Christianity.  The  prince  uses  his  influence  to  promote  the  new 
faith  among  his  people.  When  he  has  raised  his  kingdom  to  high  prosperity,  he  leaves 
it  to  spend  the  remainder  of  his  days  as  a  holy  hermit. 

Professor  Max  Muller  traces  a  very  close  connection  between  the  legend  of 
Barlaam  and  Josaphat,  and  the  Indian  legends  of  the  Buddha  as  related  in  the  San- 
skrit of  the  Lalita  Vistara.  This  connection  was  first  noticed,  according  to  Professor 
Muller,  by  M.  Laboulaye  in  the  Journal  des  De"bats  (July,  1859).  A  year  later,  Dr. 
Felix  Liebrecht  made  an  elaborate  treatment  of  the  subject. 

The  episodes  and  apologues  of  the  romance  furnished  poetic  material  to  Boc- 
caccio, to  Gower,  to  the  compiler  of  the  'Gesta  Romanorum,'  and  to  Shakespeare; 
who  is  indebted  to  this  source,  through  Wynkyn  de  Worde's  English  translation,  for 
the  casket  incident  in  the  'Merchant  of  Venice/  The  entire  story  is  found  in  the 
'Speculum  Historiale'  of  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  and  in  a  briefer  form  in  the  'Golden 
Legend'  of  Jacobus  de  Voragine.  It  has  been  translated  into  several  European 
tongues,  "including  Bohemian,  Polish,  and  Icelandic.  A  version  in  the  last,  exe- 
cuted by  a  Norwegian  king,  dates  from  1204;  in  the  East  there  were  versions  in 
Arabic,  Ethiopic,  Armenian,  and  Hebrew,  at  least;  whilst  a  translation  into  the 
Tagala  language  of  the  Philippines  was  printed  at  Manila  in  1712." 

BARNABY  RUDGE  was  Dickens's  fifth  novel,  and  was  published  in  1841.  The  plot 
is  extremely  intricate.  Barnaby  is  a  poor  half-witted  lad,  living  in  London  toward 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  with  his  mother  and  his  raven  Grip.  His  father 
had  been  the  steward  of  a  country  gentleman  named  Haredale,  who  was  found 
murdered  in  his  bed,  while  both  his  steward  and  his  gardener  had  disappeared.  The 
body  of  the  steward,  recognizable  only  by  the  clothes,  is  presently  found  in  a  pond. 
Barnaby  is  born  the  day  after  the  double  murder.  Affectionate  and  usually  docile, 
credulous  and  full  of  fantastic  imaginings,  a  simpleton  but  faithful,  he  grows  up  to 


72  THE    READER  S    DIGEST   OF    BOOKS 

be  liked  and  trusted.  His  mother  having  fled  to  London  to  escape  a  mysterious 
blackmailer,  he  becomes  involved  in  the  famous  "No  Popery"  riots  of  Lord  George 
Gordon  in  1780,  and  is  within  an  ace  of  perishing  on  the  scaffold.  The  blackmailer, 
Mr.  Haredale  the  brother  and  Emma  the  daughter  of  the  murdered  man,  Emma's 
lover  Edward  Chester,  and  his  father,  are  the  chief  figures  of  the  nominal  plot;  but 
the  real  interest  is  not  with  them  but  with  the  side  characters  and  the  episodes. 
Some  of  the  most  whimsical  and  amusing  of  Dickens 's  character-studies  appear  in 
the  pages  of  the  novel;  while  the  whole  episode  of  the  gathering  and  march  of  the 
mob,  and  the  storming  of  Newgate  (quoted  in  the  LIBRARY),  is  surpassed  in  dramatic 
intensity  by  no  passage  in  modern  fiction,  unless  it  is  by  Dickens's  own  treatment 
of  the  French  Revolution  in  the  'Tale  of  Two  Cities.'  Among  the  important  charac- 
ters, many  of  whom  are  the  authors  of  sayings  now  proverbial,  are  Gabriel  Varden, 
the  cheerful  and  incorruptible  old  locksmith,  father  of  the  charming  flirt  Dolly 
Varden;  Mrs.  Varden,  a  type  of  the  narrow-minded  zealot;  Miss  Miggs,  their  servant, 
mean,  treacherous,  and  self-seeking;  Sim  Tappertit,  an  apprentice,  an  admirable 
portrait  of  the  half -fool,  half -knave,  so  often  found  in  the  English  servile  classes  about 
a  century  ago;  Hugh  the  hostler  and  Dennis  the  hangman;  and  Grip  the  raven,  who 
fills  an  important  part  in  the  story,  and  for  whom  Dickens  himself  named  a  favorite 
raven. 

BARNAVAUX  ET  QTTELQUES  FEMMES,  see  UNDER  THE  TRICOLOUR. 

BARNEVELD,  JOHN  OF,  THE  LIFE  AND  DEATH  OF,  by  John  Lothrop  Motley 
(1874).  *n  this  brilliant  biography,  the  author  shows  that  as  William  the  Silent  is 
called  the  author  of  the  independence  of  the  Dutch  Provinces,  so  John  of  Barneveld 
deserves  the  title  of  the  "Founder  of  the  Dutch  Republic."  The  Advocate  and 
Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal  of  the  Province  of  Holland,  the  most  powerful  of  the 
seven  provinces  of  the  Netherlands,  was  virtually  "prime  minister,  president, 
attorney-general,  finance  minister,  and  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  of  the  whole  re- 
public." Standing  in  the  background  and  veiled  from  public  view  behind  "Their 
High  Mightinesses,  the  States-General,"  the  Advocate  was  really  their  spokesman, 
or  practically  the  States-General  themselves,  in  all  important  measures  at  home 
and  abroad,  during  those  years  which  intervened  between  the  truce  with  Spain  in 
1609  and  the  outbreak  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  in  1618. 

Born  in  Amersfoort  in  1547,  of  the  ancient  and  knightly  house  of  Oldenbarneveld, 
he  received  his  education  in  the  universities  of  Holland,  France,  Italy,  and  Germany, 
and  became  one  of  the  first  civilians  of  his  time,  the  friend  and  trusted  councilor  of 
William  the  Silent,  and  the  chief  negotiator  of  the  peace  with  Spain.  The  tragedy 
with  which  his  lif e  ended  owes  itself,  as  Motley  points  out,  to  the  opposition  between 
the  principle  of  States-rights  and  religious  freedom  advocated  by  Barneveld,  and  that 
of  the  national  and  church  supremacy  maintained  by  Prince  Maurice  the  Stadt- 
holder,  whose  desire  to  be  recognized  as  king  had  met  with  Barneveld's  prompt 
opposition.  The  Arminian  doctrine  of  free-will,  as  over  against  the  Calvinists' 
principle  of  predestination,  had  led  to  religious  divisions  among  the  provinces;  and 
Barneveld's  bold  defense  of  the  freedom  of  individual  belief  resulted  at  length  in  his 
arrest  and  that  of  his  companion  and  former  pupil,  Hugo  Grotius,  both  of  whom  were 
condemned  to  execution.  His  son,  engaging  later  in  a  conspiracy  of  revenge  against 
the  Stadtholder,  was  also  with  the  other  conspirators  arrested  and  put  to  death. 

The  historian  obtained  his  materials  largely  from  the  Advocate's  letters  and  other 
MS.  archives  of  the  Dutch  government,  and  experienced  no  little  difficulty  in  de- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  73 

ciphering  those  papers  "covered  now  with  the  satirical  dust  of  centuries,  written 
in  the  small,  crabbed,  exasperating  characters  which  make  Barneveld's  handwriting 
almost  cryptographic;  but  which  were  once,  "sealed  with  the  Great  Seal  of  the 
haughty  burgher  aristocracy,  documents  which  occupied  the  close  attention  of  the 
cabinets  of  Christendom." 

Of  Barneveld's  place  in  history  the  author  says:  —  "He  was  a  public  man  in  the 
fullest  sense  of  the  word;  and  without  his  presence  and  influence  the  record  of  Holland, 
France,  Britain,  and  Germany  might  have  been  essentially  modified.  The  Republic 
was  so  integral  a  part  of  that  system  which  divided  Europe  into  two  great  hostile 
camps,  according  to  creeds  rather  than  frontiers,  that  the  history  of  its  foremost 
citizen  touches  at  every  point  the  general  history  of  Christendom." 

BARRACK-ROOM  BALLADS,  see  BALLADS,  ETC. 

BARRIERS  BURNED  AWAY,  by  Edward  Payson  Roe,  after  appearing  as  a  serial 
story  in  the  New  York  Evangelist,  was  published  in  book  form  in  1872.  Of  a  cheap 
edition,  issued  ten  years  later,  87,500  copies  were  sold.  It  was  the  author's  first 
novel,  and  its  great  popularity  led  him  to  adopt  story- writing  as  a  profession.  The 
plot  of  this  book  is  very  simple.  Dennis  Fleet  finds  the  support  of  his  mother  and 
the  younger  children  devolving  upon  him,  after  the  death  of  his  father.  Seeking 
work  in  Chicago,  he  finds  it  impossible  to  secure  a  position  suited  to  his  social  rank 
and  education.  After  many  hard  experiences,  he  is  hired  to  shovel  snow  in  front  of  a 
fine-arts  shop  where  he  afterward  becomes  a  porter.  Though  he  cheerfully  performs 
the  humblest  duties,  his  superiority  to  them  is  evident.  His  employer,  Mr.  Ludolph, 
a  rich  and  money-loving  German,  finds  him  valuable  enough  to  be  made  a  salesman. 
Mr.  Ludolph  is  a  widower,  having  an  only  daughter,  Christine,  with  whom  Dennis 
falls  in  love.  She  treats  him  contemptuously  at  first,  but  soon  discovers  his  trained 
talent  for  music  and  knowledge  of  art.  He  rises  above  the  slights  he  receives,  and 
makes  the  impression  of  a  nobleman  in  disguise.  Then  follow  an  estrangement  and 
a  reconciliation.  The  most  noteworthy  feature  of  the  novel  is  the  striking  descrip- 
tion of  the  Chicago  fire. 

BARRY  LYNDON,  the  best  of  Thackeray's  shorter  novels,  originally  written  as  a 
serial  for  Fraser's  Magazine,  was  published  in  book  form  in  1844.  It  is  cast  in  the 
form  of  an  autobiography.  The  hero  is  an  Irish  gambler  and  fortune-hunter,  a 
braggart  and  a  blackleg,  but  of  audacious  courage  and  of  picturesque  versatility. 
He  tells  his  story  in  a  plain  matter-of-fact  way,  without  concealment  or  sophistica- 
tion, glorying  in  episodes  which  would  seem  shameful  to  the  most  rudimentary 
conscience,  and  holding  himself  to  be  the  best  and  greatest  but  most  ill-used  of  men. 
The  irony  is  as  fine  as  that  of  Fielding  in  'Jonathan  Wild  the  Great,'  a  prototype 
obviously  in  Thackeray's  mind. 

BASHKIRTSEFF,  MARIE,  THE  JOURNAL  OF  ('Le  Journal'),  which  appeared  in 
Paris  in  1885,  an^  was  abridged  and  translated  into  English  in  1889,  was  called  by 
Gladstone  "a  book  without  a  parallel."  Like  Rousseau 's  'Confessions/  it  claims 
to  be  an  absolutely  candid  expression  of  individual  experience.  But  the  'Journal' 
was  written  avowedly  to  win  posthumous  fame;  and  the  reader  wonders  if  the  gifted 
Russian  girl  who  wrote  it  had  not  too  thoroughly  artistic  a  temperament  for  matter- 
of-fact  statement.  The  child  she  portrays  is  always  interpreted  by  a  rnaturer  mind. 
Marie  is  genuinely  unhappy,  and  oppressed  with  modern  unrest;  but  she  studies  her 
troubles  as  if  they  belonged  to  someone  else,  and  is  interested  rather  than  absorbed 


74  THE    READER  S    DIGEST   OF    BOOKS 

by  them.  After  a  preface,  summarizing  her  birth  in  Russia  of  noble  family  and  her 
early  years  with  an  adoring  mother,  grandmother,  and  aunt,  she  begins  the  'Journal ' 

at  the  age  of  twelve,  when  she  is  passionately  in  love  with  Count  H whom  she 

knows  only  by  sight.  A  few  years  later  a  handsome  Italian  engages  her  vanity  rather 
than  her  heart.  But,  as  she  herself  vaguely  felt,  her  struggle  for  self-expression  unfits 
her  for  marriage.  Prom  the  age  of  three  years  she  cherished  inordinate  ambition,  and 
felt  herself  destined  to  become  great  either  as  singer,  or  writer,  or  artist,  or  queen  of 
society.  Admiration  was  essential  to  her,  and  she  records  compliments  to  her 
beauty  or  her  erudition  with  equal  pleasure.  Her  life  was  a  curious  mixture  of  the 
interests  of  an  attractive  society  girl  with  those  of  a  serious  student.  The  twenty- 
four  years  that  the  diary  covers  were  crowded  with  ambitions  and  partial  successes. 
Her  chronic  discontent  was  due  to  the  disproportion  between  her  aspirations  and  her 
achievements.  In  spite  of  the  encouragement  which  her  brilliant  work  received  in 
the  Julian  studio,  she  suspected  herself  of  mediocrity.  "The  canvas  is  there,  every- 
thing is  ready,  I  alone  am  wanting,"  she  exclaims  despairingly,  shortly  before  her 
death,  —  when,  although  far  advanced  in  consumption,  she  is  planning  a  chef- 
d'ceuvre.  She  was  never  unself conscious,  and  her  book  reveals  her  longings,  her 
petty  vanities,  and  her  childish  crudities,  as  well  as  her  versatile  and  brilliant  talents. 

BATRACHOMYOMACHIA,  see  BATTLE  OF  THE  FROGS  AND  MICE. 

BATTLE  OF  DORKING,  THE,  by  Charles  Cornwallis  Chesney.  This  little  skit 
appeared  first  in  Blackwood's  Magazine  in  1871,  and  has  since  been  reprinted  under 
the  title  'The  Fall  of  England.1  After  the  ignominious  defeat  of  the  French  at 
Sedan,  Colonel  Chesney,  professor  of  military  history  at  Sandhurst,  foresaw  a  similar 
fate  for  his  own  country  unless  it  should  reorganize  its  army.  He  urged  vigorous 
measures  of  reform ;  and  as  the  necessity  for  these  was  not  perceived  by  the  country 
at  large  he  contributed  to  the  press  various  articles,  both  technical  and  popular. 
Among  the  latter  was  this  realistic  and  matter-of-fact  account  of  an  imaginary 
invasion  of  England  by  a  foreign  power.  The  fleet  and  army  are  scattered  when  war 
is  declared,  but  the  government  has  a  sublime  confidence  that  British  luck  and  pluck 
will  save  the  country  now  as  hitherto.  To  universal  surprise  and  consternation,  the 
hostile  fleet  annihilates  the  available  British  squadron  and  the  enemy  lands  on  the 
south  coast.  Volunteers  are  called  out  and  respond  readily;  but  ammunition  is 
lacking,  the  commissariat  is  unorganized,  and  the  men,  though  brave,  have  neither 
discipline  nor  endurance.  The  decisive  battle  is  fought  at  Dorking,  and  the  British 
are  routed  in  confusion.  Woolwich  and  London  are  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  and 
England  is  compelled  to  submit  to  the  humiliating  terms  of  the  conqueror.  She  is 
stripped  of  her  colonies,  and  pays  a  heavy  war  indemnity,  all  because  power  has  come 
into  the  hands  of  the  rabble,  who  have  neither  foresight  nor  patriotism  to  preserve 
the  liberties  of  their  country.  The  book  was  widely  read  and  quoted  in  its  day, 
then  forgotten,  and  recalled  at  the  beginning  of  the  Great  War. 

BATTLE  OF  THE  BOOKS,  THE,  by  Jonathan  Swift,  was  written  in  1697,  but 
remained  in  manuscript  until  1704.  It  was  a  travesty  on  the  endless  controversy 
over  the  relative  merits  of  the  ancients  and  moderns,  first  raised  in  France  by  Per- 
rault.  Its  immediate  cause,  however,  was  the  position  of  Swift's  patron,  Sir  William 
Temple,  as  to  the  genuineness  of  the  'Letters  of  Phalaris.' 

In  the  satire,  the  Bee,  representing  the  ancients  who  go  direct  to  nature,  and  the 
Spider,  representing  the  moderns  weaving  their  webs  from  within,  have  a  sharp 
dispute  in  a  library,  where  the  books  have  mutinied  and  taken  sides,  preparatory  to 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  75 

battle.  In  the  description  of  this  Battle,  Swift's  arrows  of  wit  fly  thick  and  fast, 
Dryden  and  Bentley  coming  in  for  a  goodly  share  of  their  destructive  force.  Nothing 
is  left  of  the  poor  moderns  when  he  has  finished  with  them.  The  work,  despite  its 
vast  cleverness,  was  not  taken  with  entire  seriousness  by  Swift's  contemporaries. 
He  was  not  then  the  great  Dean;  and  besides,  he  was  dealing  with  subjects  he  was 
not  competent  to  treat.  It  remains,  however,  a  brilliant  monument  to  his  satirical 
powers,  and  to  the  spirit  of  destruction  which  impelled  him  even  as  a  youth  to  au- 
dacious attacks  on  great  names. 

BATTLE  OF  THE  FROGS  AND  MICE,  THE  ('Batrachomyomachia'),  a  mock- 
heroic  poem  written  in  imitation  of  the  Iliad.  The  authorship  has  been  attrib- 
uted to  Homer,  and  to  Pigres  the  brother  of  Queen  Artemisia,  but  without  any 
foundation  in  either  case.  It  is  really  a  parody  on  the  style  of  Homer.  The  mouse 
Prigcheese,  who  has  just  escaped  the  tooth  of  a  hideous  monster  (a  weasel  perhaps,  or 
it  may  be  a  cat),  stops  on  the  border  of  a  marsh  to  slake  his  thirst;  for  he  has  been 
running  fast  and  long.  Chubbycheek,  Queen  of  the  Progs,  enters  into  conversation 
with  him.  She  invites  him  to  come  to  her  palace,  and  politely  offers  her  back  as  a 
mode  of  conveyance.  The  novelty  of  the  journey  enchants  Prigcheese,  but  his  joy 
is  not  of  long  duration.  A  water-snake  rears  its  awful  head  above  the  waters. 
Chubbycheek,  wild  with  terror,  plunges  to  the  bottom;  and  Prigcheese,  after  heroic 
struggles,  perishes  in  the  waves,  but  not  before  he  has  devoted  Chubbycheek  to  the 
wrath  of  the  avenging  gods.  A  mouse  who  happens  to  be  sauntering  along  the  shore 
hastens  to  announce  to  the  mouse  nation  the  sad  fate  of  their  fellow-citizen.  A 
general  assembly  is  convoked;  and  on  the  motion  of  Nibbleloaf,  the  father  of  the 
victim,  war  is  declared  against  the  frogs,  and  the  herald  Lickthepot  is  charged  with 
the  duty  of  entering  the  enemy's  territories  and  proclaiming  hostilities.  Chubby- 
cheek  asserts  her  perfect  innocence,  nay  her  ignorance,  of  the  death  of  Prigcheese. 
The  frogs,  fired  by  her  eloquence,  prepare  to  make  a  vigorous  resistance.  Meanwhile 
the  gods,  from  their  "Olympian  thrones,  view  with  anxiety  and  fear  the  agitations 
that  are  disturbing  the  earth.  But  Minerva  is  of  opinion  that  for  the  present  it 
would  be  rash  to  interfere,  and  the  lords  of  heaven  decide  to  remain  simply  spectators 
of  the  direful  event  that  is  drawing  near.  Soon  the  conflict  rages,  furious,  terrible, 
the  chances  leaning  now  to  the  one  side,  now  to  the  other.  At  length  the  mice  are 
victorious,  and  Greedyguts,  their  leader,  announces  his  determination  to  wipe  out 
the  entire  vile  race  of  their  enemies  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Jupiter  is  alarmed, 
and  resolves  to  prevent  such  a  disaster.  He  will  send  Pallas  or  Mars  to  assuage  the 
wrath  of  the  ferocious  Greedyguts.  Mars  recoils  in  terror  from  the  rough  task. 
Then  the  King  of  Heaven  seizes  his  thunderbolt,  and  hurls  it  among  the  conquerors; 
even  the  thunderbolt  is  powerless.  They  are  frightened  for  a  moment,  and  then 
renew  the  work  of  destruction  with  more  fury  than  ever.  Jupiter  thereupon  enrolls 
another  army,  and  sends  it  against  these  haughty  victors:  it  is  composed  of  warriors 
supplied  by  nature  with  arms  defensive  and  offensive,  who  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye  change  the  issue  of  the  battle.  These  new  antagonists  are  crabs.  The  mice  fly 
in  confusion,  and  the  conflict  ends  at  sunset. 

BAVIAB,  THE,  and  THE  M^EVIAD,  by  William  Gifford.  It  was  through  these 
two  satires  that  the  author,  who  later  was  the  first  editor  of  the  Quarterly  Review, 
first  became  known.  'The  Baviad/  which  first  appeared  in  1792,  is  an  attack  on  a 
band  of  English  writers  living  in  Florence,  Italy,  among  them  being  Mrs.  Piozzi,  Mr. 
Greathead,  Mr.  Murray,  Mr.  Parsons,  and  others,  who  had  formed  themselves  into 


76  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

a  kind  of  mutual  admiration  society.  It  is  an  imitation  of  the  first  satire  of  Perseus, 
and  in  it  the  author  not  only  attacks  the  "Delia  Cruscans"  but  all  who  sympathize 
with  them:  "Boswell,  of  a  song  and  supper  vain,"  "Colman's  flippant  trash," 
"Morton's  catch- word, "  and  "Holcroft's  Shug-lane  cant,"  receive  his  attention; 
while  the  satire  ends  with  the  line,  "the  hoarse  croak  of  Kemble's  foggy  throat." 
The  'Mseviad,'  which  appeared  in  1795,  is  an  imitation  of  the  tenth  satire  of  Horace, 
and  was  called  forth,  the  author  says,  "by  the  reappearance  of  some  of  the  scattered 
enemy."  He  also  avails  himself  of  the  opportunity  briefly  to  notice  "the  present 
wretched  state  of  dramatic  poetry. "  It  was  generally  considered  that  the  author 
was  engaged  in  a  task  of  breaking  butterflies  on  wheels,  but  he  says,  "There  was  a 
time  (when  '  The  Baviad '  first  appeared)  that  these  butterflies  were  eagles  and  their 
obscure  and  desultory  flights  the  object  of  universal  envy  and  admiration." 

BEACONSFIELD,  LORD,  see  DISRAELI,  BENJAMIN,  EARL  OF  BEACONSFIELD, 
THE  LIFE  OF. 

BEAUCHAMP'S  CAREER,  one  of  George  Meredith's  novels  (1876).  This  story 
presents  a  complex  network  of  social  and  political  problems,  in  which  the  chief 
figures  are  enmeshed.  Nevil  Beauchamp,  the  hero,  is  a  young  English  naval  officer, 
of  distinguished  lineage  and  aristocratic  environment  and  traditions.  But  he  takes 
little  pride  in  these  accidents  of  fortune.  With  the  temper  and  ambition  of  a  martyr, 
he  is  prepared  to  sacrifice  himself  or  his  caste  to  the  interests  of  his  country.  In 
Venice  he  meets  a  French  girl,  Rene*e  de  Croisnel,  whose  father  has  betrothed  her  to 
the  middle-aged  Marquis  de  Rouaillat.  Nevil  and  Rene*e  fall  in  love.  Beauchamp, 
with  characteristic  impetuosity  and  lack  of  humor,  urges  that  the  larger  interests  of 
humanity  condemn  the  proposed  marriage  as  a  sin  against  nature,  and  that  it  is  her 
sacred  duty  to  accept  him.  Rene*e  remains  unmoved  in  the  conviction  that  her  duty 
to  her  father  is  paramount.  The  disappointed  lover  plunges  again  into  politics. 
On  his  return  to  England  he  falls  under  the  influence  of  the  radical,  Dr.  Shrapnel 
(an  enthusiastic  advocate  of  the  rights  of  the  democracy),  and  of  his  adopted  daugh- 
ter, Jenny  Denham.  He  has  many  sharp  and  bitter  conflicts  with  his  own  people. 
They  are  ultra-conservative,  he  is  a  radical  and  a  republican.  Always  ready  for 
sacrifice  and  indifferent  to  ridicule,  often  blundering,  he  yet  succeeds  in  preserving  a 
certain  dash  and  distinction  even  in  the  midst  of  his  failures.  Rene*e  presently  leaves 
her  husband  to  come  to  England  and  throw  herself  into  his  arms;  but  is  foiled  by  the 
ready  wit  of  Rosamund  Culling,  the  housekeeper  of  Beauchamp's  uncle.  Eventually 
the  young  radical  makes  a  loveless  marriage  with  Jenny  Denham.  Shortly  after,  he  is 
drowned  in  saving  the  life  of  a  nameless  little  urchin  in  the  harbor  of  Southampton. 
The  novel  is  a  remarkable  study  of  youthful  radicalism. 

BEAUTY  AND  THE  BEAST,  see  FAIRY  TALES. 

BEAUX'  STRATAGEM,  THE,  by  George  Farquhar  (1707).  "The  rules  of  English 
comedy, "  says  Farquhar,  "don't  He  in  the  compass  of  Aristotle  or  his  followers,  but 
in  the  pit,  box,  and  galleries.  .  .  .  Comedy  is  no  more  at  present  than  a  well-framed 
tale  handsomely  told  as  an  agreeable  vehicle  for  counsel  or  reproof."  Farquhar's  dra- 
matic work  is  marked  by  rollicking  spirits,  good  humor,  manliness,  and  spontaneity. 
His  last  and  best  play,  'The  Beaux'  Strategem,'  was  written  in  six  weeks  during  a 
"settled  illness."  Before  he  had  finished  the  second  act  he  knew  that  his  malady 
was  mortal,  but  he  persevered  and  tried  to  be  "consumedly  lively  to  the  end." 
Archer  and  Aimwell,  two  gentlemen  of  broken  fortunes,  disguised  as  master  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  77 

servant,  are  a  source  of  perpetual  amusement.  The  innkeeper  Boniface  is  an  original 
creation  which  met  with  immediate  success  on  the  stage.  Scrub,  servant  to  the  stupid 
and  brutal  Squire  Sullen,  is  not  only  the  ornament  of  the  kitchen  but  a  reliable 
repository  for  the  secrets  of  the  young  ladies.  Lady  Bountiful,  the  "old  civil 
country  gentlewoman  that  cures  all  her  neighbors  of  all  distempers  and  is  foolishly 
fond  of  her  son,  Squire  Sullen,"  and  who  besides  is  the  gullible  benefactress  of  the 
whole  parish,  has  passed  into  a  proverb. 

BEE,  see  LIFE  OF  THE. 

BEES,  BRAMBLE  AND  OTHERS,  see  MASON-BEES. 

BEES,  THE  MASON,  see  MASON-BEES. 

BEGGAR'S  OPERA,  THE,  by  John  Gay,  was  first  played  in  1728,  exciting  "a 
tempest  of  laughter."  Dean  Swift,  upon  whose  suggestion  this  "Newgate  pastoral" 
was  written,  declared  that  '"The  Beggar's  Opera*  hath  knocked  down  Gulliver." 
The  object  of  the  play  was  to  satirize  the  predatory  habits  of  "polite"  society  in 
thief-infested  London,  and  incidentally  to  hold  up  to  ridicule  Italian  opera.  The 
chief  characters  are  thieves  and  bandits.  Captain  Macheath,  the  hero,  is  the  leader 
of  a  gang  of  highwaymen.  A  handsome,  bold-faced  ruffian,  "game"  to  the  last,  he 
is  loved  by  the  ladies  and  feared  by  all  but  his  friends  —  with  whom  he  shares  his 
booty.  Peachum  is  the  "respectable"  patron  of  the  gang,  and  the  receiver  of  stolen 
goods.  Though  eloquently  indignant  when  his  honor  is  impeached,  he  betrays  his 
confederates  from  self-interest.  Macheath  is  married  to  Polly  Peachum,  a  pretty 
girl,  who  really  loves  her  husband.  She  remains  constant  under  many  vicissitudes, 
despite  the  influence  of  her  mother,  whose  recommendation  to  Polly  to  be  "  somewhat 
nice  in  her  deviations  from  virtue"  will  sufficiently  indicate  her  character.  Having 
one  wife  does  not  deter  Macheath  from  engaging  to  marry  others,  but  his  laxity 
causes  him  much  trouble.  Being  betrayed,  he  is  lodged  in  Newgate  gaol.  His  escape, 
recapture,  trial,  condemnation  to  death,  and  reprieve,  form  the  leading  episodes  in 
his  dashing  career.  After  his  reprieve  he  makes  tardy  acknowledgment  of  Polly  as 
his  wife,  and  promises  to  remain  constant  to  her  for  the  future.  Polly  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  of  dramatic  characters,  at  least  three  actresses  having  attained 
matrimonial  peerages  through  artistic  interpretation  of  the  part.  Gay's  language 
often  confirms  to  the  coarse  taste  and  low  standards  of  his  time;  and  the  opera,  still 
occasionally  sung,  now  appears  in  expurgated  form.  Its  best-known  piece  is  Mac- 
heath's  famous  song  when  two  of  his  inamoratas  beset  him  at  once  — 

"  How  happy  could  I  be  with  either 
Were  t'other  dear  charmer  away! " 

BEGINNERS  OF  A  NATION,  THE.  4  A  history  of  the  source  and  rise  of  the  earliest 
English  settlements  in  America,  with  special  reference  to  the  life  and  character  of 
the  people.'  By  Edward  Eggleston  (1896).  This  is  the  first  volume  of  a  pro- 
posed History  of  the  United  States,  on  the  lines  set  forth  by  Mr.  Eggleston  in  the 
sub-title  quoted  above.  The  volume  is  fully  and  carefully  treated  in  the  LIBRARY, 
under  'Eggleston.' 

BEGINNINGS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND,  THE,  by  John  Fiske  (1889).  The  occasion 
and  manner  of  this  book,  in  the  author's  series  of  American  History  volumes,  are 
Indicated  in  a  few  sentences  of  the  preface:  — 

"In  this  sketch  of  the  circumstances  which  attended  the  settlement  of  New 


78  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

England,  I  have  purposely  omitted  many  details  which  in  a  formal  history  of  that 
period  would  need  to  be  included.  It  has  been  my  aim  to  give  the  outline  of  such  a 
narrative  as  to  indicate  the  principles  at  work, in  the  history  of  New  England  down 
to  the  Revolution  of  1689.  ...  In  forming  historical  judgments,  a  great  deal 
depends  upon  our  perspective.  Out  of  the  very  imperfect  human  nature  which  is  so 
slowly  and  painfully  casting  off  the  original  sin  of  its  inheritance  from  primeval 
savagery,  it  is  scarcely  possible  in  any  age  to  get  a  result  which  will  look  quite  satis- 
factory to  the  man  of  a  riper  and  more  enlightened  age.  Fortunately  we  can  learn 
something  from  the  stumblings  of  our  forefathers;  and  a  good  many  things  seem  quite 
clear  to  us  to-day,  which  two  centuries  ago  were  only  beginning  to  be  dimly  discerned 
by  a  few  of  the  keenest  and  boldest  spirits.  The  faults  of  the  Puritan  theocracy, 
which  found  its  most  complete  development  in  Massachusetts,  are  so  glaring  that 
it  is  idle  to  seek  to  palliate  them  or  to  explain  them  away.  But  if  we  would  really 
understand  what  was  going  on  in  the  Puritan  world  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
how  a  better  state  of  things  has  grown  out  of  it,  we  must  endeavor  to  distinguish  and 
define  the  elements  of  wholesome  strength  in  that  theocracy,  no  less  than  its  elements 
of  crudity  and  weakness." 

In  the  scientific  spirit,  which  seeks  the  truth  only  and  never  the  buttressing  of 
any  theory,  yet  with  the  largest  liberality  of  judgment,  the  historian  illustrates  the 
upward  trend  of  mankind  from  its  earlier  low  estate.  His  philosophic  bent  appears 
most  lucidly  expressed  in  the  first  chapter,  where  the  Roman  idea  of  nation-making 
is  contrasted  with  the  English  idea;  the  Roman  conquest,  with  incorporation  but 
without  representation,  with  the  English  conquest,  which  always  meant  incorpora- 
tion with  representation.  Then  follow  a  description  of  the  Puritan  exodus,  and  the 
planting  of  New  England,  with  comments  on  its  larger  meanings,  a  picture  of  the 
New  England  confederacy;  the  scenes  of  Zing  Philip's  lurid  war,  and  the  story  of 
the  tyranny  of  Andros,  —  James  the  Second's  despotic  viceroy,  —  which  began  the 
political  troubles  between  the  New  England  and  the  Old,  that  ended  only  with  Ameri- 
can independence.  This  volume,  as  will  be  inferred,  is  among  the  most  interesting 
and  suggestive  of  Mr.  Fiske's  many  monographs. 

BEGUM'S  DAUGHTER,  THE,  by  Edwin  Lassetter  Bynner  (1890),  is  a  tale  of 
Dutch  New  York  when  Sir  Edmund  Andros  was  royal  governor  of  New  England. 

The  chief  figures  are  Jacob  Leisler  and  his  family;  the  Van  Cortlandts;  and  Dr. 
Staats,  with  his  wife  and  daughter.  This  daughter,  Catalina,  child  of  a  Dutch 
physician  and  an  East-Indian  mother  (the  Begum),  combines  the  characteristics  of 
both  parents.  She  is  the  best  friend  of  Hester  Leisler,  who  is  betrothed  —  against 
her  father's  will  —  to  Steenie  Van  Cortlandt.  When  Leisler  succeeds  in  overthrowing 
the  royal  governor,  he  forbids  Hester's  intercourse  with  Steenie,  whose  father  is  of 
the  governor's  party.  Hester  is  defiant ;  but  her  sister  Mary  is  forced  by  her  father  to 
marry  Milborne,  one  of  his  supporters,  though  her  heart  is  with  Abram  Gouverneur, 
a  young  Huguenot.  Leisler  tries  to  marry  Hester  to  Barent  Rhynders,  a  junker  from 
Albany,  whose  people  are  of  use  to  him,  but  she  refuses;  and  before  her  father  can 
press  the  point,  matters  of  graver  importance  claim  his  entire  attention,  —  he  is 
sentenced  to  death  as  a  traitor.  After  his  execution,  Hester  still  refuses  to  marry  the 
patient  Steenie,  until  she  has  cleared  her  father's  reputation;  and  she  finally  dismisses 
him  and  becomes  betrothed  to  Barent  Rhynders,  after  her  widowed  sister  Mary  has 
wedded  her  first  love,  Gouverneur.  Steenie  lays  his  heart  at  the  feet  of  the  capricious 
Catalina,  who  refuses  him  because  she  thinks  him  in  love  with  Hester.  She  presently 
accepts  him,  however:  and  when  he  reminds  her  of  their  former  meeting,  saying, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  79 

''But  you  told  me  —  "  she  interrupts,  blushing,  "A  wicked  lie! "  This  scene  closes 
one  of  the  quaintest  stories  in  the  large  number  of  tales  that  depict  colonial  New 
York.  The  student  finds  in  it  nothing  with  which  to  quarrel;  and  the  lover  of  fiction 
enjoys  it  all. 

BELINDA,  by  Maria  Edgeworth  (1801).  Belinda  Portman,  the  charming  niece 
of  Mrs.  Stanhope,  goes  to  spend  the  winter  in  London  with  Lady  Delacour,  a  bril- 
liant and  fashionable  woman;  at  her  house  she  meets  Clarence  Hervey  for  the  first 
time.  He  admires  Belinda  and  she  likes  him,  but  mutual  distrust  serves  to  keep 
them  apart.  Belinda  is  greatly  beloved  in  the  household;  and  her  influence  almost 
succeeds  in  bringing  about  a  reconciliation  between  Lady  Delacour  and  her  dissi- 
pated husband,  when  her  Ladyship  becomes  most  unreasonably  jealous,  and  Belinda 
is  forced  to  seek  refuge  with  her  friends  the  Percivals.  While  there,  Mr.  Vincent, 
a  young  Creole,  falls  violently  in  love  with  her;  but  the  old  friendship  with  Lady 
Delacour  is  re-established,  and  Belinda  returns  without  having  bound  herself  to 
him.  Believing  that  Clarence  Hervey's  affections  are  already"  engaged,  she  would 
have  married  Mr.  Vincent  had  she  not  discovered  his  taste  for  gaming.  Clarence 
is  deeply  in  love  with  Belinda,  but  feels  obliged  to  marry  Virginia  St.  Pierre,  whom 
he  had  educated  to  be  his  wife.  Fortunately  she  loves  another.  The  story  ends 
happily  with  the  reconciliation  of  the  Delacours,  and  the  marriage  of  Clarence 
Hervey  and  Belinda. 

BELL  OF  ST.  PAUL'S,  THE,  by  Sir  Walter  Besant  (1889),  is  a  romance  covering 
in  actual  development  only  three  months,  but  going  back  twenty  years  or  more  for 
a  beginning.  Lawrence  Waller,  a  typical  hero  of  romance,  a  young,  handsome,  rich 
Australian,  comes  to  London  and  takes  up  his  residence  at  Bank  Side,  in  the  house 
of  Lucius  Cottle.  Although  they  are  not  aware  of  the  fact,  Cottle  and  his  family 
are  cousins  to  Lawrence's  mother;  whose  husband,  an  unsuccessful  London  boat- 
builder,  having  emigrated  to  Australia,  has  become  after  thirty  years  premier  of 
that  colony.  On  the  night  of  his  arrival  the  young  Australian  sees  two  lovely  girls 
rowing  out  of  the  sunset,  —  Althea  Indagine,  and  Cottle's  younger  daughter  Cassie.' 
Althea  is  the  daughter  of  an  unsuccessful  and  embittered  poet,  with  wliom  the  girl 
leads  a  hermit  life,  seeing  no  one  but  the  Cottle  family  and  an  adopted  cousin,- 
Oliver,  —  whom  twenty  years  before,  her  uncle  Dr.  Luttrell  had  bought  from  his 
grandmother  for  £5,  intending  to  see  how  far  education,  kindness,  and  refined  asso- 
ciation could  eradicate  the  brutish  tendencies  in  a  gipsy  child  of  the  worst  type. 
The  boy,  having  become  an  eminent  chemist,  displays  when  opportunity  offers  the 
worst  characteristics  of  his  race.  Lawrence  falls  in  love  with  Althea;  and  Oliver 
Luttrell  appears  as  his  rival,  having  already,  unknown  to  Althea,  trifled  with  the 
affections  of  her  friend  Cassie.  In  the  end  Oliver  is  exposed  as  a  forger,  a  discovery 
which  deeply  pains  his  foster-father.  Like  a  fairy  prince  Lawrence  comes  to  the 
assistance  of  all  his  relatives,  revealing  himself  at  the  most  dramatic  moment,  and 
shipping  most  of  them  to  Australia,  where  there  is  room  for  all.  The  unhappy  poet, 
too,  decides  to  emigrate. 

BELOVED  VAGABOND,  THE,  by  William  J.  Locke  (1906).  This  is  the  story 
of  Paragot,  the  Beloved  Vagabond,  told  by  his  adopted  son,  whom  he  had  picked 
up  from  among  the  unwashed  urchins  of  London  and  transplanted  to  his  Bohemian 
quarters  which  were  as  Paradise  to  the  neglected  boy.  Amid  untidy  surroundings 
Paragot  reigns  a  king  of  philosophers  instructing  his  pupil,  whom  he  christens  Anti- 


8o  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

cot,  in  art,  literature,  and  the  humanities,  and  enlightening  the  frequenters  of  "The 
Lotus  Club"  with  his  droll  wit  and  philosophic  lore.  Later,  the  pair  set  out  for  a 
tour  of  Europe  and  travel  from  place  to  place  picking  up  general  information  and 
performing  odd  jobs.  They  fall  in  with  Blanquette,  a  friendless  country  girl,  and 
a  stray  dog,  who  are  by  Paragot  annexed  to  his  wandering  household.  Paragot  for 
a  time  exercises  his  skill  as  a  violinist  and  they  practice  the  r61es  of  traveling  musi- 
cians, the  girl  playing  the  zither  and  the  boy  the  tamborine.  Chance  brings  together 
the  "Beloved  Vagabond"  and  his  early  love  Joanna,  who  has  become  Countess  de 
Verneuil,  and  from  whom  he  was  separated  by  the  treachery  of  the  man  she  later 
married.  She  recognizes  her  old  lover  and  during  her  husband's  illness  summons 
him  to  her  aid.  After  the  Count's  death  the  truth  regarding  his  treachery  is  re- 
vealed to  the  Countess  who  recalls  the  still  adoring  Paragot  and  renews  their  pre- 
vious engagement  believing  that  they  can  resume  the  old  relations  at  the  point 
where  they  were  broken  off  thirteen  years  before.  But  the  result  is  an  absolute 
failure.  Paragot  gives  up  his  Bohemian  habits  and  tries  to  adapt  himself  to  the 
conventional  standard  sweetly  set  by  his  adored  Joanna;  he  dresses  in  prescribed 
garb  and  meekly  endeavors  to  become  as  are  the  others  in  a  placid  English  coun try- 
town.  Gradually  the  couple  begin  to  realize  that  they  have  changed  irrevocably 
in  the  intervening  years.  Paragot,  unable  longer  to  endure  the  strain,  rushes  off 
without  a  word  and  turns  up  in  a  state  of  blissful  hilarity  at  a  Bohemian  resort  in 
Paris,  where  he  is  captured  and  brought  home  to  his  old  lodgings  by  his  adopted 
son  and  the  faithful  Blanquette,  who  worships  the  ground  he  walks  on.  Paragot 
returns  with  rejoicing  to  his  free  and  easy  methods  of  existence  and  realizing  the 
futility  of  restoring  his  old  ideal  world  turns  to  that  of  commonplace  reality;  he 
marries  the  devoted  Blanquette  and  goes  to  live  on  a  small  farm.  Here  the  reader 
takes  final  leave  of  him  as  he  is  visited  by  his  prote*ge"  who  has  become  a  successful 
artist,  thanks  to  his  adopted  father's  training.  Paragot  has  at  last  attained  the 
happiness  he  sought  for,  in  cultivating  the  soil  and  resting  content  in  the  ministra- 
tions of  his  cheerful  wife  while  he  views  with  pride  the  growth  of  his  infant  son. 

BEN  HTTR:  A  TALE  OF  THE  CHRIST,  by  Lew  Wallace  (1880).  The  scene 
of  this  extremely  popular  story  is  laid  in  the  East,  principally  in  Jerusalem,  just 
after  the  Christian  era.  The  first  part  is  introductory,  and  details  the  coming  of 
the  three  wise  men,  Melchior,  Kaspar,  and  Balthasar,  to  worship  the  Babe  born  in 
the  manger  at  Bethlehem.  Some  'fifteen  years  later  the  hero  of  the  tale,  Judah 
Ben  Hur,  a  young  lad,  the  head  of  a  rich  and  noble  family,  is  living  in  Jerusalem, 
with  his  widowed  mother  and  little  sister  to  whom  he  is  devotedly  attached.  When 
Valerius  Gratus,  the  new  Roman  governor,  arrives  in  state,  and  the  brother  and 
sister  go  up  on  the  roof  to  see  the  great  procession  pass,  Judah  accidentally  dislodges 
a  tile  which  fells  the  governor  to  the  ground.  Judah  is  accused  of  intended  murder; 
his  (till  then)  lifelong  friend  Messala,  a  Roman  noble,  accuses  him  of  treasonable 
sentiments;  his  property  is  confiscated,  and  he  is  sent  to  the  galleys  for  life.  In  the 
course  of  the  narrative,  which  involves  many  exciting  adventures  of  the  hero,  John 
the  Baptist  and  Jesus  of  Nazareth  are  introduced,  and  Ben  Hur  is  converted  to  the 
Christian  faith  through  the  miracles  of  our  Lord. 

This  book  is  one  of  the  most  successful  examples  of  modern  romantic  fiction. 
It  displays  great  familiarity  with  Oriental  customs  and  habits  of  mind,  good  con- 
structive ability,  and  vivid  powers  of  description.  The  story  of  the  Sea  Fight,  for 
example,  and  of  the  Chariot  Race  (quoted  in  the  LIBRARY),  are  admirably  vivid 
and  exciting  episodes. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  81 

BEOWULF,  an  old  English  epic  poem  of  unknown  author  and  uncertain  date, 
probably  composed  from  earlier  heroic  lays,  about  650  A.D.,  by  a  Christian  poet, 
familiar  with  court  life.  As  the  scene  and  characters  of  the  poem  are  entirely 
Scandinavian  it  is  inferred  that  the  material  was  brought  over  by  the  Angles  when 
they  settled  in  Britain  or  that  the  author  obtained  it  by  a  visit  to  Scandinavia. 
Beowulf  gives  a  representative  picture  of  the  courts  of  Germanic  kings  at  a  stage 
of  society  not  dissimilar  to  the  heroic  age  of  Greece;  and  in  its  dignity,  warlike  ideals, 
and  literary  form  is  not  incomparable  to  the  Homeric  poems.  Each  represents  the 
point  of  development  at  which  the  rudely  improvised  lay  of  the  bard  is  passing  into 
the  finished  epic  —  though  in  Beowulf  the  transition  is  less  complete.  Popular 
superstition  is  the  basis  of  the  story.  Heorot,  the  palace  of  Hrothgar,  King  of  the 
Danes,  is  visited  nightly  by  a  monster  named  Grendel,_who  devours  the  king's  thanes 
as  they  sleep.  Beowulf,  the  nephew  of  Hygelac,  King  o£  the  Geats,  a  tribe  in  South- 
ern Sweden  (or,  according  to  some  scholars,  the  Jutes),  comes  across  the  sea  with 
fourteen  followers  to  free  the  Danes  from  this  scourge.  After  a  cordial  welcome 
by  Hrothgar  and  his  court  the  visitors  are  left  alone  in  the  hall  for  the  night.  As 
they  sleep,  the  monster  Grendel  enters,  and  devours  one  of  the  Geats.  Though 
invulnerable  to  weapons  Grendel  is  seized  by  Beowulf  and  held  in  a  mighty  grip 
from  which  he  breaks  away  only  with  the  loss  of  his  arm,  and  flees  to  his  cavern 
beneath  a  lake  to  die.  Great  are  the  rejoicings  in  Heorot.  The  minstrels  sing 
heroic  lays  to  honor  Beowulf  and  the  king  loads  him  with  gifts.  But  another 
monster,  Grendel's  mother,  still  lives  and  comes  to  the  hall  that  night  to  avenge 
her  son's  death.  The  followers  of  Hrothgar  are  now  sleeping  there,  and  one  of  them, 
^schere,  she  carries  off  and  devours.  Beowulf  pursues  her  to  the  depths  of  the 
gloomy  lake,  where  she  grapples  with  him  and  drags  him  into  the  cavern  beneath 
the  water.  A  desperate  struggle  ensues,  in  which  after  Beowulf's  sword  has  failed 
and  he  has  been  flung  to  the  ground  and  almost  killed  by  her  dagger,  he  slays  the 
monster  with  an  enchanted  sword,  found  in  the  cavern.  He  then  decapitates  the 
lifeless  Grendel  and  returns  with  his  head  to  the  shore.  He  is  again  thanked  by 
Hrothgar,  and  after  many  ceremonious  speeches  returns  to  the  palace  of  Hygelac, 
where  his  narration  of  his  exploits  gives  occasion  for  another  picture  of  court  life. 
A  long  interval  ensues,  in  the  course  of  which  Hygelac  and  his  son  Heardred  are 
successively  killed  in  battle,  leaving  the  kingdom  to  Beowulf,  who  rules  well  for 
fifty  years.  Then  a  dragon  with  fiery  breath  devastates  the  kingdom.  Beowulf 
with  twelve  followers'  goes  out  to  kill  it.  Sorely  wounded  and  deserted  by  all  his 
comrades  but  one,  he  finally  slays  the  dragon,  but  at  the  cost  of  his  own  life.  His 
body  is  burned  by  the  Geats  on  a  funeral  pure  and  the  ashes  are  enclosed  in  a  barrow. 
The  poem  contains  many  references  to  other  Scandinavian  saga  heroes,  and  at 
least  one  historical  personage,  Hygelac,  who  has  been  conclusively  identified  with  a 
chieftain,  Chochilaicus,  who  was  slain  during  a  raid  upon  the  Franks  and  Frisians, 
about  515  A.D.  Beowulf  may  also  have  been  an  actual  person  but  has  affiliations 
with  the  heroes  of  popular  story  and  with  certain  Scandinavian  deities. 

BERRY,  MISS,  EXTRACTS  OF  THE  JOURNALS  AND  CORRESPONDENCE 

OF.  Edited  by  Lady  Theresa  Lewis.  These  interesting  records  cover  the  long 
period,  1783-1852, — say  from  the  American  Revolution  to  the  Crimean  War. 
They  were  edited  by  Lady  Lewis  at  Miss  Berry's  request,  and  were  published  in 
three  volumes  in  1865. 

Miss  Mary  Berry  was  born  in  1763,  and  was  brought  up  with  her  younger  sister 
Agnes.     Neither  of  the  two  was  robust,  and  a  large  part  of  their  lives  was  spent 
6 


82  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

traveling  on  the  Continent  in  search  of  health.  While  young  girls  the  Misses  Berry 
became  acquainted  with  Horace  Walpole,  afterwards  Lord  Orford,  and  the  friend- 
ship then  begun  ended  only  with  his  death  in  1797.  The  lonely  old  man  was  charmed 
with  their  good  sense  and  simplicity,  and  his  intercourse  and  correspondence  with 
them  comforted  his  declining  years.  He  bequeathed  his  papers  to  Miss  Berry, 
who  edited  and  published  them,  as  well  as  the  letters  of  his  friend  Madame  du 
Deffand.  She  also  wrote  some  original  works,  the  most  important  being  'A  Com- 
parative View  of  Social  Life  in  England  and  in  France,1  in  which  she  strongly  advo- 
cated a  better  understanding  between  the  two  countries.  She  devoted  herself  to 
the  serious  study  of  events  and  character,  and  lived  with  her  sister  in  modest  retire- 
ment. They  were  long  the  centre  of  a  little  coterie  of  choice  spirits,  and  both  died 
in  1852,  beloved  and  lamented  by  the  children  and  grandchildren  of  their  early 
friends. 

The  extracts  from  the  journals  are  chiefly  descriptive  of  Miss  Berry *s  travels, 
and  are  valuable  as  pictures  of  manners  and  customs  that  have  changed,  and  of 
modes  of  travel  long  obsolete.  But  the  main  interest  attaches  to  her  account  of 
the  people  she  met,  among  whom  were  Scott,  Byron,  Louis  Philippe,  and  the  Duke 
of  Wellington.  She  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Princess  Charlotte;  and  one  of  the 
most  important  papers  in  the  collection  is  Lady  Lindsay's  journal  of  the  trial  of 
Queen  Caroline,  written  expressly  for  Miss  Berry. 

The  correspondence  is  even  more  interesting  than  the  journals,  and  contains 
many  of  Horace  Walpole's  letters  hitherto  unpublished.  They  touch  lightly  on 
political  and  social  topics,  and  show  his  genial  nature  and  brilliant  style,  as  well 
as  his  unaffected  devotion  to  the  young  ladies.  We  find  several  letters  from  Jo- 
anna Baillie  and  from  Madame  de  Stael,  who  were  both  warm  personal  friends  of 
Miss  Berry.  There  are  also  cordial  letters  from  Canova,  Lord  Jeffrey,  Sydney 
Smith,  and  other  celebrities.  The  reader  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  Miss  Berry 
for  preserving  these  interesting  and  valuable  papers,  and  to  Lady  Lewis  for  her 
careful  and  sympathetic  editorship. 

BESIDE  THE  BONNIE  BRIAR  BUSH  (1894),  by  Ian  Maclaren  (the  Rev.  Dr. 
John  Watson),  delineates  Scottish  character  and  life  among  the  lowly.  It  consists 
of  short  sketches  with  no  attempt  at  plot,  but  interest  attaches  to  the  well-drawn 
characters.  Domsie,  the  schoolmaster,  bent  on  having  Drumtochty  fitly  represented 
by  "a  lad  o*  pairts"  in  the  University;  Drumsheugh,  with  a  tender  love-sorrow, 
and  a  fine  passion  for  concealing  from  his  left  hand  the  generous  deeds  of  his  right; 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Davidson,  long  the  beloved  minister  at  Drumtochty;  Burabne,  with 
apt  comments  upon  men  and  events;  Marget  Howe,  whose  mother  heart  still  beats 
warm  even  after  her  Geordie's  death;  "Posty,"  the  mail  carrier;  and  Dr.  Weelum 
Madure,  going  through  field  and  flood  at  the  call  of  duty,  —  these  with  many  others 
are  drawn  with  a  quaint  intermingling  of  pathos  and  humor.  The  church  life  of 
rural  Scotland  affords  a  rich  field  for  the  powers  of  the  author, 

BETE  HUMAINE,  I<A,  see  ROTTGON-MACQUART. 

BETROTHED,  THE,  {'I  Promessi  Sposi')  by  Alessandro  Manzoni.  'A  Milan- 
ese story  of  the  I7th  century.  Discovered  and  Retold  by  Alessandro  Manzoni. 
Milan,  1825-26.  Paris,  1827,'  is  the  title  of  a  book  which,  the  author's  only  romance, 
sufficed  to  give  him  a  European  reputation.  The  purity  and  nobility  of  his  life  and 
the  spiritual  tojae  of  his  writing  make  him  the  fit  companion  of  his  compatriot 
Mazzini  in  morals  and  politics.  He  wrote  little,  but  all  was  from  his  heart  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  83 

bespoke  the  real  man.  Skeptical  in  early  life,  and  marrying  a  Protestant  woman, 
she  in  restoring  him  to  the  Christian  church  herself  became  Roman  Catholic,  and 
their  union  was  one  of  both  heart  and  faith.  It  was  under  these  influences,  and 
amid  the  religious  and  political  reaction  which  followed  the  death  of  Napoleon  L, 
that  Manzoni  —  who  had  already  become  famous  through  his  'Sacred  Hymns,' 
and  his  tragedies  the  'Adelchi'  and  '  Carmagnola, '  both  relating  to  remote  periods 
of  the  past  —  now  produced  a  colossal  romance  which  combined  in  one  narrative 
a  complete  picture  of  Italian  life.  The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid  within  the  country 
around  Milan,  and  the  plot  concerns  only  the  troubled  and  impeded  but  at  last 
happily  liberated  course  of  true  love  between  the  humble  peasant  Renzo  and  his 
already  betrothed  Lucia,  the  village  maiden,  for  whom  Don  Rodrigo,  the  chief  of  a 
band  of  outlaws,  has  laid  his  snares.  On  this  simple  scheme  the  author  manages  to 
introduce  a  graphic  picture  of  the  Italian  robber-baron  life,  as  represented  by  the 
outlawed  but  law-defying  Don  Rodrigo  and  his  retainers;  of  various  phases  of  the 
clerical  and  monastic  life,  as  represented  by  the  craven  village  curate  Abbondio, 
the  heroic  priest  Cristoforo,  and  the  gentle  and  magnanimous  Cardinal  Borromeo; 
of  a  devastating  plague  in  all  its  terrors  and  demoralizing  power,  as  witnessed  by 
the  lover  in  searching  the  great  city  and  the  lazaretto  for  his  beloved;  of  the  "mo- 
natti,"  the  horrible  band  of  buriers  of  the  dead;  of  the  calming  and  restoring  influ- 
ence of  the  Church  in  bringing  order  out  of  tumult,  the  wicked  to  punishment,  and 
virtue  to  its  reward.  The  story  is  like  a  heritage  of  Boccaccio,  Defoe,  and  Walter 
Scott,  in  a  single  superb  panorama  of  which  Salvator  Rosa  might  have  been  the 
painter.  The  religious  motive  of  the  book  is  sincere  but  not  exaggerated,  and  never 
runs  to  fanaticism.  Its  original  publication  was  in  three  volumes,  and  occupied 
two  years,  1825-26,  during  which  time  it  awakened  a  wide  interest  in  European 
circles;  and  having  been  soon  translated  into  all  modern  languages,  it  has  become 
probably  the  best  known  of  all  Italian  romances  to  foreign  readers. 

BETTY  ALDEN,  by  Jane  G.  Austin.  When  'Betty  Alden'  appeared  in  1891,  it 
was  at  once  received  as  among  the  best  of  Mrs.  Austin's  historical  novels.  Betty 
was  the  daughter  of  John  Alden  and  Priscilla;  and  from  the  fact  that  she  was  the 
first  girl  born  among  the  Plymouth  Pilgrims,  her  career  has  an  especial  interest 
for  readers  of  history.  Yet  although  Betty  gives  her  name  to  the  book,  she  is  not 
the  heroine.  The  story  opens  when  she  is  about  four  years  old,  and  continues  until 
after  her  marriage  with  William  Pabodie,  —  critical  years  in  the  history  of  the 
Plymouth  colony,  whose  events  are  skillfully  woven  into  the  narrative,  and  whose 
great  men  —  Winslow,  and  Bradford,  and  the  doughty  Miles  Standish,  with  Dr. 
Fuller,  and  the  Rowlands,  and  John  Alden  himself  —  appear  and  reappear,  with 
Barbara  Bradford  and  Priscilla,  and  the  pure,  fragile  Lora  Standish,  whose  early 
death  causes  her  father  such  sorrow.  In  sharp  contrast  with  the  upright  Pilgrims 
stand  out  Sir  Christopher  Gardiner,  the  soi-disant  knight  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre, 
with  his  fine  clothes  and  light  morals;  Oldham  and  Lyford,  with  their  treacherous 
reports  to  the  Adventurers;  and  other  outsiders,  who  were  thorns  in  the  flesh  of 
the  Pilgrims.  Mrs.  Austin  is  accurate  as  well  as  picturesque  in  her  descriptions  of 
the  merrymakings  and  feasts  of  the  time,  and  of  the  everyday  life  of  these  first  settlers. 

BEVERLY  OF  GRAtJSTARK,  by  George  Barr  McCutcheon  (1904).  This  is  a 
sequel  to  the  story  entitled  Graustark,  and  gives  the  reader  a  further  glimpse  of  the 
romantic  adventurer  Grenfall  Lorry  and  his  lovely  wife,  the  Princess  Yetive.  When 
the  story  opens  they  are  living  in  Washington  but  are  called  suddenly  back  to  Grau- 


84  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

stark  by  the  news  that  political  troubles  have  broken  out  there.  Prince  Gabriel, 
who  was  the  villain  of  the  previous  volume,  has  escaped  from  prison  where  he  has 
been  confined  and  has  wrested  the  throne  of  Dansbergen  from  his  step-brother, 
Prince  Dan  tan.  In  consequence  war  is  eminent  and  Graustark  is  likely  to  be  in- 
volved. While  in  Washington  the  Princess  Yetive  has  become  greatly  attached  to 
a  charming  American  girl  named  Beverly  Calhoun  and  invites  her  to  visit  her  at 
the  royal  palace.  Beverly,  who  is  ready  for  adventure,  starts  from  St.  Petersburg 
in  the  company  of  a  negro  maid-servant  to  make  the  journey  by  coach  to  Graustark. 
She  is  provided  with  an  escort  as  she  is  to  pass  through  a  rough  and  dangerous 
country,  but  is  deserted  by  her  false  protector  who  mistakes  her  for  the  Princess 
Yetive,  and  is  left  in  a  most  dangerous  position.  She  is  rescued  from  this  predic- 
cament  by  a  band  of  goat-hunters,  headed  by  a  chief  named  Baldos,  who  also  takes 
her  for  the  princess  but  who  protects  her  until  she  reaches  her  destination.  Baldos, 
who  has  been  seriously  injured  in  saving  Beverly  from  the  attack  of  a  wild  beast, 
is  put  into  a  hospital  by  her,  and  while  he  is  convalescing  she  persuades  the  prin- 
cess to  make  him  one  of  the  palace  guards.  Beverly  and  Yetive  conspire  to  keep 
up  the  illusion  that  the  former  is  the  princess  of  Graustark,  but  though  they  lay 
their  plans  very  cleverly,  Baldos  sees  through  their  deception.  He  does  not  let 
them  know,  however,  that  he  has  discovered  the  conspiracy  and  plays  his  part 
without  committing  himself.  His  manners  and  bearing,  which  are  so  far  above  his 
position,  baffle  the  princess  and  her  household  and  they  endeavor  to  solve  the 
mystery.  Beverly  finds  herself  becoming  deeply  in  love  with  her  unknown  hero 
and  after  having  tried  in  vain  to  conquer  her  feelings  agrees  to  marry  him  and  share 
his  humble  lot.  After  a  series  of  thrilling  adventures  Gabriel  is  captured  and  the 
real  identity  of  Baldos  is  revealed,  as  he  acknowledges  himself  to  be  the  dethroned 
Prince  Dantan. 

BEWICK,  THOMAS,  AND  HIS  PUPILS,  by  Austin  Dobson  (1884).  This  in- 
formal biography,  in  the  poet's  charmingly  familiar  style,  is  further  enlivened  by 
extracts  from  the  great  engraver's  autobiography,  prepared  for  his  daughter,  and  in 
its  descriptions  of  nature  almost  striking  the  note  of  English  poetry.  Born  in  1753, 
when  the  art  of  wood-engraving  was  at  its  lowest  ebb,  Bewick  falsified  the  say- 
ing of  Horace  Walpole  that  the  world  would  "scarcely  be  persuaded  to  return  tc 
wooden  cuts."  It  would  be  easy  to  draw  a  parallel  between  this  son  of  a  Northum- 
berland farmer  and  his  contemporary  the  Japanese  HokusaL  Both  were  pioneers, 
indefatigable  workers,  lovers  of  nature  from  early  childhood,  acute  observers  of 
all  objects,  and  artists  whose  best  work  is  unrivaled,  though  their  field  lay  in  the 
prints  displayed  in  the  homes  of  the  people.  Both  the  efforts  and  the  escapades 
of  the  English  lad  are  spicy  reading.  He  had  never  heard  of  the  word  drawing, 
and  knew  no  other  paintings  than  the  King's  Arms  in  Ovingham  Church,  and 
a  few  public  signs.  Without  patterns,  and  for  coloring  having  recourse  to  bram- 
bleberry  juice,  he  went  directly  to  the  birds  and  beasts  of  the  fields  for  his  subjects. 
He  covered  the  margins  of  his  books,  then  the  gravestones  of  Ovingham  Church 
and  the  floor  of  its  porch;  then  the  flags  and  hearth  of  Cherryburn,  the  farm-house 
where  he  was  born.  Soon  the  neighbors'  walls  were  ornamented  with  his  rude 
productions,  at  a  cheap  rate.  He  was  always  angling,  and  knew  the  history  and 
character  of  wild  and  domestic  animals;  but  did  not  become  so  absorbed  in  them 
as  to  ignore  the  villagers,  their  Christmas  festivities  and  other  features  of  their 
life.  After  serving  his  apprenticeship  to  an  engraver  in  Newcastle,  he  went  to 
London;  but  pined  for  the  country,  and  though  he  abhorred  war,  said  that  he  would 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  85 

rather  enlist  than  remain.  He  opened  a  shop  in  Newcastle,  where  for  nearly  fifty 
years  he  carried  on  his  work.  His  serious  work  begins  with  his  illustrations  to 
a  work  called  'Select  Fables.'  His  cut  for  'Poor  Honest  Puss'  is  worthy  of  a 
Landseer  in  little.  'Bewick  considered  his  ChiHingham  Bull,  drawn  with  difficulty 
from  the  living  model,  his  masterpiece;  and  its  rarity,  owing  to  the  accidental 
destruction  of  the  original  block,  enhances  its  value.  But  he  reached  his  high- 
water  mark  in  birds.  We  see  them  as  he  saw  them,  —  alive;  for  he  had  an  eye- 
memory  like  that  of  Hogarth.  One  of  the  last  things  he  ever  did  was  to  prepare  a 
picture  and  a  biography,  in  some  seven  hundred  words,  of  a  broken-down  horse, 
dedicating  the  work  to  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals.  This 
forerunner  of  'Black  Beauty' was  entitled  'Waiting  for  Death.'  His  own  death 
occurred  in  1828,  before  the  head  of  the  old  horse  had  been  entirely  'engraved. 
Among  many  delightful  passages,  this  life  contains  an  interesting  account  of  the 
•visit  that  the  naturalist  Audubon  paid  him  in  1827.  Although  Bewick  was  respon- 
sible for  the  revival  of  wood  engraving,  he  had  no  "school"  in  the  conventional 
sense.  Mr.  Dobson  explains  the  marked  differences  between  Bewick's  method  and 
that  of  Durer  and  Holbein,  and  credits  him  with  several  inventions. 

BEYOND  THE  PALE,  by  B.  M.  Croker  (1897).  The  scene  of  this  story  is  laid 
in  Munster,  Ireland.  The  heroine  is  Geraldine  O'Bierne,  better  known  as  Gallop- 
ing Jerry,  the  last  representative  of  an  old  and  ruined  race.  At  her  father's  death, 
the  great  estate  of  Carrig  is  seized  by  the  mortgage-holders;  and  her  mother,  a 
penniless  and  silly  beauty,  marries  Matt  Scully,  a  neighboring  horse-dealer,  —  a 
match  so  far  beneath  her  that  the  indignant  county  cuts  her  altogether.  Scully 
despises  his  stepdaughter  till  he  discovers  that  she  can  ride  with  judgment  and 
dauntless  courage;  whereupon  he  takes  her  from  school,  and  sets  her  to  breaking 
his  horses.  Her  mother  being  dead,  she  is  bullied  and  abused  by  him  and  his  niece 
Tilly,  a  vulgar  slattern;  pursued  by  Casey  Walsh,  jockey  and  blackleg;  cut  by 
the  county,  and  adored  by  the  peasantry.  The  Irish  pride  of  race  is  the  main  ele- 
ment of  interest.  The  story  is  bright,  original,  and  very  well  told;  while  two  or 
three  character-studies  of  Irish  peasants  are  portraitures  that  deserve  to  live  with 
Miss  Edgeworth's. 

BHAGAVADGITA,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

BIBLE,  THE;  'that  is  the  holy  Scripture  of  the  Olde  and  Newe  Testament,  faith- 
fully &  truly  translated  out  of  Douche  and  Latyn  into  Englishe  (1535)-'  The  first 
complete  English  Bible,  being  the  earliest  translation  of  the  whole  Bible  into  Eng- 
lish. The  Psalms  of  this  translation  are  still  used  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer 
and  much  of  the  rare  quality  of  our  most  familiar  version  is  due  to  Coverdale. 
Born  in  Yorkshire  in  1488,  and  educated  at  Cambridge,  Miles  Coverdale  was  able 
to  contribute  to  English  popular  literature  a  version  of  the  Bible  "translated  out 
of  Dutch  and  Latin,"  before  a  translation  from  the  original  tongues  had  been  at- 
tempted. He  superintended  also  the  bringing  out  in  1539  of  the  first  'Great  Bible'; 
and  the  next  year  edited  the  second  'Great  Bible,'  known  also  as  'Crammer's 
Bible.'  He  is  supposed  to  have  assisted  in  the  preparation  of  the  'Geneva  Bible* 
(1560),  which  was  the  favorite  Puritan  Bible,  both  in  England  and  in  New  England. 

BIBLE,  see  also  THE  INDIAN  BIBLE:  also  APOCRYPHAL  GOSPELS  and 
articles  on  the  OLD  TESTAMENT  and  NEW  TESTAMENT  in  the  LIBRARY. 


86  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

BIBLE,  THE  POLYCHROME.  A  new  translation  of  the  Scriptures  from  a  re- 
vised text,  by  eminent  Biblical  scholars  of  Europe  and  America;  Professor  Paul 
Haupt,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  editor,  with  the  assistance  in  America  of  Dr. 
Horace  Howard  Furness.  The  special  scheme  of  this  great  work  is  its  use  of  color 
backgrounds  upon  which  to  print  the  various  passages  by  different  writers  which 
have  been  made  up  into  one  work,  as  Isaiah  or  the  Psalms.  It  is  based  on  the  general 
conviction  of  Biblical  scholars  that  only  good  can  come  from  making  perfectly  clear 
to  the  public  the  full  results  of  modern  critical  research.  The  Revised  Version 
is  considered  by  the  projectors  of  the  Polychrome  an  unsatisfactory  compromise, 
in  that  it  fails  to  show  the  results  of  modern  research,  either  in  its  text  of  the  origi- 
nal or  in  its  translation.  In  particular  it  does  not  show  the  exact  facts  of  the 
Hebrew  originals;  where  in  many  cases  a  book  is  made  up  by  fitting  together  parts 
of  two  or  three  writings,  differing  in  character,  authorship,  and  date.  The  Poly- 
chrome device  to  show  these  facts  is  that  of  printing  what  is  of  one  writer  on  the 
white  paper,  what  is  of  a  second  writer  on  a  color  impressed  on  the  page  over  just 
space  enough  for  the  passage,  and  so  with  a  third,  or  more.  Each  has  his  color, 
and  the  reader  easily  follows  the  respective  writers.  In  the  translation  a  marked 
change  is  effected  by  the~use  of  modern  literary  English,  in  place  of  Biblical  English, 
which  does  not  faithfully  show  the  true  meaning.  In  the  texts  followed  and  the 
translation  adopted,  the  general  agreement  of  Biblical  scholars  is  represented.  In 
the  preparations  made  for  its  execution,  and  the  plans  for  a  collaboration  of  eminent 
specialists  throughout  the  world,  the  work  is  perhaps  the  greatest  yet  attempted 
in  the  field  of  Biblical  scholarship.  Its  translators  especially  represent  the  best 
scholarship  of  America,  England,  and  Continental  Europe.  A  corresponding 
Polychrome  edition  of  the  Hebrew  text,  edited  by  eminent  Hebraists  under  Profes- 
sor Haupt 's  direction,  was  issued  in  advance  of  the  English  version. 

BIBLE  IN  SPAIN,  THE,  by  George  Borrow,  was  published  in  1843.  It  is  an 
account  of  the  author's  five-years'  residence  in  Spain  as  an  agent  of  the  English 
Bible  Society.  In  the  preface  he  thus  explains  his  book:  — 

"Many  things,  it  is  true,  will  be  found  in  the  following  volumes,  which  have  lit- 
tle connection  with  religion  or  religious  enterprise;  I  offer,  however,  no  apology 
for  introducing  them.  I  was,  as  I  may  say,  from  first  to  last  adrift  in  Spain,  the 
land  of  old  renown,  the  land  of  wonder  and  mystery,  with  better  opportunities  of 
becoming  acquainted  with  its  strange  secrets  and  peculiarities  than  perhaps  ever 
yet  were  afforded  to  any  individual,  certainly  to  a  foreigner;  and  if  in  many  in- 
stances I  have  introduced  scenes  and  characters  perhaps  unprecedented  in  a  work 
of  this  description,  I  have  only  to  observe  that  during  my  sojourn  in  Spain  I  was  so 
unavoidably  mixed  up  with  such,  that  I  could  scarcely  have  given  a  faithful  nar- 
rative of  what  befell  me  had  I  not  brought  them  forward  in  the  manner  I  have 
done." 

'The  Bible  in  Spain*  is  therefore  a  fascinating  story  of  adventure  and  pictur- 
esque life  in  a  land  where,  to  the  writer  at  least,  the  unusual  predominates.  As  a 
reviewer  wrote  of  the  book  at  the  time  of  its  publication,  'We  are  frequently  re- 
minded of  Gil  Bias  in  the  narratives  of  this  pious,  single-hearted  man. '  Sorrow's 
work  is  unique  in  the  annals  of  missionary  literature. 

BIBLE  LANDS,  Recent  Research  in:  Its  Progress  and  Results.  Edited  by  Her- 
mann V.  Hilprecht  (1897).  A  work  of  definitive  and  comprehensive  excellence 
presenting  in  eight  chapters,  by  as  many  writers  of  high  authority,  the  best  new  know- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  87 

ledge  of  the  fruits  of  Oriental  exploration  throwing  light  on  the  Bible.  It  grew 
out  of  a  series  of  articles  prepared  by  leading  American  and  European  specialists 
for  the  Sunday-School  Times;  and  it  thus  carries  an  attestation  which  will  com- 
mend it  to  readers  who  desire  a  trustworthy  account  of  the  recent  most  remark- 
able expansion  of  knowledge  concerning  Palestine,  Babylonia,  Egypt,  and  Arabia, 
in  respect  of  their  history  previous  to  andMuring  the  "Mosaic"  period.  As  some 
of  the  art  objects  pictured  in  the  illustrations  are  of  date  4000  B.C.,  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  recovery  of  a  time  long  before  Abraham's  opens  to  view  pages  of  the  story 
of  mankind  of  extreme  interest  and  significance.  The  new  light  thus  thrown  upon 
the  ancient  East  shows  how  "Ur  of  the  Chaldees"  was,  to  older  cities  near  the  head 
of  the  Persian  Gulf,  a  new  mart  of  trade  and  seat  of  culture,  such  as  Chicago  is  to 
New  York;  and  how  Abraham  in  going  to  Palestine  went  to  the  Far  West  of  that 
Oriental  world,  where  the  east  coast  of  the  Mediterranean  was  to  the  world  of  cul- 
ture what  the  American  Pacific  coast  is  to-day.  It  was  Abraham  who  thus  first 
acted  on  the  advice,  "Young  man,  Go"  West."  The  date  of  his  defensive  expedi- 
tion related  in  Genesis  xiv.  is  now  definitely  fixed  by  Babylonian  inscriptions  at 
about  2250  B.C.;  and  the  invasion  he  repelled  is  found  to  have  been  in  pursuance 
of  aims  on  which  the  kings  of  Babylonia  are  known  to  have  acted  as  early  as  3800 
B.C.,  or  fully  1500  years  before  Abraham. 

BIGLOW  PAPERS,  THE,  by  James  Russell  Lowell,  a  series  of  political  satire, 
in  alternating  prose  and  verse.  The  first  series,  relating  to  the  war  between  the 
United  States  and  Mexico,  appeared  in  various  journals  from  1846  to  1848  and 
was  published  in  the  latter  year  in  book  form.  Lowell  believed  the  Mexican  war 
a  device  of  the  Southern  states  to  increase  the  extent  of  slave-holding  territory  and 
vehemently  opposed  it.  For  the  expression  of  his  views  he  created  three  typical 
Yankee  characters:  the  Reverend  Homer  Wilbur,  a  New  England  country  parson, 
scholar,  and  antiquarian,  whose  stilted  and  pedantic  introductions  to  the  verses  serve 
as  a  medium  for  conveying  Lowell's  more  serious  moods;  Hosea  Biglow,  a  down- 
east  farmer,  whose  shrewdness,  common  sense,  and  zeal  for  liberty  find  congenial 
expression  in  racy  Yankee  dialect  both  prose  and  verse;  and  Birdofredum  Sawin, 
a  rascally  fellow- villager  of  Biglow's,  who  enlists  for  the  Mexican  war,  becomes  a 
convert  to  slavery  and  later  to  secession,  and  writes  from  the  South  epistles  full  of 
uproarious  adventure  and  absurd  arguments  in  favor  of  the  cause  he  has  adopted. 
This  first  series  voices  Lowell's  hatred  of  a  war  which  he  considered  un-Christian 
and  of  those  Northern  Whigs  who  supported  it  in  order  to  gain  political  power. 
Few  political  invectives  are  more  withering  than  Hosea  Biglow's  first  poem,  attack- 
ing the  recruiting  agents  and  the  editorial  supporters  of  the  war;  and  the  famous 
third  poem,  'What  Mr.  Robinson  Thinks,1  with  its  stinging  sarcasm  and  catchy  metre, 
is  not  easily  matched  in  the  annals  of  satire.  'The  Pious  Editor's  Creed'  is  worthy 
of  Burns  as  an  ironical  presentation  of  hypocrisy.  'I  du  believe  in  Freedom's  cause. 
,  .  .  But  libbaty's  a  kind  of  thing  that  don't  agree  with  niggers. ' 

The  second  series  of  Biglow  papers  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  from  1862 
to  1866  and  was  published  in  book  form  in  1867.  The  Civil  War  had  induced  Lowell 
to  revive  the  literary  figures  created  in  an  earlier  crisis,  and  he  handles  these  char- 
acters with  the  old  brilliance  and  power.  Of  particular  interest  are  the  comments 
of  Wilbur  and  Biglow  on  the  Trent  Affair  which  constitute  the  second  paper,  entitled 
'Mason  and  Slidell:  a  Yankee  Idyll/  In  a  dignified  prose  introduction,  a  vernac- 
ular dialogue  in  heroic  couplets  between  Concord  Bridge  and  Bunker  Hill  Monu- 
ment (suggested  by  Burns's  '.Brigs  o'  Ayr'),  and  a  homely  epistle  from  Jonathan 


88  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

to  John,  Lowell  expresses  his  indignation  at  England's  sympathy  for  the  Con- 
federacy, her  supercilious  attitude  toward  the  North,  and  her  resentment  at  an  act 
of  seizure  similar  to  that  which  she  had  herself  defended  in  1812;  he  approves,  how- 
ever, the  action  of  Lincoln  in  giving  up  the  captured  Confederate  commissioners, 
and  prophesies  a  future  understanding  between  Great  Britain  and  the  Union. 
Birdofredum  Sawin  excites  ridicule  by  his  long  epistles  descriptive  of  his  settlement 
and  marriage  in  the  South  and  his  conversion  to  slavery  and  separation  from  the 
Union.  Biglow's  imaginary  message  to  the  Confederate  Congress  by  Jefferson  Davis 
illustrates  the  growing  encouragement  of  the  North  at  the  weakening  of  Southern 
credit  and  morale.  In  the  closing  papers  there  are  some  attractive  pictures  of 
New  England  scenery  and  some  fine  prophecies  of  peace  and  reconstruction.  The 
book  is  a  brilliant  and  witty  embodiment  of  the  best  abolitionist  and  unionist  senti- 
ment. The  often  ponderous  but  genuine  and  earnest  zeal  of  the  Reverend  Homer 
Wilbur,  the  vigorous  native  wit  and  humor  of  Hosea  Biglow,  whose  dialect,  a  spon- 
taneous development  of  the  race  and  soil,  was  deliberately  chosen  by  Lowell  as  a 
source  of  life  and  freshness  in  diction,  and  the  characteristically  American  exaggera- 
tion and  caricature  of  Birdofredum  Sawin  are  merely  different  phases  of  Lowell's 
attitude  and  temper.  Many  of  the  political  allusions  are  obscure  to  the  modem 
reader  but  the  general  drift  of  the  satire  is  easy  to  follow  and  its  effectiveness  is 
unquestionable. 

BIMBI:  STORIES  FOR  CHILDREN  (1882).  Ouida  has  done  nothing  so  per- 
fectly as  her  stories  of  child-life.  In  'Bimbi'  we  see  her  at  her  best.  The  stories 
are  simply  but  charmingly  told,  and  show  a  wonderfully  intimate  sympathy  with 
children.  The  characters  are  mostly  little  peasants,  sweet,  natural,  and  thoughtful, 
filled  with  a  love  of  beauty  and  of  old  legends,  and  touched  with  the  simple  spon- 
taneous heroism  that  is  possible  only  to  a  child. 

*  Hirschvogel, '  which  opens  the  volume,  is  the  story  of  a  German  boy's  romantic 
attachment  for  a  beautiful  porcelain  stove,  made  by  the  great  master  Hirschvogel. 
August's  father  having  sold  the  stove,  the  child  secretes  himself  in  it,  and  after  a 
terrible  journey  of  three  days  is  found  inside  by  the  young  king  who  has  bought 
it;  and  who,  pleased  with  the  child's  devotion,  allows  him  to  stay  with  his  beloved 
Hirschvogel  and  receive  an  artist's  education. 

'  Moufflou '  takes  its  name  from  a  clever  poodle,  which  Lolo,  his  little  lame  master, 
had  taught  to  do  many  tricks.  Lolo's  mother  having  sold  the  dog  while  he  was 
away,  the  child  takes  the  loss  so  much  to  heart  that  he  becomes  ill,  and  is  saved 
from  death  only  by  the  opportune  arrival  of  Moufflou,  who  has  escaped  and  walked 
many  miles  to  find  his  little  master. 

Findelkind  is  a  boy  whose  whole  life  is  saddened  because  some  twin  lambs  from 
his  flock  stray,  and  are  frosen  to  death,  while  he  is  away  upon  a  quest  for  money 
with  which  to  found  a  monastery. 

The  Little  Earl  who  gives  his  name  to  the  last  story  in  the  book  learns  early  the 
lesson  that  "  It  is  the  title  they  give  me  and  the  money  I  have  got  that  make  people 
so  good,  to  me.  When  I  am  only  me  you  see  what  it  is." 

'In  the  Apple  Country*  relates  how  a  young  Englishman  receives  into  his  home 
Gemma,  a  hot-tempered,  warm-hearted  little  Italian  girl,  with  her  grandfather 
and  brother,  who  have  been  arrested  for  strolling.  And  when  Gemma  has  grown 
into  a  beautiful  girl,  impulsive  still,  but  sweet  and  gentle,  she  consents  to  give  up 
forever  the  grapes  and  oranges  of  Italy  to  live  in  the  "Apple  Country,"  as  Philip 
Corey's  wife. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  89 

Perhaps  the  most  charming  of  the  stories  is  'The  Child  of  Urbino. '  Two  friends 
of  the  child  Raf aelle  —  Luca,  a  noble  youth,  and  his  sweetheart  Pacifica,  a  gentle 
maiden  —  are  in  great  trouble.  Pacifica's  father,  a  great  artist,  has  promised  his 
daughter's  hand  to  the  painter  winning  in  a  contest  to  be  decided  by  the  duke,  and 
Luca  could  paint  but  ill.  On  the  day  of  the  decision  the  duke  and  all  present  gaze 
in  wonder  upon  one  piece,  which  is  found  to  be  the  work  of  the  seven-year-old  child 
Rafaelle.  .Modestly  and  quietly  the  child  claims  Pacifica,  takes  her  hand  and 
places  it  in  Luca's.  They  tell  Luca  that  an  angel  has  come  down  for  him.  "But 
Luca  heard  not:  he  was  still  kneeling  at  the  feet  of  Rafaelle,  where  the  world  has 
knelt  ever  since." 

BIOGRAPHIA  LITERARIA,  a  loosely-knit  series  of  chapters,  autobiographical, 
philosophical,  and  critical,  by  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  published  in  1817.  In  the 
more  philosophical  chapters  Coleridge  explains  his  distinction  between  fancy  and 
imagination  and  shows  its  relation  to  the  views  of  Kant  and  other  idealists.  In 
chapters  xiv.  to  xxii.  he  presents  an  extremely  valuable  examination  and  criticism 
of  the  poetical  theories  of  Wordsworth  as  expressed  in  his  Preface  to  the  'Lyrical 
Ballads'  (1800).  To  the  first  edition  of  this  famous  collection  Coleridge  had  con- 
tributed 'The  Ancient  Mariner.'  He  had  been  in  close  association  with  Words- 
worth at  the  time  when  the  book  was  planned  and  had  discussed  that  plan  with 
him.  While  warmly  praising  Wordsworth's  power  of  investing  common  objects 
and  scenes  with  an  atmosphere  of  wonder  he  took  exception  to  his  dicta  that  the 
language  of  poetry  should  as  far  as  possible  be  identical  with  that  of  common  life 
and  that  there  is  no  essential  difference  between  the  language  of  prose  and  that  of 
poetry.  He  points  out  that  poetry,  being  idealistic  in  its  aims,  must  express  concepts 
for  which  there  are  no  words  in  ordinary  conversation,  that  Wordsworth  himself 
frequently  uses  in  his  poetry  language  utterly  removed  from  that  of  humble,  un- 
educated people,  and  that  metre,  by  its  emotional  effect,  differentiates  poetry  from 
prose.  This  admirable  critique  forms  a  salutary  corrective  to  the  excesses  of 
Wordsworth's  theory  and  brings  out  with  sympathetic  and  appreciative  insight 
the  poetic  beauties  of  his  practice.  It  also  enriched  English  criticism  by  some  very 
important  principles  and  judgments. 

BIRCH  DENE,  by  William  Westell  (1891).  The  scene  of  this  sombre  story  is 
laid  in  London  and  the  North  of  England,  the  England  of  George  IV.  and  the  landed 
proprietor.  A  young  gentlewoman,  wife  of  an  officer,  comes  up  to  London  with 
her  child,  to  meet  her  husband,  on  his  return  from  extended  foreign  service.  He 
does  not  arrive,  and  she  can  hear  no  news  of  him.  Friendless  and  alone,  she  falls 
into  dire  want;  and  finally,  one  stormy  day,  snatches  a  little  cloak  hanging- out- 
side a  shop,  for  her  shivering  boy.  She  is  immediately  seized  and  brought  to  trial. 
In  the  criminal  code  of  that  day,  stealing  an  article  valued  at  five  shillings  or  more 
was  one  among  one  hundred  and  fifty  capital  crimes;  and  the  poor  woman  is  sen- 
tenced to  be  hanged,  a  fate  she  escapes  by  dropping  dead  in  the  dock.  Stricken 
with  brain  fever  after  the  trial,  the  poor  little  lad,  Robin,  cannot  remember  his 
father's  name,  which  his  mother  had  carefully  concealed,  nor  where  he  was  born. 
He  is  sheltered  and  brought  up  by  a  kindly  old  bookseller;  but  on  the  death  of  his 
benefactor,  when  no  will  is  found,  the  little  property  passes  to  a  nephew,  a  miserly 
undertaker.  To  get  rid  of  Robin,  now  aged  nineteen,  he  apprentices  him  to  a  cotton- 
spinner  in  the  Lancashire  village  of  Birch  Dene.  The  interest  of  the  story  lies  in 
its  graphic  portraiture  of  the  English  industrial  life  of  the  early  part  of  the  century, 


90  THE    READER'S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS 

in  its  stud}*  of  artisan  character,  its  clever  invention  of  incident  and  plot,  and  its 
humane  spirit, 

BIRD,  THE  ('  L'Oiseau '),  by  Jules  Michelet.  In  the  year  1855  the  eminent  historian 
took  up  the  study  of  natural  science,  as  a  relief  from  the  too  great  strain  of  continued 
observation  of  the  course  of  human  events;  and  in  three  volumes,  of  which  '  L'Oiseau' 
is  one,  he  treated  of  non-human  nature  in  a  manner  sympathetic  and  stimulating, 
but  thoroughly  imbued  with  his  peculiar  ethical  and  scientific  theories.  These 
works  partook  of  the  exceeding  popularity  which  had  met  his  studies  in  human  his- 
tory; and  naturally,  for  they  had  all  the  charm  of  style,  the  grace  and  color  and 
poetic  feeling,  which  belonged  to  Michelet,  together  with  the  interest  of  an  entirely 
novel  attitude  toward  the  subject  presented. 

'L'Oiseau'  is  less  a  treatise  on  ornithology  than  a  biography  of  the  bird  and, 
as  a  translator  says,  "an  exposition  of  the  attractiveness  of  natural  history."  It 
tells  the  story  of  bird-life  in  a  delightful,  somewhat  discursive  fashion,  as  the  story 
of  a  being  like  ourselves.  A  hint  of  Pantheism,  a  suggestion  of  metempsychosis, 
a  faint  foreshadowing  of  Darwin,  infuse  the  story  of  the  birds  as  told  by  Michelet. 
Through  it  breathes  a  tender  love  for  nature,  a  love  which  strove  rather  to  establish 
a  sympathy  between  man  and  his  environment  than  to  inform  him  concerning  it. 
The  author  says  that  he  shall  try  "to  reveal  the  bird  as  soul,  to  show  that  it  is  a 
person.  The  bird,  then,  a  single  bird,  —  that  is  all  my  book,  but  the  bird  in  all  the 
variations  of  its  destiny,  as  it  accommodates  itself  to  the  thousand  vocations  of 
winged  life.  .  .  .  What  are  these?  They  are  your  brothers,  embryo  souls, — 
souls  especially  set  apart  for  certain  functions  of  existence,  candidates  for  the  more 
widely  harmonic  life  to  which  the  human  soul  has  attained."  This  conception  colors 
the  whole  treatment  of  the  subject.  A  translation,  with  illustrations  by  Giacomelli, 
was  published  in  London  and  New  York,  1869,  three  years  after  it  first  appeared 
in  Paris. 

BIRDS,  THE  ('  Aves'),  by  the  Greek  dramatist  Aristophanes,  is  a  comedy  that 
appeared  in  414  B.C.  It  belongs  with  the  writer's  earlier  plays,  in  which  farcical 
situations,  exuberant  imagination,  and  a  linguistic  revel  are  to  be  noted.  The 
comedy  is  a  burlesque  on  the  national  mythology:  the  author  creates  a  cloudland 
for  his  fancy  to  sport  in  without  restraint.  A  couple  of  old  Athenians,  Euelpides 
and  Peisthetairos,  sick  of  the  quarrels  and  corruptions  of  the  capital,  decide  to 
quit  the  country.  They  seek  Epops,  now  called  Tereus,  who  has  become  King  of 
the  Birds.  He  tells  them  so  much  about  the  bird  kingdom  that  they  are  interested; 
and  after  a  council  of  the  birds,  —  who,  at  first  hostile,  finally  give  the  strangers 
a  friendly  reception,  —  propose  to  build  a  walled  city  (Cloud-Cuckoo-Land)  to 
shut  out  the  gods  and  enhance  bird  power.  This  is  done  under  Peisthetairos's 
supervision.  Various  messengers  come  from  Athens  and  are  summarily  treated; 
a  deputation  from  the  gods  also  comes,  offering  peace,  which  is  accepted  on  condi- 
tion that  the  birds  are  reinstated  in  all  their  old-time  rights.  The  comedy  doses 
with  the  marriage  hymn  for  Peisthetairos  and  Basileia,  the  beautiful  daughter  of 
Zeus.  Throughout,  the  bird  chorus  sings  lofty  poetry,  and  the  comedy  parts  are 
full  of  rollicking  audacity  of  wit,  —  much  of  it,  however,  so  dependent  upon  local 
allusion  or  verbal  play  as  to  make  it  obscure  for  the  English  reader. 

BIRDS  OF  AMERICA,  THE,  the  monumental  work  of  John  James  Audubon, 
the  great  American  naturalist,  was  published  first  in  England  between  the  years 
1827  and  1830.  It  contained  colored  illustrations  of  1065  species  of  birds.  The 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  91 

\,ext  of  this  remarkable  book  is  descriptive  of  the  habits  and  manners  of  the  birds 
observed  by  Audubon  himself  in  his  long  wanderings  over  the  North-American 
continent.  Aside  from  its  scientific  value,  it  is  most  interesting  because  written 
throughout  with  the  same  enthusiasm  which  prompted  the  original  investigations 
of  the  author. 

BISMARCK,  SOME  SECRET  PAGES  OF  HIS  HISTORY,  by  J.  H.  M.  Busch 
(i  898) .  From  1 870  Busch  had  been  employed  by  Bismarck  as  one  of  his  press  agents, 
and  in  this  capacity  was  with  the  Chancellor  during  the  whole  of  the  Franco- Prussian 
War.  His  work  is  a  priceless  record,  not  only  as  a  moving  picture  of  Bismarck's 
daily  life,  but  as  a  revelation  of  the  means  which  the  Chancellor  used  to  manipulate 
opinion  in  Germany,  in  England  and  other  neutral  countries,  and  even  in  France. 
The  most  illuminating  side-lights  are  thrown  upon  the  great  events  which  led  up 
to  the  formation  of  the  German  Confederation  and  the  war  of  1870-1.  Speaking 
of  Moltke,  for  example,  Bismarck  said  (October  4, 1870) :  "  I  have  not  seen  him  look- 
ing so  well  for  a  long  time  past.  That  is  the  result  of  the  war.  It  is  his  trade.  I 
remember,  when  the  Spanish  question  became  acute,  he  looked  ten  years  younger. 
Afterwards,  when  I  told  him  that  the  Hohenzollern  had  withdrawn,  he  suddenly 
looked  quite  old  and  infirm.  And  when  the  French  showed  their  teeth  again, 
1  Molk '  was  once  more  fresh  and  young.  The  matter  finally  ended  in  a  diner  &  trois 
—  Molk,  Roon,  and  I  — which  resulted  (here  the  Chancellor  smiled  a  cunning  smile) 
in  the  Ems  telegram." 

BITTER-SWEET,  by  J.  G.  Holland,  is  a  narrative  didactic  poem,  of  about  three 
thousand  five  hundred  lines,  which  appeared  in  1858  and  won  great  popularity. 

Israel,  a  good  old  Puritan  farmer,  dwells  in  his  ancestral  New  England  home. 

-% 

"  His  daughter  Ruth  orders  the  ancient  house, 
And  fills  her  mother's  place  beside  the  board.*' 

On  Thanksgiving  eve  the  patriarch's  children,  with  their  families,  gather  for  the 
festival.  Round  the  hearth  God's  justice  and  providence  and  the  mystery  of  evil 
are  discussed.  Israel  stands  for  faith.  Ruth  expresses  her  doubts,  having  looked 
in  vain  for  justice  in  the  world.  David,  a  poet,  husband  to  Ruth's  sister  Grace, 
undertakes  to  teach  Ruth  that  there  is  no  incongruity  in  the  existence  of  evil  in  a 
world  created  by  beneficent  design.  His  first  illustration  is  drawn  from  nature, 
as  David  and  Ruth  seek  the  cellar  to  bring  cider  and  apples  for  the,  company,  and 
is  epitomized  in  the  couplet:  — 

"  Hearts,  like  apples,  are  hard  and  sour, 
Till  crushed  by  Pain's  resistless  power," 

Grace,  and  Mary,  a  foster-daughter  of  the  house,  exchange  the  stories  of  their 
domestic  sorrows,  while  each  finds  in  the  other  consolation  and  sympathy.  Grace 
tells  of  her  husband's  apparent  interest  in  some  unknown  woman;  but  admits  her 
griefs  to  be  trivial  beside  those  of  Mary,  whose  dissolute  husband  has  deserted  her 
and  their  child.  The  question  is  next  illustrated  by  story.  Joseph,  one  of  Israel's 
sons,  tells  to  the  children  the  old  story  of  Bluebeard.  The  older  folk  find  in  it  serious 
lessons  in  line  with  the  main  theme  of  the  poem.  Finally  there  is  heard  the  cry  of 
a  man  perishing  in  the  storm  which  rages  without.  Brought  to  the  fireside  and 
revived,  he  proves  to  be  the  weak  but  now  repentant  Edward,  husband  to  Mary. 
The  injured  wife  forgives  all,  and  discloses  that  the  friend  who  has  been  comforting 


92  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

her  is  the  poet  David.  The  revelation  shows  Grace  that  her  jealousies  have  been 
groundless.  Edward  dies  peacefully,  and  all  see  more  clearly  that  God  has  not 
forgotten  the  world,  and  that  there  is 

"In  every  evil  a  kind  instrument 
To  chasten,  elevate,  correct,  subdue." 

BLACK  BEAUTY,  HIS  GROOMS  AND  COMPANIONS,  by  Anna  Sewall  (1877). 
This  story,  written  in  the  form  of  a  horse's  autobiography,  is  really  a  tract  on  the 
proper  treatment  of  horses.  Black  Beauty,  a  high-bred  gentle  creature,  accustomed 
to  kind  treatment  in  a  gentleman's  stables,  has  his  knees  broken  by  a  drunken  groom, 
and  is  so  much  disfigured  that  he  is  sold  to  the  keeper  of  a  livery  stable.  In  turn 
he  becomes  a  cab-horse,  a  cart-horse,  then  a  cab-horse  again,  and  finally,  when  he 
is  utterly  broken  down  by  overwork  and  hard  treatment,  he  is  bought  by  a  farmer 
who  recognizes  his  good  blood,  and  nurses  him  patiently  into  health  again.  He  is 
then  sold  to  a  family  of  ladies,  whose  coachman  is  an  old  friend,  and  in  whose  stable 
he  passes  the  rest  of  his  days  happily.  The  story,  told  with  simplicity  and  restraint, 
and  without  a  word  of  preaching,  is  the  best  of  sermons.  Its  vogue  was  great,  and 
it  remains  a  favorite  with  young  readers. 

BLACK  DIAMONDS,  by  A'laurice  Jokai,  the  famous  Hungarian  novelist,  is  a 
strong  story  of  industrial  and  aristocratic  life  in  Hungary,  with  a  complicated  plot, 
and  dramatic  —  even  sensational  —  features.  It  was  published  in  1870.  Its 
interest  centres  around  the  coal-mining  business;  the  black  diamonds  are  coal  — 
also,  by  a  metaphor,  the  humble  folk  who  work  in  the  mines  and  exhibit  the  finest 
human  virtues.  The  hero  is  Ivan  Behrends,  owner  of  the  Bondavara  coal  mine; 
a  man  of  great  energy  and  ability,  with  a  genius  for  mechanics.  He  does  a  small 
conservative  business,  and  a  syndicate  of  capitalists  try  to  crush  him  by  starting 
an  enormous  colliery  near  by;  only  to  make  a  gigantic  failure,  after  floating  the 
company  by  tricky  stock-exchange  methods.  Ivan  outwits  them  by  sticking  to 
honest  ways  and  steady  work.  Edila,  the  pretty  little  colliery  girl  whom  Ivan  loves, 
goes  to  the  city  as  the  wife  of  a  rich  banker,  and  has  a  checkered  career  there,  be- 
coming the  prote*ge*e  of  a  prince  and  a  conspicuous  actress;  but  eventually  she 
prefers  to  come  back  to  the  mine,  don  her  old  working  clothes  to  show  her  humil- 
ity, and  marry  Ivan.  Very  graphic  scenes  in  the  stock  exchange,  in  the  under- 
ground world  of  the  miner,  and  in  the  fashionable  society  life  of  Vienna  and  Pesth, 
are  given;  the  author  being  thoroughly  familiar  with  Hungary,  high  and  low,  and 
crowding  his  book  with  lively  incidents,  and  varied  clearly  drawn  characters. 

BLACK  SHEEP,  THE.  A  novel  by  Edmund  Yates  (1867).  George  Dallas  is 
the  black  sheep  of  his  family.  His  mother,  a  widow,  has  married  Capel  Carruthers, 
a  wealthy,  pompous,  narrow-minded  bit  of  starched  propriety.  Carruthers  refuses 
to  make  a  home  for  the  youth  on  his  splendid  estates,  and  casts  him  adrift  on  the 
world.  George  becomes  wild  and  reckless,  and  moves  m  a  set  of  "black  sheep": 
men  and  women  mostly  of  gentle  birth  like  himself,  who  have  fallen  into  evil  ways. 
Chief  among  these  are  George  Routh  and  his  wife  Harriet,  professional  sharpers, 
who  deem  it  to  their  interest  to  get  him  into  their  power.  Routh  is  a  scamp  by 
nature.  His  wife,  an  innocent  girl,  falls  to  his  level  through  her  overwhelming  love 
for  him.  Routh  lends  Dallas  the  money  to  pay  a  gambling  debt  to  a  mysterious 
American  named  Deane.  The  style  of  the  story  is  energetic,  and  its  rapid  com- 
plications make  it  interesting. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  93 

BLACKWOOD,  WILLIAM,  AND  HIS  SONS,  their  Magazine  and  Friends; 
Annals  of  a  publishing  house,  by  Mrs.  M.  0.  W.  OHphant  (1897).  This  book, 
projected  in  three  volumes,  —  the  last  of  which,  unhappily,  the  author  did  not 
live  to  complete,  —  is  in  effect  an  outline  sketch  of  English  letters  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In  the  form  of  a  biography  of  the  great  Scotch 
publishing-house,  the  relations  of  its  partners  to  the  writing  world  of  their  time 
are  detailed  with  infinite  humor  and  enjoyment.  "William  Blackwood,  first  of  the 
name,  began  as  a  dealer  in  second-hand  books  in  Edinburgh;  his  first  publication 
being  a  catalogue  of  his  own  stock,  done  with  so  much  knowledge  and  so  excellent 
a  classification  that  it  still  remains  in  use.  The  great  London  house  of  Murray 
wanting  a  Scotch  agency,  the  enterprising  and  determined  Blackwood  secured  it,  — 
the  first  "ten-strike"  in  his  game  of  life.  His  next  good  fortune  was  the  honor  of 
publishing  'The  Tales  of  My  Landlord/  which,  though  anonymous,  Blackwood 
confidently  ascribed  to  Scott.  Unluckily,  he  ventured  afterward  to  find  some  fault 
with  'The  Black  Dwarf';  and  the  indignant  author  of  Waverley  repudiated  him 
and  all  his  works  in  a  sharp  letter,  closing  "  I'll  be  cursed  but  this  is  the  most  impudent 
proposal  that  ever  was  made."  Blackwood  therefore  lost  the  opportunity  of  be- 
coming Scott's  publisher;  but  poor  Scott  doubtless  lost  the  assurance  of  a  comfort- 
able and  tranquil  age.  Miss  Susan  Ferrier,  the  author  of  'Marriage,'  'Destiny,1 
etc.,  was  one  of  Blackwood 's  protegees,  as  were  so  many  of  the  successful  writers 
of  the  early  century.  But  all  his  other  debuts  and  successes  were  eclipsed,  Mrs. 
OHphant  considers,  by  the  association  of  Wilson,  Lockhart,  and  Blackwood  in  the 
founding  and  editing  of  Blackwood 's  Magazine.  'Maga,'  the  Blackwood  venture, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  a  Tory  rival  to  the  well-established  Edinburgh  Review.  For 
those  were  days  when  politics  colored  opinion  to  a  degree  which  is  now  almost  in- 
credible. "When  the  reviewer  sits  down  to  criticize,"  wrote  Lockhart,  "his  first 
question  is  not,  'Is  the  book  good  or  bad?'  but  'Is  the  writer  a  Ministerialist  or  an 
Oppositionist?'  "  Mrs.  OHphant  confesses  freely  the  blunders  of  'Maga':  its 
mean  attack  on  Coleridge  in  the  first  number,  its  foolish  and  baseless  onslaught 
on  the  "Cockney  school''  represented  by  Leigh  Hunt,  and  its  promise  of  judgment 
to  come  on  "the  Shelleys,  the  Keatses,  and  the  Webbes."  On  the  other  hand,  she 
shows  the  friendly  connection  of  George  Eliot  and  of  Lord  Lytton  with  the  house, 
and  its  pleasant  relations  with  many  less  famous  persons  whom  Blackwood  intro- 
duced to  the  world.  Full  of  the  most  agreeable  gossip  as  they  are,  the  real  value 
of  these  volumes  lies  perhaps  not  more  in  the  history  of  the  time  which  they  present, 
than  in  the  impression  they  give  of  the  kindly  and  helpful  influence  of  the  Black- 
woods  themselves  upon  the  Hves  and  work  of  their  many  clients. 

BLEAK  HOUSE.  A  novel  by  Charles  Dickens  (1853).  One  theme  of  this 
story  is  the  monstrous  injustice  and  even  ruin  that  could  be  wrought  by  the  de- 
lays in  the  old  Court  of  Chancery,  which  defeated  all  the  purposes  of  a  court  of 
justice;  but  the  romance  proper  is  unconnected  with  this.  The  scene  is  laid 
in  England  about  the  middle  of  last  century.  Lady  Dedlock,  a  beautiful  society 
woman,  successfully  hides  a  disgraceful  secret.  She  has  been  engaged  to  a  Captain 
Hawdon;  but  through  circumstances  beyond  their  control,  they  were  unable  to 
marry,  and  her  infant  she  beHeves  to  have  died  at  birth.  Her  sister,  however,  has 
brought  up  the  child  under  the  name  of  Esther  Summerson.  Esther  becomes  the 
ward  of  Mr.  Jarndyce,  of  the  famous  chancery  law  case  of  Jarndyce  vs.  Jarndyce, 
and  Hves  with  him  at  Bleak  House.  Her  unknown  father,  the  Captain,  dies  poor 
and  neglected  in  London.  A  veiled  lady  visits  his  grave  at  night;  and  this  confirms 


94  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

a  suspicion  of  Mr.  Tulkinghorn,  Sir  Leicester  Dedlock's  lawyer,  already  roused  by 
an  act  of  Lady  Dedlock.  With  the  aid  of  a  French  maid  he  succeeds  in  unraveling 
the  mystery,  and  determines  to  inform  his  friend  and  client  Sir  Leicester  of  his 
wife's  youthful  misconduct.  On  the  night  before  this  revelation  is  to  be  made, 
Mr.  Tulkinghorn  is  murdered.  Lady  Dedlock  is  suspected  of  the  crime,  disappears, 
and  after  long  search  is  found  by  Esther  and  a  detective,  lying  dead  at  the  gates 
of  the  graveyard  where  her  lover  is  buried.  The  story  is  told  partly  in  the  third 
person,  and  partly  as  autobiography  by  Esther.  Among  the  other  characters  are 
the  irresponsible  and  impecunious  Mr.  Skimpole;  Mrs.  Jellyby,  devoted  to  foreign 
missions;  crazy  Miss  Flite;  Grandfather  Smallweed;  Krook,  the  rag-and-bottle 
dealer;  Mr.  Guppy,  who  explains  all  his  actions  by  the  statement  that  "There  are 
chords  in  the  human  mind";  the  odiously  benevolent  Mrs.  Pardiggle;  Mr.  Turvey- 
drop,  the  model  of  deportment;  Mr.  Chadband,  whose  name  has  become  prover- 
bial for  a  certain  kind  of  loose-jointed  pulpit  exhortation;  Caddy  Jellyby,  with  inky 
fingers  and  spoiled  temper,  —  all  of  whom  Dickens  portrays  in  his  most  humorous 
manner;  and,  among  the  most  touching  of  his  children  of  the  slums,  the  pathetic 
figure  of  poor  Jo,  the  crossing-sweeper,  who  "don't  know  nothink."  The  story  is 
long  and  complicated;  but  its  clever  satire,  its  delightful  humor,  and  its  ingrained 
pathos,  make  it  one  of  Dickens's  most  popular  novels. 

BLIND,  THE  ('Les  Aveugles')  (1890),  by  Maurice  Maeterlinck,  the  Belgian 
poet-dramatist,  is  a  play  of  symbolism,  which,  like  the  earlier  'The  Intruder,'  is 
one  of  the  writer's  best-known  and  most  striking  works.  It  is  an  eerie  kind  of  alle- 
gory. On  an  island,  in  a  mystic  norland  wood,  under  the  night  stars,  sit  a  company 
of  blind  folk,  men  and  women,  under  the  guidance  of  an  old  priest  returned  from 
the  dead.  They  grope  about  in  a  maze  and  query  as  to  their  location  and  destiny, 
—  a  strange,  striking  effect  being  produced  by  the  grewsome  setting  of  the  scene  and 
the  implication  of  the  words,  through  which  the  reader  gathers  that  this  is  a  sym- 
bolic picture  of  life,  in  which  mankind  wanders  without  faith  or  sight  in  the  forest 
of  ignorance  and  unfaith,  depending  upon  a  priestcraft  that  is  defunct,  and  knowing 
naught  of  the  hereafter.  The  poetry  and  humanity  of  this  picture-play  are  very 
strong.  Good  English  translations  of  this  and  other  dramatic  pieces  by  Maeter- 
linck have  been  made  by  Richard  Hovey,  Alexander  Teixeira  de  Mattos,  and  Alfred 
Sutro. 

BLITHEDALE  ROMANCE,  THE,  the  third  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  romances, 
published  in  1852,  was  the  outcome  of  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  members 
of  the  Brook  Farm  Community;  and  immortalized  the  brief  attempt  of  that  little 
group  of  transcendentalists  to  realize  equality  and  fraternity  in  labor.  It  is  more 
objective  and  realistic  than  Hawthorne's  other  works,  and  therefore  in  a  sense  more 
ordinary.  Its  central  figure  is  Zenobia,  a  beautiful,  intellectual,  passionate  woman; 
drawn  as  to  some  outlines  from  Margaret  Fuller.  At  the  time  it  opens,  she  has 
taken  up  her  abode  at  Blithedale  Farm,  the  counterpart  of  Brook  Farm.  The 
other  members  of  the  community  are  Hollingsworth,  a  self-centred  philanthropist; 
a  Yankee  fanner,  Silas  Forster,  and  his  wife;  Miles  Coverdale,  the  relater  of  the 
story;  and  Priscilla,  who  is  Zenobia's  half-sister,  though  of  this  fact  Zenobia  is 
ignorant.  'The  Blithedale  Romance1  is  a  brilliant  instance  of  Hawthorne's  power 
as  a  story-teller.  No  scene  in  the  whole  range  of  fiction  is  more  realistic  than  the 
finding  of  Zenobia's  body  in  the  dead  of  night;  drawn  from  the  dank  stream,  a 
crooked,  stiff  shape,  and  carried  to  the  farm-house  where  old  women  in  nightcaps 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  95 

jabber  over  it.  Nothing  could  be  more  in  the  manner  of  Hawthorne  than  his  com- 
ment that  if  Zenobia  could  have  foreseen  her  appearance  after  drowning,  she  would 
never  have  committed  the  act. 

BLOT  IN  THE  'SCUTCHEON,  A,  a  tragedy  by  Robert  Browning,  published 
in  1843  and  acted  in  the  same  year.  Mildred  Tresham,  only  sister  of  Thorold, 
Earl  Tresham,  has  been  seduced  by  Henry,  Earl  Mertoun,  whose  lands  adjoin  those 
of  her  brother.  Anxious  to  repair  this  wrong  he  formally  requests  her  in  marriage. 
Thorold,  who  knows  nothing  of  his  sister's  fall,  readily  consents.  But  a  retainer 
sees  Mertoun  climb  to  Mildred's  chamber  and  informs  his  master,  without  being 
able  to  identify  the  intruder.  Questioned  by  her  brother,  Mildred  admits  the  truth 
of  the  story,  but  refuses  to  divulge  her  lover's  name  or  to  dismiss  Earl  Mertoun. 
Deeply  wounded  in  his  family  pride,  which  is  morbidly  intense,  Thorold  is  too  emo- 
tionally stirred  to  infer  that  Mertoun  and  the  lover  are  the  same.  Denouncing 
Mildred  as  a  shameless  woman  he  rushes  into  the  park,  where  he  wanders  until 
midnight.  Meanwhile,  Mildred's  cousin,  Gwendolen,  in  a  talk  with  Mildred,  has 
divined  the  identity  of  Mertoun  and  the  offender,  and  with  her  fianc6  and  the  earl's 
brother,  Austin  Tresham,  goes  out  to  find  Thorold  and  to  persuade  him  to  forgive- 
ness. They  are  too  late,  however.  At  midnight  Thorold  encounters  Mertoun 
on  his  way  to  an  interview  with  Mildred,  and  in  his  anger  compelled  him  to  fight  a 
duel  in  which  Mertoun,  refusing  to  defend  himself,  is  mortally  wounded.  Realizing 
at  length  his  own  harshness  and  injustice  towards  a  boy  who  was  penitent  and 
eager  to  atone  for  his  fault,  Thorold  exchanges  forgiveness  with  Mertoun,  and  on 
his  death,  takes  poison.  He  then  goes  to  beg  forgiveness  of  his  sister  who  grants  it 
and  dies  of  a  broken  heart,  closely  followed  by  her  brother.  In  dying  he  says  that 
he  leaves  to  Austin  and  Gwendolen  an  unblotted  'scutcheon.  The  catastrophe 
has  been  criticized  as  not  inevitable  and  the  speeches  as  too  analytical  for  the  stage, 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  pathos  and  tragic  power  of  this  drama. 

BLUE  BIRD,  THE  ('L'Oiseau  bleu'),  by  Maurice  Maeterlinck  (1908).  In  the 
opening  scene  of  this  charming  play  the  children  of  a  woodcutter  dream  on  Christ- 
mas eve  that  a  fairy  sends  them  on  a  quest  for  the  blue  bird  of  happiness  for  her 
little  girl.  Tyltyl,  the  boy,  wears  a  green  hat  with  a  magic  diamond  in  the  cockade, 
which  enables  human  beings  to  see  like  the  fairies.  At  a  turn  of  the  diamond,  the 
hours  come  dancing  from  the  clock,  and  the  souls  of  Light,  Bread,  Milk,  the  Dog,  and 
the  Cat  awaken  to  accompany  the  children  on  their  journey.  They  first  visit  their 
grandparents  in  the  Land  of  Memory,  where  the  dead  return  to  life  whenever  we 
remember  them.  Then  they  search  the  caverns  of  the  Palace  of  the  Night  for  the 
blue  bird,  and  see  wonderful  things.  In  the  Kingdom  of  the  Future,  under  the 
guardianship  of  Father  Time,  they  see  the  unborn  babies,  with  all  sorts  of  things 
they  are  to  bring  to  earth,  crimes,  inventions,  and  blessings  for  mankind.  In  the 
forest,  the  Cat  warns  the  trees  that  the  children  of  the  woodcutter,  their  enemy,  are 
in  their  power.  The  ivy  binds  the  paws  of  the  Dog,  but  he  bursts  his  bonds  to  de- 
fend his  master.  At  a  turn  of  the  magic  diamond  they  find  themselves  back  in  the 
cottage,  and  the  blue  bird  in  their  own  cage  at  home.  They  give  the  bird  to  a  neigh- 
bor to  please  her  little  girl  who  is  sick,  and  it  flies  away.  This  fantasy  paints  the 
moral  that  happiness,  though  sought  far  away,  and  in  the  past  or  the  future,  can 
best  be  found  close  by  in  acts  of  unselfishness.  The  final  flight  of  the  blue  bird  out 
of  the  little  girl's  hand  implies  that  happiness  lies  in  the  quest,  not  the  possession. 

BLUEBEARD,  see  FAIRY  TALES. 


96  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

BOB,  SON  OF  BATTLE,  by  Alfred  Ollivant  (1898).  It  is  the  author's 
mission  to  be  the  inventor  of  the  novelistic  dog,  for  though  horses  have  often 
figured  in  fiction,  this  is  the  first  fully  fledged  novel  with  a  dog  for  the  central 
figure.  The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid  in  the  Cumberland  fells  and  much  of  the 
interest  turns  on  the  trials  of  the  sheep  dog  of  the  North.  Bob  or  "Owd  Bob," 
as  he  is  called,  is  the  last  of  the  renowned  "gray  dogs  of  Kennion,"  a  wonderfully 
fine  and  sagacious  breed  of  shepherd  dogs,  in  which  the  dalesmen  took  great  pride. 
The  deeds  of  this  splendid  creature  and  those  of  his  rival,  "Red  Wull,"  the  "Tailless 
Tyke,"  are  set  forth  in  a  powerful  manner.  The  dogs'  contest  for  the  "Champion 
Challenge  Dale  Cup"  is  described  in  a  most  spirited  way,  and  the  contrast  in  the 
characteristics  of  the  two  rivals  is  as  great  as  that  between  their  respective  owners. 
Bob's  master,  James  Moore,  the  farmer  of  Kenmuir,  calm,  firm,  and  gentle-hearted, 
one  of  a  race  of  gallant  "statesmen,"  is  as  widely  distinguished  from  the  blasphemous 
little  Adam  McAdams  as  is  the  noble  gray  dog  from  his  sanguinary  foe.  McAdams's 
attachment  to  his  dog,  which  is  so  much  stronger  than  that  which  he  feels  for  his 
own  son,  whom  he  treats  with  much  cruelty,  is  set  forth  with  remarkable  strength. 
The  search  for  the  mysterious  sheep  slayer,  and  the  capture  of  "Red  Wullie,"  red- 
fanged  and  caught  in  the  commission  of  the  one  capital  crime  of  the  sheep-dog, 
causes  the  breakdown  of  the  culprit's  master  and  reveals  a  bit  of  tenderness  yet 
left  in  his  hardened  nature.  Many  of  the  episodes  are  eminently  pathetic,  espe- 
cially so  is  the  action  of  the  "gray  dog  of  Kenmuir"  upon  the  tragic  occasion  of 
the  downfall  of  his  rival. 

BOCCACCIO,  GIOVANNI,  'Asj  Man]  and  Author/  by  John  Addington  Symonds 
(1895).  A  monograph  in  a  hundred  pages  of  fine  learning  and  rare  criticism,  on  one 
of  "the  three  founders  of  modern  literature."  Dante,  first  of  the  three,  stood 
within  the  shadow  of  mediaeval  theology;  Petrarch,  coming  next,  initiated  the 
Revival  of  Learning,  —  humanism,  scholarship,  the  modern  intellectual  ideal. 
Boccaccio  was  the  founder  of  Greek  studies,  and  Petrarch's  ablest  lieutenant  in  the 
pioneering  work  of  the  Revival  of  Learning.  He  created  the  novel;  and  though  a 
second  only  to  Petrarch,  as  Petrarch  was  a  second  only  to  Dante,  in  force  of  char- 
acter and  quality  of  genius,  he  ruled  the  course  of  Italian  literature,  and  its  far- 
reaching  influences,  for  three  centuries.  Such  in  outline  is  the  story  to  which 
Symonds  devotes  his  monograph. 

BOHEMIANS  OF  THE  LATIN  QUARTER,  THE,  'Scenes  de  la  Vie  de  Boheme,' 
by  Henri  Murger  (1848).  Murger  knew  intimately  the  life  of  the  penniless  Parisian 
artists,  musicians,  and  literary  men  who  congregated  in  the  Latin  Quarter,  and 
in  this  story  has  faithfully  depicted  it.  Not  possessed  of  genius  or  not  yet  recognized 
at  their  true  worth  they  were  unwilling  to  devote  themselves  to  mere  money-making 
tasks  and  therefore  continued  to  strive  for  success  in  painting,  the  drama,  poetry, 
or  music.  They  endured  cold  and  hunger,  spent  money  freely  and  generously  when 
they  had  it,  and  when  it  was  gone  were  not  above  evading  their  tailors  or  landlords, 
upon  whom  as  on  the  industrious  bourgeoisie  they  looked  down  as  Philistines. 
In  this  story  we  are  introduced  to  a  poet,  Rodolphe;  a  painter,  Marcel;  a  musician, 
Schaunard;  and  a  philosopher,  Colette.  All  have  the  same  high  artistic  ambitions 
joined  with  impectmiosity;  all  employ  the  same  tricks  to  deceive  the  bill-collector 
and  the  waiter.  The  story  of  Rodolphe's  connection  with  Mimi  and  Marcel's 
with  Musette,  and  of  the  delights,  jealousies,  separations,  and  reconciliations  that 
ensued  gives  a  certain  unity  to  the  book,  which  is,  however,  mainly  episodic.  The 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  97 

pathetic  death  of  Mimi  closes  the  story,  as  it  also  forms  the  crisis  of  the  drama, 
'La  Vie  de  Boheme,'  which  Murger  and  Theodore  Barriere  staged  in  1849.  This 
play  is  the  source  of  the  libretto  of  Puccini's  opera,  'La  Boheme'  (1898).  Murger's 
tale  and  drama  will  live  as  a  vivid  record  of  a  noted  phase  of  literary  life  in  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

BOHN'S  LIBRARIES.  A  uniform  'Publication  Series'  of  standard  works  of 
English  and  European  literature,  of  which  Thomas  Carlyle  said:  "I  may  say  in 
regard  to  all  manner  of  books,  Bohn's  Publication  Series  is  the  usefulest  thing  I 
know."  It  covers  the  whole  ground  of  history,  biography,  topography,  archae- 
ology, theology,  antiquities,  science,  philosophy,  natural  history,  poetry,  art,  and 
fiction,  with  dictionaries  and  other  books  of  reference;  and  comprises  translations 
from  French,  German,  Italian,  Spanish,  Scandinavian,  Anglo-Saxon,  Latin,  and 
Greek.  The  originator  of  the  enterprise,  Henry  George  Bohn,  a  London  bookseller, 
who  startled  the  English  trade  by  issuing  in  1841  a  guinea  catalogue  of  some  25,000 
important  and  valuable  old  books,  began  in  1846  with  the  Standard  Library.  His 
design  was  to  promote  the  sale  of  good  books  by  a  cheap  uniform  issue  of  works  of 
a  solid  and  instructive  kind.  The  choice  of  type,  paper,  and  binding  was  most 
judicious,  and  for  cheap  books  nothing  equal  to  it  had  ever  been  done.  The  Stand- 
ard soon  numbered  371  vols.  The  other  libraries  added  later  were  the  His- 
torical Library,  26  vols.;  the  Philosophical,  23  vols.;  Ecclesiastical  and 
Theological,  10  vols.;  Antiquarian,  24  vols.;  Illustrated,  61  vols.;  Sports  and 
Games,  6  vols.;  Classical,  104  vols.;  Collegiate,  9  vols.;  Scientific,  30  vols.; 
Economics  and  Finance,  5  vols.;  Reference,  24  vols.;  Novelists,  17  vols.;  and 
Artists,  9  vols.;  making  721  volumes  classified  under  14  heads.  The  great  success 
of  Mr.  Bohn's  scheme  initiated  a  period  of  inexpensive  production  and  wide 
distribution  of  books  of  real  value,  which  cannot  but  have  done  much  for  the  spread 
of  real  culture  throughout  the  English-speaking  world. 

BONDMAN,  THE  (1890),  one  of  Hall  Caine's  best-known  romances,  abounds  in 
action  and  variety.  Stephen  Orry,  a  dissolute  seaman,  marries  Rachael,  the  daugh- 
ter of  Iceland's  Governor-General,  and  deserts  her  before  their  boy  Jason  is  born. 
Twenty  years  later,  at  his  mother's  death-bed,  Jason  vows  vengeance  upon  his 
father  and  his  father's  house.  Orry,  drifting  to  the  Isle  of  Man,  has  married  a 
low  woman,  and  sunk  to  the  depths  of  squalid  shame.  Finally  the  needs  of 
their  neglected  boy,  Sunlocks,  arouse  Orry  to  play  the  man;  he  reforms  and 
saves  some  money.  Sunlocks  grows  up  like  a  son  in  the  home  of  the  Manx 
Governor,  and  wins  the  love  of  his  daughter  Greeba.  The  youth  is  sent  to 
Iceland  to  school,  and  is  commissioned  by  Orry  to  find  Jason  and  give  him 
his  father's  money  —  a  mission  he  is  unable  to  fulfill.  In  trying  to  wreck,  and 
then  to  save,  an  incoming  vessel  (which,  unknown  to  Orry,  is  bearing  the 
avenging  Jason  from  Iceland  to  Man)  Orry  is  fatally  hurt;  but  is  saved  from 
drowning  by  Jason,  who  learns  from  the  dying  man's  delirium  that  he  has 
rescued  the  father  and  missed  the  brother  whom  he  has  sworn  to  kill.  Through- 
out the  story,  'his  blind  attempts  at  doing  new  wrongs  to  revenge  the  old  are 
overruled 'by  Providence  for  good;  and  at  the  last,  no  longer  against  his  will  but 
by  the  development  of  his  own  nature,  he  fulfills  his  destiny  of  blessing  those 
he  has  sworn  to  undo. 

BONHEUR  DES  DAMES,  AU,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

7 


98  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

BOOK  OF  DAYS,  THE,  edited  by  Robert  Chambers.  These  two  large 
volumes  (which  have  for  their  sub-title  'A  Miscellany  of  Popular  Antiquities  in 
connection  with  the  Calendar')  contain  a  curious  and  interesting  collection  of  what 
its  editor  calls  "old  fireside  ideas."  This  encyclopedic  work  was  published  in  Edin- 
burgh in  1863;  and  in  bringing  it  out,  the  editor  expressed  a  desire  to  preserve 
interest  in  what  is  "poetical,  elevated,  honest,  and  of  good  report,  in  the  old  na- 
tional life,"  — recognizing  the  historical,  and  even  the  ethical,  importance  of  keep- 
ing this  active  and  progressive  age  in  touch  with  obsolescent  customs,  manners, 
and  traditions.  Beginning  with  January  first,  each  day  of  the  year  has  its  own 
curious  or  appropriate  selection,  and  its  allowance  of  matters  connected  with 
the  Church  Calendar,  —  including  the  popular  festivals,  saints'  days,  and  holidays, 
—  with  illustrations  of  Christian  antiquities  in  general.  There  is  also  much  folk- 
lore of  the  United  Kingdom,  embracing  popular  notions  and  observances  con- 
nected with  times  and  seasons  and  notable  events,  biographies,  anecdotes,  historical 
sketches,  and  oddities  of  human  life  and  character,  as  well  as  articles  on  popular 
archaeology  tending  to  illustrate  the  progress  of  civilization,  manners,  and  litera- 
ture, besides  many  fugitive  bits  and  odd  incidents. 

BOOK  OF  MARTYRS,  THE,  by  John  Foxe,  sometimes  known  as  the  'History 
of  the  Acts  and  Monuments  of  the  Church/  was  first  published  in  Latin  in  1554, 
when  the  author  was  in  exile  in  Holland.  The  first  English  edition  appeared  in 
1563.  By  order  of  the  Anglican  Convocation  meeting  in  1571,  the  book  was  placed 
in  the  hall  of  every  episcopal  palace  in  England.  Before  Foxe's  death  in  1587  it 
had  gone  through  four  editions. 

This  strange  work  kept  its  popularity  for  many  years.  The  children  of  succeed- 
ing generations  found  it  a  fascinating  story-book.  Older  persons  read  it  for  its 
noble  English,  and  its  quaint  and  interesting  narrative. 

The  scope  of  the  'Book  of  Martyrs'  is  extensive.  The  author  calls  the  roll  of 
the  noble  army  from  St.  Stephen  to  John  Rogers.  From  the  persecutions  of  the 
early  Church,  he  passes  to  those  of  the  Waldenses  and  Albigenses,  from  these  to 
the  Inquisition,  and  from  the  Inquisition  to  the  persecutions  under  English  Mary. 
Foxe,  as  a  low-churchman,  was  strongly  prejudiced  against  everything  that  savored 
of  Catholicism.  His  accounts  are  at  times  overdrawn  and  false.  The  value  of  the 
work,  however,  does  not  lie  in  its  historical  accuracy,  nor  in  its  scholarship;  but 
rather  in  the  fervent  spirit  which  inspired  its  composition. 

He  writes,  in  conclusion,  of  the  unknown  martyrs:  "Ah,  ye  unknown  band, 
your  tears,  your  sighs,  your  faith,  your  agonies,  your  blood,  your  deaths,  have 
helped  to  consecrate  this  sinful  earth,  and  to  add  to  its  solemn  originality  as  the 
battle-field  of  good  and  evil  of  Christ  and  Belial." 

BOOK  OF  MORMON,  see  MORMON. 

BOOK  OF  NONSENSE,  by  Edward  Lear  (1846).  This  nursery  classic,  as  much 
cherished  by  many  adults  as  by  hosts  of  children,  is  made  up  from  four  minor 
collections  published  at  intervals  during  a  long  life.  The  author  began  as 
an  artist;  colored  drawings  for  serious  purposes  were  supplemented  by  others 
for  the  amusement  of  the  groups  of  little  ones  he  loved  to  gather  around 
him;  and  the  text  added  to  them  has  proved  able  to  endure  the  test  of  time 
without  the  aid  of  drawing,  and  much  of  it  has  become  part  of  the  recognized 
humorous  literature  of  the  language.  Of  pure  illustration,  save  for  an  amusing 
title  to  each,  his  nonsense  flora,  fauna,  and  —  shall  we  say,  in  his  own  manner 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  99 

—  deadthingsia,  are  full  of  wit;  —  for  pictures  can  be  witty  as  well  as  words, 
and  the  drawings  of  the  "nastikreechiakrorluppia,"the'<armchairia  comfortabilis," 
and  many  other  scientific  curiosities,  never  pall.  A  grade  beyond  this  in  verbal 
accompaniment  are  the  five-line  stanzas  after  the  manner  of  the  "  Old  Man  of  To 
bago,"  in  'Mother  Goose':  a  few  of  these  —  as  that  of  the  "young  lady  of  Lucca, 
Whose  lovers  had  all  forsook  her,"  and  of  the  "old  man  who  said,  'How  shall  I 
manage  this  terrible  cow?'  "  —  rank  as  familiar  quotations,  but  he  has  been  so 
greatly  surpassed  by  others  in  this  line  that  they  can  hardly  be  thought  his  best.  The 
"Nonsense  Cookery,"  in  one  recipe  of  which  we  are  told  to  "serve  up  in  a  clean 
table-cloth  or  dinner  napkin,  and  throw  the  whole  mess  out  of  window  as  fast  as 
possible";  and  the  voyage  around  the  world  of  the  four  children,  who  are  looked  on 
by  their  elders  with  "affection  mingled  with  contempt,"  add  each  their  quota  of 
good  things.  But  unquestionably  his  highest  level  is  reached  in  the  famous  bal- 
lads, such  as  'The  Jumblies, '  who  "went  to  sea  in  a  sieve,"  and  reached  "the  lakes, 
and  the  Torrible  Zone,  and  the  hills  of  the  Chankly  Bore";  the  Pelican  Song,  with 
some  really  lovely  poetry  in  it,  and  its  inimitable  nonsense  refrain;  'The  Owl  and 
the  Pussy  Cat';  'The  Pobble  who  Has  No  Toes';  'The  Yonghy  Bonghy  Bo';  "The 
Quangle  Wangle  Quee';  'The  Old  Man  from  the  Kingdom  of  Tess';  'The  Two  Old 
Bachelors';  and  others,  —  all  together  making  up  a  melange  of  buoyant  fun  which 
entitles  the  author  to  the  gratitude  of 'everybody. 

BOOK  OF  SNOBS,  THE,  a  series  of  sketches  by  William  Makepeace  Thackeray, 
appeared  first  in  Punch,  and  was  published  in  book  form  in  1848.  The  idea  of  the 
work  may  have  been  suggested  to  Thackeray  when,  as  an  undergraduate  at  Cam- 
bridge in  1829,  he  contributed  to  a  little  weekly  periodical  called  The  Snob.  In 
any  case,  the  genus  Snob  could  not  long  have  escaped  the  satirical  notice  of  the 
author  of  'Vanity  Fair.'  He  was  in  close  contact  with  a  social  system  that  was 
the  very  nursery  of  snobbishness.  In  his  delightful  category,  he  omits  no  type  of 
the  English-bred  Snob  of  the  university,  of  the  court,  of  the  town,  of  the  country, 
of  the  Church;  he  even  includes  himself,  when  on  one  occasion  lie  severed  his  friend- 
ship for  a  man  who  ate  peas  with  a  knife,  —  an  exhibition  of  snobbery  he  repented 
of  later,  when  the  offender  had  discovered  the  genteel  uses  of  the  fork.  The  half- 
careless,  half -cynical  humor  of  it  all  becomes  serious  in  the  last  paragraph  of  the 
last  paper:  — 

"I  am  sick  of  court  circulars.  I  loathe  haut-ton  intelligence.  I  believe  such 
words  as  Fashionable,  Exclusive,  Aristocratic,  and  the  like,  to  be  wicked  unchristian 
epithets  that  ought  to  be  banished  from  honest  vocabularies.  A  court  system  that 
sends  men  of  genius  to  the  second  table,  I  hold  to  be  a  Snobbish  System.  A  society 
that  sets  up  to  be  polite,  and  ignores  Art  and  Letters,  I  hold  to  be  a  Snobbish  Society, 
You  who  despise  your  neighbor  are  a  Snob;  you  who  forget  your  friends,  meanly 
to  follow  after  those  of  a  higher  degree,  are  a  Snob;  you  who  are  ashamed  of  your 
poverty  and  blush  for  your  calling,  are  a  Snob;  as  are  you  who  boast  of  your  pedi- 
gree or  are  proud  of  your  wealth." 

BOOK  OF  THE  COURTIER,  THE,  by  the  Count  Baldassare  Castiglione,  a 
treatise  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  on  the  qualities  and  ideals  of  a  gentleman,  was 
published  in  1528.  The  author,  a  distinguished  courtier  and  diplomatist,  was  in 
the  service  of  the  Duke  of  Urbino  from  1503  to  1516,  and  his  book  records  the  ele- 
gance and  literary  culture  of  that  court,  the  most  brilliant  of  the  Italian  Renaissance. 
Under  the  leadership  of  the  gracious  and  accomplished  duchess,  Elisabetta  Gonzaga, 


ioo  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

a  group  of  ladies  and  gentlemen,  including  Giuliano  de'  Medici,  Bembo,  and  Bib- 
biera,  resolve  to  spend  several  evenings  in  discussing  the  nature  of  the  perfect  cour- 
tier. That  the  courtier  should  be  skilled  in  arms  and  manly  exercises,  socially  gifted, 
a  good  musician,  well-read,  a  prudent  and  high-principled  counsellor,  and  that  his 
accomplishments  should  be  manifested  with  a  careless  ease  and  grace  free  from  all 
indication  of  labored  study  are  the  central  conceptions  of  the  company.  There  is 
an  interesting  digression  on  the  ideal  court  lady  and  an  eloquent  panegyric  by  Bembo 
on  Platonic  love.  A  skill  akin  to  Plato's  is  shown  in  the  management  of  the  dialogue, 
the  graceful  play  of  repartee,  and  the  invention  of  natural  and  picturesque  inci- 
dents to  add  life  and  variety  to  the  record.  An  English  translation  by  Thomas 
Hoby  (published  1561,  reprinted  1900)  is  an  important  monument  of  Tudor  prose 
and  had  a  marked  influence  on  Elizabethan  literature  and  ideals. 

BOOKS  AND  BOOKMEN,  by  Andrew  Lang  (1886),  is,  as  the  author  states  in 
the  preface,  "the  swan-song  of  a  book-hunter.  The  author  does  not  book-hunt 
any  more:  he  leaves  the  sport  to  others,  and  with  catalogues  he  lights  a  humble 
cigarette."  Thus  humorously  he  ushers  in  a  little  volume  of  rare  vintage;  the 
mellow  reflections  of  one  whose  scholarship  in  the  subjects  he  treats  is  only  equaled 
by  his  geniality.  He  writes  with  pleasant  nonchalance  of  'Literary  Forgeries'; 
of  'Parish  Registers';  of  'Bookmen  at  Rome';  of  'Bibliomania  in  France';  of 
1  Book-Bindings';  of  'Elzevirs';  of  'Japanese  Bogie-Books, '  —  a  feast  indeed  for 
an  epicurean.  The  volume  ends  with  a  prayer  that  it  may  be  somehow  made  legiti- 
mate "to  steal  the  books  that  never  can  be  mine." 

BOOKS  AND  CULTURE,  see  ESSAYS  of  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie. 

BOOKS  AND  THEIR  MAKERS,  A.D.  476-1709;  by  George  Haven  Putnam, 
A.M.  (2  vols.,  1896).  A  history  of  the  production  and  distribution  of  the  books 
that  constitute  literature,  from  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  when  copyright  law,  in  an  English  statute  of  1710,  first  re- 
cognized the  writings  of  an  author  as  property  to  be  protected.  In  an  earlier  work, 
'Authors  and  their  Public  in  Ancient  Times, '  Mr.  Putnam  covers  the  whole  ground 
of  the  making  and  circulation  of  books  down  to  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
The  three  volumes  admirably  tell  the  story  of  books,  from  their  beginnings  in  Baby- 
lonia, Egypt,  India,  Persia,  China,  Greece,  and  Rome,  to  the  age  of  the  printed 
in  place  of  the  manuscript  book;  and  then  the  immensely  expanded  story  from 
Gutenberg's  production  of  a  working  printing-press  to  the  "Act  of  Queen  Anne." 
It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  entertaining  or  a  more  delightfully  instructive  story 
than  that  here  drawn  from  wide  resources  of  scholarly  research,  critical  discernment, 
and  broadly  sympathetic  appreciation  of  every  phase  of  a  great  theme,  and  handled 
with  happy  literary  skill.  The  history  of  the  making  of  manuscript  books  in  the 
monasteries,  and  later  in  the  universities,  and  of  some  libraries  of  such  books;  and 
the  further  history  of  the  great  printer-publishers  after  the  revival  of  learning,  and 
of  some  of  the  greatest  authors,  such  as  Erasmus  and  Luther,  is  a  record  of  that 
pathway  through  twelve  centuries  which  has  more  of  light  and  life  than  any  other 
we  can  follow.  By  readers  who  value  literature  as  bread  of  life  and  source  of  light 
to  mankind,  Mr.  Putnam's  volumes  will  be  given  an  important  place, 

BOOTS  AND  SADDLES;  or,  LIFE  IN  DAKOTA  WITH  GENERAL  CUSTER,  by  Eliz- 
abeth B.  Custer  (1885).  The  author  says  that  her  object  in  writing  this  book, 
which  records  her  experiences  in  garrison  and  camp  with  her  husband,  was  to  give 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  101 

civilians  a  glimpse  of  the  real  existence  of  soldiers  in  the  field.  Her  married  life 
was  not  serene:  she  was  left  in  186.4  in  a  lonely  Virginia  farmhouse  to  finish  her 
honeymoon  alone,  her  husband  being  summoned  to  the  front ;  and  at  scarcely  any 
time  during  the  next  twelve  years  was  she  free  from  fear  of  immediate  or  threatened 
peril.  General  Custer  was  ordered  to  Dakota  in  the  spring  of  1873.  Mrs.  Ouster's 
book  gives  a  lively  and  detailed  account  of  their  life  there  from  1873  to  1876,  the 
time  of  the  general's  death.  All  those  little  details  —  the  household  habits  and 
changes,  the  packings  and  movings,  the  servants'  remarks,  the  costumes,  the  weather, 
the  frolics  and  the  feasts  —  that  are  so  much  to  women,  and  the  absence  of  which 
makes  the  picture  so  dim,  here  appear.  The  regimental  balls,  the  pack  of  hounds, 
her  husband's  habits  and  looks  and  horsemanship,  the  coyotes,  the  sleigh-rides, 
the  carrying  of  the  mail,  the  burning  of  the  officers'  quarters,  the  curious  characters 
and  excursionists,  the  perplexities  and  pleasures  of  army  domestic  life,  the  Indians, 
the  gossip,  the  ins  and  outs  of  army  etiquette,  the  deserters,  the  practical  jokes, 
are  duly  described.  Her  sketch  of  thirty-six  hours  spent  in  a  cabin  during  a  Dakota 
blizzard,  with  no  fire,  the  general  sick  in  bed  and  requiring  her  attention,  the  wind 
shrieking  outside  and  at  times  bursting  in  the  door,  the  air  outdoors  almost  solid 
with  snow  that  penetrated  the  smallest  cracks  and  collected  on  the  counterpane, 
and  (to  help  matters)  a  party  of  bewildered  soldiers,  some  of  them  partially  frozen, 
claiming  her  hospitality  and  care,  —  is  very  graphic. 

There  is  an  interesting  chapter  on  General  Ouster's  literary  habits,  and  an 
appendix  containing  extracts  from  his  letters.  Captain  King  has  described  army 
life  in  the  West  from  the  masculine  side;  such  a  book  as  this  paints  it  from  the 
feminine. 

BORIS  GODOUNOFF,  an  historical  drama,  mainly  in  blank  verse,  written 
by  Alexander  Sergye*evitch  Pushkin,  in  1826  and  first  acted  in  1831.  Inspired  by  the 
chronicle-histories  of  Shakespeare,  Pushkin  chose  for  his  theme  the  troubled  period 
of  Russian  history  that  followed  the  death  of  Czar  Theodore,  the  son  of  Ivan  the 
Terrible,  in  1598.  The  play  begins  at  Moscow,  where  conversations  of  the  nobles 
and  the  people  show  the  dangerous  condition  of  the  realm.  Theodore  has  died 
without  an  heir,  his  younger  brother,  Dimitry,  having  been  assassinated  in  1591. 
Although  suspected  of  having  ordered  the  death  of  Dimitry,  the  late  czar's  brother- 
in-law,  Boris  Godounoff,  is  felt  to  be  the  strongest  man  in  Russia  and  is  urged  by 
nobles  and  people  to  accept  the  crown.  After  some  show  of  resistance  he  complies. 
The  scenes  now  shift  to  the  year  1603.  In  the  monastery  of  Tchudoff  is  a  young 
monk,  Gregory  Otrepieff,  of  a  noble  Galician  family.  Restless  and  ambitious  he 
listens  with  delight  to  the  stories  of  an  old  monk  who  tells  him  of  the  exploits  of 
Ivan  and  Theodore  and  the  murder  of  Dimitry,  which  he  knows  to  have  been  or- 
dered by  Boris.  Learning  that  he  and  the  murdered  prince  would  have  been  of 
the  same  age,  Gregory  resolves  to  pass  himself  off  as  Dimitry,  saved  from  death. 
He  escapes  from  the  monastery,  by  cleverness  and  address  evades  the  guards  who 
have  overtaken  him  at  a  tavern,  and  gets  across  the  border  into  Lithuania.  News 
soon  comes  that  he  has  proclaimed  himself  as  Dimitry  and  that  the  Polish  king  and 
people  have  accepted  him  and  are  preparing  an  invasion  to  seat  him  on  the  throne. 
The  Russians  are  profoundly  stirred  by  the  intelligence,  though  restrained  by  the 
stem  measures  of  Czar  Boris.  Meanwhile  Gregory,  the  false  Dimitry,  delays  his 
attack,  while  he  makes  love  to  the  beautiful  Marina,  daughter  of  the  Polish  voyevod, 
Mnichek.  In  a  powerful  scene  with  her  he  admits  that  he  is  an  impostor,  not  endur- 
ing to  receive  her  love  in  another's  name.  At  first  she  overwhelms  him  with  scorn 


102  THE    READER  S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS 

and  contempt;  but  when  he  says  defiantly  that  he  is  the  czarevitch  in  spirit,  that 
whether  the  Poles  believe  him  to  be  the  true  or  false  Dimitry  they  will  follow  him  as 
a  pretext  of  war,  and  that  he  will  prove  himself  worthy  in  spite  of  her  scorn,  she 
admires  his  manliness  and  promises  that  if  he  conquers  Boris  and  makes  himself 
czar  she  will  many  him.  We  are  then  shown  a  number  of  battle  and  counsel  scenes 
as  the  invaders  enter  Russia  and  Boris  takes  measures  against  them.  A  prelim- 
inary victory  for  the  false  Dimitry  is  followed  by  his  defeat  by  superior  numbers. 
He  retires,  however,  and  raises  a  new  army,  stirred  up  by  the  belief  that  he  is  Dimitry. 
At  this  juncture  Czar  Boris  suddenly  dies,  giving  to  his  son  advice  which  resembles 
that  of  Henry  IV.  to  Prince  Hal.  The  young  Theodore  has  no  opportunity  to  fol- 
low it,  however.  An  ambassador  from  Dimitry  soon  urges  the  people  to  an  uprising; 
and  the  new  czar  with  his  sister  Xenia  is  killed  in  prison.  The  play  is  a  mere  suc- 
cession of  historical  tableaux  without  division  into  acts  and  without  any  well-marked 
structure.  The  style  has  the  simple  directness  of  the  old  chronicles  from  which 
the  story  is  drawn.  The  incidents  are  represented  with  historic  faithfulness  and 
dramatic  force.  The  opera  by  Moussorgsky  founded  on  this  drama  was  given  in 
St.  Petersburg  in  1874,  and  in  a  first  performance  in  New  York  in  1913. 

BORIS  LENSKY,  a  German  novel  by  Ossip  Schubin,  was  published  in  an  English 
translation  in  1891.  The  story  is  centred  in  the  career  of  a  famous  musician,  whose 
name  gives  the  title  to  the  book.  A  violinist  of  world-wide  reputation,  a  man  to 
whom  life  has  brought  golden  gifts,  he  is  yet  unhappy,  as  forever  possessed  with  a 
craving  for  the  unattainable.  The  most  unselfish  love  of  his  barren  life  is  for  his 
beautiful  daughter  Mascha.  Her  downfall,  when  little  more  than  a  child,  becomes 
a  means  of  testing  this  love.  Nita  von  SankjeVich,  a  woman  whom  Lensky  had 
once  sought  to  ruin,  comes  to  his  rescue  in  Mascha's  trouble,  and  procures  the 
girl's  marriage  to  her  false  lover.  The  book  closes  with  Lensky 's  death;  when  his 
son  Nikolai,  who  had  cherished  a  hopeless  love  for  Nita,  begins  a  new  life  of  calm 
renunciation,  free  from  the  selfishness  of  passion. 

BOSTONIANS,  THE,  by  Henry  James,  was  published  in  1886.  Written  in  a 
satirical  vein,  it  presents  with  unpleasant  fidelity  a  strong-minded  Boston  woman 
possessed  by  a  "mission."  Olive  Chancellor,  a  pale,  nervous,  intense  Bostonian> 
"who  takes  life  hard,"  is  never  so  happy  as  when  struggling,  striving,  suffering  in 
a  cause.  The  cause  to  which  she  is  devoted  throughout  the  novel  is  the  emancipa- 
tion of  women.  Living  in  a  one-sex  universe  of  her  own  creation,  she  takes  no 
account  of  men,  or  regards  them  as  monsters  and  tyrants.  When  the  book  opens 
she  discovers,  or  believes  she  discovers,  a  kindred  soul,  —  Verena  Tarrant,  the 
daughter  of  a  mesmeric  healer,  a  beautiful  red-haired  impressionable  girl;  a  singu- 
larly attractive  prey  for  the  monster  man,  but  possessed  nevertheless  of  gifts  in- 
valuable to  the  cause  of  women's  rights,  if  properly  utilized.  Certain  phases  of 
Boston  life  —  as  women's  club  meetings,  intellectual  stances,  and  lectures  —  are 
depicted  with  great  cleverness;  and  the  characters  are  delineated  with  James's  wonted 
shrewdness  and  humor.  The  novel  abounds  in  epigrammatic  sentences.  Olive's 
smile  is  likened  to  "a  thin  ray  of  moonlight  resting  upon  the  wall  of  a  prison/'  The 
smile  of  Miss  Birdseye,  a  worn  philanthropist,  was  "a  mere  sketch  of  a  smile,  — 
a  kind  of  installment,  or  payment  on  account;  it  seemed  to  say  that  she  would 
smile  more  if  she  had  time."  Miss  Chancellor  "was  not  old  —  she  was  sharply 
young/' 

BOSWELL'S  LIFE  OF  JOHNSON,  see  JOHNSON. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  103 

BOTANIC  GARDEN,  THE,  by  Erasmus  Darwin.  The  first  part  of  this  long  poem 
appeared  in  1781;  and  received  so  warm  a  welcome  that  the  second  part,  contain- 
ing the  'Loves  of  the  Plants, '  was  published  in  1789.  It  was  intended  "to  describe, 
adorn,  and  allegorize  the  Linnasan  system  of  botany."  After  the  classic  fashion  of 
his  day,  the  poet  adopts  a  galaxy  of  gnomes,  fays,  sylphs,  nymphs,  and  salamanders; 
affording,  as  he  says,  "a  proper  machinery  for  a  botanic  poem,  as  it  is  probable  they 
were  originally  the  names  of  hieroglyphic  figures  representing  the  elements."  And 
concerning  the  '  Loves  of  the  Plants, '  he  remarks  that  as  Ovid  transmuted  men 
and  women,  and  even  gods  and  goddesses,  into  trees  and  flowers,  it  is  only  fair  that 
"  some  of  them  should  be  re- transmuted  into  their  original  shapes. 

"Prom  giant  oaks,  that  wave  their  branches  dark, 
To  the  dwarf  moss  that  clings  upon  their  bark. 
What  beaux  and  beauties  crowd  the  gaudy  groves. 
And  woo  and  win  their  vegetable  loves!" 

The  whole  poem,  of  many  hundreds  of  lines,  is  written  in  this  glittering  heroic 
verse;  some  of  which  is  poetical,  but  the  greater  part  labored,  prosaic,  and  unin- 
teresting. The  book  might  have  been  forgotten  but  for  the  parody  upon  it,  'The 
Loves  of  the  Triangles/  which  appeared  in  the  Anti- Jacobin;  much  to  the  amuse- 
ment, it  is  said,  of  the  caricatured  poet.  As  the  grandfather  of  Charles  Darwin, 
and  as  an  early  observer  of  some  of  the  natural  phenomena  upon  which  the  Dar- 
winian system  rests,  Erasmus  Darwin  has  of  late  years  become  once  more  an  inter- 
esting figure. 

BRAMBLE-BEES,  see  MASON-BEES. 

BRAVO,  THE,  by  James  Fenimore  Cooper  (1831),  is  a  tale  of  Venice  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  full  of  mystery  and  intrigue,  and  the  high-sounding  language  which 
fifty  years  ago  was  thought  the  natural  utterance  of  romance.  Don  Camillo  Mon- 
forte,  a  Paduan  noble,  has  a  right  by  inheritance  to  a  place  in  the  Venetian  Senate. 
He  becomes  obnoxious  to  the  Council,  and  a  bravo  is  set  on  his  track  to  kill  him. 
He  has  fallen  in  love  with  Violetta,  a  young  orphan  heiress  designed  for  the  son 
of  an  important  senator;  and  she  consents  to  elope  with  him.  A  priest  marries 
them;  but  by  a  trick  she  is  separated  from  him  and  carried  off.  The  Bravo,  sick 
of  his  horrible  trade,  has  refused  to  take  a  hand  in  the  kidnapping  of  Violetta;  and 
confesses  to  Don  Camillo  all  he  knows  of  it,  promising  to  help  him  recover  his  bride. 
Jacopo,  the  Bravo,  finds  her  in  prison,  and  contrives  her  escape  to  her  husband; 
but  is  himself  denounced  to  the  Council  of  Three,  and  pays  for  his  treachery  to  them 
with  his  head.  The  romance  is  of  an  antiquated  fashion;  and  has  not  the  genuine- 
ness and  personal  force  of  Cooper's  sea  stories  and  'Leatherstocking  Tales,'  which 
grew  out  of  an  honest  love  for  his  subjects. 

BREAD-WINNERS,  THE,  by  John  Hay,  appeared  anonymously  in  1883.  I*  *s  a 
social  study  of  modern  life.  Alfred  Farnham,  a  retired  army  officer,  takes  a  kindly 
interest  in  Maud  Matchin,  the  handsome  but  vulgar  daughter  of  a  master  carpenter 
in  a  Western  city.  Maud's  head  is  turned  by  Farnham's  kindness,  and  she  boldly 
confesses  her  love  to  him  —  which  is  not  reciprocated.  Maud's  rejected  lover, 
Sam  Sleeny,  an  honest  but  ignorant  journeyman  in  Matchin's  employ,  is  jealous  of 
Farnham.  He  is  dominated  by  Offitt,  a  vicious  demagogue,  and  joins  a  labor-reform 
organization.  Farnham  loves  his  beautiful  neighbor  Alice  Belding.  She  refuses  his 
addresses,  but  soon  discovers  that  her  heart  is  really  his.  During  a  riotous  labor 


io4  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

strike  (described  at  length),  Farnham  organizes  a  band  of  volunteer  patrolmen  for  the 
protection  of  life  and  property.  His  own  house  is  attacked  by  the  mob,  and  Sleeny 
assaults  its  owner  with  a  hammer;  but  failing  to  kill  him,  threatens  future  vengeance. 
OfHtt  now  pays  his  addresses  to  Maud,  who  intimates  that  she  desires  to  see  Farn- 
ham suffer  for  his  affront  to  her.  Offitt  stealthily  enters  Famham's  home,  strikes 
him  with  a  hammer  borrowed  from  Sleeny,  and  makes  off  with  a  large  sum  of  money 
—  just  as  Alice  and  Mrs.  Belding  arrive  in  time  to  care  for  Farnham's  serious  hurts. 
OfEtt  dexterously  directs  suspicion  to  Sleeny,  who  is  arrested.  The  real  culprit 
hastens  to  Maud,  and  urges  her  to  fly  with  him.  Suspecting  the  truth,  she  refuses, 
and  wheedles  from  Offitt  his  secret,  which  she  at  once  reveals.  In  the  meanwhile, 
Sleeny  breaks  jail  and  flies  to  Maud's  home.  Here  he  meets  Offitt,  and  kills  him  for 
his  perfidy.  Sleeny  is  at  once  cleared  of  the  charge  of  assaulting  Farnham,  but  is 
tried  for  the  killing  of  Offitt  and  acquitted  upon  the  ground  of  temporary  insanity. 
The  novel  is  brilliantly  written,  and  its  presentation  of  the  conditions  of  labor  is 
very  graphic. 

BRIDE  FROM  THE  BUSH,  A,  by  Ernest  William  Hornung  (1890),  is  a  simple  tale, 
directly  told.  There  is  little  descriptive  work  in  it,  the  characters  are  few  and  dis- 
tinct, and  the  story  is  developed  naturally. 

Sir  James  and  Lady  Bligh,  at  home  in  England,  are  startled  by  the  news  from 
their  elder  son,  Alfred,  that  he  is  bringing  home  a  "bride  from  the  bush,"  to  his 
father's  house.  The  bride  arrives,  and  drives  to  distraction  her  husband's  conven- 
tional family,  by  her  outrages  upon  conventional  propriety.  Gladys  tries  hard  to 
improve;  but  after  an  outbreak  more  flagrant  than  usual,  she  runs  away  home  to 
Australia,  because  she  has  overheard  a  conversation  which  implies  that  her  husband's 
prospects  will  be  brighter  without  her,  and  that  he  has  ceased  to  love  her.  Alfred, 
broken-hearted  at  her  disappearance,  and  apprehensive  for  a  time  that  she  has 
drowned  herself,  breaks  down  completely;  and  as  soon  as  he  is  partially  recovered, 
he  goes  out  to  Australia  to  find  her.  On  the  way  to  her  father's  "run,"  he  takes 
shelter  from  a  sand-storm  in  the  hut  of  the  "boundary  rider,"  finds  a  picture  of 
himself  on  the  pillow,  and  surmises  the  truth,'  of  which  he  is  assured  a  few  moments 
later,  when  Gladys,  the  "boundary  rider, "  comes  galloping  in.  Explanations  follow; 
and  the  reunited  couple  decide  to  remain  in  Australia,  and  never  to  return  "home" 
except  for  an  occasional  visit.  The  book  is  full  of  a  spirit  of  adventure,  and  a  keen 
sense  of  humor,  which  give  value  to  a  somewhat  slight  performance. 

BRIDE  OF  LAMMERMOOR,  THE,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  (1819),  is  included  in  the 
group  of  '  Waverley  Novels'  called  'Tales  of  my  Landlord/  The  plot  was  suggested 
by  an  incident  in  the  family  history  of  the  earls  of  Stair.  The  scene  is  laid  on  the 
east  coast  of  Scotland,  in  the  year  1700.  The  hero  is  Edgar,  Master  of  Ravens  wood, 
a  young  man  of  noble  family,  penniless  and  proud.  He  has  vowed  vengeance  against 
the  present  owner  of  the  Ravenswood  estates,  Sir  William  Ashton,  Lord  Keeper, 
whom  he  considers  guilty  of  fraud;  but  foregoes  his  plans  on  falling  in  love  with  Lucy, 
Sir  William's  daughter.  There  is  a  secret  betrothal;  the  ambitious  Lady  Ashton 
endeavors  to  force  her  daughter  to  marry  another  suitor;  and  in  the  struggle  Lucy 
goes  mad,  and  Ravenswood,  thinking  himself  rejected,  comes  to  an  untimely  end. 
The  most  famous  character  in  the  book  is  the  amusing  Caleb  Balderstone,  the 
devoted  old  steward  of  Ravenswood,  who  endeavors  constantly  to  save  the  family 
honor  and  to  conceal  his  master's  poverty  by  ingenious  devices  and  lies,  and  whose 
name  has  become  the  symbol  of  "  the  constant  service  of  the  antique  world."  Though 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  105 

sombre  and  depressing,  the  'Bride  of  Lammermoor1  is  very  popular;  and  the  plot 
has  been  used  by  Donizetti  in  the  opera  'Lucia/ 

BRIDGEWATER  TREATISES,  THE,  were  the  result  of  a  singular  contest  in  com- 
pliance with  the  terms  of  the  will  of  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater,  who  died  in  1829.  He 
left  £8000  to  be  paid  to  the  author  of  the  best  treatise  on  'The  Power,  Wisdom,  and 
Goodness  of  God,  as  manifested  in  the  Creation.'  The  judges  decided  to  divide  the 
money  among  the  authors  of  the  eight  following  treatises:  —  'The  Adaptation  of 
External  Nature  to  the  Moral  and  Intellectual  Constitution  of  Man,1  by  Dr.  Thomas 
Chalmers,  1833 ; '  Chemistry,  Meteorology,  and  the  Function  of  Digestion/  by  William 
Prout,  1834;  'History,  Habits,  and  Instincts  of  Animals,'  by  William  Kirby,  1835; 
'Geology  and  Mineralogy,'  by  Dean  (William)  Buckland,  1836;  'The  Hand  ...  as 
Evincing  Design,'  by  Sir  Charles  Bell,  1833;  'The  Adaptation  of  External  Nature 
to  the  Physical  Condition  of  Man/  by  John  Kidd,  M.D.,  1833;  'Astronomy  and 
General  Physics,'  by  William  Whewell,  1833;  'Animal  and  Vegetable  Physiology ,» 
by  Peter  Mark  Roget,  1834.  All  these  essays  were  published  as  Tracts  for  the  Times; 
they  had  a  large  circulation,  and  no  small  influence  in  their  own  period. 

BRIGHT,  JOHN,  THE  LIFE  OF,  by  G.  M.  Trevelyan  (1913).  Bright's  biog- 
rapher has  the  supreme  qualifications  of  sympathy  for  the  subject,  interest  in  the 
material  which  he  has  to  handle,  and  consummate  literary  skill.  Besides 
supplying  a  detailed  account  of  Bright's  early  days,  entrance  into  public  life, 
and  public  activities,  he  paints  an  intimate  and  life-like  portrait  of  the  man  which 
enables  the  reader  to  realize  Bright's  unique  power  as  an  orator.  "Bright, "  he  says, 
"was  first  and  foremost  a  preacher  of  broad  principles  in  their  moral  and  poetic  force, 
a  speaker  less  instructive,  but  even  more  moving  than  Gladstone."  He  has  himself 
described  the  difference  between  them  thus:  "When  I  speak  I  strike  across  from 
headland  to  headland.  Mr.  Gladstone  follows  the  coastline;  and  when  he  comes  to  a 
navigable  river  he  is  unable  to  resist  the  temptation  of  tracing  it  to  its  source." 
On  another  occasion  Bright  said,  quoting  Milton,  '"True  Eloquence  I  find  to  be 
none  but  the  serious  and  hearty  love  of  truth/  And  I  have  endeavored,  as  far  as  I 
have  had  the  opportunities  of  speaking  in  public,  to  abide  by  that  wise  and  weighty 
saying.  So  far  as  I  am  able  to  examine  myself,  during  the  thirty  years  that  I  have 
been  permitted  to  speak  at  meetings  of  my  countrymen,  I  am  not  conscious  that  I 
have  ever  used  an  argument  which  I  did  not  believe  to  be  sound,  or  have  stated 
anything  as  a  fact  which  I  did  not  believe  to  be  true."  Hence  the  man  who  at  the 
beginning  of  his  career  was  so  hated  by  some  people  that  they  used  to  say  "they 
would  go  twenty  miles  to  see  John  Bright  hanged"  became  a  national  institution. 

BRITAIN,  see  H3STORIA  BRITONUM. 

BRITAIN,  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY  OF,  see  ECCLESIASTICAL, 

BRITISH  INDUSTRY  AND  COMMERCE,  THE  GROWTH  OF,  see  GROWTH. 

BROAD  HIGHWAY,  THE,  by  Jefferey  Farnol  (1911).  The  scene  of  this  story  is 
laid  in  England  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  gives  the  adventures 
and  experiences  of  Peter  Vibart,  related  in  a  graphic  and  picturesque  manner  by 
himself.  An  orphan,  he  has  been  brought  up  by  a  rich  and  eccentric  uncle  who  dies 
leaving  "him  his  fortune  if  he  marries  Lady  Sophia  Sefton  within  the  year,  otherwise 
he  is  cut  off  with  a  legacy  of  ten  guineas.  Peter,  being  independent  in  spirit,  declines 
to  marry  a  person  whom  he  does  not  know  and  taking  his  ten  guineas  starts  out  on 


io6  •  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

"The  Broad  Highway"  to  seek  his  fortune.  He  meets  with  all  sorts  of  thrilling 
adventures,  is  soon  robbed  of  his  money  and  left  penniless.  Being  skilled  in  wrestling, 
Peter  is  victorious  on  many  occasions  when  he  is  called  upon  to  show  his  prowess,  and 
bearing  a  striking  resemblance  to  his  dissolute  cousin  Maurice  Vibart,  who  is  a 
famous  fighter,  he  is  frequently  taken  for  him.  A  great  lover  of  nature,  as  well  as  a 
scholar,  Peter  thoroughly  enjoys  his  wandering  existence  and  decides  to  try  his  hand 
at  the  trade  of  blacksmith,  meanwhile,  taking  up  his  habitation  in  a  deserted  hut  in 
a  hollow  in  the  woods.  One  night  he  is  awakened  by  the  bursting  in  of  his  door  and 
the  sudden  entrance  of  a  beautiful  woman  who  is  fleeing  from  a  pursuer.  Peter  at 
once  comes  to  the  rescue  and  after  a  fierce  fight  downs  his  adversary,  who  proves  to 
be  his  cousin  Maurice.  The  lady  gives  her  name  as  Charmian  Brown  and  explains 
that  she  has  started  to  elope  with  Maurice  Vibart  but  repenting  her  rash  act  has 
sought  Peter's  hut  as  refuge.  Finding  Peter  much  injured  by  his  encounter,  Char- 
mian binds  up  his  wounds  and  ministers  to  his  comfort.  Wishing  to  hide  herself  and 
finding  Peter  a  thorough  gentleman,  Charmian  remains  at  the  hut,  cooks  his  meals, 
and  makes  an  ideal  home  for  him.  Peter,  of  course,  falls  in  love  with  his  charming 
companion  and  they  decide  to  go  to  the  minister's  house  to  be  married.  On  their 
return  Peter  is  called  to  the  bedside  of  a  dying  friend  and  during  his  absence  Maurice 
Vibart  is  mysteriously  shot  outside  of  his  house.  Peter  suspects  Charmian,  who  tells 
him  she  only  shot  her  pistol  in  the  air,  and  lets  himself  be  arrested  for  the  murder. 
He  escapes  from  prison  and  runs  across  the  real  murderer  who  is  an  old  enemy  of 
Maurice's  and  who  confesses  to  the  crime.  Peter  overjoyed,  hastens  to  his  wife, 
who  proves  to  be  Lady  Sophia  Sefton,  who  has  disguised  herself  as  Charmian  Brown. 

BRONTE,  CHARLOTTE,  LIFE  OF,  by  Mrs.  Gaskell,  was  published  in  1857,  two 
years  after  the  death  of  the  author  of  'Jane  Eyre.'  It  has  taken  rank  as  a  classic  in 
biographical  literature,  though  not  without  inaccuracies.  Its  charm  and  enduring 
quality  are  the  result  of  its  ideal  worth.  It  is  a  strong,  human,  intimate  record  of  a 
unique  personality,  all  the  more  valuable  because  biased  by  friendship.  A  biography 
written  by  the  heart  as  well  as  the  head,  it  remains  for  that  reason  the  most  vital  of 
all  lives  of  Charlotte  Bronte" .  A  mere  scrap-book  of  facts  goes  very  little  way  toward 
explaining  a  genius  of  such  intensity.  A  new  edition,  ed.  by  Clement  K.  Shorter 
was  published  in  1900. 

BRONTE,  CHARLOTTE,  AND  HER  CIRCLE,  by  Clement  K.  Shorter,  was  pub- 
lished in  1896.  It  is  not  a  biography,  but  a  new  illumination  of  a  rare  personality, 
through  an  exhaustive  collection  of  letters  written  by,  or  relating  to,  the  novelist  of 
Haworth.  In  the  preface  the  editor  writes:  "It  is  claimed  for  the  following  book 
of  some  five  hundred  pages  that  the  larger  part  of  it  is  an  addition  of  entirely  new 
material  to  the  romantic  story  of  the  Brontes."  This  material  was  furnished  partly 
by  the  Rev.  Arthur  Bell  Nicholls,  Charlotte's  husband,  and  partly  by  her  lifelong 
friend  Miss  Ellen  Nussey. 

The  arrangement  of  the  book  is  calculated  to  assist  the  reader  to  a  clearer  under- 
standing of  Charlotte  Bronte's  life.  A  chapter  is  given  to  each  person  or  group  of 
persons  in  any  way  closely  related  to  her.  Even  the  curates  of  Haworth  are  not 
overlooked.  Yet  the  editor's  discrimination  is  justified  in  every  instance  by  letters 
relating  directly  to  the  person  or  persons  under  consideration.  The  entire  work  is 
an  interesting  contribution  to  the  ever-growing  body  of  Bronte  literature. 

BROOK  KERITH,  THE,  by  George  Moore  (1915).    The  author's  theory  of  the 
"Christ  myth"  is  the  theme  of  an  historical  novel,  the  life  of  Jesus.    The  first  part 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  ,  107 

of  the  book  is  the  story  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  the  son  of  the  rich  merchant.    The 
setting  is  the  little  Galilean  village  on  the  lake,  the  picture  of  the  period,  and  the 
customs  of  Jewish  family  life,  and  primitive  sects  like  the  Essenes.    Joseph  becomes 
interested  in  Jesus,  the  shepherd,  who  has  left  his  flocks  to  foretell  the  end  of  the 
world.    Peter,  James,  and  John,  fishermen  in  his  father's  employ,  become  disciples  of 
Jesus,  and  Joseph  would  also  follow  him  but  for  his  father's  illness  and  his  promise 
not  to  leave  him.     He  does  not  see  Jesus  again  until  he  finds  him  crucified  on  the 
cross  in  Jerusalem.    Joseph  asks  his  friend  Pilate  for  permission  to  remove  the  body 
for  burial,  and  takes  Jems  to  his  own  tomb.    After  the  holy  women,  Alary  and 
Marcha,  have  left  the  tomb,  Joseph  discovers  that  Jesus  is  still  living,  and  carries 
him  home  in  the  night  and  hides  him  in  the  empty  gardener's  cottage.    Joseph  listens 
to  the  tales  of  the  resurrection  without  comment.    As  soon  as  Jesus  recovers  from  his 
wounds,  Joseph  goes  with  him  to  the  Essenes  by  the  Brook  Kerith,  where  Jesus  had 
lived  before  his  ministry,  as  the  humble  shepherd  of  the  community.    For  thirty 
years  Jesus  tends  the  flocks.     He  comes  to  admit  to  himself  that  he  committed  a 
great  sin  of  blasphemy  against  God  when  he  believed  he  was  the  Messiah  prophesied 
by  the  Book  of  Daniel.     He  repents  the  violence  of  his  teachings  in  Jerusalem. 
Paid,  persecuted  for  preaching  Christianity,  takes  refuge  one  night  with  the  brethren. 
Jesus  asks  him,  "And  who  are  these  Christians?"     Paul  tells  him  the  story  of  the 
resurrection  and  the  mediation  of  the  Son,  dying  on  the  cross  for  the  sins  of  the  world. 
Jesus  is  horrified  at  the  supernatural  Christianity  of  Paul's  imagination,  and  resolves 
to  go  to  Jerusalem  and  tell  the  truth.     Paul  considers  him  a  mad  man  and  impostor, 
and  Jesus  is  forced  to  see  that  his  story  will  not  be  believed.    In  accordance  with  one 
of  the  old  legends  it  is  suggested  that  Jesus  goes  to  preach  in  India.    Moore's  con- 
ception of  Jesus  is  two-fold,  the  spiritual  leader  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the 
fanatic,  misled  by  pride  of  the  scourging  in  the  Temple,  and  always  one  of  the  great 
men  of  the  ages. 

BROTHERS  KARAMAZOV,  THE,  a  novel  by  Fedor  Dostoevsky  (1879-1880). 
The  three  brothers  are  the  sons  of  a  depraved,  debauched  father,  for  whom  the  two 
older  sons,  Dmitri  and  Ivan,  feel  hatred  and  contempt.  The  youngest  son,  Alyosha, 
is  a  character  like  Prince  Myshkin,  the  "Idiot,"  a  friend  to  all  humanity,  loved  and 
trusted  by  his  father  and  brothers.  Ivan  is  the  intellectual  member  of  the  family, 
a  materialist  and  sceptic,  whose  restless  mind  finally  tortures  itself  to  its  own  de- 
struction. Dmitri,  the  eldest,  is  a  man  of  violent  undisciplined  passions.  He  quarrels 
with  his  father  over  his  inheritance  and  is  his  rival  for  the  love  of  Grushenka,  a 
woman  who  had  been  seduced  and  abandoned  when  a  very  young  girl,  and  is  now  the 
mistress  of  a  rich  old  merchant.  The  father's  passion  is  entirely  base,  but  Dmitri 
loves  her  and  wants  to  marry  her.  The  frenzied  jealousy  of  the  two  is  known  by 
everyone,  and  Dmitri  threatens  to  kill  his  father.  When  the  old  man  is  found 
murdered  and  robbed,  all  the  circumstances  point  to  Dmitri's  guilt.  There  is  a 
fourth  son,  Smerdyakov,  the  illegitimate  child  of  an  innocent  imbecile  girl.  Smer- 
dyakov  is  a  servant  in  the  house,  but  is  not  suspected  because  he  is  an  epileptic  and 
is  found  in  convulsions  when  the  crime  is  discovered.  He  confesses  to  Ivan  that  he 
killed  the  father,  following  to  their  logical  conclusion  Ivan's  idea  that  "all  is  per- 
missible"; Ivan  who  desired  his  father's  death,  realizes  that  he  unknowingly  has 
Instigated  the  murder.  Ivan's  evidence  at  the  trial  does  not  save  his  brother  Dmitri, 
because  he  is  almost  delirious  with  brain  fever,  and  mixes  fact  and  hallucination. 
Smerdyakov  commits  suicide  before  the  trial.  In  drunken  anger  Dmitri  had  written 
?,  letter  to  a  young  girl,  Katerina  Ivanovna,  to  whom  he  was  betrotned,  in  which  he 


icH  THIS  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

threatens  to  kill  his  father  to  get  money.  She  produces  the  letter  to  save  Ivan  whom 
she  really  loves.  Dmitri  is  thus  condemned  through  his  own  folly,  which  prejudices 
the  peasant  jury  against  him. 

BROWNING,  ELIZABETH  BARRETT,  LETTERS  OF.  Edited  by  Frederic  G. 
Kenyon.  (2  vols.,  1897.)  This  definitive  presentation  of  Mrs,  Browning's  charac- 
ter and  career  is  a  selection  from  a  very  large  mass  of  letters  collected  by  Mr.  Brown- 
ing, and  now  used  with  the  consent  of  R.  Barrett  Browning.  It  is  made  a  chronicle, 
and  practically  a  life,  by  the  character  of  the  letters  and  the  addition  of  connecting 
links  of  narrative.  The  letters  give  an  unusually  full  and  interesting  revelation  of 
Mrs.  Browning's  character,  and  of  the  course  of  her  life.  The  absence  of  controversy, 
of  personal  ill-feeling  of  any  kind,  and  of  bitterness  except  on  certain  political  topics, 
is  noted  by  the  editor  as  not  the  result  of  any  excision  of  passages,  but  as  illustrating 
Mrs.  Browning's  sweetness  of  temperament.  The  interest  of  the  work  as  a  chapter 
of  life  and  poetry  in  the  nineteenth  century  is  very  great. 

BRUT,  THE,  a  metrical  chronicle  of  early  British  history,  both  fabulous  and  authen- 
tic, and  the  chief  monument  of  Transitional  Old  English,  first  appeared  not  long 
after  the  year  1200.  Its  author  Layamon,  the  son  of  Leovenath,  was  a  priest,  residing 
at  Ernley  on  the  banks  of  the  Severn  in  Worcestershire.  His  work  is  the  first  MS. 
record  of  a  poem  written  after  the  Conquest  in  the  tongue  of  the  people.  The  Nor- 
man-French influences  had  scarcely  penetrated  to  the  region  where  he  lived.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  inhabitants  were  in  close  proximity  to  the  Welsh.  The  additions 
that  Layamon  made  to  the  'Brut'  show  how  deeply  the  Arthurian  legends  had  sunk 
into  the  minds  of  the  people. 

The  'Brut'  is  a  translation,  with  many  additions,  of  the  French  'Brut  d'Angle- 
terre'  of  Wace,  which  in  its  turn  is  a  translation  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  'Historia 
Britonum.'  Layamon's  version  begins  thus:  — 

"There  was  a  priest  in  the  land  Who  was  named  Layamon.  He  was  son  of 
Leovenath,  —  May  the  Lord  be  gracious  to  him !  —  He  dwelt  at  Ernley,  at  a  noble 
church  Upon  Severn's  bank.  Good  it  seemed  to  him,  Near  Radstone,  Where  he 
read  book.  It  came  to  him  in  mind,  And  in  his  chief  thought  That  he  would  of 
England  Tell  the  noble  deeds.  What  the  men  were  named,  and  whence  they  came, 
Who  English  land  First  had,  After  the  flood  That  came  from  the  Lord  That  de- 
stroyed all  here  That  is  found  alive  Except  Noah  and  Sem  Japhet  and  Cane  And 
their  four  wives  That  were  with  them  in  the  Ark.  Layamon  began  the  Journey  Wide 
over  this  land,  And  procured  the  noble  books  Which  he  took  for  pattern.  He  took 
the  English  book  that  Saint  Bede  made,  Another  he  took,  in  Latin,  That  Saint  Albin 
made,  And  the  fair  Austin  Who  brought  baptism  in  hither;  the  third  book  he  took, 
Laid  there  in  the  midst,  That  a  French  clerk  made,  Who  was  named  Wace,  Who  well 
could  write,  and  he  gave  it  to  the  noble  Eleanor  that  was  Henry's  Queen,  the  high 
King's.  Layamon  laid  down  these  books  and  turned  the  leaves.  He  beheld  them 
lovingly." 

The  'Brut'  contains,  however,  few  traces  of  Bede's  chronicle.  It  follows  Wace 
closely,  but  amplifies  his  work  and  adds  to  it.  Some  of  the  additions  are  concerned 
with  the  legendary  Arthur.  Layamon's  most  poetical  work  is  found  in  them.  The 
beautiful  legends  of  the  great  king  seem  to  have  appealed  powerfully  to  his  imagina- 
tion and  to  his  sympathies  as  a  poet.  He  makes  Arthur  say  in  his  dying  speech:  — 

"I  will  fare  to  Avalun,  to  the  fairest  of  all  maidens,  to  Argante  the  Queen,  an  elf 
most  fair,  and  She  shall  make  my  wounds  all  sound;  make  me  all  whole  with  healing 


THE   READER  S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS  TOg 

draughts.  And  afterwards  I  will  come  again  to  my  kingdom,  and  dwell  with  the 
Britons  with  Mickle  Joy." 

BRUT,  ROMAN  DE.  A  poem  in  eight-syllable  verse,  composed  by  Robert  Wace, 
but  indirectly  modeled  upon  a  legendary  chronicle  of  Brittany  entitled  'Brut  y 
Brenhined'  (Brutus  of  Brittany),  which  it  seems  was  discovered  in  Armorica  by 
Walter,  archdeacon  of  Oxford,  and  translated  into  Latin  by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth. 
This  translation  is  declared  to  have  been  the  source  from  which  Wace  drew  his 
materials.  He  presented  his  poem  to  Eleonore  of  Guyenne  in  1155,  and  it  was 
translated  into  Anglo-Saxon  by  Layamon. 

The  'Roman  de  Brut'  relates  that  after  the  capture  of  Troy  by  the  Greeks, 
^Eneas  came  to  Italy  with  his  son  Ascanius,  and  espoused  Lavinia,  daughter  of  King 
Latinus;  she  duly  presented  a  son  to  him.  This  son,  as  well  as  Ascanius,  succeeded 
to  the  kingly  power;  and  the  throne  devolved  at  last  upon  Silvius,  son  of  Ascanius. 
Silvius  fell  in  love  with  a  damsel  who  died  upon  giving  birth  to  Brutus,  from  whom  the 
'Roman  de  Brut'  takes  its  name.  Brutus  was  a  mighty  hunter.  One  day  he  had 
the  misfortune  to  slay  his  father  with  a  misdirected  arrow  aimed  at  a  stag,  and 
forthwith  he  fled.  First  he  went  to  Greece,  where  he  delivered  the  Trojan  captives; 
and  next  he  gained  the  Armorican  Isles,  which  he  conquered,  giving  them  the  name 
of  Britain.  Afterward  he  made  war  upon  the  king  of  Poitou,  founding  the  city  of 
Tours,  which  he  named  in  honor  of  his  son.  From  Poitou  he  returned  to  the  Ar- 
morican Isles,  overcoming  the  giants  in  possession  of  that  region,  and  once  more 
naming  it  Britain.  He  immediately  founded  the  city  of  London,  and  reigned  long 
and  gloriously  there. 

The  narrative  now  concerns  itself  with  the  descendants  of  Brutus.  The  adven- 
tures of  Lear,  of  Belin,  of  Brennus  who  voyaged  to  Italy,  of  Cassivellaunus  who  so 
bravely  resisted  Cassar,  of  all  the  bellicose  chiefs  who  opposed  the  dominion  of  the 
Roman  emperors,  are  minutely  related.  But  not  until  King  Arthur  is  introduced 
do  we  meet  the  real  hero  of  the  'Roman  de  Brut/  Arthur  performs  prodigies  of 
valor,  is  the  ideal  knight  of  his  order  of  the  Round  Table,  and  finally  departs  for  some 
unknown  region,-  where  it  is  implied  he  becomes  immortal,  and  never  desists  from  the 
performance  of  deeds  of  valor.  In  this  portion  of  the  narrative  figure  the  enchanter 
Merlin,  bard  to  King  Arthur;  the  Holy  Grail,  or  chalice  in  which  were  caught  the 
last  drops  of  the  Savior's  blood  as  he  was  taken  from  the  cross;  Lancelot  of  the  Lake, 
so  styled  from  the  place  in  which  he  was  trained  to  arms;  Tristan  and  his  unhallowed 
love;  Perceval  and  his  quest  of  the  Holy  Grail.  These  and  other  features  of  the 
'Roman  de  Brut*  made  it  unprecedentedly  popular.  It  was  publicly  read  at  the 
court  of  the  Norman  kings,  that  the  young  knights  might  be  filled  with  emulation; 
while  fair  ladies  recited  it  at  the  bedside  of  wounded  cavaliers,  in  order  that  their 
pain  might  be  assuaged. 

BRUTUS,  or,  DIALOGUE  CONCERNING  ILLUSTRIOUS  ORATORS,  by  Cicero  (106- 
143  B.C.).  The  work  takes  its  title  from  Brutus,  who  was  one  of  the  persons 
engaged  in  the  discussion.  The  author  begins  by  expressing  his  sorrow  for  the 
death  of  Hortensius,  and  the  high  esteem  in  which  he  held  him  as  a  speaker.  Still  he 
feels  rather  inclined  to  congratulate  him  on  dying  when  he  did,  since  he  has  thus 
escaped  the  calamities  that  ravage  the  republic.  Then  he  explains  the  occasion  and 
the  object  of  this  dialogue,  which  is  a  complete  history  of  Latin  eloquence.  He  relates 
the  origin  of  the  art  of  oratory  among  the  Romans,  its  progress,  and  its  aspect  at 
different  epochs;  enters  into  an  elaborate  criticism  of  the  orators  that  have  succes- 


i  io  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

sively  appeared;  and  gives,  in  an  informal  sort  of  way,  rules  for  those  who  seek  td 
excel  in  the  oratorical  art,  and  lays  down  the  conditions  without  which  success  is 
impossible.  The  work  is  at  once  historical  and  didactic,  and  embraces  every  variety 
of  style:  being  at  one  time  simple  and  almost  familiar,  at  another  almost  sublime; 
but  always  pure,  sweet,  and  elegant. 

BUDDHA  FIELDS,  see  GLEANINGS  IN. 

BUDDHIST  MAHAYANA  TEXTS,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

BUDDHIST  SUTTAS,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

BURNS,  LIFE  OF,  by  J.  G.  Lockhart  (1828).  Lockhart  possessed  in  full  measure 
the  two  indispensable  qualifications  for  a  biographer,  love  of  the  subject,  and  a  dis- 
criminating candor.  Both  these  characteristics  are  displayed  in  the  'Life  of  Burns/ 
which  originally  appeared  unambitiously  in  Constable's  Miscellany  in  1828,  and 
which  has  never  been  excelled  by  any  of  the  numerous  later  biographers  of  the  poet, 
though  these  have  had  the  advantage  of  access  to  abundance  of  fresh  material, 
especially  in  the  form  of  correspondence.  The  picture  which  he  has  painted  is 
unforgettable.  The  poet's  father,  immortalized  as  the  saint,  the  father,  and  the 
husband  of  "The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night";  his  mother,  whose  inexhaustible  store 
of  ballads  and  tales  stirred  the  imagination  of  the  future  poet;  the  mean  cottage  of 
his  early  years  in  which,  as  Murdoch,  his  teacher,  said,  "there  dwelt  a  larger  portion 
of  content  than  in  any  palace  in  Europe";  the  books  and  people  that  influenced  his 
youth  and  first  touched  the  chords  of  poetry  within  him;  his  numerous  loves  and  the 
exquisite  lyrics  inspired  by  them;  the  strivings  of  genius  held  down  by  grinding 
poverty;  the  success  of  his  first  published  book  of  poems  and  his  manly  independence 
when  he  became  the  lion  of  literary  Edinburgh;  his  heresies  in  theology  and  politics; 
his  letters,  amongst  the  finest  in  English  literature;  his  life  at  Dumfries;  and  his 
ostracism  on  account  of  his  revolutionary  opinions,  —  all  these  Lockhart  describes 
with  exquisite  sympathy,  fine  literary  skill,  and  sense  of  proportion.  "Burns,"  he 
says,  "short  and  painful  as  were  his  years,  has  left  behind  him  a  volume  in  which 
there  is  inspiration  for  every  fancy,  and  music  for  every  mood.  .  .  .  Already,  in 
the  language  of  Childe  Harold,  has, 

14 '  Glory  without  end 

Scattered  the  clouds  away;  and  on  that  name  attend 
The  tears  and  praises  of  all  time.'  " 

BURTON,  CAPTAIN  SIR  RICHARD  F.,  LIFE  OF,  by  his  wife.  One  of  the  most 
romantic  figures  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  Sir  Richard  Burton.  He  was  of  mixed 
Irish,  Scotch,  English,  French,  and  possibly  Arabian  and  Gipsy  blood;  he  claimed  his 
descent  direct  from  Louis  XIV.  of  France;  he  published  upwards  of  eighty  bulky 
volumes,  including  translations  of  the '  Arabian  Nights '  and  the '  Lusiad '  of  Camoens ; 
he  began  the  study  of  Latin  when  he  was  three,  and  Greek  when  he  was  four,  and 
knew  twenty-nine  languages;  he  was  the  pioneer  discoverer  of  Darkest  Africa,  and 
his  adventures  took  him  into  all  parts  of  the  world.  Out  of  such  lives  myths  are  made. 
In  1887,  Francis  Hitchman,  aided  by  Isabel,  Lady  Burton,  of  whose  character  and 
ability  he  speaks  in  the  highest  terms,  published  an  account  of  Burton's  private  and 
public  life,  including  his  travels  and  explorations  in  Asia,  Africa,  and  both  North 
and  South  America.  After  Sir  Richard's  death,  his  wife  published  in  1893,  in 
two  octavo  volumes,  with  many  portraits  and  other  illustrations,  a  voluminous  '  Life,' 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  in 

in  which  she  argues  with  passionate  insistance  that  she,  and  she  alone,  is  fitted  to 
give  a  truthful  and  complete  account  of  his  wonderful  career  and  his  unique  person- 
ality. "There  are  three  people  in  the  world,"  she  says,  "who  might  possibly  be 
able  to  write  sections  of  his  life.  Most  of  his  intimate  friends  are  dead,  but  still  there 
are  a  few  left."  She  insists  that  she  was  the  one  person  who  for  more  than  thirty 
years  knew  him  best.  Daily,  for  all  that  time,  she  "cheered  him  in  hunger  and  toil, 
attended  to  his  comforts,  watched  his  going  out  and  coming  in,  had  his  slippers, 
dressing-gown,  and  pipe  ready  for  him  every  evening,  copied  and  worked  for  him, 
rode  and  walked  at  his  side,  through  hunger,  thirst,  cold,  and  burning  heat,  with 
hardships  and  privations  and  danger.  Why,"  she  adds,  "I  was  wife  and  mother, 
and  comrade  and  secretary,  and  aide-de-camp  and  agent  for  him;  and  I  was  proud, 
happy,  and  glad  to  do  it  all,  and  never  tired,  day  or  night,  for  thirty  years.  .  .  . 
At  the  moment  of  his  death,  I  had  done  all  I  could  for  the  body,  and  then  I  tried  to 
follow  his  soul.  I  am  following,  and  I  shall  reach  it  before  long."  Lady  Isabel 
belonged  to  a  Roman  Catholic  family,  and  her  relatives,  like  his,  were  opposed  to 
the  marriage,  which  took  place  by  special  dispensation  in  1861.  At  the  time  of  his 
death,  Lady  Burton  startled  society  by  declaring  that  he  had  joined  "the  true 
Church."  She  says:  "One  would  describe  him  as  a  deist,  one  as  an  agnostic,  and 
one  as  an  atheist  and  freethinker,  but  I  can  only  describe  the  Richard  that  I  knew. 
I,  his  wife,  who  lived  with  him  day  and  night  for  thirty  years,  believed  him  to  be 
half-Sufi,  half  Catholic,  or  I  prefer  to  say,  as  nearer  the  truth,  alternately  Sufi  and 
Catholic."  A  little  later  she  aroused  much  indignant  criticism  by  burning  Sir 
Richard's  translation  of  'The  Scented  Garden,  Men's  Hearts  to  Gladden,'  by  the 
Arabic  poet,  the  Shaykh  al  Nafziwi.  She  justifies  her  action  with  elaborate  argu- 
ment, and  declares  that  two  projected  volumes,  to  be  entitled  'The  Labors  and 
Wisdom  of  Richard  Burton,'  will  be  a  better  monument  to  his  fame  than  the  unchaste 
and  improper  work  that  she  destroyed. 

Her  alleged  misrepresentations  are  corrected  in  a  small  volume  entitled  'The 
True  Life  of  Captain  Sir  Richard  F.  Burton,'  by  his  niece,  Georgiana  M.  Stisted,  who 
uses  the  severest  terms  in  her  portrayal  of  the  character  of  the  woman  whom  her 
uncle  married,  as  she  declares,  in  haste  and  secrecy,  and  with  effects  so  disastrous  to 
his  happiness  and  advantage. 

Still  another  contribution  to  the  topic  is  found  in  two  thick  volumes  called  'The 
,  Romance  of  Isabel,  Lady  Burton/  which  is  the  story  of  her  life,  told  in  part  by  herself 
and  in  part  by  W.  H.  Wilkins,  whose  special  mission  it  is  to  correct  the  slanderous 
misrepresentations  of  the  author  of  'The  True  Life.*  Whether  as  romance  or  reality, 
the  story  of  this  gifted  couple,  with  all  their  faults,  is  an  extraordinary  contribution 
to  the  literature  of  biography. 

BUSINESS  OF  BEING  A  WOMAN,  THE,  by  Ida  M.  Tarbell  (1913).  The  book 
is  an  appeal  to  the  modern  woman  who  is  discontented  with  woman's  r61e  of 
child-bearing  and  home-making  and  desires  to  complete  her  emancipation  by  de- 
voting herself  to  some  supposedly  higher  activity,  usually  by  attempting  to  do  the 
work  of  men.  This  type  Miss  Tarbell  calls  'The  Uneasy  Woman'  because  of  its 
restlessness,  dissatisfaction,  and  unsettled  state.  Miss  Tarbell  is  no  enemy  to  the 
extension  of  woman's  opportunities  for  education  and  employment  but  she  is  con- 
servative enough  to  hold  that  the  main  business  of  being  a  woman  is  still  that  of 
motherhood  and  the  making  of  the  home.  She  proceeds  to  show  that  these  tasks, 
far  from  being  narrow,  tedious,  and  unworthy  of  an  emancipated  being,  are  of  the 
noblest,  the  most  absorbing,  and  the  most  rewarding  kind,  requiring  all  the  added 


ii2  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

culture  and  power  which  woman's  freedom  has  bestowed.  The  mere  efficient 
management  of  the  household  requires  an  economic  knowledge  and  a  practica 
ability  equal  to  that  of  the  business  man.  The  moral  training  of  the  children  is  £ 
problem  worthy  of  the  highest  energies.  The  proper  training  of  domestic  servants, 
usually  foreigners,  would  do  much  to  make  them  useful  citizens,  and  thus 
promote  democracy  in  the  most  practical  way.  Above  all,  the  woman's  business 
is  noble  because  it  is  not  merely  material  and  mechanical  but  consists  in  the 
creation  of  a  spirit  that  makes  home  a  happy  social  centre.  By  these  and  other 
shrewd  and  practical  arguments  the  author  successfully  combats  the  view  that 
"celibacy  is  the  aristocracy  of  the  future"  and  makes  her  work  a  material  con- 
tribution to  the  subject  of  her  last  chapter,  "  the  ennobling  of  the  woman's 
business." 

BUSSY  D'AMBOIS,  by  George  Chapman.  This,  the  most  popular  of  Chapman's 
tragedies,  first  appeared  in  1607  and  was  republished  in  1608,  1616,  1641,  1657. 
The  scene  is  set  in  the  Court  of  Henry  III.  of  France,  who  with  his  brother,  Monsieur 
the  Duke  of  Alencon,  and  the  Duke  of  Guise,  the  head  of  the  Spanish  party  in  the 
French  Wars  of  Religion,  takes  part  in  the  action  of  the  play.  Bussy  d'Ambois,  of 
noble  birth,  but  a  child  of  fortune  who  has  to  depend  on  his  valor  and  his  character, 
is  introduced  to  the  Court  by  Monsieur  whose  purpose  it  is  to  use  him  as  a  tool  to 
smooth  his  own  path  to  the  throne.  But  Bussy  raises  himself  to  a  position  of  power 
and  independence,  and  Monsieur  and  Guise,  whom  he  has  flaunted,  combine  to 
compass  his  destruction.  This  they  attempt  to  accomplish  by  revealing  to  the 
Count  of  Mountsurry  Bussy's  passion  for  the  Countess  Tamyra,  whom  he  used  to 
visit  by  a  subterranean  passage  known  only  to  himself  and  a  friar  who  had  acted  as 
his  guide.  The  friar  is  killed  and  his  ghost  warns  the  lovers  of  his  fate  and  their 
danger.  Bussy  is  deceived  by  a  letter  which  the  Countess  had  been  compelled  by 
her  husband  to  write  in  her  blood,  and  going  to  meet  her  for  the  last  time  is  con- 
fronted by  the  Count  in  the  habit  of  the  friar.  Although  he  defeats  his  immediate 
adversary,  he  is  shot  by  the  hireling  assassins  of  his  other  foes.  The  character  of 
Bussy  is  powerfully  drawn,  but  the  other  figures  are  bloodless  and  the  style  often 
degenerates  into  bombast. 

BUT  YET  A  WOMAN,  by  Arthur  Sherburne  Hardy  (1883),  is  a  romance  of  real  life, 
its  scene  laid  mainly  in  Paris  during  the  time  of  the  Second  Empire.  Rene*e  Michael, 
a  fair  young  girl  destined  to  be  a  religieuse,  shares  the  home  and  adorns  the  salon  of 
her  elderly  bachelor  uncle,  M.  Michael.  They  enjoy  the  friendship  of  M.  Lande, 
and  his  son,  Dr.  Roger  Lande.  The  four,  together  with  Father  Le  Blanc,  a  kindly 
old  cure",  and  Madame  Stephanie  Milevski,  make  up  a  congenial  house  party  at  M. 
Michael's  summer  home  on  Mt.  St.  Jean.  Stephanie,  the  half-sister  of  her  host,  is 
the  young  widow  of  a  Russian  nobleman  who  has  died  in  exile.  She  was  associated 
with  the  eminent  journalist  M.  De  Marzac  in  the  Bourbon  restoration  plot,  and 
became  the  object  of  his  ardent  though  unrequited  love.  Her  affection  is  for  Dr. 
Roger  Lande;  but  he  loves  Rene*e,  and  not  in  vain.  Stephanie  induces  M.  Michael 
to  allow  her  to  take  Rene"e  on  a  journey  to  Spain.  Upon  the  eve  of  their  departure, 
De  Marzac,  angered  by  Stephanie's  continued  denial  of  his  suit,  accuses  her  of  taking 
Rene*e  to  Spain  in  order  to  prevent  Roger  from  wooing  her  until  the  time  set  to  begin 
her  novitiate  shall  have  arrived.  The  unraveling  of  this  situation  makes  an  excellent 
story.  The  book  is  written  with  charming  delicacy  of  treatment,  and  conceived 
entirely  in  the  French  spirit. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  113 

CABOT,  JOHN,  The  Discoverer  of  North  America,  and  SEBASTIAN,  his  Son, 
'a  Chapter  of  the  Maritime  History  of  England  under  the  Tudors,'  (1496-1557) 
by  Henry  Harrisse  (1895).  A  work  of  authority  for  the  earliest  history  of  America; 
especially  valuable  for  its  complete  recovery  of  the  true  Cabot  history,  and  exposure 
of  the  false  tradition  of  things  done  and  honors  won  by  Sebastian,  the  son,  who  is 
proved  to  have  grossly  falsified  the  course  of  events  to  make  himself  a  far  more 
important  figure  than  he  ever  was.  He  did  indeed  play  no  small  part  in  the  story 
after  his  father;  but  it  not  only  gave  no  ground  for  the  claims  made  by  him  in  con- 
nection with  the  work  of  the  father,  but  left  him  discredited  by  notable  want  of 
success.  The  entire  history  is  admirably  dealt  with  by  Harrisse,  and  the  story  is 
one  of  great  interest. 


,  SAINT,  a  Northumbrian  poet  of  the  seventh  century  and  reputed  author 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  metrical  paraphrases  of  the  Old  Testament,  is  known  to  us 
chiefly  through  the  account  in  Bede's  *  Ecclesiastical  History.'  Casdmon  is  there 
described  as  an  unlearned  man  who  was  often  abashed  when  in  company  he  in  his 
turn  was  called  upon  to  sing  a  song  to  the  harp.  On  one  of  these  occasions  after  he 
had  left  the  company  in  shame  at  his  inability,  he  dreamt  that  he  heard  a  voice 
commanding,  "Caedmon,  sing  something  to  me."  He  protested  his  ignorance  but 
the  voice  repeated  its  command,  and  he  asked:  "What  shall  I  sing."  "Sing  the 
beginning  of  created  things,  "  was  the  response.  Then  Caedmon  sang  verses  which 
Bede  renders  as  follows:  "Now  ought  we  to  praise  the  founder  of  the  heavenly 
Kingdom,  the  power  of  the  Creator.  His  wise  design,  and  the  deeds  of  the  Father  in 
glory:  how  He,  eternal  God,  was  the  Author  of  all  things  wonderful,  who  first  created 
for  the  children  of  men  the  heaven  for  a  roof  and  afterwards  the  earth  —  He, 
almighty  guardian  of  mankind."  On  awakening  Caedmon  remembered  his  verses 
and  added  others.  He  was  taken  to  Hild,  abbess  of  the  monastery  at  Whitby,  who  at 
once  recognized  that  the  unlearned  herdsman  had  received  the  miraculous  gift  of 
inspiration.  He  became  a  monk  and  reproduced  portions  of  the  Bible  in  verse  so 
beautiful  that  soon  "his  teachers  were  glad  to  become  his  hearers."  The  Anglo- 
Saxon  poems  'Genesis,'  'Exodus,'  and  'Daniel/  in  a  manuscript  of  the  tenth 
century,  edited  by  Jurdus  in  1655,  were  ascribed  by  him  to  Csedmon,  but  they  were 
not  in  the  Northumbrian  dialect.  These  and  other  poems  are,  however,  usually 
known  as  'Caedmonic,'  and  may  have  been  based  on  his  originals.  Special  interest 
attaches  itself  to  a  fragment  on  the  "Fall  of  Man"  interpolated  in  the  'Genesis' 
because  of  its  resemblances  to  Milton's  'Paradise  Lost.'  It  is  possible  that  Milton 
may  have  become  acquainted  with  the  Caedmonic  poem  through  Junius.  See 
"Anglo-Saxon  Literature"  in  the  LIBRARY. 

OffiSAR:  A  SKETCH,  by  James  Anthony  Proude  (rSSo).  A  life  of  the  great  soldier, 
consul,  and  dictator  of  Rome,  —  a  general  and  statesman  of  unequaled  abilities,  and 
an  orator  second  only  to  Cicero.  Mr.  Froude  calls  his  book  a  sketch  only,  because 
materials  for  a  complete  history  do  not  exist.  Cassar's  career  of  distinction  began  in 
74  B.C.,  later  than  Cicero's,  and  ended  March  I5th,  44  B.C.,  nearly  two  years  before 
the  death  of  Cicero.  The  fascinations  of  style  in  Mr.  Froude's  brilliant  picture  of 
Caesar  are  not  equally  accompanied  with  sober  historical  judgment.  As  in  his  other 
works,  he  exaggerates  in  drawing  the  figure  of  his  hero.  He  is  to  be  listened  to,  not 
for  a  verdict  but  a  plea. 

C9SSAR  AND  CLEOPATRA,  by  Bernard  Shaw  (1899).     In  aai  amusing  preface  to 
'Three  Plays  for  Puritans'  the  author  claims  that  the  Caesar  of  Shakespeare  is  an 
8 


U4  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

"admitted  failure'*  and  asks  to  be  allowed  to  "set  forth  Cassar  in  modern  light.'1 
In  his  theory  of  history  the  world  in  48  B.C.  was  exactly  like  the  world  in  1907  A.D., 
and  the  comic  satire  of  the  play  is  the  utterance  of  modern  thoughts,  allusions,  and 
slang  of  our  own  times  by  historic  personages  of  this  remote  age.  His  middle-aged 
Cesar  is  master  of  war  but  satiated  with  it.  Made  pacific  by  the  sight  of  nations 
drenched  in  blood,  he  values  clemency  above  all  things.  Efficiency  and  a  genius  for 
hard  work  are  the  qualities  by  which  he  has  conquered  the  world.  The  serpent  of 
the  Xile  is  a  charming  young  barbarian,  by  turns  spitfire,  petulant,  and  kittenish. 
Terrified  at  the  approach  of  the  Roman  legions  and  by  rumors  of  the  ferocity  of 
Cassar,  she  has  fled  from  the  palace,  seeking  the  protection  of  a  baby  sphinx  in  the 
nearby  desert.  Caesar,  alone,  musing  upon  the  vanities  of  life  and  the  littleness  of 
man,  finds  her  cuddled  up  asleep  between  the  paws  of  the  sphinx.  She  invites  the 
"kind  old  gentleman"  to  come  up  and  take  the  other  paw,  and  warns  him  that 
Cassar  will  probably  eat  him.  This  scene  is  quoted  in  the  LIBRARY.  Caesar  insists 
that  Cleopatra  return  to  the  palace  and  act  the  queen  without  fear,  and  as  the 
Roman  soldiers  salute  her  companion,  she  falls  into  his  arms  sobbing  with  relief. 
Ptolemy,  king  of  Egypt,  who  disputes  his  sister's  reign,  is  a  boy  of  ten.  Brittanicus, 
Caesar's  secretary,  the  exponent  of  respectability  from  the  British  Isles,  is  shocked  to 
learn  that  the  custom  of  Egypt  makes  the  brother  and  sister  man  and  wife.  Cleo- 
patra longs  for  power  to  cut  off  her  brother's  head,  and  poison  her  slaves  to  see  them 
wriggle.  During  the  siege  by  the  Egyptians,  while  Caesar  waits  for  reinforcements, 
Cleopatra  is  a  prisoner  in  the  palace.  She  passes  the  Roman  guards  by  rolling  herself 
in  a  rug  which  she  sends  to  Caesar.  Caesar  is  most  noble  when  he  rebukes  Cleopatra, 
drunk  with  her  newly-discovered  power,  for  procuring  the  assassination  of  an  enemy. 
Caesar  departs  for  Rome  with  the  promise  that  he  will  send  Mark  Antony  back  as  a 
present.  The  curtain  falls  with  the  Queen  in  tears,  but  expressing  the  hope,  never- 
theless, that  Caesar  will  never  return. 

CJESARS,  THE  LIVES  OF  THE  FIRST  TWELVE,  by  Caius  Suetonius,  130-135 
A.D.  A  book  of  biographies  of  the  Roman  emperors  from  Julius  Caesar  to  Domitian ; 
and  largely  a  book  of  anecdotes,  mere  personal  facts,  and,  to  no  small  extent,  scandal, 
much  of  which  may  have  been  fiction.  It  throws  hardly  any  light  on  the  society  of 
the  time,  the  character  and  tendencies  of  the  period;  but  gives  the  twelve  personal 
stories  with  a  care  in  regard  to  facts  and  a  brevity  which  makes  every  page  interest- 
ing. The  first  six  are  much  fuller  than  the  last  six.  In  none  of  them  is  there  any 
attempt  at  historical  judgment  of  the  characters  whose  picture  is  drawn.  We  get 
the  superficial  view  only,  and  to  no  small  extent  the  view  current  in  the  gossip  of  the 
time.  A  fair  English  translation  is  given  in  the  Bohn  Classical  Library.  A  recent 
English  translation  is  by  J.  C.  Rolfe  in  the  Loeb  Classical  Library. 

CJESAR'S  COMMENTARIES.  This  great  work  contains  the  narrative  of  Cesar's 
military  operations  in  Gaul,  Germany,  and  Britain.  It  was  given  to  the  world  in 
the  year  51  B.C.  Every  victory  won  by  Caesar  had  only  served  to  increase  the  alarm 
and  hostility  of  his  enemies  at  Rome,  and  doubt  and  suspicion  were  beginning  to 
spread  among  the  plebeians,  on  whom  he  chiefly  relied  for  help  in  carrying  out  his 
designs.  When  public  opinion  was  evidently  taking  the  side  of  the  Gauls  and 
Germans,  the  time  had  come  for  Caesar  to  act  on  public  opinion.  Hence  the  '  Com- 
mentaries/ a  hasty  compilation  made  from  notes  jotted  down  in  his  tent  or  during  a 
journey.  "They  form, "  says  Mommsen,  "a  sort  of  military  memoir,  addressed  by  a 
democratic  general  to  the  people  from  whom  he  derived  his  power."  To  prove  in  an 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  115 

indirect  way,  he  himself  keeping  in  the  background,  that  he  has  done  his  best  for  the 
honor  and  advantage  of  Rome,  is  his  main  object.  He  proceeds,  then,  to  demonstrate 
the  following  propositions:  A  Germanic  invasion  threatened  Gaul.  With  Gaul  in 
the  hands  of  the  Germans,  the  Romans  knew  from  experience  that  Italy  herself 
was  not  safe  from  invasion.  Caesar's  first  achievement  was  to  drive  the  Germans 
back  across  the  Rhine.  Every  event  that  followed  was  the  necessary  consequence 
of  this  victory.  The  Belgae,  sympathizers  with  their  Teutonic  kinsmen,  revolted 
after  the  defeat  of  Ariovistus.  To  convince  them  that  west  of  the  Rhine,  Rome  was 
supreme,  was  the  reason  of  Caesar's  campaigns  in  the  north  and  east.  But  how  long 
would  the  Belgae,  Nervii,  and  other  warlike  tribes  continue  submissive,  if  the  clans 
in  the  west  remained  independent?  It  must  be  plain,  therefore,  to  any  patriotic 
Roman,  that  the  naval  and  military  operations  of  Csesar  and  his  lieutenants  against 
the  Veneti,  the  Armoricans,  and  the  Aquitanians,  were  inevitable.  Perhaps,  too,  the 
patriotic  Roman  will  conclude,  although  Caesar  is  silent  on  the  matter,  that  these 
brilliant  campaigns  redound  as  much  to  the  glory  of  the  Roman  name  as  to  that  of 
Caesar.  Although  Gaul,  protected  by  Rome,  was  now  invincible,  it  was  very  desir- 
able that  the  Germans  and  Britons  should  have  tangible  evidence  of  the  fact,  and  so 
Caesar  crossed  the  Rhine  and  the  Channel.  But  unfortunately,  the  Gauls  were  not 
wise  enough  to  accept  the  situation.  They  revolted.  Caesar  suppressed  the  insur- 
rection with  a  vigor  and  sternness  they  were  never  likely  to  forget;  and  at  Alesia,  a 
year  before  these  Military  Memoirs  were  to  be  circulated,  the  finest  conquest  that 
Rome  ever  made  was  forever  completed.  The  quality  that  especially  gives  distinc- 
tion to  the  work  is  its  simplicity.  "It  is  as  unadorned, "  says  Cicero,  "as  an  ancient 
statue;  and  it  owes  its  beauty  and  its  grace  to  its  nudity."  As  to  its  truthfulness, 
we  cannot  decide  absolutely,  the  Gauls  not  having  written  their  Commentaries. 
But  if  Caesar  sinned  in  this  respect,  it  was  probably  by  omission,  not  by  commission. 
Things  the  Romans  might  not  like  he  does  not  mention:  the  sole  aim  of  the  book  is  to 
gain  their  suffrages.  There  is  no  allusion  to  the  enormous  fortune  Caesar  acquired 
by  plunder.  On  the  other  hand,  he  speaks  of  his  cruelties  —  for  instance,  the  killing 
in  cold  blood  of  20,000  or  100,000  prisoners  —  with  a  calmness  that  to  us  is  horrible, 
but  which  the  Romans  would  deem  natural  and  proper. 

CALEB  WILLIAMS,  ADVENTURES  OF,  by  William  Godwin  (1794),  a  curious, 
rambling,  half  sensational  and  half  psychological  story,  met  with  immediate  popu- 
larity, and  furnished  the  suggestion  of  the  well-known  play  'The  Iron  Chest.'  Caleb, 
a  sentimental  youth,  who  tells  his  own  story,  is  the  secretary  of  a  Mr.  Falkland,  a 
gentleman  of  fortune,  cold,  proud,  and  an  absolute  recluse.  Caleb  learns  that  his 
patron  had  once  been  a  favorite  in  society;  his  retiring  habits  dating  from  his  trial 
some  years  earlier  for  the  murder  of  one  Tyrrel,  a  man  of  bad  character,  who  had 
publicly  insulted  him.  Falkland  having  been  acquitted,  two  laborers,  men  of 
excellent  reputation,  both  of  whom  had  reason  to  hate  the  knavish  Tyrrel,  have 
been  hanged  on  circumstantial  evidence.  Caleb,  a  sort  of  religious  Paul  Pry,  is 
convinced  that  Falkland  is  the  murderer,  and  taxes  him  with  the  crime.  Falkland 
confesses  it,  but  threatens  Caleb  with  death  should  he  betray  his  suspicions.  The 
frightened  secretary  runs  away  in  the  night;  is  seized,  and  charged  with  the  theft  of 
Mr.  Falkland's  jewels,  which  are  found  hidden  among  his  belongings.  He  escapes 
from  jail  only  to  fall  among  thieves,  is  re-arrested,  and  makes  a  statement  to  a 
magistrate  of  Falkland's  guilt,  a  statement  which  is  not  believed.  The  trial  comes  on; 
Falkland  declines  to  prosecute,  and  the  victim  is  set  at  liberty.  Falkland,  whose 
one  idea  in  life  is  to  keep  his  name  unspotted,  then  offers  to  forgive  Caleb  and  assist 


n6  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

him  if  he  will  recant.  When  he  refuses,  his  enemy  has  him  shadowed,  and  manages 
tri  hound  him  out  of  every  corner  of  refuge  by  branding  him  as  a  thief.  Caleb,  driven 
to  hay,  makes  a  formal  accusation  before  the  judge  of  assizes  and  many  witnesses. 
Falkland,  in  despair,  acknowledges  his  guilt,  and  shortly  after  dies,  leaving  Caleb 
—  who,  most  curiously,  has  passionately  lo\ed  him  all  this  time  —  the  victim  of  an 
undying  remorse. 

CALIPH  VATHEK,  see  VATHEK. 

CALL  OF  THE  BLOOD,  THE,  by  Robert  Hichens  (1906).    This  is  the  story  of  an 
Englishwoman  named  Hermione  Lester  who  marries  a  man  named  Maurice  Delarey, 
ten  years  her  junior.    At  the  time  of  her  marriage  Hermione  is  thirty-four  and  while 
having  a  striking  personality  is  very  plain  in  form  and  feature.     Her  husband  on 
the  contrary  is  very  handsome  and  has  the  coloring  of  the  south,  which  shows  his 
Sicilian  blood  that  he  has  inherited  from  his  grandmother.    Hermione  has  a  warm 
friend  in  Emile  Artois,  an  author  and  a  man  of  genius,  and  between  them  a  strong 
platonic  friendship  has  existed  for  some  years.     Before  her  marriage  Hermione 
brings  about  a  meeting  between  the  two  men  and  though  Artois  is  impressed  with 
DelareyTs  beauty  and  charm  of  manner  he  cannot  help  a  feeling  of  distrust.    Her- 
mione and  Maurice  go  to  Sicily  on  their  honeymoon  as  the  latter  has  never  been 
there,  and  Hermione,  who  loves  it,  feels  sure  he  will  share  her  enthusiasm.     Her 
anticipations  are  realized  as  Maurice  enters  at  once  into  the  spirit  of  the  place  and  is 
actually  boyish  in  his  enjoyment  of  everything.    After  a  couple  of  months  of  happi- 
ness Hermione  is  called  to  the  bedside  of  Artois  in  Africa,  where  he  is  thought  to  be 
dying.    Hermione,  however,  nurses  him  back  to  health  and  after  several  weeks  of 
convalescence  is  able  to  bring  him  back  with  her  to  Sicily.     During  her  absence 
Maurice,  who  is  lonely  and  somewhat  piqued  that  she  should  leave  him,  amuses 
himself  with  the  friendship  of  a  pretty  Sicilian  girl  named  Maddelena.     The  ac- 
quaintance which  begins  innocently  ends  however  in  wrong  doing,  as  "the  call  of 
the  blood  "  is  strong  in  Maurice  and  he  cannot  withstand  the  impulses  of  his  nature. 
He  is  overwhelmed  with  shame  at  the  thought  of  Hermione's  learning  of  his  falseness, 
and  upon  her  return  both  she  and  Artois  notice  the  change  that  has  taken  place  in 
him.     Hermione  ascribes  it  to  jealousy  of  Artois,  but  the  latter  interprets  it  differ- 
ently.    Maurice  goes  to  bathe  and  is  murdered  by  Salvatore,  Maddelena's  father, 
and  his  body  is  found  in  the  water.    The  truth  is  known  by  Artois  and  a  faithful 
servant  named  Gaspare,  but  they  hide  everything  from  Hermione  and  she  mourns 
truly  for  her  husband  whose  character  remains  for  her  unblemished. 

CALL  OF  THE  WILD,  by  Jack  London  (1903).  The  hero  of  this  story,  Buck,  the 
offspring  of  a  St.  Bernard  sire  and  a  Scotch  shepherd  dog,  is  a  pampered  house  dog 
on  a  large  estate.  It  is  the  time  of  the  rush  for  gold  in  the  Klondike,  and  he  is  stolen 
and  shipped  north  to  be  brutally  broken  and  trained  to  be  a  sledge  dog.  He  learns 
the  primitive  law  of  club  and  fang  and  wins  the  leadership  of  the  dog  team  from  the 
old  leader,  Spitz,  in  a  terrible  battle  for  survival.  There  are  many  journeys  in  the 
ice  and  snow  and  much  hardship  until  he  finds  in  John  Thornton  the  real  master  to 
whom  he  gives  his  heart  and  allegiance.  His  master,  proud  of  his  dog,  recklessly 
accepts  a  wager  that  Buck  can  break  from  the  ice  and  walk  away  with  a  thousand 
pound  load  on  a  sledge,  a  task  for  ten  dogs,  and  Buck  wins  for  him.  Thornton  is 
murdered  by  the  Indians  and  Buck  responds  to  the  call  of  the  wild,  harking  back  to 
the  life  of  his  remote  forbears  as  leader  of  a  pack  of  wolves.  A  vivid  picture  of  the 
wild  life  of  dog  and  man  in  the  Alaska  gold  fields. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  117 

CALLED  BACK,  by  "Hugh  Conway"  (Frederick  John  Fargus)  (1884).  Gilbert 
Vaughn,  the  hero  of  this  story  of  mystery,  is  a  young  Englishman  of  fortune,  totally 
blind  from  cataract.  By  a  curious  accident,  he  strays  one  midnight  into  a  strange 
house,  mistaking  it  for  his  own,  and  walks  in  upon  a  murder.  He  hears  a  scuffle  and 
a  woman's  shrieks,  and  bursting  into  the  room,  stumbles  over  the  body  of  a  man. 
His  keen  sense  of  hearing  informs  him  that  there  are  three  other  men  in  the  room,  and 
a  moaning  woman.  As  he  cannot  identify  them,  the  men  spare  his  life,  and  drug 
him.  Found  by  the  police  in  a  suburb,  he  is  identified  and  taken  home.  On  recovery, 
he  finds  no  one  to  believe  in  his  story.  Two  years  later,  the  cataract  is  operated 
upon  and  he  recovers  his  sight,  when  he  falls  in  love  with  and  marries  a  young  girl 
of  extraordinary  beauty,  Pauline  March.  She  is  half  English,  half  Italian;  her  only 
living  relative  being  an  uncle,  Dr.  Ceneri,  an  Italian  physician.  After  his  marriage 
Vaughn  discovers  that  his  bride  is  mentally  weak;  that  she  has  no  memory,  and 
scarcely  any  comprehension  of  what  passes.  The  story  then  becomes  complicated, 
and  full  of  adventures  in  Italy  and  Siberia.  Extremely  sensational  in  character, 
and  with  little  literary  merit,  the  graphic  force  of  this  story,  the  rapidity  of  its  move- 
ment, its  directness,  and  its  skillful  suspension  of  interest,  gave  it  for  a  season  so 
extraordinary  a  vogue  that  it  outsold  every  other  work  of  fiction  of  its  year. 

CALLISTA,  'a  Sketch  of  the  Third  Century',  by  John  Henry  Newman.  Cardinal 
Newman  tells  us  that  this  is  an  attempt  to  imagine,  from  a  Catholic  point  of  view, 
the  feelings  and  mutual  relations  of  Christians  and  heathen  at  the  period  described. 
The  first  few  chapters  were  written  in  1848,  the  rest  not  until  1855.  The  events  here  * 
related  occur  in  Proconsular  Africa;  giving  opportunity  for  description  of  the  luxuri- 
ous mode  of  life,  the  customs  and  ceremonies,  then  and  there  prevailing.  Agellius, 
a  Christian,  loves  Callista,  a  beautiful  Greek  girl,  who  sings  like  a  Muse,  dances  like 
a  Grace,  and  recites  like  Minerva,  besides  being  a  rare  sculptor.  Jucundus,  uncle  to 
Agellius,  hopes  she  may  lead  him  from  Christianity;  but  she  wishes  to  learn  more 
concerning  that  faith.  Agellius,  falling  ill,  is  nursed  by  Cyprian,  bishop  of  Carthage, 
who  is  in  hiding.  A  plague  of  locusts  comes.  Frenzied  by  their  devastations  and 
the  consequent  famine,  the  mob  rises  against  the  Christians.  Agellius  is  summoned 
to  his  uncle  for  safety.  Callista,  going  to  his  hut  to  warn  him,  meets  Cyprian,  who 
gives  her  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke.  While  they  discourse,  the  mob  approaches  and 
they  are  captured.  Cyprian  and  Agellius,  however,  are  helped  to  escape.  Callista 
studies  St.  Luke  and  embraces  Christianity.  She  refuses  to  abjure  her  religion,  is 
put  to  death  by  torture,  is  canonized,  and  still  works  miracles.  Her  body  is  rescued 
by  Agellius  and  given  Christian  burial.  Her  death  proves  the  resurrection  of  the 
church  at  Sicca  where  she  died:  the  heathen  said  that  her  history  affected  them 
with  constraining  force.  Agellius  becomes  a  bishop,  and  is  likewise  martyred  and 
sainted. 

CAMBRIDGE  DESCRIBED  AND  ILLUSTRATED:  'Being  a  Short  History  of  the 
Town  and  University.'  By  Thomas  Dinham  Atkinson.  With  introduction  by  John 
Willis  Clark  (1897).  A  very  complete,  interesting,  and  richly  illustrated  account 
of  the  English  town  and  university,  which  has  been  in  some  respects  even  more  than 
Oxford  a  seat  of  literature,  as  well  as  education,  in  England.  To  American  readers 
especially,  the  work  is  of  importance  because  of  the  extent  to  which  Cambridge 
University  graduates  were  leaders  in  the  planting  of  New  England.  The  story  of 
the  old  town  opens  many  a  picture  of  early  English  life  and  that  of  the  great  group  of 
famous  colleges  which  constitute  the  university;  and  supplies  chapters  in  the  history 


n8  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

of  English  culture  peculiarly  rich  in  interest,  from  the  fact  that  Cambridge  has  so 
largely  stood  for  broad  and  progressive  views,  while  Oxford  has  until  recently  repre- 
sented narrow  conservatism. 

CAMILLE  ('LA  DAME  Aux  CAMELIAS'),  a  novel  by  Alexandre  Dumas  the 
younger,  was  published  in  1848,  the  celebrated  play  founded  upon  it  appearing  in 
1852  at  the  Vaudeville  Theatre  in  Paris.  The  popularity  of  both  the  novel  and  the 
play  is  owing,  perhaps,  to  the  fact  that  the  incidents  of  the  story  admit  of  many 
interpretations  of  the  character  of  the  heroine.  Like  other  women  of  her  class,  she 
is  linked  to,  is  indeed  a  representative  of,  the  most  inexplicable  yet  most  powerful 
force  in  human  nature.  Camille  is  the  portrait  of  a  woman  who  actually  lived  in 
Paris.  Dumas  had  seen  her,  and  relates  a  love  story  of  which  she  was  the  central 
figure.  Like  Aspasia,  she  has  a  strange  immortality.  Each  reader  of  the  book, 
like  each  spectator  of  the  play,  gains  an  impression  of  Camille  that  is  largely  subjective. 
The  elusiveness  of  the  personality,  the  young  ardor  that  forced  Dumas  to  tell  the 
story  straight  from  the  heart,  straight  to  the  heart,  give  to  '  Camille '  its  fascination. 

CAMP,  MAJOR  HENRY  WARD,  see  THE  KNIGHTLY  SOLDIER. 

CANDIDA,  by  Bernard  Shaw  (1897).  Candida,  the  heroine  of  this  successful  comedy, 
is  the  engaging  wife  of  a  clergyman  who  is  fond  of  preaching  in  the  pulpit  and  out  of  it. 
When  Eugene  Marchbanks,  a  youthful  poet,  tells  him  he  is  in  love  with  Candida,  the 
Rev.  James  Morell  first  laughs  with  condescending  superiority  but  is  finally  goaded 
into  dropping  his  rhetoric  to  shake  Eugene.  Though  Eugene  screams  with  fright, 
he  has  the  courage  of  his  ideas  and  succeeds  in  terrifying  the  clergyman  out  of  his 
complacent  attitude  of  model  husband.  The  Rev.  James,  however,  is  a  likeable, 
sincere  person,  not  simply  the  "moralist  and  windbag  "  Eugene  calls  him.  Eugene  is 
an  extraordinary  character,  reminiscent  of  Shelley,  with  the  range  of  vision  of  a  seer, 
beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  conventional  preacher.  He  is  too  sensitive  for  the 
everyday  world,  in  which  the  clergyman  deals  out  spiritual  gruel,  suitable  for  "cheap 
earthenware  souls, "  and  his  domestic  wife  soils  her  beautiful  hands  to  fill  the  lamps 
and  slice  the  onions  for  supper.  The  two  men  agree  that  Candida  shall  choose 
between  them.  This  scene  of  the  "choice"  is  quoted  in  the  LIBRARY.  Candida 
calmly  asks  for  bids  since  she  is  up  at  auction.  Her  husband  offers  her  his  strength, 
and  Eugene,  his  weakness.  She  says  she  will  choose  the  weaker  of  the  two,  and  to  his 
surprise  it  is  her  husband  who  holds  her  because  of  his  need  and  dependence  on  her 
loving  care.  One  of  the  most  audacious  speeches  in  the  play  is  Candida 's  reply  to 
her  husband,  when  he  tells  her  he  relies  on  her  goodness  and  purity.  She  says,  "I 
would  give  them  both  to  Eugene  as  willingly  as  I  would  give  my  shawl  to  a  beggar 
dying  of  cold,  if  there  were  nothing  else  to  restrain  me.  Put  your  trust  in  my  love 
for  you,  James,  for  if  that  went  I  should  care  very  little  for  your  sermons  —  mere 
phrases  that  you  cheat  yourself  and  others  with  every  day."  Candida's  frankness 
wounds  her  big  boy  of  a  husband  at  first,  but  her  love  convinces  his  pride.  Eugene 
rejects  this  idea  of  love,  and  departs  cured  of  his  infatuation. 

CANDIDE,  ou,  L'OPTIMISME,  a  satirical  novel  by  Voltaire,  was  published 
anonymously  in  1759,  with  the  fictitious  statement  appended  that  it  had  been  trans- 
lated from  the  German  by  "M.  le  Docteur  Ralph."  Voltaire's  aim  was  to  ridicule 
the  facile  optimism  so  current  in  the  eighteenth  century,  particularly  as  expressed  in 
Pope's  "Whatever  is  is  right,"  and  the  dictum  of  Leibnitz  that  "All  is  for  the  best  in 
this,  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds."  The  Lisbon  earthquake  of  1755  and  the  suffer- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  119 

ings  caused  by  the  Seven  Years'  War  had  done  something  to  shake  this  creed.  Vol- 
taire determined  to  complete  the  overthrow  by  a  burlesque  narrative  in  which 
optimism  should  be  reduced  to  absurdity.  The  hero,  Candide,  is  the  illegitimate 
scion  of  a  noble  German  family.  He  is  brought  up  at  the  Castle  of  Thunder-ten- 
tronckh,  where  he  learns  from  the  philosopher,  Pangloss,  that  every  effect  has  a 
cause,  that  every  cause  has  a  sufficient  reason,  and  that  all  is  for  the  best  in  this,  the 
best  of  all  possible  worlds.  Caught  by  the  baron  in  making  love  to  his  daughter, 
Cunegonde,  Candide  is  kicked  out  of  the  castle,  forced  into  military  service,  beaten 
for  desertion,  forced  into  a  great  battle,  and  made  a  witness  of  the  atrocities  com- 
mitted in  neighboring  villages.  Escaping  from  the  army  he  falls  in  with  a  humane 
Anabaptist,  Jacques,  and  later  with  Pangloss  who  tells  him  that  the  baron's  castle 
has  been  destroyed  by  the  soldiers  and  Cune*gonde  outraged  and  killed.  Pangloss, 
who  is  suffering  from  the  most  abhorred  of  maladies,  is  cured  by  the  kindly  Jacques, 
and  the  three  set  out  on  a  business  voyage  to  Lisbon.  They  are  shipwrecked  in  a 
dreadful  tempest  and  the  Anabaptist  is  drowned.  Candide  and  Pangloss  on  arrival 
find  the  city  destroyed  by  the  famous  earthquake  of  1755  and  thirty  thousand  people 
killed.  Pangloss,  attempting  to  console  the  survivors  by  his  usual  formula,  is  arrested 
for  heresy  and  is  hanged  by  the  Inquisition,  while  Candide  is  flogged.  He  is,  however, 
rescued  by  Cune"gonde,  who  had  not  been  killed  but  had  been  sold  to  a  Portuguese 
Jew,  who  with  the  Grand  Inquisitor,  kept  her  as  mistress.  Candide  manages  to  kill 
both  these  personages,  and  he  and  his  lady  love  make  their  escape  to  Cadiz,  where 
Candide  obtains  a  captain's  commission  in  an  expedition  against  the  Jesuit  rebellion 
in  Paraguay.  During  the  journey  an  old  attendant  of  Cunegonde,  who  has  made  her 
escape  with  them,  relates  her  adventures,  which  are  much  more  distressing  than  those 
of  the  young  people.  On  arrival  at  Buenos  Ayres  Cunegonde  is  seized  by  the  gover- 
nor and  Candide  is  forced  to  fly  to  the  rebels  by  the  advent  of  Spanish  officials  who 
are  pursuing  the'murderer  of  the  Inquisitor.  Among  the  rebels  he  finds  the  brother 
of  Cunegonde,  a  priest  and  military  commandant,  who  at  first  welcomes  him,  but 
whose  insults  when  he  hears  of  Candide's  aspirations  to  the  hand  of  his  sister  lead 
to  a  fight  in  which  Candide  severely  wounds  him.  Accompanied  by  a  half-breed 
servant,  Cacambo,  Candide  traverses  the  forests  of  South  America,  visits  the  country 
of  El  Dorado,  where  the  people  are  virtuous,  brings  away  great  treasures,  despatches 
his  servant  to  win  back  Cunegonde  from  Buenos  Ayres,  and  sails  for  Venice,  with  a 
pessimistic  philosopher,  Martin,  who  believes  the  world  ruled  by  evil.  They  visit 
France,  where  they  meet  with  frivolity  and  dishonesty,  touch  the  English  coast, 
where  they  witness  the  execution  of  Admiral  Byng  "pour  encourager  les  autres, "  and 
sojourn  in  Venice,  where  they  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  cultured  and  fastidious 
Pococurante,  a  nobleman  who  is  weary  of  all  the  pleasures  that  the  world  can  give. 
At  length  Candide  gets  word  from  Cacambo  that  Cunegonde  is  a  slave  in  Con- 
stantinople. Cacambo  had  faithfully  ransomed  her  and  started  for  Venice,  but  they 
had  been  seized  by  a  pirate  and  sold  as  slaves  in  Turkey.  Candide,  Cacambo,  and 
Martin  immediately  go  to  Constantinople.  On  a  galley  they  find  two  slaves  who 
turn  out  to  be  Cunegonde 's  brother  and  Pangloss.  Their  lives  have  been  miracu- 
lously saved,  and  by  a  series  of  adventures  they  have  come  to  be  rowers  in  the  same 
galley.  Candide  now  finds  and  ransoms  Cunegonde,  who  has  unfortunately  become 
very  ugly;  but  regard  for  his  promise  and  anger  at  her  brother,  who  still  refuses  his 
consent  and  is  finally  sent  back  to  the  galley,  confirms  Candide  in  his  purpose  of 
marrying  her.  The  whole  group  now  settles  on  a  little  farm  beside  the  Bosphorus, 
where,  on  the  advice  of  an  old  peasant,  they  find  a  measure  of  content  in  hard  work. 
Pangloss  is  still  an  optimist;  Martin  says  that  work  without  thought  is  the  only 


i2o  THE  READBR'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

means  of  rendering  life  supportable;  and  Candida's  unfailing  motto  is  "il  faut  cultiver 
notrc  jardin. "  Voltaire  never  wrote  a  more  brilliant  polemic  than  this,  and  in  spite 
of  its  cynicism  the  book  has  a  core  of  sound  sense,  vehement  hatred  of  oppression, 
and  wise  practical  philosophy. 

CANTERBURY  PILGRIMS,  THE,  by  Percy  Mackaye  (1903).  This  is  a  modern 
treatment  in  verse  of  the  famous  pilgrimage  on  which  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  poet  at 
King  Richard's  court,  travels  incognito  with  the  pilgrims  in  order  to  come  nearer 
their  hearts  and  their  lives  to  put  them  into  verse.  Alisoun,  the  jovial  Wife  of  Bath, 
survivor  of  five  husbands,  has  vowed  to  find  a  sixth  spouse  among  the  pilgrims,  and 
in  spite  of  the  devotion  of  the  miller  and  a  dozen  swains  who  aspire  to  her  hand,  her 
roving  eye  lights  on  Chaucer.  He  has  already  fallen  under  the  spell  of  the  gentle 
prioress,  Aladame  Eglantine,  charmed  with  her  sweet  simplicity  and  her  French  of 
"Stratford-atte-Bowe."  She  appeals  to  his  chivalry  for  the  needs  of  her  little  dog, 
"one  ounce  of  wastel-bread,  toasted  a  pleasant  brown;  one  little  cup  of  fresh  milk." 
She  confides  to  him  that  she  expects  to  meet  her  brother,  the  Knight  returning  from 
the  Holy  Land.  She  has  not  seen  him  for  many  years,  but  will  know  him  by  his 
ring,  marked  with  the  letter  "A"  like  the  brooch  she  wears,  with  the  motto  "Amor 
vincit  omnia."  The  jealous  Alisoun  overhears  the  conversation,  and  plots  to  win 
Geoffrey  by  guile.  She  insinuates  that  the  prioress  is  on  her  way  to  meet  a  lover. 
A  bet  is  made  that  if  the  prioress  gives  her  brooch  to  any  man  except  her  brother, 
Chaucer  must  marry  Alisoun  at  Canterbury.  To  secure  the  brooch  Alisoun  and  her 
sweethearts  kidnap  the  Knight;  Alisoun  dons  his  clothes,  deceives  the  gentle  prioress, 
and  wins  the  bet.  From  the  Man  of  Law,  however,  Geoffrey  learns  that  no  woman 
in  England  can  be  married  more  than  five  times.  In  the  last  act  in  front  of 
Canterbury  cathedral,  King  Richard  and  his  court  welcome  the  poet,  and  the  king 
extricates  him  from  his  predicament,  by  allowing  the  suspension  of  the  marriage  law 
only  in  case  of  a  miller,  and  the  enamored  miller  relieves  him  of  his  ale-drinking 
sweetheart.  A  scene  from  the  Tabard  Inn  is  quoted  in  the  LIBRARY. 

CANTERBURY  TALES,  a  collection  of  twenty-four  stories,  all  but  two  of  which 
are  in  verse,  written  by  Geoffrey  Chaucer  mainly  between  1386  and  his  death  in  1400. 
The  stories  are  supposed  to  be  related  by  members  of  a  company  of  thirty-one 
pilgrims  (including  the  poet  himself)  who  are  on  their  way  to  the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas 
at  Canterbury.  The  prologue  which  tells  of  their  assembly  at  the  Tabard  Inn  in 
Southwark  and  their  arrangement  that  each  shall  tell  two  stories  on  the  way  to 
Canterbury  and  two  on  the  return  journey,  is  a  remarkable  picture  of  English  social 
life  in  the  fourteenth  century,  inasmuch  as  every  class  is  represented  from  the  gentle- 
folks to  the  peasantry.  The  transitional  narratives  between  the  stories,  exhibiting 
the  incidents  of  the  journey,  the  effect  of  the  tales  on  the  company,  the  outbreaks  of 
personal  or  professional  jealousy  among  the  pilgrims,  and  the  other  by-play  incidental 
to  a  large  and  diverse  group  of  fellow-travelers,  are  extremely  entertaining  and 
dramatic,  the  host,  who  presides  over  the  proceedings,  being  an  especially  lifelike 
figure.  The  narrative  is  not  continuous.  Gaps  have  been  left  between  certain  stages 
of  the  journey  for  Chaucer  did  not  live  to  fill  out  the  vast  scheme  he  had  outlined,  and 
instead  of  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  tales  which  it  would  require  has  left  but 
twenty-four.  Some  of  these,  like  the  Knight's  Tale,  and  the  Second  Nun's  Tale 
were  earlier  works,  others,  like  the  Miller's  Tale,  the  Reeve's  Tale,  the  Nun's  Priest's 
Tale,  and  the  Pardoner's  Tale,  were  written  expressly  for  this  collection  and  with  its 
dramatic  background  in  mind.  The  Canon's  Yeoman's  Tale  was  introduced  as  an 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  121 

afterthought  and  involved  the  bringing  in  of  two  additional  members  of  the  company. 
Practically  all  the  tales,  old  and  new,  are  skillfully  adapted  to  their  tellers.  The  tales 
represent  almost  every  type  of  mediaeval  literature:  the  fabliau,  the  mdrchen,  the 
pious  tale,  the  saints'  legend,  the  sermon,  the  exemplum,  the  lay,  the  metrical 
romance,  and  the  romantic  epic.  They  are  masterpieces  of  narrative  art,  revealing 
the  author's  close  observation  of  men  and  women,  his  delight  in  the  process,  his  ready 
human  sympathy,  and  his  elusive  humor.  For  fuller  comments  see  the  critical  essay 
in  the  LIBRARY  under  *  Chaucer.' 

CAPE  COD,  by  Henry  D.  Thoreau  (1865).  Until  Thoreau  arrived  to  make  ac- 
quaintance with  its  hard  yet  fascinating  personality,  Cape  Cod  remained  unknown 
and  almost  unseen,  though  often  visited  and  written  about  by  tourists  and  students 
of  nature.  Something  in  the  asceticism,  or  the  directness,  or  the  amazing  keenness,  of 
Thoreau's  mind  brought  him  into  sympathetic  understanding  of  the  thing  he  saw, 
and  he  interpreted  the  level  stretches  of  shore  with  absolute  fidelity.  In  these  pages 
the  melancholy  land  looks  as  "long,  lank,  and  brown"  as  it  looks  lying  under  the 
gray  autumn  sky.  Nor  does  he  spare  any  prosaic  detail.  The  salt  wholesomeness 
of  his  sea  breeze  does  not  wholly  overcome  the  offensive  flotsam  and  jetsam  drifted 
up  on  the  sand;  but  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  simplest  means,  he  communicates 
what  he  feels  so  fully,  —  the  savage  grandeur  of  the  sea,  and  its  evanescent  and  ever- 
changing  loveliness.  In  this,  as  in  all  his  other  books,  Thoreau  rises  from  the  obser- 
vation of  the  most  familiar  and  commonplace  facts,  the  comparison  of  the  driest  bones 
of  observed  data,  to  the  loftiest  spiritual  speculation,  the  most  poetic  interpretation 
of  nature.  His  accuracy  almost  convinces  the  reader  that  his  true  field  was  history 
or  science,  until  some  aerial  flight  of  his  fancy  seems  to  show  him  as  a  poet  lost  to  the 
Muse.  But  whatever  his  gifts,  he  was  above  all,  as  he  shows  himself  in  l  Cape  Cod," 
Nature's  dearest  observer,  to  whom  she  had  given  the  microscopic  eye,  the  weighing 
mind,  and  the  interpretative  voice. 

CAPITAL,  by  Karl  Marx  (1867),  English  translation  edited  by  Fred  Engels,  1889. 
A  book  of  the  first  importance,  by  the  founder  of  international  socialism;  written 
with  marvelous  knowledge  of  economic  literature  and  of  the  economic  development 
of  modern  Europe,  and  not  less  with  masterly  skill  in  the  handling  of  his  extraordinary 
knowledge;  a  book  of  which  a  conservative  authority  has  said:  "Since  the  beginning 
of  literature,  few  books  have  been  written  like  the  first  volume  of  Marx's  *  Capital.' 
It  is  premature  to  offer  any  definitive  judgment  on  his  work  as  a  revolutionary  thinker 
and  agitator,  because  that  is  still  very  far  from  completion.  There  need,  however, 
be  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  he,  incomparably  more  than  any  other  man,  has 
influenced  the  labor  movement  all  over  the  civilized  world/'  The  conservative 
aspect  of  Marx's  teaching  is  in  the  fact  that  he  honestly  seeks  to  understand  what, 
apart  from  any  man's  opinion  or  theory,  the  historical  development  actually  is;  and 
that  he  does  not  think  out  and  urge  his  own  ideal  programme  of  social  reform,  but 
strives  to  understand  and  to  make  understood  what  must  inevitably  take  place. 

CAPTAIN  FRACASSE,  by  Theophile  Gautier.  The  scene  is  laid  in  France  during 
the  reign  of  Louis  XIII.:  the  manners,  morals,  and  language  of  that  age  being  care- 
fully depicted.  The  Chateau  de  la  Misere,  situated  in  Gascony,  is  the  home  of  the 
young  Baron  de  Sicognac,  where  he  lives  alone  in  poverty,  with  his  faithful  Pierre, 
and  his  four-footed  friends  Bayard,  Miraut,  and  Beelzebub.  To  a  troop  of  strolling 
players  he  offers  shelter,  they  in  turn  sharing  with  him  their  supper.  Falling  under 
the  charms  of  Isabella,  the  pretty  ingSniie  of  the  troop,  he  accepts  their  kindly  offer 


122  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

to  continue  with  them  to  Paris,  where  good  fortune  may  await  him.  Martamoro,  one 
of  the  actors,  perishes  in  the  snow;  and  Sicognac,  ashamed  of  being  a  burden  to  his 
companions,  takes  his  place,  assuming  the  name  of  Captain  Fracasse,  and  passing 
through  many  adventures  on  the  road.  Isabella  returns  the  love  of  Captain  Fra- 
casse, but  will  not  allow  him  to  commit  a  mesalliance  by  making  her  his  wife. 

'Captain  Pracasse,'  although  announced  in  1840,  was  not  published  until  1863, 
when  it  met  with  most  brilliant  success.  Much  of  the  story  is  borrowed  from  the 
*  Roman  Comique'  of  Scarron. 

CAPTAIN  VENENO,  by  Pedro  Antonio  de  Alarcdn  (1881).  The  opening  scene  of 
this  clever  and  amusing  story  is  laid  in  Madrid,  in  the  month  of  March,  1848.  In  a 
skirmish  between  the  royal  troops  and  a  handful  of  Republicans,  Don  Jorge  de  C6r- 
doba,  called  Captain  Veneno  (poison)  on  account  of  his  brusque,  pugnacious  manner, 
is  wounded  before  the  house  of  Dona  Teresa  Barbastro,  who  shelters  him.  A  pro- 
fessed hater  of  women  and  marriage,  he  laments  his  prolonged  imprisonment  in 
terms  which  anger  the  mother  and  amuse  the  daughter;  but  his  kind  heart  is  so 
apparent  that  his  foibles  are  humored.  When  Dona  Teresa  dies  she  confides  to  him 
that  she  has  spent  her  fortune  in  trying  to  secure  the  confirmation  of  the  title  of 
Count  de  Santurce,  conferred  on  her  husband  by  Don  Carlos.  He  hides  the  truth 
from  the  daughfer.  Angustias,  for  a  few  days;  but  when  she  learns  that  he  is  paying 
the  household  expenses,  she  insists  upon  his  leaving,  now  that  he  can  walk.  He  tries 
to  induce  her  to  let  him  pension  her,  or  provide  for  her  in  any  honorable  way  except 
by  marrying  her,  although  he  professes  to  adore  her.  His  offers  being  rejected,  he 
proposes  marriage  with  one  inexorable  condition,  —  that  if  there  should  be  children, 
they  shall  be  sent  to  the  foundling  asylum ;  to  which  she  laughingly  agrees.  The  story 
is  written  with  a  breezy  freshness;  and  the  evolution  of  the  Captain's  character  is 
delightfully  done,  from  his  first  appearance  to  his  last,  where  he  is  discovered  on  all- 
fours  with  an  imp  of  three  on  his  back,  and  a  younger  one  pulling  him  by  the  hair, 
and  shouting  "Go  lang,  mule! "  After  'The  Child  of  the  Ball/  this  is  the  most  popu- 
lar of  Alarc6n's  stories,  as  it  deserves  to  be. 

CAPTAINS  ALL,  by  W.  W.  Jacobs  (1905).  Humorous  stories  of  the  escapades  and 
wooings  of  sailors  on  shore.  The  night-watchman  at  the  docks  spins  yarns  reminis- 
cent of  the  doings  of  Sam  Small,  Ginger  Dick,  and  Peter  Russett.  Sam  tries  to  elude 
his  mates  to  pay  court  to  a  widow,  the  proprietress  of  a  prosperous  tobacco  shop. 
They  find  him  out,  and  for  a  time  two  more  " captains"  are  his  rivals,  until  they  are 
disenchanted  by  the  arrival  of  the  widow's  nine  children  who  have  been  away  on  a 
visit.  Sam  signs  up  for  a  voyage  to  China  instead  of  settling  down  on  land,  as  he 
planned.  The  boatswain,  hoping  to  win  the  landlady  of  an  inn,  hires  another  man  to 
pretend  to  break  into  the  inn  one  night  to  give  him  a  chance  to  rescue  his  lady  love 
from  burglars.  The  lady  unexpectedly  locks  the  burglar  in  the  closet,  and  the  plot 
collapses.  The  boatswain  hears  a  pistol  shot  and  the  widow  rushes  out  to  tell  him 
she  has  killed  a  man.  While  he  digs  a  grave  in  the  yard  to  hide  the  body,  the  lady 
and  the  burglar  become  better  acquainted  as  they  are  watching  his  efforts  from  the 
window,  'The  Temptation1  is  the  farcical  tale  of  a  converted  burglar,  a  preacher 
in  the  sect  of  the  Seventh  Day  Primitive  Apostles,  billeted  on  a  brother  apostle,  who 
is  a  jeweler.  Both  he  and  the  jeweler  fear  he  may  be  tempted  to  relapse  into  sin. 
The  jeweler  spends  a  nervous  night,  hearing  brother  Burge  in  terrific  conflict  with  the 
Devil,  who  apparently  urges  him  to  rifle  the  shop.  The  two  men  meet  on  the  stairs, 
and  the  jeweler  makes  the  excuse  that  he  thought  he  heard  burglars  below,  wherea  t 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  123 

the  ex-burglar  rushes  terrified  to  his  room,  and  shouts  out  the  window  for  the  police. 
The  officer  arrests  him,  and  in  later  explanations,  it  comes  out  that  lurid  allusions  to 
a  guilty  past  are  covered  in  fact  by  a  sentence  of  fourteen  days  for  stealing  milk  cans. 
Another  story  relates  the  confounding  of  a  stingy  sailor  by  a  girl's  wit.  The  old 
gaffer  at  the  Cauliflower  Inn  relates  anecdotes  of  the  successful  roguery  of  Bob  Pretty- 
man,  the  poacher,  and  there  is  a  gruesome  tale  of  death  on  board  ship  at  sea. 

CAPTAINS  COURAGEOUS,  by  Rudyard  Kipling  (1897),  is  a  study  in  the 
evolution  of  character.  The  hero  is  an  American  boy,  Harvey  Cheyne,  the  son 
of  a  millionaire,  a  spoiled  little  puppy,  but  with  latent  possibilities  of  manliness 
smothered  by  his  pampered  life.  A  happy  accident  to  the  boy  opens  the  way  for  the 
development  of  his  better  nature.  In  a  fit  of  seasickness  he  falls  from  the  deck  of  a 
big  Atlantic  liner,  and  is  picked  up  by  a  dory  from  the  Gloucester  fishing  schooner 
We're  Here,  commanded  by  Disko  Troop,  a  man  of  strong  moral  character  and 
purpose.  This  skipper  is  unmoved  by  Harvey's  tales  of  his  father's  wealth  and 
importance,  nor  will  he  consent  to  take  him  back  to  New  York  until  the  fishing 
season  is  over;  but  proposes  instead  to  put  the  boy  to  work  on  the  schooner  at  ten 
dollars  a  month.  This  enforced  captivity  is  Harvey's  regeneration.  He  learns  to 
know  the  value  of  work,  or  obedience,  of  good-will.  He  is  sent  back  to  his  father  as  a 
boy  really  worth  the  expense  of  bringing  up.  Mr.  Cheyne  returns  good  office  with 
good  office  by  securing  Troop's  son,  Dan,  a  chance  to  rise  as  a  seaman. 

The  simple  story  is  told  with  a  directness  and  clarity  characteristic  of  Kipling, 
who  appears  so  little  in  the  pages  of  the  book  that  they  might  be  leaves  from  life 
itself.  The  strength  and  charm  of  the  story  lies  in  its  rare  detachment  from  the 
shackles  of  the  author's  personality,  and  in  its  intrinsic  morality. 

CAPTAIN'S  DAUGHTER,  THE,  by  Alexander  Pushkin.  This  story,  published  in 
1832,  narrates  the  adventures  of  a  young  officer  and  his  sweetheart,  during  Puga- 
cheTs  rebellion,  in  the  reign  of  Catherine  II.  Piotr  Andreyevich  Grinef,  son  of  a 
wealthy  Russian  noble,  joins  the  army,  and  is  sent  to  the  small  fortress  of  Byglogorsk. 
Savelich,  an  old  family  servant,  accompanies  him  thither,  and  with  wonderful  love 
and  devotion  acts  the  part  of  guardian  angel.  Captain  Mironof,  the  commandant,  a 
kindly  old  soldier,  receives  him  with  much  affection  and  offers  him  the  hospitality 
of  his  house;  where  Vasilisa  his  wife,  good-hearted  but  inquisitive,  oversees  the  affairs 
of  the  whole  fortress.  Piotr  and  the  sweet-faced  daughter  Maria  soon  fall  in  love; 
but  Schvabrin,  the  girl's  rejected  lover,  causes  the  devoted  pair  to  undergo  many 
trials.  In  time,  Emilian  Pugache*f,  a  Cossack,  assuming  the  title  Peter  III.,  arrives 
at  the  fortress  with  a  band  of  insurgents,  among  them  the  traitor  Schvabrin;  and 
overpowering  the  garrison,  captures  the  town.  Captain  Mironof  and  his  wife  are 
murdered,  and  Schvabrin,  the  traitor  and  deserter,  is  left  in  charge.  Pugache*f,  with 
unexpected  gratitude,  remembering  a  former  kindness  of  Piotr,  pardons  him  and 
permits  him  to  leave  the  town,  although  Piofcr  will  not  swear  allegiance.  He  goes  to 
Orenburg  with  his  servant;  and  while  there  receives  a  letter  from  Maria,  who  prays 
for  help  from  Schvabrin 's  persecutions.  Piotr  rescues  her,  and  she  goes  to  his  parents, 
who  gladly  welcome  her,  while  Piotr  joins  a  detachment  of  the  army  under  Jurin. 
Here  Schvabrin  gives  information  that  leads  to  his  arrest  p.s  a  spy  and  his  sentence 
as  an  exile  to  Siberia.  From  this  fate  he  is  saved  by  Maria,  who  obtains  his  pardon 
from  the  Empress,  and  he  is  released  in  time  to  see  Pug^ch^f  hanged  as  a  traitor. 
The  author,  who  also  wrote  a  serious  history  of  the  Pugacjie'f  rebellion,  gives  in  this 
delightful  romance  a  very  true  account  of  that  remarkable  uprising. 


124  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

CARACTERES,   ou,  MCEUR^   DE  CE  SIECLE,  by  La  Bruyere.     The  first  edition 
appeared  in  i6SS,    The  eight  editions  that  followed  during  the  author's  lifetime 
contained  so  many  additional  portraits,  maxims,  and  paragraphs,  that  they  were 
really  new  works.     Each  'Caractere'  is  the  portrait  of  some  individual  type  studied 
by  La  Bruyere  in  the  world  around  him.     His  position  in  the  family  of  Conde*,  and 
consequent  opportunities  for  character-study,  afforded  him  all  the  materials  he 
needed;  and  so  he  has  given  us  a  whole  gallery  of  dukes,  marquises,  court  prelates, 
court  chamberlains,  court  ladies,  pedants,  financiers,  and  in  fact  representatives  of 
every  department  of  court,  professional,  literary,  or  civic  life.     He  gets  at  them  in  the 
different  situations  in  which  they  are  most  likely  to  reveal  their  personal  and  mental 
characteristics,  and  then  makes  them  tell  him  their  several  secrets.   Unlike  Montaigne 
and  La  Rochefoucauld,  he  does  not  much  care  to  meddle  with  the  man  and  woman  of 
all  times  and  places.     His  victim  is  this  or  that  man  or  woman  belonging  to  the 
second  half  of  the  seventeenth  century.     Naturally,  a  mind-reader  of  this  sort,  who 
was  also  a  master  of  the  most  polished  sarcasm,  clothed  in  the  most  classical  French 
ever  written  save  that  of  Racine  and  Massillon,  would  make  many  enemies;  for  under 
the  disguise  of  Elmire,  Clitiphon,  and   other   names  borrowed  from  the  plays  and 
romances  of  the  age,  many  great  personages  of  the  literary  and  fashionable  world 
recognized  themselves.     La  Bruyere  protested  his  innocence,  and  no  doubt  in  most 
cases  several  individuals  sat  for  a  single  portrait;  but  it  is  also  pretty  certain  that  he 
painted  the  great  Conde  in  'Ernile, '  and  Fontenelle  in  'Cydias,'  and  that  many  others 
had  cause  for  complaint.    While  it  is  admitted  that  the  picture  he  presents  of  the 
society  of  his  time  is  almost  complete,  it  does  not  appear  that  the  '  Caracteres '  were 
composed  after  any  particular  plan.      Still,  although  there  may  not  be  a  very  close 
connection  between  the  chapters,  there  is  a  certain  order  in  their  succession.    The 
first,  which  paints  society  in  its  general  features,  is  a  sort  of  introduction  to  the  nine 
following,  which  paint  it  in  its  different  castes.     Universal  ethics  are  the  subje  ;t  of 
the  eleventh  and  twelfth,  while  the  eccentricities  and  abuses  of  the  age  are  dealt 
with  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth,  and  in  the  fifteenth  we  have  the  Christian 
solution.     Some  critics  hold  La  Bruyere  a  democrat  and  a  precursor  of  the  French 
Revolution.    The  Caracteres,  however,  teem  with  passages  that  prove  he  accepted 
all  the  essential  ideas  of  his  time  in  politics  and  religion.    A  large  number  of  manu- 
script "keys  "  to  the  *  Caracteres '  appeared  after  their  publication.   Quite  a  literature 
has  grown  up  around  these  keys.   The ' Come*die  de  La  Bruyere7  of  ISdouard  Fournier 
deals  with  the  key  question,  both  exhaustively  and  amusingly.    The  'Edition  Ser- 
vois'  (1867)  of  the  *  Caracteres '  is  considered  by  French  critics  unrivaled;  but  English 
readers  will  find  that  of  Chassary  (1876)  more  useful,  as  it  contains  everything  of 
interest  that  had  appeared  in  the  preceding  editions. 

CARICATURE  AND  OTHER  COMIC  ART,  'in  All  Times  and  Many  Lands/  by 
James  Parton.  This  elaborate  work,  first  published  in  1877,  is  full  of  information 
to  the  student  of  caricature,  giving  over  300  illustrations  of  the  progress  of  the  art 
from  its  origin  to  modern  times.  Beginning  with  the  caricature  of  India,  Egypt, 
Greece,  and  Rome,  as  preserved  in  ceramics,  frescoes,  mosaics,  and  other  mural 
decoration,  Mr.  Parton  points  out  that  the  caricature  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  chiefly 
to  be  found  in  the  grotesque  ornamentations  of  Gothic  architecture;  in  the  ornamen- 
tation of  castles,  the  gargoyles  and  other  decorative  exterior  stonework  of  cathedrals, 
and  the  wonderful  wood-carvings  of  choir  and  stalls.  Since  that  time,  printing  has 
preserved  for  us  abundant  examples.  The  great  mass  of  pictorial  caricature  is 
political;  the  earliest  prints  satirizing  the  Reformation,  then  the  issues  of  the  English 


THE   READER'S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS  125 

Revolution,  the  French  Revolution,  our  own  Civil  War,  the  policies  and  blunders  of 
the  Second  Empire,  and  many  other  lesser  causes  and  questions.  Social  caricature  is 
represented  by  its  great  apostle,  Hogarth,  and  by  Gillray,  Cruikshank,  and  many 
lesser  men  in  France,  Spain,  and  Italy,  England  and  America;  and  in  all  times  and  all 
countries,  women  and  matrimony,  dress  and  servants,  chiefly  occupy  the  artist's  pen- 
cil. When  this  volume  was  published,  the  delightful  Du  Maurier  had  not  reached  a 
prominent  place  on  Punch,  and  the  American  comic  papers,  Life,  Puck,  and  the  rest, 
were  not  born;  but  English  caricature  of  the  past  century  is  treated  at  great  length. 
The  book  opens  with  a  picture  of  two  'Pigmy  Pugilists '  from  a  wall  in  Pompeii,  and 
closes  with  a  sentimental  street  Arab  of  Woolf  exactly  like  those  which  for  twenty 
years  after  he  continued  to  draw.  The  volume  is  not  only  amusing,  but  most 
instructive  as  a  compendium  of  social  history. 

CARISSIMA,  THE,  by  the  lady  who  chooses  the  pen-name  of  "Lucas  Malet" 
(1896), — and  who  is  a  daughter  of  Charles  Kingsley,  —  is  a  character-study  of  a  most 
subtle  description.  The  heroine,  Charlotte  Perry,  affectionately  called  Carissima,  is 
a  "modern"  young  woman,  very  pretty  and  charming,  apparently  full  of  imagination 
and  sympathy,  and  a  lover  of  all  things  true  and  beautiful.  She  is  engaged  to  Con- 
stan tine  Leversedge,  a  manly,  straightforward,  honest  Englishman,  who  has  made  a 
large  fortune  by  hard  work  in  South  Africa,  and  who  adores  his  beautiful  fiancee. 
At  the  Swiss  hotel,  where  Leversedge  and  the  Perrys  are  staying,  she  meets  an  old 
friend,  Anthony  Hammond,  who  tells  the  story.  Hammond  finds  out  that  Leversedge 
is  suffering  from  an  extraordinary  obsession  or  incubus;  he  is  haunted  by  a  dog,  which 
he  had  once  killed.  He  never  sees  it  except  at  night,  and  then  he  sees  only  its  horrible 
eyes;  but  he  can  feel  it  as  it  jumps  on  his  knees  or  lies  against  his  breast  in  bed. 
Hammond  advises  him  to  tell  Charlotte  of  this  apparition,  and  she  accepts  the  revela- 
tion with  great  courage,  professing  her  willingness  to  help  her  lover  to  drive  the  horror 
from  his  mind.  She  declares  her  only  fear  to  be  that  instead  of  conquering  the 
hallucination,  she  may,  after  her  marriage,  come  to  share  it.  Leversedge  offers  to 
give  her  up;  but  she  bravely  sticks  to  her  promise,  Leversedge  telling  her  that  if  the 
grisly  thing  finds  her  out,  he  will  free  her  by  taking  his  own  life.  On  the  night  after 
the  wedding,  she  cries  out  in  terror  that  she  sees  the  dog.  Her  husband,  horror- 
stricken  that  what  he  dreaded  has  happened,  yet  implores  his  wife  to  stay  by  him, 
to  help  him  fight  the  spectre;  certain  that  together  they  may  lay  the  ghost.  Then  she 
tells  him  that  she  will  not  remain;  that  she  does  not  love  him;  that  she  has  lied  about 
the  dog,  playing  a  trick  to  get  rid  of  him.  The  trick  is  successful,  for  the  next 
morning  Leversedge's  body  is  found  in  the  lake.  The  Carissima  assumes  the  properly 
becoming  attitude  of  despair,  but  it  is  plain  that  she  will  marry  another  lover.  The 
book  displays  a  skillful  intricacy  of  subordinate  causes  and  effects,  but  its  chief 
interest  lies  in  the  study  of  the  Carissima,  who  seems  an  angel  but  who  is  "top-full  of 
direst  cruelty." 

CARLINGFORD,  see  CHRONICLES  OF. 

CARLYLE,  THOMAS,  LIFE  OF,  by  J.  A.  Froude  (1882).  The  historian  Froude  was 
not  only  the  pupil  but  the  devoted  friend  of  Thomas  Carlyle.  Fortunately  for  the 
reader  he  has  gone  to  his  master  for  ideas,  but  not  for  style,  and  in  this  biography 
his  love  for  the  vivid  and  picturesque  is  seen  at  its  best.  A  great  deal  of  the  material, 
particularly  correspondence  upon  which  the  book  is  based  liad  been  put  into  his 
hands  by  Carlyle  himself  with  permission  to  use  it  at  his  discretion.  He  has  pro- 
duced one  of  the  most  fascinating,  but  one  of  the  most  misleading  of  biographies, 


126  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

which  nevertheless  holds  the  attention  of  the  reader  by  its  consummate  literary  art. 
He  has  made  the  sage  of  Ecclefechan  less  generous,  less  considerate,  and  less  lovable 
than  he  was,  but  he  has  left  an  extraordinarily  vivid  picture  of  the  grim,  gruff  (though, 
at  bottom,  kindly-naturedj  philosopher.  "His  function  was  sacred  to  him,  and 
he  had  laid  down  as  a  fixed  rule  that  he  would  never  write  merely  to  please,  never 
for  money,  that  he  would  never  write  anything  save  when  specially  moved  to  write 
by  an  impulse  from  within;  above  all,  never  to  set  down  a  sentence  which  he  did 
not  in  his  heart  believe  to  be  true,  and  to  spare  no  labor  till  his  work  to  the  last 
fibre  was  as  good  as  he  could  possibly  make  it."  Hardly  less  fascinating  is  the 
picture  of  Jane  Welsh,  the  delicately-nurtured,  highly-gifted  woman  who  had  been 
passionately  devoted  to  Edward  Irving,  later  the  founder  of  the  Catholic  Apostolic 
Church,  but  who  had  married  Carlyle,  whom  she  merely  esteemed.  "She  had  the 
companionship  of  an  extraordinary  man.  Her  character  was  braced  by  the  contact 
with  him,  and  through  the  incessant  self-denial  which  the  determination  that  he 
should  do  his  very  best  inevitably  exacted  of  her.  But  she  was  not  happy.  Long 
years  after,  in  the  late  evening  of  her  laborious  life,  she  said :  '  I  married  for  ambition. 
Carlyle  has  exceeded  all  that  my  wildest  hopes  ever  imagined  of  him  —  and  I  am 
miserable.'  f> 

CARMEN,  by  Prosper  Me'rime'e  (1847).  Don  Jose*  Lizzarrabengoa,  Navarrese 
and  corporal  in  a  cavalry  regiment,  meets  at  Seville  a  gipsy  known  as  Carmen. 
While  taking  her  to  prison  for  a  murderous  assault  on  another  woman,  he  is  induced 
to  connive  at  her  escape,  and  is  reduced  to  the  ranks  therefor.  Jealously  infatuated 
with  her,  he  kills  his  lieutenant,  and  becomes  a  member  of  a  band  of  smugglers  of 
which  she  is  the  leading  spirit.  In  a  duel  with  Garcia,  her  rom  or  husband,  he 
kills  Garcia  also,  and  becomes  in  his  turn  the  rom  of  the  fascinating  Carmen. 
Jealous  of  every  man  who  sees  her,  he  offers  to  forget  everything  if  she  will  go  with 
him  to  America.  She  refuses  —  for  the  sake  of  another  lover  as  he  believes; 
and  he  declares  that  he  will  kill  her  if  she  persists.  A  thorough  fatalist,  she  an- 
swers that  it  is  so  written  and  that  she  has  long  known  it,  but  that  "free  Carmen 
has  been  and  free  she  will  always  be."  Don  Jose*  kills  her,  buries  her  body  in  the 
woods,  and  riding  to  Cordova,  delivers  himself  to  the  authorities.  In  this  story, 
the  author,  turning  away  from  an  artificial  society,  has  returned  to  the  passion 
and  ferocity  of  primitive  nature.  The  romance  is  best  known  in  its  operatic  version. 

CASA  BRACCIO,  by  F.  Marion  Crawford,  was  published  in  1896,  and  is  one  of 
the  author's  stories  of  Italian  life.  Angus  Dalrymple,  a  young  Scotch  physician, 
falls  in  love  with  a  beautiful  nun,  Sister  Maria  Addolorata,  who  is  of  the  distinguished 
Roman  house  of  Braccio.  She  is  in  a  convent  in  Subiaco,  near  Tivoli.  Dalrymple 
persuades  her  to  run  off  with  him,  and  they  fly,  pursued  by  the  curses  of  Stefanone, 
the  peasant  father  of  a  girl  whose  hopeless  love  for  Angus  leads  to  her  suicide.  The 
scene  then  shifts  to  Rome,  seventeen  years  having  elapsed.  Dalrymple  appears 
with  his  daughter  Gloria,  the  mother  having  died.  Gloria  is  very  beautiful  and 
sings  superbly.  She  is  loved  by  two  men:  Reanda,  a  gifted  Italian  artist,  and 
Paul  Griggs,  an  American  journalist.  She  marries  the  former;  but  after  a  while 
leaves  him  and  lives  with  Griggs,  gives  birth  to  a  child  by  him,  and  kills  herself. 
Before  her  death  she  writes  to  Reanda,  confessing  to  him  that  she  deplores  having 
left  him  and  has  always  loved  him.  The  letters  containing  the  admission  are  sent 
by  Reanda  to  Griggs,  out  of  revenge,  and  break  his  heart,  for  he  has  idolized  Gloria. 
Meanwhile  the  father,  Dalrymple,  is  at  last  tracked  down  and  murdered  by  Stefa- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  127 

none,  the  peasant  of  Subiaco,  in  a  church  where  the  Scotchman  was  musing  on  his 
wife's  memory.  The  first  half  of  the  novel  is  much  the  best. 

CASTLE  DALY,  by  Annie  Keary.  'Castle  Daly,'  the  most  popular  of  Annie 
Keary 's  stories,  was  published  in  1875.  It  relates  the  fortunes  of  an  English  and 
an  Irish  family.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Connemara,  Ireland,  during  the  famine  of 
1846  and  the  formation  and  insurrection  of  the  party  of  "Young  Irelanders"  in 
1846-49.  The  impartial  delineation  of  the  strong  and  weak  points  of  Celtic  char- 
acter, the  combination  of  acute  observation  and  deep  feeling,  and  the  exciting  history 
of  the  rebellion  led  by  O'Brien,  make  it  very  interesting.  The  Irish  nature  is  typi- 
fied in  the  golden-haired  heroine,  Ellen,  daughter  of  Squire  Daly;  in  Connor,  her 
brother,  who  joins  the  "Young  Irelanders";  and  in  Cousin  Anne  of  "Good  People's 
Hollow,"  who,  heedless  of  the  precepts  of  political  economy,  rules  her  tenants  with 
lavish  kindness.  On  the  other  hand,  the  careful  foresight  of  the  Saxon  race  is  well 
portrayed  in  John  Thornely,  and  in  Pelham,  the  eldest  son  of  Squire  Daly,  who 
inherits  English  characteristics  from  his  mother. 

CASTILIAN  DAYS,  by  John  Hay,  has  gone  through  many  editions  since  its  publi- 
cation in  1871 ;  a  prosperity  at  which  no  reader  of  the  book  can  wonder.  Its  seven- 
teen essays  present  a  vivid  picture  of  the  life  of  Spain.  Joining  a  graceful  and 
brilliant  style  with  the  happiest  perception  of  the  significance  of  things  seen,  the 
author  finds  a  subject  worthy  of  his  interpretation  in  that  mediaeval  civilization  of 
the  Iberian  peninsula  which  has  lasted  over  into  the  nineteenth  century  —  a  civili- 
zation where  the  Church  holds  sway  as  it  did  in  the  Middle  Ages:  where  the  upper 
classes  believe  in  devils,  and  the  peasants  dare  not  yawn  without  crossing  themselves, 
lest  an  imp  find  lodgment  within  them;  where  duels  are  fought  in  all  deadliness 
whenever  a  caballero's  delicate  honor  is  offended;  where  alone  the  Carnival  survives 
as  an  unforced,  naive,  popular  fe"te;  where  rich  and  poor  play  together,  and  enjoy 
themselves  like  children.  Madrid,  Segovia,  Toledo,  Alcala",  Seville,  are  so  described 
that  we  see  the  people  abroad,  at  home,  at  church,  at  the  bull-fights,  at  the  miracle- 
play,  in  the  brilliant  light  of  their  sub-tropical  skies.  The  whole  history  of  Spain 
— •  of  its  Moors,  its  Goths,  its  Castilians  —  is  written  in  its  streets  and  its  customs; 
and  Mr.  Hay  has  translated  it  for  Western  eyes  to  read.  His  book  is  the  work  at 
once  of  the  shrewd  social  observer  and  the  imaginative  poet. 

CASTING  AWAY  OF  MRS.  LECKS  AND  MRS.  ALESHINE,  THE  (1886), 
by  Frank  R.  Stockton.  This  chronicle  sets  forth  the  curious  experiences  of  Mrs. 
Leeks  and  Mrs.  Aleshine;  two  middle-aged  widows,  from  a  little  New  England 
village,  who,  having  "means,"  decide  to  see  the  world  and  pay  a  visit  to  the  son  of 
one  of  them,  who  has  gone  into  business  in  Japan.  On  the  steamer  crossing  the 
Pacific  they  meet  a  young  Mr.  Craig,  who  tells  the  story.  The  two  ladies  and  Mr. 
Craig  are  cast  away  in  most  preposterous  circumstances,  on  a  lonely  isle  in  mid- 
ocean.  Many  of  the  scenes,  like  the  escape  from  drowning  of  the  two  widows, 
are  of  the  very  essence  of  true  humor,  of  a  grotesque  form;  and  the  story-teller's 
invention  and  humor  never  once  flag.  It  is  a  good  example  of  Stockton's  unique 
method  of  story-telling  —  the  matter  extremely  absurd  and  the  manner  extremely 
grave,  the  narrative  becoming  more  and  more  matter-of-fact  and  minutely  realistic, 
as  the  events  themselves  grow  more  and  more  incredible. 

CASTLE  OF  OTRANTO,  THE,  by  Horace  Waipole.  It  is  curious  that  a  man 
with  no  purpose  m  life  beyond  drinking  tea  with  Lady  Suffolk,  or  filling  quarto 


128  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

note-books  with  court  gossip,  should  produce  an  epoch-making  book; — for  the 
'Castle  of  Otranto,'  with  its  natural  personages  actuated  by  supernatural 
agencies,  is  the  prototype  of  that  extraordinary  series  of  romantic  fictions 
which  began  with  Anne  RadclifFe,  and  was  superseded  only  by  the  Waverley 
novels. 

The  reader's  interest  is  aroused  with  the  first  page  of  the  romance,  and  never 
flags.  Conrad,  son  of  Manfred,  Prince  of  Otranto,  about  to  marry  Isabella,  daughter 
of  the  Marquis  of  Vicenza,  is  found  in  the  castle  court,  dashed  to  pieces  under  an 
enormous  helmet.  Now  deprived  of  an  heir,  Manfred  declares  to  Isabella  his  in- 
tention of  marrying  her  himself;  when,  to  his  horror,  his  grandfather's  portrait 
descends  from  the  wall,  and  signs  to  Manfred  to  follow  him.  Isabella  meanwhile, 
by  the  assistance  of  a  peasant,  Theodore,  escapes  to  Friar  Jerome.  For  this  inter- 
vention, Manfred,  now  returned  from  his  tete-a-tete  with  his  grandfather's  phan- 
tom, leads  the  youth  into  the  court  to  be  executed,  when  he  is  found  to  be  Jerome's 
son,  and  is  spared.  At  this  moment  a  herald  appears  demanding  of  Manfred, 
in  the  name  of  Prince  Frederick,  his  daughter  Isabella  and  the  resignation  of  the 
principality  of  Otranto  usurped  from  Frederick;  who  follows  the  proclamation, 
is  admitted  co  the  castle  and  informed  of  Manfred's  desire  to  marry  Isabella,  when 
word  comes  that  she  has  escaped  from  Jerome's  protection.  A  series  of  ludicrous 
portents  hastens  the  denouement:  drops  of  blood  flow  from  the  nose  of  the  statue 
of  Alphonso,  the  prince  from  whose  heirs  the  dukedom  has  been  wrested;  unrelated 
arms  and  legs  appear  in  various  parts  of  the  castle;  and  finally,  in  the  midst  of  the 
rocking  of  earth,  and  the  rattling  of  "more  than  mortal  armor,"  the  walls  of  the 
castle  are  thrown  down,  the  inmates  having  presumably  escaped.  From  the  ruins 
the  statue  of  Alphonso,  raised  to  gigantic  proportions,  cries,  "Behold  in  Theodore 
the  true  heir  of  Alphonso."  Isabella,  having  been  rescued  at  the  critical  moment, 
is  of  course  married  to  Theodore. 

This  wildly  romantic  tale,  published  in  1764,  was  enthusiastically  received  by 
the  public;  who,  as  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  so  well  says,  "rejoiced  to  be  reminded  that 
men  once  lived  in  castles,  believed  in  the  Devil,  and  did  not  take  snuff  or  wear 
powdered  wigs." 

CASTLE  RACKRENT,  by  Maria  Edgeworth.  This,  as  the  author  announces,  is 
"an  Hibernian  tale  taken  from  facts  and  from  the  manners  of  the  Irish  squire  before 
the  year  1782."  The  memoirs  of  the  Rackrent  family  are  recounted  by  Thady 
Quirk,  an  old  steward,  who  has  been  from  childhood  devotedly  attached  to  the  house 
of  Rackrenfc.  The  old  retainer* s  descriptions  of  the  several  masters  under  whom  he 
has  served,  vividly  portray  various  types  of  the  "fine  old  Irish  gentleman";  fore- 
most among  them  all  being  Sir  Patrick  Rackrent,  "who  lived  and  died  a  monu- 
ment of  old  Irish  hospitality,"  and  whose  "funeral  was  such  a  one  as  was  never 
known  before  or  since  in  the  county."  Then  comes  Sir  Murtagh  Rackrent,  whose 
famous  legal  knowledge  brought  the  poor  tenants  little  consolation;  and  his  wife, 
of  the  Skinflint  family,  who  "had  a  charity  school  for  poor  children,  where  they  were 
taught  to  read  and  write  gratis,  and  where  they  were  kept  spinning  gratis  for  my 
lady  in  return."  Next  follows  Sir  Kit,  "God  bless  him!  He  valued  a  guinea  as 
little  as  any  man,  money  was  no  more  to  him  than  dirt,  and  his  gentleman  and  groom 
and  all  belonging  to  him  the  same."  Also  his  Jewish  wife,  whom  he  imprisons  in 
her  room  for  seven  years  because  she  refuses  to  give  up  her  diamonds.  In  the 
words  of  Thady,  "it  was  a  shame  for  her  not  to  have  shown  more  duty,  when  he 
condescended  to  ask  so  often  for  such  a  bit  of  a  trifle  in  his  distresses,  especially 


THE   READER 's    DIGEST    OF    BOOKS  12$ 

when  he  all  along  made  it  no  secret  that  he  married  her  for  money."  The  memoirs 
close  with  the  history  of  Sir  Condy  Rackrent,  who  dies  from  quaffing  on  a  wager 
a  great  horn  of  punch,  after  having  squandered  the  remainder  of  the  family  fortune. 
'Castle  Rackrent'  was  issued  in  1801,  and  was  the  first  of  a  series  of  successful  novels 
produced  by  the  author,  whose  descriptions  of  Irish  character,  whether  grave  or 
gay,  are  unsurpassed.  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  acknowledged  that  his  original  idea, 
when  he  began  his  career  as  a  novelist,  was  to  be  to  Scotland  what  Miss  Edgeworth 
was  to  Ireland. 

CATHARINE,  by  Jules  Sandau  (Paris:  1846).  The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid  in 
the  little  village  of  Saint-Sylvain,  in  the  ancient  province  of  La  Marche.  The 
cure,  a  priest  patterned  after  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  who  spends  most  of  his  in- 
come of  800  francs  in  relieving  his  poor,  discovers  that  there  is  no  money  left  to  buy 
a  soutane  for  himself  and  a  surplice  for  his  assistant;  while  the  festival  of  the  patron 
of  the  parish  is  close  at  hand,  and  their  old  vestments  are  in  rags.  There  is  con- 
sternation in  the  presbytery,  especially  when  the  news  arrives  that  the  bishop  of 
Limoges  himself  is  to  be  present.  Catharine,  the  priest's  little  niece,  determines  to 
make  a  collection,  and  goes  to  the  neighboring  chateau,  although  warned  that  the 
Count  de  Sougeres  is  a  wicked  and  dangerous  man.  But  Catharine,  in  her  inno- 
cence, does  not  understand  the  warning;  and  besides,  Claude,  her  uncle's  choir- 
leader  and  her  friend  from  childhood,  will  protect  her.  When  she  reaches  the  chateau 
she  meets,  not  the  count,  but  his  son  Roger,  who  gives  a  liberal  donation  to  the 
fair  collector,  and  afterward  sends  hampers  of  fowl,  silver  plate,  etc.,  to  the  presby- 
tery, so  that  Monseigneur  of  Limoges  and  his  suite  are  received  with  all  due  honor. 
Universal  joy  pervades  the  parish,  which  Claude  does  not  share.  He  is  jealous; 
and  with  reason,  for  Catharine  and  Roger  quickly  fall  in  love  with  each  other. 
'Catharine7  ranks  as  one  of  the  best,  if  not  the  best,  of  Sandeau's  works.  While 
some  of  the  scenes  show  intense  dramatic  power,  and  others  are  of  the  most  pathetic 
interest,  a  spirit  of  delicious  humor  pervades  the  whole  story,  an  unforced  and 
kindly  humor  that  springs  from  the  situations,  and  is  of  a  class  seldom  found  in 
French  literature. 

CATHARINE  FURZE,  "by  Mark  Rutherford;  edited  by  his  friend  Reuben  Shap- 
cott."  Published  in  1893,  this  book  opens  with  a  description  of  Easthorpe,  the 
market  town  of  the  English  Eastern  Midlands,  in  1840.  The  two  inns  are  patron- 
ized by  landlords,  farmers,  tenants,  and  commercial  travelers;  especially  on  election 
days.  The  story  centres  about  the  life  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Furze,  and  their  daughter 
Catharine,  aged  about  nineteen.  Mike  Catchpole,  by  an  accident  in  the  factory 
of  Mr.  Furze,  loses  his  eyesight.  Catharine,  with  a  sense  of  justice,  insists  that 
he  shall  be  made  an  apprentice  in  the  business.  The  girl  is  sent  to  school  to  the 
Misses  Ponsonby,  who  are  very  strict  in  their  religious  habits  and  manner  of  instruc- 
tion, and  whose  pupils  are  questioned  upon  the  weekly  sermon  by  the  preacher, 
Mr.  Cardew.  He  has  not  learned  the  art  of  being  happy  with  his  wife;  and  when 
he  meets  Catharine  they  discuss  Milton,  Satan,  and  the  divine  eternal  plan.  Car- 
dew's  presence  is  inspiriting  to  her.  Tom  Catchpole,  a  clerk  in  her  father's  store, 
worships  Catharine  from  afar.  At  last  he  confesses  his  love  and  she  refuses  him. 
After  her  return  from  school  she  finds  life  utterly  uninteresting,  having  no  scope 
for  her  powers.  When  she  falls  ill  and  fades  away,  Cardew  is  sent  for:  she  tells 
him  that  he  has  saved  her.  "By  'their  love  for  each  other  they  were  both  saved." 
She  takes  up  her  life  once  more,  and  the  book  ends  without  a  climax  —  almost 


130  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

without  incident.  Written  with  an  almost  heartless  impersonality,  it  is  a  strik- 
ing portraiture  of  that  English  lower  middle-class  life  which  Matthew  Arnold 
pronounced  so  deadly  for  mind  and  soul.  It  might  be  called  a  tragedy  of  the 
unfulfilled. 

CATO  OF  UTICA,  by  Joseph  Addison.  A  tragedy  in  five  acts  and  in  blank  verse. 
It  was  first  represented  in  1713.  The  scene  is  laid  in  a  hall  of  the  governor's  palace  _ 
at  Utica.  The  subject  is  Cato's  last  desperate  struggle  against  Caesar,  and  his 
determination  to  die  rather  than  survive  his  country's  freedom.  All  the  "unities" 
are  strictly  observed :  there  is  no  change  of  place,  the  action  occurs  on  the  same 
day,  and  all  the  incidents  centre  around  Cato  and  conduce  to  his  death.  'Cato' 
owed  its  extraordinary  success  to  the  deadly  hatred  that  raged  between  the  Whigs 
and  Tories  at  the  time:  the  Whigs  cheered  when  an  actor  mentioned  the  word 
"liberty";  and  the  Tories,  resenting  the  implied  innuendo,  cheered  louder  than 
they.  To  the  Whigs  Marlborough  was  a  Cato,  to  the  Tories  he  was  a  Caesar. 
Bolingbroke,  immediately  after  the  performance,  gave  Booth,  the  Cato  of  the 
tragedy,  fifty  guineas  "for  having  so  well  defended  liberty  against  the  assaults  of 
a  would-be  dictator"  (Alarlborough).  Every  poet  of  the  time  wrote  verses  in 
honor  of  'Cato,'  the  best  being  Pope's  prologue;  and  it  was  translated  into  French, 
German,  and  Italian.  The  German  adaptation  of  Gottsched  was  almost  as  great 
a  success  as  the  original. 

CAUSERIES  DTI  LUNDI,  by  Saint e-Beuve.  Every  prominent  name  in  French 
literature,  from  Villehardouin  and  Joinville  to  Baudelaire  and  Hale" vy,  is  exhaustively 
discussed  in  the  'Causeries'  of  Sainte-Beuve,  in  his  own  day  the  greatest  critic  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  author  sometimes  discusses  foreign  literature;  his  articles 
on  Dante,  Goethe,  Gibbon,  and  Franklin  being  excellent.  What  is  most  original  in 
Sainte-Beuve  is  his  point  of  view.  Before  his  time,  critics  considered  only  the  work 
of  an  author.  Sainte-Beuve  widened  the  scope  of  criticism  by  inventing  what  has 
been  called  "biographical  criticism."  In  the  most  skillful  and  delicate  manner,  he 
dissects  the  writer  to  find  the  man.  He  endeavors  to  explain  the  work  by  the  charac- 
ter of  the  author,  his  early  training,  his  health,  his  idiosyncrasies,  and  above  all,  by  his 
environment.  The  'Causeries'  were  first  published  as  feuilletons  in  the  papers. 
They  may  be  divided  into  two  distinct  classes:  those  written  before,  and  those  written 
after,  the  Restoration.  In  the  former  there  is  more  fondness  for  polemics  than  pure 
literary  purpose;  but  they  represent  the  most  brilliant  period  in  Sainte-Beuve 's 
literary  career.  After  the  Restoration,  his  method  changes:  there  are  no  polemics; 
however  little  sympathy  the  critic  may  have  with  the  works  of  such  writers  as  De 
Maistre,  Lamartine,  or  Beranger,  he  analyzes  their  lives  solely  for  the  purpose  of 
finding  the  source  of  their  ideas.  The  most  curious  portion  of  the  'Causeries'  is 
that  in  which  he  discusses  his  contemporaries.  He  seems  in  his  latter  period  to  be 
desirous  of  refuting  his  earlier  positions.  Where  he  had  been  indulgent  to  excess, 
he  is  now  extremely  severe.  Chateaubriand,  Lamartine,  and  Be*ranger,  who  were 
once  his  idols,  are  relegated  to  a  very  inferior  place  in  literature.  Perhaps  there  is 
nothing  more  characteristic  of  Sainte-Beuve  than  the  sweetness  and  delicacy  with 
which  he  slays  an  obnoxious  brother  craftsman.  In  the  tender  regretfulness  which 
he  displays  in  assassinating  Gautier  or  Hugo,  he  follows  the  direction  of  Izaak  Walton 
with  regard  to  the  gentle  treatment  of  the  worm.  Many  lists  of  the  most  valuable  of 
the  'Causeries1  have  been  made;  but  as  they  all  differ,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  none  of 
Sainte-Beuve's  criticisms  is  without  a  high  value. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  131 

CAVALIER,  THE,  by  George  W.  Cable  (1901).  This  is  a  lively  story  of  love  and 
adventure  in  the  days  of  the  Civil  War,  and  details  the  experiences  of  Richard 
Thorndyke  Smith,  a  young  soldier  in  the  Southern  army,  who  gives  the  reader 
his  personal  reminiscences.  At  the  age  of  nineteen  he  becomes  a  scout  under 
Lieutenant  Ferry;  figures  in  many  thrilling  adventures  and  performs  many  valorous 
deeds.  Ferry,  whose  rightful  name  is  Edgard  Ferry  Durand,  is  a  brilliant  and 
fascinating  character  whose  noble  and  fearless  nature  makes  him  loved  by  men  and 
women  alike.  He  has  fallen  victim  to  the  charms  of  Charlotte  Oliver,  a  beautiful 
and  daring  Confederate  spy,  but,  owing  to  the  fact  that  she  is  already  married,  he 
feels  the  hopelessness  of  his  love.  Charlotte,  who  also  goes  by  the  name  of  Coralie 
Rothvelt,  is  wife  in  name  only  of  a  miserable  rascal  who  deceived  her  into  marrying 
him,  but  whose  real  character  she  discovered  immediately  after  the  ceremony,  and 
who  has  done  everything  he  could  to  make  her  life  wretched.  Charlotte  is  devoted 
to  the  Confederate  cause  and  undertakes  perilous  risks  without  thought  of  danger, 
and  is  at  the  front  in  time  of  battle,  caring  for  the  wounded  and  dying.  Although 
she  reciprocates  Ferry's  affection,  she  will  not  encourage  him  until  she  is  absolutely 
convinced  of  the  death  of  her  husband,  who  finally  dies  as  a  traitor,  after  having 
attempted  her  life  and  seriously  wounded  her.  At  last,  her  courage  and  fidelity 
are  rewarded  and  she  becomes  the  wife  of  the  man  she  loves.  Smith,  who  has  been 
the  faithful  ally  of  both  Charlotte  and  Ferry,  wins  the  love  of  Camille  Harper,  the 
Major's  daughter,  and  the  curtain  falls  on  the  closing  of  the  war,  with  strife  and 
discord  at  an  end.  This  story  exhibits  the  author's  simple  and  unaffected  manner 
of  writing,  and  the  plot  runs  with  unusual  swiftness  and  ease. 

CAVALLERIA  RUSTTCANA  ('Rustic  Chivalry'),  a  short  story  by  the  Sicilian 
Giovanni  Verga,  published  in  a  collection  entitled  'Novelle  rusticane'  in  1883  and 
presented  in  dramatic  form  at  Turin  in  1884.  Pietro  Mascagni  made  this  prose  play 
the  basis  of  the  verse-libretto  of  his  one-act  opera,  'Cavalleria  Rusticana'  (1890). 
The  scene  is  a  Sicilian  village  and  the  time  Easter  Day  at  the  hour  of  mass.  Turiddu 
Macca,  a  young  peasant,  son  of  a  widowed  mother,  was  in  love  with  the  coquette, 
Lola.  On  his  return  from  military  service  he  found  her  married  to  Alfio,  a  carter. 
Out  of  pique  he  paid  his  addresses  to  Santuzza,  who  fell  desperately  in  love  with 
him  and  on  receiving  his  promise  of  marriage  admitted  him  to  her  chamber.  Lola, 
annoyed  that  Turiddu  should  love  anyone  else,  ensnares  him  again,  and  her  hus- 
band's frequent  absences  enable  them  to  meet  at  her  house.  Meanwhile  Santuzza 
finds  herself  about  to  become  a  mother.  During  the  time  of  mass  on  Easter  morning 
she  rebukes  Turiddu  for  his  infidelity  and  begs  him  to  return  to  her;  but  he  refuses 
roughly,  and  Santuzza  then  reveals  to  Alfio,  who  has  just  returned  from  a  journey, 
the  relations  of  his  wife,  Lola,  and  Turiddu.  Alfio  finds  Turiddu  drinking  in  the 
village  square  after  church  and  challenges  him  to  a  duel  —  a  challenge  which  is 
sealed  by  the  peasants'  custom  of  embracing  and  biting  the  ear.  They  go  out 
quietly  and  word  comes  almost  immediately  that  Turiddti.  is  slain.  The  story  both 
in  its  narrative  and  its  dramatic  form  presents  in  lively  colors  the  fierce  passions 
and  primitive  customs  of  the  Sicilian  peasantry. 

CAVOUR,  a  short  biography,  by  the  Countess  Evelyn  Martinengo-Cesaresco, 
was  published  in  1904,  as  one  of  the  'Foreign  Statesmen  Series, '  edited  by  Professor 
Bury.  In  a  succinct  yet  clear  and  complete  manner  the  writer  tells  the  remarkable 
story  of  Cavour's  achievement  of  the  unification  of  Italy.  Born  in  1810,  the  younger 
son  of  a  noble  Piedmontese  house,  Camillo  Benso,  Count  'Cavour,  early  manifested 


132  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

tendencies  strangely  out  of  harmony  with  his  rank  and  surroundings  in  a  petty 
Italian  principality.  He  was  supremely  interested  in  scientific  farming  and  in 
political  life,  a  pronounced  Liberal,  and  an  opponent  of  clerical  influence  in  secular 
government.  Travel  in  France  and  Italy  strengthened  these  views.  Just  prior 
to  the  Revolutionary  year  of  1848,  he  started  at  Turin  a  newspaper  entitled  'II 
Riaorgimento, '  a  name  which  has  since  been  applied  to  the  movement  which  it 
inaugurated  for  the  unification  of  Italy.  Through  this  paper  he  was  able  to  influence 
the  King  of  Piedmont,  Charles  Albert,  to  declare  war  on  Austria,  in  order  to  drive 
her  out  of  Italy.  After  the  failure  of  the  Piedmontese  at  Novara  and  the  abdication 
of  the  king,  Cavour,  now  called  to  the  government,  induced  the  new  King,  Victor 
Emmanuel,  to  join  England  and  France  in  the  Crimean  war,  hoping  thus  to  gain 
the  support  of  these  powers  for  a  renewed  attempt  to  liberate  Italy  from  Austria. 
As  a  consequence,  Cavour,  representing  Piedmont,  was  given  a  place  at  the  peace 
conference  in  1856.  Finally  in  1859  he  succeeded  in  committing  Napoleon  III. 
to  an  alliance,  and  with  his  aid,  drove  Austria  from  Lombardy.  Insurrections  then 
broke  out  in  the  other  Italian  states,  particularly  in  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  which 
was  conquered  by  Garibaldi  and  his  thousand  volunteers  (1860).  By  the  close  of 
the  year  Austria  had  agreed  to  make  peace  and  the  whole  of  Italy  except  Rome  was 
declared  an  independent  kingdom  in  February,  1861.  In  the  same  year  Cavour  died 
of  fatigue  brought  on  by  overwork  (June  6,  1861).  His  career,  dominated  as  it 
was  by  the  determination  to  set  Italy  free,  is  an  inspiring  one  and  the  writer  has 
risen  to  the  height  of  her  subject — the  unification  of  Italy.  She  tells  how  he 
gradually  prepared  the  way  for  war  against  Austria,  by  strengthening  the  army,  by 
diplomacy,  and  by  co-operating  with  Garibaldi  up  to  a  certain  point.  "Possibly," 
she  says,  "he  was  the  only  continental  statesman  who  ever  saw  liberty  in  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  light."  At  first  he  had  to  work  against  distrust,  but  his  extraordinary  powers 
as  a  diplomatist  enabled  him  to  succeed  where  Mazzini  and  Garibaldi  would  have 
failed.  None  will  question  his  unwavering  devotion  to  the  cause  of  the  emancipation 
of  Italy.  His  extraordinary  political  acumen  may  be  seen  in  his  anticipation  of 
the  advance  of  Prussia.  "In  1848,"  says  the  Countess  Cesaresco,  "he  prophesied 
that  Germanism  would  disturb  the  European  equilibrium,  and  that  the  future  Ger- 
man Empire  would  aim  at  becoming  a  naval  power  in  order  to  combat  and  rival 
England  on  the  seas.  But  he  saw  that  the  rise  of  Prussia  meant  the  decline  of 
Austria,  and  this  was  all  that,  as  an  Italian  statesman,  with  Venetia  still  in  chains, 
he  was  bound  to  consider.'1 

CAVOUR,  THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF,  by  William  Roscoe  Thayer  (2  vols.,  1911). 
This  is  a  more  elaborate  and  detailed  critical  study  than  the  biography  of  Countess 
Martinengo-Cesaresco,  giving  the  history  of  Italy's  deliverance  from  the  yoke  of  a 
divided  rule,  great  detail  of  movements  and  events  in  "the  life  of  the  great  man 
whose  daring  genius  conceived  and  carried  out  his  country's  emancipation."  The 
book  is  a  masterpiece  of  historical  biography,  and  ranks  with  the  scholarly  and  well 
constructed  histories  of  the  present  time.  He  has  studied  apparently  all  available 
printed  sources,  including  the  new  material  of  the  last  decade. 

CAXTOtfS,  THE,  by  Edward  Bulwer,  Lord  Lytton.  cThe  Caxtons'  was  not 
only  instantly  popular  in  England,  but  35,000  copies  were  sold  in  America  within 
three  years  after  its  publication  in  1850.  The  Caxtons  are  Austin  Caxton,  a  scholar 
engaged  on  a  great  work,  'The  History  of  Human  Error';  his  wife  Kitty,  much  his 
junior;  his  brother  Roland,  the  Captain,  who  has  served  in  the  Napoleonic  campaigns; 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  133 

the  two  children  of  the  latter,  Herbert  and  Blanche;  and  Austin's  son,  Pisistratus, 
who  tells  the  story.  The  quiet  country  life  of  the  family  of  Austin  Caxton  is  inter- 
rupted by  a  visit  to  London.  There  Pisistratus,  who  has  had  a  good  school  edu- 
cation, though  he  has  not  yet  entered  the  university,  is  offered  the  position  of 
secretary  to  Mr.  Trevanion,  a  leader  in  Parliament.  Lady  Ellinor,  Air.  Trevanion's 
wife,  was  loved  as  a  girl  by  Roland  and  Austin  Caxton;  but  she  had  passed  them 
both  by  to  make  a  marriage  better  suited  to  an  ambitions  woman.  By  a  freak  of 
fate  Pisistratus  now  falls  in  love  with  her  daughter  Fannie,  and  when  he  finds  that 
his  suit  is  hopeless,  he  gives  up  his  position  under  Mr.  Trevanion,  and  enters  Cam- 
bridge University,  where  his  college  course  is  soon  closed  by  the  financial  troubles 
of  his  father.  A  further  outline  of  this  story  would  give  no  idea  of  its  charm.  The 
mutual  affection  of  the  Caxtons  is  finely  indicated,  and  the  gradations  of  light  and 
shade  make  a  beautiful  picture.  Never  before  had  Bulwer  written  with  so  light  a 
touch  and  so  gentle  a  humor,  and  this  novel  has  been  called  the  most  brilliant  and 
attractive  of  his  productions.  His  gentle  satire  of  certain  phases  of  political  life 
was  founded,  doubtless,  on  actual  experience. 

CECIL  DREEME,  by  Theodore  Winthrop  (1862),  by  its  brilliancy  of  style,  crisp 
dialogue,  sharp  characterization,  and  ingenuity  of  structure,  won  an  immediate 
popularity.  Robert  Byng,  the  hero,  returning  from  ten  years  of  study  in  Europe, 
meets  on  shipboard  a  remarkably  accomplished  and  brilliant  man,  Densdeth,  to 
whom  he  is  much  attracted,  while  conscious  at  the  same  time  of  an  unacknowledged 
but  powerful  repulsion.  Byng  settles  himself  in  rooms  in  Chrysalis  College,  a 
pseudo-mediaeval  building  which  houses  an  unsuccessful  university  and  receives 
lodgers  in  its  unused  chambers.  On  the  floor  above  Byng  is  Cecil  Dreeme,  a  myste- 
rious young  artist,  who  is  evidently  in  hiding  for  some  unknown  reason.  Densdeth 
takes  Byng  to  renew  an  old  acquaintance  and  friendship  with  the  Denmans,  a  rich 
and  important  family.  Mr.  Denman  and  his  only  living  child,  the  beautiful  Ernma, 
are  in  deep  mourning  for  the  younger  daughter  Clara;  who  some  months  before, 
when  about  to  be  married  to  Densdeth,  —  a  marriage  believed  to  be  most  distasteful 
to  her,  —  is  believed  to  have  wandered  from  home  while  delirious  from  fever,  and 
to  have  been  drowned.  These  are  the  characters,  who,  with  John  Churm,  —  an 
old  friend  of  Byng's  father,  and  a  fellow-lodger  in  Chrysalis,  and  to  whom  the 
Denman  girls  have  been  like  adopted  children,  —  carry  on  the  story.  A  definite 
plot  is  worked  out  with  adequate  skill,  but  the  strength  of  the  story  lies  in  its  fine 
insight  and  spiritual  significance.  As  Densdeth  stands  -for  evil,  so  Byng  stands  for 
manliness  rather  than  for  conscience,  and  Clara  for  incarnate  good. 

CECILIA,  by  Frances  Burney.  'Cecilia;  or  Memoirs  of  an  Heiress/  is  a  typical 
English  novel  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  plot  is  simple,  the  story  long  drawn 
out,  the  style  stilted,  and  the  characters  alone  constitute  the  interest  of  the  book, 
and  justify  Dr.  Johnson's  praise  of  Miss  Burney  as  "a  little  character-monger." 
The  charming  heroine,  Cecilia  Beverley,  has  no  restriction  on  her  fortune  but  that 
her  future  husband  must  take  her  name.  She  goes  to  London  to  stay  with  Mr. 
Harrel,  one  of  her  guardians,  and  is  introduced  into  society  by  his  wife.  Mr.  Harrel 
contrives  to  influence  her  for  his  own  advantage,  and  succeeds  in  keeping  about  her 
only  those  admirers  who  serve  him  personally.  She  and  the  hero,  Mortimer  Delvile, 
have  therefore  little  intercourse.  After  borrowing  money  from  Cecilia  and  gambling 
it  all  away,  Mr.  Harrel  in  despair  commits  suicide.  Cecilia  then  visits  her  other 
guardian,  Mr.  Delvile,  at  his  castle,  where  she  is  constantly  thrown  with  Mortimer, 


134  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

his  cjon.  Family  pride  keeps  him  from  proposing  to  Cecilia,  whose  birth  does  not 
equal  his  own;  but  her  beauty  and  gentleness  overcome  his  resolves,  and  he  per- 
suades her  to  a  secret  marriage.  Mr.  Monckton,  who  wishes  to  secure  Cecilia's 
fortune,  discovers  her  plans,  and  with  the  help  of  an  accomplice  prevents  the  mar- 
riage at  the  very  church.  Cecilia  returns  to  the  country,  and  after  a  harrowing 
family  scene  gives  up  Mortimer.  But  the  heroine  has  her  reward  at  the  end.  It 
is  harrl,  in  our  day,  to  understand  the  overpowering  family  pride  and  prejudice,  the 
effects  of  which  constitute  largely  the  story  of  the  heroine.  '  Cecilia '  was  published 
in  1782,  four  years  after  the  issue  of  'Evelina,'  and  met  with  public  favor  almost 
as  great  as  that  which  welcomed  the  earlier  romance.  Sentimental,  artificial,  and 
unliterary  though  they  are,  Miss  Burney's  stories  present  a  vivid  picture  of  the 
society  of  her  time,  and  are  likely  to  remain  among  the  English  classics. 

CELLINI,  BENVENUTO,  THE  LIFE  OF,  —  one  of  the  few  world-famous  auto- 
biographies, and  itself  the  Italian  Renaissance  as  expressed  in  personality,  —  was 
written  between  the  years  1558  and  1562.  It  circulated  in  MS.  and  was  copied  fre- 
quently, until  its  publication  in  1730.  The  original  and  authoritative  MS.  belongs 
to  the  Laurentian  Collection  in  Florence.  It  was  written  "for  the  most  part  by 
Michele  di  Goro  Yestri,  the  youth  whom  Cellini  employed  as  his  amanuensis.  Per- 
haps we  owe  its  abrupt  and  infelicitous  conclusion  to  the  fact  that  Benvenuto  dis- 
liked the  trouble  of  writing  with  his  own  hand.  From  notes  upon  the  codex  it 
appears  that  this  was  the  MS.  submitted  to  Benedetto  Varchi  in  1559.  It  once 
belonged  to  Andrea,  the  son  of  Lorenzo  Cavalcanti.  His  son,  Lorenzo  Cavalcanti 
gave  it  to  the  poet  Redi,  who  used  it  as  a  testo  di  lingua  for  the  Delia  Cruscan  vocab- 
ulary. Subsequently  it  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  booksellers,  and  was  bought 
by  L.  Poirot,  who  bequeathed  it,  on  his  death  in  1825,  to  the  Lauren tian  Library.'7 
Cellini's  autobiography  has  been  translated  into  German  by  Goethe,  into  Eng- 
lish by  Nugent,  Roscoe,  and  Symonds,  and  into  French  by  Leopold  Leclauche'. 
Symonds's  translation  is  pre-eminent  for  its  truthfulness  and  sympathy.  It  is 
fitting  that  Cellini's  record  of  himself  should  be  translated  into  the  foremost  modern 
tongues,  since  he  stood  for  a  civilization  unapproached  in  cosmopolitan  character 
since  the  age  of  Sophocles.  Judged  by  his  own  presentment,  he  was  an  epitome 
of  that  world  which  sprang  from  the  marriage  of  Faust  with  Helen.  He,  like  his 
contemporaries,  was  a  "natural"  son  of  Greece;  witnessing  to  his  wayward  birth 
in  his  adoration  of  beauty,  in  his  violent  passions,  in  his  magnificent  bombast,  in 
his  turbulent,  highly  colored  life,  in  his  absence  of  spirituality,  in  his  close  clinging 
to  the  sure  earth.  He  was  most  mediaeval  in  that  whatever  feeling  he  had,  of  joy 
in  the  tangible  or  fear  of  the  intangible,  was  intensely  alive.  "This  is  no  book: 
who  touches  this  touches  a  man." 

CENCI,  TEE,  a  tragedy  in  blank  verse,  by  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley,  written  and 
printed  in  Italy  in  1819  and  published  in  England  in  1820.  Though  designed  for 
the  stage  it  was  not  acted  in  Shelley 's  lifetime,  but  a  special  performance  was  ar- 
ranged by  the  Shelley  Society  in  1886.  The  play  is  based  on  an  early  manuscript 
account  of  the  murder  of  the  Roman  Count  Francesco  Cenci,  September  9,  1598, 
and  the  execution  of  his  wife,  Lucretia,  his  daughter,  Beatrice,  and  his  son  Giacomo, 
as  instigators  of  the  murder,  on  May  n,  1599.  The  dramatist,  who  follows  closely 
the  statements  of  the  manuscript,  presents  in  the  opening  scene  Count  Cenci,  a 
monster  of  lust  and  cruelty,  who  buys  immunity  for  his  crimes  by  heavy  contribu- 
tions to  the  Pope  Clement  VIII.  Two  of  his  sons  he  has  sent  to  the  University  of 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  135 

Salamanca  where  he  refuses  to  support  them  until  compelled  by  the  Pope.    Another, 
Giacomo,  he  has  robbed  of  his  wife's  dowry  (II.  ii.);  his  eldest  daughter  has  escaped 
his  household  by  marriage;  a  younger  daughter,  Beatrice,  and  a  son,  Bernardo, 
with  their  step-mother  Lucretia,  live  in  the  Cenci  palace  where  they  are  starved, 
imprisoned,  beaten,  and  generally  ill-treated,  while  Cenci  Ms  Rome  with  tales  of 
his  debauchery  and  cruelty.      But  Cenci's  wealth,  influence,  and  ruthlessness,  and 
the  Roman  idea  of  the  patria  potestas,  which  the  Pope  warmly  upholds,  make  inter- 
ference difficult  for  friends  of  the  family.     Orsino,  a  former  suitor  of  Beatrice,  now 
a  priest,  offers  to  carry  to  the  Pope  a  petition  for  her  release  from  her  father's  house; 
but  fearing  lest  Clement  should  marry  her  to  someone  else  he  does  not  deliver  the 
petition,  hoping  thus  to  further  his  own  selfish  ends  and  win  her  love  (Act  I.,  sc.  ii.). 
The  devilish  glee  with  which  Cenci  announces  at  a  feast  of  his  friends  and  relatives 
the  death  of  his  two  sons  at  Salamanca  stirs  Beatrice  to  make  an  impassioned  appeal 
to  the  guests.    But  they  do  not  dare  to  interfere.    Beatrice's  conduct  incites  Count 
Cenci  to  a  crowning  infamy,  already  half -planned.    To  satisfy  his  malignant  hate 
he  will  ruin  his  own  daughter  and  corrupt  her  mind  until  she  consents  to  the  crime. 
On  the  night  of  the  feast  he  drops  to  her  a  hint  of  his  purpose;  and  after  she  has 
suffered  for  a  day  the  torments  of  apprehension,  he  outrages  her.     Realizing  his 
further  purpose  of  utterly  debasing  her,  she  resolves  on  killing  him  as  her  only  hope; 
and  in  consultation  with  her  step-mother  and  with  Orsino,  who  from  her  distracted 
words  and  bearing  have  partly  guessed  what  she  has  suffered,  they  arrange  that 
Count  Cenci  shall  be  killed  by  assassins  on  the  morrow,  as  he  is  transporting  his 
wife  and  daughter  to  the  lonely  castle  of  Petrella,  in  the  Apulian  Apennines.    Gia- 
como, coming  in  to  kill  his  father  for  further  persecution  of  him  and  his  family, 
becomes   an  accessory  to   the  plan    (Act  III.,  sc.  i.).    In.  the  next  scene  Orsino 
brings  word  to  Giacomo  that  Count  Cenci  has  escaped  the  ambush  by  arriving  too 
early;  but  a  new  attempt  is  to  be  made,  through  the  instrumentality  of  Olimpio 
and  Marzio, two  dismissed  and  aggrieved  servants  of  Cenci.  In  Act  IV.,  sc.  i.,  Lucretia 
who  has  given  Cenci  an  opiate  strives  to  induce  him  to  confess  his  sins  on  the  ground 
that  Beatrice  has  seen  a  vision  warning  him  of  death;    His  only  reply  is  a  threat 
of  new  outrage.    In  scene  ii.  the  murderers  arrive  and  in  scene  iii.,  though  awed  at 
first  by  the  innocent  appearance  of  the  old  man  as  he  sleeps,  they  are  goaded  on  by 
Beatrice  to  put  him  to  death.    No  sooner  has  he  been  strangled  and  thrown  from 
a  window  than  the  papal  legate,  Savella,  comes  to  summon  him  to  answer  his  wicked 
deeds,    Lucretia  shows  great  agitation,  but  Beatrice  is  perfectly  composed  even 
when  they  are  arrested  and  taken  to  Rome  to  be  examined  on  suspicion  of  being 
concerned  in  the  crime.    Orsino  now  reveals  his  baseness  by  betraying  Giacomo 
to  justice  and  making  his  escape  in  disguise  (Act  V.,  sc.  v.)«   In  the  trial  scene  which 
follows,  Marzio  admits,  under  torture,  that  he  did  the  murder,  instigated  by  Gia- 
como, Orsino,  and  the  ladies.  But  Beatrice,  confronting  him  in  the  presence  of  the 
court,  forces  him  by  the  strength  of  her  personality  and  the  power  of  her  essential 
innocence  to  withdraw  his  accusation  and  declare  himself  alone  guilty.    He  is  re- 
moved for  further  torture  and  dies  on  the  rack.    But  Giacomo  and  Lucrezia  prove 
less  resolute,  and  they  with  Beatrice  are  condemned  to  death.    The  Pope,  jealous 
of  his  own  patria  potestas  and  alarmed  by  another  case  of  parricide,  refuses  a  pardon; 
and  after  one  outburst  of  natural  terror  of  death,  Beatrice  goes  calmly  to  the  scaffold. 
This  drama  shows  the  influence  of  Shakespeare  in  its  diction  and  of  Ford  and  Web- 
ster in  its  horror.    The  theme  is  treated  with  restraint  and  its  repulsiveness  is 
tempered  and  well-nigh  obliterated  by  the  emphasis  placed  on  the  mental  sufferings 
and  emotions  of  Beatrice  and  the  masterly  way  in  which  she  and  her  father  are 


i$f>  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

characterized.    The  Italian  atmosphere  and  temper  is  realistically  preserved  and 
the  dignity  and  pathos  of  tragedy  are  never  forgotten. 

CENT  NOUVELLES  NOUVELLES.    This  collection  of  facetious  tales  was  first 
published  at  Paris  in  1486.     They  were  told  at  the  table  of  the  dauphin,  afterwards 
Louis  XL,  in  the  Castle  of  Genappe  during  his  exile.     Their  arrangement  in  their 
present  form  has  been  attributed  to  the  Count  of  Croi,  to  Louis  himself,   and  to 
Antoine  de  La  Salle.     The  latter,  however,  seems  to  have  been  the  editor.     In 
spite  of  the  difference  in  character  and  position  of  the  narrators,  the  'Nouvelles' 
are  uniform  in  tone  and  style,  and  have  the  same  elegance  and  clearness  of  diction 
that  distinguished  La  Salle's  'Quinze  Joyes  de  Manage.'    Besides,  the  number 
actually  related  was  far  in  excess  of  a  hundred.     A  practiced  writer  therefore  must 
have  selected  and  revised  the  best.     The  work  is  one  of  the  most  curious  monuments 
of  a  land  of  literature  distinctively  French,  and  which,  since  its  revival  by  Voltaire 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  has  always  been  successfully  cultivated:  the  literature  that 
considers  elegant  mockery  and  perfection  of  form  adequate  compensation  for  the 
lack  of  morality  and  lofty  ideals.     Although  several  of  the  stories  are  traceable 
to  Boccaccio,  Poggio,  and  other  Italian  novellieri,  most  of  them  are  original.     The 
historical  importance  of  the  collection  arises  from  its  giving  details  regarding  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  fifteenth  century  that  can  be  found  nowhere  else.    Its 
very  licentiousness  is  commentary  enough  on  the  private  life  of  the  men  and  women 
of  the  time.     In  spite  of  its  title,  however,  there  is  nothing  novel  in  the  incidents 
upon  which  the  'Nouvelles'  are  based.     Their  novelty  consists  in  their  high-bred 
brightness  and  vivacity,  their  delicately  shaded  and  refined  but  cruel  sarcasm. 
With  a  slight  modernization  of  the  language,  they  might  have  been  told  at  one  of 
the  Regent's  suppers,  and  they  are  far  superior  of  those  related  in  the  Heptameron 
of  the  Queen  of  Navarre.    The  'Nouvelles'  also  show  us  that  the  Middle  Ages  are 
past.     Instead  of  gallant  knights  performing  impossible  feats  to  win  a  smile  from 
romantic  chatelaines,  we  have  a  crowd  of  princes  and  peasants,  nobles  and  trades- 
men; all,  with  their  wives  and  mistresses,    jostling  and  duping  one  another  on  a 
footing  of  perfect  equality.     Another  sign  that  a  new  era  has  come  is  the  mixed 
social  condition  of  the  thirty-two  story-tellers;  for  among  them  obscure  and  untitled 
men,  probably  domestics  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  figure  side  by  side  with  some 
of  the  greatest  names  in  French  history. 

CENTRAL  AMERICA,  Incidents  of  Travel  in  Chiapas  and  Yucatan,  by  John 
Lloyd  Stephens  (2  vols.,  1841).  The  story  of  a  journey  of  nearly  3000  miles, 
including  visits  to  eight  ruined  cities,  monuments  of  a  marvelously  interesting  lost 
civilization;  that  of  the  Maya  land,  the  many  cities  of  which,  of  great  size,  splendor, 
and  culture,  rivaled  those  of  the  Incas  and  the  Montezumas.  Ten  editions  of  this 
book  were  published  within  three  months.  Two  years  later,  Mr.  Stephens  supple- 
mented this  first  adequate  report  of  the  character  of  Central  American  antiquities 
by  a  second  work,  his  'Travel  in  Yucatan, '  in  which  he  reported  further  explorations 
extended  to  forty-four  ruined  cities. 

CENTRAL  AMERICA,  Notes  on,  by  Ephraim  George  Squier:  1854.  The  States 
of:  1857.  Two  works  by  an  American  archaeologist  of  distinction,  who,  after  a 
special  experience  in  similar  researches  in  New  York,  Ohio,  and  other  States,  entered 
on  a  wide  and  protracted  research  in  Central  America  in  1849;  published  a  work 
on  Nicaragua  in  1852;  and  later  gave,  in  the  two  works  named  above,  a  report  of 
observations  on  both  the  antiquities  and  the  political  condition  of  Central  America, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  137 

the  value  of  which  has  been  widely  recognized.  The  ' Serpent  Symbols'  (1852)  of 
Mr.  Squier  attracted  attention  as  a  study  of  great  value  in  the  baffling  science  of 
primitive  religion  and  speculation  on  nature;  and  his  'Peru:  Incidents  and  Explora- 
tions in  the  Land  of  the  Incas'  (1877),  was  the  result  of  exhaustive  investigations 
of  Inca  remains,  and  a  most  valuable  contribution  to  knowledge  of  ancient  Peru. 

CERAMIC  INDUSTRIES,  TREATISE  ON,  by  Emile  Bouny  (1897),  translated  by 
W.  P.  Rix  (1901)  and  by  Alfred  B.  Searle  (1911).  The  publication  of  a  translation 
of  M.  Bourry's  classic  work  is  justified  because  at  the  date  when  it  was  issued  (1901) 
there  was  no  adequate  textbook  on  ceramics  in  English.  Its  value  both  for  the 
student  and  the  manufacturer  consists  in  the  fact  that  it  treats  with  equal  fullness 
the  manipulation  of  every  class  of  ceramics  from  the  common  brick  to  the  finest 
porcelain  and  supplies  a  description  of  a  judicious  selection  of  the  best  known 
machines  and  appliances  in  use  in  various  countries.  The  translator  appropriately 
calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  governments  of  continental  Europe  have  stimu- 
lated the  industry  by  giving  either  direct  or  indirect  assistance  to  students  or  facto- 
ries engaged  in  research,  and  suggests  that  manufacturers  should  combine  to  engage 
in  such  technical  research  as  relates  to  subjects  and  methods  common  to  all  pottery 
manufacture,  and  leave  to  individual  manufacturers  the  opportunity  to  specialize 
in  details  peculiar  to  their  own  section.  The  volume  opens  with  a  classification  and 
definitions  of  ceramic  products  and  a  useful  historic  summary  of  ceramic  art.  These 
are  followed  by  discussions  of  raw  materials  and  the  means  of  trying  them;  of  the 
properties,  composition,  and  preparation  of  plastic  bodies;  of  the  processes  of  mold- 
ing, drying,  glazing,  firing,  and  decorating.  The  second  half  of  the  book  is  devoted 
to  special  pottery  methods,  whether  terra  cotta,  fireclay,  faience,  stoneware,  or  por- 
celain. There  are  three  hundred  and  twenty-three  well  chosen  illustrations  of 
machines  and  processes. 

CESAR  BIROTTEAU,  The  Greatness  and  Decline  of,  by  Honors'  de  Balzac  (1838). 
This  novel  pictures  in  a  striking  and  accurate  manner  the  bourgeois  life  of  Paris  at 
the  time  of  the  Restoration.  Ce*sar  Birotteau,  a  native  of  the  provinces,  comes  to 
the  city  in  his  youth,  works  his  way  up  until  he  becomes  the  proprietor  of  a  perfumery 
establishment,  and  amasses  a  considerable  fortune.  He  is  decorated  with  the  Cross 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  in  consequence  of  having  been  an  ardent  Loyalist;  and  this 
mark  of  distinction,  coupled  with  his  financial  success,  causes  him  to  become  more 
and  more  ambitious.  He  grows  extravagant,  indulges  in  speculation,  and  loses 
everything.  This  stroke  of  misfortune  brings  out  the  strength  of  character  which, 
during  his  prosperity,  had  remained  concealed  beneath  many  petty  foibles.  In  this 
story  the  life  of  the  French  shopkeeper  who  values  his  credit  as  his  dearest  possession, 
and  his  failure  as  practically  death,  is  faithfully-  portrayed.  The  other  characters 
in  the  book  are  lifelike  portraits.  Constance,  the  faithful  and  sensible  wife  of  Birot- 
teau, and  his  gentle  daughter  Ce*sarine,  are  in  pleasing  contrast  to  many  of  the  women 
Balzac  has  painted.  Du  Tillet,  the  unscrupulous  clerk,  who  repays  his  master's 
kindness  by  hatred  and  dishonesty;  Roquin  the  notary;  Vauquelin  the  great  chemist; 
and  Pillerault,  uncle  of  Constance,  —  are  all  striking  individualities.  The  book  is 
free  from  any  objectionable  atmosphere,  and  is  exceedingly  realistic  as  to  manners 
and  customs.  It  has  been  admirably  translated  into  English  by  Katharine  Prescott 
Wonneley. 

CHALDEE  MS.,  THE  (1817).  This  production,  in  its  day  pronounced  one  of 
the  most  extraordinary  satires  in  the  language,  is  now  almost  forgotten  save  by 


138  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

students  of  literature.  It  was  a  skit  at  the  expense  of  the  publisher  Constable,  and 
of  the  Edinburgh  notables  specially  interested  in  the  Whig  Edinburgh  Review; 
prepared  by  the  editors  for  the  seventh  number  of  the  new  Tory  Blackwood's  Maga- 
zine, October,  1817.  In  form  it  was  a  Biblical  narrative  in  four  chapters,  attacking 
Constable,  and  describing  many  of  the  Constable  clientage  with  more  or  less  felici- 
tous phrases.  Scott  was  "that  great  magician  which  hath  his  dwelling  in  the  old 
fastness."  Constable  was  "the  man  which  is  crafty,"  who  "shook  the  dust  from 
his  feet,  and  said, '  Beloved,  I  have  given  this  magician  much  money,  yet  see,  now, 
he  hath  utterly  deserted  me.'"  Francis  Jeffrey  was  "a  familiar  spirit  unto  whom 
the  man  which  was  crafty  had  sold  himself,  and  the  spirit  was  a  wicked  and  a  cruel/' 
Many  of  the  characterizations  cannot  be  identified  at  this  day,  but  they  were  all 
scathing  and  many  of  them  mean.  The  joke  was  perpetrated  by  James  Hogg, 
the  "Ettrick  Shepherd,"  whose  original  paper  was  greatly  enlarged  and  modified 
by  Wilson  and  Lockhart,  and  who  himself  declared  that  "the  young  lions  in  Edin- 
boro'  interlarded  it  with  a  good  deal  of  devilry  of  their  own."  To  escape  detection, 
the  Blackwood  men  described  themselves  as  well  as  their  rivals:  Wilson  was  "the 
beautiful  leopard  from  the  valley  of  the  palm-trees,  whose  going  forth  was  comely 
as  the  greyhound  and  his  eyes  like  the  lighting  of  fiery  flame.  And  he  called  from  a 
far  country  the  scorpion  [Lockhart]  which  delighteth  to  sting  the  faces  of  men." 
Hogg  was  "  the  great  wild  boar  from  the  forests  of  Lebanon,  who  roused  up  his  spirit, 
and  whetted  his  dreadful  tusks  for  the  battle.1'  The  satire  which  now  seems  so 
harmless  shook  the  old  city  to  its  foundations,  and  produced  not  only  the  bitterest 
exasperation  in  the  Constable  set,  but  a  plentiful  crop  of  lawsuits;  one  of  these  being 
brought  by  an  advocate  who  had  figured  as  a  "beast."  As  it  originally  appeared, 
the  satire  was  headed  'Translation  from  an  Ancient  Chaldee  Manuscript,'  and 
pretended  to  be  derived  by  an  eminent  Orientalist  from  an  original  preserved  in 
the  great  Library  of  Paris.  In  after  years  both  Wilson  and  Lockhart  repented 
the  cruelty  of  this  early  prank. 

CHANCE  ACQUAINTANCE,  A,  by  William  Dean  Howells  (1873).  This  agree- 
able and  entertaining  sketch  is  one  of  Mr.  Howells's  earlier  stories.  It  relates 
the  experience  of  a  pretty  Western  girl,  Kitty  Ellison,  who,  while  traveling  on  the 
St.  Lawrence  with  her  cousins  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Ellison,  has  an  "affaire  du  cceur" 
with  Mr.  Miles  Arbuton,  of  Boston.  The  latter,  an  aristocrat  of  the  most  conven- 
tional type,  is  thrown  much  with  Kitty  on  the  steamer,  and  finally  falls  in  love  with 
her.  Mrs.  Ellison,  a  rather  commonplace  but  kind-hearted  woman,  sprains  her 
ankle,  and  this  misfortune  delays  their  party  in  Quebec.  During  this  interval  Mr. 
Arbuton  and  Kitty  explore  the  city,  —  an  occupation  affording  ample  time  for  '•he 
maturing  of  their  friendship.  Arbuton  at  length  declares  himself,  and  Kitty  asks 
for  time  to  consider  his  proposal.  She  feels  the  unsuitability  of  the  match;  he 
being  of  distinguished  family,  rich  and  cultivated,  while  she  is  a  poor  girl,  with  little 
to  boast  of  but  her  own  natural  charms.  She  finally  accepts  him,  however,  when 
some  of  his  aristocratic  friends  appear  on  the  scene.  He  ignores  Kitty  for  the  time 
being  and  leaves  her  by  herself,  while  he  does  the  honors  for  the  newcomers.  She 
realizes  that  he  is  ashamed  of  her,  and  decides  to  give  him  up.  On  his  return  she 
tells  him  of  her  decision,  and  resists  his  entreaties  to  overlook  his  conduct.  The 
story  ends  with  the  departure  of  the  Ellisons  from  Quebec,  and  the  reader  is  left 
in  ignorance  of  the  fate  of  Mr.  Miles  Arbuton.  The  book  contains  many  charming 
descriptions  of  the  picturesque  scenery  and  places  about  Quebec,  and  the  story  is 
told  with  delightful  airiness  and  charm. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  139 

CHANSON  DE  ROLAND.  This  is  the  culmination  of  a  cycle  of  'Chansons  de 
Geste '  or  Songs  of  Valor,  celebrating  the  heroic  achievements  of  Charlemagne,  and 
inspired  especially  by  the  joy  and  pride  of  the  triumph  of  Christian  arms  over  the 
Mohammedan  invasion,  which,  through  the  gate  opened  by  the  Moors  of  Spain, 
threatened  to  subdue  all  Europe.  The  Song  of  Roland  or  of  Roncesvalles  celebrates 
the  valor  of  Roland,  a  Count  Paladin  of  Charlemagne,  who,  on  the  retreat  of  the 
King  from  an  expedition  against  the  Moors  in  Spain,  is  cut  oft  with  the  rear-guard 
of  the  army  in  the  pass  of  Roncevaux;  and,  fatally  wounded  in  the  last  desperate 
struggle,  crawls  away  to  die  beneath  the  shelter  of  a  rock,  against  which  he  strikes 
in  vain  his  sword  Durandal,  in  the  effort  to  break  it  so  that  it  may  not  fall  into  the 
hands  of  his  enemy:  — 

"Be  no  man  your  master  who  shall  know  the  fear  of  man: 
Long  were  you  in  the  hands  of  a  captain 
Whose  like  shall  not  be  seen  in  Prance  set  free!" 

The  French  text  of  the  'Chanson'  was  first  published  in  Paris  by  M.  Francisque 
Michel  in  1837,  and  afterward  in  many  editions.  The  original  form  of  the  lines 
above  quoted  is  as  follows:  — 

"Ne  vos  ait  hume  ki  pur  altre  feietl 
Mult  bon  vassal  vos  ad  lung  tens  tenue: 
Jamais  n'ert  tel  in  France  la  solue." 

Around  this  incident  have  grown  a  multitude  of  heroic  and  romantic  tales  which 
have  taken  form  in  all  the  mediaeval  literature  of  Europe;  but  especially  in  Italy,  — 
where  however  the  hero  appears  with  little  more  than  the  name  to  identify  him,  — 
in  the  'Orlando  Furioso'  of  Arios+o,  and  the  'Orlando  Innamorato'  of  Boiardo. 
Tyrwhitt,  in  his  edition  of  Chaucer,  was  the  first  to  call  the  attention  of  English 
readers  to  the  '  Chanson ' ;  but  English  tradition  has  it  that  the  song  was  sung  by 
the  Norman  Taillef er  just  before  the  battle  of  Hastings.  The  best  and  oldest  French 
MS.,  called  the  "Digby,"  is  preserved  in  the  Bodleian  library  at  Oxford.  The 
French  poem  contains  6,000  lines.  A  Fragment  of  1,049  lines,  translated  in  Middle 
English  from  what  is  known  as  the  Lansdowne  MS.,  is  published  by  the  Early 
English  Text  Society. 

CHANTECLER,  by  Edmond  Rostand  (1910).  The  scene  of  this  romantic  French 
drama  is  a  farmyard,  the  hero,  a  cock,  and  the  dramatis  personse,  hens,  guinea  hens, 
ducks,  turkeys,  a  blackbird,  a  dog,  and  a  cat.  Chantecler  believes  that  his  cock-a- 
doodle-doo  each  morning  brings  the  day,  that  the  sun  rises  at  his  call.  He  confides 
this  secret  of  his  song  to  a  lovely  hen-pheasant  who  has  flown  into  the  barnyard  to 
escape  a  hunting  dog.  She  falls  in  love  with  the  splendid  self-assertion  of  the  Gallic 
cock.  His  enemies  the  owls,  who  hate  the  day,  and  the  cat,  conspire  against  the 
cock.  At  the  guinea  hen's  five  o'clock  tea  he  is  driven  to  fight  and  is  nearly  killed 
by  a  gamecock,  armed  with  a  steel  spur.  The  fickle  crowd  of  hens  applaud  the 
gamecock  until  a  hawk  appears  and  Chantecler  asserts  his  real  supremacy.  He 
leaves  them  and  goes  to  the  forest  with  the  pheasant.  She  is  jealous  of  the  Dawn, 
wishing  to  rule  alone  in  his  heart.  One  morning  she  covers  his  eyes  with  her  wings, 
and  he  discovers  that  the  ungrateful  Dawn  has  come  without  his  helj>.  Disillusioned, 
he  suffers,  but  regains  his  faith  in  himself  and  leayes  her  to  return  to  the  barnyard, 
to  cheer  his  fellows  with  his  call  to  the  sun. 

"  For  in  gray  mornings  when  poor  beasts  awake. 
Not  daring  to  believe  that  night  is  done, 
My  ringing  clarion  will  replace  the  sun." 


140  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  pheasant  sees  the  hunter  and  fearing  for  Chantecler,  flies  up,  forgetting  the  snare 
of  the  net,  in  which  she  is  caught.  The  symbolism  of  the  play  is  obvious.  The 
chattering  hens,  the  turkey,  a  solemn  pretentious  philosopher,  the  tuft-hunting 
guinea  hen  and  her  troupe  of  celebrities,  the  blackbird,  cynical  and  modern,  are  a 
delightful  satire  on  human  society.  Chantecler's  hymn  to  the  sun  is  quoted  in  the 
LIBRARY. 

CHAPLAIN  OF  THE  FLEET,  THE,  by  Sir  Walter  Besant  and  James  Rice  (1881). 
This  story  opens  on  the  last  day  of  the  year  1750,  and  gives  a  detailed  account  of 
the  famous  Liberties  or  Rules  of  the  old  Fleet  prison  in  London,  and  of  the  Fleet 
marriages.  These  "Rules'*  were  houses  in  certain  streets  near  the  Fleet  Market, 
where  prisoners  for  debt  were  allowed  to  live,  outside  the  prison,  on  payment  of 
fees.  Among  these  prisoners  were  clergymen,  who  performed  clandestine  mar- 
riages. A  regular  trade  sprang  up,  touters  were  employed  to  bring  clients,  and  every 
species  of  enormity  was  practiced.  Gregory  Shovel  was  one  of  these  clergy,  and  so 
plumed  himself  on  his  success  in  this  iniquitous  traffic  that  he  took  the  name  of 
"Chaplain  of  the  Fleet,"  which  gives  the  book  its  title,  —  the  whole  plot  turning 
upon  one  of  these  Fleet  marriages.  This  novel  is  considered  one  of  the  best  of  those 
written  under  the  firm-name  of  Besant  and  Rice. 

CHARACTERISTICS,  by  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  Earl  of  Shaftesbury.  The 
three  volumes  of  Shaftesbury's  'Characteristics'  appeared  anonymously  in  1713, 
two  years  before  the  death  of  the  author  at  the  age  of  forty-two.  These,  with  a 
volume  of  letters,  and  a  certain  preface  to  a  sermon,  constitute  the  whole  of  his 
published  works.  The  'Characteristics'  immediately  attracted  wide  attention; 
and  in  twenty  years  had  passed  through  five  editions,  at  that  time  a  large  circulation 
for  a  book  of  this  kind.  The  first  volume  contains  three  rather  desultory  and 
discursive  essays:  'A  Letter  concerning  Enthusiasm';  'On  Freedom  of  Wit  and 
Humor';  'Soliloquy;  or,  Advice  to  an  Author.'  The  second  volume,  with  its 
'Inquiry  concerning  Virtue  and  Merit,'  and  the  dialogue  'The  Moralists:  A  Philo- 
sophical Rhapsody, '  forms  his  most  valuable  contribution  to  the  science  of  ethics. 
In  the  third  volume  he  advances  various  'Miscellaneous  Reflections,'  including 
certain  defenses  of  his  philosophical  theories,  together  with  some  essays  on  artistic 
and  literary  subjects. 

From  the  first  appearance  of  the  'Characteristics,'  it  was  seen  that  its  philoso- 
phical theories  were  to  have  an  important  part  in  the  whole  science  of  ethics.  De 
Mandeville  in  later  years  attacked  him,  Hutcheson  defended  him,  and  Butler  and 
Berkeley  discussed  him,  —  not  always  with  a  perfect  comprehension  of  his  system. 
Its  leading  ideas  are  of  the  relation  of  parts  to  a  whole.  As  the  beauty  of  an  exter- 
nal object  consists  in  a  certain  proportion  between  its  parts,  or  a  certain  harmony 
of  coloring,  so  the  beauty  of  a  virtuous  act  lies  in  its  relation  to  the  virtuous  char- 
acter as  a  whole.  Yet  morality  cannot  be  adequately  studied  in  the  individual 
man.  Man  must  be  considered  in  his  relation  to  our  earth,  and  this  again  in  its 
relation  to  the  universe. 

The  faculty  which  approves  of  right  and  disapproves  of  wrong  is  by  Shaftesbury 
called  the  moral  sense  and  this  is  perhaps  the  distinctive  feature  of  his  system.  Be- 
tween this  sense  and  good  taste  in  art  he  draws  a  strong  analogy.  In  its  recognition, 
of  a  rational  as  well  as  an  emotional  element,  Shaftesbury's  "moral  sense"  is  much 
like  the  "conscience"  described  later  by  Butler.  While  the  "moral  sense"  and 
the  love  and  reverence  of  God  are,  with  Shaftesbury,  the  proper  sanctions  of  right 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  141 

conduct,  a  tone  of  banter  which  he  assumed  toward  religious  questions,  and  his 
leaning  toward  Deism,  drew  on  him  more  or  less  criticism  from  the  strongly  orthodox. 
By  his  'Characteristics'  Shaftesbury  became  the  founder  of  what  has  been  called  the 
* '  benevolent ' '  system  of  ethics ;  in  which  subsequently  Hutcheson  closely  followed  him. 

CHARICLES,  by  W.  A.  Becker.  The  first  idea  of  'Charicles;  or  Scenes  from 
the  Private  Life  of  Ancient  Greece/  as  well  as  of  his  preceding  work  'Gallus'  (Leip- 
sic:  1840),  was  probably  suggested  to  the  author  by  Bottiger's  'Sabina;  or,  Scenes 
from  the  Morning  Toilette  of  a  Great  Roman  Lady. '  The  story,  which  in  itself 
is  of  much  interest,  serves  but  as  a  framework  for  pictures  of  the  everyday  pursuits 
and  lighter  occupations  of  the  Greeks.  A  young  Athenian,  the  son  of  an  exile,  on 
his  return  home  passes  through  Corinth,  and  meets  with  many  adventures  among 
the  hetserae  and  swindlers  of  that  gay  city.  When  he  reaches  Athens,  he  is  agreeably 
surprised  by  the  news  that  his  father's  property  has  not  been  sold.  A  large  sum  of 
money  remains  to  his  credit  in  the  hands  of  an  honest  banker,  and  he  compels  a 
dishonest  one  who  tries  to  cheat  him  out  of  three  talents,  to  disgorge.  Then  follow 
wrestling-matches  at  the  gymnasia,  banquets  in  his  honor  given  by  his  school-boy 
friends,  shipwrecks,  revelries  at  the  Dionysia,  etc;  the  whole  ending  in  a  marriage 
with  the  wealthy  and  charming  young  widow  of  an  old  friend  of  his  father.  'Chari- 
cles'  is  the  first  work  devoted  to  the  private  life  of  the  Greeks;  and  without  entering 
into  its  darker  details,  it  gives  an  instructive  and  suggestive  portraiture  of  all  its 
aspects.  But  the  most  valuable  portions  of  the  work  are  the  notes  and  excursuses, 
which  compose  a  complete  manual  of  antique  usages  and  customs,  and  are  commea- 
taries  on  each  of  the  twelve  scenes  into  which  the  story  is  divided.  Thus,  after 
the  first  Scene,  'Youthful  Friends,1  we  have  an  excursus  on  education,  and  so  on. 
The  English  translation,  in  one  volume,  by  the  Rev.  F.  Metcalfe,  is  admirable,  and 
in  form  superior  to  the  original;  the  excursuses  being  thrown  together  at  the  end 
of  the  volume,  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  the  tenor  of  the  narrative. 

CHARLES  AUCHESTER,  a  musical  novel  by  Elizabeth  Sara  Sheppard,  an  Eng- 
lishwoman, was  written  when  she  was  sixteen,  and  published  a  few  years  later, 
in  1853.  The  manuscript  was  first  submitted  to  Disraeli,  who  prophesied  that 
the  book  would  become  a  classic.  His  enthusiasm  may  have  been  owing  in  part 
to  the  fact  that  the  hero  is  of  Jewish  extraction,  and  that  the  author  pays  the  highest 
tributes  to  the  genius  and  glory  of  the  Hebrew  race.  The  novel  records  the  devel- 
opment of  one  Charles  Auchester,  who  from  earliest  childhood  has  his  very  being 
in  the  world  of  harmony.  His  story,  told  by  himself,  is  a  blending  of  his  outer  and 
inner  life  in  one  beautiful  web  of  experience.  He  introduces  himself  as  a  child  in 
an  old  English  town,  living  a  quiet  sequestered  life  with  his  mother  and  sister.  After- 
wards he  goes  to  the  Caecilia  School  in  Germany  to  carry  on  his  musical  education. 
The  guiding  star  of  his  life  there  is  Seraphael,  a  marvelous  young  genius,  whose 
very  presence  is  an  inspiration.  By  Seraphael  is  meant  Mendelssohn,  whose  career 
is  followed  closely  throughout.  Jenny  Lind  is  supposed  to  be  the  original  of  another 
of  Auchester's  friends,  Clara  Bennette,  a  famous  singer.  Many  musical  events 
are  described  with  remarkable  fidelity  to  the  spirit  as  well  as  to  the  letter  of  such 
occurrences.  The  entire  book,  fanciful  and  extravagant  though  it  is  in  parts,  is 
steeped  in  an  indescribable  golden  atmosphere  of  music,  and  of  the  spiritual  exalta- 
tion which  musicians  know.  As  the  record  of  spiritual  experiences  whose  source  is 
harmonious  sound,  'Charles  Auchester1  is  perhaps  unique  in  the  whole  range  of 
fiction. 


142  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

CHARLES  THE  BOLD,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  History  of.  By  John  Foster  Kirk 
(3  vols.,  1863-68).  An  excellent  special  book  on  a  most  interesting  and  significant 
figure  in  the  history  of  France  and  of  Europe  (i433~77)-  He  was  tne  last  in  the 
long  line  of  princes  who  for  centuries,  almost  since  Charlemagne's  time,  had  en- 
deavored to  build  up  a  "middle*'  or  "buffer'*  kingdom  along  the  Rhine  and  the 
Rhone,  between  the  exclusively  French  and  the  exclusively  German  powers:  the  old 
kingdom  of  Lotharingia,  later  Lorraine,  the  mediaeval  kingdom  of  Aries,  the  ever- 
varying  duchy  of  Burgundy,  all  represented  this  most  promising,  most  determined, 
and  most  futile  of  political  efforts.  With  the  crushing  defeat  and  death  of  Charles, 
—  in  his  prime  the  most  powerful  potentate  of  the  age,  his  dominion  stretching 
like  a  gigantic  bow  almost  from  Savoy  to  the  German  Ocean,  around  the  entire 
east  and  north  of  France,  —  the  unnatural  ribbon-State  of  unrelated  parts  without 
common  interests  went  to  pieces,  and  with  it  the  dream  of  a  buffer  kingdom  perished 
forever.  The  Burgundian  duchy  and  Picardy  were  seized  by  Louis  XL  of  France, 
the  Netherlands  went  by  marriage  to  Austria  and  ultimately  to  Spain,  —  Charles's 
daughter  Alary  being  the  ancestress  of  Charles  V.  and  Philip  IT.  The  career  of 
Charles  the  Bold  is  therefore  one  of  the  chief  landmarks  of  European  history,  the 
direct  precursor  of  the  Franco-German  War;  Granson,  Morat,  and  Nancy  are  the 
forerunners  of  Sedan.  Charles  is  most  familiarly  known  through  Scott's  'Quentin 
Durward';  but  Mr.  Kirk's  history  gives  the  real  man,  as  well  as  his  great  rival 
Louis  XL,  and  much  of  great  interest  and  instruction  besides. 

CHARLES  2H.,  HISTORY  OF,  by  Voltaire.  This  history  was  published  in 
1731.  It  is  divided  into  eight  books,  of  which  the  first  sketches  briefly  the  history 
of  Sweden  before  the  accession  of  Charles.  The  last  seven  deal  with  his  expedition 
into  Poland,  its  consequences,  his  invasion  of  Russia  and  pursuit  of  Peter  the  Great, 
his  defeat  at  Pultowa  and  retreat  into  Turkey,  his  sojourn  at  Bender  and  its  results, 
his  departure  thence,  his  return  home,  his  death  at  the  siege  of  Frederickshall  in 
Norway.  Intermingled  with  the  narrative  of  battles,  marches,  and  sieges,  we 
have  vivid  descriptions  of  the  manners,  customs,  and  physical  features  of  the  coun- 
tries in  which  they  took  place.  It  resembles  the  'Commentaries'  of  Caesar  in  the 
absence  of  idle  details,  declamation,  and  ornament.  There  is  no  attempt  to  ex- 
plain mutable  and  contingent  facts  by  constant  underlying  principles.  Men  act, 
and  the  narrative  accounts  for  their  actions.  Of  course,  Voltaire  is  not  an  archivist 
with  a  document  ready  at  hand  to  witness  for  the  truth  of  every  statement;  and 
nany  of  his  contemporaries  treated  his  history  as  little  better  than  a  romance. 
But  apart  from  some  inaccuracies,  natural  to  a  writer  dealing  with  events  in  distant 
:ountries  at  the  time,  the  'History  of  Charles  XII.'  is  a  true  history.  According 
,o  Condorcet,  it  was  based  on  memoirs  furnished  Voltaire  by  witnesses  of  the  events 
le  describes;  and  Zing  Stanislas,  the  victim  as  well  as  the  friend  and  companion 
>f  Charles,  declared  that  every  incident  mentioned  in  the  work  actually  occurred. 
This  book  is  considered  the  historical  masterpiece  of  Voltaire. 

CHARLOTTE  TEMPLE,  by  Susanna  Haswell  Rowson.  This  'Tale  of  Truth' 
7as  written  about  1790.  It  was,  if  not  the  first,  one  of  the  first  works  of  fiction 
mtten  in  America;  25,000  copies  were  sold  within  a  few  years;  and  it  has  been 
epublished  again  and  again.  It  was  written  by  an  Englishwoman  who  came  to 
imerica  with  her  husband,  the  leader  of  the  band  attached  to  a  British  regiment, 
he  was  for  some  years  favorably  known  as  an  actress,  and  then  opened  a  boarding- 
±ool  which  for  twenty-five  years  ranked  first  among  such  institutions  in  New 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  143 

England.  Her  other  writings  were  numerous,  but  were  soon  forgotten,  while  'Char- 
lotte Temple*  still  sells.  It  is  a  true  story,  the  heroine's  real  name  being  Stanley. 
She  was  granddaughter  to  the  Earl  of  Derby;  and  her  betrayer,  Col.  John  Mon- 
tressor  of  the  English  army,  was  a  relative  of  Mrs.  Rowson  herself.  Charlotte's  grave 
in  Trinity  Churchyard,  New  York,  but  a  few  feet  away  from  Broadway,  is  marked 
by  a  stone  sunk  in  the  grass.  Mrs.  Dall,  in  her  'Romance  of  the  Association, '  tells 
us  that  Charlotte's  daughter  was  adopted  by  a  rich  man,  and  in  after  years  met 
the  son  of  her  true  father,  Montressor,  or  Montrevale  as  the  book  has  it.  They 
fell  in  love,  and  the  young  man  showed  his  dying  father  a  miniature  of  his  sweet- 
heart's mother  (the  wretched  Charlotte),  to  whom  she  bore  a  striking  likeness,  and 
thus  the  truth  was  made  known.  The  story  in  brief  is  this:  Charlotte  Temple, 
a  girl  of  fifteen  elopes  from  school  with  Montrevale,  an  army  officer;  they  come  to 
America,  where  he  deserts  her  and  marries  an  heiress.  She  gives  birth  to  a  daughter 
and  dies  of  want.  The  style  and  language  are  strangely  old-fashioned,  hysterics 
and  fainting  fits  occur  on  every  page;  yet  a  romantic  interest  will  always  attach  to  it. 

CHASTELAKD,  by  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne  (1869).  The  scene  of  this  tragedy 
is  laid  at  Holyrood  Castle,  during  the  reign  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  Mary  Beaton, 
one  of  the  "four  Maries,"  promises  Chastelard  to  arrange  a  meeting  between  him 
and  the  Queen.  When  he  comes  to  the  audience-room,  however,  he  finds  only 
Mary  Beaton  herself,  who,  in  shame,  confesses  her  love  for  him.  While  he  is  assur- 
ing her  of  his  pardon,  they  are  discovered  by  the  other  Maries.  The  Queen,  angry 
at  what  she  has  heard,  tries  to  make  Chastelard  confess  his  desertion  of  her;  and 
declares  her  intention  of  marrying  Darnley.  Chastelard,  by  the  agency  of  Alary 
Beaton,  gains  access  to  the  Queen's  chamber,  discloses  himself  when  she  is  alone, 
and  after  having  convinced  her  of  his  love  for  her,  submits  to  the  guards,  who  take 
him  to  prison.  Mary,  fickle  and  heartless,  in  her  desire  to  avoid  both  the  shame  of 
letting  him  live  and  the  shame  of  putting  her  lover  to  death,  tries  to  shift  the  respon- 
sibility to  Murray,  signs  his  death-warrant,  and  orders  a  reprieve,  in  quick  succes- 
sion. Then,  going  in  person  to  the  prison,  she  asks  Chastelard  to  return  the  reprieve. 
He  has  already  destroyed  it;  and  after  one  short,  happy  hour  with  her,  he  goes 
bravely  to  his  death.  From  an  upper  window  in  the  palace,  Mary  Beaton  watches 
the  execution  and  curses  the  Queen  just  as  Mary  enters  —  with  Bothwell. 

In  'Chastelard'  Swinburne  has  portrayed  a  fickle,  heartless,  vain,  and  beauti- 
ful queen;  and  in  the  few  touches  given  to  a  character  of  secondary  importance, 
has  delicately  and  distinctly  drawn  Mary  Beaton.  The  male  characters  are  less 
sympathetic. 

The  tragedy  is  conspicuously  one  to  be  read,  not  acted.  It  is  too  long,  too  much 
lacking  in  action,  and  of  too  sustained  an  intensity  for  the  stage.  The  style  is 
essentially  lyric,  full  of  exquisite  lines  and  phrases;  and  as  a  whole,  the  play  presents 
an  intense  passion  in  a  form  of  adequate  beauty.  It  contains  a  number  of  charming 
French  songs,  and  is  dedicated  to  Victor  Hugo.  It  was  published  in  1869. 

CHAXTCER,  STUDIES  IN:  'His  Life  and  Writings/  by  Thomas  R.  Lounsbury, 
LL.D.  (3  vols.,  1892).  One  of  the  most  interesting  and  valuable  books,  both  in 
matter  and  treatment,  which  recent  research  in  letters  has  produced;  alike  admir- 
able in  learning  and  singularly  sagacious  and  lucid  in  criticism.  The  first  design 
of  the  work  was  that  of  a  compendious  and  easily  accessible  account  of  the  results 
of  recent  Investigation;  but  examination  showed  that  many  of  these  were  question- 
able or  worthless,  and  that  the  field  of  Chaucer  interest  presented  a  range  of  problems  * 


144  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

not  half  of  which  had  been  treated  adequately,  and  many  of  which  had  not  been 
touched  at  all.  The  exact  scope  and  design  of  the  work  were  therefore  changed, 
not  only  from  what  was  at  first  contemplated,  but  to  attempt  a  task  far  larger  and 
more  thorough  than  anything  yet  undertaken. 

Dr,  Lounsbury  modestly  describes  his  work,  in  three  volumes  and  sixteen  hun- 
dred pages,  as  "eight  chapters  bearing  upon  the  life  and  writings  of  Chaucer;  eight 
distinct  essays,  or  rather  monographs";  but  the  Chaucer  unity  and  the  unity  of 
masterly  treatment  hardly  permit  any  such  distinction  of  parts.  The  life  of  Chaucer, 
the  Chaucer  legend,  the  text  of  Chaucer,  and  what  exactly  are  the  true  writings  of 
Chaucer,  are  the  topics  of  Vol.  i.,  and  of  a  third  of  Vol.  ii.  The  two  double  chapters 
which  foUow,  to  the  end  of  Vol.  ii.,  are  on  the  learning  of  Chaucer,  first  in  works 
still  known,  and  second  in  works  and  authors  now  hardly  known  at  all;  and  on 
Chaucer's  relations  to,  first  the  English  language,  and  second  the  religion  of  his 
time.  The  succeeding  chapters,  which  fill  the  third  volume,  on  Chaucer  in  Literary 
History  and  Chaucer  as  a  Literary  Artist,  even  increase  our  grateful  and  delighted 
estimate  of  the  author's  wealth  of  knowledge  and  mastery  of  exposition;  not  to 
speak  of  a  refinement  of  style  and  felicity  of  wit  rarely  found  in  English  prose. 

CHERRY  ORCHARD,  THE,  by  Anton  Chekhov  (1904).  The  play  is  historical 
and  symbolic,  a  picture  of  the  passing  of  the  old  order  of  Russian  aristocracy. 
Madame  Ranievskaia,  her  seventeen  year  old  daughter,  and  her  brother  return 
from  Pans  to  their  country  estate  after  an  absence  of  five  years.  Their  affairs 
are  in  confusion  and  the  estate  is  about  to  be  sold  for  debt.  A  wealthy  neighbor, 
Lopachin,  whose  grandfather  was  a  serf  on  the  estate,  makes  the  practical  suggestion 
that  the  famous  cherry  orchard  be  sold  in  lots  for  suburban  villas  to  restore  the 
family  fortune.  To  cut  down  the  cherry  trees  and  remove  the  old  house  with  its 
associations  of  childhood  is  sacrilege  not  to  be  considered  by  these  aristocrats. 
Each  member  of  the  family  has  some  plan  to  get  money,  but  no  plan  is  practical  or 
practised.  The  day  of  the  sale  approaches,  and  they  talk  interminably,  but  are 
incapable  of  action.  See  scene  in  the  LIBRARY.  The  practical  neighbor  buys  the 
property,  after  trying  in  vain  to  help  these  sentimental,  amiable,  ineffectual  people 
to  save  themselves.  They  arrive  in  the  first  scene  in  May  when  the  cherry  orchard 
is  in  bloom.  In  the  last  scene  it  is  autumn;  the  charming  old  house  is  dismantled; 
the  family  are  leaving  forever;  and  we  hear  the  stroke  of  the  axe  cutting  down  the 
cherry  trees  to  make  room  for  the  suburban  villas  and  for  the  new  class  in  Russian 
society,  which  is  not  gentleman  or  peasant,  but  the  energetic  rich  self-made  men, 
the  sons  of  the  peasants. 

CHESTERFIELD,  LORD,  see  LETTERS  TO  HIS  SON. 
CHIEN  D'OR,  LE,  see  THE  GOLDEN  DOG. 

CHILD  OF  THE  BALL,  THE  ('El  Nino  de  la  Bola'),  by  Pedro  Antonio  de  Alarcon 
(1880).  The  scene  of  this  powerful  and  tragic  novel  is  Andalusia.  Don  Rodrigo 
Venegas  mortgages  his  hacienda  to  Don  Elias  Perez,  and  his  whole  estate  is  eaten 
up  by  usury.  When  Perez's  house  burns,  no  one  tries  to  save  it;  and  he  proclaims 
that  it  is  the  work  of  an  incendiary  trying  to  destroy  all  evidence  of  his  debt.  Rod- 
rigo rushes  into  the  flames  and  saves  the  papers,  dying  as  he  delivers  them.  Rodrigo's 
estate  is  put  at  auction,  and  bid  in  by  Perez  for  one  million  reals  less  than  his  claims. 
Rodrigo  leaves  a  young  son,  Manuel,  who  is  adopted  by  the  curate,  Don  Trinidad! 
'Fpr  three  years  after,  Manuel  speaks  not  a  word;  till  one  day,  standing  before  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  145 

image  of  the  infant  Christ  with  a  ball  in  its  hand  (called  the  "Child  of  the  Ball") 
he  says,  "Child  Jesus,  why  don't  you  speak  either?"  Meeting  Perez's  daughter 
Soledad  when  a  young  man,  he  falls  in  love  with  her.  He  fights  this  passion;  living 
for  months  at  a  time  on  the  mountains,  and  with  no  weapon  but  his  hands,  battling 
with  the  wild  beasts.  To  bring  him  back  to  civilization,  Don  Trinidad  tells  him 
that  Soledad  reciprocates  his  love.  At  the  feast  day  of  the  "Child  of  the  Ball," 
it  is  customary  to  bid  for  the  privilege  of  dancing  with  any  lady;  the  money  going 
to  the  cult  of  the  Child.  Manuel  bids  for  a  dance  with  Soledad;  but  her  father 
outbids  him  and  he  is  obliged  to  desist.  Perez  accuses  him  of  his  debt  of  one  mil- 
lion reals;  and  Manuel,  to  pay  it,  determines  to  leave  Spain.  He  promises  to  return 
on  the  anniversary  of  this  day  and  claim  Soledad;  and  woe  to  him  who  in  the  mean- 
time dares  to  come  between  them.  Eight  years  after  he  returns  and  finds  Soledad 
married  to  Antonio  Arregui.  All  efforts  of  Don  Trinidad  to  dissuade  him  from 
killing  Arregui  are  in  vain;  but  he  is  left  alone  with  the  "Child  of  the  Ball,"  and 
finally  decorates  it  with  the  jewels  he  had  brought  for  his  bride,  and  lays  at  its  feet 
the  dagger  he  had  concealed.  The  next  morning  he  leaves,  but  is  overtaken  by  a 
letter  from  Soledad.  He  returns,  bids  a  sum  which  Arregui  cannot  equal,  and  Soledad 
flies  to  his  arms.  Arregui  takes  the  dagger  from  the  feet  of  the  image  and  stabs 
Manuel,  and  the  lovers  fall  to  the  ground  dead.  The  story  is  told  with  dramatic 
force;  and  tender,  idyllic  passages  lighten  its  tragic  gloom. 

CHILD  OF  THE  JAGO,  A,  by  Arthur  Morrison  (1896),  is  a  sadly  realistic 
sketch  of  life  among  the  slums  of  London.  The  Jago  is  a  name  given  to  certain 
streets  in  the  neighborhood  of  Shoreditch,  East  City.  The  author  knows  the 
district  from  residence  there,  while  he  was  in  the  employment  of  a  humani- 
tarian society.  The  "child"  is  Dicky  Perott,  whose  father,  Josh  Perott,  is  a  thief, 
bruiser,  and  murderer,  who  ends  on  the  gallows.  The  lad  is  bred  to  vice  as  the 
sparks  fly  upward,  and  what  few  feeble  efforts  he  makes  towards  a  better  life  are 
nipped  in  the  bud.  Yet  he  has  his  own  queer,  warped  code  of  ethics;  and  when  he 
is  stricken  down  by  a  knife  in  a  street  row,  dies  with  a  lie  on  his  lips  to  shield  the 
culprit.  Dicky  feels  that  on  the  whole,  death  is  an  easy  way  out  of  a  sorry  tangle. 
The  Jago  scenes  are  given  with  photographic  distinctness,  the  dialect  is  caught, 
the  life  both  external  and  internal  —  sordid,  brutal,  incredibly  vicious,  yet  relieved 
with  gleams  and  hints  of  higher  things  —  is  depicted  with  truth  and  sympathy. 
The  study  of  Father  Sturt,  the  self -sacrificing  clergyman  is  a  very  suggestive  setting- 
forth  of  the  difficulty  of  helping  these  demoralized  human  beings.  The  story  is  one 
of  great  power,  very  sombre  and  painful,  but  valuable  as  a  statement  of  the  real 
conditions  among  the  lowest  class  of  London  poor. 

CHTLDE  HAROLD'S  PILGRIMAGE,  a  narrative-descriptive  poem  in  the  Spen- 
serian stanza,  by  George  Gordon,  Lord  Byron.  The  first  and  second  cantos  were 
published  together  in  1812,  the  third  and  fourth  in  1816  and  1818  respectively. 
The  first  two  cantos  describe  the  poet's  journey  through  Portugal,  Spain,  the  Me- 
diterranean, and  Greece.  Autobiographic  references  are  thinly  disguised  tinder 
the  pseudonym  'Childe  Harold'  and  an  archaic  diction  which  the  poet  soon  lays 
aside.  Representing  himself  as  hardened  and  world-weary  from  youthful  dissipa- 
tion but  sentimentally  fond  of  brooding  on  his  lost  affections  and  present  misery 
he  conducts  the  reader  through  the  famous  scenes  of  the  Peninsula  and  Hellas, 
pausing  to  give  word-pictures  of  landscape,  historical  and  political  reflections,  and 
accounts  of  characteristic  amusements  and  occupations  of  the  people  visited.  An 


146  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

account  of  an  Albanian  chieftain  and  the  war-song  of  his  robber  band  is  particu- 
lar!}' striking.  The  third  canto,  written  shortly  after  Byron's  separation  from  his 
wife  and  retirement  to  Switzerland,  strikes  a  deeper  note  in  its  now  frankly  personal 
references  to  his  lost  daughter,  his  rebellious  attitude  against  society,  and  his  attempts 
to  fathom  the  mystery  of  his  own  emotions.  Some  of  Byron's  best  known  lines  — 
descriptive  and  reflective  —  occur  in  this  and  the  succeeding  canto  in  which  he 
portrays  the  field  of  Waterloo,  the  journey  up  the  Rhine,  the  glories  of  sunset  and 
storm  in  the  Alps,  and  the  historic,  artistic,  and  literary  associations  of  Geneva, 
Venice,  Florence,  and  Rome.  In  addition  to  the  sentimental  and  pictorial  passages 
of  the  poem,  Byron  has  a  critical  power  of  estimating  great  men  and  movements 
which  is  responsible  for  some  often-quoted  lines,  like  those  on  Voltaire,  Gibbon, 
Napoleon,  the  Italian  poets,  and  the  French  Revolution.  The  whole  poem  is  a  gal- 
lery of  pictures  — landscapes  and  historical  pieces  —  commented  on  by  a  powerful 
but  self-centred  mind,  over-dominated  by  sentiment  and  by  the  spirit  of  revolt, 

CHILDREN  OF  GIBBON  (1886).  Walter  Besant's  'Children  of  Gibeon,'  like  his 
'All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men,'  deals  with  society  in  both  the  West  and  East 
Ends  of  London,  and  their  relations  to  each  other.  A  rich  widow,  Lady  Mildred 
Eldredge,  adopts  the  two-year-old  daughter  of  a  former  servant,  to  be  brought  up 
with  her  own  daughter.  The  children  are  of  the  same  age,  and  look  so  much  alike 
that  Lady  Mildred  conceives  the  idea  of  calling  them  Valentine  and  Violet,  and 
keeping  them  and  the  world  in  ignorance  as  to  which  is  Beatrice  Eldredge,  the  heiress, 
and  which  Polly  Monument,  the  washerwoman's  daughter,  a  secret  which  is  to  be 
revealed  when  they  are  of  age.  At  twenty  they  are  introduced  to  Polly's  family;  her 
mother  being  then  in  an  almshouse,  her  brother  Joe  a  plumber,  Sam  a  board-school 
teacher,  Milenda  a  sewing-girl,  and  Claude  a  young  lawyer  and  university  man  whom 
Lady  Mildred  has  educated.  Violet  is  filled  with  the  fear  that  she  shall  turn  out  to 
be  the  sister  of  these  dreadful  people;  but  Valentine,  who  is  sure  that  she  herself  is 
the  real  Polly,  wishes  to  go  to  live  with  her  sister  Milenda,  and  to  work  among  her 
own  people.  With  Lady  Mildred's  consent  she  takes  up  her  abode  in  Hoxton,  and 
on  the  first  day  of  her  sojourn  there  finds  accidental  proof  of  the  fact  that  she  is 
Beatrice  Eldredge.  Nevertheless,  as  Polly  she  goes  on  with  her  work,  in  order  to 
help  Milenda  and  two  young  sewing-girls,  who  live  with  her,  and  with  whom  she 
spends  the  summer.  Meantime  Claude,  having  also  found  out  the  truth,  falls 
deeply  in  love  with  her,  and  finally  marries  her.  The  plot  is  so  ingeniously  managed 
that  it  seems  entirely  plausible;  the  studies  of  London  wage-earners  and  London 
slums  are  faithful,  without  being  too  repulsive;  and  the  tone  of  the  book  is  cheerful, 
while  many  social  problems  are  touched  in  the  course  of  an  entertaining  story.  The 
'Children  of  Gibeon '  has  proved  one  of  the  most  popular  of  Besant's  novels. 

CHILDREN  OF  THE  ABBEY,  THE,  by  Regina  Maria  Roche  (1796).  The  Earl  of 
Dunreath,  marrying  a  second  time,  is  induced  by  the  machinations  of  his  wife  to  cast 
aside  her  stepdaughter,  for  a  luckless  marriage.  It  is  with  the  children  of  this  marriage 
that  the  story  deals.  The  motherless  Amanda  is  the  heroine;  and  she  encounters  all 
the  vicissitudes  befitting  the  heroine  of  the  three-volume  novel.  These  include  the 
necessity  of  living  under  an  assumed  name,  of  becoming  the  innocent  victim  of 
slander,  of  losing  a  will,  refusing  the  hands  of  dukes  and  earls,  and  finally,  with  her 
brother,  overcoming  her  enemies,  and  living  happy  in  the  highest  society  forever 
after.  The  six  hundred  pages,  with  the  high-flown  gallantry,  the  emotional  ex- 
cesses, and  the  reasonless  catastrophes  of  the  eighteenth-century  novel,  fainting 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  147 

heroines,  love-lorn  heroes,  oppressed  innocence,  and  abortive  schemes  of  black- 
hearted villainy,  form  a  fitting  accompaniment  to  the  powdered  hair,  muslin  gowns, 
stage-coaches,  postilions,  and  other  picturesque  accessories. 

CHILDREN  OF  THE  GHETTO,  by  I.  ZangwilL  This  book  was  published  in  1892, 
and  is,  as  the  author  says,  "intended  as  a  study,  through  typical  figures,  of  a  race 
whose  persistence  is  the  most  remarkable  fact  in  the  history  of  the  world."  It  is 
divided  into  two  parts,  the  first  of  which  gives  the  title  to  the  whole,  and  describes 
life  in  the  London  Ghetto,  its  sordid  squalor  and  rigid  ritualism,  combined  with 
genuine  religious  faith  and  enthusiasm.  The  wretched  inhabitants,  huddled  together 
in  misery,  and  constrained  to  keep  many  fasts  not  prescribed  in  the  calendar,  are 
still  scrupulous  about  all  the  detailed  observances  of  their  religion,  and  bound  by  a 
remarkable  loyalty  among  themselves.  A  good  example  of  their  subjection  to  form 
is  shown  in  the  rigid  but  kindly  Reb  Shemuel,  who  would  give  the  coat  off  his  back  to 
help  a  needy  Jew,  and  yet  could  ruin  his  daughter's  whole  life  on  account  of  an  un- 
important text  in  the  Torah.  The  second  part,  'Grandchildren  of  the  Ghetto,' 
develops  some  of  the  characters  who  are  children  in  the  earlier  portion,  and  also 
introduces  us  to  the  Jew  who  has  acquired  wealth  and  culture,  while  retaining  his 
race  characteristics.  This  division  of  the  book  deals  rather  with  the  problems  of 
Judaism,  both  of  the  race  and  of  individuals.  It  shows  the  effects  of  culture  on  differ- 
ent types  of  mind,  and  gives  us  the  noble  aspiration  of  Raphael  Leon,  the  profound 
discontent  of  Esther,  the  fanatical  zeal  and  revolt  of  Strelitski,  and  the  formalism 
of  the  Goldsmiths,  serving  merely  as  a  cloak  for  their  ambition.  There  are  many 
touches  of  the  author's  characteristic  wit  and  irony.  He  tells  of  the  woman  "who 
wrote  domestic  novels  to  prove  that  she  had  no  sense  of  humor";  and  makes  certain 
wealthy  Jews  say  with  apparent  unconsciousness,  that  they  are  obliged  to  abandon 
a  favorite  resort ' '  because  so  many  Jews  go  there. ' '  The  book  raises  problems  that  it 
does  not  solve;  but  the  masterly  and  sympathetic  exposition  of  the  Jewish  tempera- 
ment invites  a  better  comprehension  of  that  wonderful  race. 

CHILDREN  OF  THE  SOIL,  a  novel  of  modem  Polish  life,  by  Henryk  Sienkiewicz 
(1894).  The  plot  centres  itself  in  the  career  of  Pan  Stanislas  Polanyetski,  a 
man  of  wealth  and  education,  who  at  the  age  of  thirty  "wanted  to  many,  and 
was  convinced  that  he  ought  to  marry."  The  story  opens  with  his  business  visit 
to  the  estate  of  Kremen,  —  on  which  he  has  a  claim,  —  the  home  of  a  relative,  Pan 
Plaritski,  and  his  daughter  Maryina.  He  falls  in  love  with  Maryina;  but  the  refusal 
of  her  father  to  pay  his  debt  to  Polanyetski  causes  misunderstanding  between  the 
latter  and  the  young  girl,  and  they  are  alienated  for  the  time  being.  Their  reconcilia- 
tion and  marriage  are  brought  about  by  a  little  invalid  girl,  Litka,  who  loves  them 
both,  and  who  wishes  to  see  them  happy.  After  his  marriage,  Polanyetski  conceives 
an  unworthy  attachment  for  the  wife  of  Ms  friend  Mashko,  but  finally  overcomes 
temptation.  The  book  closes  upon  his  happiness  with  his  wife  and  child.  There 
are  interesting  side  issues  to  the  story,  involving  questions  of  property,  of  the  social 
order,  of  marriage.  The  work  as  a  whole,  although  realistic,  is  sane  in  spirit,  genial 
and  broad  in  its  conception  of  lif  e  and  character.  Maryina  is  one  of  the  most  finished 
of  Sienkiewicz's  types  of  noble  women. 

CHILDREN  OF  THE  WORLD,  by  Paul  Heyse  (1873),  obtained  immediate 
popularity,  and  caused  great  controversy  over  the  fearless  treatment  of  the  theme. 
The  children  of  the  world  are  represented  by  a  young  doctor  of  philosophy,  a  strong, 
well-balanced  character;  his  younger  brother,  an  almost  Christlike  idealist;  and 


148  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

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  unbelief.  In  the  por- 
traiture of  the  differing  camps  there  are  no  sharp  contrasts,  no  unfair  caricaturing, 
but  an  impartiality,  a  blending  of  one  into  the  other,  that  makes  one  of  the  strongest 
claims  of  the  book  to  attention. 

CHINA,  SACRED  BOOKS  OF,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

CHINESE,  see  SOCIAL  LIFE  OF  THE. 

CHINESE  LETTERS,  see  CITIZEN  OF  THE  WORLD. 

CHIPS  FROM  A  GERMAN  WORKSHOP.  By  F.  Max  Muller  (5  vols.  1867-75. 
New  ed.  1895).  A  collection  of  special  studies  incidental  to  the  author's  editing  of  a 
library  of  the  'Sacred  Books  of  the  East/  The  several  volumes  cover  various  fields, 
as  follows:  (i)  the  Science  of  Religion;  (2)  Mythology,  Traditions,  and  Customs;  (3) 
Literature,  Biography,  and  Antiquities;  (4)  chiefly  the  Science  of  Language;  (5) 
Miscellaneous  and  later  topics.  Although  they  are  "occasional"  work,  their  wealth 
of  material  and  thoroughness  of  treatment,  and  the  importance  of  the  views  presented, 
give  them  not  only  interest  but  permanent  value.  On  many  of  the  points  treated, 
discussion  is  still  open,  and  some  of  the  views  advanced  by  Professor  Muller  may  come 
into  doubt;  but  his  contributions  to  a  great  study  will  not  soon  lose  their  value. 

CHOICE  OF  BOOKS,  THE,  and  other  Literary  Pieces,  by  Frederic  Harrison  (1886). 
The  title  essay  of  this  volume  is  a  discourse  on  Reading,  its  benefits  and  its  perils. 
In  the  first  section, '  How  to  Read,'  an  eloquent  plea  is  made  for  the  right  of  rejection; 
for  the  avoidance  of  books  that  one  "comes  across, "  and  even  of  the  habit  of  one- 
sided reading.  The  essayist  pleads  that  the  choice  of  books  "is  really  a  choice  of 
education,  of  a  moral  and  intellectual  ideal,  of  the  whole  duty  of  man."  He  warns 
readers  that  pleasure  in  the  reading  of  great  books  is  a  faculty  to  be  acquired,  not  a 
natural  gift,  —  at  least  not  to  those  who  are  spoiled  by  our  current  education  and 
habits  of  life.  And  he  offers  as  a  touchstone  of  taste  and  energy  of  mind,  the  names 
of  certain  immortal  books,  which  if  one  have  no  stomach  for,  he  should  fall  on  bis 
knees  and  pray  for  a  cleaner  and  quieter  spirit.  The  second  division  is  given  to  the 
'Poets  of  the  Old  World,'  the  third  to  the  'Poets  of  the  Modem  World/  and  the  last 
to  the  'Misuse  of  Books/  The  essay  is  full  of  instruction  and  of  warning,  most 
agreeably  offered;  and  the  penitent  reader  concludes  with  the  writer,  that  the  art  of 
printing  has  not  been  a  gift  wholly  unmixed  with  evil,  and  may  easily  be  made  a  dog 
on  the  progress  of  the  human  mind.  An  extract  is  given  in  the  LIBRARY,  under  Mr. 
Harrison's  name;  and  the  other  side  of  the  shield  is  shown  in  Mr.  Arthur  J.  Balfour's 
answer,  also  given  under  his  name.  Fourteen  other  essays,  partly  critical,  partly 
historical,  partly  aesthetic,  fill  the  volume;  the  ablest  and  one  of  the  most  delightful 
among  them  being  perhaps  the  famous  paper,  'A  Few  Words  about  the  Eighteenth 
Century/ 

CHOIR  INVISIBLE,  THE,  by  James  Lane  Allen,  appeared  in  1897,  and  is  one  of  Ms 
most  popular  and  pleasing  stories.  It  was  enlarged  from  an  earlier  story  called 
'John  Gray/  Its  scene  is  the  Kentucky  of  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  hero  is  John 
Gray,  a  schoolmaster  and  idealist,  who,  disappointed  in  his  love  for  Amy  Falconer,  a 
pert,  pretty,  shallow  flirt,  gradually  comes  to  care  for  Mrs.  Falconer,  her  aunt,  a 
noble  woman  in  reduced  circumstances,  who  with  her  husband  has  left  a  former 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  149 

stately  home  in  Virginia  and  come  to  live  in  the  Kentucky  wilderness.  She  loves 
him  in  return  with  a  deep,  tender  passion  that  has  in  it  something  of  the  motherly 
instinct  of  protection;  but,  her  husband  being  alive,  she  conceals  her  feeling  from 
Gray  until  after  he  has  departed  from  Lexington  and  settled  in  another  State.  She 
then  writes  him  to  say  she  is  free  —  and  he  replies  that  he  is  married.  But  he  tells  her 
in  a  final  letter  that  she  has  remained  his  ideal  and  guiding  star  to  noble  action. 
The  romantic  atmosphere  and  the  ideal  cast  of  these  two  leading  characters  make  the 
fiction  very  attractive;  and  the  fresh  picturesque  descriptions  of  pioneer  life  in 
Kentucky  give  the  tale  historical  value. 

CHOUANS,  THE,  by  Balzac.  This  was  the  novelist's  first  important  work.  The 
title,  when  it  appeared  in  1829,  was  'The  Last  Chouan:  or,  Bretagne  in  1800.'  In 
1846  it  was  rearranged  in  its  present  form.  It  is  the  story  of  a  young  girl,  Marie  de 
Verneuil,  sent  by  Fouche*  to  entrap  the  leader  of  the  royalists  in  Bretagne,  the  Marquis 
de  Montauran.  She  falls  in  love  with  him,  reveals  her  disgraceful  mission,  and 
devotes  all  her  energies  to  save  him,  until  a  trick  of  his  enemies  leads  her  to  believe 
him  false.  Then  she  plots  his  ruin,  is  undeceived  too  late;  and  both  die  together. 
Marie  is  an  exquisite  creation,  revealing  that  deep  and  intuitive  knowledge  of  the 
soul  of  woman  of  which  Balzac  was  to  give  so  many  proofs  afterward.  Montauran 
also  is  an  original  character,  vigorously  and  delicately  drawn.  In  Hulot,  the  rough 
republican  commandant  sprung  from  the  ranks,  and  in  Marche-a-Terre,  the  ferocious 
but  honest  fanatic,  we  have  two  of  Balzac's  "types,"  designed  and  classified  truth- 
fully and  convincingly.  Many  of  the  scenes  are  of  tragic  intensity.  Nothing  could 
be  more  terrible  than  that  of  the  massacre  of  the  Blues  at  Vivetiere,  that  of  the  un- 
masking of  the  spy  among  her  enemies,  or  that  of  the  roasting  of  the  old  miser  by  the 
Chouans  to  compel  him  to  reveal  his  treasure.  The  description  of  a  mass  said  by  a 
priest  in  rags,  in  the  midst  of  the  forest,  before  a  granite  altar,  while  the  insurgents, 
kneeling  near  their  guns,  beat  their  breasts  and  repeat  the  responses,  is  singularly 
grand  and  imposing.  The  author  made  a  profound  study  of  the  scenery  of  Bretagne, 
and  the  manners  of  its  people,  before  he  wrote  his  romance;  and  his  pictures  of  both 
scenery  and  people  have  the  stamp  of  reality  and  truth. 

CHRISTIAN,  THE,  by  Hall  Caine  (1897),  is  a  popular  romance.  For  the  most 
part  the  scene  is  laid  in  London.  The  main  characters  are  Glory  Quayle,  the 
granddaughter  of  a  Manx  clergyman,  and  John  Storm,  the  son  of  a  nobleman  and 
nephew  of  the  prime  minister.  Glory  has  actor's  blood  in  her  veins;  John  is  a  religious 
enthusiast  whom  his  father,  disappointed  in  his  choice  of  life,  disinherits.  The  girl 
goes  to  London  as  a  hospital  nurse;  the  man,  as  assistant  clergyman  of  a  fashionable 
church.  But  she  is  soon  tired  of  a  life  she  is  unfitted  for,  and  longs  for  pleasure, 
change,  excitement;  while  he  is  sickened  at  the  worldliness,  fraud,  and  pretense  of 
West  End  piety,  and  resigns  his  position  to  join  a  monastic  brotherhood,  —  finding, 
however,  after  a  year  of  trial,  that  the  ascetic  retirement  from  the  world  is  not  the 
true  religious  ideal  for  him.  The  thought,  too,  of  Glory  mingles  ever  subtly  with 
the  thought  of  God.  Meanwhile,  she  has  had  some  hard  knocks  in  the  struggle  to 
get  on  the  stage  and  show  her  unusual  powers.  She  becomes  a  music-hall  singer,  to 
John's  great  distress,  and  for  a  long  while  he  keeps  away  from  her  and  her  fashionable 
friends.  But  his  desire  to  save  Glory's  soul  —  and  to  win  the  girl  herself  —  leads 
him  to  a  declaration,  and  he  finds  he  is  loved  in  return;  but  she  is  unwilling  to  give 
up  her  profession  and  associate  herself  with  him  in  his  work.  She  makes  a  brilliant 
d6but  as  a  star  on  the  regular  stage.  Father  Storm  breaks  down  as  a  hermit  and  a 


150  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

crusading  Christian,  and  ends  in  failure.  The  details  of  London  life  are  spectacular, 
and  the  object  of  the  book  seems  to  be  to  show  the  inadequacy  of  London  churches  to 
save  the  city. 

CHRISTIAN  WOMAN,  A  ('Una  Cristiana'),  by  Emilia  Pardo-Bazan  (1890).  In  this 
interesting  novel,  the  author  presents  a  very  realistic  picture  of  modern  Spanish  life, 
into  which  are  introduced  many  current  social  and  political  questions.  The  story  is 
an  autobiography  of  Salustio  Unceta,  a  student  in  the  School  of  Engineers  in  Madrid, 
and  a  liberal  in  politics  and  religion.  His  tuition  is  paid  by  his  uncle  Felipe,  who 
invites  Salustio  to  be  present  at  his  marriage  to  Carmen  Aldoa.  There  is  in  the  Un- 
ceta family  a  trace  of  Hebrew  blood,  which  has  declared  itself  both  in  the  personal 
appearance  and  the  power  of  acquisition  of  Felipe,  and  which  excites  a  feeling  of 
loathing  in  Salustio.  He  cannot  understand  why  Carmen  should  marry  Felipe,  but 
overhears  her  secret  when  she  is  telling  it  to  Father  Moreno:  she  marries  to  escape 
sanctioning  by  her  presence  in  the  house  a  scandalous  flirtation  of  her  father.  After 
the  marriage,  Felipe,  to  save  expenses,  takes  Salustio  into  his  house;  and  the  results 
are  very  unfortunate. 

CHRISTIANITY,  THE  GENIUS  OF,  see  GENIUS  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA,  TARTARY,  AND  THIBET,  by  the  AbbS  Hue.  A 
curiously  interesting  and  elaborate  history  of  the  presence  in  the  Chinese  Empire  of 
Christian  missions  from  the  time  of  the  Apostles  to  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  author  was  a  Roman  Catholic  missionary  in  China,  1840-52.  By  shaving  his 
head  and  dyeing  his  skin  yellow,  and  wearing  a  queue  and  Chinese  costume,  and  by 
a  thorough  command  of  the  Chinese  language,  he  was  able  to  travel  not  only  in 
China  proper,  but  in  Thibet  and  Tartary.  He  published  in  1850  an  exceedingly  in- 
teresting account  of  his  travels  during  1844-46,  and  in  1854  a  work  on  the  Chinese 
Empire.  His  first  work  related  marvels  of  travel  which  aroused  incredulity;  but 
later  researches  have  amply  shown  that  this  was  unjust.  The  final  work,  connecting 
the  history  of  the  Chinese  Empire  with  the  maintenance  through  centuries  of  Chris- 
tian missions,  is  a  work  of  great  value  for  the  history  of  the  far  East.  Hue  wrote  in 
French;  but  all  the  works  here  mentioned  were  brought  out  in  English,  and  met  with 
wide  popular  acceptance.  The  '  Travels  in  the  Chinese  Empire '  came  out  in  a  cheap 
edition,  1859;  the  'Chinese  Empire,  Tartary,  and  Thibet,'  was  in  5  vols.,  1855-58; 
and  the  'Christianity,'  etc.,  3  vols.,  1857-58. 

CHRISTIE  JOHNSTONE,  by  Charles  Reade,  was  published  in  1855,  three  years 
after  'Peg  Woffington'  had  given  the  author  his  reputation.  It  is  one  of  the  best 
and  most  charming  of  modern  stories.  It  depicts  a  young  viscount,  rich  and  blase", 
who  loves  his  cousin  Lady  Barbara,  but  is  rejected  because  of  his  lack  of  energy  and 
his  aimlessness  in  life.  He  grows  pale  and  listless;  a  doctor  is  called  in,  and  prescribes 
yachting  and  taking  daily  interest  in  the  "lower  classes."  The  story,  by  turns 
pathetic  and  humorous,  abounds  in  vivid  and  dramatic  scenes  of  Scotch  life  by  the 
sea;  and  Christie,  with  her  superb  physique,  her  broad  dialect,  her  shrewd  sense,  and 
her  noble  heart,  is  a  heroine  worth  while.  Reade's  wit  and  humor  permeate  the  book, 
and  his  vigorous  ethics  make  it  a  moral  tonic. 

CHRISTOPHER,  by  Richard  Pryce  (1911).  This  is  the  story  of  an  English  boy 
named  Christopher  Herrick,  and  is  a  detailed  account  of  his  career  from  the  time  of 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  151 

his  birth  till  he  reaches  manhood.  He  is  born  on  an  ocean  steamer,  which  is  bringing 
his  widowed  and  heart-broken  young  mother  back  from  India  to  her  home  in  England. 
Christopher's  early  years  are  carefully  watched  over  by  his  devoted  mother,  his 
faithful  nurse  Trimmer,  his  grandmother  and  his  two  unmarried  aunts.  He  early 
develops  an  observing  nature  and  a  receptive  mind  and  is  a  most  lovable  and  thought- 
ful child.  His  quaint  sayings  and  his  original  way  of  looking  at  things  make  interest- 
ing pages  for  the  reader.  While  Christopher  is  still  a  child  his  mother  marries  again 
and  becomes  the  wife  of  John  Hemming,  one  of  her  early  admirers.  Previous  to  his 
marriage  Hemming  had  had  an  affair  with  a  fascinating  divorcee,  Mrs.  St.  Jemison, 
whose  beauty  had  made  a  deep  impression  upon  Christopher  and  later  he  finds  in  her 
daughter  Cora  his  ideal.  Christopher  has  finished  his  second  year  at  Oxford  and  is 
off  for  a  foreign  trip  with  a  friend  when  he  sees  at  a  railroad  station  an  unusually 
pretty  girl  who  later  proves  to  be  Cora  St.  Jemison.  Christopher's  impressionable 
nature  is  immediately  touched  and  he  journeys  from  place  to  place  in  search  of  his 
paragon,  whom  he  finally  meets  in  London  in  the  drawing-room  of  a  friend.  From 
this  moment  Christopher's  every  thought  is  of  Cora,  and  though  he  does  not  see  her 
again  for  two  years  she  is  constantly  in  his  mind.  He  finishes  college  and  adopts 
writing  for  his  vocation.  At  last  he  and  Cora  come  together  again  but  after  a  period 
of  earnest  devotion  on  Christopher's  part  rewarded  by  a  shallow  affection  which  is 
all  that  the  frivolous  Cora  can  offer,  she  finally  tells  him  they  can  not  be  happy 
together  and  marries  another  man.  Christopher  is  crushed  with  disappointment  and 
grief,  but  the  reader  takes  leave  of  him  at  this  crisis  filled  with  the  assurance  that 
better  things  are  in  store  for  him. 

CHRONICLES  OF  CARLINGFOKD.  The  general  title  of  'Chronicles  of  Carling- 
ford' covers  a  number  of  tales  and  novels  by  Mrs.  Margaret  Oliphant,  which  have  no 
direct  sequence  or  continuous  plot,  but  which  have  more  or  less  connection  through 
the  reappearance  of  some  of  the  same  characters.  These  novels  —  which  can  hardly 
be  called  a  series,  but  rather  a  group  —  include  'Salem  Chapel/  'The  Rector/  'The 
Doctor's  Family/  'The  Perpetual  Curate/  'Miss  Marjoribanks/  and  'Phcebe  Junior/ 
The  earliest  to  appear  was  'Salem  Chapel/  which  was  published  anonymously  in 
1863,  but  was  readily  attributed  to  Mrs.  Oliphant,  who  had  then  been  for  fourteen 
years  before  the  public  as  a  writer,  and  whose  style  was  recognizable.  '  Salem  Chapel ' 
holds  perhaps  the  foremost  place  among  the  Chronicles,  having  a  strong  dramatic 
interest  in  addition  to  that  which  it  possesses  as  a  tale  of  English  middle-class  life. 
Carlingford  is  a  country  town;  and  its  chronicles  are  for  the  most  part  those  of 
ordinary  persons,  set  apart  by  no  unusual  qualities  or  circumstances.  The  portraits 
of  these  people  are  vividly  drawn,  with  humor  and  delicacy  as  well  as  strength.  The 
vicissitudes  in  the  ministry  of  Arthur  Vincent,  preacher  in  the  Dissenting  Salem 
Chapel,  form  the  framework  of  the  tale.  The  hopeless  infatuation  of  Vincent  for 
Lady  Western,  and  the  temptation  of  Mildmay,  Lady  Western's  brother,  constitute 
the  romance  and  tragedy  of  the  story.  Mr.  Tozer,  the  rich  dealer  in  butter,  who  is 
the  financial  pillar  of  the  Dissenting  chapel;  his  pretty  but  vulgar  daughter  Phcebe, 
who  is  more  than  half  in  love  with  the  handsome  young  minister;  Dr.  Marjoribanks, 
the  old  country  doctor;  Dr.  Rider,  his  younger  successor,  and  in  some  sense  his  rival; 
Mr.  Wentworth,  the  curate  of  St.  Roques;  the  Wodehouse  family,  —  all  the  many 
dwellers  in  Carlingford  who  appear  and  reappear  through  these  tales,  —  become 
familiar  acquaintances  of  the  reader.  A  great  charm  of  these  novels  is  the  distinct- 
ness with  which  each  character  is  portrayed,  and  the  individuality  which  is  preserved 
for  each  among  the  large  number  introduced  in  the  action. 


152  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

CHRONICLES  OF  CLOVERNOOK,  THE,  by  Douglas  Jerrold.  Clovernook  is  a 
"hamkt  wherein  fancy  has  loitered  away  a  truant  hour,"  "the  work  of  some  sprite 
that  in  an  idle  and  extravagant  mood  made  it  a  choice  country-seat."  Into  this  land 
of  fantasy  the  author  rides  in  the  twilight;  the  sagacity  of  his  ass,  whose  name  is 
Bottom,  bringing  him  through  unknown  paths  to  the  house  of  the  Hermit  of  Belly- 
fulle  —  "the  very  pope  of  Hermits,"  as  Dickens  styled  him  in  one  of  his  letters. 
In  the  companionship  of  the  Hermit,  and  under  his  guidance,  the  adventurer  explores 
Clovernook,  and  discourses  of  it.  He  learns  of  the  Kingdom  of  As-you-like,  whither 
the  dwellers  in  Clovernook  repair  yearly;  the  Land  of  Turveytop,  where  men  are 
purged  of  their  worldliness;  the  Isle  of  Jacks;  Honey-Bee  Bay;  and  at  the  pleasant  inn 
called  "Gratis"  he  meets  the  Twenty-five  Club  and  other  gentle  philosophers,  in 
whose  tales  and  conversation  the  realities  of  the  crude  world  outside  are  refined  into 
the  dreams  of  this  realm  of  fancy.  'Clovernook'  charms  by  its  quiet  humor,  the 
grace  of  its  fancies,  and  the  benevolence  which  characterizes  even  its  satire.  It  is  the 
work  to  which  Mr.  Jerrold  referred  as,  in  certain  parts,  best  expressing  himself  as  he 
wished  the  world  to  understand  him.  It  was  written  in  the  prime  of  his  literary  career 
at  the  age  of  forty  years,  while  he  was  the  leading  contributor  to  Punch,  with  his 
position  well  established  as  one  of  the  popular  writers  of  the  day.  Appearing  serially 
in  that  paper,  'The  Chronicles  of  Clovernook'  was  published  separately  in  1846,  and 
has  since  had  its  place  in  the  collected  works  of  its  author. 

CHRONICLES   OF  FROISSART,  THE,    The  Chronicles  of  the  French  poet  and 
historian  Jean  Froissart  embrace  the  events  occurring  from  1325  to  1400  in  England, 
Scotland,  France,  Spain,  Brittany,  and  the  Low  Countries.    They  are  of  great  value 
in  illustrating  the  manners  and  character  of  the  fourteenth  century.     Froissart 
began  his  work  on  them  when  but  twenty  years  old,  in  1357;  they  were  not  completed 
until  1400.    They  present  a  vivid  and  interesting  picture  of  the  long-continued  wars 
of  the  times,  setting  forth  in  detail  not  only  the  fighting,  but  the  feasts,  spectacles, 
and  all  the  pageantry  of  feudal  times;  and  they  are  enlivened  throughout  by  Frois- 
sart's  shrewd  comments  and  observations.    Among  the  many  interesting  historic 
personages  are  King  Edward  III.  of  England,  Queen  Philippa,  Robert  Bruce  of 
Scotland,  and  Lord  James  Douglas  who  fought  so  valiantly  for  the  heart  of  Bruce. 
Froissart  depicts  the  invasion  of  France  by  the  English,  the  battle  of  Cre"cy,  the  great 
siege  of  Calais,  and  the  famous  battle  of  Poitiers;  describes  the  brilliant  court  of  the 
great  B6araese,  Lord  Gaston  Phcebus,  Count  de  Foix,  whom  he  used  to  visit;  and 
portrays  among  other  events  the  coronation  of  Charles  VI.  of  France,  the  heroic 
struggle  of  Philip  van  Artevelde  to  recover  the  rights  of  Flanders,  and  the  insurrec- 
tion of  Wat  Tyler.     There  is  also  a  valuable  description  of  the  Crusade  of  1390. 
Froissart  obtained  his  material  by  journeying  about  and  plying  with  questions  the 
knights  and  squires  whom  he  met,  lodging  at  the  castles  of  the  great,  and  jotting  down 
all  that  he  learned  of  stirring  events  and  brave  deeds.    He  was  much  in  England, 
being  at  different  times  attached  to  the  households  of  Edward  III.  of  England  and  of 
King  John  of  France,  and  becoming  an  especial  favorite  with  Queen  Philippa,  who 
made  him  clerk  of  her  chamber.    The  'Chronicles'  first  appeared  in  Paris  about  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century.    In  the  Library  at  Breslau  is  a  beautiful  MS.  of  them, 
executed  in  1468. 

CHRONICLES  OF  THE  SCHONBERG-COTTA  FAMILY,  by  Mrs.  Elizabeth 
Charles  (1863).  These  chronicles,  dealing  with  the  period  of  the  Reformation  in  Ger- 
many, are  written  chiefly  by  Friedrich  and  Else,  the  eldest  children  of  the  Schonberg- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  153 

Cotta  family.  Their  father  is  an  improvident  printer  with  eight  children  to  provide 
for.  Martin  Luther,  adopted  by  their  aunt  Ursula  Cotta,  is  prominent  throughout. 
The  chronicles  open  with  the  efforts  of  Friedrich  and  Else  to  understand  the  Romanist 
religious  life,  and  their  brave  efforts  to  hold  the  family  together.  The  family,  which 
is  very  religious,  sends  the  eldest  son,  Friedrich,  to  the  University  of  Erfurt,  where 
Luther  has  already  shown  great  promise.  In  fulfillment  of  vows,  Luther  and  Fried- 
rich  next  enter  an  Augustinian  monastery,  where  they  struggle  hard  to  destroy  their 
worldly  ties,  Friedrich  being  especially  beset  on  account  of  his  love  for  a  young  girl 
named  Eva.  Rising  rapidly,  the  two  friends  are  intrusted  with  a  mission  to  Rome. 
The  lives  of  the  easy-going  monks  distress  them;  finally  the  selling  of  indulgences 
brings  Luther  to  outspoken  denunciation  of  the  abuses  of  the  Church.  In  this 
Friedrich  supports  him,  and  both  are  excommunicated  and  thrown  into  prison. 
Luther  escapes,  and  appeals  to  the  people  with  his  new  doctrine  that  personal  re- 
sponsibility to  God  is  direct,  without  mediation  of  priests.  This  teaching  is  proclaimed 
broadcast,  and  Luther  becomes  an  object  of  fear  to  Rome;  but  he  lives  to  the  age 
of  sixty-three,  and  dies  a  happy  father  and  husband,  having  espoused  Catherine 
von  Bora,  a  former  nun.  Friedrich,  after  many  hindrances,  marries  Eva.  The  book 
is  written  with  an  effort  after  the  archaic  style,  and  has  much  of  the  simplicity  and 
directness  of  the  old  chronicles.  Its  point  of  view  is  that  of  evangelical  Protestantism, 
and  it  lacks  the  judicial  spirit  that  would  have  presented  a  true  picture  of  the  time. 
It  is  interesting,  however,  and  has  proved  a  very  great  favorite,  though  accurate 
scholarship  finds  fault  with  its  history. 

CHRYSAL,  or,  THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GUINEA,  "containing  curious  and  interesting 
anecdotes  of  the  most  noted  persons  in  every  rank  of  life  whose  hands  it  passed 
through,  in  America,  England,  Holland,  Germany,  and  Portugal. "  This  satirical 
novel,  by  Charles  Johnstone,  an  Irishman,  was  published  in  1760.  In  'Davis's 
Olio  of  Bibliographical  and  Literary  Anecdote/  a  key  to  the  characters  is  presented. 
The  first  two  volumes  of  the  work  were  written  for  the  author's  amusement.  Its 
popularity  induced  him  to  extend  it  to  four  volumes. 

Chrysal,  signifying  gold  or  golden,  is  the  spirit  inhabiting  a  guinea,  which  passes 
through  many  hands,  from  the  prince's  to  the  beggar's.  It  tells  its  own  story,  which 
is  chiefly  the  adventures  of  those  in  whose  possession  it  is  for  the  time  being.  This 
curious  and  now  rare  work  is  written  in  an  old-fashioned,  ponderous  style;  and 
judged  by  modern  standards  of  melodramatic  fiction,  is  not  very  readable. 

CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND,  see  REFORMATION  OF  THE. 

CHURCHILL,  LORD  RANDOLPH,  by  Winston  Churchill  (1906).  The  life  of 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill  by  his  son  is  one  of  the  foremost  of  English  political  biog- 
raphies. With  the  exception  of  the  first  two  chapters  and  the  last,  the  events  which 
it  describes  are  included  within  the  stormy  period  between  1880  and  1890.  Lord 
Randolph  had  no  long  years  of  office  to  his  credit,  no  great  legislation  called  by  his 
name,  no  easily  tabulated  list  of  achievements,  yet  his  forceful  and  magnetic  per- 
sonality exercised  an  extraordinary  influence  upon  the  Conservative  party  when  it 
was  in  danger  of  being  overwhelmed  by  Gladstone.  He  was  a  leader  of  that  pro- 
gressive variety  of  English  Conservatism  which  came  to  be  known  as  Tory  Democ- 
racy, urging  the  Conservatives  to  adopt  popular  reforms  and  to  dispute  the  claim  of 
Liberals  to  be  the  only  true  champions  of  the  working  classes.  Although  he  had  much 
sympathy  with  Ireland,  he  was  a  bitter  opponent  of  Gladstone's  Home  Rule  pro- 
posals of  1885.  The  great  force  which  he  was  just  beginning  to  exercise  on  British 


154  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

politics  was  broken  by  his  death  at  the  comparatively  early  age  of  forty-six,  yet  he 
has  a  secure  place  in  English  political  history,  for,  in  the  words  with  which  his 
biographer  closes,  "there  is  an  England  which  stretches  far  beyond  the  well-drilled 
masses  who  are  assembled  by  party  machinery  to  salute  with  appropriate  acclamation 
the  utterances  of  their  recognized  fuglemen;  an  England  of  wise  men  who  gaze  without 
self-deception  at  the  failings  and  follies  of  both  political  parties;  of  brave  and  earnest 
men  who  find  In  neither  faction  fair  scope  for  the  effort  that  is  in  them;  of  'poor  men ' 
who  increasingly  doubt  the  sincerity  of  parry  philanthropy.  It  was  to  that  England 
that  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  appealed;  it  was  that  England  he  so  nearly  won;  it  is 
by  that  England  he  will  be  justly  judged." 

CICERO,  MARCUS  TULLIUS*  LIFE  OF.  By  William  Forsyth  (2  vols.,  1863). 
A  chapter  of  personal  history,  and  of  the  story  of  classical  culture,  in  the  first  half 
of  the  last  century  before  Christ,  of  great  interest  and  value.  It  deals  not  only  with 
the  orator  and  statesman,  and  the  public  affairs  in  which  he  played  so  great  a  part, 
but  with  Cicero  as  a  man,  a  father,  husband,  friend,  and  gentleman,  and  with  the 
culture  of  the  time,  of  which  Cicero  was  so  conspicuous  a  representative.  The  picture 
serves  particularly  to  show  along  what  lines  moral  and  religious  development  had 
taken  place  before  the  time  of  Christ.  Cicero's  public  career  covered  the  years 
80-43  B.C.,  and  within  these  years  fell  the  career  of  Caesar. 

CICERO  AND  HIS  FRIENDS,  by  Gaston  Boissier  (1892).    There  is  probably  no 
man  of  ancient  times  of  whose  public  and  private  life  we  know  so  much  as  we  do  of 
Cicero's:  the  sixteen  extant  books  of  his  'Letters  to  Various  Persons/  or  as  they  are 
usually  styled,  his  ' Letters  to  Friends,'  and  those  to  his  friend  Atticus,  reveal  the 
man  in  his  littleness  and  vanity  no  less  than  in  his  greatness.    He  was  a  great  man 
and  a  great  patriot;  but  with  his  incontestable  virtues  he  combined  almost  incredible 
weaknesses  of  character,  —  his  wheedling  letters  to  one  Lucius  Lucellus,  a  writer  of 
histories,  whom  he  asks  to  write  an  account  of  his  consulship,  is  sufficient  proof  of 
this.    From  these  letters  of  Cicero,  and  also  from  his  forensic  orations  and  his 
philosophical  and  rhetorical  writings,  the  author  of  this  book  draws  the  material  for  a 
singularly  interesting  account  of  the  great  orator's  public  and  private  life.     It  has 
been  the  fashion  of  scholars  of  late  to  belittle  Cicero;  to  write  him  down  an  egotist,  a 
shallow,  time-serving  politician,  a  mere  phrase-maker.    M.  Boissier  admits  that 
Cicero  was  timid,  hesitating,  irresolute;  he  was  by  nature  a  man  of  letters  rather 
than  a  statesman.    But  the  mind  of  the  man  of  letters  is  often  broader,  more  com- 
prehensive than  that  of  the  practical  statesman;  and  "it  is  precisely  this  breadth  that 
cramps  and  thwarts  him  when  he  undertakes  the  direction  of  public  affairs."    He 
redeemed  the  vacillations  and  timidities  of  his  political  career  by  meeting  death  at 
the  hand  of  the  hired  assassin  with  stoic  fortitude.    In  a  chapter  on  Cicero's  private 
life,  the  question  comes  up  as  to  the  ways  in  which  he  acquired  his  very  considerable 
wealth.    In  accounting  for  it,  the  author  cites  numerous  instances  of  the  orator's 
clients  making  him  their  heir  for  large  sums:  the  law  forbade  payment  of  money  to 
advocates,  and  the  method  of  making  payment  by  legacies  was  invented  as  a  means 
of  circumventing  the  statute.    Another  way  was  "borrowing"  money  from  rich 
clients;  and  many  instances  are  cited  of  large  sums  being  loaned  to  Cicero  by  wealthy 
men  whom  he  had  defended  in  the  courts.    Besides  wealthy  clients  in  private  life, 
there  were  towns  and  provinces  whose  interests  he  had  defended  in  the  Senate;  and 
above  all,  there  were  the  rich  corporations  of  the  fanners  of  the  public  revenues  whom 
he  had  served:  these  interests  found  a  means  of  recompensing  the  advocate  liberally. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  155 

The  domestic  life  of  Cicero  was  embittered  by  the  unhappy  marital  experiences  of 
his  daughter  Tulliola,  the  extravagances  of  his  first  wife  Terentia,  and  the  dissolute 
character  of  his  son  Marcus.  But  in  his  household  was  one  faithful  servitor,  his  slave 
and  amanuensis  Tiro,  whom  he  loved  with  parental  affection.  In  one  of  his  letters 
to  Tiro  he  writes:  "You  have  rendered  me  numberless  services  at  home,  in  the  forum, 
at  Rome,  in  my  province,  in  my  public  and  private  affairs,  in  my  studies  and  my 
literary  work."  Tiro  survived  his  master  many  years;  but  to  the  day  of  his  death  he 
labored  to  perpetuate  the  fame  of  Cicero  by  writing  his  life  and  preparing  editions 
of  his  works.  The  Friends  of  Cicero,  of  whom  notices  are  given  in  the  volume,  are 
Atticus,  Caelius,  Julius  Caesar,  Brutus,  and  Octavius. 

CID,  THE  ('Poema  del  Cid,'  'Cantares  del  Cid,'  or  'Gesta  de  myo  Cid'),  a  popular 
epic  poem  of  the  twelfth  century,  narrating  in  long  assonant  couplets,  events  real 
and  legendary  from  the  life  of  a  Castilian  noble,  Rodrigo  Diaz  de  Bivar  (d.  1099),  who 
was  exiled  by  the  king  of  Leon-Castile  and  thenceforward  lived  as  an  independent 
chieftain,  in  alliance  now  with  Christian  and  now  with  Moorish  princes.  The  name 
Cid,  or  Lord,  was  given  to  him  by  the  Arabs.  The  poem  describes  the  Cid's  exile,  his 
campaign  against  the  Moors,  his  capture  of  Valencia  (1094),  and  the'marriage  of  his 
daughters,  first  to  the  Infantes  of  Carrion,  who  insult  them,  and  then  to  the  Infantes 
of  Navarre  and  Arragon.  A  second  poem,  the  'Cronaca  Rimada  del  Cid/  '  Cantar  de 
Rodrigo/  or  'Leyenda  de  las  Mocedades  de  Rodrigo'  relates  his  enfances  or  first 
exploits  —  his  slaying  of  his  father's  enemy,  Count  Gomez,  and  his  marriage  to 
Jimena,  daughter  of  Gomez.  The  exploits  of  the  Cid  are  also  celebrated  in  the  later 
Romances  or  ballads  (c.  1500).  As  a  specimen  of  the  epic  of  the  people,  as  a  direct, 
vigorous  narrative,  and  as  a  revelation  of  mediaeval  Spain,  this  poetry  has  great 
importance.  For  a  full  account,  see  the  LIBRARY  under  'The  Cid.' 

CH),  THE,  a  drama  by  Pierre  Corneille,  first  performed  in  1636.  It  is  closely 
modeled  on  a  Spanish  play  by  Guillem  de  Castro  (1569-1631)  'Las  Mocedades  del 
Cid'  i.e.,  'The  Youth  of  the  Cid,'  a  romantic  treatment  of  the  mediaeval  poem  on  that 
subject.  The  play  presents  Corneille's  favorite  theme  of  the  strong  character  faced 
by  conflicting  duties.  Don  Rodrigue  loves  Chimene  but  is  bound  by  filial  duty  to 
kill  her  father,  Don  Gomes,  for  insulting  his  father,  Don  Diegue.  Chimene,  who 
reciprocates  the  love  of  Don  Rodrigue,  is  now  equally  bound  to  enmity  against  him. 
She  refuses  to  take  his  life  when  he  gives  her  the  opportunity;  but  although  he  res- 
cues the  city  of  Seville  from  the  Moors  she  feels  obliged  to  demand  of  the  king  a 
champion  against  him.  Nevertheless  her  distress  at  the  supposed  victory  of  this 
champion  Don  Sanche,  a  rival  suitor,  reveals  her  true  feelings;  and  by  tne  command 
of  the  king  she  weds  the  real  victor,  Don  Rodrigue.  The  character  of  the  Infanta, 
who  also  loves  the  hero,  but  suppresses  this  emotion  in  deference  to  her  duty  to 
Chimene  and  to  the  king,  is  another  example  of  the  strong-willed  personages  so  typical 
of  Corneille.  Though  romantic  in  theme  the  play,  by  its  observance  of  the  unities 
and  of  stage  decorum,  initiated  the  reign  of  classicism  in  the  French  drama. 

CINDERELLA,  see  FAIRY  TALES. 

CINQ-MARS,  by  Alfred  de  Vigny  (1826).  The  subject  of  this  historical  romance  is 
the  conspiracy  of  Cinq-Mars  and  De  Thou  against  Richelieu,  its  detection,  and  the 
execution  of  the  offenders  at  Lyons  in  1 642 .  The  work  is  modeled  after  the  Waverley 
novels.  All  the  action  centres  around  the  great  figure  of  Richelieu.  The  aristocratic 
prejudices  of  the  author  prevent  him  from  doing  full  justice,  perhaps,  to  the  states- 


156  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

man  who  curbed  the  power  of  the  French  noblesse;  and  many  critics  think  that  Bulwer 
depicts  him  more  truly.  The  Richelieu  of  De  Vigny  is  Richelieu  as  he  appeared  to 
the  courtiers  of  the  time:  the  organizer  of  assassination  and  espionage,  in  conjunction 
with  Father  Joseph  and  Laubardemont,  —Richelieu  in  his  days  of  hatred  and  murder. 
The  author  is  more  just  to  the  Cardinal  when  he  shows  him  making  successful  efforts 
to  place  France  at  the  head  of  Europe,  preparing  and  winning  victories,  and  sending 
his  king  to  fight  like  an  obscure  captain.  The  character  of  Louis  XIII.  is  finely 
drawn,  and  we  have  a  lifelike  and  admirably  colored  portrait  of  that  strange  and 
gloomy  monarch,  who  is  the  master  of  France  and  the  slave  of  Richelieu,  and  who 
sends  his  most  devoted  friends  to  the  scaffold  at  the  bidding  of  the  man  he  hates. 
Indeed,  the  contrast  between  the  obedient  monarch  and  his  imperious  servant  is  the 
most  striking  feature  in  the  romance.  There  are  many  scenes  of  great  historic 
value;  as  for  instance,  that  in  which  Richelieu  retires  on  the  King's  refusal  to  sign  a 
death- warrant,  and  abandons  Louis  to  himself.  The  presentation  of  Cinq-Mars  is 
also  very  vivid:  we  have  a  Cinq-Mars,  who,  if  not  true  to  history,  is  at  least  true  to 
human  nature.  The  outline  of  De  Thou  is  perhaps  just  a  little  shadowy. 

CITIES  OF  NORTHERN  AND  CENTRAL  ITALY,  by  Augustus  J.  C.  Hare  (1876). 
In  this  work,  consisting  of  three  volumes,  not  only  the  cities  but  the  towns  and  even 
the  villages  of  Northern  and  Central  Italy  receive  the  careful  and  comprehensive 
attention  of  the  writer.  Entering  Italy  by  the  Cornice  Road  at  Men  tone,  the 
reader  is  plunged  at  once  into  the  land  of  the  citron  and  myrtle.  The  district  de- 
scribed embraces  the  whole  country  from  the  Alps  to  the  environs  of  Rome:  Genoa, 
Turin,  Milan,  Venice,  Bologna,  Verona,  Padua,  and  Florence  are  treated  at  length. 
Nothing  of  interest  has  been  omitted :  cathedrals,  palaces,  homes  and  haunts  of  great 
men,  the  Old  Masters  and  their  works,  all  have  place,  while  well-known  names  of 
history  and  legend  have  been  studied  with  painstaking  care.  The  volumes  contain 
hotel  and  pension  rates,  omnibus  and  railway  fares,  and  catalogues  of  the  exhibits  in 
the  various  galleries,  —  that  of  the  Pitti  Palace  being  particularly  noteworthy. 
Yet  they  are  not  "guides"  merely;  for  they  offer  the  reader  not  only  the  excellent 
comments  of  Mr.  Hare,  but  whole  pages  of  quotations  from  famous  art  critics  and 
historical  authorities,  such  as  Ruskin,  Goethe,  Gautier,  Dickens,  Symonds,  Freeman, 
Perkins,  Story,  and  others.  The  writer's  love  for  his  subject  produced  a  delightful 
work. 

CITIZEN  OF  THE  WORLD,  by  Oliver  Goldsmith.  Published  under  this  title  in 
the  Public  Ledger,  a  weekly  journal  of  London,  they  ran  through  the  year  1760,  and 
were  published  in  book  form  in  1762  as  'The  Citizen  of  the  World;  or  Letters  from  a 
Chinese  Philosopher  Residing  in  London  to  his  Friends  in  the  East. '  Their  charm  li  es 
in  their  delicate  satire  rather  than  in  any  foreign  air  which  the  author  may  have 
tried  to  lend  them.  They  amused  the  town,  they  still  divert  and  instruct  us,  and 
they  will  delight  future  generations.  Lien  Chi  Altangi  became  real,  and  lives.  He 
detects  and  exposes  not  merely  the  follies  and  foibles  lying  on  the  surface,  but  the 
greater  evils  rankling  at  the  heart,  of  English  society.  He  warns  England  of  her 
insecure  tenure  of  the  American  colonies,  her  exaggerated  social  pretenses,  and  the 
evil  system  of  the  magistracy.  He  ridicules  English  thought  and  the  fashions  which 
make  beauty  hideous,  and  avows  his  contempt  for  the  cant  of  professed  connoisseurs. 
The  abuses  of  church  patronage  did  not  escape  him;  and  he  comments  on  the  inci- 
dents of  the  day.  As  we  read  these  'Chinese  Letters'  all  London  of  the  eighteenth 
century  rises  before  us.  "  Beau  Tibbs, "  and  the  "  Man  in  Black  "  who  accompanies 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  157 

the  philosopher  to  the  theatre  are  immortal;  and  'The  White  Mouse  and  Prince 
Bonbennin'  is  founded  on  an  actual  experience  of  Goldsmith. 

CITOYENNE  JACQUELINE,  by  Sarah  Tytler  (1865).  The  scene  opens  in  the  earls- 
months  of  the  French  Revolution,  1792,  in  Faye-aux-Jonquilles,  a  village  near  Paris; 
the  home  of  Jacqueline  de  Faye,  only  child  of  "Monsieur"  and  "Madame,"  nobles 
of  the  old  regime.  Jacqueline  has  inherited  the  traditional  ideas  of  her  aristocratic 
ancestry,  and  is  trained  in  the  fantastic  etiquette  of  her  age;  but  displays  disquieting 
symptoms  of  independence,  a  character  sure  to  lead  its  possessor  into  strange  paths. 
She  is  in  love  with  her  cousin,  the  Chevalier  de  Faye,  to  whom  she  is  betrothed;  but 
owing  to  the  changes  brought  about  by  the  Revolution,  he  transfers  his  attentions  to 
another  cousin,  a  wealthy  and  vivacious  widow,  Petronille  de  Croi.  In  her  anger  and 
despair,  Jacqueline  takes  a  step  that  separates  her  from  her  order:  she  marries  a 
handsome  young  peasant  proprietor.  The  wild  days  of  '93  arrive,  and  she  and  her 
family  are  deeply  involved  in  the  turmoils  of  the  time.  After  they  have  suffered 
together,  and  he  has  sheltered  her  mother,  she  comes  to  love  her  plebeian  husband. 
The  story  moves  swiftly  through  scenes  of  conspiracy  and  bloodshed,  to  close  among 
the  green  fields  of  Jonquilles.  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,  daughter 
of  Laurence  Sterne,  are  interesting  episodes  of  her  Paris  life. 

CITY  OF  GOD,  THE,  by  St.  Augustine.  This  work,  the  most  important  of  all  his 
writings,  was  begun  in  413,  three  years  after  the  capture  and  pillage  of  Rome  by  the 
Visigoths  under  Alaric.  The  pagans  had  endeavored  to  show  that  this  calamity  was 
the  natural  consequence  of  the  spread  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  the  main  purpose 
of  Augustine  is  to  refute  them.  The  work,  which  was  finished  about  426,  is  divided 
into  twenty-two  books.  The  first  five  deal  with  the  arguments  of  those  who  seek  to 
prove  that  the  worship  of  the  gods  is  necessary  to  the  welfare  of  the  world  and  that 
the  recent  catastrophe  was  caused  by  its  abolition;  the  five  following  are  addressed  to 
those  who  claim  that  the  worship  of  the  divinities  of  paganism  is  useful  for  the  attain- 
ment of  happiness  in  the  next  life;  and  in  the  last  twelve  we  have  an  elaborate 
discussion  of  the  subject  that  gives  its  title  to  the  whole  work,  —  the  contrast  to  be 
drawn  between  two  cities,  the  City  of  God  and  the  city  of  the  world,  and  their  progress 
and  respective  ends.  It  would  obviously  be  impossible  to  give  in  this  space  anything 
like  a  satisfactory  re*sume*  of  this  vast  monument  of  genius,  piety,  and  erudition. 
Notwithstanding  its  learning,  profound  philosophy,  and  subtle  reasoning,  it  can  be 
still  read  with  ease  and  pleasure,  owing  to  the  variety,  multiplicity,  and  interest  of  its 
details.  Augustine  bases  many  of  his  arguments  on  the  opinions  held  by  profane 
authors;  and  his  numerous  and  extensive  quotations,  some  of  them  of  the  greatest 
value,  from  writers  whose  works  have  been  long  since  lost,  would  alone  suffice  to 
entitle  the  author  to  the  gratitude  of  modern  scholars.  Few  books  contain  so  many 
curious  particulars  with  regard  to  ancient  manners  and  philosophical  systems.  In 
the  'City  of  God'  a  vivid  comparison  is  instituted  between  the  two  civilizations  that 
preceded  the  Middle  Ages;  and  the  untiring  efforts  of  ambition  and  the  vain  achieve- 
ments of  conquerors  are  judged  according  to  the  maxims  of  Christian  humility  and 
self-denial.  The  ' City  of  God'  is  the  death-warrant  of  ancient  society;  and  in  spite 
of  its  occasional  mystic  extravagance  and  excessive  subtlety  of  argument,  the  ardent 
conviction  that  animates  it  throughout  will  make  it  one  of  the  lasting  possessions  of 
humanity. 


158  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

CIVIL  WAR  IN  AMERICA,  A  HISTORY  OF  THE,  by  Philippe,  Comte  de  Paris. 
In  the  summer  of  1861,  Philippe,  Comte  de  Paris,  joined  the  Northern  army,  rather 
as  a  spectat'  »r  than  as  an  active  participant  in  affairs.  He  was  appointed  to  McClel- 
lan's  staff,  and  for  a  year  followed  the  fortunes  of  the  North.  He  returned  to  France 
wi  Hi  much  valuable  material  concerning  the  history  of  that  first  year,  to  which  he 
added,  between  1862  and  1874,  an  equal  amount  of  important  information  bearing 
upon  the  remaining  years  of  the  war.  In  1875  the  first  volume  of  the  translation  was 
issued.  Three  other  volumes  appeared,  in  1876,  1883,  and  1888,  respectively.  The 
banishment  of  the  Comte  de  Paris  from  France  cut  short  the  work,  which  has  never 
been  finished,  but  ends  with  the  close  of  the  account  of  the  Red  River  Expedition 
under  General  Banks. 

The  historian  writes  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  unprejudiced  spectator.  His 
object  was  not  to  uphold  one  side  or  the  other,  but  to  present  to  Europe  a  clear  and 
impartial  account  of  one  of  the  most  momentous  struggles  in  history.  As  his  work 
was  addressed  primarily  to  a  European  audience,  much  space  is  devoted  to  the 
conditions  which  brought  about  the  conflict,  to  the  formation  and  history  of  the 
United  States  army,  and  to  the  character  of  the  country  which  was  the  scene  of 
action.  His  is  an  essentially  military  history:  marches  and  countermarches  are 
described  with  an  amount  of  detail  which,  but  for  the  admirable  clearness  of  style, 
would  sadly  confuse  the  lay  mind.  In  his  judgments,  both  of  men  and  of  events,  the 
Comte  de  Paris  is  very  impartial;  though  a  slightly  apologetic  tone  is  often  adopted 
in  regard  to  the  Administration,  and  a  certain  lack  of  enthusiasm  appears  towards 
many  officers  of  Volunteers,  notably  in  the  later  years  of  the  war.  This  attitude  of 
mind  was  doubtless  due  to  his  natural  prepossession  in  favor  of  a  regular  army  and 
an  unchanging  form  of  government. 

CIVILIZATION  IN  ENGLAND,  HISTORY  OF,  a  philosophical  history  by  Henry 
Thomas  Buckle,  the  first  volume  published  in  1857  and  the  second  in  1861.  In  his 
introduction  Buckle  asserts  that  the  actions  of  men,  both  individually  and  collec- 
tively, are  determined  solely  by  their  antecedents  and  are  therefore  subject  to  scientific 
laws  like  any  other  natural  phenomena.  He  accordingly  proposes  to  write  a  history  of 
civilization  in  which  every  stage  of  progress  shall  be  accounted  for  by  scientific  laws. 
The  principal  external  agents  which  determine  the  course  of  history  are  climate,  food, 
soil,  and  the  general  aspect  of  nature;  according  to  the  abundance  or  scarcity  of  these 
material  things  man  is  dominated  by  nature  or  dominates  her.  'Moral  forces  and 
conservative  tendencies  as  exhibited  in  respect  for  old  beliefs,  opinions,  and  institu- 
tions have  been  a  retarding  influence  in  human  development,  which  has  been  for- 
warded by  the  growth  of  intellect,  by  the  spirit  of  independent  investigation,  and  by 
the  principle  of  skepticism.  Budde  then  proceeds  to  apply  these  principles  to  the 
history  of  civilization  in  England,  France,  and  Spain  from  the  sixteenth  to  the  eigh- 
teenth centuries.  He  did  not  live  to  extend  his  survey  to  other  times  and  countries. 
Appearing  when  the  theory  of  evolution  was  in  the  air  and  naturalistic  views  were 
gaining  converts,  Buckle's  work  made  a  great  sensation.  The  boldness  and  vigor  of 
its  position  gained  it  enthusiastic  adherents  and  bitter  enemies.  It  showed  men  the 
implications  of  the  new  scientific  doctrines  and  forced  them  to  take  sides.  The  book 
is  made  extremely  readable  by  the  broad  powerful  sweep  of  its  generalizations  and 
the  incisiveness  of  its  style. 

CIVILIZATION  IN  EUROPE,  History  of.    By  Francois  P.  G.  Guizot  (new  edi- 
tion with  critical  and  supplementary  notes  by  George  W.  Knight,  1896).    A  standaitf. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  159 

,7ork  of  great  value,  much  improved  by  Professor  Knight's  critical  and  supplementary 
notes.  The  general  summary  of  the  progress  of  culture  in  Europe  is  admirably  done, 
with  all  the  new  light  to  date.  In  a  larger  work,  the  'History  of  Civilization,'  Guizot 
surveyed  a  wider  field,  and  dealt  more  thoroughly  with  some  of  the  great  problems 
of  human  progress.  President  C.  K  Adams  has  said  of  this  larger  work  that  "perhaps 
no  historical  book  is  capable  of  stirring  more  earnest  and  fruitful  thought  in  the 
student." 

In  his  'Civilization  in  Europe'  Guizot  begins  with  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
and  ends  with  the  opening  of  the  French  Revolution.  Although  he  analyzes  all  the 
important  facts  of  history  between  the  great  landmark  of  476  and  the  convocation 
of  the  States-General  in  1789,  he  is  far  more  anxious  to  grasp  their  import  than  to  give 
a  vivid  relation  of  them;  and  therefore,  facts  in  themselves  play  but  a  small  part  in 
his  exposition.  They  are  simply  a  help  in  his  effort  to  discover  the  great  laws  that 
direct  the  evolution  of  humanity,  and  to  show  its  development  in  the  individual  and 
in  society.  "Civilization,"  he  says,  "consists  of  two  facts,  the  development  of 
the  social  state  and  the  development  of  the  intellectual  state;  the  development  of  the 
exterior  and  general  condition,  and  of  the  interior  nature  of  man,  —  in  a  word,  the 
perfection  of  society  and  humanity."  It  was  impossible  for  the  author  to  examine 
every  aspect  of  the  problem  in  a  single  volume.  His  investigations  are  therefore 
limited  to  purely  social  development,  and  he  does  not  touch  upon  the  intellectual  side 
of  the  question.  But  the  precision  with  which  he  notes  the  origin,  meaning,  and 
bearing  of  all  accomplished  events  renders  his  work  of  great  value. 

CLARA  VATJGHAN,  by  Richard  Doddridge  Blackmore  (1864).  This  rather  sensa- 
tional story  comes  fairly  under  the  head  of  pathological  novels.  The  heroine,  Clara 
Vaughan,  inheriting  an  abnormal  nervous  susceptibility,  has  the  misfortune  at  ten 
years  of  age  to  see  her  father  murdered.  Henceforth  she  devotes  her  life  to  the 
identification  and  punishment  of  his  murderer.  She  suspects  her  uncle,  Edgar 
Vaughan,  and  so  insults  and  torments  him  that  he  turns  her  out  of  doors  at  seventeen. 
She  goes  to  South  Devon  for  a  while,  thence  to  London,  where  she  meets  Professor 
Ross  (whose  real  name  is  De  la  Croce)  and  his  children  Isola  and  Conrad.  With 
Conrad  she  falls  in  love,  but  impediments  hinder  their  marriage.  Her  uncle  becoming 
dangerously  ill,  she  nurses  him  back  to  life.  They  are  reconciled;  and  it  is  discovered 
that  Isola  and  Conrad  are  his  long-lost  children,  and  that  Clara's  father  has  been 
killed  in  mistake,  for  his  brother  Edgar,  by  De  la  Croce,  his  Corsican  wife's  brother. 
Crowded  with  remarkable  incidents  and  hair-breadth  escapes,  this  is  the  most  fan- 
tastic, as  it  was  the  earliest  and  least  mature,  of  Blackmore's  novels.  Not  the  least 
attractive  character  is  Giudice,  the  bloodhound,  who  plays  an  active  part  in  the 
development  of  the  plot. 

CLARISSA  FURIOSA,  by  W.  E.  Norris.  This  story,  which  may  be  regarded  in  the 
light  of  a  satire  on  the  "New  Woman,"  is  perhaps  the  least  successful  of  the  clever 
author's  novels.  Clarissa  Dent,  an  orphan,  rich,  petted,  and  pretty,  after  a  brief 
courtship  marries  Guy  Luttrell,  a  soldier.  Clarissa  goes  with  the  regiment  to  Ceylon, 
where  Guy  flirts,  and  she  concludes  that  incompatibility  of  views  must  separate  them ; 
she  returns  to  England,  and  most  of  the  story  is  taken  up  with  the  semi-public  life 
to  which  she  devotes  herself.  The  book  is  amusing,  like  all  of  Norris's,  and  the  work- 
manship is  of  course  good.  But  the  note  is  forced,  and  the  reader  feels  the  writer's 
want  of  genuine  interest  in  his  characters.  It  was  first  published  in  the  Cornhill 
Magazine,  in  1896. 


160  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

CLARISSA  HARLOWE,  by  Samuel  Richardson,  was  published  in  1751,  ten  years 
after  'Pamela,'  when  Richardson  was  over  sixty  years  old.  In  'Pamela1  he  tried  to 
draw  the  portrait  of  a  girl  of  humble  class  in  distress;  in  'Clarissa'  he  essayed  to  do 
the  same  thing  for  a  young  woman  of  gentility.  She  is  of  a  good  country  family 
(the  scene  being  laid  in  rural  England  of  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
Richardson's  time),  and  is  wooed  by  Lovelace,  a  well-known  but  profligate  gentle- 
man. The  match  is  opposed  by  the  Harlowes  because  of  his  dubious  reputation. 
Clarissa  for  some  time  declines  his  advances;  but  as  she  is  secretly  taken  by  his 
dashing  ways,  he  succeeds  in  abducting  her,  and  so  compromising  her  good  name  that 
she  dies  of  sharne,  —  her  betrayer  being  killed  in  a  duel  by  her  cousin,  Colonel  Mor- 
den.  Lovelace's  name  has  become  a  synonym  for  the  fine-gentleman  profligate. 
He  is  drawn  as  by  no  means  without  his  good  side,  and  as  sincerely  loving  Clarissa, 
who  stands  as  a  sympathetic  study  of  a  noble-minded  young  woman  in  misfor- 
tune. The  story  is  largely  told  by  letters  exchanged  between  Clarissa  and  her 
confidante  Miss  Howe,  and  between  Lovelace  and  his  friend  Belford.  Its  affect- 
ing incidents  moved  the  heart  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  ladies  of  quality 
knelt  at  Richardson's  feet  imploring  him  to  spare  his  heroine.  To  the  present- 
day  reader,  the  tale  seems  slow  and  prolix;  but  it  was  able  to  enchain  the  attention 
of  a  man  like  Macaulay,  and  has  much  merit  of  plot  and  character.  It  is,  more- 
over, a  truthful  picture  of  the  conventions  and  ideals  of  its  period,  while  it 
possesses  a  perennial  life  because  it  deals  with  some  of  the  elemental  interests  and 
passions. 

CLARK'S  FIELD,  by  Robert  Herrick  (1914).  Left  an  orphan  at  an  early  age, 
Ardelle  Clark  lives  with  her  uncle  and  his  wife  and  assists  the  latter  in  keeping 
lodgers.  The  financial  hopes  of  the  family  are  based  on  a  large  tract  of  land  called 
"Clark's  Field,"  in  the  centre  of  a  manufacturing  town,  adjacent  to  the  city  of  B. 
(presumably  Boston),  which  they  have  owned  for  several  generations  but  have  been 
unable  to  realize  upon.  When  Ardelle  is  fourteen  the  property  is  sold,  and  her  uncle 
and  aunt  having  died,  she  becomes  sole  heir  to  a  fortune  which  amounts  later  to 
several  million  dollars.  Being  a  minor,  Ardelle  becomes  a  ward  of  the  Washington 
Trust  Co.  and  is  sent  to  a  fashionable  school  and  later  to  Paris.  Here  she  meets  an 
impecunious  and  worthless  young  art-student  from  California  named  Archie  Davis, 
and  marries  him  much  to  the  disapproval  of  her  guardians.  Ardelle  and  her  husband 
drift  aimlessly  about  leading  an  idle,  useless  existence  until  the  former  attains  her 
majority,  when  they  return  to  America  and  take  possession  of  the  five  million  dollars 
awaiting  them.  This  they  proceed  to  waste  in  every  conceivable  way,  settling 
eventually  in  California  where  they  build  a  palatial  residence.  Ardelle  has  a  son  on 
whom  she  lavishes  the  affection  she  once  felt  for  Archie,  who,  now,  through  weakness 
and  dissipation,  has  alienated  her  love.  Among  the  workmen  on  the  place  is  a  young 
mason  named  Tom  Clark  who  proves  to  be  a  long-lost  cousin  of  Ardelle  and  presum- 
ably an  equal  heir  to  the  property.  Ardelle  decides  not  to  acquaint  Tom  with  this 
knowledge  but  the  moment  arrives  when  he  makes  a  heroic  attempt  to  save  her 
child  from  a  burning  house,  and  though  the  child  is  dead,  Ardelle  insists  he  shall  share 
her  fortune.  She  parts  finally  with  Archie  and  returns  East  to  inform  the  Trust  Co. 
of  her  decision.  She  finds  complications  awaiting  her  as  the  property  so  long  un- 
claimed by  the  lost  heirs  stands  irrevocably  in  her  name.  Nevertheless  she  is  able  to 
compensate  Tom  according  to  her  desire,  and  decides  with  his  assistance  to  use  her 
money  for  the  welfare  and  uplift  of  the  poor  people  who  live  in  the  tenements  built 
upon  Clark's  Field. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  161 

CLASSICAL  GREEK  POETRY,  THE  GROWTH  AND  INFLUENCE  OF,  by  Professor  R. 
C.  Jebb  (1893).  Delivered  originally  as  lectures  at  Johns  Hopkins  University,  these 
chapters  compose  a  brilliant  sketch  of  the  history  and  character  of  Greek  poetry, 
epic,  lyric,  and  dramatic.  The  introductory  analysis  of  the  Greek  temperament  is 
followed  by  an  account  of  the  rise  of  the  lyric  in  Ionia,  —  as  a  partial  outgrowth  of 
the  earlier  epic,  —  and  of  the  newer  form,  the  drama,  which  came  to  supersede  it  in 
popularity.  One  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  is  occupied  with  the  discussion  of 
Pindar,  in  some  respects  the  most  interesting  individuality  in  Greek  literature,  — 
"the  most  wonderful,  perhaps,  in  lofty  power,  that  the  lyric  poetry  of  any  age  can 
show."  In  the  last  chapter,  on  'The  Permanent  Power  of  Greek  Poetry,'  Professor 
Jebb  sums  up  the  great  elements  in  our  present  civilization  directly  traceable  to  the 
force  and  genius  of  the  Greeks.  In  this  work  he  unites  rare  literary  skill  with  the 
ripest  scholarship.  To  the  student  who  seeks  to  know  what  Greece  and  her  literature 
means  to  the  present  age,  but  who  has  no  time  for  superfluous  dates  or  facts,  or  dis- 
quisitions, this  work  is  indispensable;  for  the  author,  a  true  Greek  in  a  modern  age, 
stands  among  the  leading  interpreters  of  her  greatness. 

CLAVERINGS,  THE,  by  Anthony  Trollope  (1867),  is  a  novel  of  contemporary 
English  life,  as  shown  in  the  fortunes  of  a  country  family.  The  story  treats  of  the 
inconstant  affections  of  Harry  Clavering,  the  rector's  son  and  cousin  of  the  head  of 
the  family.  The  fickle  lover  is  so  agreeable  and  kind-hearted  a  young  fellow  that 
the  tale  of  his  fickleness  wins  the  reader  to  friendship.  All  the  characters  are  so  typi- 
cal of  the  commonplace  respectable  life  that  Trollope  describes,  as  to  seem  like  per- 
sonal acquaintances.  The  reader  is  certain  of  meeting  again  Lady  Ongar,  Florence 
Burton,  Lady  Clavering,  and  the  rest,  and  is  pleased  with  the  prospect.  The  book 
was  a  great  favorite. 

CLAYHANGER  (1910),  by  Arnold  Bennett.  At  the  opening  of  the  novel  Edwin 
Clayhanger,  of  Bursley,  is  a  fifteen-year-old  lad  just  leaving  school.  His  ambition 
to  become  an  architect  is  overridden  by  his  stern  father,  Darius  Clayhanger,  who 
insists  on  his  going  into  the  family  printing  business.  Though  Edwin  proves  in- 
valuable, Darius  refuses  to  pay  him  more  than  a  pittance.  Edwin's  love  for  art  and 
literature  is  stimulated  through  Mr.  Orgreave,  a  Bursley  architect,  and  he  finds  a 
congenial  companion  in  Mr.  Orgreave's  charming  daughter,  Janet,  through  whom  he 
'comes  to  know  Hilda  Lessways,  an  odd  girl  who  comes  down  from  Brighton  on  a 
visit.  Edwin  and  Hilda  are  mutually  attracted,  because  she  has  an  interesting  mind 
which  runs  parallel  to  his,  but  when  he  informs  his  father  of  his  intention  to  marry 
her,  Darius  refuses  to  pay  his  son  more  than  a  pound  a  week.  But  Edwin  is  saved 
the  embarrassment  of  trying  to  establish  a  home  on  that  amount  by  the  startling 
news  that  Hilda  has  married  a  Mr.  Cannon.  Edwin  is  heartbroken.  He  cannot 
return  Janet's  affection  because  he  is  still  devoted  to  the  faithless  Hilda.  When  Hilda 
sends  her  little  son,  George  Edwin,  down  to  visit  "aunt"  Janet,  Edwin  and  the  boy 
become  inseparable  companions,  and  when  Edwin  finally  succeeds  in  getting  Hilda's 
address  he  hurries  to  Brighton  to  see  his  old  love.  He  arrives  just  in  time  to  save 
Hilda's  furniture  from  being  attached  for  debt,  and  he  gives  her  enough  money  to 
tide  her  over;  he  learns  from  her  that  the  marriage  with  Cannon  was  forced  upon  her; 
that  Cannon  is  now  in  prison  for  bigamy  and  that  her  marriage  to  him  is  void. 
Edwin  returns  to  Bursley,  considerably  comforted.  Little  George's  illness  in  Bursley 
brings  Hilda  down  from  Brighton  in  hot  haste.  Edwin  stays  with  Hilda  until  the 
child  is  well  out  of  danger.  Then  he  goes  home  to  trouble  of  his  own.  Darius  Clay- 


i62  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

hanger  suffers  a  shock,  and  softening  of  the  brain  follows.  Always  hard  to  manage, 
Darius  becomes  exceedingly  difficult  in  his  last  illness.  The  dictatorial  old  man 
suffers  keenly  when  he  has  to  give  over  entire  charge  of  the  business  to  Edwin, 
including  the  keys,  and  the  power  of  signing  checks.  The  illness  and  death  of  Darius 
are  described  in  Bennett's  most  masterly  style,  and  the  reader  is  left  to  look  forward 
to  the  marriage  of  Hilda  and  Edwin. 

The  sequel,  'Hilda  Lessways,'  tells  the  story  again  from  Hilda's  point  of  view, 
clearing  up  the  mystery  of  her  marriage  to  Cannon,  in  which  she  was  the  victim 
partly  of  circumstances,  partly  of  her  own  ardent  and  erratic  temperament.  'These 
Twain,'  which  completes  the  trilogy,  recounts  Edwin's  success  in  the  printing  busi- 
ness and  his  married  life  witn  Hilda  and  her  son  George.  Some  of  the  minor  charac- 
ters are  admirable  studies  in  Bennett's  realistic  manner. 

CLEANNESS,  see  PEARL. 

CLELIE,  a  romance  in  ten  volumes  by  Mademoiselle  de  Scude*ry  (1654-60).  The 
name  of  her  brother  figured  on  the  title-pages  of  the  first  volumes;  but  the  secret  of 
the  authorship  having  been  discovered,  her  name  replaced  it.  It  would  be  difficult 
tn  summarize  the  incidents  of  this  once  famous  production.  The  subject  is  the  siege 
of  Rome  after  the  expulsion  of  Tarquin  the  Proud,  The  heroine  is  the  young  Roman 
girl  who  was  a  hostage  of  Porsena,  and  swam  across  the  Tiber  under  a  shower  of 
arrows  from  the  Etruscan  army.  Lucretia,  Horatius,  Mucius  Scsevola,  Brutus,  and 
all  the  heroes  of  the  young  republic  are  actors  in  the  drama;  and  all  are  desperately 
in  love,  and  spend  most  of  their  time  in  asking  questions  and  solving  riddles  that  have 
a  serious  connection  with  love,  and  especially  with  a  very  mysterious  species  of 
gallantry,  according  to  the  taste  of  the  time  in  which  it  was  written.  They  draw 
maps  of  love  on  the  noted  country  of  Tendre.  We  see  the  river  of  Inclination,  on  its 
right  bank  the  villages  of  Jolis-Vers  and  Epitres  Galantes,  and  on  its  left  those  of 
Complaisance,  Petits-Soins,  and  Assiduities.  Further  on  are  the  hamlets  of  Abandon 
and  Perfidie.  By  following  the  natural  twists  and  turns  of  the  river,  the  lover  will 
have  a  pretty  fair  chance  of  arriving  at  the  city  of  Tendre-sur-Estime;  and  should  he 
be  successful,  it  will  then  be  his  own  fault  if  he  do  not  reach  the  city  of  Tendre-sur- 
Inclination.  The  French  critics  of  the  present  century  do  not  accept  Boileau's 
sweeping  condemnation  of  Clelie;  they  consider  that  the  work  which  excited  the 
admiration  of  Madame  de  Se*vign6  and  Madame  de  La  Fayette  has  merits  that  fully 
justify  their  admiration.  The  manners  and  language  assigned  the  Roman  characters 
in  the  romance  are  utterly  ridiculous  and  grotesque;  but  if  we  consider  the  Romans 
as  masks  behind  which  the  great  lords  and  ladies  of  the  time  simper  and  babble,  its 
pictures  of  life  are  as  true  to  nature  as  anything  in  literature.  The  fashionable 
people  who  recognized  themselves  under  their  Roman  disguises  were  charmed  with 
Mademoiselle  de  Scude*ry's  skill  as  a  portrait-painter.  The  work  marks  the  transition 
from  the  era  of  Montaigne  to  that  of  Corneille;  and  as  such  may,  to  some  extent,  be 
considered  epoch-making. 

CLEOPATRA,  by  H.  Rider  Haggard  (1889).  This,  the  most  ambitious  of  Haggard's 
romances,  presents  a  vigorous  picture  of  Egypt  under  the  rule  of  the  wonderful  Queen. 
Hannachis,  priest  and  magician,  descendant  of  the  Pharaohs,  tells  his  own  story. 
Certain  nobles,  hating  the  Greek  Cleopatra  and  her  dealings  with  Rome,  plot  to 
overthrow  her,  and  seat  Harmachis  on  her  throne.  He  enters  her  service  to  kill 
her  when  the  revolt  is  ripe,  but  falls  in  love  with  her  and  cannot  strike.  Following 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  163 

this  complication  come  plot  and  counterplot,  treason  and  detection,  —  private 
griefs  and  hates  that  overthrow  empires,  and  the  later  tragedy  of  Cleopatra's  stormy 
life;  more  than  one  historic  figure  adding  dignity  and  verisimilitude  to  the  tale.  The 
plot  is  well  managed,  and  the  interest  maintained.  The  book  is  written  in  a  curi- 
ously artificial  manner,  carefully  studied.  It  contains  many  dramatic  passages, 
with  now  and  then  an  unexpected  reminiscence  of  the  manner  of  '  King  Solomon's 
Mines'  and  'She';  while  its  pages  are  crowded  with  gorgeous  pictures  of  the  splendid 
material  civilization  of  Egypt. 

CLIFF-DWELLERS,  THE,  by  Henry  B.  Fuller  (1893)^3  a  story  of  Chicago  at  the 
end  of  the  nineteenth  century;  a  sober  arraignment  of  the  sin  and  greed  of  a  purely 
material  civilization.  The  protagonists  of  the  drama  take  their  title  of  "cliff- 
dwellers"  from  their  occupation  of  various  strata  of  an  enormous  office  building, 
owned  by  the  millionaire  Ingles,  whose  beautiful  wife  is  in  reality  the  central  char- 
acter of  the  story,  though  she  is  not  presented  to  the  reader  till  the  very  last  page. 
A  young  Easterner,  George  Ogden,  a  well-bred,  average  man  of  good  intentions,  is 
perhaps  the  hero;  as  the  villain  may  be  identified  with  Erastus  Brainerd,  a  self-made 
man,  utterly  selfish  and  hard,  who  has  ridden  rough-shod  over  every  obstacle,  to  the 
goal  of  a  large  fortune.  Into  the  life  whose  standards  are  set  chiefly  by  the  un- 
scrupulous successes  of  Brainerd,  and  the  aesthetic  luxury  of  the  beautiful  Mrs. 
Ingles,  all  the  characters  of  the  story  are  brought.  The  motives  of  the  play  are  envy, 
ambition,  love  of  ostentation,  a  thorough  worship  of  the  material,  as  these  charac- 
teristics manifest  themselves  in  a  commercial  community.  There  is  a  distinct  and 
well-ordered  plot,  and  the  characters  develop  consistently  from  within.  This  clever 
story  is  too  sincere  to  be  called  a  satire,  and  too  artistic  to  be  called  a  photograph;  but 
it  is  executed  with  a  merciless  faithfulness  that  has  often  elicited  both  characteriza- 
tions. 

CLOCKMAKER,  THE:  OR,  THE  SAYINGS  AND  DOINGS  OF  SAMUEL  SLICK  OF  SLICK- 
VILLE,  by  Thomas  Chandler  Haliburton.  It  would  be  hard  to  prove  that  the  conven- 
tional Yankee,  as  he  is  commonly  understood,  did  not  exist  before  Judge  Haliburton 
published  his  account  of  that  impossible  person;  yet  no  other  book  has  so  widely 
spread  before  the  world  the  supposed  characteristics  of  the  typical  New-Englander. 
Sam  Slick,  first  presented  to  the  public  in  a  series  of  letters  in  the  Nova-Scotian, 
in  1835,  appeared  two  years  later  in  a  volume.  The  author  was  then  but  forty-three, 
although  for  eight  years  he  had  been  chief  justice  of  the  court  of  Common  Pleas. 
Having  the  interests  of  his  province  greatly  at  heart,  he  invented  the  clever  clock- 
maker  less  to  satirize  the  Yankees  than  to  goad  the  Nova-Scotians  to  a  higher  sense  of 
what  they  might  accomplish  politically  and  economically.  To  carry  out  his  plan,  he 
imagined  a  Nova-Scotian  riding  across  country  on  a  fast  horse,  and  meeting  Slick, 
the  peddler,  bound  on  a  clock-selling  expedition.  The  Yankee  horse  proves  the  faster, 
while  his  owner,  in  spite  of  an  unattractive  exterior,  shows  himself  a  man  of  wit. 
The  peddler,  with  his  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  his  liberal  use  of  "soft  sawder, " 
is  more  than  a  match  for  the  natives  he  has  dealings  with.  Thus  two  birds  are  hit 
by  Judge  Haliburton  with  one  stone.  The  average  Yankee  is  satirized  in  the  gro- 
tesque personality  of  the  peddler,  and  the  Nova-Scotians  are  lashed  for  their  short- 
sightedness and  lack  of  energy.  The  fund  of  anecdote  and  keen  wit  displayed  in  this 
book  won  it  many  Admirers  on  both  sides  of  the  line.  Either  the  Npva-Scotians  as  a 
whole  did  not  feel  hurt  by  its  hits  at  themselves,  or  they  found  consolation  in  the 
picture  presented  of  the  sharp-bargaining,  boastful  Yankee.  The  Yankee  enjoyed 


164  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

its  humor  without  being  bored  by  its  local  politics,  and  most  readers  made  allowance 
for  its  intentional  caricature.  The  later  chronicles  of  Sam  Slick,  including  'The 
Attache* ;  or  Sam  Slick  in  England,  *  met  with  less  success  than  the  first. 

CLOISTER  AND  THE  HEARTH,  THE,  by  Charles  Reade  (1861).  The  master- 
piece of  this  vigorous  novelist  recreates  the  fifteenth  century,  and  presents  to  mod- 
ern eyes  the  Holland,  Germany,  France,  and  Italy  of  the  Middle  Ages,  as  they 
appeared  to  mediaeval  people.  The  hero  of  the  story  is  Gerard,  son  of  a  Tergouw 
mercer;  a  studious  sweet-natured  lad,  strongly  artistic  in  bent,  but  designed  for  the 
Church,  where  a  good  benefice  is  promised  him.  He  falls  in  love  with  Margaret 
Brandt,  the  daughter  of  a  poor  scholar,  and  giving  up  the  Church  career,  betroths 
himself  to  her;  and  is  on  the  eve  of  marriage  when  his  irate  father  imprisons  him  in  the 
stadthuys  for  disobedience,  as  a  mediaeval  parent  has  power  to  do.  From  this  point 
the  story  ceases  to  be  a  simple  domestic  tale,  and  becomes  a  record  of  swift  adventure 
in  Holland,  Germany,  and  Italy.  Then  follows  a  most  touching  tale  of  betrayed 
affection,  of  noble  womanly  patience  and  heroism;  and  through  all,  a  vivid  and 
thrilling  portrayal  of  the  awful  power  of  the  mediaeval  Church.  Scene  crowds  on 
scene,  and  incident  on  incident,  aflame  with  the  imagination  of  the  romancer.  The 
dramatic  quality  of  the  story,  its  vivid  descriptive  passages,  the  force  and  individ- 
uality impressed  on  its  dialogue,  its  virile  conception  of  the  picturesque  brutality 
and  the  lofty  spirituality  of  the  age  it  deals  with,  the  unfailing  brilliancy  of  the 
novelist's  treatment  of  his  theme,  and  its  humorous  quaintness,  place  'The  Cloister 
and  the  Hearth '  among  the  half-dozen  great  historical  romances  of  the  world. 

CLOUDS,  THE  ('Nubes'),  a  comedy  by  Aristophanes;  acted  in  423  B.  C.  Though 
one  of  the  most  interesting  and  poetic  of  the  author's  plays,  the  people  refused  to  hear 
it  a  second  time.  But  its  literary  popularity  counterbalanced  its  failure  on  the  stage; 
most  unfortunately  for  Socrates,  whose  enemies,  twenty-five  years  afterward,  found 
in  it  abundant  material  for  their  accusations.  Strepsiades,  an  unscrupulous  old  rascal 
almost  ruined  by  his  spendthrift  son  Pheidippides,  requests  the  philosopher  to  teach 
him  how  to  cheat  his  creditors.  The  Clouds,  personifying  the  high-flown  ideas  in 
vogue,  enter  and  speak  in  a  pompous  style,  which  is  all  lost  on  Strepsiades.  He  asks 
mockingly,  "Are  these  divinities?"  "No,"  answers  Socrates,  "they  are  the  clouds 
of  heaven:  still  they  are  goddesses  for  idle  people,  —  it  is  to  them  we  owe  our  thoughts, 
words,  cant,  insincerity,  and  all  our  skill  in  twaddle  and  palaver. "  Then  he  explains 
the  causes  of  thunder,  etc.,  substituting  natural  phenomena  for  the  personal  interven- 
tion of  the  gods;  to  the  great  scandal  of  Strepsiades,  who  has  not  come  to  listen  to 
such  blasphemy,  but  to  learn  how  to  get  rid  of  his  debts.  The  Clouds  tell  him  that 
Socrates  is  his  man.  ' '  Have  you  any  memoranda  about  you  ? ' '  asks  the  latter.  ' '  Of 
my  debts,  not  one;  but  of  what  is  due  me,  any  number. "  Socrates  tries  to  teach  his 
new  disciple  grammar,  rhythms,  etc.;  but  Strepsiades  laughs  at  him.  Here  two  new 
characters  are  introduced,  the  Just  and  the  Unjust.  The  former  represents  old  times 
and  manners;  the  latter  the  new  principles  taught  by  the  Sophists.  When  the  Just 
taught  the  young,  they  did  not  gad  about  in  the  forum  or  lounge  in  the  bath-rooms. 
They  were  respectful  to  their  elders,  modest  and  manly.  It  was  the  Just  who  "formed 
the  warriors  of  Marathon. "  The  Unjust  scoffs  at  such  training.  If  the  young  may 
not  have  their  fling,  their  lives  are  not  worth  living.  "You  tell  me, "  he  adds,  "  that 
this  is  profligacy.  Well,  are  not  our  tragic  poets,  orators,  demagogues,  and  most  of 
their  auditors  profligate?"  The  Just  has  to  admit  this.  Strepsiades,  discovering 
that  the  lessons  of  Socrates  are  too  much  for  him,  sends  his  clever  son  to  take  his  place. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  165 

Pheidippides  becomes  an  accomplished  Sophist,  mystifies  the  creditors,  and  beats 
his  father,  all  the  time  proving  to  him  that  he  is  acting  logically.  The  old  man,  at 
length  undeceived,  summons  his  slaves  and  neighbors,  and  sets  fire  to  the  house  and 
school  of  Socrates. 

CLOVERNOOK,  see  CHROITICLES  OF. 

CODEX  ARGENTEUS,  a  Gothic  translation  of  parts  of  the  Bible,  attributed  to 
Ulfilas,  bishop  of  the  Dacian  Goths  in  the  fourth  century.  It  is  written  on  vellum, 
the  leaves  of  which  are  stained  with  a  violet  color;  and  on  this  ground,  the  letters,  all 
uncials  or  capitals,  are  painted  in  silver,  except  the  initials,  which  are  gold.  The 
book,  however,  gets  its  name  from  its  elaborately  wrought  silver  cover,  and  not  from 
its  lettering.  Ulfilas  may  in  a  certain  sense  be  considered  the  founder  of  all  Teutonic 
literature,  as  he  was  the  first  to  raise  a  barbarous  Teutonic  dialect  to  the  dignity  of  a 
literary  language.  Although  the  language  of  the  'Codex'  is  very  different  from  that 
of  later  Teutonic  nations,  it  serves  as  a  standard  by  which  subsequent  variations  may 
be  estimated,  and  throws  much  light  on  the  kindred  languages  of  Germany.  The 
Gothic  version  contains  a  number  of  words  borrowed  from  Finnish,  Burgundian, 
Slavic,  Dacian,  and  other  barbarous  languages;  but  those  taken  from  the  Greek  far 
exceed  all  others.  The  translator  uses  the  Greek  orthography.  He  employs  the 
double  gamma,  gg,  to  express  the  nasal  n  followed  by  g:  thus,  we  have  tuggo  for 
tungo,  the  tongue;  figgr  for  finger;  dragg  for  drank;  and  so  on.  The  similarity  of 
most  of  the  characters  to  Greek  letters,  and  the  exact  conformity  of  the  Gothic  Scrip- 
tures to  the  original  Greek  text,  prove  that  the  version  must  have  been  made  under 
Greek  influence.  Strabo,  the  author  of  an  ecclesiastical  history  in  the  early  part  of 
the  ninth  century,  says  that  the  Goths  on  the  borders  of  the  Greek  empire  had  an  old 
translation  of  the  Scriptures.  The  language  of  the  'Codex'  differs  importantly 
from  mediaeval  and  modern  German.  Thus  the  verb  haben  is  never  used  to  express 
past  time,  while  it  is  employed  to  denote  future  time;  and  the  passive  voice  is  repre- 
sented by  inflected  forms,  forms  utterly  foreign  to  other  Teutonic  dialects.  The 
'Codex'  does  not  contain  the  entire  Bible,  but  only  fragments  of  the  Gospels  and 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  some  Psalms,  and  several  passages  from  Esdras  and  Nehemiah. 
It  was  discovered  by  some  Swedish  soldiers  in  the  monastery  of  Werden  in  Westphalia 
in  1648;  then  deposited  in  Prague;  afterward  presented  to  Queen  Christina,  who 
placed  it  in  the  library  of  TJpsala;  next  carried  off  by  Vossius;  and  finally  restored  to 
the  University  of  Upsala  which  regards  it  as  its  most  precious  possession. 

CCELEBS  IN  SEARCH  OF  A  WIFE,  by  Hannah  More.  This  is  the  best-known  work 
of  fiction  by  that  prolific  moralist  of  a  past  era.  It  was  written  after  she  had 
passed  her  sixtieth  year,  and  was  intended  as  an  antidote  to  what  she  considered  the 
deleterious  influence  of  the  romantic  tales  of  that  day.  In  'Ccelebs'  she  sought  to 
convey  precepts  of  religion,  morals,  and  manners,  in  the  form  of  a  novel.  Ccelebs, 
a  young  gentleman  of  fortune  and  estate  in  the  north  of  England,  sets  out  to  find  a 
woman  who  shall  meet  the  somewhat  exacting  requirements  of  his  departed  mother. 
This  estimable  matron  held  that  "the  education  of  the  present  race  of  females  is  not 
very  favorable  to  domestic  happiness. "  His  dying  father  had  also  enjoined  Ccelebs 
to  take  the  advice  of  an  old  friend,  Mr.  Stanley,  before  marrying.  Ccelebs  goes  to 
Stanley  Grove  in  Hampshire,  taking  London  on  his  way,  and  meeting  at  the  house  of 
Sir  JohnBedfield  several  fashionable  women  who  fail  to  reach  his  standard  of  eligibility. 
At  Stanley  Grove  he  finds  his  ideal  in  one  of  the  six  daughters  of  the  house,  Lucilla, 


166  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

with  whom  he  dutifully  falls  in  love,  to  be  at  once  accepted.  In  the  month  of  his 
probation  he  meets  Dr.  Barlow,  rector  of  the  parish;  Lady  Ash  ton,  a  gloomy  religion- 
ist ;  the  Carltons,  —  a  dissolute  and  unbelieving  husband  who  is  converted  by  a 
saintly  wife;  and  Tyrril,  holding  the  Antinomian  doctrine  of  faith  without  works, 
whose  foil  is  Flam,  a  Tory  squire,  simple  in  faith  and  practicing  good  works.  The 
conversation  of  these  and  other  personages  supplies  the  didactic  features  of  the  novel. 
'Calebs'  was  published  in  London  in  1808,  and  had  an  instant  and  great  popularity. 
The  first  edition  was  sold  in  a  fortnight;  the  book  went  through  three  more  within 
three  months,  and  eleven  within  a  year.  Its  republication  in  the  United  States  was 
also  highly  successful. 

CCEUR  D;'ALENE,  by  Mary  Hallock  Foote  (1894).  Like  her  'Led  Horse  Claim' 
and  '  The  Cup  of  Trembling, '  this  is  a  story  of  the  Colorado  mining  camps,  full  of 
realistic  details.  Its  situations  turn  upon  the  labor  strife  between  Union  and  non- 
Union  miners  in  1892,  which  forms  the  sombre  background  of  a  bright  lovers'  comedy. 
There  is  a  thread  of  serious  purpose  running  through  it,  —  an  attempt  to  show  in 
dramatic  fashion  what  wrongs  to  personal  liberty  are  often  wrought  in  the  name  of 
liberty  by  labor  organizations.  The  best-drawn  character  in  the  book  is  Mike  Mc- 
Gowan,  the  hero's  rough  comrade,  a  Hibernian  Mark  Tapley.  If  the  love  passages 
seem  at  times  over-emphasized,  the  author's  general  dialogue  and  descriptive  writing 
have  the  easy  strength  of  finished  art;  and  her  evident  familiarity  through  actual 
acquaintance  with  the  scenes  described,  gives  to  her  work  much  permanent  value  of 
reality  aside  from  its  artistic  merits. 

COLERIDGE,  SAMUEL^TAYLOR:  'a  Narrative  of  the  Events  of  his  Life,' 
by  James  Dyke  Campbell  (1894).  A  thoroughly  independent  and  original  narrative 
of  the  events  of  Coleridge's  life,  carefully  sifting  the  familiar  material  and  supple- 
menting it  by  fresh  researches,  but  studiously  avoiding  critical  or  moralizing  com- 
ment; a  definitive  biography  of  the  poet  and  the  man.  A  briefer  biography  based  on 
this  standard  work  is  now  prefixed  to  the  Globe  edition  of  Coleridge's  poems. 

COLIN  CLOUT  (or  COLYN  CLOUTE),  by  John  Skelton.  This  satire  of  the  early 
British  poet  (1460?-!  529)  was  a  vigorous  pre-Reformation  protest  against  the 
clergy's  lack  of  learning  and  piety,  disregard  for  the  flock, — 

"How  they  take  no  hede 
Theyre  sely  shepe  to  fede," — 

and  gross  self-indulgence.  It  was  written  in  from  four  to  six  syllable  rhymes  and  even 
double  rhymes,  whose  liquid  though  brief  measures  served  their  eccentric  author's 
purpose:  a  form  since  designated  as  Skeltonical  or  Skeltonian  verse.  The  poet  em- 
ployed various  other  verse  forms:  often  the  easily  flowing  seven-line  stanzas  of  his 
true  parent  in  the  poet's  art,  Chaucer,  dead  less  than  a  hundred  years.  Like  Chaucer, 
he  helped  to  establish  and  make  flexible  the  vernacular  English  tongue.  Under 
Henry  VII.  Skelton  had  been  tutor  to  his  second  son,  Henry,  who  succeeded  to  the 
throne;  and  though  his  satires,  published  in  both  reigns,  often  hit  the  sins  and  follies 
of  the  court,  he  was  not  seriously  molested  by  these  monarchs.  But  in  '  Colin  Clout ' 
he  sped  more  than  one  clothyard  shaft  of  wit  at  Wolsey ;  and  at  last  in '  Speke,  Parrot, ' 
and  'Why  Come  Ye  Not  to  Court, '  so  assailed  the  prelate's  arrogant  abuse  of  power 
that  he  found  it  prudent  to  take  sanctuary  with  Bishop  Islip  in  Westminster  Abbey: 
and  there  he  died  and  was  buried  "in  the  chancel  of  the  neighboring  church  of  St. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  167 

Margaret's,"  says  Dyce.  His  most  famous  poem  gets  its  title  from  the  rustic  per- 
sonage supposed  to  be  speaking  through  it:  — 

"And  if  ye  stand  in  doubte 
Who  brought  this  ryme  aboute, 
My  name  is  Colyn  Cloute." 

The  surname  is  clearly  suited  to  the  ostensibly  dull-witted  clown  of  the  satire;  and  the 
Colin  is  modified  from  Colas,  short  for  Nicolas  or  Nicholas,  a  typical  proper  name. 
This  dramatic  cognomen  was  copied  by  several  poets  of  the  following  reign,  Eliza- 
beth's, —  her  favorite  Edmund  Spenser  using  it  to  designate  himself  in  pastoral 
poems,  and  rendering  it  once  more  famous  as  a  poem-title  in  'Colin  Clout's  Come 
Home  Again. ' 

COLLEGIANS,  THE,  by  Gerald  Griffin.  As  a  teller  of  Irish  stories,  Griffin  takes  his 
place  with  Carleton,  Banim,  and  Miss  Edgeworth.  Boucicault's  famous  play  'The 
Colleen  Bawn '  was  based  on  this  tale,  which  was  published  in  1828.  Not  many  years 
later  the  broken-hearted  writer  entered  a  convent,  where  he  died  at  the  early  age  of 
thirty-seven,  under  the  name  of  Brother  Joseph.  The  incidents  of  the  book  are 
founded  on  fact,  having  occurred  near  Limerick,  Ireland.  The  story  is  one  of  dis- 
appointed love,  of  successful  treachery,  broken  hearts,  and  "evil  fame  deserved  ";  but 
in  the  end  virtue  is  rewarded.  Like  most  other  novels  of  its  period,  it  is  diffuse  and 
over-sentimental;  but  it  is  likely  to  live  for  its  faithful  delineation  of  Irish  character 
at  its  best  —  and  worst. 

COLLOQUIES  OF  ERASMUS,  THE.  This  work,  a  collection  of  dialogues  in  Latin, 
was  first  published  in  1 52 1 ,  and  over  24,000  copies  were  sold  in  a  short  time.  No  book 
of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  has  had  so  many  editions,  and  it  has  been 
frequently  reprinted  and  retranslated  down  to  the  present  day,  —  though  it  is  now 
perhaps  more  quoted  than  read.  The  'Colloquies'  generally  ridicule  some  new  folly 
of  the  age,  or  discuss  some  point  of  theology;  or  inflict  some  innocent  little  vengeance 
on  an  opponent,  who  is  made  to  play  the  part  of  a  buffoon  in  the  drama,  while  the 
sentiments  of  Erasmus  are  put  in  the  mouth  of  a  personage  with  a  fine  Greek  name 
and  with  any  amount  of  wisdom  and  sarcasm.  Pew  works  have  exercised  a  greater  and 
more  fruitful  influence  on  their  age  than  these  little  dialogues.  They  developed  and 
reduced  to  form  the  principles  of  free  thought  that  owed  their  birth  to  the  contentions 
of  religious  parties;  for  those  who  read  nothing  else  of  the  author's  were  sure  to  read 
the  'Colloquies/  Their  very  moderation,  however,  gave  offense  in  all  quarters:  to 
the  followers  of  Luther  as  well  as  to  those  of  the  ancient  Church.  They  manifest  the 
utmost  contempt  for  excess  of  every  sort,  and  their  moderation  and  prudent  self- 
restraint  were  alien  to  the  spirit  of  the  time.  Erasmus  shows  himself  much  more 
concerned  about  the  fate  of  Greek  letters  than  he  does  about  religious  changes.  He 
has  been  styled  'The  Voltaire  of  the  Renaissance';  and  certainly  his  caustic  vivacity, 
and  his  delicate,  artistic  irony  and  mockery,  entitle  him  to  the  distinction.  The 
Latin  of  the  'Colloquies'  is  not  always  strictly  Ciceronian,  but  it  is  something  better, 
—  it  has  all  the  naturalness  of  a  spoken  language;  and  this  it  is  that  made  them  so 
popular  in  their  day  —  to  the  great  regret  of  Erasmus,  who  complains  of  the  "freak 
of  fortune"  that  leads  the  public  to  believe  "a  book  full  of  nonsense,  bad  Latin,  and 
solecisms"  to  be  his  best  work. 

COLOMBA,  a  romance  by  Prosper  Me*rim<Se  (1853),  is  the  story  of  a  Corsican  ven- 
detta, followed  up  to  the  end  by  the  heroine,  with  a  wild  ferocity  tempered  with  a 


168  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

queer  sort  of  piety.  The  story  has  an  ethical  significance  of  a  rather  unfortunate  kind, 
for  the  author's  belief  in  the  dogma  of  fatalism  underlies  the  whole  of  it,  —  that  cir- 
cumstances control  the  human  will,  and  whether  a  man  is  a  brigand  or  a  philanthro- 
pist depends  purely  on  chance,  crime  and  virtue  being  mere  accidents. 

COLONEL  ENDERBY'S  WIFE,  by  "Lucas  Malet"  (Charles  Kingsley's  daughter, 
now  Mrs.  Harrison).  The  scene  of  this  story,  published  in  1886,  is  laid  in  England 
and  Italy  during  the  seventies.  Colonel  Enderby  is  a  disinherited  Englishman  of 
middle  age,  whose  life  has  been  shadowed  by  his  father's  neglect  and  injury.  At  the 
age  of  forty-eight  he  marries  in  Italy  a  glittering  young  creature  of  wonderful  beauty. 
The  tragedy  which  follows  is  that  which  always  comes  when  a  crass  and  brutal  selfish- 
ness arrays  itself  against  the  generosity  of  a  higher  nature,  if  two  people  are  so  bound 
together  that  they  cannot  escape  each  other.  The  ending,  though  sad,  is  that  which 
the  logic  of  the  situation  makes  inevitable.  The  book  has  been  very  widely  read  and 
praised. 

COLONEL'S  DAUGHTER,  THE,  —  an  early  novel  of  Captain  Charles  King's,  and 
one  of  his  best,  —  was  published  in  1883.  The  author  disclaims  all  charms  of  rhetoric 
and  literary  finish  in  the  conversations  of  his  characters.  They  "  talk  like  soldiers, " 
in  a  brief  plain  speech.  For  that  very  reason,  perhaps,  they  are  natural  and  human. 
The  author  has  depicted  army  life  in  the  West  with  the  sure  touch  of  one  who  knows 
whereof  he  writes.  'The  Colonel's  Daughter'  is  pre-eminently  a  soldier's  story,  ad- 
mirably fitted  in  style  and  character  to  its  subject-matter. 

COLUMBUS,  CHRISTOPHER,  The  Life  and  Voyages  of,  by  Washington  Irving. 
This  history,  published  in  three  volumes,  was  written  by  Irving  in  1828,  during  his 
residence  in  Madrid.  He  was  at  the  time  an  attach^  of  the  United  States  legation, 
having  been  summoned  there  by  Alexander  H.  Everett,  then  minister  to  Spain,  who 
desired  him  to  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  Columbus'  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  Isidore,  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  descendant  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  his- 
torians have  differed  from  Irving  with  regard  to  the  character  and  merits  of  Columbus, 
and  have  produced  some  evidence  calculated  to  shatter  a  too  exalted  ideal  of  the 
great  discoverer;  but  despite  this,  his  valuable  work  still  fills  an  honored  place  in  all 
historic  libraries. 

COMEDY  OF  ERRORS,  THE,  by  William  Shakespeare  (i 593) ,  is  the  shortest  of  the 
plays,  and  one  of  the  very  earliest  written.    The  main  story  is  from  the  'Menaechmi ' 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOHS  169 

of  Plautus.  The  Syracusans  and  the  men  of  Ephesus  have  mutually  decreed  death 
to  a  citizen  of  one  city  caught  in  the  other,  unless  he  can  pay  a  heavy  ransom.  ^Egeon 
of  Syracuse  is  doomed  to  death  by  the  Duke  of  Ephesus.  He  tells  the  duke  his  story, 
—  how  at  Epidamnum  many  years  ago  his  wife  had  borne  male  twins,  and  at  the  same 
hour  a  humbler  woman  near  by  had  also  twin  boys;  how  he  had  bought  and  brought 
up  the  latter;  and  how  he  and  his  wife  had  become  separated  by  shipwreck,  she  with 
one  of  each  pair  of  twins  and  he  with  one  of  each;  and  how  five  years  ago  his  boy  and 
servant  had  set  out  in  search  of  their  twin  brothers,  and  he  himself  was  now  searching 
for  them  and  his  wife.  Of  these  twins,  one  Antipholus  and  one  Dromio  live  in  Ephesus 
as  master  and  servant  respectively,  the  former  being  married  to  Adriana,  whose  sister 
Luciana  dwells  with  her.  By  chance  the  Syracusan  Antipholus  and  his  Dromio  are 
at  this  time  in  Ephesus.  The  mother  Emilia  is  abbess  of  a  priory  in  the  town. 
Through  a  labyrinth  of  errors  they  all  finally  discover  each  other.  Antipholus  of 
Syracuse  sends  his  Dromio  to  the  inn  with  a  bag  of  gold,  and  presently  meets  Dromio 
of  Ephesus,  who  mistaking  him,  urges  him  to  come  at  once  to  dinner:  his  wife  and 
sister  are  waiting.  In  no  mood  for  joking,  he  beats  his  supposed  servant.  The  other 
Dromio  also  gets  a  beating  for  denying  that  he  had  just  talked  about  dinner  and  wife. 
In  the  meantime,  Adriana  and  her  sister  meet  the  Syracusans  on  the  street,  and 
amaze  them  by  their  reproaches.  As  in  a  dream  the  men  follow  them  home,  and 
Dromio  of  Syracuse  is  bid  keep  the  door.  Now  comes  home  the  rightful  owner  with 
guests,  and  knocks  in  vain  for  admittance.  So  he  goes  off  in  a  rage  to  an  inn  to  dine. 
At  his  home  the  coil  thickens.  There  Antipholus  of  Syracuse  makes  love  to  Luciana, 
and  downstairs  the  amazed  Dromio  of  Syracuse  flies  from  the  greasy  kitchen  wench 
who  claims  him  as  her  own.  Master  and  man  finally  resolve  to  set  sail  at  once  from 
this  place  of  enchantment.  After  a  great  many  more  laughable  puzzles  and  contre- 
temps, comes  Adriana,  with  an  exerciser — Doctor  Pinch — and  others,  who  bind  her  hus- 
band and  servant  as  madmen  and  send  them  away.  Presently  enter  the  bewildered 
Syracusans  with  drawn  swords,  and  away  flies  Adriana,  crying,  "They  are  loose 
again! "  The  Syracusans  take  refuge  in  the  abbey.  Along  comes  the  duke  leading 
^Egeon  to  execution.  Meantime  the  real  husband  and  slave  have  really  broken 
loose,  bound  Doctor  Pinch,  singed  off  his  beard,  and  nicked  his  hair  with  scissors. 
At  last  both  pairs  of  twins  meet  face  to  face,  and  ^Egeon  and  ^Emilia  solve  all  puzzles. 

COMING  RACE,  THE,  by  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton.  This  is  a  race  of  imaginary 
beings,  called  Vrilya  or  Ana,  who  inhabit  an  imaginary  world  placed  in  a  mysterious 
subterranean  region.  They  have  outstripped  us  by  many  centuries  in  scientific 
acquirements;  making  the  great  discovery  of  a  force,  "  vril, "  of  which  all  other  forces 
are  but  modifications.  They  possess  perpetual  light;  they  can  fly;  and  produce  all 
the  phenomena  of  personal  magnetism.  They  have  no  laboring  class,  which  has  been 
superseded  by  machinery;  there  is  absolute  social  equality;  the  ruler  merely  looks  after 
a  few  necessary  details.  Intelligence  supersedes  force.  Women  are  superior  to  men, 
their  greater  power  over  the  force  "vril"  giving  them  greater  physical  and  intellec- 
tual ability;  still  the  more  emotional  and  affectionate  sex,  in  courtship  they  take  the 
initiative;  they  are  second  to  men  only  in  practical  science.  In  philosophy  and  re- 
ligion there  is  unanimity:  all  believe  in  God  and  immortality.  The  discoverer  of  this 
kingdom  is  a  New-Yorker,  who  tries  to  entertain  his  hosts  with  a  eulogy  on  the  Amer- 
ican democracy;  but  this  form  of  government,  he  learns,  is  called  Koom-Bosh  (Govern- 
ment of  the  Ignorant)  in  the  Vrilya  language.  The  finding  of  this  new  world  gives 
rise  to  many  speculations  on  human  destiny.  The  entire  devotion  of  these  wonderful 
beings  to  science  means  the  disappearance  of  all  the  arts,.  There  are  no  great  novels 


i/o  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

or  poems  or  musical  compositions.  There  are  no  criminals  and  no  heroes.  Life 
has  lost  its  evils,  and  with  them  all  that  is  worth  struggling  for.  Everything  is 
reduced  to  a  dead  level;  everywhere  ennui  seems  to  reign  supreme.  This  story, 
published  in  1871,  was  a  skit  on  certain  assumptions  of  science;  but  its  cleverness  of 
invention  and  brilliancy  of  treatment,  added  to  the  craving  wonder  of  humanity 
as  to  what  its  evolution  is  to  be  toward,  gave  it  a  large  popularity. 

COMMENTARIES,  by  Pius  II.  (.Eneas  Sylvius).    The  great  humanist  Pope  de- 
voted all  his  spare  moments  to  the  composition  of  this  work,  which  is  a  mine  of 
information  on  the  literature,  history,  and  politics  of  his  age.     Part  of  it  was  written 
by  his  own  hand,  the  rest  dictated.     He  was  not  only  in  the  habit  of  taking  notes  on 
every  subject,  important  or  trivial,  but,  even  during  the  stormiest  periods  of  a  life 
that  was  full  of  variety,  he  was  always  eager  to  glean  information  from  the  distin- 
guished men  of  every  country,  with  whom  he  was  constantly  brought  into  contact, 
so  that  the  '  Commentaries '  are  both  an  autobiography  and  the  history  of  a  moment- 
ous and  fruitful  epoch.     The  disproportion  between  the  length  of  the  chapters,  and 
their  occasional  want  of  connection,  are  accounted  for  by  the  interruptions  in  his 
literary  labors  which  his  absorption  in  public  affairs  rendered  inevitable.     When  he 
could  snatch  only  an  hour  from  his  duties  as  pope,  he  wrote  a  short  chapter.    When 
he  had  more  leisure,  he  wrote  a  long  one.     The  first  book,  which  treats  of  his  early 
career  and  his  elevation  to  the  pontificate,  was  evidently  composed  with  more  care 
and  attention  to  style  than  those  which  succeed.    In  general,  he  wrote  or  dictated  on 
a  given  day  the  facts  that  had  come  to  his  knowledge  on  the  day  before.    Sometimes 
an  incident  is  preceded  by  a  historical  or  geographical  notice,  or  is  an  apology  for 
introducing  an  episode  in  the  author's  life.     The  book  has  thus  some  of  the  intimate 
and  confidential  qualities  of  a  diary.    It  wants  precision,  is  not  always  impartial,  and 
in  a  word,  has  the  defects  common  to  all  the  historians  of  the  time.     But  it  is  full  of 
color  and  exuberant  life,  and  its  value  as  a  historic  source  is  inestimable.     It  gives  a 
vivid  idea  not  only  of  the  Pope's  extraordinary  and  almost  universal  erudition  and 
exalted  intelligence,  but  of  the  charm  exercised  by  his  affability,  gentleness,  and  simple 
manners  on  everyone  who  came  within  reach.     The  classical,  the  Christian,  and  the 
modern  spirit  are  intermingled  in  the  'Commentaries.'     No  earlier  writer  has  so 
sympathetically  described  scenes  that  have  a  classical  suggestiveness:  the  grotto  of 
Diana  on  the  opal  waters  of  Lake  Nemi;  the  villa  of  Virgil;  the  palace  of  Adrian  near 
Tivoli,  "where  serpents  have  made  their  lair  in  the  apartments  of  queens. "    But  he 
avoids  anything  that  might  hint  of  too  great  fondness  for  paganism.     If  the  name  of 
a  god  drops  from  his  pen,  he  at  once  adds  that  he  was  an  idol  or  a  demon ;  if  he  quotes 
an  idea  from  a  pagan  philosopher,  he  immediately  rectifies  it  in  a  Christian  sense. 
Shortly  before  his  death  in  1464,  Pius  II.  charged  his  poet-friend  Campano  to  correct 
its  faults,  —  which  of  course  Campano  did  not  do. 

COMMENTARIES  ON  AMERICAN  LAW,  by  James  Kent  (4  vols.,  1826-30). 
Edition  Annotated  by  C.  M.  Barnes,  1884.  The  celebrated  '  Kent's  Commentaries, ' 
ranking  in  the  literature  of  law  with  the  English  Blackstone.  The  work  of  one  of  the 
most  conspicuous  and  remarkable  scholars  in  law  and  founders  of  legal  practice  in 
American  history.  A  professor  of  law  in  Columbia  College  in  1796;  judge  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  State  in  1798;  Chief  Justice  in  1804;  Chancellor  in  1814-23.  On 
retiring  from  the  bench  in  1823,  Kent  resumed  the  work  of  a  Columbia  professor,  and 
gave  lectures  which  grew  into  the  '  Commentaries ' ;  the  wide  and  accurate  learning  of 
which,  with  their  clearness  of  exposition,  have  given  him  a  high  and  permanent  place 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  171 

among  the  greatest  teachers  of  law.  His  decisions  as  Chancellor,  published  1816-24, 
almost  created  American  chancery  law:  and  he  added  to  his  great  work  a  'Commen- 
tary on  International  Law,'  1866;  Abdy's  Edition,  1877.  A  notable  edition  of  the 
'Commentaries'  is  that  edited  by  O.  W.  Holmes,  Jr.,  1873. 

COMMENTARIES  ON  THE  LAWS  OF  ENGLAND,  appearing  from  1765  to  1768, 

is  the  title  of  the  celebrated  law-book  composed  at  forty-two  by  Sir  William  Black- 
stone,  successively  professor  of  law  at  Oxford  and  justice  of  the  Court  of  Common 
Pleas  in  London.  Unique  among  law  treatises,  it  passed  through  eight  editions  in  the 
author's  lifetime,  and  has  been  annotated  numberless  times  since,  for  the  use  of  stu- 
dents and  practitioners.  It  comprises  a  general  discussion  of  the  legal  constitution  of 
England,  its  laws,  their  origin,  development,  and  present  state;  viewed  as  if  the  author 
were  at  work  enthusiastically  detailing  the  plans  and  structure  of  a  stately  edifice, 
complete,  organic,  an  almost  perfect  human  creation,  with  such  shortcomings  only 
as  attend  all  human  endeavor.  The  complacent,  often  naive,  tone  of  fervent  ad- 
miration betrays  the  attitude  of  an  urbane,  typical  Tory  gentleman  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  speaking  to  others  of  equal  temper  and  station  concerning  their  glorious 
common  inheritance,  —  the  splendid  instrument  for  promoting  and  regulating  justice 
that  had  been  wrought  out  from  the  remnants  of  the  Roman  jurisprudence  through 
slow,  laborious  centuries,  by  dint  of  indomitable  British  common-sense,  energy,  and 
intellect.  The  insularity  and  concordant  air  of  tolerance  with  the  established  order 
of  things  gives  piquancy  to  the  limpid,  easy  style,  dignified  and  graceful,  with 
which  a  mass  of  legal  facts  is  ordered,  arranged,  and  presented,  with  abundant 
pertinent  illustration.  Especially  characteristic  is  the  account  of  the  rise  and 
status  of  equity  practice,  and  of  the  various  courts  of  the  realm.  Thoroughly 
a  man  of  his  complacent  time,  untroubled  by  any  forecast  of  the  intellectual 
and  social  ferment  at  the  close  of  his  century,  Blackstone  has  yet  written  for 
the  generations  since  his  day  the  most  fascinating  and  comprehensive  introduc- 
tion to  legal  study  in  English;  and  has  the  distinction  of  having  written  the 
sole  law-book  that  by  its  literary  quality  holds  an  unquestioned  position  in 
English  literature. 

COMMERCE  OF  NATIONS,  THE,  by  C.  F.  Basfcable  (1892).  "One  of  the  most 
striking  features  of  modern  times  is  the  growth  of  international  relations  of  ever- 
increasing  complexity  and  influence ...  it  is  in  the  sphere  of  material  relations  that  the 
increase  in  international  solidarity  has  been  most  decisively  marked,  and  can  be  best 
followed  and  appreciated."  Professor  Bastable  describes  the  leading  features  of 
international  commerce;  the  overthrow  of  "  the  mercantile  system  "  and  the  transition 
to  protection;  the  English  customs  system  from  1815  to  1860;  the  United  States  tariff 
and  commercial  policy;  the  European  tariffs  of  the  last  generation  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Later  chapters  constitute  an  examination,  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  free 
trader,  of  modern  protectionist  theory  and  the  political,  social,  and  economic  argu- 
ments for  protection.  To  many  the  most  interesting  section  of  the  book  is  the  con- 
cluding, which  deals  with  reciprocity,  retaliation,  and  commercial  federation.  The 
student  who  is  endeavoring  to  discover  permanent  principles  should,  however,  re- 
member these  words  of  Professor  Bastable:  "One  lesson  that  the  study  of  commer- 
cial policy  from  the  historical  point  of  view  teaches  with  the  utmost  plainness  is  the 
dependence  of  the  particular  trade  regulations  adopted  by  any  community  rather  on 
the  existing  social  conditions  and  the  interest  of  the  strongest  classes,  than  on  any 
precise  theoretical  doctrines." 


172  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

COMMODORE'S  DAUGHTERS,  THE  ('  Kommandorens  Do ttre')  by  the  Norwe- 
gian novelist  Jonas  Lie  (1889),  is  a  story  of  family  life  in  Norway,  characterized 
by  unerring  analysis  and  a  convincing  truthfulness.  The  novel,  though  some- 
what pessimistic  and  sad  in  its  drift,  is  relieved  by  satiric  humor  and  charm  of 
description.  The  Commodore  is  elderly,  amiable,  henpecked;  his  wife  ambitious  and 
ill-tempered,  with  a  foolish  fondness  for  her  son  Karsten,  a  lazy  young  naval  officer 
who  marries  for  money  to  find  himself  duped.  The  daughters  Cicely  and  Martha, 
girls  of  high  spirits,  good  looks,  and  fresh,  unspoiled  natures,  suffer  in  their  love  affairs 
through  the  narrow  conventionality  which  surrounds  them,  and  the  marplot  inter- 
ferences of  mother  and  brother.  Cicely  is  parted  from  a  fine  young  officer  who  is 
deeply  in  love  with  her;  and  poor  Martha  dies  broken-hearted  because  through  an 
intrigue  of  her  ambitious  mother,  her  devoted  boy  lover  is  sent  off  to  sea  to  get  rid  of 
him,  and  is  drowned  on  the  eve  of  her  intended  marriage.  The  plot  is  a  mere  thread; 
but  the  fretful  social  atmosphere  of  the  household,  with  its  jarring  personalities  con- 
stantly misunderstanding  each  other  to  their  mutual  harm,  is  delineated  with  fine, 
subtle  strokes  of  character-drawing:  it  would  seem  to  be  the  author's  intention  to 
give  an  idea  of  the  petty,  stifling  social  bonds  in  a  small  Norwegian  town  of 
to-day. 

COMPLETE  ANGLER,  THE,  or,  CONTEMPLATIVE  MAN'S  RECREATION:  being  'A 
Discourse  on  Rivers,  Fish-Ponds,  Fish,  and  Fishing';  by  Izaak  Walton  and  Charles 
Cotton.  The  'Complete  Angler,'  which  was  first  published  in  England  in  1653, 
was  designed  primarily  by  its  author  to  teach  the  art  of  angling,  of  which  long  ex- 
perience with  hook  and  line  had  made  him  master.  The  book  is  written  in  dialogue 
form,  and  is  filled  with  conversations  touching  the  theme  in  question,  which  are 
carried  on  by  an  angler,  a  hunter,  a  falconer,  a  milkmaid,  and  others.  In  this  way 
observations  are  made  regarding  the  various  kinds  of  fish,  their  habits,  whereabouts, 
and  the  best  methods  of  securing  them,  with  endless  details  and  minute  descriptions 
of  the  ways  and  means  necessary  to  the  success  of  this  sport.  The  book  is  distin- 
guished by  a  pastoral  simplicity,  is  admirable  in  style,  and  is  filled  with  fine  descrip- 
tions of  rural  scenery.  It  is  moreover  interspersed  with  many  charming  lyrics,  old 
songs  and  ballads,  among  them  the  'Song  of  the  Milkmaid.'  It  is  attributed  to 
Christopher  Marlowe,  and  begins: — 

"Come  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love, 
And  we  will  all  the  pleasures  prove, 
That  valleys,  groves,  or  hills,  or  field, 
Or  woods  and  steepy  mountains  yield.'* 

The  'Angler'  is  not  alone  devoted  to  sport,  but  is  filled  with  precepts  which  recom- 
mend the  practice  of  religion  and  the  exercise  of  patience,  humility,  contentment, 
and  other  virtues.  Before  the  publication  of  this  book,  rules  and  directions  for  an- 
gling had  been  handed  down  from  age  to  age  chiefly  by  tradition,  having  only  in  a  few 
instances  been  set  down  in  writing.  Whether  considered  as  a  treatise  on  the  art  of 
angling,  or  as  a  delightful  pastoral  filled  with  charming  descriptions  of  rural  scenery, 
'The  Complete  Angler*  ranks  among  English  classics.  In  1676,  when  Walton  was 
eighty-two  and  was  preparing  a  fifth  edition  for  the  press,  Charles  Cotton,  also  a 
famous  angler,  and  an  adopted  son  of  Walton's,  wrote  a  second  part  for  the  book, 
which  is  a  valuable  supplement.  It  is  written  in  imitation  of  the  style  and  discourses 
of  the  original,  upon  "angling  for  trout  or  grayling  in  a  clear  stream."  Walton, 
though  an  expert  angler,  knew  but  little  of  fly-fishing,  and  so  welcomed  Cotton's 
supplement,  which  has  since  that  time  been  received  as  a  part  of  his  book.  Waltoa 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  173 

is  called  the  "Father  of  all  Anglers";  indeed,  there  has  been  hardly  a  writer  upon 
the  subject  since  his  time  who  has  not  made  use  of  his  rules  and  practice. 

COMPROMISE,  ON,  by  John  Morley  (1874).  The  problem  of  this  book  is  stated 
by  its  author.  The  right  of  thinking  freely  and  acting  independently,  of  using  our 
minds  without  excessive  awe  of  authority,  and  shaping  our  lives  without  unques- 
tioning obedience  to  custom,  is  now  a  finally  accepted  principle  in  some  sense  or  other 
with  every  school  of  thought  that  has  the  smallest  chance  of  commanding  the  future. 
Under  what  circumstances  does  the  exercise  and  vindication  of  the  right,  thus 
conceded  in  theory,  become  a  positive  duty  in  practice?  It  is  his  opinion  that  the 
general  mental  climate,  outside  the  domain  of  physical  science,  has  ceased  to  be 
invigorating  and  encourages  an  already  existing  tendency  "to  acquiesce  in  a  lazy 
accommodation  with  error,  an  ignoble  economy  of  truth,  and  a  vicious  compromise 
of  the  permanent  gains  of  adhering  to  a  sound  general  principle,  for  the  sake  of  the 
temporary  gains  of  departing  from  it, "  He  discusses,  therefore,  the  causes  of  this 
tendency,  the  influence  of  French  examples,  the  increase  in  the  power  of  the  press, 
the  growth  of  material  prosperity,  the  sway  exercised  by  a  State  Church.  In  later 
chapters  he  deals  at  large  with  individual  intellectual  responsibility  in  the  sphere  of 
politics  and  religion  and  concludes  with  an  examination  of  the  means  by  which 
opinion  may  be  realized.  What  is  most  needed  is  a  firm  faith  in  the  self-protecting 
quality  and  stability  of  society  which  will  not  be  shattered  by  the  firmness  and 
sincerity  of  lovers  of  truth.  "  It  is  better  to  wait  and  to  defer  the  realization  of  our 
ideas  until  we  can  realize  them  fully,  than  to  defraud  the  future  by  truncating  them,  if 
truncate  them  we  must  in  order  to  secure  a  partial  triumph  for  them  in  the  immediate 
present." 

CONCERNING  ISABEL  CARNABY,  by  Ellen  Thorneycroft  Fowler,  was  published 
in  1898.  This  is  the  story  of  Isabel  Carnaby,  a  brilliant  and  spoiled  child  of  fortune, 
who  fascinates  Paul  Seaton,  the  ambitious  and  distinguished  son  of  a  Methodist 
minister.  Paul,  after  being  tutor  to  a  baronet's  son,  gravitates  into  journalism, 
where  his  literary  ability  is  soon  recognized.  His  character  being  both  serious  and 
sensitive,  his  patience  is  exhausted  by  Isabel's  exacting  ways  and  her  fondness  for 
testing  his  affection,  and  their  engagement  is  broken  off.  Isabel,  shortly  afterwards, 
writes  an  anonymous  novel  full  of  caricatures  of  society  personages  with  herself  as 
the  central  figure.  The  book  achieves  notoriety  and  there  is  much  curiosity  as  to  its 
author.  Paul,  on  being  taxed  with  its  authorship  by  a  member  of  Isabel's  set  who 
never  suspects  her,  assumes  the  responsibility,  causing  much  disapproval  among  his 
Methodist  friends.  Isabel  subsequently  becomes  engaged  to  Lord  Wrexham,  a  very 
chivalrous  nobleman  who  releases  her  when  he  learns  that  her  heart  is  given  to 
another.  Paul  goes  into  politics,  where  he  is  most  successful,  and  eventually  he  and 
Isabel,  who  deeply  regrets  her  indiscreet  literary  production,  are  happily  re-united. 
The  book  is  full  of  clever  epigrams,  bright  dialogue,  and  apt  quotations  and  its 
character-drawing  is  strong  and  original. 

CONCILIATION;  WITH  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES,  SPEECH  ON,  by  Edmund 
Burke,  was  delivered  March  22, 1775,  in  submitting  a  set  of  resolutions  affirming  the 
principle  of  autonomy  for  the  American  colonies  with  the  view  of  preventing  their 
defection.  Emphasizing  the  gravity  of  the  crisis  and  the  desirability  of  a  peace  based 
on  a  restoration  of  confidence  and  not  on  conquest,  Burke  inquires  first  into  the  de- 
sirability of  concession  to  the  colonies  and  then  into  the  nature  of  the  proposed  con- 
cession. Taking  up  the  first  question  and  following  his  usual  method  of  going  to  the 


174  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

heart  of  a  subject,  he  makes  a  brilliant  analysis  of  the  American  point  of  view.  Owing 
to  their  growing  population,  their  expanding  commerce,  agriculture,  and  fisheries, 
the  wise  neglect  by  which  England  has  left  them  to  develop  these  resources,  their 
English  descent,  the  Puritanism  of  the  New  Englanders  and  the  sJaveholding  of  the 
Southerners,  the  prevalence  of  lawyers  and  litigation,  and  their  distance  from  the 
mother  country,  the  American  people  are  filled  with  a  fierce  spirit  of  liberty.  Should 
this  state  of  mind  be  changed  as  inconvenient,  prosecuted  as  criminal,  or  complied 
with  as  necessary?  It  cannot  be  changed,  because  the  causes  just  enumerated  are 
inalterable:  population  and  wealth  cannot  be  checked  or  the  national  temper  broken. 
To  prosecute  it  as  criminal  is  impossible;  one  cannot  indict  a  whole  people,  and  force 
only  begets  further  resistance.  It  remains  to  comply  with  it  as  necessary,  in  other 
words  to  make  concessions.  As  to  the  nature  of  these  concessions,  they  should 
meet  the  Americans'  desire  by  giving  them  an  interest  in  the  constitution.  To  obtain 
a  people's  good- will  is  more  prudent  than  to  insist  on  abstract  rights  over  them.  As 
Ireland  and  Wales  were  contented  by  the  granting  of  representative  government,  so 
will  America  be  contented  if  allowed  to  raise  all  taxes  by  free  grant  and  not  by  im- 
position. After  denouncing  the  principle  of  coercion  and  of  barter  in  colonial  rela- 
tions, Burke  ends  by  exalting  the  ties  of  common  descent,  common  institutions,  and 
common  sentiment  as  the  strongest  links  of  empire.  Though  the  cogency  of  Burke's 
arguments  and  the  depth  of  his  political  wisdom  were  as  usual  ignored  by  the  House 
of  Commons  and  his  resolutions  were  defeated  270  to  78,  his  speech  remains  a  final 
pronouncement  of  the  true  principles  of  colonial  government. 

CONFESSION  OF  A  FOOL,  THE,  by  August  Strindberg.  An  autobiographical 
novel  of  which  no  authorized  Swedish  edition  has  ever  appeared.  Written  in  French, 
it  appeared  first  in  German  in  1893.  The  suffering  and  the  torture  which  one  per- 
sonality can  inflict  upon  another  awakens  the  sympathy  of  the  reader,  and  explains 
the  author's  attitude  toward  women  in  his  writings.  The  hero's  friendship  with  the 
pretty  Baroness  Marie  began  in  her  husband's  home,  where  he  was  a  welcome  guest. 
He  comes  to  adore  her,  and  decides  to  flee  from  temptation.  He  actually  embarks  on 
a  steamer  for  France,  but,  unable  to  endure  the  loneliness  of  the  voyage  and  the 
thought  of  the  separation,  he  returns  on  the  pilot-boat.  The  baroness  wishes  to  go 
on  the  stage,  and  makes  this  the  public  excuse  for  the  divorce  from  her  husband. 
After  they  are  married  he  alternately  loves  and  hates  her.  He  makes  several  vain 
attempts  to  escape  from  the  physical  obsession  she  has  for  him.  It  is  a  frank,  almost 
pathological  description  of  the  struggle  which  the  intellectual  man  makes  to  free 
himself  from  the  slavery  of  passionate  love  for  this  worthless  woman,  who  finally 
drives  him  to  madness.  The  most  painful  details  are  given  concerning  the  relation  of 
husband  and  wife.  It  is  not  a  book  which  can  be  recommended  to  young  readers  or 
indeed  to  any  whose  nerves  and  intellectual  digestion  are  not  unusually  strong. 

CONFESSIONS,  by  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau.  The  'Confessions'  of  Rousseau  were 
written  during  the  six  most  agitated  years  of  his  life,  from  1765  to  1770;  and  his  state 
of  health  at  this  time,  both  mental  and  bodily,  may  account  for  some  of  the  pe- 
culiarities of  this  famous  work.  The  first  six  books  were  not  published  until  1781,  and 
the  second  six  not  until  1788.  According  to  more  than  one  critic,  the  'Confessions,' 
however  charming  as  literature,  are  to  be  taken  as  documentary  evidence  with  great 
reserve.  They  form  practically  a  complete  life  of  Rousseau  from  his  earliest  years, 
in  which  he  discloses  not  only  all  his  own  weaknesses,  but  the  faults  of  those  who  had 
been  his  friends  and  intimates.  In  the  matter  of  his  many  love  affairs  he  is  unneces- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  175 

sarily  frank,  and  his  giving  not  only  details  but  names  has  been  severely  condemned. 
The  case  is  all  the  worse,  if,  as  has  been  supposed,  these  love  affairs  are  largely  imagi- 
nary. As  the  first  half  of  the  '  Confessions '  is,  in  the  main,  a  romance  with  picturesque 
embellishments,  the  second  half  has  little  more  foundation  in  fact,  with  its  undue 
melancholy  and  its  stories  of  imaginary  spies  and  enemies.  In  the  matter  of  style,  the 
1  Confessions '  leaves  little  to  be  desired,  in  this  respect  surpassing  many  of  Rousseau's 
earlier  works.  It  abounds  in  fine  descriptions  of  nature,  in  pleasing  accounts  of  rural 
life,  and  in  interesting  anecdotes  of  the  peasantry.  The  influence  of  the '  Confessions, ' 
unlike  that  of  Rousseau's  earlier  works,  was  not  political  nor  moral,  but  literary.  He 
may  be  called  from  this  work  the  father  of  French  Romantisme.  Among  those  who 
acknowledged  his  influence  were  Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre,  Chateaubriand,  George 
Sand,  and  the  various  authors  who  themselves  indulged  in  confessions  of  their  own,  — 
like  De  Musset,  Vigny,  Hugo,  Lamartine,  and  Madame  de  Stael,  as  well  as  many  in 
Germany,  England,  and  other  countries. 

CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER,  by  Thomas  De  Quincey. 
These  Confessions,  first  published  in  the  London  Magazine  during  1821,  start  with 
the  plain  narrative  of  how  his  approach  to  starvation  when  a  runaway  schoolboy, 
wandering  about  in  Wales  and  afterwards  in  London,  brought  on  the  chronic  ailment 
whose  relief  De  Quincey  found  in  opium-eating;  and  how  he  at  times  indulged  in  the 
drug  for  its  pleasurable  effects,  "but  struggled  against  this  fascinating  enthrallment 
with  a  religious  zeal  .  .  .  and  untwisted,  almost  to  its  final  links,  the  accursed  chain." 
Then  follow  nightmare  experiences,  with  a  certain  Malay  who  reappeared  to  trouble 
him  from  time  to  time,  in  the  opium  dreams;  and  also  with  a  young  woman,  Arm, 
whom  he  had  known  in  his  London  life.  But  the  story's  chief  fascination  lies  in  its 
gorgeous  and  ecstatic  visions  or  experiences  of  some  transcendental  sort,  while  under 
the  influence  of  the  drug;  the  record  of  Titanic  struggles  to  get  free  from  it,  and  the 
pathetic  details  of  sufferings  that  counterbalanced  its  delights. 

The  'Confessions  of  an  English  Opium-Eater'  is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  books 
in  literature.  As  an  English  critic  has  said,  "It  is  not  opium  in  De  Quincey,  but  De 
Quincey  in  opium,  that  wrote  the  'Suspiria'  and  the  'Confessions.' "  All  the  essays 
are  filled  with  the  most  unexpected  inventions,  the  most  gorgeous  imagery,  and, 
strange  to  say,  with  a  certain  insistent  good  sense.  As  a  rhetorician  De  Quincey 
stands  unrivaled. 

CONFESSIONS  OF  SAINT  AUGUSTINE,  THE.  This  famous  work,  written  in  397, 
is  divided  into  thirteen  books.  The  first  ten  contain  an  account  of  his  life  down  to 
his  mother's  death,  and  give  a  thrilling  picture  of  the  career  of  a  profligate  and  an 
idolater  who  was  to  become  a  Father  of  the  Church.  We  have  in  them  the  story  of 
his  childhood,  and  the  evil  bent  of  his  nature  even  then;  of  his  youth  and  its  uncon- 
trollable passions  and  vices;  of  his  first  fall  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  his  subsequent 
struggle  and  relapses,  and  the  untiring  efforts  of  his  mother,  Saint  Monica,  to  save 
him.  Side  by  side  with  the  pictures  he  paints  of  his  childhood  (the  little  frivolities 
of  which  he  regards  as  crimes),  and  of  his  wayward  youth  and  manhood,  we  have  his 
variations  of  belief  and  his  attempts  to  find  an  anchor  for  his  faith  among  the  Mani- 
chseans  and  Neo-Platonists,  and  in  other  systems  that  at  first  fascinated  and  then 
repelled  him,  until  the  supreme  moment  of  his  life  arrived,  —  his  conversion  at  the 
age  of  thirty-two.  There  are  many  noble  but  painful  pictures  of  these  inward 
wrestlings,  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  books.  The  narrative  is  intermingled  with  prayers 
(for  the  Confessions  are  addressed  to  God),  with  meditations  and  instructions, 


176  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

several  of  which  have  entered  into  the  liturgies  of  every  section  of  the  Christian 
Church.  The  last  three  books  treat  of  questions  that  have  little  connection  with  the 
life  of  the  author:  of  the  opening  chapters  of  Genesis,  of  prime  matter,  and  the  myster- 
ies of  the  First  Trinity.  They  arc,  in  fact,  an  allegorical  explanation  of  the  Mosaic 
account  of  the  Creation.  According  to  St.  Augustine,  the  establishment  of  his 
Church,  and  the  sanctification  of  man,  is  the  aim  and  end  God  has  proposed  to  himself 
in  the  creation. 

CONGRESS,  TWENTY  YEARS  OF,  see  TWENTY  YEARS,  ETC. 

CONINGSBY,  by  Benjamin  Disraeli,  Lord  Beaconsfield,  published  in  1844,  when 
Disraeli  was  thirty-nine  years  old,  was  his  sixth  and  most  successful  novel.  In  three 
months  it  had  gone  through  three  editions,  and  50,000  copies  had  been  sold  in  England 
and  the  United  States.  It  was  a  novel  with  a  purpose:  the  author  himself  explained 
that  his  aim  was  to  elevate  the  tone  of  public  life,  to  ascertain  the  true  character  of 
political  parties,  and  especially  to  vindicate  the  claims  of  the  Tories.  Incidentally  he 
wished  to  emphasize  the  importance  of  the  church  in  the  development  of  England, 
and  he  tried  to  do  some  justice  to  the  Jews.  The  story  opens  in  the  spring  of  1832, 
on  frhe  very  day  of  the  resignation  of  Lord  Grey's  ministry.  This  gives  Disraeli  a 
good  opportunity  for  a  dissertation  on  the  politics  of  the  time,  including  the  call  of 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  to  the  ministry.  The  hero,  Coningsby,  at  this  time  a  lad  of 
ten,  is  visiting  his  grandfather,  the  rich  and  powerful  Marquis  of  Monmouth.  The 
latter  had  disinherited  the  father  of  Coningsby  for  marrying  an  amiable  girl  of  less 
exalted  station  than  his  own.  Their  orphan  son  is  now  entirely  dependent  on  his 
grandfather.  Lord  Monmouth,  though  showing  little  affection  for  the  boy,  is  gener- 
ous to  him.  He  sends  him  to  Eton  and  to  Cambridge,  and  has  him  often  visit  him 
at  his  town-house  or  his  Castle.  These  visits  bring  the  boy  in  contact  with  many 
interesting  persons,  such  as  the  fascinating  Sidonia,  in  whom  Disraeli  paints  his  ideal 
Jew;  the  Princess  Colonna,  and  her  stepdaughter  Lucretia,  whom  the  Marquis 
marries:  the  Duke  (who  has  been  identified  as  the  Duke  of  Rutland) ;  the  subservient 
Rigby  (in  whom  John  Wilson  Croker  is  supposed  to  be  portrayed),  and  a  host  of 
personages  of  high  degree  with  imposing  titles.  There  are  more  than  threescore 
characters  in  the  book,  and  part  of  its  popularity  came  from  people's  interest  in 
identifying  them  with  men  and  women  prominent  in  English  social  and  political  life. 
Sidonia,  the  brilliant  Jew,  is  said  to  be  either  Disraeli  himself  or  Baron  Alfred  de 
Rothschild.  Lucian  Gay  is  Theodore  Hook,  and  Oswald  Millbank  is  W.  E.  Glad- 
stone. The  Marquis  of  Monmouth  is  the  Marquis  of  Hertford,  and  Coningsby 
himself  has  been  variously  regarded  as  a  picture  of  Lord  Littleton,  Lord  Lincoln,  or 
George  Smythe. 

Some  of  the  charm  of  Coningsby  has  passed  away  with  the  waning  interest  in  the 
political  events  which  it  describes.  Its  satire,  however,  is  still  keen,  particularly  that 
directed  against  the  Peers. 

CONISTON,  by  Winston  Churchill  (1906).  The  scene  of  this  story  is  laid  in  a 
country  town  in  Vermont  called  Coniston,  at  the  time  of  President  Jackson's  admin- 
istration. The  central  figure  in  the  book  is  Jethro  Bass,  whose  political  career  is 
described  in  a  most  detailed  and  picturesque  manner.  When  a  youth,  Jethro  is 
rough  and  uncouth,  but  in  spite  of  his  eccentricities  there  is  a  hidden  strength  that 
forces  people  to  respect  him.  He  becomes  enamored  of  a  lovely  girl  named  Cynthia 
Ware,  the  belle  of  the  village,  and  in  spite  of  his  peculiarities  she  is  strongly  drawn 
towards  him.  Jethro  becomes  interested  in  politics  and  places  all  his  influence  upon 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  177 

an  issue  to  which  Cynthia  is  greatly  opposed.  She  goes  to  him  and  tells  him  that  he 
must  choose  between  her  and  the  issue  he  has  at  stake,  but  he  tells  her  he  cannot  give 
up  his  plans,  and  they  part  forever.  Cynthia  marries  a  man  named  WethereU  and 
has  one  child,  a  daughter,  who  is  named  for  her.  Although  Cynthia  is  fond  of  her 
husband  she  has  never  felt  the  intense  love  she  had  for  Jethro  and  she  confesses  this 
to  him  before  her  death,  which  occurs  a  few  years  after  her  marriage,  WethereU, 
poor  and  broken  in  health,  returns  to  Coniston  with  little  Cynthia.  Jethro,  who  has 
become  the  big  man  of  the  town  and  "boss"  of  the  political  machine,  recognizes 
Cynthia's  child  and  becomes  greatly  attached  to  her.  He  assists  WethereU  financially, 
and  after  the  latter's  death  takes  Cynthia  to  live  with  him.  Cynthia  loves  him 
blindly  and  trusts  him  implicitly,  never  imagining  that  his  dealings  are  anything 
but  the  most  honorable.  At  last  her  eyes  are  opened  and  she  is  grief  stricken  to  find 
her  idolized  "Uncle  Jethro"  has  gained  his  power  by  foul  means  as  well  as  fair. 
Although  she  still  loves  him  she  leaves  his  home  and  goes  away  to  teach  school.  In 
course  of  time  Cynthia  marries  Bob  Worthington,  the  son  of  a  wealthy  magnate,  one 
of  her  mother's  old  admirers,  and  a  bitter  enemy  of  Jethro  Bass.  Mr.  Worthington 
is  at  first  bitterly  opposed  to  his  son's  marriage  but  is  won  over  by  Jethro,  who  forces 
a  compromise  through  sacrificing  a  measure  for  which  he  has  worked  untiringly. 

CONNECTICUT  YANKEE  IN  KING  ARTHUR'S  COURT,  A,  by  "Mark  Twain" 
(1889).  This  humorous  tale  purports  to  be  that  of  an  American  encountered  by  the 
author  when  "doing"  Warwick  Castle.  The  two  meet  again  in  the  evening  at  the 
Warwick  inn;  then  over  pipes  and  Scotch  whisky,  the  stranger  explains  that  he  is 
from  Hartford,  Connecticut,  where  he  used  to  be  superintendent  of  an  arms  factory; 
that  one  day,  in  a  quarrel  with  one  of  his  men,  he  lost  consciousness  from  a  blow  on 
the  head  with  a  crowbar;  that  when  he  awoke  he  found  himself  in  England  at  the 
time  of  King  Arthur,  where  he  was  taken  captive  by  a  knight,  and  conveyed  to 
Camelot.  Here  sleep  overpowers  the  narrator,  and  he  goes  to  bed;  first,  however, 
committing  to  the  author's  hands  a  manuscript,  wherein  sitting  down  by  the  fire 
again,  he  reads  the  rest  of  the  stranger's  adventures.  The  contact  of  Connecticut 
Yankeedom  with  Arthurian  chivalry  gives  rise  to  strange  results.  England  at  the 
time  of  Arthur  was  a  society  in  which  the  church  "took  it  out"  of  the  king,  the  king 
of  the  noble,  and  the  noble  of  the  freeman;  in  which  "anybody  could  kill  somebody, 
except  the  commoner  and  the  slave,  —  these  had  no  privileges";  and  in  which  de- 
parture from  custom  was  the  one  crime  that  the  nation  could  not  commit.  Sir 
Lancelot  of  the  Lake,  Galahad,  Bedivere,  Merlin,  Guinevere,  Arthur  himself,  etc., 
duly  appear;  and  amidst  all  the  fun  and  pathos,  the  courtliness,  the  sincerity,  and  the 
stern  virtues  —  as  well  as  what  seems  to  us  the  ridiculousness  —  of  the  age. 

CONQUEROR,  THE;  being  the  true  and  romantic  story  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  by 
Gertrude  Atherton  (1902).  The  recorded  facts  of  Hamilton's  career  find  their 
historical  place  in  this  "dramatized  biography."  His  early  life  in  the  West  Indies 
is  based  on  family  tradition  as  weU  as  documentary  evidence.  The  description  of  the 
hurricane  which  devastated  the  beautiful  island  is  a  dramatic  word  picture.  At 
seventeen  Hamilton's  remarkable  mind  made  him  a  leader  among  the  young  patriots 
at  King's  College  who  demanded  the  independence  of  the  American  colonies.  Wash- 
ington recognized  his  ability  and  appealed  to  his  patriotism  to  give  up  a  military 
career  and  become  his  aide  and  secretary.  He  married  Elizabeth,  the  charming, 
vivacious  daughter  of  General  Schuyler.  After  the  war  he  studied  law,  passing  his 
bar  examination  with  only  three  months1  preparation,  a  phenomenal  achievement. 


178  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

As  secretary  of  the  treasury  and  organizer  of  the  new  government  his  ideas  were 
opposed  by  Jefferson,  who  in  this  book  is  shown  in  most  unfavorable  light.  The 
unscrupulous  Aaron  Burr  became  his  enemy,  jealous  of  his  success  and  great  charm 
of  personality.  Mme.  Croix,  a  clever,  beautiful  Egeria,  with  a  talent  for  politics, 
drew  Hamilton  into  the  circle  of  public  men  about  her.  She  loved  him  and  the 
romance  was  an  inspiration  which  he  gave  up  at  his  wife's  request,  thus  incurring 
Mme.  Croix's  tigerish  hatred.  Challenged  by  Burr  to  secret  duel,  he  was  wounded 
mortally.  Eliza  Croix,  now  Mme.  Jumel,  came  to  him  the  night  before  the  duel  to 
tell  him  that  Burr  was  her  deputy,  and  that  neither  her  hate  nor  her  love  had  ceased. 
At  his  death,  the  bells  were  tolled  until  sundown.  The  city  and  the  people  wore 
mourning  for  a  month,  the  bar  for  six  weeks.  A  monument  erected  to  him  by  leading 
citizens  bore  the  inscription,  "The  patriot  of  incorruptible  integrity,  the  soldier  of 
approved  valor,  the  statesman  of  consummate  wisdom." 

CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN,  THE,  by  Booth  Tarkington  (1905).  The  scene  of  this 
story  is  laid  in  an  Indiana  town  called  Canaan,  where  intolerance  and  narrow- 
mindedness  hold  full  sway  among  the  inhabitants.  The  central  figure  is  Joe  Louden, 
who  begins  life  under  adverse  circumstances.  His  father  marries  a  second  wife  with 
a  son  of  her  own,  named  Eugene  Bantry,  whom  she  idolizes,  and  in  consequence  she 
prejudices  her  husband  against  his  own  son  and  causes  him  to  treat  him  most  unfairly. 
Joe  is  not  even  decently  clothed  and  is  allowed  to  run  wild,  while  his  stepbrother  is 
sent  to  college  and  dressed  in  the  latest  fashion.  Joe  falls  in  with  low  companions  and 
is  avoided  and  disliked  by  the  townspeople,  who  see  only  the  bad  in  him.  His  one 
champion  is  a  girl  about  his  own  age  named  Ariel  Tabor,  who  is  poor  like  himself 
and  snubbed  by  her  companions.  Ariel's  rich  uncle  dies,  making  her  an  heiress,  and 
she  and  ker  old  grandfather'depart  for  several  years'  stay  in  Paris.  Just  at  this  time 
Joe  gets  himself  into  trouble  and  runs  away  from  home.  He  works  his  way  through 
college  and  the  law  school,  and  becoming  a  successful  lawyer,  returns  after  some  years 
to  his  native  town  to  practise.  He  is  treated  rudely  and  ignored  by  everybody  but 
determines  to  stay  and  live  down  his  past.  He  has  always  admired  Mamie  Pike,  the 
daughter  of  Judge  Pike,  the  leading  man  of  the  town,  but  she  becomes  engaged  to  his 
stepbrother  Eugene,  who  is  a  poor  specimen  of  manhood.  Ariel  returns  from  Paris  a 
dazzling  vision  of  elegance  and  beauty  and  takes  the  town  by  storm.  She  discovers 
how  shamefully  Joe  has  been  treated  and  begins  at  once  to  try  to  mend  matters. 
She  gives  Joe  charge  of  her  affairs,  taking  her  property  out  of  the  hands  of  Judge' 
Pike,  who  has  administered  her  uncle's  estate.  Joe  finds  that  the  Judge  has  been 
dishonest,  but  deals  with  him  leniently  in  spite  of  the  outrageous  treatment  he  has 
received  from  him  in  the  past.  After  Ariel's  return  Joe  appreciates  that  she  is  the 
girl  he  really  loves  and  he  not  only  wins  her  for  his  wife,  but,  re-instated  in  the  opinion 
of  his  townspeople,  is  elected  mayor  of  Canaan. 

CONQUEST  OF  PERU,  HISTORY  OF  THE,  by  William  Hickling  Prescott  (.847). 
Of  the  five  books  into  which  this  admirable  work  is  divided,  the  first  treats  of  the 
wonderful  civilization  of  the  Incas;  the  second  of  the  discovery  of  Peru;  the  third  of 
its  conquest;  the  fourth  of  the  civil  wars  of  the  conquerors;  and  the  fifth  of  the  settle- 
ment of  the  country.  The  first  book  hardly  yields  in  interest  to  any  of  the  others, 
describing  as  it  does,  on  the  whole,  an  unparalleled  state  of  society.  In  it  some  of  the 
votaries  of  modern  socialism  have  seen  confirmation  of  the  practicability  and  success- 
ful working  of  their  own  theory;  but  Prescott's  verdict  of  the  system  is  that  it  was 
"the  most  oppressive,  though  the  mildest,  of  despotisms."  At  least  it  was  more 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  179 

lenient,  more  refined,  and  based  more  upon  reason  as  contrasted  with  force,  than 
was  that  of  the  Aztecs.  He  describes  it  very  fully:  the  orders  of  society,  the  divisions 
of  the  kingdom,  the  administration  of  justice,  the  revenues,  religion,  education, 
agriculture,  manners,  manufactures,  architecture,  etc.  From  the  necessities  of  its 
material,  the  work  is  more  scattered  in  construction  than  is  the  'History  of  the 
Conquest  of  Mexico,'  which  is  usually  regarded  as  the  author's  most  brilliant  produc- 
tion. Of  the  opportunities  this  afforded,  Prescott  himself  remarks:  "The  natural 
development  of  the  story  ...  is  precisely  what  would  be  prescribed  by  the  severest 
rules  of  art."  The  portrait  drawn  of  Pizarro,  who  is  the  principal  figure  in  the  drama, 
is  that  of  a  man  brave,  energetic,  temperate,  and  though  avaricious,  extravagant; 
bold  in  action,  yet  slow,  and  at  the  same  time  inflexible  of  resolution;  ambitious; 
exceptionally  perfidious.  An  effort  is  made  to  counterbalance  the  tendency  to  hero- 
worship  and  picturesque  coloring  by  the  occasional  insertion  of  passages  of  an  opposite 
character. 

CONQUETE  DE  PLASSANS,  LA,  see  ROUGON-MACQTJART. 

CONSCRIPT,  THE  ('Histoire  d'un  Consent  de  1813'),  by  Erckmann-Chatrian,  was 
published  at  Paris  in  four  volumes  (1868-70).  Joseph  Bertha,  a  watchmaker's 
apprentice,  aged  20,  is  in  despair  when  he  learns  that  in  spite  of  his  lameness,  he 
must  shoulder  a  gun  and  march  against  the  allies.  Hitherto  his  own  little  affairs 
have  had  much  more  concern  for  him  than  the  quarrels  of  kings  and  powers,  and  he 
has  an  instinctive  dislike  to  the  spirit  of  conquest.  Still  his  is  a  loyal  heart,  and 
he  resists  the  temptation  to  desert.  After'an  affecting  farewell  to  his  betrothed,  he 
marches  to  join  his  regiment,  resolved  to  do  his  duty.  Of  the  terrific  battles  of  the 
period  Joseph  relates  only  what  he  saw.  He  does  not  pretend  to  be  a  hero,  but  he  is 
always  true  to  his  nature  and  to  human  nature  in  his  alternate  fits  of  faint-heartedness 
and  warlike  fury.  He  obeys  his  leaders  when  they  bid  him  rush  to  death  or  glory; 
but  he  cannot  help  turning  his  eyes  back,  at  the  same  time,  to  the  poor  little  cottage 
where  he  has  left  all  his  happiness.  His  artless  soul  is  a  battle-field  whereon  the 
feelings  natural  to  him  are  in  constant  conflict  with  those  of  his  new  condition:  the 
former  prevailing  when  the  miseries  of  the  soldier's  life  are  brought  home  to  him; 
the  latter,  when  he  is  inflamed  by  martial  ardor.  All  the  narrative,  up  to  the  time  he 
returns  wounded  to  his  family,  turns  on  the  contrast  between  the  perpetual  mourning 
that  is  going  on  in  families  and  the  perpetual  Te  Deums  for  disastrous  victories.  This 
is  the  dominant  note;  and  in  the  mouth  of  this  obscure  victim  of  war,  this  thesis, 
interpreted  by  scenes  of  daily  carnage,  is  more  eloquent  and  persuasive  than  if  it 
borrowed  arguments  from  history  or  philosophy.  The  style  is  simple,  tamiliar; 
perhaps  at  times  even  vulgar;  but  it  is  never  trivial  or  commonplace,  and  is  always  in 
harmony  with  the  speaker.  As  the  work  was  hostile  to  the  Napoleonic  legend,  numer- 
ous obstacles  were  put  in  the  way  of  its  circulation  at  the  time  of  publication.  But, 
notwithstanding,  it  was  scattered  in  profusion  throughout  France  by  means  of  cheap 
illustrated  editions. 

CONSIDERATIONS  ON  REPRESENTATIVE  GOVERNMENT,  see  REPRESEN- 
TATIVE GOVERNMENT, 

CONSIDERATIONS  ON  THE  GREATNESS  AND  DECAY  OF  THE  ROMANS, 
see  GREATNESS  AND  DECAY,  ETC. 

CONSOLATIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY,  THE,  by  Boethius.  This  work  —  called  in 
Latin  '  De  Consolatione  Philosophica7  —  was  written  in  prison  just  before  the  author 


180  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

v.ns  put  to  death  in  525  by  Theodoric,  whose  favorite  minister  he  had  been  before  his 
incarceration.  It  is  divided  into  five  books;  and  has  for  its  object  to  prove  from 
reason  the  existence  of  Providence.  A  woman  of  lofty  mien  appears  to  the  prisoner, 
and  tells  him  she  is  his  guardian,  Philosophy,  come  to  console  him  in  his  misfortunes 
and  point  out  their  remedy.  Then  ensues  a  dialogue  in  which  are  discussed  all  the 
questions  that  have  troubled  humanity:  the  origin  of  evil,  God's  omniscience,  man's 
free  will,  etc.  The  'Consolations'  are  alternately  in  prose  and  verse;  a  method 
afterwards  adopted  by  many  authors  in  imitation  of  Boethius,  who  was  himself 
influenced  by  a  work  of  Martianus  Capella  entitled  'De  Nuptiis  Philologise  et  Mer- 
curii.'  Most  of  the  verses  are  suggested  by  passages  in  Seneca,  then  the  greatest 
moral  authority  in  the  West,  outside  of  Christianity.  The  success  of  the  work  was  as 
immense  as  it  was  lasting;  and  it  was  translated  into  Greek,  Hebrew,  German,  French, 
and  Anglo-Saxon,  at  an  early  period.  The  Anglo-Saxon  version  was  by  Alfred  the 
Great;  and  is  the  oldest  monument  of  importance  in  Anglo-Saxon  prose.  It  has  been 
imitated  by  Chaucer  in  the  'Testament  of  Love/  by  James  I.  of  Scotland  in  the 
'Kinges  Quhair,1  and  by  many  other  distinguished  writers.  In  some  sort,  it  connects 
the  period  of  classic  literature  with  that  of  the  Middle  Ages,  of  which  Boethius  was 
one  of  the  favorite  authors;  and  in  classic  purity  of  style  and  elevation  of  thought,  is 
fully  equal  to  the  works  of  the  philosophers  of  Greece  and  Rome,  while,  at  the  same 
time,  it  shows  the  influence  of  Christian  ideals.  "It  is,"  says  Gibbon,  "a  golden 
volume,  not  unworthy  of  the  leisure  of  Plato  or  Tully." 

CONSTABLE,  ARCHIBALD,  AND  HIS  LITERARY  CORRESPONDENTS,  by 

Thomas  Constable  ( 1 873) .  The  story  of  the  great  Edinburgh  publishing  house  which 
established  the  Edinburgh  Review;  became  the  chief  of  Scott's  publishers;  issued, 
with  valuable  supplementary  Dissertations  by  Dugald  Stewart,  the  fifth  edition  of 
the  'Encyclopaedia  Britannica';  initiated  the  publication  of  cheap  popular  volumes 
of  literature,  art,  and  science;  and  by  a  bold  liberality  in  payment  of  authors,  with 
remarkable  sagacity  in  judging  what  would  succeed  with  the  public,  virtually  trans- 
formed the  business  of  publishing.  An  apprenticeship  of  six  years  with  Peter  Hill, 
Burns's  friend,  enabled  Constable  to  start  as  a  bookseller,  January,  1795.  He  began 
by  publishing  theological  and  political  pamphlets  for  authors,  but  in  1798  made  some 
ventures  on  his  own  account.  In  1800  he  started  the  Farmer's  Magazine  as  a  quar- 
terly. The  next  year  he  became  proprietor  of  the  Scots  Magazine,  and  in  October, 
1802,  the  first  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  appeared.  The  generous  scale  of 
payment  soon  adopted,  —  twenty-five  guineas  a  sheet,  —  startled  the  trade,  and 
greatly  contributed  to  make  Constable  the  foremost  among  publishers  of  his  day. 
He  began  with  Scott  in  1802,  a  part  interest  only,  but  secured  entire  interest  in  1807 
by  paying  Scott  a  thousand  guineas  in  advance  for  'Marmion,'  and  the  next  year  one 
thousand  five  hundred  pounds  for  his  edition  of  Swift's  'Life  and  Works.'  Differ- 
ences arising  now  separated  Scott  and  Constable  until  1813,  but  in  1814  '  Waverley' 
appeared  with  Constable's  imprint.  The  financial  breakdown  of  various  parties  in 
1826  not  only  overthrew  Constable,  but  involved  Scott  to  the  exfent  of  £120,000. 
Constable  died  July  21,  1827. 

CONSTABLE,  JOHN,  THE  MEMOIR  OF,  by  C.  R.  Leslie  (1845).  Leslie,  himself 
an  artist  of  note,  was  qualified  to  write  the  biography  of  John  Constable  (1776-1837) 
by  an  intense  affection  for  his  subject,  qualified  by  never-failing  good  taste  and  dis- 
crimination. He  has  so  skillfully  chosen  and  arranged  the  letters  of  Constable  that 
the  story  becomes  almost  an  autobiographical  record.  The  work  of  Constable  as 


THE    READER'S   DIGEST    OF   BOOKS  l8l 

revealed  in  these  pages  was  his  combination  of  the  art  of  portrait-painting  with  the 
power  of  reproducing  the  color  of  nature.  He  was  the  first  to  seek  inspiration  in  the 
soft,  rich  colors  of  ordinary  English  scenery,  "  the  first,"  says  a  writer  in  the  '  Diction- 
ary of  National  Biography, '  "  to  suggest  so  fully  not  only  the  sights,  but  the  sounds  of 
nature,  the  gurgle  of  the  water,  the  rustle  of  the  trees.  Other  painters  have  made  us 
see  nature  at  a  distance  or  through  a  window;  he  alone  has  planted  our  feet  in  her 
midst."  His  principles  of  art,  formed  in  early  manhood,  and  faithfully  followed 
throughout  life,  appear  in  a  letter  dated  May  29,  1802,  which  Leslie  quotes.  "There 
is  room  enough  for  a  natural  painter.  The  great  vice  of  the  present  day  is  bravura, 
an  attempt  to  do  something  beyond  the  truth.  Fashion  always  had,  and  will  have, 
its  day;  but  truth  in  all  things  only  will  last,  and  can  only  have  just  claims  on  pos- 
terity." The  character  of  the  man  who  thus  took  truth,  and  truth  only,  as  his 
standard  was  simple,  noble,  lovable,  and  blameless.  His  originality  was  happily 
described  by  Blake,  who  said  on  seeing  one  of  his  sketches,  "Why,  this  is  not  drawing, 
but  inspiration. " 

CONSTANCE  TRESCOT,  by  S.  Weir  Mitchell  (1905).  In  tb's  story  the  author  has 
pictured  a  woman  who  could  love  and  hate  with  equal  intensity.  Constance  Hood  is 
a  Northern  girl  who  marries  a  Union  officer,  named  George  Trescot,  a  few  years 
after  the  war,  and  goes  with  him  to  live  in  the  South.  Trescot  is  a  fine  man,  of 
sterling  character  and  high  principles,  and  Constance  loves  him  passionately,  though 
she  differs  from  him  in  many  vital  points.  George  is  deeply  religious  while  Constance, 
who  has  been  brought  up  by  a  rich  and  skeptical  uncle,  has  never  been  to  church  or 
known  the  comfort  of  a  faith.  The  removal  of  the  newly  married  couple  to  the 
South  is  something  ^hat  Trescot  objects  to  at  first  but  he  was  overruled  by  Constance 
whose  uncle  has  offered  him  the  opportunity  of  being  his  land  agent  in  a  Missouri 
town,  called  St.  Ann.  This  position,  as  George  has  surmised,  proves  to  be  a  difficult 
one  and  he  soon  finds  himself  surrounded  by  enemies  and  those  who  will  injure  him  if 
possible.  An  important  law-suit  comes  up  for  trial,  the  opposing  attorney  being  a 
man  of  violent  nature  named  John  Greyhurst.  Trescot  wins  the  suit  and  his  oppo- 
nent filled  with  rage  shoots  him  as  he  is  leaving  the  Court  House.  Constance  is 
crushed  and  heartbroken  at  the  death  of  her  husband  but  as  she  recovers  her  strength 
she  is  filled  with  a  desire  for  revenge.  After  an  absence  of  a  year  abroad  she  returns 
to  St.  Ann  prepared  to  ruin  the  happiness  of  her  husband's  murderer  if  she  can  do  so, 
as  he  has  been  acquitted  of  the  charge  of  manslaughter  and  is  leading  an  apparently 
comfortable  existence.  Constance  sends  Greyhurst  letters  showing  her  husband's 
nobility  of  character,  haunts  him  by  her  presence,  and  interferes  with  his  financial 
schemes.  Finally  she  writes  to  the  girl  he  is  hoping  to  marry  and,  stating  the  facts 
of  her  husband's  death,  causes  the  girl  to  reject  Greyhurst's  suit.  The  latter,  whose 
peace  of  mind  has  been  gradually  shattered  by  Constance's  course  is  driven  to 
frenzy  by  this  last  act,  and  seeking  her  presence,  he  shoots  himself  and  falls  dead  at 
her  feet.  Constance  leaves  St.  Ann  never  to  return,  wrecked  in  health  and  happiness, 
and  without  hope  for  the  future. 

CONSTITUTIONAL  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND,  see  ENGLAND. 

CONSUELO,  by  Amandine  Lucile  Aurore  Dudevant  (George  Sand),  published  in 
1842,  and  its  sequel  'The  Countess  of  Rudolstadt,'  issued  the  following  year,  form  a 
continuous  romantic  narrative,  of  which  the  first  book  is  the  more  famous.  While 
not  the  most  characteristic  novel,  perhaps,  of  the  great  French  authoress, '  Consuelo' 
is  the  best  known  to  general  readers.  It  is  a  magnificent  romance,  kept  always 


i82  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

within  the  bounds  of  the  possible  yet  exhibiting  a  wealth  of  imagination  and  idyllic 
fancy  not  always  found  in  conjunction  with  such  restraint.  Consuelo,  like  her 
creator,  has  in  her  veins  the  blood  of  the  people;  she  has  no  dowry  but  a  wonderful 
voice,  and  a  noble  natural  purity  that  is  her  defense  in  all  trials  and  temptations. 
Her  childhood  is  spent  in  the  Venice  of  the  eighteenth  century;  a  golden  childhood  of 
love  and  music,  and  a  poverty  which  means  freedom.  After  a  bitter  experience  of 
deception,  she  leaves  Venice  to  live  in  the  Castle  of  Rudolstadt  in  Bohemia,  as 
companion  to  the  Baroness  Amelia.  One  of  the  household  is  Count  Albert,  a  melan- 
choly, half-distraught  man  of  noble  character,  over  whom  Consuelo  establishes  a 
mysterious  influence  of  calmness  and  benignity. 

The  interest  of  the  story  is  now  held  by  certain  psychic  experiments  and  experi- 
ences, and  it  closes  as  the  reader  hopes  to  have  it.  '  Consuelo '  abounds  in  picturesque 
and  dramatic  scenes  and  incidents,  in  glowing  romance,  in  the  poetry  of  music  and 
the  musical  life.  It  retains  its  place  as  one  of  the  most  fascinating  novels  of  its 
century. 

CONSULATE  AND  THE  EMPIRE  OF  FRANCE,  UNDER  NAPOLEON,  HISTORY 

OF  THE  (1799-1815),  by  Louis  Adolphe  Thiers.  The  'History  of  the  Consulate 
and  Empire '  fills  twenty  octavo  volumes,  and  was  published  in  installments  between 
1845  and  1862.  Written  from  an  imperialistic  point  of  view,  it  met  with  unusual 
success  in  France.  It  was  crowned  by  the  Academy,  and  Thiers  was  given  the  title 
of  "national  historian."  The  French  found  in  it  their  own  enthusiastic  admiration 
for  success,  and  their  own  prejudices.  Thiers  has  little  regard  for  the  morality  of 
actions:  "You  have  failed,  therefore  you  are  wrong,"  seems  to  be  his  maxim.  He 
rejoices  in  the  establishment  of  absolutism  and  the  suppression  of  liberty;  nor  does 
he  see,  beyond  the  glory  of  a  victorious  campaign,  the  excesses  of  warfare. 

Literature,  philosophy,  and  art  do  not  attract  him;  in  the  twenty  volumes,  he 
devotes  but  a  scant  half-dozen  pages  to  such  subjects.  He  imagines  that  the  Con- 
sulate realized  the  ideal  of  a  perfect  government,  and  that  the  misfortunes  of  the 
Empire  would  have  been  avoided  had  Napoleon  continued  the  tradition  of  the  earlier 
time.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  the  later  policy  was  but  the  development  of  the 
earlier.  Though  admiring  every  act  of  unrestrained  ambition  on  the  part  of  his  hero, 
Thiers  deplores  its  consequences.  At  first  the  Continental  system  is  Napoleon's 
gigantic  plan  to  conquer  England  on  the  sea;  later  Thiers  recognizes  that  Napoleon's 
own  ports  were  the  chief  victims  of  the  designed  conquest.  His  inaccuracy  as  a 
historian  is  shown  in  his  treatment  of  English  affairs.  He  consulted  no  authentic 
document  in  the  English  language;  and  in  his  chapter  on  the  Continental  System,  he 
says  that  England's  violation  of  international  law  by  "paper"  blockades  in  1806 
furnished  Napoleon  with  just  pretext  for  issuing  the  Berlin  and  Milan  Decrees,  — 
the  exact  opposite  of  the  facts  in  the  case.  Thiers  is  proud  of  his  knowledge  of  mili- 
tary tactics,  and  likes  to  explain  how  defeat  might  have  been  avoided;  but  even  his 
descriptions  of  battles  are  inexact,  as  Charras  in  his  'History  of  the  Campaign  of 
1815'  points  out.  His  style  is  easy;  its  prolixity,  however,  frequently  deprives  it  of 
clearness  and  force,  by  requiring  a  whole  volume  to  describe  a  military  action  which 
might  have  been  more  vividly  presented  in  a  few  pages. 

CONTEMPORARY  AMERICAN  OPINION  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION,  by 

Charles  Downer  Hazen  (1897).  An  extra  volume  in  the  Johns  Hopkins  University 
Studies  in  Historical  and  Political  Science,  —  a  volume  of  three  hundred  pages,  rich 
in  interest  to  the  student  of  American  history.  The  first  part  of  the  work  is  devoted 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  183 

to  the  opinion  of  the  French  Revolution  formed  by  Americans  who  were  in  France 
at  the  time.  These  were  Thomas  Jefferson,  Gouverneur  Morris,  and  James  Monroe, 
Jefferson  and  Morris  were  eye-witnesses,  who  held  themselves  aloof  from  the  conflict 
about  them,  and  reported  upon  it  as  judicial  and  clear-sighted  spectators.  These  two 
tell  a  continuous  story  from  1784  to  1794,  with  a  change  from  Jefferson  to  Morris  in 
1789.  Then  comes  Monroe,  from  August,  1794  ^°  October,  1795. 

The  second  part  of  the  work  gathers  from  a  variety  of  sources  the  opinions  of  the 
Revolution  which  Americans  at  home  formed,  the  Republicans  on  one  side  and  the 
Federalists  on  the  other.  These  opinions  had  much  to  do  with  American  politics 
for  a  considerable  time,  and  altogether  they  form  an  interesting  chapter  in  our 
national  life. 

CONVENTIONAL  LIES  OF  OUR  CIVILIZATION,  by  Max  Nordau.  Max  Nordau 
was  twenty-nine  years  old,  when  in  1878  he  began  to  publish  the  results  of  his  ex- 
tensive travels  and  his  observations  of  life.  'Conventional  Lies/  his  first  real  study 
of  social  pathology,  was  issued  in  1883,  and  in  ten  years  passed  through  fifteen  edi- 
tions, in  spite  of  the  fact  that  by  imperial  mandate  it  was  suppressed  in  Austria  on  i^s 
first  appearance,  and  later  in  Prussia.  The  author,  in  his  preface  to  the  sixth  edition, 
warns  people  not  to  buy  his  book  in  the  belief  that  from  its  suppression  it  contains 
scandalous  things.  "I  do  not  attack  persons,  either  high  or  low,  but  ideas."  The 
book,  he  had  asserted  in  an  earlier  edition,  is  a  faithful  presentation  of  the  views 
of  the  majority  of  educated,  cultivated  people  of  the  present  day.  Cowardice,  he 
thinks,  prevents  them  from  bringing  their  outward  lives  into  harmony  with  their 
inward  convictions,  and  they  believe  it  to  be  worldly  policy  to  cling  to  relics  of  former 
ages  when  at  heart  they  are  completely  severed  from  them.  The  Lie  of  Religion, 
of  Monarchy  and  Aristocracy,  the  Political,  Economic,  and  Matrimonial  Lies,  are 
those  which  Nordau  chiefly  attacks. 

It  is  form,  however,  not  substance,  which  he  usually  criticizes;  as  in  the  case  of 
religion,  where  he  says  that  by  religion  he  does  not  mean  the  belief  in  supernatural 
abstract  powers,  which  is  usually  sincere,  but  the  slavery  to  forms,  which  is  a  physical 
relic  of  the  childhood  of  the  human  race. 

"Very  seldom,"  he  says,  in  discussing  monarchy,  "do  we  find  a  prince  who  is 
what  would  be  called  in  every-day  life  a  capable  man;  and  only  once  in  centuries 
does  a  dynasty  produce  a  man  of  commanding  genius."  In  the  case  of  matrimony  his 
plea  is  directed  not  against  the  institution,  but  in  favor  of  love  in  marriage,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  marriage  of  convenience.  Nordau's  judgments  are  often  based 
on  insufficient  foundation ;  and  he  is  inclined  to  be  too  dogmatic.  Yet  he  is  not  wholly 
an  iconoclast;  and  he  believes  that  out  of  the  existing  egotism  and  insincerity, 
humanity  will  develop  an  altruism  built  on  perpetual  good-fellowship. 

COOK,  CAPTAIN,  see  VOYAGES  OF. 

CO-OPERATIVE  WHOLESALE  SOCIETY,  see  STORY  OF  THE  C.  W.  S. 

CORINNE;  or,  ITALY,  by  Madame  de  Stael.  Corinne's  story  is  quite  secondary, 
in  the  author's  intention,  to  her  characterization  of  Italy,  but  it  runs  thus:  Oswald, 
Lord  Nelvil,  an  Englishman,  while  traveling  in  Italy,  meets  Corinne,  artist,  poet,  and 
musician,  with  a  mysterious  past.  Their  friendship  ripens  into  love;  but  Oswald 
tells  Corinne  that  his  dying  father  desired  him  to  marry  Lucile,  the  daughter  of  Lord 
Edgermond.  Corinne  then  discloses  that  her  mother,  an  Italian,  was  the  first  wife 
of  Lord  Edgermond;  and  that  after  her  mother's  death  and  her  father's  second 


184  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

marriage,  her  life  had  been  made  so  unhappy  by  her  stepmother  that  she  had  returned 
to  Italy,  where  she  had  been  for  eight  years  when  Oswald  arrived.  He  goes  back  to 
England,  with  the  intention  of  restoring  to  Corinne  her  fortune  and  title;  and  there 
meets  Lucile,  and  learns  that  his  father  had  really  wished  him  to  marry  Lord  Edger- 
mond's  elder  daughter,  but  had  distrusted  Corinne  because  of  her  religion  and  Italian 
training.  And  now  the  too  facile  Oswald  falls  in  love  with  Lucile.  Corinne,  who  has 
secretly  followed  him,  sends  him  his  ring  and  his  release.  Believing  that  Corinne 
knows  nothing  of  his  change  of  feelings,  but  has  set  him  free  of  her  own  desire,  he 
marries  Lucile.  Five  years  later,  Oswald  and  Lucile  \isit  Florence,  where  Corinne 
is  still  living,  but  in  the  last  stages  of  a  decline  which  began  when  Oswald  broke  her 
heart  by  marrying.  The  sisters  are  reconciled,  but  Oswald  sees  Corinne  only  as  she 
is  dying. 

In  Corinne  and  Lucile,  the  author  has  endeavored  to  represent  the  ideal  women 
of  two  nations;  the  qualities  which  make  Corinne  the  idol  of  Italians,  however,  repel 
the  unemotional  Englishman.  But  besides  its  romantic  and  sentimental  interest, 
in  its  treatment  of  literature  and  art  it  has  always  been  considered  authoritative. 
It  served  indeed  for  many  years  as  a  guide-book  for  travelers  in  Italy,  though  modern 
discoveries  have  somewhat  impugned  its  sufficiency.  When  it  first  appeared  in  1807, 
its  success  was  instantaneous:  and  Napoleon,  who  detested  the  author,  was  so  much 
chagrined  that  he  himself  wrote  an  unfavorable  criticism  which  appeared  in  the 
Moniteur. 

CORIOLANUS,  a  powerful  drama  of  Shakespeare's  later  years  (written  about  1609)., 
retells  from  North's  ' Plutarch,'  in  terse  sinewy  English,  the  fate  that  overtook  the 
too  haughty  pride  of  a  Roman  patrician,  —  generous,  brave,  filial,  but  a  mere  boy  in 
discretion,  his  soul  a  dynamo  always  overcharged  with  a  voltage  current  of  scorn 
and  rage,  and  playing  out  its  live  lightnings  on  the  least  provocation.  See  his  fierce 
temper  reflected  in  his  little  boy,  grinding  his  teeth  as  he  tears  a  butterfly  to  pieces: 
"Oh,  I  warrant  how  he  mammocked  it!"  Mark  his  strength:  "Death,  that  dark 
spirit,  in's  nervy  arm  doth  lie."  "What  an  arm  he  has!  he  turned  me  about  with  his 
finger  and  thumb  as  one  would  set  up  a  top."  In  battle  "he  was  a  thing  of  blood, 
whose  every  motion  was  timed  with  dying  cries."  In  the  Volscian  war,  at  the  gates 
of  Corioli,  this  Caius  Marcius  performed  such  deeds  of  derring-do  that  he  was  nigh 
worshiped;  and  there  he  got  his  addition  of  'Coriolanus.'  His  scorn  of  the  rabble, 
their  cowardice,  vacillation,  dirty  faces,  and  uncleaned  teeth,  was  boundless.  The 
patricians  were  with  him:  if  the  plebeians  rose  in  riot,  accusing  the  senatorial  party 
of  "still  cupboarding  the  viand,"  but  never  bearing  labor  like  the  rest,  Menenius 
could  put  them  down  with  the  apologue  of  the  belly  and  the  members,  —  the  belly, 
like  the  Senate,  indeed  receiving  all,  but  only  to  distribute  it  to  the  rest.  Coriolanus 
goes  further,  and  angers  the  tribunes  by  roundly  denying  the  right  of  the  cowardly 
plebs  to  a  distribution  of  grain  in  time  of  scarcity.  The  tribunes  stir  up  the  people 
against  him;  and  when  he  returns  from  the  war,  wearing  the  oaken  garland  and 
covered  with  wounds,  and  seeks  the  consulship,  they  successfully  tempt  his  temper 
by  taunts,  accuse  him  of  treason,  and  get  him  banished  by  decree.  In  a  towering 
rage  he  cries,  "You  common  cry  of  curs,  I  banish  you!"  and  taking  an  affecting 
farewell  of  his  wife,  and  of  Volumnia  his  mother  (type  of  the  stern  and  proud  Roman 
matron),  he  goes  disguised  to  Antium  and  offers  his  services  against  Rome  to  his 
hitherto  mortal  foe  and  rival,  Tullus  Aufidius.  The  scene  with  the  servants  forms  the 
sole  piece  of  humor  in  the  play.  But  his  success  leads  to  his  ruin;  his  old  stiff-necked 
arrogance  of  manner  again  appears.  The  eyes  of  all  the  admiring  Volscians  are  on 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  185 

him.  Aufidius,  now  bitterly  jealous,  regrets  his  sharing  of  the  command;  and  when, 
softened  by  the  entreaties  of  weeping  wife  and  mother,  Coriolanus  spares  Rome  and 
returns  with  the  Volscians  to  Antium,  his  rival  and  a  band  of  conspirators  "stain  all 
their  edges"  in  his  blood,  and  he  falls,  like  the  great  Julius,  the  victim  of  his  own 
willful  spirit. 

COKLEONE,  by  F.  Marion  Crawford,  published  in  1897,  is  the  fourth  in  the  'Sara- 
cinesca '  series  of  modern  Italian  stories.  The  scene  is  mainly  in  Sicily.  The  leading 
character  is  Don  Orsino,  son  of  Giovanni  Saracinesca  and  hero  of  'Sant'  Ilario.1  The 
novel  takes  its  title  from  the  fact  that  Vittoria,  the  Sicilian  hero,  is  of  the  Corleone 
race.  The  spirited  scenes  in  which  the  Sicilian  peasantry  and  bandits  are  leagued 
against  the  intruding  Romans;  the  handling  of  the  passions  of  love,  hate,  jealousy, 
and  revenge;  and  the  subsidiary  scenes  of  Roman  society  life  in  which  the  Saracinesca 
move  and  have  their  being,  afford  Mr.  Crawford  opportunity  for  characteristic  work. 
As  a  study  of  Sicilian  character  the  book  is  also  valuable. 

CORTES,  HERNANDO,  LIFE  OF,  by  Sir  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  conquest  by  a 
gallant  gentleman  and  warrior,  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. 

COSMIC  PHILOSOPHY,  OUTLINES  OF,  by  John  Fiske  (1875).  In  these  two 
.  small  volumes,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  modern  thinkers  presents  the  philosophic 
and  scientific  doctrines  of  Herbert  Spencer,  developed  into  a  complete  theory  of  the 
universe.  Added  to  the  outline  of  the  evolutionary  philosophy,  as  represented  by 
Spencer,  is  a  body  of  original  speculation  and  criticism  set  forth  with  immense 
learning  and  ingenuity,  and  in  a  style  which  is  a  model  of  clearness  and  force.  Most 
of  Fiske's  first  volume  is  taken  up  with  the  Prolegomena,  in  which  are  expounded 
the  fundamental  principles  of  Cosmism.  The  second  volume  comprises  the  Synthe- 
sis, containing  the  laws  of  life,  of  mind,  and  of  society.  Life  of  every  kind  is  shown 
to  consist  in  a  process  of  change  within  meeting  change  without;  and  this  process 
applies  alike  to  the  lowest  rudimentary  organism  struggling  against  a  hostile  environ- 
ment, and  to  the  highest  creature  making  use  of  those  slowly  evolved  adaptations 
which  enable  it  to  overcome  opposing  conditions.  Mind  is  an  immaterial  process 
similar  in  character,  but  more  complex  and  more  efficient.  No  true  Cosmist  will 
affect  to  know  at  what  precise  point  the  process  becomes  so  complex  as  to  deserve 
the  name  of  mind.  Though  the  extremes  seem  to  have  nothing  in  common,  the  chain 
of  means  has  no  break,  and  the  real  difference  is  of  degree  and  not  of  kind.  A  like 
process  is  seen  in  the  growth  of  society,  from  the  homogeneousness  of  the  primitive 
family  to  the  heterogeneousness  of  the  nation.  Thus  it  appears  that  the  method  and 
the  significance  of  all  changes  may  be  defined  in  the  one  word  adaptation.  Organic 
existence  begins  at  some  indefinitely  remote  point  in  inorganic  existence;  life  must 
somewhere  be  foreshadowed  in  simple  chemical  activity.  In  short,  the  essayist's 
definition  of  the  Cosmic  theory  is  as  follows:  "Life  —  including  also  intelligence  as 
the  highest  known  manifestation  of  life  —  is  the  continuous  establishment  of  rela- 
tions within  the  organism  in  correspondence  with  relations  existing  or  arising  in  the 
environment";  and  his  statement  of  the  Cosmic  law  of  social  progress  is  this:  — 

"The  evolution  of  society  is  a  continuous  establishment  of  psychical  relations 
within  the  community,  in  conformity  to  physical  and  psychical  relations  arising  iu 


1 86  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  environment;  during  which  both  the  community  and  the  environment  pass  from 
SL  state  of  relatively  indefinite  incoherent  homogeneity,  to  a  state  of  relatively  definite 
coherent  heterogeneity;  and  during  which  the  constituent  units  of  the  community 
become  ever  more  distinctly  individuated." 

Fiske  obtains  his  generalizations  by  means  of  broad  historical  researches, 
and  his  great  knowledge  and  aptness  of  illustration  constantly  enrich  his  pages.  In 
the  final  chapters  he  sets  forth  the  Cosmic  religion,  which,  as  he  interprets  it,  seems 
to  be  an  attitude  of  awe  and  submission  to  the  Unknowable. 

COSMOPOLIS,  by  Paul  Bourget  (1892).  This  novel  is  written  to  demonstrate  the 
influence  of  heredity.  The  scene  is  a*;  Rome,  but  a  glance  at  the  principal  characters 
shows  the  fitness  of  the  title. 

Countess  Steno  is  a  descendant  of  the  Doges.  Bolislas  Gorka  shows  the  nervous 
irritability  and  facile  conscience  of  the  Slav;  his  wife  is  English.  Lincoln  Maitland 
is  an  American  artist,  whose  wife  has  a  drop  of  African  blood.  The  clever  Dorsenne 
is  French.  From  the  alien  ambitions  and  the  selfish  intrigues  of  these  persons  the 
story  arises.  It  is  most  disagreeable  in  essence,  but  subtle  in  analysis,  dramatic  in 
quality,  and  brilliant  in  execution. 

COSSACK  FAIRY  TALES.  This  collection  of  folk-lore  was  selected,  edited,  and 
translated  from  the  Ruthenian  by  R.  Nisbet  Bain,  and  published  in  1894.  The 
Ruthenian  or  Cossack  language,  though  proscribed  by  the  Russian  government,  is 
spoken  by  more  than  twenty  million  people.  There  are  in  the  original  three  im- 
portant collections  of  folk-tales,  from  which  Mr.  Bain  has  made  a  representative 
selection  for  translation.  There  are,  Slavonic  scholars  maintain,  certain  elements 
in  these  stories  found  in  the  folklore  of  no  other  European  people.  Among  these  maj 
te  mentioned  the  magic  handkerchief,  which  causes  a  bridge  across  the  sea  to  appear 
before  a  fugitive,  or  a  forest  to  spring  up  in  his  rear  delaying  his  pursuer.  There  is 
the  magic  egg,  which  produces  a  herd  of  cattle  when  broken;  and  the  magic  whip, 
which  can  expel  evil  spirits*  Many  elements  and  episodes  common  to  other  myth- 
ologies are  found,  however.  There  are,  for  example,  Cossack  versions  of  Cinderella 
and  the  woman  who  took  her  pig  to  market.  One  tale  of  a  Tsar  expelled  by  an  angel 
is  an  almost  literal  rendering  of  King  Robert  of  Sicily,  with  Cossack  coloring.  There 
is  a  Samson-like  hero,  who  reveals  the  secret  of  his  strength;  and  an  episode  of  a  man 
in  a  fish's  belly,  which  resembles  Hiawatha  and  the  sturgeon  rather  than  Jonah  and 
the  whale. 

The  serpent  figures  prominently  in  these  stories;  and  is  generally,  though  by  no 
means  invariably,  malign,  and  always  represents  superior  intellectual  power.  The 
women  are  frequently  ij-eacherous,  especially  when  beguiled  by  the  serpent;  but  it  is 
interesting  to  notice  the  number  of  men  who  cannot  keep  a  secret.  The  lower  animals 
are  always  friendly  to  man,  and  frequently  assist  him  in  performing  difficult  tasks. 
The  whole  tenor  of  the  stories  is  charmingly  naive  and  inconsequent;  among  the 
vampires  and  magic  fires  it  is  somewhat  startling  to  encounter  guns  and  passports. 
The  style  is  simple  and  poetic,  especially  in  'The  Little  Tsar  Novishny,'  perhaps  the 
prettiest  and  most  characteristic  story  of  all. 

COSSACKS,  THE,  by  Tolstoy  (1852).  This  Russian  romance  is  a  series  of  pictur- 
esque studies  on  the  life  of  the  Cossacks  of  the  Terek,  rather  than  a  romance.  The 
slight  love  story  that  runs  through  it  simply  serves  as  an  excuse  for  the  author's 
graphic  descriptions  of  strange  scenes  and  strange  peoples.  The  hero,  Olenin,  is  a 
ruined  young  noble,  who,  to  escape  his  creditors  and  begin  a  new  life,  enters  a  sotnia 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  187 

of  Cossacks  as  ensign.  One  fine  night  he  leaves  Moscow;  and  at  the  first  station 
on  his  way,  he  begins  already  to  dream  of  battles,  glory,  and  of  some  divinely  beautiful 
but  half -savage  maiden,  whom  he  will  tame  and  polish.  His  arrival  at  the  camp  of  his 
regiment  on  the  Terek  gives  occasion  for  a  fascinating  and  most  realistic  picture  of 
the  wild  races  he  meets  so  suddenly.  The  young  ensign  falls  in  at  once  with  his  half- 
savage  maiden,  a  tall,  statuesque  girl,  with  red  lips,  a  rose-colored  undergarment,  and 
a  blue  jacket,  who  looks  back  at  him  with  a  frightened  air  as  she  runs  after  the  buffalo 
she  is  trying  to  milk.  As  he  is  lodging  with  her  parents,  he  sets  about  taming  her 
immediately.  But  he  has  a  rival,  young  Lukashka,  whose  threadbare  kaftan  and 
bearskin  shako  had  long  before  captivated  the  fair  Marianka.  The  love  affairs  of  the 
rivals,  whom  she  treats  impartially,  although  she  has  already  made  up  her  mind, 
go  on  in  the  midst  of  hunting,  ambuscade,  and  battle,  which  are  the  real  subjects  cf 
the  book.  At  last  Olenin  discovers  that  he  is  too  civilized  for  Marianka.  "Ah!"" 
he  says  to  himself,  "if  I  were  a  Cossack  like  Lukashka,  got  drunk,  stole  horses, 
assassinated  now  and  then  for  a  little  change,  she  would  understand  me,  and  I  should 
be  happy.  But  the  cruelty  and  the  sweetness  of  it  is  that  I  understand  her  and  she 
will  never  understand  me."  The  young  Cossack  is  wounded  in  battle;  and  the 
linsign,  not  displaying  much  emotion  at  this  calamity,  receives  a  look  from  Marianka 
that  tells  him  his  company  is  no  longer  desirable:  so  he  decides  to  exchange  into  an- 
other sotnia.  Tolstoy's  pictures  of  the  rough  life  of  the  Cossacks  have  a  wonderful 
charm.  The  story  is  particularly  interesting  as  showing  the  first  germs  of  the  altru- 
istic philosophy  which  Tolstoy  later  developed  into  a  cult  of  self-renunciation. 

COTTON  KINGDOM,  THE,  by  Frederick  Law  Olmsted.  These  two  volumes  of 
"a  traveler's  observations  on  cotton  and  slavery'*  were  published  in  1861,  being 
compiled  from  three  previous  works  on  the  same  subject,  which  had  originally 
appeared  as  letters  to  the  New  York  Times,  between  1856  and  1860.  The  book, 
written  with  especial  reference  to  English  readers,  was  dedicated  to  John  Stuart  Mill. 
It  is  intended  for  the  class  of  persons  that  would  consider  'Uncle  Tom's  Cabin' 
overdrawn  a*^d  hysterical,  and  deals  exclusively  with  facts.  Authorities  are  cited, 
government  reports  quoted,  names  and  places  specified;  everything  is  done  to  make 
the  work  convincing. 

Though  the  author  began  his  observations  in  a  fair  and  judicial  spirit,  he  was 
everywhere  impressed  with  the  disadvantages  of  slavery.  Even  in  States  like  Vir- 
ginia, where  slaves  were  generally  well  treated,  the  economic  evils  were  great,  while 
farther  south  things  were  much  worse.  The  slaveholding  proprietors  experienced 
so  much  difficulty  in  managing  their  estates  that  they  had  no  energy  for  public 
affairs.  There  were  no  good  roads,  and  no  community  life  existed.  Though  the 
railroad  and  steamboat  had  been  introduced,  they  were  operated  in  a  primitive  and 
desultory  fashion,  mails  were  irregular,  and  mtercornmunication  was  uncertain  and 
precarious.  Slave  labor,  of  course,  made  free  labor  tinremunerative  and  despised, 
and  the  poor  white  lived  from  hand  to  mouth  on  the  brink  of  pauperism.  In  the 
cotton  States  the  large  plantations  were  worked  with  profit,  but  the  small  ones 
frequently  failed  to  pay  expenses.  In  every  instance  the  cost  of  maintaining  and 
managing  the  negroes  was  so  great,  and  their  labor  so  forced  and  reluctant,  that 
much  better  results  could  have  been  obtained  from  free  labor.  In  fact,  had  there 
been  no  other  question  involved,  its  monstrous  wastefulness  would  have  condemned 
slavery.  But  the  moral  evils  were  incalculably  great.  The  slave  was  reduced, 
virtually,  to  the  level  of  the  brute,  and  all  efforts  to  raise  him  morally  and  intellec- 
tually were  regarded  as  unsafe  and  revolutionary  He  lost  the  good  qualities  of 


1 88  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

barbarism,  and  gained  the  vices  of  civilization,  and  was  deliberately  made  as  helpless 
as  possible.  The  degradation  of  the  master  was  even  more  deplorable.  His  sensi- 
bilities were  blunted  by  the  daily  spectacle  of  brutality,  his  moral  fibre  was  loosened, 
and  there  was  no  incentive  to  self-control,  since  he  was  subject  to  no  law  save  his 
own  capricious  will. 

Not  only  was  this  book  of  value  at  the  time  of  its  publication,  but  it  is  useful  at 
the  present  day.  It  explains  how  the  curse  of  slavery  retarded  the  industrial  de- 
velopment of  the  South;  and  by  showing  the  condition  of  master  and  negro  before 
the  emancipation,  it  affords  a  better  comprehension  of  the  grave  problems  that 
confront  America  to-day. 

COUNT  FRONTENAC  AND  NEW  FRANCE  UNDER  LOUIS  XIV.,  see  FRANCE 
AND  ENGLAND  IN  NORTH  AMERICA. 

COUNT  OF  MONTE  CRISTO,  THE,  by  Alexandre  Dumas  (1844),  is  the  only  novel 
of  modern  times  which  the  great  romancer  has  written;  and  it  is  so  widely  known  that 
"the  treasure  of  Monte  Cristo"  has  passed  into  a  proverb.  The  story  opens  in 
Marseilles,  in  the  year  1815,  just  before  the  "Hundred  Days."  Young  Edward 
Dantes,  the  hero,  mate  of  the  merchant  ship  Pharaon,  is  about  to  be  made  her  cap- 
tain and  marry  his  sweetheart,  the  lovely  Catalan  Mercedes,  when  his  disappointed 
rivals,  one  of  whom  wants  the  ship  and  the  other  the  girl,  conspire  against  him,  and 
lodge  information  with  the  "Procurateur  du  Roi"  that  Dantes  is  a  dangerous  Bona- 
partist,  and  is  carrying  letters  from  the  Emperor,  exiled  in  Elba,  to  his  supporters. 
Although  there  is  circumstantial  evidence  against  him,  the  magistrate  knows  Dantes 
to  be  innocent;  but  he  has  reasons  of  his  own  for  wanting  him  out  of  the  way.  He 
sends  him  to  the  gloomy  Chateau  of  If,  a  fortress  built  on  a  rocky  ledge  in  the  sea, 
where  he  suffers  an  unmerited  captivity  of  nearly  twenty  years.  He  escapes  at 
length  in  a  miraculous  manner,  with  the  knowledge,  confided  to  him  by  a  supposed 
madman,  a  fellow  prisoner,  of  an  enormous  treasure  hidden  on  the  barren  Island  of 
Monte  Cristo,  off  the  Italian  coast.  Dante's  discovers  the  treasure,  and  starts  out 
anew  in  life,  to  dazzle  the  world  as  the  mysterious  Count  of  Monte  Cristo,  with  the 
one  fixed  purpose  of  avenging  himself  on  his  persecutors,  all  of  whom  have  risen  high 
in  the  world  to  wealth  and  honors.  He  becomes  a  private  Nemesis  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  rich  banker,  the  honored  general,  and  the  distinguished  magistrate,  each 
of  whom  his  tireless,  relentless  hand  brings  low.  The  first  half  of  the  book  is  a  story 
of  romantic  and  exciting  adventure;  the  second  is  in  a  different  key,  sombre  and 
unlovely,  and  not  likely  to  convince  anyone  that  revenge  is  sweet.  But  the  splendid 
imagination  of  Dumas  transfigures  the  whole,  its  intensity  persuades  the  reader  that 
the  impossible  is  the  actual,  and  its  rush  and  impetuosity  sweep  him  breathless  to  the 
end. 

COUNT  ROBERT  OF  PARIS,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Constan- 
tinople during  the  reign  of  Alexius  Comnenus  (1080-1118).  The  hero  is  a  French 
nobleman  who  with  his  wife,  Brenhilda,  has  gene  on  the  first  Crusade  (1096-99). 
While  dining  at  the  palace  they  are  separated  by  the  Emperor's  treachery,  and  the 
Count  is  thrown  into  prison,  from  which  he  releases  himself  with  the  assistance  of 
the  Varangian  Hereward  the  Saxon.  Brenhilda,  in  the  meanwhile,  is  exposed  to  the 
unwelcome  attentions  of  the  Emperor's  son-in-law,  Nicephorus  Briennius,  whom  she 
challenges  to  combat.  When  the  time  for  the  duel  comes,  Count  Robert  appears 
himself;  in  the  absence  of  Briennius  Hereward  engages  him  and  is  overcome,  but 
bis  life  is  spared  in  return  for  his  past  services.  While  the  interest  is  centred  in  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  185 

fortunes  of  the  hero  and  Hereward,  these  are  closely  connected  with  the  conspiracy 
of  the  false  philosopher  Agelastes,  Briennius,  and  Achilles  Tatius,  the  commandei 
of  the  Varangian  Guard,  to  dethrone  the  Emperor.  The  plot  is  exposed  by  Hereward, 
who  refuses  all  rewards,  and  joins  Count  Robert  and  Brenhilda,  in  whose  maid  he  has 
discovered  his  old  Saxon  love  Bertha.  Other  characters  introduced  are  Anna  Com- 
nena,  daughter  of  Alexius  and  author  of  the  Alexiad;  the  Patriarch  of  the  Greek 
Church;  Ursel,  a  former  conspirator;  Godfrey  of  Bouillon,  and  other  leaders  of 
the  Crusade.  Many  historical  facts  are  altered  for  artistic  effect.  At  the  time  of  the 
story  Anna  was  only  fourteen  instead  of  over  thirty,  and  was  not  the  heiress  to  the 
throne.  The  conspiracy  anticipates  her  later  attempt  to  overthrow  her  brother 
John,  and  substitute  her  husband.  The  most  striking  scene  is  the  swearing  allegiance 
by  the  Crusaders  to  the  Emperor  as  overlord,  in  which  Count  Robert  defiantly  seats 
himself  on  the  throne  with  his  dog  at  his  feet.  The  story  was,  with  'Castle  Danger- 
ous,' the  last  of  the  Waverley  novels,  having  appeared  in  1831,  the  year  before  the 
author's  death. 

COUNTESS  JULIE,  see  MISS  JULIA. 

COUNTESS  OF  RUDOLSTADT,  THE,  see  CONSUELO. 

COUNTRY  DOCTOR,  THE  ('Le  Me*decin  de  Campagne1),  by  Honore*  de  Balzac, 
belongs  to  the  series  known  as  'Scenes  from  Country  Life';  a  part  of  his  great  cycle 
of  fiction,  'The  Comedy  of  Human  Life.'  It  appeared  in  French  in  1833,  and  in  the 
standard  English  translation  by  Miss  Wormeley  in  1887.  It  is  °»e  of  Balzac's  noblest 
pieces  of  fiction,  presenting  beautiful  traits  of  human  nature  with  sympathy  and 
power.  The  scene  is  laid  in  a  village  near  Grenoble  in  France,  and  the  story  begins 
with  the  year  1829.  To  this  village  comes  Genestas,  a  noble  old  soldier  who  adores 
Napoleon,  and  believes  in  the  certainty  of  his  return  to  save  France.  Under  the 
assumed  name  of  Captain  Bluteau,  he  rests  from  his  wounds,  and  is  cared  for  by  Dr. 
Benassis,  the  country  doctor,  the  central  character,  and  a  remarkable  study  of  the 
true  physician.  He  is  a  sort  of  Father  Bountiful  in  Grenoble.  He  treats  the  poor 
peasants  without  pay,  and  dislikes  taking  money  except  from  the  rich.  He  teaches 
the  peasantry  how  to  improve  their  land,  introduces  methods  of  work  which  make  for 
prosperity,  suggests  new  industries,  and  effects  a  great  change  for  the  bett  er  in  the 
neighborhood;  so  that  in  ten  years  the  population  is  tripled,  and  comfort  and  happi- 
ness are  substituted  for  poverty  and  misery.  The  Doctor  lives  in  an  attractive  old 
house  with  two  servants,  one  of  whom,  Jacquotte,  the  cook,  a  scolding,  faithful, 
executive,  and  skillful  woman,  proud  of  her  culinary  ability  and  devoted  to  Benassis's 
interest,  is  one  of  the  most  enjoyable  personages  in  the  story.  The  incidents  of  the 
plot  have  their  explanation  in  the  events  of  a  preceding  generation.  The  novel  as  a 
whole  is  one  of  the  simplest  of  Balzac's,  free  from  over-analysis  of  character  and 
motive. 

COUNTRY  HOUSE,  THE,  by  John  Galsworthy  (1907).  On  a  visit  to  the  paternal ; 
seat  of  Worsted  Skeynes,  young  George  Pendyce  falls  in  love  with  Helen  Bellew,  a 
pretty  woman  who  is  separated  from  her  husband,  but  not  divorced.  When  George 
returns  to  London  he  spends  most  of  his  time  with  the  fascinating  Mrs.  Bellew. 
Unexpected  complications  arise  from  the  love  affair.  Mr.  Gregory  Vigil,  Mrs* 
Bellew's  guardian  and  fond  admirer,  pitying  her  for  her  uncomfortable  position  in 
society,  and  knowing  nothing  of  her  affair  with  George,  decides  that  she  must  secure  a 
divorce  from  Captain  Bellew.  Vigil  is  much  discouraged  to  hear  from  a  lawyer  that  ! 


190  THE   READER  S   DIGEST   OF    BOOKS 

until  Captain  Bellew  gives  his  wife  cause,  there  can  be  no  divorce.  Finally  he  de- 
cides to  hire  detectives  and  waits  news  of  Captain  Belle w's  misdemeanors.  Rumor 
of  the  intended  suit  reaches  Captain  Bellew.  Knowing  his  wife's  close  acquaintance 
with  young  Pendyce,  he  writes  to  George's  father,  Squire  Pendyce,  that  unless  his  son 
George  breaks  with  Mrs.  Bellew,  he  will  be  named  as  corespondent  in  the  divorce 
suit,  Bellew  vs.  Bellew  and  Pendyce.  George  absolutely  refuses  to  give  up  Mrs. 
Bellew.  The  Squire  is  so  angry  that  he  revises  his  will,  leaving  George  only  the  estate. 
While  her  husband  the  Squire  is  working  off  his  feelings  in  bluster,  quiet  Mrs.  Pen- 
dyce suffers  keenly  because  of  her  son's  entanglement.  Unable  to  stay  away  from 
her  boy,  she  defies  the  Squire  and  goes  up  to  London  to  comfort  George,  whom  she 
pictures  as  bowecl  to  the  earth  by  his  parent's  anger.  To  her  dismay  she  finds  George 
annoyed  at  her  visit  and  in  deep  trouble  over  racing  debts.  What  troubles  him  most, 
however,  is  that  Helen  Bellew  has  thrown  him  over.  Mrs.  Pendyce  stays  with  George 
through  the  first  desperate  stage  of  disappointed  love  in  which  he  threatens  to  kill 
himself  and  then  returns  to  Worsted  Skeynes.  With  deep  humiliation  she  goes  to 
tell  Captain  Bellew  that  his  wife  has  tired  of  her  poor  boy.  Dressed  in  her  best  frock 
of  dove-gray,  she  crosses  the  fields  to  the  Bellew  place.  Captain  Bellew  shelters  her 
from  a  thunderstorm,  and  touched  by  her  distress,  agrees  to  withdraw  the  divorce 
suit  and  save  George's  reputation.  Mrs.  Pendyce  comes  home  very  happy,  her 
ambition  for  George's  career  kindled  afresh,  and  something  like  forgiveness  in  her 
heart  for  Mrs.  Bellew. 

COUNTRY  LIVING  AND  COUNTRY  THINKING  (1862),  by  Gail  Hamilton  (Mary 
Abigail  Dodge,  born  in  Hamilton,  Massachusetts),  contains  a  dozen  or  more  essays 
on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  from  flower-beds  to  marriage.  They  are  written  in  an  easy 
conversational  style,  full  of  fun  and  pungent  humor,  though  earnest  and  even  fiery 
at  times.  The  author,  always  witty  and  whimsical,  talks  laughingly  of  the  sorrows  of 
gardening,  the  trials  of  moving,  or  whatever  other  occupation  is  engaging  her  for  the 
moment,  but  with  such  brilliancy  and  originality  that  the  topic  takes  on  a  new  aspect. 
A  keen  vision  for  sham  and  pretense  of  any  sort,  however  venerable,  distinguishes  her, 
and  she  is  not  afraid  to  fire  a  shot  at  any  enthroned  humbug.  Her  brightness  conceals 
great  earnestness  of  purpose,  and  it  is  impossible  not  to  admire  the  sound  and  whole- 
some quality  of  her  discourse. 

COUNTRY  OF  THE  POINTED  FIRS,  THE,  by  Sarah  Orne  Jewett  (1896).  Like 
her  other  works,  it  is  a  study  of  New  England  character,  subtle,  delicate,  temperate, 
a  revelation  of  an  artist's  mind  as  well  as  of  people  and  things. 

The  homely  heroine  is  Mrs.  Todd,  living  at  Dunnet  Landing,  on  the  eastern  sea- 
coast  of  Maine,  a  dispenser  to  the  village-folk  of  herb  medicines  made  from  herbs  in 
her  little  garden.  "The  sea-breezes  blew  into  the  low  end- window  of  the  house, 
laden  with  not  only  sweet-brier  and  sweet-mary,  but  balm  and  sage  and  borage  and 
mint,  wormwood  and  southernwood. "  Mrs.  Todd's  summer-boarder  (Miss  Jewett 
herself,  no  doubt)  tells  the  story  of  her  sojourn  in  the  sweet,  wholesome  house,  of  her 
many  excursions  with  her  hostess,  now  to  a  family  reunion,  now  to  visit  Mrs.  Todd's 
mother  on  Green  Island,  now  far  afield  to  gather  rare  herbs.  The  fisher  folk,  the 
farm  folk,  and  the  village  folk  are  depicted  with  the  author's  unique  skill,  living  and 
warm  through  her  sympathetic  intuition.  The  book  is  fresh  and  clean  with  sea-air 
and  the  scent  of  herbs.  Its  charm  is  that  of  nature  itself. 

COURTIER,  see  BOOK  OF  THE  COURTIER. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  191 

COUSIN  PONS,  by  HonorS  de  Balzac.  'Cousin  Pons,1  written  in  1847,  belongs  to 
Balzac's  series  of  'Scenes  from  Parisian  Life, '  In  it  he  intended  to  portray  "a  poor 
and  simple-minded  man,  an  old  man,  crushed  by  humiliations  and  insults,  forgiving 
all  and  revenging  himself  only  by  benefits."  The  hero  is  Sylvain  Pons,  a  simple- 
hearted  old  musician  who  has  seen  his  best  days  professionally,  whom  his  purse-proud 
cousins  the  Marvilles,  wearying  of  his  visits,  slight  and  insult.  The  vicissitudes  of 
the  poor  fellow  make  the  story.  Greed  and  cunning,  in  all  grades  of  society,  receive 
their  due  celebration.  The  Marvilles,  the  titled  Popinots,  the  theatre  director  Gaud- 
issard,  the  various  lawyers,  the  Jewish  picture  dealers,  down  to  the  very  lodging-house 
keepers,  all  are  leagued  against  the  one  simple-hearted  man  and  triumph  at  last. 
It  is  interesting  to  know  that  Cousin  Pons's  great  collection,  as  described  in  the  story, 
was  actually  Balzac's  own,  which  M.  Champfleury  visited  in  1848,  and  which,  al- 
though seen  for  the  first  time,  seemed  strangely  familiar  to  him  until  "the  truth 
flashed  upon  me.  I  was  in  the  gallery  of  Cousin  Pons.  Here  were  Cousin  Pons's 
pictures,  Cousin  Pons's  curios.  I  knew  them  now."  The  American  translation  is 
by  Katherine  Prescott  Wormeley. 

COUSINE  BETTE,  by  Honore*  de  Balzac  (1846).  This  powerful  story  is  a  vivid 
picture  of  the  tastes  and  vices  of  Parisian  life  in  the  middle  of  last  century.  Lisbeth 
Fischer,  commonly  called  Cousin  Bette,  is  an  eccentric  poor  relation,  a  worker  in 
gold  and  silver  lace.  The  keynote  of  her  character  is  jealousy,  the  special  object 
of  it  her  beautiful  and  noble-minded  cousin  Adeline,  wife  of  Baron  Hector  Hulot. 
The  chief  interest  of  the  story  lies  in  the  development  of  her  character,  of  that  of  the 
unscrupulous  beauty  Madame  Marneffe,  and  of  the  base  and  empty  voluptuary 
Hulot.  'Les  Parentes  Pauvres/  including  both  'Cousine  Bette '  and  'Cousin 
Pons, '  are  the  last  volumes  of  '  Scenes  de  la  Vie  Parisienne. '  Gloomy  and  despairing, 
they  are  yet  terribly  powerful. 

COVENTRY  PLAYS,  THE.  Four  complete  sets  of  ancient  English  Mysteries, 
or  Miracle  Plays,  have  descended  to  modern  times:  the  "Chester,"  the  "Towneley, " 
the  "York,  "and  the  "Coventry  "from  these  we  derive  nearly  all  our  knowledge  of 
the  oarly  English  drama.  Coventry  was  formerly  famous  for  the  performance  of  its 
Corpus  Christi  plays  by  the  Gray  Friars.  These  plays  contained  the  story  of  the 
New  Testament,  composed  in  Old  English  rhythm.  The  earliest  record  of  their 
performance  is  in  1392,  the  latest  in  1589.  There  are  42  of  these  Coventry  plays, 
published  in  a  volume  by  the  Shakspere  Society  in  1841,  under  such  titles  as  'The 
Creation,'  ' The  Fall  of  Man, '  'Noah's  Flood,'  'The  Birth  of  Christ,'  'Adoration 
of  the  Magi,'  'Last  Supper/  'The  Pilgrim  of  Emmatis/  'The  Resurrection/  'The 
Ascension/  'Doomsday/  The  modern  reader  will  require  a  glossary  for  the  pro- 
per understanding  of  these  queer  old  plays,  written  in  early  English. 

CRANFORD,  by  Mrs.  Gaskell.  Cranford  is  a  village  in  England  (identified  as  Knuts- 
ford);  and  the  story  of  the  quaint  old  ladies  there — who  scorned  the  "vulgarity  of 
wealth"  and  practiced  "elegant  economy" — is  told  by  Mary  Smith,  a  sympathetic 
and  discerning  young  person  from  the  neighboring  town  of  Drumble.  During  her 
first  visits  in  the  village  stately  Miss  Deborah  Jenkyns  is  alive;  but  afterwards  she 
dies,  leaving  her  gentle  sister  Miss  Matty  to  battle  with  life  and  its  problems  alone. 
Miss  Matty  lives  comfortably,  and  is  able  to  entertain  her  friends  in  a  genteel  way, 
until  the  bank  fails,  and  then  she  is  obliged  to  keep  a  little  shop  and  sell  tea.  In  the 
end  her  long-lost  brother  Peter  comes  home  from  India  with  money  enough  to  enable 
her  to  live  as  becomes  a  rector's  daughter.  The  other  characters  are  great-hearted 


192  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Captain  Brown,  who  is  killed  by  the  train  while  saving  a  child's  life;  Mr.  Holbrook, 
Miss  Matty's  old  lover;  the  Honorable  Mrs.  Jamieson  and  her  sister-in-law  Lady 
Glenmire,  who  afterwards  marries  Mr.  Hoggins  the 'doctor;  Miss  Betty  Barker  and 
her  cow,  famous  for  its  suit  of  gray  flannel;  Miss  Pole  and  Mrs.  Forrester.  Some  of 
the  chapters  in  '  Cranf ord '  tell  of  old  love  affairs  and  old  letters,  and  others  of  the 
society  and  various  incidents  of  village  life.  It  holds  its  place  as  one  of  the  best 
stories  of  its  kind.  Mrs.  Gaskell  was  born  in  1810;  and  '  Cranf  ord '  was  first  published 
in  1853. 

CREATION,  HISTORY  OF  (Naturliche  Schopfungs-Geschichte),  by  Ernst  Heinrich 
Haeckel  (1868).  A  brilliantly  written  exposition  of  evolution  theories  in  their  most 
extreme  form,  of  which  Darwin  said,  "  If  this  work  had  appeared  before  my  essay 
had  been  written,  I  should  probably  never  have  completed  it. "  The  acceptance  of 
the  work  is  shown  by  eight  editions  of  the  German  original  within  ten  years,  and 
translation  into  twelve  languages.  Haeckel's  *  Evolution  of  Man, '  the  English  trans- 
lation of  his  'Anthropogenic'  (1874),  is  another  widely  popular  exposition  of  his  ex- 
treme tendencies  in  science.  The  immense  labor  which  Haeckel  performed  in  his 
monumental  five-volume  contribution  to  the  Challenger  Reports,  and  his  lucid  and 
brilliant  'Generate  Morphologic, '  have  placed  him  in  the  highest  rank  of  living 
naturalists.  He  is  especially  unsurpassed  among  naturalists  in  his  mastery  of  artistic 
execution.  See  Critical  Essay  in  LIBRARY. 

CREATION,  THE  STORY  OF:  'A  Plain  Account  of  Evolution/  by  Edward  Clodd 
(1888-89).  An  instructive  study  of  what  evolution  means,  and  how  it  is  supposed  to 
have  operated  in  the  upward  development  from  the  lowest  level  of  the  two  kingdoms 
of  living  things,  animals  and  plants.  The  book  is  especially  adapted  to  popular 
reading.  In  another  work  of  the  same  general  character,  'The  Childhood  of  the 
World:  A  Simple  Account  of  Man  in  Early  Times'  (1873),  Mr.  Clodd  has  in  a  most 
interesting  manner  dealt  with  the  latest  stage  of  the  evolutionary  creation,  showing 
how  the  theory  is  supposed  to  explain  the  origin  and  early  history  of  the  human  species. 
A  third  volume,  on  the  same  plan  of  popular  exposition,  'The  Childhood  of  Religions,' 
(1875),  covers  the  ground  of  the  earliest  development  of  man  in  a  spiritual  direction, 
and  especially  explains  the  first  origin  and  the  growth  of  myths  and  legends. 

CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  ('  L'Evolution  cr^atrice '),  a  philosophical  treatise  by  Henri 
Bergson,  published  in  1907  and  in  an  English  translation  by  Arthur  Mitchell  in  1911. 
Rejecting  monism  both  idealistic  and  materialistic,  the  writer  conceives  of  the  uni- 
verse as  neither  all  spirit  nor  all  matter  but  as  an  eternal  process,  a  becoming,  which 
preserves  the  past  and  creates  the  future.  The  world  is  not  fixed  but  eternally  mov- 
ing, creating,  evolving.  Time  as  we  ordinarily  conceive  it  is  a  mere  figment  of  our 
minds,  borrowed  from  the  idea  of  juxtaposition  in  space.  Actual  time  is  eternally 
present  time.  This  conception  solves  the  antinomies  of  instinct  and  intelligence, 
matter  and  spirit,  freedom  and  determinism.  Instead  of  being  bound  in  iron  fetters 
of  necessity,  the  universe  is  ever  moving  forward,  ever  evolving  in  free,  creative 
activity.  A  full  summary  and  criticism  of  these  views  will  be  found  in  the  introduc- 
tory essay  to  the  extracts  from  Bergson  in  the  LIBRARY.  Bergson 's  admirable  exposi- 
tory gifts,  his  succes^  as  a  lecturer  not  only  in  France  but  in  England  and  in  America, 
and  the  agreement  of  his  philosophy  with  strong  tendencies  in  modern  thought  both 
practical  and  metaphysical,  as  expressed  for  example  by  William  James,  have  won  his 
philosophy  an  extraordinary  popularity. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  193 

CRETAN  INSURRECTION  OF  1866-8,  THE,  by  William  J.  Stillman,  United  States 
consul  to  Greece  during  the  period  of  which  the  book  treats,  was  published  in  1874, 
making  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  literature  of  the  Eastern  Question.  Recount- 
ing the  incidents  of  those  years,  the  author  does  not  attempt  to  conceal  his  sympathies 
with  the  Cretans.  "I  feel, "  he  writes  in  the  Preface,  "that  the  Hellenes  are  less  re- 
sponsible for  the  vices  of  their  body  politic  than  are  their  guardian  Powers,  who  inter- 
fere to  misguide,  control  to  pervert,  and  protect  to  enfeeble,  every  good  impulse  and 
quality  of  the  race;  while  they  foster  the  spirit  of  intrigue,  themsehes  enter  into  the 
domestic  politics  of  Greece  in  order  to  be  able  to  control  her  foreign,  and  each  in  turn, 
lest  Greece  should  some  day  be  an  aid  to  some  other  of  the  contestants  about  the  bed 
of  the  sick  man,  does  all  it  can  to  prevent  her  from  being  able  to  help  herself. " 

CRIME  AND  PUNISHMENT,  a  Russian  realistic  novel  by  Fe"odor  M.  DostoeVsky, 
1866,  is  a  subtle  and  powerful  psychological  study,  revolving  about  one  incident,  — 
the  murder  of  an  old  woman,  a  money-lender,  and  her  sister,  by  a  student  in  St. 
Petersburg,  Raskolnikoff.  The  circumstances  leading  to  the  murder  are  extreme 
poverty,  and  the  resultant  physical  and  mental  depletion.  Raskolnikoff  is  by  nature 
generous,  warm-hearted,  and  high-spirited;  but  when  his  body  is  weakened  and  his 
~nind  depressed,  the  morbid  desire  takes  possession  of  him  to  kill  the  greasy  and  repel- 
lent old  woman,  whose  wealth  seems  as  lawfully  his  as  hers.  From  this  desire  he 
cannot  escape.  It  terrifies  yet  fascinates  him.  His  state  of  mind  in  this  crisis  is  de- 
picted with  admirable  skill.  The  murder  accomplished,  he  gains  nothing  by  it: 
in  the  sudden  awful  confusion  of  mind  that  immediately  follows  the  committal  of  the 
deed,  he  can  form  no  definite  idea  of  robbery,  and  escapes  with  no  booty  but  the 
memory  of  one  terrific  scene  which  throws  him  into  a  delirious  fever.  At  this  junc- 
ture his  mother  and  sister  come  to  the  city.  His  excited  state  is  perceptible,  but  they 
can  make  nothing  of  it.  By  a  singular  chain  of  incidents  he  makes  the  acquaintance 
of  a  girl,  Sonia,  who  has  been  driven  to  an  evil  life  that  she  may  save  her  family  from 
starvation.  Believing  that  her  nature  is  intrinsically  noble,  Raskolnikoff  compels  her 
to  read  aloud  to  him  the  story  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus.  This  she  does  in  a  manner 
which  confirms  his  belief  in  her.  His  regeneration  then  begins.  As  he  was  impelled 
to  murder,  he  is  now  impelled  to  confess  the  murder.  His  sentence  is  seven  years' 
exile  to  Siberia;  but  he  accepts  it  with  joy,  for  at  its  expiration  he  will  begin  with 
iJonia,  the  woman  he  loves,  a  life  of  purity  and  nobility.  They  will  progress  together, 
out  of  the  old  order  into  the  new. 

CRIME  OF  HENRY  VANE,  THE:  ' A  Study  with  a  Moral/  by  J.  S.  of  Dale  (F.  J. 

Stimson)  (1884).  Henry  Vane  is  a  man  whose  youthful  enthusiasm  has  been  par- 
alyzed by  successive  misfortunes.  He  is  a  cynic  before  he  is  out  of  his  teens.  Dis- 
appointed and  disillusioned,  he  never  regains  his  natural  poise.  The  moral  of  his 
life  is,  that  he  who  swims  continuously  against  the  current  will  in  time  be  overcome, 
and  he  who  daily  antagonizes  the  world  will  find  his  only  peace  in  death.  The  events 
of  the  story  might  occur  in  any  American  city,  and  in  any  good  social  setting.  It  is 
vividly  told,  interesting,  and  good  in  craftsmanship;  while  the  author's  pictures  of  the 
crudities  of  American  society  and  the  unrestraint  of  American  girls  are  well  if  piti- 
lessly drawn. 

CRIME  OF  SYLVESTRE  BONNARD,THE,  by  Anatole  France  (188 1).  This  charm- 
ing story,  by  a  distinguished  critic  and  academician,  not  only  pteints  the  literary  life 
of  Paris,  but  depicts  the  nobler  human  emotions  with  delicate  humor  and  pathos* 
In  a  short  prelude  entitled  'The  Log, '  the  kindliness  and  simplicity  of  nature  of  the 


194  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

learned  archaeologist  Sylvestre  Bonnard,  member  of  the  Institute,  are  revealed.  It 
relates  how  he  sends  a  Christmas  log  to  a  poor  young  mother,  in  the  attic  above  him, 
on  the  birth  of  her  boy;  how,  like  a  fairy  gift,  the  log  comes  back  to  him  on  a  later 
Christmas,  hollowed  out,  and  containing  a  precious  manuscript  of  the  '  Golden  Le- 
gend, f  for  which  he  has  journeyed  to  Sicily  in  vain ;  and  how  the  Princess  Tr6pof , 
who  is  the  gracious  donor,  turns  out  to  be  the  poor  attic-neighbor,  whom  he  had  be- 
friended years  before.  When  the  story  opens,  we  find  Sylvestre  Bonnard  at  the  chateau 
of  a  Monsieur  de  Gabry,  for  whom  he  is  cataloguing  old  manuscripts.  Here  he  meets 
a  charming  young  girl  named  Jeanne,  and  discovers  her  to  be  the  portionless  daughter 
of  his  first  and  only  love.  He  resolves  to  provide  for  and  dower  her;  but  she  has 
already  a  guardian  in  a  crafty  notary,  Maitre  Mouche,  who  has  placed  her  in  a  third- 
rate  school  near  Paris.  Here  the  good  Bonnard  visits  her  and  gradually  wins  her 
filial  affection;  but  unluckily  at  the  same  time  arouses  in  the  pretentious  school- 
mistress, Mademoiselle  Pref  ere,  the  ambition  of  becoming  the  wife  of  a  member  of  the 
Institute  who  is  reputed  wealthy.  The  defenseless  savant,  upon  receiving  a  scarcely 
veiled  offer  of  wedlock  from  the  lady,  cannot  conceal  his  horror;  upon  which  she 
turns  him  out  of  the  house,  and  denies  him  all  further  intercourse  with  Jeanne.  On 
the  discovery  that  his  prot£ge*e  is  immured  and  cruelly  treated,  he  is  driven  to  commit 
his  great  crime,  the  abduction  of  a  minor.  This  deed  is  effected  by  bribing  the  por- 
tress of  the  school  and  carrying  away  the  willing  victim  in  a  cab  to  the  shelter  of 
Madame  de  Gabry 's  house.  Here  he  find?  that  he  has  committed  a  penal  offense ;  but 
escapes  prosecution  owing  to  Jeanne 's  unworthy  guardian's  having  decamped  a  week 
previous  with  the  money  of  all  his  clients.  Jeanne  thus  becomes  the  ward  of  her  good 
old  friend,  who  later  sells  his  treasured  library  to  secure  her  a  marriage  portion,  and 
retires  to  a  cottage  in  the  country,  where  his  declining  days  are  brightened  by  the 
caresses  of  Jeanne  and  her  child. 

CRIME  OF  THE  BOULEVARD,  THE,  a  novel,  by  Jules  Claretie  (1897),  is  the  history 
of  a  crime  which  occurred  in  Paris,  on  the  Boulevard  de  Clichy,  in  1896.  Pierre  de 
Rovere  is  found  murdered  in  his  apartment.  Bernadet,  the  police  agent,  who  has  a 
passion  for  photography,  takes  a  picture  of  the  retina  of  the  dead  man's  eyes,  and 
finds  the  image  of  a  man  whom  he  recognizes  at  the  funeral.  He  arrests  this  person, 
who  proves  to  be  Rovere's  dearest  friend,  Jacques  Dantin.  He  is,  however,  not  the 
real  murderer.  The  mixture  of  pseudo-science  and  sensational  detail  in  this  novel  is 
thoroughly  French. 

CREPPS  THE  CARRIER,  by  R.  D.  Blackmore  (1876).  With  one  exception,  this 
is  the  most  sensational  and  the  least  probable  of  Blackmore's  stories.  The  scene  is 
laid  in  Kent,  and  the  plot  hinges  on  the  disappearance  of  a  young  heiress,  and  her 
very  strange  experiences.  Through  an  agreeable  way  of  telling  it,  the  book  is  much 
less  startling  and  more  attractive  than  a  bare  synopsis  of  the  plan  would  make  it 
sound.  The  interest  is  sustained,  and  the  situations  are  ingeniously  planned. 

CRISIS,  THE,  by  Winston  Churchill,  was  published  in  1901,  and,  like  its  predecessor 
'Richard  Carvel, '  met  with  overwhelming  popularity. 

The  story  is  of  keen  dramatic  interest  and  has  for  its  background  the  incidents  of  the 
Civil  War.  Its  hero  Stephen  Brice,  a  young  New  England  lawyer  seeking  his  fortune 
in  the  Southern  States,  is  naturally  opposed  to  slavery  and  from  his  small  capital 
purchases  a  young  slave  for  the  sole  purpose  of  freeing  her  and  restoring  her  to  her 
mother.  This  episode  brings  him  to  the  notice  of  Virginia  Carvel,  the  heroine  of  the 
tale,  an  aristocratic  beauty  and  descendant  of  Richard  Carvel,  whose  heart  is  all  with 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  195 

the  South  and  whose  attitude  toward  the  abolitionists  is  most  unrelenting.  Stephen 
falls  deeply  in  love  with  her,  but  she  stifles  her  love  for  him  on  account  of  her  pre- 
judices, and  becomes  engaged  to  her  cousin  Clarence  Colfax,  who  joins  the  Southern 
army.  Brice  fights  for  the  North  and  the  reader  is  given  many  graphic  pictures  of  his 
experiences,  through  all  of  which  he  shows  great  nobleness  and  courage,  and,  when  he 
has  the  opportunity,  saves  the  life  of  his  rival.  After  many  trials  and  tribulations 
Stephen  and  Virginia  are  at  length  united,  at  the  moment  when  she  is  suing  President 
Lincoln  for  the  pardon  of  her  cousin,  who  has  been  sentenced  to  death.  The  book 
has  many  dramatic  situations  and  its  characters  are  strongly  drawn.  Among  the 
latter  may  be  mentioned  Eliphalit  Hopper,  who  figures  prominently  in  the  book  as  an 
unscrupulous  carpetbagger;  Judge  Whipple,  an  ardent  abolitionist,  who,  in  spite  of  his 
eccentricities,  would  sacrifice  everything  to  his  convictions;  Colonel  Carvel,  a  true 
Southern  gentleman;  and  Mrs.  Brice,  whose  charm  and  strength  of  character  are  felt 
by  all  who  come  in  contact  with  her.  The  love-story  is  well  told  and  the  historical 
flavor  is  enhanced  by  the  introduction  of  Lincoln  and  Grant. 

CRITIC,  THE;  or,  A  TRAGEDY  REHEARSED,  by  R.  B.  Sheridan  (1779).  In  'The 
Critic*  Sheridan  dexterously  pokes  fun  at  the  ridiculous  foibles  of  patrons,  authors, 
actors,  critics,  and  audience — all  who  make  or  support  the  stage.  Sir  Fretful  Plagiary, 
who  is  "never  so  well  pleased  as  when  a  judicious  critic  points  out  any  defect  "  to  him, 
but  who  is  very  irritable  when  anyone  takes  the  hint,  is  the  most  diverting  of  butts. 
Dangle,  "at  the  head  [as  he  fancies]  of  a  band  of  critics,  who  take  upon  them  to 
decide  for  the  whole  town,  whose  opinion  and  patronage  all  writers  solicit,  and  whose 
recommendation  no  manager  dare  refuse,"  finds  his  own  keenest  critic  in  his  wife, 
who  thinks  that  the  public  is  the  only  tribunal  that  matters.  Puff,  who  makes  no 
secret  of  the  trade  he  follows — to  advertise  himself  viva  voce  and  to  act  as  "a  Prac- 
titioner in  Panegyric  or  a  Professor  of  the  Art  of  Puffing,"  at  anybody's  service — is  an 
inimitable  creation.  The  tragedy  of  "The  Spanish  Armada"  inserted  in  the  play  is 
a  roaring  farce  from  first  to  last.  "The  Spanish  Fleet  thou  canst  not  see" — says  the 
Governor  to  his  daughter  Tilburina — ' '  because — it  is  not  yet  in  sight ! ' '  Don  Ferolo 
Whiskerandos,  in  love  with  Tilburina  whom  he  persuades  to  convey  his  proposal  to  her 
father,  the  governor,  finds  that  "the  Father  softens,  but  the  Governor's  resolved." 

CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS,  see  ESSAYS. 

CRITICAL  PERIOD  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY,  THE,  1783-1789,  by  John  Fiske 
(1888).  In  this  volume  Mr.  Fiske's  powers  are  especially  tested,  and  his  success 
in  a  great  task  conspicuously  shown.  The  study  which  he  makes  of  the  characters  of 
the  two  contrasted  originators  of  policies,  Washington  and  Jefferson,  of  the  economic 
problems  of  the  time,  of  the  way  in  which  the  Tories  or  Loyalists  were  dealt  with  at 
the  close  of  the  war,  and  of  the  course  of  events  in  Great  Britain  upon  the  close  of  the 
Revolution,  conspicuously  illustrates  his  method,  and  his  mastery  of  the  materials  of 
a  story  second  to  none  in  our  whole  national  history  in  both  interest  and  importance. 

CRITIQUE  OF  PURE  REASON,  a  philosophical  treatise  by  Immanuel  Kant,  pub- 
lished in  1781,  revised  edition  in  1787;  with  the  'Critique  of  Practical  Reason*  (1788) 
and  the  'Critique  of  Judgment7  (1790)  it  constitutes  a  complete  statement  of  Kant's 
transcendental  philosophy.  This  philosophy  consists  in  the  critical  examination  of 
the  activities  of  human  reason,  which,  it  finds,  transcend  the  materials  furnished  by 
sensation.  The  'Critique  of  Pure  Reason'  is  devoted  to  an  analysis  of  knowledge  or 
thought.  The  judgments  of  which  knowledge  consists  are  the  result  of  intuition  and 
understanding.  Intuitions  present  us  with  perceptions  of  objects  in  space  and  time,- 


196  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

these  ideas  of  space  and  time  are  not  realities  but  modes  of  perceiving  objects,  they 
are  instinctive  habits  of  our  minds.  Hence  our  intuitions  give  us  not  things  in  them- 
selves but  the  appearances  of  things,  "phenomena."  Understanding  is  subdivided 
into  Verstand,  the  faculty  of  connecting  our  intuitions  to  form  judgments,  and  Ver- 
nunft,  the  combination  of  these  judgments  into  universal  ideas.  The  study  of  the 
first  is  called  by  Kant  Transcendental  Analytic,  that  of  the  second  Transcendental 
Dialectic.  In  the  former  he  reduces  the  categories  or  modes  of  judgment  to  four — 
quantity,  quality,  relation,  and  modality,  from  which  he  deduces  the  laws  of  contin- 
uity and  of  causality.  All  these  categories  and  principles,  he  says,  are  inherent  in 
the  mind  itself  and  not  derived  from  the  external  world.  The  connecting  link  between 
them  and  the  phenomena  conveyed  by  our  intuition  is  the  idea  of  time  which  inter- 
prets between  the  intuitions  and  the  judgment.  Thus  our  judgments  of  the  external 
world  are  the  products  of  our  own  mind  and  reveal  to  us  phenomena  not  noumena  or 
realities.  Transcendental  Dialectic  is  the  analysis  of  those  general  ideas,  such  as  the 
thing-in-itself,  the  absolute,  the  universe,  the  soul,  and  God,  which  result  from  the 
combination  of  our  various  concepts,  judgments,  and  scientific  propositions.  These 
ideas,  however,  like  space  and  time,  and  the  categories,  are  not  realities  but  the 
methods  in  which  our  minds  operate.  In  other  words,  all  knowledge  is  relative  and 
limited  by  our  minds.  This  leads  to  absolute  scepticism  as  to  the  reality  correspond- 
ing to  these  general  ideas.  It  leads  also  to  the  demonstration  of  the  antinomies  or 
theories  which,  though  contradicting  one  another,  are  equally  capable  of  proof.  It 
may  be  proved  or  disproved  with  equal  cogency  that  the  universe  is  limited  or  infinite, 
that  matter  is  composed  of  atoms  or  infinitely  divisible,  that  free  will  is  possible  or 
impossible,  and  that  there  is  and  is  not  a  great  first  cause.  We  know  only  phenomena 
and  the  corresponding  realities  are  unattainable  by  our  minds,  which  are  limited  by 
their  own  modes  of  thinking.  But  in  the  *  Critique  of  Practical  Reason, '  in  which  he 
turns  from  knowledge  to  volition,  Kant  maintains  that  the  sense  of  obligation,  with 
its  direct  appeal  to  the  will,  brings  a  certitude  in  regard  to  the  ultimate  realities  of  the 
universe  which  pure  reason  cannot  give.  The  reality  of  God,  of  free  will,  and  of 
individual  immortality  are  postulates  of  the  practical  reason,  *.  e.  convictions  in- 
capable of  logical  proof  but  deriving  their  certainty  from  their  appeal  to  the  will. 
The  fact  that  they  cannot  be  proved  but  must  be  accepted  by  an  act  of  will  strength- 
ens their  appeal.  Finally,  in  the  *  Critique  of  Judgment,*  Kant  passes  from  the 
realms  of  knowledge  and  of  will  to  that  of  feeling,  and  considers  the  origin  of  the 
aesthetic  and  the  teleological  senses.  These  also  he  finds  to  be  modes  of  operation 
of  the  human  mind.  The  beautiful  is  that  which  pleases  universally  by  a  sense  of 
harmony  between  the  understanding  and  the  imagination;  the  sublime  is  that  which 
disturbs  us  by  a  sense  of  conflict  between  our  imagination  and  our  inability  to  under- 
stand infinity.  The  teleological  sense  is  the  feeling  that  certain  things  in  nature  are 
a  result  of  adaptation.  This  feeling,  an  illusion  to  pure  reason,  is  due  to  our  concep- 
tion of  time,  which  considers  as  successive  phenomena  which  are  really  co-existent. 
The  three  Critiques  form  the  most  important  and  influential  work  of  modern 
philosophy.  They  demolished  the  old  dogmatic  spiritualism  and  the  old  dogmatic 
materialism  and  set  up  foundations  for  a  new  idealism.  Their  conceptions  have 
contributed  to  the  development  of  all  subsequent  systems. 

'The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason'  was  translated  into  English  by  John  P.  Mahaffy 
and  John  H.  Bernard,  and  also  by  F.  Max  Muller.  'The  Critique  of  Practical  Rea- 
son' was  translated  by  T.  K.  Abbott;  'The  Critique  of  Judgment'  was  translated  by 
John  H.  Bernard.  Another  book  of  value  for  the  English  reader  is  'The  Critical 
Philosophy  of  Kant/  by  Dr.  Edward  Caird. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  197 

CROMWELL'S  LETTERS  AND  SPEECHES:  With  Elucidations  by  Thomas 
Carlyle.  These  elucidations  amount  to  an  ex-parte  favorable  rearrangement  of  Oliver 
Cromwell's  case  before  the  world,  supported  by  the  documentary  evidence  of  the 
Protector's  public  speeches  and  his  correspondence  of  every  sort,  from  communica- 
tions on  formal  State  affairs  to  private  and  familiar  letters  to  his  family.  For 
almost  two  hundred  years,  till  Carlyle's  work  came  out  in  1845,  tne  memory  of 
Cromwell  had  suffered  under  defamation  cast  upon  it  through  the  influence  of  Charles 
the  Second's  court.  When  the  truncheon  of  the  "Constable  for  the  people  of  Eng- 
land"— as  Cromwell  (deprecating  the  title  of  king)  called  himself — proved  too 
heavy  for  his  son  Richard  after  Oliver's  death,  and  the  Stuarts  reascended  the  throne 
and  assumed  the  old  power,  all  means  were  used  to  destroy  the  good  name  of  Crom- 
well. While  to  the  present  day  opinion  widely  differs  concerning  Cromwell's  actual 
conduct,  and  his  character  and  motives,  the  prophetic  zeal  and  enthusiasm  of  Carlyle 
has  done  much  to  reverse  the  judgment  that  had  long  been  practically  unanimous 
against  him. 

CROMWELL'S  PLACE  IN  mSTORY.  Founded  on  Lectures  delivered  at  Oxford. 
By  Samuel  Rawson  Gardiner  (1897).  Among  scholarly  estimates  of  Cromwell's 
true  rank  as  a  statesman  and  stature  as  a  man,  Mr.  Gardiner's  may  perhaps  take  the 
first  place.  It  interprets  him  as  the  greatest  of  Englishmen,  in  respect  especially  of 
both  the  powers  of  his  mind  and  the  grandeur  of  his  character:  "in  the  world  of  action 
what  Shakespeare  was  in  the  world  of  thought,  the  greatest  because  the  most  typical 
Englishman  of  all  time,"  yet  not  "the  masterful  saint"  of  Carlyle's  "peculiar  Val- 
halla." It  explains,  but  does  not  deny,  "the  errors  of  Cromwell  in  dealing  with 
Ireland";  admits  that  "Ireland's  evils  were  enormously  increased  by  his  drastic 
treatment, "  and  consents  to  a  verdict  of  "guilty  of  the  slaughters  of  Drogheda  and 
Wexford. "  But  it  refers  the  errors  and  the  crime  to  "his  profound  ignorance  of  Irish 
social  history  prior  to  1641, "  "his  hopeless  ignorance  of  the  past  and  the  present"  of 
Ireland.  In  this,  and  in  every  respect,  the  volume,  though  small,  is  of  great  weight 
for  the  study  of  a  period  of  English  history  second  in  interest  to  no  other. 

CROTCHET  CASTLE,  by  Thomas  Love  Peacock  (1831).  Richard  Garnett,  in 
his  recent  edition  of  the  book,  says  of  it  that  it  "displays  Peacock  at  his  zenith. 
Standing  halfway  between  'Headlong  Hall7  and  'Gryll  Grange,'  it  is  equally 
free  from  the  errors  of  immaturity  and  the  infirmities  of  senescence. "  Like  the  au- 
thor's other  works,  'Crotchet  Castle'  is  less  a  novel  than  a  cabinet  of  human  curios 
which  may  be  examined  through  the  glass  of  Peacock's  clear,  cool  intellect.  It  is 
the  collection  of  a  dilettante  with  a  taste  for  the  odd.  Yet  among  these  curios  are  one 
or  two  flesh-and-blood  characters:  Dr.  Folliott,  a  delightful  Church-of-England  clergy- 
man of  the  old  school,  and  Miss  Susannah  Touchandgo,  who  is  very  much  alive. 
They  are  all  the  guests  of  Mr.  Crotchet  of  Crotchet  Castle.  Their  doings  make  only 
the  ghost  of  a  plot.  Their  sayings  are  for  the  delight  of  Epicureans  in  literature. 

CRUSADES,  THE  HISTORY  AND  LITERATURE  OF  THE.  From  tne  German 
of  Von  Sybel,  by  Lady  Duff -Gordon  (1861).  A  concise  but  thoroughly  learned  and 
judicious  study  of  the  Crusades,  —  by  far  the  best  historical  sketch  in  English. 
Michaud's  'History  of  the  Crusades'  is  badly  translated,  but  it  is  the  best  compre- 
hensive book  on  the  subject.  Cox's  'The  Crusades, '  in  the  'Epochs  of  Modern  His- 
tory, '  is  an  excellent  summary.  Sybel  devotes  the  second  part  of  his  work  to  an 
account  of  the  original  and  later  authorities.  An  excellent  history  will  be  found  in 
'The  Age  of  the  Crusades,'  by  James  M.  Ludlow  (1896);  a  work  which  inquires  into 


198  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  conditions  of  life  and  thought  which  made  the  Crusades  possible,  —  conditions 
peculiar  to  the  eleventh  century,  —  and  then  tells  the  story  of  eight  Crusades,  during 
the  period  from  March,  1096,  to  August,  1270,  together  with  the  results  of  the  period. 
The  most  recent  work  in  English,  'The  Crusaders  in  the  East, '  by  W.  B.  Stevenson, 
is  excellent. 

CUD  JO'S  CAVE,  by  J.  T.  Trowbridge,  an  an  ti -slavery  novel,  first  published  in  1863, 
was,  like  its  predecessor  'Neighbor  Jackwood, '  very  widely  read.  The  scene  of  the 
story  is  eastern  Tennessee,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  rebellion.  The  State,  though 
seceding,  contained  many  Unionists;  and  their  struggles  against  the  persecution  of 
their  Confederate  neighbors,  slave-holders,  and  poor  whites,  form  the  plot  of  the  book. 
The  ostensible  hero  is  Penn  Hapgood,  a  young  Quaker  school-teacher,  whose  aboli- 
tionist doctrines  get  him  into  constant  trouble;  but  the  really  heroic  figure  of  the  book 
is  a  gigantic  full-blooded  negro,  Pomp,  a  runaway  slave,  living  in  the  woods  in  a  great 
cave  with  another  runaway,  Cudjo.  Cudjo  is  dwarfish  and  utterly  ignorant,  a  mix- 
ture of  stupidity  and  craft;  but  Pomp  is  one  of  nature's  noblemen.  Cudjo's  cave 
becomes  a  refuge  for  the  persecuted  abolitionists  of  the  neighborhood,  a  basis  of  oper- 
ations for  the  Union  sympathizers,  and  finally  the  seat  of  war  in  the  region.  The 
novel,  though  written  with  a  strong  ethical  purpose,  is  interesting  and  effective  simply 
as  a  story,  containing  much  incident  and  some  capital  character-studies. 

CULTURE  AND  ANARCHY,  an  essay  in  social  criticism  by  Matthew  Arnold,  first 
published  in  1869.     Its  purpose  is  to  define  true  culture  and  to  show  how  it  may  over- 
come the  unintelligent  and  anti-social  tendencies  of  English  life  of  the  author's  day. 
Culture  he  defines  as  a  study  of  perfection,  that  is  the  harmonious  expansion  of  all  the 
powers  of  human  nature.     It  is  attained  by  a  knowledge  of  the  best  that  has  been  said 
and  thought  in  the  world,  by  the  free  play  of  the  mind  over  the  facts  of  life,  and  by  a 
sympathetic  attitude  towards  all  that  is  beautiful.     For  a  further  definition  of  culture 
Arnold  borrows  a  phrase  from  Swift.  "Sweetness  and  light, "  the  first  word  indicat- 
ing the  sense  of  beauty  and  the  second  the  active  intelligence.    Against  this  ideal  are 
arrayed  all  the  undisciplined  forces  of  the  age  —  prejudice,  narrowness,  the  worship 
of  liberty  for  liberty's  sake,  faith  in  machinery  whether  governmental,  economic,  or 
religious  —  in  short  an  unthinking  individualism  that  leads  to  anarchy.     English 
society  may  be  divided  into  three  classes — Barbarians,  Philistines,  and  Populace. 
The  Barbarians  or  aristocracy  have  a  superficial  sweetness  and  light  but  are  too 
much  concerned  with  the  maintenance  and  enjoyment  of  their  privileges  to  attain  a 
true  sense  of  beauty  and  a  free  mental  activity.    The  Philistines  or  middle  classes  are 
devoted  to  money-making  and  a  narrow  form  of  religion  and  are  indifferent  or  hostile 
to  beauty.    The  Populace  are  violent  in  their  prejudices  and  brutal  in  their  pleas- 
ures.   All  are  agreed  that  "doing  as  one  likes"  is  the  chief  end  of  man  and  all  are 
self-satisfied.    In  a  further  analysis  of  this  English  preference  of  doing  to  thinking 
Arnold  distinguishes  two  forces  which  he  names  Hebraism  and  Hellenism.    Hebraism 
is  concerned  with  resolute  action  and  strict  obedience  to  conscience;  Hellenism  with 
clear  thinking  and  spontaneity  of  consciousness.    Harmoniously  combined  they  lead 
to  that  perfect  balance  of  our  nature  which  is  the  end  of  culture.     The  excessive 
development  of  one  of  them  results  in  imperfection.     Hebraism  with  its  insistence  on 
conduct  is  the  more  essential  and  it  triumphed  in  the  form  of  Christianity;  but  the 
reaction  from  the  pagan  revival  of  the  sixteenth  century  led  to  its  over-development 
into  Puritanism,  a  discipline  intolerant  of  beauty  and  free  intelligence.    The  English 
middle  class  is  still  dominated  by  Puritanism,  despising  art  and  mental  cultivation 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  199 

as  an  end  in  itself  and  adhering  to  a  narrow  and  unenlightened  religious  and  ethical 
standard  as  "the  one  thing  needful "  By  a  revival  of  the  best  in  Hellenism  Arnold 
would  bring  sweetness  and  light  into  the  English  middle  classes;  and  he  would  over- 
come the  unthinking  individualism  of  all  classes  by  developing  the  idea  of  right  reason 
embodied  in  the  State.  By  its  power  of  telling  phraseology  and  its  pleasing  expository 
method  the  book  stimulated  English  society  to  thought  and  self-criticism.  The  evils 
it  attacks  and  the  remedies  it  proposes  are  by  no  means  out  of  date. 

CULTURE  DEMANDED  BY  MODERN  LIFE.  A  Series  of  Addresses  and  Argu- 
ments on  the  Claims  of  Scientific  Education.  Edited  by  E.  L.  Youmans  (1867). 
A  book  of  importance  as  a  landmark  indicating  the  expansion  of  education  to  embrace 
science  with  literature,  as  both  knowledge  of  highest  value  and  a  means  of  mental 
discipline  not  second  to  any  other.  Dr.  Youmans,  to  whose  service  in  this  direction 
American  culture  owes  a  deep  debt,  supplied  an  Introduction  to  the  volume,  on  mental 
discipline  in  education,  and  also  an  essay  on  the  scientific  study  of  human  nature. 
Other  essays  on  studies  in  science  are:  Tyndall  on  physics,  Huxley  on  zoology,  Dr. 
James  Paget  on  physiology,  Herbert  Spencer  on  political  education,  Faraday  on 
education  of  the  judgment,  Henfrey  on  botany,  Dr.  Barnard  on  early  mental  training, 
Whewell  on  science  in  educational  history,  and  Hodgson  on  economic  science.  The 
wealth  of  suggestion,  stimulus  to  study,  and  guidance  of  interest  in  these  chapters, 
give  the  volume  a  permanent  value  both  to  the  educator  and  to  studious  readers 
generally.  It  is  a  book,  moreover,  the  counsels  of  which  have  been  accepted ;  and  its 
prophecies,  of  advantage  to  follow  from  giving  science  an  equal  place  with  literature 
as  a  means  of  culture,  have  been  abundantly  fulfilled. 

CUORE,  by  Edmondo  de  Amicis  (i5th  ed.  English  translation,  1894).  A  series  of 
delightfully  written  sketches,  describing  the  school  life  of  a  boy  of  twelve,  in  the  year 
1882,  in  the  third  grade  of  the  public  schools  of  Turin.  They  are  said  to  be  the  gen- 
uine impressions  of  a  boy,  written  each  day  of  the  eight  months  of  actual  school  life; 
the  father,  in  editing  them,  not  altering  the  thought,  and  preserving  as  far  as  possible 
the  words  of  the  son.  Interspersed  are  the  monthly  stories  told  by  the  schoolmaster, 
and  letters  from  the  father,  mother,  and  sister,  to  the  boy.  The  stories  of  the  lives 
of  the  national  heroes  are  given,  as  well  as  essays  on  The  School,  The  Poor,  Gratitude, 
Hope,  etc. ;  all  inculcating  the  love  of  country,  of  one's  fellow-beings,  of  honor,  honesty, 
and  generosity.  The  title,  'Cuore'  (heart),  well  expresses  the  contents  of  the  book 
—  actions  caused  by  the  best  impulses  of  a  noble  heart.  Although  it  is  dedicated  to 
children,  older  persons  cannot  read  the  book  without  pleasure  and  profit. 

CUREE,  LA,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

CURIOSITIES  OF  LITERATURE,  by  Isaac  Disraeli.  This  work  of  "some  liter- 
ary researches,"  as  the  author  calls  it,  comprises  three  volumes,  of  which  the  first 
was  published  anonymously  in  1791,  the  second  two  years  later,  while  the  third  did 
not  appear  until  1817.  Repeated  editions  were  called  for,  and  it  was  translated  into 
various  languages.  A  sentence  from  the  preface  explains  the  style  and  object  of  the 
book.  "The  design  of  this  work  is  to  stimulate  the  literary  curiosity  of  those,  who, 
with  a  taste  for  its  tranquil  pursuits,  are  impeded  in  their  acquirement. " 

From  every  field  the  author  has  gathered  interesting  and  recondite  facts  and  anec- 
dotes on  diverse  literary  and  historical  topics,  and  has  grouped  them  under  headings 
totally  without  sequence.  The  subjects  vary  from  Cicero's  puns  to  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's lovers,  and  froth  metempsychosis  to  waxwork  figures.  For  example,  it  is 


200  THE  READER'S  DIGEST*  OF  BOOKS 

asserted  that  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  the  prototype  of  the  steam-engine  and  the 
telegraph  had  been  invented.  We  learn  the  source  of  the  extraordinary  legends  of 
the  saints,  the  true  story  of  the  printer  Faust,  and  the  Venetian  origin  of  newspapers. 
In  short,  the  work  is  a  library  of  the  little  known,  and  is  as  entertaining  as  it  is  instruc- 
tive. 

CURIOSITIES  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY,  by  Francis  Trevelyan  Buckland,  a  series 
of  descriptive  essays  published  from  1857  to  1872.  They  embody  the  results  of 
minute  observation  of  common  creatures  like  frogs,  snakes,  rats,  fishes,  and  monkeys, 
written  for  the  general  reader  and  not  for  the  specialist,  in  a  lively  and  entertaining 
style.  The  author  was  an  enthusiastic  collector  of  live  animals  and  a  life-long  fisher- 
man. He  has  many  novel  anecdotes  to  relate,  which  he  does  with  the  skill  of  a  born 
raconteur. 

CUSTOM  AND  MYTH,  by  Andrew  Lang  (1886).  This  book  of  fifteen  sketches, 
ranging  in  subject  from  the  Method  of  Folk-lore  and  Star  Myths  to  the  Art  of  Sav- 
ages, illustrates  the  author's  conception  of  the  inadequacy  of  the  generally  accepted 
methods  of  comparative  mythology.  He  does  not  believe  that  "myths  are  the  result 
of  a  disease  of  language,  as  the  pearl  is  the  result  of  a  disease  of  the  oyster. "  The 
notion  that  proper  names  in  the  old  myths  hold  the  key  to  their  explanation,  as  Max 
Muller,  Kuhn,  Bre*al,  and  many  other  eminent  philologists  maintain,  Mr.  Lang 
denies;  declaring  that  the  analysis  of  names,  on  which  the  whole  edifice  of  philological 
"comparative  mythology"  rests,  is  a  foundation  of  sifting  sand.  Stories  are  usually 
anonymous  at  first,  he  believes,  names  being  added  later,  and  adventures  naturally 
grouping  themselves  around  any  famous  personage,  divine,  heroic,  or  human.  Thus 
what  is  called  a  Greek  myth  or  a  Hindu  legend  may  be  found  current  among  a  people 
who  never  heard  of  Greece  or  India.  The  story  of  Jason,  for  example,  is  told  in  Samoa, 
Finland,  North  America,  Madagascar.  Each  of  the  myths  presented  here  is  made  to 
serve  a  controversial  purpose  in  so  far  as  it  supports  the  essayist's  theory  that  ex- 
planations of  comparative  mythology  do  not  explain.  He  believes  that  folk-lore 
contains  the  survivals  of  primitive  ideas  common  to  many  peoples,  as  similar  physical 
and  social  conditions  tend  to  breed  the  same  ideas.  The  hypothesis  of  a  myth  com- 
mon to  several  races  rests  on  the  assumption  of  a  common  intellectual  condition 
among  them.  We  may  push  back  a  god  from  Greece  to  Phoenicia,  from  Phoenicia; 
to  Accadia,  but  at  the  end  of  the  end,  we  reach  a  legend  full  of  myths  like  those  which 
Bushmen  tell  by  the  camp  fire,  Eskimo  in  their  dark  huts,  and  Australians  in  the  shade 
of  the  "gunweh," — myths  cruel,  puerile,  obscure,  like  the  fancies  of  the  savage 
myth-makers  from  which  they  sprang.  The  book  shows  on  every  page  the  wide 
reading,  the  brilliant  faculty  of  generalization,  and  the  delightful  popularity  and  the 
unfailing  entertainingness  of  this  literary  "Universal  Provider, "  who  modestly  says 
that  these  essays  are  "only  flint-like  flakes  from  a  neolithic  workshop. " 

CYCLE  OF  CATHAY,  A,  by  W.  A.  P.  Martin  (1896).  A  Chinese  cycle,  explains  the 
author  of  this  volume,  is  sixty  years,  the  period  covered  in  the  sketches  of  China 
here  included.  Dr.  Martin,  whom  forty-five  years  of  residence  qualify  to  speak  with 
knowledge  of  that  mysterious  empire,  describes  the  face  of  the  country,  the  villages 
and  cities,  productions,  commerce,  language,  institutions,  beliefs,  but  above  all,  the 
every-day  life  of  the  people,  and  its  significance  in  the  general  progress  of  mankind. 
History  is  made  to  explain  the  present,  and  the  present  to  throw  its  light  on  the  future. 
The  tone  is,  indeed,  that  of  the  foreign  observer,  but  an  observer  who  honestly  trios 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  201 

to  disabuse  his  mind  of  Occidental  prejudice,  and  to  give  an  uncolored  report.  'A 
Cycle  of  Cathay'  ranks  among  the  most  interesting  and  valuable  of  modern  books 
on  China. 

CYMBELINE  was  written  by  Shakespeare  late  in  his  life,  probably  about  1609. 
A  few  facts  about  Cymbeline  and  his  sons  he  took  from  Holinshed;  but  the  story  of 
Imogen  forms  the  ninth  novel  of  the  second  day  of  Boccaccio's  '  Decameron. '  These 
two  stories  Shakespeare  has  interwoven ;  and  the  atmosphere  of  the  two  is  not  dis- 
similar: there  is  a  tonic  moral  quality  in  Imogen's  unassailable  virtue  like  the  bracing 
mountain  air  in  which  the  royal  youths  have  been  brought  up.  The  beautiful  song 
1  Fear  No  More  the  Heat  o'  the  Sun '  was  a  great  favorite  with  Tennyson.  Cymbeline 
wanted  his  daughter  Imogen  to  marry  his  stepson  Cloten,  a  boorish  lout  and  cruel 
villain,  but  she  has  secretly  married  a  brave  and  loyal  private  gentleman,  Posthumus 
Leonatus,  and  he  is  banished  for  it.  In  Italy  one  lachimo  wagers  him  ten  thousand 
ducats  to  his  diamond  ring  that  he  can  seduce  the  honor  of  Imogen.  He  miserably 
fails,  even  by  the  aid  of  lies  as  to  the  disloyalty  of  Posthumus,  and  then  pretends  he 
was  but  testing  her  virtue  for  her  husband's  sake.  She  pardons  him,  and  receives 
into  her  chamber,  for  safe-keeping,  a  trunk,  supposed  to  contain  costly  plate  and 
jewels,  but  which  really  contains  lachimo  himself,  who  emerges  from  it  in  the  dead  of 
night;  slips  the  bracelet  from  her  arm;  observes  the  mole,  cinque-spotted  with  crimson 
on  her  breast;  and  notes  down  in  his  book  the  furniture  and  ornaments  of  the  room. 
He  returns  to  Italy.  Posthumus  despairingly  yields  himself  beaten,  and  writes  to  his 
servant  Pisanio  to  kill  Imogen;  to  facilitate  the  deed,  he  sends  her  word  to  meet  him 
at  Milford  Haven.  Thither  she  flies  with  Pisanio,  who  discloses  all,  gets  her  to  dis- 
guise herself  in  men's  clothes  and  seek  to  enter  the  service  of  Lucius,  the  Roman 
ambassador.  She  loses  her  way,  and  arrives  at  the  mountain  cave  in  Wales  where 
dwell,  unknown  to  her,  her  two  brothers,  Guiderius  and  Arviragus,  stolen  in  infancy. 
Imogen  is  hospitably  received  by  them  under  the  name  of  Fidele.  While  they  are  at 
the  chase  she  partakes  of  a  box  of  drugged  medicine  which  the  wicked  queen  had  pre- 
pared, and  sinks  into  a  trance  resembling  death.  Her  brothers  sing  her  requiem. 
In  the  end  Cloten  is  killed,  the  paternity  of  the  youths  revealed,  lachimo  confesses  his 
crime,  and  Imogen  recovers  both  her  husband  and  her  brothers. 

CYRANO  DE  BERGERAC,  by  Edmond  Rostand  (1897).  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  the 
hero  of  this  popular  romantic  drama,  was  a  poet,  prince  among  wits,  brave  soldier 
and  duellist  of  the  time  of  Louis  XIII.  and  Richelieu.  The  play  opens  in  1640  at  a 
Parisian  playhouse,  where  a  perf  ormarice  is  about  to  be  given  by  a  troupe  of  the  King's 
players.  Cyrano  has  forbidden  one  of  the  actors  to  appear.  He  drives  him  from  the 
stage,  and  entertains  the  audience,  including  his  cousin,  Roxanne,  whom  he  adores, 
by  fighting  a  duel  with  a  titled  young  fop  who  resents  the  interruption  of  the  play  and 
provokes  a  quarrel  by  mocking  Cyrano's  immense  nose,  which  none  may  mention 
with  impunity.  Cyrano  fights  the  duel  with  his  pointed  wit  as  well  as  his  sword, 
improvising  a  brilliant  ballade  on  his  nose  and  marking  each  thrust  at  his  opponent 
with  a  verse.  This  scene  is  quoted  in  the  LIBRARY.  Cyrano  despairs  of  winning 
Roxanne  because  of  his  grotesque  ugliness,  but  hopes  she  may  love  him  for  his  valor 
when  she  seeks  an  interview  with  him  after  the  duel.  In  his  exuberance,  he  single- 
handed  puts  to  flight  a  hundred  men,  who  are  waiting  in  ambush  to  attack  his  friend, 
The  meeting  of  Cyrano  and  Roxanne  is  at  the  shop  of  the  poetical  pastry  cook,  who 
sells  tarts  for  sonnets,  and  is  finally  reduced  to  the  horrid  necessity  of  wrapping  up 
patties  in  a  poem  to  Phyllis. 


202  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Roxanne  confesses  that  she  loves  one  who  loves  her  from  afar,  but  it  turns  out  to  be 
not  Cyrano  but  Christian,  a  stupid  handsome  youth  about  to  become  a  member  of 
Cyrano's  company,  the  Gascon  Cadets.  Cyrano  hides  his  heartbreak,  promises  his 
protection  to  Christian,  and  from  that  moment  sacrifices  himself  to  the  lovers. 

The  ugly  Cyrano  teaches  gallantry  to  the  dull  Christian,  writes  the  impassioned 
poetic  letters  which  win  his  lady-love,  and  even  impersonates  him  in  the  darkness, 
wliile  Roxanne  leans  from  her  balcony. 

The  Gascons  go  to  the  war,  and  Christian  is  killed.  Roxanne  retires  to  a  convent 
where  for  fifteen  years  the  faithful  Cyrano  pays  her  a  weekly  visit.  As  he  is  leaving 
his  house  some  enemy  lets  fall  a  large  piece  of  wood,  which  strikes  his  head  and  wounds 
him  mortally.  He  goes  on  to  the  convent  and  in  this  last  scene  of  his  death,  Roxanne, 
who  had  loved  her  hero  first  for  his  beauty  and  then  for  his  soul,  as  shown  in  his  letters, 
discovers  the  secret  of  the  double  wooing  and  laments,  "  I  loved  but  once,  yet  twice  I 
lose  my  love." 

DAISY  MILLER,  by  Henry  James,  a  novelette  published  in  1878,  is  one  of  his  most 
famous  stories.  Its  heroine  is  a  young  girl  from  Schenectady,  "admirably  pretty," 
who  is  traveling  about  Europe  with  her  placid  mother,  and  her  dreadful  little  brother 
Randolph.  Mrs.  Miller  never  thinks  of  interfering  with  her  children,  and  allows  her 
daughter  to  go  for  moonlight  drives  with  young  men,  and  her  son  of  ten  to  sit  up  eating 
candies  in  hotel  parlors  till  one  o'clock,  —  with  an  occasional  qualm,  indeed,  but  with 
no  consciousness  of  countenancing  a  social  lapse,  her  code  of  etiquette  being  that  of  a 
rural  American  town,  with  no  authoritv  of  long  descent.  From  the  constant  incon- 
gruity between  the  Miller  social  standards  and  the  Draconian  code  of  behavior  of  the 
older  European  communities,  come  both  the  motive  and  the  plot  of  the  story,  which 
is  one  of  the  most  skillful  and  convincing  of  the  very  clever  artist  who  wrote  it.  Upon 
its  publication,  however,  American  societ3r  at  home  and  abroad  was  mightily  indig- 
nant over  what  it  pronounced  Mr.  James's  base  libel  on  the  American  young  girl,  and 
American  social  training.  But  when  it  came  to  be  read  more  soberly,  the  reader 
perceived  that  the  subtle  painter  of  manners  had  really  delineated  a  charming  type 
of  innocence  and  self-respect,  a  type  so  confident  of  its  own  rectitude  as  to  be  careless 
of  external  standards.  It  was  seen  to  be  the  environment  only  that  distorted  and 
misrepresented  this  type,  and  that  in  the  more  primitive  civilization  which  produced 
it,  it  would  have  been  without  flaw.  In  a  word,  the  thoughtful  reader  discovered  that 
Mr.  James's  sketch,  so  far  as  it  had  a  bias  at  all,  was  a  plea  for  justice  to  a  new  mani- 
festation of  character,  the  product  of  new  conditions,  that  can  never  hope  to  be  under- 
stood when  measured  by  standards  wholly  outside  its  experience.  The  book  is  one 
of  the  most  brilliant,  as  it  is  one  of  the  most  subtle  and  artistic,  of  this  author's  pro- 
ductions. 

DAME  CARE  (*Frau  Sorge'),  a  novel  by  Hermann  Sudermann,  was  issued  in  1888. 
The  story  follows  the  life  of  Paul  Meyerhofer,  a  boy  at  whose  cradle  Care  seemed  to 
preside.  He  was  born  on  the  day  his  father's  estate  was  sold  at  auction.  His  child- 
hood was  spent  in  poverty,  his  boyhood  and  youth  in  hard  work.  He  had  always 
before  him  the  spectacle  of  a  cowed,  suffering  mother;  of  an  overbearing,  shiftless 
father,  whose  schemes  for  making  money  only  plunged  his  family  in  deeper  misfor- 
tune. His  younger  sisters,  when  they  grow  up,  bring  disgrace  upon  him.  To  save 
their  honor  he  makes  enormous  sacrifices;  in  short,  his  whole  career  is  one  of  misfor- 
tune. The  one  brightness  of  his  life  is  his  love  for  Elsbeth  Douglas,  the  daughter  of 
his  godmother.  At  the  close  of  the  novel  it  is  intimated  that  he  will  marry  her,  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  203 

that  "  Dame  Care, "  his  foster-mother,  will  not  trouble  him  again.  The  story,  written 
with  much  pathos  and  beauty,  is  a  peculiar  blending  of  realism  and  romanticism. 

DAMNATION  OF  THERON  WARE,  THE,  by  Harold  Frederic,  appeared  in  1896, 
and  is  a  brilliant  realistic  study  of  modern  American  life.  Theron  Ware,  a  handsome 
and  eloquent  young  preacher,  is  placed  in  charge  of  the  Methodist  church  at  Octavius, 
New  York  State.  Needing  money,  thirsting  for  fame,  and  quite  ignorant  of  his  own 
limitations,  he  plans  to  write  an  epoch-making  book  upon  Abraham.  His  damnation 
comes  to  him  in  the  form  of  self-knowledge,  through  his  acquaintance  with  a  beautiful 
woman.  The  book  belongs  in  the  ranks  of  realism,  but  of  the  true  realism  that  is  in- 
terpreted through  the  imagination. 

DANIEL  DERONDA  (1876),  George  Eliot's  last  no\el,  considered  by  some  critics 
her  greatest  work,  has  repelled  others  by  its  careful  analysis  of  Jewish  character.  It 
really  has  two  separate  parts,  and  two  chief  figures,  each  very  unlike  the  other. 
Gwendolen  Harleth,  the  heroine,  and  Daniel  Deronda,  the  hero,  first  see  each  other  at 
Baden,  where  Gwendolen  tries  her  luck  at  the  gaming-table.  When  they  next  meet, 
Gwendolen  is  the  fiancee  of  Henleigh  Grandcourt,  nephew  of  young  Deronda's 
guardian,  Sir  Hugh  Mallinger.  Grandcourt  is  a  finished  type  of  the  selfish  man  of 
the  world.  He  marries  the  beautiful,  penniless  Gwendolen,  less  for  love  than  in  a 
fit  of  obstinacy,  as  his  confidant  Mr.  Lush  puts  it.  -  Gwendolen,  as  selfish  as  he,  con- 
sents to  marry  him  because  only  thus  can  she  save  her  mother,  her  stepsisters,  and 
herself,  from  the  poverty  which  the  sudden  loss  of  their  property  is  likely  to  bring 
them.  The  tragedy  of  her  married  life  is  told  with  dramatic  force  and  profound 
insight.  Deronda  has  been  brought  up  by  Sir  Hugh  in  ignorance  of  his  parentage. 
His  fine  education  and  great  talents  he  is  always  ready  to  place  at  the  service  of 
others.  By  befriending  a  Jewish  girl,  Mirah  Lapidoth,  he  comes  in  close  contact  with 
several  Jewish  families,  grows  deeply  interested  in  Jewish  history  and  religion,  and 
when  the  secret  of  his  birth  is  revealed  to  him  is  glad  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  theirs. 
The  influence  of  Deronda  on  Gwendolen  is  very  marked,  and  the  story  closes  with  the 
prophecy  of  a  lessening  selfishness  and  egotism  on  her  part.  Gwendolen's  mother, 
Mrs.  Davilow;  her  uncle  and  aunt,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gascoigne,  and  their  children;  the 
wealthy  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Arrowsmith,  whose  daughter  has  the  courage  to  marry  the 
man  she  loves,  a  poor  music  teacher,  one  Herr  Klesmer,  —  are  the  chief  minor  char- 
acters. Other  people  appear,  like  Lord  Brackenshaw  and  Mrs.  Gadsby;  but  less  care 
is  given  to  the  portrayal  of  these  than  to  the  noble  Mordecai,  the  garrulous  Cohens, 
and  the  other  Jewish  types,  or  even  to  Deronda's  friend  Mrs.  Merrick,  and  her  artist 
son  Hans, 

In  '  Daniel  Deronda'  George  Eliot  had  three  objects  in  view:  i.  To  show  the  influ- 
ence of  heredity;  2.  To  show  that  ideals  and  sentiments  Heat  the  basis  of  religion; 
3.  To  contrast  a  social  life  founded  on  tradition  (that  of  the  Jews)  with  mere  individ- 
ualism. As  a  plea  for  the  Jews  this  book  not  only  met  the  approval  of  the  thoughtful 
men  of  that  race,  but  also  gave  the  world  in  general  a  just  idea  of  this  complex  people. 

DANIELE  CORTISS,  see  THE  POLITICIAN. 

DANTE,  A  SHADOW  OP:  'Being  an  Essay  towards  Studying  Himself,  his 
World,  and  his  Pilgrimage';  by  Maria  Francesca  Rossetti  (4th  ed.  1884).  A 
volume  of  criticism  and  selections,  designed  to  enable  the  reader  to  comprehend  the 
poet  and  his  great  poem.  The  study  begins  with  Dante's  conception  of  the  universe, 
and  what  autobiography  and  history  show  his  life  experience  to  have  been.  It  then 


204  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

proceeds  to  expound  the  physical  and  moral  theories  on  which  the  poet  constructed 
his  three  worlds,  and  narrates  the  course  of  his  pilgrimage  through  them.  In  this 
narration  the  main  object  is  to  read  Dante's  autobiography  in  the  poem,  to  make  out 
his  character  as  self-revealed,  and  to  enter  into  his  inspiration  or  spiritual  life.  The 
extracts,  of  which  there  are  many,  are  made  with  this  view,  many  of  the  episodes 
being  passed  over. 

DANVERS  JEWELS,  THE,  and  SIR  CHARLES  DANVERS  (1889),  by  Mary  Choi- 
mondeley.  These  stories,  first  published  anonymously,  were  so  cleverly  told  that 
they  excited  much  interest  in  the  unknown  author.  In '  The  Danvers  Jewels '  Colonel 
Middleton  relates  the  adventures  of  a  bag  of  priceless  jewels,  which  he  is  commissioned 
to  carry  from  India  to  England,  to  Sir  John  Danvers's  heir,  Ralph  Danvers.  A 
professional  thief  named  Carr  attempts  to  rob  him,  but  Colonel  Middleton  delivers 
the  jewels  safely  at  Stoke  Moreton,  the  Danvers's  country-seat.  Private  theatricals 
are  in  progress  there,  and  another  actor  being  necessary,  the  Colonel  sends  for  Carr, 
whom  unsuspectingly  he  considers  his  friend.  Shortly  after  Carr's  arrival  the  jewels 
disappear;  suspicion  falls  on  Sir  Charles  Danvers,  Ralph's  charming  but  unpopular 
brother.  Sir  Charles  suspects  Carr  to  be  the  thief;  who,  however,  proves  to  be  the 
beautiful  and  fascinating  girl  to  whom  Ralph  is  engaged.  This  young  woman  is 
really  Carr's  wife.  On  her  way  to  London  to  sell  the  jewels  a  railroad  accident  occurs, 
and  Sir  Charles  and  Ralph  find  her  dead,  with  the  jewels  concealed  about  her.  Ralph 
marries  his  cousin  Evelyn;  and  the  Colonel's  story  comes  to  an  end.  'Sir  Charles 
Danvers'  is  written  in  the  third  person;  Ruth  Deyncourt  is  the  heroine;  a  clever, 
attractive  girl,  who  fancies  that  her  duty  lies  in  helping  Alfred  Dare,  a  poor  foreigner 
to  whom  she  becomes  secretly  engaged.  Sir  Charles  wooes  her,  but  although  she 
loves  him  she  remains  true  to  Dare  until  a  woman  arrives  who  claims  to  be  Dare's 
wife.  Through  Reymond  Deyncourt,  Ruth's  good-for-nothing  brother,  Sir  Charles 
discovers  that  the  woman's  claim  is  false,  and  generously  tells  Dare.  Ruth  realizes 
her  mistaken  self-sacrifice  at  last,  and  ends  by  marrying  Sir  Charles.  Lady  Mary, 
a  worldly  old  woman,  is  a  delightful  character;  while  Molly  Danvers,  a  queer  little 
girl  who  alone  would  make  the  fortune  of  any  story,  is  one  of  the  most  fascinating 
children  in  fiction.  Sir  Charles  Danvers,  with  his  gentleness  and  strength,  his  re- 
served but  sympathetic  nature,  and  his  delightful  sense  of  humor,  is,  however,  rightly 
entitled  to  the  place  of  hero.  In  '  The  Danvers  Jewels '  the  interest  centres  in  a  well- 
told  plot ;  and  in  '  Sir  Charles  Danvers '  the  charm  lies  in  the  character  studies,  and 
in  the  descriptions  of  English  country  life. 

DAPHMS  AND  CHLOE,  by  Longus.  This  charming  pastoral  romance  was  written 
in  Greek  during  the  fourth  century  of  our  era.  It  was  first  translated  into  a  modern 
language  by  Amyot,  who  published  a  French  version  in  1559.  Other  renderings  were 
soon  made,  and  had  great  influence  on  European  literature.  Many  English,  French, 
and  Italian  pastorals  were  suggested  by  this  work;  but  the  one  derived  most  directly 
from  this  source  is  Saint-Pierre's  *  Paul  and  Virginia, '  which  is  almost  a  parallel  story, 
with  Christian  instead  of  pagan  ethics.  On  the  island  of  Lesbos,  a  goatherd  named 
Lamon  finds  one  of  his  goats  suckling  a  fine  baby  boy,  evidently  exposed  by  his  par- 
ents. The  good  man  adopts  him  as  his  own  child,  calling  him  Daphnis,  and  brings 
him  up  to  herd  his  goats.  The  year  after  he  was  found,  a  neighbor,  Dryas,  discovers 
a  baby  girl  nourished  by  a  ewe  in  the  grotto  of  the  nymphs.  She  is  adopted  under  the 
name  of  Chloe,  and  trained  to  tend  the  sheep.  The  two  young  people  pasture  their 
herds  in  common,  and  are  bound  by  an  innocent  and  childlike  affection.  Eventually, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  205 

this  feeling  ripens  on  both  sides  to  something  deeper;  bat  in  their  innocence  they  know 
not  the  meaning  of  love,  even  when  they  learn  that  the  little  god  has  them  in  his 
especial  keeping.  After  a  winter  of  forced  separation,  which  only  inflames  their 
passion,  Daphnis  sues  for  the  hand  of  Chloe.  In  spite  of  his  humble  station,  he  is 
accepted  by  her  foster-parents;  but  the  marriage  is  deferred  till  after  the  vintage,  when 
Lamon's  master  is  coming.  On  his  arrival  the  goatherd  describes  the  finding  of  the 
child,  and  exhibits  the  tokens  found  with  him.  Hereupon  he  is  recognised  as  the  son 
of  the  master  of  the  estate,  and  restored  to  his  real  position.  By  the  aid  of  Daphnis's 
parents,  Chloe  is  soon  identified  as  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy  Lesbian,  who  in  a  time 
of  poverty  had  intrusted  her  to  the  nymphs.  The  young  people  are  married  with 
great  pomp,  but  return  to  their  pastoral  life,  in  which  they  find  idyllic  happiness. 

DARK  FLOWER,  THE,  by  John  Galsworthy  (1913),  is  the  story  of  one  man's  love- 
affairs.  We  first  see  the  hero,  Mark  Lennan,  when  he  is  a  student  at  Oxford.  During 
the  Easter  holidays,  he  goes  to  the  Tyrol  with  his  tutor,  Harold  Stormer.  There  he 
falls  in  love  with  Stormer's  Austrian  wife,  Anna.  When  Mark  is  called  home  sud- 
denly to  attend  the  wedding  of  his  sister  in  Derbyshire,  he  makes  Anna  promise  that 
she  and  her  husband  will  come  to  visit  him  before  the  Oxford  term  begins.  When  he 
goes,  Anna  gives  him  a  clove  pink,  the  " dark  flower"  of  passion  which  gives  the  book 
its  title.  The  Stormers  come  down  to  Derbyshire.  Anna  notices  something  of  which 
Mark  himself  is  as  yet  unaware — that  he  loves  Sylvia,  the  pretty  cousin  who  had  been 
his  sister's  bridesmaid.  Unable  to  remain  and  see  the  romance  blossom,  Anna  hur- 
ries her  husband  back  to  Oxford.  Mark's  guardian  has  guessed  Anna's  secret,  and 
arranges  for  Mark  to  go  to  Italy  instead  of  to  Oxford  to  study.  Thus  Mark's  first 
flame  passes  out  of  his  life.  When  the  reader  meets  him  eight  years  later  Mark  is  in 
Rome.  He  is  already  a  sculptor  to  be  reckoned  with.  He  is  in  love  with  Olive 
Cramier,  a  beautiful  poetic  creature  yoked  to  an  adoring  but  materialistic  husband. 
When  she  returns  to  England,  Mark  follows.  Cramier  feels  that  his  wife  sees  too 
much  of  the  young  sculptor  and  sends  her  to  the  country,  to  a  pretty  cottage  on  the 
river.  There  Olive  struggles  in  vain  against  her  passion.  Finally  she  telegraphs 
Mark  to  come  down,  feigns  a  headache  to  deceive  her  kindly  old  aunt  and  uncle,  meets 
Mark  at  the  bank,  and  goes  away  with  him  in  a  canoe.  When  they  return,  hours 
after,  they  have  formulated  plans  for  an  elopement.  As  they  are  getting  out  of  the 
canoe,  Olive's  husband,  who  had  come  down  from  London  to  watch  his  wife,  comes 
from  behind  a  bush.  He  pushes  the  woman  into  the  deep  water,  and  though  Mark 
struggles  to  save  her,  she  is  drowned.  The  truth  about  Olive's  death  is  never  known; 
there  is  report  of  "an  accident."  When  we  meet  Lennan  again,  he  is  forty-six, 
married  to  the  charming  Sylvia,  childless,  and  embarked  upon  another  passion. 
This  time  he  falls  in  love  with  a  young  girl,  Nell  Dromore,  the  natural  daughter  of  an 
Oxford  classmate.  Unschooled  in  control,  Nell  finds  it  impossible  to  hide  her  passion 
from  Mark.  Unable  to  repulse  a  young  girl  who  is  devoted  to  him,  although  at  first 
he  has  no  more  than  a  fatherly  affection  for  her,  Mark  makes  flimsy  excuses  to  Sylvia, 
and  visits  the  Dromores  frequently.  When  he  once  realizes  the  true  state  of  his  feel- 
ings, Lennan  confesses  to  his  wife,  secures  her  forgiveness,  and  goes  with  her  to  Italy, 
leaving  Nell  behind  with  her  father  and  the  adoring  young  cousin  whom  one  assumes 
she  will  finally  marry. 

DARK  FOREST,  THE,  by  Hugh  Walpole  (1916).  The  story  opens  with  the  depar- 
ture of  a  Red  Cross  unit  from  Petrograd.  All  are  Russians  except  two  Englishmen, 
Durward,  of  analytic  temperament,  who  tells  the  story,  and  Trenchard,  timid,  blunder^ 


206  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ing,  inefficient,  who  is  the  chief  character.  Trenchard  is  seeking  the  sympathy  and 
affection  he  has  not  found  at  home.  Sister  Marie,  a  young  Russian  girl,  eager  for 
life,  becomes  engaged  to  Trenchard  in  the  excitement  and  exaltation  of  the  last  days 
of  preparation.  On  the  journey  Trenchard  is  the  butt  of  the  party  and  especially 
of  the  efficient  dominating  male,  Dr.  Semyonov,  who  finally  wins  Marie  from  him. 
The  narrative  is  the  struggle  of  these  two  men  for  complete  possession  of  Marie,  since 
she  has  given  something  different  of  herself  to  each  lover.  She  is  killed  by  an  Aus- 
trian bullet  in  the  Dark  Forest,  but  the  duel  between  the  two  men  continues,  as  each 
believes  that  the  one  who  meets  death  first  will  find  her.  The  war  is  the  background 
and  atmosphere  for  the  story.  The  Forest  is  present  as  vividly  as  the  War,  perhaps 
typifying  the  War.  It  is  uncanny  with  its  thick  bright  foliage  which  seems  to  give  no 
shade.  The  Dark  Forest  covers  dead  Austrians,  villages  of  starving  old  people, 
cholera  villages,  trenches,  and  Red  Cross  shelters,  where  "the  wounded  were  brought 
in  without  pause."  Again  the  Forest,  always  green  and  glittering,  is  lovely  in  an 
early  summer  morning  with  the  singing  of  birds.  At  night  "the  Forest  was  deep 
black, "  the  soldiers'  hres  gleaming  here  and  there  like  beasts'  eyes, "  The  stress  and 
strain  of  the  Red  Cross  service  is  continuous.  Trenchard  goes  out  with  wagons  to 
the  "screaming  Forest"  and  is  "overwhelmed  by  the  blind  indifference  of  the  place, 
listening  still  to  the  incredible  birds."  He  is  exhausted  with  "endless  bandaging, 
cleaning  of  filthy  wounds,  paring  away  the  ragged  ends  of  flesh,  smelling,  breathing, 
drinking  blood  and  dust  and  dirt."  Death,  which  is  as  close  as  life,  has  a  glamor  and 
fascination.  Trenchard  and  Dr.  Semyonov  covet  death,  because  of  their  obsession  of 
its  reward  of  union  with  Marie.  In  his  last  diary,  death  to  Trenchard  has  ceased  to 
be  the  terror  of  his  childhood;  he  had  laughed  at  death  under  fire;  he  had  cursed  it 
when  Marie  died;  face  to  face  with  it,  he  feels  "one  is  simply  face  to  face  with  one's 
self."  A  shell  breaks  overhead,  and  of  the  four  it  is  Trenchard  who  is  killed  and  the 
stronger  character,  Semyonov  the  realist,  who  is  left. 

DARKEST  ENGLAND,  see  IN  DARKEST  ENGLAND. 

DARLING  AND  OTHER  STORIES,  THE,  by  Anton  Chekhov  (1916).  These  short 
stories  describe  a  variety  of  types  of  women.  The  title  story,  '  The  Darling '  is  a 
study  of  a  woman,  who  lives  only  in  her  affections,  and  takes  her  opinions  from  others. 
Olinka  is  equally  devoted  to  two  husbands  and  a  lover  in  succession.  Losing  her 
lover,  she  adopts  his  son,  a  schoolboy,  whose  world  she  lives  in,  perfectly  satisfied. 
The  transference  of  her  affections  is  as  automatic  as  the  reflection  of  a  chamelion  to  its 
surroundings.  'Ariadne'  is  a  type  of  parasite,  caring  for  nothing  but  attention  and 
luxury.  She  travels  about  Europe  with  one  lover  until  his  money  is  exhausted,  then 
calls  another  to  her,  and  leaves  him  to  marry  a  wealthy  old  prince.  '  The  Helpmate ' 
is  also  an  ironical  study  of  sex.  In  '  The  Two  Volodyas'  the  neurotic  Sofya  thinks 
she  is  in  love  with  her  elderly  husband  one  day,  and  abandons  herself  to  the  other 
'  Volodya,'  his  young  friend,  the  next.  Still  another  type  ie  Polinka,  a  deluded  little 
dressmaker  who  loses  her  head  over  a  student,  and  is  bewitched  away  from  the 
young  salesman  who  loves  her.  'Three  Years'  begins  with  the  passionate  love  of 
Laptev  for  the  indifferent  Yulia.  After  three  years  she  comes  to  love  him,  and  his 
only  feeling  is  that  he  is  hungry  for  his  lunch.  '  The  Princess '  is  another  satire  on  a 
woman  who  believes  herself  an  angel  beloved  by  everyone,  but  is  shown  to  be  a  selfish 
egotist  justly  hated  by  those  for  whom  she  poses  as  benefactress.  An  exquisite  old 
mother  in  'The  Trousseau,'  spends  her  life  making  a  wonderful  trousseau  for  a 
daughter  who  never  marries,  and  dies  when  they  are  two  old  women  together.  Th;s 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  207 

story  is  reprinted  in  the  LIBRARY.  Destiny  plays  with  the  happiness  of  all  these  people 
as  a  cat  with  mice,  and  they  accept  life,  Russian  fashion,  as  a  thing  to  be  patiently 
endured. 

DAUGHTER  OF  HETH,  A,  a  novel,  by  William  Black,  was  published  in  1871.  It 
is  the  story  of  a  child  of  sunny  France,  transplanted  into  the  bleak  uncongenial 
atmosphere  of  Scotland.  Catherine  Cassilis,  familiarly  called  Coquette,  is  the 
daughter  of  a  Scotch  father  and  French  mother.  On  the  death  of  her  parents  she  is 
intrusted  to  her  uncle,  the  minister  of  Airlie.  There  her  unselfishness  and  eagerness 
to  harmonize  herself  with  her  new  surroundings  win  her  universal  love.  Her  story 
has,  however,  a  tragic  ending.  From  beginning  to  end  the  "dour"  atmosphere  of  a 
Scotch  hamlet  is  seen  to  darken  the  sunshine  of  Coquette's  sunny  disposition,  and  to 
prophesy  a  future  of  shadow. 

DAUGHTER  OF  JORIO  ('  La  Figlia  di  lorio'),  by  Gabriele  d'Annunzio  (1904).  The 
scene  of  this  poetic  drama  is  laid  in  the  mountain  land  of  the  Abruzzi,  primitive 
Italian  people.  Mila,  the  daughter  of  Jorio,  a  sorcerer,  pursued  by  the  brutal  reapers 
who  are  crazed  with  heat  and  drunk  with  red  wine,  seeks  sanctuary  at  the  hearth  of 
Aligi,  a  shepherd  about  to  celebrate  his  espousal  feast  with  the  bride  his  mother  has 
chosen  for  him.  His  mother  and  the  women  kindred,  interrupted  in  the  ceremony 
of  the  scattering  the  grain  on  the  heads  of  the  bridal  pair,  urge  him  to  give  up  the 
woman,  who  brings  sorrow  and  dark  omen.  Already  Lazaro,  his  father,  has  fallen 
under  her  spell,  and  has  been  wounded  in  a  fight  for  her.  As  the  reapers  tear  down  the 
iron-barred  door  to  get  their  prey,  Aligi  lays  the  crucifix  across  the  threshold,  knowing 
that  none  dare  pass  the  sacred  emblem. 

In  the  second  act  Aligi  and  Mila  are  living  together  in  innocence  in  his  shepherd's 
cave  in  the  mountains.  See  Scene  quoted  in  the  LIBRARY.  Aligi  hopes  to  join  a 
band  of  pilgrims  to  go  to  Rome  for  permission  to  annul  his  marriage,  never  consum- 
mated, so  that  he  may  take  Mila  to  his  father's  house. 

Ornella,  the  youngest  sister  of  Aligi,  comes  to  the  cave  to  seek  Mila's  promise  to 
give  up  Aligi  and  restore  him  to  his  home.  She  has  hardly  left  when  Lazaro,  the 
father,  comes  in  search  of  Mila.  He  has  a  rope  on  his  arm  like  an  ox  driver  to  tie  up 
his  beast.  The  terrified  girl  calls  for  help  and  Aligi  comes  to  her.  He  appeals  in  vain 
to  the  bestial  Lazaro  and  finally  in  a  terrible  scene  strikes  his  father  dead. 

The  third  act  is  the  funeral  rites,  half  Pagan,  half  Catholic.  Aligi  has  been  given 
to  the  crude  social  justice  of  his  tribe,  and  is  to  be  barbarously  killed,  when  Mila 
appears  inspired  with  the  noble  lie  with  which  her  great  love  is  to  save  him.  Aligi, 
she  asserts,  is  innocent;  she  Mila,  killed  Lazaro  and  blinded  Aligi  to  her  guilt  with  the 
secret  herbs  that  her  father,  the  sorcerer,  taught  her. 

The  crowd  turn  on  her  and  take  her  away  in  triumph  of  blood  lust  to  be  burned 
alive.  Ev  en  Aligi,  delirious  with  the ' '  cup  of  forgetfulness ' '  his  mother  has  given  him, 
calls  down  curses  upon  her.  As  she  is  carried  to  the  flames  only  Ornella  the  youngest 
sister  recognizes  the  sacrifice. 

DAVID  BALFOUR;  'Being  Memoirs  of  His  Adventures  at  Home  and  Abroad/ 
by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  (1893)*  A  sequel  to  'Kidnapped,'  this  novel  follows 
the  further  fortunes  of  David  Balfour.  When  the  story  opens  Da\id  is  about 
to  attempt  the  escape  of  his  friend,  Alan  Breck  Stewart,  from  Scotland;  and  to  aid 
Stewart's  brother,  unjustly  imprisoned  on  a  charge  of  murder.  At  this  critical 
juncture  he  falls  in  love  with  Catriona  Drummond,  whose  father,  James  More  Drum- 
mond,  is  a  plausible  scoundrel.  David's  efforts  to  help  Alan  and  his  brother  bring 


208  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

about  his  own  imprisonment,  but  not  until  he  has  seen  Alan  safely  into  France, 
After  his  release  he  goes  to  Holland,  where  he  lives  with  Catriona  without  marriage. 
Her  father  interfering,  the  two  are  separated;  but  by  the  intervention  of  Alan  Stewart 
they  meet  again  in  Paris,  where  they  are  married. 

The  novel  throughout  is  in  Stevenson's  romantic  vein,  but  written  with  simplicity 
and  clearness,  and  artistic  in  construction. 

DAVID  BLAIZE,  a  story  of  school-life,  by  E.  F.  Benson  (1916).  David  Blaize,  a 
pupil  at  Holmsworth  Preparatory  School,  is  with  the  other  boys  writing  letters  home 
on  a  Sunday  afternoon.  Mr.  Button  is  the  master  in  charge  of  this  arduous  task, 
to  which  twenty  minutes  is  the  time  allotted.  The  Head  of  the  School,  Mr.  Anscam, 
a  man  of  rare  qualities,  who  inspires  his  pupils  with  both  terror  and  admiration, 
suddenly  appears  and  detects  Dutton  reading  under  cover  of  his  Bible  and  Prayer- 
book  a  yellow-covered  volume  of  stories  by  de  Maupassant.  The  Head  tears  the 
book  apart,  and  excuses  his  assistant  from  the  lessons  to  follow,  taking  charge  himself, 
and  finding  a  sad  lack  of  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  pupils.  David  is  a  genuine 
boy,  full  of  spirit,  love  of  mischief  and  of  sport,  with  a  lovable  disposition  which 
makes  him  a  favorite  with  the  best  of  his  schoolmates.  Everything  that  is  beautiful, 
especially  in  poetry,  attracts  him,  and  he  is  so  impressed  by  the  Headmaster's 
reading  of  Keats  that  he  longs  to  possess  a  volume  of  his  poems.  The  great  event 
of  the  year  is  the  cricket-match  with  Eagles  school.  Although  David  belongs  to  the 
eleven  he  feels  "beastly f>  on  the  day  of  the  match  because  his  father,  an  archdeacon, 
comes  to  see  the  game.  The  boys  make  fun  of  the  archdeacon's  peculiarities  in 
dress  and  manner,  and  this  causes  the  son  to  feel  so  uncomfortable  that  he  fails  to  do 
himself  justice  and  loses  the  match,  although  he  does  some  fine  playing  later  in  the 
day,  after  his  staunch  friend  Bags  has  lured  his  father  out  of  the  way.  The  following 
week  David  goes  to  Marchester  to  take  his  examinations  for  a  scholarship,  and  there 
he  meets  Frank  Maddox,  a  fellow  three  years  his  senior,  who  becomes  a  great  hero 
in  his  eyes.  David's  last  days  at  Holmsworth  pass  in  triumph,  for  although  he  loses 
the  scholarship  he  wins  the  final  cricket-match  for  the  school.  During  the  vacation 
at  Baxminster,  where  his  father  and  sister  live,  he  meets  Frank  Maddox  again  and  his 
admiration  for  him  increases.  When  he  goes  to  Marchester  in  the  autumn  he  be- 
comes Maddox's  fag  and  devoted  slave.  David  still  keeps  up  his  interest  in  cricket 
and  distinguishes  himself  in  many  matches  which  are  described  with  great  detail. 
When  David  has  reached  the  sixth  form,  Maddox  is  at  Cambridge.  Just  before  the 
end  of  the  summer  term  David  is  seriously  injured  in  trying  to  stop  a  runaway  horse. 
His  life  is  despaired  of.  Maddox,  who  happens  to  have  come  at  this  juncture,  suc- 
ceeds in  soothing  his  restlessness,  so  that  he  falls  into  a  long  sleep  at  the  critical 
moment  and  his  life  is  saved. 

DAVID  COPPERFIELD.  "Of  all  my  books,"  says  Charles  Dickens  in  his  preface 
to  this  immortal  novel,  "I  like  this  the  best.  .  .  .  Like  many  fond  parents,  I  have 
in  my  heart  of  hearts  a  favorite  child.  And  his  name  is  David  Copperfield."  When 
'David  Copperfield1  appeared  in  1850,  after  'Dombey  and  Son'  and  before 
'Bleak  House/  it  became  so  popular  that  its  only  rival  was  'Pickwick.'  Beneath 
the  fiction  lies  much  of  the  author's  personal  life,  yet  it  is  not  an  autobiography. 
The  story  treats  of  David's  sad  experiences  as  a  child,  his  youth  at  school, 
and  his  struggles  for  a  livelihood,  and  leaves  him  in  early  manhood,  prosperous  and 
happily  married.  Pathos,  humor,  and  skill  in  delineation  give  vitality  to  this 
work;  and  nowhere  has  Dickens  filled  his  canvas  with  more  vivid  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  209 

diversified  characters.  Forster  says  that  the  author's  favorites  were  the  Peggotty 
family,  composed  of  David's  nurse  Peggotty,  who  was  married  to  Barkis,  the  carrier; 
Dan'el  Peggotty,  her  brother,  a  Yarmouth  fisherman;  Ham  Peggotty,  his  nephew; 
the  doleful  Mrs.  Gummidge;  and  Little  Em'ly,  ruined  by  David's  schoolmate, 
Steerforth.  "  It  has  been  their  fate, "  says  Forster,  "  as  with  all  the  leading  figures  of 
his  invention,  to  pass  their  names  into  the  language  and  become  types;  and  he  has 
nowhere  given  happier  embodiment  to  that  purity  of  homely  goodness,  which,  by  the 
kindly  and  all-reconciling  influences  of  humor,  may  exalt  into  comeliness  and  even 
grandeur  the  clumsiest  forms  of  humanity." 

Miss  Betsy  Trotwood,  David's  aunt;  the  half-mad  but  mild  Mr.  Dick;  Mrs. 
Copper-field,  David's  mother;  Murdstone,  his  brutal  stepfather;  Miss  Murdstone, 
that  stepfather's  sister;  Mr.  Spenlow  and  his  daughter  Dora, — David's  "child- 
wife"; —  Steerforth,  Rosa  Dartle,  Mrs.  Steerforth,  Mr.  Wickfield,  his  daughter 
Agnes  (David's  second  wife),  and  the  Micawber  family,  are  the  persons  around  whom 
the  interest  revolves.  A  host  of  minor  characters,  such  as  the  comical  little  dwarf 
hair-dresser,  Miss  Mowcher,  Mr.  Mell,  Mr.  Creakle,  Tommy  Traddles,  Uriah  Heep, 
Dr.  Strong,  Mrs.  Marldeham,  and  others,  are  portrayed  with  the  same  vivid  strokes. 

DAVID  GRIEVE,  THE  HISTORY  OF,  a  novel  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  (1892). 
Like  'Robert  Elsmere/  it  takes  greatly  into  account  social  and  educational  forces 
of  contemporary  life.  It  was  written  apparently  under  the  influence  of  'Amid's 
Journal/  as  it  embodies  the  same  cheerless  and  somewhat  negative  philosophy. 

The  hero,  David  Grieve,  and  his  sister  Louie,  are  the  children  of  Sandy  Grieve, 
a  Scotch  workingman,  and  of  a  Frenchwoman,  a  grisette,  of  depraved  tendencies. 
The  girl  inherits  the  mother's  nature,  the  boy  the  father's.  David  begins  life  as  a 
country  boy  in  Derbyshire,  tending  his  uncle's  sheep.  His  leisure  moments  are  de- 
voted to  reading  and  study.  As  a  boy  of  sixteen  he  leaves  the  home  that  had  become 
intolerable,  and  goes  to  Manchester,  where  he  learns  the  bookseller's  trade  and 
educates  himself  further,  becoming  finally  the  head  of  a  publishing-house  well  known 
for  its  publications  of  economic  and  political  works.  His  life,  however,  is  far  from 
happy.  His  sister  goes  to  the  bad  in  Paris.  He  marries  a  woman  unworthy  of  him. 
Throughout,  he  clings  to  a  high  ethical  ideal  as  the  only  hope,  the  only  faith  open  to  a 
nineteenth  century  man.  Conduct  is  for  him  the  whole  of  life.  On  right-doing  his 
soul  rests  and  depends,  in  the  stress  of  the  tempest  of  passion  and  sin  about  him. 

The  novel  is  well  written,  abounding  in  striking  and  dramatic  scenes,  and  rich  in 
delineation  of  character. 

DAVID  HARTJM,  by  Edward  N.  Westcott,  was  published  in  1899  and  met  with  a 
great  success,  which,  however,  its  author  did  not  live  to  see,  as  he  died  before  *ts 
publication.  The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid  in  central  New  York,  where  in  a  town 
called  Homeville,  lives  David  Harum,  a  country  banker,  dry,  quaint,  and  somewhat 
illiterate,  but  possessing  an  amazing  amount  of  knowledge  not  to  be  found  in  books. 
His  quaint  and  original  sayings  ha\  e  become  household  words  and  his  cheerful  belief 
that  there  is  nothing  wholly  bad  or  useless  in  the  world  carries  with  it  a  strong  lesson. 
The  love  story  which  is  told  in  the  book  concerns  John  Lenox,  a  young  man  of 
education  and  refinement,  brought  up  among  conditions  of  wealth  and  luxury,  who 
suddenly  finds  himself  thrown  upon  his  own  resources  and  decides  to  accept  a  position 
under  David  Harum  in  his  country  bank.  At  first  he  is  somewhat  puzzled  by  the 
latter's  bluff  ways  and  the  apparent  hardness  which  he  affects  in  order  to  try  his  new 
clerk,  but  he  soon  discovers  that  underneath  the  rough,  exterior  are  sterling  qualities 
14 


210  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  a  warm  heart.  Before  going  to  Homeville,  Lenox  has  had  a  delightful  acquaint- 
ance with  Mary  Blake  a  charming  New  York  girl,  and  has  been  on  the  point  of 
declaring  himself  when  a  missent  letter  causes  a  misunderstanding  which  is  not 
cleared  away  until  the  closing  chapters  of  the  story,  when  they  meet  in  Europe  five 
years  later.  Here  Lenox  at  first  labors  under  the  delusion  that  she  is  married  but 
when  hs  discovers  his  mistake  he  loses  no  time  in  winning  her  for  his  wife.  David 
Harum  who  has  become  much  attached  to  Lenox  takes  him  into  partnership  and 
when  he  dies  makes  him  his  heir.  The  many  amusing  anecdotes  related  in  David's 
quaint  and  original  vernacular  afford  most  entertaining  reading  and  his  horse  trading, 
which  is  his  favorite  pastime  is  described  in  an  inimitable  manner. 

DAVID  PENSTEPHEN,  a  novel  by  Richard  Pryce  (1915),  begins  when  the  boy  is 
seven  years  old  and  covers  a  little  more  than  ten  years  of  his  life;  it  deals  with  the 
affairs  of  grown-people  from  the  angle  of  a  boy's  vision.  David's  father  is  a  brilliant 
young  writer  of  unorthodox  convictions,  and  he  and  David's  mother  have  never  been 
married.  The  family  live  a  wandering  life  on  the  Continent.  Penstephen  is  a  well- 
known  name  among  the  English  aristocracy  and  unpleasant  situations  continually 
arise,  which  prey  upon  the  mind  of  David's  mother  and  eventually  make  her  very  ill. 
Finally,  Betsy,  the  nurse,  takes  it  upon  herself  to  inform  her  master  of  her  mistresses 's 
feelings  which  he  has  failed  to  realize;  he  hastens  to  atone  for  the  wrong  he  has  done, 
and  the  marriage  takes  place.  Almost  immediately  a  message  comes  from  England 
telling  of  the  drowning  of  two  relatives  who  have  stood  between  John  Penstephen 
and  a  baronetcy.  The  family 'return  to  England,  but  Mary's  happiness  is  clouded 
by  the  knowledge  that  her  two  children  have  no  legal  status.  The  birth  of  a  son,  a 
year  later,  who  is  made  much  of  by  the  relatives  who  ignore  the  other  children,  does 
not  lessen  the  mother's  anxiety  concerning  her  two  eldest,  though  they  grow  up  in 
blissful  ignorance  of  the  situation,  David  frequently  wondering  at  things  he  cannot 
understand.  During  his  school-days  David's  liking  for  the  theatre  crystallizes  into 
the  determination  to  become  an  actor.  When  an  opportunity  comes  for  him  to  take 
an  important  part  in  a  play,  he  invites  his  mother  to  witness  the  performance;  she  is 
prepared  to  do  so  when  she  learns  that  Lady  Harbington,  who  has  already  caused  her 
much  humiliation,  is  now  in  the  neighborhood  where  David  is  visiting  and  she  regrets 
not  having  enlightened  David  regarding  his  legal  status.  The  disclosure,  which  is  the 
climax  of  the  story,  comes  in  a  highly  dramatic  fashion  before  the  entire  cast  assembled 
for  rehearsal.  The  result  of  this  denouement  is  but  to  increase  David's  popularity, 
while  his  knowledge  of  his  own  position  gives  him  an  added  impetus  in  seeking  the 
stage  as  a  permanent  field,  where  he  now  resolves  to  "make  a  name  for  himself/' 

DAWN  OF  ASTRONOMY,  THE,  by  Sir  J.  Norman  Lockyer  (1897).  A  popular 
study  of  the  temple  worship  and  mythology  of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  designed  to 
show  that  in  the  construction  of  their  magnificent  temples  the  Egyptians  had  an  eye 
to  astronomical  facts,  such  as  the  rising  or  setting  of  the  sun  at  a  particular  time  in 
the  year,  or  to  the  rising  of  certain  stars;  and  so  planned  the  long  axis  of  a  great 
temple  as  to  permit  a  beam  of  light  to  pass  at  a  particular  moment  the  whole  length 
of  the  central  aisle  into  the  Holy  Place,  and  there  illuminate  the  image  of  the  deity,  — 
giving  at  once  an  exact  note  of  time,  and  a  manifestation  of  the  god  by  the  illumina- 
tion, which  the  people  supposed  to  be  miraculous.  Mr.  Lockyer 's  clear  discovery  of 
these  astronomical  facts  explains  very  interestingly  the  nature  of  the  gods  and 
goddesses,  many  of  whom  are  found  to  be  different  aspects  of  the  same  object  in 
nature.  For  both  the  science  and  the  religion  of  Egypt  the  work  is  of  great  value. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  211 

DAWN  OF  CIVILIZATION,  THE;  EGYPT  AND  CHALD-EA,  by  G.  Maspero. 
Revised  edition  (1897).  Translated  by  M.  L.  McClure.  Introduction  by  A.  H. 
Sayce.  With  map  and  over  470  illustrations.  A  work  devoted  to  the  earlier  history 
of  Egypt  and  Babylonia;  especially  full  and  valuable  for  the  early  history  of  Egypt, 
which  Maspero  puts  before  that  of  Babylonia.  "Chaldsea"  is  a  comparatively  late 
name  for  Babylonia;  and  since  Maspero  wrote,  new  discoveries  have  carried  the 
"dawn  "  very  far  back  in  Babylonia,  to  a  date  much  earlier  than  that  of  the  earliest 
known  records  of  origins  in  Egypt. 

In  a  later  volume,  ' Egypt,  Syria,  and  Assyria:  The  Struggle  of  the  Nations,' 
M.  Maspero  has  carried  on  the  story  of  the  early  Oriental  world,  its  remarkable 
civilization,  its  religious  developments,  and  its  wars  of  conquest  and  empire,  down  to 
a  time  in  the  last  half  of  the  ninth  century  B.C.,  when  xAJhab  was  the  King  of  Israel  in 
northern  Palestine.  Babylon  had  risen  and  extended  her  influence  westward  as  early 
as  2250  B.C.;  and  even  this  was  1500  years  later  than  Sargon  I.,  who  had  carried  his 
arms  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  peninsula  of  Sinai  on  the  confines  of  Egypt.  As  early 
at  least  as  this,  Asiatic  conquerors  had  founded  a  "Hyksos"  dominion  in  Egypt, 
which  lasted  more  than  six  and  a  half  centuries  (66 1  years,  to  about  1600  B.  C.). 
At  this  last  date  a  remarkable  civilization  filled  the  region  between  the  Euphrates 
and  the  Mediterranean;  and  to  this,  M.  Maspero  devotes  an  elaborate  chapter, 
including  a  most  interesting  account  of  the  Canaanites  and  their  kindred  the  Phoeni- 
cians, whose  commerce  westward  to  Cyprus  and  North  Africa  and  Greece  was  a  not- 
able fact  of  the  time.  The  conquest  of  the  region  by  Egypt  from  the  southwest, 
and  again  by  the  Hittites  from  the  north,  prepared  the  way  for  Israelite  invasion  and 
settlement;  upon  which  followed  the  rise  and  domination  of  Assyria,  under  which 
Israel  was  destined  to  be  blotted  out.  The  story  of  all  this,  including  the  earliest  rise, 
and  the  development  for  many  centuries,  of  Hebrew  power  and  culture,  gives  M. 
Maspero 's  pages  very  great  interest.  The  wealth  of  illustration,  all  of  it  strictly 
instructive,  showing  scenes  in  nature  and  ancient  objects  from  photographs,  adds 
very  much  to  the  reader's  interest  and  to  the  value  of  the  work.  The  twb  superb 
volumes  are  virtually  the  story  of  the  ancient  Eastern  world  for  3000  years,  or  from 
3850  B.  C.  to  850  B.  C.  And  the  latest  discoveries  indicate  that  a  record  may  be 
made  out  going  back  through  an  earlier  3000  years  to  about  7000  B.  C. 

DAWN  OF  THE  XIXTH  CENTURY  IN  ENGLAND,  THE:  'A  Social  Sketch  of 
the  Times,'  by  John  Ashton  (1890.  5th  ed.  1906).  With  116  illustrations,  drawn 
by  the  author  from  contemporary  engravings.  Never  in  the  history  of  the  world  has 
there  been  such  a  change  in  things  social  as  since  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century;  and  to  those  who  are  watching  its  close,  already  at  the  dawn  of  the  twen- 
tieth, this  work  is  one  of  invaluable  reference  and  comparison.  The  arts,  sciences, 
manufactures,  customs,  and  manners,  were  then  so  widely  divergent  from  those  of 
to-day,  that  it  seems  hardly  possible  that  they  belong  to  the  same  era,  or  could  have 
existed  less  than  one  hundred  years  ago.  Steam  was  then  in  its  infancy;  locomotives 
and  steamships  just  beginning  to  be  heard  of;  gas  a  novel  experiment;  electricity  a 
scientific  plaything.  Beginning  with  a  slight  retrospect  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  author  briefly  outlines  the  influence  of  Bonaparte  in  matters  political;  follows 
with  a  description  of  the  food  riots  in  London;  the  union  with  Ireland;  death  of  Lord 
Nelson;  abolition  of  the  slave  trade;  amusing  photographs  of  the  streets  with  their 
beggars,  chimney-sweeps,  dealers  of  small  wares  and  great  cries;  then  the  postal 
drawbacks  and  stage-coach  infelicities;  the  famous  prisons,  notably  the  Fleet; 
museums  and  museum  gardens,  theatres  and  operas;  Tattersall's  and  Gretna  Green 


212  THIS  READER'S  DIGP;ST  OF  BOOKS 

marriages;  with  innumerable  extracts  relating  to  people  and  places  of  note;  —  all 
taken  from  original  and  authentic  sources,  newspapers  being  an  authority  of  constant 
reference.  The  quaint  illustrations  add  much  to  the  interest  of  the  work  which 
extends  a  Htt!e  over  a  decade. 

DAY  OF  DOOM,  THE,  by  Michael  WiggJesworlh.  When  this  poem  was  published 
in  1662,  Michael  Wigglesworth  was  only  thirty-one,  —  young  enough  to  have  had 
greater  compassion  on  the  unbaptizecl  infants  and  others  whom  he  condemned  to 
eternal  punishment.  'The  Day  of  Doom:  or,  A  Poetical  Description  of  the  Great 
and  Last  Judgment,  with  a  short  Discourse  about  Eternity/  was  the  full  title  of  this 
grim  poem.  The  taste  of  our  ancestors  was  strangely  shown  by  their  quickly  buying 
up  nine  editions  of  this  work  in  America,  and  two  in  England.  Its  narrow  theology 
and  severity  of  style  gave  it  a  charm  for  those  inflexible  Puritans,  to  find  which,  we  of 
to-day  look  in  vain.  It  is  said  to  have  been  the  most  widely  read  book  in  America 
before  the  Revolution.  The  modern  reader  finds  the  verse  mere  sing-song,  the 
metaphors  forced,  and  the  general  tone  decidedly  unpleasant.  Some  of  the  passages 
meant  to  be  most  impressive  have  become  merely  ludicrous,  and  it  seems  incredible 
that  it  could  ever  have  been  taken  seriously.  It  is  merely  a  rhymed  catalogue  of  the 
punishments  to  be  visited  on  those  whose  ways  of  life,  or  whose  theology,  differed 
from  the  theology  or  ways  of  life  of  the  bard. 

DAYS  NEAR  ROME,  by  Augustus  J.  C.  Hare  (1875).  A  very  pleasant  and  instruc- 
tive record  of  excursions  into  the  country  around  Rome.  The  book  is  supplementary 
to  the  author's  'Walks  in  Rome,'  which  supplies  an  excellent  handbook  of  the  city 
and  environs  of  Rome.  As  that  work  treated,  more  fully  and  carefully  than  the 
usual  guide-book,  the  most  interesting  aspects  of  the  ancient  city,  and  especially  the 
latest  discoveries  of  the  recent  explorers,  so  the  'Days'  gives  an  interesting  story  of 
what  can  be  seen  in  a  variety  of  journeys  away  from  the  city.  It  is  to  a  large  extent 
a  story  of  regions  unknown  to  travel,  and  not  reported  upon  in  any  of  the  guide- 
books. It  is  so  written,  moreover,  as  to  serve  the  purpose  of  those  who  must  travel 
only  as  readers.  The  author  added  to  his  '  Days '  a  third  work  of  like  character  and 
interest,  on  * Cities  of  Northern  and  Central  Italy,'  designed  to  be  a  companion  to  all 
those  parts  of  Italy  which  lie  between  the  Alps  and  the  districts,  described  in  the 
'  Days.'  The  three  works  tell  the  present  story  of  the  city  and  of  Italy,  whether  for 
the  traveler  or  for  the  reader. 

DE  JURE  BELLI  AC  PACIS,  see  RIGHTS  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE* 

DEAD  SOULS,  by  N.  V.  Gogol  (1846).  This  panorama  of  Russian  national  life  is 
the  greatest  humorous  novel  in  the  Russian  language.  In  the  days  of  serfdom,  "  serfs  " 
were  referred  to  as  "souls,"  and  the  value  of  a  man's  estate  was  reckoned  by  the 
number  of  "souls"  he  owned.  The  government,  to  induce  colonization  in  southern 
Russia,  offered  tracts  of  land  to  anyone  who  would  go  there  with  enough  serfs  to  till 
the  soil.  The  hero,  Chichikov,  conceives  the  plan  of  buying  up  on  paper  serfs  who 
have  died  since  the  last  decennial  census  and  are  therefore  officially  alive  in  the 
records.  With  his  hundreds  of  "dead  souls"  he  will  obtain  the  land,  and  then  raise 
money  by  mortgaging  serfs  and  land.  While  engaged  in  the  acquisition  of  this 
strange  property,  he  travels  through  Russia,  and  has  many  ludicrous  adventures. 
In  one  community  it  is  rumored  that  he  is  Napoleon,  escaped  from  St.  Helena* 
traveling  in  disguise.  The  reader  is  introduced  to  every  kind  of '  Russian  of  every 
grade  of  society,  officials,  landed  proprietors,  Russians  drunk  and  sober.  The  general 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  213 

Ignorance,  dullness,  and  stupidity  of  the  small  town  society  is  reflected  in  a  comic 
mirror.  At  last  he  comes  to  grief  through  a  scheme  to  forge  a  will.  His  former 
history  of  smuggling  goods  through  the  custom  house,  and  his  present  transactions 
in  dead  souls  are  brought  to  light  in  the  examination  before  the  judge,  and  he  is 
thrown  into  prison,  just  as  he  had  acquired  an  estate,  and  repenting  his  crooked  ways 
is  about  to  turn  his  energies  to  living  a  respectable  life.  He  escapes  by  spiriting  away 
the  witnesses,  bribing  the  officials  and  involving  prominent  people  in  his  scandalous 
affairs.  He  starts  on  his  travels  again,  this  time  to  find  a  wife  and  settle  down,  and 
after  some  misadventures  he  succeeds  in  his  quest.  After  ten  years  of  the  life  of  a 
model  country  gentleman  he  is  elected  marshall  for  his  district,  in  spite  of  rumors 
that  he  had  once  speculated  in  corpses  to  utilize  their  bones  for  commerce.  He  lives 
to  a  green  old  age  with  his  wife  and  nine  children,  generally  esteemed  and  respected. 
Gogol  wrote  a  second  part,  but  destroyed  the  manuscript.  See  the  LIBRARY, 

DEATH  AND  THE  FOOL  ('  Der  Tor  und  der  Tod),'  by  Hugo  von  Hofmannsthal 
(1893).  In  this  type  of  symbolic  drama,  mood  and  sensation  are  represented  rather 
than  character  or  event.  Claudio,  alone  at  the  window  of  his  luxurious  study, 
watching  the  sunset,  broods  over  the  melancholy  thought  that  he  has  never  been 
more  than  a  spectator  of  life,  that  though  he  has  had  everything,  nothing  has  brought 
him  happiness  or  sorrow.  The  music  of  a  violin  enchants  him  and  seems  to  stir  his 
sluggish  soul.  He  looks  for  the  musician  and  sees  it  is  Death  come  to  claim  his  life. 
Claudio  in  terror  makes  the  plea  that  he  is  not  ready  to  die,  because  he  has  not  yet 
really  lived.  Death  summons  his  lost  opportunities  to  teach  him  the  lesson  he  has 
not  learned  in  mortal  life.  First  his  mother  appears  to  tell  of  the  love  he  had  not 
appreciated;  then  the  woman  he  threw  aside  "unthinking,  cruel,  as  a  child,  of  playing 
wearied,  drops  his  flowers";  last  the  man  whose  friendship  he  betrayed.  Claudio 
sinks  at  Death's  feet,  asking  death  as  a  boon,  since  Death  has  given  him  in  one  little 
hour  more  of  life  than  he  has  ever  known.  He  reflects  that  at  last  he  has  lived  — 
"passed  out  of  life's  dreaming  into  death's  awakening." 

DEATH  OF  IVAN  ILYITCH,  THE,  AND  OTHER  STORIES,  by  Count  Lyof  N. 
Tolstoy  (1886),  contains  a  series  of  short  stories  which  represent  the  latest  phase  in 
the  evolution  of  the  author's  peculiar  views.  With  the  exception  of  'The  Death  of 
Ivan  Ilyitch,'  a  sombre  and  powerful  study  of  the  insidious  progress  of  fatal  disease, 
and  a  vehicle  of  religious  philosophy,  these  tales  were  written  as  tracts  for  the  people, 
illustrated  in  many  cases  with  quaint  wood-cuts;  aiming  to  bring  a  word  of  cheer  and 
comfort  to  the  poorer  classes  oppressed  by  Russian  despotism.  The  second  story, 
'If  You  Neglect  the  Fire,  You  Don't  Put  It  Out/  describes  a  trivial  neighborhood 
quarrel  resulting  in  ruin.  'Where  Love  Is,  there  God  Is  Also'  is  the  study  of  a 
humble  shoemaker  who  blames  God  for  the  death  of  his  child,  but  reaches  peace 
through  the  New  Testament.  'A  Candle'  and  'Two  Old  Men,'  told  in  a  few  pages, 
point  a  wide  moral.  'Six  Texts  for  Wood-Cuts,'  the  titles  of  which  suggest  the  sub- 
ject of  each  cut,  follow.  Under  the  heading  of  'Popular  Legends7  are  the  subjects 
'How  the  Little  Devil  Earned  a  Crust  of  Bread';  'The  Repentant  Sinner';  'A  Seed 
£s  Big  as  a  Hen's  Egg ' ;  and  '  Does  a  Man  Need  Much  Land? ' 

DEBACLE,  LA,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

DEBIT  AND  CREDIT  ('Soil  und  Haben'),  by  Gustav  Freytag  (1855)*  In  this  story 
are  portrayed  with  rare  keenness  and  fidelity  the  characteristics  of  German  nation- 
<ility  in  its  various  classes.  The  honorable  independence,  patriotism,  commercial 


214  THK  READKR'S  ninivsr  OF  BOOKS 

sagacity,  and  cultured  commonsense  of  the  middle  industrial  class,  which  forms  the 
solid  substratum  of  society,  are  well  contrasted  with  the  impassible  exclusiveness  and 
pecuniary  irresponsibility  of  the  nobility  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  stolid  ignorance 
of  the  peasant ry  and  the  scheming  of  the  Jews  on  the  other.  Written  in  the  troublous 
times  after  '48,  its  avowed  purpose  was  to  arouse  the  German  youth  to  a  sense  of  their 
opportunities  and  responsibilities,  —  a  purpose  in  which  it  succeeded.  Its  truthful- 
ness to  life,  its  delightful  diction  and  variety  of  incident,  assured  its  immediate 
popularity;  and  to-day  it  is  regarded  as  the  best  German  novel  of  the  age.  Most  of 
the  action  is  influenced  by  counting-house  ethics;  and  it  is  emphatically  the  story  of 
the  old  commercial  house  of  Schroter.  Yet  with  what  an  inferior  artist  would  have 
found  prosaic  material,  Freytag  produces  an  intensely  dramatic  tale,  its  realism 
transfused  and  illuminated  by  a  glowing  imagination.  The  plot  is  intricate  and 
exciting,  but  the  value  of  the  story  lies  in  its  strong  studies  of  character,  and  the  sense 
it  conveys  of  inevitability,  in  its  logical  deduction  of  event  from  cause.  An  excellent 
English  translation  was  published  in  1874. 

DECAMERON,  THE,  written  by  Giovanni  Boccaccio  about  1349,  is  a  collection  of 
one  hundred  prose  tales,  enclosed  in  a  clever  and  attractive  framework.  During  the 
pestilence  of  1348  seven  ladies  and  three  gentlemen  of  Florence  take  refuge  in  the 
country,  traveling  from  one  country-house  to  another  and  passing  the  time  in  games, 
reading,  conversation,  love-making,  and  the  telling  of  stories.  One  of  the  number  is 
appointed  king  or  queen  for  each  day,  and  under  his  or  her  direction  each  member  of 
the  company  contributes  one  narrative  each  day,  for  ten  days;  after  which  they 
return  to  their  homes.  The  various  stories  are  adapted  to  their  narrators,  and  are 
told  in  a  natural  sequence,  one  suggesting  another;  moreover  the  descriptions  of  the 
surroundings  and  occupations  of  the  company  and  of  the  by-play  between  them  make 
an  effective  and  dramatic  background.  The  stories  taken  as  a  whole  cover  almost 
every  phase  of  human  life,  the  pathetic,  the  humorous,  the  base,  and  the  noble. 
Many  are  satirical  tales  of  clerical  misconduct  or  of  feminine  guile;  others  are  humor- 
ous but  indecent  anecdotes  of  the  French  fabliau  type.  These  classes  spring  from 
the  revolt  against  asceticism.  Other  groups  are  elaborated  from  popular  tales  or 
romances  like  the  story  of  Gilletta  of  Narbonne,  the  source  of  Shakespeare's  'All's 
Well  that  Ends  Well.'  Among  the  tragic  love  stories  are  those  of  Tancred  and 
Ghismonda  and  Isabella  and  the  Pot  of  Basil.  Famous  tales  of  an 'idealistic  and 
moral  character  are  the  Jew's  story  of  the  three  rings,  used  by  Lessing  in  '  Nathan 
der  Weise';  the  story  of  the  Knight  and  the  Falcon,  retold  by  Tennyson  and  Long- 
fellow; and  an  analogue  of  Chaucer's  ' Franklin's  Tale'  of  the  rash  promise;  and  the 
original  of  his  story  of  Griselda.  Boccaccio  was  supremely  interested  in  humanity, 
was  a  consummate  narrator,  and,  though  overfond  of  involved  classical  periods,  is 
the  father  of  modern  Italian  prose  style. 

DECLINE  AND  FALL  OF  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE,  THE,  by  Edward  Gibbon. 
"It  was  at  Rome,  on  the  isth  of  October,  1764,  as  I  sat  musing  amidst  the  ruins  of 
the  capitol,  while  the  barefooted  friars  were  singing  vespers  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter, 
that  the  idea  of  writing  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  city  first  entered  my  mind,"  wrote 
Gibbon  in  his  autobiography.  In  1776  the  first  volume  of  the  great  work  was 
finished.  Its  success  was  tremendous;  and  the  reputation  of  the  author  was  firmly 
established  before  the  religious  world  could  prepare  itself  for  an  attack  on  its  famous 
1 5th  and  i6th  chapters.  The  last  volume  was  finished  on  the  27th  of  June,  1787,  at 
Lausanne,  whither  he  had  retired  for  quiet  and  economy.  In  his  'Memoirs'  he 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  215 

tells  the  hour  of  his  release  from  those  protracted  labors  —  between  eleven  o'clock 
and  midnight;  and  records  his  first  emotions  of  joy  on  the  recovery  of  his  freedom, 
and  then  the  sober  melancholy  that  succeeded  it  when  he  realized  that  his  life's  work 
was  done. 

'The  Decline  and  Pall1  has  been  pronounced  by  many  the  greatest  achievement 
of  human  thought  and  erudition  in  the  department  of  history.  The  tremendous 
scope  of  the  work  is  best  explained  by  a  brief  citation  from  the  author's  preface  to 
the  first  volume:  "The  memorable  series  of  revolutions  which,  in  the  course  of  thir- 
teen centuries,  gradually  undermined,  and  at  length  destroyed,  the  solid  fabric  of 
human  greatness,  may,  with  some  propriety,  be  divided  into  the  three  following 
periods:  I.  The  first  of  these  periods  may  be  traced  from  the  age  of  Trajan  and  the 
Antonines,  when  the  Roman  monarchy,  having  attained  its  full  strength  and  matur- 
ity, began  to  verge  toward  its  decline.  ...  II.  The  second  may  be  supposed  to 
begin  with  the  reign  of  Justinian,  who  by  his  laws  as  well  as  his  victories  restored  a 
transient  splendor  to  the  Eastern  Empire.  .  .  .  III.  The  third  from  the  revival  of 
the  Western  Empire  to  the  taking  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks."  It  is,  then,  a 
history  of  the  civilized  world  for  thirteen  centuries,  during  which  paganism  was 
breaking  down,  and  Christianity  was  superseding  it;  and  so  bridges  over  the  chasm 
between  the  old  world  and  the  new. 

The  great  criticism  of  the  work  has  always  been  upon  the  point  of  Gibbon's 
estimate  of  the  nature  and  influence  of  Christianity. 

Aside  from  this,  it  can  safely  be  said  that  modern  scholarship  finds  very  little 
that  is  essential  to  be  changed  in  Gibbon's  wonderful  studies;  while  his  noble  dignity 
of  style  and  his  picturesqueness  of  narration  make  this  still  the  most  fascinating  of 
histories. 

DEEMSTER,  THE,  by  Hall  Caine  (1877).  'The  Deemster'  is  a  sensational  novel, 
setting  forth  the  righteousness  of  just  retribution.  The  author  calls  it  the  story 
of  the  Prodigal  Son.  The  scene  is  laid  in  the  Isle  of  Man,  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century  and  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth. 

The  Deemster  is  Thorkell  Mylrea,  whose  brother  Gilchrist  is  bishop  of  the  island. 
These  two  brothers,  with  Ewan  and  Mona,  the  son  and  daughter  of  the  Deemster, 
and  Daniel,  the  son  of  the  Bishop,  are  the  chief  actors  in  the  story.  Ewan  is  a  young 
clergyman,  but  Dan  is  the  prodigal  who  wastes  his  father's  substance.  He  loves  his 
cousin  Mona  deeply,  but  her  brother  considers  this  love  dishonorable  to  her.  The 
cousins  engage  in  a  duel,  which  results  in  the  death  of  Ewan.  Dan  surrenders  himself 
to  justice,  is  declared  guilty,  and  receives  a  sentence  worse  than  death.  He  is  declared 
cut  off  forever  from  Hs  people.  None  shall  speak  to  him  or  look  upon  him  or  give 
•him  aid.  He  shall  live  and  die  among  the  beasts  in  a  remote  corner  of  the  island. 

At  length  a  strange  plague  comes  upon  the  people.  Daniel  obtains  the  privilege 
of  taking  the  place  of  Father  Dalby,  the  Irish  priest.  He  effects  many  cures,  and  at 
last  dies  of  the  pestilence,  after  the  office  of  deemster  made  vacant  by  his  uncle's 
death  has  been  offered  to  him  as  a  reward  for  his  services.  Like  all  of  Hall  Caine 's 
work,  it  is  sombre  and  oppressive,  but  its  delineation  of  Manx  character  is  striking 
and  convincing.  A  dramatization  has  been  produced  by  Wilson  Barrett  under 
the  title  'Ben-Ma-Chree.' 

DEEPHA VEN,  by  Sarah  Orne  Jewett.  Deephaven  is  an  imaginary  seaport  town, 
famous  for  its  shipping  in  the  old  days,  —  like  so  many  towns  along  the  northern 
coast  of  New  England,  —  and  now  a  sleepy,  picturesque  old  place  in  which  to  dream 


2i6  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

away  a  summer.  Kate  Lancaster  and  Helen  Denis,  two  bright,  sympathetic  girls, 
go  to  live  in  the  Brandon  house  there;  and  the  story  tells  of  the  glimpses  they  get 
into  ICew  England  life,  and  the  friendships  they  make,  during  that  summer.  Mrs. 
Kew,  of  the  lighthouse,  is  the  most  delightful  character  in  the  book,  although  Mrs. 
Dockum  and  the  alert  "VTidow  Jim"  prove  to  be  interesting  neighbors.  Mr.  Lori- 
mcr  the  minister,  his  sister  Miss  Honora  Carew  and  the  members  of  her  household, 
represent  the  gentlefolk  of  the  town,  and  visionary  Captain  Sands,  Isaac  Horn,  and 
hind-hearted  Danny,  the  seafaring  ones,  —  not  without  JacofrLunt  "condemned  as 
unsea worthy."  Old  Mrs.  Bonny  lives  in  the  woods  beyond  the  town;  and  Miss 
Chauncey,  a  pathetic  old  lady  who  has  lost  her  mind,  live?  alone  in  the  village  of 
East  Parish.  When  the  leaves  have  fallen  and  the  sea  looks  rough  and  cold,  the  two 
heroines  close  the  old  house  and  return  to  their  homes  in  the  city,  —  the  inevitable 
end.  This  was  one  of  the  first  books  on  New  England  life  Miss  Jewett  wrote;  and 
it  was  published  in  1877,  when  she  was  only  twenty  years  old.  The  book  has  done 
for  the  region  it  describes  something  of  what  Irving 's  writing  did  for  the  Hudson 
River. 

DEERSLAYER,  THE,  a  novel  of  frontier  life,  one  of  the  '  Leatherstocking  Tales1 
by  James  Fenimore  Cooper,  published  in  1841.  The  hero,  Natty  Bumppo,  called 
Deerslayer  in  this  novel,  is  represented  as  a  young  hunter  brought  up  among  the 
Dela wares  and  engaged  in  guerilla  warfare  with  the  Hurons  in  the  wilderness  of 
northern  New  York  State  between  the  years  1 740  and  1745.  With  a  gigantic  trapper, 
Henry  March,  nicknamed  "Hurry  Harry"  he  defends  the  family  of  a  settler,  Tom 
Hutter,  who  has  built  a  wooden  fortress  in  the  midst  of  a  lonely  lake,  which  he  also 
navigates  in  a  kind  of  house-boat.  After  a  series  of  exciting  adventures  in  which  a 
band  of  invading  Hurons,  a  Delaware  chief,  Chingachgook,  and  a  Delaware  maiden, 
Wah-ta-wah,  are  involved,  and  in  the  course  of  which  the  hero  is  imprisoned  by  the 
redskins,  the  Hurons  are  driven  off  with  the  aid  of  the  British  troops.  The  love  of 
Judith  Hutter  for  Deerslayer  is  not  reciprocated,  and  they  part.  The  other  sister, 
Hetty  Hutter,  who  loves  Hurry  Harry  is  slain  by  a  chance  bullet  in  the  assault  by 
the  soldiers.  Although  lacking  humor,  psychological  subtlety,  and  delicacy  of 
characterization  this  story  is  of  absorbing  narrative  interest  and  preserves  some 
excellent  types  of  pioneer  days.  See  also  '  Leatherstocking  Tales.' 

DEGENERATION,  by  Max  Nordau  (1895).  A  work  which  attracted  great  atten- 
tion, and  provoked  a  storm  of  opposition  and  of  argument.  A  product  in  equal 
parts  of  German  profundity  of  learning  and  one-sidedness  of  outlook,  it  is  an  attempt 
at  "scientific  criticism"  of  those  "degenerates"  not  upon  the  acknowledged  lists  of 
the  criminal  classes.  The  author  in  his  dedication  says:  "  Degenerates  are  not  always 
criminals,  prostitutes,  anarchists,  and  pronounced  lunatics;  they  are  often  authors 
and  artists.  These,  however,  manifest  the  same  mental  characteristics,  and  for  the 
most  part  the  same  somatic  features,  as  the  members  of  the  above-mentioned  an- 
thropological family,  who  satisfy  their  unhealthy  impulses  with  the  knife  of  the 
assassin  or  the  bomb  of  the  dynamiter,  instead  of  with  pen  and  pencil.  Some  among 
these  degenerates  in  literature,  music,  and  painting,  have  in  recent  years  come  into 
extraordinary  prominence.  .  .  .  Now  I  have  undertaken  the  work  of  investigating 
the  tendencies  of  the  fashions  in  art  and  literature;  of  proving  that  they  have  their 
source  in  the  degeneracy  of  their  authors,  and  that  the  enthusiasm  of  their  admirers 
is  for  manifestations  of  more  or  less  pronounced  moral  insanity  and  dementia."- 
The  author  undertakes  this  large  task  with  cheerfulness  and  assurance.  In  five 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  217 

subdivisions  of  his  topic— *  'Fin-de-Siecle/  'Mysticism/  'Ego-Mania/  'Realism,5 
and  'The  Twentieth  Century'  — he  discusses  those  manifestations  of  modern 
thought  and  feeling  in  art  and  literature  which  he  is  pleased  to  term  "degenerate." 
Scarcely  a  man  of  note  in  these  departments  escapes.  Zola,  Wagner,  Tolstoy, 
Ibsen,  Nietzsche,  Rossetti,and  the  other  pre-Raphaelites,  are,  so  to  speak,  placed  in 
strait-jackets  and  confined  in  padded  cells. 

The  book  is  an  extraordinary  manifestation  of  the  philistine  spirit  of  the  close  of 
the  I gth  century.  For  a  time  it  had  an  enormous  vogue;  the  calm  judgment  of 
science,  however,  tends  to  deny  many  of  its  propositions. 

DELECTABLE  DUCHY,  THE,  by  "Q"  (Sir  A.  T.  Quiller-Couch).  A  book  of 
stories,  studies,  and  sketches,  some  gay  and  some  tragic,  but  all  brief,  concise,  and 
dramatic.  The  scene  of  all  is  laid  in  Cornwall  (the  Delectable  Duchy);  they  are 
full  of  folk-lore,  local  superstitions  and  expressions.  Among  the  best  are  '  The  Spin- 
ster's Maying/  where  the  old  maid  induces  the  twin  brother  of  her  dead  lover  to 
court  her  every  year  on  May  Day; '  When  the  Sap  Rose/  full  of  the  303*  of  springtime; 
'The  Plumpers';  'Egg-Stealing';  'The  Regent's  Wager/  a  mistake  which  lost  one 
man  his  life  and  another  his  reason;  and  'The  Conspiracy  aboard  the  Midas/  to 
make  a  dying  child's  last  days  happy.  These  stories  were  published  in  1893,  and  are 
the  high-water  mark  of  the  writer's  work,  though  he  has  won  reputation  as  a  critic 
and  journalist  as  well  as  a  story-teller.  See  the  LIBRARY. 

DELIVERANCE,  THE,  by  Ellen  Glasgow  (1904).  This  is  a  romance  of  the  Virginia 
tobacco  fields  and  has  for  its  central  figure  Christopher  Blake.  He  is  the  descendant 
of  a  rich  and  aristocratic  family,  and  through  reduced  fortunes  is  obliged  to  work  as  a 
laborer  on  the  estate  which  for  generations  had  been  owned  by  his  forbears.  Upon 
the  death  of  his  father,  when  he  is  only  ten  >ears  old,  he  suddenly  finds  home  and 
fortune  snatched  from  him,  and  with  a  blind  mother  and  two  sisters  to  support  he 
begins  a  life  of  toil.  He  foregoes  education  and  drudges  unceasingly  that  his  mother 
may  be  kept  in  ignorance  of  her  change  of  fortune  and  that  his  twin  sister  may  not 
have  to  work.  After  fifteen  years  of  this  existence  his  nature  becomes  hardened  and 
his  heart  is  filled  with  hatred  for  Mr.  Fletcher,  the  past  manager  of  the  estate,  who 
is  now  its  possessor.  Fletcher,  who  is  a  vulgar  and  ugly  tempered  man,  has  gained 
his  possessions  by  cheating  and  dishonesty,  and  Christopher's  one  thought  from 
childhood  has  been  a  desire  for  revenge.  He  finds  his  opportunity  in  leading  to  ruin 
Fletcher's  grandson,  Will,  a  weak  young  fellow,  who  is  idolized  by  his  grandfather. 
Christopher  leads  him  into  dissipation  and  teaches  him  to  despise  his  grandfather 
till  finally  in  a  moment  of  drunken  frenzy  he  kills  him.  Then  Christopher  realizes 
the  enormity  of  his  sin,  aids  Will  to  escape,  himself  confesses  to  the  crime,  and  takes 
the  punishment.  He  goes  to  prison  to  serve  out  a  five  years'  sentence,  but  after 
three  years  have  passed  is  pardoned  out  through  the  efforts  of  Maria  Wyndham, 
Fletcher's  granddaughter,  whom  he  has  loved  for  years.  Maria,  who  has  returned 
his  affection  and  is  now  the  heir  to  the  estate,  is  only  too  glad  to  restore  it  to  its 
rightful  owner,  and  the  lovers,  after  their  many  years  of  unhappiness,  are  at  last 
united. 

DELPHINE,  by  Madame  de  Stael,  was  her  first  romance;  it  was  published  in  1802, 
The  heroine  is  an  ideal  creation.  Madame  d'Albemar  (Delphine),  a  young  widow, 
devotedly  attached  to  her  husband's  memory,  falls  promptly  in  love  with  Leonce  as 
soon  as  she  meets  him.  The  feeling  is  reciprocated,  and  Leonce  bitterly  repents  his 
engagement  to  Delphine's  cousin  Mathilde.  But  Delphine's  mother,  Madame  de 


2i8  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Vernon,  a  treacherous,  intriguing  woman,  determines  to  separate  the  lovers;  and  the 
story  relates  the  progress  of  her  machinations. 

Its  bold  imagery,  keenness  of  observation,  and  power  of  impassioned  description, 
perhaps  justify  'Delphine's'  position  among  the  masterpieces  of  French  literature. 
But  neither  situations  nor  characters  are  true  to  nature.  The  only  real  person  in  the 
book  is  Madame  de  Vemon,  a  mixture  of  pride,  duplicity,  ostentation,  avarice, 
polished  wickedness,  and  false  good-nature.  But  the  romance  had  a  special  interest 
for  Madame  de  StaeTs  contemporaries,  for  several  of  the  great  men  and  women  of 
the  time  appear  in  it  under  the  thinnest  of  disguises.  M.  de  Lebense*e,  the  noble 
Protestant,  is  Benjamin  Constant;  the  virtuous  and  accomplished  Madame  de 
Cerlebe  is  Madame  de  StaeTs  mother;  Delphine  is  of  course  Madame  de  Stael  herself; 
and  Madame  de  Vernon  is  Talleyrand:  "So  we  are  both,"  said  he  to  her,  "in  your 
last  book,  I  hear;  I  disguised  as  an  old  woman,  and  you  as  a  young  one. "  The  liberal 
ideas  scattered  through  the  story  drew  down  on  the  author  the  anger  of  Napoleon, 
who  ordered  her  to  leave  France. 

DELUGE,  THE,  by  David  Graham  Phillips  (1905).  This  is  the  story,  given  in  his 
own  words,  of  Matthew  Blacklock,  a  hero  of  finance  and  a  self-made  man.  He  is 
endowed  with  brains,  a  powerful  will,  and  striking  personality  and  has  worked  his 
way  from  the  foot  of  the  ladder  until  he  has  become  a  conspicuous  figure  in  Wall 
Street.  While  still  3'oung,  he  has  amassed  a  fortune  and  has  surrounded  himself 
with  all  the  luxuries  of  life,  but  is  not  admitted  to  the  inner  circles  of  society  where  he 
aspires  to  be.  Blacklock,  or  Black  Matt  as  he  is  familiarly  called  has  men  friends 
belonging  to  this  exclusive  class  who  have  not  scrupled  to  accept  his  business  "tips  " 
but  who  never  entertain  him  socially.  This  is  a  source  of  great  dissatisfaction  to  Matt 
who  does  not  realize  his  lack  of  social  training  and  feels  his  success  in  life  has  made 
him  eligible  for  any  company.  He  meets  Anita  Ellersly,  the  sister  of  one  of  his 
aristocratic  friends,  and  in  spite  of  her  evident  repugnance  for  him  makes  up  his 
mind  to  win  her  for  his  wife.  He  secures  his  entree  into  their  family  circle  by  assisting 
Anita's  father,  who  is  financially  involved,  and  when  he  proposes  marriage  is  accepted 
by  Anita  who  tells  him  she  can  never  care  for  him  as  she  loves  someone  else.  The 
latter  proves  to  be  Mowray  Langdon,  an  old  lover  of  Anita's,  who  is  unhappily 
married  and  who  has  had  business  dealings  with  Matt.  After  the  engagement  is 
made  public  Langdon  does  everything  in  his  power  to  ruin  Matt  financially  and 
almost  succeeds.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ellersly  hearing  that  Matt  is  ruined  cast  him  off, 
but  Anita  disgusted  at  her  parents'  actions  decides  to  marry  him  and  does  so  im- 
mediately. Matt  extricates  himself  from  his  financial  embarrassment  by  a  series  of 
successful  business  coups  which  are  graphically  described  in  the  story,  and  tries  to 
win  the  affection  of  his  wife  who  holds  herself  aloof  from  him.  Finally  Matt,  who 
has  never  known  the  meaning  of  the  word  fail,  succeeds  in  gaining  Anita's  love  and 
she  confesses  that  she  has  cared  for  him  almost  from  the  first  but  has  been  too  proud 
to  acknowledge  it. 

DELUGE,  by  Henryk  Sienkiewicz,  see  WITH  FIRE  AND  SWORD. 

DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION,  a  sociological  and  philosophical  treatise  by 
John  Dewey,  was  published  in  1916.  It  affords  the  clearest  statement  of  the  author's 
psychological,  ethical,  and  educational  views,  which  are  here  applied  to  the  solution 
of  educational  problems  in  the  modem  democratic  state.  The  book  falls  into  four 
parts.  Chapters  I.  to  VII.  outline  the  general  nature  of  education  and  its  function 
in  society.  Education  is  defined  as  "that  reconstruction  or  reorganization  of 


THE   READER'S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS  219 

experience  which  adds  to  the  meaning  of  experience,  and  which  increases  ability  to 
direct  the  course  of  subsequent  experience."  This  result  is  obtained  by  a  process  of 
transmission,  partly  spontaneous,  partly  deliberate,  of  the  acquirements  of  society, 
with  the  aim  of  preserving  social  continuity.  Democratic  societies  are  those  which 
afford  equal  opportunity  for  development  and  equal  social  privileges  to  all  their 
members.  To  be  adapted  to  a  democratic  society,  education  must  give  all  individuals 
a  personal  interest  in  social  relationships,  and  the  power  of  effecting  social  changes 
without  disorder.  It  must  not  trust  merely  to  the  force  of  custom,  operating  under 
the  control  of  a  superior  class. 

In  the  second  part  of  the  book  (Chapters  VTII.-XVIL),  coming  down  to  particu- 
lar questions  of  subject-matter  and  method,  the  author  shows  that  education  aims 
at  natural  development,  social  efficiency,  and  mental  enrichment;  that  discipline,  or 
the  presentation  of  a  lesson  to  be  learned  as  a  task,  must  be  united  with  interest,  or 
the  realization  by  the  pupil  of  the  relation  of  this  task  to  his  own  activities  and 
—  personal  concerns;  that  thinking  must  be  preceded  by  experience,  mental  instruc- 
tion by  physical  experiment;  that  the  pupil  must  be  encouraged  to  think  for  himself 
and  to  work  out  his  own  mental  conclusions;  and  that  the  subject-matter  of  education 
must  not  be  mere  information,  but  information  which  he  can  apply  in  some  way  to 
some  situation  of  his  own.  Occupational  training,  in  order  to  be  truly  educath  e, 
must  require  the  pupil's  judgment  and  admit  the  possibility  of  mistakes.  Play  is 
distinguished  from  work  in  that  its  aim  is  continued  activity  and  not  a  definite 
result.  Being  a  necessity  of  our  nature,  it  must  be  provided  for  in  every  scheme  of 
education.  Geography  and  history  enlarge  the  significance  of  the  pupil's  experience 
of  nature  and  man;  science  broadens  his  horizon  and  cultivates  the  power  of  gen- 
eralized thinking. 

The  third  part  (Chapters  XVIIL-XXIII.)  examines  the  hindrances  to  ideal 
democratic  education  which  spring  from  the  notion  "that  experience  consists  of  a 
variety  of  segregated  domains  or  interests,  each  having  its  own  independent  value, 
material,  and  method,  each  checking  every  other."  This  theory,  which  results 
from  the  division  of  society  into  rigidly-marked  classes  and  groups,  issues  in  certain 
dualisms  or  antitheses  between  culture  and  utility,  leisure  and  labor,  intellectual  and 
practical  studies,  social  and  physical  subjects,  the  individual  and  society,  liberal  and 
vocational  training.  All  these  contradictions  Dewey  would  remove  by  rejecting 
the  dualism  which  prompted  them.  All  pupils  are  to  have  the  opportunity  of  enjoy- 
ing both  types  of  training,  in  preparation  for  serving  the  state  as  a  whole. 

In  conclusion  (Chapters  XXIV.-XXVI.)  the  author  states  his  philosophy  of 
education  in  connection  with  the  theory  of  knowledge  and  of  conduct.  As  regards 
knowledge  he  is  a  pragmatist,  or,  as  he  prefers  to  call  himself,  an  experimentalist, 
believing  that  truth  is  determined  by  the  practical  test  of  experience.  In  ethics  he 
believes  that  the  moral  life  of  the  individual  is  one,  not  separated  into  provinces  of 
inner  and  outer,  duty  and  interest,  intelligence  and  character. 

The  book  abounds  in  helpful  definitions,  clear  distinctions,  and  genuine  reconcilia- 
tions of  opposite  ideas.  The  expository  method  is  clear,  and  made  even  more  lucid 
by  the  summaries  appended  to  each  chapter  and  by  the  plain,  sometimes  even 
colloquial  diction.  A  reviewer  has  called  this  the  most  important  educational  treatise 
since  Plato  and  Rousseau. 

DEMOCRACY  AND  LIBERTY,  by  W.  E.  H.  Lecky  (2  vols.,  1896).  A  strong 
book  "dealing  with  the  present  aspects  and  tendencies  of  the  political  world  in 
many  different  countries,"  and  with  special  reference  to  the  fact  that  "the  most 


220  THE    READER'S   DIGEST    OF   BOOKS 

remarkable  political  characteristic  of  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century- 
has  unquestionably  been  the  complete  displacement  of  the  centre  of  power  in  free 
governments,  —  a  profound  and  far-reaching  revolution,  over  a  great  part  of  the 
civilized  world."  The  work  is  not  one  of  history,  but  one  of  "discussion  of  contem- 
porary questions,  some  of  them  lying  in  the  very  centre  of  party  controversies,"  and 
one  "expressing  strong  opinions  on  many  much -contested  party  questions."  Besides 
dealing  with  England,  Ireland,  America,  and  much  of  Europe,  it  also  discusses 
socialism,  Sunday  and  drink  legislation,  woman  questions  and  labor  questions, 
marriage  and  divorce,  religious  liberty,  and  Catholicism.  It  is  a  book  of  able  dis- 
cussion and  strong  convictions,  by  a  writer  who  has  many  doubts  about  modern 
democratic  developments,  but  too  competent  and  too  just  to  be  scouted. 

DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLITICAL  PARTIES,  by  M. 

Ostrogorski  with  a  preface  by  Bryce  (1902).  As  Lord  Bryce  well  points  out  in  the 
preface  to  this  book  there  is  room  for  a  treatise  which  shall  take  Party  Organization 
and  Party  Machinery  for  its  specific  subject,  and  shall  endeavor  to  treat  these 
phenomena  of  modern  politics  with  a  fulness  commensurate  to  the  importance  of  the 
part  which  they  play  to-day  in  popular  governments.  The  author,  a  Frenchman  of 
extraordinarily  thorough  and  penetrating  intellect,  who  has  at  the  same  time  the 
clarity  and  impartiality  of  the  best  writers  of  his  race,  spares  neither  the  Republicans 
nor  the  Democrats  of  the  United 'States,  neither  the  Tories  nor  the  Liberals  of  Eng- 
land. He  perhaps  allows  too  much  influence  to  the  caucus  in  England  and  to  the 
social  pressure  which  has  undoubtedly  been  exercised  by  landlords  or  other  interested 
parties.  After  a  most  careful  examination  of  the  facts  in  both  countries  he  reaches 
the  conclusion  that  party  organization  in  England  is  on  the  highway  to  becoming 
what  it  already  is  in  the  United  States.  " The  democratization  of  the  party  system," 
he  says,  "was  nothing  but  a  change  of  form  and  could  not  cure  the  original  defect, 
either  of  its  principle,  or  of  the  methods  by  which  it  was  carried  out.  Thenceforth 
the  system  could  only  produce  effects  which  were  the  negation  of  democracy.  In- 
capable of  realizing  its  essence,  the  system  reduced  political  relations  to  an  external 
conformity,  which  warped  their  moral  spring  and  ended  by  enslaving  the  mind  of  the 
citizens  and  opening  the  door  to  corruption.  To  the  low  types  which  the  human  race 
has  produced,  from  Cain  down  to  Tartuffe,  the  age  of  democracy  has  added  a  new 
one  —  the  politician  .  .  .  the  motley  soul  of  the  politician  is  made  up  of  innumerable 
pettinesses,  with  but  one  trait  to  give  them  unity  —  cowardice."  The  remedy  for 
these  evils,  in  the  opinion  of  M.  Ostrogorski  is,  on  the  practical  side,  to  discard  the 
use  of  permanent  parties  whose  aim  is  political  power,  and  to  establish  a  system  of 
proportional  representation.  But  obviously  the  victory  over  machine  politics  must 
first  be  won  in  the  mind  of  the  elector.  "  Men  must  be  taught  to  use  their  judgment, 
and  to  act  independently.  It  is  on  the  accomplishment  of  this  work  of  liberation 
that  the  whole  future  of  democracy  depends.  Hitherto  the  victorious  struggle  which 
democracy  has  carried  on  in  the  world  has  been  mainly,  and  necessarily,  a  struggle 
for  material  liberty;  moral  liberty,  which  consists  in  thinking  and  acting  as  free 
reason  dictates,  has  yet  to  be  achieved  by  it.  It  has  carried  the  habeas  corpus  by 
force,  but  the  decisive  battle  of  democracy  will  be  fought  on  the  habeas  animum." 

DEMOCRACY  IN  AMERICA,  an  account  of  the  government  and  institutions  of 
the  United  States  by  Alexis  de  Tocqueville,  published  in  1835.  F°r  a  summary 
and  estimate  of  this  work  see  the  introductory  essay  on  De  Tocqueville  in  the 
LIBRARY. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  .     221 

DEMOCRACY  IN  EUROPE:  'A  History,'  by  T.  Erskine  May  (2  vols.,  1877). 
A  thoroughly  learned  and  judicious  study  of  popular  power  and  political  liberty 
throughout  the  history  of  Europe.  Starting  from  an  introduction  on  the  causes  of 
freedom,  especially  its  close  connection  with  civilization,  the  research  deals  with  the 
marked  absence  of  freedom  in  Oriental  history,  and  then  reviews  the  developments 
of  popular  power  in  Greece  and  Rome,  and  the  vicissitudes  of  progress  in  the  Dark 
Ages  to  the  Revival  of  Learning.  It  then  traces  the  new  progress  in  the  Italian 
republics,  Switzerland,  the  Netherlands,  France,  and  England.  The  work  shows 
careful  study  of  the  inner  life  of  republics,  ancient  and  modern;  of  the  most  memor- 
able revolutions,  and  the  greatest  national  struggles  for  civil  and  religious  liberty; 
and  of  the  -various  degrees  and  conditions  of  democracy,  considered  as  the  sovereignty 
of  the  whole  body  of  the  people.  The  author  regards  popular  power  as  an  essential 
condition  of  the  social  advancement  of  nations,  and  writes  as  an  ardent  admirer  of 
rational  and  enlightened  political  liberty. 

DEMONOLOGY  AND  DEVIL-LORE,  by  Moncure  D.  Conway  (1879).  In  this 
scholarly  history  of  a  superstition,  the  author  has  set  before  himself  the  task  of  finding 
"the  reason  of  unreason,  the  being  and  substance  of  unreality,  the  law  of  folly,  and 
the  logic  of  lunacy."  His  business  is  not  alone  to  record  certain  dark  vagaries  of 
human  intelligence,  but  to  explain  them ;  to  show  them  as  the  inevitable  expression 
of  a  mental  necessity,  and  as  the  index  to  some  spiritual  facts  with  large  inclusions. 
He  sees  that  primitive  man  has  always  personified  his  own  thoughts  in  external 
personal  forms ;  and  that  these  personifications  survive  as  traditions  long  after  a  more 
educated  intelligence  surrenders  them  as  facts.  He  sets  himself,  therefore,  to  seek 
in  these  immature  and  grotesque  imaginings  the  soul  of  truth  and  reality  that  once 
inspired  them.  From  anthropology,  history,  tradition,  comparative  mythology  and 
philology;  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe;  from  periods  which  trail  off  into  pre- 
historic time,  and  from  periods  almost  within  our  own  remembrance;  from  savage 
and  from  cultivated  races;  from  extinct  peoples  and  those  now  existing;  from  learned 
sources  and  the  traditions  of  the  unlearned,  he  has  sought  his  material.  This  vast 
accumulation  of  facts  he  has  so  analyzed  and  synthesized  as  to  make  it  yield  its  fine 
ore  of  truth  concerning  spiritual  progress.  Related  beliefs  he  has  grouped  either  in 
natural  or  historical  association;  migrations  of  beliefs  he  has  followed,  with  a  keen 
sense  for  their  half -obliterated  trail;  through  diversities  his  trained  eye  discovers 
likenesses.  He  finds  that  devils  have  always  stood  for  the  type  of  pure  malignity; 
while  demons  are  creatures  driven  by  fate  to  prey  upon  mankind  for  the  satisfaction 
of  their  needs,  but  not  of  necessity  malevolent.  The  demon  is  an  inference  from  the 
physical  experience  of  mankind;  the  devil  is  a  product  of  his  moral  consciousness. 
The  dragon  is  a  creature  midway  between  the  two. 

DESCENT  OF  MAN  AND  SELECTION  IN  RELATION  TO  SEX,  THE,  by  Charles 
Darwin.  The  'Descent  of  Man'  was  given  to  the  world  in  1871,  eleven  years  after 
the  appearance  of  the  'Origin  of  Species,'  when  Darwin  was  sixty-two  years  old.  In 
spite  of  the  opposition  which  the  theories  of  the  earlier  work  had  met  in  some  quarters, 
it  had  already  given  hfop  a  place  as  a  leader  of  scientific  thought,  not  only  in  England 
but  in  the  whole  world.  "Darwinism"  had  in  fact  become  a  definite  term,  and  the 
new  book  was  received  with  interest.  The  evidences  of  the  descent  of  man  from  some 
earlier,  less-developed  form,  collected  and  marshaled  by  Darwin,  consist  of  minute 
inferential  proofs  of  similarity  of  structure;  at  certain  stages  of  development,  between 
man  and  the  lower  animals.  This  similarity  is  especially  marked  in  the  embryonic 


222  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

^tages;  and  taken  with  the  existence  in  man  of  various  rudimentary  organs,  seems  to 
imply  that  he  and  the  lower  animals  come  from  a  common  ancestor.  From  the 
evidences  thus  collected,  Darwin  reasons  that  the  early  ancestors  of  man  must  have 
been  more  or  less  monkey-like  animals  of  the  great  anthropoid  group,  and  related  to 
the  progenitors  of  the  orang-outang,  the  chimpanzee,  and  the  gorilla.  They  must 
have  been  hairy,  with  pointed,  movable  ears,  and  a  movable  tail.  They  probably  lived 
in  trees,  and  had  a  thumb-like  great  toe,  ate  fruit  chiefly,  and  made  their  home  in  a 
warm  forest  land.  Going  back  still  farther,  Darwin  shows  that  the  remotest  ancestor 
of  humanity  must  have  been  aquatic.  As  a  partial  proof  of  this,  human  lungs  are 
said  to  be  modified  swim-bladders.  The  general  descent  is  given  by  Darwin  some- 
what in  this  fashion :  From  the  jelly-like  larva  to  the  early  fishes,  such  as  the  lancelet, 
then  to  the  ganoids  (as  the  mudfish),  to  the  newt  and  other  amphibians,  then  to  the 
platypus  and  other  mammals  such  as  the  kangaroo,  and  to  the  insectivorous  animals 
such  as  the  shrews  and  hedgehogs;  after  this  by  well-marked  stages  to  the  lemurs  of 
Madagascar,  and  then  to  the  monkeys,  which  branch  into  those  of  the  Old  and  the 
Xew  World,  —  from  the  latter  of  which  man  is  descended.  Without  entering  here 
into  the  question  as  to  whether  all  the  steps  were  proved,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the 
4  Descent  of  Man '  was  received  with  enthusiasm  by  scientific  men,  and  that  its 
immediate  influence  was  even  greater  than  that  of  the  'Origin  of  Species.'  It  had 
an  effect  not  merely  on  physical  and  biological  science,  but  it  led  to  many  new  con- 
ceptions in  ethics  and  religion.  In  the  volumes  containing  the  'Descent  of  Man' 
Darwin  placed  his  elaborate  treatise  on  *  Sexual  Selection,'  which  indeed  may  be 
regarded  as  a  part  of  the  theory  of  man's  descent.  The  theory  of  a  common  origin  of 
man  and  the  other  vertebrates  was  not  new;  but  he  was  the  first  to  develop  a  tenable 
theory  as  to  the  process, 

DESTINY,  by  Susan  Edmonston  Ferrier.  This  story,  published  in  1831,  is  the  last 
and  best  of  the  three  novels  by  the  Scotch  authoress.  The  scene  of  action  is  the 
Highlands,  and  fashionable  London  society  in  the  first  part  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Written  in  a  clear,  bright  style,  in  spite  of  its  length  it  is  interesting  throughout.  Its 
tone  is  serious,  but  the  gravity  is  brightened  by  a  delightful  humor,  which  reveals 
both  the  ludicrous  and  the  sad  side  of  a  narrow-minded  and  conventional  society. 
The  reader  laughs  at  the  arrogant  and  haughty  chief  Glenroy,  growing  more  child- 
ishly obstinate  and  bigoted  as  he  grows  older,  and  at  his  echo  and  retainer  Benbowie; 
at  the  self-sufficient  and  uncouth  pastor  M'Dow;  and  at  the  supercilious  Lady 
Elizabeth,  who  thinks  herself  always  recherchee. 

The  plot  involves  constant  changes  in  the  lot  of  the  characters,  the  moral  being 
that  no  man  can  escape  his  destiny.  Somewhat  old-fashioned,  and  much  too  long, 
the  book  is  still  agreeable  reading. 

DESTINY  OF  MAN,  THE,  'Viewed  in  the  Light  of  his  Origin/  by  John  Fiske. 
(1884.  9th  ed.  1886).  This  argument,  originally  an  address  delivered  before  the 
Concord  School  of  Philosophy,  gives  the  simplest  possible  statement  of  the  general 
theory  —  not  the  particular  processes  —  of  evolution,  and  openly  endeavors  to 
reconcile  the  spirit  and  teachings  of  modern  science  with  those  of  the  New  Testament. 
While  declaring  that  the  brain  of  an  Australian  savage  is  many  times  further  removed 
from  Shakespeare's  than  from  an  orang-outang's,  he  yet  shows  that  evolution,  far 
from  degrading  man  to  the  level  of  the  beast,  makes  it  evident  that  man  is  the  chief 
object  of  the  Divine  care.  Man  is,  after  all,  the  center  of  the  universe  —  though 
not  in  the  sense  that  the  oppressors  of  Bruno  and  Galileo  supposed.  And  before 


THE   REAPER'S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS  223 

man's  reinstatement  in  his  central  and  dominant  position  became  possible,  the  limited 
and  distorted  hypothesis  of  theologians  and  poets  had  to  be  overthrown.  Much 
stress  is  laid  on  the  insignificance  of  physical  in  comparison  with  psychical  phe- 
nomena :  more  amazing  than  the  change  from  a  fin  to  a  fore-limb  are  the  psychical 
variations  that  set  in  (almost  to  the  exclusion  of  physical  variations)  after  the 
beginnings  of  intelligence  in  the  human  species.  The  superiority  of  man  lies  not  in 
perfection  but  in  improvableness.  The  body  is  becoming  a  mere  vehicle  for  that 
soul  which  for  a  long  time  was  only  an  appendage  to  it.  On  scientific  grounds  there 
is  no  argument  for  immortality  and  none  against  it;  but  if  the  work  of  evolution  does 
not  culminate  in  immortality,  then  the  universe  is  indeed  reduced  to  a  meaningless 
riddle. 

DEVIL  ON  TWO  STICKS,  THE,  see  ASMODEUS. 
DHAMMAPADA,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

DIALOGUES  OF  PLATO,  a  series  of  philosophical  treatises  in  dramatic  form,  in 
which  problems  metaphysical,  ethical,  and  political  are  discussed  by  Socrates,  his 
friends  and  pupils.  They  were  written  between  the  death  of  Socrates  in  399  B.  C.  and 
that  of  Plato  in  347  B.  C.,  mainly  at  the  Academy,  which  Plato  established  just  out- 
side of  Athens  in  387  B.  C.  Thirty-five  extant  dialogues  are  attributed  to  Plato,  of 
which  seven  are  now  regarded  as  spurious.  Of  these  the  most  noted  are:  the  'Laches/ 
'Charmides,1  and  'Lysis'  in  which  Socrates  attempts  to  elicit  by  questions  the  de- 
finition of  courage,  temperance,  and  friendship  respectively; ' Protagoras'  and  'Meno ' 
discussing  the  question  whether  virtue  can  be  taught  and  attacking  the  Sophists; 
'  Ion, '  relating  to  poetical  inspiration;  'Euthyphro,'  'Apologia,'  'Crito,'  and  'Phaedo' 
all  concerned  with  the  trial  and  death  of  Socrates;  the  *  Symposium,*  'PhaL-drus'  and 
'Cratylus,'  which  develop  fully  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  ideas;  the  'Gorgias/  a  dis- 
cussion of  justice;  the  'Republic,'  a  description  of  an  ideal  state;  the  'Euthydemus,' 
'Parmenides/  'Theaetetus,'  'Sophist,'  'Statesman,'  'Philebus,'  all  dealing  with  the 
theory  of  knowledge;  the  'Titnseus,'  an  account  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  the 
external  world;  and  the  '  Laws,'  a  suggested  code  for  a  Greek  state.  For  a  statement 
of  Plato's  distinctive  doctrines  and  an  estimate  of  their  worth  and  influence  see  Pro- 
fessor Shorey's  article  under  '  Plato '  in  the  '  LIBRARY.'  The  best  English  translation 
of  Plato  is  that  by  Benjamin  Jowett  (1871-1892). 

DIALOGUES  OF  THE  DEAD,  by  Lucian.  These  dialogues,  written  at  Athens 
during  the  latter  half  of  the  second  century,  are  among  the  author's  most  popular  and 
familiar  works.  They  have  been  translated  by  many  hands,  from  the  days  of  Eras- 
mus to  the  present;  an  excellent  modern  translation  being  that  by  Howard  Williams 
in  Bonn's  Classical  Library.  They  are  filled  with  satire,  bitter  or  delicate  according 
to  the  subject,  and  illustrate  admirably  Lucian's  ready  wit,  and  light,  skillful  touch. 
The  scene  is  laid  in  Hades;  and  the  only  persons  appearing  to  advantage  are  the 
Cynics  Menippus  and  Diogenes,  who  are  distinguished  by  their  scorn  of  falsehood 
and 'pretense.  The  Sophists  are  mercilessly  treated;  and  even  Aristotle  is  accused 
of  corrupting  the  youthful  Alexander  by  his  flatteries.  Socrates  is  well  spoken  of,  but 
is  said  to  have  dreaded  death,  the  Cynics  being  the  only  ones  to  seek  it  willingly. 
The  decadent  Olympian  religion  and  the  old  Homeric  heroes  are  exposed  to  ridicule, 
and  it  is  twice  demonstrated  that  the  conception  of  Destiny  logically  destroys  moral 
responsibility.  There  are  several  dialogues  that  hold  up  to  scorn  the  parasites  and 
legacy-hunters  so  abundant  at  Athens  and  Rome;  and  Alexander  and  Crcesus  make 


224  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

themselves  ridiculous  by  boasting  of  their  former  prowess  and  wealth.  The  futility  of 
riches  and  fame  is  shown  in  the  dialogue  of  the  boat-load  of  people  who  have  to  dis- 
card all  their  cherished  belongings  and  attributes  before  Charon  will  give  them  pas- 
sage; only  sterling  moral  qualities  avail  in  the  shadowy  land  of  Hades,  and  only  the 
Cynics  are  happy,  for  they  have  nothing  left  behind  to  regret,  but  have  brought  their 
treasure  with  them  in  an  upright  and  fearless  character. 

DIALOGUES  OF  THE  DEAD,  by  George,  Lord  Lyttelton.  Lord  Lyttelton  is  a 
writer  with  whom  only  students  of  the  English  language  and  literature  are  likely  to 
ho  familiar.  In  fact,  his  only  claims  to  recognition  as  a  Iitt6rateur  rest  upon  his 
'Observations  on  the  Conversion  and  Apostleship  of  St.  Paul,'  and  the  'Dialogues' 
here  presented,  which  first  appeared  in  1760.  The  conversation  of  the  'Dialogues' 
shows  how  thoroughly  versed  the  writer  must  have  been  in  the  history  of  all  times. 
The  ruthless  Cortez  sneers  at  the  humanitarian  efforts  of  William  Perm;  Cardinal 
Ximenes  haughtily  pulls  to  pieces  the  reputation  of  his  rival  Wolsey;  Boileau  and 
Pope,  the  satirists,  hold  a  highly  instructive  conversation  upon  the  merits  of  their 
respective  literatures;  and  then  comes  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden  in  hot  haste  to  Alex- 
ander the  Great,  with  a  proposition  that  they  two  "turn  all  these  insolent  scribblers 
out  of  Elysium,  and  throw  them  down  headlong  to  the  bottom  of  Tartarus  in  spite 
of  Pluto  and  all  his  guards, "  because  "an  English  poet,  one  Pope,  has  called  us  'two 
madmen.'"  Alexander  demurs  at  this  Draconic  measure,  and  by  a  few  leading 
questions,  which  he  answers  himself,  soon  shows  the  royal  Swede  that  he  was  only  a 
fool.  In  connection  with  this  work,  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  'Dialogues  des 
Morts,'  by  the  French  free-thinker  Fontenelle,  and  the  'Imaginary  Conversations,' 
by  Walter  Savage  Landor.  The  first  complete  edition  of  Lord  Lyttelton 's  works  was 
published  in  London  in  1776. 

DIAMOND  LENS,  THE,  a  short  story  by  Fitz- James  O'Brien,  which  appeared 
originally  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  in  1858  and  in  a  volume  of  his  stories  and  essays 
collected  and  edited  by  William  Winter  in  1881.  The  narrator,  Linley,  becoming 
fascinated  with  microscopic  study,  determines  to  devote  his  life  to  its  pursuit.  His 
parents  object,  but  being  financially  independent  he  goes  to  New  York  on  the  pre- 
tense of  studying  medicine,  and  buying  the  most  expensive  apparatus  succeeds  in  one 
year  in  making  himself  an  accomplished  microscopist.  Dissatisfied,  however,  with 
the  revealing  power  of  the  best  instruments  he  seeks  the  aid  of  a  spiritualist  medium, 
Madame  Vulpes,  who  puts  him  into  communication  with  the  spirit  of  Leeuwenhoek, 
the  father  of  microscopy.  The  great  scientist  informs  him  that  the  universal  lens 
may  be  formed  of  a  diamond  of  one  hundred  and  forty  carats,  which  must  be  sub- 
jected to  electro-magnetic  currents  and  pierced  through  its  axis.  On  returning  to 
the  house  on  Fourth  Avenue  in  which  he  has  his  rooms,  an  impulse  leads  Linley  to 
visit  a  fellow-lodger,  -a  French  Jew  named  Jules  Simon,  who  hastily  conceals  some- 
thing on  his  friend's  entrance  and  is  greatly  agitated  when  he  learns  of  Lindley's 
desire  for  a  diamond.  The  latter,  by  making  Simon  drunk,  finds  out  that  the  Jew 
has  a  diamond  of  exactly  one  hundred  and  forty  carats  which  he  has  stolen  from  a 
mine  in  Brazil  and  is  unable  to  dispose  of.  Lindley  promptly  administers  laudanum 
to  the  Frenchman  and  then  stabs  him  to  the  heart,  so  arranging  the  room  that  every 
evidence  points  to  suicide,  and  that  this  explanation  is  adopted  in  the  inquiry  which 
follows.  Possessed  of  the  diamond,  Lindley  now  constructs  the  lens  and  on  its 
completion  tests  it  with  a  drop  of  water.  A  marvelous  world  of  richly  colored  vegeta- 
tion and  pure  etherial  radiance  is  revealed  to  his  delighted  gaze;  and  from  the  depths 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  225 

of  these  enchanted  forests  emerges  a  beautiful  woman's  form.  With  this  being  whom 
he  christens  Animula,  the  microscopist  falls  passionately  in  love;  but  as  she  inhabits 
a  drop  of  water  he  can  only  spend  hours  in  gazing  at  her  beauty  and  in  longing  that 
he  might  enter  her  world.  At  length  the  water  dries  up,  forests  and  lov  ely  form  wither 
and  die,  and  Lindley  goes  mad  and  wrecks  his  microscope.  For  the  rest  of  his  life  he 
is  an  object  of  derision  or  pity  as  " Lindley  the  mad  microscopist."  This  exceedingly 
clever  tale  is  told  with  an  artistry  and  technical  skill  worthy  of  high  honor  in  the 
annals  of  the  American  short  story. 

DIANA  OF  THE  CROSSWAYS,  a  remarkable  novel  by  George  Meredith,  appeared 
in  1885.  It  displays  his  power  of  drawing  a  living  vibrant  woman,  in  whom  beauty 
and  intellect  and  noble  character  are  united.  Diana  is  the  centre  of  the  book.  In 
her  light  the  other  men  and  women  live  and  move,  and  by  her  light  they  are  judged. 
She  is  an  Irishwoman  of  good  family.  As  a  girl  she  makes  an  unfortunate  marriage 
with  a  Mr.  Warwick,  who  so  little  knows  her  true  character  that  he  suspects  her  of 
an  intrigue  with  a  Lord  Dannisburg,  and  begins  proceedings  against  her.  Diana's 
separation  from  her  husband  is  the  beginning  of  her  picturesque  but  always  honorable 
career,  and  the  true  initial  point  of  the  story.  She  is  one  of  the  most  charming  of 
Meredith's  women.  The  famous  incident  of  her  betrayal  of  a  political  secret,  as  well 
as  some  traits  of  her  character,  was  drawn  from  Lady  Caroline  Norton,  Sheridan's 
granddaughter,  famous  for  her  beauty,  her  wit,  and  her  independence  of  conventional 
opinion.  It  was  later  proved,  however,  that  Lady  Norton  did  not  betray  the  secret; 
and  this  act  remains  to  many  readers  an  incomprehensible  act  on  the  part  of  Diana. 

DIANA  TEMPEST,  by  Mary  Cholmondeley  (1893).  The  clever  author  of  'Sir 
Charles  Danvers '  her e  attempts  a  more  elaborate  novel.  It  is  a  story  of  good  society, 
wherein  the  motives  potent  in  bad  society  —  greed,  envy,  malice,  and  all  unchari- 
tableness — have  "room  and  verge  enough."  The  plot  deals  with  many  sensational 
incidents,  but  the  novel  is  really  not  sensational  but  an  interesting  study  of  the  history 
of  a  family  through  several  generations.  The  children  in  the  book  are  drawn  with 
a  loving  hand,  the  characterization  is  as  good  as  in  'Sir  Charles  Danvers,'  the  dialogue 
is  clever,  the  general  treatment  brilliant,  and  in  its  charming  refinement  the  story 
has  a  place  apart. 

DIARY  OF  TWO  PARLIAMENTS,  by  Sir  H.  W.  Lucy  (2  vols.,  1885-86).  A  very 
graphic  narrative  of  events  as  they  passed  in  the  Disraeli  Parliament,  1874-80,  and 
in  the  Gladstone  Parliament,  1880-85.  Mr.  Lucy  was  the  House  of  Commons 
reporter  for  the  London  Daily  News,  and  as  "Toby,  M.  P.,"  he  supplied  the  Par- 
liamentary report  published  in  Punch.  His  diary  especially  undertakes  descriptions 
of  the  more  remarkable  scenes  of  the  successive  sessions  of  Parliament,  and  to  give 
in  skeleton  form  the  story  of  Parliaments  which  are  universally  recognized  as  having 
been  momentous  and  distinctive  in  recent  English  history.  It  includes  full  and 
minute  descriptions  of  memorable  episodes  and  notable  men. 

DICKENS,  THE  LIFE  OF  CHARLES,  by  John  Forster  (3  vols.,  1872-74).  This 
book  of  many  defects  has  the  excellence  of  being  entertaining.  It  follows  the  life  of 
its  subject  from  his  birth  in  poverty  and  obscurity  in  1812,  to  his  death  in  riches  and 
fame  in  1870.  It  extenuates  nothing,  because  the  biographer  was  incapable  of  seeing 
a  foible,  much  more  a  fault,  in  the  character  and  conduct  of  the  friend  whom  he 
admired  even  more  than  he  loved  him.  The  poverty  and  sensitiveness  of  the  lad,  his 
menial  work  and  his  sense  of  responsibility  for  his  elders,  his  thirst  for  knowledge  and 


226  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

for  the  graces  of  life,  his  training  to  be  a  reporter,  his  experience  on  a  newspaper,  his 
early  sketches,  his  first  success  in  'Pickwick,'  his  sudden  reputation  and  prosperity, 
his  first  visit  to  America  and  his  disillusionment,  the  history  of  his  novels,  of  his  read- 
ings, of  his  friendships,  of  his  home  life,  of  his  second  triumphant  journey  in  the 
United  States,  —  this  time  to  read  from  his  own  books,  —  his  whimsical  and  fun- 
loving  nature,  his  agreeableness  as  a  father,  a  comrade,  and  a  host,  his  generosity,  his 
respect  for  his  profession,  the  sum  of  the  qualities  that  made  him  both  by  tempera- 
ment and  performance  a  great  actor,  —  all  these  things  are  fully  set  forth  in  the 
elaborate  tribute  which  the  biographer  pays  to  his  friend.  The  books  are  interesting 
because  the  mass  of  material  is  interesting.  But  it  must  be  admitted  that  they  give 
an  exaggerated  impression  of  one  side  of  the  character  of  Dickens,  —  his  energetic, 
restless,  insatiable  activity,  —  and  fail  to  do  justice  to  his  less  self-conscious  and  more 
lovable  qualities.  They  are,  however,  to  be  reckoned  among  the  important  biogra- 
phies of  the  time.  There  are  laser  studies  of  Dickens  by  George  Gissing  and  by  G. 
K.  Chesterton,  but  these  are  literary  interpretations  rather  than  biographies. 

DICTATOR,  THE,  by  Justin  McCarthy.  When  Justin  McCarthy  published  'The 
Dictator,'  in  1893,  he  had  been  known  to  the  novel-reading  public  for  twenty-six 
years,  and  had  written  a  score  of  books.  'The  Dictator/  a  story  of  contemporary 
life  in  England,  gives  scope  to  its  author  for  the  display  of  his  knowledge  of  politics. 
The  Dictator  of  the  story,  Ericson,  when  first  introduced  to  the  reader,  has  jus  I 
been  ejected  by  a  revolution  from  his  position  as  chief  of  the  South  American  Republic, 
Gloria.  Of  mixed  English  and  Spanish  blood,  he  has  a  fearless  and  honest  soul.  The 
novel  comes  to  a  climax  in  a  plot  made  against  him  by  his  enemies  in  Gloria.  Besides 
the  hero,  'The  Dictator'  introduces  two  or  three  other  characters  of  especial  interest: 
Captain  Sarrasin,  who  has  traveled  and  fought  in  many  countries,  and  whose  wife  on 
occasion  can  don  men's  garments  and  handle  a  gun;  Dolores  Paulo;  and  the  Duchess 
of  Deptford,  of  American  birth,  a  caricature  rather  than  a  true  type.  The  plot 
involves  the  use  of  dynamite,  and  much  mining  and  countermining;  in  spite  of  which 
the  book  remains  an  entertaining  domestic  story. 

DICTIONARY,  HISTORICAL  AND  CRITICAL,  by  Pierre  Bayle  (1697.  Second 
edition  in  1702).  A  work  of  the  boldest  "new-departure"  character,  by  one  of  the 
master  spirits  of  new  knowledge  and  free  thought  two  hundred  years  since.  Its 
author  had  filled  various  university  positions  from  1675  to  1693,  and  had  been  ejected 
at  the  latter  date  from  the  chair  of  philosophy  and  history  at  Rotterdam  on  account 
of  Ms  bold  dealing  with  Maimbourg's  '  History  of  Calvinism.'  From  1684  for  several 
years  he  had  published  with  great  success  a  kind  of  journal  of  literary  criticism, 
entitled  'Nouvelles  de  la  Re'publique  des  Lettres.1  It  was  the  first  thoroughly 
successful  attempt  to  popularize  literature.  Bayle  was  essentially  a  modern  jour- 
nalist, whose  extensive  and  curious  information,  fluent  style,  and  literary  breadth 
made  him,  and  still  make  him,  very  interesting  reading.  He  was  a  skeptic  on  many 
subjects,  not  so  much  from  any  skeptical  system  as  from  his  large  knowledge  and  his 
broadly  modern  spirit.  His  Dictionary  is  a  masterpiece  of  fresh  criticism,  of  inquiry 
conducted  with  great  literary  skill,  and  of  emancipation  of  the  human  mind  from  the 
bonds  of  authority.  Its  influence  on  the  thought  of  the  eighteenth  century  was 
profound,  and  the  student  of  culture  may  still  profitably  consult  its  stores  of  in- 
formation. 

DICTUNG  UND  WAHRHEIT,  see  GOETHE,  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  227 

DIDEROT  AND  THE  ENCYCLOPEDISTS,  by  Viscount  John  Morley  (1878). 
This  examination  of  the  life,  the  work,  and  the  influence  of  "the  most  encyclopaedic 
head  that  ever  existed"  (as  Grimm  termed  Diderot),  and  his  fellow- workers,  is  an 
admirable  monograph.  Of  all  the  literary  preparation  for  the  French  Revolution  the 
'Encyclopedic'  was  the  symbol:  it  spread  through  the  world  a  set  of  ideas  that 
entered  into  vigorous  conflict  with  the  ancient  scheme  of  authority.  Diderot,  as  the 
head  of  the  movement,  D'Alembert  his  coadjutor,  Voltaire,  J.  J.  Rousseau,  Buffon, 
Helve* tius,  Holbach,  Raynal,  etc.,  with  other  famous  persons  of  the  day,  as  Goethe, 
Garrick,  the  Empress  Catherine  II.,  —  are  here  vividly  depicted,  with  wide  knowledge 
of  books  and  of  life,  great  skill  in  reading  character,  facility  in  disentangling  causes 
and  results,  and  broad  philosophical  perception  of  the  historic  position  of  the  age. 
Anglo-Saxon  readers  find  this  work  less  one-sided  than  Taine's  on  the  same  subject. 
Appended  to  the  book  is  a  translation  of  the  greater  part  of  'Rameau's  Nephew,' 
Diderot's  famous  dialogue. 

DIEUX  ONT  SOIF,  LES,  see  GODS  ARE  ATBDCRST. 

DISCIPLE,  THE  ('Le  Disciple')  by  Paul  Bourget  (1889),  in  its  eloquent  preface, 
which  is  the  best  part  of  the  book,  calls  upon  the  young  men  of  the  present  to  shake 
off  the  apathy  that  overcame  the  author's  own  generation  after  the  disheartening 
siege  of  1870.  Without  this  preface,  the  reader  would  be  likely  to  set  the  book  down 
as  unwholesome,  and  not  grasp  the  idea  that  the  character  of  the  disciple  is  intended 
as  a  warning  against  the  habit  of  analyzing  and  experimenting  with  the  emotions. 
The  boy's  imagination,  drawn  out  by  the  brilliant  but  often  enervating  literature 
that  comes  in  the  way  of  all  university  students,  is  further  stimulated  by  the  works 
of  an  agnostic  philosopher,  who  treats  exhaustively  of  the  passions.  The  young  man 
becomes  his  .devoted  follower,  and  makes  a  practical  application  of  his  teachings. 
In  a  family  where  he  becomes  a  tutor  he  experiments  with  the  affection  he  inspires 
in  a  young  girl,  and  is  the  direct  cause  of  her  death.  The  philosopher,  recognizing 
the  logical  outcome  of  his  theory  that  the  scientific  spirit  demands  impartial  investi- 
gation, even  in  the  things  of  the  mind  and  heart,  feels  no  small  remorse.  His  disciple 
escapes  the  vengeance  of  the  law,  only  to  fall  in  a  duel  with  the  dead  girl's  brother. 
The  recluse,  who  according  to  the  journals  was  the  original  of  the  character  of  the 
philosopher,  died  in  Paris  in  1 896.  Unlike  the  philosopher,  he  was  a  lifelong  botanist, 
devoting  all  his  energies  to  that  science,  so  that  the  points  of  resemblance  between  the 
real  and  the  fictitious  professor  are  mostly  external.  Both  lived  near  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes,  their  sole  recreation  consisting  in  looking  at  the  animals.  Both  held  aloof 
from  society,  never  marrying,  and  practicing  the  severest  economy.  When  an  officer 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor  sought  the  botanist  to  confer  the  red  ribbon  upon  him,  he 
found  that  member  of  the  Institute  on  the  point  of  cooking  his  dinner,  and  unwilling 
to  admit  him  to  his  garret.  In  the  story,  the  mice  that  overrun  the  garret,  the  ca- 
prices of  Ferdinand,  and  a  pet  rooster  kept  by  the  concierge,  are  the  only  enlivening 
elements.  But  the  holes  and  corners  in  the  region  of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  and  the 
exquisite  vistas  of  the  Observatory  and  Luxembourg  Garden,  have  never  been  better 
described. 

DISCOURSES  DELIVERED  IN  THE  ROYAL  ACADEMY  (1769-1791),  by  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds.  These,  among  the  most  famous  of  all  discourses  on  art,  are  not  so 
much  based  on  the  results  of  reading  as  on  the  author's  own  wide  experience.  They 
contain  advice  to  students,  to  use  the  words  of  the '  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,' 
"  which  is  of  permanent  value,  expressed  in  language  which  could  scarcely  be  im- 


22$  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

proved.  His  ideas  and  criticism  were  generally  sound,  and  for  the  most  part  were 
accepted  by  later  ages.  'Study  the  works  of  the  great  masters  forever,'  he  tells 
his  students.  '  Study  as  nearly  as  you  can,  in  the  order,  in  the  manner,  and  on  the 
principles,  on  which  they  studied.  Study  nature  attentively,  but  always  with  those 
masters  in  your  company ;  consider  them  as  models  which  you  are  to  imitate,  and  at 
the  same  time  as  rivals  with  whom  you  are  to  contend.'  'As  our  art  is  not  a  divine 
gift,  so  neither  is  it  a  mechanical  trade.  Its  foundations  are  laid  in  solid  science: 
and  practice,  though  essential  to  perfection,  can  never  attain  that  to  which  it  aims, 
unless  it  works  under  the  direction  of  principle.' "  (Discourses  VI.  and  VII.) 

The  most  frequent  burden  of  the  Discourses  is  that  the  only  worthy  motive  in  art 
is  the  attempt  to  attain  ideal  beauty  of  form.  He  never  admitted  that  elegance  and 
the  pursuit  of  color  could  in  themselves  constitute  a  defensible  motive.  Nevertheless 
his  own  studies  in  Italy  had  brought  him  under  the  sway  of  the  colorists  whom  he 
denounced  so  vigorously  in  his  addresses.  Ruskin  ranks  him  among  the  seven  su- 
preme colorists,  and  for  a  generation  the  works  which  he  poured  forth  in  such  pro- 
fusion owed  their  charm  and  attractiveness  to  the  sense  of  color,  against  which  year 
by  year  in  his  addresses  to  the  Academy  he  was  to  warn  his  students.  Notwithstand- 
ing this  inconsistency  between  theory  and  practice,  the  Discourses  have  been  fre- 
quently reprinted  and  even  at  the  present  day  cannot  be  neglected  by  any  serious 
student  of  art  criticism. 

DISCOURSES  OF  EPICTETUS,  see  MORALS. 

DISCOVERIES  OF  AMERICA  to  the  year  1525,  by  Arthur  James  Weise  (1884). 
A  work  of  importance  for  its  careful  review  and  comparison  of  the  various  statements 
of  historical  writers  concerning  the  voyages  of  the  persons  whom  they  believed  to 
have  been  the  discoverers  of  certain  parts  of  the  coast  of  America  between  Baffin's 
Bay  and  Terra  del  Fuego.  The  full  statements  are  given,  as  well  as  a  judgment 
upon  them.  "It  appears, "  says  Mr.  Weise,  "that  Columbus  was  not  the  discoverer 
of  the  continent,  for  it  was  seen  in  1497  not  only  by  Giovanni  Caboto  [or  John  Cabot, 
his  English  name],  but  by  the  commander  of  the  Spanish  fleet  with  whom  Amerigo 
Vespucci  sailed  to  the  New  World."  The  entire  story  of  the  discoveries  of  the  con- 
tinental coasts,  north  and  south,  apart  from  the  islands  to  which  Columbus  almost 
wholly  confined  his  attention,  is  of  very  great  interest.  John  Cabot  was  first,  about 
June,  1497.  Columbus  saw  continental  coast  land  for  the  first  time  fourteen  months 
later,  August,  1498.  It  was  wholly  in  relation  to  continental  lands  that  the  names 
New  World  and  America  were  originally  given;  and  at  the  time  it  was  not  considered 
as  disturbing  in  any  way  the  claims  of  Columbus,  whose  whole  ambition  was  to  have 
the  credit  of  having  reached  "the  isles  of  India  beyond  the  Ganges "  —  isles  which 
were  still  7000  miles  distant,  but  which  to  the  last  he  claimed  to  have  found.  The 
names  "West  Indies"  and  "Indians"  (for  native  Americans)  are  monuments  to 
Columbus,  who  did  not  at  the  time  think  it  worth  while  to  pay  attention  to  the 
continents.  It  was  by  paying  this  attention,  and  by  a  remarkably  opportune  report, 
which  had  the  fortune  of  being  printed,  that  Vespucius  came  to  the  front  in  a  way  to 
suggest  \o  the  editor  and  publisher  of  his  report  the  use  of  the  word  "America  "  as  a 
general  New  World  name  not  including  Columbus's  "West  Indies."  That  inclusion 
came  later;  and  from  first  to  last  Vespucius  had  no  more  to  do  with  it  than  Columbus 
himself. 

DISCOVERY  OF  AMERICA,  THE,  by  John  Fiske  (2  vols.,  1892).  The  initial 
work  of  Mr.  Fiske,  designed  to  serve  as  the  first 'section  of  a  complete  History  of 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  229 

America.  It  very  fully  and  carefully  covers  the  ground  of  aboriginal  America  in  the 
light  of  recent  research;  and  of  the  long  and  slow  process  through  which  the  New 
World  became  fully  known  to  the  Old.  The  story  of  voyages  before  Columbus  by 
the  Portuguese,  and  of  what  Cabot  accomplished,  is  given  at  length;  the  part  also 
which  Vespucius  played,  and  the  questions  about  it  which  have  been  so  much  dis- 
cussed. Mr.  Fiske's  estimate  of  Columbus  does  not  depart  very  much  from  the 
popular  view.  He  gives  an  account  of  ancient  Mexico  and  Central  America,  and  a 
full  sketch  of  the  conquest  of  Mexico  and  Peru.  The  work  thus  makes  a  complete 
Introduction  to  American  history  as  most  known  to  English  readers:  the  history  of 
the  planting  of  North  America  in  Virginia,  New  England,  New  York,  Delaware, 
Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  the  Carolinas. 

DISRAELI,  BENJAMIN,  EARL  OF  BEACONSFIELD,  THE  LIFE  OF,  is  an  ex- 
haustive biography  based  on  the  letters  and  papers  of  Lord  Beaconsfield.  The  first 
volume,  narrating  his  ancestry,  education,  youthful  authorship,  political  ventures, 
and  entry  into  Parliament  in  1837,  is  the  work  of  William  Flavelle  Monypenny 
and  was  published  in  1910;  volume  two,  also  by  Monypenny,  includes  his  early 
parliamentary  career,  marriage,  success  as  a  novelist,  and  contribution  to  the 
defeat  of  Peel  in  1846.  On  the  death  of  Monypenny  in  1912  the  work  was 
continued  by  George  Earle  Buckle,  who  brought  out  the  third  volume  in  1914 
and  the  fourth  in  1916.  These  two  volumes  bring  the  story  of  Disraeli's  public 
career  down  to  1855  and  1868  respectively,  the  latter  volume  concluding  with 
his  attainment  of  the  premiership.  Abundantly  illustrated  by  portraits  and  by 
frequent  extracts  from  the  letters  of  Disraeli,  and  fully  discussing  and  presenting 
the  extraordinary  and  romantic  events  of  his  brilliant  and  meteoric  progress 
to  the  highest  position  a  subject  could  occupy,  this  is  one  of  the  most  fascinating 
of  biographies. 

DIVERSIONS  OF  PURLEY,  THE,  by  John  Home  (Tooke)  (1786-1805).    The 

author,  a  political  writer  and  grammarian,  was  a  supporter  of  Wilkes,  whom  he  aided 
in  founding  a  Society  for  supporting  the  Bill  of  Rights,  1769.  Starting  a  subscription 
for  the  widows  and  orphans  of  the  Americans  "murdered  by  the  king's  troops  at 
Lexington  and  Concord, "  he  was  tried  and  found  guilty  of  libel  and  sentenced  to  a 
year's  imprisonment.  While  in  prison  he  began  to  write  'The  Diversions  of  Purley/ 
—  so  called  from  the  country-seat  of  William  Tooke,  who  made  the  author  his  heir, 
and  whose  name  Home  added  to  his  own. 

The  work  is  a  treatise  on  etymology:  the  author  contending  that  in  all  languages 
there  are  but  two  sorts  of  words  necessary  for  the  communication  of  thought,  viz., 
nouns  and  verbs;  that  all  the  other  so-called  parts  of  speech  are  but  abbreviations  of 
these,  and  are  "the  wheels  of  the  vehicle  language/' 

He  asserts  also  that  there  are  no  indefinable  words,  but  that  every  word,  in  all 
languages,  has  a  meaning  of  its  own.  To  prove  this,  he  traces  many  conjunctions, 
prepositions,  adverbs,  etc.,  back  to  their  source  as  comparisons  or  contractions; 
accounting  for  their  present  form  by  the  assertion  that  "abbreviation  and  corrup- 
tion are  always  busiest  with  the  words  most  frequently  in  use;  letters,  like  soldiers, 
being  very  apt  to  desert  and  drop  off  in  a  long  march." 

Throughout  the  work,  the  author  constantly  refers  to  his  imprisonment  and  trial, 
introducing  sentences  for  dissection  which  express  his  political  opinions,  and  words 
to  be  treated  etymologically  which  describe  the  moral  or  physical  defects  of  his 
enemies.  The  book  had  an  immense  popularity  in  its  own  day. 


230  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

DIVERSITY  OF  CREATURES,  A,  by  Rudyard  Kipling  (1917)-  Fourteen  stories, 
each  followed  by  a  poem  on  the  theme  of  the  story.  '  As  Easy  as  A.  B.  C.'  is  a  strange 
tale  of  the  future,  A.D.  2065,  when  the  planet  is  under  the  benevolent  rule  of  an  Aerial 
Board  of  Control.  The  disease  of  crowds  and  democracy  has  ceased,  and  a  small 
outbreak  of  democratic  agitation  makes  it  necessary  to  deal  with  the  American  dis- 
trict of  Illinois  through  aerial  artillery  of  sound  vibrations  and  withering  rays  of  light. 
Stalky  and  Beetle  reappear  in  the  'Honors  of  War'  hazing  a  priggish  cad  who  is 
converted  from  the  error  of  his  ways.  'Regulus'  is  a  schoolboy  comedy  having  to 
do  with  the  teaching  of  Latin,  the  connection  of  classic  learning  and  everyday  boy 
life.  There  are  thi^e  psychical  stories.  The  phantom  dog  who  haunts  a  man  is  the 
real  dog  "Harvey,"  owned  by  the  woman  he  subconsciously  loves.  'Swept  and 
Garnished '  is  a  grirn  war  story,  in  which  the  ghosts  of  murdered  children  appear  to  a 
complacent  German  woman  making  it  impossible  for  her  to  disbelieve  comfortably. 
'Mary  Postgate '  deals  with  the  effect  of  resentment  for  the  slaughter  of  the  innocents 
in  the  European  war  on  one  woman  in  England.  She  has  an  unexpected  opportunity 
to  be  judge  and  executioner.  'The  Edge  of  the  Evening*  tells  of  an  encounter  with 
spies  who  descend  from  an  aeroplane  on  the  lawn  of  a  country  house  just  before  dinner. 
There  are  stories  of  the  British  peasant  in  real  possession  of  the  land  whether  its 
nominal  ownership  is  Roman  or  English.  'The  Village  that  Voted  the  Earth  was 
Flat '  is  a  comic  extravaganza,  the  revenge  of  a  party  of  motorists  upon  the  magis- 
trate who  fines  them  unjustly  for  speeding.  One  of  the  group  is  a  producer  of  opera, 
one  a  member  of  parliament,  one  a  journalist,  and  all  are  brilliantly  equipped  in 
different  ways  for  the  confounding  of  their  enemy. 

DIVINE  COMEDY,  THE,  by  Dante  Alighieri,  was  written  between  his  exile  in  1302 
and  his  death  in  1321,  although  the  events  of  the  poem  are  supposed  to  occur  in 
1300,  Dante's  thirty-fifth  year.  The  Divine  Comedy  is  at  once  a  vision  of  the  other 
world,  an  allegory  of  the  Christian  life,  a  spiritual  autobiography,  and  a  cyclopaedic 
embodiment  of  all  the  knowledge  of  its  day.  Dante  sets  forth  as  though  from  per- 
sonal experience  the  Catholic  beliefs  as  to  the  nature  of  Hell, Purgatory,  and  Paradise; 
he  makes  his  imaginary  journey  through  these  realms  a  symbol  of  the  Christian's 
struggle  through  repentance  and  purification  towards  the  beatific  vision;  he  intro- 
duces also  his  own  redemption  from  sensuality  through  the  influence  of  his  ideal 
devotion  to  Beatrice,  who  became  for  him  the  medium  of  divine  grace;  and  in  ade- 
quately explaining  and  adorning  these  great  conceptions  he  employs  all  the  learning, 
all  the  science,  and  all  the  literary  devices,  mythological  figures,  and  poetic  machinery 
which  could  be  furnished  by  the  best  learning  of  the  time.  Of  this  learning  the  figure 
of  Virgil,  his  guide  through  Hell  and  Purgatory,  is  the  representative.  Noteworthy  is 
the  symmetry  of  the  poem  and  the  exact  correspondence  of  its  arrangement  to  the 
scientific  preciseness  with  which  the  other  world  is  conceived  and  depicted.  There  are 
three  divisions,  Hell,  Purgatory,  and  Paradise,  the  first  including  thirty-four  cantos, 
and  the  two  last,  thirty-three  cantos  each,  making  one  hundred  in  all.  Each  canto 
is  of  approximately  the  same  length;  and  the  three  realms  are  described  in  symmetrical 
order  and  proportion.  The  metre  is  the  terza  rima,  consisting  of  lo-syllabled  or  n- 
syllabled  lines  which  fall  into  groups  of  three  with  interlacing  rhymes  —  the  first  and 
third  lines  rhyming,  and  the  second  rhyming  with  the  first  and  third  of  the  next 
group,  thus:  aba,  bcb,  cdc,  etc.  The  sustained  music  of  this  measure,  the  con- 
centration and  intensity  of  the  style,  its  wealth  of  brief  and  pointed  allusion,  its 
pictorial  vividness,  and  its  austere  beauty  are  the  distinctive  marks  of  the  Divine 
Comedy  as  poetry. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  231 

DIVINE  FANCIES,  see  EMBLEMS. 

DIVINE  FIRE,  THE,  by  May  Sinclair  (1905).  This  novel  is  the  record  of  the  career 
of  Keith  Rickman,  a  Cockney  poet,  and  son  of  a  sordid  London  bookseller,  in  whose 
soul  dwells  "the  divine  fire."  Rickman  finds  his  feminine  ideal  in  the  aristocratic 
and  high-minded  Lucia  Harden,  whose  library  he  has  been  sent  to  catalogue.  Lucia 
is  on  the  point  of  becoming  betrothed  to  her  cousin  Horace  Jewdwine,  the  deteriora- 
tion of  whose  character  is  outlined  in  contrast  to  the  development  of  that  of  Rickman, 
who  triumphs  over  his  disadvantages  of  birth  and  breeding  and  over  the  temptations 
which  arise  in  connection  with  his  business  and  journalistic  life.  Jewdwine,  the 
priggisn  and  refined  Oxford  don,  comes  to  London  to  edit  the  Museion,  a  progres- 
sive literary  journal,  with  idealistic  aims;  through  his  association  with  the  embryo 
poet  the  latter  becomes  acquainted  with  Lucia  Harden;  she,  while  repelled  by  the 
young  poet's  crudeness  and  lack  of  breeding,  nevertheless  discerns  his  genius  and  is 
gradually  more  and  more  strongly  drawn  towards  him.  Lucia's  cousin,  for  whom 
she  feels  no  genuine  sentiment,  finds  it  to  his  advantage  to  defer  any  immediate 
matrimonial  project  and  in  the  meantime  she  learns  to  love  Rickman,  who  adores 
her  at  a  distance.  Many  complications  spring  from  the  disposition  of  the  Harden 
library,  which  contains  priceless  volumes  and  falls  a  prey  to  sharpers.  Rickman 
passes  through  many  vicissitudes,  social,  financial,  and  literary,  and  his  connec- 
tion with  editors  and  magazines  gives  the  writer  of  the  book  an  ample  oppor- 
tunity, which  she  improves,  to  discourse  upon  the  varying  types  of  editors  and 
reviewers. 

DIVINE  POEMS,  see  EMBLEMS. 

DMITRI  ROUDIN,  a  story  by  Turgeneff.  This  great  novel  was  first  published  in 
1860.  The  action  passes  in  the  country,  some  distance  from  Moscow,  at  the  country- 
seat  of  Daria  Mikhailovna,  a  great  lady  who  protects  literature  and  art  and  is  deter- 
mined to  have  a  salon.  She  has  one  in  embryo  already,  made  up  of  an  old  French 
governess,  a  young  Circassian  secretary,  and  a  Cossack.  The  advent  of  Dmitri,  a 
vainglorious  creature  who  thinks  himself  a  great  man,  completes  it.  He  has  retained 
a  few  scraps  from  the  books  he  has  read,  some  ideas  borrowed  from  the  German 
transcendentalists,  and  a  number  of  keen  aphorisms;  and  so  he  imagines  he  is  able  to 
pull  down  and  set  up  everything.  He  dazzles  and  fascinates  the  women  by  his 
expressive  looks  and  serene  self-confidence;  and  being  treated  as  a  genius,  he  naturally 
believes  himself  one.  He  speaks  of  his  immense  labors;  but  all  his  literary  baggage 
consists  of  newspaper  aii.d  magazine  articles  which  he  intends  to  write.  He  is  soon 
found  out,  however;  and  from  Dana's  salon  passes  into  that  of  an  affected  old  lady,  a 
bluestocking  also,  who  takes  him  even  more  seriously  than  Daria  did  at  first.  She 
believes  she  can  understand  Hegel's  metaphysics  when  he  explains  them;  so  sh^ 
lodges  and  boards  him,  lends  him  money,  and  insists  that  all  her  visitors  shall  ac- 
knowledge his  superiority.  Unfortunately,  her  daughter,  a  proud  beauty,  hears  so 
much  of  this  superiority  that  she  believes  in  it,  becomes  smitten  with  the  great  man, 
and  wishes  to  marry  him.  This  is  too  much  for  the  old  lady,  and  Dmitri  is  shown  the 
door.  He  is  at  last  forced  to  quit  Russia,  and  dies  defending  a  barricade  at  Paris. 
In  the  character  of  Dmitri,  Turgeneff  satirizes  a  class  common  enough  in  every 
country  as  well  as  Russia,  especially  among  the  young,  —  the  class  of  people  who 
mistake  words,  in  which  they  abound,  for  ideas,  in  which  they  are  lacking.  And 
yet,  such  is  Turgeneff's  fine  and  delicate  skill  in  the  analysis  of  feeling  that  he 
interests  us  in  this  poor  boaster;  he  excites  our  pity  for  him,  —  and  it  is  a  singular 


232  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

fact  that  the  lower  Dmitri  falls,  the  more  interesting  he  becomes.  He  is  a 
mixture  of  pride  and  weakness;  and  his  good  faith  and  harmlessness  somewhat 
palliate  his  faults. 

DOCTEUR  PASCAL,  LE,  see  ROTTGON-MAC QUART. 

DOCTOR,  THE,  a  ponderous  romance  by  Robert  Southey,  appeared  anonymously 
in  1834,  though  Vols.  vi.  and  vii.  were  not  published  until  after  his  death  in  1847* 
It  records  the  observations,  philosophizing,  and  experiences  of  a  quaint  physician, 
"Dr.  Love,  of  Doncaster,"  who,  with  his  faithful  horse  "Nobbs,"  travels  the  country 
over  and  ministers  to  the  needs  of  men.  While  little  read  in  present  days,  it  has 
generally  received  the  moderate  praise  of  scholars.  In  form  it  is  a  peculiar  medley  of 
essay,  colloquy,  and  criticism,  lacking  coherence;  a  vast  accumulation  of  curious 
erudition,  meditative  wisdom,  and  somewhat  labored  humor.  Southey  manifested 
much  pride  in  the  book,  from  whose  pure  English,  freshness  of  innovation,  and 
brilliant  though  mechanical  diorama  of  thought,  he  expected  a  larger  meed  of  praise 
than  has  ever  been  accorded  it,  by  either  critics  or  the  public. 

DOCTOR,  THE,  a  tale  of  the  Rockies,  by  Ralph  Connor  (1906).  This  narrati\e 
deals  with  the  lives  of  two  brothers,  Barney  and  Richard  Boyle,  who  are  of  Scotch- 
Irish  parentage,  but  are  Canadian  born.  The  father  is  a  respectable  miller,  but  the 
sons,  who  are  endowed  with  good  intellect  and  strong  characters,  are  ambitious  to 
make  something  of  themselves.  The  younger  boy,  Dick,  is  sent  to  college  to  study 
for  the  ministry  and  this  is  the  first  separation  that  has  come  between  the  two 
brothers,  who  are  absolutely  devoted  to  each  other.  Barney  fits  himself  for  his 
chosen  profession  of  medicine,  and  later  on  works  his  way  through  the  medical  school, 
there  being  only  enough  money  for  the  education  of  one  son.  Before  leaving  home 
Barney  has  won  the  affection  of  an  attractive  young  girl  named  lola  Lane,  who  has 
taught  school  in  his  nativ  e  town  and  who  has  a  beautiful  voice.  lola  goes  to  the  city 
to  study  music  as  she  is  anxious  for  a  career.  This  ambition  causes  a  break  between 
herself  and  Barney  and  he  goes  to  a  distant  city  to  teach  in  a  university.  During 
his  absence  Dick  and  lola  are  much  together  though  Dick  has  been  for  years  in 
love  with  Margaret  Robertson,  a  childhood's  friend  and  neighbor.  Margaret  how- 
ever loves  Barney  and  rejects  his  brother's  advances.  Dick  when  finishing  his  theo- 
logical course  is  refused  his  degree  on  account  of  opinions  which  the  Presbytery 
consider  heretical.  He  goes  into  journalism  and  becomes  reckless  in  many  ways. 
He  is  tempted  on  one  occasion  to  kiss  lola  and  Barney  suddenly  appearing  at  the 
crucial  moment  casts  him  off  forever.  Later  Dick  goes  west  as  a  missionary  and 
works  among  men  in  the  mountain  camps.  Barney  also  practices  his  profession 
among  these  same  people,  but  avoids  meeting  his  brother  who  is  ignorant  of  his 
proximity.  Margaret,  who  has  become  a  nurse,  is  made  matron  of  a  hospital  in 
connection  with  Dick's  work.  Barney  saves  Dick's  life  and  the  brothers  are  re-united, 
and  then  learning  that  lola  is  sick  in  Scotland  Barney  goes  to  her,  reaching  her  just 
before  her  death.  Heart-broken  he  returns  to  his  work  and  dies  a  sacrifice  to  his 
profession.  Margaret  and  Dick,  sharing  a  common  loss,  are  brought  together  and 
happiness  comes  after  sorrow. 

DOCTOR  ANTONIO,  by  Giovanni  Ruffini  (1856),  is  a  novel  of  modern  life,  the 
scene  of  which  is  laid  mainly  in  Italy,  the  political  troubles  there  being  made  the 
source  of  the  story's  action.  The  chief  characters  are  Sir  John  Davenne,  an  English- 
man traveling  in  Italy,  his  daughter  Lucy,  and  Doctor  Antonio,  a  Sicilian  exile. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  233 

The  personality  of  the  Doctor  is  one  of  singular  charm,  and  holds  interest  throughout 
the  book.  When  published  this  novel  became  a  universal  favorite,  and  it  is  still  read 
with  pleasure. 

DR.  CLAUDIUS,  by  F.  Marion  Crawford  (1883),  was  the  second  of  Mr.  Crawford's 
novels,  following  a  year  after  its  predecessor  'Mr.  Isaacs.'  Unlike  the  latter,  it 
contains  no  element  of  the  supernatural,  and  is  merely  a  love  story  of  contemporary 
life.  Dr.  Claudius,  himself,  when  first  introduced,  is  a  privatdocent  at  Heidelberg, 
living  simply,  in  a  state  of  philosophical  content.  He  plans  no  change  in  his  life 
when  the  news  comes  to  him  that  he  has  inherited  more  than  a  million  dollars  by  the 
death  of  his  uncle  Gustavus  Lindstrand,  who  had  made  a  fortune  in  New  York. 
The  son  of  his  partner,  Silas  B.  Barker,  soon  arrives  in  Heidelberg  to  see  what  manner 
of  man  Dr.  Claudius  may  be,  and  persuades  the  blond,  stalwart  Scandinavian  to  go 
with  him  to  America;  securing  an  invitation  for  the  two  on  the  private  yacht  of  an 
English  duke,  whom  he  knows  well.  Before  leaving  Heidelberg,  Claudius  has  fallen 
in  love  with  a  beautiful  woman  met  by  chance  in  the  ruins  of  the  Schloss.  Since  she 
is  also  a  friend  of  the  Duke,  Barker  is  able  to  introduce  Claudius  to  her.  This  Coun- 
tess Margaret,  with  her  companion,  Miss  Skeat,  is  asked  to  cross  the  Atlantic  with 
the  Duke,  his  sister  Lady  Victoria,  Barker,  and  Claudius.  Margaret,  though  an 
American,  is  the  widow  of  a  Russian  count.  Claudius  is  not  wholly  disheartened, 
when,  on  the  yacht,  she  refuses  to  marry  him.  But  in  America,  she  succumbs  to  the 
romantic  surroundings  of  the  Cliff  Walk  at  Newport,  and  admits  that  she  loves  the 
philosophical  millionaire.  Claudius  then  starts  off  on  a  hasty  journey  to  St.  Peters- 
burg, where  he  obtains  from  the  government  the  return  of  Margaret's  estates  con- 
fiscated on  account  of  her  brother-in-law's  republicanism.  Just  what  the  secret  is  of 
Dr.  Claudius's  power  with  Russia,  we  are  not  told;  but  Mr.  Crawford  lets  us  infer 
that  he  is  the  posthumous  son  of  some  European  potentate.  The  Duke  and  the 
courteous  Horace  Bellingham  know  who  he  is,  but  the  reader's  curiosity  is  not 
gratified. 

DOCTOR  FAUSTUS,  by  Christopher  Marlowe.  This  play,  written  about  the 
year  1589,  is  remarkable  both  as  the  chief  work  of  the  founder  of  English  tragedy, 
and  as  the  first  play  based  on  the  Faust  legend.  At  the  time  of  the  Reformation, 
when  chemistry  was  in  its  infancy,  any  skill  in  this  science  was  attributed  to  a  com- 
pact with  the  Evil  One..  Hence  wandering  scholars  who  performed  tricks  and  wonders 
were  considered  magicians,  their  achievements  were  grossly  exaggerated,  and  they 
were  supposed  to  have  surrendered  their  souls  to  the  Devil.  The  last  of  these  travel- 
ing magicians  to  gain  notoriety  was  John  Faustus,  whose  public  career  lasted  from 
1510  to  1540;  and  to  him  were  ascribed  all  the  feats  of  his  predecessors.  In  1587  the 
'Faustbuch '  was  printed,  giving  the  story  of  his  life  and  exploits.  An  English  trans- 
lation, made  soon  after,  was  doubtless  the  source  of  Marlowe's  plot.  The  theme  was 
afterwards  variously  elaborated  in  Germany,  and  there  were  many  puppet  plays  on 
the  subject;  but  it  remained  for  Goethe's  master-hand  to  ennoble  the  popular  legend, 
and  make  it  symbolic  of  the  struggles  and  aspirations  of  the  whole  human  race. 
Marlowe's  'Doctor  Faustus '  is  rather  a  tragic  poem  than  a  drama,  consisting  of  only 
fourteen  scenes  without  any  grouping  into  acts.  It  is  remarkable  for  singleness  of 
aim  and  simplicity  of  construction,  though  there  is  plenty  of  variety  and  incident. 
The  passionate  and  solemn  scenes  are  very  impressive,  and  the  final  tremendous 
monologue  before  Lucifer  seizes  Faustus's  soul  is  unsurpassed  in  all  the  range  of 
tragedy.  Faustus,  dissatisfied  with  philosophy,  resolves  to  enlarge  his  sphere  by 


234  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

cultivating  magic.  He  conjures  up  Mephistopheles  and  bids  him  be  his  servant, 
The  spirit,  however,  replies  that  Lucifer's  permission  must  first  be  gained.  Faustus 
then  voluntarily  offers  to  surrender  his  soul  after  four-and-twenty  years,  if  during 
that  time  Mephistopheles  shall  be  his  slave.  Lucifer  agrees,  and  demands  a  promise 
written  in  Faustus's  blood.  Then  Faustus  sets  out  in  search  of  knowledge  and 
pleasure,  traveling  about  invisible.  He  provides  grapes  in  midwinter,  and  calls  up 
the  spirits  of  Alexander  and  Thais  to  please  the  emperor.  At  the  request  of  his 
scholars  he  summons  Helen  of  Troy,  and  impressed  by  her  beauty,  exclaims:  — 

"  Was  this  the  face  that  launched  a  thousand  ships. 
And  burnt  the  topless  towers  of  Ilium? 
Sweet  Helen,  make  me  immortal  with  a  kiss!  " 

At  times  the  desire  for  repentance  seizes  him;  but  the  exhilaration  of  pleasure  is  too 
great,  and  the  powers  of  ^evil  are  too  strong.  Finally  the  time  expires,  and  Faustus  in 
agony  awaits  the  coming  of  Lucifer.  He  appeals  to  God  and  Christ,  but  has  forfeited 
the  right  to  pray;  and  at  the  stroke  of  twelve  Lucifer  bears  him  away  to  everlasting 
doom. 

DR»  JEKYLL  AND  MR.  HYDE,  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  (1886),  is  a  psychologic 
romance  illustrating  the  complex  quality  of  man's  nature.  The  scene  is  London. 
Dr.  Jekyll  is  a  physician  of  position  and  good  character,  a  portly,  kindly  man.  In 
his  youth,  however,  he  showed  that  he  had  strong  capacities  for  evil,  which  he 
succeeded  in  suppressing  for  years.  His  professional  tastes  lead  him  to  experiment 
in  drugs,  and  he  hits  on  one  whereby  he  is  changed  physically  so  that  his  lower  nature 
receives  external  dress.  He  becomes  Air.  Hyde,  a  pale,  misshapen,  repulsive  creature 
of  evil  and  violent  passions.  Again  and  again  Dr.  Jekyll  effects  this  change,  and  gives 
his  bad  side  more  and  more  power.  His  friend  Utterson,  a  lawyer,  is  puzzled  by 
JekylTs  will  in  favor  of  Hyde,  and  seeks  to  unravel  the  mystery.  The  brutal  murder 
of  Sir  Danvers  Carew,  which  is  traced  to  Hyde,  who  of  course  disappears,  adds  to  the 
mystery  and  horror.  At  last,  by  the  aid  of  letters  left  by  Dr.  Lanyon,  another  of 
Dr.  Jekyll  fs  lawyer  friends,  to  whom  he  has  revealed  the  secret  and  who  is  killed  by 
the  shock  of  the  discovery,  the  strange  facts  are  exposed.  Utterson  breaks  into 
Jekyll's  laboratory,  only  to  find  Hyde,  who  has  just  taken  his  own  life;  and  Jekyll  is 
gone  forever. 

DR.  LATIMER,  by  Clara  Louise  Burnham  (1893).  This  is  called  "A  Story  of 
Casco  Bay";  and  it  contains  many  charming  pictures  of  that  beautiful  Maine  coast 
and  its  fascinating  islands.  Dr.  Latimer,  a  man  of  fine  character  and  position, 
beloved  by  all  who  know  him,  becomes  interested  in  three  orphan  girls,  Josephine, 
Helen,  and  Vernon  Ivison,  who  come  to  Boston  to  support  themselves  by  teaching 
and  music.  He  falls  in  love  with  Josephine,  the  eldest,  who  returns  his  affection; 
and  he  invites  the  three  girls  to  his  island  home  for  the  summer.  He  has  hesitated  to 
avow  his  love  for  Josephine  on  account  of  the  difference  of  age  between  them,  and 
also  on  account  of  a  former  unhappy  marriage  made  in  early  youth  with  a  woman 
who  had  first  disgraced  and  then  deserted  him,  and  whom  he  has  long  supposed 
dead.  Her  sudden  reappearance  destroys  his  newly  found  happiness;  he  leaves  the 
island,  bidding  Josephine  a  final  farewell.  Recalled  by  the  news  that  his  wife  has 
drowned  herself  and  that  he  is  at  last  free/  he  marries  Josephine.  Helen  and  Vernon 
are  mated  to  the  men  of  their  choice:  the  former  to  Mr.  Brush,  a  German  teacher; 
the  latter  to  Olin  Randolph,  a  society  youth  of  much  charm  and  character,  whose 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  235 

aunts,  Miss  Charlotte  and  Miss  Agnes  Norman,  are  characters  of  interest,  as  is  also 
Persis  Applebee,  the  doctor's  old-fashioned  housekeeper. 

DR.  SEVIER,  by  George  W.  Cable  (1882),  is  one  of  the  author's  group  of  stories  of 
life  in  New  Orleans.  The  time  of  the  action  is  just  before  the  war,  when  the  city 
was  at  the  height  of  its  prosperity.  Dr.  Sevier,  the  brusque,  laconic,  skillful,  kind- 
hearted  physician,  is  less  the  central  figure  than  his  young  beneficiary,  John  Richling, 
the  son  of  a  rich  planter,  who  having  estranged  his  family  by  marrying  a  Northern 
girl,  has  come  to  the  metropolis  of  the  South  to  earn  his  living.  The  struggle  of  the 
Richlings,  unequipped  for  the  battle  of  life,  against  poverty  and  sickness,  forms  the 
plot  of  the  story,  which  is  glowing  with  local  color  and  filled  with  personages  peculiar 
to  the  place  and  time.  There  is  no  plot  in  the  sense  of  a  complicated  play  of  forces, 
or  labyrinth  of  events;  but  the  interest  lies  in  the  development  of  character  under 
conditions  supplied  by  an  untried  environment.  The  scope  of  the  book  is  wide  and 
the  detail  extremely  minute. 

DR.  SYNTAX,  THE  THREE  TOURS  OF,  by  William  Combe.  This  famous  book, 
or  rather  series  of  three  books,  was  first  devised  by  its  author  at  the  suggestion  of  the 
publisher,  Mr.  Ackennann,  who  desired  some  amusing  text  to  accompany  a  series 
of  caricatures  which  he  had  engaged  from  the  celebrated  Rowlandson. 

William  Combe,  then  past  sixty-five  years  of  age,  had  already  produced  a  large 
number  of  volumes,  of  which  all  had  appeared  anonymously.  The  first  part  of  '  Dr. 
Syntax,7  which  was  published  in  1809,  describes  the  adventures  of  a  certain  Dr. 
Syntax,  clergyman  and  teacher,  who,  on  his  horse  Grizzle,  deliberately  sets  out  in 
search  of  adventures  which  he  might  make  material  for  a  book.  His  plan,  as  he  gives 
it  to  his  wife  Dolly,  is  as  follows :  — 

*'  You  well  know  what  my  pen  can  do, 
And  I'll  employ  my  pencil  too; — 
I'll  ride  and  write  and  sketch  and  print, 
And  thus  create  a  real  mint; 
111  prose  it  here  and  verse  it  there, 
And  picturesque  it  everywhere." 

In  this  long  series  of  eight-foot  iambic  couplets  with  the  real  Hudibras  swing, 
Combe  tells  the  story  of  the  travels  of  the  clerical  Don  Quixote.  The  author  endows 
him  with  much  of  his  own  sense  of  humor  and  Horatian  philosophy;  and  even  though 
the  adventures  are  not  always  thrilling,  the  account  of  them,  and  the  accompany- 
ing reflections,  are  extremely  entertaining.  Pleasure,  Wealth,  Content,  Ambition, 
Riches,  are  among  the  abstractions  of  which  the  author  or  his  hero  discourses;  and 
many  of  the  passages  are  undoubtedly  intended  by  Combe  as  autobiographic. 

In  the  course  of  his  travels  Dr.  Syntax  meets  various  persons  whom  the  author 
makes  food  for  his  mild  satire,  —  the  merchant,  the  critic,  the  bookseller,  the  country 
squire,  the  Oxford  don,  and  other  well-marked  types.  The  descriptions  of  rural 
scenery  and  of  the  cities  visited  by  Dr.  Syntax  are  often  clever,  and  even  today  are 
agreeable  to  read.  The  very  great  popularity  of  the  first  tour  of  Dr.  Syntax  "in 
search  of  the  picturesque'*  encouraged  author  and  publisher  to  follow  it  with  a 
second  and  a  third  series. 

DOCTOR  THORNE,  by  Anthony  Trollope  (1858).  'Doctor  Thorne'  is  a  story  of 
quiet  country  life;  and  the  interest  of  the  book  lies  in  the  character  studies,  rather 
than  in  the  plot.  The  scene  is  laid  in  the  west  of  England  about  1 854.  The  heroine, 


236  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Man-  Thome,  is  a  sweet,  modest  girl,  living  with  her  kind  uncle  Doctor  Thome,  in 
the  village  of  Greshambury,  where  Frank  Gresham,  the  young  heir  of  Greshambury 
Park,  falls  in  love  with  her.  The  estate  is  incumbered;  and  as  it  is  necessary  that 
Frank  should  many  for  money,  his  mother,  Lady  Arabella,  banishes  Mary  from  the 
society  of  her  daughters,  and  sends  Frank  to  Courcy  Castle,  where  he  is  expected  to 
win  the  affections  of  Miss  Dunstable,  a  wealthy  heiress.  He  remains  true  to  Mary, 
however;  and  after  a  year  of  enforced  absence  abroad,  he  returns  and  claims  her  for 
his  wife  in  the  face  of  every  opposition.  Roger  Scatcherd,  the  brother  of  Mary's 
unfortunate  mother,  is  creditor  to  Mr.  Gresham  for  a  sum  of  money  amounting  to 
the  value  of  the  entire  estate.  After  his  death  his  entire  fortune  falls  to  Mary  Thorne; 
and  the  story  concludes  with  the  marriage  of  Frank  and  Mary,  and  a  return  of  pros- 
perity to  Greshambury  Park. 

The  character  of  Doctor  Thorne  stands  out  vividly  in  the  book  as  an  independent, 
honest  Englishman,  offering  a  pleasing  contrast  to  Lady  Arabella  with  her  conven- 
tionality and  worldliness  and  the  coarse  vulgarity  of  Roger  Scatcherd  and  his  son. 

DOLL'S  HOUSE,  A,  one  of  the  best-known  plays  of  Henrik  Ibsen,  was  published  in 
1879.  It  is  the  drama  of  the  Woman,  the  product  of  man's  fostering  care  through 
centuries,  —  his  doll,  from  whom  nature  has  kindly  removed  the  unused  faculties 
which  produce  clear  thinking  and  business-like  action.  Nora,  the  particular  doll  in 
question,  adorns  a  little  home  with  her  pretty  dresses,  her  pretty  i  lanner,  her  sweet, 
childish  ignorance.  She  must  bring  up  her  babies,  love  her  husband,  and  have  well- 
cooked  dinners.  For  the  sake  of  this  husband,  she  ventures  once  beyond  the  limit 
of  the  nest.  He  is  ill,  and  she  forges  her  rich  father's  name  to  obtain  money  to  send 
him  abroad.  The  disclosure  of  her  guilt,  the  guilt  of  a  baby,  a  doll  who  did  not  know 
better,  brings  her  face  to  face  with  the  realities  of  the  world  and  of  life.  The  puppet 
becomes  vitalized,  changed  into  a  suffering  woman  who  realizes  that  there  is  "some- 
thing wrong"  in  the  state  of  women  as  wives.  She  leaves  her  husband's  house,  "a 
moth  flying  towards  a  star."  She  will  not  return  until  she  is  different,  or  marriage 
is  different,  or  —  she  knows  not  what.  'A  Doll's  House '  is  the  most  striking  embodi- 
ment in  the  range  of  modern  drama,  of  the  new  awakening  of  Eve.  The  last  scene  of 
the  play  is  given  in  the  LIBRARY. 

DOMBEY  AND  SON,  by  Charles  Dickens.  The  story  opens  with  the  death  of 
Mrs.  Dombey,  who  has  left  her  husband  the  proud  possessor  of  a  baby  son  and  heir. 
He  neglects  his  daughter  Florence  and  loves  Paul,  in  whom  all  his  ambitions  and 
worldly  hopes  are  centred;  but  the  boy  dies.  Mr.  Dombey  marries  a  beautiful 
woman,  who  is  as  cold  and  proud  as  he,  and  who  has  sold  herself  to  him  to  escape 
from  a  designing  mother.  She  grows  fond  of  Florenpe,  and  this  friendship  is  so  dis- 
pleasing to  Mr.  Dombey  that  he  tries  to  humble  her  by  remonstrating  through  Mr. 
Carker,  his  business  manager  and  friend.  This  crafty  villain,  realizing  his  power, 
goads  her  beyond  endurance,  and  she  demands  a  separation  from  Mr.  Dombey,  but  is 
refused.  After  an  angry  interview,  she  determines  upon  a  bold  stroke  and  disgraces 
her  husband  by  pretending  to  elope  with  Carker  to  France,  where  she  meets  him  once, 
shames  and  defies  him  and  escapes.  Mr.  Dombey,  after  spurning  Florence,  whom  he 
considers  the  cause  of  his  trouble,  follows  Carker  in  hot  haste.  They  encounter  each 
other  without  warning  at  a  railway  station,  and  as  Carker  is  crossing  the  tracks  he 
falls  and  is  instantly  killed  by  an  express  train.  Florence  seeks  refuge  with  an  old 
sea-captain  whom  her  little  brother,  Paul,  has  been  fond  of,  marries  Walter  Gay, 
the  friend  of  her  childhood,  and  they  go  to  sea.  After  the  failure  of  Dombey  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  237 

Son,  when  Mr.  Dombey's  pride  is  humbled  and  he  is  left  desolate,  Florence  returns 
and  takes  care  of  him.  The  characters  in  the  book  not  immediately  concerned  in  the 
plot,  but  famous  for  their  peculiar  qualities,  are  Captain  Cuttle,  Florence's  kind 
protector,  who  has  a  nautical  manner  of  expression;  Sol  Gills,  Walter's  uncle;  Mr. 
Toots,  who  suffers  from  shyness  and  love;  and  Joe  Bagstock,  the  major.  The  scene 
is  laid  in  England  at  the  time  the  novel  was  published,  in  1848. 

DON  JOHN,  a  novel  by  Jean  Ingelow,  was  published  in  1881.  The  story  turns  on 
the  well-worn  incident  of  the  changing  of  two  children  in  their  cradles.  The  plot 
follows  their  development,  the  gradual  manifestation  through  character  of  their  true 
origin.  '  Don  John '  is  admirably  written,  bearing  about  it  the  same  atmosphere  of 
simplicity  and  nobility  that  surrounds  this  author's  poems.  Though  a  mere  mention 
of  the  chief  incident  implies  a  poverty  of  invention,  the  book  is  really  one  of  unusual 
freshness  of  imagination.  The  delineation  of  character  is  delightfully  delicate  and 
exact;  and  the  skill  with  which  the  puzzle  of  identity  is  treated  leaves  the  reader  in 
the  desired  mood  of  doubt  to  the  end  of  the  excellent  story. 

DON  JOAN,  a  narrative  and  satirical  poem  in  eight-line  stanzas  by  George  Gordon, 
Lord  Byron.  Cantos  I  and  II  were  published  in  1819,  III  to  V  in  1821,  VT-XIV  at 
different  times  in  1823,  and  XV  and  XVI  in  1824.  The  poem  is  unfinished.  Its 
theme  is  the  Spanish  legend  of  Don  Juan,  a  libertine  who  killed  the  father  of  a  girl 
he  had  seduced  and  while  on  a  mocking  visit  to  his  victim's  tomb  was  swallowed  up 
in  Hell  along  with  the  statue  of  the  man  he  had  killed.  Byron's  Juan  is  also  a  liber- 
tine; but  the  poet  is  more  interested  in  the  varied  amors  of  his  hero  and  the  oppor- 
tunity afforded  by  them  for  pictures  and  reflections  —  cynical,  sentimental,  and 
realistic  —  of  life  and  human  nature,  particularly  the  numerous  aspects  of  love  and 
passion  —  than  in  drawing  an  edifying  moral  or  providing  for  the  punishment  of  the 
culprit.  He  had  not  decided,  he  said,  whether  to  make  him  end  in  Hell  or  in  an 
unhappy  marriage.  Don  Juan  a  Spanish  grandee  of  Seville  is  forced  into  exile  at  the 
age  of  sixteen  through  being  detected  in  an  intrigue  with  Donna  Julia,  the  beautiful 
young  wife  of  the  elderly  Don  Alfonso.  Embarking  from  Cadiz  for  Leghorn  he  is 
shipwrecked,  and  after  enduring  dreadful  privations  in  an  open  boat  is  cast,  the  sole 
survivor,  upon  an  island  in  the  JEgean.  Here  he  is  secretly  nursed  back  to  life  by 
Haidee,  the  lo\  ely  seventeen-year-old  daughter  of  the  pirate-chieftain,  Lambro,  and 
they  become  lovers.  On  a  report  that  her  father  has  died  while  absent  on  a  piratical 
expedition,  Haidee  with  Juan  assumes  the  sovereignty  of  the  island.  But  Lambro 
returns  during  a  feast,  surprises  the  lovers,  disarms  Juan,  and  sells  him  for  a  slave. 
While  Haidee  dies  of  a  broken  heart,  Juan  is  taken  to  Constantinople,  where  he  is 
purchased  by  the  Sultana,  Guyalbez,  who  lias  fallen  in  love  with  him  and  introduces 
him,  disguised  as  a  woman,  into  the  seraglio.  Enraged  at  his  rejection  of  her,  and  at 
a  subsequent  escapade  with  one  of  the  women  of  the  seraglio  she  orders  Juan  to  be 
drowned.  But  he  makes  his  escape  to  the  Russian  army,  then  fighting  the  Turks, 
distinguishes  himself  at  a  siege  under  General  Souwaroff,  and  is  sent  as  a  special 
messenger  to  the  notorious  Empress  Catherine  at  St.  Petersburg.  He  becomes  the 
reigning  favorite  and  is  then  sent  to  England  on  a  special  diplomatic  mission.  Here 
Byron  introduces  the  reader  to  a  group  of  English  aristocrats  at  a  country  house, 
where  Juan  is  a  guest;  and  ends  in  the  midst  of  another  amatory  adventure,  in  which 
the  Duchess  of  Fite-Fulke,  masquerading  as  the  ghost  of  a  friar,  seeks  a  midnight 
interview  with  the  hero.  The  poem  exhibits  Byron's  full  power  as  a  creative  poet 
and  a  satirist.  Perhaps  the  finest  part  is  the  account  of  the  shipwreck,  many  details 


238  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

of  which  are  taken  from  the  autobiography  of  his  grandfather,  Admiral  John  Byron, 
and  the  ensuing  episode  of  the  love  of  Haidee  and  Juan. 

DON  ORSINO,  by  F.  Marion  Crawford  (1892).  This  book  gives  a  good  idea  of 
Rome  after  the  unification  of  Italy,  as  the  author's  purpose  is  to  describe  a  young 
man  of  the  transition  period.  It  will  probably  never  attain  the  popularity  of  the 
two  earlier  Saracinesca  stories,  because  many  readers  find  the  plot  unpleasant  and 
the  ending  unsatisfactory.  In  analysis  and  development  of  character,  however,  and 
in  sparkling  dialogue,  it  far  surpasses  its  predecessors. 

Orsino  Saracinesca  longs  for  a  career,  and  being  rebuffed  at  home,  is  attracted 
by  the  sympathetic  womanliness  of  Madame  Maria  Consuelo  d'Aranjuez,  whose 
antecedents  are  mysterious.  With  the  aid  of  Del  Ferice  he  undertakes  some  building 
operations,  mortgaging  his  house  in  advance.  One  day  he  makes  love  to  Madame 
d'Aranjuez,  but  soon  realizes  the  shallowness  of  his  emotions.  Subsequently  constant 
intercourse  renews  his  affection  on  a  firmer  basis,  and  he  wishes  to  marry  her.  Though 
she  loves  him  she  leaves  Rome,  soon  writing  that  a  stain  on  her  birth  prevents  her 
marrying  him.  On  the  day  of  her  refusal  he  learns  that  his  business  is  ruined;  but 
Del  Ferice  renews  the  contract  in  terms  to  which  Orsino  submits,  only  to  avoid  an 
appeal  to  his  father.  Thus  he  gets  more  and  more  into  Del  Ferice's  power,  until  the 
united  fortunes  of  the  Saracinesca  could  hardly  save  him.  At  this  crisis  he  receives 
from  Maria  Consuelo  a  friendly  letter,  asking  merely  that  he  tell  her  about  himself. 
This  he  gladly  does,  writing  freely  of  his  business  difficulties.  Finally  the  bank  re- 
leases him  from  his  obligations,  an  action  inexplicable  until  the  announcement  of 
Consuelo 's  marriage  to  Del  Ferice.  Then  Orsino  guesses,  what  he  afterwards  learns, 
that  she  has  sold  herself  to  save  him.  The  story  moves  rapidly,  the  atmosphere  is 

strikingly  Italian,  and  the  various  complications  are  well  managed  and  interesting. 

* 

DON  QUIXOTE  DE  LA  MANCHA,  THE  HISTORY  OF,  a  satirical  romance  by 
Miguel  Cervantes,  the  first  part  of  which  appeared  in  1605  and  the  second  in  1615. 
A  kindly  and  simple-minded  country  gentleman  has  read  the  romances  of  chivalry 
until  they  have  turned  his  brain.  Clad  in  a  suit  of  old  armor  and  mounted  on  a 
broken-down  hack  which  he  christens  Rozinante,  he  sets  out  on  a  career  of  knight- 
errantry,  assuming  the  name  of  Don  Quixote  de  la  Mancha.  For  the  object  of  his 
devotion  he  chooses  a  village  girl,  whom  he  names  Dulcinea  del  Toboso  and  as  squire 
he  takes  an  ignorant  but  faithful  peasant,  Sancho  Panza.  The  ordinary  wayfarers 
of  the  Spanish  roads  of  the  seventeenth  century  are  transformed  by  the  knight's 
disordered  imagination  into  warriors,  distressed  damsels,  giants,  and  monsters. 
For  instance,  he  tilts  on  one  occasion,  at  the  sails  of  a  group  of  wind-mills,  thinking 
them  living  creatures,  and  his  attempts  to  right  fictitious  wrongs  and  win  chivalric 
honor  among  them  lead  him  and  his  squire  into  ludicrous  and  painful  situations. 
Yet  amidst  their  discomfitures  Don  Quixote  retains  a  dignity,  a  certain  nobility,  and 
a  pathetic  idealism,  and  Sancho  a  natural  shrewdness  and  popular  humor  which 
endear  them  to  the  reader.  In  the  second  part  the  interest  is  fully  sustained,  and 
variety  is  introduced  by  the  sojourn  of  the  pair  with  a  duke  and  duchess  and  Sancho's 
appointment  as  governor  of  the  imaginary  island  of  Baratoria.  At  the  end,  Don 
Quixote,  as  the  result  of  a  dangerous  illness,  recovers  his  senses,  renounces  all  books 
of  chivalry,  and  dies  penitent.  The  book  was  begun  as  an  attack  on  the  absurdities 
of  the  late  chivalric  romances,  not  on  the  essential  chivalric  ideals.  As  the  work 
progresses  it  becomes  a  picture  of  human  nature,  its  absurdities  and  its  aspirations, 
its  coarse  materialism  and  lofty  enthusiasm.  The  best  English  translations  are 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  239 

Shelton's  (1612-1620)  reprinted  with  an  introduction  by  J.  Fitzmaurice- Kelly  in  the 
'Tudor  Translations,'  4  vols.,  1896,  and  that  by  John  Ormsby,  1885,  reprinted  with 
critical  introduction  and  notes  by  J.  Fitzmaurice-Kelly  in  1901. 

DONA  LUZ,  by  Juan  Valera.  The  scene  of  this  brilliant  emotional  story  is  laid  in 
Spain,  during  the  seventies.  Dona  Luz,  at  the  death  of  her  father,  the  dissipated 
Marquis  of  Villaf  ria,  takes  up  her  abode  with  his  old  steward  Don  Ascisclo,  into  whose 
hands  a  large  part  of  the  estate  of  the  marquis  has  fallen.  High-strung  and  sensitive, 
with  a  rare  beauty  of  mind  and  person,  and  entertaining  no  hope  of  marrying  accord- 
ing to  her  inclinations,  she  gently  repulses  all  admirers.  Among  her  friends  she  counts 
Don  Miguel,  the  parish  priest;  Don  Anselmo,  a  skillful  physician  but  a  fierce  mate- 
rialist; and  his  daughter  Dona  Manolita,  a  charming  brunette,  capricious  and  merry, 
loyal  and  affectionate.  Into  this  circle  comes  the  missionary,  Father  Enrique, 
nephew  of  Don  Ascisclo,  a  man  of  great  wisdom  and  elevation  of  thought;  and  last  of 
all,  the  hero,  Don  Jaime  Pimental.  Around  this  group  the  movement  of  the  story 
takes  place.  The  dominant  motives  spring  from  avarice  and  ambition;  and  the  action 
is  complicated  by  religious  animosities.  'Dona  Luz'  was  published  in  Madrid  in 
1891,  and  its  English  translation  by  Mrs.  Serrano  came  out  in  1894. 

DONA  PERFECTA,  by  Benito  Perez  Gald6s.  This  exquisite  romance,  the  transla- 
tion of  which  was  published  in  1880,  is  a  vivid  description  of  life  in  a  Spanish  pro- 
vincial town,  just  before  the  Carlist  war.  Dona  Perfecta  Rey  de  Polentinos  is  a 
wealthy  widow,  just  in  all  her  dealings,  kind  and  charitable,  but  a  perfect  type  of  the 
narrow-minded  and  even  cruel  spirit  of  old  Spain.  The  Spanish  hate  the  national 
government,  but  have  a  peculiar  local  patriotism,  which  in  this  case  turns  an  appar- 
ently kind  and  honorable  woman  against  her  own  nephew,  because  he  dislikes  the 
customs  of  her  beloved  town. 

This  nephew,  Don  Jose"  Rey,  handsome,  generous,  and  rich,  is  the  hero  of  the 
story,  whose  incidents  are  the  outgrowth  of  old  prejudice  —  religious  and  political. 

The  author  endeavors  to  show  that  the  offenses  of  Dona  Perfecta  are  the  result 
of  her  position  and  surroundings  rather  than  inherent  in  her  character.  In  this  book 
he  begins  to  exploit  the  modern  Spain  and  its  clashing  interests.  He  brings  "the  new 
and  the  old  face  to  face,"  to  use  the  words  of  Professor  Marsh:  "the  new  in  the  form 
of  a  highly-trained,  clear-thinking,  frank-speaking  modern  man;  the  old  in  the  guise 
of  a  whole  community  so  remote  from  the  current  of  things  that  its  religious  intoler- 
ance, its  social  jealousy,  its  undisturbed  confidence  and  pride  in  itself,  must  of 
necessity  declare  instant  war  upon  that  which  comes  from  without,  unsympathetic 
and  critical.  The  inevitable  result  is  ruin  for  the  party  whose  physical  force  is  less, 
the  single  individual;  yet  hardly  less  complete  ruin  for  those  whom  intolerance  and 
hate  have  driven  to  the  annihilation  of  their  adversary."  The  story  was  published 
in  1876,  and  reached  its  ninth  edition  in  1896. 

DONAL  GRANT,  a  novel  by  George  Macdonald,  was  published  in  1883,  when  he  was 
fifty-nine.  It  is  a  modern  story;  the  hero,  Donal  Grant,  being  one  of  the  muscular 
and  intellectual  young  Scotchmen  whom  Macdonald  loves  to  describe.  Introduced 
as  a  poor  student  seeking  a  situation,  he  reaches  the  town  of  Auchars,  where  he  meets 
a  spiritually  minded  cobbler  and  his  wife  with  whom  he  lodges.  In  Auchars  he  finds 
a  field  of  work,  and  the  story  deals  with  the  effect  produced  on  careless  and  selfish 
characters  by  contact  with  an  upright  and  generous  nature.  The  plot  involves  a 
forced  marriage,  and  other  well-known  incidents;  but  the  book  shows  all  Macdonald's 
familiar  qualities,  though  it  is  less  eventful  and  more  didactic  than  many  of  his  stories. 


240  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

DONOVAN,  a  novel  of  modern  English  life,  by  Edna  Lyall  (1882),  has  for  its  sub- 
ject a  man's  spiritual  struggles  from  doubt  to  faith.  The  hero,  Donovan  Farrant,  is 
well  drawn,  if  somewhat  conventional  in  character.  The  book  obtained  great  popu- 
larity and  still  enjoys  it,  especially  in  England.  'We  Two'  is>  sequel  to  'Donovan.' 

DOSIA,  by  Henri  GreviJle  (Madame  Durand)  (1877),  is  a  vivacious  story  of  Russian 
life.  The  heroine,  L£odocia  Zaptine,  is  a  frolicsome  young  madcap,  with  the  kindest 
heart,  who  is  always  getting  into  scrapes.  Grief-stricken  because  of  well-deserved 
scoldings,  she  decides  to  elope  with  her  cousin  Pierre  Mourief,  a  young  lieutenant 
staying  in  the  house;  but  thinks  better  of  it  when  they  are  but  a  mile  or  two  from 
home,  and  returns  to  the  paternal  roof.  After  this  escapade,  Dosia  is  taken  in  hand 
by  the  young  widow  Princess  Sophie  Koutsky,  the  sister  of  Pierre's  comrade  in  arms 
Count  Platon  Sourof.  Dosia  and  Pierre  make  the  mutual  discovery  that  they  are 
not  in  the  least  in  love  with  each  other;  and  the  headlong,  generous  Pierre  wins  the 
Princess  Sophie,  while  her  gra\  e  brother  Platon  loves  and  marries  the  naughty  Dosia. 
The  story  is  agreeably  told,  and  is  a  good  specimen  of  the  best  type  of  domestic  novel. 

DOSTOEVSKY,  LETTERS  OF,  see  LETTERS. 

DOUBTING  HEART,  A,  by  Annie  Keary.  The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid  in  England, 
although  there  are  some  charming  and  picturesque  descriptions  of  the  Riviera,  where 
the  author  passed  the  last  months  of  her  life.  Published  in  1 879,  it  was  left  unfinished, 
the  last  chapters  being  written  by  Mrs.  Macquoid.  The  story  principally  concerns 
itself  with  the  love  affairs  of  two  cousins,  Emmie  West  and  Alma  Rivers;  and  the 
moral  of  it  is  that  tribulation  worketh  patience,  and  patience  godliness.  Lady  Rivers, 
Sir  Francis,  and  charming  Madame  de  Florimel,  are  cleverly  sketched  characters. 
The  story,  which  is  very  simple,  is  so  natural  and  homely,  and  its  psychology  is  so 
faithful,  that  it  became  at  once  a  favorite,  and  is  still  one  of  the  most  popular  domestic 
novels. 

DOWNFALL,  THE,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 
DRAM  SHOP,  THE,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

DRAPIER  LETTERS,  THE,  by  Jonathan  Swift.  These  famous  letters  took  their 
name  from  their  signature,  "M.  B.  Drapier."  They  were  written  to  protest  against 
an  unjust  aggression  of  the  Crown,  which,  at  a  time  of  great  scarcity  of  copper  coin 
in  Ireland,  had  granted  a  patent  to  furnish  this  to  one  William  Wood,  who  was  to 
share  his  profits  with  the  Duchess  of  Kendal,  the  king's  mistress,  through  whose 
influence  the  patent  had  been  obtained.  These  profits  were  to  be  derived  from  the 
difference  between  the  real  and  the  nominal  value  of  the  halfpence,  which  was  forty 
t>er  cent.  The  Irish  were  bitterly  enraged,  became  turbulent,  and  every  effort  was 
made  to  conciliate  them.  A  report  sustaining  Wood,  which  had  been  drawn  up  by  Sir 
Robert  Walpole,  was  answered  by  Swift  in  these  letters.  Swift,  who  viewed  Wood's 
patent  as  a  death-blow  to  Irish  independence,  asserts  that  the  English  Parliament 
cannot,  without  usurpation,  maintain  the  power  of  binding  Ireland  by  laws  to  which 
it  does  not  consent.  This  assertion  led  to  the  arrest  of  the  printer  of  the  letters;  but 
the  grand  jury  refused  to  find  a  true  bill.  Swift  triumphed,  and  Wood's  patent  was 
revoked.  The  'Letters'  were  published  in  1724;  the  sub-title  being,  "very  proper  to 
be  kept  in  every  family." 

DREAM,  THE,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  241 

DREAM  CHILDREN,  by  Horace  E.  Scudder  (1863),  is  a  collection  of  "Once-Upon- 
a-Time"  stories,  in  which  memory  and  imagination  combine  to  preserve  the  fleeting 
fancies  of  childhood;  some  of  them  merely  fantastic;  others  with  a  lesson  of  life  hidden 
under  a  semblance  of  adventure  —  as  in  'The  Pot  of  Gold,'  where  Chief  is  always 
seeking,  always  unsuccessful,  because  just  at  the  moment  of  capture  of  the  coveted 
treasure,  his  attention  is  distracted  by  the  vision  of  his  adoring  and  forsaken  Rhoda; 
or  in  the  last  charming  sketch  entitled  'The  Prince's  Visit,'  where  weak  Job  loses  the 
sight  of  a  grand  procession  while  he  is  succoring  the  lame  boy,  —  a  sacrifice  rewarded 
by  the  vision  of  a  "pageant  such  as  poor  mortals  may  but  whisper  of."  The  offspring 
of  dreams,  the  *  Dream  Children,1  pass  before  the  mind's  eye,  a  charming  company  of 
unrealities,  with  ordinary  attributes,  but  invested  with  supernatural  excellence. 
Who  can  tell  when  the  realities  begin  and  the  dreams  end?  Who  can  separate,  in  the 
cyclorama  of  existence,  the  painted  canvas  from  the  real  objects  in  the  foreground? 
It  is  into  this  borderland  of  doubt  the  author  takes  us,  with  the  children  who  hear  the 
birds  and  beasts  talk:  where  inanimate  objects  borrow  attributes  of  humanity;  where 
fact  masquerades  as  fancy  and  fancy  as  fact;  where  the  young  and  old  meet  together 
in  a  childish  unconsciousness  of  awakenings. 

DREAMTHORPE:  'a  Book  of  Essays  Written  in  the  Country,' by  Alexander 
Smith.  A  collection  of  twelve  essays,  which  appeared  in  1863,  the  first  prose  work  of 
their  author.  The  title  is  that  of  the  first  essay,  and  is  the  name  of  the  imaginary 
village  in  which  they  were  written:  —  "An  inland  English  village  where  everything 
around  one  is  unhurried,  quiet,  moss-grown  and  orderly.  On  Dreamthorpe  centuries 
have  fallen,  and  have  left  no  more  trace  than  last  winter's  snowflakes.  Battles  have 
been  fought,  kings  have  died,  history  has  transacted  itself,  but  all  unheeding  and 
untouched,  Dreamthorpe  has  watched  apple-trees  redden,  and  wheat  ripen,  and 
smoked  its  pipe,  and  rejoiced  over  its  newborn  children,  and  with  proper  solemnity 
carried  its  dead  to  the  church-yard. 

"The  library  is  a  kind  of  Greenwich  Hospital  for  disabled  novels  and  romances. 
Each  of  the  books  has  been  in  the  wars.  The  heroes  and  heroines  are  of  another 
generation.  Lovers,  warriors,  and  villains  —  as  dead  to  the  present  generation  as 
Cambyses  —  are  weeping,  fighting,  and  intriguing.  It  is  with  a  certain  feeling  of 
tenderness  that  I  look  upon  these  books:  I  think  of  the  dead  fingers  that  have  turned 
over  the  leaves,  of  the  dead  eyes  that  have  traveled  along  the  lines. 

"Here  I  can  live  as  I  please,  here  I  can  throw  the  reins  on  the  neck  of  nay  whim. 
Here  I  play  with  my  own  thoughts;  here  I  ripen  for  the  grave." 

Perhaps  no  better  idea  can  be  given  of  the  rest  of  the  essays  than  by  these  quota- 
tions. Drearnthorpe  —  the  \illage  of  dreams  —  casts  its  spell  over  all  of  them. 
The  love  of  quiet,  of  old  books,  and  reverence  for  the  past,  finds  its  place  in  them, 
and  if  they  be  dreams,  the  reader  does  not  care  to  be  awakened. 

The  titles  of  the  other  essays  are:  'On  the  Writing  of  Essays';  'Of  Death  and  the 
Fear  of  Dying';  '  William  Dunbar';  'A  Lark's  Flight';  'Christmas';  'Men  of  Letters'; 
'On  the  Importance  of  Man  to  Himself';  'A  Shelf  in  my  Bookcase';  'Geoffrey  Chau- 
cer'; 'Books  and  Gardens';  'On  Vagabonds.' 

D'RI  AND  I,  by  Irving  Bacheller,  was  published  in  1901,  and  like  the  author's  first 
book,  'Eben  Holden,'  met  with  popular  favor.  Darius  Olin,  nicknamed  "D'ri," 
is  a  brawny,  raw-boned  Northwoodsman,  who  goes  out  to  fight  the  soldiers  of  King 
George  in  the  War  of  1812,  accompanying  Ramon  Bell,  the  son  of  Ms  employer. 
The  opening  of  the  tale  shows  Mr.  Bell  and  his  family  leaving  their  Vermont  home  and 


242  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

working  their  way  over  rough  trails  to  the  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  Ramon,  then  a 
sturdy  boy  of  ten,  and  D'ri,  the  hired  man,  are  the  central  figures  of  the  story.  They 
settle  in  their  new  home  in  the  North,  and  the  years  pass  quickly  till  Ramon  becomes 
a  man  and  the  second  war  with  Great  Britain  breaks  out.  D'ri  and  Ramon  enlist 
and  enter  the  service  of  Commodore  Perry,  where  they  get  more  than  their  share  of 
the  blows  and  have  many  perilous  adventures  and  hairbreadth  escapes.  Young  Bell 
becomes  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  house  of  a  French  nobleman,  a  refugee  from  the 
Reign  of  Terror,  and  falls  in  love  with  his  two  lovely  daughters,  Louise  and  Louison 
de  Lambert.  This  is  quite  a  predicament,  but  he  finally  extricates  himself  and  with 
unerring  judgment  chooses  the  sister  who  has  the  finer  character  of  the  two.  An 
interesting  scene  is  the  rescue  of  Ramon,  on  the  night  before  his  execution,  by  Lord 
Rowley,  whom  Mile.  Lambert  has  promised  to  marry,  but  she  is  subsequently 
released  from  him,  and  her  romantic  roadside  marriage  with  Ramon  follows.  The 
loyal  and  brave  D'ri  is  always  ready  to  lend  his  strong  arm  for  Ramon's  aid  or  pro- 
tection, and  his  surprise  at  receiving  the  medal  for  bravery  in  the  terrible  sea-fight 
on  board  the  Lawrence  on  Lake  Erie  is  characteristic  of  his  simple  and  unassuming 
nature.  His  quaint  sayings  enliven  the  pages  and  add  to  the  interest  of  the  tale. 

DUCHESS  OF  MALFI,  THE,  by  John  Webster  (acted  1616,  published,  1623). 
1 ' The  Duchess  of  Malfi,"  says  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse  "has  finer  elements  of  tragedy  than 
exist  elsewhere  outside  the  works  of  Shakespeare."  The  Duchess  of  Malfi,  a  widow, 
falls  in  love  with  and  marries  Antonio  Bologna,  steward  of  her  household.  Her 
brothers,  the  Cardinal  and  Ferdinand,  Duke  of  Calabria,  incensed  at  her  for  thus 
dishonoring  the  family,  pursue  her  with  every  form  of  vindictiveness.  They  cause 
her  to  be  banished  from  Ancona,  where  she  and  her  husband  and  children  had  taken 
sanctuary  at  the  shrine  of  our  Lady  of  Loretto.  Daniel  de  Bosola,  the  Duchess's  own 
gentleman  of  the  horse,  who  is  used  as  a  spy  and  tool  by  her  brothers,  is  sent  to  tell 
her  that  she  must  be  parted  from  her  husband.  The  fourth  act  is  a  crescendo  of 
horrors.  Ferdinand  gives  to  the  Duchess  the  hand  of  her  dead  husband,  wearing 
the  ring  she  gave  him.  Eight  madmen  are  let  loose  to  dance  round  her  without 
shaking  her  resolution.  "I  am  Duchess  of  Malfi  still, "  she  proudly  says  to  the  tool 
Bosola.  Preparations  for  her  own  violent  death  are  made  in  her  presence,  her  coffin 
brought  in  and  a  dirge  sung  before  she  is  strangled.  Her  children,  and  Cariola,  her 
faithful  servant  and  confidante,  suffer  a  like  fate.  Even  Ferdinand,  who  with  dia- 
bolic cruelty  had  ordered  her  death  is  seized  with  penitent  horror.  "  Cover  her  face: 
mine  eyes  dazzle:  she  died  young, "  he  cries.  Ferdinand  goes  mad,  Bosola  stabs  the 
Cardinal,  and  Bosola  receives  his  death  wound  from  Ferdinand,  but  kills  his  assailant. 
The  last  words  of  Ferdinand  were: 

"  Whether  we  fall  by  ambition,  blood,  or  lust 
Like  diamonds  we  are  cut  with  our  own  dust." 

DUCHESS  OF  WREXE,  THE;  HER  DECLINE  AND  DEATH:  a  romantic  com-, 
mentary  by  Hugh  Walpole  (1914).  This  novel  pictures  the- social  system  of  the* 
Victorian  era,  which  ended  with  the  South  African  war.  The  duchess  and  her  class 
believed  England's  greatness  depended  on  government  by  a  few  blue-blooded  auto- 
crats, the  clear-headed  despots  managing  the  muddle-headed  majority.  As  head  of 
the  Beaminster  clan,  the  last  of  the  autocrats,  she  ruled  by  the  power  of  tra'dition, 
and  by  continual  ceremony,  pomp,  and  circumstance.  For  thirty  years  the  duchess, 
had  not  left  her  room;  invisible  to  the  world,  she  sat  in  magnificence  in  her  Oriental' 
chair,  flanked  by  two  Chinese  dragons,  and  tyrannized  over  her  family  and  friends^ 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  243 

the  Beaminster  clan.  The  enemies  within  her  gates  were  the  rising  generation,  her 
two  grandchildren,  both  children  of  misalliances,  in  whom  the  Beaminster  tradition  is 
at  war  with  a  freer  spirit.  Rachel,  her  hated  granddaughter,  feels  the  terrible  old  lady's 
power  and  fears  her,  but  still  refuses  to  be  dominated  and  insists  on  thinking  for 
herself.  To  gain  freedom  she  marries  her  friend  Sir  Roderick,  one  of  the  Beaminster 
circle,  and  a  favorite  of  her  grandmother's.  Soon  after  their  marriage  his  flirtation 
with  one  of  her  guests  brings  about  their  estrangement.  The  fascination  of  her 
forbidden  friendship  with  her  cousin,  Francis,  the  outcast  grandson,  almost  brings 
her  to  disaster.  She  is  about  to  leave  her  husband  to  go  to  him,  when  Sir  Roderick 
is  thrown  from  his  horse  and  laid  on  his  back  for  life.  It  has  been  a  marriage  of 
convenience  on  both  sides,  but  Sir  Roderick  has  fallen  in  love  with  his  wife,  and  his 
illness  and  the  expectation  of  a  child  awakes  her  love  for  him.  As  Rachel's  happiness 
is  assured,  and  the  grandson,  Francis  Beaminster,  is  recognized  by  the  family  without 
the  knowledge  of  the  duchess,  the  guns  of  the  South  African  war  mark  the  beginning 
of  democracy,  and  the  duchess  dies  as  her  world  slips  from  her  dominion. 

DUCHESSE  DE  LANGEAIS,  THE,  by  Balzac  (1834),  analyzes  carefully  the  Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain,  or  the  aristocracy  of  Paris  under  the  Restoration.  In  a  most 
logical  and  impartial  way,  Balzac  explains  how  the  patrician  class  loses  its  natural 
ascendency  when  it  does  not  produce  the  results  its  advantage  of  birth  and  training 
warrant.  After  learning  that  the  "Great  Lady"  had  no  influence  on  the  morals  of 
the  time,  that  she  was  hypocritical  and  artificially  educated,  it  is  not  to  be  expected 
that  the  heroine  of  the  story,  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais,  will  prove  an  anomaly  of 
virtue.  Parisian  to  the  core,  the  young  duchess  lives  in  the  luxury  of  the  boudoir 
and  the  fickle  gayety  of  the  ball-room.  She  is  characterized  as  "supremely  a  woman 
and  supremely  a  coquette."  Unhampered  by  her  husband,  who  lives  his  military 
life  apart,  the  duchess  feels  free  to  attach  to  her  suite  numberless  young  men,  whom 
she  encourages  and  repulses  by  turns.  In  Armand  de  Montriveau,  however,  she 
finds  at  last  a  man  of  pride  and  strong  will,  as  well  as  an  ardent  lover.  He  no  sooner 
discovers  that  Madame  is  trifling  with  his  affection  than  he  resolves  to  have  his 
revenge.  He  arranges  an  interview,  brings  the  duchess  face  to  face  with  herself,  and 
denounces  her  as  a  murderer,  on  the  ground  that  she  has  slain  his  happiness  and  his 
faith  —  and  bids  her  farewell.  The  duchess  immediately  falls  in  love  with  him, 
sends  him  repentant  letters  which  receive  no  response,  and  after  a  desperate  attempt 
to  see  him  in  his  own  house,  leaves  Paris  just  as  Monsieur  is  hastening  to  call  upon  her. 
Armand  de  Montriveau  searches  five  years  for  his  lady,  finding  her  at  last  immured 
in  a  convent  in  Spain.  Determined  to  rescue  her  from  such  an  imprisonment,  he 
succeeds  in  penetrating  to  the  cell  of  her  who  was  called  by  the  nuns  "Sister  The"rese," 
only  to  find  the  dead  body  of  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais.  This  is  one  of  the  most 
famous  of  Balzac's  novels.  .The  story  is  told  with  all  his  vigor  and  minuteness,  and 
the  characters  impress  themselves  on  the  memory  as  persons  actually  known. 

DUEL,  THE,  by  A.  Kuprin  (1905).  The  novel  is  a  depressing  revelation  of  the 
degradation  and  misery  of  garrison  life  in  a  frontier  town.  The  officers  are  brutal, 
drunken  beasts,  unmercifully  cruel  to  the  soldiers,  who  Hve  in  a  slavish  state  of 
abject  terror.  The  central  character, i  sub-lieutenant  Romashov,  is  the  typical 
Russian  hero  of  the  Russian  novel,  a  talker,  a  sentimental  dreamer  with  high  ideals^ 
but  without  will-power.  In  day-dreams  he  sees  himself  performing  glorious  deeds  of 
valor  before  an  admiring  world.  At  the  review,  the  great  official  event  of  the  year, 
while  he  loses  himself  in  romantic  visions  of  promotion,  his  company  is  thrown  into 


244  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

hopeless  confusion  by  his  absent-minded  blunders,  and  he  is  subjected  to  a  public 
reprimand.  Nasanki,  a  drunken  officer  who  is  the  mouthpiece  of  the  author,  bitterly 
arraigns  militarism  which  makes  men  low-minded  debauchees,  "ready  for  every 
villainy  and  cruelty. "  Romashov  longs  to  escape  from  this  dreary  society  with  its 
petty  intrigue,  petty  jealousy,  and  petty  social  ambition.  He  had  a  liaison  with  a 
vulgar  married  woman,  but  eventually  falls  genuinely  in  love  with  the  beautiful, 
heartless  Shurochka,  married  to  a  stupid  husband  whose  advancement  through  the  staff 
examinations  is  her  great  ambition.  She  is  willing  to  amuse  herself  with  the  boyish 
sub-lieutenant's  chivalrous  devotion,  but  the  time  comes  when  she  must  choose  and 
she  sacrifices  him  to  her  ambition.  The  woman  whom  he  has  left  for  Shurochka's 
sake  spreads  scandal  about  them  until  there  is  open  enemity  between  Shurochka's 
husband  and  Romashov,  and  a  duel  is  arranged.  Shurochka  tells  Romashov  that 
the  duel  must  be  without  risk  to  either  of  them.  He  assents,  and  is  killed  by  her 
husband  as  she  planned,  in  order  that  the  affair  may  not  be  a  stumbling-block  in  the 
way  of  her  husband's  future,  which  is  her  own  hope  of  escape  from  the  odious  pro- 
vincial town.  The  story  was  translated  in  an  abridged  version  in  1907  with  the  title 
'In  Honor's  Name,'  and  newly  translated  in  1916. 

DUFF-GORDON,  LADY,  see  LETTERS  FROM. 

DUKE'S  CHILDREN,  THE,  see  PARLIAMENTARY  NOVELS. 

DUNCIAD,  THE,  by  Alexander  Pope.  This  mock-heroic  poem,  the  Iliad  of  the 
Dunces,  was  written  in  1727,  to  gratify  the  spite  of  the  author  against  the  enemies 
his  success  and  his  malice  had  aroused.  It  contains  some  of  the  bitterest  satire  in  the 
language,  and  as  Pope  foresaw,  has  rescued  from  oblivion  the  very  names  that  he 
vituperates.  The  poem  is  divided  into  four  books,  in  the  first  of  which  Dulness, 
daughter  of  chaos  and  eternal  night,  chooses  a  favorite  to  reign  over  her  kingdom. 
In  the  early  editions  this  prominence  is  assigned  to  Theobald,  but  in  1743  Pope  substi- 
tuted Colley  Gibber.  In  the  second  book,  which  contains  passages  as  virulent  and 
as  nauseating  as  anything  of  Swift,  the  goddess  institutes  a  series  of  games  in  honor 
of  the  new  monarch.  First  the  booksellers  race  for  a  phantom  poet,  and  then  the 
poets  contend  in  tickling  and  in  braying,  and  end  by  diving  into  the  mud  of  Fleet 
Ditch.  Lastly  there  is  a  trial  of  patience,  in  which  all  have  to  listen  to  the  works  of 
two  voluminous  writers,  and  are  overcome  by  slumber.  In  the  third  book  the  goddess 
transports  the  sleeping  king  to  the  Elysian  shades,  where  he  beholds  the  past,  present, 
and  future  triumphs  of  Dulness,  and  especially  her  coming  conquest  of  Great  Britain. 
The  fourth  book  represents  the  goddess  coming  with  majesty  to  establish  her  universal 
dominion.  Arts  and  sciences  are  led  captive,  and  the  youth  drinks  of  the  cup  of 
Magus,  which  causes  oblivion  of  all  moral  or  intellectual  obligations.  Finally  the 
goddess  gives  a  mighty  yawn,  which  paralyzes  mental  activity  everywhere,  and 
restores  the  reign  of  night  and  chaos  over  all  the  earth.  The  poem  underwent  various 
revisions  and  its  dates  of  publication  of  its  different  editions  extend  from  1728  to 
1742.  Lewis  Theobald,  the  Shakespearian  scholar,  was  originally  the  hero,  but  he 
was  deposed  by  Pope  and  Colley  Gibber  substituted  in  his  stead. 

DURABLE  SATISFACTIONS  OF  LIFE,  THE,  a  volume  of  essays  and  addresses  by 
Charles  William  Eliot,  sometime  president  of  Harvard  University.  The  book, 
which  was  published  in  1910,  includes  besides  the  title-essay,  'The  Happy  Life,' 
1  John  Gilley/  '  Great  Riches/  and  '  The  Religion  of  the  Future.'  The  purpose  of  the 
book  is  to  show  that  the  happy  life,  being  dependent  on  simple  and  wholesome 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  245 

pleasures  within  the  reach  of  everyone,  is  a  readily  attainable  ideal.  The  satisfac- 
tions of  sense,  of  intellect,  of  the  domestic  affections  and  social  sympathies  and  of 
moral  effort  are  reviewed;  and  a  plea  is  made  for  a  normal  enjoyment  of  all  of  these 
pleasures,  the  lower  being  duly  subordinated  to  the  higher.  The  point  of  view  is  an 
enlightened  hedonism,  a  sane  optimism  which  is  convinced  of  the  preponderance  of 
good  over  evil,  and  a  belief  in  the  essential  goodness  of  human  nature.  President 
Eliot  prophesies  -that  the  religion  of  the  future  will  be  free  from  dogmatism,  other- 
worldliness,  asceticism,  vindictiveness,  and  emphasis  on  the  salvation  of  the 
individual  through  propitiatory  sacrifice,  but  characterized  by  a  belief  in  the 
immanence  of  God,  His  love  for  man,  and  the  duty  of  man  to  love  and  serve  his 
fellows.  An  interesting  illustration  of  the  view  of  life  here  set  forth  is  the  essay 
on  'John  Gilley/  an  extremely  interesting  biography  of  a  humble  Maine  fisher- 
man, who  through  industry,  intelligence,  a  wholesome  outdoor  occupation,  family 
affection,  and  resolute  adherence  to  duty  lived  a  truly  happy  life. 

DUTCH  REPUBLIC,  see  RISE  OF  THE. 

EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INSTITUTIONS,  LECTURES  ON  THE,  by  H.  S.  Maine,  see 
ANCIENT  LAW. 

EARLY  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND,  RESEARCHES  INTO  THE,  by  Edward  B. 
Tylor  (1865).  A  volume  of  investigation  into  the  earliest  origins  of  culture,  which 
at  the  time  gave  the  author  distinction  as  an  authority  in  anthropology.  The  same 
author's  'Primitive  Culture:  Researches  into  the  Development  of  Mythology, 
Philosophy,  Religion,  Language,  Art  and  Custom/  1871,  carried  on  the  investigation 
into  other  branches  of  thought  and  belief,  art  and  custom.  The  problems  discussed 
are  those  of  animism  or  spiritism,  as  a  universal  development  in  early  culture;  the 
origin  of  rites  and  ceremonies;  the  extent  to  which  myths  play  a  part  in  the  early 
history  of  mankind;  the  early  use  of  numerals  and  of  directly  expressive  language; 
and  survivals  in  culture  which  bring  old  ideas  far  down  into  later  periods. 

EARLY  INSTITUTIONS,  see  ANCIENT  LAW. 
EARLY  LAW  AND  CUSTOM,  see  ANCIENT  LAW. 

EARTH  AND  MAN,  THE,  by  Arnold  Guyot  (1849).  This  fascinating  book  was 
the  first  word  upon  its  subject,  —  comparative  physical  geography  and  its  relation  to 
mankind,  —  which  had  ever  been  addressed  to  a  popular  American  audience.  The 
substance  of  these  pages  was  first  given  in  the  form  of  lectures  before  the  Lowell 
Institute  of  Boston.  Professor  Guyot  contends  that  geography  means  not  a  mere 
description  of  the  earth's  surface,  but  an  interpretation  of  the  phenomena  which  it 
describes;  an  endeavor  to  seize  the  incessant  mutual  action  of  the  different  portions 
of  physical  nature  upon  each  other,  of  inorganic  nature  upon  organized  beings  — 
upon  man  in  particular  —  and  upon  the  successive  development  of  human  societies. 
In  a  word,  says  the  author,  it  must  explain  the  perpetual  play  of  forces  that  con- 
stitutes what  might  be  called  the  life  of  the  globe,  its  physiology.  Understood  other- 
wise, geography  loses  its  vital  principle,  and  becomes  a  mere  collection  of  partial, 
unmeaning  facts.  He  then  goes  on  to  explain  how  the  contours  of  mountains,  their 
position,  their  direction,  their  height,  the  length  and  direction  of  rivers,  the  configura- 
tion of  coasts,  the  slope  of  plateaus,  the  neighborhood  of  islands,  and  in  a  word,  all 
physical  conditions,  have  modified  profoundly  the  life  of  man.  He  explains  in  detail 
the  relief  of  the  continents,  the  characteristics  of  the  oceans,  the  gradual  formation  of 


246  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  continents,  the  effects  of  winds,  rains,  and  marine  currents  on  vegetable  and 
animal  life,  the  causes  of  likenesses  and  of  differences,  and  finally,  the  people  and  the 
life  of  the  future.  Foretold  by  their  physical  condition,  the  long  waiting  of  the 
southern  continents  for  their  evolution  has  been  inevitable;  but  the  scientist  fore- 
sees for  them  a  full  development  when  the  industrious  and  skillful  men  of  the  northern 
continents  shall  join  with  the  men  of  the  tropics  to  establish  a  movement  of  universal 
progress  and  improvement. 

EARTH  AS  MODIFIED  BY  HUMAN  ACTION,  THE,  see  MAN  AND  NATURE. 

EARTHLY  PARADISE,  THE  (1868-79),  a  poem  by  William  Morris.  One  of  the 
most  beautiful  of  nineteenth-century  romances,  it  was  written,  as  the  author  says, 
to  furnish  a  doorway  into  the  world  of  enchantment,  that  land  beyond  the  "utmost 
purple  rim"  of  earth,  for  which  many  are  homesick.  Yet  'The  Earthly  Paradise' 
has  about  it  the  melancholy  which  pervades  the  pre-Raphaelite  literature,  and  seems 
the  fruit  of  unfulfilled  desire,  —  of  the  state  of  those  who  must  create  their  romance, 
in  an  age  unproductive  of  such  food  of  the  soul.  The  poem  is  a  collection  of  the  tales 
of  Golden  Greece,  and  of  the  dim,  rich,  mediaeval  time.  Certain  gentlemen  and 
mariners  of  Norway  having  considered  all  that  they  had  heard  of  the  Earthly  Paradise 
set  sail  to  find  it.  They  come  at  last,  world-weary  old  men,  to  a  strange  Western 
land,  and  to  a  "strange  people,"  descendants  of  the  Greeks,  the  elders  among  whom 
receive  them  graciously.  They  agree  to  feast  together  twice  a  month,  and  to  ex- 
change stories:  the  Norwegians  telling  tales  of  "the  altered  world"  of  the  Middle 
Ages;  the  Greeks,  of  their  own  bright  time  when  men  were  young  in  heart.  For  a 
year  they  tell  their  tales:  in  March,  Atalanta's  Race,  and  The  Man  born  to  be  King; 
in  April,  The  Doom  of  King  Acrisius,  and  The  Proud  Kine;;  in  May,  The  Story  of 
Cupid  and  Psyche,  and  The  Writing  on  the  Image;  in  June,  The  Love  of  Alcestis, 
and  The  Lady  of  the  Land;  in  July,  The  Son  of  Croesus,  and  The  Watching  of  the 
Falcon;  in  August,  Pygmalion  and  the  Image,  and  Ogier  the  Dane;  in  September,  The 
Death  of  Paris,  and  The  Land  East  of  the  Sun  and  West  of  the  Moon;  in  October, 
The  Story  of  Accontius  and  Cydippe,  and  The  Man  who  Never  Laughed  Again;  in 
November,  The  Story  of  Rhodope,  and  The  Lovers  of  Gudrun;  in  December,  The 
Golden  Apples,  and  The  Fostering  of  Aslaug;  in  January,  Bellerophon  at  Argos,  and 
The  Ring  Given  to  Venus;  in  February,  Bellerophon  in  Lycia,  and  The  Hill  of  Venus. 
In  these  tales  the  author  draws  upon  Greek  mythology,  upon  the  'Gesta  Romano- 
rum,'  the  Nibelungenlied,  the  Eddas;  indeed,  upon  the  greatest  story-books  of  the 
world.  He  has  woven  them  all  together  in  one  beautiful  Gothic  tapestry  of  verse,  in 
which  the  colors  are  dimmed  a  little.  From  "his  master,"  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  the 
poet  has  borrowed  the  three  styles  of  his  metre,  the  heroic,  sestina,  and  octosyllabic. 
The  music  of  the  verse  is  low  and  sweet,  well  adapted  to  tales  of  "old,  unhappy,  far- 
off  things,  and  battles  long  ago. "  His  Prologue  and  Epilogue  are  especially  beautiful. 

EAST  ANGELS,  a  novel,  by  Constance  Fenimore  Woolson  (1888).  Its  setting  is 
"Gracias-a-Dios,  a  little  town  lying  half  asleep  on  the  southern  coast  of  the  United 
States,  under  a  sky  of  .almost  changeless  blue."  The  heroine,  Edgarda  Thome,  the 
child  of  a  New  England  mother,  but  with  Spanish  blood  in  her  veins,  who  has  lived 
all  her  life  in  the  South^is^ just  ripening  into  womanhood  when  the  story  opens.  The 
plot  is  concerned  chiefly:  with  her  love-affairs,  men  of  totally  different  types  being 
thus  brought  into  juxtaposition.  Like  the  author's  other  novels,  'East  Angels'  lacks 
the  romantic  and  ideal  elements,  but  it  is  strong  in  the  delineation  of  everyday  char- 
acter and  incident. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  247 

EAST  LYNNE,  by  Mrs.  Henry  Wood,  appeared  in  1861.  Its  scene  is  laid  in  con- 
temporary  England.  Lady  Isabel  Vane,  early  orphaned  by  the  death  of  a  bankrupt 
father,  who  has  been  compelled  to  sell  East  Lynne,  his  ancestral  home,  is  loved  by 
both  Archibald  Carlyle  and  Francis  Levison;  the  former  as  noble  as  the  latter  is  base. 
She  marries  Carlyle,  but  is  persuaded  by  Levison  that  her  husband  is  unfaithful  to 
her.  His  insidious  slanders  so  work  upon  her  mind  that  she  presently  elopes  with 
him;  but  being  at  heart  a  good  woman,  she  leaves  him,  and  after  a  few  years  obtains 
an  engagement  as  nurse  to  her  own  children.  She  returns  disguised  to  her  old  home, 
where  her  husband  has  married  again,  and  where  she  becomes  the  devoted  attendant 
of  the  young  Carlyles.  The  denouement  clears  up  her  husband's  apparent  infidelity, 
reveals  Levison  to  be  a  murderer,  and  discloses  to  Carlyle  the  identity  of  Isabel, 
whom  he  has  thought  dead.  Her  sufferings  break  her  heart,  and  upon  her  death-bed 
she  receives  his  full  forgiveness.  The  plot,  though  impossible,  is  well  managed  and 
made  to  seem  credible,  and  there  are  several  strong  and  touching  situations.  The 
dominant  tone  of  the  book  is  distinctly  minor.  Although  it  has  little  literary  merit,  it 
secured  immediate  popularity,  has  been  through  many  editions  on  two  continents,  and 
proved  extremely  successful  as  an  emotional  drama. 

EBEN  HOLDEN,  by  Irving  Bacheller,  published  in  1900,  was  the  author's  first  book 
and  met  with  great  success.  It  is  a  simple  and  homely  tale  of  the  life  and  sayings  of 
"Eben  Holden,"  a  "hired  man,"  whose  affectionate  and  honest  nature  endears  him 
to  all  who  know  him.  In  the  opening  chapters  a  description  is  given  of  his  long  and 
hard  journey  on  foot  carrying  the  orphaned  boy  of  his  late  employer  to  some  place 
where  he  can  find  a  home  for  them  both.  At  last  a  shelter  is  found  at  the  farm  of 
David  Brower  in  the  "northern  countrv, "  where  they  obtain  a  permanent  abiding- 
place.  David  and  his  wife  Elizabeth,  who  are  good  and  kindly  people,  become  greatly 
attached  to  the  orphan  boy;  they  eventually  adopt  him  and  he  is  called  William 
Brower.  He  grows  up  with  Hope  Brower,  the  daughter  of  the  house,  a  charming 
girl  who  is  his  early  sweetheart  and  later  his  wife.  William  goes  to  college,  works  for 
Horace  Greeley  on  the  Tribune,  and  fights  in  the  Civil  War,  where  he  is  severely 
wounded  and  wins  commendation  for  his  bravery.  Through  all  his  experiences  Eben 
Holden  is  his  staunch  friend  and  does  everything  in  his  power  to  bring  about  his 
happiness  and  prosperity,  his  unselfishness  and  kindliness  being  shown  on  every 
occasion.  Eben  is  also  instrumental  in  bringing  about  the  union  of  David  Brower 
and  his  son  Nehemiah,  who  had  left  his  home  in  his  youth  and  had  been  mourned  as 
dead  for  many  years;  he  returns  to  his  parents  a  rich  man,  able  to  make  them  com- 
fortable in  their  declining  years.  The  quaint  and  original  stories  and  sayings  of 
Eben  Holden  make  up  a  large  part  of  the  book,  and  the  creation  of  his  character  is  a 
distinct  contribution  to  American  fiction. 

ECCE  HOMO,  by  John  Robert  Seeley  (1865),  was  a  consideration  of  the  life  of  Christ 
as  a  human  being.  In  the  preface  the  author  writes:  — 

"Those  who  feel  dissatisfied  with  the  current  conception  of  Christ,  if  they  cannot 
rest  content  without  a  definite  opinion,  may  find  it  necessary  to  do  what  to  persons 
not  so  dissatisfied  it  seems  audacious  and  perilous  to  do.  They  may  be  obliged  to 
reconsider  the  whole  subject  from  the  beginning,  and  placing  themselves  in  imagina- 
tion at  the  time  when  he  whom  we  call  Christ  bore  no  such  name,  to  trace  his  biog- 
raphy from  point  to  point,  and  accept  those  conclusions  about  him,  not  which  church 
doctors,  or  even  apostles,  have  sealed  with  their  authority,  but  which  the  facts  them- 
selves, critically  weighed,  appear  to  warrant.  This  is  what  the  present  writer  under- 
took to  do," 


248  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  result  of  this  undertaking  was  a  portrait  of  Christ  as  a  man,  which,  whether 
accurate  or  not,  is  singularly  luminous  and  suggestive.  The  author  brought  to  his 
task  scholarship,  historical  acumen,  above  all  the  power  to  trace  the  original  diversi- 
ties and  irregularities  in  a  surface  long  since  worn  smooth .  He  takes  into  account  the 
Zeitgeist  of  the  age  in  which  Christ  lived;  the  thousand  and  one  political  and  social 
forces  by  which  he  was  surrounded ;  and  the  national  inheritances  that  were  his  on  his 
human  side,  with  special  reference  to  his  office  of  Messiah.  Thereby  he  throws  light 
upon  a  character  "so  little  comprehended  "  as  a  man.  He  makes  many  astute  obser- 
vations, such  as  this  on  the  source  of  the  Jews'  antagonism  to  Christ:  "They  laid 
information  against  him  before  the  Roman  government  as  a  dangerous  character; 
their  real  complaint  against  him  was  precisely  this,  that  he  was  not  dangerous. 
Pilate  executed  him  on  the  ground  that  his  kingdom  was  of  this  world;  the  Jews 
procured  his  execution  precisely  because  it  was  not.  In  other  words,  they  could  not 
forgive  him  for  claiming  royalty,  and  at  the  same  time  rejecting  the  use  of  physical 
force.  .  .  .  They  did  not  object  to  the  king,  they  did  not  object  to  the  philosopher; 
but  they  objected  to  the  king  in  the  garb  of  the  philosopher."  The  'Ecce  Homo' 
produced  a  great  sensation  in  England  and  America.  Its  boldness,  its  scientific 
character,  combined  with  its  spirituality  and  reverence  for  the  life  of  Christ,  made  of 
it  a  work  which  could  not  be  overlooked.  Newman,  Dean  Stanley,  Gladstone,  and 
others  high  in  authority,  hastened  to  reply  to  it.  The  vitality  of  the  work  still  remains. 

ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY  OF  BRITAIN,  by  Bseda  or  Bede.  A  work  doubly 
monumental  (i)  in  the  extent,  faithfulness,  care  in  statement,  love  of  truth,  and 
pleasant  style,  of  its  report  from  all  trustworthy  sources  of  the  history  (not  merely 
ecclesiastical)  of  Britain,  and  especially  of  England,  down  to  the  eighth  century;  and 
(2)  in  its  being  the  only  authority  for  important  church  and  other  origins  and  de- 
velopments through  the  whole  period.  Bseda  was  by  far  the  most  learned  Englishman 
of  his  time;  one  of  the  greatest  writers  known  to  English  literature;  in  a  very  high 
sense  "the  Father  of  English  History";  an  extensive  compiler  for  English  use  from 
the  writings  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church;  an  author  of  treatises  representing  the 
existing  knowledge  of  science;  and  a  famous  English  translator  of  Scripture.  In  high 
qualities  of  genius  and  rare  graces  of  character,  he  was  in  the  line  of  Shakespeare. 
From  one  of  his  young  scholars,  Cuthbert,  we  have  a  singularly  beautiful  story  of  the 
venerable  master's  death,  which  befell  about  735  A.  D.,  when  he  was  putting  the  last 
touches  to  his  translation  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  From  his  seventh  year,  680,  to  the 
day  of  his  death,  May  26,  735,  he  passed  his  life  in  the  Benedictine  abbey,  first  at 
Wearmouth  and  then  at  Jarrow;  but  it  was  a  life  of  immense  scholarly  and  educational 
activity.  Green's  '  History '  says  of  him :  ' '  First  among  English  scholars,  first  among 
English  theologians,  first  among  English  historians,  it  is  in  the  monk  of  Jarrow  that 
English  literature  strikes  its  roots.  In  the  six  hundred  scholars  who  gathered  round 
him  for  instruction,  he  is  the  father  of  our  national  education."  It  was  in  point  of 
view  and  name  only  that  Baeda's  great  work  was  an  ecclesiastical  history.  It  covered 
all  the  facts  drawn  from  Roman  writers,  from  native  chronicles  and  biographies, 
from  records  and  public  documents,  and  from  oral  and  written  accounts  by  his  con- 
temporaries. It  was  written  in  Latin;  first  printed  at  Strasburg  about  1473;  King 
Alfred  translated  it  into  Anglo-Saxon;  and  it  has  had  several  editions  and  English 
versions  in  recent  times.  The  whole  body  of  Baeda's  writings,  some  forty  in  number, 
show  his  unwearied  industry  in  learning,  teaching,  and  writing,  his  gentle  and  culti- 
vated feelings,  his  kindly  sympathies,  and  the  singular  freshness  of  mind  which  gave 
life  and  beauty  to  so  many  pages  of  his  story  of  England's  past. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  549 

ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY,  see  LAWS  OF. 

ECHO  OF  PASSION,  AN,  by  George  Parsons  Lathrop  (1882),  is  one  of  Lathrop's 
earliest  works.  The  interest  of  the  story  revolves  around  an  accomplished  and  fas- 
cinating Southern  widow,  Mrs.  Eulow;  a  trusting  wife,  Ethel  Fenn;  and  a  husband, 
Benjamin  Fenn,  whose  chemical  information  is  more  exact  than  his  moral  principles. 
There  is  nothing  intangible  or  echo-like  about  the  passion  depicted,  which  attains  its 
zenith  during  the  idle  days  of  a  summer  outing  amid  the  Massachusetts  hills.  The 
theme  is  not  new;  but  in  his  treatment  of  it  the  author  presents  some  interesting 
ethical  arguments,  by  which  the  husband  seeks  to  blind  himself  to  his  own  short- 
comings, and  some  touching  examples  of  the  young  wife's  self-control  and  abnegation. 
Interspersed  are  amusing  semi-caricatures  of  the  typical  boarding-house  "guest, "  the 
flotsam  and  jetsam  of  vacation  life. 

ECOLE  DES  FEMMES,  LJ  ('  The  School  for  Wives'),  by  Moliere,  produced  in  1662,  is 
a  companion  piece  to  'L'Ecole  des  Mans'  ('The  School  for  Husbands').  They  have 
essentially  the  same  plot;  treated,  however,  with  great  dramatic  dexterity,  to  clothe 
a  different  idea  in  each.  In  this  comedy,  Arnolphe,  a  typical  middle-aged  jealous 
guardian  of  Agnes,  has  educated  his  ward  for  his  future  model  wife  by  carefully 
excluding  from  her  mind  all  knowledge  of  good  or  evil;  her  little  world  is  circumscribed 
by  the  grilled  windows  and  strong  doors  of  Arnolphe's  house.  Returning  from  a 
journey,  he  finds  her  sweet  and  tranquil  in  her  ignorance  as  before.  But  soon  meeting 
Horace,  a  son  of  his  old  friend  Oronte,  he  learns  by  the  ingenuous  confession  of  the 
young  fellow  that,  madly  in  love  with  "  a  young  creature  in  that  house, "  he  intends  to 
use  the  money  just  borrowed  from  his  father's  friend  to  carry  her  off.  Frantic  at  this 
disclosure,  Arnolphe  rushes  to  the  imprisoned  Agnes,  from  whom  by  ingenious  ques- 
tioning he  extracts  a  candid  avowal  of  her  affection  for  her  lover,  and  an  account  of  a 
visit  from  him.  By  a  clever  series  of  intrigues,  the  guardian  is  made  the  willing, 
unwitting  go-between  of  the  two  young  people;  until  at  last  Agnes,  having  deter- 
mined to  run  away  from  her  hated  suitor,  braves  his  anger.  Then  it  is  that  Arnolphe 
displays  a  depth  of  real  passion  and  tenderness,  tragic  in  its  intensity,  in  pleading 
'with  her  to  revoke  her  decision;  a  scene  that  remains  unrivaled  among  the  many  fine 
scenes  in  Moliere.  When  fiercest  in  denunciation,  the  guardian  yields  to  a  gentle 
glance  and  word.  "Little  traitress,"  he  cries,  "I  pardon  you  all.  I  give  you  back 
my  love.  That  word,  that  look,  disarms  my  wrath. "  A  pair  of  conventional  stage 
fathers  now  appear,  who,  by  revealing  the  fact  that  their  children,  the  lovers,  have 
been  betrothed  from  their  cradles,  unite  the  two  with  their  blessings;  and  the  desolate 
Arnolphe  receives  the  penalty  of  a  selfish  meddler  with  youthful  affection.  Obdurate 
and  rigid  in  his  theories,  Arnolphe  yet  wins  esteem  by  the  strength  of  his  character 
that  dominates,  even  in  defeat,  the  close  of  the  play.  Agnes,  a  type  of  maiden  inno- 
cence, far  from  being  colorless  or  insipid,  is  a  living,  glowing  portrait  of  a  genuinely 
interesting  ingtnue,  using  artifice  naturally  foreign  to  her  disposition  at  the 
service  of  love  only.  Outside  of  the  real  merit  of  the  play,  and  the  curious 
sidelight  it  throws  on  the  dramatist's  opinions  (married  at  this  time  at  forty 
years  of  age  to  a  girl  of  seventeen),  it  opened  an  attack  upon  him  for  suspected 
religious  latitude;  contemporary  criticism  being  leveled  at  the  scene  in  the  third 
act,  where  a  treatise,  'The  Maxims  of  Marriage,1  is  presented  by  the  guardian-lover 
p  his  ward. 

ECOLE  DES  MARIS,  L',  see  L'ECOLE  DES  FEMMES. 


250  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ECONOMIC  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY,  by  J.  E.  Thorold  Rogers  (1888). 
A  volume  of  Oxford  lectures,  covering  a  wide  range  of  important  topics,  with  the 
general  aim  of  showing  how  economic  questions  have  come  up  in  English  history,  and 
have  powerfully  influenced  its  development.  The  questions  of  labor,  money,  pro- 
tection, distribution  of  wealth,  social  effect  of  religious  movements,  pauperism  and 
taxation,  are  among  those  which  are  carefully  dealt  with.  In  a  posthumously  pub- 
lished volume,  'The  Industrial  and  Commercial  History  of  England,'  1892,  anothei 
series  of  Professor  Rogers's  Oxford  lectures  appeared,  completing  the  author's  view 
both  of  the  historical  facts  and  of  method  of  study. 

EDDA,  ELDER:  EDDA,  YOUNGER,  see  HEIMSKRINGLA. 

EDUCATION,  by  Herbert  Spencer  (1860).  It  is  the  highest  praise  that  can  be 
bestowed  upon  this  treatise,  that  it  seems  now  a  book  of  obvious  if  not  of  common- 
place philosophy,  whereas,  when  it  was  published,  it  was  recognized  as  revolutionary 
in  the  extreme.  So  rapidly  has  its  wisdom  become  incarnated  in  methods  if  not  in 
systems.  The  book  opens  with  an  examination  of  what  knowledge  is  of  most  worth: 
it  showrs  that  in  the  mental  world  as  in  the  bodily,  the  ornamental  comes  before  the 
useful;  that  we  do  not  seek  to  develop  our  own  individual  capacities  to  their  utmost, 
but  to  learn  what  will  enable  us  to  make  the  most  show,  or  accomplish  the  greatest 
material  successes.  But  if  the  important  thing  in  life  is  to  know  how  to  live,  in  the 
widest  sense,  then  education  should  be  made  to  afford  us  that  knowledge;  and  the 
knowledge  is  hence  of  most  value  which  informs  and  develops  the  whole  man.  Mathe- 
matics, Physics,  Chemistry,  Biology,  the  Science  of  Society, — all  these  are  important; 
but  an  education  which  teaches  youth  how  to  become  fit  for  parentage  is  indispens- 
able. Too  many  fathers  and  mothers  are  totally  unfit  to  develop  either  the  bodies, 
the  souls,  or  the  minds  of  their  children.  From  the  duty  of  preparation  on  the  part 
of  the  parent,  it  is  a  short  step  to  the  duty  of  preparation  on  the  part  of  the  citizen. 
And  still  another  division  of  human  life,  that  which  includes  the  relaxations  and 
pleasures  of  existence,  should  be  made  a  matter  of  intelligent  study;  for  this  com- 
prehends the  whole  field  of  the  fine  arts,  the  whole  aesthetic  organization  of  society. 
The  essayist  now  considers  in  detail,  Intellectual  Education,  Moral  Education,  and 
Physical  Education.  He  shows  not  only  an  unreasoned  and  unreasonable  existing 
state  of  things,  but  he  discloses  the  true  philosophy  underlying  the  question,  and 
points  out  the  true  methods  of  reasonableness  and  rightness.  Each  chapter  is 
enriched  with  a  wealth  of  illustration  drawn  from  history,  literature,  or  life;  and  the 
argument,  although  closely  reasoned,  is  very  entertaining  from  first  to  last.  Few 
books  of  the  age  have  had  a  more  direct  and  permanent  effect  upon  the  general 
thought  than  this;  many  parents  and  teachers  who  know  Herbert  Spencer  only  as 
a  name  follow  the  suggestions  which  are  now  a  part  of  the  common  intellectual  air. 

EDUCATION,  SOME  THOUGHTS  CONCERNING,  see  THOUGHTS,  ETC. 
EDUCATION,  TRACTATE  ON,  see  TRACTATE,  ETC. 

EDWARD  n.,  an  historical  play,  by  Christopher  Marlowe  acted  in  1592?,  first  pub- 
lished in  1594,  is  generally  regarded  as  the  author's  masterpiece.  The  scene  opens  in 
London.  Gaveston,  Edward's  favorite,  is  invited  by  the  King  to  come  and  share  his 
kingdom.  Earl  Lancaster  and  the  elder  and  younger  Mortimer  are  incensed  at 
Edward's  infatuation  for  his  favorite.  In  spite  of  the  displeasure  of  his  nobles,  Ed- 
ward bestows  upon  Gaveston  the  castle  and  rents  of  the  Bishop  of  Coventry,  who 
had  previously  been  the  chief  cause  of  Gaveston's  being  sent  into  exile.  The  Arch- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  251 

bishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  nobles,  the  counsellors  of  the  King,  force  Edward  to 
banish  Gaveston.  Edward  in  pique  becomes  estranged  from  his  Queen,  Isabella, 
whom  he  accuses  of  familiarity  with  Mortimer,  but  sends  Gaveston  to  be  governor  of 
Ireland.  The  Queen,  anxious  to  win  back  the  favor  of  the  King,  induces  the  nobles 
to  consent  to  the  repeal  of  Gaveston's  banishment;  but  when  Gaveston  returns,  he  is 
received  with  satirical  greetings  by  the  nobles,  headed  by  \Varwick  and  the  younger 
Mortimer,  who  seize  him  and  keep  him  under  arrest.  In  the  meantime  the  King  of 
France  had  seized  Normandy,  and  Isabella  and  her  son,  who  were  sent  to  France  on  a 
mission  of  appeasement,  returned  without  having  accomplished  their  ends.  In 
their  absence  the  Spencers  had  come  to  the  aid  of  Edward,  who  captured  certain  of 
the  nobles.  Others  joined  the  Queen  on  her  return  and  Edward  was  forced  to  resign 
his  crown.  The  growing  horror  and  pathos  of  the  closing  scenes  which  describe  the 
events  leading  up  to  the  king's  assassination  won  the  enthusiastic  eulogy  of  Charles 
Lamb.  The  young  prince  who  comes  to  the  throne  orders  the  death  of  Mortimer  and 
the  imprisonment  of  the  Queen. 

EGOIST,  THE,  by  George  Meredith  (1879),  is  a  fine  illustration  of  a  complete 
novel  without  a  plot.  It  is  a  study  of  egotism.  The  egoist  is  Sir  Willoughby 
Patterne,  of  Patterne  Hall,  a  consummate  young  gentleman  of  fortune  and  rank, 
whose  disposition  and  breeding  make  him  only  too  well  aware  of  his  perfections, 
and  of  his  value  in  the  matrimonial  market.  He  determines  to  choose  his  wife 
prudently  and  deliberately,  as  befits  the  selection  of  the  rare  creature  worthy  to 
receive  the  gift  of  his  incomparable  self.  In  describing  the  successive  courtships  by 
which  the  egotism  of  the  egoist  is  thrown  into  high  light,  Meredith  presents  a  most 
natural  group  of  fair  women:  the  brilliant  Constantia  Durham,  Clara  Middleton  the 
"dainty  rogue  in  porcelain,"  and  Lsetitia  Dale  with  "romances  on  her  eyelashes." 
The  curtain  falls  on  the  dreary  deadness  of  Sir  Willoughby's  incurable  self-satis- 
faction. 

EGYPT,  A  HISTORY  OF,  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Persian  Conquest,  by  J.  H. 
Breasted  (1905).  A  history  for  the  general  reader  based  on  the  results  of  archaeologi- 
cal research.  Professor  Breasted  has  published  his  historical  material  in  four 
volumes  'Ancient  Records  of  Egypt'  (1906),  texts  and  translations  of  the  inscriptions 
on  the  monuments  in  the  museums  of  Europe  and  Cairo,  and  in  the  valley  of  the 
Nile.  The  period  covered  is  from  4241  B.  C.,  "the  earliest  fixed  date  in  the  history 
of  the  world/'  to  525  B.  C.  The  most  interesting  discoveries  of  recent  years  come 
within  the  scope  of  the  first  two  books  on  the  prehistoric  period,  the  pyramid  builders 
and  their  ancestors.  Book  i  gives  a  preliminary  survey  of  the  chronology  and  the 
documentary  sources,  and  the  facts  known  about  the  predynastic  Egyptians.  Book 
2  is  a  picture  of  the  Old  Kingdom,  the  first  known  civilization,  its  politics,  religion, 
industry,  art,  and  customs.  This  early  kingdom  of  the  North  declined  and  Book  3 
discusses  the  feudal  age  of  the  Middle  Kingdom  of  internal  struggle  between  king 
and  nobles.  In  Book  4  comes  the  century  of  Hyksos  invasion  and  expulsion.  Book 
5  deals  with  the  rise  of  the  Empire,  and  its  dissolution  with  the  fall  of  Ikhnaton, 
"the  first  individual  in  human  history, "  a  dreamer  and  idealist,  who  lost  his  empire 
while  he  was  composing  hymns  to  the  sun  and  establishing  a  new  religion.  Book  6 
is  the  story  of  the  triumph  of  Amon  and  the  reorganization  of  the  Empire,  the  wars  of 
Rameses  I.  and  II.  and  the  final  decline  of  the  Empire  with  the  reign  of  Rameses 
III.  Book  7  is  the  fall  of  the  Empire  and  the  supremacy  first  of  the  Libyans,  then  the 
Ethiopians,  and  finally  of  Assyria.  Book  8,  "The  Restoration  and  the  End1'  traces 


252  THE    READER'S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS 

the  history  of  the  final  struggle  with  Babylon  and  Persia  to  the  creation  in  the  East 
of  the  great  Empire  of  Persia.  The  decline  of  Egypt  was  caused  by  the  rise  to  power 
of  the  priests  of  Amon.  Professor  Breasted  has  written  a  modern  readable  scholarly 
history  instead  of  a  lifeless  chronicle  of  Pharaohs  and  dynasties,  making  the  people  of 
this  remote  age  as  real  as  the  Greeks  and  Romans. 

EGYPT,  A  HISTORY  OF  (Mew  ed.,  6  vols.,  1905).  Vol.  i.,  from  the  Earliest  Times 
to  the  Sixteenth  Dynasty.  Vol.  ii.,  During  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  dynasties. 
Vol.  iii.,  The  Nineteenth  to  the  Thirtieth  Dynasty,  by  W.  M.  Flinders  Petrie. 
Vol.  iv.,  Ptolemaic  Dynasty,  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy.  Vol.  v.,  Egypt  under  Roman  rule, 
by  J.  G.  Milne.  Vol.  vi.,  Egypt  in  the  Middle  Ages,  by  Stanley  Lane-Poole.  These 
volumes  embrace  the  whole  history  cf  Egypt  down  to  modern  times.  The  design  of 
the  whole  work  is  to  supply  a  book  of  reference  which  shall  suffice  for  all  ordinary  pur- 
poses, but  with  special  attention  to  facts  and  illustrations  which  are  new,  and  with 
the  utmost  care  to  throw  as  much  light  as  possible  upon  Egyptian  dates.  There  is  no 
intention  of  including  a  history  of  art,  civilization,  or  literature;  the  one  purpose  of 
the  work  is  to  get  into  as  accurate  shape  as  possible  the  history  and  chronology  of 
the  successive  dynasties.  The  figures  settled  upon  by  Professor  Petrie,  in  his  first 
volume,  show  seventeen  dynasties  ruling  from  4777  B.  C.  to  1587  B.  C.,  and  Dynasty 
XVIIT.  carrying  on  the  history  to  1327  B.  C.  It  is  thus  the  story  of  3450  years  which 
he  tells  in  the  two  volumes.  The  history  of  the  seventeenth  dynasty  (1738-1587 
B.  C.),  and  of  the  eighteenth,  told  in  Vol.  ii.,  are  especially  important;  and  for  these, 
no  record  or  monument  has  been  left  unnoticed. 

EGYPT  AND  CHALD^EA,  see  DAWN  OF  CIVILIZATION. 

EGYPTIAN  ARCHEOLOGY,  MANUAL  OF,  and  Guide  to  the  Study  of  Antiquities 
in  Egypt,  by  Gaston  Maspero.  Translated  by  Amelia  B.  Edwards  (Fourth  Revised 
Edition:  1895).  One  of  the  most  picturesque,  original,  and  readable  volumes  in  the 
immense  literature  to  which  our  vast  new  knowledge  of  the  long-buried  Egypt  has 
given  rise.  With  its  many  new  facts  and  new  views  and  interpretations,  gleaned  by 
M.  Maspero  with  his  unrivaled  facilities  as  director  of  the  great  Boulak  Museum  at 
Cairo,  the  volume  is,  for  the  general  reader  and  the  student,  the  most  adequate  of 
text-books  and  handbooks  of  its  subject. 

EGYPTIAN  PRINCESS,  AN,  a  German  historical  romance  by  Georg  Ebers,  was 
published  in  1864.  Its  scenes  are  laid  in  Egypt  and  Persia,  toward  the  close  of  the 
sixth  century  B.  C.  The  narrative  follows  the  fates  of  the  royal  families  of  the  two 
nations,  tracing  the  career  of  the  headstrong,  passionate  Cambyses,  from  the  days 
of  his  marriage  with  the  Egyptian  princess  Nitetis,  whom  he  was  deceived  into 
accepting  as  the  daughter  of  Amasis,  King  of  Egypt,  down  to  the  times  when,  his 
ill-fated  bride  taking  poison,  he  himself  humbles  the  arms  of  Egypt  in  punishment 
for  their  deception;  and,  dissipated,  violent,  capricious,  the  haughty  monarch  meets 
his  death,  Darius  the  Mede  reigning  in  his  stead.  A  figure  of  infinite  pathos  is  the 
gentle  Nitetis;  with  pitiful  patience  meeting  the  cruel  suspicions  of  Cambyses,  and 
content  to  kiss  his  hand  in  her  death  agonies,  the  result  of  his  intemperate  anger. 

Another  interesting  character  is  Bartja,  the  handsome  and  chivalrous  younger 
brother  of  Cambyses,  of  whom  the  Bang  is  so  unjustly  jealous.  His  love  for  Sappho, 
granddaughter  of  the  far-famed  Rhodopis,  is  one  of  the  most  genuine  conceptions  in 
literature.  Several  historic  characters  are  introduced  and  placed  in  natural  settings, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  253 

notably  Croesus,  mentor  of  the  unhappy  Cambyses;  and  Darius,  whose  future  great- 
ness is  foreshadowed  in  an  early  youth  of  discretion  and  prowess. 

EGYPTIANS,  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  ANCIENT,  see  RELIGIONS,  ETC. 

EUCON  BASELIKE:  'The  True  Portraiture  of  his  Sacred  Majestic  in  his  Soli- 
tudes and  Sufferings/  by  John  Gauden,  February  9th,  1649.  One  of  the  most 
worthless  yet  most  effective  and  famous  literary  forgeries  ever  attempted.  Its 
author  was  a  Presbyterian  divine,  bishop  of  Exeter  and  Worcester  under  Charles  II. 
"It  got  Parson  Gauden  a  bishopric,"  Carlyle  wrote  November  26th,  1840.  On 
Thursday,  January  4th,  1649,  the  change  of  England  from  a  monarchy  to  a  republic, 
or  commonwealth,  had  been  made  by  the  passage  in  the  Commons  House  of  Parlia- 
ment of  three  resolutions:  (i)  That  the  people  are  the  original  of  all  just  power  in  the 
State;  (2)  That  the  Commons  represent  that  power;  and  (3)  That  their  enactments 
needed  no  consent  of  king  or  peers  to  have  the  force  of  law.  On  Tuesday,  January 
30th,  between  two  and  three  P.M.,  the  execution  of  Charles  I.  had  taken  place.  Ten 
days  later,  February  9th,  there  was  published  with  great  secrecy,  and  in  very  mys- 
terious fashion,  the  small  octavo  volume  of  269  pages,  the  title  of  which  is  given 
above.  The  frontispiece  to  the  volume  was  an  elaborate  study  in  symbols  and 
mottoes,  in  a  picture  of  the  king  on  his  knees  in  his  cell  looking  for  a  crown  of  glory. 
The  twenty-eight  chapters  purporting  to  have  been  written  by  Charles,  and  to  tell  the 
spiritual  side  of  the  later  story  of  his  life,  each  began  with  a  fragment  of  narrative,  or 
of  meditation  on  some  fact  of  his  life,  and  then  gave  a  prayer  suited  to  the  supposed 
circumstances.  Not  only  was  the  whole  scheme  of  the  book  a  grotesque  fiction,  but 
the  execution  was  cheap,  pointless,  "vapid  falsity  and  cant,"  Carlyle  said,  and  a 
vulgar  imitation  of  the  liturgy;  yet  fifty  editions  in  a  year  did  not  meet  the  demand 
for  it ;  and  it  created  almost  a  worship  of  the  dead  king.  It  remains  a  singular  example 
of  what  a  literary  forgery  can  accomplish. 

EKXEHAJRD,  by  Joseph  Victor  von  Scheffel  (1857)  is  a  story  told  by  one  who 
believed  in  the  "union  of  poetry  and  fiction."  To  him  "the  characters  of  the  past 
arose  from  out  the  mist  of  years,  and  bade  him  clothe  them  anew  in  living  form  to 
please  his  own  and  succeeding  generations."  The  time  is  the  tenth  century,  the 
century  of  King  Canute's  conquest  of  England.  The  hero,  Ekkehard,  is  a  young 
Benedictine  monk  of  the  holy  house  of  St.  Gall,  in  Suabia,  a  house  whose  abbot  is  an 
old  man  named  Cralo.  The  abbot  is  a  distant  cousin  to  Hadwig,  countess  of  Suabia, 
whose  deceased  lord,  Burkhard,  had  been  a  tyrannical  old  nobleman  who  in  his 
dotage  wedded  Hadwig,  a  fair  daughter  of  Bavaria,  who  had  entered  into  the  alliance 
to  please  her  father.  At  Burkhard's  death  the  emperor  has  declared  that  the  countess 
shall  hold  her  husband's  fiefs  so  long  as  she  does  not  marry  again.  But  the  countess, 
—  young,  beautiful,  rich,  and  idle,  —  in  a  moment  of  recklessness  decides  to  visit 
the  monastery  of  St.  Gall,  which  has  a  rule  that  woman's  foot  must  never  step  across 
its  threshold;  and  while  the  countess  waits  without,  and  Cralo  and  his  monks  discuss 
what  should  be  done,  the  ready-witted  young  Ekkehard  suggests  that  some  one  carry 
the  countess  across  the  portal.  He  is  deputed  to  do  so,  and  from  the  hour  when  he 
takes  her  into  his  arms,  the  poet-monk  loves  the  Countess  Hadwig.  Later,  when  he  is 
sent  to  be  her  tutor,  despite  his  self-restraint  he  reveals  his  love  to  her.  He  is  as 
"the  moth  fluttering  around  a  candle."  Fleeing  love's  temptations,  Ekkehard  goes 
far  up  into  the  mountains  with  his  lyre,  and  amid  the  snow-capped  peaks,  sings  his 
master-song.  This  he  transcribes,  and  tying  it  to  an  arrow,  he  shoots  it  so  that  it 
falls  at  the  countess's  feet.  It  is  his  parting  gift.  He  journeys  into  the  world,  his 


;>54  THE   RKADER  S   DIGEST   OF    BOOKS 

songs  making  a  welcome  for  him  everywhere;  and  in  her  halls  the  countess  keeps  his 
memory  to  fill  her  lonely  hours.  In  1885  the  story  had  reached  its  eighty-sixth 
editinn  in  the  original  German,  while  innumerable  translations  have  been  made  into 
English.  Though  SchefTel  gave  the  world  other  volumes  of  prose  and  poetry,  none  is 
so  well  known,  or  considered  so  good. 

ELEANOR,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  was  published  in  1900.  The  real  interest  of 
this  book  is  not  so  much  in  its  plot  as  in  the  development  of  the  character  of  its  heroine 
Eleanor  Bargoyne,  a  woman  of  rare  charm  and  of  supreme  intellectual  endowment, 
who  comes  to  Rome  for  the  benefit  of  her  health.  She  has  had  a  brief  and  unhappy 
married  life  which  has  ended  with  the  death  of  husband  and  child,  since  when  she  has 
for  eight  years  been  absorbed  in  the  world  of  books.  In  Rome,  she  is  brought  into 
close  companionship  with  her  cousin  Edward  Manisty,  with  whom  she  falls  devotedly 
in  love.  He  is  thoroughly  self-centred  and  egotistical,  moody  and  taciturn,  and 
possesses  insufferable  manners.  Despite  her  frail  health,  Eleanor  throws  herself  body 
and  soul  into  the  endeavor  to  aid  Manisty  in  the  production  of  a  successful  book;  she 
spends  long  and  exhausting  hours  discussing,  copying,  and  advising,  and  acts  as  an 
intellectual  stimulus  for  his  powers  and  perceptions.  The  introduction  of  Lucy 
Foster  upon  the  scene,  and  an  adverse  criticism  upon  his  book,  bring  about  a  change 
in  Manisty fs  attitude  towards  Eleanor;  he  falls  in  love  with  the  pretty  young  Ameri- 
can girl  and  his  cousin  realizes  that  he  has  not  a  thought  for  her.  She  at  first  attempts 
to  separate  the  lovers,  and  Lucy,  loyal  to  the  older  woman,  and  true  to  the  prompt- 
ings of  her  Puritan  conscience,  rejects  the  advances  of  Manisty,  and  leaves  Rome 
with  Eleanor,  whose  health,  impaired  by  the  emotional  and  physical  strain  she  has 
experienced,  is  gradually  failing.  After  much  suffering  and  a  violent  mental  struggle, 
Eleanor  rises  above  her  own  feelings  and  exerts  her  influence  to  bring  about  the  union 
of  the  lovers,  whose  marriage  she  survives  but  by  a  few  months. 

ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES  ('  Wahlverwandschaften ')  by  Goethe,  was  published  in  1809. 
The  novel  has  four  principal  characters:  Edward,  a  wealthy  nobleman,  and  his  wife 
Charlotte;  her  niece  Ottilie;  and  a  friend  of  Edward,  known  as  the  Captain.  These 
four  being  together  at  Edward's  country-seat,  Ottilie  falls  in  love  with  Edward, 
Charlotte  with  the  Captain.  The  wife,  however,  remains  faithful  to  her  husband; 
but  Ottilie  yields  to  her  passion,  expiating  her  sin  only  with  her  death.  The  tragedy 
of  the  book  seems  designed  to  show  that  "elective  affinities"  may  be  fraught  with 
danger  and  sorrow;  that  duty  may  have  even  a  higher  claim  than  the  claim  of  the  soul. 
The  novel  is  throughout  of  the  highest  interest  in  the  delineation  of  character  and  of 
the  effects  of  passion. 

ELEGANT!®  LATINJE  SERMONIS  ('Elegancies  of  Latin  Speech'),  by  Laurentius 
Valla  (Lorenzo  della  Valla),  1444;  59th  ed,  1536.  A  standard  work  on  Latin  style, 
written  in  the  days  of  the  earlier  Italian  Renaissance,  when  the  Latin  Middle  Ages 
were  coming  to  a  close.  It  is  notable  as  the  latest  example  of  Latin  used  as  a  living 
tongue.  Valla  was  a  thoroughly  Pagan  Humanist.  His  'De  Voluptate,'  written  at 
Rome  about  1443,  was  a  scholarly  and  philosophical  apology  for  sensual  pleasure;  the 
first  important  word  of  the  new  paganism.  The  'Elegancies'  followed,  and  the  two 
works  gave  their  author  the  highest  reputation  as  a  brilliant  writer  and  critic  of 
Latin  composition.  At  an  earlier  date  (1440)  Valla  had  published  a  work  designed  to 
show  that  the  papal  claim  of  a  grant  made  to  the  papacy  by  Constantine  had  no  valid 
historical  foundation.  This  was  the  first  effort  of  skepticism  in  that  direction;  yet 
the  successor  of  Eugenius  IV.,  Nicholas  V.,  invited  Valla,  as  one  of  the  chief  scholars 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  255 

of  the  age,  to  take  the  post  of  apostolic  secretary  at  Rome,  and  paid  him  munificently 
for  a  translation  of  Thucydides  into  Latin.  Valla  further  did  pre-Reformation  work 
by  his  'Adnotationes'  on  the  New  Testament,  in  which  for  the  first  time  the  Latin 
Vulgate  version  was  subjected  to  comparison  with  the  Greek  original.  Erasmus  re- 
edited  this  work,  and  Ulrich  von  Hutten  republished  the  attack  on  the  papal  claims. 
The  permanent  interest  of  Valla  is  that  of  an  able  initiator  of  criticism,  linguistic, 
historical,  and  ethical. 

ELIA,  see  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

ELINE  VERB,  see  FOOTSTEPS  OF  FATE. 

ELIZABETH;  or,  THE  EXILES  OF  SIBERIA,  by  Sophie  Cottin  (1805),  is  regarded 
in  the  English-speaking  world  as  her  best  work;  though  in  France  her  'Mathilde,' 
founded  on  incidents  in  the  life  of  Richard  Cceur-de-Lion's  sister,  is  more  highly 
esteemed.  The  picturesque  story  of  Elizabeth  was  founded  on  fact;  its  theme  — 
the  successful  attempt  of  a  Polish  maiden  of  high  birth  to  obtain  the  pardon  of  her 
exiled  parents  from  the  Emperor  Alexander,  at  his  coronation  in  1801  —  is  so  exalted 
that  one  cannot  help  wishing  it  had  been  told  with  more  simplicity  and  fewer  com- 
ments. The  descriptions  of  nature  and  of  remote  corners  of  Russia  are  done  with 
much  fidelity  —  not  to  mention  Elizabeth's  peasant  costume:  her  short  red  petticoat, 
reindeer  trousers,  squirrel-skin  boots,  and  fur  bonnet.  A  less  virile  writer  than 
Madame  de  Stael,  Madame  Cottin  nevertheless  helped  to  pave  the  way  for  the 
romantic  school  in  France. 

ELIZABETH  AND  HER  GERMAN  GARDEN,  by  Countess  Von  Arnim  (later 
Countess  Russell)  appeared  anonymously  in  1898,  Elizabeth,  a  young  married 
woman,  tired  of  city  life,  persuades  her  husband  to  move  into  the  country  where 
they  have  an  old  family  estate,  which  is  rapidly  going  to  decay. '  The  opening  pages 
describe  in  a  most  breezy  and  delightful  way  her  first  experience  in  bringing  order  out 
of  chaos.  She  goes  in  advance  of  her  family  to  the  old  house,  accompanied  by  a 
housekeeper  and  a  servant,  and  oversees  the  workman  and  gardeners,  who  are  making 
the  place  habitable.  Elizabeth  who  is  a  true  lover  of  nature,  finds  perfect  enjoyment 
in  her  out-of-door  life,  and  her  ecstasy  and  delight  over  her  garden  forms  the  motive 
of  the  tale.  After  some  weeks  spent  entirely  in  communing  with  nature,  she  is  joined 
by  her  family,  and  her  journal  then  depicts  their  idyllic  home  life  in  the  country.  Her 
husband,  whom  she  laughingly  calls  the  "Alan  of  Wrath,"  and  her  three  children, 
designated  severally  as  the  "April,"  " May/'  and  "June"  babies,  figure  frequently  in 
the  pages  of  her  journal.  The  trials  she  endures  from  unwelcome  guests,  stupid 
servants,  and  a  disagreeable  governess,  are  amusingly  described,  as  are  the  minute 
details  of  her  experimental  gardening.  The  author's  enthusiasm  for  nature,  and  keen 
knowledge  of  humanity  makes  the  book  both  entertaining  and  agreeable  reading. 
It  is  delightful  in  style,  and  Elizabeth  muses,  laughs,  and  moralizes  over  her  garden, 
her  husband,  her  babies,  and  her  acquaintances  in  a  peculiarly  feminine  way  in  which 
is  blended  humor,  simplicity,  shrewdness,  and  philosophy. 

ELLE  ET  LUI,  by  George  Sand  (1859).  A  novel  based  on  the  author's  relations 
twenty-five  years  before,  in  1834,  with  Alfred  de  Musset,  whose  death  occurred  in 
1857.  As  the  story  was  one  to  which  there  could  be  no  reply  by  the  person  most 
concerned,  an  indignant  brother,  Paul  de  Musset,  wrote  'Ltd  et  Elle'  to  alter  the 
lights  on  the  picture.  At  the  entrance  of  the  woman  known  in  literature  as  George 
Sund  upon  the  bohemian  freedom  in  Paris,  she  shared  her  life  with  Jules  Sandeau, 


256  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  first  used  the  pen-name  Jules  Sand,  when  he  and  she  worked  together  and  brought 
out  a  novel  entitled  'Rose  ct  Blanche.'  Enabled  shortly  after  to  get  a  publisher  for 
1  Indiana,'  which  was  wholly  her  own  work,  she  changed  her  pen-name  to  George 
Sand.  But  Sandeau  and  she  did  not  continue  together.  Alfred  de  Musset  and  she 
entered  upon  a  relationship  of  life  and  literary  labor  which  took  them  to  Italy  at  the 
end  of  1833,  gave  them  a  short  experience  of  harmony  in  1834,  but  came  to  an  end  by 
estrangement  between  them  in  1835.  Her  side  of  this  estrangement  is  reflected  in 
'Elle  et  Lui,'  and  his  in  Paul  de  Musset's  'Lui  et  Elle.' 

ELM-TREE  ON  THE  MALL,  THE,  see  L'HISTOIRE  CONTEMPORAINE. 

ELSIE  VENNER,  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  was  first  published  serially,  in  1859- 
60,  under  the  name  of  'The  Professor's  Story.1  The  romance  is  a  study  in  heredity, 
introducing  a  peculiar  series  of  phenomena  closely  allied  to  such  dualism  of  nature 
as  may  best  be  described  by  the  word  "ophianthropy."  Delineations  of  the  charac- 
ters, social  functions,  and  religious  peculiarities  of  a  New  England  village,  form  a 
setting  for  the  story.  Elsie  Venner  is  a  young  girl  whose  physical  and  psychical 
peculiarities  occasion  much  grief  and  perplexity  to  her  father,  a  widower  of  gentle 
nature  and  exceptional  culture.  The  victim  of  some  pre-natal  casualty,  Elsie  shows 
from  infancy  unmistakable  traces  of  a  serpent-nature  intermingling  with  her  higher 
self.  This  nature  dies  within  her  only  when  she  yields  to  an  absorbing  love.  Like  all 
the  work  of  Dr.  Holmes,  the  story  is  brilliantly  written  and  full  of  epigrammatic 
sayings;  it  is  acute  though  harsh  in  dissection  of  New  England  life,  and  distinguished 
by  psychological  insight  and  the  richest  humor. 

EMANXJEL  QUINT,  see  FOOL  IN"  CHRIST. 

EMBLEMS,  by  Francis  Quarles  (1635).  A  book  of  grotesque  engravings,  borrowed 
from  Hermann  Hugo's  'Pia  Desideria,'  and  fitted  with  crudely  fanciful,  studiously 
quaint,  and  sometimes  happily  dramatic,  religious  poems,  such  as  Quarles  had  earlier 
published  as  'Divine  Poems'  (a  collected  volume,  1630,  representing  ten  years),  and 
*  Divine  Fancies'  (1632).  They  mingle  something  of  the  sublime  with  a  great  deal  of 
the  commonplace;  and  only  lend  themselves  to  admiration  if  we  are  prepared  to 
make  the  best  of  conceits  and  oddities  along  with  some  elevated  thoughts.  They 
have  come  into  favor  of  late  as  antique  and  curious,  rather  than  upon  any  original 
merit  in  respect  either  of  poetry  or  of  picture.  The  engravings,  however,  were  by 
Marshall. 

EMILE,  by  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  the  most  famous  of  pedagogic  romances,  was 
composed  in  1762.  Its  immediate  effect  was  to  call  down  on  his  head  the  denuncia- 
tions of  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  who  found  him  animated  "by  a  spirit  of  insubordi- 
nation and  revolt,"  and  to  exile  him  for  some  years  from  France.  Its  lasting  effect 
was  to  lay  the  foundation  of  modern  pedagogy.  Due  to  the  suggestion  of  a  mother 
who  asked  advice  as  to  the  training  of  a  child,  it  was  the  expansion  of  his  opinions 
and  counsels;^ the  framework  of  a  story  sustaining  an  elaborate  system  of  elementary 
education.  Emile,  its  diminutive  hero,  is  reared  apart  from  other  children  under  a 
tutor,  by  a  long  series  of  experiments  conducted  by  the  child  himself,  often  with 
painful  consequences.  Little  by  little,  his  childish  understanding  comes  to  compre- 
hend at  first-hand  the  principles  of  physics,  mechanics,  gardening,  property,  and 
morals.  At  last  the  loosely  woven  plot  leads  to  the  marriage  of  Emile  with  Sophie,  a 
girl  who  has  been  educated  in  a  similar  fashion.  Arbitrary,  but  always  ingenious 
and  stimulating,  the  experiments  introduced  are  veritable  steps  of  knowledge.  As 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  257 

object-lessons,  the  altercation  with  the  gardener  and  the  visit  to  the  mountebank  are 
unsurpassed  in  the  simplicity  with  which  the  complex  ideas  of  property  and  magne- 
tism are  presented  to  a  developing  intelligence.  From  the  hints  contained  in  '  Emile,' 
Basedow,  Pestalozzi,  and  Froebel  drew  their  inspiration  and  laid  the  broad  founda- 
tions of  modern  elementary  education.  Unsystematic,  sometimes  impracticable, 
full  of  suggestion,  it  invests  the  revolutionary  ideas  of  its  author  with  his  customary 
literary  charm. 

EMINENT  AUTHORS  OF  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY,  translated  from  the 
Danish  of  Brandes  by  Rasmus  B.  Anderson  (1882),  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  exercised 
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  individuality. 

Hans  Christian  Andersen  is  the  discoverer  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";  Tegne"r  is  the  humanistic  lyrist  of 
the  North;  Flaubert  the  painful  seeker  after  perfection  of  form;  the  Danish  Paludan- 
Muller,  a  poet,  who  with  a  satiric  realization  of  earthly  discords,  clings  to  orthodox 
religious  ideals;  Bjornson,  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  application  has  made  their  work  as  valuable  to 
foreign  readers  as  to  their  own  countrymen.  Its  local  color  and  feeling  endeared  it  at 
home,  and  heightened  its  charm  abroad. 

EMMA,  by  Jane  Austen.  The  story  of  'Emma'  is  perhaps  one  of  the  simplest  in  all 
fiction,  but  the  genius  of  Miss  Austen  manifests  itself  throughout.  All  her  books 
show  keen  insight  into  human  nature;  but  in  'Emma'  the  characters  are  so  true  to 
life,  and  the  descriptions  so  vivid,  that  for  the  time  one  positively  lives  in  the  village 
of  Highbury,  the  scene  of  the  tale.  At  the  opening  of  the  story,  Emma  Woodhouse, 
the  heroine,  "handsome,  clever,  and  rich,"  and  somewhat  spoilt  by  a  weak  fussy 
father,  lives  alone  with  him.  Her  married  sister's  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Knightley,  is 
a  frequent  visitor  at  their  house;  as  is  Mrs.  Weston,  Emma's  former  governess.  Mr. 
Knighttey  is  a  quiet,  sensible  English  gentleman,  the  only  one  who  tells  Emma  her 
faults.  Finding  life  dull,  Emma  makes  friends  with  Harriet  Smith,  an  amiable, 
weak-minded  young  girl,  and  tries  to  arrange  a  match  between  her  and  Mr.  Elton,  the 
clergyman,  but  fails.  Frank  Churchill  —  Mrs.  Weston's  stepson  —  arrives  in  the 
village,  pays  marked  attention  to  Emma,  and  supplies  the  town  with  gayety  and 
gossip.  Shortly  after  his  departure,  a  letter  brings  the  news  of  Hs  rich,  aunt's  death, 
17 


2.S*  THE    READER'S    DIGEST    OF    BOOKS 

and  his  own  secret  engagement  to  Jane  Fairfax,  a  beautiful  girl  in  Highbury:  Emma 
suspects  Harriet  of  being  in  love  with  Mr.  Churchill,  but  discovers  that  she  cherishes 
instead  a  hidden  affection  for  Mr.  Knightley.  The  disclosure  fills  Emma  with  alarm, 
and  she  realizes  for  the  first  time  that  no  one  but  herself  must  marry  him.  Fortun- 
ately he  has  long  loved  her;  and  the  story  ends  with  her  marriage  to  him,  that  of 
Harriet  to  Mr.  Martin,  her  rejected  lover,  and  of  Jane  to  Frank  Churchill. 

The  gradual  evolution  of  her  better  self  in  Emma,  and  her  unconscious  admiration 
for  Mr.  Knightley *s  quiet  strength  of  character,  changing  from  admiration  to  love 
as  she  herself  grows,  is  exceedingly  interesting.  Chief  among  the  other  characters 
are  Mr.  Woodhouse,  a  nervous  invalid  with  a  permanent  fear  of  colds,  and  a  taste 
for  thin  gruel;  and  talkative  Miss  Bates,  who  flits  from  one  topic  of  conversation  to 
another  like  a  distracted  butterfly.  Less  brilliant  than  'Pride  and  Prejudice/ 
'Emma'  is  equally  rich  in  humor,  in  the  vivid  portraiture  of  character,  and  a  never- 
ending  delight  in  human  absurdities,  which  the  fascinated  reader  shares  from  chapter 
to  chapter.  It  was  published  in  1816,  when  Jane  Austen  was  forty-one. 

EN  MENAGE,  by  J.  K.  Huysman,  see  EN  ROUTE. 

EN  ROUTE,  a  novel,  by  J.  K.  Huysman  (1895),  *s  translated  by  Kegan  Paul.  The 
author,  whose  literary  career  began  in  1875,  nas  devoted  himself  largely  to  what  may 
be  termed  a  kind  of  brutal  mysticism.  His  works  'Marthe, '  'Les  Sceurs  Vatard,' 
and  'En  Menage,1  deal  largely  with  themes  that  are  sordid  and  scarred  with  hatred 
and  ugliness,  as  if  his  mission  were  mainly  to  portray  "la  b£tise  de  I'humaniteV' 
A  morbid  delight  in  what  is  corrupt  leads  to  a  corrupt  mysticism.  What  is  known 
as  Satanism  finds  its  extreme  expression  in  his  novel  'La-Bas.'  It  is  a  "surfeit  of 
supernaturalism  producing  a  mental  nausea."  'En  Route'  depicts  the  "religious" 
conversion  of  a  young  debauche*  of  Paris,  Dartal  by  name,  —  a  character  who  first 
appears  in  'La-Bas.1  He  is  blase,  empty  of  motives  of  capacity  for  pleasure  or 
endeavor.  He  takes  to  visiting  the  churches;  feels  a  certain  spell  produced  by  the 
ritual  and  music;  and  at  length,  drawn  into  the  monastic  retreat  of  La  Trappe,  he 
becomes  a  convert  to  religion,  and  dwells  with  delight  and  much  fine  analysis  on  his 
experience  of  a  land  of  ecstasy  of  restraints,  a  "frenzy  of  chastity."  The  story  is 
autobiographic:  "the  history  of  a  soul."  It  abounds  in  passages  of  great  brilliancy 
and  beauty;  and  in  some  of  the  meditations  on  the  inner  meaning  of  the  ritual,  and 
the  effect  of  the  music  of  the  church,  his  interpretations  will  meet  with  a  very  sym- 
pathetic response  from  many  readers.  His  description  of  the  Breviary  is  a  splendid 
piece  of  writing.  The  book  may  be  called  a  faithful  account  of  the  "ritualistic 
disease, "  as  it  affects  the  French  mind.  "  It  was  not  so  much  himself  advancing  into 
the  unknown,  as  the  unknown  surrounding,  penetrating,  possessing  him  little  by 
little. ' '  He  closes  suddenly  with  his  entering  into  the  ' '  night  obscure ' '  of  the  mystics . 
11  It  is  inexpressible.  Nothing  can  reveal  the  anguish  necessary  to  pass  through  to 
enter  this  mystic  knowledge."  The  soul  of  the  writer  seems  to  think  aloud  in  the 
pages  of  his  book;  he  frankly  portrays  his  condition:  "too  much  writer  to  become  a 
monk;  too  much  monk  to  remain  a  writer."  The  reader  remains  in  doubt,  after  all, 
as  to  whither  the  hero  of  the  book  is  en  route.  'En  Route'  is  a  perfect  guide-book 
to  the  churches  of  Paris,  their  exteriors  and  interiors,  their  clergy,  and  the  daily  life 
of  each  church. 

ENCYCLOPEDIA  BRITANNICA,  THE.  The  First  Edition  of  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica  was  begun  in  1768  and  completed  in  1771  in  three  volumes,  containing 


THK  RRADKR'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  259 

2670  pages.  Colin  Macfarquar,  an  Edinburgh  printer,  and  Andrew  Bell,  the 
principal  Scottish  engraver  of  that  day,  were  the  proprietors.  The  work  was 
edited  and  in  great  part  written  by  William  Smellie,  another  Edinburgh  printer. 
This  work,  "by  a  society  of  gentlemen  in  Scotland,"  according  to  the  title- 
page,  was  compiled  on  a  new  plan.  Instead  of  dismembering  the  sciences  by 
attempting  to  treat  them  under  a  multitude  of  technical  terms,  they  digested  the 
principles  of  every  science  in  the  form  of  distinct  treatises,  and  explained  the  terms 
as  they  occurred  in  order  of  the  alphabet.  The  merits  and  novelty  of  this  plan 
consist  first  in  keeping  important  related  subjects  together,  and  secondly 
in  facilitating  references  by  numerous  separate  articles  arranged  in  alphabetical 
order. 

The  Second  Edition,  10  volumes  containing  8595  pages,  was  issued  from  1777  to 
1784.  The  plan  of  the  work  was  enlarged  by  the  addition  of  history  and  biography, 
which  encyclopaedias  in  general  had  hitherto  omitted.  It  was  henceforth  "an  en- 
cyclopaedia not  solely  of  arts  and  sciences  but  of  the  whole  wide  circle  of  general 
learning  and  miscellaneous  information. "  (Quarterly  Review,  cxiii.,  362.)  These 
first  two  editions  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  were  made  chiefly  by  compilation. 
They  were  produced  by  two  or  three  men  who  took  the  whole  realm  of  human 
knowledge  for  their  province.  In  the  Third  Edition,  however,  a  plan  was  adopted  of 
seeking  contributions  on  special  and  technical  subjects  from  specialists  —  a  plan 
which  has  since  been  followed  and  has  won  for  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  a  unique 
reputation.  The  Third  Edition,  in  eighteen  volumes,  containing  14,579  pages, 
was  issued  from  1788  to  1797. 

In  the  Fourth  Edition,  which  came  out  from  1801  to  1810,  in  twenty  volumes 
containing  16,033  Pages,  the  principle  of  specialist  contributions  was  considerably 
extended.  The  copyright  was  purchased  in  1812  by  Archibald  Constable,  who 
brought  out  the  Fifth  and  Sixth  Editions,  each  in  twenty  volumes,  from  1815  to  1817 
and  from  1823  to  1824,  respectively.  These  editions  were  little  more  than  reprints 
and  corrections  of  the  Fourth.  But  Constable  lavished  his  money  and  energy  on  a 
six  volume  Supplement  (to  the  Fourth,  Fifth,  and  Sixth  Editions)  which  appeared 
from  1816  to  1824. 

The  publication  of  the  Ninth  Edition  was  commenced  by  A.  and  C.  Black,  pub- 
lishers of  the  Seventh  and  Eighth  Editions,  in  1875,  under  the  editorship  of  Thomas 
Spencer  Baynes  until  1880  and  subsequently  of  W.  Robertson  Smith,  and  was 
completed  in  1889.  It  consisted  of  twenty-five  volumes  (one  being  an  index)  con- 
taining 21,572  pages.  The  preparation  of  this  edition  had  been  undertaken  on  a 
scale  which  Adam  Black  considered  so  hazardous  that  he  refused  to  have  any  part 
in  the  enterprise,  and  accordingly  retired  from  the  firm;  indeed  over  one  million 
dollars  was  spent  in  the  editorial  preparation  alone;  but  the  ultimate  sale  showed  that 
his  fears  were  groundless.  It  was  the  great  success  of  this  edition  that  led  to  the 
publication  by  The  Times  (London)  in  1902  of  an  elaborate  supplement  in  eleven 
volumes  to  form  the  Tenth  Edition. 

After  eight  years  of  diligent  preparation  the  Eleventh  Edition  was  completed. 
It  was  published,  1910-191 1 ,  in  twenty-nine  volumes  (one  a  separate  index  containing 
over  500,000  references)  by  the  Cambridge  University  Press,  to  which  the  copyright 
and  control  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  had  passed  in  1909.  The  Eleventh 
Edition  is  particularly  rich  in  maps  and  illustrations.  There  are  569  maps,  and  over 
7000  illustrations,  including  450  full-page  plates.  The  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  in 
the  Eleventh  Edition  is  the  most  comprehensive  reference  work  in  the  world,  con- 
taining over  44,000,000  words. 


2Go  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ENCYCLOPEDEE,  THE.  An  Encyclopaedia  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  which,  in  its 
character,  its  significance,  and  its  results,  was  the  most  startling  and  striking  pro- 
duction of  its  time,  —  an  outburst  of  ideas,  of  intellectual  audacity,  of  freedom,  and 
a  great  passion  for  knowledge  and  of  the  sympathy  of  humanity,  labor,  and  progress. 
X<>  encyclopaedia  ever  made  compares  with  it  in  respect  of  its  political  influence  and 
its  commanding  place  in  the  civil  and  literary  history  of  its  own  century.  It  grew  out 
of  a  plan  for  a  French  translation  of  an  early  'Chambers'^  Cyclopaedia.'  Diderot,  to 
whom  the  glory  of  the  colossal  enterprise  belongs,  took  occasion  from  this  plan  to 
conceive  and  to  secure  the  execution  of  a  thorough  work,  summarizing  human 
knowledge,  putting  the  sciences  into  the  place  -which  tradition  had  given  to  religion, 
and  aiming  at  the  service  of  humanity  instead  of  the  service  of  the  church.  The 
Titans  of  intelligence  and  of  literature,  says  M.  Martin's  graphic  sketch,  had  de- 
veloped an  excess  of  energy  and  boldness.  Voltaire,  bringing  Locke's  ideas  into 
France,  had  changed  Christian  deism  into  Epicureanism,  and  prepared  the  way  for 
Condillac's  pushing  the  philosophy  of  sensation  to  an  extreme  beyond  Locke;  and  for 
Helvetius  to  press  the  moral  consequences  of  the  system,  justifying  all  the  vices  and 
all  the  crimes.  Buffon,  magnificent  in  knowledge,  and  in  a  noble  style,  had  made 
Nature  take  the  place  of  God,  and  the  love  of  humanity  do  duty  as  religion.  In 
sequel  to  such  moral  skepticism  or  naturalist  pantheism  came  Diderot,  with  auda- 
cious repugnance  to  any  limitations  upon  liberty,  and  impetuous  passion  for  knowl- 
edge, for  human  progress.  With  D'Alembert  drawing  together  a  society  of  men  of 
science  and  of  letters,  he  launched  a  Prospectus  in  November,  1750,  for  an  Encyclo- 
pedic or  Dictionary  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  and  in  1751  began  with  2  volumes,  to  finish 
in  1765  with  17  volumes;  then  to  add  n  volumes  of  plates  (1762-72),  and  5  volumes 
of  supplements  (1776-77) ;  and  thus  make,  with  2  volumes  of  Index  (1780),  35  volumes 
(1751-80),  with  23,135  pages  and  3132  plates.  Not  only  information  was  given  in 
these  volumes,  but  opinions  of  the  most  radical  character,  hostile  to  the  church,  sub- 
versive of  religion,  intensely  antagonistic  towards  everything  in  the  old  order  of 
things.  The  clergy  and  the  court  had  fought  the  work,  had  even  broken  into  it  with 
alterations  secretly  made  at  the  printers',  and  left  no  stone  unturned  to  prevent  its 
circulation.  Yet  Europe  was  filled  with  it,  and  shaken  with  the  effects  of  it.  It  was 
an  immense  burst  of  everything  which  journalism  to-day  means;  a  fierce  prophecy  of 
changes  which  are  still  hanging;  a  wild  proclamation  of  the  problems  of  human  aspira- 
tion and  desire.  Not  only  were  the  sciences  pushed  to  the  utmost  by  Diderot,  but 
he  made  industry,  labor,  human  toil  in  the  shop,  an  interest  unceasingly  cherished. 
It  was  an  explosion  heralding  the  Revolution  a  quarter  of  a  century  later. 

ENDYMION,  by  Benjamin  Disraeli,  later  Earl  of  Beaconsfield  (1835).  This  is  one 
of  a  series  of  political  portraits  under  the  form  of  a  novel,  which  for  a  time  attained 
great  popularity  among  the  English  people,  but  for  obvious  reasons  was  less  interest- 
ing to  foreigners.  'Coningsby'  and  'Endymion'  are  hardly  more  than  descriptions 
of  the  rival  political  parties  in  England  at  the  opening  of  the  Reform  Bill  agitation, 
and  of  the  Poor  Law  and  "Protection"  controversies,  —  colored  with  the  pale 
glimmer  of  a  passion  cooled  by  shrewdness,  and  of  a  romance  carefully  trimmed  to 
suit  the  stiff  conventionalisms  of  English  society,  —  and  spiced  with  revenge  on  the 
author's  foes. 

'Endymion'  relates  the  fortunes  of  a  youth  so  named,  and  his  sister  Myra; 
children  of  one  William  Ferrars,  who  from  humble  life  has  won  his  way'to  a  candidacy 
for  the  Speakership  of  the  House  of  Commons,  when  suddenly,  by  a  change 'of  politi- 
cal sentiment  in  the  boroughs,  the  administration  is  overthrown,  and'tne'aitfbitious 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  261 

and  flattered  leader  finds  himself  both  deserted  and  bankrupt.  To  retrieve  their 
social  and  political  position  is  the  steady  ambition  and  never-yielding  effort  of  the 
son  and  daughter;  and  to  Endymion's  advancement  Myra  makes  every  sacrifice 
that  a  sister's  devotion  can  devise.  Through  personal  influence  as  well  as  his  own 
fascinating  personality  and  brilliant  gifts,  Endymion  finds  an  entry  with  the  winning 
side;  and  being  untroubled  by  any  scrupulous  motive  of  consistency  to  principle, 
keeps  himself  at  the  front  in  popular  favor.  Myra  marries  the  Prime  Minister,  and  at 
his  death  she  takes  for  her  husband  the  king  of  a  small  Continental  State.  Endy- 
mion crowns  her  aspirations  by  marrying  a  widow  in  high  station,  who  has  long  been 
his  admirer,  and  whose  husband  dies  at  a  convenient  moment  in  the  narrative.  At 
the  close  of  the  story  he  sees,  by  a  happy  combination  of  political  influence,  the  door 
opened  to  his  own  appointment  as  Premier  of  England.  The  story  moves  along  in  the 
stately  monotonous  measure  of  English  high  life,  with  not  even  any  pronounced 
villainy  to  heighten  the  uniform  color  effect  of  the  characters  and  incidents.  There 
is  a  noticeable  absence  of  anything  like  high  patriotic  motive  associated  with  that  of 
personal  advancement:  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  such  personages  living  without 
some  political  predilection.  Over  all  is  the  subdued  glow  of  an  intensely  selfish 
culture  and  refinement.  Nigel,  Endymion's  student  friend  at  Oxford,  is  the  easily 
recognized  type  of  the  Puseyite  of  the  Tractarian  religious  movement,  if  not  a  per- 
sonal portraiture  of  Cardinal  Newman.  Other  characters  are  doubtless  drawn  from 
life  more  or  less  plainly,  but  none  more  vividly  than  Endymion  himself,  in  whose 
career  the  reader  sees  outlined  very  clearly  the  character  and  political  fortunes  of  the 
author. 

ENGLAND,  CONSTITUTIONAL  HISTORY  OF,  in  its  Origin  and  Development,  by 
William  Stubbs  (1875-78).  A  work  of  the  highest  authority  on,  not  merely  the 
recognized  developments  of  fundamental  law,  but  the  whole  state  of  things  constitut- 
ing the  nation,  and  giving  it  life,  character,  and  growth.  The  three  volumes  cover 
the  respective  periods  from  the  first  Germanic  origins  to  1215,  when  King  John  was 
forced  to  grant  the  Great  Charter;  from  1215  to  the  deposition  of  Richard  II.,  1399; 
and  from  1399  to  the  close  of  the  mediaeval  period,  marked  by  the  fall  of  Richard  III. 
at  Bosworth,  August  22d,  1485,  and  the  accession  of  Henry  of  Richmond.  The  full 
and  exact  learning  of  the  author,  his  judgment  and  insight,  and  his  power  of  clear 
exposition,  have  made  the  work  at  once  very  instructive  to  students  and  very  in- 
teresting to  readers.  The  fine  spirit  in  which  it  discusses  parties  and  relates  the 
story  of  bitter  struggles,  may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that  its  last  word  commends  to  the 
reader  "that  highest  justice  which  is  found  in  the  deepest  sympathy  with  erring  and 
straying  men." 

An  additional  volume  of  great  importance  is  Professor  Stubbs's  'Select  Char- 
ters and  Other  Illustrations  of  English  Constitutional  History,  from  the  earliest 
times  to  the  Reign  of  Edward  the  First/  1876.  It  is  designed  to  serve  as  a 
treasury  of  reference  and  an  outline  manual  for  teachers  and  scholars.  It  follows  the 
history  for  a  sufficiently  long  period  to  bring  into  view  all  the  origins  of  constitutional 
principle  or  polity  on  which  politics  have  since  built. 

ENGLAND,  CONSTITUTIONAL  HISTORY  OF,  since  the  accession  of  George  III.: 
1760-1871.  By  Sir  Thomas  Erskine  May,  Baron  Farnborqugh  (1861-63).  The 
history  of  the  British  Constitution  for  a  hundred  years,  showing  its  progress  and 
development,  and  illustrating  every  material  change,  whether  of  legislation,  custom, 
or  policy,  by  which  institutions  have  been  improved  and  abuses  in  the  government 


2h2  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

corrected.  The  work  deals  also  with  the  history  of  party;  of  the  press,  and  political 
agitation;  nf  the  church;  and  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  It  concludes  with  a  general 
review  of  the  legislation  of  the  hundred  years,  its  policy  and  results. 

ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  HISTORY  OF,  by  W.  E.  H. 

l>c*ky  ('8  vols.,  1878-90).  A  work  of  thorough  research  and  great  literary  excel- 
lence, the  object  of  which  is  to  disengage  from  the  great  mass  of  facts  those  which  are 
of  significance  for  the  life  and  progress  of  the  nation,  and  which  reveal  enduring 
characteristics.  It  deals  with  the  growth  or  decline  of  the  monarchy,  the  aristocracy, 
and  the  democracy;  of  the  Church  and  of  Dissent;  of  the  agricultural,  the  manufactur- 
ing, and  the  commercial  interests;  the  increasing  power  of  Parliament  and  of  the 
press;  the  history  of  political  ideas,  of  art,  of  manners,  and  of  belief;  the  changes  that 
have  taken  place  in  the  social  and  economical  condition  of  the  people;  the  influences 
that  have  modified  national  character;  the  relations  of  the  mother  country  to  its 
dependencies;  and  the  causes  that  have  accelerated  or  retarded  the  advancement  of 
the  latter.  In  its  earliest  form  the  work  dealt  with  Ireland  in  certain  sections,  as  the 
general  course  of  the  history  required.  But  on  its  completion,  Mr.  Lecky  made  a 
separation,  so  as  to  bring  all  the  Irish  sections  into  a  continuous  work  on  Ireland  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  leave  the  other  parts  to  stand  as  England  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  a  new  edition  of  twelve  volumes,  seven  were  given  to  England  and  five 
to  Ireland.  Mr.  Lecky  writes  as  a  Liberal,  but  as  a  Unionist  rather  than  Home 
Ruler. 

ENGLAND,  ITS  PEOPLE,  POLITY,  AND  PURSUITS,  by  T.  H.  S.  Escott  (2  vols., 
1879).  A  work  designed  to  present  a  comprehensive  and  faithful  picture  of  the 
social  and  political  condition  of  the  England  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  England 
of  to-day.  No  attempt  at  historical  retrospect  is  made,  except  in  so  far  as  it  is 
necessary  for  understanding  things  as  they  are  now.  The  author  spent  much  time 
in  visiting  different  parts  of  England,  conversing  with  and  living  amongst  the  many 
varieties  of  people,  which  variety  is  a  remarkable  fact  of  English  society.  He  made 
also  a  large  collection  of  materials,  to  have  at  his  command  exact  knowledge  of  the 
entire  world  of  English  facts.  His  general  conception  is  that  certain  central  ideas, 
which  he  explains  in  his  introductory  chapter,  and  around  which  he  attempts  to 
group  his  facts  and  descriptions,  will  enable  him  closely  and  logically  to  connect  his 
chapters,  and  show  a  pervading  unity  of  purpose  throughout  the  work.  The  land  and 
its  occupation,  the  cities  and  towns,  commerce,  industries  and  the  working  classes, 
pauperism,  co-operation,  crime,  travel  and  hotels,  education,  society,  politics,  the 
Crown,  the  crowd,  official  personages,  the  Commons,  the  Lords,  the  law  courts,  the 
public  services,  religion,  philosophy,  literature,  professions,  amusements,  and  imperial 
expansion,  are  his  special  themes. 

ENGLAND  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN,  by  Richard  Grant  White  (1881).  Most  of 
the  chapters  of  this  book  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  but  were  intended  from 
the  first  as  a  presentation  in  book  form  of  the  subject  indicated  by  its  title.  The 
author  has  put  England,  its  people  and  their  ways,  before  his  readers  just  as  he  saw 
them:  their  skies;  their  methods  of  daily  life;  their  men  and  women,  to  the  latter  of 
whom  he  pays  a  charming  tribute;  their  nobility  and  gentry;  parks  and  palaces; 
national  virtues  and  vices.  He  has  told  only  what  anyone  might  have  seen,  though 
without  the  power  of  explicit  description  and  photographic  language.  It  is,  says  he, 
"the  commonplaces  of  Hfe  that  show  what  a  people,  what  a  country  is;  what  all  the 
influences,  political,  moral,  and  telluric,  that  have  been  there  for  centuries,  have 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  263 

produced  " ;  and  it  is  of  these  commonplaces  he  treats.  He  saw  England  in  an  informal, 
unbusinesslike,  untourist-like  way,  not  stopping  every  moment  to  take  notes,  but 
relying  on  his  memory  to  preserve  everything  of  importance.  There  is  a  noticeable 
lack  of  descriptions  of  literary  people  in  England,  —  a  lapse  intentional,  not  acciden- 
tal; he  believing  that  it  is  an  "altogether  erroneous  notion  that  similarity  in  occupa- 
tion, or  admiration  on  one  side,  must  produce  liking  in  personal  intercourse":  but 
this  disappointment  —  if  it  be  a  disappointment  to  the  reader  —  is  more  than  atoned 
for  by  the  review  of  journeyings  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  Warwick,  Stratford-upon- 
Avon,  Kenilworth,  where,  as  his  acquaintance  of  a  railway  compartment  says, 
"every  American  goes";  rural  England;  pilgrimage  to  Canterbury,  etc.  However 
severe  his  criticism  of  national  faults  and  individual  blunderings,  however  caustic 
the  sarcasms  directed  against  the  foibles  of  the  "British  Philistines, "  one  is  conscious 
of  the  author's  underlying  admiration  for  the  home  of  his  kindred;  and  the  sincerity 
of  his  dictum  —  "England  is  not  perfect,  for  it  is  upon  the  earth,  and  it  is  peopled 
by  human  beings;  but  I  do  not  envy  the  man  who,  being  able  to  earn  enough  to  get 
bread  and  cheese  and  beer,  a  whole  coat  and  a  tight  roof  over  his  head,  cannot  be 
happy  there." 

ENGLISH  AND  SCOTTISH  POPULAR  BALLADS,  see  BALLADS. 

ENGLISH  CONSTITUTION,  THE,  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS.  By  Walter  Bagehol 
(1867,  1885).  A  very  interesting  discussion  of  the  underlying  principles  of  the 
English  Constitution,  by  a  thoroughly  independent  and  suggestive  thinker.  The 
central  feature  of  the  work  is  its  proof  that  the  House  of  Commons  stands  supreme 
as  the  seat  of  English  law  and  that  the  throne  and  the  Lords  are  of  use  to  balance  and 
check  the  Commons  not  directly,  but  indirectly  through  their  action  on  public 
opinion,  of  which  the  action  of  the  Commons  should  be  the  expression.  By  means  of 
the  cabinet,  the  executive  government  and  the  legislative  Commons  are  a  very  close 
unity,  and  are  the  governmental  machine,  to  which  the  Crown  and  the  Lords  are 
related  only  as  seats  of  influence  through  which  the  public  mind  can  be  formed  and 
can  operate.  He  also  shows  that  the  function  of  the  monarchy  is  not  now  that  of  a 
governing  power,  as  once,  but  to.  gain  public  confidence  and  support  for  the  real 
government,  that  of  Parliament.  "It  [the  monarchy]  raises  the  army,  though  it  does 
not  win  the  battle."  The  lower  orders  suppose  they  are  being  governed  by  their  old 
kingship,  and  obey  it  loyally:  if  they  knew  that  they  were  being  ruled  by  men  of  their 
own  sort  and  choice  they  might  not.  BagehotTs  work  is  a  text-book  at  Oxford,  and  is 
used  as  such  in  American  universities.  See  also  his  *  Parliamentary  Reform/ 

ENGLISH  CONSTITUTION,  HISTORY  OF  THE,  by  Dr.  Rudolf  Gneist.  Trans- 
lated by  Philip  A.  Ashworth  (2  vols.,  1886).  A  history  covering  a  full  thousand 
years  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  foundation  to  the  present.  Hallam's  '  Constitutional 
History'  only  comes  down  to  the  last  century,  Stubbs's  only  to  Henry  VII.;  and  even 
for  the  periods  they  cover,  or  that  of  Sir  ErsMne  May's  supplement,  Dr.  Gneist's 
work,  though  primarily  designed  only  for  the  German  public,  is  eminently  worthy 
of  a  high  place  beside  them  among  authorities  accessible  to  English  students.  The 
same  author's. '  Student's  History  of  the  English  Parliament r  is  a  specially  valuable 
handbook. 

ENGLISH  HUMORISTS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  THE,  by  William 
Makepeace  Thackeray,  is  a  collection  of  lectures,  delivered  in  England  in  1851,  in 
America  during  1852-53,  and  published  in  1853.  Studying  these  pages,  the  reader 


264  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

finds  himself  living  in  the  society  of  the  poets,  essayists,  and  novelists  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  as  a  friend  conversant  with  their  faults  and  signal  merits.  As  twelve  authors 
are  packed  into  six  lectures,  a  characteristic  disproportion  is  manifest.  Swift  is 
belittled  in  forty  pages;  a  like  space  suffices  to  hit  off  in  a  rapid  touch-and-go  manner 
the  qualities  of  Prior,  Gay,  and  Pope.  A  page  and  a  half  disposes  of  Smollett  to  make 
room  for  Hogarth  and  Fielding;  Addison,  Steele,  Sterne,  Congreve,  and  Goldsmith, 
receive  about  equal  attention.  These  papers  are  the  record  of  impressions  made 
upon  a  mind  exceptionally  sensitive  to  literary  values,  and  reacting  invariably  with 
original  force  and  suggestiveness.  Written  for  popular  presentation,  they  are  con- 
versational in  tone,  and  lighted  up  with  swift  flashes  of  poignant  wit  and  humor. 
Some  of  their  characterizations  are  very  striking:  as  that  of  Gay,  helplessly  dependent 
upon  the  good  offices  of  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Queensberry,  to  a  pampered  lap- 
dog,  fat  and  indolent;  and  that  of  Steele,  whose  happy-go-lucky  ups  and  downs  and 
general  lovableness  constituted  a  temperament  after  Thackeray's  own  heart.  His 
admiration  for  Fielding,  his  acknowledged  master  in  the  art  of  fiction,  is  very  in- 
teresting. 'The  English  Humorists'  will  long  remain  the  most  inviting  sketch  in 
literature  of  the  period  and  the  writers  considered. 

ENGLISH  JUDGES,  by  Sir  Francis  Galton,  see  HEREDITARY  GENIUS. 

ENGLISH  LANGUAGE,  HISTORY  OFTHE,  by  T.  R.  Lounsbury  (1879).  This  brief 
manual  states  in  a  broad  and  clear  manner  the  important  facts  in  the  growth  of 
the  language,  as  considered  apart  from  literature,  and  explains  its  history  with  de- 
lightful easy-going  common-sense.  "  No  speech  can  do  more, "  says  Prof.  Lounsbury, 
"  than  express  the  ideas  of  those  who  employ  it  at  the  time.  It  cannot  live  upon 
its  past  meanings,  or  upon  the  past  conceptions  of  great  men  which  have  been 
recorded  in  it,  any  more  than  the  race  which  uses  it  can  live  upon  its  past  glory 
or  its  past  achievements.  Proud  therefore  as  we  may  now  well  be  of  our  tongue, 
we  may  rest  assured  that  if  it  ever  attains  to  universal  sovereignty,  it  will  do  so 
only  because  the  ideas  of  the  men  who  speak  it  are  fit  to  become  the  ruling  ideas  of 
the  world,  and  the  men  themselves  are  strong  enough  to  carry  them  over  the 
world;  and  that,  in  the  last  analysis,  depends,  like  everything  else,  upon  the  devel- 
opment of  the  individual,  —  depends  not  upon  the  territory  we  buy  or  steal,  not 
upon  the  gold  we  mine  or  the  grain  we  grow,  but  upon  the  men  we  produce.  If  we 
fail  there,  no  national  greatness,  however  splendid  to  outward  view,  can  be  anything 
but  temporary  and  illusory;  and  when  once  national  greatness  disappears,  no  past 
achievements  in  literature,  however  glorious,  will  perpetuate  our  language  as  a  living 
speech,  though  they  may  help  for  a  time  to  retard  its  decay. " 

ENGLISH  LITERATURE,  HISTORY  OF,  by  Hippolyte  Adolphe  Taine.  (French 
original,  5  vols.,  1863-64.  English  Translation  by  Henri  Van  Laun,  4  vols.,  1872- 
74.)  An  admirably  written,  sympathetic,  and  penetrating  account  of  the  aspects 
of  English  culture  and  the  English  race  as  revealed  in  English  literature.  To  no 
small  extent  it  misses  exact  knowledge  of  English  genius  and  of  the  finer  aspects  of 
English  literary  culture;  but  it  is  a  masterly  study  to  come  from  the  pen  of  a  foreigner, 
and  rich  in  interest  and  suggestion  to  the  thoughtful  reader.  The  strength  of  the 
work  is  in  its  study  of  race  and  civilization;  but  this  is  also  its  weakness,  as  to  some 
extent  the  view  taken  of  literary  production  is  too  much  colored  by  the  author's 
theory  of  race,  which  wholly  fails  in  any  such  case  as  that  of  Shakespeare.  "Just 
as  astronorriy  is  at  bottom  a  problem  in  mechanics,  and  physiology  a  problem  in 
chemistry,  so  history  at  bottom  is  a  problem  in  psychology  ";  and  he  aims  here  to  give 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  265 

a  view,  more  or  less  complete,  of  the  English  intellect,  illustrated  by  literary  examples, 
and  not  a  history  at  all,  if  by  history  is  meant  a  record  of  books  produced  or  of  facts 
gathered  together.  The  defects  of  the  book  are  many  and  obvious;  but  when  all 
abatement  is  made,  it  remains  to  the  English  reader  a  most  stimulating  intellectual 
performance.  "In  its  powerful,  though  arbitrary,  unity  of  composition,  in  its  sus- 
tained aesthetic  temper,  its  brilliancy,  variety,  and  sympathy,  it  is  a  really  monumen- 
tal accession  to  a  literature,  which,  whatever  its  limitations  in  the  range  of  its  ideas, 
is  a  splendid  series  of  masterly  compositions. " 

ENGLISH  NATION,  see  LETTERS  CONCERNING  THE. 

ENGLISH  NOTEBOOKS,  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  (1870),  was  published  by  his 
wife  after  his  death.  During  his  residence  as  consul  at  Liverpool,  he  kept  a  close 
record  of  all  that  struck  him  as  novel  and  important  in  the  United  Kingdom.  Much 
of  this  material  he  afterwards  developed  in  a  series  of  sketches  entitled  'Our  Old 
Home.'  The  remaining  notes,  given  to  the  public  in  their  original  form  of  dis- 
connected impressions,  are  interesting  for  their  animation  and  vigorous  bits  of  de- 
scription. They  are  a  striking  revelation  of  Hawthorne's  personality,  and  show  the 
cheerful  side  of  a  man  usually  considered  gloomy.  In  spite  of  the  shyness  which 
made  after-dinner  speeches  a  trial  to  him,  he  formed  many  delightful  friendships. 
With  his  wife  and  children  he  roamed  about  Liverpool  and  London,  visited  many 
cathedral  towns,  and  lingered  at  Oxford  and  among  the  lakes.  He  speaks  of  himself 
as  not  observant,  but  if  he  missed  detail,  he  had  the  rare  faculty  of  seizing  the  salient 
features  of  what  he  saw,  and  conveying  them  to  others.  His  constant  preoccupation 
was  with  the  unusual  or  fantastic  in  human  experience,  and  this  led  him  to  observe 
much  that  most  spectators  would  have  failed  to  see. 

ENGLISH  NOVEL,  THE:  'A  Study  in  the  Development  of  Personality,'  by- 
Sidney  Lanier  (1883.  Revised  Edition,  1897).  A  volume  of  singularly  rich  criti- 
cism, based  on  a  course  of  twelve  lectures  at  Johns  Hopkins  University,  1881.  It 
was  almost  the  last  work  of  a  writer  whose  death  was  a  heavy  loss  to  American  letters. 
The  full  title  given  by  Lanier  to  his  course  was,  'From  JEschylus  to  George  Eliot: 
The  Development  of  Personality,'  The  idea  suggesting -this  title  was  that  in  Greek 
tragedy,  represented  by  ^Eschylus,  the  expression  of  personality  is  faint  and  crude, 
while  in  George  Eliot  it  reached  the  clearness  and  strength  of  high  literary  art.  The 
earlier  work  of  Lanier  on  'The  Science  of  English  Verse/  and  the  later  study  of  the 
novel,  were  designed  to  serve  as  parts  of  a  comprehensive  philosophy  of  the  form  and 
substance  of  beauty  in  literature;  and  the  execution  of  the  plan,  as  far  as  he  had 
proceeded,  was  of  a  quality  rarely  found  in  literary  criticism.  In  the  second  edition 
of  the  work,  the  last  six  of  the  twelve  chapters  are  devoted  to  George  Eliot.  The 
earlier  six  range  over  a  wide  field,  and  show  wealth  of  knowledge  with  remarkable 
insight  and  felicity  of  expression. 

ENGLISH  PEOPLE,  A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  THE,  see  SHORT  HISTORY. 

ENGLISH  POETRY,  HISTORY  OF,  by  William  John  Courthope  (6  vols.,  1895- 
1909).  The  work  which  in  their  day  both  Pope  and  Gray  contemplated  writing  on 
the  history  of  English  poetry,  and  which  Warton  began  but  never  finished,  was  taken 
up  anew  but  with  a  far  different  scope  by  the  professor  of  poetry  at  Oxford.  His  plan 
embraces  a  history  of  the  art  of  English  poetry  —  epic,  dramatic,  lyrical,  and  didactic 
—  from  the  time  of  Chaucer  to  that  of  Scott,  as  well  as  "an  appreciation ^of  the  mo- 
tives by  which  each  individual  poet  seems  to  have  been  consciously  inspired."  He 


-66  THE   READER  S   DIGEST  OF   ROOKS 

also  inquires  into  "those  general  causes  which  have  unconsciously  directed  imagina- 
tion in  England  into  the  various  channels  of  metrical  composition."  Courthope 
believes  that  in  spite  of  the  different  sources  from  which  the  English  national  con- 
sciousness is  derived,  there  is  an  essential  unity  and  consistency,  so  that  both  the 
technic  of  poetical  production  and  the  national  genius  —  the  common  thought, 
imagination,  and  sentiment  —  may  be  traced  in  its  evolution.  He  shows  with  great 
fullness  the  "progressive  stages  in  the  formation  of  the  mediaeval  stream  of  thought, 
which  feeds  the  literatures  of  England,  France,  and  Italy,"  and  tries  to  connect  it 
with  the  great  system  of  Grseco-Roman  cultures  so  prominent  before  the  death  of 
Bocthius.  He  also  explores  the  course  of  the  national  language,  to  show  the  changes 
produced  by  Saxon  and  Norman  influences  on  the  art  of  metrical  expression  before 
Chaucer.  To  Chaucer  himself  are  devoted  less  than  fifty  octavo  pages,  and  this 
chapter  does  not  appear  in  the  first  volume  until  it  is  more  than  half  finished.  The 
history  closes  with  a  careful  account  of  the  rise  of  the  drama.  Dry  as  the  subject  in  its 
earlier  stages  threatens  to  be,  Mr.  Courthope's  brilliant  style  and  his  wealth  of 
illustration  make  it  absorbingly  interesting  to  the  student.  The  second  volume, 
after  surveying  the  influence  of  European  thought  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the 
effects  of  the  Renaissance  and  Reformation,  goes  into  a  careful  study  of  the  works  of 
Wyatt  and  Surrey,  the  court  poets  and  the  Euphuists,  Spenser  and  the  early  drama- 
tists with  all  the  various  types  of  versifiers  who  were  famous  in  that  period.  The 
third  volume  begins  with  the  successors  of  Spenser,  and  takes  up  the  intellectual 
conflict  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  decadent  influence  of  the  feudal  monarch,  the 
various  schools  of  poetical  "wit,"  and  the  growth  of  the  national  genius,  and  dis- 
cusses Milton  and  Dryden.  The  fourth  volume  surveys  the  development  and  decline 
of  the  poetic  drama,  and  the  influence  of  the  court  and  the  people,  Shakespeare, 
Ben  Jonson,  and  Dryden.  The  fifth  volume  deals  with  the  classical  renaissance,  its 
effect  on  modern  European  poetry,  and  the  early  romantic  renaissance,  and  closes 
with  a  survey  of  English  poetry  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  sixth  volume  de- 
scribes the  romantic  movement  in  English  poetry  and  the  effects  produced  on  the 
English  imagination  by  the  French  Revolution.  It  has  been  the  design  of  the  author, 
"not  to  furnish  an  exhaustive  list  of  the  English  poets  as  individuals,  but  rather  to 
describe  the  general  movements  of  English  poetry,  as  an  art  illustrating  the  evolution 
of  national  taste."  Courthope's  broad  and  generous  spirit,  his  keenness  of  analysis, 
his  wide  learning,  and  his  clearness  of  vision  make  his  work  one  of  standard  reference 
for  the  history  of  English  poetry. 

ENGLISH  POETS,  see  LIVES  OF  THE. 

ENGLISH  THOUGHT  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  HISTORY  OF,  in 

two  volumes,  by  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  (1876).  The  scope  of  this  important  book  is 
hardly  so  broad  as  the  title  would  indicate,  for  the  subject  treated  with  the  greatest 
fullness  is  theology.  The  first  volume,  indeed,  is  given  almost  entirely  to  the  famous 
deist  controversy  with  which  the  names  of  Hume,  Warburton,  Chubb,  Sherlock, 
Johnson,  and  the  rest  of  the  great  disputants  of  the  time  —  names  only  to  the  modern 
reader  —  are  associated.  The  ground  covered  extends  from  the  milestones  planted 
by  Descartes  by  means  of  his  doctrine  of  innate  ideas,  to  the  removal  of  the  boun- 
daries of  the  fathers  by  the  "constructive"  infidelity  of  Thomas  Paine.  This  review 
weighs  with  care  the  philosophical  significance  of  the  gradual  change  of  thought,  a 
Knowledge  of  which  is  conveyed  through  an  examination  of  the  representative  books 
upon  theology  and  metaphysics.  The  historian's  criticism  upon  these  is  fair-minded, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  267 

illuminative,  and  always  interesting,  by  means  of  its  wide  knowledge  and  wealth  of 
illustration.  So  broad  is  it  that  it  seems  to  bring  up  for  judgment  all  the  pressing 
social,  moral,  and  religious  questions  of  the  present  time.  Leslie  Stephen  points  out 
that  the  deist  controversy  was  only  one  form  of  that  appeal  from  tradition  and  au- 
thority to  reason,  which  was  the  special  characteristic  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
In  his  method  of  dealing  with  the  "body  of  divinity,"  which  he  explains  to  the 
worldly  modem  reader,  he  shows  himself  both  the  philosophic  historian  and  the 
philosophic  critic.  He  belongs  to  the  Spencerian  school,  which  regards  society  as  an 
organism,  and  history  as  the  record  of  its  growth  and  development.  The  stream 
of  tendency  is  so  vividly  indicated,  that  the  analysis  of  the  movement  of  the  last 
century  might  almost  be  a  statement  of  certain  phases  of  thought  and  morals  of  to- 
day. If  the  terms  of  the  problems  discussed  are  obsolete,  their  discussion  has  a 
constant  reference  to  the  most  modern  theories. 

Leslie  Stephen  is  never  the  detached  observer.  These  questions  mean  a  great 
deal  to  him;  and  therefore  the  reader  also,  whether  he  approve  or  disapprove  the  bias 
of  his  guide,  is  compelled  to  find  them  important."  In  studying  such  books  as  this, 
and  the  admirable  discussions  of  Lecky  on  European  morals,  and  Rationalism  in 
Europe,  it  is  difficult  to  escape  from  a  certain  sense  of  the  inevitableness  of  the 
opinions  held  by  mankind  at  every  stage  of  their  development;  so  that  the  question 
of  the  importance  of  the  truth  of  these  opinions  is  apt  to  seem  secondary.  But  Leslie 
Stephen  does  not  belittle  the  duty  of  arriving  at  true  opinions,  nor  does  he  assume  that 
his  side  —  and  he  takes  sides  —  is  the  right  side,  and  the  question  closed. 

Volume  ii.  discusses  moral  philosophy,  political  theories,  social  economics,  and 
literary  developments.  It  gives  with  great  fullness  and  fairness  the  position  of  the 
intuitional  school  of  morals,  and  of  the  latest  utilitarians,  who  now  declare  that 
society  must  be  regulated  not  by  the  welfare  of  the  individual,  but  by  the  well-being 
of  that  organism  which  is  called  the  human  race.  "  To  understand  the  laws  of  growth 
and  equilibrium,  both  of  the  individual  and  the  race,  we  must  therefore  acquire  a 
conception  of  society  as  a  complex  organism,  instead  of  a  mere  aggregate  of  indi- 
viduals." To  Leslie  Stephen  history  witnesses  that  the  world  can  be  improved,  and 
that  it  cannot  be  improved  suddenly.  Of  the  value  of  the  theory  that  society  is  an 
organism,  this  book  is  a  conspicuous  illustration.  Its  candor,  its  learning,  its  honest 
partisanship,  its  impartiality,  with  its  excellent  art  of  stating  things,  and  its  brilliant 
criticism,  make  it  a  most  stimulating  as  well  as  a  most  informing  book,  while  it  is 
always  entertaining. 

ENGLISH  TRAITS,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  (1856),  comprises  an  account  of  his 
English  visits  in  1833  and  1847,  and  a  series  of  general  observations  on  national 
character.  It  is  the  note-book  of  a  philosophic  traveler.  In  the  earlier  chapters,  the 
sketches  of  his  visits  to  Coleridge,  Carlyle,  and  Wordsworth,  while  personal  in  some 
degree,  reveal  Emerson's  character  and  humor  in  a  delightful  way.  The  trend  of  his 
mind  to  generalization  is  evident  in  the  titles  given  to  the  chapters.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  'Stonehenge'  and  'The  Times/  they  are  all  abstract,  —  'Race/  'Ability/ 
'Character/  'Wealth/  or  'Religion/  Far  removed  from  provincialism,  the  tone  is 
that  of  a  beholder,  kindred  in  race,  who,  while  paying  due  respect  to  the  stock  from 
which  he  sprang,  feels  his  own  eyes  purged  of  certain  illusions  still  cherished  by  the 
Old  World.  These  playthings,  as  it  were,  of  a  full-grown  people,  —  the  court  and 
church  ceremonial,  thrones,  mitres,  bewigged  officials,  Lord  Mayor's  shows, — 
amused  the  observer.  "Every  one  of  these  islanders  is  an  island  himself,  safe,  tran- 
quil, incommunicable."  This  work  remains  unique  as  a  searching  analysis,  full  of 


268  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

generous  admiration,  of  a  foreign  nation's  racial  temperament,  by  a  strongly  original 
individuality. 

ENGLISH  VILLAGE  COMMUNITY,  THE,  by  F.  Seebohm  (1883).  The  question 
propounded  in  this  book  is  whether  English  Economic  History  began  with  the  free- 
dom or  the  serfdom  of  the  masses  of  the  people,  whether  the  village  communities 
were  free  or  lived  in  serfdom  under  a  manorial  lordship.  The  problem  is  of  wider 
interest  than  might  appear  on  the  surface  because  (i)  the  English  and  German  land 
systems  were  the  same,  and  there  are  also  fundamental  analogies  between  the  village 
communities  of  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  worlds,  and  (2)  because  on  the  answer 
to  the  question  ma}r  depend  the  attitude  of  modern  statesmen  to  the  solution  of 
present-day  problems  of  social  and  political  freedom.  After  a  careful  examination 
of  the  available  evidence  Mr.  Seebohm  is  of  the  opinion  that  "the  manorial  system 
grew  up  in  Britain  as  it  grew  up  in  Gaul  and  Germany,  as  the  compound  product  of 
barbarian  and  Roman  institutions  mixing  together  during  the  periods  first  of  Roman 
provincial  rule,  and  secondly  of  German  conquest."  Throughout  the  whole  period 
from  pre-Roman  to  modern  times  there  were  in  Britain  two  parallel  systems  of  rural 
economy,  the  village  community  in  the  east,  the  tribal  in  the  west,  each  of  which  were 
distinguished  by  the  characteristics  of  community  and  equality,  though  their  systems 
of  open  or  common  fields  were  different.  Neither  the  village  nor  the  tribal  com- 
munity can  have  been  introduced  later  than  2000  years  ago.  The  village  community 
lived  in  settled  serfdom  under  a  lordship,  though  this  serfdom  was  to  the  masses  of  the 
people,  not  a  degradation,  but  a  step  upward  out  of  a  once  more  general  slavery. 
The  tribal  community  was  bound  together  by  an  equality  of  blood  relationship,  which 
involved  an  equal  division  of  land  amongst  the  sons  of  tribesmen.  "The  fundamental 
principle  of  the  new  economic  order,"  says  Mr.  Seebohm,  "seems  to  be  opposed  to  the 
community  and  equality  of  the  old  order  in  both  its  forms.  The  freedom  of  the 
individual  and  growth  of  individual  enterprise  and  property  which  mark  the  new 
order  imply  a  rebellion  against  the  bonds  of  the  communism  and  forced  equality, 
alike  of  the  manorial  and  of  the  tribal  system.  It  has  triumphed  by  breaking  up  both 
the  communism  of  serfdom  and  the  communism  of  the  free  tribe."  It  would  seem, 
however,  that  the  Great  War  may  annihilate,  or  for  a  time  submerge,  the  individual- 
ist economic  order. 

EOTHEN;  or,  TRACES  OF  TRAVEL  BROUGHT  HOME  FROM  THE  EAST,  by  Alexander 
William  Kinglake  ( 1 844) .  '  Eo"  then '  —  a  title  meaning  '  From  the  Dawn '  —  is  a  lively 
and  acute  narrative  of  travel  in  the  East,  at  a  time  when  that  region  was  compara- 
tively new  ground  to  English  tourists.  The  author,  starting  from  Constantinople, 
visits  the  Troad,  Cyprus,  the  Holy  Land,  Cairo,  the  Pyramids,  and  the  Sphinx; 
thence  by  the  way  of  Suez  he  proceeds  to  Gaza,  and  returns  by  the  way  of  Nablous 
and  Damascus.  He  apologizes  for  his  frankness  of  style,  and  gives  his  impressions 
with  refreshing  directness,  modified  as  little  as  possible  by  conventional  opinion. 
For  this  reason  he  provoked  some  criticism  from  conservative  reviewers,  who  re- 
garded his  comments  on  the  manners  and  morals  of  Mohammedan  countries  as  too 
liberal  to  be  encouraged  in  Christian  circles.  He  confesses  his  inability  to  overcome  a 
very  worldly  mood  even  in  Jerusalem,  and  his  failure  to  see  things  always  in  that 
light  of  romance  that  the  reader  might  prefer;  and  he  is  unwilling  that  his  own  moral 
judgment  shall  stand  in  the  way  of  a  perfectly  truthful  narrative.  Instances  of  his 
engaging  style  are  the  interview  with  the  Pasha  through  the  dragoman  at  the  start, 
and  his  description  of  the  Ottoman  lady,  —  "a  coffin-shaped  bundle  of  white  linen." 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  269 

The  incident  of  Mariam,  a  Christian  bride  converted  to  Islam,  is  full  of  humor,  and 
contains  a  dash  of  that  liberalism  which  roused  the  fears  of  the  Christian  critics. 

EPHESIACA,  see  ANTHIA  AND  HABROCOMUS. 

EPICENE;  or  THE  SILENT  WOMAN,  by  Ben  Jonson  (1609).  This  work,  which  to 
many  critics  recalls  the  manner  of  Moliere,  was  said  by  Coleridge  to  be  "the  most 
entertaining  of  Jonson's  comedies."  The  plot  turns  upon  an  audacious  trick  which 
the  author  plays  upon  his  hearers.  The  chief  character,  Morose,  a  misanthrope  who 
hates  every  kind  of  noise,  —  "  Cutbeard  "  (he  says  to  his  barber),  " thank  me  not  but 
with  thy  leg, "  —  is  subjected  to  a  series  of  trials,  each  of  which  jars  upon  him  more 
than  the  former.  He  marries  someone  whom  he  believes  to  be  a  silent  woman,  but 
who  turns  out  to  be  a  chatterbox  and  ultimately  proves  to  be  a  boy  in  disguise.  Sir 
John  Daw,  another  character,  criticizes  great  classic  names  with  audacious  freedom 
and  pretense  of  literary  taste.  Aristotle  is  "a  mere  commonplace  fellow";  Plato, 
"a  discoursed';  Homer,  an  "old  tedious,  prolix  ass, "  who  "talks  of  curriers  and  chines 
of  beef."  His  own  constantly  repeated  oath  is,  "As  I  hope  to  finish  Tacitus." 
Another,  Sir  Amorous  La  Foole,  boasts  that  he  belongs  to  "as  ancient  a  family  as  any 
is  in  Europe,"  but  regretfully  adds,  "antiquity  is  not  respected  now."  Truewit 
directs  the  intrigue  and,  to  admiration,  plays  off  the  characters  against  one  another. 
The  vivacity  of  the  fun  and  the  interest  of  the  plot  increase  from  act  to  act,  until  the 
fifth  comes  with  its  completely  unexpected  denouement. 

EPISTLE  TO  POSTERITY,  AN,  by  Mrs.  M.  E.  W.  Sherwood  (1897),  is  a  series  of 
pleasant  reminiscences  of  one  who  has  found  life  "an  enjoyable  experiment,"  and 
who  has  had  unusual  facilities  for  meeting  interesting  people.  The  author  explains 
that  she  greeted  with  joy  "the  first  green  books  which  emanated  from  Boz  and  the 
yellow-colored  Thackerays."  When  she  had  finished  her  studies  at  Mr.  Emerson's 
private  school  in  Boston,  her  father  took  her  with  him  upon  a  business  trip  across  the 
Wisconsin  prairies,  during  which  she  met  Martin  Van  Buren.  Among  the  interesting 
homes  which  she  visited  were  Marshfield,  where  she  paid  girlish  homage  to  her  great 
host,  Daniel  Webster;  and  the  home  in  Watertown,  Massachusetts,  where  she  learned 
to  love  Maria  White,  the  gracious  first  wife  of  James  Russell  Lowell.  She  saw  much 
of  Boston  society  in  the  days  of  its  greatest  literary  fame,  and  had  a  glimpse  of  the 
Brook  Farm  Community.  When  her  father  was  sent  to  Congress,  she  made  her 
d6but  in  Washington  society;  and  was  a  frequent  attendant  at  the  levees  of  President 
Polk  and  President  Taylor.  In  Washington  she  renewed  her  friendship  with  Webster, 
and  met  Henry  Clay,  and  "many  of  the  young  heroes  destined  later  on  to  be  world- 
renowned,"  —  Farragut,  Lee,  Zachary  Taylor,  "and  a  quiet  little  man  who  shrank 
out  of  sight, "  known  later  on  as  U.  S.  Grant.  The  conclusion  of  the  volume,  the 
narration  of  her  wedding  trip  to  the  West  Indies  in  the  early  fifties;  of  her  different 
trips  to  Europe,  including  her  presentation  at  the  English  and  the  Italian  courts;  and 
of  contemporary  New  York  society,  is  less  interesting. 

EPISTLES  OF  PHALARIS,  DISSERTATION  ON  THE,  see  PHALARIS. 

EPISTOL^  OBSCURORUM  VIRORUM  ('Letters  of  Obscure  Men'),  1516-17.  A 
satirical  production  which  had  a  great  influence  in  aid  of  the  Reformation.  A  first 
part  appeared  in  1516,  at  Hagenau  (but  professedly  at  Venice),  and  a  second  in  1517. 
One  Crotus  Rubeanus  suggested  the  scheme,  and  probably  executed  the  first  part. 
The  second  part  was  from  the  pen  of  the  humanist  and  poet  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  the 
same  year  in  which  the  Emperor  Maximilian  made  him  poet-laureate  of  Germany. 


270  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  plan  of  the  letters  was  that  of  representing  certain  German  ecclesiastics  and 
professors  as  writing  merciless  denunciations  of  the  morals,  manners,  writings, 
teachings,  and  way  of  life  generally,  of  the  scholastics  and  monks.  One  of  these  had 
attacked  the  great  Hebrew  scholar  Reuchlin  for  his  leaning  to  the  Reformation;  and 
these  '  Epistolas '  were  the  reply.  Their  circulation  and  influence  were  immense. 

EQUALITY,  see  LOOKING  BACKWARD. 

EQUATORIAL  AFRICA,  see  EXPLORATIONS  AND  ADVENTURES  IN. 

ERNEST  MALTRAVERS  (1837),  and  its  sequel  ALICE;  or,  THE  MYSTERIES 
(1838),  by  Bulwer-Lytton.  In  the  preface  to  the  first-named  novel,  the  author 
states  that  he  is  indebted  for  the  leading  idea  of  the  work  —  that  of  a  moral  education 
or  apprenticeship  —  to  Goethe's  'Wilhelm  Meister.'  The  apprenticeship  of  Ernest 
Maltravers  is,  however,  less  to  art  than  to  life.  The  hero  of  the  book,  he  is  introduced 
to  the  reader  as  a  young  man  of  wealth  and  education  just  returned  to  England  from  a 
German  university.  Belated  by  a  storm,  he  seeks  shelter  in  the  hut  of  Darvil,  a  man 
of  evil  character.  Darvil  has  a  daughter  Alice,  young  and  beautiful,  but  of  unde- 
veloped moral  and  mental  power.  Her  father  having  planned  to  rob  and  murder 
Maltravers,  she  aids  the  traveler  to  escape.  Moved  by  her  helplessness,  her  beauty, 
and  her  innocence,  Maltravers  has  her  educated,  and  constitutes  himself  her  pro- 
tector. He  yields  at  last  to  his  passion,  and  Alice's  first  knowledge  of  love  comes  to 
her  as  a  revelation  of  the  meaning  of  honor  and  purity.  From  that  time  she  remains 
faithful  to  Maltravers.  By  a  series  of  circumstances  they  are  separated  and  lost  to 
each  other,  and  do  not  meet  for  twenty  years.  Maltravers  in  the  meantime  loves 
many  women:  Valerie;  Madame  de  Ventadour,  whom  he  meets  in  Italy;  Lady 
Florence  Lascelles,  to  whom  he  becomes  engaged,  and  from  whom  he  is  separated  by 
the  machinations  of  an  enemy;  and  lastly,  Evelyn  Cameron,  a  beautiful  English  girl. 
Fate,  however,  reserves  him  for  the  faithful  Alice,  the  love  of  his  youth. 

'Ernest  Maltravers'  is  written  in  the  Byronic  strain,  and  is  a  fair  example  of  the 
English  romantic  and  sentimental  novel  of  the  thirties. 

ES  LEBE  DAS  LEBEN  see  JOY  OF  LIVING. 

ESOTERIC  BUDDHISM,  by  A.  P.  Sinnett,  was  first  published  in  England  in  1883, 
and  appeared  in  America  in  a  revised  form  in  1884. 

The  author's  claims  are  modest;  the  work  purporting  to  be  but  a  partial  exposition, 
not  a  complete  defense,  of  Buddhism  from  the  standpoint  of  the  esoteric.  There  are 
difficulties  for  the  exoteric  reader  in  the  terminology  employed,  which  seems  as  yet 
to  have  come  to  no  widely  accepted  definitiveness;  but  much  of  the  exposition  may  be 
readily  grasped  by  the  attentive  lay  mind.  Great  stress  is  naturally  laid  on  the 
Buddhist  theory  of  cosmogony,  which  is  a  form  of  evolution,  both  physical  and  psychic ; 
on  the  doctrine  of  reincarnation,  distinctly  affirmed;  on  Nirvana,  "a  sublime  state  of 
conscious  rest  in  omniscience";  and  on  Karma,  the  idea  of  ethical  causation.  The 
author  gives  also  a  survey  of  occult  and  theosophic  doctrines  in  general,  and  the 
esoteric  conception  of  Buddha;  in  a  word,  he  discusses  the  origin  of  the  world  and  of 
man,  the  ultimate  destiny  of  our  race,  and  the  nature  of  other  worlds  and  states  of 
existence  differing  from  those  of  our  present  life.  The  exposition  is  frankly  made,  and 
the  language,  occasionally  obscure,  is  generally  incisive  and  clear. 

ESSAY  CONCERNING  HUMAN  UNDERSTANDING,  AN,  by  John  Locke,  a 
philosophical  treatise  published  in  1690.  The  author  attacks  the  doctrine  of  innate 
ideas  and  maintains  that  all  our  knowledge  is  derived  from  sensations.  The  mind  of 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  271 

the  infant  is  a  tabula  rasa,  a  white  sheet  of  paper;  from  the  impressions  made  upon  it 
by  the  senses  he  arrives  at  certain  concepts  by  reflection.  By  the  combination  and 
comparison  of  these  concepts  he  forms  ideas  of  similarity  and  dissimilarity  of  the 
general  and  the  special,  which  constitute  knowledge.  General  ideas  have  no  exis- 
tence apart  from  the  individual  concepts  from  which  they  are  derived;  our  will  is 
absolutely  determined  by  our  mind,  which  is  guided  by  the  desire  for  happiness. 
In  this  work  Locke  developed  the  theory  of  Hobbes  (see  on  his  'Leviathan')  of  the 
naturalistic  source  of  our  knowledge,  and  exercised  a  highly  important  influence  upon 
subsequent  philosophic  thought,  English  and  Continental.  The  development  may 
be  readily  traced  down  to  the  scepticism  of  Hume  and  the  idealism  of  Kant. 

ESSAYS,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  The  First  Series,  published  in  1841,  included 
essays  on  History,  Self -Reliance,  Compensation,  Spiritual  Laws,  Love,  Friendship, 
Prudence,  Heroism,  The  Over-Soul,  Circles,  Intellect,  and  Art.  The  essays  of  the 
Second  Series  (1844)  are:  The  Poet,  Experience,  Character,  Manners,  Gifts,  Nature, 
Politics,  Nominalist  and  Realist,  and  New  England  Reformers.  Many  of  the  essays 
were  first  delivered  in  the  form  of  addresses  and  have,  partly  on  that  account,  mainly 
because  of  the  writer's  temperament,  a  desultoriness  of  method  and  a  tendency  to 
create  attention  by  keen  epigrams  and  suggestive  aphorisms  rather  than  to  present 
a  subject  in  coherent  order.  Moreover,  Emerson  preferred  intuition  to  reasoning 
and  cared  little  for  logical  presentation  but  was  eager  to  stimulate  thought  by  flashes 
of  insight  and  to  inspire  resolution  by  arresting  emotional  appeals.  His  main  ideas 
are  the  immanence  of  God  and  the  supreme  importance  of  the  individual.  Trans- 
cendental and  idealistic  in  his  entire  outlook  on  life  he  has  no  patience  with  mechanis- 
tic or  materialistic  opinions,  with  pessimistic  or  Calvinistic  views  of  human  nature, 
with  passive  or  cowardly  submission  to  commonly  accepted  tenets  or  practices. 
That  man  may  make  his  own  happiness  anywhere  and  everywhere  by  opening  his 
eyes  to  the  goodness  and  beauty  around  him  and  by  being  true  to  himself  is  the  view 
of  this  practical  philosopher,  who  unites  a  Yankee  shrewdness  with  an  almost  oriental 
mysticism.  The  style  of  the  essays  is  somewhat  abrupt  and  disconnected,  but  plain, 
pure,  and  unaffected  in  diction,  with  a  vein  of  sinewy  strength  running  through  its 
homely,  straightforward  sentences. 

ESSAYS,  a  collection  of  discursive  and  intensely  personal  essays  by  Michel  Eyquem, 
Sieur  de  Montaigne,  appeared  first  in  1580  in  two  books;  again  in  1588  with  a  third 
book;  and  posthumously,  with  additions  in  1595.  An  English  translation  by  John 
Florio  appeared  in  1603,  and  by  Charles  Cotton  in  1685-1686.  The  essays  are  made 
up  partly  of  meditations  suggested  by  the  author's  wide  classical  reading  and  his 
observation  of  the  life  around  him,  partly  of  revelations  of  his  own  whims,  habits, 
peculiarities,  and  modes  of  thought.  They  are  the  first  conspicuous  examples  of  the 
personal  essay  in  which  the  writer  entertains  us  by  painting  a  complete  portrait  of 
himself  and  also  of  the  disquisition  on  general  topics  illustrated  from  experience  and 
literature.  Montaigne's  essays  are  very  voluminous  and  rambling,  filled  with  classical 
quotations,  and  without  formal  organization.  But  they  are  made  intensely  interest- 
ing by  the  mind  and  temper  of  the  man  they  reveal.  Montaigne  was  indolent,  fond 
of  solitude,  lacking  in  public  spirit,  garrulous,  sceptical.  He  exhibits  himself  without 
reserve,  with  all  his  foibles,  peccadilloes,  lack  of  enthusiasm,  and  absence  of  religious 
or  metaphysical  conviction.  His  constant  remark  is  "Que  scais-je?"  (What  do  I 
know?)  But  he  evidently  believes  in  heroism,  in  fraternity,  in  the  need  of  toleration, 
and  in  the  underlying  goodness  of  humanity.  He  is  therefore  the  leading  representa- 
tive of  the  French  spirit  in  the  Renaissance. 


272  THE   READER  S  DIGEST   OF  BOOKS 

ESSAYS  AND  REVIEWS  is  a  collection  of  seven  scholarly  papers  upon  different 
aspects  of  theological  thought,  written  by  as  many  well-known  English  divines  and 
Biblical  students.  It  appeared  in  England  in  1860,  and  made  a  sensation  because 
its  writers  expressed  views  which  were  then  deemed  radical  and  dangerous.  Inasmuch 
as  the  writers  were  in  several  instances  associated  with  Oxford  University,  the  book 
became  known  as  the  Oxford  'Essays  and  Reviews.'  So  great  was  the  opposition  it 
aroused  that  three  of  the  contributors  were  tried  and  condemned  by  an  ecclesiastical 
court;  the  decision  being  afterwards  reversed.  The  influence  of  the  volume  was 
fruitful  in  drawing  attention  to  a  broader  interpretation  of  religious  truth  and  the 
methods  of  modern  scholarship.  The  papers  and  their  authors  were:  ' The  Education 
of  the  World/  by  Dr.  Frederick  Temple;  Bunsen's  '  Biblical  Researches,'  by  Professor 
Rowland  Williams;  'On  the  Study  of  the  Evidences  of  Christianity,'  by  Professor 
Baden  Powell;  'Seances  Historiques  de  Geneve,'  'The  National  Church,'  by  the  Rev. 
Henry  B.  Wilson;  'On  the  Mosaic  Cosmogony,'  by  C.  W.  Goodwin;  'Tendencies  of 
Religious  Thought  in  England,  1688-1750,'  by  the  Rev.  Mark  Pattison;  and  'On  the 
Interpretation  of  Scripture,'  by  Professor  Benjamin  Jowett. 

ESSAYS,  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS,  by  Macaulay,  were  published 
originally  in  the  Edinburgh  Review;  beginning  with  the  essay  on  Milton,  in  the 
August  number,  1825,  and  continuing  for  twenty  years  after,  when  the  glittering 
series  ended  with  the  paper  on  the  Earl  of  Chatham,  in  the  October  number,  1844. 
These  essays,  of  which  the  glory  is  but  a  little  tarnished,  run  the  gamut  of  great 
historical  and  literary  subjects.  They  include  reviews  of  current  literature,  historical 
sketches  and  portraits,  essays  in  criticism.  They  are  distinguished  by  a  certain 
magnificent  cleverness  but  they  are  lacking  in  human  warmth,  and  in  the  sympathy 
which  rises  from  the  heart  to  the  brain.  They  remain  however  a  monument  of  what 
might  be  called  a  soldierly  English  style,  with  all  the  trappings  and  appurtenances  of 
military  rank. 

ESSAYS  IN  CRITICISM,  by  Matthew  Arnold  (First  Series,  1865;  Second  Series 
1888).  These  essays  are  characterized  by  all  the  vivacity  to  which  the  author 
alludes  with  mock-serious  repentance,  as  having  caused  a  wounding  of  solemn  sensi- 
bilities. 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  modestly  and  perhaps  despondently  declared. 
In  collected  form,  the  First  Series  includes:  The  Function  of  Criticism  at  the  Present 
Time,  —  a  dignified  defense  of  literary  criticism  in  its  proper  form  and  place;  The 
Literary  Influence  of  Academies  —  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  Gue*rin;  a  paper  on  Eugenie  de  Gue"rin,  "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  bril- 
liant, a  most  effective  soldier,  in  the  Liberation  War  of  humanity";  essays  on  Pagan 
and  Mediaeval  Sentiment;  a  Persian  Passion  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  'Meditations'  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  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  273 

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  suffused 
and  softened  by  this  very  sentiment  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, 
particularly  Tolstoy's  'Anna  KanSnina';  and  last,  a  well-balanced  estimate  of  Armel's 
'Journal,'  showing  its  beauties  and  faults  impartially,  with  that  judicial  fairness 
which,  notwithstanding  his  native  warmth  of  temperament,  prevails  through  most  of 
Matthew  Arnold's  critical  writings. 

ESSAYS,  MODERN  AND  CLASSICAL,  by  F.  W.  H.  Myers  (Two  volumes,  1883). 
These  studies  reveal  a  pure  literary  taste,  refined  and  strengthened  by  sound  schol- 
arship. Every  essay  is  enriched  with  resources  of  knowledge  outside  its  own  im- 
mediate scope.  The  spiritual  in  poetry  or  in  art  appeals  strongly  to  the  author. 
His  essay  on  Virgil,  full  of  acute  observations  as  it  is,  dwells  most  fondly  on  the 
poet's  supreme  elegance,  tenderness,  and  stateliness,  and  on  the  haunting  music 
with  which  his  verse  is  surcharged.  "Much  of  Rossetti's  art,"  he  says,  "in  speech 
and  color,  spends  itself  in  the  effort  to  communicate  the  incommunicable, "  —  and  it 
is  his  own  love  for,  and  comprehension  of,  the  incommunicable  that  leads  the  essayist 
to  choose  many  of  his  subjects:  Marcus  Aurelius,  The  Greek  Oracles,  George  Sand, 
Victor  Hugo,  The  Religion  of  Beauty,  George  Eliot,  and  Renan  —  "that  subtlest  of 
seekers  after  God."  Penetrative,  luminous,  and  fascinating,  these  essays  show  also 
an  exquisite  appreciation  of  beauty  and  the  balance  of  a  rare  scholar. 

ESSAYS  OF  ELIA,  THE,  by  Charles  Lamb,  began  to  appear  in  The  London  Magazine 
in  1820,  and  were  collected  under  the  above  title  in  1823.  A  second  volume,  includ- 
ing those  subsequently  written,  and  entitled  'Last  Essays  of  Elia'  was  published  in 
1833.  Reminiscences  of  persons  and  scenes  of  earlier  years  form  the  principal  sub- 
ject-matter of  these  essays.  Lamb's  delicate  and  sympathetic  power  of  interpreting 
the  spirit  of  a  locality,  a  house,  or  a  person  was  best  exercised  when  the  object  was 
surrounded  by  the  golden  haze  of  happy  recollection.  The  persons  chosen  for  de- 
scription are  his  friends,  acquaintances,  or  relatives  and  the  places  are  those  that  he 
has  often  frequented.  As  a  thin  veil  for  these  autobiographic  elements  he  adopts  as 
a  pseudonym  the  name  of  an  Italian  fellow-clerk,  EHa,  whom  he  knew  slightly;  but 
Elia's  ways  and  thoughts  are  Lamb's  own;  and  his  brother  and  sister,  James  and 
Bridget  Elia,  are  James  and  Mary  Lamb.  Almost  every  period  of  the  essayist's  life 
is  represented  in  one  passage  or  another.  His  birthplace,  his  father,  and  his  father's 
employer  are  described  in  'The  Old  Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple7;  his  father's 
household  in  '  Poor  Relations' ;  his  school-days  in  'Christ's  Hospital  Five  and  Thirty 
Years  Ago';  childish  experiences  in  'Witches  and  Other  Night  Pears'  and  'My  First 
Play';  entrance  into  business  in  'The  South  Sea  House';  disappointment  in  love  in 
'Dream  Children';  his  devotion  to  his  sister  and  life  with  her  in  'My  Relations,* 
'Mackery  End  in  Hertfordshire/  and  'Old  China';  his  love  of  the  city  in  'Chimney 
Sweepers'  and  'On  the  Decay  of  Beggars';  his  friends  in  'Oxford  in  the  Vacation'; 
'The  Two  Races  of  Men,'  'Mrs.  Battle's  Opinions  on  Whist/  'Modern  Gallantry/ 
'  Captain  Jackson/  '  Barbara  S./  '  Amicus  Redivivus/  and  hosts  of  incidental  passages 
in  other  essays;  his  personal  prejudices  and  peculiarities  in  'A  Chapter  on  Ears,1 
is 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Year's  Eve,'  'Imperfect  Sympathies,'  and  'Preface  to  Last  Essays,'  his  be- 
setting  sin  (exaggerated  for  literary  effect)  in  Confessions  of  a  Drunkard';  his 
release  from  office  labors  in  'The  Superannuated  Man,1  and  his  breaking  health  in  the 
sketch  of  sickness  entitled  'The  Convalescent.'  Of  the  formal  essay  on  some  general 
topic  there  are  relatively  few  examples,  and  these  on  novel  themes  or  approaching  an 
old  subject  from  a  new  angle:  'All  Fools'  Day,'  'Valentine's  Day,'  'Grace  before 
Meat,'  'Sanity  of  True  Genius, '  and  the  series  of  essays  on  ' Popular  Fallacies '  come 
under  this  head.  The  'Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig'  is  a  clever  travesty  on  learned 
pedantry  unlike  anything  else  in  the  two  series.  Dramatic  and  literary  criticism  of 
the  finest  taste  is  represented  by  'On  Some  of  the  Old  Actors,'  'On  the  Artificial 
Comedy  of  the  Last  Century,'  'Stage  Illusion,'  'Detached  Thoughts  on  Books  and 
Reading,' '  Some  Sonnets  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney, '  and  a  few  others.  In  general,  therefore, 
Lamb,  though  an  appreciative  critic  and  an  adroit  literary  craftsman  is  best  known 
and  loved  for  his  reflection  of  happy  scenes  from  his  own  past,  and  for  the  tenderness, 
strength,  refinement,  and  humor  of  his  personality. 

ESSAYS  OF  HAMILTON  WRIGHT  MABIE.  Several  volumes  are  comprised  unde 
this  general  title.  They  are  all  concerned  with  man  and  nature,  the  soul  and  litera- 
ture, art  and  culture.  Their  several  titles  are:  'Essays  in  Literary  Interpretation, ' 
1892,  'Essays  on  Nature  and  Culture,'  1904,  'Short  Studies  in  Literature,'  1891, 
4 Books  and  Culture, '  1897,  'My  Study  Pire'  (2  vols.,  1890-94),  and  'Under  the  Trees 
and  Elsewhere,'  1891.  They  all  express  the  views  of  a  book-man  on  man  and  his 
surroundings;  but  of  a  book-man  who  has  studied  man  no  less  than  books,  and  has 
studied  books  rather  as  a  means  than  an  end  —  as  giving  insight  into  the  soul  of 
man.  Great  books  are  for  him  not  feats  of  intellect,  but  the  result  of  the  contact 
of  mind  and  heart  with  the  great  and  terrible  facts  of  life:  they  originate  not  in  the 
individual  mind  but  in  the  soil  of  common  human  hopes,  loves,  fears,  aspirations, 
sufferings.  Shakespeare  did  not  invent  Hamlet,  he  found  him  in  human  histories 
already  acted  out  to  the  tragic  end;  Goethe  did  not  create  Faust,  he  summoned  him 
out  of  the  dim  mediaeval  world  and  confronted  him  with  the  problems  of  life  as  it  is 
now.  There  are  in  these  'Essays'  innumerable  epigrammatic  passages  easily  detach- 
able from  the  context;  a  few  of  these  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  author's  points  of 
view.  Writing  of  ' Personality  in  Literary  Work,'  he  says  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  universal  literature  in  the  sense  which  involves  complete  escape  from  the  water- 
marks of  place  and  time:  no  man  can  study  or  interpret  life  save  from  the  point  of 
view  where  he  finds  himself;  no  truth  gets  into  human  keeping  by  any  other  path  than 
the  individual  soul,  nor  into  human  speech  by  any  other  medium  than  the  individual 
mind.  In  another  essay  occurs  this  fine  remark  on  wit:  Wit  reveals  itself  in  sudden 
flashes,  not  in  continuous  glow  and  illumination;  it  is  distilled  in  sentences;  it  is 
preserved  in  figures,  illustrations,  epigrams,  epithets,  phrases.  Then  follows  a  com- 
parison of  wits  and  humorists:  the  wits  entertain  and  dazzle  us,  the  humorists  reveal 
life  to  us.  Aristophanes,  Cervantes,  Moli£re,  and  Shakespeare  —  the  typical  humor- 
ists—  are  among  the  greatest  contributors  to  the  capital  of  human  achievement; 
they  give  us  not  glimpses  but  views  of  life.  In  the  essay,  'The  Art  of  Arts'  —  i.  e., 
the  art  of  living  —  is  this  remark  on  the  Old  Testament  writings:  Whatever  view  one 
may  take  of  the  authority  of  those  books,  it  is  certain  that  in  the  noble  literature 
which  goes  under  that  title,  there  is  a  deeper,  clearer,  and  fuller  disclosure  of  the 
human  spirit  than  in  all  the  historical  works  that  have  been  written;  for  the  real 
history  of  man  on  this  earth  is  not  the  record  of  the  deeds  he  has  done  with  his  hands, 
the  journeys  he  has  made  with  his  feet;  .  .  .  but  the  record  of  his  thoughts,  feelings, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  275 

inspirations,  aspirations,  and  experience.  This,  on  the  conditions  of  a  !>rnad  mental 
and  moral  development  of  the  individual,  draws  the  essenticil  line  of  distinction 
between  the  man  of  culture  and  the  Philistine:  To  secure  the  most  complete  develop- 
ment one  must  live  in  one's  time  and  yet  live  above  it,  and  one  must  live  in  one's 
home  and  yet  live  in  the  world.  The  life  which  is  bounded  in  knowledge,  interest, 
and  activity  by  the  invisible  but  real  and  limiting  walls  of  a  small  community  is 
often  definite  in  aim,  effective  in  action,  and  upright  in  intention;  but  it  cannot  be 
rich,  varied,  generous,  and  stimulating.  The  life,  on  the  other  hand,  which  is  en- 
tirely detached  from  local  associations  and  tasks  is  often  interesting,  liberalizing,  and 
catholic  in  spirit;  but  it  cannot  be  original  or  productive.  A  sound  life  —  balanced, 
poised,  and  intelligently  directed  —  must  stand  strongly  in  both  local  and  universal 
relations;  it  must  have  the  vitality  and  warmth  of  the  first,  and  the  breadth  and  range 
of  the  second. 

ESTHER  WATERS;  a  novel  by  George  Moore  (1894).  An  English  servant  girl, 
Esther  Waters,  a  member  of  the  narrow  religious  sect  of  the  Plymouth  Brethren, 
takes  her  first  situation  in  a  horse-racing  household  in  the  country.  The  master 
owns  winning  horses,  and  the  servants  quarrel  over  their  sweepstakes.  The  mistress 
belongs  to  the  Plymouth  Brethren,  and  therefore  takes  a  special  interest  in  her  new 
kitchenmaid.  The  dashing  footman,  William,  makes  love  to  Esther,  and  then  deserts 
her  to  elope  with  a  rich  young  cousin  of  the  family.  Esther  is  dismissed  from  the 
house  when  it  is  discovered  that  she  will  soon  be  a  mother.  Her  drunken  stepfather 
takes  most  of  her  money  from  her,  and  when  she  is  turned  out  of  the  hospital  before 
she  is  able  to  work,  she  has  to  leave  her  baby  with  a  baby-farmer  and  go  out  as  a  wet- 
nurse.  She  finds  that  the  woman  is  letting  her  baby  die  of  neglect  and  gives  up  her 
place  and  goes  to  the  workhouse  to  keep  her  baby.  The  book  is  the  story  of  Esther's 
plucky  devoted  maternity.  By  hard  struggle  she  manages  to  support  her  boy.  A 
young  man  becomes  her  friend  and  brings  her  again  to  the  Plymouth  Brethren. 
Just  as  they  are  going  to  be  married,  William  turns  up  again,  a  bookmaker  and  keeper 
of  a  public  house.  He  wins  her  from  the  marriage,  because  he  is  able  to  provide  for 
her  child.  She  goes  to  live  with  him,  and  after  his  divorce,  they  are  married  and 
very  happy.  There  is  illegal  betting  in  the  bar  parlor,  and  William  is  fined  and  loses 
his  license.  He  becomes  ill  from  exposure  in  bad  weather  at  the  races  and  dies  leaving 
Esther  with  nothing.  She  almost  has  to  go  to  the  workhouse  again.  Her  first  mistress, 
who  is  a  widow  and  alone,  takes  her  back,  and  helps  support  Esther's  son  until  he  is  a 
fine  young  soldier.  This  novel  pictures  the  evil  results  of  betting  among  the  British 
working  class,  the  language  and  habits  of  the  lower  sporting  world,  and  the  horrors 
of  baby-farming  and  lying-in  hospitals.  Its  method  is  severely  realistic. 

ETERNAL  CITY,  THE,  by  Hall  Caine  was  published  in  1901.  The  story  opens  in 
London,  where  Prince  Volonna,  who  has  been  exiled  for  conspiracy  against  the  Italian 
government,  lives  a  life  of  charity  under  an  assumed  name,  being  known  as  Dr. 
Roselli.  He  rescues  from  the  snow,  a  street  waif,  David  Leone,  who  is  one  of  the 
many  who  are  brought  to  England  yearly  from  the  south  to  play  and  beg  in  the 
streets.  This  lad  grows  up  in  the  household  of  the  good  doctor  and  his  English  wife 
and  little  daughter  Roma,  imbibing  his  foster  father's  theories  aoid  becoming  his 
disciple.  Prince  Volonna  is  finally  tricked  back  to  Italy,  where  he  is  captured  and 
transported  to  Elba,  and  David  Leone  is  likewise  condemned  as  a  conspirator;  the 
latter  escapes,  and  as  David  Rossi  enters  Rome  and  preaches  his  principle  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  After  the  death  of  her  father,  Roma  is  discovered  by  the  Baron 


276  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Bonelli,  Secretary  of  State,  and  a  man  of  cunning  and  duplicity,  who  brings  her  tci 
Rome  where  she  becomes  the  reigning  belle  of  the  capital,  but  one  whose  name  has 
not  remained  untarnished.  The  author  recounts  her  meeting  with  David  Rossi,  her 
recognition  of  her  foster  brother,  their  love  and  the  various  obstacles  which  beset 
their  path.  In  'The  Eternal  City'  Mr.  Caine  has  presented  a  sociological  study 
\vith  a  strong  element  of  love-making  in  it.  Through  the  efforts  of  a  humanizing 
socialism,  the  principles  of  which  are  based  upon  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Pope  resigns 
all  temporal  power  and  the  young  King  is  brought  to  abdicate  his  throne,  and  an 
i;leal  republic  is  born,  whose  creed  is  the  brotherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood 
of  man. 

ETHAN  FROME,  by  Edith  Wharton  (1911).  This  tale  of  a  New  England  village 
tragedy  is  told  by  a  stranger,  who  wonders  at  Ethan  Frome,  the  limping  "ruin  of  a 
man, "  and  gradually  pieces  together  the  story  of  his  life.  Zenia,  Ethan's  wife,  is  an 
invalid,  whose  imaginary  ailments  thrive  on  patent  medicines.  He  makes  a  bare 
living  from  the  stony  soil  of  the  little  farm.  His  wife  refuses  to  be  transplanted  to 
the  town  where  there  are  "lectures  and  big  libraries  and  'fellows  doing  things'" 
and  a  chance  for  congenial  work  for  Ethan.  A  girl  cousin  of  his  wife's,  left  destitute, 
comes  to  live  with  them,  bringing  brightness  and  cheer  and  inevitably,  love  of  youth 
for  youth.  Zenia  goes  away  on  one  of  her  "therapeutic  excursions"  and  Ethan  and 
Mattie  have  a  happy  time  keeping  house  together.  When  Zenia  returns  she  an- 
nounces that  the  doctor  had  advised  her  to  save  her  health  by  getting  a  strong  hired 
girl  to  do  the  work  and  there  is  no  room  for  Mattie  any  longer.  Ethan  is  helpless. 
"There  were  no  means  by  which  he  could  compel  her  to  keep  the  girl  under  her  roof." 
The  friendship  of  Mattie  and  Ethan  has  apparently  aroused  her  jealousy,  and  from  a 
"state  of  sullen  self -absorption  she  is  transformed  into  an  active  mysterious  alien 
presence"  holding  him  in  her  power  through  his  honesty  and  sense  of  duty.  Ethan 
and  Mattie  speak  their  love  for  each  other  in  the  despair  of  parting.  Driving  to  the 
station  they  yield  to  the  impulse  to  coast  once  more  down  the  long  hill  to  the  village, 
a  steep  breathless  rush  with  a  great  elm  at  the  foot,  to  be  avoided  by  quick  steering 
at  the  last  minute.  The  temptation  comes  to  Ethan  to  run  into  the  elm  and  end  it  all, 
rather  than  to  live  apart.  The  girl  agrees,  but  the  fates  are  against  them.  They  live 
on,  she  helpless  with  a  broken  back,  and  he  crippled,  both  tied  beyond  escape  to 
Zenia  and  the  slow  starvation  of  the  barren  farm. 

ETHICAL  AND  SOCIAL  SUBJECTS,  STUDIES  NEW  AND" OLD  IN,  by  Frances 
Power  Cobbe  (1865).  The  various  essays  here  collected  are  developments  of  the 
views  of  morals  presented  in  the  author's  earlier  works,  while  she  was  greatly  in- 
fluenced, among  other  forces,  by  the  mind  of  Theodore  Parker,  whose  works  she 
edited.  A  strong  and  original  thinker,  fearless,  possessing  a  clear  and  simple  style, 
Miss  Cobbe  makes  all  her  work  interesting.  With  the  essay  upon  'Christian  Ethics 
and  the  Ethics  of  Christ'  —  which  have  to  her  view  little  in  common  —  the  series 
begins.  In  her  paper  on  'Self-Development  and  Self -Abnegation,'  she  maintains 
that  self-development  is  the  saner,  nobler  duty  of  man.  Her  titles,  'The  Sacred 
Books  of  the  Zoroastrians/  'The  Philosophy  of  the  Poor-Laws/  'The  Morals  of 
Literature/  'Decemnovenarianism'  (the  spirit  of  the  nineteenth  century),  'Hades,' 
and  'The  Hierarchy  of  Art,'  indicate  the  range  of  her  interests.  The  'Rights  of  Man 
and  the  Claims  of  Brutes/  affords  a  vigorous  and  humane  protest  against  vivisection. 
It  should  be  remembered  that  an  early  essay  of  Miss  Cobbe  on  'Intuitive  Morals' 
has  been  pronounced  by  the  most  philosophic  critics  the  ablest  brief  discussion  of 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  277 

the  subject  in  English.  Her  breadth  of  view,  ripe  culture,  profoundly  religious 
though  unsectarian  spirit,  and  excellence  of  style,  make  her  writings  important 
and  helpful. 

EUGE]N[E  ARAM,  by  Sir  Edward  Bulwer-Lyt  ton  (1832),  was  founded  on  the  career  of 
an  English  scholar,  Eugene  Aram,  born  1704,  executed  for  the  murder  of  one  Clark 
in  1759.  The  character  of  the  murderer  and  the  circumstances  of  his  life  made  the 
case  one  of  the  most  interesting  from  a  psychological  point  of  view,  in  the  criminal 
annals  of  England.  Aram  was  a  scholar  of  unusual  ability,  who,  self-taught,  had 
acquired  a  considerable  knowledge  of  languages,  and  was  even  credited  with  certain 
original  discoveries  in  the  domain  of  philology.  Of  a  mild  and  refined  disposition,  his 
act  of  murder  seemed  a  complete  contradiction  of  all  his  habits  and  ideals  of  life. 

At  the  suggestion  of  Godwin,  Bulwer  made  this  singular  case  the  basis  of  his  novel 
'  Eugene  Aram.'  He  so  idealized  the  character  as  to  make  of  the  murderer  a  romantic 
hero,  whose  accomplice  in  the  crime,  Houseman,  is  the  actual  criminal.  He  represents 
Aram  as  forced,  by  extreme  poverty,  into  consenting  to  the  deed,  but  not  performing 
it.  From  that  hour  he  suffers  horrible  mental  torture.  He  leaves  the  scene  of  the 
murder  and  settles  in  Grassdale,  a  beautiful  pastoral  village,  where  he  meets  and 
loves  a  noble  woman,  Madeline  Lester.  She  returns  his  love.  Their  marriage 
approaches,  when  the  reappearance  of  Houseman  shatters  Aram's  hopes  forever. 
By  the  treachery  of  this  wretch,  he  is  imprisoned,  tried,  and  condemned  to  death. 

1  Eugene  Aram '  is  an  unusually  successful  study  in  fiction  of  a  complex  psychologi- 
cal case.  At  the  time  of  its  publication,  it  caused  a  great  stir  in  England,  many 
attacks  being  made  upon  it  on  the  ground  of  its  false  morality. 

EUGENIE  GRANDET,  by  Honore*  de  Balzac,  appeared  in  1833,  and  is  included 
among  the  'Scenes  of  Provincial  Life.'  In  it,  the  great  French  master  of  realism 
depicts  with  his  accustomed  brilliant  precision  the  life  of  a  country  girl,  the  only  child 
of  a  rich  miser.  Euge'nie  and  her  mother  know  little  pleasure  in  the  "cold,  silent, 
pallid  dwelling"  at  Saumur  where  they  live.  Father  Grandet  loves  his  wife  and 
daughter,  but  loves  his  money  better,  and  cannot  spare  enough  of  it  to  supply  his 
family  with  suitable  food  and  clothing.  His  rare  gifts  to  his  wife  he  usually  begs  back, 
and  Euge'nie  is  expected  to  hoard  her  birthday  gold-pieces.  Eugenie's  charming 
handsome  cousin  Charles  arrives  one  day  for  a  visit,  and  Eugenie  braves  her  father's 
anger  to  supply  him  with  sugar  for  his  coffee  and  a  wax  instead  of  a  tallow  candle. 
Charles  has  been  brought  up  in  wealth,  but  his  father  now  loses  all  and  commits 
suicide.  Eugenie's  pity  for  her  unhappy  cousin  turns  to  love,  which  he  seems  to 
reciprocate.  Engaged  to  marry  her,  with  her  savings  he  goes  to  the  West  Indies. 
The  years  wear  on  drearily  to  her,  and  she  does  not  hear  from  him.  Her  mother 
dies,  and  she  is  an  heiress,  but  is  persuaded  by  her  father  to  make  over  her  property 
to  him.  The  old  man  dies  too,  and  Euge'nie  is  very  rich.  At  last  she  receives  a  letter 
from  Charles,  who  is  ignorant  of  her  wealth,  asking  for  his  liberty,  and  telling  her  of 
his  wish  to  many  a  certain  heiress  whose  family  can  aid  him  in  his  career.  The 
reserved  and  self-controlled  Euge'nie  releases  him  without  complaint;  and  discovering 
that  his  match  is  jeopardized  by  his  father's  debts,  she  sends  to  Paris  her  old  friend 
Monsieur  de  Bonfons,  president  of  the  civil  courts  of  Saumur,  to  pay  this  debt,  and 
thus  clear  Charles's  name.  As  a  reward  for  his  services,  she  marries  Monsieur  de 
Bonfons  without  love.  Early  left  a  widow,  and  the  solitary  owner  of  wealth  which 
she  has  never  learned  to  enjoy,  she  devotes  the  rest  of  her  life  to  philanthropy,  thus 
completing  her  career  of  self-abnegation. 


278  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

EULENSPIEGEL,  see  TILL  EULENSPIEGEL. 

EUPHUES,  THE  ANATOMY  OP  WIT,  and  EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND,  by 

John  Lyly,  were  published  respectively  in  1578  and  1580,  when  the  author  was  a  young 
courtier  still  under  thirty.  They  constitute  the  first  and  second  part  of  a  work 
which  can  only  loosely  be  called  fiction  in  the  modern  sense.  Perhaps  the  word 
"romance"  best  expresses  its  nature.  For  a  dozen  years  it  was  fashionable  in  the 
polite  circles  of  England;  and  the  word  "Euphuism"  survives  in  the  language  to 
designate  the  stilted,  far-fetched,  ornate  style  of  writing  introduced  and  made 
popular  by  Lyly.  Euphues,  the  hero,  is  a  native  of  Athens,  who  goes  to  Naples  and 
there  wooes  Lucilla,  fickle  daughter  of  the  governor.  She  is  already  plighted  to  his 
friend  Philautus;  and  when  Euphues  seeks  to  win  her  in  spite  of  this,  both  mistress 
and  friend  forsake  him.  Later,  he  is  reconciled  with  Philautus,  and  writes  a  cynical 
blast  against  all  womankind.  He  then  returns  to  his  own  city,  and  forswearing  love 
forever,  takes  refuge  in  writing  disquisitions  upon  education  and  religion,  interspersed 
with  letters  to  and  from  various  friends.  Incidentally,  a  fine  eulogy  on  Queen  Eliza- 
beth is  penned.  The  narrative  is  loosely  constructed  and  inconsecutive;  the  chief 
interest  in  the  work  for  Lyly's  contemporaries  was  the  philosophical  dissertations 
upon  topics  of  timely  pertinence,  couched,  not  in  the  heavy  manner  of  the  formal 
thinker,  but  in  the  light,  elegant,  finicky  tone  of  the  man-about-court.  The  literary 
diction  of  'Euphues'  has  been  well  characterized  by  a  German  scholar,  Dr.  Land- 
mann,  who  says  it  showed  "a  peculiar  combination  of  antithesis  with  alliteration, 
assonance,  rhyme,  and  play  upon  words,  a  love  for  the  conformity  and  correspon- 
dence of  parallel  sentences,  and  a  tendency  to  accumulate  rhetorical  figures,  such  as 
climax,  the  rhetorical  question,  objections  and  refutations,  the  repetition  of  the  same 
thought  in  other  forms,  etc."  Although  Lyly 's  style  had  in  it  too  much  of  the  affected 
to  give  it  long  life,  he  undoubtedly  did  something  towards  making  the  sixteenth- 
century  speech  refined,  musical,  and  choice.  It  is  this  rather  than  any  attraction  of 
story  that  makes  the  'Euphues'  interesting  to  the  modern  student  of  literature. 

EUROPEAN  CITIES  AT  WORK,  by  F.  C.  Howe  (1913) .  This  work  by  an  American 
author  who  believes  that  the  city  is  the  hope  of  democracy  is  a  result  of  a  close  first- 
hand study  of  the  great  progressive  municipalities  of  the  European  continent  written 
with  a  view  to  the  elucidation  of  the  things  in  which  European  cities  differ  from 
American.  In  addition,  to  an  English  or  a  German  reader  it  is  a  sympathetic  and 
impartial  account  of  the  municipal  activities  of  their  respective  countries  by  a  clear- 
headed investigator  who  is  able  to  distinguish  the  good  from  the  bad.  The  gist  of  the 
book  may  be  seen  in  passages  like  the  following  which  are  a  perfectly  just  and  ac- 
curate estimate  of  the  merits  of  European  municipal  enterprise.  "The  German  city  is 
an  experiment  station  for  all  of  us.  It  is  aflei-stadt,  a  little  republic,  with  power  to 
do  almost  anything  for  the  welfare  of  the  people.  The  city  is  sovereign,  and  it  uses 
its  sovereignty  to  build  in  a  conscious,  intelligent  way.  It  can  mould  its  destiny  as 
did  the  cities  of  ancient  Greece.  It  controls  property  as  well  as  people.  It  acts  with  a 
vision  of  the  future;  not  alone  of  the  city,  but  of  the  lives  and  comfort  of  the  people 
as  well.  The  German  city  is  being  built  something  as  Pericles  built  Athens,  as  Louis 
XIV.  planned  Versailles,  as  the  two  Napoleons  rebuilt  Paris.  .  .  .  Already  the 
cities  of  Germany,  and  to  a  considerable  extent  those  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
Continent,  have  demonstrated  that  many  of  the  sacrifices  of  the  modern  industrial 
city  can  be  avoided.  Poverty  can  be  reduced,  and  the  life  of  the  people  be  enriched 
in  countless  ways  not  possible  under  rural  conditions.  Cities  realize  that  many 


THE   READER *S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  279 

activities  are  so  closely  related  to  the  life  of  the  people  that  they  cannot  with  safety 
be  left  in  private  hands.  There  must  be  provision  for  play,  for  leisure,  as  well  as  for 
education.  The  landowner  and  the  housebuilder,  the  means  of  transportation,  and 
the  supply  of  gas,  water,  and  electricity  environ  life  in  so  many  ways  that  they  must 
be  subordinate  to  the  rights  of  the  community.  Docks  and  harbors,  the  railroads 
and  waterways,  the  houses  men  live  in,  and  the  factories  they  work  in,  are  all  so 
related  to  the  well-being  of  the  city  that  they  must  be  owned  or  controlled  in  the 
interest  of  all."  To  the  average  American  the  city  is  a  mere  political  agency,  to  the 
progressive  European  it  is  "a  business  corporation  organized  to  realize  the  maximum 
of  returns  to  the  community."  A  detailed  account  of  the  finance,  town-planning, 
transport  arrangements,  housing,  administrative  methods  and  above  all  of  the 
conscious  aims  and  ideals  of  the  great  European  cities  is  set  out  in  clear  and  readable 
fashion,  with  a  number  of  opposite  photographic  illustrations. 

EUROPEAN  MORALS,  HISTORY  OF,  FROM  AUGUSTUS  TO  CHARLEMAGNE, 

by  W.  E.  H.  Lecky  (1869).  An  elaborate  examination,  first  of  the  several  theories  of 
ethics;  then  of  the  moral  history  of  Roman  Paganism,  under  philosophies  that  suc- 
cessively flourished,  Stoical,  Eclectic,  and  Egyptian;  next  the  changes  in  moral  life 
introduced  by  Christianity;  and  finally  the  position  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,  Lecky's  discussion,  with  illustrations  found  in  the 
period  of  history  covered,  is  singularly  instructive  and  not  less  interesting. 

EUROPEANS,  THE,  an  early  novel  of  Henry  James  (1878),  describes  the  sojourn 
of  two  Europeans,  Felix  Young  and  his  sister  the  Baroness  Munster,  with  American 
cousins  near  Boston.  The  dramatic  effects  of  the  story  are  produced  by  the  contrasts 
between  the  reserved  Boston  family,  and  the  easy-going  cosmopolitans,  with  their 
complete  ignorance  of  the  New  England  temperament.  To  one  of  the  cousins, 
Gertrude  Wentworth,  the  advent  of  Felix  Young,  with  his  foreign  nonchalance,  is  the 
hour  of  a  great  deliverance  from  the  insufferable  boredom  of  her  suburban  home. 
To  marry  Young,  she  rejects  the  husband  her  father  has  chosen  for  her,  Mr.  Brand, 
a  Unitarian  clergyman,  who  consoles  himself  with  her  conscientious  sister  Charlotte. 
The  novel  is  written  in  the  author's  clean,  precise  manner,  and  bears  about  it  a 
wonderfully  realistic  atmosphere  of  a  certain  type  of  American  home  where  plain 
living  and  high  thinking  are  in  order.  The  dreariness  which  may  accompany  this 
swept  and  garnished  kind  of  life  is  emphasized. 

EVANGELINE,  a  narrative  poem  in  hexameters  by  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow, 
published  in  1847.  Like  Goethe's  'Hermann  und  Dorothea'  it  is  an  idyllic  tale,  in 
hexameters,  of  two  lovers  who  are  involved  in  the  disasters  of  a  time  of  war.  When 
the  Acadians  are  expelled  from  their  homes  in  Grand  Pr6  in  1755  for  lending  aid  to 
the  agitators  against  English  rule,  a  betrothal  has  just  been  celebrated  between 
Gabriel  Lajeunesse  and  Evangeline  Bellefontaine,  son  and  daughter  of  the  two 
wealthiest  peasants  of  the  village.  In  the  confusion  of  embarkation  the  lovers  sail  on 
different  ships  and  fail  to  rejoin  one  another.  Gabriel,  and  his  father,  Basil,  make 
their  way  down  the  Mississippi  to  Louisiana,  where  they  again  become  prosperous 
by  raising  cattle.  Evangeline,  whose  father  has  died  of  grief  on  the  shore  of  Grand 
Pre*,  journeys  to  New  England,  vainly  looking  for  Gabriel.  Refusing  all  offers  of 


28o  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

marriage  she  continues  to  seek  him,  under  the  protection  of  the  parish  priest,  Father 
Felician.  After  many  inquiries  they  arrive  at  Basil's  ranch,  only  to  find  that  Gabriel 
has  just  quitted  it  for  the  western  prairies,  and  that  they  have  unwittingly  passed 
him  on  their  way  down  the  Mississippi.  Evangeline  now  follows  him  across  the 
prairies  to  the  Ozark  Mountains,  but  again  misses  him.  She  now  remains  for  several 
months  at  the  Jesuit  Mission,  awaiting  Gabriel's  expected  return,  and  when  he  does 
not  come  follows  him  to  the  woods  of  Michigan  and  finds  his  camp  deserted.  After 
years  of  fruitless  wandering,  during  which  she  becomes  a  faded  and  prematurely  old 
woman,  she  comes  to  Philadelphia,  where,  as  a  sister  of  mercy,  she  cares  for  the  poor 
and  sick.  At  length,  during  an  epidemic,  she  finds  her  long-lost  lover,  Gabriel, 
dying  in  the  alms-house,  and  the  lovers  are  united  at  his  last  breath.  Both  are 
buried  in  the  Catholic  cemetery.  Though  Longfellow  had  seen  none  of  the  places 
mentioned  in  the  poem  except  Philadelphia  he  drew  his  information  from  excellent 
historical  sources  (among  them  Haliburton's  'Historical  and  Statistical  Account  of 
Nova  Scotia/  1829,  Fremont's  'Expedition  to  the  Rocky  Mountains, '  1845,  and  Wm. 
Darby's  'Geographical  Description  of  the  State  of  Louisiana, '  1816),  and  has  made 
the  poem  an  imperishable  gallery  of  American  scenery.  Without  complexity,  the 
poem  is  a  genuine  and  affecting  record  of  human  suffering  relieved  by  human  resolu- 
tion and  devotion.  It  is  a  charming  idyll,  and  its  hexameters,  though  criticized  as 
too  dactylic,  have  strength  and  movement. 

EVELINA,  by  Frances  Burney.  In  'Evelina;  or,  the  History  of  a  Young  Lady's 
Entrance  into  the  World/  Miss  Burney,  describing  the  experiences  of  her  charming 
little  heroine  in  London,  gives  a  vivid  picture  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

Some  years  before  the  opening  of  the  story,  Sir  John  Belmont  has  deserted  his 
wife.  When  she  dies,  their  child  Evelina  is  brought  up  in  the  seclusion  of  the  country 
by  her  kind  guardian,  Air.  Villars.  Sir  John  is  followed  to  France  by  an  ambitious 
woman,  a  nurse,  who  carries  her  child  to  him  in  place  of  his  own,  and  he  educates  this 
child  believing  her  to  be  his  daughter.  Evelina,  meantime,  grown  to  be  a  pretty, 
unaffected  girl,  goes  to  visit  Mrs.  Mirvan  in  London,  and  is  introduced  to  society. 
She  meets  Lord  Orville,  the  dignified  and  handsome  hero,  and  falls  in  love  with  him. 
Later  she  is  obliged  to  visit  her  vulgar  grandmother,  Madame  Duval;  and  while  with 
her  ill-bred  relatives  she  undergoes  great  mortification  on  meeting  Lord  Orville  and 
Sir  Clement  Willoughby,  a  persistent  lover.  During  this  visit  Evelina  saves  a  poor 
young  man,  Mr.  Macartney,  from  committing  suicide.  He  proves  to  be  the  illegiti- 
mate son  of  Sir  John  Belmont,  and  in  Paris  he  has  fallen  in  love  with  the  supposed 
daughter  of  that  gentleman,  who,  he  is  afterwards  told,  is  his  own  sister.  He  tells 
Evelina  his  story;  but  as  no  names  are  mentioned,  they  remain  in  ignorance  of  their 
relationship.  At  Bath,  Evelina  sees  Lord  Orville  again,  and  in  spite  of  many  mis- 
understandings they  at  last  come  together.  Sir  John  returns  from  France,  is  made  to 
realize  the  mistake  that  had  been  made,  and  accepts  Evelina  as  his  rightful  heir. 
All  mysteries  are  cleared  up,  Mr.  Macartney  marries  the  nurse's  child  so  long  con- 
sidered Sir  John's  daughter,  and  Lord  Orville  marries  Evelina. 

The  characters  are  interesting  contrasts:  Orville,  Lovel,  Willoughby,  and  Merton 
standing  for  different  types  of  fashionable  men;  while  Captain  Mirvan,  Madame 
Duval,  and  the  Branghtons  are  excellent  illustrations  of  eighteenth-century  vulgarity. 
The  story  is  told  by  letters,  principally  those  of  Evelina  to  her  guardian.  'Evelina* 
was  published  in  1778,  and  immediately  brought  fame  to  the  authoress,  then  only 
twenty-five  years  old. 


TIIE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  281 

EVELYN,  JOHN,  DIARY  (1818-19).  The  best-known  of  the  books  by  which  Evelyn 
is  remembered  is  not  a  diary  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  but  a  record  apparently 
copied  by  the  writer  from  memoranda  made  at  the  time  of  the  occurrences  noted  in 
it,  with  occasional  alterations  and  additions  made  in  the  course  of  transcription. 
The  quarto  volume  in  which  it  is  contained  consists  of  seven  hundred  pages  clearly 
written  by  Evelyn  in  a  small  close  hand,  the  continuous  records  of  sixty-five  years 
(1641-1706)  crowded  with  remarkable  events,  the  great  plague  and  great  fire,  the 
Civil  War,  the  Commonwealth,  the  Protectorate,  the  Revolution  of  1688.  But  it 
contains  also  the  impressions  of  a  cultivated,  traveled,  and  thoughtful  man,  who 
made  frequent  tours  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  had  access  to  all  who  were 
prominent  in  the  Church,  in  literature,  art,  and  science  both  at  home  and  abroad. 
No  other  man  who  lived  through  those  breathless  days  knew  intimately  so  many 
grades  and  classes  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  or  had  so  much  right  to  speak  on  sub- 
jects that  are  still  of  living  interest  to  thoughtful  people.  The  book  is  an  invaluable 
chronicle  of  contemporary  events  from  the  standpoint  of  one  who  was  strongly 
attached  to  monarchy  and  personally  devoted  to  Charles  II.  and  James  II.,  but 
opposed  to  their  arbitrary  measures.  The  writer  is  a  devout  adherent  of  the  Church 
of  England,  yet  shows  a  tolerance,  remarkable  in  his  day,  for  Catholics  and  others 
who  were  outside  that  communion.  He  has  none  of  Pepys's  love  of  gossip  and 
triviality,  insatiable  curiosity,  nor  frankness  of  self-revelation.  But  besides  the  high 
affairs  with  which  the  diary  mostly  deals  the  reader  will  find  many  quaint  and  in- 
teresting details.  At  Haarlem  "they  showed  us  a  cottage,  where  they  told  us,  dwelt 
a  woman  who  had  been  married  to  her  twenty-fifth  husband,  and  being  now  a  widow, 
was  prohibited  to  marry  in  future:  yet  it  could  not  be  proved  that  she  had  ever  made 
away  with  any  of  her  husbands,  though "  (the  chronicler  gravely  adds)  "the  suspicion 
had  brought  her  divers  times  to  trouble.'*  At  Lincoln  he  "saw  a  tall  woman  six 
foot  two  inches  high,  comely,  middle  aged  and  well-proportioned,  who  kept  a  very 
neat  and  clean  ale-house,  and  got  most  by  people's  coming  to  see  her  on  account  of 
her  height." 

EVELYN  INNESS;  a  novel  by  George  Moore  (1898).  The  daughter  of  an  organist 
and  a  great  singer,  Evelyn  has  a  beautiful  voice,  and  dreams  of  studying  music  in 
Paris,  but  is  likely  to  be  sacrificed  to  her  father's  hobby,  the  music  of  -Palestrina  and 
the  revival  of  Hturgic  chants  in  church  music.  Sir  Owen  Asher,  a  wealthy  amateur, 
interested  in  the  father's  theories  of  music,  hears  Evelyn  sing  at  her  father's  concerts 
and  is  at  once  attracted  by  her  voice  and  beauty.  He  wants  to  take  her  away  from 
the  drudgery  of  music  lessons  and  it  gratifies  his  vanity  to  discover  a  prima  donna. 
Tempted  by  her  ambition  and  in  love  with  Sir  Owen,  she  consents  to  go  to  Paris 
with  him  in  order  to  have  the  best  musical  training.  She  tells  her  father  of  her  pur- 
pose, and  while  he  is  conventionally  shocked,  he  is  enough  of  a  musical  genius  himself 
to  understand  and  appreciate  her  temptation.  Sir  Owen  provides  an  English  lady 
of  title  for  chaperon,  in  order  that  the  external  conventions  may  be  observed,  and 
Evelyn  enters  an  enchanted  world  of  pleasure  and  success.  Six  years  later  she  returns 
to  England  to  appear  in  Wagnerian  opera.  Sir  Owen  adores  her,  and  she  intends  to 
marry  him  when  she  leaves  the  stage,  though  with  her,  love  has  changed  to  affection. 
She  becomes  interested  in  a  young  Irish  mystic  and  composer,  a  friend  of  her  father's, 
and  takes  him  as  her  lover,  though  she  cannot  bring  herself  to  break  with  Sir  Owen, 
Always  a  Catholic,  she  comes  under  the  influence  of  a  priest  who  arouses  her  con- 
science and  spiritual  nature,  and  induces  her  to  give  up  both  men,  and  make  a  retreat 
in  a  convent.  The  conflict  between  the  spirit  and  the  flesh,  and  the  Churca  and  the 


2Sz  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

world  is  the  occasion  for  an  absorbing  analysis  of  an  artistic  temperament.  Early 
music,  the  art  of  Wagner,  and  its  expression  of  the  emotions,  mysticism  and  convent 
life  are  successive  interests,  but  the  setting  is  pre-eminently  musical.  A  sequel 
'Sifter  Theresa'  (1901)  tells  about  Evelyn's  spiritual  trials  as  postulant,  novice,  and 
nun,  and  is  a  detailed  description  of  convent  life. 

EVERY  MAN  IN  HIS  HUMOUR,  by  Ben  Jonson  (1598),  one  of  the  earliest  and 
happiest  of  the  author's  efforts,  is  the  first  important  comedy  of  character  (as  dis- 
tinguished from  comedy  of  incident)  produced  on  the  English  stage.  The  aim  of  the 
author,  as  announced  in  the  Prologue,  was  to  depart  from  the  license  of  romantic 
comedy,  mixed  with  tragedy  and  history,  and  to  adhere  to  comedy  proper,  "to  sport 
with  human  follies  not  with  crimes."  By  "humour"  he  meant  peculiarities  of  con- 
duct, and  he  has  grouped  together  a  number  of  characters  with  strongly  marked 
personalities  which  stand  out  in  contrast  with  each  other.  The  most  famous  of  these 
is  Captain  Bobadil,  the  military  braggart,  who  has  a  place  of  his  own  on  the  English 
stage,  a  part  which  Charles  Dickens,  one  of  the  most  successful  of  amateur  actors, 
filled  to  admiration.  Kitely,  a  jealous  usurer,  whose  house  is  the  rendezvous  of 
riotous  young  gallants,  and  who  places  a  spy  over  his  wife  to  warn  him  of  any  approach 
to  unfaithfulness,  is  another  skilfully  contrived  figure.  Stephen  the  county-gull, 
Matthew  the  town-gull,  and  Cob  the  water-carrier  help  to  complete  the  picture  of 
London  life.  The  female  characters  are  correctly  drawn,  but  do  not  occupy  a  very 
prominent  part  on  the  stage. 

EVOLUTION  OF  MODERN  GERMANY,  THE,  by  W.  H.  Dawson  (1908).  The 
writer  of  this,  by  far  the  best  and  most  exhaustive  book  in  English  about  Germany 
since  1870,  has  made  a  life-long  study  of  that  country.  He  examines  the  causes  of 
the  unexampled  expansion  since  1870,  the  scientific  and  technical  education,  which  in 
many  parts  of  the  country  had  been  thoroughly  established  by  the  time  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  War  and  has  since  spread  over  the  whole  empire:  the  policy  of 
nationalization  and  municipalization,  carried  further  by  Germany  than  by  any  other 
country  in  the  world;  the  stimulation  of  research  by  the  State  and  the  application  of 
science  to  industry  and  agriculture;  the  thoroughness,  foresight,  and  patient  applica- 
tion to  detail  which  Germany  has  devoted  to  every  department  of  her  national  life. 
Of  these  by  far  the  most  important  has  been  Germany's  devotion  to  her  universities, 
colleges,  and  schools.  "Germany"  (says  Mr.  Dawson)  "had  no  sooner  begun  its 
career  as  an  industrial  export  country  than  it  felt  at  once  the  full  benefit  of  the  sys- 
tem of  education  which  it  had  adopted  long  before  most  of  its  rivals  had  learned  to 
regard  public  instruction  as  an  affair  of  the  State  .  .  .  Germany  more  than  any  other 
European  country  found  itself  fully  equipped  by  education  for  entering  upon  a  fierce 
competitive  struggle,  under  entirely  new  conditions,  for  the  commercial  mastery  of 
the  world.  Its  technical  colleges  turned  out,  as  by  word  of  command,  an  army  of 
trained  directors,  engineers,  and  chemists,  armed  with  the  last  discovered  secret 
of  science,  and  with  her  last  uttered  word  concerning  the  industrial  processes  and 
methods  which  henceforth  were  to  hold  the  field." 

EXCURSION,  THE,  a  narrative  and  reflective  poem  in  blank  verse  by  William 
Wordsworth.  A  portion  of  the  first  book  was  written  as  early  as  1795-1797;  books 
I.  and  II.  were  mainly  completed  in  1801  and  1802;  the  remaining  seven  books  were 
written  between  1809  and  1813,  and  the  whole  work  was  published  in  1814.  'The 
Excursion*  was  planned  as  part  of  a  larger  whole,  to  be  entitled  'The  Recluse,'  a 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  283 

fragment  cf  the  first  division  of  which  was  posthumously  published  under  the  latter 
title  in  1888.     'The  Prelude'  was  a  preliminary  study  to  this  great  projected  work 
(see  the  digest  of  'The  Prelude').     In  the  first  book  of  'The  Excursion/  entitled 
'The  Wanderer/  the  author,  after  a  walk  across  a  moorland  on  a  glaringly  hot  summer 
morning,  meets  by  appointment  at  a  ruined  cottage  a  middle-aged  Scottish  pedlar 
(The  Wanderer)  with  whom  he  plans  a  walking  tour.    The  Wanderer's  stern  up- 
bringing and  the  influences  of  simple  manners  and  austere  landscape  on  his  character 
are  described,  after  which  he  tells  the  pathetic  story  of  the  poor  woman  who  had  lived 
in  the  cottage.     Left  by  her  weaver  husband  to  support  two  children  while  he  went 
to  the  Napoleonic  wars,  she  had  maintained  a  lonely  existence  for  nine  years,  had 
apprenticed  one  child  and  lost  the  other,  and  had  finally  died  of  a  chill,  due  to  the 
ruinous  state  of  her  dwelling.     When  this  tale  is  over,  the  travelers  go  to  a  neighbor- 
ing village  for  the  night.     Next  day,  ascending  to  a  secluded  little  valley  high  in  the 
mountains,  they  visit  the  Solitary,  the  subject  of  Book  II.    He  is  a  Scottish  Presby- 
terian minister  who  had  been  chaplain  of  a  Highland  regiment,  had  resigned  and 
married  happily,  but  lost  his  wife  and  children,  and,  after  some  years  of  dull  apathy, 
was  stirred  to  life  by  the  French  Revolution.    He  became  an  ardent  revolutionary 
and  then  a  sceptic,  renouncing  his  ministry;  but  the  transformation  of  the  revolu- 
tionary spirit  into  the  spirit  of  conquest  disillusioned  him.     He  is?  now  living  a 
secluded  life  in  the  cottage  of  a  shepherd  where  he  entertains  the  tiavelers  with  a 
luncheon  of  cheese,  oat-cakes,  and  fruit,  and  as  he  shows  them  the  vale  recounts  the 
death  on  the  mountains  of  an  old  pensioner  of  the  shepherd's  family  whose  funeral 
the  visitors  had  seen  as  they  descended  into  the  valley.    The  Solitary  then  sketches 
for  them  his  own  life  and  despondency  (Book  III.),  for  which  the  Wanderer  strives  to 
supply  a  remedy  in  Book  IV.  ('Despondency  Corrected')-    The  Wanderer,  whose 
opinions  are  those  of  the  poet,  urges  man's  need  of  admiration,  hope,  and  love,  shows 
that  these  naturally  spring  from  the  contemplation  of  nature  and  association  with 
our  fellowmen,  and  deduces  from  these  sources  a  confident  belief  in  God,  Free  Will, 
and  Immortality,    After  spending  the  night  in  the  cottage  the  travelers  depart  next 
morning,  and  accompanied  by  the  Solitary  walk  in  the  cool  of  the  day  to  a  beautiful 
village  beside  a  mere,  and  pause  to  examine  the  monuments  of  the  parish  church 
(Book  V.,  'The  Pastor').    The  baptismal  font  suggests  to  the  Solitary  the  great  gulf 
between  men's  professions  and  performance,  the  weakness  of  human  nature,  and 
the  consequent  illusion  of  the  lofty  aspirations  mentioned  in  the  Wanderer's  dis- 
course.   The  parish  priest,  who  happens  to  come  up,  is  called  upon  to  solve  the 
difficulty,  and  replies  that  though  reason  is  powerless  an  attitude  of  trust  in  God 
will  lighten  life's  gloom  and  ensure  true  happiness.    It  is  admitted  by  all  that  this 
trust  comes  easiest  to  the  humble  and  retired;  and  at  the  request  of  the  Solitary  the 
Parson  gives  some  illustrations  of  it  from  the  families  of  his  own  parish.    A  miner 
and  his  wife  living  in  a  rude  stone  cottage  on  a  hilltop  are  first  described  in  all  their 
simplicity  of  faith  and  honest  toil;  and  in  the  next  book  (VI.)  the  Parson  tells  of 
various  persons  buried  in  'The  Churchyard  among  the  Mountains.'    Among  these 
are  a  man  who  sought  refuge  from  disappointed  love  in  botanizing  in  the  Lake 
district;  a  miner  who  after  a  life  of  fruitless  search  discovered  valuable  deposits  and 
died  of  joy;  a  clever  and  profligate  actor,  native  to  the  country,  who  returned  thither 
to  die  repentant;  a  Jacobite  and  a  Whig  squire,  opposed  in  principles  yet  such  close 
friends  that  they  had  a  single  monument;  a  wilful,  jealous  woman,  subdued  to 
charity  and  resignation  in  her  last  illness;  a  girl,  Ellen,  betrayed  by  her  lover,  who 
after  the  birth  of  her  child  went'  to  nurse  another  infant  and  died  of  grief  at  the 
loss  of  her  own  baby,  attributing  this  to  her  neglect;  a  man,  Wilfred  Armathwaite, 


2<S4  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

who  died  of  remorse  for  his  unfaithfulness  to  his  wife;  a  wife  and  mother  who  lived 
on  in  the  strength  and  industry  of  her  daughters;  a  country  clergyman  and  his  family; 
another  clergyman  renowned  for  piety;  a  deaf  and  a  blind  man  both  of  whom  main- 
tained cheerfulness  in  their  affliction;  the  infant  granddaughter  of  an  aged  Dalesman; 
a  young  volunteer  for  the  Napoleonic  wars  cut  off  by  premature  death;  and  a  knight 
ox  Queen  Elizabeth's  time,  who  had  settled  in  those  solitudes.  To  vary  the  mono- 
tony of  thede  obituary  noticed,  a  hardy  wood-cutter  is  introduced,  a  man  of  "cheerful 
yesterdays  and  confident  to-morrows."  In  Book  VIII.  on  the  way  to  the  Parson's 
house  the  company  discusses  the  Industrial  Revolution  and  the  social  and  economic 
changes  it  has  wrought  in  the  north  country  —  its  promotion  of  foreign  commerce 
and  its  degradation  of  the  working-man  by  the  factory  system.  Arrived  at  the 
pleasant  vicarage  the  travelers  are  greeted  by  the  pastor's  hospitable  wife  and 
daughter  and  enjoy  a  social  meal,  interrupted  by  the  advent  of  his  young  son  and  a 
school-boy  friend  from  a  fishing  excursion.  This  leads  the  Wanderer  in  the  beginning 
of  Book  IX.  to  a  discourse  on  the  blessedness  of  childhood,  its  nearness  to  God,  and 
the  need  of  preserving  this  youthful  confidence  and  faith  up  to  old  age.  This  can  be 
done,  however,  only  if  man  be  regarded  not  as  an  economic  machine  but  as  a  human 
being,  who  needs  to  develop  harmoniously  all  his  powers,  intellectual,  emotional,  and 
social.  To  this  end  an  adequate  scheme  of  universal  education  should  be  instituted 
by  the  state.  The  whole  party  then  goes  out  for  an  evening  row  at  the  lake,  and 
supper  is  served  beside  a  camp-fire  on  the  shore  of  one  of  the  islands.  Afterwards 
they  row  to  the  mainland,  climb  a  lofty  hill,  and  enjoy  a  magnificent  sunset  during 
which  time  the  pastor  offers  up  a  prayer  to  the  God,  of  whose  glory  the  golden  and 
crimson  clouds  are  but  a  faint  reflection.  The  poet  and  the  Wanderer  remain  all 
night  at  the  Parson's,  but  the  Solitary  returns  to  his  valley.  Wordsworth  intimates 
at  the  close  that  in  a  subsequent  work  he  hopes  to  tell  of  this  unfortunate  man's 
reclamation.  The  work,  however,  was  never  completed.  'The  Excursion'  has  its 
tedious  and  dull  passages  but  is  full  of  delightful  pictures  of  the  Lake  District  and 
of  the  sturdy  Dalesmen  who  inhabit  it.  It  also  contains  some  powerful  narratives 
of  peasant  life.  Those  who  have  not  read  the  poem  are  not  adequately  familiar  with 
Wordsworth's  environment  or  his  power  of  portraying  it.  Moreover,  'The  Excur- 
sion' furnishes  the  maturest  statement  of  Wordsworth's  philosophy  of  God,  Nature, 
and  Man. 

EXILES  OF  SIBERIA,  THE,  see  ELIZABETH. 

EXPANSION  OF  ENGLAND,  THE,  by  J.  R.  Seeley  (1883).  In  this  volume  Pro- 
fessor Seeley  attempts,  in  effect,  to  shift  the  point  of  view  of  his  countrymen  as  to 
the  boundaries  of  the  history  of  England.  It  is  not  a  single  island  that  they  should 
contemplate,  but  a  world  empire,  which  can  be  compared  with,  and  measured  by, 
only  the  two  great  powers  of  the  future,  Russia  and  the  United  States.  Part  first 
deals  with  the  history  of  England  with  relation  to  its  colonies  and  the  United  States. 
The  writer  complains  that  an  arbitrary  arrangement  of  reigns  is  apt  to  confuse  our 
sense  of  the  continuity  of  events.  Let  us,  he  says,  get  rid  of  such  useless  headings  as 
Reign  of  Queen  Anne,  Reign  of  George  III.,  and  make  divisions  founded  on  some  real 
stage  of  progress  in  the  national  life;  looking  onward,  not  from  king  to  king,  but  from 
great  event  to  great  event.  If  we  study  its  causes,  every  event  puts  on  the  character 
of  a  development;  and  this  development  is  a  chapter  in  the  national  history.  From 
1688  to  1815,  Mr.  Seeley  finds  the  formative  events  to  have  been  foreign  .wars,  be- 
neath whose  stormy  surface  he  looks  for  the  quiet  current  of  progress.  He  finds  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS;  285 

clue  he  wants  in  the  fact  that  almost  ail  these  wars  involved  French  interests;  and 
that  "The  whole  period  stands  out  as  an  age  of  gigantic  rivalry  between  England  and 
France;  the  expansion  of  England  in  the  New  World  and  Asia  is  the  formula  which 
suras  up  for  England  the  history  of  the  eighteenth  century,  —  the  great  decisive  duel 
between  the  two  nations  for  the  possession  of  the  New  World."  Her  colonies  having 
been  planted  at  a  tremendous  sacrifice  of  money,  energy,  and  life,  he  would  have 
them  held  as  a  vital  part  of  the  parent  State,  not  as  "possessions."  "We  must  cease 
to  think  that  emigrants,  when  they  go  to  colonies,  leave  England,  or  are  lost  to 
England.  .  .  .  When  we  have  accustomed  ourselves  to  contemplate  the  whole 
empire  together,  and  call  it  all  England,  we  shall  see  that  here  too  is  a  United  States; 
here  too  is  a  great  homogeneous  people  .  .  .  but  dispersed  over  a  boundless  space. 
...  If  we  are  disposed  to  doubt  whether  any  system  can  be  devised  capable  of 
holding  together  communities  so  distant  from  each  other,  then  is  the  time  to  recollect 
the  history  of  the  United  States.  They  have  solved  this  problem." 

The  second  half  of  the  book  contains  eight  lectures,  chiefly  given  to  the  Indian 
empire,  explaining  the  necessity  of  the  conquest;  the  manner  of  the  English  govern- 
ance of  that  empire,  —  a  study  in  which  he  affirms  boldly  that  if  ever  a  universal 
feeling  of  nationality  arises  there,  England  cannot  and  should  not  preserve  her 
dominancy;  the  mutual  influence  of  England  and  India;  the  succeeding  phases  in  the 
conquest;  the  internal  dangers  that  threaten  the  stability  of  British  control  in  the 
East;  and  finally,  the  condition  of  public  opinion  concerning  the  modem  British 
empire.  In  a  delightful  manner,  and  with  large  resources  of  scholarship,  Professor 
Seeley  shows  the  continuity  of  the  development  of  England,  the  orderly  sequence 
and  significance  of  her  failures  as  well  as  her  successes,  and  the  way  in  which  the  story 
of  her  past  should*  be  made  instructive  for  her  future.  And  in  conclusion  he  has  this 
admirable  deliverance,  which  every  reader  may  lay  to  heart:  "I  am  often  told  by 
those  who,  like  myself,  study  the  question  how  history  should  be  taught,  '  Oh,  you 
must,  before  all  things,  make  it  interesting/  .  .  .  But  the  word  'interesting'  does  not 
properly  mean  romantic.  That  is  interesting,  in  the  proper  sense,  which  affects  our 
interests,  which  closely  concerns  us,  and  is  deeply  important  to  us.  I  have  tried  to 
show  you  that  the  history  of  modern  England  from  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century  is  interesting  in  this  sense,  because  it  is  pregnant  with  great  results,  which  will 
affect  the  lives  of  ourselves  and  our  children  and  the  future  greatness  of  our  country. 
Make  history  interesting,  indeed  1  I  cannot  make  history  more  interesting  than  it  is ! 
.  .  .  And  therefore  when  I  meet  a  person  who  does  not  find  history  interesting,  it 
does  not  occur  to  me  to  alter  history,  —  I  try  to  alter  him. " 

EXPERIMENTAL  RESEARCHES  IN  ELECTRICITY,  by  Michael  Faraday  (3 
vols.,  1839-1855).  A  monumental  work  in  the  literature  of  science;  not  merely 
recording  the  results  of  experiment  in  what  Tyndall  called  "a  career  of  discovery 
unparalleled  in  the  history  of  pure  experimental  science,"  but  enriching  the  record 
with  thoughts,  and  clothing  it  in  many  passages  in  a  style  worthy  of  exceptional 
recognition.  In  devising  and  executing  experiments  for  passing  beyond  the  limits 
of  existing  knowledge,  in  a  field  the  most  difficult  ever  attempted  by  research,  Fara- 
day showed  a  genius,  and  achieved  a  success,  marking  him  as  a  thinker  not  less  than 
an  observer  of  the  first  order.  In  strength  and  sureness  of  imagination,  penetrating 
the  secrets  of  force  in  nature,  and  putting  the  finger  of  exact  demonstration  upon 
them,  he  was  a  Shakespeare  of  research,  the  story  of  whose  work  has  a  permanent 
interest.  He  made  electricity,  in  one  of  its  manifestations,  explain  magnetism.  He 
showed  to  demonstration  that  chemical  action  is  purely  electrical,  and  that  to  elec- 


286  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

tricity  the  atoms  of  matter  owe  those  properties  which  constitute  them  elements  in 
nature.  In  language  of  lofty  prophetic  conception  he  more  than  suggested  that  the 
physical  secret  of  living  things,  the  animal  and  the  plant,  is  electrical.  He  particu- 
larly dwelt  on  the  amount  of  electricity  forming  the  charge  carried  by  the  oxygen  of 
the  air,  which  is  the  active  agent  in  combustion  and  the  supporter  of  life  in  both  ani- 
mals and  plants,  and  only  stopped  short  of  definitely  pronouncing  vitality  electrical, 
lie  urged  von-  strongly  as  a  belief,  to  which  no  test  of  experiment  could  be  applied, 
that  gravitation  is  by  electrical  agency,  and  that  in  fact  the  last  word  of  discovery 
and  demonstration  in  physics  will  show  that  electricity  is  the  universal  agency  in 
nature.  And  among  his  far-reaching  applications  of  thought  guided  by  new  knowl- 
edge, was  liis  rejection  of  the  idea  of  "action  at  a  distance, "  in  the  manner  of  "attrac- 
tion."  If  a  body  is  moved,  it  is  not  by  a  mysterious  pull,  but  by  a  push.  The 
moving  force  carries  it.  These  ideas  outran  the  power  of  science  to  immediately 
understand  and  accept.  But  Maxwell,  Hertz,  and  Helmholtz  have  led  the  way  after 
Faraday,  to  the  extent  that  his  electrical  explanation  of  light  is  now  fully  accepted. 
Fifteen  years  alter  his  death,  the  greatest  of  his  successors  in  physics,  Helmholtz  of 
Berlin,  said  in  a  "Faraday  Lecture"  in  London,  that  the  later  advances  in  electrical 
science  had  more  than  confirmed  Faraday's  conclusions,  and  that  English  science 
had  made  a  mistake  in  not  accepting  them  as  its  point  of  departure  for  new  research. 
To  the  same  effect  President  Armstrong  of  the  Chemical  Society,  to  which  Helm- 
holtz spoke,  has  recently  declared  his  conviction  that  Faraday's  explanation  of 
chemical  action  as  electrically  caused  should  have  been  accepted  long  since. 

In  delicacy  of  character  as  well  as  rugged  strength,  in  warmth  and  purity  of 
emotion,  in  grace,  earnestness,  and  refinement  of  manner,  in  the  magnetism  of  his 
presence,  and  in  masterly  clearness  in  explanation,  especially  •  to  his  Christmas 
audiences  of  children  (annual  courses  of  six  lectures),  Faraday  was  as  remarkable  as 
he  was  in  intellectual  power  and  in  discoveries.  He  was  connected  with  the  Royal 
Institution  for  fifty-five  years,  first  as  Sir  Humphry  Davy's  assistant,  1812-29,  and 
then  as  his  successor,  1829-67. 

EXPLORATIONS  AND  ADVENTURES  IN  EQUATORIAL  AFRICA,  by  Paul 
Belloni  Du  Chaillu  (1861;  revised  edition,  1871).  A  story  of  African  travels, 
1855-59,  from  the  coast  of  West  Africa  inland,  over  the  region  on  the  equator  to  two 
degrees  on  each  side.  The  intrepid  explorer  traveled  8000  miles  on  foot  and  with  no 
white  companion.  The  observations  which  he  made  are  important  contributions  to 
geographical,  ethnological,  and  zoological  science.  The  game  which  he  shot  num- 
bered 2000  birds  (of  which  60  were  new  to  science),  and  over  1000  quadrupeds.  The 
new  knowledge  of  the  gorilla  and  of  other  remarkable  apes  was  a  story  savoring 
almost  of  invention,  and  the  first  impression  of  some  critics  was  one  of  skepticism; 
but  Murchison  and  Owen,  and  other  authorities  of  eminence,  upheld  Du  Chaillu's 
credit,  and  the  substantial  accuracy  of  his  statements  was  confirmed  by  a  French 
expedition  in  1862,  and  by  Du  Chaillu's  second  exploration  of  the  same  region, 
1863-65,  an  account  of  which  he  gave  in  *A  Journey  to  Ashango-Land,'  i86£  He 
was  also  the  first  to  discover  the  "Pigmies,"  rediscovered  by  Stanley. 

EYES  LIKE  THE  SEA,  by  the  celebrated  Hungarian  novelist  Maurice  J6kai,  was 
crowned  by  the  Hungarian  Academy  as  the  best  Magyar  novel  of  the  year  1890. 
It  takes  high  rank  among  the  author's  one  hundred  and  fifty  works  of  fiction.  The 
peculiar  title  of  the  book  has  reference  to  the  eyes  of  the  heroine,  Bessy,  a  girl  of 
gentle  parentage,  yet  of  a  perverse,  adventurous  disposition,  which  during  the  course 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  287 

of  the  story  leads  her  five  times  into  matrimony;  the  five  husbands  representing  almost 
every  class  of  society,  from  the  peasant  to  the  nobleman.  She  is,  indeed,  the  pivot 
on  which  the  narrative  turns;  is  both  hero  and  heroine,  as  she  partakes  of  the  subtler 
qualities  of  both  sexes.  The  second  though  unacknowledged  hero  is  Maurice  J6kai 
himself;  his  story  being  generally,  if  not  circumstantially,  autobiographical.  In  his 
youth  he  had  loved  Bessy.  She  rejects  his  love,  but  ever  afterwards  cherishes  the 
memory  of  it  as  the  one  noble  ideal  in  her  wayward  life.  Even  this  may  be  a  form  of 
perversity.  J6kai  leaves  her  to  console  himself  with  the  pursuit  of  literary  fame. 
Later  he  takes  a  patriot's  part  in  the  Hungarian  revolution  of  1848.  In  the  thick  of 
it  he  marries  an  actress,  who  is  most  devoted  and  faithful  to  him.  From  time  to  time, 
Bessy  seeks  his  rather  unwilling  advice  and  protection  in  her  love  affairs.  From  the 
lady  with  "  eyes  like  the  sea  "  he  cannot  escape.  Its  strong  local  color  makes  the  book 
a  faithful  picture  of  Hungarian  social  life,  while  throughout  it  is  tremendously  stimu- 
lating, fresh,  and  boisterous  as  a  wind  from  the  Carpathian  Mountains. 

FABLES  BY  LA  FONTAINE,  see  FABLES  OF  JESOP. 

FABLES  OF  .3SSOP,  THE,  a  collection  of  brief  stories  mostly  about  animals  who 
think  and  speak  like  men,  each  tale  illustrating  some  practical  truth.  They  arc 
attributed  to  ^Esop,  said  to  have  been  a  deformed  Greek  slave  of  the  seventh  century 
B.  C.,  who  won  his  liberty  by  his  skill  as  a  fabulist,  was  favored  by  Crcesus,  King  of 
Lydia,  and  slain  at  Delphi  in  a  tumult.  They  were  not  collected,  however,  until  320 
B.  C.,  and  survive  only  in  later  versions  —  e.  g.,  that  of  Babrius  in  Greek  and  that  of 
Phaedrius  in  Latin.  Whether  JEsop  ever  existed  or  not,  the  fables  attributed  to  him 
were  not  his  own  invention  but  were  Oriental  in  origin.  As  a  literary  type  they 
represent  an  early  stage  of  culture  when  man  still  feels  kinship  with  the  animals  but 
is  sophisticated  enough  to  use  them  as  representatives  of  human  nature  in  stories 
that  enforce  some  shrewd  maxim  of  homely  wisdom.  Of  modern  adaptations  of 
JSsop's  Fables  the  most  important  are  the  three  books  of  versified  Fables  by  Jean 
de  la  Fontaine,  published  in  1668,  1679,  and  1693  respectively.  A  lover  of  the  woods 
and  fields  La  Fontaine  entered  with  fresh  sympathy  into  the  adventures  of  the 
animals  in  ^sop,  who  become  for  him  real  beasts;  but  his  clear  perception  and  genial 
toleration  of  the  foibles  of  his  fellowmen  enabled  him  at  the  same  time  to  make  these 
beasts  the  representatives  of  the  French  peasants,  bourgeoisie,  and  nobles  of  his  own 
day;  and  his  thoroughly  Gallic  wit,  humor,  realism,  and  grace  of  expression  have 
elevated  his  fables  to  the  highest  rank  of  French  poetry. 

FAERY  QUEEN,  THE,  a  metrical  romance  by  Edmund  Spenser,  dedicated  to  Queen 
Elizabeth,  was  published  in  1590.  The  poet  was  already  known  by  his  '  Shepherd 's 
Calendar,'  but  the  appearance  of  the  first  three  books  of  the  'Faery  Queen'  brought 
him  fame.  The  second  three  books  appeared  in  1595-96.  The  poem  is  an  allegory, 
founded  on  the  manners  and  customs  of  chivalry,  with  the  aim  of  portraying  a  perfect 
knight.  Spenser  planned  twelve  books,  treating  of  the  twelve  moral  virtues;  but 
only  six  are  now  in  existence.  These  are:  The  Legend  of  the  Red  Cross  Knight, 
typifying  holiness;  The  Legend  of  Sir  Guyon,  temperance;  The  Legend  of  Britomartis, 
chastity;  The  Legend  of  Cambel  and  Friamond,  friendship;  The  Legend  of  Artegall, 
justice;  and  The  Legend  of  Sir  Calidore,  courtesy.  To  these  is  sometimes  added  a 
fragment  on  Mutability.  "  In  the  Faery  Queen, "  Spenser  says,  "  I  mean  Glory  in  my 
general  intention;  but,  in  my  particular,  I  conceive  the  most  excellent  and  glorious 
person  of  our  Sovereign  the  Queen  and  her  Kingdom  in  Faery  Land. "  He  supposes 


that  the  Faery  Queen  held  a  superb  feast,  lasting  twelve  days,  on  each  of  which  a 
complaint  was  presented.  To  redress  these  twelve  injuries  twelve  knights  sally 
forth;  and  during  his  adventures,  each  knight  proves  himself  the  hero  of  some  parti- 
cular virtue.  Besides  these  twelve  knights  there  is  one  general  hero,  Prince  Arthur, 
who  represents  magnificence.  In  every  book  he  appears;  and  his  aim  is  to  discover 
and  win  Gloriana,  or  glory.  The  characters  are  numerous,  being  drawn  from  classic 
mythology,  mediaeval  romance,  and  the  poet's  fancy.  The  scene  is  usually  the  wood 
where  dragons  are  killed,  where  knights  wander  and  meet  with  adventures  of  all 
kinds,  where  magicians  attempt  their  evil  spells,  and  where  all  wrongs  are  vanquished. 
Each  canto  is  filled  with  incidents  and  short  narratives;  among  the  most  beautiful  of 
which  are  Una  with  the  Lion;  and  Britomart's  vision  of  the  Mask  of  Cupid  in  the 
enchanted  castle.  The  'Faery  Queen '  has  always  been  admired  by  poets;  and  it  was 
on  the  advice  of  a  poet,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  that  Spenser  published  the  great  work. 

FAIR  BARBARIAN,  A,  by  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett,  appeared  in  1881.  Like 
James's  *  Daisy  Miller,'  it  is  a  study  of  the  American  girl  in  foreign  surroundings. 
Miss  Octavia  Bassett,  of  Nevada,  aged  nineteen,  arrives  with  six  trunks  full  of  finery, 
to  visit  her  aunt,  Miss  Belinda  Bassett,  in  the  English  village  of  Slowbridge.  The 
beautiful  American  soon  sets  tongues  wagging.  All  the  village  young  ladies  wear 
gowns  of  one  pattern  obsolete  elsewhere,  and  chill  propriety  reigns.  Octavia's" 
diamonds  and  Paris  gowns,  her  self-possession  and  frank  independence,  are  frowned 
upon  by  the  horrified  mammas,  especially  when  all  the  young  men  gather  eagerly 
about  her.  Octavia,  serenely  indifferent  to  the  impression  she  creates  at  the  tea- 
drinkings  and  croquet  parties,  refuses  to  be  awed  even  by  the  autocrat  of  the  place, 
Lady  Theobald.  Her  ladyship's  meek  granddaughter  is  spurred  by  admiration  of 
the  American  to  unprecedented  independence.  She  has  been  selected  to  be  Captain 
Barold's  wife,  but  as  he  does  not  care  for  her,  she  ventures  to  accept  Mr.  Burmistone, 
upon  whom  her  grandmother  frowns.  Barold  meantime  is  enslaved  by  the  charming 
Octavia.  But  he  disapproves  of  her  unconventional  ways,  and  considering  it  a  con- 
descension on  his  part  to  ally  himself  with  so  obscure  a  family,  he  proposes  with 
great  reluctance  and  is  astonished  to  meet  a  point-blank  refusal.  In  due  time,  Oc- 
tavia Ts  father  and  her  handsome  Western  lover  join  her;  and  after  a  wedding  the  like 
of  which  had  never  been  witnessed  at  Slowbridge,  she  says  good-by  to  her  English 
friends.  The  story  is  slight,  but  the  character-sketches  are  amusing,  the  contrast  of 
national  traits  striking,  and  the  whole  book  very  entertaining. 

FAIR  GOD,  THE,  by  Lew  Wallace  (1873),  passed  through  twaaty  editions  in  ten 
years.  It  is  a  historical  romance  of  the  conquest  of  Mexico  by  the  Spaniards,  its 
scene  laid  upon  Aztec  soil,  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  title  is 
derived  from  Quetzalcoatl,  "the  fair  god,"  the  Aztec  deity  of  the  air.  Descriptions 
of  the  religion  and  national  customs  are  pleasantly  interwoven  with  the  plot.  The 
Emperor  Montezuma  is  drawn  as  a  noble  but  vacillating  prince,  whom  the  efforts  of 
nobles  and  people  alike  fail  to  arouse  to* -a  determined  opposition  to  the  invading 
Cortez.  At  first  thinking  that  the  Spaniards  are  gods,  he  insists  upon  welcoming 
them  as  guests,  ignoring  the  protests  of  his^ubjects,  and  even  permitting  himself 
to  be  craftily  shut  up,  a  voluntary  prisoner,  in  ^fte  quarters  of  the  Spaniards.  Guata- 
mozin,  nephew  and  son-in-law  to  Montezuma,  mighty  in  arms  as  wise  in  counsel, 
organizes  the  Aztecs  for  the  overthrow  of  the  Spaniards.  A  fierce  conflict  rages  for 
many  days.  Toward  its  close  the  melancholy  Montezuma  appears  upon  the  prison 
wall.  Before  all  the  people  Guatamozin  sends  a  shaft  home  to  the  breast  of  his 


THE  READER'S  DICIEST  OF  BOOKS  289 

monarch,  who  lives  long  enough  to  intrust  the  empire  to  his  slayer,  and  also  free  him 
from  blame  for  his  death,  explaining  that  the  shaft  had  been  aimed  at  his  (Montezu- 
ma's)  own  request.  The  Aztec  army  now  rallies,  and  the  Spaniards,  yielding  at 
length  to  starvation,  disease,  and  superior  numbers,  leave  the  empire.  Too  shattered 
to  regain  its  former  vigor,  even  under  the  wise  rule  of  Guatamozin,  the  State  gradu- 
ally totters  to  its  eventual  fall,  a  catastrophe  which  the  author  indicates  but  does  not 
picture. 

FAIR  MAID  OF  PERTH,  THE,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  (1831),  is  historic  in  setting  and 
thoroughly  Scotch.  The  time  is  the  reign  of  the  weak  but  well-meaning  King  Robert 
III.  of  Scotland,  whose  scapegrace  son  David,  the  crown  prince,  is  the  connecting 
link  in  the  story  between  the  nobility  and  the  burgher-folk  of  the  city  of  Perth. 
Catharine,  the  beautiful  daughter  of  Simon  Glover,  an  honest  burgher,  is  admired 
-by  the  crown  prince,  who  seeks  her  love  but  not  her  hand.  Repulsed  in  his  suit,  the 
prince,  through  Sir  John  Ramorny,  his  servant,  tries  to  abduct  Catharine  on  the  eve 
of  St.  Valentine's  day;  but  by  the  timely  intervention  of  Henry  Wynd,  the  armorer, 
she  is  saved;  and  Henry  becomes,  according  to  custom,  her  valentine  for  the  year  to 
come.  Then  follows  a  series  of  complications,  political,  ecclesiastical,  and  social, 
through  which  the  eager  reader  follows  the  fate  of  the  fair  Catharine,  the  prince, 
the  Black  Douglas,  and  the  other  chief  characters.  Like  all  Scott's  novels,  'The 
Fair  Maid  of  Perth'  contains  fine  descriptions  of  scenery,  and  stirring  accounts  of 
battle;  and  unlike  many  of  his  plots,  this  one  allows  the  "course  of  true  love"  to  ruu 
comparatively  smooth,  there  being  only  obstacles  enough  to  prove  the  mettle  of  the 
honest  armorer. 

FAIRY  TALES.  The  stories  of  Cinderella,  Beauty  and  the  Beast,  Hop  o*  my  Thumb, 
Sleeping  Beauty,  and  others,  so  fascinating  to  children  and  to  peasants,  were  looked 
on  merely  as  amusing  tales,  until  the  efforts  of  Grimm  and  his  successors  drew  back, 
as  it  were,  a  curtain,  and  disclosed  another  fairy  region  of  almost  limitless  perspective, 
whose  vanishing-point  may  be  nearly  identical  with  the  origin  of  the  human  race. 
For  by  the  study  of  comparative  mythology,  it  was  discovered  that  these  tales  are 
not  restricted  to  Europe  alone,  but  are  to  be  found,  in  varying  forms,  among  almost 
all  nations.  Comparative  philology  then  showed  the  original  union  of  the  Teutonic, 
Celtic,  Latin,  Greek,  Persian,  and  Hindu  races  in  the  primitive  Aryan  race,  whose 
home  has  been  variously  fixed  in  Western  Central  Asia,  in  Europe,  and  even  in  Africa; 
from  which  they  broke  away  in  prehistoric  dispersions.  This  was  discovered  by  trac- 
ing words  through  the  German,  Latin,  Greek,  and  Persian  forms  up  to  the  Sanskrit, 
the  oldest  literary  form  of  all;  their  identity  proves  their  descent  from  a  common 
stock.  Thus  most  of  our  popular  tales  date  from  the  days  "when  the  primitive 
Aryan  took  his  evening  meal  of  yava,  and  sipped  his  fermented  mead,  while  the  Lap- 
lander was  master  of  Europe,  and  the  dark-skinned  Sudra  roamed  through  the 
Punjab."  The  survival  of  popular  tales  is  due  to  their  being  unconscious  growths,  to 
the  strict  adherence  to  form  shown  by  illiterate  and  savage  people  in  recitals,  proved 
also  by  a  child's  insistence  on  accuracy,  and  to  the  laws  of  the  permanence  of  culture. 
All  these  make  the  science  of  folk-lore  possible. 

There  are  several  theories  in  regard  to  the  origin  of  folk-tales.  The  oldest  is  the 
Oriental  theory,  which  traces  all  back  to  a  common  origin  in  the  Vedas,  the  Sanskrit 
sacred  books  of  Buddhism,  dating  probably  from  2000  B.  C.  It  is  true  that  the  germs 
of  most  tales  are  found  in  the  Vedas,  but  proofs  of  the  Indian  origin  of  stories  are 
lacking;  the  discovery  of  tales  in  Egypt  which  were  written  down  in  the  period  of  the 


290  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

early  empire  are  objections  to  its  acceptance,  and  the  idea  of  diffusion  will  not  account 
for  similar  tales  found  in  Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  America.     The  Aryan  theory, 
supported  by  Max  Muller,  Grimm,  and  others,  gives  as  their  origin  the  explanation 
of  natural  phenomena,  as  the  sun's  daily  course,  the  change  of  day  and  night,  dawn, 
winter,  and  summer.    These  nature-myths  must  not  be  regarded  as  originally  meta- 
phors; they  were  primitive  man's  philosophy  of  nature,  in  the  days  when  he  could 
not  distinguish  between  it  and  his  personality,  when  "there  was  no  supernatural, 
because  it  was  not  yet  discovered  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  nature";  and  so 
every  object  was  endowed  with  a  personal  life.    This  view  is  supported  by  the  proper 
names  in  myths  having  been  originally  names  of  natural  phenomena.    The  savage 
myths  of  to-day  explain  the  myth-making  of  old:  instance  the  New  Zealand  tale  of 
'The  Children  of  Heaven  and  Earth'  in  Grey's  'Polynesian  Mythology,'  connected 
with  the  Sanskrit  Dyauspitar  (Jupiter),  Heaven-father,  and  Prithivl-matar,  Earth- 
mother,  in  the  Vedas.    Folk-lore  is  "the  debris  brought  down  by  the  streams  of 
tradition  from  the  distant  highlands  of  ancient  mythology, "  and  the  survivals  which 
are  unintelligible  singly  must  be  explained  by  comparing  them  with  others.    The  tales 
have  enough  likeness  to  show  that  they  come  from  the  same  source,  and  enough  dif- 
ference to  show  they  were  not  copied  from  each  other.     Muller  says,  "  Nursery  tales 
are  generally  the  last  things  to  be  adopted  by  one  nation  from  another."     The  danger 
is  that  too  many  may  be  assigned  to  nature-myths.    Even  the  'Song  of  Sixpence* 
has  been  claimed  as  one:  the  pie  representing  earth  and  sky;  the  birds,  the  twenty- 
four  hours;  the  opened  pie,  the  daybreak,  with  singing  birds;  the  king,  the  sun, 
with  his  money,  sunshine;  the  queen,  the  moon;  the  maid,  dawn  hanging  out  the 
clothes,  clouds,  is  frightened  away  by  the  blackbird,  sunrise.    Another  theory, 
supported  by  Tylor  and  Lang,  traces  the  origin  of  folk-lore  to  a  far  earlier  source 
than  the  Aryan,  —  the  customs  and  practices  of  early  man:  such  as  totemism,  descent 
from  animals  or  things,  which  were  at  last  worshiped;  and  curious  taboos  or  pro- 
hibitions, which  can  be  explained  by  similar  savage  customs  of  the  present.    Thus 
tales  become  valuable  both  for  the  anthropologist  and  the  mythologist.    But  late 
authorities  declare  that  it  is  useless  to  seek  any  common  origin  of  folk-tales;  since 
the  incidents,  which  are  few,  and  the  persons,  who  are  types,  are  based  on  ideas  that 
might  occur  to  uncivilized  races  anywhere. 

Our  popular  fairy-tales,  or  contes,  have  been,  in  the  main,  handed  down  orally. 
However,  some  of  their  elements  or  variants  at  least  have  come  down  through  liter- 
ary collections  in  the  following  succession:  The  Vedas,  the  Sanskrit  sacred  books;  the 
Persian  Zend-Avesta;  the  Jatakas  of  about  the  fifth  century  B.  C.;  from  some  lost 
Sanskrit  books  came  the  'Panchatantra,'  a  book  of  fables  earlier  than  550  A.  D.,  of 
which  the  Hitopadeca  is  a  compilation;  a  Pahlavi  version  of  the  same  period;  an 
Arabic  version  before  the  tenth  century;  and  a  Persian  of  about  noo  A.  D.;  the 
'  Syntipas, '  a  Greek  version,  belongs  to  the  eleventh  century.  Then  followed  transla- 
tions into  several  European  languages.  The  earliest  collection  of  European  tales 
was  made  by  Straparola,  who  published  at  Venice  in  1550  his  'Notti  Piacevola,' 
which  was  translated  into  French,  and  was  probably  the  origin  of  the  '  Contes  des 
FeSes.'  It  contains  the  tale  of  'Puss  in  Boots,'  and  elements  of  some  others.  The 
best  early  collection  is  Basile's,  the  'Pentamerone,'  published  at  Naples  in  1637. 
In  1696  there  appeared  in  the  Recueil,  a  magazine  published  by  Moetjens  at  The 
Hague,  the  story  'La  Belle  au  Bois  Dormant'  (our  'Sleeping  Beauty'),  by  Charles 
Perrault;  and  in  1697  appeared  seven  others:  'Little  Red  Riding  Hood,'  'Bluebeard/ 
'Puss  in  Boots,'  'The  Fairy,'  'Cinderella/  'Riquet  of  the  Tuft/  and  'Hop  o'  My 
Thumb/  These  were  published  together  under  the  title  'Contes  du  Temps  Pass6, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  291 

Avec  des  MoraKteV  by  P.  Darmancour,  Perrault's  son,  for  whom  lie  wrote  them 
down  from  a  nurse's  stories.     These  fairy-tales  became  part  of  the  world's  literature; 
and  in  England  at  least,  where  scarcely  any  tales  existed  in  literary  form  except  'Jack 
the  Giant-Killer,'  they  superseded  all  the  national  versions.     The  investigations  of 
Jacob  and  William  Grimm,  and  their  successors  in  this  field,  have  reduced  to  written 
form  the  tales  of  nearly  all  nations,  revealing  the  same  characters  and  incidents  under 
countless  names  and  shapes.     The  method  used  by  them  has  been  to  take  down  the 
tales  from  the  recitals  of  the  common  people  —  generally  of  the  old  women  who  have 
been  the  chief  conservers  of  stories,  —  exactly  as  given,  rough  or  uncouth  as  the 
narrative  may  be.   For  in  some  apparently  absurd  feature  may  be  a  survival  of 
ancient  custom  or  myth  of  great  historic  interest;  and  the  germs  of  these  universal 
stories,  in  becoming  part  of  a  nation's  folk-lore,  take  a  local  form  and  so  become 
valuable  to  the  ethnologist.     Thus  the  beautiful  myths  of  the  South  in  the  Northern 
forms,  where  winter's  rigor  alters  the  conditions  of  life,  have  an  entirely  different 
setting.     We  must  include  in  the  comparison  of  stories  the  Greek  myths;  as  the 
Odyssey  is  now  conceded  to  be  a  mass  of  popular  tales  (Gerland's  'Altgriechische 
Marchen  in  der  Odyssee,'  —  'Old  Greek  Tales  in  the  Odyssey').     To  these  we  must 
add  the  tales  of  ancient  Egypt;  those  narrated  by  Herodotus,  and  other  travelers  and 
historians;  the  beautiful  story  of  '  Cupid  and  Psyche,'  given  by  Apuleius  in  his  ' Meta- 
morphoses '  of  the  second  century  A.  D.,  which  also  was  taken  from  a  popular  myth, 
as  we  shall  see,  very  widely  distributed.     Spreading  all  these  before  us,  with  the 
wealth  of  Eastern  lore,  and  that  gathered  recently  from  every  European  nation,  and 
from  the  savage  or  barbarian  tribes  of  Asia,  Africa,  America,  and  Polynesia,  we  shall 
find  running  through  them  all  the  same  germ,  either  in  varying  form,  or  simply  in 
detached  features,  to  our  astonishment  and  delight.    We  shall  examine  in  detail  the 
most  familiar  of  the  popular  fairy-tales,  noting  the  principal  variants  or  recurring 
incidents,  what  survival  of  nature-myth  they  contain,  what  ancient  custom  or  reli- 
gious rite,  and  their  possible  links  with  Oriental  literary  collections;  showing  thus  in  a 
limited  way  the  basis  on  which  the  before-mentioned  theories  of  their  origin  rest. 
Taking  Perrault's1 '  Tales '  as  the  best  versions,  we  shall  find  that  actual  fairies  appear 
but  seldom,  as  is  the  case  generally  in  traditional  fairy  stories;  in  'Cinderella'  and 
'The  Sleeping  Beauty'  the  fairies  are  of  the  genuine  traditional  type,  but  in  other 
tales  we  find  merely  the  magical  key  or  the  fairy  'Seven-League  Boots.'    Yet  the 
fairies  have  so  identified  themselves  with  popular  tales  by  giving  them  their  titles, 
that  we  may  find  it  interesting  to  look  up  their  origin.     The  derivation  of  the  word  is 
given  from  fatare,  to  enchant,  fae  or  /£,  meaning  enchanted,  and  running  into  the 
varying  forms  of  fee*,  fata,  hada,  feen,  fay,  and  fairy;  or  with  more  probability  from 
fatum,  what  is  spoken,  and  Fata,  the  Fates,  who  speak,  Faunus  or  Fatuus,  the  god, 
and  his  sister  or  wife  Fatua.    This  points  to  the  primitive  personification  of  natural 
phenomena:  all  localities  and  objects  were  believed  to  be  inhabited  by  spirits.    Simi- 
lar beings  are  found  in  the  legend-lore  of  all  nations;  as  the  Nereids  of  Greece,  the 
Apsaras  of  India,  the  Slavonic  Wilis,  the  Melanesian  Bius,  the  Scotch  fairies  or  Good 
Ladies  —  as  they  are  termed,  just  as  the  daughter  of  Faunus  was  not  known  by  her 
real  name,  but  as  the  Good  Goddess  ("  Bona  Dea ' ') .    Their  mediaeval  connection  with 
the  nether- world  and  the  dead  may  possibly  point  to  their  origin  as  ancestral  ghosts. 
We  shall  find  that  "the  story  of  the  heroes  of  Teutonic  and  Hindu  folk-lore,  the 
stories  of  'Boots '  and '  Cinderella/  of  Logedas  Rajah  and  Surya  Bai,  are  the  story  also 
of  Achilleus  and  Oidipous,  of  Perseus  and  Theseus,  of  Helen  and  Odysseus,  of  Baldur 
and  Rustem  and  Sigurd.    Everywhere  there  is  the  search  for  the  bright  maiden 
Who  has  been  stolen  away,  everywhere  the  long  struggle  to  reclaim  her. "     (Cox.) 


292  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

SLEEPING  BEAUTY.  —  This  story  is  regarded  by  mythologists  as  a  nature-myth, 
founded  on  nature's  long  sleep  in  winter.  The  Earth-goddess  pricked  by  winter's 
dart  falls  into  a  deep  sleep,  from  which  she  is  aroused  by  the  prince,  the  Sun,  who 
searches  far  for  her.  We  may  find  a  slight  parallel  in  Demeter's  search  for  her  lost 
daughter,  Proserpine,  in  the  Greek  myth ;  but  a  much  more  evident  resemblance  is 
seen  in  the  sleep  of  Brynhild,  stung  to  her  sleep  by  the  sleep-thorn.  'The  Two 
Brothers,'  found  in  an  Egyptian  papyrus  of  the  Nineteenth  Dynasty,  —  the  time  of 
Seti  II.,  — had  several  incidents  similar  to  those  of  'The  Sleeping  Beauty.'  The 
Hathors  who  pronounce  the  fate  of  the  prince  correspond  to  the  old  fairy,  and  both 
tales  show  the  impossibility  of  escaping  fate.  The  spindle  whose  prick  causes  the 
long  slumber  is  a  counterpart  of  the  arrow  that  wounds  Achilles,  the  thorn  that 
pricks  Sigurd,  and  the  mistletoe  fatal  to  Baldur.  In  'Surya  Bai '  (from  'Old  Deccan 
Days ')  the  mischief  is  done  by  the  poisoned  nail  of  a  demon.  In  the  Greek  myth  of 
Orpheus,  Eurydice  is  stung  by  the  serpent  of  darkness.  The  hedge  that  surrounds 
the  palace  appears  in  the  flames  encircling  Brynhild  on  the  Glittering  Heath,  and  the 
seven  coils  of  the  dragon;  also  in  the  Hindu  tale  of  'Panch  Phul  Ranee,'  in  which 
the  heroine  is  surrounded  by  seven  ditches,  surmounted  by  seven  hedges  of  spears. 
In  the  northern  form  of  the  story  an  interesting  feature  is  the  presence  of  the  ivy, 
the  one  plant  that  can  endure  the  winter's  numbing  touch.  In  a  Transylvanian 
variant  a  maiden  spins  her  golden  hair  in  a  cavern,  from  which  she  is  rescued  by  a 
man  who  undergoes  an  hour  of  torture  for  three  nights.  The  awakening  by  a  kiss 
corresponds  to  Sigurd's  rousing  Brynhild  by  his  magic  sword;  but  the  kiss  may  be  a 
survival  of  an  ancient  form  of  worship,  thus  suggesting  that  the  princess  in  the  earlier 
forms  of  the  tradition  may  have  been  a  local  goddess,  which  would  support  the 
anthropological  theory.  The  version  most  closely  reesmbling  Perrault's  is  Grimm's 
'Little  Briar  Rose,'  which  is  however  without  the  other's  ending  about  the  cruel 
mother-in-law.  A  few  incidents  are  found  in  the  'Pentamerone,'  and  a  beautiful 
modern  version  is  found  in  Tennyson's  'Day-Dream.' 

LITTLE  RED  RIDING-HOOD.  —  In  this  story  we  may  detect  a  myth  of  day  and 
night.  Red  Riding-Hood,  the  Evening  Sun,  goes  to  see  her  grandmother,  the  Earth, 
who  is  the  first  to  be  swallowed  by  the  wolf  of  Night  or  Darkness.  The  red  cloak  is 
the  twilight  glow.  In  the  German  versions  the  wolf  is  cut  open  by  the  hunter,  and 
both  set  free;  here  the  hunter  may  stand  for  the  rising  sun  that  rescues  all  from  night. 
The  Russian  version  in  the  tale  of  '  Vasihassa '  hints  at  a  nature-myth  in  the  incident 
of  the  white,  red,  and  black  horses,  representing  the  changing  day.  The  German 
version  contains  a  widely  spread  incident,  —  the  restoration  of  persons  from  mon- 
sters who  have  swallowed  them.  We  find  parallels  in  the  Aryan  story  of  the  dragon 
swallowing  the  sun,  and  killed  by  the  sun-god  Indra;  here  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
the  Sanskrit  word  for  evening  means  "mouth  of  night."  The  incident  occurs  in  the 
myth  of  Kronos  swallowing  his  children;  in  the  Maori  legend  in  which  Ihani,  the  New 
Zealand  cosmic  hero,  tries  to  creep  through  his  ancestress,  Great- Woman  or  Night; 
in  a  Zulu  version  a  princess  is  swallowed  by  a  monster  which  becomes  in  a  Karen  tale 
a  snake.  We  find  it  also  in  the  Algonkin  legend  repeated  in  '  Hiawatha ' ;  among  the 
Bushmen,  Kaffirs,  Zulus;  and  in  Melanesia,  where  the  monster  is  night,  showing 
quite  plainly  a  savage  nature-myth.  The  story  has  been  compared  to  the  Sanskrit 
Vartika,  rescued  by  the  A^vins  (the  Vedic  Dioscuri)  from  the  wolf's  throat.  Varfcika 
is  the  Quail,  the  bird  that  returns  at  evening;  and  the  Greek  word  for  quail  is  ortyx, 
allied  possibly  to  Ortygia,  the  old  name  for  Delos,  birthplace  of  Apollo. 

BLUEBEARD.  —  This  tale  had  been  regarded  by  some  as  partly  historic,  of  which 
the  original  was  Gilles  de  Laval,  Baron  de  Retz,  who  was  burned  in  1440  for  his 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  293 

cruelty  to  children.  It  is,  however,  really  a  mdrchen,  and  the  leading  idea  of  curios- 
ity punished  is  world-wide.  The  forbidden  chamber  is  a  counterpart  of  the  treasure- 
house  of  Ixion,  on  entering  which  the  intruder  was  destroyed,  or  betrayed  by  the 
gold  or  blood  that  clung  to  him ;  also  of  Pandora's  box,  as  well  as  of  Proserpine's  pyx 
that  Psyche  opened  in  spite  of  the  prohibition.  There  are  several  parallels  among 
the  German  fairy-tales  collected  by  Grimm;  and  one  feature  at  least  is  found  in  the 
Kaffir  tale  of  the  Ox  (Callaway's  'Nursery  Tales  of  the  Zulus').  Variants  are  found 
in  Russia,  and  among  Gaelic  popular  tales;  and  in  the  Sanskrit  collection  'Katha 
Sarit  Sagara,'  the  hero  Saktideva  breaks  the  taboo,  and  like  Bluebeard's  wife,  is 
Confronted  with  the  horrible  sight  of  dead  women.  Possibly  in  the  punishment 
following  the  breaking  of  the  taboo  may  be  a  survival  of  some  ancient  religious  pro- 
hibition: among  the  Australians,  Greeks,  and  Labrador  Indians,  such  an  error  was 
regarded  as  the  means  by  which  death  came  into  the  world. 

Puss  IN  BOOTS. — Perrault's  version  of  this  popular  and  wide-spread  tale  was 
probably  taken  from  Straparola's  'Piacevoli  Notti.'  The  story  is  found  in  a  Norse 
version  in  '  Lord  Peter,'  and  in  the  Swedish  '  Palace  with  Pillars  of  Gold,'  in  which  the 
cat  befriends  a  girl,  whose  adventures  are  similar  to  those  of  the  Marquis  of  Carabas. 
In  a  Sicilian  version  is  found  the  first  hint  of  a  moral  which  is  lacking  in  the  above- 
mentioned  tales;  that  is,  the  ingratitude  of  the  man.  This  moral  appears  more 
plainly  in  a  popular  French  version,  where  man's  ingratitude  is  contrasted  with  the 
gratitude  of  a  beast.  This  occurs  likewise  in  the  versions  of  the  Avars  and  the  Rus- 
sians. Cosguin  imagined  from  the  moral  that  its  origin  was  Buddhistic,  for  the 
story  could  only  have  arisen  in  a  comparatively  civilized  community;  but  the  only 
Hindu  version,  the  Match-Making  Jackal,  which  was  not  discovered  until  about 
1884  in  Bengal,  has  no  moral  at  all.  The  most  complete  moral  is  found  in  Zanzibar, 
in  the  Swahili  tale  of  'Sultan  Darai,'  in  which  the  beneficent  beast  is  a  gazelle:  the 
ingratitude  of  the  man  is  punished  by  the  loss  of  all  that  he  had  gained;  the  gazelle, 
which  dies  of  neglect,  is  honored  by  a  public  funeral.  An  Arab  tribe  honors  all  dead 
gazelles  with  public  mourning ;  from  which  may  be  inferred  a  primitive  idea  that  the 
tribal  origin  was  from  a  gazelle  stock,  —  a  hint  of  toternism.  Variants  of  '  Puss  in 
Boots'  are  found  among  the  Finns,  Bulgarians,  Scotch,  Siberians,  and  in  modern 
Hindustani  stories;  and  some  features  are  found  in  Grimm,  and  in  the  adventures  of 
the  Zulu  hero  Uhlakanyana. 

TOADS  AND  DIAMONDS.  —  This  story  of  the  good  sister  who  was  rewarded,  and 
the  bad  who  was  punished,  is  found  in  many  forms.  Several  variants  are  met  in 
Grimm's  tales;  it  is  found  in  the  collection  of  Mademoiselle  L'Heritier  dating  from 
1696;  and  again  is  met  among  the  Zulus,  Kaffirs,  Norse,  and  Scotch.  In  many  cases 
the  story  runs  into  the  tale  of  the  substituted  bride,  —  an  example  of  the  curious 
combinations  of  the  limited  number  of  incidents  in  popular  lore. 

CINDERELLA.  —  This  fairy-tale,  in  the  majority  of  the  variants,  contains  several 
incidents  which  may  be  perhaps  the  remains  of  toternism  .and  of  a 'very  old  social 
custom.  The  position  of  Cinderella  in  most  versions  as  a  stepchild  may  without 
much  difficulty  be  supposed  to  have  been  that  of  the  youngest,  who  by  "junior's 
right"  would  have  been  the  heir;  the  myth  of  ill-treatment  would  be  natural  if  it 
arose  when  the  custom  was  slipping  away.  By  that  older  law  of  inheritance,  the 
hearth-place  was  the  share  of  the  youngest;  so  that  Cinderella's  position  by  it,  and 
her  consequent  blackened  condition,  would  be  quite  in  keeping  with  this  theory. 
This  right  of  the  youngest  is  met  in  Heslod,  who  makes  Zeus  the  youngest  child  of 
Kronos;  it  is  also  found  in  Hungary,  among  Slavic  communities,  in  Central  Asia,  in 
parts  of  China,  in  Germany  and  Celtic  lands;  and  it  is  alluded  to  in  the  Edda,  A 


294  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

similar  custom  among  the  Zulus  is  shown  in  one  of  Callaway's  'Zulu  Nursery  Tales.' 
The  fragment  of  totemism  is  shown  in  the  cases  when  the  agent  is  a  friendly  beast  or 
tree,  which  has  some  mystic  connection  with  the  heroine's  dead  mother.  The  most 
striking  instance  occurs  in  the  Russian  tale  of  'The  Wonderful  Birch,'  in  which  the 
mother  is  changed  by  a  witch  into  a  sheep,  killed  and  buried  by  the  daughter,  and 
becomes  a  tree,  that  confers  the  magical  gifts.  The  two  features  of  a  beast  and  a  tree 
are  found  in  the  old  Egyptian  tale  'Two  Brothers';  and  the  beast  alone  is  seen  in 
Servian,  Modern  Greek,  Gaelic,  and  Lowland  Scotch  variants.  In  two  versions  of 
barbarous  tribes,  '  The  Wonderful  Horns '  of  the  Kaffirs,  and  a  tale  of  the  Santals,  a 
hill-tribe  of  India,  the  girl's  place  is  taken  by  a  boy  whose  adventures  are  similar 
to  Cinderella's,  but  the  agents  are  an  ox  and  a  cow.  In  Perrault's  tale,  the  more 
refined  fairy  godmother  takes  the  place  of  these  beasts,  which  are  in  every  case 
domesticated  animals.  The  slipper  is  a  feature  that  is  found  in  the  whole  cycle  of 
tales.  In  the  Greek  myth  of  'Rhodope",'  the  slipper  is  carried  off  by  an  eagle,  and 
dropped  in  the  lap  of  the  King  of  Egypt,  who  seeks  and  marries  the  owner.  In  the 
Hindu  tale,  the  Rajah's  daughter  loses  her  slipper  in  a  forest,  where  it  is  found  by  a 
prince,  on  whom  it  makes  the  usual  impression.  Here  we  find  the  false  bride,  which  is 
usually  a  part  of  these  tales  but  is  omitted  by  Perrault;  and  in  most  cases  the  warning 
is  given  by  a  bird.  In  several  instances  the  recognition  is  effected  by  a  lock  of  hair, 
which  acts  the  part  of  the  glass  slipper  —  which  should  be  fur  (vair)  according  to 
some  authorities ;  this  is  found  in  the  Egyptian  tale  of  the  '  Two  Brothers, '  and  re- 
appears in  the  Santal  version  and  in  the  popular  tales  of  Bengal.  It  occurs  likewise 
in  an  entirely  different  cycle,  in  the  lock  of  Iseult's  hair  which  a  swallow  carries  to 
King  Mark  of  Cornwall.  We  can  also  trace  a  slight  resemblance  in  the  search  of 
Orpheus  for  Eurydice,  and  the  Vedic  myth  of  Mitra,  the  Sun-god,  as  well  as  the 
beautiful  Deccan  tale  of  '  Sodewa  Bai.'  If  we  search  for  indications  of  a  nature-myth 
in  the  story  of  Cinderella,  we  shall  find  that  it  belongs  to  the  myths  of  the  Sun  and 
the  Dawn.  The  maiden  is  the  Dawn,  dull  and  gray,  away  from  the  brightness  of  the 
Sun;  the  sisters  are  the  clouds,  that  screen  and  overshadow  the  Dawn,  and  the  step- 
mother takes  the  part  of  Night.  The  Dawn  fades  away  from  the  Sun,  the  prince, 
who  after  a  long  search  finds  her  at  last  in  her  glorious  robes  of  sunset.  Max  Muller 
gives  the  same  meaning  to  the  Vedic  myth  of  'Urvast,'  whose  name  ("great-desires") 
seems  to  imply  a  search  for  something  lost. 

HOP  o'  MY  THUMB.  —  A  mythic  theory  of  this  tale  has  been  given,  by  which  the 
forest  represents  the  night;  the  pebbles,  the  stars;  and  the  ogre,  the  devouring  sun. 
The  idea  of  cannibalism  which  it  contains  may  possibly  be  a  survival  of  an  early 
savage  state ;  and  thus  the  story  very  obligingly  supports  two  of  the  schools  of  mythic 
interpretation.  It  contains  traces  of  very  great  antiquity,  and  the  main  features 
are  frequently  met  with.  We  find  them,  for  instance,  in  the  Indian  story  of  'Surya 
Bai,'  where  a  handful  of  grain  is  scattered;  in  the  German  counterpart,  'Hansel  and 
Gretel';  in  the  Kaffir  tale,  in  which  the  girl  drops  ashes;  and  that  is  found  again  in  a 
story  in  the  'Pentamerone.'  The  incident  of  the  ogre's  keen  scent  is  found  in  a 
Namaqua  tale,  in  which  the  elephant  takes  the  part.  In  a  Zulu  story  an  ogress  smells 
the  hero  Uzembeni,  and  the  same  feature  is  seen  in  Polynesian  myths,  and  even 
among  the  Canadian  Indians.  In  Perrault's  tale  Hop  o'  My  Thumb  makes  the  ogre 
kill  his  own  children;  but  in  many  forms  the  captor  is  either  cooked,  or  forced  to  eat 
some  of  his  relatives,  by  means  generally  of  some  trick.  The  substitution  of  the 
ogre's  daughters  is  suggested  by  the  story  of  Athamas  and  Themisto,  whose  children 
are  dressed  by  her  orders  in  white,  while  those  of  her  rival  are  clad  in  black;  then  by  a 
reversal  of  the  plan,  she  murders  her  own.  In  most  variants  the  flight  of  the  brothers 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  295 

is  magically  helped;  but  Perrault  uses  only  the  Seven-League  Boots,  which  are  no 
doubt  identical  with  the  sandals  of  Hermes  and  Loki's  magic  shoes. 

BEAUTY  AND  THE  BEAST.  —  This  ancient  story  is  very  evidently  a  myth  of  the 
Sun  and  the  Dawn.  In  all  the  variants  the  hero  and  the  heroine  cannot  behold  each 
other  without  misfortune.  Generally  the  bride  is  forbidden  to  look  upon  her  hus- 
band, who  is  enchanted  under  the  form  of  a  monster.  The  breaking  of  the  taboo 
results  in  separation,  but  they  are  finally  reunited  after  many  adventures.  The 
anthropological  school  of  myth  interpreters  see  in  this  feature  a  primitive  marriage 
custom,  which  still  exists  among  many  savage  races  of  the  present  day.  One  of  the 
earliest  forms  of  the  story  is  the  Vedic  myth  of  'Urvast  and  Pururavas.'  .Another 
is  the  Sanskrit  Bheki,  who  marries  on  condition  she  shall  never  see  water;  thus  typify- 
ing the  dawn,  vanishing  in  the  clouds  of  sunset.  Muller  gives  an  interesting  philologi- 
cal explanation  of  this  myth.  Bheki  means  frog,  and  stands  for  the  rising  or  setting 
sun,  which  like  amphibious  creatures  appears  to  pass  from  clouds  or  water.  But  in  its 
Greek  form  Bheki  means  seaweed  which  is  red,  thus  giving  dark  red;  and  the  Latin 
for  toad  means  "the  red  one, "  hence  the  term  represents  the  dawn-glow  or  gloaming 
which  is  quenched  in  water.  In  Greek  myths  we  find  a  resemblance  in  some  features 
of  '  Orpheus  and  Eurydice ' ;  and  the  name  of  Orpheus  in  its  Sanskrit  form  of  Arbhu, 
meaning  the  sun,  hints  quite  plainly  at  a  solar  origin  of  this  cycle  of  tales.  A  more 
marked  likeness  exists  in  the  myth  of  Eros  and  Psyche  by  Apuleius,  and  in  the 
Scandinavian  tale  of  the  'Land  East  of  the  Sun  and  West  of  the  Moon.'  More  or 
less  striking  parallels  are  seen  in  the  Celtic '  Battle  of  the  Birds ' ;  in  the '  Soaring  Lark, ' 
by  Grimm ;  in  the  Kaffir ' Story  of  Five  Heads ' ;  in  Gaelic,  Sicilian, and  Bengalf oik-lore; 
and  even  in  as  remote  a  quarter  as  Chili.  The  investigation  of  minor  fairy-tales,  nurs- 
ery rhymes,  and  detached  features  running  through  many  myths,  will  yield  an  abund- 
ance of  interesting  information.  For  instance,  the  swan-maidens  and  werewolves, 
the  beanstalk  (which  is  probably  a  form  of  the  sacred  ash  of  the  Eddas,  Yggdrasil, 
the  heaven-tree  of  many  myths),  can  be  found  in  ever- varying  combinations. 

We  can  allude  to  only  a  portion  of  the  voluminous  literature  on  this  subject.  In 
the  general  works  on  mythology,  the  Aryan  theory  is  maintained  by  Muller  in  his 
'Essay  on  Comparative  Mythology1  (1856),  and  'Chips  from  a  German  Workshop' 
(1867-75);  by  Grimm  in  his  'Teutonic  Mythology'  ('Deutsche  Mythologie,'  trans- 
lated by  Stallybrass,  1880-88);  and  by  many  others. 

The  most  important  works  on  the  basis  of  the  anthropological  theory  are  E.  B. 
Tylor's  'Primitive  Culture'  (1871);  Andrew  Lang's  'Custom  and  Myth1  (1885);  his 
'Myth  Ritual  and  Religion'  (1887);  John  Fiske's  'Myths  and  Myth-Makers'  (1872); 
and  J.  G.  Frazer's  'Golden  Bough'  (1890).  W.  A.  Clouston  in  'Popular  Tales  and 
Fictions'  (1887)  supports  the 'Indian  theory.  There  are  numerous  works  directly 
bearing  on  Fairy  Tales  and  several  collections  of  the  folk-tales  of  individual  nations 
which  should  be  sought  under  the  heading  of  the  nation  concerned. 

FAITH  GARTNEY'S  GIRLHOOD,  by  Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney  (1863),  is  a  story  for 
girls,  containing  a  record  of  their  thought  and  life  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and 
twenty.  In  "  Sortes, "  at  a  New- Year's  party,  Faith,  who  is  a  New  England  maiden, 
draws  this  oracle. — 

"  Rouse  to  some  high  and  holy  work  of  love, 
And  thou  an  angel's  happiness  shalt  kno./." 

The  story  tells  how  she  fulfilled  this  condition,  and  what  was  her  reward.  Her 
haps  and  mishaps,  her  trials  and  tribulations,  her  sorrows  and  her  joys  (including 


296  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

two  lovers  who  may  be  placed  in  either  category,  as  the  reader  pleases),  are  duly 
recorded,  together  with  the  experiences  of  her  immediate  circle.  The  story  is 
brightly  told,  and  the  desirable  element  of  fun  is  not  wanting.  It  is  a  good  Sunday- 
school  book,  if  Sunday-school  books  are  meant  to  influence  the  behavior  of  the  secular 
six  days. 

FALL  OF  ENGLAND,  see  BATTLE  OF  DORKING. 

FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND  BOOKS,  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  (1882), 
is  a  collection  of  essays,  remarkable  for  a  certain  youthful  originality  and  freshness 
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  another.  The 
first  was  published  with  trepidation.  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  judicial  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  running  full  tilt  against  conventional  opinion. 
In  the  essay  on  Thoreau  he  boldly  intimates  that  the  plain-living,  high-thinking 
code  of  life,  of  which  the  Walden  recluse  was  an  embodiment,  may  lead  a  man 
dangerously  near  to  the  borderland  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  Victor 
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  touchstone  of  his  own 
manliness,  the  poets  by  the  happy  spirit  of  romance  that  was  his.  The  book  is 
altogether  readable  and  pleasant. 

FAR  COUNTRY,  A,  by  Winston  Churchill  (1913),  is  the  story  of  a  man  who  wanders 
far  from  the  ideals  of  his  youth.  Hugh  Paret,  the  son  of  an  upright  country  lawyer, 
has  such  perseverance  and  such  a  keen  eye  for  the  legal  loophole  that  he  becomes  a 
successful  corporation  lawyer  while  he  is  still  a  young  man.  He  marries  Maude 
Hutchinson  and  they  settle  down  in  a  comfortable  little  house.  For  a  while  they  are 
happy.  Then,  Paret 's  income  grows,  and  he  wants  to  live  more  pretentiously,  but 
his  wife  insists  on  modest  living,  for  the  children's  sake.  Paret,  who  begins  to  think 
that  Maude  is  over-domestic,  becomes  attracted  to  Nancy  Durrett,  the  wife  of  a 
millionaire.  He  realizes  that  it  is  Nancy  whom  he  ought  to  have  married;  for  she 
loves  spending  money  and  admires  the  cleverness  of  sharp-dealing.  When  Maude 
hears  of  the  intimacy  between  her  husband  and  Mrs.  Durrett,  she  takes  the  children 
away  from  the  atmosphere  of  money-getting  and  shallow  living  and  goes  to  Europe 
with  them.  Hugh  is  shocked,  but  he  continues  his  visits  to  Mrs.  Durrett,  whose 
husband's  illness  brings  her  to  a  realization  of  her  duty.  She  sends  Paret  away  and 
he  throws  himself  into  politics,  and  accepts  the  nomination  for  Governor.  Working 
against  him  is  Hermann  Krebs,  a  self-made  man  who  had  worked  his  way  through 
Harvard  while  Paret  was  lounging  through.  Anxious  to  hear  one  of  his  opponent's 
speeches,  Paret  goes  to  one  of  the  Krebs  meetings  and  as  he  listens,  he  feels  himself 
in  the  presence  of  something  bigger  than  his  mercenary  ideals.  Krebs  rouses  his 
secret  envy.  In  the  middle  of  the  meeting,  Krebs  is  taken  ill,  and  is  removed  to  a 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  297 

hospital  where  Paret  visits  him.  There  Krebs  puts  into  words  the  idea  which  runs 
through  the  book:  "In  order  to  arrive  at  salvation,  most  of  us  have  to  take  our 
journey  into  a  far  country;  we  have  to  leave  what  seem  the  safe  things;  we  have  to 
wander  and  suffer  in  order  to  realize  that  the  only  safety  lies  in  development." 
Gradually  it  dawns  upon  Paret  that  his  whole  life  has  been  a  journey  afar:  in  striving 
for  money  he  has  overlooked  straight-dealing,  and  has  warped  laws  to  suit  the  needs 
of  capital;  in  his  search  for  fame  and  wealth,  he  has  found  only  the  husks  of  things. 
After  relinquishing  his  practice  he  sails  for  Europe  to  be  with  his  family. 

FAR  EAST,  see  SOUL  OF  THE  FAR  EAST. 

FAR  FROM  THE  MADDING  CROWD,  a  pastoral  novel  by  Thomas  Hardy  (1874), 
is  perhaps  the  best  example  of  his  earlier  manner,  and  of  his  achievements  in  the 
domain  of  comedy.  The  story  is  mainly  concerned  with  the  love  affairs  of  Bathsheba 
Everdene,  a  country  girl  with  enough  cleverness  in  her  composition  to  render  her 
impatient  of  the  rustic  Darby-and-Joan  conception  of  marriage.  Her  first  wooer, 
honest  Farmer  Oak,  promises  her  all  the  insignia  of  married  rank  if  she  will  accept 
him.  She  is  pleased  with  the  prospect  of  possessing  a  piano,  and  a  "ten-pound  gig 
for  market";  but  when  Oak  adds,  "and  at  home  by  the  fire,  whenever  you  look  up, 
there  I  shall  be,  and  whenever  I  look  up,  there  will  be  you, "  the  intolerable  ennui 
of  married  life  instantly  weighs  upon  her  imagination.  She  throws  Oak  over  for  a 
possible  lover  of  more  worldly  pretensions.  Only  through  an  unfortunate  marriage 
with  a  certain  dashing  Sergeant  Troy  does  she  learn  to  appreciate  her  first  suitor's 
sterling  worth.  He  for  his  part  proves  his  devotion  to  her  by  serving  her  faithfully 
as  her  farm  bailiff,  after  a  change  in  her  fortunes  has  placed  her  apparently  out  of  his 
reach.  'Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd '  is  exceedingly  rich  in  humor,  in  descriptions 
of  rustic  scenes,  and  of  rustic  character.  The  day  laborers  who  gather  at  the  malt- 
house  to  pass  around  the  huge  mug  called  "The  God-Forgive-Me "  ("probably 
because  its  size  makes  any  given  toper  feel  ashamed  of  himself")  —  these  clowns 
are  hardly  surpassed  in  Shakespeare  for  their  natural  humor,  their  rustic  talk,  or 
their  shrewd  observation.  Not  less  remarkable  are  certain  rustic  pictures,  as  that 
of  the  lambing  on  a  windy  St.  Thomas's  night,  the  starlight  and  the  light  from  Oak's 
lantern  making  a  picture  worthy  of  Rembrandt.  The  novel  takes  rank  as  a  classic 
in  pastoral  fiction. 

FAR  HORIZON,  THE,  by  "Lucas  Malet"  (1906).  This  is  a  romance  of  modern 
times  the  scene  of  which  is  laid  in  London.  The  principal  character  in  the  story  is 
Dominic  Iglesias,  a  man  of  gentle  nature  and  fine  instincts.  He  is  a  bachelor  in  middle 
life,  when  the  story  opens,  leading  a  quiet  and  secluded  existence  in  comfortable 
lodgings,  where  he  has  been  located  since  his  mother's  death  eight  years  before. 
During  her  lifetime  he  was  a  devoted  son  and  denied  himself  the  pleasures  of  youth 
in  order  to  minister  to  her  during  her  years  of  failing  health.  Dominic's  occupation 
has  been  that  of  clerk  in  a  banking-house  and  after  thirty-five  years  of  faithful  service, 
his  health  becoming  impaired,  he  is  summarily  retired  on  a  pension,  to  his  astonish- 
ment and  chagrin.  During  his  first  leisure  hours  he  accidentally  becomes  acquainted 
with  Poppy  St.  John,  an  actress,  whose  warmheartedness  and  unconventional  ways 
strongly  attract  him.  Dominic  has  a  friend  named  George  Loveland,  whose  spinster 
"cousin  Serena  feels  a  deep  attachment  for  him,  but  Dominic  is  in  ignorance  of  this 
fact  and  she  arouses  no  emotion  in  him.  Poppy,  who  has  led  a  struggling  existence, 
has  been  married  at  an  early  age  to  de  Courcy  Smyth,  an  unsuccessful  dramatist, 


298  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

whom  she  did  not  love  and  who  continually  hounds  her  for  money  and  causes  her 
great  unhappiness.  Smyth  is  a  fellow-lodger  of  Dominic's,  who  is  in  ignorance  of 
his  history,  and  he  induces  the  latter  to  lend  him  large  sums  of  money  in  order  to 
finance  a  play  which  he  hopes  to  bring  out.  Dominic  and  Poppy  grow  to  love  each 
other  but  do  not  allow  their  affection  to  exceed  the  limits  of  friendship.  Smyth 
commits  suicide  after  a  failure  of  his  hopes  and  rids  the  world  of  a  miserable  scoundrel. 
Poppy  is  rejoiced  to  be  free  and  is  also  delighted  at  receiving  a  theatrical  engagement 
where  she  makes  a  hit  and  receives  a  great  ovation.  Her  happiness  however  is  short- 
lived as  Dominic  who  has  been  gradually  failing  in  health  dies  suddenly  of  heart 
trouble  while  Poppy  is  at  the  theatre,  and  she  returns  to  find  his  gentle  spirit  has 
departed  from  this  earth. 

FARADAY  AS  A  DISCOVERER,  by  John  Tyndall,  appeared  in  1868,  less  than  a 
year  after  Faraday's  death.  The  volume  is  not  a  "life"  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but 
rather  a  calm  estimate  of  the  scientist's  work,  with  incidental  views  of  the  spirit  in 
which  it  was  done,  and  introducing  such  personal  traits  as  serve  to  complete  the 
picture  of  the  philosopher,  if  inadequate  fully  to  present  the  idea  of  the  man.  The 
study,  which  reveals  the  author  as  at  once  a  graceful  writer  and  an  accomplished 
savant,  is  approached  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  intimate  coadjutor  and  friend. 
In  Faraday's  notable  career,  his  achievements  in  magnetism  and  electricity  arc 
presented  as  being  among  the  most  remarkable ;  while  his  connection  with  the  Royal 
Institution  proved  distinguished  no  less  for  the  discoveries  which  he  there  made  than 
for  his  lucid  discussions  of  scientific  questions.  Of  his  own  relation  to  Faraday, 
Tyndall  says,  with  modesty,  beauty,  and  feeling:  "It  was  my  wish  to  play  the  part 
of  Schiller  to  this  Goethe."  And  again:  "  You  might  not  credit  me  were  I  to  tell 
you  how  lightly  I  value  the  honor  of  being  Faraday's  successor  compared  with  the 
honor  of  having  been  Faraday's  friend.  His  friendship  was  energy  and  inspiration; 
his  'mantle'  is  a  burden  almost  too  heavy  to  be  borne." 

FARTHEST  NORTH,  a  narrative  of  polar  exploration  by  Dr.  Fridtjof  Nanscn,  was 
published  in  1897.  It  is  an  account,  put  together  from  the  explorer's  journals,  of  his 
expedition  in  the  schooner ' '  Fram ' '  ('  'Forward")  in  search  of  the  North  Pole.  Nansen's 
plan  was  to  construct  an  exceedingly  strong  vessel,  to  take  her  as  far  north  as  possible, 
and  to  let  her  drift  in  the  ice  ofthe  polar  sea.  He  believed  that  the  currents  would 
carry  her  near  enough  for  a  dash  to  the  pole.  He  left  Christiania  June  24th,  1893, 
obtained  a  supply  of  dogs  at  the  entrance  to  the  Kara  Sea  early  in  August,  followed 
the  Siberian  coast  eastward,  then  turned  north,  and  on  September  25th  allowed  his 
vessel  to  be  frozen  in  in  latitude  78°  45',  about  150  miles  north  of  the  Siberian  Islands. 
Two  winters  were  passed  in  the  vessel,  which  drifted  steadily  northwestward  till 
March,  1895,  when  Nansen,  with  a  companion,  Johansen,  set  out  with  dogs,  kayaks, 
sledges,  and  provisions  to  reach  the  pole.  They  traveled  from  March  I4th  to  April 
8th  over  exceedingly  rough  ice.  After  attaining  latitude  86°  13'  6",  within  272  miles 
of  the  pole  and  184  miles  nearer  to  it  than  any  previous  explorer  had  attained,  they 
decided  that  progress  was  too  slow  and  difficult  to  make  it  wise  to  go  on.  After  a 
perilous  journey,  during  which  they  killed  all  their  dogs  for  food  and  were  often 
forced  to  take  to  the  water  in  their  kayaks,  they  reached  one  of  the  islands  of  the 
Franz- Josef  Archipelago  on  August  isth.  Here  they  wintered  in  a  stone  hut  built  by 
themselves.  In  the  following  spring  they  made  their  way  south,  and  were  finally 
picked  up  in  Franz- Josef  Land  by  Jackson  of  the  Harmsworth  Expedition.  They 
returned  to  Norway  August  7th,  1896.  Meanwhile  the  "Fram  ".had  drifted  on, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  299 

reaching  as  high  as  latitude  85°  55'  5"  until  in  August,  1896,  she  emerged  into  open 
water  near  Spitzbergen,  and  returned  to  Norway  almost  simultaneously  with  Nansen. 
This  work  is  a  popular  and  not  a  scientific  account  of  the  expedition.  It  is  somewhat 
hastily  written,  but  is  extremely  interesting  and  entertaining. 

FATE  OF  MANSFIELD  HUMPHREYS,  THE,  by  Richard  Grant  White  (1884) 
A  few  chapters  of  this  work  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  Magazine,  and  the 
first  three  were  published  in  Edinburgh,  with  the  title,  'Mr.  Washington  Adams  in 
England.'  There  is  the  thread  of  a  love-story  involving  Mansfield  Humphreys,  a 
young  and  successful  American,  and  Margaret  Duffield,  a  beautiful  English  girl  with 
small  expectations  and  large  accumulations  of  titled  relatives.  It  terminates  in  an 
international  marriage,  a  residence  in  Boston,  unfortunate  business  speculations,  and 
the  triumphant  withdrawal  of  Margaret  —  who  achieves  greatness  of  income  by  the 
timely  removal  of  an  eccentric  relative  —  with  her  husband  in  train,  to  reside  in  her 
beloved  England,  where,  according  to  Mr.  White,  even  the  most  cultured  drop  their 
final  "g's. "  The  story  is  one,  if  not  with  a  moral,  at  least  with  a  purpose,  and  cer- 
tainly with  a  grievance.  The  lingual  difficulties  of  our  trans-oceanic  cousins  are 
exploited  at  length,  as  well  as  our  own  shortcomings  in  the  matter  of  speech.  The 
popular  impression  in  England  of  the  characteristic  American  traits  is  accentuated 
in  a  humorous  scene,  where  Humphreys,  masquerading  as  "Washington  Adams/' — a 
"gee-hawking"  American  with  "chin  whiskers/'  "linen  duster, M  "watch-chain 
which  would  have  held  a  yacht  to  its  moorings,'*  and  other  equally  attractive 
personal  accessories,  —  appears  at  the  garden  party  of  Lord  Toppingham's, 
and  by  his  absurdities  of  speech  and  action  presents  an  exaggerated  caricature 
of  a  resident  of  "the  States,"  which  is  placidly  accepted  by  the  English  guests 
as  the  realization  of  their  preconceived  ideas.  The  book  aroused  so  much  diverse 
comment,  public  and  private,  that  an  explanation  of  its  occasion  and  original 
purpose  was  given  in  a  lengthy  apology  of  some  seventy  pages,  concerning 
which  the  author  says:  "Some  apologies  aggravate  offense;  always  those  which 
show  the  unjust  their  injustice,  for  they  will  be  unjust  still.  This  apology  is  one  of 
that  kind." 

FATHERS  AND  SOWS,  a  novel  by  Ivan  S.  Turgeneff,  appeared  first  in  1861 
in  the  Russian  Messenger,  a  Moscow  review.  As  the  name  implies,  it  is  an 
embodiment  in  fiction  of  the  conflicting  old  and  new  forces  at  work  in  modern 
society;  forces  peculiarly  active  and  noticeable  in  Russia,  where  iron-bound  au- 
thority exists  side  by  side  with  intellectual  license.  This  novel  brought  into 
general  use  the  term  "nihilist/'  applied  by  the  author  to  the  chief  character 
of  the  story,  Bazarof,  a  young  man  of  iconoclastic  temperament,  whose  code  of 
life  was  rebellion  against  all  authority.  His  short,  vivid  career  is  depicted  with 
remarkable  strength  and  realism.  Another  "son"  is  his  friend  Arcadi  Kirsanof,  at 
whose  paternal  estate  he  is  a  guest.  Kirsanof 's  father  and  uncle,  representing  the 
older  generation,  are  brought  into  sharp  contact  and  contrast  with  Bazarof.  It  is 
difficult  to  determine  whether  "fathers"  or  "sons"  suffer  most  in  the  delineation  of 
their  peculiarities.  The  novel  divided  reading  Russia  into  two  camps,  —  those  who 
sided  with  the  "fathers,"  and  those  who  sided  with  the  "sons."  The  government 
seized  on  the  word  "nihilist "  as  a  designation  of  political  reproach,  —  a  sense  in  which 
it  has  ever  since  been  employed.  With  its  terrible  sincerity,  its  atmosphere  of  men- 
acing calm  presaging  a  storm,  the  book  remains  one  of  the  most  noted  in  the  category 
of  Russian  fiction. 


3<DO  THE   READER  S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS 

FAUST,  a  dramatic  poem  in  two  parts  by  Johann  Wolfgang  von  Goethe,  is  literally 
the  work  of  a  lifetime.  The  poem  was  projected  and  partly  written  in  the  stormy 
youthful  years  between  1773  and  1775.  (A  copy  of  the  earliest  portions  has  been 
preserved,  usually  referred  to  as  the  'Urfaust'.)  'Faust,  A  Fragment  *  appeared  in 
1790;  'Faust,  The  First  Part  of  the  Tragedy'  in  1808;  and  the  Second  Part  was 
completed  in  1831,  the  year  before  the  poet's  death.  Goethe  takes  the  theme  of  the 
Renaissance  scholar  who  sold  himself  to  the  Devil  in  his  eagerness  to  win  the  knowl- 
edge which  is  power;  but  instead  of  condemning  him  to  a  remorseful  death  followed 
by  damnation  as  the  reactionary  authors  of  the  tale  had  done,  Goethe,  the  spokesman 
of  a  new  Renaissance,  represents  the  scholar's  bold  aspiration  as  laudable  and  des- 
tined in  spite  of  error  and  disaster  to  lead  him  ultimately  to  happiness  and  peace 
with  God  and  his  fellowmen.  After  a  beautiful  dedication  and  a  playful  bit  of  self- 
criticism  in  the  form  of  a  prelude  on  the  stage  in  which  the  stage-manager,  the  poet, 
and  the  clown  discuss  the  coming  entertainment,  the  drama  begins,  in  the  fashion 
of  a  mediaeval  mystery-play,  with  a  prologue  in  Heaven.  The  archangels'  hymn  of 
the  glories  of  creation  is  interrupted  by  Mephistopheles,  the  cynical  spirit  of  negation, 
who  ridicules  the  lofty  aims  and  low  performances  of  man,  the  crown  of  the  world,  and 
offers  to  wager  that  he  can  lure  God's  servant  Faust  into  utter  baseness.  The 
Almighty  gives  him  free  permission  to  tempt  Faust  but  prophesies  that  although 
Faust  will  fall  he  will  ultimately  attain  a  clearer  vision  and  truer  service,  to  which, 
indeed,  strife  and  error  are  a  necessary  process.  Faust  is  now  depicted  as  a  famous 
scholar  and  scientist,  discontented  with  all  that  books  and  learning  have  brought  him 
and  longing  for  intellectual  certainty  and  emotional  release.  He  seeks  inspiration 
by  means  of  magical  books  but  shrinks  back  in  terror  from  the  vision  of  the  infinite, 
inscrutable  mystery  of  the  universe  which  they  reveal  to  him.  In  despair  he  is 
about  to  kill  himself  when  a  surviving  religious  impulse,  aroused  by  the  Easter  bells, 
restrains  him.  Next  day  he  finds  further  alleviation  in  mingling  with  people  who  are 
enjoying  the  spring-festival.  But  the  mood  of  human  sympathy  and  faith  is  in- 
terrupted by  Mephistopheles,  who  enters  Faust's  study  in  the  form  of  a  black  poodle, 
suddenly  changing  to  the  appearance  of  a  traveling  scholar.  He  fills  Faust's  mind 
once  again  with  dissatisfaction,  and  endeavors  to  entice  him  by  promise  of  sensual 
delights  to  give  up  his  soul  in  exchange,  for  the  devil's  assistance.  Faust,  who  has 
desperately  renounced  faith  and  hope,  has  no  belief  that  Mephistopheles  can  please 
him  but  is  ready  to  make  a  bargain  that  if  the  devil  can  make  him  perfectly  con- 
tented for  one  moment  he,  Faust,  will  forfeit  his  soul.  The  bargain  made  and 
sealed  in  Faust's  blood  they  prepare  to  go  out  and  see  the  world  —  first  the  little 
world  of  desire  and  passion  and  then  the  great  world  of  affairs.  Faust  is  to  test  the 
pleasures  of  the  senses  and  affections  (Part  I.)  and  then  the  pleasures  of  power  exer- 
cised in  public  business  and  of  art  (Part  II.).  After  Mephistopheles,  disguised  as 
Faust,  has  given  some  ironical  advice  to  an  incoming  student,  the  pair  see  something 
of  drink  and  debauchery  at  Auerbach's  wine-cellar.  Faust  is  disgusted,  but  Mephis- 
topheles takes  him  to  the  Witches'  Kitchen  where  he  shows  him  in  a  magic  mirror  a 
female  form  of  ideal  beauty  and  gives  him  a  love-potion  which  renews  his  youth. 
Soon  afterwards  Faust  meets  an  innocent  young  girl,  Margaret  (Gretchen),  on  her 
way  from  church,  is  captivated  by  her  beauty,  and  offers  himself  as  her  escort.  Her 
refusal  only  stimulates  his  interest  and  he  demands  that  Mephistopheles  procure  her 
as  his  love.  They  go  unseen  to  her  room,  where  the  devil  leaves  a  casket  of  jewels 
and  Faust's  passion  through  the  atmosphere  of  sweetness  and  purity  is  ennobled  and 
idealized.  Later,  however,  Mephistopheles  by  a  little  flattery  contrives  to  arrange  a 
meeting  between  them  at  the  house  of  a  foolish  neighbor.  Faust  is  torn  between  a 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  301 

high  ideal  devotion  and  the  cynical  promptings  of  his  companion;  Gretchen  falls 
deeply  and  devotedly  in  love  with  Faust  but  has  an  instinctive  dislike  of  Mephis- 
topheles.  The  lovers  meet  clandestinely  and  she  gives  herself  to  him.  After  some 
months  her  brother  Valentine,  returning  from  the  wars,  finds  that  she  is  about  to 
become  a  mother.  He  makes  an  attack  on  Faust,  who,  through  Mephistopheles's 
incitation,  kills  Valentine  and  hastily  leaves  the  city.  Distracted  by  her  lover's 
departure,  her  brother's  death,  and  that  of  her  mother,  through  an  overdose  of  the 
sleeping-draught  which  Faust  had  provided  to  facilitate  their  meetings,  Margaret 
goes  mad,  drowns  her  child,  and  is  condemned  to  be  beheaded.  Meanwhile  Faust 
has  been  taken  by  Mephistopheles  to  the  Witches'  Sabbath  on  the  Brocken  where  in 
wild  pleasures  he  forgets  his  unfortunate  love  until  recalled  by  a  phantasm  of  Margaret 
with  the  thin  red  line  of  the  headsman's  axe  about  her  neck.  He  insists  that  Mephis- 
topheles rescue  her  at  once;  and  they  hasten  on  spectral  chargers  through  the  air 
past  the  place  of  execution  to  the  prison,  which  they  reach  at  midnight  a  few  hours 
before  Margaret  is  to  suffer.  She  is  in  a  demented  condition,  but  recognizes  Faust, 
and  in  a  poignant  scene  recalls  their  past  happiness  and  guilt.  Seeing  Mephis- 
topheles, however,  she  refuses  to  be  rescued  and  prays  to  Heaven  for  forgiveness. 
As  Mephistopheles  and  Faust  hurry  away,  she  dies;  and  the  sneer  of  the  former 
"She  is  judged"  is  answered  by  a  voice  from  above  "She  is  saved." 

In  the  Second  Part  Faust  is  introduced  to  the  great  world,  to  the  outer  world  of 
public  affairs  and  the  inner  world  of  aesthetic  beauty  in  classic  and  romantic  art. 
After  an  opening  scene  in  which  Faust  is  purged  from  the  effects  of  former  suffering 
by  the  healing  influences  of  a  delightful  landscape  he  is  conducted  by  Mephistophe- 
les to  the  court  of  the  Emperor,  whom  they  entertain  with  marvelous  pageantry 
and  whose  realms  they  save  from  bankruptcy  by  persuading  the  people  of  the  exist- 
ence of  buried  treasure.  At  the  request  of  the  Emperor,  Faust  then  conjures  up  as 
a  spectacle  the  phantoms  of  Paris  and  Helen  of  Troy;  but  becoming  enamored  of  the 
ideal  beauty  of  Helen  he  attempts  to  seize  her,  and  the  vision  disappears.  In  the 
quest  for  a  union  with  this  ideal  beauty,  Faust  and  Mephistopheles  are  conducted 
by  the  Homunculus,  a  tiny  being  whom  Wagner,  Faust's  old  pupil,  has  manufactured 
in  his  laboratory,  to  the  fields  of  Pharsalia.  Here,  in  the  scene  called  the  Classical 
Walpurgis-Night  because  it  corresponds  to  the  romantic  diablerie  of  the  Brocken 
scene  in  Part  One,  the  various  figures  of  Greek  mythology,  beautiful  and  ugly,  appear 
before  the  northern  pilgrims.  The  general  meaning  is  that  Faust  is  approaching 
ideal  beauty  through  the  appreciation  of  classic  art;  and  his  quest  is  attained  in 
Act  III. —  an  act  modeled  on  the  Greek  drama  —  when  Helen  comes  to  life  before 
the  palace  of  Menelaus  in  Sparta  as  though  just  brought  back  from  Troy,  and  is 
rescued  from  her  husband's 'vengeance  by  Faust  and  Mephistopheles,  who  bear  her 
to  a  mediaeval  castle  guarded  by  a  troop  of  Gothic  warriors.  Here  she  is  wooed  and 
won  by  Faust;  and  they  have  a  child,  Euphorion,  who  represents  the  spirit  of  poetry 
that  results  from  the  union  of  the  classic  and  the  romantic.  At  length  he  soars  into 
the  air,  and  falls  to  the  ground,  his  body  vanishes  and  his  soul  ascends  in  light.  Helen 
too  disappears,  but  union  with  her  has  left  Faust  ennobled.  He  now  desires  to  subdue 
nature  to  the  service  of  man.  An  insurrection  which  he  and  Mephistopheles  are 
able  to  quell  for  the  Emperor  in  Act  IV.  puts  them  in  possession  of  a  great  stretch  of 
half-submerged  seacoast,  which  Faust  determines  to  reclaim  and  make  the  abode  of 
a  contented  people.  At  the  beginning  of  Act  V.  Faust,  now  in  extreme  old  age,  has 
nearly  completed  his  task.  His  realm  now  supports  a  great  population;  but  there 
still  remains  a  noisome  marsh  to  be  reclaimed;  and  there  is  a  little  cottage  which  its 
owners,  Philemon  and  Baucis,  will  not  sell.  He  orders  Mephistopheles  to  dispossess 


3O2  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

them  and  is  punished  by  the  infliction  of  blindness.  Nevertheless  he  gives  direc- 
tions for  the  clearing  of  the  marsh.  As  he  contemplates  this  final  work  he  realizes 
that  neither  in  the  satisfaction  of  passion,  in  intellectual  development,  nor  in  the 
cultivation  of  art  does  happiness  exist,  but  in  the  unselfish  service  of  others;  and  with 
this  realization  he  declares  himself  perfectly  contented  and  dies.  Thus  he  appar- 
ently loses  the  wager  made  with  Mephistopheles,  who  immediately  summons  the 
demons  to  carry  off  Faust's  soul.  But  the  happiness  which  Faust  has  attained  is 
one  which  was  beyond  Mephistopheles 's  power  to  grant  and  the  nobility  of  which 
releases  Faust  from  the  bargain.  Through  error  and  suffering,  experience  and 
aspiration  he  has  attained  to  a  true  service  of  God ;  and  the  angels  transport  his  soul 
to  Heaven  amid  a  triumphant  chorus  of  angels,  saints,  and  pardoned  sinners  (Mar- 
garet included),  while  they  worship  the  Divine  Love  as  revealed  in  the  Virgin  Mother 
—  "das  Ewigweibliche." 

In  cosmic  range,  multiformity  of  symbolism,  integration  of  diverse  ideas,  systems, 
and  types  of  character  in  dramatic  insight,  flexibility  of  style  and  versification, 
architectonic  faculty,  and  wise  interpretation  of  life  Faust  stands  alone  in  the  litera- 
ture of  its  century.  It  touches  every  sphere  of  life  and  sums  up  all  the  tendencies  of 
the  age  which  succeeded  the  French  Revolution. 

FAUTE  DE  L'ABBE  MOURET,  LA,  see  ROUGON-MAC  QUART. 

FEDERALIST,  THE,  a  series  of  papers  which  appeared  in  The  Independent  Journal 
of  New  York  between  October  27,  1787,  and  April  2,  1788,  and  were  published  in 
book  form  in  the  latter  year.  There  are  eighty-five  essays  in  the  collection,  of  which 
eight  were  previously  unpublished.  Though  the  essays  were  signed  '  Publius '  they 
were  the  work  of  three  men.  Alexander  Hamilton  wrote  probably  fifty-one  of  them, 
James  Madison  twenty-nine,  and  John  Jay  five.  Their  purpose  in  writing  was  to 
recommend  to  the  people  of  New  York  State  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion drawn  up  by  the  Constitutional  Convention  at  Philadelphia  in  1787.  The 
essays  both  in  newspaper  and  book  form  circulated  widely,  became  the  most  authori- 
tative and  influential  defense  of  the  new  Constitution,  and  had  an  important  share 
in  bringing  about  its  acceptance  by  the  State  of  New  York.  In  a  perspicuous  and 
rational  manner,  without  appeals  to  passion  and  prejudice  but  by  the  force  of  logic 
and  sound  principles,  the  authors  point  out  the  weaknesses  of  the  old  Confederation, 
show  the  necessity  of  a  centralized  government  as  a  check  to  war  from  without  and 
disorder  within,  explain  in  detail  the  functions  of  each  division  of  the  government 
under  the  new  scheme,  and  rebut  the  accusation  that  the  centralization  of  the  Con- 
stitution will  tend  to  arbitrariness  and  autocracy.  As  an  exposition  as  well  as  a 
defense  of  the  Constitution  by  men  who  were  intimately  acquainted  with  its  inten- 
tion the  book  has  permanent  value,  particularly  for  students  of  Constitutional  Law, 
and  it  is  taken  into  account  by  the  courts  in  their  interpretations. 

FELIX  HOLT,  THE  RADICAL,  by  George  Eliot  (1866).  As  a  picture  of  upper 
middle-class  and  industrial  English  Hfe  of  the  period  of  the  Reform  Bill  agitation,  this 
book  is  unsurpassed.  If  the  critics  who  set  George  Eliot  highest  as  a  delineator  of 
character  find  the  story  clogged  with  moralities,  and  hindered  by  its  machinery,  the 
critics  who  value  her  most  for  her  pictures  of  life  and  nature  rank  'Felix  Holt '  among 
her  best  achievements.  It  is  bright  in  tone,  it  shows  little  of  the  underlying  melan- 
choly of  George  Eliot's  nature,  and  its  humor  is  rich  and  pervading.  Its  hero,  Felix 
Holt,  is  a  young  workman  whose  capacity  might  attain  anything,  if  his  overpowering 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  303 

conscience  would  let  him  conform  to  the  ways  of  a  comfort-loving  world.  But  he  is  as 
much  compelled  by  his  dsemon  as  Socrates.  He  throws  away  his  chances,  comes  near 
to  shipwrecking  his  happiness,  and  accepts  his  unpleasant  position  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Contrasted  with  roughness  and  noble  intolerance,  which  are  his  most 
obtrusive  characteristics,  is  the  charming  daintiness  of  the  exquisite  Esther  Lyon, 
whom  he  loves,  and  who  dreads  above  all  things  to  be  made  ridiculous,  till  a  sight 
grander  than  many  women  ever  see  —  a  man  absolutely  honest  with  man  and  God  — 
stirs  the  depths  of  her  moral  nature.  The  character  of  Harold  Transome,  the  fine 
gentleman  of  the  book,  is  struck  out  by  the  same  strong  hand  that  drew  Grandcourt 
in  'Daniel  Deronda,'  —  a  handsome,  clever,  frank,  good-natured  egoist.  The  minor 
characters  stand  out  distinct  and  vivid.  The  covetous  upstart,  Jermyn;  Esther's 
father,  the  rusty  old  Puritan  preacher;  Mrs.  Transome,  well-born,  high-bred,  splendid 
in  her  sumptuous,  fading,  anxious  beauty,  and  carrying  her  tragical  secret  in  a  hand 
that  scarcely  trembles,  but  that  may  be  made  to  drop  the  fragile  thing  by  a  rude 
touch;  the  shadowy  squire,  her  husband;  Mrs.  Holt,  the  eulogist  of  the  priceless 
infallible  pills;  Denner,  the  butler's  hardheaded  and  faithful  wife;  the  white-faced 
human  monkey,  Job;  the  aristocratic  Debarrys;  gipsy-eyed  and  irrepressible  Harry; 
the  sporting  and  port-drinking  parson,  John  Lingon,  not  half  a  bad  fellow,  with  his 
doctrine,  "If  the  mob  can't  be  turned  back,  a  man  of  family  must  try  to  head  the 
mob,"  — they  all  live  and  move.  "One  group  succeeds  another,  and  not  a  single 
figure  appears  in  any  of  them,  though  it  be  ever  so  far  in  the  background,  which 
is  not  perfectly  drawn  and  perfectly  colored." 

FELIX  O'DAY,  by  F.  Hopkinson  Smith  (1915).  This  was  the  last  work  of  its  author 
and  was  published  after  his  death.  The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid  in  New  York  at  the 
present  time;  Felix  O'Day,  an  Englishman  of  distinguished  mien  and  bearing,  is 
introduced  in  the  act  of  trying  to  raise  money  on  a  costly  traveling  case  in  order  to 
pay  his  board  bill.  He  is  recognized  as  a  gentleman,  by  the  curio  dealer,  who  ad- 
vances him  money  on  his  case  and  also  offers  him  a  position  in  his  shop  when  he 
discovers  his  knowledge  of  antiques.  O'Day  finds  a  home  in  the  neighborhood  with 
an  energetic  and  kindhearted  woman  named  Kitty  deary,  who  realizes  he  is  passing 
through  a  great  sorrow  and  does  all  in  her  power  to  cheer  and  help  him.  Through 
Kitty,  O'Day  meets  Father  Cruse,  a  noble  and  unselfish  priest  to  whom  he  confides  his 
past  and  tells  him  he  is  really  Sir  Felix  O'Day,  and  is  in  New  York  searching  for  his 
wife  Lady  Barbara,  who  had  run  away  with  another  man  some  months  previously. 
Her  desertion  of  her  husband  had  been  caused  by  her  youth  andwilfulness  coupled  with 
the  lossof  hisproperty,  whichhe  had  relinquished  in  order  to  pay  his  father's  debts.  The 
latter 's  financial  ruin  had  been  brought  about  by  Guy  Dalton,  the  plausible  villain  with 
whom  Lady  Barbara  had  eloped.  Being  obliged  to  flee  the  country,  Dalton  had 
brought  Lady  Barbara  to  New  York,  where  after  enduring  poverty  and  abuse  she 
finally  leaves  him  and  supports  herself  by  sewing.  Dalton  discovers  her  hiding  place, 
and  when  she  refuses  to  return  to  him  steals  a  valuable  lace  mantilla  which  she  is  mend- 
ing for  a  business  house.  The  proprietor  has  Lady  Barbara  arrested  and  taken 
to  the  stationhouse,  but  she  is  recognized  by  Father  Cruse,  who  has  seen  her  picture, 
and  he  rescues  her  from  this  terrible  situation  and  restores  her  to  her  husband. 
O'Day  meanwhile  has  received  word  from  England  that  part  of  his  property  has  been 
restored  to  him  so  the  reader  feels  that  brighter  days  are  in  store  for  him  at  last. 

FETTWTCK'S  CAREER,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  (1906).  This  is  the  story  of  an 
artist  named  John  Fenwick,  who  is  endowed  with  talent,  but  also  with  an  unfor- 


304  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

tunate  temperament  which  is  a  great  drawback  to  his  success  in  life.  He  conies  to 
London  to  seek  his  fortune,  leaving  behind  him  in  the  country  his  wife  Phcebe  and 
his  little  daughter  Carrie.  He  has  many  discouragements  and  for  a  long  time  barely 
succeeds  in  keeping  the  wolf  from  the  door.  Finally,  fortune  smiles  upon  him  in  the 
shape  of  Eugenie  de  Pastourelles,  a  charming  and  cultivated  Englishwoman  of 
wealth,  who  appreciates  his  talent  and  becomes  his  benefactress.  He  paints  her 
portrait  and  through  her  efforts  in  his  behalf  gets  his  first  large  commission.  He  is 
overjoyed  at  his  good  luck  and  making  a  shrine  about  the  portrait  of  Eugenie,  whom 
he  calls  his  patron  saint,  he  rushes  out  to  purchase  presents  for  his  wife  and  child. 
During  his  absence,  Phcebe,  who  has  been  growing  jealous  and  unhappy  on  account 
of  their  separation,  visits  her  husband's  studio,  having  come  to  the  city  to  see  how 
he  was  situated.  She  sees  the  enshrined  portrait  and  rinding  letters  from  Eugenie 
which  she  completely  misinterprets  she  is  seized  with  jealous  rage  and  resolves  never 
to  see  Fenwick  again.  She  destroys  the  portrait  and  then  enclosing  her  wedding  ring 
in  a  letter  tells  her  husband  she  has  gone  out  of  his  life  forever.  Fenwick  on  his 
return  is  horrified  when  he  discovers  what  has  occurred  and  makes  every  effort  to 
trace  Phcebe  and  the  child  without  avail.  His  history  is  not  known  to  his  friends 
and  he  is  thought  to  be  a  bachelor.  Twelve  years  go  by,  during  which  time  he  has 
met  with  both  success  and  failure,  and  never  having  had  news  of  Phcebe  he  feels  she 
must  be  dead.  Eugenie's  uncongenial  husband  dies,  and  Fenwick,  carried  away 
by  his  love,  tells  her  of  it  and  she  accepts  him.  He  is  then  overwhelmed  by  the  wrong 
he  has  done  her  and  confesses  everything.  Eugenie,  who  is  a  beautiful  character, 
immediately  devotes  herself  to  the  discovery  of  Phcebe  and  through  her  efforts  the 
husband  and  wife  and  child  are  at  last  happily  reunited. 

FERDINAND  AND  ISABELLA,  see  REIGN  OF. 

FESTUS,  a  dramatic  poem,  mainly  in  blank  verse,  by  Philip  James  Bailey,  was  first 
published  in  1839  and  attracted  wide  attention  by  the  beauties  with  which  it  was 
scattered  and  the  heterodoxy  of  the  theological  views  that  it  expressed.  Like  Goethe's 
1  Faust*  the  poem  begins  and  ends  in  Heaven,  and  in  the  intervening  scenes  a  mortal 
under  the  guidance  of  Lucifer  is  conducted  through  a  variety  of  experiences  both  in 
this  world  and  beyond  it.  Bailey's  Lucifer,  however,  does  not  tempt  the  hero,  but 
unfolds  to  him  in  long  monologues  a  Universalist  theology  and  a  Hegelian  philosophy. 
Among  the  episodes  of  the  poem  are  the  love-affairs  of  Festus  with  various  women  — 
Angela,  Clara,  Helen,  and  Elissa,  the  last  of  whom  he  wins  from  Lucifer  himself,  who 
is  devoted  to  her  and  had  hoped  to  be  redeemed  by  her  influence.  Lucifer  takes 
Festus  among  the  stars  and  planets,  and  even  brings  him  to  Heaven,  where  he 
attempts  to  see  God  and  is  shown  his  own  name  written  in  the  Book  of  Life.  At 
length  Festus  is  made  ruler  of  the  whole  world;  but  as  his  reign  is  about  to  begin  the 
world  is  destroyed,  the  Millennium  succeeds,  and  the  Judgment  Day  follows.  The 
prophecies  of  universal  salvation  are  fulfilled  and  the  poem  ends  in  unclouded  happi- 
ness. In  spite  of  its  length  and  crudities  of  thought,  imagery,  and  expression, '  Festus ' 
has  many  single  passages  of  originality  and  power.  See  LIBRARY. 

FICTION,  see  ASPECTS  OF. 

FICTION,  HISTORY  OF,  by  John  Dunlop  (1814).  This  familiar  work,  the  fruit 
of  many  years'  accumulation  of  materials,  broke  ground  in  a  new  field.  It  was  the 
first  attempt  made  in  England  to  trace  the  development  of  the  novel  from  its  earliest 


THE   READER^   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS  305 

beginnings  in  Greece  to  the  position  it  held  early  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Con- 
sidering the  difficulties  of  the  pioneer,  the  work  is  remarkably  comprehensive  and 
exact.  Though  later  writers  have  disproved  certain  of  the  author's  theories,  as  for 
instance  his  idea  of  the  rise  of  the  Greek  novel,  or  the  connection  of  the  Gesta  Ro- 
manorum  with  subsequent  outgrowths  of  popular  tales,  his  book  still  remains  a  good 
introduction  for  the  student  of  fiction.  The  sections  upon  Oriental  and  modern 
fiction  are  least  satisfactory,  as  the  best  are  sketches  on  the  romances  of  chivalry  and 
the  Italian  novelists.  His  facts  are  massed  in  a  workmanlike  manner,  and  presented 
in  a  clear  style,  devoid  of  ornament,  but  used  with  vigor  and  effectiveness. 

FIFTEEN  DECISIVE  BATTLES  OF  THE  WORLD,  by  Sir  E.  S.  Creasy  (1852), 
describes  and  discusses  (in  the  words  of  Hallam)  "those  few  battles  of  which  a  con- 
trary event  would  have  essentially  varied  the  drama  of  the  world  in  all  its  subsequent 
scenes."  The  obvious  and  important  agencies,  and  not  incidents  of  remote  and 
trifling  consequence,  are  brought  out  in  the  discussion  of  the  events  which  led  up  to 
each  battle,  the  elements  which  determined  its  issue,  and  the  results  following  the 
victories  or  defeats.  The  volume  treats,  in  order:  The  Battle  of  Marathon,  413  B.  C. ; 
Defeat  of  the  Athenians  at  Syracuse,  413  B.  C.;  The  Battle  of  Arbela,  331  B.  C.; 
The  Battle  of  the  Metaurus,  207  B.  C.;  Victory  of  Arminius  over  the  Roman  Legions 
tinder  Varus,  A.  D.  9;  The  Battle  of  Ch&lons,  451;  The  Battle  of  Tours,  732;  The 
Battle  of  Hastings,  1066;  Joan  of  Arc's  Victory  over  the  English  at  Orleans,  1429; 
The  Defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada,  1588;  The  Battle  of  Blenheim,  1704;  The  Battle 
of  Pultowa,  1709;  Victory  of  the  Americans  over  Burgoyne  at  Saratoga,  1777;  The 
Battle  of  Valmy,  1792;  The  Battle  of  Waterloo,  1815. 

The  author  concludes:  "We  have  not  (and  long  may  we  want)  the  stern 
excitement  of  the  struggles  of  war;  and  we  see  no  captive  standards  of  our  European 
neighbors  brought  in  triumph  to  our  shrines.  But  we  witness  an  infinitely  prouder 
spectacle.  We  see  the  banners  of  every  civilized  nation  waving  over  the  arena  of 
our  competition  with  each  other  in  the  arts  that  minister  to  our  race's  support 
and  happiness,  and  not  to  its  suffering  and  destruction. 

"  Peace  hath  her  victories 
No  less  renowned  than  war." 

FIGHTING  CHANCE,  THE,  by  Robert  W.  Chambers  (1906).  This  is  the  story  of 
a  'man  who  has  a  "fighting  chance"  to  win  the  girl  he  loves  and  to  conquer  his  in- 
herited taste  for  drink.  His  name  is  Stephen  Siward;  he  belongs  to  a  prominent 
New  York  family  and  has  an  attractive  and  winning  personality.  He  goes  to  visit 
at  a  friend's  country  house  and  there  meets  Sylvia  Landis,  a  charming  society  girl, 
who  captivates  "Him  utterly.  Stephen  is  under  a  cloud  as  he  has  just  been  dropped 
from  his  club  on  account  of  an  escapade  in  which  he  had  taken  part  while  in  an  in- 
toxicated condition;  Sylvia,  however,  overlooks  his  failings,  and  although  engaged 
to  another  man,  feels  strongly  drawn  towards  Siward.  Sylvia's  engagement  to 
Howard  Quarrier,  who  is  a  very  rich  man,  is  not  an  affair  of  the  heart  as  she  has 
decided  to  marry  him  simply  for  the  worldly  advantages  to  be  derived  from  the 
match.  Quarrier,  who  poses  as  a  model  of  virtue,  is  really  false  and  deceitful,  and  is 
to  blame  for  the  affair  at  the  club  for  which  Siward  is  bearing  the  consequences. 
Siward  makes  love  boldly  to  Sylvia,  who  responds  to  his  advances  and  confesses  that 
she  loves  him  but  cannot  marry  him,  as  it  is  necessary  to  her  happiness  to  have  great 
riches.  She  tells  him,  however,  that  he  has  a  fighting  chance  to  win  her  and  to  go 
ahead  and  do  it  if  he  can.  Siward  returns  to  town  but  his  mother's  death  makes  him 


306  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

despondent  and  he  falls  into  the  clutches  of  his  old  enemy.  Sylvia  finds  existence 
without  him  a  blank  and  longs  for  his  presence  though  she  continues  in  her  plan  to 
marry  Quarrier.  Finally  Sylvia  and  Siward  meet  accidentally  in  the  Park  as  the 
latter  is  convalescing  from  an  illness  and  fighting  hard  to  conquer  his  old  enemy. 
Sylvia  realizes  at  last  that  nothing  counts  but  her  love  for  Siward  and  gives  herself 
unreservedly  to  him.  Many  other  interesting  characters  are  introduced  into  the 
story,  and  life  among  the  ultra-fashionable  set  is  graphically  described. 

FILE  NO.  113  (Le  Dossier  no.  113),  by  Emile  Gaboriau,  a  French  novel,  introducing 
the  author's  favorite  detective,  M.  Lecoq,  appeared  in  1867.  The  scene  is  laid  in 
the  Paris  of  the  day;  and  the  title  indicates  the  case  file  number  in  the  records  of  the 
detective  bureau. 

The  story  opens  with  the  public  details  of  a  daring  robbery  which  has  been  com- 
mitted in  the  banking-house  of  M.  Fauvel.  Suspicion  points  to  Prosper  Bertomy, 
the  head  cashier.  The  deep  mysteries  of  the  case  are  fathomed  by  Fanferlot,  a 
shrewd  detective,  and  Lecoq,  his  superior  in  both  skill  and  position.  Lecoq  figures 
as  a  French  Sherlock  Holmes,  though  his  methods  are  essentially  different.  He  is 
pictured  as  possessing  surpassing  insight,  intelligence,  and  patient  determination; 
employing  the  most  impenetrable  disguises  for  the  pursuit  of  his  inquiries. 

The  denouement,  gradually  unfolded  toward  the  close  of  the  story,  shows  Pros- 
per to  have  been  the  innocent  victim  of  a  plot.  Madame  Fauvel  has  had,  before  her 
marriage  to  the  banker,  an  illegitimate  son  by  the  Marquis  de  Clameran,  an  arrant 
rogue  who  poses  throughout  as  the  benefactor  of  the  Fauvels.  De  Clameran  has 
caused  Raoul  de  Lagors  to  personate  this  son  (who  is  really  dead).  Raoul  is  in- 
troduced in  Fauvel 's  home  as  Madame's  nephew,  though  she  believes  him  to  be  her 
son. 

After  frightening  her  into  revealing  the  secrets  of  the  bank-safe,  Raoul  commits 
the  robbery.  Her  lips  are  sealed  by  her  fear  that  her  early  life  will  become  known  to 
her  husband.  De  Clameran  plays  upon  these  fears  to  force  Madame  Fauvel  to 
induce  Madeleine,  her  niece,  to  marry  him.  Madeleine  consents  in  order  to  save  her 
aunt,  though  she  is  really  in  love  with  Prosper. 

The  plot  is  at  last  discovered;  Raoul  escapes,  De  Clameran  becomes  insane, 
Madame  Fauvel  is  forgiven,  and  Prosper  marries  Madeleine. 

FINGAL,  by  James  Macpherson,  is  an  'Ancient  Epic  Poem,  in  Six  Books/  which 
appeared  in  1762.  'FingaT  had  an  immense  sale,  and  ever  since  controversy  has 
raged  as  to  the  degree  of  authenticity  of  the  material  upon  which  it  was  founded. 
The  subject  of  the  epic  is  the  invasion  of  Ireland  by  Swaran,  king  of  Lochlin,  Den- 
mark, during  the  reign  of  Cormac  II.,  and  its  deliverance  by  the  aid  of  the  father  of 
Ossian,  King  Fingal  of  Morven,  on  the  northwest  coast  of  Scotland.  The  poem  opens 
with  the  overthrow  of  Cuthullin,  general  of  the  Irish  forces,  and  concludes  with  the 
return  of  Swaran  to  his  own  land.  It  is  cast  in  imitation  of  primitive  manners,  and  is 
written  in  a  style  which,  in  contemporary  opinion,  comported  with  its  theme.  While 
manifesting  sympathy  with  the  gloomy  Scottish  landscape,  the  author  has  presented 
a  warmly  colored  variety  of  scenes,  and  the  book  contributed  in  no  small  degree  to 
fostering  interest  in  Celtic  literature  and  promoting  more  scholarly  investigation. 

FIRE  AND  SWORD  IN  THE  SUDAN,  by  Rudolf  C.  Slatin  (1896),  is  a  record 
of  the  author's  experiences,  fighting  and  serving  the  Dervishes,  from  1879  to  1895. 
Slatin  Pasha  held  the  rank  of  colonel  in  the  Egyptian  army,  and  also  occupied 


THE    READER  S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  307 

the  post  of  governor  and  military  commandant  in  Darfur.  Having  been  compelled 
to  surrender  to  the  Mahdi's  vastly  superior  numbers,  he  remained  a  prisoner  of  that 
remarkable  leader  (of  whose  career  an  admirable  account  is  given),  and  of  the  Mahdi's 
successor,  the  Khalifa  Abdullahi,  for  more  than  ten  years.  Thus  the  Pasha  was 
forced  to  join  the  Khalifa's  bodyguard,  and  was  constituted  his  trusted,  though 
unwilling,  adviser.  This  relation  afforded  him  almost  unmatched  opportunities  for 
obtaining  an  inside  view  of  the  "rise,  progress,  and  decline  of  that  great  religious 
movement  which  wrenched  the  country  from  its  conquerors,  and  dragged  it  back  into 
an  almost  indescribable  condition  of  religious  and  moral  decadence."  Valuable 
information  is  given  regarding  those  military  operations  which  occupied  Euro- 
pean diplomacy  and  arms  for  two  decades;  the  siege  and  fall  of  Khartum,  and  the 
fate  of  "  Chinese ' '  Gordon,  being  of  particular  interest.  The  narrative  is  vigorous  and 
full  of  detail,  although  the  writer  was  not  permitted  to  keep  even  a  diary.  At  length, 
wearying  of  the  dangerous  favors  of  the  Khalifa,  Slatin  Pasha  made  a  dangerous 
escape,  and  rejoined  his  family  in  his  native  city  of  Vienna. 

FIRING  LINE,  THE,  by  Robert  W.  Chambers  (1908).  This  story  opens  at  Palm 
Beach,  Florida,  where  Garret  Hamil,  a  young  landscape  gardener  from  New  York, 
has  arrived  to  lay  out  a  park  on  the  magnificent  estate  of  a  wealthy  man  named 
Cardross.  Hamil  immediately  falls  victim  to  the  charms  of  Shiela  Cardross,  an  un- 
usually beautiful  and  fascinating  girl,  who  is  an  adopted  daughter  of  the  financier. 
When  he  proposes  she  tells  him  that  it  is  impossible  to  accept  him  as  she  is  already 
married.  Shiela  then  explains  that  two  years  prior  to  this  time,  when  she  was 
eighteen  years  of  age,  she  made  the  discovery  that  she  was  not  the  real  child  of  her 
beloved  parents  but  had  been  a  nameless  foundling.  Her  anguish  was  such  that  she 
was  almost  beside  herself  and  in  a  hasty  moment  she  had  married  a  young  college 
friend  of  her  brother's,  who  had  offered  her  his  name  in  this  time  of  stress.  He 
returned  at  once  to  college  and  she  had  hardly  seen  him  since  the  event,  which  she 
had  kept  a  secret  from  everyone.  Realizing  her  terrible  mistake  and  regretting  her 
hasty  act,  she  confesses  her  love  for  Hamil,  but  tells  him  she  can  never  be  his.  Hamil, 
who  sees  the  injustice  of  the  situation  to  all  concerned,  begs  her  to  get  a  divorce,  but 
she  tells  him  she  will  never  do  that  as  she  will  not  bring  disgrace  on  the  kind  parents 
who  have  done  everything  for  her.  Meanwhile,  her  husband,  Louis  Malcourt,  has 
become  interested  in  a  wealthy  society  girl,  named  Virginia  Suydam,  and  being  an 
attractive,  irresponsible  young  fellow  has  also  an  affair  with  a  pretty  actress  named 
Dolly  Wilming.  Nevertheless,  he  is  willing  to  acknowledge  his  marriage  whenever 
Shiela  wishes  it,  and  finally,  in  a  burst  of  remorse,  she  decides  to  do  so.  The  result 
is  disastrous  for  all  concerned  as  Shiela  treats  Malcourt  with  utter  coldness  and  is  wife 
only  in  name,  while  Hamil  and  Miss  Suydam  are  heart-broken.  In  a  short  time 
Malcourt,  who  is  an  eccentric  chap,  and  inherits  suicidal  mania  from  his  father, 
decides  to  relieve  the  situation  by  removing  his  presence  from  the  world,  and  shoots 
himself.  Shiela  is  shocked  and  prostrated  by  the  tragedy,  but  eventually  recovers, 
and  she  and  Hamil  are  at  last  happily  united. 

FIRST  VIOLIN,  THE,  a  noteworthy  musical  novel  by  Jessie  Fothergill  (1877), 
describes  the  romantic  experiences  of  an  English  girl,  May  Wedderburn,  while  she  is 
studying  music  in  Germany.  Although  the  plot  is  somewhat  conventional,  a  certain 
freshness  or  enthusiasm  in  the  composition  of  the  book  endows  it  with  vitality.  The 
heroine  leaves  home  to  avoid  marriage  with  a  Sir  Peter  Le  Marchant.  She  is  enabled 
to  do  this  through  an  elderly  neighbor,  Miss  Hallam,  whose  sister  had  been  the  first 


308  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

wife  of  Sir  Peter,  and  had  been  cruelly  treated  by  him.  As  Miss  Hallam's  companion, 
May  goes  to  Elberthal  on  the  Rhine  near  Cologne,  one  of  those  little  German  towns 
given  up  to  music.  On  the  journey  thither,  Miss  Wedderburn  is  separated  by  accident 
from  her  traveling  companions.  A  good-looking  stranger  comes  to  her  assistance. 
He  proves  to  be  Eugen  Courvoisier,  first  violin  in  the  orchestra,  a  man  about  whom  is 
the  fascination  of  mystery.  Taking  offense  at  a  supposed  discourtesy  of  the  beautiful 
young  English  girl  whom  he  had  protected,  he  refuses  to  recognize  her.  She,  for  her 
part,  is  already  in  love  with  him.  By  the  kindness  of  Miss  Hallam,  she  remains  in 
Elberthal  to  have  her  voice  cultivated,  and  her  lessons  in  music  and  in  love  go  on 
until  the  happy  ending  of  the  story.  Her  love  is  put  to  the  touch  by  the  supposed 
dishonor  of  Courvoisier,  but  bears  the  test  without  failing.  'The  First  Violin' 
abounds  in  dramatic  descriptions  of  musical  life  in  a  small  Rhine  city,  and  makes  the 
reader  pleasantly  at  home  in  middle-class  German  households,  where  he  learns  to 
respect,  if  he  does  not  admire,  middle-class  German  respectability  and  calm  content. 
If  the  book  has  the  sentimentality  of  youth,  its  romance  is  altogether  innocent  and 
pleasing. 

FISHER  MAIDEN,  THE,  by  Bjornstjerne  Bjornson,  the  Norwegian  novelist,  drama- 
tist, poet,  and  statesman,  appeared  in  1868,  and  has  been  translated  into  many 
tongues.  It  is  an  early  work,  written  in  his  first  flush  of  power,  and  is  a  characteristic 
story  of  Norwegian  life  among  the  common  people.  Several  of  the  poems  in  the  novel 
express  fervently  the  author's  optimistic  patriotism.  The  early  part  of  the  tale  is 
laid  in  a  fishing  village  on  the  coast,  where  lives  the  fisher  maiden,  a  strong-natured, 
handsome,  imaginative  girl,  whose  mother  keeps  a  sailors'  inn.  Her  development  is 
traced  in  her  love  affairs,  by  which  she  gains  a  bad  reputation,  so  that  her  mother 
sends  her  away  from  her  native  place;  in  her  experience  in  Bergen,  with  its  self- 
revelation  of  her  own  artist-nature  by  her  first  sight  of  a  play;  in  her  life  in  the  family 
of  a  priest,  with  its  chance  for  cultivation  and  training  of  her  dramatic  powers;  and 
in  the  final  adoption  of  the  stage  as  a  profession:  the  novel  closing,  rather  tantalizingly, 
just  as  the  curtain  rises  on  her  de*but.  Petra,  the  fisher  maiden,  has  the  instincts, 
gifts,  and  ambitions  of  the  artist,  and  her  earlier  love  episodes  are  but  ebullitions  of 
this  chief  motor-power.  She  is  portrayed  sympathetically;  for  as  Bjornson  stated  to 
a  friend,  she  is,  in  many  of  her  traits,  an  embodiment  of  himself.  The  story  is  full  of 
accurate  yet  charmingly  idealized  studies  of  native  types  and  scenes,  and  is  regarded 
as  among  the  novelist's  freshest,  finest  creations. 

FLAME  OF  LIFE,  THE  (II  Fuoco),  by  Gabriele  d'Annunzio  (1899).  The  heroine, 
La  Foscarina,  is  a  great  tragic  actress,  exquisite  in  everything,  except  that  she  is  at 
the  end  of  her  youth.  She  denies  the  gift  of  herself  to  her  lover,  a  young  poet,  whose 
inspiration  she  is,  but  finally  yields,  tormented  always  with  the  consciousness  that  this 
great  passion  has  come  too  late,  that  she  cannot  hope  to  hold  her  lover.  The  glamor 
of  Venice  in  the  autumn,  its  melancholy,  its  past  glories  is  the  background,  symbolic 
of  La  Foscarina,  "both  deep  and  tempting,  tired  with  having  lived  too  much,  and 
languid  with  too  many  loves."  Her  faith  and  confidence  and  praise  stimulate  Stelio's 
genius.  "  The  lonely  wandering  woman  seemed  to  carry  in  the  folds  of  her  dress  the 
silenced  frenzy  of  those  far-off  multitudes  from  whose  pent-up  brutality  her  cry  of 
passion  or  burst  of  sorrow  or  enthralling  pause  had  wrenched  the  sublime  pulsation 
that  art  quickens."  There  is  almost  no  contact  of  other  relations  or  interests.  The 
entire  drama  is  their 'intense  consciousness  of  each  other,  the  suffering  of  the  sensitive, 
artistic  woman,  the  flowering  of  the  poet's  genius,  and  the  magic  of  Italy.  She  divines 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  309 

his  desire  for  Donatella,  a  young  and  beautiful  singer,  even  in  the  certainty  of  his 
present  love  for  herself.  When  the  spring  comes  she  takes  up  her  art  again  and 
leaves  him,  promising  to  return  to  present  his  drama  now  finished.  It  is  supposed  to 
be  the  story  of  the  author's  own  amour  with  Duse  and  achieved  a  succh  de  scandale 
on  that  account.  Its  real  merit  consists  in  its  florid  metaphorical  style  and  magnifi- 
cent descriptions  of  Venice. 

FLORENCE,  THE  HISTORY  OF,  by  Niccolb  Machiavelli.  This  great  work  placed 
its  author  in  the  first  rank  of  modern  historians.  He  was  hailed  by  Italian  critics  as 
the  peer  of  Tacitus  and  Thucydides,  while  Hallam  thought  the  book  "enough  to 
immortalize  the  name  of  Machiavelli."  Its  chief  merit  lies  in  its  method,  wholly 
unlike  that  of  the  usual  mediaeval  dry  chronicle  of  facts.  Machiavelli 's  treatment  is 
philosophical;  seeking  always  after  motives,  causes,  and  results;  the  lesson  to  be 
drawn  from  the  subject  in  hand  being  always  something  to  be  made  use  of  for  instruc- 
tion in  the  present  and  the  future.  His  principal  generalizations  are  placed  as  intro- 
ductions to  the  several  books;  and  no  part  of  Machiavelli 's  work  is  more  valuable 
than  are  these  prologues.  The  history  marked  a  giant  stride  in  the  evolution  of 
Italian  literature,  and  established  a  standard  of  purity  for  the  language.  Vigorous 
in  thought,  the  narrative  is  developed  with  great  skill.  The  period  begins  with  the 
earliest  times,  and  extends  to  the  death  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent.  The  work  was 
done  as  a  commission  from  Clement  VII.  (when  still  Cardinal  Julius),  being  finished 
and  presented  to  the  Pope  in  1525. 

FOMA  GORD  YEEF,  by  Maxim  Gorky  (i  899) .  This  is  a  gloomy  story  of  an  imagina- 
tive, affectionate  youth  who  goes  steadily  to  ruin  through  his  better  impulses.  The 
opening  chapters  are  a  portrait  of  his  brutal  father,  a  self-made  millionaire  of  the 
prosperous  merchant  class  of  Russia,  who  works  and  carouses  with  equal  fury  and 
energy.  They  live  in  a  city  on  the  Volga,  and  the  river  is  connected  with  every  crisis 
of  Fomd's  life.  There  are  descriptions  of  the  river  in  the  spring,  of  his  trips  on  the 
river  as  a  child  with  his  father,  the  life  on  the  barges,  and  the  first  time  he  goes  in 
charge  of  his  own  steamer.  The  gentle  serious  child  is  happy  with  his  Aunt  Anfisa, 
who  tells  him  fairy  tales  and  tries  to  answer  his  questions.  When  he  grows  up  he  is 
still  asking  questions  no  one  can  answer  about  the  why  and  wherefore  of  existence. 
Without  knowledge  of  books  or  men,  or  any  developing  influence,  his  idealism  makes 
ineffectual  struggle  against  circumstances.  His  fortune  has  been  made  for  him,  and 
he  tries  in  vain  to  induce  his  godfather  to  take  his  wealth  and  manage  his  affairs  so 
that  he  may  be  free  from  responsibility,  since  he  is  not  interested  in  the  warfare  of 
business  waged  by  his  father's  friends  without  honor  or  honesty.  The  only  outlet  he 
finds  for  his  energy  is  drink  and  debauchery  of  every  description.  He  is  baffled  at 
every  turn  in  his  efforts  to  break  the  bonds  of  the  only  life  open  to  a  rich  Russian 
youth  of  his  class,  to  which  he  is  condemned  by  birth,  circumstance,  and  custom. 
One  day  when  the  wealthy  merchants  are  assembled  for  a  f£te  at  the  christening  of  a 
new  boat  on  the  Volga,  he  makes  a  scornful  speech  condemning  their  vices  and 
attacking  their  business  methods.  They  agree  that  he  must  be  mad  and  he  is  confined 
in  an  asylum  by  his  worldly  cunning  old  godfather,  the  merchant,  Malakin.  He  comes 
out  after  three  years  only  to  abandon  himself  to  drink. 

FOOL  IN  CHRIST,  THE  (Der  Narr  in  Christo),  by  Gerhart  Hauptmann  (1910). 
The  life  of  Emmanuel  Quint,  a  peasant  youth,  the  illegitimate  son  of  a  carpenter, 
parallels  in  modern  times  the  life  of  Jesus  In  Palestine.  Emmanuel  starts  preaching 


3io  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

in  the  market-place,  exhorting  the  world  to  repentance,  and  subsisting  on  alms.  For 
weeks  he  lives  alone  in  the  mountains  fasting  and  praying.  A  gentle,  sweet-natured 
man,  he  has  a  quieting  effect  on  the  sick,  whom  he  visits,  and  tales  of  his  healing  are 
grossly  exaggerated,  until  he  is  acclaimed  a  miracle  worker,  and  a  group  of  men  and 
women  follow  him  as  disciples.  These  followers  prepare  for  the  end  of  the  world  and 
indulge  in  the  fanaticism  and  excess  common  to  unbalanced  religious  sects.  They 
are  poverty-stricken  Silesian  weavers,  ignorant  and  superstitious,  driven  by  their 
misery  to  the  expectation  of  better  things  at  hand.  It  is  judged  that  his  influence 
incites  these  poor  people  to  discontent,  and  he  is  reviled  and  persecuted.  He  goes  to 
the  city,  and  lives  among  the  outcasts  of  society  at  an  inn,  where  all  conditions  of 
people  come  to  him.  He  makes  no  claims  for  himself  except  that  he  is  the  Son  of 
Man,  but  is  rather  ambiguous  in  statement  when  asked  to  explain  his  meaning. 
At  the  height  of  his  notoriety  he  is  accused  of  the  murder  of  a  young  girl,  daughter 
of  a  man  who  has  befriended  him.  His  followers  desert  him.  He  refuses  to  answer 
questions  before  his  judges,  but  is  proved  innocent.  Driven  from  the  city,  he  knocks 
at  every  door  by  the  way,  saying,  "I  am  Christ;  give  me  a  night's  lodging."  He 
wanders  as  far  as  the  Alps,  and  later  his  body  is  found  in  the  snow. 

FOOL  OF  QUALITY,  THE,  a  curious  novel  by  Henry  Brooke,  published  originally  in 
five  volumes  (1760-77),  was  considered  of  such  spiritual  value  by  John  Wesley,  the 
founder  of  Methodism,  that  he  prepared  a  special  edition  of  it  for  the  use  of  his 
followers.  Its  author,  an  Irishman,  had  been  a  courtier  and  man  of  the  world  before 
he  became  a  recluse.  He  had  known  Pope  and  Sheridan  and  Swift,  who  had  pro- 
phesied for  him  a  brilliant  career.  He  had  been  a  favorite  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and 
had  mingled  intimately  with  the  statesmen  of  the  day.  His  life,  extending  from  1706 
to  1783,  coincided  with  what  was  most  peculiarly  of  the  essence  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

£  The  Fool  of  Quality '  is  a  novel  without  a  plot,  or  rather  with  no  definite  scheme 
of  action.  It  is  concerned  in  the  main  with  the  boyhood  and  youth  of  Harry,  second 
son  of  the  Earl  of  Moreland,  dubbed  by  his  parents  the  "fool, "  because  he  appeared 
to  be  of  less  promise  than  his  elder  brother.  He  is  brought  up  by  a  foster-mother. 
After  some  years  his  parents  discover  that  so  far  from  lacking  intellect,  he  is  a  child 
of  unusual  precocity  and  promise.  The  novel  relates  how  this  promise  was  fulfilled. 
There  are,  however,  many  digressions  from  the  main  line  of  the  tale.  The  author 
moralizes,  puts  long  moral  anecdotes  in  the  lips  of  his  characters,  and  holds  imaginary 
conversations  with  the  reader.  These  anecdotes  and  conversations  are  chiefly  on  the 
power  and  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  Creator.  Towards  the  close  of  the  book  its 
mysticism  becomes  exceedingly  exalted  and  visionary,  suggesting  the  author's 
acquaintance  with  the  teachings  of  the  German  mystic,  Jacob  Boehme.  The  work 
as  a  whole  is  hardly  capable  of  holding  a  modern  reader's  interest.  It  had,  however, 
no  mean  place  in  the  popular  fiction  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  Charles  Kingsley 
contributed  a  laudatory  preface  to  a  new  edition  in  1859. 

FOOL'S  ERRAND,  A,  by  Albion  W.  Tourgee  (1879),  purports  to  have  been  written 
by  one  of  the  fools.  It  is  the  first  of  a  series  dealing  mainly  with  events  connected 
with  the  Civil  War.  "The  Fool"  is  Comfort  Servosse,  a  Union  colonel,  who  removes 
from  Michigan  to  a  Southern  plantation  after  peace  is  declared.  The  story  of  his 
reception  there  and  the  difficulties  encountered,  arising  out  of  old  prejudices  upon 
the  one  hand  and  his  own  training  and  convictions  upon  the  other,  is  told  with  great 
detail  and  strong  local  coloring.  The  author  with  great  fairness  considers  the  ques- 


THE   READER  S   DIGEST   OF  BOOKS  311 

tions  of  reconstruction,  while  some  thrilling  chapters  deal  with  the  outrages  of  the 
Ku-Klux.  A  love  episode  is  introduced,  which  proceeds  as  a  simple  narrative  with 
no  complications  of  plot. 

FOOTSTEPS  OF  FATE  ('Noodlot')  by  Louis  Marie  Anne  Couperus  (1891). 
Translation  from  the  Dutch  by  Clara  Bell.  This  story,  by  one  of  the  latest  and 
youngest  novelists  of  Holland,  is  powerfully  told,  and  is  of  absorbing  if  somewhat 
strange  and  morbid  interest.  It  opens  in  a  villa  of  suburban  London,  where  a  wealthy 
and  idle  young  Hollander  is  surprised  in  his  bachelor  apartments  by  a  visit  at  mid- 
night of  a  man  in  tramp's  attire,  who  seeks  shelter  and  food  in  the  name  of  early 
friendship  and  companionship.  "Bertie,"  the  name  of  the  returned  prodigal,  is 
taken  in  by  his  large-hearted  friend  Frank,  washed,  clothed,  and  fed  into  respect- 
ability, and  introduced  into  the  club  and  made  his  intimate  companion  and  peer  in 
society.  Wearying  at  last  of  an  endless  round  of  pleasure,  marred  at  times  for  Frank 
by  certain  survivals  of  low  habits  in  his  friend,  they,  at  Bertie's  suggestion,  go  off 
for  a  tour  in  Norway,  where  Frank  meets  the  young  lady  who  will  henceforth  absorb 
his  affections.  Bertie  seeing  this,  and  dismayed  at  the  prospect  of  being  again 
thrown  upon  the  world,  all  the  more  unfitted  for  struggle  after  his  unstinted  enjoy- 
ment of  his  friend's  wealth,  is  prompted  by  his  "fate'1  to  plot  for  the  prevention  of 
the  marriage  of  the  loving  couple;  and  the  story  is  occupied  with  the  progress  and 
results  of  his  evil  scheme.  There  is  in  it  a  strong  savor  of  Ibsen  and  of  the  Karma 
cult,  a  subtle  portrayal  of  character,  and  much  fine  interpretation  of  nature.  The 
author  was  already  favorably  known  through  his  longer  novel  'Eline  Vere.' 

FOR  FAITH  AND  FREEDOM,  by  Sir  Walter  Besant  (1888),  is  a  story  of  Monmouth's 
Rebellion.  The  greater  part  of  it  purports  to  be  told  by  Grace  Abounding  Eykin, 
the  lovely  Puritan  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Comfort  Eykin,  D.  D.,  rector  of  Bradford 
Orcas,  Somersetshire.  Followed  by  his  wife  and  daughter,  he  joins  the  rebel  forces 
as  chaplain.  With  the  insurgents  enlist  also  Barnaby  Eykin,  his  son,  who  receives 
the  command  of  a  company;  Robin  Challis,  grandson  and  heir  of  Sir  Christopher 
Challis  (the  magnate  of  their  neighborhood),  Grace's  accepted  lover;  and  Humphrey 
Challis,  his  cousin,  another  fine  fellow  though  in  a  different  way,  and  a  skilled  physi- 
cian —  also  in  love  with  Grace,  and  beloved  by  her  as  a  brother.  With  the  collapse 
of  the  uprising  they  all  come  to  grief.  The  chaplain  and  his  wife  die  in  jail.  The  three 
young  men  are  taken,  imprisoned,  and  as  a  result  of  influence  brought  to  bear  at 
court  by  the  Rev.  Philip  Boscorel,  Sir  Christopher's  son-in-law,  allowed  with  many 
others  to  be  transported  by  an  inhuman  Bristol  sharper  to  Barbadoes,  where  they  are 
sold  as  slaves.  From  this  point  the  story  moves  rapidly  through  joy  and  sorrow, 
through  deception  and  disgrace,  among  the  most  wretched  surroundings  and  exciting 
incidents.  The  victims  finally  escape  from  Barbadoes,  and  at  last  return  to  England, 
in  time  for  the  three  men  to  take  part  in  the  Prince  of  Orange's  triumphal  invasion. 
In  the  wake  of  peace  comes  personal  happiness  at  last. 

FOREGONE  CONCLUSION,  A,  by  W.  D.  Howells  (1875),  one  of  his  earlier  and 
simpler  novels,  relates  the  love  story  of  Florida  Vervain,  a  young  girl  sojourning  in 
Venice  with  her  mother,  an  amiable,  weak-headed  woman,  of  the  type  so  frequently 
drawn  by  the  author.  The  daughter  is  beloved  by  the  United  States  consul,  a  Mr. 
Ferris,  and  by  Don  Ippolito,  a  priest.  The  latter  is  a  strongly  drawn,  interesting 
study.  He  is  a  man  whom  circumstances  rather  tnan  inclination  led  into  the  priest- 
hood. From  the  hour  of  his  ordination  he  finds  the  holy  office  an  obstacle  to  Ms 


312  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

normal  development.  He  has  the  genius  of  the  inventor ;  has  spent  years  in  perfecting 
impossible  models.  Florida  Vervain  becomes  his  pupil  in  Italian.  Her  young 
enthusiasm  leads  her  to  believe  that  if  Don  Ippolito  were  only  in  America  his  inven- 
tions would  receive  fruitful  recognition.  She  proposes  that  he  accompany  her  and 
her  mother  to  Providence.  He,  in  the  first  joy  of  the  prospect,  declares  his  love  for 
her.  She  is  horror-stricken  because  "  he  is  a  priest ' ' ;  and  her  refusal  of  him  eventually 
brings  about  his  death.  These  events  open  the  eyes  of  Ferris,  whose  jealousy  of  the 
poor  priest  had  led  him  into  a  sullen  attitude  towards  the  woman  he  loved. 

The  novel,  despite  a  happy  ending,  is  overshadowed  by  the  tragic  central  figure 
of  Don  Ippolito.  ,The  priest  and  the  girl  are  remarkably  vivid,  well-drawn  characters. 
There  is  just  enough  of  the  background  of  Venice  to  give  color  to  the  story. 

FOREST  LOVERS,  THE,  by  Maurice  Hewlett  (1898)  deals  with  the  early 
romance  days  of  France  and  with  the  manifold  experiences  of  Prosper  le  Gai 
in  the  mysterious  forest  of  Morgraunt.  Prosper,  who  rides  singing  on  his 
way,  intent  only  upon  adventure,  and  without  a  thought  of  love,  finds  himself, 
before  a  week  has  passed,  the  husband  of  a  pathetic  little  waif.  He  marries  this 
poor  servant-girl,  apparently  of  low  degree,  from  pity,  in  order  to  rescue  her  from 
being  hanged  as  a  witch,  or  handed  over  to  a  false  monk.  In  the  end  his  wife,  Isoult 
la  Desiree,  proves  to  be  the  long-lost  daughter  of  the  Countess  Isabel,  Countess  of 
Hauterive  and  Lady  of  Morgraunt.  The  motive  of  the  story  is  the  triumphant 
progress  of  Isoult 's  love  for  her  knight  and  lord.  She  serves  him  and  as  prote'ge'e  and 
slave  undergoes  blood-curdling  experiences  and  intense  humiliation  for  his  sake, 
almost  sacrificing  her  life  to  save  his  credit.  Prosper 's  feeling  for  the  waif  he  has 
rescued  passes  from  pity  to  interest  and  at  last  reaches  the  plane  of  noble  and  ideal 
love,  which  alone  is  what  Isoult  desires  to  attain.  A  mutual  and  perfect  under- 
standing is  reached  in  the  end  when  Isoult 's  love  has  been  tried,  and  Prosper 's 
developed  by  all  the  stirring  incidents  which  the  story  contains.  The  book  is  well 
named,  as  the  mysterious  enchantment  of  the  forest  plays  an  important  part  in  this 
mediaeval  romance,  and  the  author  has  succeeded  in  combining  real  human  interest 
with  his  fantastic  setting. 

FORMOSA,  Historical  and  Geographical  Description  of,  by  George  Psaknanaazaar. 
The  title-page  of  this  curious  book,  published  in  French  at  Amsterdam,  by  Pierre 
Mortier  &  Co.,  in  1708,  bears  this  description  of  its  contents: 

4 'Description  of  the  Island  of  Formosa  in  Asia:  of  its  Government  and  its  Laws: 
its  Manners  and  the  Religion  of  the  Inhabitants:  prepared  from  the  Memoirs  of  the 
Sieur  George  Psalmanaazaar,  a  Native  of  that  Isle:  with  a  full  and  Exact  Account  of 
his  Voyages  in  Many  Parts  of  Europe,  of  the  Persecution  which  he  has  Suffered  on 
the  Part  of  the  Jesuits  of  Avignon,  and  of  the  Reasons  which  have  Induced  Him  to 
Abjure  Paganism  and  to  Embrace  the  Reformed  Christian  Religion.  By  the  Sieur 
N.  F.  D.  B.  R.  Enriched  with  Maps  and  Pictures. " 

The  book  was  evidently  inspired  by  the  sectarian  zeal  of  the  Reformed  Church 
in  Holland,  and  looked  to  palliating  in  Christian  eyes  the  offense  of  the  Japanese  in 
putting  to  death  the  Jesuit  missionaries  in  that  country.  No  suspicion  or  charge  is 
too  bad  to  be  entertained  against  the  Jesuits.  In  the  preface  the  author  illustrates 
their  aspiration  to  universal  dominion  by  a  remark  of  the  General  of  the  Order, 
Aquaviva,  to  a  cardinal  visiting  him  in  His  little  chamber  at  Rome:  "Little  as  my 
bedroom  looks,  without  leaving  it  I  govern  all  the  world."  The  preface  is  employed 
in  denouncing  the  Jesuits,  and  in  defending  the  character  and  the  veracity  of  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  313 

alleged  author  of  the  memoirs.  His  statements  are  contrasted  with  the  reports  of 
Candidius  in  the  'Collection  of  Voyages,'  published  in  London,  1703,  to  the  effect 
that  the  island  was  wholly  without  law  and  government;  a  statement  which  he  argues 
is  absurd.  The  purpose  that  animates  the  book,  and  the  author's  style,  may  be 
judged  of  by  the  following  quotation: 

"The  Adventures  of  Sr.  George  Psalmanaazaar,  Japanese  and  Pagan  by  birthi 
the  education  he  received  at  home  from  a  Jesuit  passing  for  a  Japanese  and  Pagan 
like  himself,  the  artifice  used  by  the  Jesuit  in  abducting  him  from  the  home  of  his 
father  and  bringing  him  to  France,  the  firmness  with  which  he  resisted  all  solicitations 
of  a  powerful  and  formidable  organization  which  has  used  every  means  to  make  him 
embrace  a  religion  that  seemed  to  him  absurd  in  practice,  however  reasonable  in 
origin,  finally  his  conversion  to  the  Protestant  religion  under  no  other  constraint  than 
that  of  the  simple  truth,  —  all  this  is  accompanied  by  circumstances  so  extraordinary 
as  to  have  excited  the  curiosity  of  judicious  minds  both  in  Holland  and  in  England, 
and  in  all  other  places  visited  by  him.  People  have  crowded  to  see  him,  talk  with 
him,  and  hear  from  his  lips  these  remarkable  experiences." 

FORTY-FIVE  GUARDSMEN,  THE  ('Les  Quarante-Cinq'),  by  Alexandra  Dumas 
(1894),  the  most  celebrated  of  French  romance  writers,  is  in  two  volumes,  and  is  the 
third  of  a  series  known  as  *The  Valois  Romances.'  The  scenes  are  laid  in  and  about 
Paris  during  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1585-86,  when  political  events  made  all 
France  excited  and  immoral.  The  vexations  of  Henri  III.  and  the  ambitions  of  the 
queen  mother,  Catherine  de'  Medici,  are  vividly  set  before  the  reader,  so  as  to  hold 
his  unflagging  attention.  "The  Forty-five"  are  guardsmen  led  by  the  brave  and 
noble  soldier  Crillon.  The  story  opens  on  the  morning  of  October  26th,  1585,  with 
a  description  of  a  vast  assembly  of  people  before  the  closed  gates  of  Paris,  clamoring 
for  admission,  to  witness  the  execution  of  Salcede,  a  convict  murderer.  This  mis- 
creant is  no  vulgar  assassin,  but  a  captain  of  good  birth,  even  distantly  related  to  the 
queen.  King  Henri  III.,  his  queen,  Anne,  and  the  queen  mother,  Catherine  de' 
Medici,  have  come  to  witness  the  execution  of  the  sentence,  which  is  drawing  and 
quartering.  Word  reaches  the  King  that  Salcede,  on  promise  of  pardon,  will  reveal 
important  State  secrets.  Henri  agrees  to  the  condition,  and  receives  a  document 
which,  to  his  disappointment,  exonerates  the  Guises  from  the  charge  of  conspiracy. 
The  perfidious  King  orders  the  execution  to  take  place,  and  a  horrible  spectacle 
ensues.  After  this  dramatic  opening  incidents  and  events  crowd  thick  and  fast;  and 
the  two  volumes  are  taken  up  with  the  unraveling  of  the  political  plots  suggested  in 
the  first  chapter.  The  story  is  one  of  the  most  famous  of  historical  romances. 

FORTY-ONE  YEARS  IN  INDIA,  by  Lord  Roberts  of  Kandahar,  was  published  in 
1897,  and  became  immediately  popular;  passing  through  sixteen  editions  within 
three  months.  The  work  is  a  voluminous  autobiography,  tracing  the  life  of  the 
author  from  his  days  as  a  subaltern  until  his  promotion  to  the  position  of  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  British  forces  in  India,  and  written  with  the  candor  of  an  observer 
whose  experiences  have  trained  him  to  make  broad  generalizations  in  varied  fields. 
With  no  attempt  at  melodramatic  presentation,  the  account  of  the  highly  colored 
life  of  India  during  the  critical  period  covered  is  both  vivid  and  striking.  Valuable 
notes  are  given  upon  governmental  policies,  international  complications,  and  the 
affairs  with  the  many  Indian  peoples;  while  religious,  educational,  commercial,  and 
sanitary  matters  are  treated  with  sufficient  fullness.  Lord  Roberts  came  into  close 
touch  with  all  the  leading  minds  who  shaped  Indian  affairs  during  the  previous  half- 


314  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

century,  and  perhaps  the  most  valuable  pages  of  his  book  are  those  which  describe 
these  great  men. 

FO-SHO-HING-TSAN-KING,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

FOUNDATIONS  OF  BELIEF,  THE,  'Being  Notes  Introductory  to  the  Study 
of  Theology,'  by  Arthur  James  Balfour  (1895.  New  ed.  1900).  A  work  answering 
to  its  title,  as  the  author  states,  in  only  the  narrowest  sense  of  the  word  "theology"; 
the  writer's  purpose  being,  not  immediate  aid  to  theological  study,  but  attention  to 
certain  preliminaries  to  be  settled  before  coming  to  that  study.  "My  object,  "  says 
Mr.  Balfour,  "is  to  recommend  a  particular  way  of  looking  at  the  world-problems 
which  we  are  all  compelled  to  face."  He  also  states  that  he  has  designed  his  work 
for  the  general  reader.  It  is  a  study  calculated  to  assist  thoughtful  inquirers  to 
adjust  the  relations  of  belief  to  doubt,  and  to  maintain  a  healthy  balance  of  the  mind 
in  presence  of  general  unsettlement  of  traditional  beliefs.  Its  specific  question 
addressed  to  the  doubter  is  whether  belief  in  "a  living  God"  is  not  required  even  by 
science,  and  still  more  by  ethics,  aesthetics,  and  theology.  Near  the  close  of  his  book 
Mr.  Balfour  says:  "What  I  have  so  far  tried  to  establish  is  this,  —  that  the  great 
body  of  our  beliefs,  scientific,  ethical,  aesthetic,  theological,  form  a  more  coherent 
and  satisfactory  whole  if  we  consider  them  in  a  Theistic  setting,  than  if  we  consider 
them  in  a  Naturalistic  setting."  In  a  few  concluding  pages  the  further  question  is 
raised  whether  this  Theistic  setting  is  not  found  in  its  best  form  in  Christianity  as  a 
Doctrine  of  Incarnation  and  Supernatural  Revelation. 

FOUNDING  OF  THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE,  THE:  Based  chiefly  upon  Prussian 
State  Documents;  by  Hemrich  von  Sybel  (7  vols.,  1890-98).  An  able  authoritative 
treatment  of  Prussian  history  during  the  period  1850-70.  Dr.  Von  Sybel  had 
published  a  'History  of  the  Revolutionary  Period  from  1789  to  iSoo/  in  which  he 
pictured  the  downfall  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  among  the  Germans.  In  sequel 
to  this  he  undertook  the  history  of  the  Prussian  founding  of  a  German  Empire. 
Bismarck  gave  permission,  March  I9th,  1881,  for  him  to  use  the  records  in  the 
government  archives;  and  through  five  volumes,  bringing  the  story  as  far  as  to  1 866, 
this  privilege  was  of  avail  to  secure  an  accurate  and  comprehensive  picture  of  Prus- 
sian aims  and  efforts  down  to  the  war  with  Austria.  A  few  months  after  Bismarck's 
retirement,  the  permission  to  consult  the  documents  of  the  Foreign  Office  was  with- 
drawn; but  for  a  correct  completion  of  the  essential  course  of  events  this  proved  not 
a  serious  matter.  The  place  of  the  official  records  was  very  well  supplied  by  the 
literature  already  in  print,  by  the  personal  knowledge  of  Von  Sybel  himself  from  his 
own  participation  in  important  events,  and  the  knowledge  of  many  other  partici- 
pants in  the  history,  and  by  an  abundance  of  written  records  freely  placed  at  his 
disposal.  The  entire  work,  therefore,  in  seven  stout  volumes,  cannot  fail  to  be  a 
most  valuable  contemporary  history.  It  is  introduced  by  an  elaborate  retrospect  of 
German  history  from  the  earliest  times  to  the  middle  (1850)  of  the  reign  of  Frederick 
William  IV.  (June  7th,  1840,  to  January  2d,  1861).  This  monarch,  after  ten  years 
of  dogged  refusal,  finally  granted  Prussia  a  written  constitution  and  a  representative 
parliament  (January  3ist,  1850).  It  is  at  this  point  that  Dr.  von  Sybel  takes  up  the 
history  for  full  and  exact  treatment  of  the  steps  of  change  by  which  the  king  of  Prus- 
sia was  to  become  in  1871,  January  i8th,  at  the  close  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War, 
the  German  emperor.  King  Frederick  William's  shattered  health  (from  paralysis 
and  occasional  insanity)  led  to  the  appointment  of  his  brother  William  as  regent* 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  315 

October  7th,  1858;  and  upon  the  former's  death,  January  2d,  1861,  the  latter  suc- 
ceeded to  the  Prussian  throne  as  William  I.  The  policy  of  the  new  king  was  military 
rather  than  popular,  to  strengthen  the  army  rather  than  to  develop  a  free  Prussia; 
and  this  might  have  overthrown  him  had  he  not  found  in  Bismarck  a  minister  able  to 
unite  the  conflicting  interests.  Bismarck's  "Blood  and  Iron, "  which  has  been  com- 
monly misunderstood,  meant  German  Blood  or  Race,  —  German  Unity,  —  and  Iron 
or  arms  to  enable  Prussia  to  develop  it.  Dr.  Von  Sybel  takes  up  in  his  first  volume 
the  first  attempt  at  German  unity;  then  relates  the  failure  of  the  projects  for  securing 
it  and  the  achievement  of  Prussian  union.  In  Vol.  ii.  he  deals  with  the  revival  of 
the  Confederate  Diet;  Germany  at  the  time  of  the  Crimean  War;  the  first  years  of  the 
reign  of  William  I. ;  and  the  beginning  of  the  ministry  of  Bismarck.  He  devotes  Vol. 
iii.  to  the  war  with  Denmark,  and  Vols.  iv.  and  v.  to  the  relations  of  Prussia  with 
Austria,  and  the  settlement  of  their  difficulties  in  "the  Bohemian  War"  in  which 
Prussian  success  laid  the  foundation  of  the  new  empire.  The  development  of  Prussian 
power  in  North  Germany  and  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  ending  with  the  making  of 
King  William  emperor,  are  the  topics  of  the  concluding  volumes.  The  English 
translation  of  this  great  work  is  an  American  enterprise. 

FOUR  FEATHERS,  THE,  by  A.  E.  W.  Mason  (1902).  The  scene  of  this  story  is 
laid  in  England  and  in  the  Soudan  in  war  time.  Harry  Feversham,  the  son  of  Gen- 
eral Feversham,  a  Crimean  veteran,  has  grown  up  with  the  strong  impression  that 
he  would  prove  himself  a  coward  in  any  great  emergency,  and,  knowing  he  was 
destined  for  the  army,  this  thought  has  cast  a  shadow  over  his  youth. 

He  becomes  engaged  to  a  beautiful  Irish  girl  named  Ethne  Eustace  and  announces 
the  fact  at  a  bachelor  dinner  given  by  him  to  his  old  friend  Jack  Durrance  and  two 
officers  of  his  regiment,  Captain  Trench  and  Lieutenant  Willoughby.  While  the 
dinner  is  in  progress  a  telegram  is  brought  to  Feversham  from  Castleton,  a  brother 
officer,  informing  him  that  their  regiment  has  been  ordered  into  action  and  telling 
him  to  notify  Trench.  He  destroys  the  dispatch  without  explaining  the  contents, 
tells  his  friends  that  on  account  of  his  approaching  marriage  he  is  going  to  resign 
from  the  army,  and  sends  in  his  papers  that  night.  His  action  is  soon  discovered  by 
Trench  and  Willoughby  and  they  unite  with  Castleton  in  sending  him  a  box  contain- 
ing three  white  feathers  with  their  cards  enclosed.  Feversham  receives  the  box  while 
dancing  with  his  fiancee  at  a  ball  given  at  her  house  the  following  evening  and  when 
she  calls  for  an  explanation  he  tells  her  the  story  unsparingly.  Ethne,  who  is  a  high- 
minded  girl,  is  horrified  at  his  avowal  and,  after  telling  him  that  all  is  over  between 
them,  breaks  a  white  feather  from  her  fan  and  adds  it  to  the  other  three.  Feversham, 
overwhelmed  with  misery,  informs  his  father  of  his  disgrace,  then  seeks  his  old  friend 
Lieutenant  Sutch,  a  past  admirer  of  his  dead  mother,  and  tells  him  of  his  purpose 
to  leave  the  country  'for  the  seat  of  war,  and  not  return  until  he  has  redeemed  each 
feather  by  some  act  of  bravery. 

Durrance,  who  has  never  known  of  Feversham 's  trouble,  returns  to  England  to 
find  Ethne  in  reduced  circumstances  and  still  unmarried.  Having  always  loved  Her, 
he  presses  his  suit,  when  he  finds  he  can  do  so  without  disloyalty  to  his  friend,  but 
she  refuses  him  and  he  returns  to  the  Soudan.  There  he  is  suddenly  stricken  with 
blindness  and  Ethne  upon  hearing  this  writes  that  she  will  marry  him.  While 
engaged  to  Durrance,  Willoughby  brings  to  her  the  first  white  feather  which  Fever- 
sham  has  redeemed  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  and  this  is  followed  some  time  later  by  the 
return  of  Trench  with  his,  his  rescue  from  prison  having  been  accomplished  by 
Feversham  after  frightftJ  sufferings  and  privation.  After  six  years  of  penance 


^i  6  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

(Castleton  being  dead)  Feversham  feels  his  purpose  has  been  accomplished  and 
returns  to  his  native  land.  He  finds  Ethne  engaged  and  prepares  to  give  her  up,  but 
Durrance,  having  discovered  her  feeling  for  Feversham,  generously  resigns  in  his 
favor. 

FOUR  GEORGES,  THE,  by  William  Makepeace  Thackeray  (1860).  As  the  sub- 
title states,  this  work  consists  of  sketches  of  manners,  morals,  court  and  town  life 
during  the  reign  of  these  Kings.  The  author  shows  us  "people  occupied  with  their 
every-day  work  or  pleasure:  my  lord  and  lady  hunting  in  the  forest,  or  dancing  in 
the  court,  or  bowing  to  their  Serene  Highnesses,  as  they  pass  in  to  dinner."  Of 
special  interest  to  American  readers  is  the  frank  but  sympathetic  account  of  the  third 
George,  ending  with  the  famous  description  of  the  last  days  of  the  old  King:  "Low 
he  lies  to  whom  the  proudest  used  to  kneel  once,  and  who  was  cast  lower  than  the 
poorest;  dead,  whom  millions  prayed  for  in  vain.  Driven  off  his  throne;  buffeted 
by  rude  hands;  with  his  children  in  revolt;  the  darling  of  his  old  age  killed  before  him, 
untimely,  —  our  Lear  hangs  over  her  breathless  lips  and  cries,  '  Cordelia,  Cordelia, 
stay  a  little!'  "  These  essays  do  not  profess  to  be  history  in  any  sense:  they  express 
the  thoughts  of  the  kindly  satirist,  of  the  novelist  who  sees  not  too  deeply,  but  whose 
gaze  misses  nothing  in  the  field  it  scans.  Written  in  much  the  manner  of  'Esmond ' 
or  'Vanity  Fair,'  and  in  the  author's  inimitable  style,  they  give  delight  which  their 
readers  never  afterward  wholly  lose. 

FOUR  GEORGES,  A  HISTORY  OF  THE,  in  four  volumes,  by  Justin  McCarthy 
( 1 884-1 90 1 ) .  In  this  work  Mr.  McCarthy  deals,  in  his  own  words, ' '  with  history  in  its 
old  —  and  we  suppose  its  everlasting  —  fashion:  that  of  telling  what  happened  in 
the  way  of  actual  fact,  telling  the  story  of  the  time."  His  manner  of  writing  is  the 
old-fashioned,  time-honored  one;  but  it  is  very  entertaining  of  its  kind.  His  pictures 
are  clear  in  color,  full,  and  vivid;  the  figures  that  move  across  the  pages  are  lifelike 
and  complete. 

FOUR  MILLION,  THE,  by  O.  Henry  (1906).  O.  Henry  is  the  knight  of  the  shop 
girl  and  the  waitress,  the  romantic  biographer  of  East  Side  New  York.  The  title 
'The  Four  Million'  is  a  protest  against  the  social  arbiter,  who  counts  only  the  ex- 
clusive "four-hundred"  of  fashionable  society,  leaving  out  of  his  reckoning  such 
interesting  humanity  as  the  hall-bedroom  young  man,  and  the  tramp.  In  the  '  Gift 
of  the  Magi'  a  young  husband  and  wife  sacrifice  their  greatest  treasures  to  buy 
Christmas  presents  for  each  other.  He  pawns  his  gold  watch  to  buy  a  set  of  real 
shell  combs  for  her  beautiful  hair,  unaware  that  she  that  day  has  cut  off  her  long  hair 
and  sold  it  to  get  him  a  handsome  fob  for  his  watch.  Another  story  has  a  tramp 
hero.  With  winter  coming  "Soapy"  finds  the  bench  in  the  park  no  longer  comfort- 
able even  with  three  Sunday  newspapers  distributed  over  his  person.  He  makes 
desperate  efforts  to  get  sent  up  to  the  workhouse  for  winter  lodging,  as  his  more 
fortunate  fellow-citizens  would  make  arrangements  for  Palm  Beach  and  the  Riviera. 
He  breaks  a  window,  steals  an  umbrella,  assumes  the  r61e  of  "maslier,"  tries  drunk 
and  disorderly  conduct,  but  all  in  vain,  the  police  refuse  to  arrest  him.  As,  however, 
he  lingers  near  a  church  listening  to  the  anthem,  resolved  to  lead  a  better  life,  a 
policeman  arrests  him  for  loitering.  'An  Unfinished  Story*  is  a  stern  arraignment 
of  the  employer  who  underpays  his  shop-girls.  Dulcie  is  saved  from  going  out  with 
the  man  known  as  "Piggie"  this  one  night  by  the  look  of  "sorrowful  reproach,"  in 
the  eyes  of  General  Kitchener  looking  down  at  her  from  his  gilt  frame  on  her  dresser, 
but  the  end  of  the  story  will  be  later,  "sometime  when  Piggie  asks  Dulcie  again  to 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  317 

dine  with  him,  and  she  is  feeling  lonelier  than  usual,  and  General  Kitchener  happens 
to  be  looking  the  other  way."  'The  Furnished  Room'  is  really  a  ghost  story. 
The  ghost  is  a  whiff  of  mignonette  which  suggests  his  lost  sweetheart  to  the  boy  who 
by  pathetic  coincidence  has  come  to  the  same  "furnished  room"  where  she  had  just 
ended  her  life.  He  is  convinced  that  she  has  been  in  the  room,  and  hopes  to  find 
trace  of  her,  but  the  landlady  will  not  tell  the  story  of  her  last  lodger,  for  fear  of  not 
renting  the  room.  With  loss  of  hope  he  loses  faith,  puts  out  the  light,  and  turns  on 
the  gas,  as  she  had  done  before  him.  '  The  Sisters  of  the  Golden  Circle '  are  two  brides 
who  recognize  their  sisterhood  on  the  top  of  a  "rubber-neck  wagon."  The  more 
fortunate  sister  allows  her  own  husband  to  be  arrested  as  a  burglar  long  enough  to 
let  the  real  "Pinky"  escape  to  finish  his  honeymoon.  The  humor,  pathos,  and 
philosophy  of  O.  Henry  are  at  their  best  in  these  varied  sketches  with  characteristic 
surprise  endings. 

FOURTH  ESTATE,  THE  ('El  Cuarto  Poder'),  by  Armando  Palacio  Valdes  (1888). 
A  satirical  description  of  the  effect  of  the  establishment  of  a  newspaper  in  a  Spanish 
provincial  town.  An  opposition  journal  is  started  to  make  war  on  the  clique  who 
are  trying  to  keep  abreast  of  the  times.  Everything  that  happens  is  indirectly  caused 
by  the  paragraphs  of  the  rival  journals.  "A  Friendly  Argument  in  the  Cafe*  de  La 
Marina"  where  the  leading  citizens  assemble  daily  to  discuss  the  news  is  reprinted 
in  the  LIBRARY.  The  story  is  mainly  about  the  love  of  two  sisters  for  the  same  man, 
Gonzalo.  He  is  engaged  to  the  oldest  sister,  Cecilia,  a  noble  lovely  woman,  but  is 
enticed  away  from  her  by  the  heartless  beautiful  younger  sister,  Ventura.  The 
scene  when  Ventura  wins  a  declaration  of  love  from  Gonzalo  is  given  in  the  LIBRARY. 
Cecilia  bears  her  loss  with  dignity,  allowing  the  household  to  believe  her  without 
heart.  She  is  a  devoted  sister  to  the  young  couple.  To  save  the  young  wife  from 
discovery,  and  Gonzalo  from  sorrow,  she  lets  Gonzalo  believe  her  guilty  of  a  liaison 
with  her  sister's  lover.  Ventura  at  last  elopes  with  her  lover,  an  elderly  nobleman. 
Gonzalo  learns  of  her  flight  from  the  Convent,  in  which  the  family  have  placed  her, 
through  the  newspaper  account,  and  commits  suicide.  Aside  from  the  tragic  love 
story,  we  have  a  series  of  entertaining  episodes  illustrating  the  jealousies  and  corrupt 
journalism  of  the  provincial  town.  The  proprietor  of  the  newspaper,  the  rich  cod- 
fish merchant,  who  spends  his  leisure  time  making  wooden  toothpicks  and  writing 
letters  to  the  press,  is  an  interesting  type. 

FOX,  CHARLES  JAMES,  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF,  by  Sir  G.  O.  Trevelyan, 
appeared  in  1880.  Following  the  method  of  his  admirable  'Life  and  Letters  of  Lord 
Macaulay/  the  author  makes  a  profound  study  of  the  social  and  political  environ- 
ment of  the  youthful  Fox  as  he  entered  upon  his  brilliant  career.  The  loose  morals  of 
the  times,  and  the  prevalent  political  corruption,  are  reviewed  with  dispassionate 
candor.  With  charm  of  language,  and  the  fascination  of  a  romance,  are  presented 
the  great  but  too  often  venal  minds  which  shaped  the  course  of  public  action  dur- 
ing the  Georgian  era;  and  a  review  of  the  Parliamentary  measures  which  made  or 
marred  the  careers  of  men,  the  success  of  cabinets,  and  the  fate  of  issues  of  national 
moment. 

Altogether,  Fox  is  presented  as  a  young  man  of  remarkable  astuteness  and  vigor 
of  intellect,  a  born  orator  and  leader,  and,  considering  his  corrupt  environment,  a 
force  making  for  political  probity. 

FOX,  GEORGE,  JOURNAL  OF  (1694).  The  Journal  of  the  founder  of  the  Society  of 
Friends  takes  rank  with  Wesley's  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  revealing  o* 


318  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

religious  autobiographies,  notwithstanding  Macaulay's  dictum  that  Fox  was  "too 
much  disordered  for  liberty  and  not  sufficiently  disordered  for  Bedlam."  He  who 
would  understand  the  doctrine  of  the  inner  light  must  turn  to  the  pages  of  Fox  in 
which,  as  Huxley,  an  avowed  agnostic,  handsomely  acknowledged,  the  student  will 
be  rewarded  by  passages  of  great  beauty  and  power.  The  facts  of  Fox's  life,  his 
early  religious  experiences,  his  months  and  years  of  imprisonment  under  vile  condi- 
tions for  conscience'  sake,  his  brave  and  dignified  pleas  before  the  courts,  his  mis- 
sionary journeys  in  which  he  visited  every  corner  of  England  and  Wales,  are  all 
transcribed  with  artless  sincerity,  and  even  loftiness  of  language. 

FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND  IN  NORTH  AMERICA:  '  A  Series  of  Historical  Nar- 
ratives T  (7,  in  9  volumes),  by  Francis  Parkman.  A  magnificent  frontispiece  to  the 
history  of  the  United  States;  in  conception  and  execution  a  performance  of  the 
highest  character,  interest,  and  value;  for  genius  and  fidelity  in  research  perhaps 
never  surpassed;  graphic  narrative  bringing  back  the  continental  stretches  of  un- 
trodden forest,  the  stealthy  savage,  the  scheming  soldier,  the  mission  planted  in  the 
wilderness,  the  pioneers  of  settlement  and  the  heroes  of  conquest,  colonies  founded 
upon  the  ideas  of  opposed  European  powers,  the  struggles  of  policy  or  of  arms  to 
widen  control  and  make  possession  more  secure,  and  the  movements  of  world- 
destiny  which  turned  and  overturned  to  decide  under  what  flag  and  along  what 
paths  empire  should  take  her  westward  course  from  sea  to  sea,  or  broaden  down  from 
the  lakes  to  the  gulf. 

It  had  been  the  dream  of  the  author's  youth,  and  the  inspiration  of  his  genius, 
to  spend  himself  effectually  in  recovering  the  almost  lost  history  of  New  France  in 
America;  to  found  upon  original  documents  a  continuous  narrative  of  French  efforts 
to  occupy  and  control  the  continent:  and  at  the  date  of  his  last  preface,  March  26th, 
1892,  he  was  able  to  refer  to  a  collection  of  manuscript  materials  begun  forty-five 
years  before,  and  carried  to  completion  in  seventy  volumes. 

Part  First  of  the  great  work,  dating  from  January  ist,  1865,  was  a  story  of  "  France 
in  the  New  World;  the  attempt  of  Feudalism,  Monarchy,  and  Rome  to  master  a 
continent;  a  memorable  but  half -forgotten  chapter  in  the  book  of  human  life." 
It  included  an  account  of  'The  Huguenots  in  Florida,'  and  of  'Champlain  and  his 
Associates/  to  the  death  of  Champlain,  December  25th,  1635.  ^art  Second  was 
occupied  with  'The  Jesuits  in  North  America  in  the  seventeenth  century';  "their 
efforts  to  convert- the  Indians."  Its  date  was  March  ist,  1867.  Part  Third,  'The 
Discovery  of  the  Great  West,'  the  valleys  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Lakes,  "a  series 
of  daring  enterprises  very  little  known,"  came  out  dated  September  i6th,  1869. 
Part  Fourth,  dated  July  ist,  1874,  2ave  tne  story  of  'The  Old  Regime  in  Canada'; 
"the  political  and  social  machine  set  up  by  Louis  XIV."  Part  Fifth,  January  ist, 
1877,  was  'Count  Frontenac  and  New  France  under  Louis  XIV.,'  the  story  of  the 
battle  for  the  continent.  Part  Sixth,  vols.  vi.  and  vii.,  dated  March  29th,  1892,  told 
the  story  of  'A  Half-Century  of  Conflict,  to  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,'  of  which 
the  news  reached  America  in  July,  1748.  Part  Seventh,  Vols.  viii.  and  ix.,  which  had 
appeared  earlier  than  Part  Sixth,  dated  September  i6th,  1884,  was  the  story  of  Mont- 
calm  and  Wolfe,  not  the  least  thrilling  passage  of  the  whole  history. 

Not  only  had  the  author  read  and  collated  with  extreme  care  every  fragment  of 
evidence,  published  or  unpublished,  to  secure  the  utmost  accuracy  of  statement,  but 
he  had  visited  and  examined  every  spot  where  events  of  any  importance  had  taken 
place;  that  his  words  might  recover  the  very  scenes  of  the  story.  On  his  finished 
task  he  could  look  with  a  satisfaction  rarely  granted  to  human  achievement  in  any 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  319 

field.     In  those  nine  volumes,  he  had  made  one  of  the  best  books  ever  added  to  the 
libraries  of  the  world. 

In  1851  the  young  author  gave  to  the  world  his  first  historical  work,  'The  Con- 
spiracy of  Pontiac ' ;  in  which,  hardly  less  than  in  his  latest  pages,  the  genius  of  the 
writer  for  research  and  for  fascinating  story  was  made  brilliantly  manifest.  A  revised 
and  much  enlarged  edition  was  published  in  1870,  and  the  volumes  form  a  proper 
sequel  to  his  'France  and  England  in  North  America.' 

FRANCE,  HISTORY  OF,  by  Jules  Michelet  (final  edition,  1867,  16  vols.).  The 
author  of  this  story  of  France,  from  the  earliest  period  down  to  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, ranks  among  great  historical  writers  for  ardor  of  research  into  origins  and  origi- 
nal materials,  for  power  of  imagination  in  restoring  the  past,  and  for  passionate  zeal 
in  humanitarian  interest  of  every  kind.  He  cannot  be  read  for  exact,  judicious, 
comprehensive  narrative  of  the  facts  of  French  history,  but  rather  as  a  ereat  advo- 
cate at  the  bar  of  letters  and  learning,  telling  in  his  own  way  the  things  which  most 
enlist  his  sympathy  or  arouse  his  indignation;  perhaps  rash  in  generalization,  too 
lyrical  and  fiery  for  sober  truth,  in  matters  ecclesiastical  especially  giving  way  to 
violent  wrath,  but  always  commanding,  by  his  scholarship  and  his  genius,  the  interest 
of  the  reader,  and  always  rewarding  that  interest.  His  work  exists,  both  in  French 
and  in  an  English  one-volume  translation,  as  a  history  of  France  down  to  the  close 
of  the  reign  of  Louis  XI.  It  was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  broke  off  at  this  point  in 
1843,  and  devoted  eight  years  (1845-53)  to  writing,  almost  in  the  form  of  an  impas- 
sioned epic,  the  story  of  the  French  Revolution.  Later  he  resumed  the  suspended 
work,  and  made  the  whole  reach  to  the  nineteenth  century.  The  French  people  was 
the  idol  of  his  enthusiasm,  and  human  rights  the  gospel  eternally  set  in  the  nature  of 
things.  Humanity,  revealing  divine  ideas,  and  history,  an  ever-broadening  combat 
for  freedom,  were  the  principles  to  which  he  continually  recurred.  He  is  specially 
interesting  moreover  as  the  complete  embodiment  of  one  type  of  French  charac- 
teristics. 

FRANCE,  see  TRAVELS  IN,  by  Arthur  Young. 

FRANCIS  OF  ASSISI,  LIFE  OF  SAINT,  by  Paul  Sabatier,  was  published  in  French 
in  1894  and  translated  by  Louise  Seymour  Houghton  in  the  same  year.  The  author  is 
a  French  Protestant  theologian  of  the  liberal  school,  but  has  an  intense  admiration 
for  the  character  and  teaching  of  St.  Francis  and  believes  in  the  reality  of  his  inspira- 
tion and  even  in  the  actuality  of  such  mystical  experiences  as  the  receiving  of  the 
stigmata,  though  he  would  not  call  such  phenomena  miraculous.  Sabatier  has  made 
long  sojourns  at  Assisi,  has  saturated  himself  with  the  literature  and  thought  of  the 
period  at  which  St.  Francis  lived,  and  has  here  presented  in  a  remarkably  sympathetic 
spirit  a  picture  of  that  time  and  of  the  man  who  exemplified  its  noblest  tendencies. 
The  work  has  that  combination  of  scholarly  exactitude  in  the  use  of  historical  infor- 
mation and  imaginative  recreation  of  a  past  age  of  faith  that  seems  typical  of  the 
French  rationalist  school  and  is -exemplified  particularly  by  Renan. 

FRANCOIS,  THE  ADVENTURES  OF:  'Foundling,  Thief,  Juggler,  and  Fencing 
Master  during  the  French  Revolution.'  By  S.  Weir  Mitchell  (1898).  A  romance  of 
the  French  Revolution,  of  special  interest  and  value  for  its  picture  of  the  lower  life  of 
Paris  during  the  period  known  as  that  of  the  Terror.  Its  hero  is  not  a  creature  of 
fiction,  but  a  real  personage,  and  Dr.  Mitchell's  pages  tell  a  story  based  upon  genuine 


320  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

historical  information.  In  his  earlier  book  'A  Madeira  Party,'  the  fine  tale,  'A  Little 
More  Burgundy,'  should  be  read  for  the  light  that  it  throws  upon  the  scene  of  Fran- 
cois's adventures. 

FRANKENSTEIN;   or,   THE   MODERN   PROMETHEUS,   by    Mary    Wollstonecraft 
Shelley  (daughter  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft  Godwin  and  wife  of  the  poet  Shelley), 
was  published  in  1817,  and  many  subsequent  editions  have  appeared.    It  is  a  sombre 
psychological  romance,  and  has  a  morbid  power  which  makes  it  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  books  of  its  kind  in  English.    The  story  begins  with  some  letters  written 
by  Robert  Walton,  on  a  voyage  to  the  North  Pole,  to  a  sister  in  England.     He  tells 
of  falling  in  with  a  mysterious  and  attractive  stranger,  who  has  been  rescued  from 
peril  in  the  Northern  Seas,  and  over  whose  life  appears  to  hang  some  mysterious 
cloud.    This  stranger,  Frankenstein,  tells  to  Walton  the  story  of  his  life.    He  is  a 
Genevese  by  birth,  and  from  childhood  has  taken  interest  in  natural  science  and  the 
occult  mysteries  of  psychology.     The  reading  of  such  writers  as  Paracelsus  and 
Albertus  Magnus  has  fostered  this  tendency.    He  has  a  dear  adopted  sister,  Elizabeth* 
and  a  close  friend,  Henry  Clerval.    At  the  age  of  seventeen  he  becomes  a  student  at 
the  University  of  Ingolstadt,  and  plunges  into  the  investigation  of  the  unusual 
branches  which  attract  him.     Gradually  he  conceives  the  idea  of  creating  by  mechani- 
cal means  a  living  being,  who,  independent  of  the  ills  of  the  flesh,  shall  be  immortal. 
Like  Prometheus  of  old,  he  hopes  to  bring  down  a  vital  spark  from  heaven  to  animate 
the  human  frame.    After  a  long  series  of  laboratory  experiments,  in  which  he  sees 
himself  gradually  approaching  his  goal,  he  succeeds.    But  his  creation  turns  out  to  be 
not  a  blessing  but  a  curse.    He  has  made  a  soulless  monster,  who  will  implacably 
pursue  Frankenstein,  and  all  his  loved  ones  to  the  dire  end.    It  is  in  vain  that  the 
unhappy  scientist  flees  from  land  to  land,  and  from  sea  -to  sea.    The  fiend  he  has 
brought  into  existence  is  ever  on  his  track,  and  is  the  evil  genius  of  his  whole  family. 
He  murders  Clerval,  brings  Elizabeth  to  an  untimely  end,  and  so  preys  upon  the  fears 
and  terrors  of  Frankenstein  that  the  latter  at  last  succumbs  to  despair.    The  wretched 
man  accompanies  Walton  on  his  northern  expedition,  hoping  that  he  may  throw  his 
pursuer  off  the  scent;  but  finally,  in  an  ice-bound  sea,  worn  out  by  his  hideous  ex- 
periences, he  dies,  and  over  his  dead  body  hovers  the  horrid  shape  of  the  man- 
machine.    The  monster  then  leaps  over  the  ship's  side,  and  disappears  in  the  ice  and 
mist.    The  story  is  one  of  unrelieved  gloom,  but  both  in  its  invention  and  conduct 
exhibits  unquestioned  genius.     It  is  unique  in  English  fiction. 

FRANKLIN'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY,  a  narrative  of  Franklin's  life  from  1706  to  1757 
written  partly  in  England  in  1771,  partly  in  France  in  1784,  and  partly  in  Philadel- 
phia in  1788-1789.  A  French  translation  of  the  first  part  appeared  in  1791,  an 
altered  and  incomplete  version  edited  by  Franklin's  grandson  in  1817,  and  an  accu- 
rate edition  of  the  entire  work  by  John  Bigelow  in  1867.  In  clear  limpid  English 
Franklin  tells  of  his  birth  and  upbringing  as  the  youngest  son  of  a  large  family  in 
Boston,  of  his  apprenticeship  to  his  brother,  a  printer,  of  his  running  away  from  home 
and  successful  entrance  into  the  printing  business  at  Philadelphia  when  only  seventeen 
years  of  age;  of  Ms  journey  to  England  and  experiences  there  as  a  journeyman 
printer;  of  his  return  to  Philadelphia,  acquirement  of  the  'Pennsylvania  Gazette' 
(1729),  his  marriage  (1730),  his  literary  and  journalistic  successes;  of  his  promotion 
of  civic  welfare  by  the  establishment  of  an  efficient  police,  a  fire  brigade,  a  philosophic 
club,  a  university  and  other  social  organizations;  of  his  growing  participation  in 
Vublic  affairs,  as  clerk  of  the  General  Assembly,  Postmaster  of  Philadelphia, ''and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  321 

agent  for  Pennsylvania  in  negotiations  with  the  British  government  (1757).  Various 
personal  anecdotes  scattered  among  the  records  of  his  public  activities  illustrate  his 
good  sense,  shrewdness,  humor,  and  rationalistic  views  of  life.  His  frank  confession 
of  his  foibles  and  wrong-doing  which  he  calmly  dismisses  as  errata  is  typical  of  the 
"age  of  reason"  as  are  his  statements  of  religious  belief  and  his  methods  of  self- 
improvement.  His  helpfulness  to  his  fellow-men  both  individually  and  socially  is 
also  in  accordance  with  eighteenth-century  ideas  of  practical  goodness.  The  auto- 
biography presents  an  able  man  without  external  advantages  succeeding  by  force  of 
clear  thinking,  geniality,  thrift,  and  industry;  its  pictures  of  Franklin  and  his  ac- 
quaintances are  vivid,  often  humorous,  and  always  entertaining. 

FRATERNITY,  by  John  Galsworthy  (1909).  Sylvanus  Stone,  Professor  of  Natural 
Science,  an  old  man  of  eccentric  habits  and  somewhat  vague  philanthropic  aspira- 
tions, when  his  mind  begins  to  fail,  has  given  up  teaching  and  come  to  live  with  his 
daughter,  Bianca,  an  artist  married  to  Hilary  Dallison.  In  their  home  he  becomes 
absorbed  in  writing  a  beautiful,  mad  book  called  the  Book  of  Brotherhood.  This 
volume  is  to  embody  the  great  truth  that  all  men  are  brothers  —  that  the  rich,  clever, 
and  independent  people  of  this  world  have  a  "shadow"  somewhere,  no  less  a  part  of 
them  for  being  poverty-stricken,  stupid,  and  weak.  Professor  Stone  gives  Bianca's 
model  a  job  in  copying  sections  of  his  book  daily.  The  little  model  comes  gladly,  not 
because  she  cares  for  Professor  Stone  or  understands  anything  about  the  book,  but 
because  she  has  conceived  a  dog-like  devotion  for  Bianca's  husband,  Hilary.  Hilary 
is  kindly  but  at  first  but  mildly  interested.  Inevitably,  however,  Bianca  becomes 
jealous.  Her  suspicions  are  not  quieted  by  the  discovery  that  her  quixotic  husband 
has  bought  clothes  for  the  little  model.  Through  her  sister,  Cecilia,  Bianca  learns 
that  Ivy  Barton,  the  model,  has  ensnared  one  Hughs,  the  respectable  husband  of  a 
hard-working  seamstress.  Cecilia  persuades  Hilary  to  secure  lodgings  for  Ivy  far 
away  from  the  passionate  Hughs,  and  to  ask  her  to  discontinue  work  on  the  Book  of 
Brotherhood.  Dumbly  the  little  model  obeys  Hilary's  orders  and  keeps  away  from 
the  house.  Unable  to  stand  the  interruption  in  his  writing,  Professor  Stone  falls  ill. 
Realizing  that  the  little  model's  presence  is  necessary  to  her  father,  Bianca  seeks  out 
the  girl  at  her  new  lodgings.  Ivy  returns  gratefully,  only  to  reopen  attack  on  the 
hitherto  impassive  Hilary.  Finally,  she  kindles  his  passion,  but  in  the  end  disgust 
at  the  thought  of  "going  out  of  his  class"  keeps  Hilary  from  the  scandal  of  an  elope- 
ment. We  see  this  class  feeling,  in  Cecilia,  who  finds  herself  physically  unable  to 
minister  to  Mrs.  Hughs  in  the  squalor  of  Hound  Street;  in  her  daughter  Thyme,  who 
can  stand  only  one  day  of  life  in  the  slums;  and  in  Cecilia's  husband,  Stephen,  who 
makes  no  secret  of  the  folly  of  "getting  too  close  to  those  people."  In  contrast  to  all 
these  is  Sylvanus  Stone.  To  him  the  world  represents  one  great  fraternity.  But 
all  the  people  in  the  book,  from  the  little  model  to  his  granddaughter  Thyme, 
regard  his  great  ideal  as  harmless  insanity,  and  the  general  impression  of  the  book  is 
one  of  subtle  irony  as  to  any  real  "fraternity"  among  people  separated  tc;  their  up- 
bringing, tastes,  position,  and  social  environment.  See  the  LIBRARY. 

FRAU  SORGE,  see  DAME  CARE. 

FREDERICK  THE  GREAT,  HISTORY  OF,  by  Thomas  Carlyle  (1858-65).  A  work 
of  grand  proportions  and  masterly  execution,  a  monument  at  once  of  the  lofty  genius 
of  Carlyle  and  of  the  kingly  greatness  of  Frederick  II.  of  Prussia.  It  was  founded 
on  the  most  thorough  examination  of  all  available  materials,  and  with  Carlyle's 


322  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ardent  faith  in  kingship  was  made  as  laudatory  as  the  most  zealous  of  Prussians  could 
desire.  The  graphic  power  and  humor  of  the  work  occasioned  Emerson's  declaration 
that  it  was  "the  wittiest  book  ever  written."  The  scenes  of  Frederick's  battle- 
fields were  visited  by  Carlyle;  and  from  his  fidelity  and  wonderful  power  of  descrip- 
tion, the  military  student  can  see  the  battles  as  they  were  fought  almost  as  if  he  were 
an  eye-witness.  Both  England  and  Germany  recognized  the  extraordinary  merits 
of  Carlyle's  work.  On  the  first  two  volumes  of  the  six  the  author  received  within  a 
few  months  nearly  $15,000. 

FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL,  ON  THE,  by  Jonathan  Edwards,  D.D.  (1754).  A  book 
of  American  origin,  made  famous  by  the  closeness  of  its  reasoning,  the  boldness  of  its 
doctrine  of  necessity,  and  its  bearing  upon  the  religious  questions  raised  concerning 
Calvinism  of  the  old  type  by  the  rise  of  more  liberal  ideas.  Its  author  had  been  a 
preacher  and  pastor  of  intellectual  distinction  and  of  intense  piety  for  twenty-four 
years  at  Northampton,  Massachusetts,  when  his  objection  to  permitting  persons  not 
full  church-members  to  receive  the  communion  and  have  their  children  baptized, 
led  to  his  retirement,  and  acceptance  of  a  missionary  position  at  Stockbridge,  Massa- 
chusetts. Near  the  middle  of  his  seven  years  thus  spent,  he  wrote  his  book  '  On  the 
Freedom  of  the  Will,*  not  so  much  with  reference  to  the  philosophical  question,  as 
with  reference  to  the  question  between  Calvinism  of  the  extreme  type  and  more 
liberal  views.  The  philosophical  doctrine  set  forth  in  the  book,  that  the  law  of 
causality  extends  to  every  action;  that  there  is  in  the  mind  no  power  of  willing  with- 
out a  motive;  that  the  will  always  follows  the  greatest  seeming  good;  that  what  this 
may  be  to  any  mind  depends  upon  the  character  of  the  person,  or,  in  the  religious 
phraseology  of  the  book,  upon  the  state  of  the  person's  soul;  and  that  liberty  only 
extends  to  a  power  of  doing  not  of  willing,  —  had  been  the  Greek  doctrine  in  Aristotle 
and  his  predecessors.  The  book  on  human  freedom  reflected  its  author,  both  in  its 
doctrine  and  in  its  thoroughly  benevolent  and  pious  intent. 

FRENCH  AND  GERMAN  SOCIALISM  IN  MODERN  TIMES,  by  Richard  T. 
Ely,  associate  professor  of  political  economy  in  Johns  Hopkins  University  and  later 
professor  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin  (1883).  The  author  says:  "My  aim  is  to 
give  a  perfectly  fair,  impartial  presentation  of  modern  communism  and  socialism  in 
their  two  strongholds,  France  and  Germany.  I  believe  that  in  so  doing  I  am  render- 
ing a  service  to  the  friends  of  law  and  order."  He  further  says:  "It  is  supposed 
that  advocates  of  these  systems  are  poor,  worthless  fellows,  who  adopt  the  arts  of  a 
demagogue  for  the  promotion  in  some  way  of  their  own  interests,  perhaps  in  order  to 
gain  a  livelihood  by  agitating  laborers  and  preying  upon  them.  It  is  thought  that 
they  are  moved  by  envy  of  the  wealthier  classes,  and,  themselves  unwilling  to  work, 
long  for  the  products  of  diligence  and  ability.  .  .  .  This  is  certainly  a  false  and 
unjust  view.  The  leading  communists  and  socialists  from  the  time  of  Plato  up  to 
the  present  have  been,  for  the  most  part,  men  of  character,  wealth,  talent,  and  high 
social  standing."  The  work  begins  with  an  examination  of  the  accusations  brought 
against  our  present  social  order.  It  acknowledges  the  existence  of  wrongs  and  abuses 
and  it  conveys  the  warning  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when,  in  this  country,  we 
shall  be  confronted  with  social  problems  of  the  most  appalling  and  urgent  nature. 
"It  is  a  laboring  class/'  the  author  says,  "without  hope  of  improvement  for  them- 
selves or  their  children,  which  will  first  test  our  institutions."  Without  expressing 
any  personal  view  as  to  how  threatening  evils  may  best  be  avoided,  and  holding  that 
only  a  fool  would  pretend  to  picture  the  ultimate  organization  of  society,  he  describes 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  323 

the  principal  French  and  German  plans  of  reform  that  have  been  proposed.  These 
include  the  systems  of  Babceuf ,  Cabet,  Saint-Simon,  Fourier,  Louis  Blanc,  Proudhon, 
French  socialism  since  Proudhon,  Rodbertus,  Karl  Marx,  the  International  Associa- 
tion, Lassalle,  the  Social  Democracy,  Socialism  of  the  Chair  (*.  e.t  the  socialism  held 
by  professors,  among  whom  he  includes  John  Stuart  Mill),  and  Christian  Socialism. 
While  endeavoring  to  do  justice  to  Karl  Marx,  he  thinks  Lassalle  the  most  interesting 
figure  of  the  Social  Democracy;  speaks  of  the  more  or  less  socialistic  nature  of  some  of 
Bismarck's  projects  and  measures;  and  rejoices  that  socialists  and  men  of  all  shades 
of  opinion  are  more  and  more  turning  to  Christianity  for  help  in  the  solution  of  social 
problems.  The  book  is  fair,  uncontroversial,  and  full  of  information  concerning  the 
many  different  schools  of  French  and  German  socialism. 

FRENCH  HUMORISTS,  THE,  by  Walter  Besant  (1873).  Succeeding  the  author's 
admirable  work  on  early  French  poetry,  the  present  volume  is  for  that  reason  some- 
what incomplete,  omitting  even  Clement  Marot;  and  Voltaire,  for  other  reasons  no 
less  valid. 

After  introducing  the  trouvere  and  chanson  of  mediaeval  times,  the  author  takes 
up  representative  humorists  (the  designation  is  a  broad  one)  from  each  century  from 
the  twelfth  to  our  own.  The  studies  present  admirable  pictures  of  the  authors' 
life-conditions  and  the  literary  atmosphere  they  breathed.  Accompanying  these 
discriminating  and  delightfully  original  studies  are  translations  of  pieces  to  show  the 
character  and  genius  of  the  authors  treated.  There  are  in  all  about  twenty-five 
writers  to  whom  large  treatment  is  given,  prominent  among  them  Rabelais,  Mon- 
taigne, Scarron,  La  Fontaine,  Boileau,  Moliere,  Beaumarchais,  and  Be*ranger.  There 
follow  a  number  of  exhaustive  and  learned  inquiries  into  such  famous  productions 
as  the  'Romance  of  the  Rose '  and' La  Satyre  Me'nippe'e, '  not  to  mention  the  historical, 
critical,  and  interpretative  notices  of  the  author's  famous  books.  Rich  in  anecdote, 
historical  allusion,  and  condensed  learning,  the  volume  becomes  in  some  sense  a 
history  of  the  rise  of  literature  in  France,  contributing  the  while  to  our  own  tongue 
a  distinctly  valuable  treatise,  —  exhaustive  but  not  tedious;  erudite,  but  not  heavy; 
sparkling,  but  not  effervescent. 

FRENCH  LITERATURE,  HISTORY  OF,  by  Henri  Van  Latin.  (First  English 
Edition,  1876-77.)  This  work,  in  three  octavo  volumes,  —  beginning  with  the  origin 
of  French  Literature  and  ending  with  the  last  years  of  Louis  Philippe's  reign,  —  is 
the  most  detailed  and  elaborate  work  on  the  subject  in  English.  Where  Hallam,  in 
his  '  Literature  of  the  Middle  Ages, '  has  traversed  some  of  the  same  ground,  it  is  very 
incomplete.  Saintsbury's  'Short  History  of  French  Literature'  is  much  more  con- 
densed. Van  Laun's  theory  of  literature  is  the  same  as  Taine's;  and  in  his  view, 
literature  can  be  enjoyed  or  understood  only  when  the  reader  possesses  a  proper 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  people  among  whom  it  was  written,  the  conditions 
of  race,  of  climate,  of  nature,  and  of  life,  the  writer's  personality,  etc.  These  points 
he  aims  to  supply  in  his  treatment  of  the  various  writers.  His  treatment  is  scholarly, 
philosophical,  and  discriminating.  He  has  divided  his  subject  into  the  following 
•periods:  Origin  of  the  French  Nation,  Feudal  Society,  The  Renaissance,  The 
Classical  Renaissance,  The  Age  of  Louis  XIV.,  The  Forerunners  of  the  Revolution, 
The  Revolution,  The  Empire  and  the  Restoration,  The  Reign  of  Louis  Philippe. 

FRENCH  LITERATURE,  A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF,  by  George  Saintsbury  (1897). 
Among  Professor  Saintsbury's  works,  which  have  been  mostly  on  literature,  few  have 


324  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

been  more  serviceable  than  this  handbook.  It  covers  a  broad  field,  and  one  especially 
attractive  to  English  readers,  as  well  as  not  too  accessible  to  them.  Accurate  in  its 
statements  of  fact,  short,  simply  and  directly  written,  and  yet  comprehensive,  it 
considers  all  departments  of  literature,  including  history,  theology,  philosophy,  and 
science.  It  starts  with  origins,  and  ends  with  writers  of  the  present  day;  treating 
respectively  of '  Mediaeval  Literature, f '  The  Renaissance, ' '  The  Seventeenth  Century ' 
'The  Eighteenth  Century,'  'The  Nineteenth  Century,'  and  offering  a  sufficient 
though  necessarily  brief  description  of  the  various  men  and  works  "whereof  knowl- 
edge is  desirable  to  enable  the  reader  to  perceive  the  main  outlines  of  the  course  of 
French  literature."  In  the  interchapters.  inserted  at  the  ends  of  the  books,  are 
summed  up  the  general  phenomena  of  the  periods  as  distinguished  from  particular 
accomplishment. 

FRENCH  REVOLUTION,  THE,  by  Hippolyte  Adolphe  Taine  (1878).  This  forms 
the  second  part  of  that  elaborate  work  on  '  The  Origin  of  Contemporary  France '  on 
which  Taine  spent  the  last  years  of  his  life  (from  1876  to  1893),  and  which  obtained 
for  him  his  seat  in  the  French  Academy.  Taine 's  famous  formula  of  "Race,  time, 
and  circumstance,"  as  accounting  for  all  things  and  everybody,  which  underlay  all 
his  other  work,  lies  at  the  basis  of  this  also.  From  the  opening  argument  in  favor  of 
his  theory  of  "spontaneous  anarchy,"  through  the  chapters  on  the  Assembly,  the 
Application  of  the  Constitution,  the  Jacobites,  and  those  on  the  overthrow  of  the 
Revolutionists'  government,  the  pages  hold  the  reader  with  an  irresistible  fascination. 
The  essay  on  the  psychology  of  the  Jacobin  leaders,  —  which  characterizes  Marat  as 
partially  a  maniac,  Danton  as  "an  original,  spontaneous  genius"  possessing  "politi- 
cal aptitudes  to  an  eminent  degree, "  but  furthering  social  ferment  for  his  own  ends, 
Robespierre  as  both  obtuse  and  a  charlatan  "on  the  last  bench  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  most  abortive  and  driest  offshoot  of  the  classical  spirit,  "  —  that  on  the 
government  which  succeeded  the  rule  of  the  revolutionists,  and  that  concerning  the 
current  forms  of  French  thought,  are  among  the  most  striking  in  the  book.  Of  these 
habits  of  thought  Taine  says:  "Never  were  finer  barracks  constructed,  more  sym- 
metrical and  more  decorative  in  aspect,  more  satisfactory  to  superficial  view,  more 
acceptable  to  vulgar  good-sense,  more  suited  to  narrow  egoism,  better  kept  and 
cleaner,  better  adapted  to  the  discipline  of  the  average  and  low  elements  of 
human  nature,  and  better  adapted  to  etiolating  or  perverting  the  superior  ele- 
ments of  human  nature.  In  this  philosophical  barracks  we  have  lived  for  eighty 
years." 

FRENCH  REVOLUTION,  THE:  A  History,  by  Thomas  Carlyle  (1837).  One  of 
the  monumental  books  of  all  literature.  On  its  appearance  John  Stuart  Mill  took 
pains  to  review  it  in  the  Westminster;  and  Carlyle's  name  was  securely  placed  on  the 
roll  of  great  English  authors.  Mr.  R.  H.  Hutton  pronounced  it  quite  possible  that 
it  will  be  "as  the  author  of  the  'French  Revolution,'  a  unique  book  of  the  century, 
that  Carlyle  will  be  chiefly  remembered."  Carlyle  himself  said,  "You  have  not  had 
for  a  hundred  years  any  book  that  comes  more  direct  and  namingly  from  the  heart 
of  a  living  man."  With  almost  unequaled  power  of  picturing  incidents  and  portray- 
ing characters  and  scenes,  Carlyle  flung  upon  his  pages  a  series  of  pictures  such  as 
the  pen  has  rarely  executed.  He  deals  less  with  causes  and  effects,  but  for  the  im- 
mediate scenes  of  the  story  his  power  is  almost  perfect;  and  his  book  can  never  lose  its 
living  interest  for  readers,  or  its  value  in  many  ways  to  students,  though  it  is  often 
called  a  prose  poem  rather  than  a  history. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  3,75 

FRENCH  REVOLUTION,  A  HISTORY  OF  THE,  by  H.  Morse  Stephens.  (Vol.  i., 
1886;  Vol.  ii.f  1891;  Vol.  in.,  not  yet  published.)  An  important  definitive  work 
considerably  in  advance  of  previous  works,  either  French  or  English,  in  consequence 
of  the  wealth  of  materials  now  available,  and  the  spirit  of  impartial  examination  of  all 
evidence  which  Mr.  Stephens  has  used.  Taine  and  Michelet  displayed  great  genius 
in  their  treatment  of  the  subject;  but  could  not,  from  French  predisposition,  weigh 
impartially  the  characters  of  the  story.  Martin's  "  continuation ' '  of  his  great  history 
was  a  poor  work  of  his  old  age.  Thiers  is  often  inaccurate  and  unfair;  Louis  Blanc 
and  Quinet  were  alike  influenced  by  their  political  opinions.  Mignet  stands  almost 
alone  for  a  work  which  is  still  a  most  useful  manual,  and  which  is  certain  to  retain  its 
position.  Carlyle  wrote  with  marvelous  power  indeed,  and  fidelity  to  his  sources; 
but  these  were  few  compared  with  those  now  available.  Stephens  traces  the  story 
of  these  sources,  from  the  contemporary  histories,  the  memoirs  of  a  following  age, 
and  the  more  complete  histories  from  Mignet  to  Taine,  and  leaving  all  these  behind, 
uses  for  his  work  the  labors  of  a  new  school  of  specialists  created  since  the  influence  of 
Ranke  and  of  German  methods  began  to  be  operative  in  France.  This  new  school 
has  produced  a  great  number  of  provincial  histories  of  extraordinary  excellence;  it 
has  brought  out  many  valuable  biographies,  a  large  number  of  works  on  the  foreign 
relations  of  France,  and  a  rich  succession  of  special  papers  in  the  reviews  and  maga- 
zines. There  are  available,  also,  a  variety  of  publications  of  proceedings,  which 
bring  many  early  records  to  light.  The  great  story,  with  its  terrible  lights  and  not 
less  terrible  darkness,  begins  therefore  to  be  clearly  open  to  unprejudiced  investiga- 
tion, and  Mr.  Stephens's  volumes  are  an  attempt  to  give  the  results  of  such  investiga- 
t  on.  He  leaves  upon  his  readers  a  clear  impression  of  his  success. 

FRENCH  REVOLUTION,  THE,  a  Political  History,  1789-1804,  by  A.  Aulard  (1901) 
translated  from  the  French  of  the  third  edition,  by  Bernard  Miall  (4  vols.  1910). 
The  author,  professor  in  the  University  of  Paris,  has  devoted  over  twenty  years  to 
research  and  writing  on  the  subject,  and  is  distinguished  from  most  of  his  predecessors 
by  his  unrivalled  knowledge  and  critical  use  of  printed  and  manuscript  document 
sources.  The  substance  of  his  narrative  is  based  upon  the  laws,  and  decrees  of  govern- 
ment of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  the  executive  Directory,  etc.,  taken  from 
their  official  texts,  registers,  bulletins,  and  minutes,  and  from  papers  and  unpublished 
proces-verbaux  in  the  National  Archives.  A  general  knowledge  of  the  course  of 
events  is  presupposed,  and  he  does  not  include  the  military,  diplomatic,  and  financial 
history  of  the  period.  It  is  exclusively  a  history  of  ideas  and  movements,  the  de- 
velopment of  democracy  in  France,  and  the  origin  and  progress  of  the  republican  form 
of  government.  He  studies  public  opinion  and  institutions  in  their  mutual  relation 
and  in  relation  to  the  Declaration  of  Rights.  The  period  divides  into  four  epochs: 
i.  "From  1789  to  1792,  the  formation  of  the  democratic  and  republican  parties 
under  a  constitutional  monarchy  by  a  property-owners  suffrage."  2.  "From  1792 
to  1795, tne  Democratic  Republic."  3.  "From  1795  to  J799»  the  Bourgeois  Re- 
public." 4.  "From  1799  to  1809,  the  Plebiscitary  Republic."  The  theme  of  the 
first  volume  is  the  growth  of  democratic  and  republican  ideas  forced  upon  a  reluctant, 
monarchical  France  by  the  conduct  of  Louis  XVI.  and  his  advisers.  The  first  half 
of  the  second  volume  takes  up  the  actual  establishment  of  the  First  Republic  and 
the  latter  half  of  the  second  volume  and  part  of  the  third  volume  are  a  study  of  the 
revolutionary  government  during  the  Reign  of  Terror.  The  worship  of  reason,  the 
final  separation  of  church  and  state  in  1794,  and  the  later  reestablishment  of  liberty 
of  worship  are  discussed  in  impartial  objective  statement.  The  fourth  volume  begins 


326  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

with  the  articles  of  Babceuf,  and  .ends  with  the  establishment  of  the  Empire,  1804. 
His  conclusions  are  that  (i)  "it  is  a  mistake  to  believe  that  the  French  Revolution 
was  effected  by  a  few  distinguished  individuals.  It  was  the  work  of  the  French 
people,  not  as  a  multitude,  but  in  effective  groups."  (2)  "The  Revolution  was  only 
partially  completed  and  was  suspended  during  the  rule  of  Napoleon;  for  the  education 
of  the  people  was  the  aim  of  the  republicans  while  it  was  a  part  of  Napoleon's  des- 
potism to  discourage  the  people  from  learning  and  reasoning. "  (3)  "  It  is  an  illusion 
to  regard  the  men  of  the  First  Republic  as  a  generation  of  giants."  (4)  The  term 
French  Revolution  has  been  used  to  denote  "on  the  one  hand  the  principles  which 
underlay  the  Revolution  and  the  acts  conformable  to  them ;  on  the  other  hand,  the 
period  during  which  the  Revolution  was  taking  place,  and  all  the  acts  of  the  time 
whether  they  were  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution  or  opposed  to  it." 
Aulard  is  the  champion  of  the  Revolutionary  Legend  and  the  Jacobins  against  Taine, 
whom  he  accuses  in  another  work  of  gross  misrepresentation  of  the  characters  and 
careers  of  its  leaders.  The  translation  includes  a  chronological  summary  of  events, 
and  biographical  notes  for  each  volume. 

FRENCH  REVOLUTION,  CONTEMPORARY  AMERICAN  OPINION  OF,  see 
CONTEMPORARY  ETC. 

FRENCH  SOCIETY,  THE  HISTORY  OF,  during  the  Revolution  and  the  Directory 
('The  History  of  French  Society  during  the  Directory/  1879;  and  "The  History  of 
French  Society  during  the  Revolution,7  1880),  by  Edmond  and  Jules  de  Goncourt, 
are  curious  as  well  as  interesting  compilations  of  historical  material.  They  show  the 
authors'  constant  preoccupation  with  visual  impressions.  The  Goncourts  were  not 
philosophers,  and  they  throw  no  new  light  upon  the  causes  of  events;  but  they  were 
tireless  in  research,  and  they  tell  us  all  the  curious  incidental  little  facts  ignored  by 
greater  historians.  Theirs  is  probably  the  least  gloomy  study  of  the  Revolution  ever 
written.  Under  the  guillotine  they  note  the  cake-vender.  Believing  that  the 
revolution  originated  in  aristocratic  salons,  they  picture  the  social  life  which  preceded 
it,  and  tell  us  how  the  lords  and  ladies  dressed  their  hair,  and  what  they  wore,  and 
how  they  talked.  They  show  that  in  spite  of  fear  and  bloodshed,  people  feasted, 
danced,  and  went  to  the  theatre  as  usual.  In  their  study  of  the  Directory  they  show 
the  country  plunged  in  torpor  after  its  period  of  excess.  The  people  are  weary  of 
struggle,  of  success,  of  failure,  of  all  things,  until  awakened  to  new  energy  by  a  youth 
of  twenty-eight.  Napoleon  reconstructs  society;  and  in  the  reaction  which  follows, 
cynicism  changes  to  an  eager  rush  for  wealth,  pleasure,  and  position.  The  Goncourts 
touch  lightly  upon  the  great  political  events,  and  emphasize  the  gardens  and  ball- 
rooms of  Paris,  —  all  the  places  where  well-dressed  people  gather.  They  are  not 
interested  in  masses  of  society,  but  delight  in  portrait-painting.  Their  histories 
abound  in  pictures  and  picturesque  effects.  But  in  spite  of  their  careful  word- 
searching,  they  are  always  "more  sensitive  than  intelligent."  The  result  of  their 
labor  is  finally  an  enumeration  of  noteworthy  details,  which  they  have  been  unable 
to  synthesize.  They  are  not  successful  in  presenting  as  a  logical  whole  the  period  of 
which  they  treat. 

FRENCH  TRAITS,  by  W.  C.  Brownell  (1889),  appeared  first  as  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  unerringly  to  the  selection  of  those 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  327 

qualities  which  are  the  most  perfect  medium  of  national  characteristics.  He  considers 
first  the  most  prominent  endowment  of  the  French  people,  —  the  social  instinct. 
This  explains  their  kind  of  morality  of  intelligence;  their  standards  of  sense  and 
sentiment ;  the  peculiarity  of  their  manners.  Above  all  it  explains  the  French  woman, 
destined  from  her  cradle  to  be  a  woman  and  not  a  hybrid.  She  refuses  to  be  separated 
or  to  separate  herself  from  men.  She  lives  in  the  family,  as  the  family  lives  in  the 
nation.  Four  remaining  essays  treat  of  the  art  instinct,  of  the  provincial  spirit,  of 
democracy,  and  of  New  York  after  Paris. 

The  author  has  evidently  studied  his  subject  at  close  range.     His  treatment  of  it 
is  brilliant,  epigrammatic,  and  at  the  same  time  solid. 

FRIEND  FRITZ  ('L'Ami  Fritz'),  by  the  collaborating  French  authors  Erckmann- 
Chatrain,  was  published  in  1876.  It  is  a  charming  Alsatian  story  of  the  middle 
nineteenth  century,  in  which  the  hero  is  Fritz,  a  comfortable  burgher  with  money 
enough  to  indulge  his  liking  for  good  eating  and  drinking,  and  a  stout  defender  of 
bachelorhood.  He  is  a  kindly,  jovial,  simple-natured  fellow,  with  a  broad,  merry 
face  and  a  big  laugh.  His  dear  friend  David,  an  old  rabbi,  is  always  urging  him  to 
marry;  but  the  rich  widows  of  the  town  set  their  caps  for  him  in  vain.  At  dinner 
one  day  Fritz  wagers  David  his  favorite  vineyard  that  he  will  never  take  a  wife. 
David  wins,  for  the  invulnerable  bachelor  succumbs  to  the  charms  of  Suzel,  the 
pretty  sixteen-year-old  daughter  of  his  farm-manager.  Fritz  learns  that  "he  that 
loveth  not  knoweth  not  God,  for  God  is  love."  Old  David  deeds  the  vineyard  he 
has  won  to  Suzel  for  her  dowry,  and  dances  at  her  wedding.  The  tale  is  a  sweet  idyl 
of  provincial  and  country  life,  full  of  pleasing  folk  and  pleasant  scenes,  described 
with  loving  fidelity.  'Friend  Fritz'  was  dramatized  and  was  very  successful  as  a 
play. 

FRIEND  OLIVIA,  by  Amelia  E.  Barr  (1890).  Mrs.  Barr  possesses  the  rare  talent  of 
producing  in  her  stories  that  elusive  quality  called  "atmosphere."  Whether  reading 
of  Knickerbocker  days,  of  the  times  of  Border  warfare,  or,  as  in  the  present  case,  of 
Roundhead  and  Cavalier,  of  Charles  Stuart  in  Paris  and  Cromwell  at  Hampton 
Court,  one  loses  touch  with  the  present,  to  become  for  the  time  thoroughly  imbued 
with  ' '  the  charm  of  ancient  story."  '  Friend  Olivia '  deals  with  the  last  months  of  the 
Protector's  Commonwealth;  with  the  oppression  of  the  Quakers  under  the  leadership 
of  the  eloquent  George  Fox;  with  the  tragedies  produced  by  unrest  and  suspicion 
when  religious  intolerance  flourished,  and  political  differences  separated  family  and 
friend:  a  dark  background  for  a  charming  love  story  —  that  of  the  modest  Quakeress, 
Olivia  Prideaux,  and  her  chivalrous  neighbor  Nathaniel,  only  son  of  Baron  and  Lady 
Kelder,  strong  advocates  of  Cromwell,  and  bitter  enemies  of, the  "canting"  Quakers 
with  their  so-called  affectations  of  dress  and  manner.  The  story  is  laid  in  the  coast 
village  of  Kelderby.  In  those  quiet  streets  pass  the  participants  in  tragic  scenes: 
the  pirate  and  outlaw  John  de  Burg,  his  beautiful  sister  Anastatia,  and  her  hated 
husband;  Roger  Prideaux  on  his  way  to  prison,  and  others  no  less  noteworthy;  and 
there,  finally,  as  on  a  miniature  stage,  are  witnessed  all  the  scenes  of  humiliation,  of 
hopes  crushed  and  expectations  realized,  when  Cromwell  dies  and  King  Charles 
returns  to  his  own. 

FRIENDS  IN  COUNCIL,  by  Sir  Arthur  Helps,  comprises  two  series  of  readings  and 
discourses,  which  were  collected  and  the  first  volume  published  in  England,  in  1847; 
the  second  in  1859.  They  are  cast  in  the  form  of  a  friendly  dialogue,  interspersed 


328  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

with  essays  and  dissertations,  by  the  "friends  in  council."  They  cover  a  wide  range 
of  topics,  from  'Worry'  to  'War,'  and  from  'Criticism'  to  'Pleasantness.'  In  style 
they  are  charming,  the  few  angularities  of  diction  being  easily  forgiven  by  reason  of 
the  fascination  of  the  wise  utterances  and  the  shrewd  observations  which  pervade 
the  whole.  .In  thought  they  are  carefully  worked  out  and  free  from  monotony. 
The  author  evinces  a  fine  moral  feeling  and  a  discriminating  taste. 

FROGS,  THE,  a  comedy  by  Aristophanes,  acted  at  Athens,  405  B.C.  Dionysus, 
the  patron  of  the  theatre,  deploring  the  death  of  the  great  Athenian  dramatists 
resolves  to  descend  to  the  realm  of  Pluto  to  bring  back  Euripides.  For  this  purpose 
he  assumes  the  garb  of  Hercules,  whose  successful  expedition  to  that  region  is  well- 
known.  Accompanied  by  his  slave,  Xanthias,  he  goes  to  Hercules  for  advice,  and 
then  proceeds  to  Charon's  ferry,  to  be  transported  to  Hades.  In  these  scenes 
Dionysus  appears  as  an  amusing  but  cowardly  braggart  who  pretends  great  heroism 
but  manifests  the  utmost  silliness  and  imbecility.  The  slave,  Xanthias  is  the  usual 
low-comic  servant  and  Hercules  treats  them  both  with  good-humored  contempt. 
During  the  passage  of  the  Stygian  march,  Dionysus,  whom  Charon  forces  to  row,  is 
greeted  by  a  chorus  of  frogs  whose  raucous  refrain,  "Brekekekex,  ko-ax,  ko-ax," 
derisively  welcomes  him  to  the  lower  regions.  Arrived  at  his  destination  Dionysus, 
with  the  utmost  poltroonery,  trembles  with  fright  at  every  noise.  He  attempts  to 
assume  the  r61e  of  Hercules  but  on  the  first  threats  of  the  porter,  ^Eacus,  he  per- 
suades Xanthias  to  change  clothes  with  him  and  take  his  place.  This  plan,  however, 
he  quickly  reverses  when  a  feast  and  agreeable  company  are  promised  to  the  visitor 
by  an  attendant  of  Proserpine.  Further  omens  of  trouble,  however,  induce  him  to 
make  the  exchange;  and  there  follows  a  farcical  scene  in  which  the  servant  attempts 
to  turn  the  expected  tortures  upon  the  master  and  the  master  upon  the  servant  until 
u3£acus  solves  the  difficulty  by  flogging  them  both.  It  now  develops  that  Euripides, 
the  object  of  their  mission,  has  just  created  an  uproar  in  Hades  by  claiming  pre- 
cedence over  -££schylus  as  a  dramatic  poet.  A  public  disputation  between  them  has 
been  ordained  by  Pluto,  and  Dionysus,  as  patron  of  the  drama,  is  now  appointed 
judge.  The  discussion  that  follows  is  marked  by  brilliant  wit,  apt  allusion,  and 
minute  acquaintance  with  the  works  of  both  poets.  Euripides,  with  many  parodies 
of  specific  -££schylean  passages,  arraigns  the  master  of  tragedy  for  pomposity,  cum- 
brousness,  and  turgidity,  and  -<£schylus  condemns  Euripides  as  monotonous  and 
mean  in  style,  immoral  in  subject-matter,  and  corrupting  in  hivS  influence.  For  an 
amusing  extract  from  the  debate  see  the  LIBRARY  under  Aristophanes,  pp.  786-787. 
Dionysus  at  length  gives  decision  in  favor  of  -^schylus.  In  reward  for  his  services 
he  is  teasted  by  Pluto  and  sent  back  to  announce  to  the  Athenians  that  J£schylus 
will  be  allowed  to  revisit  them.  With  the  latter's  prayer  that  Sophocles  may  hold 
his  place  during  his  absence  the  drama  closes.  In  accordance  with  the  usual  practice 
of  the  old  comedy  a  number  of  personal  and  political  allusions  are  scattered  through 
the  work,  referring  especially  to  the  proposed  recall  of  Alcibiades. 

FROISSART,  see  CHRONICLES  OF. 

FRUIT,  FLOWER,  AND  THORN  PIECES,  by  Richter  (Jean  Paul)  appeared  in 
1796-97.  It  is  a  strange  combination  of  humor,  tenderness,  and  fine  imagination, 
purporting  to  be  the  record  of  the  "married  life,  death,  and  wedding  of  the  lawyer  of 
the  poor,  Siebenkas."  The  dream-indulging,  impractical  ooet  of  a  lawyer  represents 
Jean  Paul  himself;  while  Siebenkas's  wife.  Lenette,  the  embodiment  of  the  practical 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  329 

in  life,  stands  for  Richter's  good  old  mother.  Her  devotion  to  every-day  ideas  is 
well  illustrated  when  "Siebenkas, "  in  the  midst  of  a  grandiloquent  harangue  upon 
eternity  is  interrupted  by  her  exclaiming:  "Don't  forget  to  leave  off  your  left 
stocking  to-morrow  morning:  there  is  a  hole  in  it! "  Of  all  Jean  Paul's  more  promi- 
nent characters,  Siebenkas  is  one  of  the  least  extravagantly  sentimental;  and  his 
history,  though  less  ambitious  than  either  "Titan"  or  "Hesperus, "  is  more  popular. 
It  displays  Richter's  kaleidoscopic  variety  of  thought,  wild  figures  of  style,  and 
bewildering  leaps  from  the  spiritual  to  the  earthly  and  grotesque  —  and  thence  again 
to  ideal  heights.  In  some  passages  the  rapid  sweep  of  thought  seems  too  strong  for 
coherent  utterance,  and  again  it  calms  down  to  a  placid  sweetness  very  ingenuous. 
His  phrases,  linked  by  hyphens,  brackets,  and  dashes,  almost  defy  the  translator's 
art,  and  are  sufficiently  difficult  for  even  the  German  scholar. 

GABRIEL  CONROY,  by  Bret  Harte  (1876).  In  this,  the  longest  of  Bret  Harte's 
novels,  the  scene  is  laid  in  California  during  the  forties  and  fifties,  and  affords  vivid 
pictures  of  life  at  a  mining  camp.  The  story  opens  in  the  California  Sierras,  where 
Captain  Conroy's  party  of  immigrants,  lost  in  the  snow,  are  dying  of  starvation  and 
cold.  Among  them  are  Grace  Conroy,  the  heroine;  her  brother  and  sister,  Gabriel 
and  "Oily";  Arthur  Poinsett,  an  adventurous  young  fellow  of  high  social  standing, 
who  is  traveling  under  the  name  of  Philip  Ashley,  and  who  has  fallen  in  love  with 
Grace;  Dr.  Devarges,  a  famous  scientist,  who,  before  he  dies,  bestows  upon  Grace 
the  title  to  a  silver  mine  which  he  has  discovered;  and  Mr.  Peter  Dumphy,  who  spies 
upon  the  dying  scientist,  and  afterwards  tries  to  profit  by  his  eavesdropping.  A  few 
of  the  party  are  rescued,  among  them  Grace  and  Philip.  Complications  arising  out 
of  her  inheritance,  and  other  mining  claims,  afford  an  intricate  and  interesting  plot, 
which  a  number  of  vividly  conceived  characters  develop.  So  exciting  and  rapid  is 
the  action  that  the  book  would  be  classed  among  sensational  novels,  but  for  its 
artistic  treatment  and  high  literary  quality.  A  great  many  personages  are  intro- 
duced, among  them  Dona  Sepulvida,  who  is  one  of  the  author's  best  female  characters. 
In  this  novel,  as  in  most  of  Bret  Harte's  works,  are  vivid  imagination,  strong  local 
color,  dramatic  dialogue,  daring  humor,  and  much  keenness  of  perception;  but  most 
readers  have  preferred  the  author's  short  stories. 

GADFLY,  THE,  by  E.  L.  Voynich  (1898).  This  is  a  story  of  the  revolutionary  party 
in  Italy,  written  with  great  power,  and  with  extreme  bitterness  against  the  priest- 
hood. The  English  hero,  Arthur  Burton,  bred  in  Italy,  is  studying  at  the  Catholic 
Seminary  in  Pisa,  where  the  director,  Montanelli,  is  his  devoted  friend.  The  sensi- 
tive and  ardent  Arthur  is  an  orphan,  who,  unhappy  in  the  family  of  a  worldly  uncle, 
has  thrown  himself  into  the  plots  of  young  Italy.  He  is  betrayed  by  a  priest,  his 
confessor,  to  the  Austrian  police,  and  sent  to  prison  with  his  comrades,  who  regard 
him  as  the  traitor.  On  being  released,  he  encounters  a  young  English  girl,  Gemma 
Warren,  whom  he  loves,  and  who  taunts  him  with  his  treachery  and  strikes  him  on 
the  cheek.  The  same  night  his  uncle's  wife,  who  hates  him,  makes  the  terrible 
revelation  that  although  he  is  the  reputed  son  of  an  English  gentleman,  his  real  father 
is  a  priest  who  has  expiated  the  sin  of  his  youth  by  exile  as  a  missionary  in  China,  and 
who  is  no  other  than  his  beloved  teacher,  Montanelli.  In  despair  under  these  re- 
doubled blows,  Arthur  fiees  in  disguise  to  South  America.  Thirteen  years  later,  a 
club  of  revolutionists  in  Florence  elects  a  new  member  to  write  its  incendiary  pam- 
phlets. This  member  is  a  South- American,  called  for  his  wit  and  power  to  sting,  the 
Gadfly.  Gemma,  now  the  widow  of  a  revolutionary  leader,  begins  by  detesting  the 


330  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Gadfly  for  his  vindictiveness,  which  is  shown  especially  towards  the  good  bishop 
Montanelli;  but  becomes  interested  in  his  cleverness  and  his  underlying  melancholy, 
and  ends  by  loving  him,  without  suspecting  that  he  is  the  lost  Arthur.  They  engage 
together  in  a  dangerous  insurrection  in  the  Apennines,  during  which  the  Gadfly,  in 
the  disguise  of  a  pilgrim,  makes  a  pretended  confession  to  the  bishop,  and  overhears 
him  in  agonized  prayer  for  his  lost  son.  The  Gadfly  is  taken  prisoner  at  the  moment 
when  the  bishop  is  striving  to  interpose  between  the  combatants.  Though  treated 
with  horrible  cruelty  in  the  Austrian  prison,  nothing  can  tame  his  fiery  spirit.  The 
bishop,  who,  while  living  a  life  of  piety  and  good  works,  is  a  constant  prey  to  remorse, 
intercedes  with  the  governor  for  the  unfortunate  prisoner,  who  rewards  him  only  by 
mockery  and  insults.  Finally,  in  an  interview  in  the  Gadfly's  cell,  after  he  has  been 
wounded  in  an  attempt  to  escape,  he  reveals  himself  to  the  bishop,  but  refuses  his 
love  and  intercessions  on  his  behalf,  except  on  condition  that  his  father  shall  give 
up  for  him  his  allegiance  to  the  hated  church,  and  renounce  the  Crucified  One.  This 
the  unhappy  bishop  cannot  do;  and  the  Gadfly,  refusing  on  his  side  all  concessions, 
is  led  out  to  be  shot  in  the  prison-yard.  The  wretched  father  becomes  insane;  and 
in  a  terrible  scene  at  the  altar  during  the  high  mass,  pours  forth  his  madness  and 
despair,  and  falls  dead  of  a  broken  heart. 

GAINA-STTTRAS,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

GALEN'S  COMPLETE  WORKS, ' Opera  Omnia'  (158-200  A.D.).  (Best  modern 
edition  by  C.  G.  Kuhn,  20  vols.  1821-33.)  Galen's  position  and  influence  in  medi- 
cine date  from  exceptionally  brilliant  practice,  largely  at  Rome,  in  the  years  170-200 
A.  D.  For  the  time  in  which  he  lived  he  was  a  great  scientific  physician.  He  prac- 
ticed dissection  (not  of  the  human  body,  but  of  lower  animals),  and  not  only  made 
observations  with  patient  skill,  but  gave  clear  and  accurate  expositions.  He  brought 
into  a  well-studied  system  all  the  medical  knowledge  of  the  time,  with  a  mastery  of 
the  foundation  truths  of  medicine  which  made  him  the  great  authority  for  centuries. 
He  made  less  advance  upon  the  notions  of  Hippocrates  in  physiology  and  therapeutics 
than  might  have  been  expected,  and  his  pathology  was  largely  speculative;  but  his 
works  ruled  all  medical  study  for  centuries.  The  Arabs  translated  him  in  the  ninth 
century;  and  when  Avicenna  supplied  in  his  'Canon'  the  text-book  used  in  European 
universities  from  the  twelfth  to  the  seventeenth  centuries,  it  was  still  Galen  (and 
Hippocrates)  whose  doctrine  was  taught. 

GALLEGHER  AND  OTHER  STORIES  (1891),  by  Richard  Harding  Davis.  The 
other  stories  include:  'A  Walk  Up  the  Avenue';  'My  Disreputable  Friend,  Mr. 
Raegen';  'The  Other  Woman';  'There  Were  Ninety  and  Nine';  'The  Cynical  Miss 
Catherwaight';  'Van  Bibber  and  the  Swan  Boat';  'Van  Bibber's  Burglar';  and  'Van 
Bibber  as  Best  Man.'  The  most  noteworthy  of  the  collection  are  'Gallegher/  the 
story  of  the  little  newspaper  boy  who  brings  to  the  office  late  at  night  "copy  "  relating 
to  a  famous  burglary,  after  many  thrilling  adventures;  'The  Other  Woman,'  which 
presents  an  unusual  ethical  problem  to  an  engaged  couple;  and  the  trio  of  Van  Bibber 
sketches,  the  hero  of  which  is  a  unique  type  of  man,  —  one  of  fortune's  favorites,  but 
who,  by  some  malicious  freak  of  fate,  is  perpetually  placed  in  peculiar  circumstances, 
from  which  he  extricates  himself  with  ease  and  self-possession;  his  coolness  uncler 
trying  circumstances  never  failing  him,  and  his  fund  of  humor  being  inexhaustible. 
It  is  only  between  the  covers  of  so  well-written  a  book  as  the  author's  that  one  can 
meet  the  pariahs  and  the  preferred  of  society  hobnobbing  at  their  ease,  and  be  sure 
that  the  acquaintance  so  formed  will  bring  with  it  no  after-taste  of  regret. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  331 

GALLERY  OF  CELEBRATED  WOMEN  ('Galerie  des  Femmes  Ombres')  (1844) 
by  C.  A.  Sainte-Beuve.  This  compilation  of  essays  is  drawn  from  the  'Causeries  du 
Lundi'  (Monday  Chats)  by  M.  Sainte-Beuve,  in  his  own  day  the  greatest  literary 
critic  of  the  century.  The  range  of  subjects  treated  extends  from  Madame  de 
Sevigne  and  Madame  de  Lafayette,  of  the  classic  age  of  French  literature,  through 
the  violent  periods  of  the  Revolution  and  the  Empire  as  illustrated  by  Madame 
Roland  and  Madame  de  Remusat,  well  into  the  time  of  the  Second  Empire  in  the 
person  of  Madame  Guizot,  wife  of  the  historian.  Thanks  to  the  peculiar  methods  of 
criticism  introduced  by  the  Romantic  movement,  which,  awakening  a  taste  for  what 
was  ancient  and  exotic,  necessitated  a  careful  historical  knowledge  of  time,  place, 
and  environment,  M.  Sainte-Beuve  was  enabled  both  accurately  and  minutely  to 
depict  the  literary  efforts,  and  consequent  claims  to  future  consideration,  of  each  of 
the  various  types  of  woman  which  he  has  treated  in  this  book.  The  pioneer  critics 
of  the  new  school  —  as  Mesdames  de  Stael,  de  Barante,  and  even  the  capable  Ville- 
main  —  had  contented  themselves  with  seeing  in  literature  simply  the  expression  of 
society;  but  Sainte-Beuve  pushed  farther  on,  regarding  it  also  as  the  expression  of  the 
personality  of  its  authors  as  determined  by  the  influences  of  heredity,  of  physical 
constitution,  of  education,  and  especially  of  social  and  intellectual  environment. 
This  introduces  one  not  only  into  an  understanding  of  the  motives  of  the  public 
acts  and  writings  of  the  authors  he  treats,  but  also  into  the  quiet  domesticity  of  their 
homes.  It  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  but  few  men  equitably  and  dispassionately  to  judge 
of  feminine  effort  and  achievement  in  letters,  but  the  general  favor  accorded  to 
Sainte-Beuve  proves  sufficiently  that  he  is  preeminent  among  those  few.  True,  by 
some  he  has  here  been  reproached  for  lack  of  enthusiasm ;  but  this,  it  would  seem,  is 
but  another  way  of  congratulating  him  on  having  broken  the  old  cut-and-dried 
method  of  supplementing  analysis  with  a  series  of  exclamation  points.  Analysis, 
then,  and  explanation  and  comment,  rather  than  dogmatic  praise  or  blame,  are  what 
may  be  found  in  the  '  Gallery.' 

CALLUS;  or,  ROMAN  SCENES  OF  THE  TIME  OF  AUGUSTUS,  by  W.  A.  Becker.  This 
work,  first  published  in  two  volumes,  Leipsic,  1838,  appeared  in  three  volumes  in 
1863,  revised  and  enlarged  by  Rein.  The  story  is  historical;  the  principal  hero  being 
the  poet  Gallus  to  whom  Virgil  inscribed  his  loth  Eclogue,  the  friend,  confidant,  and 
eventually  the  victim,  of  Augustus.  Pomponius,  whom  Gallus  has  supplanted  in  the 
affections  of  Lycoris,  conspires  with  Largus  to  ruin  him  in  the  favor  of  the  emperor. 
A  few  rash  words,  uttered  at  the  close  of  a  carouse,  alarm  Augustus,  and  convince 
him  that  the  man  upon  whom  he  has  heaped  favors  is  a  traitor.  He  confiscates  his 
property  and  banishes  him.  Gallus  cannot  endure  his  fall,  and  kills  himself  with  his 
sword.  The  work  is  divided  into  twelve  scenes,  each  scene  bringing  us  into  touch 
with  some  department  of  Roman  life.  Thus,  in  the  first,  the  return  of  Gallus  from  a 
party  at  midnight  gives  the  author  an  opportunity  of  describing  the  domestic  econ- 
omy of  a  great  Roman  noble;  the  second,  the  morning  reception  of  his  clients  and 
friends;  the  third,  his  library  and  the  relations  between  authors  and  publishers. 
Perhaps  the  most  successful  scene  is  the  seventh:  'A  Day  at  Baiae,'  which,  allowing 
for  certain  changes,  is  not  so  unlike  a  day  at  a  fashionable  watering-place  of  the 
present  time.  Each  scene  is  followed  by  copious  notes  intended  to  verify  the  state- 
ments in  the  text.  The  most  important  portion  of  the  work  is  embraced  in  the  two 
last  volumes,  in  which  the  private  life  of  the  Romans  is  treated  exhaustively  and  in 
systematic  order.  Each  chapter,  or  excursus,  is  a  commentary  on  a  scene  in  the 
story.  The  style  is  simple,  pleasing,  and  slightly  poetical.  The  fine  English  trans- 


332  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

lation  by  Metcalfe  may  be  considered  almost  an  original  work.  He  has  com- 
pressed Becker's  three  volumes  into  one,  and  curtailed  and  altered  them  greatly  for 
the  better. 

GAMMER  GURTON'S  NEEDLE,  is  one  of  the  two  or  three  earliest  comedies  in 
our  language.  Its  authorship  is  uncertain.  In  1575,  some  years  after  it  was  staged 
at  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  it  made  its  appearance  in  print.  The  plot  is  very 
simple.  An  old  woman,  Gammer  Gurton,  while  mending  the  breeches  of  her  servant 
Hodge,  loses  her  needle.  The  loss  of  an  article  so  valuable  in  those  days  not  only 
worries  her,  but  throws  the  whole  household  into  confusion.  Tib,  her  maid,  and 
Cock,  her  servant  boy,  join  in  the  search.  Presently  Diccon  the  Bedlam  appears,  — 
a  kind  of  wandering  buffoon,  who  persuades  Gammer  Gurton  that  her  gossip,'  or 
friend,  Dame  Chat,  has  taken  the  needle.  Out  of  this  false  accusation  arise  all  kinds 
of  complications,  and  the  whole  village  shares  in  the  excitement.  Dame  Chat,  and 
her  maid  Doll,  Master  Baily  and  his  servant  Scapethrift,  and  Dr.  Rat  the  curate  are 
brought  into  the  discussion.  In  the  end,  as  Diccon  is  belaboring  Hodge  with  his 
hand,  the  latter  is  made  painfullv  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  needle  has  been  left  by 
Gammer  Gurton  sticking  in  the  back  of  his  breeches.  Broad  jokes,  extravagant 
language,  and  situations  depending  for  their  fun  on  the  discomfiture  of  one  or  another 
of  the  actors  gave  this  play  great  popularity  in  its  day.  Readers  of  the  present  time 
who  penetrate  behind  its  quaint  and  uncouth  language  will  find  in  it  an  interesting 
picture  of  sixteenth-century  village  life. 

GARDEN  OF  AI/LAH,  THE,  by  Robert  Hichens  (1904).  The  scene  of  this  story  is 
laid  in  North  Africa,  and  interest  centers  in  the  Sahara  Desert,  which  is  called  the 
Garden  of  Allah.  Domini  Enfilden,  a  charming  English  girl,  arrives  at  Beni-Mora, 
one  of  the  resorts  for  travelers  in  the  Desert.  She  is  accompanied  only  by  her  maid, 
as  having  lost  her  parents  and  being  an  only  child  she  is  virtually  alone  in  the  world. 
In  spite  of  possessing  both  wealth  and  beauty,  Domini  has  reached  the  age  of  thirty- 
two  years  without  being  touched  by  love,  but  her  strong  nature  has  found  its  outlet 
in  religion,  as  she  is  a  devout  Catholic.  At  the  hotel  where  Domini  is  staying  she 
finds  the  only  other  visitor  besides  herself  to  be  an  awkward  and  uncouth  man  who 
is  a  mystery  to  her.  As  time  goes  on\  however,  Domini  realizes  that  her  strange 
companion,  whose  name  is  Boris  Androvsky,  is  not  intentionally  rude,  but  is  shy,  and 
evidently  laboring  under  some  heavy  sorrow,  and  she  begins  to  feel  an  interest  in 
him  which  soon  develops  into  love.  They  are  alone  together  in  the  beautiful  garden 
of  Count  Anteoni  when  Boris  tries  to  take  leave  of  Domini  but  cannot  resist  confess- 
ing his  love  and  finds  that  it  is  reciprocated.  The  lovers  are  soon  united  in  marriage 
and  journey  into  the  desert  for  their  honeymoon.  Here  their  perfect  happiness  is 
clouded  by  the  secret  which  Boris  is  evidently  hiding  from  his  wife  and  which  causes 
her  much  anxiety  and  himself  great  suffering.  Finally  Boris  confesses  to  Domini 
that  he  is  a  Trappist  monk  who  after  twenty  years  of  service  in  the  Monastery  of  El 
Largani  had  tired  of  Hs  fetters  and  broken  his  vows  and  fled.  Since  that  time  he  had 
suffered  deep  remorse  and  even  his  great  happiness  could  not  bring  'him  peace. 
Domini  is  heart-broken  but  decides  that  it  is  his  duty  to  return  to  the  Monastery,  as 
in  that  way  only  can  he  make  restitution  for  the  sin  he  has  committed.  Boris  and 
Domini  journey  at  once  to  El  Largani  where  the  latter  parts  with  her  husband  at  the 
Monastery  gate  never  to  see  him  again,  and  returns  to  the  Desert,  where  she  begins 
a  life  of  loneliness  and  sorrow  brightened  only  by  the  advent  of  her  child  in  whom  sha 
centers  all  her  affection. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  333 

GARDEN  OF  EPICURUS,  THE  ('Le  Jardin  d'Epicure'),  a  series  of  detached 
meditations  and  essays  by  Anatolc  France  (Jacques  Anatole  Thibault)  published  in 
1894  and  translated  into  English  in  1908.  The  essays  are  concerned  with  the  uncer- 
tainties of  science  and  metaphysics,  the  varying  shades  of  paganism  and  of  religious 
sentiment  in  modern  life,  the  portrayal  of  numerous  types  of  human  character,  male 
and  female,  and  the  discussion  of  various  aesthetic  and  literary  problems,  and  of  the 
means  of  making  life  pass  most  tolerably.  In  one  of  the  longest  of  the  essays  a  body 
of  philosophers,  ancient  and  modern,  is  introduced,  discussing  in  the  Elysian  Fields 
the  nature  and  immortality  of  the  soul.  All  the  essays  have  that  perfect  limpidity, 
effortless  simplicity,  and  keenness  in  drawing  distinctions  which  are  so  typical  of  this 
modern  exemplar  of  the  best  characteristics  of  French  prose.  As  the  title  implies, 
they  reflect  the  views  of  an  indulgent  but  ironic  sceptic,  who  aims  at  an  unimpas- 
sioned  and  detached  but  graceful  acceptance  of  the  beauties  as  well  as  the  whimsicali- 
ties and  imperfections  of  life. 

GARGANTUA  AND  PANTAGRUEL,  by  Francois  Rabelais.  Towards  1532,  at 
Lyons,  Rabelais  edited  a  series  of  almanacs,  in  which  are  found  'La  Pantagrueline 
Pronostication '  (The  Forecastings  of  Pantagruel),  and  'Les  Chroniques  Gargan tines' 
(The  Chronicles  of  Gargantua),  under  the  immediate  title  of  'Pantagruel,  roi  des 
Dipsodes,  restitue*  en  son  naturel,  avec  ses  faits  et  prouesses  espouvantables;  composes 
pour  M.  Alcofribas,  abstracteur  de  quintessence '  (Pantagruel,  king  of  the  Drunkards, 
portrayed  according  to  life,  with  his  amazing  deeds  and  feats  of  prowess ;  written  by 
M.  Alcofribas,  distiller  of  the  very  quintessence).  This  forms  the  second  book  of  the 
work  as  it  now  stands;  for  Rabelais,  seeing  the  success  of  his  efforts,  revised  his 
1  Chroniques  Gargantines '  and  made  of  them  the  '  Vie  tres  horrifique  du  grand  Gar- 
gantua, pere  de  Pantagruel '  (The  very  horrible  life  of  the  great  Gargantua,  father  of 
Pantagruel),  which  is  now  the  first  book.  Then  came  the  'Tiers  livre  des  faits  et 
diets  heroiques  du  bon  Pantagruel '  (Third  book  of  the  heroic  sayings  and  doings  of 
the  good  Pantagruel),  to  which  Rabelais  affixed  his  own  name  with  the  additions  of 
"docteur  en  me'decine  et  calloier  des  isle  d'Hieres"  (physician  and  monk  of  the  island 
of  Hyeres).  In  1552  appeared  the  fourth  book.  The  fifth  book  (1564)  is  post- 
humous, and  it  is  doubtful  if  Rabelais  composed  it.  The  five  books  form  a  sort  of 
satirical  epopee.  The  first  book,  which  alone  forms  a  complete  whole,  relates  the 
birth,  childhood,  the  journey  to  Paris,  the  education,  and  the  farcical  adventures 
of  the  giant  Gargantua,  son  of  Grandgosier;  also  the  war  which  he  waged  against  the 
invader  Picrocole,  the  mighty  deeds  of  his  friend  and  ally  Jean  des  Entommeurs,  and 
the  foundation  of  the  abbv  of  The'leme.  This  book  also  is  probably  the  best  known 
and  most  prized,  as  illustrating  the  serious  ideas  of  its  author  upon  war,  the  education 
of  children,  and  the  organization  of  monastery  life.  The  myth  of  Gargantua  was  of 
Celtic  origin,  dating  from  the  time  of  the  importation  of  the  Arthurian  legends  into 
France  by  the  troubadours  of  William  the  Conqueror. 

GARIBALDI  AND  THE  THOUSAND,  by  George  Macaulay  Trevelyan  (1909),  is  a 
highly  interesting  account  of  the  liberation  of  Sicily  from  the  Bourbon  sovereigns 
of  Naples.  Garibaldi's  early  life  and  the  condition  of  Italy  previous  to  the  Risorgi- 
mento  are  first  discussed  and  an  account  is  then  given  of  the  war  of  Piedmont  against 
Austria  in  1859,  of  Garibaldi's  share  in  it,  and  of  his  landing  in  Sicily  in  1860  with  an 
army  of  a  thousand  volunteers  and  conquering  the  country.  In  a  sequel  entitled 
'Garibaldi  and  the  Making  of  Italy'  (1911)  the  author  goes  on  to  relate  the  crossing 
of  the  victorious  Garibaldi  into  Calabria,  his  defeat  of  the  Neapolitan  armies  at  the 


334  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Volturno,  his  relinquishment  of  his  army  and  conquered  territory  to  Victor  Emmanuel 
of  Sardinia,  and  the  surrender  of  Francis  II.  of  Naples  on  February  I3th,  1861.  At 
the  close  his  share  in  the  conquest  of  Venice  and  Rome,  which  completed  the  unifica- 
tion of  Italy  is  briefly  outlined.  Both  volumes  are  written  in  Trevelyan's  graphic  and 
entertaining  style  and  present  a  splendid  picture  of  this  romantic  episode  in  the 
liberation  of  Italy. 

GARRISON,  WILLIAM  LLOYD,  'The  Story  of  His  Life,  Told  by  His  Children ' 
(Wendell  Phillips  Garrison  and  Francis  Jackson  Garrison),  was  published  in  four 
volumes  in  1885,  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  "Boston  Mob"  which  played  so 
dramatic  a  part  in  their  father's  life. 

The  account  given  of  the  great  abolitionist's  family  antecedents  is  quite  full,  and 
his  whole  career  circumstantially  presented;  though  not  as  a  mere  agglomeration  of 
facts  and  incidents,  for  the  threads  of  his  development  are  as  sedulously  kept  together 
as  in  a  novel.  The  ample  space  of  the  work  permits  the  reproduction  of  historic 
documents,  addresses,  articles  from  the  Liberator,  and  other  periodicals,  and  some 
very  valuable  portraits.  No  less  interesting,  as  presenting  a  near  view  of  a  phase  of 
national  development,  are  the  records  of  Garrison's  missions  abroad  and  efforts  to 
secure  legislative  recognition  of  the  cause  for  which  he  stood.  The  reformer's  charac- 
ter, as  here  revealed,  shows  his  great  humanitarian  schemes  to  have  been  the  in- 
evitable outcome  of  a  sensitive  conscience,  a  humane  spirit,  and  an  overpowering 
sense  of  justice.  The  work  pretends  to  no  ornate  literary  style,  but  recognizes  its 
own  value  to  be  in  historic  fullness,  accuracy,  and  sympathy  with  its  subject. 

GARTH,  by  Julian  Hawthorne,  appeared  first  as  a  serial  in  Harper's  Magazine  (1875). 
Garth  Urmson,  the  hero,  is  a  member  of  a  New  Hampshire  family,  upon  which  rests  a 
hereditary  curse.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the  founder  of  the  family  in  America 
had  violated  a  sacred  Indian  grave.  From  that  time  forth,  the  shadow  of  the  crime 
rests  upon  his  descendants.  Garth,  the  last  of  the  race,  seems  to  carry  the  weight 
of  all  their  cares  and  sorrows;  but  at  the  same  time  he  feels  the  dignity  which  was 
theirs  by  right  of  many  noble  qualities.  He  is  a  dreamer,  but  a  lofty  dreamer.  He 
cannot,  however,  escape  misfortune.  His  love  affairs  with  two  women,  Madge 
Danvers  and  Elinor  Lenterden,  are  unhappy,  in  so  far  as  they  are  controlled  by  the 
hereditary  curse.  The  novel  possesses  a  peculiar  haziness  of  atmosphere.  It  is 
perhaps  an  imitation  of  the  elder  Hawthorne's  'House  of  the  Seven  Gables/ 

GATHERING  CLOUDS:  'A  Tale  of  the  Days  of  St.  Chrysostom,'  by  Frederick 
W.  Farrar  (1896).  This  story  depicts  the  strifes  of  the  see  of  Constantinople,  in 
somewhat  the  manner  of  Kingsley's  'Hypatia'  as  that  deals  with  Alexandria.  The 
period,  end  of  the  fourth  and  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  is  that  bewildering  age 
when  the  clouds  are  gathering  over  Church  and  State.  The  hero  is  John  Chrysostom, 
the  preacher  of  Antioch,  beloved  by  Christian  and  respected  by  heathen.  The  first 
chapter  describes  the  riot  that  followed  the  attempt  of  the  Emperor  Theodosius  to 
take  the  opulent  city  on  the  Orontes.  Then  follows  the  story  of  its  threatened  doom 
averted  by  the  devotion  of  Flavian  and  "Presbyter  John'*;  and  the  rescue  of  the  boy 
Philip,  whose  thoughtless  act  has  led  to  the  destruction  of  the  statues  of  the  Emperor's 
wife  and  children.  It  follows  Chrysostom  to  Constantinople,  to  the  patriarchate  of 
which  the  modest  preacher  has  been  appointed  by  the  new  Emperor  Arcadius.  It 
tells  of  the  sturdy  faithfulness  of  the  new  ciiief,  the  envy  and  plots  against  him,  the 
rising  of  the  Goths  and  their  massacre,  and  the  exile  and  subsequent  death  of  Chry- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  335 

sostom.  Many  historic  characters  find  their  way  into  the  story;  but  not  all  of  the 
alleged  saints  merit  their  aureoles.  The  valiant  John,  however,  is  a  bulwark  of 
righteousness;  and  is  portrayed,  not  as  an  abstraction,  but  a  living,  large-hearted 
man.  The  stories  of  the  devoted  youths  Philip  and  Eutyche,  of  David  and  Miriam, 
with  the  Gothic  youths  Thorismund  and  Walamar,  are  given;  and  the  story  ends  with 
the  martyrdom  of  Eutyche,  the  death  of  Chrysostom,  and  the  capture  of  Rome  by 
Alaric. 

GAVEROCKS,  THE,  by  S.  Baring-Gould  (1889),  is  one  of  the  talcs  of  English 
rural  life  and  studies  of  distorted  development  of  character,  mingled  with  a 
touch  of  the  supernatural,  in  which  the  author  excels.  Hender  Gaverock  is  an 
eccentric  old  Cornish  squire,  who  has  two  sons,  Garens  and  Constantine,  whose 
natural  spirits  have  been  almost  wholly  crushed  by  his  harsh  and  brutal  rule.  Garens 
philosophically  submits,  but  Constantine  rebels;  and  the  book  is  chiefly  occupied 
with  the  misdeeds,  and  their  consequences,  of  the  younger  son,  whose  revolt  against 
his  father's  tyranny  rapidly  degenerates  into  a  career  of  vice  and  crime.  He  marries 
secretly,  deserts  his  wife,  allows  himself  to  be  thought  drowned,  commits  bigamy, 
robs  his  father,  and  is  finally  murdered  as  he  is  about  to  flee  the  country.  Exciting 
events  come  thick  and  fast,  and  the  various  complications  of  the  plot  gradually 
unravel  themselves.  The  chief  characters  are  boldly  and  forcibly  drawn,  and  the 
scenes  on  both  land  and  water  are  vividly  portrayed;  notably  the  storm  in  which 
Constantine  and  his  father  are  wrecked,  the  "Goose  Fair,"  and  Garens's  samphire 
gathering.  The  interest  is  sustained  to  the  end,  and  the  book  as  a  whole  is  a  powerful 
one,  though  it  can  hardly  be  called  pleasant  or  agreeable. 

GAWAIN,  see  PEARL. 

GAY  LORD  QUEX,  THE,  by  Arthur  W.  Pinero  (1900).  Lord  Quex,  a  reformed 
Don  Juan,  is  about  to  marry  Muriel,  a  young  English  girl.  Muriel's  foster-sister, 
Sophie  Fullgarney,  a  manicurist,  has  heard  ,of  Lord  Quex's  past,  and  is  determined 
to  save  Muriel  from  the  marriage.  Sophie  plots  to  entrap  Lord  Quex  into  showing  his 
true  character,  and  tries  to  tempt  him  into  flirtation  with  herself.  She  has  the  oppor- 
tunity to  spend  the  night  at  the  country  house  where  Muriel  and  Lord  Quex  are  guests 
and  overhears  Lord  Quex  make  an  appointment  with  the  Duchess  of  Strood,  an  old 
love,  who  has  insisted  on  a  farewell  meeting.  On  pretext  of  supplying  the  place  of 
the  Duchess's  maid,  she  is  able  to  listen  at  the  keyhole  of  her  boudoir.  Lord  Quex 
discovers  her,  and  sending  the  Duchess  to  the  room  of  a  friend,  rings  for  Sophie  and 
locks  her  in  the  room.  He  offers  her  money  and  explanations,  and  appeals  to  her 
generosity  in  vain.  Then  he  points  out  to  her  that  her  own  reputation  will  be  ruined, 
and  in  her  excitement  she  promises  to  be  silent  and  writes  a  compromising  letter  at  his 
dictation.  Suddenly  she  realizes  that  she  is  sacrificing  Muriel  to  save  herself,  and 
rings  the  bell  to  arouse  the  household.  He  appreciates  her  courage  and  real  devotion 
to  Muriel,  and  sets  her  free,  and  she  in  her  turn  is  converted  from  an  enemy  into  an 
ally.  Captain  Bastling,  the  young  man  whom  Muriel  fancies  she  loves,  falls  into  the 
trap  of  flirtation  with  Sophie  which  failed  to  catch  his  rival,  and  Lord  Quex  marries 
Muriel. 

GENDRE  BE  M.  POIRIER,  LE  ('Mr.  Poirier's  Son-in-Law'),  by  Emile  Augier  and 
Jules  Sandeau.  This  charming  little  French  comedy,  sparkling  with  wit,  has  already 
become  what  Francisque  Sarcey  says  it  will  always  continue  to  be  —  a  classic,  but 


336  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

not  a  dry  classic.  It  describes  the  old  struggle  between  the  "bourgeoisie"  and  the 
aristocracy,  pointing  out  the  weaknesses  of  each.  Monsieur  Poirier,  a  rich  tradesman, 
with  the  ambition  of  ultimately  entering  the  peerage,  has  bought  a  ruined  Marquis 
for  his  daughter.  The  Marquis,  Gaston  de  Presles,  finds  himself  at  first  in  a  most 
comfortable  position.  He  lives  in  great  luxury  at  the  expense  of  his  father-in-law, 
whom  he  continually  holds  up  to  ridicule.  At  the  same  time  he  resumes  his  old  way 
of  life;  pays  scant  attention  to  his  wife,  supposing  that  she  must  be  uninteresting; 
and  devotes  himself  to  Madame  de  Montjoy,  about  whom  he  cares  nothing.  Things 
do  not  continue  to  go  so  pleasantly  however.  Monsieur  Poirier  tries  to  force  him  into 
a  political.career,  which  he  flatly  refuses.  Antoinette,  his  wife,  begins  to  appear  in  a 
new  light.  She  twice  saves  his  honor,  once  by  signing  herself  for  a  debt  of  which  her 
father  refuses  to  pay  the  usurious  interest,  a  second  time  by  destroying  a  letter  from 
Madame  de  Montjoy,  of  which  her  father  had  got  possession.  Gaston  de  Presles  is 
astonished  to  find  himself  desperately  in  love  with  his  own  wife.  She  however,  having 
discovered  his  intrigues  with  Madame  de  Montjoy,  declares  herself  a  widow,  but 
relents  when  for  her  sake  he  promises  to  give  up  fighting  a  duel.  The  reconciliation 
is  complete.  Verdelet,  an  old  friend  of  Poirier,  and  Hector  de  Montmeyran,  are  the 
other  important  characters. 

GENERAL  HISTORY  OF  THE  INDIES,  see  INDIES. 

GENIUS,  THE,  by  Theodore  Dreiser  (1915).  The  story  of  the  amorous  adventures 
of  an  artist,  Eugene  Witla,  beginning  with  Stella  and  ending  with  Suzanne  at  the 
end  of  the  book.  He  is  the  son  of  a  sewing  machine  agent  in  a  small  town  in  Illinois. 
He  studies  art  in  Chicago,  and  makes  a  name  for  himself  in  New  York  as  an  illustra- 
tor. His  love  affairs  and  unfaithfulness  to  one  woman  after  another  are  described 
with  the  minuteness  of  detail  of  a  dictograph.  He  marries  Angela  because  after 
waiting  years  for  him  to  fulfil  his  promise  to  her,  she  threatens  to  kill  herself  in  order 
to  escape  from  becoming  a  mother  before  she  is  a  wife,  and  his  artistic  temperament 
shrinks  from  the  catastrophe.  Studio  life  and  intrigues  bring  about  a  nervous 
collapse,  but  he  recovers  his  health  in  hard  manual  labor.  He  takes  up  advertising 
art,  and  quickly  becomes  a  director  of  the  United  Magazines  Corporation  at  a  salary 
of  twenty-five  thousand  a  year.  His  wife  dies  giving  birth  to  a  daughter.  Ultimately 
Eugene  returns  to  painting.  The  end  of  the  story  leaves  him  in  search  of  a  guiding 
plan  of  life  in  Christian  Science,  mysticism,  cosmic  philosophy  and  Herbert  Spencer, 
and  dallying  with  his  paternal  duties. 

GENIUS  OF  CHRISTIANITY,  THE  ('La  Ge*nie  du  Christianisme ') ,  by  Francois 
Auguste  de  Chateau oriand  (1802).  This  favorite  book  was  begun  by  Chateaubriand 
during  his  period  of  exile  in  England;  though  it  was  first  published  in  France  at  the 
moment  when  Bonaparte,  then  First  Consul,  was  endeavoring  to  restore  Catholicism 
as  the  official  religion  of  the  country.  The  object  of  the '  Genius '  was  to  illustrate  and 
prove  the  triumph  of  religious  sentiment,  or  more  exactly,  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
cult.  The  framework  upon  which  all  is  constructed  is  a  sentence  found  near  the 
beginning  of  the  work,  to  the  effect  that  of  all  religions  that  have  ever  existed,  the 
Christian  religion  is  the  most  poetic,  the  most  humane,  the  most  favorable  to  liberty, 
to  literature,  and  to  the  arts.  The  book  is  divided  into  four  parts,  the  first  of  which 
treats  of  the  mysteries,  the  moralities,  the  truth  of  the  Scriptures,  the  existence  of 
God,  and  the  irnmortality  of  the  soul.  The  second  and  third  parts  bear  upon  the 
poetics  of  Christianity,  and  upon  the  fine  arts  and  letters.  The  fourth  is  devoted  to 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  337 

a  minute  study  of  the  "Christian  cult."  However  pious  the  feeling  which  prompted 
the  composition  of  the '  Genius, '  it  by  no  means  entitles  its  author  to  a  position  among 
religious  writers.  Critics  have  shown  us  that,  at  most,  he  was  devoted  only  to  the 
rude  Christianity  of  the  Dark  Ages,  vague  and  almost  inexplicable.  It  was  but  the 
external,  the  picturesque,  the  sensuous  side  of  religion  that  impressed  him.  He  loved 
the  vast  and  gloomy  cathedral,  dimly  lighted  and  sweet  with  incense,  the  low  chanting 
of  the  priests,  the  silent  movements  of  the  acolytes,  all  the  pomp,  magnificence,  and 
mystery  of  the  holy  rites.  It  was  this  only  that  gave  him  pleasure,  and  through  his 
artistic  sensibilities  alone.  In  short,  he  regarded  religion  much  as  he  did  some  old 
Gothic  ruin  by  moonlight,  —  a  something  majestic,  grand,  romantic,  a  fit  subject  to 
be  treated  by  a  man  of  letters. 

GENTLEMAN  FROM  INDIANA,  THE,  by  Booth  Tarkington,  was  published  in 
1899.  It  is  the  story  of  John  Harklcss,  a  young  college  graduate,  the  most  promising 
man  in  his  class,  who,  instead  of  doing  at  once  the  great  things  expected  of  him, 
settles  down  in  a  dull  little  Indiana  town  and  becomes  proprietor  and  editor  of  a 
country  newspaper.  He  attacks  with  both  bravery  and  vigor  the  hosts  of  evil  which 
prevail  about  him,  and  thereby  wins  for  himself  both  friends  and  enemies.  His 
personal  efforts  toward  bringing  to  justice  a  number  of  White  Caps,  whose  outrages 
have  previously  gone  unpunished,  single  him  out  for  their  vengeance.  With  absurd 
indifference  to  danger,  young  Harkless  goes  about  unarmed  and  pays  slight  attention 
to  the  stray  bullets  which  cross  his  path.  The  climax  of  the  story  is  reached  when,  in 
the  midst  of  a  scene  with  the  girl  he  loves,  he  dashes  off  into  the  darkness  and  is  set 
upon  by  a  band  of  cut- throats.  The  only  trace  of  him  to  be  found  the  following  day 
is  a  bloody  stain  near  the  railroad  track  and  he  is  given  up  as  dead.  The  people  of  the 
commanity,  aroused  from  their  lethargy  by  this  last  outrage,  start  out  to  devastate 
the  neighboring  settlement  from  which  the  White  Caps  come.  News  is  received  that  ' 
Harkless  is  alive,  the  hamlet  is  spared,  and  the  men  who  have  taken  part  in  the 
attempted  murder  receive  the  penalty  of  the  law.  The  hero  finally  returns  in  triumph 
and  marries  the  girl  of  his  choice,  who  has  run  his  paper  with  great  success  during  his 
absence,  and  has  been  able  by  this  means  to  get  her  lover  nominated  as  a  member  to 
Congress.  There  are  many  stirring  incidents  in  the  story  and  they  are  narrated  with 
much  strength  and  vigor. 

GENTLEMAN  OF  FRANCE,  A  (1893),  by  Stanley  J.  Weyman.  This  story  is  a 
romance  of  the  troublous  times  in  France  immediately  preceding  the  accession  of 
Henry  IV.  to  the  throne.  Gaston  de  Bonne,  Sieur  de  Marsac,  reduced  almost  to 
poverty  by  the  death  of  his  patron,  is  unexpectedly  offered  a  dangerous  and  thankless 
commission  by  Henry  of  Navarre.  Accepting  it,  he  finds  himself  engaged  to  abduct 
Mademoiselle  de  la  Vire,  a  beautiful  young  lady,  the  niece  and  ward  of  the  Duke  de 
Turenne.  Marsac  is  warned  that  he  cannot  look  to  Henry  for  aid  in  case  of  the 
miscarriage  of  the  enterprise,  as  the  king  must  not  appear  to  be  implicated.  The 
abduction  is  necessary  for  political  reasons,  as  the  lady  possesses  information  vitally 
important  to  Navarre  in  his  efforts  to  unite  the  Huguenots  with  the  Catholic  forces 
of  King  Henry  III.,  and  which  she  alone  can  impart  to  the  king.  Marsac  accom- 
plishes his  task  after  many  hairbreadth  escapes  and  delivers  his  charge  to  the  Duke 
de  Rosny,  Navarre's  chief  counselor,  who  notifies  the  king  that  he  can  now  produce 
the  testimony  needed  to  bring  about  the  desired  reconciliation.  Marsac  conducts 
Mademoiselle  de  la  Vire  to  the  king  at  Blois;  but  after  the  interview  she  is  recaptured 
and  spirited  away  by  emissaries  of  Turenne.  Marsac  follows,  overtakes  and  rescues 


338  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  lady.  The  plague  is  raging  in  the  neighborhood,  and  Marsac  is  stricken  with  the 
disease,  but  is  nursed  back  to  health  by  Mademoiselle  de  la  Vire,  for  whom  he  forms 
an  ardent  attachment,  which  she  reciprocates.  Upon  the  death  of  Henry  III., 
Henry  of  Navarre,  now  Henry  IV.,  rewards  Marsac  for  his  fidelity  and  courage, 
with  an  appointment  to  a  governorship  and  the  hand  of  Mademoiselle  de  la  Vire. 

GEOGRAPHY,  A,  by  Strabo  (c.  64  B.  C.-ip  A.  D.).  The  author  visited  most  of 
the  countries  he  describes,  having  traveled  extensively  in  Asia  Minor,  Europe,  and 
Africa.  He  was  forty-three  or  forty-four  years  old  when  he  returned  to  his  birthplace, 
Amasea  in  Cappadocia,  where  he  spent  several  years  in  arranging  his  materials. 
The  work  appeared  some  time  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era.  It  is  divided 
into  seventeen  books,  of  which  we  possess  almost  the  whole;  and  is  a  real  encyclo- 
paedia, full  of  interesting  details  and  brief  but  luminous  sketches  of  the  history,  re- 
ligion, manners,  and  political  institutions  of  ancient  nations.  The  first  two  books 
form  a  sort  of  introduction,  in  which  he  treats  of  the  character  of  the  science  and 
refutes  the  errors  of  Eratosthenes.  Then  he  devotes  eight  books  to  Europe,  six  to 
Asia,  and  the  last  to  Africa.  Strabo  is  very  modern  in  the  standpoint  from  which  he 
views  geography.  In  his  way  of  looking  at  it,  it  is  not  a  mere  dry  nomenclature,  but 
an  integral  picture,  not  only  of  the  physical  phenomena  but  of  all  the  social  and 
political  peculiarities  that  diversify  the  surface  of  our  globe.  His  work  even  contains 
discussions  of  literary  criticism  of  considerable  importance;  and  he  has  very  clear 
notions  of  the  value  of  ancient  fables  and  folk-lore  as  evidence  of  the  ideas  and  wis- 
dom of  primitive  times.  The  '  Geography '  is  the  production  of  a  judicious  and  con- 
summate scholar  and  clear  and  correct  writer;  and  besides  being  an  inexhaustible 
mine  for  historians,  philologists,  and  literary  men,  is  very  pleasant  reading.  Yet  it 
appears  to  have  been  forgotten  soon  after  its  publication.  Neither  Pliny  nor  Pau- 
sanias  refers  to  it,  and  Plutarch  mentions  only  the  historical  part.  Strabo  sus- 
pected the  existence  of  a  continent  between  western  Europe  and  Asia.  "It  is 
very  possible,"  says  he,' "that  by  following  the  parallel  of  Athens  across  the  Atlantic, 
we  may  find  in  the  temperate  zone  one  or  several  worlds  inhabited  by  races  different 
from  ours." 

GEOGRAPHY,  THE,  of  Ptolemy,  see  ALMAGEST. 

GEORGICS,  THE  (Georgica),  by  Virgil.  This  great  work,  admittedly  the  master- 
piece of  didactic  poetry,  and  considered  by  many  superior  to  the  ^Eneid  in  style,  was 
begun,  probably  at  the  request  of  Msecenas,  in  717,  and  completed  in  724  A.  U.  C. 
It  is  divided  into  four  books.  The  first  treats  of  agriculture;  the  second  of  trees; 
the  third  of  the  raising  of  cattle;  and  the  fourth  of  bees.  Virgil  has  utilized  the  writ- 
ings of  all  the  authorities  on  agriculture  and  kindred  subjects  in  the  Greek  and  Roman 
world.  Thus,  besides  the  '  CBconornica '  of  Xenophon,  the  works  of  the  Carthaginian 
Mago,  translated  by  order  of  the  Senate,  and  those  of  Cato  and  Varro,  he  consulted 
the  '  Phenomena'  of  Aratos  for  the  signs  of  the  weather,  those  of  Erastothenes  for  the 
celestial  zones,  the  writings  of  Democritus  for  the  revolution  of  the  moon;'  and  so 
admirably  are  all  his  materials  used  with  his  own  poetic  inspiration,  that  precept  and 
sentiment,  imagination  and  reality,  are  merged  in  one  complete  and  harmonious 
unity.  No  matter  how  exact  or  technical  the  nature  of  the  teaching,  it  is  never  dry. 
An  image  introduced  with  apparent  carelessness  vivifies  the  coldest  formula:  he  tells 
the  plowman  he  must  break  up  the  clods  of  his  field  and  harrow  it  again  and  again, 
and  then  at  once  shows  him  golden-haired  Ceres,  who  looks  down  on  him  from  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  339 

Olympian  heights  with  propitious  eyes.  Besides  mythology,  which  the  poet  uses 
with  great  reserve,  he  finds  in  geography  resources  that  quicken  the  reader's  interest. 
Tmolus,  India,  the  countries  of  the  Sabseans  and  Chalybes,  enable  him  to  point  out 
that  every  land,  by  a  secret  eternal  law,  has  its  own  particular  products;  and  to 
predict  to  the  husbandman  that  if  he  follow  good  counsels,  a  harvest  as  bounteous  as 
that  which  arouses  the  pride  of  Mysia  or  Gargarus  shall  reward  his  toil.  The  episodes 
and  descriptions  scattered  through  the  poem  are  of  surpassing  beauty.  Among  them 
may  be  mentioned:  the  death  of  Caesar,  with  the  prodigies  that  accompanied  it,  at 
the  end  of  the  first  book;  in  the  second,  the  praise  of  Italy,  its  climate  and  its  flocks 
and  herds;  the  pride  and  greatness  of  Clitumnus,  with  her  numerous  cities,  her  fine 
lakes,  as  broad  and  as  terrible  in  their  fury  as  seas,  with  her  robust  population  and 
great  men  who  gave  to  Rome  the  empire  of  the  world;  and,  as  a  pendant  to  this  sub- 
lime picture,  the  fresh,  idyllic  delineation  of  country  life  and  the  happiness  of  rustic 
swains,  if  they  only  knew,  sua  sic  bona  norint !  then,  at  the  end  of  the  third  book,  the 
splendid  games  and  the  magnificent  temple  of  white  marble  he  proposes  to  raise  to 
Augustus;  the  description  of  the  pest  that  devastated  the  pasture-lands  of  Noricum, 
unrivaled  for  elegance  and  pathos;  and  the  touching  story  of  the  love  of  Orpheus  and 
Eurydice  with  which  the  poem  concludes. 

GERMAN  EMPIRE,  see  FOUNDING  OF  THE. 

GERMANY  ('De  TAllemagne1)  by  the  Baroness  de  Stael-Holstein  (Anne  Louise 
Germaine  Necker)  (1813).  One  of  the  most  remarkable  examples  in  literature  of 
the  genius  of  woman  opening  new  paths  and  executing  efforts  of  advance  with  full 
masculine  strength  and  energy.  Napoleon  had  in  1803  driven  Madame  de  Stael 
from  Paris,  and  in  December  of  that  year  she  had  visited  Schiller  and  Goethe  at 
Weimar,  and  Schlegel  at  Berlin.  The  death  of  her  father,  a  visit  to  Italy,  and  the 
composition  of  'Corinne'  which  greatly  added  to  her  fame  in  Europe,  were  followed 
by  a  second  visit  to  Germany  in  the  latter  part  of  1807.  The  book  'De  I'Allemagne1 
was  finished  in  1810,  and  printed  in  an  edition  of  10,000  copies  after  submission  to 
the  regular  censorship,  when  Napoleon  caused  the  whole  to  be  seized  and  destroyed, 
and  herself  ordered  to  leave  France  at  once.  By  good  luck  her  son  had  preserved 
the  manuscript;  and  the  author  was  able,  after  a  long  wandering  through  Europe,  to 
reach  England,  and  secure  the  publication  of  her  book  in  1813.  In  dealing,  as  she 
did,  with  manners,  society,  literature,  art,  philosophy,  and  religion,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  her  observations  in  Germany,  Madame  de  Stael  gave  to  France  a  more 
complete  and  sympathetic  knowledge  of  German  thought  and  literature  than  it  had 
ever  had.  It  was  a  presentation  of  the  German  mind  and  German  developments  at 
once  singularly  penetrating  and  powerful.  The  defects  of  the  work  were  French,  and 
promoted  rather  than  hindered  its  influence  in  France.  In  England  an  immense 
enthusiasm  was  aroused  by  the  author  and  by  her  brilliant  book,  which  easily  took 
the  highest  rank  among  books  of  the  time. 

GERMANY  ('Germania') ,  by  Tacitus.  The  full  title  of  the  work  is '  De  Origine,  Situ , 
Moribus,  ac  Populis  Germanise.'  It  was  written  probably  in  99,  and  is  a  geographical 
and  political  description  of  ancient  Germany,  or  at  least  of  the  part  of  it  known  to  the 
Romans,  which  did  not  extend  far  beyond  the  Elbe.  It  may  be  divided  into  three 
parts:  Chapters  i.-v.  describe  the  situation  of  the  country,  the  origin  of  its  population, 
and  the  nature  of  the  soil;  Chapters  vi.-xxvii.,  the  manners  of  the  Germans  in  general 
and  their  method  of  waging  war;  and  the  remaining  chapters  deal  with  the  several 


340  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

tribes,  and  give  a  careful  and  precise  account  of  the  manners  and  customs  that  dis- 
tinguish one  from  another.  This  fine  work  is  at  once  a  treatise  on  geography,  a 
political  study  of  the  peoples  most  dreaded  by  Rome,  a  study  of  barbarous_manners, 
and,  by  the  simple  effect  of  contrast,  a  satire  on  Roman  manners.  It  is  not  only  the 
chief  source  of  the  ancient  history  of  the  tribes  that  were  to  form  the  northern  and 
western  nations  of  Europe,  but  it  contains  an  account  of  the  germs  of  almost  every 
modern  institution,  —  military,  judicial,  and  feudal.  Notwithstanding  occasional 
errors  in  geography  and  some  misconceptions  as  to  the  religion  of  the  Germans,  the 
striking  accuracy  of  his  details,  as  well  as  the  correctness  and  precision  of  his  general 
views,  have  led  some  scholars  to  believe  that  Tacitus  spent  the  four  years  of  his  life 
which  are  unaccounted  for,  from  89  to  93,  in  Germany.  But  this  is  only  conjecture; 
and  the  means  of  information  within  his  reach  were  as  valuable  as  a  personal  visit 
to  the  country  he  describes  might  have  been.  Many  of  his  friends,  like  Rufus,  had 
made  campaigns  beyond  the  Rhine,  and  their  knowledge  was  at  his  disposal.  He  must 
have  consulted  the  numerous  hostages  and  captives  that  were  always  in  the  city. 
Deserters,  such  as  Marbod  and  Catuald,  not  to  mention  the  merchants  who  trafficked 
with  the  Teutons,  may  also  have  helped  him  to  give  his  work  the  character  of  truth- 
fulness and  the  local  color  that  distinguish  it.  He  is  supposed,  in  addition,  to  have 
derived  great  assistance  from  the  '  History  of  the  Wars  in  Germany,'  in  twenty  books, 
by  Pliny  the  Elder,  a  work  now  lost.  Tacitus  has  been  accused  of  a  tendency  to 
idealize  the  ancient  Germans,  in  order  to  contrast  their  virtues  with  the  vices  of  the 
Romans.  But  while  he  no  doubt  intends  now  and  then  to  point  a  moral  for  the 
benefit  of  his  countrymen,  he  is  not  blind  to  the  faults  of  the  people  he  describes,  and 
has  no  love  for  them.  He  speaks  of  their  bestial  drunkenness,  their  gluttony,  their 
indolence,  and  rejoices  with  a  ferocious  joy  at  the  destruction  of  sixty  thousand  of  the 
Brusteri,  slain  in  sight  of  the  Roman  soldiers  by  their  own  countrymen. 

GERMANY  AND  THE  NEXT  WAR  (' Deutschland  und  der  nachste  Krieg')  by 
General  Friedrich  von  Bernhardi,  published  in  1911,  translated  into  English  in  1916, 
is  an  argument  in  favor  of  war  in  general  and  an  aggressive  German  national  policy 
of  industrial  and  territorial  acquisition  backed  up  by  military  preparedness.  The 
first  two  chapters  defend  war  as  an  essential  to  healthy  national  life,  as  the  fountain 
of  social  virtues  and  as  the  privilege  and  duty  of  the  vigorous  and  expanding  state, 
which  can  tolerate  the  control  of  no  international  sentiment  or  external  control  on 
earth.  War  is  not  inconsistent  with  Christian  morality,  which  applies  to  the  in- 
dividual and  not  to  the  state.  In  the  next  two  chapters  the  author  traces  rapidly 
the  political  and  economic  development  of  the  German  empire  and  the  mission  of  the 
German  people  to  promote  scientific  research  and  efficient  government.  The  chapter 
headed  by  the  famous  title  'World  Power  or  Downfall'  demonstrates  the  isolation  of 
Germany  and  Austria  among  the  European  powers,  shows  the  motives  for  a  coalition 
against  them,  and  maintains  that  national  disaster  is  the  alternative  to  a  vigorous  and 
aggressive  policy.  The  following  chapter  pleads  for  ample  provision  for  war,  which 
the  socialist  parties  and  pacifists  are  hindering  by  their  constant  opposition  and 
propaganda.  Then  follow  three  chapters  forecasting  the  probable  course  of  such  a 
world- war,  both  by  land  and  sea,  and  discussing  the  means  of  victory.  They  contain 
some  successful  predictions  and  some  that  have  been  falsified  by  the  event.  Ger- 
many's strength  as  the  head  of  a  coalition  of  central  powers  fighting  on  interior  lines, 
and  the  limitations  of  Prance  and  Russia  are  accurately  predicted,  and  the  general 
nature  of  England's  naval  campaign  is  outlined;  but  there  is  no  anticipation  of  the 
possibility  that  England  and  her  colonies  might  raise  a  great  army  or  of  the  German 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  341 

submarine  campaign.  The  remainder  of  the  book  deals  with  army  and  navy  or- 
ganization, the  need  of  a  more  practical  and  scientific  education  with  additional 
military  training,  and  the  necessity  of  financial,  economic,  and  political  preparedness. 
The  book  is  a  valuable  presentation  of  the  popular  German  worship  of  the  state  as 
the  highest  authority  in  existence,  with  a  morality  transcending  individual  morality, 
and  of  the  ruthless  German  application  to  international  policy  of  the  biological  doc- 
trine of  the  struggle'  for  existence  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

GERMINAL,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

GERTRUDE  OF  WYOMING,  by  Thomas  Campbell,  was  written  at  Sydenham,  in 
1809,  when  the  author  was  thirty-two,  eleven  years  after  the  publication  of  'The 
Pleasures  of  Hope.7  It  had  every  advertisement  which  rank,  fashion,  reputation, 
and  the  poet's  own  standing,  could  lend  it.  He  chose  the  Spenserian  stanza  for  his 
form  of  verse,  and  for  his  theme  the  devastation  by  the  Indians,  in  1778,  of  the  quiet 
valley  of  Wyoming,  in  Pennsylvania,  on  the  Susquehanna.  The  poem,  which  is  in 
three  parts,  opens  with  a  description  of  "Delightful  Wyoming,"  which  Campbell, 
who  had  never  seen  it,  paints  as  a  terrestrial  paradise.  One  day,  to  the  house  of 
Gertrude's  father  comes  the  Oneida  warrior  Outalissi,  bringing  a  boy  whom  he  has 
saved  from  the  slaughter  of  a  British  force.  The  orphan,  Albert  Waldegrave, 
the  son  of  a  dear  family  friend,  lives  with  them  three  years,  until  his  relatives  send  for 
him.  Gertrude  grows  up  into  a  lovely  woman,  roaming  among  the  forest  aisles  and 
leafy  bowers,  and  reposing  with  her  volume  of  Shakespeare  in  sequestered  nooks. 
Albert  returns,  splendid  to  behold.  They  enjoy  three  months  of  wedded  bliss,  and 
both  are  killed  in  the  incursion  of  Brant  and  his  warriors.  The  style  and  manner 
seem  old-fashioned  to-day,  and  the  treatment  is  vague,  unreal,  and  indefinite;  but  a 
certain  sweetness  and  pathos,  combined  with  the  subject,  has  kept  the  poem  alive. 

GERUSALEMME  LIBERATA,  see  JERUSALEM  DELIVERED. 
GESCHICHTE  JESU  VON  NAZARA,  by  Theodor  Keim,  see  JESUS,  LIFE  OF. 

GHOSTS,  a  powerful  play  by  Henrik  Ibsen  (1881),  gives  dramatic  embodiment  to 
the  modern  realization  of  heredity.  Ibsen,  treating  this  subject  on  its  tragic  side, 
considers  the  case  of  the  darker  passions  as  they  are  handed  down  from  father  to  son. 
The  fatalistic  atmosphere  of  'Ghosts'  resembles  that  of  a  Greek  drama.  It  is  a 
Greek  tragedy  translated  into  the  littleness  and  barrenness  of  modern  life. 

Oswald  Alving,  the  son  of  a  dissipated,  worthless  father,  has  been  brought  up  by 
his  mother  in  ignorance  of  his  dead  parent's  shame.  Yet  he  has  within  him  the  seeds 
of  a  transmitted  disease,  —  the  evil  sown  by  a  previous  generation.  He  has  gone 
into  the  world  to  make  a  name  for  himself,  but  he  is  forced  to  return  to  his  mother's 
home.  He  drinks  to  excess,  and  he  exhibits  tendencies  to  other  more  dangerous 
vices.  His  wretched  mother  sees  in  him  the  ghost  of  his  father;  she  sees  the  old 
hateful  life  clothed  in  the  form  of  the  boy  she  has  reared  so  carefully.  He  himself  feels 
the  poison  working  in  his  veins.  The  play  closes  upon  the  first  sign  of  his  incipient 
madness.  In  this  drama,  the  mother,  Mrs.  Alving,  is  the  type  of  the  new  woman  in 
revolt  against  the  hideous  lies  of  society,  because  she  has  suffered  through  them. 
She  is  learning  to  think  for  herself;  to  weigh  social  morality  in  the  balances.  Her 
adviser,  Pastor  Manders,  has  been  called  "the  consummate  flower  of  conventional 
morality."  He  is  a  type  of  the  world's  cautiousness  and  policy  in  matters  ethical,- 


342  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

of  that  world's  disposition  to  cover  up  or  refuse  to  see  the  sins  of  society.  He  is  of 
those  who  make  of  marriage  a  talisman  to  juggle  away  vice. 

'Ghosts'  is  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of  Ibsen's  dramas  in  its  searching 
judgment,  its  recognition  of  terrible  fact,  its  logical  following  of  the  merciless  logic  of 
nature. 

GIBBON,  EDWARD,  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF.  What  goes  at  present  under 
this  title  is  a  compilation  made  by  Lord  Sheffield,  Gibbon's  literary  executor,  from 
six  different  sketches  left  by  the  author  in  an  unfinished  state.  The  first  edition 
appeared  in  1796,  with  the  complete  edition  of  his  works.  "  In  the  fifty-second  year 
of  my  age,"  he  begins,  "after  the  completion  of  an  arduous  work,  I  now  propose  to 
employ  some  moments  of  my  leisure  in  reviewing  the  simple  transactions  of  a  private 
and  literary  life."  This  modest,  unaffected  tone  characterizes  the  book.  The 
sincerity  of  the  revelations  is  full  of  real  soberness  and  dignity.  The  author  of  the 
'Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire'  recounts  the  years  of  preparation  that  pre- 
ceded his  masterpiece,  and  the  difficulties  conquered.  Macaulay's  "schoolboy" 
doubtless  knows  the  lines  concerning  the  origin  at  Rome  of  his  first  conception  of  the 
history  —  when  he  was  "musing  amidst  the  ruins  of  the  capitol,  while  the  barefooted 
friars  were  singing  vespers  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter."  And  many  other  passages  afe 
hardly  less  familiar.  Had  he  lived,  Gibbon  would  doubtless  have  completed  these 
memoirs;  but  as  they  are,  the  simple,  straightforward  records  of  a  famous  student's 
•labors  and  aims,  who  by  his  manly  character  made  many  lasting  friendships,  they 
form  one  of  the  most  interesting,  brilliant,  and  suggestive  autobiographies  in  the 
English  language. 

GIL  BLAS  OF  SANTILLANE,  THE  ADVENTURES  OF,  the  work  by  which  Alain 
Rene*  Le  Sage  is  best  and  most  widely  known,  is  a  series  of  pictures  of  life  among  all 
classes  and  conditions  of  people  in  Spain  two  centuries  ago.  Gil  Bias,  an  orphan  of 
seventeen  years,  is  dispatched  by  his  uncle,  with  the  gift  of  a  mule  and  a  few  ducats, 
to  seek  the  University  of  Salamanca,  there  to  finish  his  education  and  find  a  lucrative 
post.  He  does  not  reach  the  university,  but  falls  in  with  robbers,  actors,  courtiers, 
politicians,  in  a  long  chain  of  adventures.  By  turns  he  enters  the  service  of  a  physi- 
cian, a  lady  of  fashion,  and  a  prime  minister,  with  equal  confidence;  accepting  luxury 
or  destitution,  palace  or  prison,  with  equal  philosophy.  The  narrative  runs  on,  with 
excursions  and  interpolated  histories,  and  the  thread  of  the  story  is  as  inconsequential 
as  that  of  a  tale  of  the  'Arabian  Nights/  The  charm  of  the  work  is  its  absolute  truth 
to  human  nature,  and  its  boundless  humor  and  satire.  These  qualities  have  made  it  a 
classic.  Dr.  Sangrado,  the  quack  physician  to  whom  Gil  Bias  apprenticed  himself, 
the  Archbishop  of  Granada,  *  with  other  of  the  personages  of  these  adventures,  have 
been  accepted  as  universal  types.  Le  Sage  was  a  Frenchman,  who  never  saw  Spain; 
but  through  his  familiarity  with  its  literature  he  produced  a  work  so  essentially 
Spanish  in  its  tone  and  spirit  as  to  provoke  long  controversy  as  to  its  originality. 
Padre  Isla,  who  translated  'Gil  Bias,'  declares  on  his  title-page  that  the  tale  was 
"stolen  from  the  Spanish,  and  now  restored  to  its  country  and  native  language." 
'  Gil  Bias '  is  Le  Sage's  greatest  and  most  brilliant  work.  Its  writing  occupied  twenty 
years  of  his  literary  prime;  the  first  two  volumes  appearing  in  1715,  and  the  last  in 
1735.  It  has  been  translated  into  many  languages,  the  earliest  in  English;  the  one 
which  has  remained  the  standard  being  by  Tobias  Smollett. 

GINX'S  BABY,  by  John  Edward  Jenkins,  is  a  satire  on  the  English  poor-laws  and 
the  administration  of  sectarian  charitable  associations.  Ginx,  a  navvy,  earning 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  343 

twenty  shillings  a  week,  with  a  wife  and  twelve  children  living  in  two  rooms  of  a 
crowded  tenement  in  a  squalid  district  of  London,  despairs  of  finding  enough  to  feed 
another  mouth,  and  declares  he  will  drown  the  thirteenth  when  it  arrives.  He  is 
swerved  from  his  purpose  by  the  offer  of  the  "Sisters  of  Misery  "  to  take  charge  of  the 
infant,  and  Ginx's  baby  becomes  an  inmate  of  a  Catholic  Home.  The  child  is  "res- 
cued" from  this  Home  through  the  efforts  of  a  Protestant  society;  this  society, 
through  dissensions  and  lack  of  funds,  turns  him  over  to  the  parish;  parochial  law 
requires  his  return  to  the  parents:  and  Ginx  finally  leaves  his  baby,  then  grown  to 
boyhood,  on  the  steps  of  the  Reform  Club,  and  flies  the  country.  Ginx's  baby  grows 
up  a  thief,  and  ends  his  life  by  jumping  off  Vauxhall  bridge,  at  the  spot  where  his 
father  set  out  to  drown  him  on  the  day  of  his  birth.  'Ginx's  Baby1  was  published 
anonymously  in  London  in  i87i,'speedily  ran  through  many  editions,  was  republishcd 
in  the  United  States,  and  excited  warm  controversy  in  the  press  and  even  in  Parlia- 
ment. It  was  followed  by  satires  on  other  phases  of  social  economy,  Mr.  Jenkins 
preserving  his  anonymity  for  some  time  under  the  signature  of  "The  Author  of  Ginx's 
Baby";  but  none  of  the  other  works  of  this  author  attained  such  a  vogue  or  exerted 
such  an  undoubted  influence  upon  the  direction  of  social  reforms. 

GIOCONDA,  LA,  a  drama,  by  Gabriele  d'Annunzio  (1898).  The  gifted  young 
sculptor,  Lucio  Settala,  is  hopelessly  divided  in  his  allegiance  between  his  wife  Silvia 
and  his  model  Gioconda,  the  inspiration  of  his  art.  In  despair  he  has  tried  to  commit 
suicide.  The  tender  devotion  of  his  wife  has  saved  his  life,  and  he  pledges  his  love  to 
her  anew.  With  convalescence  thoughts  of  his  art  return,  and  he  confesses  to  his 
friend  Cosimo  that  he  knows  Gioconda  is  waiting  for  him  every  day  in  the  studio. 
His  wife  is  a  "soul  of  inestimable  price"  before  whom  he  kneels  and  worships,  but  he 
is  not  a  "sculptor  of  souls"  and  the  future  of  his  art  is  inseparable  from  the  fas- 
cinating Gioconda.  Gioconda  has  refused  to  give  up  the  key  of  the  studio  to  any 
one  except  Lucio.  Silvia  decides  to  confront  the  model  herself  and  defends  her  newly 
won  happiness.  Gioconda  tells  her  that  she  is  the  intruder  in  the  studio  where 
household  affections  and  domestic  virtue  have  no  sanctuary.  Silvia,  dismayed  by 
the  assurance  of  her  rival,  tells  the  falsehood  that  Lucio  has  sent  her  to  say  that  he 
loves  Gioconda  no  longer.  Gioconda  believing  that  she  is  turned  out,  rushes  in  anger 
to  destroy  the  statue.  The  wife  saves  his  masterpiece  at  the  cost  of  her  beautiful 
hands.  Her  sacrifice  is  in  vain,  as  the  vacillating  Lucio  enters  the  studio  to  meet 
Gioconda,  and  ultimately  goes  away  with  her.  In  the  last  act  the  maimed  Silvia  is 
alone  at  the  shore  with  her  child.  The  little  Beata  offers  her  mother  flowers,  and  is 
bewildered  and  frightened  because  she  cannot  take  them  without  hands. 

GIRL  IN  THE  CARPATHIANS,  A,  by  Menie  Muriel  Dowie  (Mrs.  Henry  Norman, 
now  Mrs.  E.  A.  Fitzgerald)  (1891).  Mrs.  Norman's  volume  has  been  called  "the 
very  carpct-baggery  of  art."  She  herself  says  that  her  book  "is  a  series  of  impres- 
sions, drawing  any  interest  or  value  it  may  possess  from  two  sources:  First,  the 
accuracy  of  reporting  those  impressions,  which  springs  from  rough-shod  honesty  of 
intention;  second,  the  color  of  the  individual  medium  through  which  these  have  been 
seen  —  this  second  interesting  only  to  those  who  happen  to  like  that  color."  It  is 
distinctly  not  a  book  of  travel,  as  the  author  covered  at  the  outside  only  eighty  miles. 
Arrayed  in  a  tweed  suit,  skirt,  coat,  and  knickerbockers,  and  possessing  three  shirts, 
she  sets  out  for  the  Carpathians,  spending  a  few  weeks  in  one  primitive  town  and 
then  going  to  another;  and  in  a  free,  careless,  independent  manner  coming  into  close 
contact  with  Ruthenian  peasant  and  native  Jew,  and  learning  to  know  the  real 


344  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

people  as  tourists  never  do.  Dirt  and  unpalatable  food  do  not  disturb  her  to  the 
extent  of  spoiling  her  enjoyment  or  her  humorous  appreciation  of  what  goes  on 
around  her.  She  chats  intelligently  about  the  salient  characteristics  of  the  people, 

—  how  they  live,  eat,  drink,  work,  play,  and  dispense  with  washing  themselves; 
about  their  dwellings,  their  inquisitiveness,  their  picturesque  dress,  the  delights  of 
Polish  cookery,  the  sHnny  little  donkeys  and  her  rides  upon  them,  and  the  glorious 
scenery.     Miss  Dowie  was  a  young  English  girl  who  disregarded  such  conventions 
as  she  saw  no  reason  to  respect;  and  this  book  tells  the  story  —  quite  in  her  own  way 

—  of  her  roamings  and  her  thoughts  during  the  summer.     It  is  a  story  which  has 
captivated  many  readers  by  its  thoroughly  charming  manner. 

GLADSTONE,  WILLIAM  EWART,  by  Viscount  John  Morley  (1903)  is  the  standard 
biography  of  the  most  conspicuous  figure  in  English  politics  during  the  Victorian 
era.  Based  on  a  vast  accumulation  of  original  papers  collected  at  Gladstone's 
residence  at  Hawarden,  and  upon  thousands  of  others  lent  by  their  owners,  the  work 
is  not  the  product  of  party  feeling,  but  a  great  critic's  estimate  of  a  marvelously 
many-sided  mind.  Lord  Morley  traces  the  formative  influences  of  Gladstone's 
boyhood  at  Liverpool  and  the  school  and  university  days  at  Eton  and  Oxford  the 
first  adventures  in  politics,  when,  to  use  Macaulay's  phrase,  he  was  the  rising  hope 
of  the  stern,  unbending  Tories,  and  defended  the  slave  trade,  protection  and  other 
ways  of  political  thinking  which  he  was  afterwards  to  reject.  As  the  story  unfolds, 
Gladstone  is  seen  to  have  become  the  great  protagonist  of  liberty.  As  orator  he  was 
a  mighty  influence,  whether  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  his  Titanic  conflicts  with 
Disraeli,  on  the  platform  when  he  swayed  great  meetings,  or  as  the  spokesman  when 
ceremonial  addresses  had  to  be  delivered.  The  secret  of  his  power  over  his  hearers 
was  that  before  whatever  audience  he  appeared,  he  always  gave  of  his  best  whether 
his  listeners  were  University  men,  members  of  Parliament;  business  leaders,  or  villag- 
ers and  artisans.  His  opponent  wrote  him  down  as  a  timeserver  and  an  opportunist, 
but  as  Lord  Morley  well  points  out,  in  every  one  of  his  greatest  achievements  he 
expressly  formed  or  tried  to  create  and  mould  the  public  opinion  which  in  the  long 
run  was  to  give  him  his  mandate.  This  was  true  of  his  Balkan  policy,  his  Irish  Land 
and  Home  Rule  Acts,  of  his  wish  to  submit  the  Alabama  claims  to  arbitration,  above 
all  of  his  financial  policy  and  his  passion  for  public  economy,  precisely  the  sphere  in 
which  he  was  most  strenuous,  and,  owing  to  the  spendthrift  habits  of  democracy, 
least  likely  to  win  popularity.  Politics,  however,  was  only  one  of  many  interests 
which  were  needed  to  absorb  Gladstone's  prodigious  energy.  Religion  was  the  master 
passion,  and  the  unfailing  inspiration  of  his  life.  With  all  his  might  he  resisted  the 
cynical  doctrine  that  morality  has  no  place  in  international  relations,  or  in  the  public 
affairs  of  nations.  In  his  private  life  none  will  deny  that  he  strove  to  live  up  to  the 
spirit  of  his  own  dictum.  "Be  inspired  with  the  belief  that  life  is  a  great  and  noble 
calling;  not  a  mean  and  grovelling  thing  that  we  are  to  shuffle  through  as  we  can,  but 
an  elevated  and  lofty  destiny." 

GLASSE  OF  TIME  IN  THE  FIRST  AGE,  THE, '  Divinely  Handled  by  Thomas  Pey- 
ton, of  Lincolnes  Inne,  Gent.  Seene  and  Allowed,  London:  Printed  by  Bernard 
Alsop,  for  Lawrence  Chapman,  and  are  to  be  Sold  at  his  Shop  over  against  Staple 
Inne,  1620,'  runs  the  title-page  of  this  account,  in  sonorous  heroic  couplets,  of  the 
fall  of  man  and  the  progress  of  humanity  down  to  the  time  of  Noah.  Peyton  died 
soon  after  its  completion,  at  the  age  of  thirty-one;  and  there  is  no  record  of  him  out- 
side of  this  work,  which  was  not  itself  known  till  eighty  years  ago.  A  copy,  bound  in 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  345 

vellum,  ornamented  with  gold,  illustrated  with  curious  cuts  and  quaintly  printed,  was 
-^found  in  a  chest;  and  there  is  a  copy  in  the  British  Museum.  In  1860  an  article  on  it 
appeared  in  the  North  American  Review,  pointing  out  that  it  appeared  forty  years 
before  'Paradise  Lost,'  but  that  the  similarity  of  its  plan  was  not  disparaging  to 
Milton,  as  it  merely  gave  him  certain  suggestions,  and  had  individual  but  inferior 
merit.  It  was  reprinted  in  1886. 

GLEANINGS  IN  BUDDHA  FIELDS,  by  Lafcadio  Hearn  (1897),  the  sub-title  being 
'Studies  of  Hand  and  Soul  in  the  Far  East.1  Of  its  eleven  chapters,  two  are  travel 
sketches,  describing  trips  to  Kyoto  and  Osaka,  with  additions  of  much  versatile 
information.  Japanese  art  and  folk-song  are  treated  with  affectionate  care,  while  a 
discussion  of  certain  phases  of  Shintoism  and  Buddhism  unfolds  them  from  within, 
the  chapter  on  Nirvana  showing  deep  reflection,  and  marvelous  beauty  of  phrase. 
The  story  of  '  The  Rebirth  of  Katsugoro J  is  of  unusual  value  and  interest  as  belonging 
to  the  native  literature  of  Japan.  A  translation  of  a  series  of  documents  dating  back 
to  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  reflects  the  feudal  Japan  which  is  now 
passed  away,  and  illustrates  the  "common  ideas  of  the  people  concerning  pre-exis- 
tence  and  rebirth  "  Hearn 's  knowledge  of,  and  sympathy  with,  his  subject  seem 
inexhaustible. 

GLITTERING  GATE,  THE,  by  Lord  Dunsany  (1909).  A  one-act  play  staged  in 
"The  Lonely  Place"  before  the  "Gate  of  Heaven."  Jim  and  Bill,  ex-burglars,  meet 
outside  the  golden  door.  Bill  has  just  come  from  earth  and  is  still  hopeful.  Jim  has 
been  hanged,  and  seems  doomed  forever  to  open  bottles  in  search  of  something  to 
quench  his  thirst,  only  to  find  the  bottles  are  empty.  A  chorus  of  distant  laughter 
mocks  his  efforts.  Bill  has  brought  his  burglar's  jimmy  with  him,  and  starts  to  work 
on  the  gate,  talking  to  his  companion  of  the  joys  of  the  heaven  beyond,  the  old  saints 
with  their  halos  flickering,  angels  "thick  as  swallows  along  a  cottage  roof, "  orchards 
full  of  apples  and  cities  of  gold,  and  best  of  all  a  man's  old  mother  who  will  be  sure 
to  have  a  dish  of  tripe  and  onions  for  her  son.  There  is  a  noise  of  falling  bolts,  and 
the  gates  swing  open  revealing  nothing  but  a  vast  night  of  stars.  There  is  no  heaven 
for  Jim  and  Bill.  The  mocking  laughter  in  the  distance  grows  louder. 

GODS  ARE  ATHIRST,  THE  ('Les  Dieux  ont  Soif )  by  Anatole  France  (1912).  A 
story  of  the  French  Revolution  which  pictures  the  extraordinary  Paris  of  the  Terror. 
The  hero,  a  young  artist,  Evariste  Gamelin,  is  a  stern  young  idealist,  a  fanatical 
disciple  of  Robespierre,  who  is  the  dominating  figure  of  the  book.  Evariste  attends 
the  nightly  meetings  of  the  Jacobin  Club  and  absorbs  the  lofty  abstractions  and 
inquisitorial  casuistry  of  his  idol.  He  is  made  a  member  of  the  Revolutionary  Tri- 
bune and  becomes  a  veritable  priest  of  the  guillotine,  ministering  to  the  blood-thirsty 
gods.  Marie  Antoinette  is  tried  and  condemned  before  him  and  a  procession  of 
defeated  generals,  emigre's,  and  suspects  are  brought  to  the  Tribunal  from  the  over- 
flowing prisons.  His  office  gradually  makes  a  monster  of  him,  and  he  votes  con- 
stantly for  death.  It  is  his  sacred  mission  to  destroy  the  enemies  of  France,  and  to 
be  accused  is  to  be  condemned.  Evariste  loves  Elodie,  daughter  of  a  wealthy  dealer 
in  prints  and  engravings,  who  also  undertakes  fraudulent  contracts  for  the  army.  She 
is  not  a  typical  daughter  of  the  Revolution,  which  she  secretly  abhors,  but  she  is 
fascinated  by  her  gloomy  lover,  though  his  ideas  terrify  her.  He  sends  an  innocent 
aristocrat  to  the  guillotine  because  he  believes  him  to  be  Elodie's  former  lover  and 
betrayer.  With  the  downfall  of  Robespierre,  Evariste  is  condemned  to  the  guillotine 


346  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

to  which  he  has  sent  countless  others.  He  rides  in  the  fatal  cart,  insulted  by  the 
same  hostile  crowd  who  so  recently  had  jeered  at  the  aristocrats.  He  dies  without 
remorse,  regretting  only  that  he  has  betrayed  the  Republic  by  being  "oversparing 
of  blood."  Elodie  takes  his  best  friend  for  her  new  lover  in  the  last  chapter.  She 
throws  the  ring  engraved  with  Marat's  head  which  Evariste  had  given  her  into  the 
fire,  and  makes  her  tryst  with  the  new  lover  with  the  same  password  she  had  used 
for  Evariste.  Brotteau,  a  noble  reduced  to  making  jumping-jacks  in  an  attic,  but 
always  a  philosopher,  is  a  contrast  to  the  fanatical  Evariste.  He  shares  his  room  with 
an  ex-monk,  with  whom  he  argues  the  existence  of  God.  They  are  arrested,  with  a 
little  girl  from  the  street  whom  he  has  befriended,  and  he  goes  calmly  to  the  guillotine 
reading  his  Lucretius  to  the  last. 

GOD'S  FOOL,  by  Maarten  Maartens  (1892),  a  story  of  Dutch  middle-class  life,  has 
for  its  central  figure  Elias  Lossell,  "God's  Fool,"  a  man  accidentally  deprived  in 
childhood  of  his  eyesight,  and  in  part,  of  his  reason.  Of  great  physical  beauty,  gentle 
in  disposition,  religious  in  spirit,  he  lives  a  kind  of  sacred,  shut-apart  life,  while  sur- 
rounded by  the  stormy  passions,  the  greedy  hates  and  loves,  the  envyings  and  jealous- 
ies of  those  in  full  possession  of  their  faculties.  His  father,  a  rich  merchant,  has 
made  two  marriages.  Elias,  the  child  of  the  first,  inherited  vast  wealth  from  his 
mother.  Hendryk  and  Hubert  Lossell,  sons  of  the  second  marriage,  find  on  their 
father's  death  that  Elias  is  the  richest  of  the  family,  and  the  head  of  the  firm  in  which 
his  money  is  vested.  Taking  advantage  of  Elias's  helplessness,  his  half-brothers  get 
his  property  into  their  hands,  although  apparently  with  his  consent;  but  their  greed 
brings  upon  them  their  own  destruction.  The  most  pleasing  character  of  the  book  is 
the  fool  himself.  His  pure,  noble,  childlike  nature  perfumes  the  heavy  worldly 
atmosphere  that  surrounds  him;  and  he  comes  in  as  a  kind  of  gracious  interlude 
between  the  dramatic  but  sordid  incidents  of  the  plot.  The  story  is  well  conceived, 
if  slightly  improbable;  and  like  Maartens's  other  books,  is  told  with  vigor  and  grace. 

GOETHE,  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF,  with  a  sub-title,  'Truth  and  Poetry  (Dichtung 
und  Wahrheit)  from  My  Own  Life,'  has  appeared  in  various  forms  since  its  first  pub- 
lication (3  pts.  181 i-i4\.  To  the  translation  of  John  Oxenford  is  subjoined  Goethe's 
*  Annals/  or  'Day  and  Year  Papers'  (1749-1822),  which  supplement  the  'Auto- 
biography.1 The  *  Autobiography'  begins  with  the  author's  birth,  ends  some  time 
after  his  important  Italian  journey  in  1786,  and  belongs  in  construction  to  the  didactic 
period  of  his  career,  not  having  been  completed  as  late  as  1816.  Indeed,  it  ends  quite 
abruptly,  as  though  the  purpose  to  add  the  later  chapters  of  his  life  had  been  formed 
but  never  realized.  To  characterize  this  human  document  would  be  to  characterize 
Goethe,  for  into  it  he  has  poured  his  whole  mind  at  its  earliest  and  at  its  ripest. 
From  his  wealth  of  material  he  selects  with  boldness  and  insight.  Not  only  does  he 
record  his  estimates  of  men  and  places,  but  he  lets  the  reader  into  the  inner  places  of 
his  being,  disclosing  his  friendships,  his  methods  of  creation,  and  the  operations  of  his 
regal  mind.  Poet,  thinker,  critic,  and  original  observer  —  all  appear. 

Many  important  personages  are  introduced,  and  such  matters  are  discussed  as 
usually  occupy  the  autobiographer.  It  is,  however,  because  it  reveals  Goethe  the 
man  as  do  none  of  his  other  works,  that  the  book  is  so  profoundly  interesting. 

GOETHE,  THE  LIFE  OF,  by  George  Henry  Lewes  (1864).  The  first  important 
biography  in  English  of  the  greatest  of  German  writers,  this  book  still  holds  its  place 
in  the  front  rank  of  biographical  literature.  The  volume  is  a  large  one,  and  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  347 

detail  is  infinitely  minute,  beginning  with  the  ancestry  of  the  poet,  and  ending  with 
his  death  in  1 832.  His  precocity,  the  school-life  and  college-life  of  the  beautiful  youth, 
Ms  welcome  in  society,  his  flirtations,  the  bohemian  years  that  seemed  prodigally 
wasted,  yet  that  were  to  bear  rich  intellectual  fruit  when  the  wild  nature  should  have 
sobered  to  its  tasks,  his  friendships,  his  travels,  his  love-affairs,  his  theories  of  life,  his 
scientific  investigations,  his  dramatic  studies,  criticisms,  and  productions,  his  momen- 
tary absorption  in  educational  problems,  his  official  distinctions,  his  intellectual 
dictatorship,  his  ever-recurring  sentimental  experiences,  —  all  the  changing  phases  of 
that  many-sided  life  are  made  to  pass  before  the  reader  with  extraordinary  vividness. 
Like  almost  all  biographers  of  imagination  and  strong  feeling,  Mr.  Lewes,  who  means 
to  maintain  a  strict  impartiality,  becomes  an  advocate.  He  presents  Goethe's 
wonderful  mentality  without  exaggeration.  He  does  no  more  than  justice  to  the 
personal  charm  which  seems  to  have  been  altogether  irresistible.  But  it  is  in  spite  of 
his  biographer's  admissions,  rather  than  because  of  them,  that  Goethe  appears  in  his 
pages  a  man  from  whose  vital  machinery  the  heart  was  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  sentimental  German  society  of  the  late  eighteenth 
century  with  entire  understanding,  and  is  very  rich  in  memorabilia  of  many  sorts. 

GOLD-BUG,  THE,  a  short  story  by  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  first  published  in  The  Dollar 
Newspaper,  Philadelphia,  June  21-28,  1843,  and  then  in  a  volume  of  Poe's  Tales  in 
1 845.  The  theme  is  the  discovery  of  buried  treasure  through  the  solution  of  a  crypto- 
gram. William  Legrand,  an  impoverished  Southern  gentleman,  is  living  with  a 
negro  servant,  Jupiter,  on  Sullivan's  Island,  a  low,  sandy  strip  of  land  near  Charles- 
ton, South  Carolina.  During  a  walk  on  the  beach  of  the  mainland  he  captures  a 
curious  -beetle  of  the  scarab  family,  distinguished  by  its  brilliant  golden  color,  its 
weight,  and  its  markings,  which  somewhat  resemble  a  death's-head.  When  the  insect 
bites  its  captor  and  forces  him  to  let  it  drop,  the  negro  recovers  it,  protecting  his  hand 
by  a  piece  of  parchment  which  he  happens  to  notice  sticking  out  of  the  sand  near  the 
remnants  of  an  old  wrecked  ship's  long-boat.  This  parchment,  having  been  used  by 
Legrand  to  sketch  for  a  friend  the  outline  of  the  gold-bug,  is  accidentally  held  by  the 
friend  close  to  a  fire.  The  heat  brings  out  on  the  side  opposite  to  the  sketch,  a 
drawing  of  a  death's-head  made  in  chemicals  which  become  visible  when  warmed. 
Suspecting  that  the  parchment  may  be  a  pirate's  directions  for  the  recovery  of  buried 
treasure  Legrand  re-examines  it  in  private  and  succeeds  in  revealing  the  figure  of  a 
kid  (indicating  Captain  Kidd)  and  a  series  of  numbers  and  signs  forming  a  message  in 
cypher.  This  cypher  he  ingeniously  solves  and  by  the  aid  of  the  landmarks  obscurely 
hinted  at  in  the  message  discovers  the  location  indicated  on  a  high  plateau  some  miles 
from  the  coast.  His  friend  and  the  servant  Jupiter  are  now  enlisted  in  the  enterprise 
of  finding  and  removing  the  treasure.  Legrand's  eccentricity  of  manner,  his  present 
high  excitement,  and  his  deliberate  mystification  of  his  assistants  fill  them  with 
concern  for  his  sanity,  especially  when  he  pretends  that  the  gold-bug  is  possessed  of 
magical  powers.  However,  they  obey  his  directions,  which  though  apparently  irra- 
tional, are  really  in  accordance  with  the  pirate's  message.  Jupiter  climbs  an  immense 
tulip- tree,  finds  a  skull  on  one  of  the  branches,  and  drops  the  gold-bug,  suspended  on  a 
string,  through  the  eye  to  the  ground.  A  line  drawn  from  the  tree  to  this  point  and 
produced  fifty  feet,  gives  the  locality  of  the  treasure.  This  is  at  length  dug  up,  not 
before  the  negro's  dropping  the  bug  through  the  wrong  eye  has  led  to  an  error  in  his 
master's  calculations  and  to  the  necessity  of  digging  another  pit.  Gold  coins  and 


348  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

jewels  to  the  value  of  a  million  and  a  half  dollars  are  found  in  a  chest,  beside  the 
skeletons  of  the  pirate's  helpers  in  the  concealment.  With  the  money,  Legrand 
restores  his  fortunes.  The  story  is  artfully  related,  the  reader  being  at  first  as 
mystified  as  Legrand's  friend  as  to  the  meaning  of  his  operations  and  being  gradually 
enlightened  as  the  story  proceeds.  Poe's  gift  of  exhibiting  the  solution  of  a  mystery 
by  the  power  of  ratiocination  is  nowhere  more  effectively  illustrated.  The  gold-bug, 
though  not  an  essential  element  in  the  narrative,  adds  a  touch  of  picturesqueness  to 
several  of  the  scenes  and  creates  a  suggestion  of  an  occult  and  fatalistic  connection 
between  the  events  leading  to  the  recovery  of  the  treasure. 

GOLDEN  ASS,  by  Apuleius.  A  collection  of  stories  divided  into  eleven  books, 
and  written  in  Carthage,  not  later  than  197  A.  D.  It  is  usually  described  as  an 
imitation  of  'The  Ass1  of  Lucian;  the  author  himself  tells  us  that  it  is  a  "tissue  woven 
out  of  the  tales  of  Miletus";  but  probably  both  works  are  based  on  the  same  earlier 
originals.  The  plot  is  of  the  thinnest.  A  young  man  sees  an  old  sorceress  transform 
herself  into  a  bird  after  drinking  a  philter.  He  wishes  to  undergo  a  similar  meta- 
morphosis, but  mistakes  the  vial  and  is  turned  into  an  ass.  To  become  a  man  again, 
he  must  eat  a  certain  species  of  roses,  and  the  pilgrimage  of  the  donkey  in  search  of 
them  is  the  author's  excuse  for  stringing  together  a  number  of  romantic  episodes  and 
stories:  stories  of  robbers,  such  as  'The  Brigand  for  Love,'  where  a  youth  becomes  a 
bandit  to  deliver  his  betrothed;  'The  Three  Brothers,'  where  the  three  sons  of  a 
wealthy  peasant  are  massacred  by  a  ferocious  squire  and  his  servants;  and  'The 
Bear  of  Plataea,'  where  a  heroic  robber  lets  dogs  devour  him  in  the  bearskin  in  which 
he  has  hidden  himself.  Then  come  ghost  stories:  'The  Spectre,' where  the  phantom 
of  a  girl  penetrates  in  full  noonday  into  a  miller's  yard,  and  carries  off  the  miller  to  a 
room  where  he  hangs  himself;  'Telephron,'  where  a  poor  man  falls  asleep,  and  sup- 
poses himself  to  awaken  dead;  'The  Three  Goat-Skins,'  where  the  witch  Pamphile 
inadvertently  throws  some  goats'  hair  into  her  crucible,  instead  of  the  red  hair  of  her 
fat  Boeotian  lover,  thus  bringing  back  to  lif e  in  place  of  him  the  goats  to  whom  the 
hairs  belonged.  But  the  prettiest  and  most  finely  chiseled  of  these  tales  are  those 
that  paint  domestic  life:  'The  Sandals,'  where  a  gallant  devises  a  very  ingenious 
stratagem  to  get  out  of  an  unpleasant  predicament  and  regain  possession  of  his 
sandals,  forgotten  one  night  at  the  house  of  a  decurion;  and  several  of  the  same  kind. 
Many  others  are  real  dramas  of  village  life.  The  most  famous  of  all  is  'The  Loves 
of  Psyche.'  It  occupies  two  entire  books,  and  has  inspired  poets,  painters,  and 
sculptors,  in  all  ages  and  countries;  though  perhaps  the  author  would  have  been  rather 
astonished  to  learn  that  the  moderns  had  discovered  in  the  sufferings  of  his  heroine  a 
profound  metaphysical  allegory,  symbolizing  the  tortures  of  the  soul  in  its  pursuit  of 
the  ideal.  Apuleius  excels  every  other  ancient  writer  in  catching  the  changing  aspects 
of  nature  and  of  human  comedy;  and  with  all  his  fantastic  imaginative  power,  he  is 
as  realistic  as  Zola,  and  sometimes  as  offensive.  He  describes,  for  instance,  the 
agony  of  a  broken-down  horse  tortured  by  swarms  of  ants,  with  the  same  precision 
that  he  uses  to  relate  the  gayety  of  a  rustic  breakfast,  or  a  battle  between  wolves  and 
dogs.  On  the  other  hand,  he  puts  in  no  claim  to  be  a  moralist,  and  is  much  more 
concerned  about  the  exteriors  of  his  characters  _than  about  their  souls. 

GOLDEN  BOUGH,  THE,  a  Study  in  Magic  and  Religion,  by  J.  G.  Frazer  (2  vols. 
1890.  3d  ed.  12  vols.  191 1-15).  The  original  edition  was  an  epoch-making  work 
in  folk-lore.  In  its  enlarged  and  completed  form,  the  book  is  a  treasury  of  primitive 
customs  and  beliefs,  epitomizing  the  available  information  in  eminently  readable 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  349 

form.  The  priest  of  Nemi  is  the  central  figure  of  the  mystery  of  the  mythology  of 
vegetation,  the  death  and  resurrection  of  the  corn  and  wine.  In  the  sacred  grove  of 
Diana  on  the  woodland  lake  of  Nemi,  the  priest  or  king  of  the  wood  guarded  the  oak 
of  the  divinity.  Servius,  four  hundred  years  after  Virgil,  commenting  on  the  "golden 
bough"  which  admitted  ^Eneas  to  the  underworld,  writes  that  the  priest  of  Nemi 
must  be  a  fugitive  slave,  that  he  must  gain  his  office  by  slaying  his  predecessor,  his 
divinity,  by  plucking  a  bough  from  the  sacred  tree  in  which  the  god  is  animate.  The 
successor  must  in  his  turn  be  slain  in  full  vigor  of  life  to  enact  the  mystery  play  by 
which  the  return  of  spring  is  not  only  illustrated  but  enforced.  The  rite  cannot  be 
explained  by  the  ideas  and  beliefs  of  classical  antiquity,  and  Dr.  Frazer  traces  its 
origin  to  the  customs  of  the  primitive  life  it  has  survived.  Religion  always  involves 
an  appeal  to  a  god,  Dr.  Frazer  contends.  Magic,  opposed  to  religion,  tries  to  control 
nature  by  would-be  science  based^on  the  association  of  ideas  by  similarity  or  contact. 
"Homeopathic  magic  commits  the  mistake  of  assuming  that  things  which  resemble 
each  other  are  the  same.  Contagious  magic  commits  the  mistake  of  assuming  that 
things  which  have  once  been  in  contact  with  each  other  are  always  in  contact."  The 
tales  of  primitive  superstition  with  which  he  illustrates  his  theories  of  the  origin  of 
kings  and  priests  are  the  entire  ancient  mythology,  the  worship  of  trees,  sacred  bon- 
fires, taboo,  initiation,  ritual  of  the  scapegoat,  totems,  etc.  In  concluding  volumes 
the  Norse  god,  Baldur  the  Beautiful,  represents  the  pantheon  of  dying  and  reviving 
gods  symbolic  of  the  return  of  spring.  The  mistletoe  growing  on  the  oak  is  the 
"golden  bough"  over  which  Baldur  like  Diana's  priest  kept  watch  and  ward.  Vol- 
ume 12  is  a  detailed  subject  index  and  bibliography. 

GOLDEN  BOWL,  THE,  by  Henry  James  (1905).  An  impoverished  Italian  prince 
marries  Maggie  Verver,  the  daughter  of  an  American  millionaire.  The  prince  and 
princess,  her  father  and  her  little  son,  the  "principino, "  have  an  ideally  happy  life 
together  in  their  English  home,  until  the  advent  of  Charlotte  Stant,  an  American 
girl  of  brilliant  social  qualities,  friend  of  Maggie's  schooldays.  Charlotte  and  the 
prince  were  once  lovers  and  would  have  married  but  for  their  poverty.  The  prince 
has  never  told  his  wife  of  their  intimacy.  He  considers  Charlotte's  visit  a  suitable 
time  to  retire  with  Maggie  to  Italy.  Charlotte  marries  the  millionaire,  Mr.  Verver, 
and  is  thus  brought  into  permanent  relations  with  the  prince.  An  exquisite  affec- 
tion exists  between  Maggie  and  her  father.  With  the  American  innocence  and 
artlessness,  which  Mr.  James  has  depicted  often  since  the  days  of  Daisy  Miller, 
father  and  daughter  give  so  many  hours  to  each  other  that  the  other  two  meet 
constantly.  Maggie  gradually  discovers  the  relations  between  her  husband  and 
her  father's  wife;  instead  of  making  a  fuss  she  quietly  gives  herself  to  the  task  of 
shielding  her  father  from  the  knowledge  of  it,  and  winning  her  husband's  love, 
"which  she  vows  must  be  as  complete  and  perfect  as  the  original  crystal  of  the 
broken  bowl "  that  property  of  the  story  which  takes  a  unique  part  in  the  development 
of  the  plot.  Her  father  had  married  Charlotte  in  devotion  to  his  daughter,  to  free 
her  from  the  thought  that  she  had  left  him  lonely.  His  love  discovers  what  she  tries 
to  conceal,  and  he  solves  the  situation  by  taking  Charlotte  back  to  America  never  to 
return.  In  the  first  half  of  the  book  we  see  the  problem  as  reflected  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  prince;  in  the  second  half,  Maggie  is  the  refracting  medium  for  the 
author  and  reader.  But  for  two  minor  characters,  friends  of  the  family,  a  Mrs. 
Assingham  ajid  her  husband,  and  their  knowledge  and  understanding,  it  would  be 
difficult  for  the  reader  to  follow  the  turn  of  affairs,  since  everyone  is  trying  to  conceal 
from  everyone  else  knowledge  of  what  is  known.  At  the  end  of  the  story  the  princess 


35o  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

has  already  won  her  prince  for  her  own  in  truly  royal  conquest  of  fineness  of  conduct 
and  greatness  of  love. 

GOLDEN  BUTTERFLY,  THE,  by  Walter  Besant  and  James  Rice.  The  main 
events  of  this  lively  and  amusing  story  occur  at  London  in  1875.  The  Butterfly 
is  Gilead  P.  Beck's  talisman.  With  a  burdensome  revenue  from  oil-wells  he  arrives 
in  London,  where  he  meets  Dunquerque,  who  has  saved  his  life  in  California,  and 
Colquhoun,  the  hero  of  a  love  entanglement  with  Victoria,  now  wife  of  Cassilis. 
Colquhoun  succeeds  to  the  guardianship  of  Phillis  Fleming,  brought  up  by  Abraham 
Dyson  after  high  eccentric  methods.  Dyson  leaves  money  for  educating  other  girls 
in  a  similar  way;  but  defeats  his  own  end  by  not  teaching  Phillis  how  to  read,  so  that 
she  innocently  destroys  an  important  paper  and  renders  the  will  inoperative.  While 
living  with  Agatha,  Colquhoun's  cousin,  Phillis  becomes  intimate  with  Dunquerque 
in  an  unconventional,  idyllic  fashion.  Victoria  is  led  to  think  Colquhoun  wants  to 
marry  Phillis,  and  in  a  jealous  fit  divulges  the  secret  of  a  Scotch  marriage  between 
him  and  herself.  The  disclosure  throws  Cassilis  into  partial  paralysis;  he  fails  to  sell 
certain  stocks  at  the  right  moment,  and  loses  all,  as  do  Phillis,  Colquhoun,  and  Beck 
whose  fortunes  he  had  invested.  The  Butterfly  mysteriously  falls  apart;  but  is 
repaired  and  presented  to  Phillis,  who  is  married  to  Dunquerque;  having  now  dis- 
covered, in  Dyson's  words,  that  "the  coping-stone  of  every  woman's  education  is 
love." 

GOLDEN  CHERSONESE,  THE,  by  Isabella  Bird  Bishop  (1883),  is  a  record  of 
travel  and  adventure  in  the  Malay  peninsula.  The  author,  a  veteran  traveler,  has 
journeyed  so  widely  as  to  have  gained  that  sweep  of  view  which  lends  charm  and 
accuracy  to  comparison.  An  excellent  observer,  she  groups  her  effects,  giving  great 
variety  to  her  descriptions  of  tropical  scenery,  —  which  so  often  appears  mono- 
tonous, —  and  adding  a  touch  of  humor  which  makes  her  frank  notes  interesting. 
If  the  style  is  sometimes  redundant,  the  narrative  is  brimful  of  incident  and  adven- 
ture bravely  encountered  by  an  indefatigable  ^pirit  and  proceeds  with  a  natural  and 
cheery  grace. 

GOLDEN  DOG,  THE  ('Le  Chien  d'Or')  by  William  Earby,  was  published  in  1877,  and 
is  a  story  of  life  in  Quebec  about  1748,  at  the  time  that  war  was  raging  between  Old 
England  and  New  France,  as  Canada  was  then  called.  The  Chien  d'Or  is  the  name 
of  the  large  trading-house  of  the  Bourgeois  Philibert,  a  man  much  beloved  by  the 
people,  and  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  "Bonne" tes  Gens,"  the  party  opposed  to  the 
corrupt  government.  This  house  was  a  formidable  rival  of  the  Grand  Company, 
owned  by  the  wealthy  and  dishonest  government  officers  under  the  Intendant, 
Frangois  Bigot;  who,  clever  but  unscrupulous  and  unprincipled,  spends  his  time 
carousing  with  his  boon  companions.  Into  this  dissolute  company  he  draws  Le 
Gardeur  de  Repentigny,  handsome  and  generous  but  easily  entrapped.  The  author 
gives  a  vivid  description  of  the  corrupt  and  dissolute  viceregal  court  of  Louis  XV. 
in  New  France. 

GOLDEN  FLEECE,  see  ARGONAUTICA. 

GOLDEN  TREASURY,  THE,  OF  SONGS  AND  LYRICS,  by  Francis  Turner  Pal- 
grave.  A  volume  attempting  to  bring  together  all  the  best  lyrics  in  the  language,  by 
singers  not  living.  In  his  selection  Mr.  Palgrave  was  aided  by  the  taste  and  judg- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST,  OF  BOOKS  351 

jnent  of  Tennyson  as  to  the  period  between  1520  and  1850.  The  book  has  four 
divisions,  informally  designated  as  the  books  of  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Gray,  and 
Wordsworth,  though  hardly  less  space  is  given  to  Herrick  or  Shelley.  The  preface 
and  notes  are  of  great  value. 

The  Second  Series  of  'The  Golden  Treasury'  appeared  in  1897,  soon  after  Mr- 
Palgrave's  death.  Perfection  of  form,  one  of  the  main  tests  of  the  first  volume' 
holds  a  subordinate  place  in  the  second ;  and  here  the  commonplace  has  encroached 
upon  the  simple.  The  chief  value  of  this  collection  lies  in  its  serving  as  a  kind 
of  shrine  for  masterpieces  like  Arnold's  'Scholar  Gipsy,'  Patmore's  'The 
Toys,'  the  'Christmas  Hymn'  of  Alfred  Domett,  and  'The  Crimson  Thread'  of 
F.  H.  Doyle. 

GOLDMAKERS'  VTLLAGE,THE  or,  A  HISTORY  OF  THE  MANNER  IN  WHICH  Two  AND 
THIRTY  MEN  SOLD  THEMSELVES  TO  THE  DEVIL  ('Das  Goldmacher-Dorf ')  by  Johann 
Heinrich  Zschokke  (1817).  Like  the  other  works  of  Zschokke,  this  is  renowned  for 
its  graphic  description  of  natural  scenery,  its  precise  delineation  of  society  and  exact 
portraiture  of  the  class  of  which  it  treats,  as  well  as  for  its  moral,  philanthropic,  and 
beneficial  tendency.  Its  English  equivalent  may  be  found  in  the  charming  tales  of 
Mary  Howitt.  Oswald,  the  Swiss  soldier,  "  returning  from  the  wars, "  finds  his  native 
village  of  Goldenthal  sunk  into  the  depths  of  misery  and  degradation;  its  inhabitants 
lazy,  shiftless,  hampered  with  debt,  frequenters  of  public  houses,  lost  to  all  sense  of 
moral  responsibility.  He  devotes  himself  to  the  amelioration  of  their  condition;  in 
which,  by  the  help  of  the  lovely  Elizabeth,  the  miller's  daughter  and  then  his  wife,  he 
is  successful:  so  developing  the  various  sources  of  comfort  and  improvement;  so 
exemplifying  by  practical  illustration  the  multiplied  methods  by  which  a  patriot  of 
philanthropy  may  serve  the  best  interests  of  his  fellow-citizens  and  country,  that  in 
the  end  he  is  rewarded  by  seeing  the  home  of  his  youth  on  a  par  with  the  best  or- 
ganized, best  conducted,  and  best  credited  villages  of  the  community,  and  the 
"Goldenthalers,"  from  being  a  synonym  to  their  neighbors  for  all  that  is  worthless, 
at  length  known  and  honored  as  the  "  Goldmakers, "  for  the  thrift  which  changes 
everything  it  touches  into  precious  metal.  Although  the  precise  locality  of  the 
"Goldmakers'  Village"  cannot  be  found,  yet  it  is  to  be  feared  that  many  an  obscure 
locality  can  be  discovered  where,  in  many  points,  the  picture  can  be  matched,  and 
where  the  benevolent  enterprise  of  another  Oswald  is  equally  necessary. 

GOOD-BYE,  SWEETHEART,  by  Miss  Rhoda  Broughton  (1872)  is  a  bright,  amusing 
love  story  in  three  parts,  —  'Morning,'  'Noon,'  and  'Night,'  —  told  in  the  third 
person  by  the  author,  and  in  the  first  by  Jemima  Herrick,  the  heroine's  plain  elder 
sister.  In  Part  i.  the  scene  is  laid  in  Brittany,  where  Jemima  and  Lenore  are  leading 
a  bohemian  life.  Lenore,  who  is  young  and  beautiful,  finds  an  admirer  in  Frederick 
West;  but  she  prefers  his  friend  Paul  Le  Mesurier.  A  spoilt  child,  she  is  accustomed 
to  have  her  own  way;  and  now  that  she  is  in  love  for  the  first  time,  she  determines 
to  win  Paul.  He  is  an  ugly  man  with  a  bad  temper,  eighteen  years  her  senior,  but 
the  only  person  who  can  conquer  her  willfulness.  Against  his  better  judgment  he 
finally  yields  to  her  attractions,  and  the  day  before  he  returns  to  England  they 
become  engaged. 

In  Part  ii.  the  scene  is  laid  in  England,  where,  after  an  absence  of  six  months, 
Paul  and  Lenore  come  together  again  in  a  country-house.  He  is  jealous  of  Charles 
Scrope,  a  handsome  youth,  who  has  followed  Lenore  to  England;  and  at  a  ball  where 
Paul  exacts  too  much,  the  lovers  quarrel,  and  Paul,  mad  with  jealousy,  leaves  Lenore 


352  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

forever.  In  her  desperation  she  promises  to  marry  Scrope,  but  on  the  day  of  the 
wedding  she  finds  that  she  cannot  bring  herself  to  become  his  wife. 

In  Part  iii.  Lenore  goes  to  Switzerland  with  her  sister,  to  recover  her  health, 
meets  Paul  accidentally,  is  more  in  love  with  him  than  ever,  but  learns  that  he  is 
engaged  to  his  cousin.  From  this  time  she  grows  rapidly  worse;  Scrope  devotes 
himself  to  her  comfort,  but  nothing  can  save  her.  Her  last  desire  is  to  see  Paul  once 
more;  Scrope  travels  night  and  day  to  bring  him,  but  arrives  on  Paul's  wedding  day, 
and  returns  alone  to  find  Lenore  dead. 

The  change  that  love  brings  in  Lenore,  the  effect  Paul  has  on  her  intense,  pas- 
sionate nature,  and  the  clashing  of  his  will  against  hers,  make  interesting  character 
studies. 

GOOD  THOUGHTS  IN  BAD  TIMES,  by  Thomas  Puller  (1645)  is  the  first  of  a  trio 
of  volumes  whose  titles  were  inspired  by  the  troublous  days  of  Charles  and  Cromwell, 
when  Fuller  was  an  ardent  loyalist.  'Good  Thoughts  in  Worse  Times'  (1649),  an^ 
—  after  the  restoration  of  Charles  II.  —  'Mixed  Contemplations  in  Better  Times/ 
followed,  completing  the  trilogy.  The  present  volume,  like  its  two  successors,  is 
packed  with  wise  and  pithy  aphorisms,  often  humorous,  but  never  trivial;  and  is 
pervaded  by  that  "sound,  shrewd  good  sense,  and  freedom  of  intellect,"  which 
Coleridge  found  there.  A  moralist,  rather  than  an  exponent  of  spiritual  religion,  the 
cavalier  chaplain  devotes  more  attention  to  a  well-fed  philosophy  than  to  the  claims 
of  the  soul.  Though  read  to-day  mainly  by  students  of  the  author's  style  and  times, 
this  sententious  volume  has  attractions  for  all  lovers  of  quaint  and  pleasing  English. 

GORDON  KEITH,  by  Thomas  Nelson  Page  (1903).  This  is  a  story  of  American 
life,  the  first  scenes  of  which  are  laid  in  the  South  soon  after  the  Civil  War.  Gordon 
Keith  is  the  son  of  General  Keith,  an  old-time  gentleman,  whose  large  fortune  has 
been  swept  away  during  the  war.  The  family  estate,  "  Elphinestone, "  which  has 
been  owned  by  the  Keiths  for  generations,  has  to  be  sold  and  passes  into  the  hands  of 
a  rich  New  Yorker  named  Aaron  Wickersham,  whose  son,  a  wicked  and  unprincipled 
young  fellow,  plays  a  prominent  part  in  the  story.  Gordon,  with  the  help  of  a 
friend,  Norman  Wentworth,  the  son  of  a  rich  New  York  banker,  and  some  assistance 
from  his  neighbor,  Squire  Rawson,  is  enabled  to  go  to  college  and  acquires  the  educa- 
tion he  has  so  much  desired.  He  teaches  a  country  school  and  while  so  doing  meets 
a  rich  and  beautiful  city  girl  named  Alice  Yorke,  who  captures  his  heart.  Her  ambi- 
tious mother  discourages  his  suit,  but  he  vows  that  some  day  he  will  be  rich  and 
influential  and  with  this  goal  in  view  works  with  tireless  energy.  Rich  mining 
interests  become  located  at  "Elphinestone"  and  upon  Squire  Rawson's  land,  and 
Wickersham  endeavors  to  secure  the  latter  property,  but  is  balked  in  his  desire. 
Rawson  puts  Keith  in  control  of  his  interests  and  in  course  of  time  he  becomes  a  very 
rich  man.  His  business  takes  him  to  the  city  and  he  again  sees  Alice  Yorke,  but 
before  he  has  attained  his  success,  she  marries  a  rich  and  elderly  man  named  Lancaster. 
He  subsequently  dies,  leaving  Alice  a  rich  and  fascinating  widow  and  Keith  is  divided 
between  the  admiration  he  feels  for  her  and  the  warm  interest  he  feels  in  Lois 
Huntington,  a  charming  young  girl  whom  he  has  known  from  childhood.  In  the 
end  he  marries  Lois  after  having  repaired  some  of  the  wrongs  that  Wickersham 
has  caused. 

GORKY,    MAXIM,    AUTOBIOGRAPHY,    see    MY    CHILDHOOD:     IN    THE 
WORLD. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  353 

GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE,  AN   INTRODUCTION  TO    THE    STUDY  OF,  by 

J.  H.  Parker  (1849).  The  gradual  evolution  of  architecture  from  the  Roman  period 
to  the  Renaissance  and  Jacobean  Gothic  is  carefully  traced  in  this  handy  little 
volume.  To  the  interval  between  the  Roman  period  and  the  end  of  the  tenth  century 
belong  basilicas,  apses,  and  crypts.  The  new  building  era  introduced  by  the  eleventh 
century  brought  many  churches  and  some  of  the  early  towers.  In  the  early  Norman 
period  many'  monasteries  were  founded  and  some  churches  begun  under  William  I. 
and  II.  of  England  were  completed  under  Henry  I.  Between  1 120  and  1 170  a  large 
number  of  richly  but  crudely  decorated  Norman  Churches  were  built.  From  1175- 
1200  a  more  chaste  and  delicate  style  succeeded.  The  early  English  style  of  the 
years  between  1189  and  1272  may  be  studied  in  the  great  cathedrals  of  Canterbury, 
Lincoln,  Winchester,  Ely,  Salisbury,  Westminster,  York.  The  decorated  style  of 
the  reigns  of  the  first  three  Edwards  (1272-1377)  gradually  gave  place  to  the  per- 
pendicular style  which  flourished  between  1377-1547.  Examples  of  the  Renaissance 
and  Jacobean  Gothic  are  the  Elizabethan  Houses,  the  Colleges  and  Chapels  in  Oxford, 
Lambeth  Palace  and  the  Middle  Temple  Hall.  A  concluding  chapter  discusses 
briefly  the  styles  of  France,  Italy,  Lombardy,  Spain,  Flanders,  and  Germany,  and  a 
glossarial  index  explains  the  chief  technical  terms  for  the  benefit  of  beginners  in  the 
study  of  architecture. 

GOVERNMENT  IN  SWITZERLAND,  by  J.  M.  Vincent  (1900).  The  aim  of  the 
writer  is  to  describe  in  outline  the  methods  of  government,  federal,  cantonal,  munici- 
pal, in  a  country  which  might  well  be  called  the  political  laboratory  of  Europe.  He 
discusses  the  remote  origins  of  the  commonwealth,  the  cantonal  executive  and  judi- 
ciary, education,  finance,  and  public  service  in  the  cantons,  and  the  accepted  ideas 
of  community  and  citizenship.  The  second  part  of  the  book  is  devoted  to  the  federal 
executive  and  judiciary,  the  army,  finance,  international  relations,  the  respective 
spheres  of  the  canton  and  federation,  direct  legislation,  the  nationalization  of  railways 
and  industries.  The  whole  evolution  of  the  Swiss  Republic  has  been  a  struggle  to 
secure  and  maintain  popular  rights.  "As  a  crown  to  the  whole  edifice  of  popular 
rights, "  says  Mr.  Vincent,  "the  confederation  guarantees  to  all  citizens,  not  only  the 
liberties  and  privileges  contained  in  the  federal  constitution,  but  also  those  included 
in  the  laws  of  the  cantons."  Useful  appendices  include  the  text  of  the  first  constitu- 
tion of  1291  and  of  the  latest  of  1874. 

GOVERNMENTS  AND  PARTIES  IN  CONTINENTAL  EUROPE,  by  A.  L.  Lowell 
(1896).  This  work,  which  has  already  become  a  classic,  aims  to  supply  the  need  of  a 
thorough  examination  into  the  actual  working  of  modern  political  institutions  and 
the  relation  between  the  development  of  parties  and  the  mechanism  of  government 
"The  treatment  of  each  country  begins  with  a  description  of  its  chief  institutions,  or 
political  organization;  this  is  followed  by  a  sketch  of  its  recent  history,  in  order  to 
showliow  the  parties  actually  work;  and,  finally,  an  attempt  is  made  to  find  the 
causes  of  the  condition  of  party  life.  The  investigation  is  limited  to  the  principal 
countries  where  a  division  into  two  great  parties  does  not  prevail,  and  where  there 
usually  exists  in  its  place  a  division  into  a  number  of  more  or  less  sharply  defined 
political  groups.  This  department  of  the  subject  seemed  to  separate  itself  naturally 
from  the  rest,  and  was  selected  mainly  because  it  had  been  far  less  studied  than  the 
growth  and  influence  of  the  by-party  system  that  prevails  generally  in  Anglo-Saxon 
countries"."  The  countries  discussed  are  France,  Italy,  Germany  (with  separate 
treatment  of  its  component  states),  Austria-Hungary,  and  Switzerland;  and  the 
23 


354  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

constitutions  of  all  those  which  have  a  written  constitution  are  appended  in  the 
tongue  of  the  original  text. 

GRACE  ABOUNDING  TO  THE  CHIEF  OF  SINNERS,  an  autobiographical  narra- 
tive by  John  Bunyan,  written  in  Bedford  Jail  and  first  published  in  1666.  For  the 
benefit  of  fellow-Christians  similarly  tempted  Bunyan  here  sets  forth  with  great 
plainness,  vividness,  and  sincerity  the  spiritual  experiences  which  preceded  and 
accompanied  his  conversion.  He  relates  his  humble  birth  and  poor  education,  his 
early  dread  of  Hell,  his  subsequent  carelessness  about  religion,  and  the  wickedness 
(no  doubt  exaggerated  by  Bunyan)  of  his  youthful  life.  Marriage  with  a  serious- 
minded  woman  led  him  to  attend  church  and  respect  the  external  forms  of  religion; 
a  sermon  on  Sabbath-breaking  and  a  woman's  rebuke  of  his  swearing  induced  him  to 
give  up  these  and  other  practices  such  as  dancing  and  bell-ringing,  to  study  the  Bible, 
and  to  lead  a  moral  life.  He  was  now  inclined  to  be  self-satisfied;  but  through  the 
instruction  of  some  poor  women  of  Bedford  he  came  for  the  first  time  to  a  conviction 
of  sin,  the  impossibility  of  salvation  through  his  own  righteousness,  and  the  necessity 
of  a  new  birth.  These  convictions  were  strengthened  by  the  influence  of  John 
Gifford,  a  converted  royalist  officer,  now  a  Baptist  minister  at  Bedford.  A  long 
period  followed  in  which  Bunyan  sought  for  assurance  of  salvation.  Believing  firmly 
that  suggestions,  both  divine  and  diabolical  might  enter  his  mind  in  the  form  of 
recollected  texts  or  wandering  thoughts,  he  records  minutely  the  alternations  of  hope 
and  despair  which  exalted  and  dejected  him  by  turns.  Intellectual  doubts  assailed 
him.  For  about  a  year  he  was  in  morbid  terror  of  committing  the  unpardonable  sin. 
Later  he  was  assailed  by  an  irrational  suggestion  to  blaspheme  Christ  by  selling  him. 
Convinced  that  he  had  committed  this  sin  he  was  at  length  rescued  from  black 
despair  by  an  intuition  of  pardon.  Thus  oscillating  between  fear  and  hope  he  at 
length  found  peace.  The  book  is  an  absolutely  sincere  record  of  a  genuine  spiritual 
crisis  in  a  nature  of  singular  strength,  emotional  force,  and  religious  insight. 

GRAMMAR  OF  GREEK  ART,  A,  by  Percy  Gardner  (1905).  Greek  art  has  not 
been  so  widely  studied  in  Northern  Europe,  as  Greek  literature,  and  yet,  as  Professor 
Gardner  points  out,  the  principles  of  each  are  exactly  similar.  "The  Greek  drama 
and  the  Greek  temple  are  constructed  on  parallel  lines,  and  equally  embody  the 
aesthetic  ideas  of  the  race."  The  priceless  monuments  of  Greek  art  are  the  results  of 
mental  processes  which  express  the  outward  working  of  the  Greek  spirit  on  the  world 
around  it.  The  chief  characteristics  of  this  artistic  spirit  are  extreme  simplicity,  and 
an  unswerving  devotion  to  the  ideal.  The  idealism  of  Greece  was  not  individual  but 
social,  and  belonged  to  the  nation,  the  city,  or  the  school  rather  than  to  this  or  that 
artist.  All  ages  must  owe  a  debt  to  Greece  for  the  simple  beauty,  the  sanity,  the 
healthfulness  of  the  ideal  element  which  she  introduced  into  art  making  it  for  the 
first  time  in  history  a  true  exponent  of  the  human  spirit.  This  general  exposition 
of  the  aim  of  Greek  art  is  followed  by  a  detailed  discussion  of  the  characteristics  of 
Greek  architecture:  the  material,  space,  and  coloring  of  sculpture;  the  space,  balance 
and  perspective  of  pottery;  and  the  historic  value  of  coins  which  of  all  Greek  remains 
supply  the  most  precise,  reliable  and  varied  material  for  a  study  of  the  facts  of  history. 

GRAMMONT,  MEMOIRS  OF  COUNT,  by  Anthony  Hamilton.  These  memoirs 
were  first  given  to  the  public  in  1713,  though  the  collection  was  begun  as  early  as  1704. 
Hamilton  was  possessed  of  rare  literary  ability;  and  being  brother-in-law  to  Count 
Grammont,  was  chosen  by  him  to  introduce  him  historically  to  the  public.  The 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  355 

author  asserts  that  he  acts  merely  as  Grammont's  secretary,  and  holds  the  pen  at  his 
dictation;  but  although  this  may  be  partially  true,  the  ease  and  grace  of  the  text 
prove  it  to  be  Hamilton's  own  work.  The  memoirs  relate  chiefly  to  the  court  life 
at  the  time  of  Charles  II.,  and  describe  the  intrigues  and  love  affairs  of  the  Bong  and 
many  of  the  courtiers.  Grammont's  adventures  and  experiences  in  love  and  war 
are  minutely  and  graphically  set  forth,  and  he  is  depicted  as  a  brilliant  and  fascinating 
gentleman.  Hamilton  says  of  him,  that  he  was  "the  admiration  of  his  age,  and  the 
delight  of  every  country  wherein  he  displayed  his  engaging  wit,  dispensed  his  gener- 
osity and  munificence,  or  practiced  his  inconstancy."  Among  the  many  who  figure 
prominently  at  this  period  in  the  profligate  court  of  Charles  II.,  are  the  Duke  of  York, 
the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  the  Earl  of  St.  Albans,  George  Hamilton,  Lady  Shrewsbury, 
the  Countess  of  Castlemaine,  the  Duchess  of  Richmond,  and  the  various  ladies  in 
waiting  on  the  Queen.  A  French  critic  has  observed  that  if  any  book  were  to  be 
selected  as  afi'ording  the  truest  specimen  of  perfect  French  gayety,  the  *  Memoirs  of 
Grammont '  would  be  chosen  in  preference  to  all  others.  Macaulay  speaks  of  their 
author  as  "the  artist  to  whom  we  owe  the  most  highly  finished  and  vividly  colored 
picture  of  the  English  court  in  the  days  when  the  English  court  was  gayest." 

GRANDEE,  THE  ('El  Maestrante'),  by  Armando  Palacio  Valde"s.  This  story  of  a 
Spanish  town  and  its  society,  very  picturesque  in  setting,  but  holding  within  it  the 
tumult  of  passion  and  sin,  was  published  in  1895.  The  scene  is  laid  in  quaint  old 
Lancia  (which  is  supposed  to  mean  Oviedo),  and  reflects  the  life  of  thirty  or  forty 
years  ago.  The  story  opens  with  a  bitter  northeast  wind  and  drenching  rain;  the 
clack  of  wooden  shoes;  the  well-wrapped  ladies  (there  were  no  carriages)  struggling 
on  toward  the  light  and  warmth  of  the  palace  of  Quinones  de  Leon,  the  Grandee. 
The  party  has  passed  in;  a  man  cowering  beneath  the  storm  creeps  along  the  wall, 
reaches  the  palace,  takes  a  bundle  from  under  his  cloak,  places  it  near  the  door,  and 
enters  upon  the  gay  scene.  This  is  Luis  Conde  de  Onis,  who,  engaged  to  Fernanda, 
has  been  enticed  into  an  intrigue  with  Amalia,  the  young  wife  of  the  Grandee.  It  is 
their  child  that  he  has  left  at  the  door.  The  child  is  found  when  the  guests  are 
departing,  and  cared  for  by  the  old  Grandee  and  his  wife,  the  child's  mother.  Around 
these  personages  gathers  a  group  of  quaint  characters:  Don  Christobal  and  his  four 
marriageable  daughters;  the  Senoritas  de  M6re,  kindly  old  spinsters  who  always 
help  forward  the  marriage  projects  of  the  young  people;  and  Paco  Gomez,  the  rough 
jester.  Fernanda,  at  a  rural  f6te,  discovers  the  infidelity  of  her  fiance*,  and  madly 
throws  herself  away  upon  a  boorish  colonial  planter,  on  whose  death  she  returns  to 
Lancia,  and  sets  herself  to  win  Luis  from  Amalia.  The  time  of  their  wedding  is  at 
last  announced;  and  Amalia,  always  reckless  and  desperate,  revenges  herself  upon  the 
helpless  child  of  Luis,  who  has  grown  up  a  beautiful  little  girl,  the  pet  of  the  household. 
With  fiendish  craft  she  tortures  the  child,  under  the  plea  of  discipline.  The  gossips 
of  the  town  have  heard  of  what  has  been  going  on;  and  Luis,  to  save  the  child  from 
her  mother,  promises  Amalia  to  give  up  Fernanda.  Luis  appears  at  the  house  of 
Don  Pedro,  the  Grandee,  who  although  infirm,  rises  to  attack  him,  and  falls  back 
dead.  The  father  escapes  with  the  little  Josefina,  and  attempts  to  take  her  to  his 
pwn  home.  The  book  closes  in  a  pathetic  scene,  where  the  hapless  child  dies  on  the 
journey,  in  her  father's  arms. 

GRANDISSIMES,  THE,  a  story  of  Creole  life,  by  George  W.  Cable.  The  Gran- 
dissimes,  whose  fortunes'  are  here  told,  are  one  of  the  leading  families  in  Louisiana. 
The  head  of  the  family  is  Honore",  a  banker.  He  has  an  older  half-brother,  a  quad- 


356  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

roon,  of  the  same  name,  to  whom  the  father  leaves  the  bulk  of  his  property.  For  B 
long  time  there  has  been  a  feud  between  the  Grandissimes  and  the  De  Grapions, 
heightened,  eighteen  years  before,  by  the  killing  in  a  duel  by  Honoris  uncle,  Agricola, 
of  Nancanou,  the  husband  of  Aurora,  the  last  of  the  De  Grapions.  The  cause  of  the 
duel  is  a  quarrel  over  a  gambling  debt,  which  involves  the  loss  of  Nancanou 's  whole 
estate.  At  the  opening  of  the  story,  Aurora,  and  her  only  daughter,  Clotilde,  are 
living  in  carefully  concealed  poverty  in  New  Orleans,  in  an  apartment  belonging  to 
the  elder  Honore*.  Joseph  Frowenfeld  is  a  young  German-American,  who,  without 
his  knowledge,  has  been  nursed  during  a  fever  by  the  Nancanous.  The  story  develops 
the  friendship  of  Honore*  the  younger  with  Frowenfeld,  their  falling  in  love  with 
mother  and  daughter,  and  the  course  of  their  wooing.  Other  characters  prominently 
connected  with  the  story  are  the  former  domestic  slave,  Palmyre;  Philosophe;  Dr. 
Keene,  a  friend  of  Fro wenf eld's;  and  Raoul  Innerarity,  the  clerk  of  Frowenfeld  and 
a  typical  young  Creole.  The  final  reconciliation  of  the  hostile  families  and  the 
marriage  of  the  young  people  are  brought  about  by  the  intervention  of  the  fiery  old 
Agricola.  The  book  is  of  special  interest  in  showing  the  attitude  of  the  Creole 
population  toward  this  country  at  the  time  of  the  cession  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase 
to  the  United  States.  Its  character-study  is  close,  and  the  sub-tropical  atmosphere 
of  place  and  people  well  indicated.  It  was  Cable's  first  novel,  being  published  in 
1880. 

GRANIA:  THE  STORY  OF  AN  ISLAND,  by  the  Hon.  Emily  Lawless  (1892). 
'Grania'  has  awakened  much  interest  as  the  story  of  a  little-understood  section  of 
Ireland,  the  Arran  Isles.  The  aim  of  its  author  was  to  produce  a  picture  true  in 
atmosphere  and  in  detail  to  all  the  characteristics  of  Irish  life;  an  aim  fully  achieved. 
Grania  is  first  introduced  as  a  child  of  twelve,  sailing  in  Galway  Bay  with  her  father, 
Con  O'Malley,  in  his  "hooker"  or  fishing  smack.  Grania,  with  her  dark  skin  and 
hair,  shows  the  strain  of  Spanish  blood  coming  to  her  from  her  mother,  a  Joice,  from 
the ' '  Continent, ' '  as  the  people  of  Arran  call  Ireland  itself.  Six  years  later  when  Con 
is  dead,  Grania,  a  handsome,  high-spirited  girl,  takes  sole  care  of  her  invalid  sister 
Honor.  Humble  though  their  two-roomed,  square  cabin  is,  it  is  the  most  comfortable 
in  the  neighborhood;  and  owning  it  and  the  bit  of  land  around  it,  Grania  is  the  richest 
girl  of  the  place.  She  is  industrious  and  independent,  gets  in  her  own  crops  of  pota- 
toes and  oats,  and  fattens  her  calves  and  pigs  for  the  market.  Murdough  Blake, 
handsome,  vain,  and  a  great  braggart,  accepts  Grania's  affection  as  a  matter  of 
course,  almost  feeling  that  he  is  doing  her  a  favor  when  he  condescends  to  borrow 
money  from  her.  There  is  no  plot,  and  the  incidents  serve  to  show  the  noble  charac- 
ter of  the  girl.  '  Grania '  contains  many  glimpses  of  the  folk-lore  and  customs  of  the 
Irish  peasants,  and  the  gloom  and  sordidness  of  their  life  as  it  was  thirty  years  ago  is 
vividly  presented.  Besides  the  chief  figures  of  the  story,  there  are  several  other 
interesting  types:  Shan  Daly,  the  vagabond,  and  his  neglected  family;  Peggy  O'Dowd 
and  other  gossips;  red-haired  Teige  O'Shaughnessey,  who  adores  Grania;  and  Pete 
Durane  and  his  father,  with  their  old-school  manners. 

GRANT,  IT.  S-,  PERSONAL  MEMOIRS  OF,  (1885) ,  has  had  an  enormous  sale.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  simple  and  effective  of  the  many  memoirs  by  soldiers.  Tracing  his 
own  career  from  childhood,  throughout  his  student  days,  his  business  life,  the  Mexican 
War,  and  his  civilian  period  in  the  West,  and  outlining  his  conduct  of  the  Federal 
forces  during  the  Civil  War,  he  closes  the  account  with  the  end  of  the  strife.  Among 
the  most  valuable  features  of  a  work  which  takes  first  rank  as  a  military  autobiog- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  357 

raphy,  are  the  author's  estimates  of  the  leaders  who  had  to  do  with  the  affairs  of  the 
armies  and  nation  during  the  period  of  his  own  service.  The  descriptions  of  battles 
are  technical,  not  sensational;  the  effort  being  to  give  the  facts,  not  to  paint  pictures, 
while  the  outlines  of  campaigns  and  policies  afford  valuable  historical  material. 
Maps  and  indices  add  to  the  usefulness  of  the  work. 

GRATTSTARK,  by  George  Barr  McCutcheon,  was  published  in  1901.  It  is  entitled 
"the  story  of  a  love  behind  the  throne"  and  is  a  thrilling  tale  of  romance  and  ad- 
venture. The  hero  Grenfall  Lorry,  a  rich  and  attractive  young  American,  while 
traveling  becomes  acquainted  with  a  charming  foreigner  who  afterwards  proves  to 
be  the  Princess  of  Graustark  visiting  America  incognito.  The  acquaintance  is 
begun  in  a  unique  manner  as  Lorry  and  Miss  Guggenslocker  are  accidentally  left 
behind  at  a  small  way-station  and  only  succeed  in  overtaking  their  train  after  a 
rough  and  perilous  drive  during  which  she  clings  to  him  for  protection.  This  is  the 
beginning  of  friendship  which  ripens  into  passionate  love,  and  after  the  departure  of 
the  lovely  foreigner  from  the  country,  Lorry  finds  life  unendurable  and  starts  in 
search  of  her.  In  his  quest  for  Graustark  he  is  joined  by  his  friend  Harry  Anguish, 
whom  he  meets  in  Paris  and  who  becomes  the  companion  of  his  adventures.  On  the 
night  of  their  arrival  in  Graustark  they  frustrate  the  plan  of  the  wicked  Prince 
Gabriel  to  kidnap  the  Princess,  and  while  rescuing  her,  Lorry  discovers  to  his  as- 
tonishment that  she  is  the  object  of  his  search.  The  Princess  cannot  accept  Lorry's 
advances  owing  to  her  high  position  and  also  to  the  fact  that  she  is  about  to  consent 
to  many  a  neighboring  Prince  named  Lorenze,  in  order  to  save  her  country  from 
financial  ruin.  On  the  day  of  the  betrothal,  however,  Lorenze  is  found  murdered,  and 
Lorry  who  has  had  an  altercation  with  him  is  accused  of  the  crime.  Lorry  is  saved 
from  the  vengeance  of  the  murdered  man's  father  through  the  intervention  of  the 
Princess,  who  declares  her  love  for  him,  and  the  real  assassin,  Gabriel,  the  rival 
Prince,  is  convicted  by  the  cleverness  of  Anguish.  Lorry,  who  has  become  a  popular 
hero,  is  allowed  to  marry  the  Princess  in  spite  of  his  lack  of  royal  blood,  and  Harry 
Anguish  marries  the  Countess  Dagmar,  the  Princess's  lady-in-waiting,  which  brings 
the  story  to  a  happy  conclusion. 

GRAY,  THOMAS,  see  LETTERS  OF. 

GREAT  DIVIDE,  THE,  by  William  Vaughn  Moody  (1906).  In  a  lonely  ranch  in 
Arizona,  Ruth  Jordan,  a  New  England  girl  of  nineteen,  is  left  to  guard  the  premises. 
She  is  unconcerned  at  her  loneliness,  as  she  is  full  of  the  joy  of  life  and  of  dreams  of 
the  ideal  lover.  Suddenly  three  men  appear  at  the  window.  They  are  partly 
intoxicated  and  threaten  her  with  violence.  She  offers  to  be  the  wife  of  one  of  them, 
Ghent,  if  he  will  save  her.  Ghent  proposes  to  one  of  his  companions  ' '  a  square  stand- 
up  shoot,  the  best  man  taking  her."  Ghent  wins  and  he  and  Ruth  make  their  way 
to  a  mining  claim  beyond  the  Cordilleras.  Here  she  wiles  away  many  hours  weaving 
Navajo  blankets  and  secretly  selling  them  so  that  she  may  not  need  to  take  money 
from  Ghent.  The  mine  prospers  and  Ghent  plans  to  build  a  magnificent  house,  but 
when  Ruth  hears  of  it,  she  tells  him  scornfully  that  her  price  has  risen.  Her  brother, 
and  a  former  lover,  Winthrop  Newbury,  whom  she  had  rejected  succeed  in  tracing 
her.  After  an  interview  with  Ghent,  in  which  she  asks  to  be  allowed  to  go  free,  she 
asks  her  brother  Philip  to  take  her  home.  Ghent  reappears  sometime  after  the  birth 
of  their  child  at  her  home,  and  the  period  of  reflection  has  shown  them  both  that  they 
had  each  been  faithful  to  the  other,  and  that  they  had  loved  each  other.  "You 


358  THE   READER'S   DIGEST  OF   BOOKS 

have  taken  the  good  of  our  life  and  grown  strong,  I  have  taken  the  evil  and  grown 
weak,  weak  unto  death.  Teach  me  to  live  as  you  do, "  she  says  to  him,  and  they  are 
once  more  united  to  make  a  home  for  their  child  and  for  each  other. 

GREAT  EXPECTATIONS,  Dickens's  tenth  novel,  was  published  in  1861,  nine  years 
before  his  death.  As  in  '  David  Copperfield,'  the  hero  tells  his  own  story  from  boy- 
hood. Yet  in  several  essential  points  'Great  Expectations'  is  markedly  different 
from  '  David  Copperfield, '  and  from  Dickens's  other  novels.  Owing  to  the  simplicity 
of  the  plot,  and  to  the  small  number  of  characters,  it  possesses  greater  unity  of  design. 
These  characters,  each  drawn  with  marvelous  distinctness  of  outline,  are  subordinated 
throughout  to  the  central  personage  "Pip, "  whose  great  expectations  form  the  pivot 
of  the  narrative. 

But  the  element  that  most  clearly  distinguishes  this  novel  from  the  others  is  the 
subtle  study  of  the  development  of  character  through  the  influence  of  environment 
and  circumstance.  In  the  career  of  Pip,  a  more  careful  and  natural  presentation  of 
personality  is  made  than  is  usual  with  Dickens. 

He  is  a  village  boy  who  longs  to  be  a  "gentleman.1'  His  dreams  of  wealth  and 
opportunity  suddenly  come  true.  He  is  supplied  with  money,  and  sent  to  London 
to  be  educated  and  to  prepare  for  his  new  station  in  life.  Later  he  discovers  that  his 
unknown  benefactor  is  a  convict  to  whom  he  had  once  rendered  a  service.  The 
convict,  returning  against  the  law  to  England,  is  recaptured  and  dies  in  prison,  his 
fortune  being  forfeited  to  the  Crown.  Pip's  great  expectations  vanish  into  thin  air. 

The  changes  in  Pip's  character  under  these  varying  fortunes  are  most  skillfully 
depicted.  He  presents  himself  first  as  a  small  boy  in  the  house  of  his  dearly  loved 
brother-in-law,  Joe  Gargery,  the  village  blacksmith;  having  no  greater  ambition 
than  to  be  Joe's  apprentice.  After  a  visit  to  the  house  of  a  Miss  Havisham,  the 
nature  of  his  aspirations  is  completely  changed.  Miss  Havisham  is  one  of  the 
strangest  of  Dickens's  creations.  Jilted  by  her  lover  on  her  wedding  night,  she 
resolves  to  wear  her  bridal  gown  as  long  as  she  lives,  and  to  keep  her  house,  as  it  was 
when  the  blow  fell  upon  her.  The  candles  are  always  burning,  the  moldering  banquet 
is  always  spread.  In  the  midst  of  this  desolation  she  is  bringing  up  a  beautiful  little 
girl,  Estella,  as  an  instrument  of  revenge,  teaching  the  child  to  use  beauty  and  her 
grace  to  torture  men,  Estella's  first  victim  is  Pip.  She  laughs  at  his  rustic  appear- 
ance, makes  him  dissatisfied  with  Joe  and  the  life  at  the  forge.  When  he  finds  himself 
heir  to  a  fortune,  it  is  the  thought  of  Estella's  scorn  that  keeps  him  from  returning 
Joe's  honest  and  faithful  love.  As  a  "  gentleman ' '  he  plays  tricks  with  his  conscience, 
seeking  always  to  excuse  his  false  pride  and  flimsy  ideals  of  position.  The  convict's 
return,  and  the  consequent  revelation  of  the  identity  of  his  benefactor,  humbles  Pip. 
He  realizes  at  last  the  dignity  of  labor,  and  the  worth  of  noble  character.  He  gains  a 
new  and  manly  serenity  after  years  of  hard  work.  Estella's  pride  has  also  been 
humbled  and  her  character  purified  by  her  experiences.  The  book  closes  upon  their 
mutual  love. 

11 1  took  her  hand  in  mine,  and  we  went  out  of  the  ruined  place;  and  as  the  morning 
mists  had  risen  long  ago,  when  I  first  left  the  forge,  so  the  evening  mists  were  rising 
now,  and  in  all  the  broad  expanse  of  tranquil  light  they  showed  to  me,  I  saw  the 
shadow  of  no  parting  from  her." 

'Great  Expectations'  is  a  delightful  novel,  rich  in  humor  and  free  from  fals.e 
pathos.  The  character  of  Joe  Gargery,  simple,  tender,  quaintly  humorous,  would 
alone  give,  imperishable  value  to  the  book.  Scarcely  less  well-drawn  are  Pip's 
termagant  sister,  "Mrs.  Joe";  the  sweet  and  wholesome  village  girl,  Biddy,  who 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  359 

becomes  Joe's  second  wife;  Uncle  Pumblechook,  obsequious  or  insolent  as  the  person 
he  addresses  is  rich  or  poor;  Pip's  friend  and  chum  in  London,  the  dear  boy  Herbert 
Pocket;  the  convict  with  his  wistful  love  of  Pip;  bright,  imperious  Estella:  these  are 
of  the  immortals  in  fiction. 

GREAT  GALEOTO,  THE  ('El  gran  Galeoto')  by  Jos6  Echegaray.  This  was  the  most 
successful  of  the  author's  plays,  running  through  more  than  twenty  editions.  It  was 
first  acted  in  March,  1881,  and  so  greatly  admired  that  a  popular  subscription  was  at 
once  started  to  buy  some  work  of  art  to  remind  the  writer  of  his  triumph.  In  its 
printed  form  it  is  dedicated  to  "everybody, "  —  another  name  for  the  subject  of  the 
play.  Dante  tells  us  in  his  story  of  Paolo  and  Francesca  that  "'Galeoto'  was  the 
book  they  read;  that  day  they  read  no  more!"  Galeoto  was  the  messenger  between 
Launcelot  and  Queen  Guinevere;  and  in  all  loves  the  third  may  be  truthfully  nick- 
named "Galeoto/'  Ernest,  a  talented  youth,  is  the  secretary  and  adopted  son  of 
Julian  and  his  wife  Teodora,  many  years  younger  than  himself.  Ernest  looks  up  to 
her  as  a  mother;  but  gossip  arises,  he  overhears  Nebreda  calumniate  Teodora, 
challenges  him  to  fight,  and  leaves  Julian's  house.  Julian,  a  noble  character,  refuses 
to  heed  the  charges  against  his  wife  and  adopted  son,  but  is  at  last  made  suspicious. 
Teodora  visits  Ernest,  and  implores  him  not  to  fight,  as  it  will  give  color  to  the  rumors. 
Julian  meantime  is  wounded  by  Nebreda,  and  taken  to  Ernest's  room,  where  he 
finds  his  wife.  Ernest  rushes  out,  kills  Nebreda,  and  returns  to  find  Julian  dying, 
iii  the  belief  that  his  wife  is  guilty.  The  plays  ends  with  Ernest's  cry:  "This  woman 
is  mine.  The  world  has  so  desired  it,  and  its  decision  I  accept.  It  has  driven  her 
to  my  arms.  You  cast  her  forth.  We  obey  you.  But  should  any  ask  you  who  was 
the  famous  intermediary  in  this  business,  say:  'Ourselves,  all  unawares,  and  with 
us  the  stupid  chatter  of  busybodies/" 

GREAT  SHADOW,  THE,  by  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle  (1892).  When  Jack  Calder,  of 
West  Inch  near  Edinburgh,  is  eighteen  years  old,  his  orphan  cousin,  Edie,  comes  to 
make  her  home  with  his  family.  As  a  child  she  has  been  a  strange,  wild  girl  with 
captivating  ways.  Now,  more  beautiful,  her  conquest  of  the  boy  is  a  matter  of  days 
only,  and  they  are  engaged  to  be  married.  At  this  moment  Jack's  friend,  Jim  Hors- 
croft, appears  upon  the  scene,  and  young  Calder  finds  himself  jilted.  But  now,  — 
shortly  after  the  battle  of  Leipsic,  —  while  Horscroft  is  at  Edinburgh  working  for  his 
doctor's  degree,  a  Frenchman  who  calls  himself  De  Lapp  appears.  A  man  of  stem 
and  moody  manners,  he  has  a  fascinating  personality,  thanks  to  his  mysterious  past. 
Edie  spends  long  hours  listening  to  his  tales  of  war  and  adventure  in  foreign  lands. 
In  short,  Jim  comes  back  to  find  his  fiancee  fled  with  the  French  officer,  who  is  hasten- 
ing to  join  the  Emperor,  now  returned  from  Elba. 

In  the  thick  of  the  fight  at  Waterloo,  Horscroft  and  his  successful  rival  go  down 
in  a  mutual  death-lock;  and  Jack,  hurrying  on  with  the  Allies  to  Paris,  again  sees 
Edie.  She  talks  to  him  a  moment  in  her  old  familiar  way,  and  then  leaves  him. 
A  month  after,  he  learns  that  she  has  married  a  certain  Count  de  Breton.  The 
admirable  strength  and  restraint  of  this  story,  its  faithful  study  of  character,  and  its 
constant  suggestion  of  the  terror  and  apprehension  that  for  a  score  of  years  enveloped 
Europe  like  a  black  atmosphere,  give  'The  Great  Shadow'  a  first  place  among  Conan 
Doyle's  stories. 

GREAT  TRADITION,   THE,  by  Katharine  Fullerton  Gerould   (1915).    Clever 

analysis  of  situations  in  married  life  involving  conflict  with  tradition  or  habit.    The 


360  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

story  which  gives  the  book  its  title  deals  with  the  sacrifice  of  a  woman's  dream  of 
happiness  with  another  man  than  her  unspeakable  husband,  when  she  learns  that 
her  daughter  has  eloped  with  a  married  man,  and  realizes  that  the  right  kind  of 
mother,  socially,  will  be  needed  to  give  her  the  chance  to  return  sometime  to  society. 
In  another  story  "Pearls"  a  poverty  stricken  artist  receives  a  reward  of  fifteen 
thousand  dollars  for  finding  a  valuable  string  of  pearls.  In  sudden  irresponsibility  he 
deserts  his  wife  and  daughter  to  voyage  in  tropical  seas.  'The  Dominant  Strain' 
tells  a  story  which  leads  up  to  the  moment  when  a  financier  who  has  been  unable  to 
forgive  his  son  for  a  foolish  marriage,  recognizes  his  grandson  in  one  of  his  own 
endowed  orphan  asylums.  'Wesendonck'  depicts  the  sordid  poverty  of  a  young 
college  professor,  whose  opportunity  to  entertain  a  distinguished  colleague  is  not 
met  by  his  wife;  she  finds  out  too  late  to  help  her  husband  that  it  is  sometimes 
necessary  to  endure  the  intolerable.  In  'The  Weaker  Vessel '  a  husband  gives  up  his 
hope  of  a  free  happy  life  because  his  wife,  who  cares  nothing  for  him,  refuses  to  be 
deserted. 

GREATEST  THING  IN  THE  WORLD,  THE,  by  Henry  Drummond  (1890)  takes 
both  theme  and  title  from  i  Cor.  xiii.,  wherein  (R.  V.)  Love  is  declared  to  be  the 
greatest  of  the  three  Christian  graces. 

The  author  treats  Love  as  the  supreme  good;  and  following  St.  Paul,  contrasts 
it  favorably  with  eloquence,  prophecy,  sacrifice,  and  martyrdom.  Then  follows  the 
analysis:  "It  is  like  light.  Paul  passes  this  thing,  Love,  through  the  magnificent 
prism  of  his  inspired  intellect,  and  it  comes  out  on  the  other  side  broken  up  into  its 
elements." 

"The  Spectrum  of  Love  has  nine  ingredients: 

Patience  —  'Love  suffereth  long/ 

Kindness  —  'And  is  kind.' 

Generosity  —  'Love  envieth  not.' 

Humility  — '  Love  vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not  puffed  up/ 

Courtesy  —  'Doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly.' 

Unselfishness  — ' Seeketh  not  her  own.' 

Good  Temper  —  '  Is  not  easily  provoked.1 

Guilelessness  —  'Thinketh  no  evil.' 

Sincerity  —  'Rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in  the  truth/  " 

The  author  then  declares  that  Love  comes  by  induction  —  by  contact  with  God; 
that  it  is  an  effect,  —  "we  love  because  He  first  loved  us." 

The  closing  chapter  dwells  upon  the  lasting  character  of  Love  (i  Cor.  xiii:  8),  and 
asserts  its  absolute  supremacy  —  '  'What  religion  is,  what  God  is,  who  Christ  is,  and 
where  Christ  is,  is  Love/' 

GREATNESS  AND  DECAY  OF  THE  ROMANS,  CONSIDERATIONS  ON  THE, 

by  Montesquieu.  This  work,  which  is  superior  to  .the  other  writings  of  the  author 
in  unity  of  plan  and  of  execution,  was  published  at  Amsterdam  in  1734  without  the 
author's  name.  It  resembles  the  'Universal  History'  of  Bossuet,  but  with  this 
important  difference:  while  the  latter  refers  the  regulation  of  the  course  of  history  to 
the  direct  agency  of  Providence,  Montesquieu  sees  a  sufficient  explanation  of  it  in  the 
power  of  ideas,  the  characters  of  men,  and  the  action  and  reaction  of  causes  and 
effects.  Of  the  twenty-seven  chapters,  seven  are  devoted  to  the  greatness  of  the 
Romans,  and  the  others  treat  of  their  downfall.  How  has  it  come  to  pass,  Mon- 
tesquieu asks,  that  Rome,  at  first  a  sort  of  Tartar  camp,  an  asylum  of  robbers,  has 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  361 

grown,  physically  and  intellectually,  to  be  the  capital  of  the  world?  The  causes  of 
Rome's  aggrandizement  were,  according  to  him,  the  love  of  the  Romans  for  liberty 
and  country;  their  military  discipline,  exercised  despotically  in  the  camp,  but  ceasing 
once  the  soldier  entered  the  city;  the  public  discussions  of  the  laws  in  the  forum,  which 
enlightened  their  minds,  and  made  them  love  a  country  that  gave  them  such  freedom; 
their  constancy  under  reverses,  and  firm  resolve  not  to  make  peace  except  they 
were  victorious;  the  triumphs  and  rewards  granted  their  generals;  their  policy 
of  supporting  foreign  peoples  who  rebelled  against  their  rulers;  their  respect 
for  the  religion  of  conquered  nations;  and  their  avoidance  of  a  conflict  with 
two  or  more  countries  at  the  same  time.  The  causes  of  Rome's  decay  are 
studied  with  equal  care.  They  were  the  excessive  enlargements  of  the  empire; 
distant  wars,  necessitating  the  maintenance  of  standing  armies;  the  intrusion 
into  Rome  of  Asiatic  luxury;  the  proscriptions,  which  resulted  in  the  disappearance 
of  the  real  Romans  and  their  replacement  by  slaves  and  degraded  Asiatics;  the  Orien- 
tal character  assumed  by  the  emperors,  and  the  military  character  assumed  by  the 
empire;  and  finally,  the  transfer  of  the  seat  of  empire  to  Constantinople.  The  work 
closes  with  a  remarkable  dialogue  between  Sylla  and  Eucrates,  in  which  the  ex-dicta- 
tor explains  his  motives  for  abandoning  power.  The '  Considerations '  did  not  become 
immediately  popular  in  France.  The  seriousness  of  the  style,  so  different  from  that 
of  the  'Persian  Letters,'  disappointed  the  salons,  which  spoke  of  the  latter  as  "the 
grandeur1'  and  of  the  'Considerations'  as  "the  decadence"  of  M.  de  Montesquieu. 
But  they  at  once  attracted  the  attention  of  the  thoughtful,  and  were  eagerly  read 
abroad.  A  copy,  minutely  and  carefully  annotated  by  Frederick  the  Great,  still 
exists.  The  work  has  continued  to  hold  its  rank  as  a  European  classic,  though 
deficient  in  the  historical  criticism  of  facts,  —  which  however  was  hardly  a  charac- 
teristic of  the  author's  age,  —  and  its  merits  do  not  He  in  its  facts  but  in  its  views. 
The  '  Considerations'  will  always  be  remarkable  for  their  death,  originality,  and  the 
completeness  with  which  their  plan  is  carried  out. 

GREATNESS  AND  DECLINE  OF  ROME  ('Grandezza  e  Decadenza  di  Roma'),  a 
history  in  five  volumes  by  Guglielmo  Ferrero,  published  between  1902  and  1908 
inclusive,  comprises  the  following  sections:  'The  Empire-Builders,'  an  account  of 
the  events  from  the  death  of  Sulla  to  the  establishment  of  the  first  triumvirate; 
'Julius  Caesar,'  which  brings  the  story  down  to  Caesar's  assassination,  'The  Fall  of 
an  Aristocracy/  extending  to  the  Battle  of  Philippi;  'Rome  and  Egypt,'  which  in- 
cludes the  defeat  of  Antony  and  the  establishment  of  the  authority  of  Octavius;  and 
'The  Republic  of  Augustus,'  which  describes  the  beginnings  of  the  Roman  empire. 
An  English  translation  appeared  in  1909.  Ferrero  is  distinguished  by  the  freshness 
of  his  point  of  view,  which  results  from  his  illustration  of  Roman  history  by  tenden- 
cies of  modern  social  and  political  life  and  from  the  independence  with  which  he 
revises  traditional  historical  judgments. 

GREECE,  see  RAMBLES  AND  STUDIES  IN. 
GREECE,  see  SOCIAL  LIFE  IN. 

GREECE  UNDER  FOREIGN  DOMINATION,  'from  its  Conquest  by  the  Ro- 
mans to  the  present  Time:  146  B.  C.-I864  A.  D.,'  By  George  Finlay.  (Final 
revised  ed.  7  vols.,  1877)  •  A  thoroughly  learned,  accurate,  and  interesting  history  of 
Greece  for  two  thousand  and  ten  years,  by  a  writer  who  qualified  himself  for  his  task 


362  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

by  life-long  residence  in  Greece:  a  soldier  there  in  Byron's  time,  a  statesman  and 
economist  of  exceptional  intelligence,  and  a  great  historian  of  the  more  judicious  and 
practical  type.  The  work  was  executed  in  parts  in  the  years  1 844-1 86 1 .  It  consists 
of  (i)  Greece  under  the  Romans  146  B.  €.-717  A.  D.;  (2)  The  Byzantine  Empire, 
717-1204;  (3)  Mediaeval  Greece  and  Trebizond,  1204-1566;  (4)  Greece  under  Otto- 
man and  Venetian  Dominion,  1453-1821;  and  (5)  The  Greek  Revolution  and  Greek 
Affairs,  1843-1864.  The  whole  was  thoroughly  revised  by  the  author  before  his 
death  at  Athens  in  1875,  and  was  very  carefully  edited  for  the  Clarendon  Press  by 
Rev.  H.  P.  Tozer.  In  comparison  with  Gibbon,  it  deals  far  more  with  interesting 
social  particulars,  and  comes  much  nearer  than  Gibbon  did  to  adequate  treatment  of 
the  ages  which  both  have  covered.  The  author's  prolonged  residence  in  Greece, 
with  very  great  sympathetic  attention  to  Greek  affairs,  peculiarly  qualified  him  to 
deal  intelligently  with  the  problems  of  Greek  character  through  the  long  course  of 
ages,  from  the  Roman  conquest  to  the  latest  developments.  Taken  in  connection 
with  Grote's  admirable  volumes  for  the  ages  of  Greek  story  before  Alexander  the 
Great,  the  two  works,  even  with  a  gap  of  two  centuries  between  them,  form  one  of 
the  most  interesting  courses  in  history  for  thirty  centuries  to  which  the  attention  of 
intelligent  readers  can  be  given. 

GREEK  ART,  see  GRAMMAR  OF. 

GREEK  EDUCATION,  OLD,  see  OLD  GREEK  EDUCATION. 

GREEK  PHILOSOPHY,  OUTLINES  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF,  by  Dr.  Eduard 
Zeller.  (English  Translation,  1885).  An  extremely  useful  sketch  of  the  whole 
history  of  Greek  philosophy,  from  Thales,  a  contemporary  of  Solon  and  Croesus  in  the 
first  half  of  the  sixth  century  B.  C.,  to  the  death  of  Boethius  in  the  first  half  of  the 
sixth  century  of  Christ  (525  A.  D.).  The  story  told  by  Plato  of  'Seven  Wise  Men' 
of  early  Greece  is  wholly  unhistorical.  Not  less  than  twenty-two  names  appear  in 
different  versions  of  the  story,  and  only  four  are  found  in  all  of  them,  —  Thales, 
Bias,  Pittacus,  and  Solon.  To  Thales  the  first  place  is  given.  In  the  succession  of 
early  Greek  philosophers  there  follow  Anaximander,  Anaximenes,  and  Diogenes; 
Pythagoras  and  his  disciples;  Xenophanes,  Parmenides,  and  Zeno;  Heracleitus, 
Empedocles,  Leucippus,  Democritus,  and  Anazagoras;  and  then  the  greatest  names 
of  all,  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle.  From  these  onward  there  is  a  further  long 
development,  which  Dr.  Zeller  admirably  sketches.  This  volume  of  '  Outlines '  is  an 
Introduction  to  Dr.  Zeller's  large  special  works,  such  as  'Socrates  and  the  Socratic 
Schools,'  'Plato  and  the  Older  Academy/  'The  Stoics,  Epicureans,  and  Sceptics,'  and 
'Aristotle  and  the  Earlier  Peripatetics.'  These  works  together  constitute  a  complete 
history  of  Greek  philosophy  for  more  than  a  thousand  years. 

GREEK  POETS,  STUDIES  OF  THE,  by  J.  A.  Symonds  (2  vols.,  1873-76).  One 
of  the  most  admirable  expositions  ever  made  for  English  readers  of  the  finer  dements 
of  Greek  culture,  the  thoughts  and  beauties  of  utterance  of  the  Greek  poets,  from 
Homer  and  Hesiod,  through  the  lyrics  of  various  types,  to  the  drama,  ^Eschylus, 
Sophocles,  Euripides,  and  Aristophanes.  Not  only  has  Mr.  Symonds  a  quick  sense 
of  poetic  beauties  in  verse  and  expression,  but  he  gleans  with  rare  insight  the  notes  of 
thought,  of  faith,  of  sentiment  and  worship,  which  are  the  indications  of  culture  in 
the  grand  story  of  Greek  song.  In  Homer,  Hesiod,  Pindar,  and  the  four  great 
dramatists,  especially,  the  field  of  study  is  very  rich. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  365 

a^irty  among  which  are  the  Van  Rosens,  friends  of  the  Balf ours,  who  have  inherited 
a  large  property  in  Colorado.  While  traveling  in  the  United  States,  Sylvia  hears 
through  the  newspapers  that  her  husband's  business  has  gone  to  smash,  and  infers 
that  his  political  prospects  are  blasted.  All  her  love  reasserts  itself,  and  she  cables 
asking  if  she  may  return  to  him.  He  replies  with  the  announcement  that  he  is 
coming  to  her,  a  happy  reunion  ensues,  and  the  pair  take  up  a  new  career  in  Colorado, 
where  Balfour  is  offered  the  stewardship  of  the  Van  Rosen  ranch.  The  action  of  the 
last  half  of  the  story  is  delayed  by  a  description  of  the  American  tour,  as  is  the  first 
half  from  being  largely  given  over  to  accounts  of  political  wire-pulling.  But  the 
descriptions  of  nature  are  delightful,  and  few  readers  object  to  the  leisurely  pace  of 
the  story. 

GREIFENSTEIN,  by  Francis  Marion  Crawford  (1889).  The  duplicity  of  a  woman 
who  brings  disgrace  on  a  proud  old  family  forms  the  mainspring  of  an  exciting  narra- 
tive, certain  episodes  of  which  are  even  startling.  Baron  von  Greifenstein  supposes 
himself  to  be  legally  married  to  Clara  Kurtz.  After  twenty-five  years,  his  half- 
brother  Von  Rieseneck,  a  disgraced  and  fugitive  ex-officer,  confesses  that  the  woman 
is  his  wife,  though  he  had  long  believed  her  dead.  The  realization  that  his  dearly 
loved  son  Greif  is  nameless  fills  the  baron  with  rage  against  Clara,  who  is  hated  not 
less  by  her  lawful  husband  for  her  desertion  of  him.  The  two  men,  feeling  themselves 
disgraced  and  degraded,  write  explanatory  letters  to  their  respective  sons,  kill  the 
woman  and  then  themselves.  The  news  reaches  Greif  at  his  university,  but  his 
father's  letter  does  not  appear.  His  friend  (in  reality  his  half-brother)  Rex,  son  of 
Rieseneck,  learns  all;  but  keeps  the  secret  to  himself,  and  goes  with  Greif  to  his  home. 
Greif  wishes  to  release  his  cousin,  Hilda  von  Sigmundskron,  from  her  betrothal  vows 
to  him ;  but  she  refuses  to  give  him  up,  and  finally  he  assumes  the  name  of  Sigmunds- 
kron and  marries  her.  After  a  happy  year  the  baron's  letter  turns  up  in  an  old  coat, 
and  Greif  discovers  the  whole  truth.  He  is  plunged  into  the  depths  of  despair  but 
Hilda  tears  up  the  letter,  thus  destroying  all  evidence  of  the  ugly  secret,  and  by  her 
love  and  devotion  she  finally  brings  him  to  a  more  cheerful  state  of  mind.  Meantime 
Rex  discovers  that  he  has  fallen  in  love  unwittingly  with  Hilda.  In  consequence  he 
tries  to  shoot  himself,  but  is  prevented  from  doing  so  by  Greif  and  Hilda,  who  have  a 
deep  affection  for  him,  and  who  finally  persuade  him  that  life  is  still  full  of  oppor- 
tunity, and,  in  time,  of  happiness.  The  events  of  the  story  occur  in  Swabia;  and  the 
time  is  from  1888  onward.  The  incidental  pictures  of  German  university  life,  student 
duels,  etc.,  will  be  found  interesting. 

GREY  DAYS  AND  GOLD,  by  William  Winter  (1889)  is  a  record  of  the  author's 
wanderings  in  England  and  Scotland  and  of  his  impressions  of  beauty  in  those 
countries.  In  the  preface  he  writes:  "The  supreme  need  of  this  age  in  America  is  a 
practical  conviction  that  progress  does  not  consist  in  material  prosperity,  but  in 
spiritual  advancement.  Utility  has  long  been  exclusively  worshiped.  The  welfare 
of  the  future  lies  in  the  worship  of  beauty.  To  that  worship  these  pages  are  devoted. " 
The  book  is  written  with  the  enthusiasm  of  one  to  whom  a  new  world  has  opened. 
Because  the  author  sees  his  England  with  undimmed  eyes,  what  he  says  of  it  is  fresh 
and  vital  and  original.  The  classic  shrines  of  England,  the  haunts  of  Moore,  old 
York,  Bath,  and  Worcester,  Stratford.  London,  and  Edinburgh,  become  new  places 
and  new  cities  seen  for  the  first  time.  In  this  summer  light  of  appreciation  the  entire 
volume  is  steeped.  It  is  written  in  an  intimate  conversational  style,  with  the  warmth 
of  one  who  must  share  his  pleasant  memories  with  others. 


366  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

GRIFFITH  GAUNT,  or,  JEALOUSY,  by  Charles  Reade  (1866).  Griffith  Gaunt,  a 
gentleman  without  fortune,  marries  Catharine  Peyton,  a  Cumberland  heiress,  who  is 
a  devout  Roman  Catholic.  After  living  happily  together  for  eight  years,  the  couple 

—  each  of  whom  has  a  violent  temper,  in  the  husband  combined  with  insane  jealousy 

—  are  gradually  estranged  by  Catharine's  spiritual  adviser,  Father  Leonard,  an 
eloquent  young  priest.     Griffith  discovers  his  wife  and  Leonard  under  apparently 
suspicious  circumstances;  and  after  a  violent  scene  he  rides  away,  with  the  intention 
of  never  returning.     He  reaches  an  inn  in  an  adjoining  county,  where  he  is  nursed 
through  a  fever  by  the  innkeeper's  daughter,  Mercy  Vint.     Assuming  the  name  of 
his  illegitimate  brother,  Thomas  Leicester,  to  whom  he  bears  a  superficial  resem- 
blance, he  marries  Mercy.     Returning  to  his  old  home  to  obtain  a  sum  of  money 
belonging  to  him,  he  is  reconciled  to  Catharine  by  her  earlier  adviser,  Father  Francis. 
Under  a  false  pretext  he  goes  back  to  the  inn  to  break  with  Mercy;  but  finding  it  more 
difficult  than  he  had  anticipated,  he  defers  final  action,  and  returns  to  Cumberland. 
Here  he  is  received  by  Catharine  with  furious  reproaches  and  threats  against  his  life; 
his  crime  having  been  disclosed  to  her  through  the  real  Leicester,  and  her  maid 
Caroline  Ryder.     Griffith  disappears;  a  few  days  after,  a  body  that  is  discovered  in 
the  mere  near  the  house  is  identified  as  his.     Mrs.  Gaunt  is  indicted  for  his  murder, 
and  pleads  her  own  cause.     The  trial  is  going  against  her,  when  Mercy  appears  and 
proves  that  Griffith  is  alive,  and  that  the  body  is  that  of  Leicester.     Griffith  and 
Catharine  are  again  reconciled,  and  Mercy  marries  Catharine's  former  lover,  Sir 
George  Neville.     The  scene  is  laid  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.     The 
book  was  harshly  criticized,  both  in  England  and  America,  on  account  of  its  so-called 
immoral  teachings;  but  a  more  sober  judgment  has  given  it  a  high  place  among 
Reade's  novels.     It  was  dramatized  by  Daly  in  1866,  and  later  under  the  title  of 
'Jealousy/  by  the  author  himself. 

GRIHYA-SUTRAS,  THE,  rsee  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

GROATS-WORTH  OF  WIT  BOUGHT  WITH  A  MILLION  OF  REPENTANCE,  A, 

by  Robert  Greene.  This  piece  was  published  after  Greene's  death  in  1592 ;  and  is  his 
last  work.  In  it  the  author  tells  the  story  of  his  own  life.  Govinius,  an  old  usurer,  has 
two  sons,  Lucanio  and  Roberto.  Dying,  he  leaves  to  Lucanio  all  his  wealth,  and  to 
Roberto  "an  olde  Groate  (being  the  stock  I  first  began  with),  wherewith  I  wish  him 
to  buy  a  groatsworth  of  wit:  for  he,  in  my  life,  hath  reproved  my  manner  of  gaine." 
Lucanio  follows  in  his  father's  footsteps,  until  Roberto  introduces  him  to  a  beautiful 
harpy  who  first  despoils  him  of  his  wealth,  and  then  refuses  to  share  with  Roberto 
as  had  been  planned.  Roberto,  meeting  some  actors,  begins  to  write  plays.  His 
successes  obtain  for  him  the  friendship  of  an  old  gentleman,  whose  daughter  he 
marries,  but  whom  he  abuses  shamefully.  Not  until  he  is  dying  does  he  cry  out, 
locking  at  his  father's  present,  "Oh,  now  it  is  too  late" —  "Here  (gentlemen), 
breake  I  off  Roberto's  speech;  whose  life,  in  most  parts  agreeing  with  my  own,  found 
one  selfe  punishment  as  I  have  doone."  Greene  says  that  his  object  in  writing  is  to 
persuade  all  young  men  to  profit  by  his  errors,  and  change  their  mode  of  life.  This 
work  is  remembered  only  because  it  contains  the  earliest  notice  of  Shakespeare  in 
London.  Greene,  calling  upon  Marlowe,  Nash,  and  Peele  to  leave  off  writing  for 
the  stage,  speaks  of  "an  upstart  crow,  beautified  with  our  feathers,"  who  "supposes 
he  is  as  well  able  to  burnbast  out  a  blank  verse  as  the  best  of  you;  and  being  an 
absolute  Johannes  factotum,  is,  in  his  own  conceit,  the  only  Shake- scene  in  the 
countrie." 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  367 

GROUND  ARMS  ('Die  Waff  en  Nieder'),  by  the  Baroness  Bertha  Felicie  Sofie  von 
Suttner  (2  vols.,  1889).  This  novel  has  been  often  republished  since  its  appearance 
and  rendered  into  nearly  all  the  European  languages.  The  English  translation  was 
made  in  1892  by  F.  Holmes,  at  the  request  of  the  committee  of  the  "International 
Arbitration  and  Peace  Association*'  —  under  the  title  'Lay  Down  Your  Arms.' 

The  story  is  told  in  the  form  of  a  journal  kept  by  a  German  noblewoman,  whose 
life  covered  the  period  of  Germany's  recent  wars.  This  lady  relates  the  emotional 
and  spiritual  life  of  a  woman  during  that  terrible  experience,  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  her  story  an  appeal  for  the  cessation  of  war.  Having  lost  her  young  husband 
in  the  war  with  Italy,  she  has  lived  only  for  her  son  and  her  grief.  In  her  maturity 
she  meets  and  marries  Friedrich  von  Tilling,  an  Austrian  officer,  who,  after  years  of 
close  companionship,  is  forced  to  leave  her  and  her  unborn  child,  at  the  new  call  to 
arms.  The  Schleswig-Holstein  difficulty,  the  Austro-Prussian  war,  and  finally  the 
war  with  France,  tear  the  family  apart.  The  wife  endures  the  fear  of  her  husband's 
death,  the  actual  suffering  of  sympathy  with  his  wound,  the  horrors  of  plague,  famine, 
and  the  sickening  sights  of  a  besieged  city;  and  at  last,  when  Von  Tilling  has  retired 
from  active  service,  and  is  with  her  in  Paris  for  the  winter,  the  blind  hatred  of  the 
French  towards  their  conquerors  overtakes  their  new  dream  of  happiness.  The 
Austrian  is  seized  and  shot  as  a  Prussian  spy.  Not  only  has  the  author  presented  a 
convincing  picture  of  the  untold  suffering,  the  far-reaching  loss  and  retrogression 
involved  in  war,  but  she  shows  the  pitiful  inadequacy  of  the  causes  of  war.  Many  a 
German  woman  recognizes  in  Martha  Tilling 's  tragical  journal  the  unwritten  record 
of  her  own  pain  and  despair. 

GROWTH  OF  BRITISH  INDUSTRY  AND  COMMERCE,  THE,  by  William 
Cunningham  (1882.  5th  ed.  1912).  The  aim  of  the  author  of  this  work  is  twofold,  to 
show  how  intimately  the  political  and  economic  history  of  the  English  nation  have 
been  interconnected  and  to  describe  the  actual  course  of  the  material  progress  of 
England.  The  first  volume  deals  with  early  and  mediaeval  times  —  the  primitive 
English  in  Frisia,  the  Norman  Conquest,  the  Danish  invasion,  the  rise  of  feudalism, 
the  beginnings  of  commercial  policy,  the  craft  gilds,  the  growth  of  a  mercantile  class, 
and  of  industry  and  internal  trade,  the  age  of  discovery  and  the  extension  of  English 
commerce  under  the  Tudors.  The  second  volume  discusses  the  mercantile  system; 
the  patriotic  spirit  of  the  Elizabethans  and  the  ambition  for  maritime  power  as  a 
mainstay  of  national  defense,  as  an  instrument  of  attack  on  commercial  rivals,  and 
as  a  means  of  expansion;  the  landed  and  moneyed  interests  under  Elizabeth;  the 
trading  companies  under  the  Stuarts;  the  parliamentary  regulation  of  commercial 
development  after  the  Revolution.  Volume  iii.  covers  the  laissez  faire  period,  — 
the  industrial  revolution,  the  introduction  of  machinery  in  the  textile  trades,  the 
movement  for  factory  legislation.  The  author's  view  of  laissez  faire  in  commerce 
is  that  it  might  be  wise  to  abandon  the  policy  for  the  sake  of  securing  the  food  supply 
and  of  obtaining  an  open  door  for  manufactures.  These  volumes  are  indispensable 
to  every  serious  student  of  the  subject.  They  are  fully  indexed.  The  table  of 
contents  is  practically  a  synopsis.  The  text  of  a  number  of  the  original  sources  is 
given  in  an  appendix,  and  there  is  an  ample  bibliography. 

GRYLL  GRANGE,  by  Thomas  Love  Peacock.  The  plot  of  this,  as  of  all  of  Peacock's 
novels,  is  very  simple.  The  heroine  is  Morgana  Gryll,  niece  and  heiress  of  Squire 
Gryll,  who  has  persistently  refused  all  offers  of  marriage,  of  which  she  has  had  many. 
The  hero,  Algernon  Falconer,  is  a  youth  of  fortune,  who  lives  in  a  lonely  tower  in 


368  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

New  Forest,  attended  by  seven  foster  sisters,  and  with  every  intention  of  continuing 
his  singular  mode  of  life.  Morgana  and  Algernon  are  brought  together  by  the  famil- 
iar device  of  an  accident  to  the  lady  which  compels  her  to  spend  several  days  at  the 
tower.  A  sub-plot  of  equal  simplicity  is  given  in  the  love-affairs  of  Lord  Curryfin 
and  Alice  Niphet.  The  most  interesting  character  in  the  book  is  the  Rev.  Doctor 
Opimian,  a  lover  of  Greek  and  madeira,  who  serves  as  a  mouthpiece  for  the  author's 
reactionary  views  on  modern  inventions,  reforms,  education,  and  competitive 
examinations.  The  material  side  of  his  character  is  summed  up  in  his  own  words, 
"Whatever  happens  in  this  world,  never  let  it  spoil  your  dinner."  'Gryll  Grange' 
was  Peacock's  last  novel,  having  been  published  in  serial  form  in  i860. 

GUARDIAN  ANGEL,  THE,  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  (1867).  The  author  says  in 
his  preface:  "I  have  attempted  to  show  the  successive  evolution  of  some  inherited 
qualities  in  the  character  of  Myrtle  Hazard."  The  story  opens  in  1859  in  the  New 
England  village  of  Oxbow.  Myrtle,  a  beautiful  orphan  of  fifteen,  born  in  tropical 
climes,  descended  from  a  line  of  ancestors  of  widely  varying  natures,  lives  with  an 
austere  and  uncongenial  aunt,  who  fails  utterly  to  control  her  turbulent,  glowing 
impulses.  Disguised  as  a  boy  she  runs  away,  is  rescued  from  drowning  by  Clement 
Lindsay,  a  handsome  young  sculptor,  and  brought  home  by  Professor  Gridley.  An 
illness  follows  which  leaves  her  for  a  time  hysterical,  highly  impressionable,  prone  to 
seeing  visions,  and  taking  strong  fancies.  Thanks  to  the  watchful  care  of  Professor 
Gridley  (whom  she  afterward  calls  her  "Guardian  Angel ")  she  emerges  safe  from  this 
state,  and  is  sent  to  a  city  school  to  complete  her  education.  Among  her  suitors  is 
Murray  Bradshaw,  a  lawyer  possessed  of  the  secret  that  under  an  old  will  she  is  likely 
to  come  into  a  large  fortune.  He  plots  to  win  her,  but  is  balked  by  Professor  Gridley  ; 
and  she  gives  her  love  to  Clement  Lindsay,  who  joins  the  army  and  rises  to  the  rank 
of  Colonel.  During  the  war  she  goes  with  him  to  the  front,  and  "In  the  offices  of 
mercy  which  she  performed  ...  (in  the  hospital)  .  .  .  the  dross  of  her  nature 
seemed  to  be  burned  away.  The  conflict  of  mingled  lives  in  her  blood  had  ceased." 
Dr.  Holmes's  characteristic  wit  is  shown  in  many  of  the  shrewd  sayings  of  the  kindly 
old  Professor  and  other  characters,  and  his  delightful  enthusiasm  makes  the  book 
more  interesting  than  most  more  formally  constructed  novels. 

GTJLISTAN;  or,  ROSE  GARDEN,  by  Sa'di.  (The  Sheikh  Muslih-ud-din  was  his  real 
name.)  He  was  born  about  1193  at  Shiraz;  and  after  many  years  of  travel  (once 
captured  by  the  Christian  Crusaders  he  was  fighting),  and  visiting  all  the  chief 
countries  and  cities  of  Asia,  he  settled  down  in  a  hermitage  at  Shiraz,  and  wrote  many 
works,  including  the  'Gulistan.'  He  has  been  called  "The  Nightingale  of  Shiraz," 
and  his  works  "the  salt-cellar  of  poets. "  Emerson  so  admired  him  that  he  frequently 
used  his  name  as  an  alias  in  his  poems.  Sa'di 's  daughter  married  the  poet  Hafiz. 
The  'Gulistan'  is  a  poetical  work,  and  consists  of  fascinating  stories  or  anecdotes, 
with  a  moral,  like  the  parables  of  the  Bible.  They  are  replete  with  homely  wisdom 
and  life  experience;  the  prose  portions  are  interspersed  with  verses  out  of  Sa'di's 
wide  experience  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  many  men.  Their  great  charm  can 
only  be  known  by  reading  them.  Delicacy,  simplicity,  and  bonhomie  are  the  chief 
features  of  Sa'di's  style. 

GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS,  Jonathan  Swift's  most  famous  book,  was  published  in 
1 727.  It  is  onu  of  the  most  brilliant  and  profound  of  satires,  one  of  the  most  imagina- 
tive of  stories,  and  one  of  the  best  models  of  style.  ' Gulliver's  Travels'  was  given 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  369 

to  the  world  anonymously;  though  a  few  of  Swift's  friends,  including  Pope,  Gay, 
Bolingbroke,  and  Arbuthnot,  were  in  the  secret.  It  became  immediately  popular, 
and  has  never  lost  its  interest  for  both  young  and  old.  " 'Gulliver's  Travels/ "  says 
Leslie  Stephen,  "belongs  to  a  literary  genus  full  of  grotesque  and  anomalous  forms. 
Its  form  is  derived  from  some  of  the  imaginary  travels  of  which  Lucian's  'True  History' 
—  itself  a  burlesque  of  some  early  travelers'  tales  —  is  the  first  example.  But  it  has 
an  affinity  to  such  books  as  Bacon's  'Atlantis'  and  More's  'Utopia/  and  again  to 
later  philosophical  romances  like  'Candide'  and  'Rasselas.'"  It  begins  with  Gulli- 
ver's account  of  himself  and  his  setting  forth  upon  the  travels.  A  violent  storm  off 
Van  Diemen's  Land  drives  him,  the  one  survivor,  to  Lilliput,  where  he  is  examined 
with  curiosity  by  the  tiny  folk.  They  call  him  the  "man-mountain,"  and  make 
rules  for  his  conduct.  With  equal  curiosity  he  learns  their  arts  of  civilization 
and  warfare.  His  next  voyage  is  to  Brobdingnag,  where  he  is  a  Lilliputian  in 
comparison  to  the  size  of  the  gigantic  inhabitants  of  this  strange  land,  in  which  he 
becomes  a  court  toy.  In  Brobdingnag,  Scott  says  Swift  looked  through  the  other 
end  of  the  telescope,  wishing  to  show  the  grossness  of  mankind  as  he  had  shown 
their  pettiness. 

The  next  adventure  is  a  voyage  to  Laputa,  where  the  inhabitants  are  absorbed  in 
intellectual  and  scientific  pursuits,  and  "taken  up  with  intense  speculations,"  and 
their  conduct  is  most  eccentric;  this  is  probably  a  satire  upon  pedantry.  Gulliver 
next  visits  Balnibarbi,  Luggnagg,  and  Japan,  and  gives  an  account  of  the  Struldbrugs, 
a  famous  tribe  of  men  who  have  gained  physical  immortality  without  immortal  youth, 
and  find  it  an  awful  curse.  The  last  voyage  takes  the  traveler  into  the  country  of  the 
Houyhnhnms,  where  the  horses  under  this  name  have  an  ideal  government,  —  Swift's 
Utopia,  —  and  are  immensely  superior  to  the  Yahoos,  the  embodiment  of  bestial 
mankind.  The  irony  and  satire  may  be  understood  when  one  remembers  that  Swift 
said:  "  Upon  the  great  foundation  of  misanthropy  the  whole  building  of  my  travels  is 
erected";  and  the  remark  that  the  King  of  Brobdingnag  made  to  Gulliver  —  "The 
bulk  of  your  natives  appear  to  me  to  be  the  most  pernicious  race  of  little  odious 
vermin  that  Nature  ever  suffered  to  crawl  upon  the  face  of  the  earth"  — may  be 
accepted  as  the  opinion  of  the  cynic  himself  regarding  mankind.  Hazlitt  said  that 
in  '  Gulliver's  Travels '  Swift  took  a  view  of  human  nature  such  as  might  be  taken  by 
a  being  of  another  sphere.  His  description  of  Brobdingnagian  literature  has  been  ap- 
plied to  the  masterly  prose  of  his  great  book:  "Their  style  is  clear,  masculine,  and 
smooth,  but  not  florid;  for  they  avoid  nothing  more  than  multiplying  unnecessary 
words,  or  using  various  expressions." 

GUN-MAKER  OF  MOSCOW,  THE,  by  Sylvanus  Cobb,  Jr.  (1888),  tells  the  story  of 
Ruric  Nevel,  a  Russian  armorer,  who  lived  in  Moscow  toward  the  close  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  It  is  a  fair  example  of  the  stories  of  this  prolific  writer,  very  popular 
with  a  certain  class. 

The  youth  loves  and  is  loved  by  a  young  duchess,  Rosalind  Valdai.  Her  guar- 
dian, the  Duke  of  Tula,  opposes  Ruric  because  he  wishes  to  repair  his  own  shattered 
fortunes  by  marrying  Rosalind  and  securing  her  riches;  and  he  plots  the  death  of 
another  of  Rosalind's  suitors,  Count  Damonoff,  in  order  to  secure  his  estates. 

Hoping  to  provoke  a  quarrel,  he  sends  the  Count  to  Ruric  demanding  that  he 
renounce  Rosalind.  A  quarrel  ensues,  and  Damonoff  challenges  the  young  gun- 
maker,  who  in  the  meanwhile  has  secretly  received  Rosalind's  pledges  of  constancy. 
In  the  duel  Ruric  repeatedly  spares  Damonoff's  life,  but  the  Count's  frenzy  compels 
him  to  inflict  a  wound  in  self-defense.  The  whole  affair  has  been  witnessed  by  the 


37°  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Emperor,  Peter  the  Great,  in  the  guise  of  Valdimir,  a  Black  Monk  of  St.  Michael,  who 
thereafter  takes  a  secret  interest  in  Ruric.  The  Duke  of  Tula  hales  the  young  gun- 
maker  before  the  Emperor  upon  the  double  charge  of  murder  and  assault.  To  prove 
that  skill  had  defeated  the  Count,  Ruric  engages  in  a  friendly  sword  contest  with 
Demetrius,  the  Emperor's  sword-master,  and  vanquishes  him.  The  Emperor  ex- 
claims with  pleasure:  "  Now,  Ruric  Nevel,  if  you  leave  Moscow  without  my  consent, 
you  do  so  at  your  peril.  I  would  not  lose  sight  of  you.  You  are  at  liberty. ' ' 

The  baffled  Duke  now  seeks  to  wed  his  ward  Rosalind;  but,  repulsed,  threatens  to 
seize  her  by  violence.  He  employs  Savotano,  a  villainous  priest,  to  poison  Damonoff 
while  pretending  to  nurse  him;  and  pays  him  to  make  way  with  Ruric  also.  Ruric 
and  the  dying  Count  become  reconciled,  however,  and  Ruric  saves  the  Count's  life; 
but  is  himself  lured  by  the  Duke's  men  to  an  ambush,  whence  he  is  rescued  from 
death  by  the  Emperor  (still  disguised  as  Valdimir).  The  monk  and  Ruric  now 
hasten  to  the  castle,  and  arrive  in  time  to  prevent  the  Duke  from  forcing  Rosalind 
to  marry  him.  Valdimir  discloses  his  identity,  much  to  the  terror  of  the  plotters. 
The  Duke  is  banished,  Savotano  executed,  and  Ruric,  endowed  with  the  Duke's 
lands  and  titles,  marries  Rosalind  in  the  royal  palace. 

GUNNAR:  'A  Tale  of  Norse  Life,'  by  Hjalmar  Hjorth  Boyesen  (1874).  'Gun- 
nar,'  the  one  romance  of  Boyesen,  is  also  the  earliest  of  his  works  of  fiction.  The 
scene  of  the  story  is  a  small  parish  in  Bergen  Stift,  where  Gunnar  Thorson  lives  in  the 
little  hamlet  Henjumhei  with  his  father,  Thor  Gunnarson,  and  his  grandmother,  old 
Gunhild.  Gunnar's  mother,  Birgit,  having  died  when  he  was  a  baby,  his  father  and 
grandmother  bring  him  up  carefully;  and  the  latter  fills  his  mind  with  stories  of 
Huldre  and  Necken,  and  other  strange  creations  of  Norse  mythology.  As  his  father 
Thor  is  only  a  houseman  or  rent-payer,  a  sharp  distinction  is  drawn  between  him  and 
the  families  of  the  neighboring  gaardmen  or  landowners.  One  of  the  chief  of  these  is 
Atle  Larsson,  Thor's  landlord  and  the  leading  man  in  the  parish.  As  Gunnar  grows 
up,  he  falls  in  love  with  the  beautiful  Ragnhild,  "a  birch  in  the  pine  forest, "  niece  of 
Atle,  and  daughter  of  his  haughty  sister,  Ingeborg  Rimul.  It  is  the  love  affair  of 
Gunnar  and  Ragnhild  which  forms  the  texture  of  the  story,  —  its  troubled  course,  the 
dangers  encountered,  the  loyalty  and  patience  of  the  lovers.  'Gunnar'  carries  the 
reader  into  an  unfamiliar  world  of  romance  and  poetry,  where  he  comes  in  contact 
with  the  minds  of  the  simple  Norwegian  peasants,  with  their  beliefs  in  fairies  and 
other  mystical  beings.  Many  of  their  customs  are  described:  the  games  of  St. 
John's  Eve,  the  ski  race,  the  wedding  festivities  at  Peer  Berg's,  and  some  of  the 
religious  ceremonies,  such  as  those  attending  confirmation. 

GUY  LIVINGSTONE,  by  George  Alfred  Lawrence.  This  novel,  published  in  Eng- 
land in  1857,  was  the  first  of  a  class  of  stories  which  extol  and  glorify  a  hero  endowed 
with  great  muscular  strength  and  physical  prowess;  and  while  not  representing  any 
particular  school  of  thought  or  f eeling,  it  expressed  an  increasing  demand  for  a  literary 
model  possessed  of  strength  and  sternness  both  of  mind  and  body.  Guy  Livingstone 
is  a  young  Englishman  of  wealth,  who  combines  enormous  physical  strength  with 
grimness  and  ferocity  of  disposition.  His  pugilistic  prowess  enables  him  to  thrash 
prize-fighters  and  perform  various  remarkable  exploits,  which  are  admiringly  chroni- 
cled by  Livingstone's  intimate  friend  Hammond,  the  raconteur  of  the  story,  who  is 
entertained  among  other  guests  at  the  hero's  ancestral  hall,  Kerton  Manor  in  North- 
amptonshire. Here  had  dwelt  Guy's  ancestors,  whose  portraits  were  characterized 
by  "the  same  expression  of  sternness  and  decision"  as  distinguished 'their  powerful 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  371 

descendant.  In  this  circle  of  friends  are  Mr.  Forrester,  a  dandified  life-guardsman; 
Miss  Raymond,  with  whom  Forrester  is  in  love;  and  Flora  Bellasys,  a  voluptuous 
beauty.  Mr.  John  Bruce,  a  Scotchman,  is  introduced,  who  is  engaged  to  Miss 
Raymond,  and  who  is  made  uncomfortable  by  the  other  guests  on  account  of  his  lack 
of  suitable  enthusiasm  for  field  sports.  Forrester  and  Miss  Raymond  afterwards 
elope,  aided  by  Livingstone,  whose  engagement  to  Miss  Constance  Brandon,  a 
beautiful  young  woman  of  refined  tastes,  soon  takes  place.  In  a  thoughtless  moment 
the  hero  flirts  with  Flora,  and  is  discovered  by  Constance  kissing  her  rival  in  a  con- 
servatory. Constance  at  once  casts  Livingstone  off,  and  then  pines  away  and  dies, 
after  summoning  her  lover  to  her  bedside,  which  he  reaches  in  time  for  a  last  inter- 
view, in  which  she  foretells  his  early  death.  He  is  stricken  with  brain  fever,  and 
during  his  convalescence  is  visited  by  Flora,  whom  he  refuses  either  to  see  or  to  for- 
give. He  emerges  from  his  sick-room  changed  and  softened  in  nature.  He  goes  to 
Italy;  where  he  tracks  down  Bruce,  who  has  barbarously  murdered  his  rival  Forrester, 
and  wrings  from  him  a  confession  of  guilt.  Returning  to  Kerton,  Livingstone  gets  a 
fatal  fall  from  his  enormous  horse  Axeine,  who  rolls  on  him  and  crushes  his  spine, 
He  dies  after  some  weeks  of  torture.  The  book  enjoyed  a  wide  popularity,  and  is  the 
best  known  of  the  author's  works. 

GUY  HANKERING,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott.  '  Guy  Mannering,'  the  second  of  Scott's 
novels,  appeared  anonymously  in  1815,  seven  months  after  'Waverley.'  It  is  said 
to  have  been  the  result  of  six  weeks'  work,  and  by  some  critics  is  thought  to  show  the 
marks  of  haste.  Its  time  is  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  its  scene  chiefly 
Scotland.  Guy  Mannering  himself  is  a  young  Englishman,  at  the  opening  of  the 
story  traveling  through  Scotland.  Belated  one  night,  he  is  hospitably  received  at 
New  Place,  the  home  of  the  Laird  of  Ellangowan.  When  the  laird  learns  that  the 
young  man  has  studied  astrology,  he  begs  him  to  cast  the  horoscope  of  his  son,  born 
that  very  night. 

The  young  man,  carrying  out  his  promise,  is  dismayed  to  find  two  possible 
catastrophes  overhanging  the  boy:  one  at  his  fifth,  the  other  at  his  twenty-first  year. 
He  tells  the  father,  however,  what  he  has  discovered,  in  order  that  he  may  have  due 
warning;  and  later  proceeds  on  his  way. 

The  fortunes  of  the  Laird  of  Ellangowan,  Godfrey  Bertram,  are  now  on  the  ebb, 
and  he  has  hardly  money  to  keep  up  the  estate.  His  troubles  are  increased  when  his 
son  Harry,  at  the  age  of  five,  is  spirited  away.  No  one  can  learn  whether  the  child  is 
dead  or  alive,  and  the  shock  at  once  kills  Mrs.  Bertram.  After  some  years  the 
father  himself  dies,  leaving  his  penniless  daughter  Lucy  to  the  care  of  Dominie 
Sampson,  an  old  teacher  and  a  devoted  friend  of  the  family.  When  things  are  at  their 
worst  for  Lucy  Bertram,  Guy  Mannering,  returning  to  England  after  many  years' 
military  service  in  India,  hears  accidentally  of  the  straits  to  which  she  is  reduced. 
He  at  once  invites  her  and  Dominie  Sampson  to  make  their  home  with  him  and  his 
daughter  Julia.  He  has  leased  a  fine  estate,  and  Dominie  Sampson  rejoices  in  the 
great  collection  of  books  to  which  Colonel  Mannering  gives  him  free  access.  In 
India  Julia  had  formed  an  attachment  for  Vanbeest  Brown,  a  young  officer,  against 
whom  her  father  feels  a  strong  prejudice.  Captain  Brown  has  followed  the  Manner- 
ings  to  England;  and  to  make  a  long  story  short,  is  proved  in  the  end  to  be  the  long- 
lost  Harry  Bertram,  and  Lucy's  brother.  The  abduction  had  been  accomplished 
with  the  connivance  of  Meg  Merrilies,  a  gipsy  of  striking  aspect  and  six  feet  tall;  of 
Frank  Kennedy,  a  smuggler;  Dirk  Hatteraick,  a  Dutch  sea-captain,  also  concerned  in 
smuggling;  and  of  Gilbert  Glossin,  once  agent  for  the  Laird  of  Ellangowan.  Glossin 


372  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

had  aimed  to  get  possession  of  the  laird's  property,  and  finally  succeeded;  but  aftei 
the  discovery  of  his  crime,  he  dies  a  violent  death  in  prison. 

All  told,  there  are  fewer  than  twoscore  characters  in  'Guy  Mannering/  and  the 
plot  is  not  very  complicated.  Meg  Merrilies,  and  Dominie  Sampson  the  uncouth, 
honest  pedant,  are  the  only  great  creations. 

GUY  OF  WARWICK.  This  old  metrical  romance  belongs  to  that  Anglo-Danish 
cycle  from  which  the  Norman  trouveres  drew  so  much  material.  'King  Horn1  is 
perhaps  the  most  famous  poem  of  this  cycle,  but  '  Guy  of  Warwick '  was  one  of  the 
most  popular  of  those  which  appeared  in  the  thirteenth  century.  The  earliest 
existing  manuscripts  of  this  romance  are  in  French;  though  it  is  supposed  to  have 
been  written  by  Walter  of  Exeter,  a  Cornish  Franciscan.  It  consists  of  about  12,000 
verses,  iambic  measure,  arranged  in  rhymed  couplets.  Although  the  value  of  this 
poem  is  less  as  literature  than  as  a  picture  of  ancient  English  manners,  the  story  has 
considerable  interest  as  an  example  of  the  kind  of  fiction  that  pleased  our  ancestors. 
The  hero,  Guy,  is  represented  as  the  son  of  a  gentleman  of  Warwick,  living  in  the 
reign  of  King  Edgar.  The  youth  becomes  great,  after  the  fashion  of  mediaeval  heroes, 
entirely  through  his  own  unaided  efforts.  He  is  spurred  on  by  his  love  for  Felicia, 
daughter  of  Earl  Rohand,  for  at  first  she  scorns  his  suit  because  he  has  not  distin- 
guished himself;  but  when  he  sets  out  in  search  of  adventures,  they  come  thick  and 
fast.  He  wins  in  a  fight  with  Philbertus,  kills  a  monstrous  dun  cow,  makes  peace 
between  the  Duke  of  Lovain  and  the  Emperor,  slays  a  dragon  and  a  boar,  with  the 
help  of  Herraud  rescues  Earl  Terry's  lady  from  sixteen  villains,  travels  with  Terry 
and  saves  his  father's  life,  and  finally  returns  home  to  claim  his  bride.  Not  long 
after,  he  leaves  Felicia  to  go  on  a  pilgrimage.  On  his  return,  finding  England  in- 
vaded by  the  Danes,  he  kills  in  single  combat  the  Danish  giant,  Colbrond.  After  his 
victory,  entirely  weary  of  the  world,  he  retires  to  a  cave  and  lives  a  hermit's  life ;  all 
this  time  he  is  supported  by  alms,  and  sees  no  more  of  Felicia  except  for  one  brief 
interview  just  before  he  dies.  Though  Guy  is  probably  a  fictitious  character,  definite 
dates  are  given  for  his  life,  and  he  is  said  to  have  died  about  929.  For  those  who  can 
follow  the  quaintness  of  its  middle  English  style,  this  poem  is  very  attractive.  The 
story  has  been  told  in  an  excellent  modern  prose  rendering  also. 

GUZMAN  D'ALFARACHE,  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  OF,  THE,  by  Mateo  Ale- 
man.  This  romance,  dealing  with  the  lives  and  adventures  of  picaros  or  rogues, 
contains  more  varied  and  highly  colored  pictures  of  thieves,  beggars,  and  outlaws 
than  any  other  work  in  this  peculiar  department  of  Spanish  literature.  It  is  divided 
into  two  parts,  of  which  the  first  was  published  in  1599,  the  second  in  1605.  Guzman 
relates  his  own  life  from  his  birth  up  to  the  moment  when  his  crimes  consign  him  to 
the  galleys.  When  a  mere  boy,  he  runs  away  from  his  mother  after  his  father's  death ; 
goes  to  Madrid,  where  he  is  by  turns  scullion,  cook,  and  errand  boy;  escapes  to  Toledo 
with  some  money  intrusted  to  him,  and  sets  up  as  a  fine  gentleman.  After  wasting 
all  his  money  in  profligacy  he  enlists,  is  sent  to  Italy,  and  quickly  becomes  the 
associate  of  cutpurses  and  vagabonds  of  every  description.  He  is  a  versatile  rascal, 
and  feels  equally  at  home  among  beggars  and  in  the  palace  of  a  Roman  cardinal,  who 
takes  an  interest  in  him  and  makes  him  his  page.  But  his  natural  depravity  does  not 
allow  him  to  hold  this  position  long;  and  he  returns  to  Spain,  where  he  eventually 
becomes  a  lackey  in  the  French  ambassador's  household.  The  adventures  he  meets 
with  there  form  the  closing  chapters  of  the  story.  The  work  was  immensely  popular, 
ran  through  several  editions,  and  was  translated  into  French  and  English  imme- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  373 

diately  after  its  appearance.  The  episodes  and  long  philosophical  digressions,  which 
now  seem  tedious  and  foreign  to  the  action,  were  then  greatly  admired.  Ben  Jonson, 
in  his  poem  prefixed  to  Mabbe's  translation,  describes  the  hero  as  "The  Spanish 
Proteus  .  .  .  formed  with  the  world's  wit."  Though  inferior  to  Mendoza's  'Laza- 
rillo '  in  grace  and  vivacity,  this  romance  enables  us  to  get  a  clear  idea  of  certain 
aspects  of  society  in  the  Spain  and  Italy  of  the  sixteenth  century,  notwithstanding 
the  exaggeration  and  excess  of  color  in  its  descriptions.  The  French  translation  by 
Le  Sage  omits  the  digressions  and  philosophical  reflections  of  the  original,  to  which 
it  is  far  superior. 

HAIL  AND  FAREWELL,  by  George  Moore  (1911-14,  3  vols.).  George  Moore's 
reminiscences  about  Ireland  and  himself  and  his  friends  give  the  effect  of  a  novel  in 
which  the  characters  are  real  people,  W.  B.  Yeats,  Lady  Gregory,  Edward  Martyn, 
and  others.  He  returns  to  Ireland  after  many  years  absence  impressed  with  the 
belief  that  he  has  a  mission  to  restore  the  ancient  glory  of  Ireland  by  reviving  the 
Irish  language.  One  reason  for  leaving  England  is  his  hatred  for  the  Boer  war. 
Incidentally  the  Westminster  Trust  Company,  determined  to  make  improvements 
in  his  London  home,  is  an  amusing  factor  in  his  flight.  He  sits  astride  his  window  sill 
in  the  early  morning  to  keep  the  workmen  away,  and  is  only  ousted  by  fear  of  pneu- 
monia, which  loses  him  half  his  sill  before  he  can  dress  sufficiently  to  save  it. 

1  Ave, '  the  first  volume  of  this  trilogy  of  confidences,  tells  of  the  beginnings  of  the 
Irish  Literary  Theatre  with  plays  by  Yeats  and  Edward  Martyn.  His  friend,  Martyn, 
he  considers  "as  typical  of  Ireland  as  Sancho  Panza  is  of  Spain.  In  the  book  he 
seems  to  me  to  set  forth  not  only  the  Irish  attitude  of  mind  towards  religious  prob- 
lems, he  seems  to  reflect  the  Irish  landscape, the  Catholic  landscape/'  For  Yeats 
"lank  as  a  rook,  a-dream  in  black  silhouette  on  the  flowered  wall-paper,"  he  has 
profound  admiration,  though  he  caricatures  him  as  a  "literary  fop"  and  accentuates 
his  personal  eccentricities.  Mr.  Douglas  Hyde  and  other  members  of  the  group  are 
more  or  less  sympathetically  sketched.  The  hero  of  the  second  volume  '  Salve '  is 
the  poet,  "A.  E.,"  George  Edward  Russell.  "A.  E."  finds  a  house  for  Moore  and 
his  Manets  and  Monets  about  which  Moore  talks  delightfully.  They  make  a  pil- 
grimage together  to  the  ancient  cromlechs  of  the  Druids  in  search  of  the  gods,  who 
for  one  cause  and  another  do  not  reveal  themselves  as  expected. 

After  much  reflection  and  discussion,  Moore  comes  to  the  conviction  that  the 
Roman  Catholic  church  is  hostile  to  art,  and  that  "dogma  and  literature  are  in- 
compatible." Protestanism  only  can  free  Ireland  by  removing  the  shackles  of  the 
mind.  The  book  closes  with  his  denunciation  of  the  Catholic  church,  and  his 
reception  into  the  Anglican  communion. 

The  first  part  of  volume  iii,  '  Vale, '  is  a  frank  description  of  his  gay  past  as  an 
art  student  in  Paris.  As  in  all  his  reminiscences  he  confesses  for  his  friends  as  well  as 
himself,  and  lives  up  to  his  favorite  motto  "to  be  ashamed  of  nothing  but  of  being 
ashamed." 

The  character  sketches,  anecdotes,  and  conversations  on  art,  music,  and  literature 
make  an  interesting  personal  picture  of  the  author  and  his  friends  in  the  Irish  literary 
group. 

HAJJI BABA  OF  ISPAHAN,  THE  ADVENTURES  OF,  a  picaresque  novel  or  narra- 
tive of  roguery  by  James  Morier,  published  in  1824,  and  followed  in  1828  by  'Hajji 
Baba  in  England.1  The  writer  had  spent  some  years  in  Persia  in  the  English  diplo- 
matic service,  and  under  the  guise  of  Hajji  Baba,  an  adventurer  like  Gil  Bias,  he 


374  •  TflE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

gives  in  this  book  a  first-hand  picture  of  Persian  society.  The  hero  is  in  succession  a 
barber,  a  robber,  a  servant,  a  doctor's  assistant,  an  executioner's  assistant,  a  religious 
fanatic,  and  a  tobacco  dealer.  At  length  he  marries  a  rich  widow,  becomes  a  govern- 
ment official,  and  accompanies  the  ambassador  to  England.  The  book  is  witty, 
entertaining,  and  shows  a  marvelous  adaptation  to  Oriental  ways  of  thought  and  a 
thorough  acquaintance  with  Oriental  institutions. 

HALF-CENTURY  OF  CONFLICT,  A,  see  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND  IN  NORTH 
AMERICA. 

HAMLET  is  Shakespeare's  longest  and  most  famous  play.  It  draws  when  acted  a* 
full  a  house  to-day  as  it  ever  did.  It  is  the  drama  of  the  intellect,  of  the  soul,  of  man, 
of  domestic  tragedy.  Five  quarto  editions  appeared  during  the  poet's  life,  the  firsl 
in  1603.  The  story,  Shakespeare  probably  found  in  'The  Historic  of  Hamblet,' 
translated  from  the  French  of  Belleforest,  who  in  turn  translated  it  from  the  Danish 
History  of  Saxo  Grammaticus.  It  has  been  deduced  that  he  drew  some  of  the  dramatic 
material  from  a  lost  'Hamlet, '  probably  the  work  of  Thomas  Kyd,  the  author  of  the 
popular  'Spanish  Tragedy.'  Shakespeare's  play,  like  many  contemporary  tragedies, 
deals  with  revenge.  Some  time  in  winter  ("'tis  bitter  cold"),  the  scene  opens  on 
a  terrace  in  front  of  the  castle  of  Kronberg  in  Elsinore,  Denmark.  The  ghost  of  his 
father  appears  to  Hamlet,  moody  and  depressed  over  his  mother's  marriage  with 
Claudius,  her  brother-in-law.  Hamlet  learns  from  his  father  the  fatal  secret  of  his 
death  at  the  hands  of  Claudius.  He  devises  the  court-play  as  a  trap  in  which  to 
catch  his  uncle's  conscience;  breaks  his  engagement  with  Ophelia;  kills  the  wary  old 
counselor  Polonius;  and  is  sent  off  to  England  under  the  escort  of  the  treacherous 
courtiers  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern,  to  be  put  to  death.  On  the  way  he  rises 
in  the  night,  unseals  their  murderous  commission,  rewrites  it,  and  seals  it  with  his 
father's  ring,  having  worded  it  so  that  they  themselves  shall  be  the  victims  when  they 
reach  England.  In  a  fight  with  pirates  Hamlet  boards  their  ship,  and  is  conveyed 
by  them  back  to  Denmark,  where  he  tells  his  adventures  to  his  faithful  friend  Horatio. 
At  Ophelia's  grave  he  encounters  Laertes,  her  brother;  and  presently,  in  a  fencing 
bout  with  him,  is  killed  by  Laertes's  poisoned  sword,  but  not  before  he  has  stabbed  his 
treacherous  uncle  and  forced  the  fatal  cup  of  poison  down  his  throat.  His  mother 
Gertrude  has  just  died  from  accidentally  drinking  the  same  poison,  prepared  by  the 
King  for  Hamlet.  The  old  threadbare  question,  "Was  Hamlet  insane?  "  is  hardly  an 
open  question  nowadays.  The  verdict  is  that  he  was  not.  The  strain  upon  his 
nerves  of  discovering  his  father's  murderer,  yet  in  such  a  manner  that  he  could  not 
prove  it  (i.e.,  by  the  agency  of  a  ghost),  was  so  great  that  he  verges  on  insanity,  and 
this  suggests  to  him  the  feigning  of  it.  But  if  you  deprive  him  wholly  of  reason,  you 
destroy  our  interest  in  the  play. 

HAMMER  AND  ANVIL  ('Hammer  und  Amboss'),  by  Friedrich  Spielhagen  (1869), 
is  a  novel  ^grounded  on  a  conception  of  the  continual  struggle  between  castes,  arising 
largely  from  the  character  of  the  social  institutions  of  Germany,  —  the  nobility,  the 
military  organization,  and  the  industrial  conditions.  The  leading  idea  is  expressed 
by  one  of  the  characters,  the  humane  director  of  a  house  of  correction,  who  says: 
"Everywhere  is  the  sorry  choice  whether  we  will  be  the  hammer  or  the  anvil "  in  life. 
And  the  same  character  is  made  to  express  Spielhagen's  solution  of  the  difficulty 
when  he  says:  "It  shall  not  be  'hammer  or  anvil'  but  'hammer  and  anvil';  for 
everything  and  every  human  being  is  both  at  once,  and  every  moment. " 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  375 

It  is  not,  however,  easy  to  trace  the  development  of  this  idea  as  the  motive  of  the 
hook;  for  the  novelist's  power  lies  rather  in  his  charm  as  a  narrator  than  in  construc- 
tive strength  or  analytical  ability.  In  this,  as  in  most  of  his  stories,  he  obtains 
sympathy  for  the  personalities  he  creates,  and  enchains  attention  by  his  gift  of  story- 
telling. Georg  Hartwig,  the  hero  of  the  novel,  is  brought  into  contact  with  a  fallen 
nobleman,  a  smuggler,  "Von  Zehren  the  wild,"  with  his  beautiful  and  heartless 
daughter  Constance,  and  with  a  contrasted  group  of  honorable  and  generous  persons 
who  teach  him  much.  Chief  of  these  is  another  Von  Zehren,  the  prison  director,  an 
ideal  character.  His  daughter  Paula  exercises  the  influence  which  opposes  that  of 
Constance  in  Hartwig 's  life,  and  leads  him  to  new  effort  and  success.  Georg  himself 
is  one  of  those  who  by  nature  tend  to  become  "anvil"  rather  than  "hammer. "  The 
story,  though  less  famous  than  'Problematic  Characters'  or  *  Through  Night  to 
Light,'  is  a  great  favorite  with  German  readers. 

HANDY  ANDY,  a  novel  by  Samuel  Lover  (1842-43).  "Andy  Rooney  was  a  fellow 
who  had  the  most  singularly  ingenious  knack  of  doing  everything  the  wrong  way." 
Thus  begins  a  broadly  humorous  tale  of  life  among  the  Irish  gentry  and  peasantry 
in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  by  an  accomplished  author  who  not  only 
could  illustrate  his  own  narrative,  but  could  write  songs  for  it  and  furnish  music  for 
them  as  well.  The  ironically  nicknamed  hero,  by  his  inveterate  blundering,  fur- 
nishes cause  for  ire  and  mirth  alternately  to  all  with  whom  he  comes  in  contact.  He 
goes  out  to  service,  first  with  Squire  Egan,  then  with  his  enemy,  Squire  O'Grady.  He 
brings  on  a  duel  by  exchanging  a  writ  for  a  blister;  incenses  a  young  lady  by  substi- 
tuting a  case  of  razors  for  the  fan  sent  as  a  gift  by  her  admirer;  complicates  an  election 
by  meddling  with  the  mail  and  driving  one  of  O'Grady's  political  allies  to  the  house  of 
his  rival  Egan;  cools  champagne  by  emptying  it  into  a  tub  of  ice;  gets  himself  matri- 
monially mixed  up  with  two  women  at  once,  meantime  loving  a  third;  and  —  always 
with  the  best  intentions  —  encounters  mishaps  and  tribulations  without  end. 
Furthermore  the  author  relates  how  Egan  lost  and  regained  his  seat  in  the  House;  how 
Tom  Durfy  wed  the  widow  Flanagan;  how  ran  the  course  of  true  love  with  Edward 
O'Connor  and  Fanny  Dawson;  how  old  Mrs.  O'Grady  challenged  and  thrashed  the 
fop  Furlong;  how  everybody  feasted  and  drank,  told  stories  and  sang  songs,  played 
practical  jokes  that  were  sometimes  dangerous,  and  fought  duels  that  usually  were 
not;  and  finally  how  Andy,  the  "omadhaun, "  turned  out  to  be  Lord  Scatterbrain, 
and  after  nearly  drowning  himself  and  a  party  of  friends  in  Lake  Killarney,  got  loose 
from  his  matrimonial  entanglements  and  wedded  his  pretty  cousin  Oonah. 

HANNAH,  by  Dinah  Mulock  (Craik)  (1871).  This  story,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid 
in  England,  with  a  short  episode  in  France,  finds  its  motive  in  the  vexed  question  of 
marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister.  The  Rev.  Bernard  Rivers,  at  the  death  of  his 
young  wife  Rosa,  invites  her  sister,  Hannah  Thelluson,  to  take  charge  of  his  home  and 
baby  daughter.  Hannah,  a  sweet  and  gentle  woman  of  thirty,  with  a  passionate  love 
for  children,  resigns  her  position  as  governess,  and  accepts  the  offer,  that  she  may 
bring  up  he*  little  niece.  The  Rivers  family,  as  well  as  all  the  parish,  strongly 
disapprove  the  new  arrangement;  but  Hannah,  recognizing  the  fact  that,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  law,  she  is  Bernard's  sister,  sees  no  harm  in  it. .  Soon,  however,  she  finds  herself 
in  love  with  Bernard,  who  returns  her  affection.  After  passing  through  much  misery 
and  unhappiness,  as  well  as  scandalous  notoriety,  the  lovers  separate  and  Hannah 
takes  little  Rosie  to  France,  whither  they  are  soon  followed  by  Mr.  Rivers.  Here  they 
decide  to  many,  even  though  they  must  henceforth  live  in  exile.  The  story  flows 


376  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

on  with  the  limpid  clearness  of  Miss  Muloch's  habitual  method.  If  not  exciting,  it  is 
refined,  vivid,  and  always  interesting.  As  a  powerful  purpose-novel,  it  arousfed  much 
propagandist  spirit  in  England. 

HANNAH  THURSTON,  by  Bayard  Taylor.  The  scene  is  said  to  be  central  New 
York.  The  preface  especially  informs  us  that  an  author  does  not  necessarily  repre- 
sent himself:  "I  am  neither  Mr.  Woodberry,  Mr.  Waldo,  nor  Seth  Wattles."  Yet 
many  of  the  hero's  dreams  and  experiences  are  those  of  Bayard  Taylor;  and  those 
who  know,  say  that  no  one  familiar  with  Pennsylvania  could  fail  to  recognize  the  life 
of  Chester  County  where  Taylor  was  born. 

Maxwell  Woodberry  returns  from  years  of  travel  to  make  a  home  in  the  village 
where  he  lived  as  a  child.  There  he  meets  Hannah  Thurston,  a  lovely  Quaker  girl, 
and  admires  her,  but  is  repelled  by  her  advocacy  of  woman's  rights.  Love  finally 
triumphs,  and  they  are  happily  married,  each  yielding  some  part  of  his  or  her  pre- 
judice. All  the  fads  and  crotchets  of  a  country  village  find  a  place  in  the  chronicle: 
total  abstinence,  vegetarianism,  spiritualism,  and  abolition.  In  Mr.  Dyce  we  have 
the  villain  who  advocates  free  love,  acts  the  part  of  medium,  and  belongs  to  a  colony 
of  Perfectionists.  There  are  the  Whitlows,  who  wish  their  children  to  follow  their 
own  inclinations,  regardless  of  others;  Silas  Wattles,  the  tailor;  good  Mr.  Waldo,  the 
minister,  and  his  wife  who  loved  all  the  world;  honest  Bute,  the  farmer;  and  the 
coquettish  little  seamstress,  Carry  Dilworthy,  who  makes  him  such  a  sweet  wife. 
Woodberry 's  "poverty  party"  has  had  many  imitations  in  later  days;  and  we  have 
also  sewing  societies,  temperance  conventions,  and  other  of  the  usual  phases  of 
American  country  life.  Begun  in  America,  the  book  was  finished  in  1863,  in  St. 
Petersburg,  where  Taylor  had  been  sent  as  secretary  of  legation.  It  was  his  first 
novel;  and  is  a  strangely  peaceful  book  to  be  written  during  the  early  days  of  the  Civil 
War,  and  in  Russia.  It  had  a  large  sale,  was  translated  into  Russian  and  German, 
and  published  simultaneously  in  London  and  New  York. 

HARBOR,  THE,  by  Ernest  Poole  (1915).  A  small  boy  at  church  in  Brooklyn  hears 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  speak  of  the  harbor  as  a  place  to  come  home  to  rest.  He  thinks 
the  preacher  is  mistaken,  because  the  back  windows  and  the  garden  of  his  home  on  the 
Heights  look  down  on  the  harbor,  and  he  knows  it  is  a  noisy,  strange  place  of  wharves 
inhabited  by  brutal  dockers,  and  tall  ships  going  to  heathen  lands.  When  he  grows 
older  the  harbor  still  seems  to  him  repeUant  and  ugly.  He  goes  to  Paris  to  escape 
from  the  harbor  and  the  drudgery  of  his  father's  warehouse,  but  returns  to  write 
"glory  stories"  about  the  life,  energy,  and  wealth  of  the  harbor.  He  marries  the 
daughter  of  an  engineer,  Dillon,  who  shows  him  his  vision  of  a  harbor  organized  for 
efficiency,  the  terminal  for  the  railroads,  and  he  writes  a  series  of  articles  on  "The 
First  Port  of  the  World."  Another  influence  is  his  friend,  Joe  Kramer,  ultra-modern 
socialist,  who  even  in  college  days  scorned  the  history  of  the  past  as  "news  from 
the  graveyard."  Joe  sees  the  harbor  only  as  a  vast  capitalist  engine  for  the  crushing 
of  human  lives.  Out  of  sympathy  for  the  downtrodden,  the  hero  takes  part  in  a 
strike  with  the  dockers,  and  sees  the  harbor  from  their  point  of  view.  This  experi- 
ence leaves  him  a  syndicalist,  declaring  his  allegiance  to  the  crowd  intelligence,  which 
he  believes  greater  than  the  sum  of  the  individual  intelligences  which  makes  it,  and 
capable  of  evolving  a  solution  of  the  social  problem.  One  god  after  another  proves 
inadequate  in  the  turmoil  of  life,  the  "kind  god"  of  his  mother's  church,  the  "smiling 
goddess  in  Paris, "  the  divinity  of  art,  the  "clear-eyed  god  of  efficiency."  He  elects 
to  follow  the  "awakening  god  of  the  crowd, "  the  god  of  service.  The  environment 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  377 

throughout  is  the  harbor,  in  different  aspects,  seen  from  docks,  tugs,  barges,  ferry- 
boats, decks  of  ocean  liners,  and  in  barrooms  and  tenements.  He  says,  "I  hcive  seen 
three  harbors;  my  father's  harbor,  which  is  now  dead,  Dillon's  harbor  of  big  com- 
panies, which  is  very  much  alive,  and  Joe  Kramer's  harbor  which  is  struggling  to  be 
born." 

HARD  CASH,  by  Charles  Reade.  This  book,  originally  published  in  1863,  as  'Very 
*  Hard  Cash'  is  an  alleged  "exposure"  of  the  abuses  of  private  insane  asylums  in  Eng- 
land and  of  the  statutes  under  which  they  were  sheltered.  The  "Hard  Cash"  is  the 
sum  of  £14,000,  the  earnings  of  years,  of  which  Richard  Hardie,  a  bankrupt  banker, 
defrauds  David  Dodd,  a  sea-captain.  Dodd  has  a  cataleptic  shock  and  goes  insane 
on  realizing  his  loss.  Hardie 's  son  Alfred  loves  Julia,  Dodd's  daughter.  He  de- 
tects his  father's  villainy,  accuses  him  of  it,  and  to  insure  his  silence  is  consigned  by 
his  father  to  a  private  insane  asylum.  There  he  meets  Dodd;  a  fire  breaks  out,  and 
both  escape.  Dodd  enlists  and  serves  as  a  common  seaman,  appearing  to  be  capable 
but  half-witted,  until  a  second  cataleptic  shock  restores  his  reason,  when  he  returns 
home.  Alfred  reaches  his  friends,  and  vindicates  his  sanity  in  a  court  of  law.  The 
receipt  for  the  £14,000  is  found,  and  the  money  recovered  from  the  elder  Hardie.  The 
book  properly  divides  itself  into  two  parts.  One  embraces  the  maritime  adventures 
of  Dodd  with  pirates,  storms,  shipwreck,  and  highwaymen,  while  bringing  his  money 
home;  and  his  subsequent  service  as  a  half-witted  foremast-hand  until  his  restoration 
to  reason.  The  other  covers  Alfred's  thrilling  experiences  as  a  sane  man  among  the 
insane.  The  author's  analysis  of  all  kinds  of  insanity  is  very  thorough:  with  Alfred 
are  contrasted  Captain  Dodd  and  many  asylum  patients,  introduced  incidentally; 
also  Maxley,  a  worthy  man  driven  insane  by  the  bank  failure,  and  who  kills  Alfred's 
sister  in  a  maniacal  rage;  Dr.  Wycherley,  the  asylum  manager,  who  has  epileptic  fits 
himself;  Thomas  Hardie,  Alfred's  uncle,  who  is  weak-minded;  and  others.  Dr. 
Sampson,  the  sturdy  Scotch  physician,  who  despises  all  regular  practitioners,  and 
comes  to  Alfred's  rescue  at  the  crisis  of  the  book,  is  one  of  Reade's  strongest  and  most 
original  characters.  The  love  scenes  are  tender  and  touching.  'Hard  Cash1  is  in 
some  sense  a  sequel  to  '  Love  me  Little,  Love  me  Long, '  which  relates  the  early  history 
and  marriage  of  Captain  and  Mrs.  Dodd.  This  book  caused  much  lively  public 
correspondence  between  the  author  and  various  asylum  managers,  who  felt  them- 
selves aggrieved,  but  failed,  according  to  Reade,  to  shake  the  facts  and  arguments 
put  forward  in  this  book. 

HARD  TIMES,  by  Charles  Dickens.  When  'Hard  Times'  appeared  as  a  serial  in 
Household  Words  in  1854,  Dickens  was  about  midway  in  his  literary  career.  In 
the  same  year  this  novel  appeared  in  an  octavo  volume  with  a  dedication  to  Thomas 
Carlyle.  Its  purpose,  according  to  Dickens  himself,  was  to  satirize  "those  who  see 
figures  and  averages  and  nothing  else  —  the  representatives  of  the  wickedest  and 
most  enormous  vice  of  this  time  —  the  men  who  through  long  years  to  come  will  do 
more  to  damage  the  really  useful  facts  of  Political  Economy  than  I  could  do  (if  I 
tried)  in  my  whole  life."  The  satire,  however,  like  much  that  Dickens  attempted 
in  the  same  vein,  was  not  very  bitter. 

The  characters  in  'Hard  Times'  are  not  numerous;  and  the  plot  itself  is  less 
intricate  than  others  by  the  same  author.  The  chief  figures  are  Mr.  Thomas  Grad- 
grind,  "a  man  of  realities, "  with  his  unbounded  faith  in  statistics;  Louisa,  his  eldest 
daughter;  and  Josiah  Bounderby,  as  practical  as  Mr.  Gradgrind,  but  less  kind- 
hearted.  Louisa,  though  many  years  younger  than  Mr.  Bounderby,  is  persuaded 


378  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

by  her  father  to  many  him.  She  is  also  influenced  in  making  this  marriage  by  her 
desire  to  smooth  the  path  of  her  brother  Tom,  a  clerk  in  Mr.  Bounderby's  office. 
Though  not  happy,  she  resists  the  blandishments  of  James  Harthouse,  a  professed 
friend  of  her  husband's.  To  escape  him  she  has  to  go  home  to  her  father;  and  this 
leads  to  a  permanent  estrangement  between  husband  and  wife.  In  the  meantime 
Tom  Gradgrind  has  stolen  money  from  Bounderby,  and  to  avoid  punishment  runs 
away  from  England.  Thus  Louisa's  sacrifice  of  herself  has  been  useless.  Mr. 
Gradgrind's  wife,  and  his  other  children,  play  an  unimportant  part  in  the  story. 
Of  more  consequence  is  Sissy  (Cecilia)  Jupe,  whom  the  elder  Gradgrind  has  be- 
friended in  spite  of  her  being  the  daughter  of  a  circus  clown;  and  Mrs.  Sparsit, 
Bounderby's  housekeeper,  who  has  seen  better  days,  and  is  overpowering  with  her 
relationship  to  Lady  Scadgers.  Then  there  are  Mr.  McChoakumchild,  the  statistical 
school-teacher;  Bitzer,  the  satisfactory  pupil;  and  Mr.  Sleary  and  his  daughter 
Josephine,  as  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  minor  characters.  Mrs.  Pegler,  the  mother 
of  Josiah  Bounderby,  is  a  curious  and  amusing  figure;  while  a  touch  of  pathos  is  given 
by  the  love  of  Stephen  Blackpool  the  weaver,  for  Rachel,  whom  he  cannot  marry 
because  his  erring  wife  still  lives. 

Mr.  Gradgrind  came  to  see  the  fallacy  of  mere  statistics;  but  Josiah  Bounderby, 
the  self-made  man,  who  loved  to  belittle  his  own  origin,  never  admitted  that  he  could 
be  wrong.  When  he  died,  Louisa  was  still  young  enough  to  repair  her  early  mistake 
by  a  second  and  happier  marriage. 

HAROLD,  by  Sir  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton  (1848)  is  the  dramatic  recital  of  the  last 
years  of  Edward  the  Confessor's  reign,  —  light  being  thrown  upon  those  events  which 
shaped  the  fortunes  of  Earl  Godwin's  son  Harold.  As  in  all  Lord  Lytton's  works, 
vivid  pictures  are  presented,  sharp  contrasts  are  employed  to  heighten  dramatic 
situations,  and  inexorable  fate  plays  an  important  r61e. 

Earl  Harold  loved  Edith  the  Fair,  grandchild  of  Hilda  the  Saxon  prophetess,  and 
goddaughter  to  Harold's  sister,  the  English  queen.  Hilda  prophesied  the  union  of 
Harold  and  Edith,  though  it  was  forbidden  by  the  Church,  they  being  members  of 
the  same  family  through  Githa,  Harold's  mother. 

To  remove  all  doubts  Queen  Edith  desired  her  goddaughter  to  enter  a  nunnery,  — 
but  Harold  had  his  betrothed 's  promise  to  the  contrary. 

Duke  William  of  Normandy  had  spent  some  time  in  England  visiting  King 
Edward;  and  he  coveted  the  English  realm.  He  had  demanded  and  received  as 
hostages  Earl  Godwin's  youngest  son,  and  his  grandson  Haco  also;  and  when,  after 
the  old  Earl's  death,  Harold  crossed  the  sea  to  Normandy  to  demand  back  his 
father's  hostages,  William  surrounded  him  with  snares,  and  finally  extorted  from 
him  a  pledge  to  help  forward  William's  claims  in  England  at  Edward's  death.  Then 
Harold  returned  home. 

The  English  theyns,  in  council  assembled,  having  chosen  Harold  as  Edward's 
successor,  the  dying  king  confirmed  their  choice,  and  Harold  became  king. 
Now  for  State  reasons,  Harold  had  to  marry  Aldyth,  the  widowed  sister  of  two 
powerful  allies,  and  Edith  demanded  that  he  do  so  for  his  country's  good;  and 
so  they  parted, — he  to  do  his  country's  behest,  she  to  enter  a  convent  to  pray 
for  him. 

Tostig,  Harold's  traitor  brother,  having  stirred  up  strife  against  him,  Harold 
defeated  and  slew  both  Tostig  and  his  ally,  Hadrad  the  sea-king.  Then  came 
William  and  his  Norman  array,  whom  Harold  met  at  Hastings  in  the  autumn  of  1066. 
History  tells  us,  as  the  novelist  does,  how  Harold  and  all  his  army  were  slain ;  but 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  379 

the  romancer  does  not  stop  here.  Edith,  the  Fair,  he  tells  us,  came  in  the  night  and 
sought  among  the  slain  until  she  found  the  king.  Laying  her  head  upon  his  breast, 
she  died,  united  to  him  as  Hilda  had  prophesied. 

HARRY  LORREQUER,  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF,  a  novel  by  Charles  Lever 
(1839-40).  The  story  is  made  up  of  a  series  of  ludicrous  adventures,  very  loosely 
connected.  Of  some  of  these  Lever  was  himself  the  hero;  others  he  gathered  from 
his  personal  friends.  Harry  Lorrequer  has  scarcely  landed  in  Cork,  after  campaign- 
ing with  Wellington  on  the  Continent,  before  he  is  entangled  in  the  most  tragic- 
comic  perplexities.  His  first  adventure  consists  in  telling  an  inoffensive  stranger  an 
elaborate  falsehood,  and  then  shooting  him  in  a  duel,  without  disclosing  any  reason 
why  he  should  fight  at  all.  The  scandalous  immorality  of  the  affair  is  forgotten  in 
the  grotesque  drollery  of  it.  In  fact,  the  most  characteristic  note  of  the  tale  is  the 
irresponsibility  of  every  one.  Drinking,  duelling,  getting  into  love  and  debt,  are 
represented  as  an  Irish  gentleman's  conception  of  the  whole  duty  of  man.  Harry  is 
presently  sent  in  disgrace  to  the  dull  town  of  Kilrush.  But  his  banishment  is  en- 
livened by  every  kind  of  adventure.  The  scene  shifts  to  Dublin,  and  we  have  more 
hoaxes,  practical  jokes,  and  blunders.  The  hero  starts  "in  a  yellow  postchaise  "  after 
the  Kilkenny  Royal  Mail,  traveling  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  or  so,  the  coach  being 
all  the  time  quietly  in  the  court-yard  of  the  Dublin  post-office.  We  find  him  next  in 
Germany,  where  he  unconsciously  hoaxes  the  Bavarian  king  and  all  his  court.  Lever 
knew  the  little  German  towns  well,  and  his  descriptions  of  their  ludicrous  aspects 
are  true.  Harry  then  proceeds  to  Paris,  finds  himself  in  a  gambling  saloon,  and  of 
course,  breaks  the  bank.  Most  of  the  great  men  of  France  are  among  the  gamblers; 
and  Talleyrand,  Marshal  Soult,  Balzac,  and  others,  must  have  been  surprised  to  learn 
of  the  part  they  took  in  the  Donnybrook  scrimmage  with  which  the  affair  winds  up. 
Finally,  Harry  weds  the  girl  he  has  always  adored,  although  his  adoration  has  not 
hindered  him  from  falling  in  love  with  scores  of  other  ladies,  and  proposing  marriage 
to  some  of  them. 

HARUSPICES,  ON  THE  REPLY  OF  THE  (xDe  Haruspicium  responsis')  an  oration 
by  Cicero  (106-43  B.  C.).  After  Cicero's  recall  from  exile,  different  prodigies 
alarmed  the  people  of  Rome.  The  haruspices  (priests  who  inspected  the  entrails  of 
birds,  etc.,  to  draw  omens  of  the  gods'  will  or  temper  from  their  appearance),  being 
consulted,  answered  that  the  public  ceremonies  had  been  neglected,  the  holy  places 
profaned,  and  frightful  calamities  decreed  in  consequence.  Thereupon  Clodius 
assembled  the  citizens  and  denounced  Cicero  as  the  cause  of  the  misfortunes  that 
menaced  the  city.  On  the  following  day  the  orator  replied  in  the  Senate  to  the 
attack.  In  the  first  part  of  the  oration  he  exposes  the  mendacity  of  Clodius,  and 
says  that  as  to  his  accusation  that  he,  Cicero,  had  profaned  the  ground  upon  which  his 
house  stood,  that  was  impossible,  for  it  had  already  been  officially  decided  that  this 
ground  had  never  been  consecrated,  in  the  legal  sense.  In  the  second  part  of  the 
speech,  which  is  full  of  fire  and  vehemence,  he  discusses  each  point  in  the  reply  of  the 
haruspices,  and  shows  that  every  one  of  them  applies  directly  to  Clodius,  who  has 
incurred  the  anger  of  the  gods  by  his  profanations,  his  impieties,  and  his  unspeakable 
outrages.  Therefore,  Cicero  concludes,  Clodius  himself  is  far  more  the  foe  of  the 
gods  than  any  other  Roman,  and  is  the  most  dangerous  enemy  of  the  State  as  well. 
This  speech  takes  rank  among  the  greatest  of  Cicero's  orations,  though  the  orator  had 
little  time  for  preparation,  and  suffered  under  the  disadvantage  of  addressing  an 
audience  at  first  openly  unfriendly. 


380  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

HARVESTER,  THE,  by  Gene  Stratton-Porter  (1911).  The  central  figure  in  this 
story  is  David  Langston,  called  the  Harvester  of  the  Woods,  whose  wholesome  and 
honest  nature  commands  the  admiration  of  all  who  come  in  contact  with  him.  When 
David  is  twenty  his  mother  dies  and  for  the  next  six  years  he  carries  on  alone  the 
'work  they  had  done  together,  of  raising  medicinal  plants  and  herbs,  and  selling  them. 
By  great  industry  and  constant  study  David  develops  his  business  until  he  becomes 
very  prosperous  and  he  is  beginning  to  consider  the  subject  of  matrimony,  when  the 
vision  of  a  beautiful  girl  comes  to  him,  and  he  is  convinced  that  she  is  his  future  wife. 
He  at  once  builds  a  new  house,  furnishes  it  with  every  comfort  and  keeps  on  the 
lookout  for  the  lovely  face  he  saw  in  his  vision.  At  last  David  sees  his  "dream-girl " 
alighting  from  a  train  but  loses  her  immediately.  He  searches  for  her  unceasingly 
and  finally  discovers  her  living  with  a  cruel  uncle  who  treats  her  shamefully.  After 
a  few  meetings  David  begs  his  "  dream-girl, "  whose  name  is  Ruth  Jameson,  to  marry 
him  at  once  for  protection  if  for  nothing  more,  and  she  agrees  to  do  so.  David  takes 
his  wife  to  her  new  home,  provides  her  with  everything  she  can  desire,  and  tells  her  she 
shall  remain  his  honored  guest  until  he  succeeds  in  winning  her  love.  The  devotion 
and  goodness  of  her  husband  win  Ruth's  affection  but  do  not  kindle  the  love  which 
David  craves.  Ruth  has  a  severe  illness  and  David  sends  for  Dr.  Harmon  for  whom 
she  had  previously  cared  and  offers  to  relinquish  her  to  him  if  it  is  for  her  happiness. 
Ruth,  however,  soon  tires  of  Dr.  Harmon  and  David  saves  her  life  with  one  of  his 
herb  remedies  when  the  doctors  have  given  her  up.  Finally  David  sends  Ruth 
on  a  long  visit  to  her  grandparents  whom  she  has  never  seen  on  account  of 
their  estrangement  from  her  parents,  and  the  separation  from  David  causes  the 
awakening  of  the  deep  love  for  her  husband  for  which  he  has  longed  and  labored 
so  patiently. 

HARZREISE,  DIE,  by  Heinrich  Heine,  the  first  of  a  series  of  descriptive  essays  of 
travel,  entitled  'Reisebilder,'  'Die  Harzreise,'  ('The  Harz- Journey ')  is  an  account 
of  a  walking  tour  made  by  the  poet,  during  his  student  days  in  Gottingen,  to  the  Harz 
Mountains,  a  wooded  and  hilly  district  of  Hanover  crowned  by  the  celebrated  Brocken 
which  commands  an  extensive  view  over  North  Germany.  The  narrative  is  written 
in  a  spirit  of  mingled  cynicism,  satire,  sentiment,  and  liberal  zeal,  and  its  delightful 
word-pictures  and  snatches  of  poetry  alternate  with  wild  phantasmagoric  dreams, 
uproarious  accounts  of  practical  joking,  daring  jests  on  subjects  commonly  held 
sacred,  exquisite  idyllic  passages  and  keen  attacks  on  stupidity  and  reactionary 
thinking.  The  poet  leaves  Gottingen  on  a  May  morning,  bidding  farewell  to  effete 
civilization  and  welcoming  the  free  mountain-life  in  a  charming  lyric.  He  traverses 
several  small  villages,  encountering  many  odd  wayfarers  and  stopping  at  various 
picturesque  inns.  In  Klausthal  he  visits  the  silver  mines  and  at  Goslar  inspects  the 
relics  of  ancient  imperial  days;  sheltered  for  the  night  in  a  miner's  cottage  among  the 
pines,  he  records  in  delightful  verse  his  conversations  with  a  fair-haired  child,  who 
tells  him  fairy-tales,  questions  him  as  to  his  religious  belief,  and  is  told  that  he  is  a 
"knight  of  the  Holy  Ghost"  in  the  war  of  liberation  of  the  spirit.  With  thoughts  of 
Goethe's  Faust  he  ascends  the  wooded  slopes  and  massive  rocks  of  the  Brocken; 
witnesses  the  sunset  at  the  top;  joins  in  hilarious  supper  in  the  inn  at  the  summit; 
composes  a  lyric  of  greeting  to  the  maiden  in  the  valley  as  he  looks  over  the  wide 
landscape  at  sunrise;  describes  the  downward  course  of  the  Ilse  through  its  wooded 
and  rocky  valley;  and  personifies  the  river  in  a  final  lyric.  The  narrative  is 
concluded  with  a  passionate  dedication  to  his  cousin,  Amalie,  with  whom  he  was 
in  love. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  381 

HAUNTED  POOL,  THE,  by  George  Sand.  The  'Haunted  Poor  (La  Mare  au 
Diable)  was  the  first  in  a  series  of  rustic  novels  begun  by  George  Sand  at  Nohant  in 
1846,  of  which  'Les  Mattres  Sonneurs'  was  the  last.  These  simple  stories,  which 
have  been  called  the  c  Georgics '  of  France,  are  quite  unlike  the  earliest  works  of  their 
author,  'Indiana/  'Valentine,'  and  'Lelia/  both  in  style  and  in  matter;  and  mark  a 
distinct  epoch  in  French  literature.  In  explaining  her  purpose  in  writing  them, 
George  Sand  disclaimed  any  pretense  of  accomplishing  a  revolution  in  letters:  "I 
have  wished  neither  to  make  a  new  tongue,  nor  to  try  a  new  manner."  She 
had  grown  tired  of  the  city,  and  her  glimpses  of  rural  life  had  led  her  to  an 
exalted  view  of  the  peasant  character.  The  poetry  which  she  believed  to  exist 
in  their  lives,  she  succeeded  in  infusing  Into  the  romances  which  she  wove 
around  them. 

1  The  Haunted  Pool T  has  for  its  central  figure  Germain,  a  widower  of  twenty-eight, 
handsome,  honorable,  and  living  and  working  on  the  farm  of  his  father-in-law, 
Maurice  by  name.  The  latter  urges  his  son-in-law  to  marry  again,  both  for  his  own 
good  and  for  that  of  his  three  children.  Germain  demurs,  largely  because  he  cherishes 
so  fondly  the  memory  of  his  wife.  But  at  last  he  consents  to  go  to  the  neighboring 
village  of  Fourche,  to  see  the  widow  Catherine  Gue*rin,  daughter  of  Farmer  Leonard, 
who  is  well  off,  and  according  to  Maurice,  of  suitable  age  to  marry  Germain.  Beforo 
he  starts  on  his  journey,  a  neighbor  of  Germain,  the  poor  widow  Guillette,  asks  him  to 
take  in  his  care  her  sixteen-year-old  daughter  Mary,  who  has  engaged  to  go  as  a 
shepherdess  to  a  farmer  at  Fourche.  On  the  way,  Pierre,  the  young  son  of  Germain, 
insists  that  his  father  shall  take  him  as  well  as  little  Mary  to  Fourche  on  his  horse, 
La  Grise.  The  trio  lose  their  way,  the  horse  runs  off,  and  they  are  obliged  to  spend  the 
night  on  the  borders  of  the  "haunted  pool."  The  tact  of  little  Mary,  and  her  kind- 
ness to  his  child,  so  work  on  Germain  that  he  falls  in  love  with  her.  He  goes  on, 
however,  to  see  the  widow;  but  her  coquetry,  and  the  insincerity  of  her  father,  disgust 
him,  and  he  does  not  make  his  offer  of  marriage.  On  the  way  home  he  overtakes  little 
Mary,  who  has  been  insulted  by  her  employer  at  The  Elms.  At  first  she  refuses  to 
marry  Germain,  calling  him  too  old.  But  in  the  course  of  a  year  she  changes  her 
mind,  and  makes  him  perfectly  happy. 

HAVELOK  THE  DANE.  This  legend  is  connected  with  the  founding  of  Grimsby 
in  Lincolnshire;  and  was  written  in  English  and  French  verse  about  1280  A.  D.  The 
English  version  was  lost  for  many  years,  but  at  last  found  in  a  manuscript  of  *  Lives 
of  the  Saints.1  The  author  is  unknown;  the  time  of  the  story  probably  about  the 
sixth  century.  Havelok,  prince  of  Denmark,  is  left  to  the  care  of  Earl  Godard,  who 
hires  a  fisherman,  Grim,  to  drown  him;  but  he,  perceiving  a  miraculous  light  about  the 
child,  dares  not  put  him  to  death,  and  carries  him  to  England.  The  boy  grows  up, 
and  finds  work  with  the  cook  of  Godrich,  an  earl  who  has  in  his  charge  the  late  king's 
daughter,  Goldborough,  whom  he  has  promised  to  marry  to  the  strongest  and  fairest 
man  he  can  find.  In  a  trial  of  strength,  Havelok  "puts  the  stone"  farther  than  any 
other;  and  Godrich,  who  wants  the  kingdom  for  his  son,  marries  Goldborough  to  this 
kitchen  scullion.  The  princess  is  dissatisfied  with  the  union;  but  in  the  night  sees  the 
same  miraculous  light,  and  a  cross  on  Havelok's  shoulder.  He  awakes  immediately 
afterwards,  and  tells  her  he  has  dreamed  that  all  England  and  Denmark  were  his 
own.  He  goes  therefore  to  Denmark;  and  after  performing  deeds  of  great  valor, 
is  proclaimed  king.  Returning  with  an  army  to  England,  he  makes  Godrich 
a  prisoner;  and  with  Goldborough  is  crowned  at  London,  where  they  reign  for 
sixty  years. 


382  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

HAT,  JOHN,  LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF,  a  biography  by  William  Roscoe  Thayer, 
was  published  in  1915.  Illustrating  his  narrative  by  abundant  quotations  from 
John  Hay's  letters  and  journals  the  author  narrates  in  an  extremely  graphic  and 
interesting  manner  Hay's  boyhood  in  the  Middle  West,  his  happy  student  days  at 
Brown  University,  his  unique  experiences  as  private  secretary  to  Lincoln,  his  literary 
successes  as  poet,  essayist,  and  biographer,  and  his  career  as  ambassador  and  cabinet 
minister.  His  diplomatic  achievements  in  connection  with  the  Boxer  Rebellion,  at 
the  close  of  which  he  successfully  defended  the  principle  of  the  "Open  Door"  in 
China,  and  in  the  Alaskan  Boundary  Dispute  are  here  fully  discussed.  The  book  is  a 
thoroughly  adequate  presentation  of  a  great  American  statesman  and  is  particularly 
successful  in  depicting  the  humor,  gayety,  and  charm  of  his  personality. 

HAZARD  OF  NEW  FORTUNES,  A,  by  W.  D.  Howells  (1890)  is  perhaps  the  most 
realistic  and  the  most  modern  of  all  his  novels,  in  its  grasp  upon  the  conditions  of 
metropolitan  life,  especially  as  these  are  illustrated  in  the  extremes  of  poverty  and 
wealth.  The  scope  of  the  story  is  unusually  large,  embracing  as  it  does  representatives 
from  almost  every  prominent  class  of  society:  the  artist,  the  bohemian,  the  business 
man,  the  capitalist,  the  society  woman,  the  socialist,  the  labor  agitator,  the  man  of 
letters.  The  plot  is,  however,  centred  in  one  family,  as  typical  of  a  certain  kind  of 
Americanism  as  the  Lapham  family  is  of  another.  The  head  of  this  family  is  Dryfoos, 
a  Pennsylvania  German  who  has  come  to  New  York  to  spend  his  newly  acquired 
fortune.  He  is  the  capitalist  of  a  journal,  Every  Other  Week,  edited  by  Basil  March, 
the  hero  of  'Their  Wedding  Journey,'  and  conducted  by  Fulkerson,  a  pushing  West- 
erner. Dryfoos  has  two  daughters,  vulgar  by  nature  and  breeding,  who  are  struggl- 
ing to  get  "into  society."  His  son,  Conrad,  is  of  a  different  stamp.  He  has  no  sym- 
pathy with  the  gross  pride  of  his  father  in  the  wealth  gained  by  speculation.  His 
sympathies  are  with  the  laboring  classes,  —  with  the  down-trodden  and  unfortunate 
of  the  city.  This  sympathy  is  put  to  the  last  proof  during  the  strike  of  the  street-car 
drivers  and  conductors.  In  endeavoring  to  stand  by  Lindau,  an  old  German  socialist 
who  is  openly  siding  with  the  strikers,  Conrad  is  killed  by  a  chance  shot.  His  death 
seems  a  kind  of  vicarious  atonement  for  the  greed  and  pride  of  his  race.  There  are 
many  side  issues  in  the  story,  which  as  a  whole  forms  a  most  striking  and  picturesque 
series  of  metropolitan  scenes.  New  York  has  seldom  been  used  with  more  skill  as  a 
dramatic  background.  But  the  novel  is  something  more  than  a  clever  drawing  of 
places  and  people.  Deep  ethical  and  social  questions  are  involved  in  it.  It  is  a 
drama  of  human  life  in  the  fullest  sense. 

HEADLONG  HALL,  by  Thomas  Love  Peacock.  Written  in  1815,  'Headlong  Hall1 
is  a  study  of  typical  English  life  put  into  the  form  of  numerous  detached  conversations, 
discussions,  and  descriptions.  At  first  it  tells  how  invitations  have  been  sent  to  a 
perfectibilian,  a  deteriorationist,  a  statu-quo-ite,  and  a  reverend  doctor  who  had  won 
the  squire's  fancy  by  a  learned  dissertation  on  the  art  of  stuffing  a  turkey.  There  is  a 
graphic  picture  of  the  squire  at  breakfast.  After  the  arrival  of  tLe  guests  they  are 
taken  over  the  grounds,  dined,  f6ted,  taken  to  walk,  introduced  to  the  tower,  and 
given  a  ball.  In  the  interim  one  of  them  discovers  the  skull  of  Cadwallader  and  begs 
possession  of  it  from  the  old  sexton,  and  being  somewhat  of  a  physiologist,  follows  his 
discovery  with  a  learned  dissertation  on  the  animal  man.  The  whole  story  is  bright, 
witty,  humorous,  devoid  of  plot,  and  elaborate  in  its  phrasing.  It  is  engaging  as  a 
relic  of  old  English  life.  Mr.  Peacock  was  born  in  1785,  and  died  in  1866.  The 
present  is  perhaps  a  little  better  known  than  any  of  his  other  seven  books,  though 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  383 

'Gryll  Grange,'  'Crotchet  Castle,'  and  '  Nightmare  Abbey '  are  also  to  be  reckoned 
among  standard,  if  not  classical,  English  literature.  The  story  is  distinguished  by  a 
display  of  varied  erudition,  and  is  to  some  extent,  like  his  other  books,  a  satire  on 
well-known  characters  and  fads  of  the  day. 

HEAPS  OF  MONEY,  by  W.  E.  Norris  (1877),  was  the  earliest  of  that  clever  author's 
stories,  and  won  instant  favor  from  competent  critics.  The  heroine,  Linda  Howard, 
an  earl's  granddaughter,  spends  her  young  life  wandering  about  the  Continent  with 
her  somewhat  disreputable  father,  who  ekes  out  a  slender  income  by  great  skill  at 
Scarte.  At  nineteen  she  inherits  a  large  fortune  from  an  uncle,  and  the  scene  changes. 
The  Howards  return  to  their  native  land,  where  Linda  is  quickly  launched  into 
society,  and  sought  after  by  the  match-making  mammas  of  penniless  sons.  In  the 
social  experiences  that  follow,  she  discovers  that  life  when  one  has  heaps  of  money  is 
quite  as  difficult  an  affair  as  when  one  has  to  count  every  shilling.  This  early  story 
reveals  the  qualities  which  have  made  Mr.  Xorris  so  successful  a  novelist.  He  sees 
life  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  man  of  the  world,  but  without  cynicism  or  super- 
ciliousness. His  personages  are  lifelike,  his  dialogue  is  always  good  and  often  brilliant, 
his  story  comes  from  the  natural  evolution  of  his  characters,  his  insight  into  human 
nature  is  keen,  he  is  often  witty  and  always  humorous.  In  no  sense  an  imitator,  Mr. 
Morris's  style  and  manner  remind  one  of  Thackeray,  chiefly  perhaps  in  the  ease  with 
which  each  artist  handles  his  material. 

HEART  OF  MIDLOTHIAN,  THE,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott.  'The  Heart  of  Midlothian/ 
by  many  called  the  finest  of  the  Waverley  novels,  was  published  anonymously  in 
1818.  It  takes  its  name  from  the  Tolbooth  or  old  jail  of  Edinburgh  (pulled  down  in 
1815),  where  Scott  imagined  Effie  Deans,  his  heroine,  to  have  been  imprisoned.  The 
charge  against  her  is  child  murder,  from  which  she  is  unable  to  clear  herself.  Her 
half-sister  Jeanie,  though  loving  her  devotedly,  on  the  witness  stand  cannot  tell  the  lie 
which  might  save  Effie.  But  when  sentence  of  death  is  pronounced  on  the  unhappy 
girl,  Jeanie  shows  the  depth  of  her  affection  by  going  on  foot  to  London  to  get  a 
pardon  from  the  King,  through  the  influence  of  John,  Duke  of  Argyle.  The  latter 
obtains  an  interview  for  her  with  Queen  Caroline  and  Lady  Suffolk,  and  though  at 
first  the  case  seems  hopeless  enough,  she  procures  the  pardon.  Before  Jeanie  has 
reached  home,  Effie  (whose  pardon  carried  with  it  banishment  from  Scotland)  has 
eloped  with  George  Staunton,  her  lover.  The  sisters  who  had  last  met  when  Effie 
was  sitting  on  the  bench  of  the  condemned,  do  not  meet  again  for  many  years,  when 
Effie  reappears  as  Lady  Staunton,  a  woman  of  fashion.  Her  husband  has  succeeded 
to  a  title,  and  no  one  but  her  sister  knows  her  as  the  former  Effie  Deans.  By  a 
strange  combination  of  circumstances,  Jeanie,  now  married  to  a  Presbyterian  minister, 
learns  that  Effie's  son  is  alive.  He  had  been  given  by  Meg  Murdockson,  who  at- 
tended Effie  in  her  illness,  to  an  unscrupulous  woman.  Sir  George  Staunton,  on 
learning  these  facts,  anxious  to  discover  his  son,  traces  him  to  a  certain  troop  of 
vagabonds,  of  which  Black  Donald  is  chief.  In  an  affray  growing  out  of  the  effort 
to  arrest  Black  Donald,  Sir  George  is  shot  by  a  young  lad  called  "the  Whistler, "  who 
later  proved  to  be  the  lost  son.  Lady  Staunton,  overcome  by  the  tragedy,  after  vain 
efforts  to  drown  her  grief  in  society  retires  to  a  convent  in  France.  Although  she 
takes  no  vows,  she  remains  there  until  her  death.  Her  influence  at  court  accomplishes 
much  for  the  children  of  her  sister  Jeanie.  The  husband  of  the  latter,  Reuben  Butler, 
has  been  given  a  good  parish  by  the  Duke  of  Argyle,  whom  Jeanie  Deans's  heroism  had 
made  a  friend  for  life. 


384  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

'The  Heart  of  Midlothian'  is  notable  for  having  fewer  characters  than  any  other 
of  Scott's  novels.  It  has  also  a  smaller  variety  of  incidents,  and  less  description  of 
scenery.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  scenes  in  all  fiction  is  the  meeting  of  the  two 
sisters  in  prison  under  the  eyes  of  the  jailer  Ratcliffe. 

The  plot  was  suggested  to  Scott  by  the  story  of  Helen  Walker,  who  unable  to  tell  a 
lie  to  save  a  sister's  life,  really  walked  barefoot  to  London,  and  secured  a  pardon  by 
the  help  of  John,  Duke  of  Argyle. 

HEART  OF  THE  ANTARCTIC,  THE,  'being  the  story  of  the  British  Antarctic 
Expedition,  1907-1909'  by  Sir  Ernest  Henry  Shackleton,  is  a  highly  readable  and 
sumptuously  illustrated  account  in  two  large  volumes  of  the  polar  expedition  which 
attained  88°  23'  south  latitude,  reached  the  South  Magnetic  Pole,  and  discovered 
and  explored  a  great  range  of  mountains  in  the  interior  of  the  Antarctic  Continent. 
Shackleton 's  general  account  of  the  expedition  and  special  narrative  of  the  "Southern 
Party  "which  achieved  a  point  at  that  time  "farthest  south  "  occupies  the  first  volume 
and  part  of  the  second.  It  is  rendered  especially  interesting  by  the  spectacular 
character  of  the  discoveries.  The  landing  at  the  great  ice-barrier,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  high  and  the  ascent  by  the  world's  largest  glacier  through  a  corridor  of 
lofty  peaks  then  seen  for  the  first  time,  to  the  plateau  eleven  thousand  feet  high  which 
is  the  site  of  the  South  Pole,  are  adventures  of  thrilling  novelty.  The  second  volume 
is  mainly  occupied  with  an  account  of  the  party  which  discovered  the  South  Magnetic 
Pole,  written  by  Professor  T.  W.  Edgeworth  David,  its  commander,  and  there 
is  a  highly  interesting  and  entertaining  appendix  on  the  scientific  discoveries  of  the 
expedition.  James  Murray,  the  biologist  of  the  company,  describes  the  habits 
and  peculiarities  of  penguins  and  seals.  Professor  David  and  Raymond  Priestley, 
geologists,  give  full  information  as  to  the  physical  geography,  glaciology,  and  geology 
of  the  region  with  especial  reference  to  the  mountains.  Douglas  Mawson  and  James 
Murray  add  notes  on  physics,  chemistry,  and  mineralogy.  Their  remarks  on  snow- 
crystals  and  on  the  atmospherical  and  optical  phenomena  of  the  antarctic  zone, 
particularly  the  aurora  australis,  are  full  of  interest.  All  these  scientific  data,  as  well 
as  the  travel-narratives  are  made  vivid  by  the  splendid  illustrations,  both  photo- 
graphs and  colored  drawings,  with  which  the  book  abounds.  The  reader  can  see  the 
vast  polar  ocean  and  the  towering  ice-barrier,  the  snowy,  smoke-capped  summits  of 
Erebus  and  Terror,  and  the  yawning  volcanic  crater  of  the  former.  Seals  suckling 
their  young  on  the  ice,  solemn  penguins  ceremonially  bowing  to  one  another,  ponies 
tethered  beside  the  tents  on  the  plateau,  enliven  the  pictures.  Most  impressive  are 
the  naked  rocky  peaks  that  rise  sheer  above  the  Great  Glacier,  the  glowing  reds, 
greens,  and  blues  of  the  antarctic  sunrise  and  the  ethereal  green  palpitations  of  the 
aurora  australis.  Pew  travel-books  surpass  this  one  in  sustained  interest  and  novelty. 

HEART  OF  THE  HELLS,  THE,  by  John  Fox,  Jr.  (1913).  The  scene  of  this  story 
is  laid  in  the  hills  of  Kentucky  and  it  deals  for  the  most  part  with  the  lives  of  the 
mountaineers.  The  principal  character  is  Jason  Hawn,  who,  when  first  introduced 
to  the  reader,  is  a  small  boy  living  with  his  widowed  mother  in  a  cabin  in  the  hills. 
His  father  having  been  mysteriously  shot  by  an  unknown  assassin,  had  told  Jason 
on  his  death-bed  to  hunt  down  his  murderer  and  avenge  his  death.  As  a  feud  of 
long  standing  had  existed  between  the  Hawns  and  the  Honeycutts,  a  member  of  the 
latter  clan  is  supposed  to  have  committed  the  deed.  Jason  grows  up  with  a  bitter 
hatred  for  the  Honeycutts  and  looks  forward  to  the  time  when  he  shall  avenge  his 
father's  murder.  He  has  a  pretty  cousin  of  about  his  own  age  named  Mavis  Hawn 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  385 

who  is  devoted  to  him  and  has  in  him  a  warm  champion.  Steve  Hawn,  Mavis's 
father,  a  tricky  and  shiftless  fellow,  after  a  period  of  widowerhood  marries  Jason's 
mother  much  to  the  son's  disappointment  and  grief.  Steve  persuades  his  wife  to  sell 
land,  upon  which  Jason  had  discovered  coal,  and  though  the  latter  had  not  divulged 
his  secret  he  had  exacted  from  his  mother  a  promise  not  to  sell  without  his  knowledge. 
The  purchaser  of  the  land  is  Colonel  Pendleton,  who  represents  a  large  company,  and 
he  has  a  son  named  Gray,  who  is  about  the  age  of  Jason.  Gray  and  his  pretty  little 
cousin  Marjorie  are  brought  by  the  Colonel  to  the  hills  where  they  meet  Jason  and 
Mavis  and  are  strangely  attracted  to  these  children  who  are  so  different  in  manners 
and  speech.  Later  Jason  and  Mavis  go  to  school  and  then  to  college  where  they  find 
themselves  fellow-students  with  Gray  and  Marjorie.  Here  the  old  attraction  re- 
asserts itself  and  Gray  and  Mavis,  and  Marjorie  and  Jason,  find  themselves  drawn  to 
each  other.  Eventually  however,  both  couples  realize  the  inappropriateness  of  their 
union,  and  the  book  closes  with  the  readjustment  of  their  love  affairs  and  the  marriage 
of  Gray  and  Marjorie,  followed  by  that  of  Jason  and  Mavis.  Previous  to  this  Jason 
had  inadvertently  avenged  his  father's  death  by  shooting  a  prowler,  who  was  robbing 
Colonel  Pendleton's  estate  after  having  committed  many  other  crimes  and  acts  of 
lawlessness.  The  robber  proved  to  be  Steve  Hawn,  and  after  his  death,  Jason's 
mother  tells  him  he  was  the  man  who  shot  his  father.  Jason  becomes  a  civil  engineer 
and  the  reader  takes  leave  of  him  as  superintendent  of  the  coal  mines  which  are  being 
developed  upon  his  old  property. 

HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION,  LECTTOES  ON,  a  course  of 
twelve  lectures  delivered  at  the  Royal  Institution  of  Great  Britain  in  1862  and  pub- 
lished in  1863.  TyndalTs  aim  was  to  expound  to  a  popular  audience  the  mechanical 
or  dynamical  theory  of  heat  as  distinguished  from  the  old  material  theory  that  heat 
was  a  substance  called  "caloric, "  and  to  illustrate  it  first  in  connection  with  solid, 
liquid,  and  gaseous  bodies,  and  secondly  in  an  account  of  the  transmission  or  radiation 
of  heat  by  means  of  the  waves  of  ether.  By  a  series  of  experiments  he  shows  that  all 
mechanical  force  when  expended  produces  heat;  explains  how  the  mechanical  equiva- 
lent of  heat  has  been  determined;  sets  forth  the  conception  of  heat  as  molecular 
motion;  and  applies  this  conception  to  the  various  forms  of  matter,  to  expansion  and 
combustion,  to  specific  and  latent  heat,  and  to  calorific  conduction.  He  then  explains 
the  operation  of  radiant  heat  from  the  sun  and  other  heavenly  bodies,  through  the 
ether;  shows  that  the  sun  is  the  source  of  all  life  on  the  earth;  and  rises  from  this  fact 
to  a  contemplation  of  the  universe  as  dominated  by  the  principle  of  the  conservation 
of  energy.  Tyndall  had  great  clearness  of  exposition  and  an  abundance  of  interesting 
experiments  to  prove  and  enforce  his  points.  He  can  excite  the  attention  by  homely 
illustrations  and  rouse  the  imagination  by  striking  glimpses  into  the  deeper  problems 
of  science. 

HEAVENLY  TWINS,  THE,  by  Madame  Sarah  Grand  (1893),  is  the  novel 
which  brought  the  author  into  notice  and  aroused  great  discussion  for  and  against 
the  book.  It  is  a  study  of  the  advanced  modern  woman.  The  heroine,  Evadne, 
finds  herself  married  to  a  man  of  social  position  whose  past  has  been  impure.  She 
therefore  leaves  him,  to  the  scandal  of  her  friends.  An  episode  called  *The  Tenor 
and  the  Boy/  bearing  little  relation  to  the  main  story  but  pleasing  in  itself,  is  then 
interpolated:  it  narrates  the  love  between  a  male  churchsinger  and  a  lad  who  turns 
out  to  be  a  girl,  one  of  the  twins  in  disguise.  The  character  of  these  twins,  a  pair  of 
precocious,  forward  youngsters,  boy  and  girl,  is  sketched  amusingly  in  the  early 


386  THE   READER'S  DIGEST   OF   BOOKS 

portion  of  the  story.  After  the  separation  from  her  husband,  Evadne  leads  a  life  of 
protest  against  society  as  it  exists,  and  her  sorrow  and  disillusionment  prey  upon  her 
health  to  such  an  extent  that  her  complex  nervous  system  suffers  from  hysteria.  Dr. 
Galbraith,  the  physician  who  narrates  this  phase  of  her  career,  becomes  her  husband; 
and  in  his  professional  care  and  honest  love  Evadne  bids  fair  to  find  both  physical  and 
moral  peace.  The  novel  is  too  long,  has  grave  faults  of  construction,  and  contains 
material  for  three  separate  stories  and  a  tract  on  women's  rights.  But  it  was  at  once 
recognized  as  a  sympathetic  presentation  of  some  of  the  social  wrongs  of  women. 

HEDDA  GABLER,  a  play  by  Henrik  Ibsen  (1890).  A  remarkable  study  of  the 
character  of  a  selfish,  hard-hearted  woman  endowed  with  beauty,  good  taste,  educa- 
tion, and  culture,  but  spiritually  a  monster.  She  is  kept  from  expressing  her  evil 
genius  only  by  cowardly  fear  of  public  opinion.  In  the  discord  of  a  dull  cramping 
environment  she  has  not  courage  to  free  herself  and  is  shipwrecked.  The  play  begins 
as  Hedda  and  her  husband  return  from  their  wedding  trip,  and  Hedda  reveals  her 
character  immediately  by  her  unkind  treatment  of  her  husband's  old  aunt,  who  comes 
to  welcome  her.  The  aristocrat,  Hedda,  daughter  of  General  Gabler,  has  married  a 
kindly  but  stupid  Ph.D.,  chiefly  because  he  promised  to  buy  her  a  certain  luxurious 
villa  she  coveted  for  her  home.  His  pedantry  bores  her.  She  has  miscalculated  his 
professional  future  as  well  as  his  income;  and  she  dreads  the  prospect  of  a  child. 
Before  her  marriage  she  had  enjoyed  an  intimate  friendship  with  a  drunken  dissipated 
young  genius,  Lovberg.  He  had  misinterpretated  her  morbid  curiosity  about  the 
details  of  his  dissipation  and  they  parted  in  a  theatrical  scene  in  which  Hedda  re- 
pelled his  advances  with  her  father's  pistol.  Lovberg  becomes  tutor  to  the  step- 
children of  Thea  Elsted,  who  reclaims  the  degenerate  genius  with  her  sympathy  and 
interest,  and  inspires  him  to  write  the  book  which  brings  him  fame.  Thea  defies  the 
conventions  to  follow  him  to  the  city,  knowing  that  without  her  influence  he  will 
relapse  into  drunkenness  and  dissipation.  The  heartless  Hedda,  jealous  of  his  good 
angel,  contrives  to  make  him  fall  into  his  old  evil  ways,  simply  to  demonstrate  her 
power  over  him.  He  loses  the  manuscript  of  his  second  book,  which  by  perverse 
chance  comes  into  Hedda 's  possession.  She  conceals  it  and  malignantly  burns  it, 
giving  as  excuse  to  her  husband,  that  Lovberg  is  his  rival  for  a  professorship.  Lov- 
berg accuses  a  disreputable  woman  of  stealing  the  manuscript  and  gets  into  a  brawl 
with  the  police  in  her  house.  He  confesses  the  loss  of  the  manuscript  and  the  scandal 
to  Hedda,  and  she  presents  him  with  one  of  her  father's  brace  of  pistols,  advising  him 
"to  die  beautifully."  Later  he  returns  to  the  woman,  and  in  a  violent  quarrel  is 
fatally  shot  in  the  stomach  with  the  pistol.  Hedda  had  indulged  in  a  dangerous 
friendship  with  Judge  Brack,  an  elderly  rake,  who  recognizes  the  pistol  and  threatens 
to  expose  Hedda  to  the  scandal  she  dreads,  in  order  to  get  her  in  his  power.  While 
Thea  and  Tessman  are  planning  the  reconstruction  of  Lovberg's  book,  Hedda  goes 
to  the  back  of  the  room  and  kills  herself  with  a  pistol  shot  —  in  the  head. 

HEIMSKRINGLA,  THE,  by  Snorri  Sturlason.  This  chronicle  of  the  kings  of  Nor- 
way (from  the  earliest  times  down  to  1 177),  sometimes  known  as  the  'Younger  Edda ' 
or  the  *  Mythic  Ring  of  the  World/  was  originally  written  in  Icelandic,  in  the  early 
part  of  the  thirteenth  century.  It  has  always  been  a  household  word  in  the  home  of 
every  peasant  in  Iceland,  and  is  entertaining  reading  to  those  who  read  for  mere 
amusement,  as  well  as  to  the  student  of  history;  being  full  of  incident  and  anecdote, 
told  with  racy  simplicity,  and  giving  an  accurate  picture  of  island  life  at  that  early 
day.  Short  pieces  of  scaldic  poetry  originally  recited  by  bards  are  interspersed,  teing 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  387 

quoted  by  Snorri  as  his  authorities  for  the  facts  he  tells.  The  writer,  born  in  Iceland 
in  1178,  was  educated  by  a  grandson  of  Saemund  Sigfusson,  author  of  the  'Elder 
Edda,'  who  doubtless  turned  his  pupil's  thoughts  in  the  direction  of  this  book.  A 
descendant  of  the  early  kings,  he  would  naturally  like  to  study  their  history.  He 
became  chief  magistrate  of  Iceland,  took  an  active  part  in  politics,  and  was  murdered 
in  1241  by  his  two  sons-in-law,  at  the  instigation  of  King  Hakon.  His  book  was  first 
printed  in  1697,  in  a  Latin  translation,  having  been  inculcated  in  manuscript,  or  by 
word  of  mouth,  up  to  that  time.  It  was  afterwards  translated  into  Danish  and 
English,  and  may  be  regarded  as  a  classic  work. 

HEIR  OF  REDCLYFFE,  THE  (1853),  by  Charlotte  Alary  Yonge,  is  a  sad  but 
interesting  love  story,  and  gives  a  picture  of  the  home  life  of  an  English  family  in  the 
country. 

Sir  Guy  Morville,  the  attractive  young  hero,  leaves  Redclyffe  after  the  death  of 
his  grandfather,  and  becomes  a  member  of  his  guardian's  large  household.  Many 
incidents  are  related  of  his  life  there  with  Laura,  Amy,  and  Charlotte,  their  lame 
brother  Charles,  and  his  own  sedate,  antagonistic  cousin,  Philip  Morville.  At  the 
end  of  three  years  he  and  Amy  confess  their  love  for  each  other;  but  as  he  is  still  a 
youth,  no  engagement  is  made,  and  at  the  advice  of  his  guardian  he  leaves  Hollywell. 
Philip  wrongly  suspects  Guy  of  gambling,  and  tells  his  guardian  his  suspicions.  Guy 
has  paid  his  uncle's  gaming  debts,  and  when  called  upon  for  an  explanation  he  is  too 
generous  to  clear  his  character  at  his  uncle's  expense.  He  is  banished  from  Hollywell, 
and  returns  to  Redclyffe  at  the  end  of  the  Oxford  term.  At  Redclyffe  Guy  bravely 
rescues  some  shipwrecked  men  after  a  storm  at  sea,  and  before  long  his  reputation  is 
restored  by  his  uncle.  He  returns  to  Hollywell,  finds  that  Amy  has  been  true  to  him, 
and  they  are  married.  They  go  abroad  for  their  wedding  journey;  and  after  a  few 
weeks  of  mutual  happiness,  they  learn  that  Philip  is  sick  with  a  fever  in  Italy.  Guy 
overlooks  past  injustice,  they  go  to  him,  and  Guy  nurses  him  through  a  severe  illness. 
He  takes  the  fever  himself  and  dies  shortly  afterwards,  leaving  Amy  to  mourn  his  loss 
for  the  rest  of  her  life.  The  story  ends  with  the  marriage  of  Philip  and  Laura,  who 
had  long  been  secretly  engaged;  and  as  Guy's  child  is  a  girl,  Philip  inherits 
Redclyffe. 

The  two  characters  which  stand  out  in  the  book  are  Guy  Morville,  generous, 
manly,  bright,  and  of  a  lovable  disposition;  and  Philip,  stern,  honorable,  self-esteem- 
ing, and  unrelentingly  prejudiced  against  Guy  —  until  Guy's  unselfish  nobility  of 
conduct  forces  him  to  humble  contrition. 

HELDENBUCH,  a  name  given  successively  to  several  versions  of  a  collection  of 
German  legends  from  the  thirteenth  century.  The  first  'Heldenbuch'  was  printed 
in  Strasburg,  probably  in  the  year  1470;  the  second  in  Dresden  in  1472.  The  latter 
version  was  almost  entirely  divested  of  the  quaint  poetic  charm  of  the  original  legends 
by  the  dry,  pedantic  style  of  one  of  the  editors,  by  whose  name  the  collection  is 
known,  —  Kasper  von  der  Roen.  The  older  volume,  however,  preserved  the  spirit 
of  the  thirteenth  century  with  admirable  fidelity,  both  in  its  text  and  in  the  delight- 
fully naive  illustrations  which  accompany  it. 

Among  the  heroic  myths  which  appear  in  the  original  '  Heldenbuch '  are  the  an- 
cient Gothic  legends  of  'King  Laurin'  and  'The  Rose  Garden  at  Worms,'  together 
with  three  from  the  Lombard  cycle,  'Omit,'  'Wolfdietrich,'  and  ' Hugdietrich.' 
These  have  been  rendered  into  Modern  High  German  in  the  present  century  by  Karl 
Josef  Simrock,  whose  scholarly  and  sympathetic  translation  makes  his  'Kleines 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Heldenbuch '  as  valuable  a  contribution  to  the  liistory  of  German  literature  as  was 
the  original  collection  of  the  same  name. 

HELEN,  by  Maria  Edgeworth.  This  old-fashioned  novel  describes  the  social  life  of 
England  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century;  and  draws  a  moral  by  showing 
how  one  deception  leads  to  another,  and  finally  envelops  the  whole  life  in  deceit  and 
wretchedness.  A  mere  statement  of  the  plot  is  of  no  interest :  the  value  of  the  story  is 
in  its  humor  and  its  knowledge  of  the  human  heart. 

Among  the  characters  are  Cecilia;  her  mother,  Lady  Devenant,  a  spirited  society 
woman,  and  a  very  kind  friend  to  Helen  (the  heroine);  Miss  Clarendon,  a  blunt 
outspoken  woman,  and  a  modern  type  to  find  in  an  old  novel;  besides  Lord  Beltravers, 
a  false  friend  of  Granville  Beauclerc,  the  hero.  'Helen*  was  published  in  1834.  It 
was  the  last  novel  Miss  Edgeworth  wrote  before  her  death  fifteen  years  afterwards. 

HELMET  OF  NAVARRE,  THE,  by  Bertha  Runkle,  was  published  in  1901,  and  was 

one  of  the  successful  novels  of  the  year.  The  scene  is  laid  in  France  at  the  time  that 
Henry  of  Navarre  is  about  to  ascend  the  throne,  and  deals  with  the  adventures  of 
Felix  Broux,  a  youth  whose  family  had  for  centuries  faithfully  served  the  Dukes  of 
St.  Quentin.  At  a  time  when  his  master,  as  an  open  enemy  of  the  League,  is  in  great 
danger,  Broux  goes  to  Paris  to  join  him  and  immediately  finds  himself  involved  in  all 
sorts  of  intrigues  and  difficulties.  The  Duke  of  St.  Quentin  and  his  son,  the  Comte  de 
Mar,  have  become  estranged  through  the  villainies  of  one  Lucas,  who  is  employed 
as  the  Duke's  secretary,  but,  who  in  reality  is  a  spy  of  the  League.  Young  Broux 
is  the  means  of  bringing  about  a  reconciliation  between  father  and  son,  and  of  expos- 
ing the  evil  machinations  of  Lucas,  and  afterwards  serves  De  Mar  with  unfailing 
loyalty  and  ingenuity.  He  proves  to  be  an  invaluable  aid  in  the  love  affair  of  the 
Comte  and  Lorance  de  Montluc,  the  ward  of  Monsieur  de  Mayenne,  and  helps  to 
bring  the  lovers  together  in  spite  of  the  many  difficulties  placed  in  their  way.  Lucas, 
the  evil  genius  of  the  story,  weaves  plot  after  plot  to  bring  the  St.  Quentins  to  ruin, 
and  time  after  time  when  on  the  very  brink  of  destruction  they  are  saved  by  chance  or 
strategy.  The  book  is  full  of  adventures  and  hairbreadth  escapes,  has  snares  and 
secret  passages,  mysterious  inns  and  rascally  landlords,  and  plenty  of  sword  play. 
The  action  of  the  romance  extends  over  only  four  days  but  it  is  most  spirited,  and 
includes  many  exciting  incidents  which  the  young  author  has  woven  into  her  charming 
whole  with  surprising  ease  and  skill. 

HELPMATE,  THE,  by  May  Sinclair  (i  907) .  The  title  of  this  novel  is  ironic.  It  is  a 
sympathetic  study  of  the  married  life  of  a  sinner  and  a  saint,  in  which  one's  sympa- 
thies are  always  with  the  sinner.  The  theme  is  that  sin  is  more  often  weakness  than 
wickedness,  and  that  goodness  can  as  often  be  pride  as  holiness.  While  Walter  and 
Anne  Majendie  are  on  their  honeymoon,  rumors  reach  the  wife  that  seven  years 
before  he  knew  her,  her  husband  had  had  a  liaison  with  an  older  married  woman. 
He  had  reason  to  suppose  that  Anne  had  been  exactly  informed  concerning  this  affair 
before  her  marriage.  In  her  eyes  he  is  a  moral  leper.  Though  a  man  of  no  great 
force  he  has  unusual  sweetness  of  temper,  and  waits  patiently  for  his  wife  to  respond 
to  his  devoted  affection.  He  is  constitutionally  incapable  of  sinking  to  the  depths 
of  abasement  and  perpetual  expiation  to  which  she  condemns  him.  The  cold  virtue 
of  his  wife  finally  drives  him  to  seek  consolation  in  clandestine  relations  with  a  little 
shop  girl.  Their  child  dies  while  Walter  is  away  from  home.'  His  grief  and  strain 
and  Anne's  accusations  and  reproaches  precipitate  a  paralytic  stroke.  She  nurses 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  389 

him  back  to  health  and  in  the  end  all  is  well,  since  Anne  through  suffering  comes  to 
realize  her  own  shortcomings,  after  nine  tragic  years  of  misunderstanding. 

HENRY  IV.  by  Shakespeare.  Part  i.,  stands  at  the  head  of  all  Shakespeare's  his- 
torical comedies,  as  Falstaff  is  by  far  his  best  humorous  character.  The  two  parts 
of  the  drama  were  first  published  in  1598  and  1600  respectively,  the  source-texts  for 
both  being  Holinshed's  ' Chronicles*  and  the  old  play,  'The  famous  Victories  of 
Henry  the  Fifth.1  The  contrasted  portraits  of  the  impetuous  Hotspur  (Henry 
Percy)  and  the  chivalric  Prince  Henry  in  Part  i.,  are  masterly  done.  King  Henry, 
with  the  crime  of  Richard  II. 's  death  on  his  conscience,  was  going  on  a  crusade,  to 
divert  attention  from  himself;  but  Glendower  and  Hotspur  give  him  his  hands  full  at 
home.  Hotspur  has  refused  to  deliver  up  certain  prisoners  taken  on  Holmedon  field : 
"  My  liege,  I  did  deny  no  prisoners, "  he  says  in  the  well-known  speech  painting  to  the 
life  the  perfumed  dandy  on  the  field  of  battle.  However,  the  Percys  revolt  from  the 
too  haughty  monarch ;  and  at  Shrewsbury  the  Hotspur  faction,  greatly  outnumbered 
by  the  King's  glittering  host,  is  defeated,  and  Percy  himself  slain  by  Prince  Harry. 
For  the  humorous  portions  we  have  first  the  broad  talk  of  the  carriers  in  the  inn- 
yard  at  Rochester;  then  the  night  robbery  at  Gadshill,  where  old  Jack  frets  like  a 
gummed  varlet,  and  lards  the  earth  with  perspiration  as  he  seeks  his  horse  hidden  by 
Bardolph  behind  a  hedge.  Prince  Hal  and  Poins  rob  the  robbers.  Falstaff  and  his 
men  hack  their  swords,  and  tickle  their  noses  with  grass  to  make  them  bleed.  Then 
after  supper,  at  the  Boar's  Head,  in  slink  the  disappointed  Falstaffians,  and  Jack 
regales  the  Prince  and  Poins  with  his  amusing  whoppers  about  the  dozen  or  so  of 
rogues  in  Kendal  green  that  set  upon  them  at  Gadshill.  Hal  puts  him  down  with  a 
plain  tale.  Great  hilarity  all  around.  Hal  and  Jack  are  in  the  midst  of  a  mutual 
mock-judicial  examination  when  the  sheriff  knocks  at  the  door.  The  fat  knight  falls 
asleep  behind  the  arras,  and  has  his  pockets  picked  by  the  Prince.  Next  day  the 
latter  has  the  money  paid  back,  and  he  and  Falstaff  set  off  for  the  seat  of  war,  Jack 
marching  by  Coventry  with  his  regiment  of  tattered  prodigals.  Attacked  by  Douglas 
in  the  battle,  Falstaff  falls,  feigning  death.  He  sees  the  Prince  kill  Hotspur,  and 
afterwards  rises,  gives  the  corpse  a  fresh  stab,  lugs  it  off  on  his  back,  and  swears  he 
and  Hotspur  fought  a  good  hour  by  Shrewsbury  clock,  and  that  he  himself  killed 
him.  The  prince  magnanimously  agrees  to  gild  the  lie  with  the  happiest  terms  he 
has,  if  it  will  do  his  old  friend  any  grace. 

HENRY  IV.,  Part  ii.,  by  Shakespeare  (First  known  Edition,  1600),  forms  a 
dramatic  whole  with  the  preceding.  The  serious  parts  are  more  of  the  nature  of 
dramatized  chronicle;  but  the  humorous  scenes  are  fully  as  delightful  and  varied  as 
in  the  first  part.  Hotspur  is  dead,  and  King  Henry  is  afflicted  with  insomnia  and 
nearing  his  end.  "Uneasy  lies  the  head  that  wears  a  crown,"  he  says  in  the  fine 
apostrophe  to  sleep.  At  Gaultree  Forest  his  son  Prince  John  tricks  his  enemies  into 
surrender,  and  sends  the  leaders  to  execution.  The  death-bed  speeches  of  the  King 
and  Prince  Henry  are  deservedly  famous.  All  the  low-comedy  characters  reappear 
in  this  sequel.  Dame  Quickly  appears,  with  officers  Snare  and  Fang,  to  arrest 
Falstaff,  who  has  put  all  her  substance  into  that  great  belly  of  his.  In  Part  i.  we 
found  him  already  in  her  debt:  for  one  thing,  she  had  bought  him  a  dozen  of  shirts 
to  his  back.  Further,  sitting  in  the  Dolphin  chamber  by  a  sea-coal  fire,  had  he  not 
sworn  upon  a  parcel-gilt  goblet  to  marry  her?  But  the  merry  old  villain  deludes  her 
still  more,  and  she  now  pawns  her  plate  and  tapestry  for  him.  Now  enter  Prince  Hal 
and  Poins  from  the  wars,  and  ribald  and  coarse  are  the  scenes  unveiled.  Dame 


390  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Quickly  has  deteriorated:  in  the  last  act  of  this  play  she  is  shown  being  dragged  to 
prison  with  Doll  Tearsheet,  to  answer  the  death  of  a  man  at  her  inn.  The  accounts 
of  the  trull  Doll,  and  her  billingsgate  talk  with  Pistol,  are  too  unsavory  to  be  entirely 
pleasant  reading;  and  one  gladly  turns  from  the  atmosphere  of  the  slums  to  the  fresh 
country  air  of  Gloucestershire,  where,  at  Justice  Shallow's  manse,  Falstaff  is  "prick- 
ing down"  his  new  recruits,  —  Mouldy,  Feeble,  Wart,  etc.  Shallow  is  like  a  forked 
radish  with  a  beard  carved  on  it,  or  a  man  made  out  of  a  cheese-paring.  He  is  given 
to  telling  big  stories  about  what  a  wild  rake  he  was  at  Clement's  Inn  in  his  youth. 
Sir  John  swindles  the  poor  fellow  out  of  a  thousand  pounds.  But  listen  to  Shallow: 
"Let  me  see,  Davy;  let  me  see,  Davy;  let  me  see."  "Sow  the  headland  with  red 
wheat,  Davy";  "Let  the  smith's  note  for  shoeing  and  plough-irons  be  cast  and  paid." 
"  Nay,  Sir  John,  you  shall  see  my  orchard,  where,  in  an  arbor,  we  shall  eat  a  last  year's 
pippin  of  my  own  grafting,  with  a  dish  of  caraways  and  so  forth."  Amid  right  merry 
chaffing  and  drinking  enters  Pistol  with  news  of  the  crowning  of  Henry  V.  "Away, 
Bardolph!  saddle  my  horse;  we'll  ride  all  night;  boot,  boot,  Master  Shallow,  I  know 
the  King  is  sick  for  me,"  shouts  old  Jack.  Alas  for  his  hopes!  he  and  his  companions 
are  banished  the  new  Bong's  presence,  although  provided  with  the  means  to  live. 

HENRY  V.  is  the  last  of  Shakespeare's  ten  great  war  dramas.  It  was  written  in 
1599,  printed  in  1600,  the  materials  being  derived  from  the  same  sources  as  are  given 
above.  Henry  IV.  is  dead,  and  bluff  King  Hal  is  showing  himself  to  be  every  inch  a 
king.  His  claim  to  the  crown  of  France  is  solemnly  sanctioned.  The  Dauphin  has 
sent  him  his  merry  mock  of  tennis  balls,  and  got  his  stern  answer.  The  traitors  — 
Cambridge,  Scroop,  and  Grey  —  have  been  sent  to  their  death.  The  choice  youth 
of  England  (and  some  riff-raff,  too,  such  as  Bardolph,  Nym,  and  Pistol)  have  em- 
barked at  Southampton,  and  the  threaden  sails  have  drawn  the  huge  bottoms 
through  the  sea  to  France.  The  third  act  opens  in  the  very  heat  of  an  attack  upon 
the  walls  of  the  seaport  of  Harfleur,  and  King  Harry  is  urging  on  his  men  in  that 
impassioned  speech  —  "Once  more  unto  the  breach,  dear  friends"  —  which  thrills 
the  heart  like  a  slogan  in  battle.  We  also  catch  glimpses  of  the  army  in  Picardy,  and 
finally  see  it  on  the  eve  of  Agincourt.  The  night  is  rainy  and  dark,  the  hostile  camps 
are  closely  joined.  King  Henry,  cheerful  and  strong,  goes  disguised  through  his 
camp,  and  finds  that  whatever  the  issue  of  the  war  may  be,  he  is  expected  to  bear  all 
the  responsibility.  A  private  soldier  —  Williams  —  impeaches  the  King's  good 
faith,  and  the  disguised  Henry  accepts  his  glove  as  a  gauge  and  challenge  for  the 
morrow.  Day  dawns,  the  fight  is  on,  the  dogged  English  win  the  day.  Then,  as  a 
relief  to  his  nerves,  Henry  has  his  bit  of  fun  with  Williams,  who  has  sworn  to  box  the 
ear  of  the  man  caught  wearing  the  mate  of  his  glove.  The  wooing  by  King  Henry  of 
Kate,  the  French  King's  daughter,  ends  the  play.  But  all  through  the  drama  runs 
also  a  comic  vein.  The  humorous  characters  are  Pistol,  —  now  married  to  Nell 
Quickly,  —  Bardolph,  Nym,  and  Fluellen,  Falstaff,  his  heart  "fracted  and  corro- 
borate" by  the  King's  casting  of  him  off,  and  babbling  o'  green  fields,  has  "gone  to 
Arthur's  bosom."  His  followers  are  off  for  the  wars.  At  Harfleur,  Bardolph,  of  the 
purple  and  bubuMed  nose,  cries,  "On  to  the  breach!"  very  valorously,  but  is  soon 
hanged  for  robbing  a  church.  Le  grand  Capitaine  Pistol  so  awes  a  poor  Johnny 
Crapaud  of  a  prisoner  that  he  offers  him  two  hundred  crowns  in  ransom.  Pistol  fires 
off  some  stinging  bullets  of  wit  at  the  Saint  Tavy's  day  leek  in  the  cap  of  Fluellen, 
who  presently  makes  him  eat  a  leek,  giving  him  the  cudgel  over  the  head  for  sauce. 
The  blackguard  hies  him  home  to  London  to  swear  he  got  his  scalp  wound  in 
the  wars. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  391 

HENRY  VL,  Parts  i.,  ii.,  iii.  (First  printed  in  1623).  Of  the  eight  dosely  linked 
Shakespeare  historical  plays,  these  three  cover  nearly  all  of  the  fifteenth  century  in 
this  order:  'Richard  II.';  'Henry  IV.,'  Parts  i.  and  ii.;  'Henry  V.';  'Henry  VI.' 
(three  parts);  and  'Richard  III,1  —  Henry  IV.  grasped  the  crown  from  Richard  II., 
the  rightful  owner,  and  became  the  founder  of  the  house  of  Lancaster.  About  1455 
began  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  (The  Lancastrians  wore  as  a  badge  the  white  rose, 
the  Yorkists  the  red;  Shakespeare  gives  the  origin  of  the  custom  in  Henry  VI.,  Part 
i..  Act  ii.,  Scene  4,  adherents  of  each  party  chancing  in  the  Temple  Garden,  London, 
to  pluck  each  a  rose  of  this  color  or  that  as  symbol  of  his  adherency.)  In  1485  the 
Lancastrian  Henry  VII.,  the  conqueror  of  Richard  III.,  ended  these  disastrous  wars, 
and  reconciled  the  rival  houses  by  marriage  with  Elizabeth  of  York. 

The  three  parts  of  'Henry  VI.,'  like  'Richard  II./  present  a  picture  of  a  king  too 
weak-willed  to  properly  defend  the  dignity  of  the  throne.  They  are  reeking  with 
blood  and  echoing  with  the  clash  of  arms.  They  are  sensationally  and  bombastically 
written,  and  such  parts  of  them  as  are  by  Shakespeare  are  known  to  be  his  earliest 
work.  His  work  seems  to  have  been  that  of  a  reviser;  and  the  general  plan  of  the 
plays  and  their  successor  'Richard  III.'  is  after  Marlowe's  manner. 

In  Part  i.  the  scene  lies  chiefly  in  France,  where  the  brave  Talbot  and  Exeter  and 
the  savage  York  and  Warwick  are  fighting  the  French.  Joan  of  Arc  is  here  repre- 
sented by  the  poet  (who  only  followed  English  chronicle  and  tradition)  as  a  charlatan, 
a  witch,  and  a  strumpet.  The  picture  is  an  absurd  caricature  of  the  truth.  In 
Part  ii.,  the  leading  character  is  Margaret,  whom  the  Duke  of  Suffolk  has  brought 
over  from  France  and  married  to  the  weak  and  nerveless  poltroon  King  Henry  VI., 
but  is  himself  her  guilty  lover.  He  and  Buckingham  and  Margaret  conspire  success- 
fully against  the  life  of  the  Protector,  Duke  Humphrey,  and  Suffolk  is  killed  during 
the  rebellion  of  Jack  Cade,  —  an  uprising  of  the  people  which  the  play  merely  bur- 
lesques. Part  iii.  is  taken  up  with  the  horrible  murders  done  by  fiendish  Gloster 
(afterward  Richard  III.)  the  defeat  and  imprisonment  of  Henry  VI.  and  his  assassi- 
nation in  prison  by  Gloster,  and  the  seating  of  Gloster's  brother  Edward  (IV.)  on  the 
throne.  The  brothers,  including  Clarence,  stab  Queen  Margaret's  son  and  imprison 
her.  She  appears  again  as  a  subordinate  character  in  'Richard  III.'  In  1476  she 
renounced  her  claim  to  the  throne  and  returned  to  the  Continent. 

HEKRY  VUL,  a  historical  drama  by  Shakespeare  (first  printed  in  1623),  based  on 
Edward  Hall's  'Union  of  the  Families  of  Lancaster  and  York,7  Holinshed's  'Chroni- 
cles,' and  Fox's  'Acts  and  Monuments  of  the  Church.'  The  key-idea  is  the  muta- 
bility of  earthly  grandeur,  and  by  one  or  another  turn  of  Fortune's  wheel,  the  over- 
throw of  the  mighty  —  i.e.,  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  and  of 
Queen  Katharine.  The  action  covers  a  period  of  sixteen  years,  from  the  Field  of  the 
Cloth  of  Gold,  in  1520,  described  in  the  opening  pages,  to  the  death  of  Queen  Katha- 
rine in  1536.  It  is  the  trial  and  divorce  of  this  patient,  queenly,  and  unfortunate 
woman,  that  forms  the  main  subject  of  the  drama.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Ferdi- 
nand and  Isabella  of  Castile,  and  born  in  1485.  She  had  been  married  when  seven- 
teen to  Arthur,  eldest  son  of  Henry  VII.  Arthur  lived  only  five  months  after  his 
marriage,  and  when  at  seventeen  years  Henry  VIII.  came  to  the  throne  (that  "most 
hateful  ruffian  and  tyrant ") ,  he  married  Katharine,  then  twenty-four.  She  bore  him 
children,  and  he  never  lost  his  respect  for  her  and  her  unblemished  life.  But  twenty 
years  after  his  marriage  he  met  Anne  Bullen  at  a  merry  ball  at  Cardinal  Wolsey's 
palace,  and  fell  in  love  with  her,  and  immediately  conceived  conscientious  scruples 
against  the  legality  of  his  marriage.  Queen  Katharine  is  brought  to  trial  before  a 


392  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

solemn  council  of  nobles  and  churchmen.  With  fine  dignity  she  appeals  to  the  Pope 
and  leaves  the  council,  refusing  then  and  ever  after  to  attend  "any  of  their  courts." 
The  speeches  are  masterpieces  of  pathetic  and  noble  defense.  In  all  his  facts  the 
poet  follows  history  very  faithfully.  The  Pope  goes  against  her,  and  she  is  divorced 
and  sequestered  at  Kimbolton,  where  presently  she  dies  heart-broken,  sending  a  dying 
message  of  love  to  Henry.  Intertwined  with  the  sad  fortunes  of  the  queen  are  the 
equally  crushing  calamities  that  overtake  Cardinal  Wolsey.  His  high-blown  pride, 
his  oppressive  exactions  in  amassing  wealth  greater  than  the  king's,  his  ego  et  rex 
meus,  his  double  dealing  with  Henry  in  securing  the  Pope's  sanction  to  the  divorce, 
—  these  and  other  things  are  the  means  whereby  his  many  enemies  work  his  ruin. 
He  is  stripped  of  all  his  dignities  and  offices,  and  wanders  away,  an  old  man  broken 
with  the  storms  of  State,  to  lay  his  bones  in  Leicester  Abbey.  The  episode  of  the 
trial  of  Archbishop  Cranmer  is  so  pathetically  handled  as  to  excite  tears.  He  is 
brought  to  trial  for  heresy  by  his  enemy  Gardiner,  bishop  of  Winchester,  but  has 
previously  been  moved  to  tears  of  gratitude  by  Henry's  secretly  bidding  him  be  of 
good  cheer,  and  giving  him  his  signet  ring  as  a  talisman  to  conjure  with  if  too  hard 
pressed  by  his  enemies.  Henry  is  so  placed  as  to  oversee  (himself  unseen)  Cranmer's 
trial  and  the  arrogant  persecution  of  Gardiner.  Cranmer  produces  the  ring  just  as 
they  are  commanding  him  to  be  led  away  to  the  Tower;  and  Henry  steps  forth  to  first 
rebuke  his  enemies  and  then  command  them  to  be  at  peace.  He  does  Cranmer  the 
high  honor  of  asking  him  to  become  a  godfather  to  the  daughter  (Elizabeth)  of  Anne 
Bullen;  and  after  Cranmer's  eloquent  prophecy  at  the  christening,  the  curtain 
falls.  The  setting  of  this  play  is  full  of  rich  and  magnificent  scenery  and 
spectacular  pomp. 

HENRY  ESMOND.  This  splendid  romance,  published  in  1852,  is  one  of  the  most 
important  of  Thackeray's  novels.  It  is  a  romance  of  the  time  of  Queen  Anne,  and 
purports  to  be  told  by  the  hero  in  the  years  of  rest  after  the  storm  and  stress  of  a 
checkered  life.  It  is  written  after  the  manner  of  the  time,  which  gives  it  a  pleasant 
flavor  of  quaintness. 

The  hero,  a  boy  of  noble  character,  is  the  true  heir  to  the  Castlewood  estate,  but  is 
supposed  to  be  illegitimate,  and  grows  up  as  a  dependent  in  the  home  of  his  second 
cousin,  the  titular  viscount,  where  he  is  treated  with  kindness  and  affection.  The 
family  consists  of  the  young  and  lovely  Lady  Castlewood;  a  son,  Francis,  and  a 
beautiful  daughter,  Beatrix.  Lord  Castlewood  neglects  his  wife,  and  exposes  her 
to  the  unwelcome  attentions  of  Lord  Mohun,  with  whom  he  subsequently  fights  a 
duel,  in  which  he  is  killed.  Without  justification,  Lady  Castlewood  holds  Esmond 
responsible  for  the  duel.  Having  learned  that  he  is  legally  heir  to  Castlewood,  he  is 
constrained  by  gratitude  to  conceal  the  knowledge,  and  goes  off  to  the  wars.  Return- 
ing to  England  on  furlough,  he  is  received  with  great  affection,  and  immediately  falls 
in  love  with  Beatrix,  whom  he  wooes  unavailingly  for  ten  years.  The  brilliant  beauty 
becomes  engaged  to  the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  but  he  is  killed  in  a  duel.  Esmond,  a 
devoted  Jacobite,  brings  the  Pretender  to  England  in  readiness  to  succeed  Queen 
Anne,  who  is  dying;  but  the  Prince  lays  siege  to  the  fair  Beatrix  instead  of  the  throne. 
This  wrecks  the  project;  and  Henry,  now  discovering  his  purposes,  crosses  swords 
with  him.  The  Pretender  then  returns  to  Paris,  where  Beatrix  joins  him. 

Henry  now  discovers  that  his  very  long  attachment  for  Beatrix  has  given  place  to 
a  tender  affection  for  her  mother,  notwithstanding  her  eight  years  of  superior  age. 
This  is  the  weakest  point  in  the  novel,  but  the  author  manages  it  skillfully.  The 
attachment  being  mutual,  no  obstacle  appears  to  their  marriage.  Frank  is  left  in 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  393 

possession  of  the  estate,  while  Esmond  and  his  bride  emigrate  to  the  family 
plantations  in  Virginia;  where  their  subsequent  fortunes  form  the  theme  of  'The 
Virginians.' 

HENRY,  PRINCE  OF  PORTUGAL,  SURNAMED  THE  NAVIGATOR,  The  Life  of,  and 
its  Results;  Comprising  the  Discovery,  within  One  Century,  of  Half  the  World. 
From  Authentic  Contemporary  Documents.  By  Richard  Henry  Major  (1868). 
The  remarkable  story  of  a  half -English  son  of  "the  greatest  king  that  ever  sat  on  the 
throne  of  Portugal'*  by  his  mother,  Queen  Philippa;  a  grandson  of  "old  John  of 
Gaunt,  time-honored  Lancaster";  nephew  of  Henry  IV.  of  England;  and  great- 
grandson  of  Edward  III.  His  father,  King  Joao  or  John,  who  formed  a  close  English 
connection  by  marrying  Philippa  of  Lancaster,  was  the  first  king  of  the  house  of 
Aviz,  under  which  Portugal,  for  two  hundred  years,  rose  to  its  highest  prosperity 
and  power.  The  career  of  Portugal  in  exploration  and  discovery,  due  to  the  genius 
and  devotion  of  Prince  Henry,  Mr.  Major  characterizes  as  "a  phenomenon  without 
example  in  the  world's  history,  resulting  from  the  thought  and  perseverance  of  one 
man."  We  see,  he  says,  "the  small  population  of  a  narrow  strip  of  the  Spanish 
peninsula  [Portugal],  limited  both  in  means  and  men,  become,  m  an  incredibly  short 
space  of  time,  a  mighty  maritime  nation,  not  only  conquering  tne  islands  and  western 
coasts  of  Africa,  and  rounding  its  southern  cape,  but  creating  empires  and  founding 
capital  cities  at  a  distance  of  two  thousand  leagues  from  their  own  homesteads"; 
and  such  results  "were  the  effects  of  the  patience,  wisdom,  intellectual  labor,  and 
example  of  one  man,  backed  by  the  pluck  of  a  race  of  sailors,  who,  when  we  consider 
the  means  at  their  disposal,  have  been  unsurpassed  as  adventurers  in  any  country 
or  in  any  age."  It  was  these  brave  men,  many  years  before  Columbus,  who 
"first  penetrated  the  Sea  of  Darkness,  as  the  Arabs  called  the  Atlantic  beyond 
the  Canaries";  and  they  did  this  in  the  employment  and  under  the  inspira- 
tion of  Prince  Henry,  whose  "courageous  conception  and  unflinching  zeal  during 
forty  long  years  of  limited  success"  prepared  the  way  for  complete  success  after 
his  death. 

Born  March  4,  1394,  Prince  Henry  had  become  one  of  the  first  soldiers  of  his  age 
when,  in  1420,  he  refused  offers  of  military  command,  and  undertook  to  direct,  at 
Sagres  (the  extreme  point  of  land  of  Europe  looking  southwest  into  the  Atlantic  Sea 
of  Darkness),  plans  of  exploration  of  the  unknown  seas  of  the  world  lying  to  the  west 
and  south.  His  idea  was  to  overcome  the  difficulties  of  the  worst  part  of  that  im- 
mense world  of  storms,  that  lying  west  of  Africa,  and  thereby  get  round  Africa  to  the 
south  and  sail  to  India,  and  China,  and  the  isles  beyond  India.  Every  year  he  sent 
out  two  or  three  caravels;  but  his  great  thought  and  indomitable  perseverance  had 
yielded  only  "twelve  years  of  costly  failure  and  disheartening  ridicule,"  when,  in  1434, 
the  first  great  success  was  achieved  by  Gil  Eannes,  that  of  sailing  beyond  Cape  Boya- 
dor.  Prince  Henry  made  his  seat  at  Sagres,  one  of  the  most  desolate  spots  in  the 
world,  a  school  of  navigation,  a  resort  for  explorers  and  navigators.  His  contempo- 
rary Azurara  says  of  "Him:  "Stout  of  heart  and  keen  of  intellect,  he  was  extraordin- 
arily ambitious  of  achieving  great  deeds.  His  self-discipline  was  unsurpassed:  all  his 
days  were  spent  in  hard  work,  and  often  he  passed  the  night  without  sleep;  so  that  by 
dint  of  unflagging  industry  he  conquered  what  seemed  to  be  impossibilities  to  other 
men.  His  household  formed  a  training-school  for  the  young  nobility  of  the  country. 
Foreigners  of  renown  found  a  welcome  in  his  house,  and  none  left  it  without  proof  of 
his  generosity."  To  more  perfectly  devote  himself  to  his  great  task,  he  never  married, 
but  took  for  his  bride  "Knowledge  of  the  Earth." 


394  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

HER  DEAREST  FOE,  by  Mrs.  Alexander  (1876).  The  scene  of  this  story  (perhaps 
the  best  by  this  prolific  writer)  is  laid  in  and  about  London,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
last  century.  Mr.  Richard  Travers,  a  middle-aged  merchant  seeking  rest,  goes 
to  the  little  town  of  Cullingford,  and  there  stays  with  a  Mrs.  Aylmer,  a  widow  with 
one  daughter.  Mr.  Travers  is  charmed  with  Cullingford,  and  revisits  the  place  from 
time  to  time.  Eventually  he  falls  in  love  with  Kate  Aylmer,  and  marries  her  after 
the  death  of  her  mother.  Subsequently  he  makes  a  will  in  favor  of  his  wife,  which  also 
disinherits  his  cousin  and  former  heir,  Sir  Hugh  Galbraith.  After  the  death  of 
Travers,  his  widow  succeeds  to  his  estate;  but  is  not  long  left  in  undisturbed  posses- 
sion, as  Mr,  Ford,  a  clerk  in  the  office  of  her  late  husband,  produces  another  will  in 
favor  of  Sir  Hugh.  Mrs.  Travers  is  obliged  to  give  up  her  property  and  compelled  to 
support  herself.  She  settles  in  the  village  of  Pierstoffe,  which  is  picturesquely 
described;  where,  assisted  by  her  friend  and  companion  Fanny  Lee,  she  opens  a  small 
fancy-goods  shop.  Sir  Hugh,  while  hunting  in  the  neighborhood,  meets  with  an 
accident,  and  is  taken  to  the  house  of  Mrs.  Travers,  of  whose  identity  he  remains  in 
ignorance,  as  he  has  never  seen  his  hostess  before,  and  as  she  had  assumed  the  name 
of  Temple  upon  leaving  London.  Sir  Hugh  falls  in  love  with  his  charming  nurse,  and 
upon  regaining  his  health,  proposes  marriage  to  her;  but  is  rejected,  as  she  believes 
him  to  have  had  a  hand  in  defrauding  her  of  her  property.  Not  long  after  this,  Mrs. 
Travers,  or  Mrs.  Temple,  is  enabled  to  prove  that  the  will  in  favor  of  Sir  Hugh  is  a 
forgery,  for  which  the  clerk  Ford  is  wholly  answerable.  Sir  Hugh  again  offers  himself, 
and  this  time  she  accepts  him;  afterwards  revealing  her  identity,  and  rejoicing  that 
she  has  an  opportunity  of  ' '  heaping  coals  of  fire  on  the  head  of  her  dearest  f oe. "  The 
story  flows  easily  and  pleasantly,  the  pictures  of  town  and  country  life  are  natural 
and  entertaining,  and  the  interest  is  sustained  to  the  end. 

HERBERT  OF  CHERBURY,  EDWARD,  LORD,  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  (First 
printed  in  1764  by  Horace  Walpole).  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  (1583-1648),  who 
had  some  claim  to  recognition  as  a  philosopher  and  a  poet,  is  best  known  by  his 
autobiography.  The  chief  characteristic  of  this  remarkable  piece  of  self-revelation  is 
a  naif  conceit  which  lays  claim  to  the  most  diverse  accomplishments.  The  author  is, 
by  his  own  showing,  the  admired  of  all  admirers,  the  hero  (or  knave)  of  a  thousand 
gallantries,  the  physician  able  to  cure  all  complaints,  the  fencer  able  to  vanquish 
all  rivals.  One  typical  passage  well  indicates  the  style  and  method  of  the  book, 
which  for  all  its  foibles  is  one  of  the  best  remembered  autobiographies:  "I  had  also 
and  have  still  a  pulse  on  the  crown  of  my  head.  It  is  well  known  to  those  that  wait 
in  my  chamber,  that  the  shirts,  waistcoats,  and  other  garments  I  wear  next  my  body, 
are  sweet  beyond  what  either  easily  can  be  believed,  or  hath  been  observed  in  any 
else,  which  sweetness  also  was  found  to  be  in  my  breath  above  others,  before  I  used 
to  take  tobacco,  which  towards  my  latter  time  I  was  forced  to  take  against  certain 
rheums  and  catarrhs  that  trouble  me,  which  yet  did  not  taint  my  breath  for  any  long 
time;  I  scarce  ever  felt  cold  in  my  life,  though  yet  so  subject  to  catarrhs,  that  I  think 
no  man  was  ever  more  obnoxious  to  it ;  all  which  I  do  in  a  familiar  way  mention  to  my 
posterity,  though  otherwise  they  might  be  thought  scarce  worth  the  writing." 
Hardly  any  mention  is  made  of  his  serious  studies,  important  as  these  were,  or  of  the 
serious  side  of  his  character* 

HEREDITARY  GENIUS,  by  Sir  Francis  Galton  (1874).  *n  this  intelligent  and  in- 
teresting study  an  attempt  is  made  to  submit  the  laws  of  Heredity  to  a  quantitative 
test,  by  means  of  statistics.  To  the  result  desired  Galton  contributes  many 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  395 

figures,  many  facts,  and  few  generalizations.  His  pursuit  is  purposely  confined  to 
the  evidence  of  the  inheritance  of  the  fine  mental  condition  or  quality  called  genius,  — 
whether  a  man  endowed  with  it  is  likely  to  have  inherited  it,  or  to  be  reasonably 
certain  to  pass  it  on  to  his  sons  and  grandsons.  The  author  began  his  researches  with 
a  work  on  'English  Judges '  from  1660  to  1865.  In  these  two  centuries  and  a  half  he 
found  that  out  of  the  286  judges  112  had  more  or  less  distinguished  kinsmen,  a  result 
favoring  the  theory  of  a  transmission  of  qualities  in  the  ratio  of  i :  3.  He  goes  on  to 
study  seven  groups  composed  of  statesmen,  generals,  men  of  letters,  men  of  science, 
artists,  poets,  and  divines,  the  number  of  families  considered  being  about  three 
hundred,  and  including  nearly  one  thousand  more  or  less  remarkable  men.  His 
conclusion  is,  that  the  probability  that  an  exceptionally  able  or  distinguished  man 
will  have  had  an  exceptionally  able  father  is  thirty-one  per  cent.,  that  he  will  have 
exceptionally  able  brothers  forty-one  per  cent.,  exceptionally  able  sons  forty- 
eight  per  cent.,  etc.  He  does  not  find  it  to  be  true  that  the  female  line  bequeaths 
better  qualities  than  the  male  line;  and  he  suggests  the  explanation  that  the 
aunts,  sisters,  and  daughters  of  great  men,  having  been  accustomed  to  a  higher 
standard  of  mental  and  perhaps  of  moral  life  than  the  average  prevailing 
standard  will  not  be  satisfied  with  the  average  man,  and  are  therefore  less  apt  to 
marry,  and  so  to  transmit  their  exceptional  qualities.  He  admits,  however,  that 
it  is  impossible,  with  our  present  knowledge  of  statistics,  to  put  this  theory  to 
the  proof.  Galton  groups  his  facts  with  great  skill,  but  his  direct  object  is  to 
arrive  rather  at  a  law  of  averages  than  a  law  of  heredity.  That  is,  his  method  is 
purely  statistical,  and  cannot  therefore  be  applied  with  finality  to  moral  facts. 
11  Number  is  an  instrument  at  once  too  coarse  to  unravel  the  delicate  texture  of  moral 
and  social  phenomena,  and  too  fragile  to  penetrate  deeply  into  their  complicated 
and  multiple  nature."  Yet  Galton,  in  producing  his  extremely  interesting  and 
suggestive  books,  'Hereditary  Genius,'  'English  Men  of  Science,'  and  'Inquiries  into 
Human  Faculty  and  its  Development,'  has  helped  to  estaKish  the  truth  of  psycho- 
logical heredity,  and  the  objective  reality  of  its  still  mysterious  laws. 

HERETICS,  a  volume  of  essays  by  Gilbert  K.  Chesterton,  published  in  1905.  Al- 
though they  deal  with  a  varied  assortment  of  writers  and  topics  —  Kipling,  Bernard 
Shaw,  H.  G.  Wells,  George  Moore,  Lewes  Dickinson,  Omar  and  the  Sacred  Vine, 
Celts  and  Celtophiles,  Science  and  the  Savages  —  they  are  unified  by  the  idea  that 
however  heretical  the  authors  discussed  may  be  "they  do,  each  of  them,  have  a 
constructive  and  affirmative  view  and  they  do  take  it  seriously  and  ask  us  to  take  it 
seriously."  Kipling  is  preaching  imperialism,  Shaw  and  Wells  socialism.  They  are, 
in  various  degrees,  heretics;  but  they  consider  themselves  orthodox;  that  is  they 
believe  themselves  in  possession  of  the  truth  and  wish  to  share  it  with  others.  But 
for  the  heretic  who  believes  in  nothing,  who  will  form  no  general  ideas,  who  thinks 
that  "everything  matters  —  except  everything,"  Chesterton  has  only  contempt. 
Against  this  modern  disposition  to  renounce  all  seriousness  of  conviction,  to  consider 
everyone  a  heretic  and  to  use  orthodoxy  as  a  term  of  reproach,  the  whole  book  is  a 
protest;  and  in  spite  of  its  title  it  may  therefore  be  called  a  plea  for  orthodoxy. 
Chesterton's  characteristic  fondness  for  established  customs  and  institutions,  for 
material  comforts  and  luxuries,  for  faith  and  conviction,  and  for  the  paradoxical 
expression  of  conservative  views  appear  on  every  page  of  this  stimulating  volume. 

HEREWARD  THE  WAKE,  'Last  of  the  English,'  by  the  Rev.  Charles  Kingsley. 
Kingsley  was  Regius  Professor  of  Modern  History  in  the  University  of  Cambrideg, 


396  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

on  the  very  site  of  his  story.  The  author's  propaganda  of  the  religion  of  rugged 
strength  also  made  him  quite  at  home  in  his  theme. 

The  story,  which  is  largely  based  on  the  old  ballads  and  chronicles,  opens  near  the 
end  of  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  when  Hereward  is  made  a  "wake"  or 
outlaw;  and  the  tales  of  his  wanderings,  his  freaks,  and  feats  of  arms,  in  the  North, 
in  Cornwall,  in  Ireland,  and  Flanders,  have  their  foundation  in  the  old  English  records. 
The  author  tells  in  dramatic  st}'le  how  the  hero  returns  from  Flanders,  and  begins 
his  daring  resistance  to  the  Xormans;  running  the  gauntlet  of  William's  most  skillful 
generals,  and  at  last  meeting  and  defeating  the  forces  of  the  great  master.  Here- 
ward's  strategy  and  daring  elicits  the  admiration  of  the  stern  Conqueror  himself. 
The  story  of  the  defense  of  the  Camp  of  Refuge  at  Ely,  and  the  successes  attending 
the  arms  of  the  little  band  of  patriots  in  that  fen  country;  the  sacking  of  Peterborough 
by  the  Danes;  the  last  stand  made  by  Hereward  in  the  forest,  are  all  graphically 
described.  Kingsley  is  liberal  sometimes  in  his  allowance  of  redeeming  faults  to 
his  virtuous  characters;  yet,  in  the  fall  of  Hereward,  he  forcibly  impresses  the  lesson 
that  loss  of  self-respect  is  fatal  to  noble  effort. 

There  are  fine  passages  in  the  book;  and  the  mourning  of  the  stricken  Torfrida 
and  the  true-hearted  Martin  Lightfoot  over  the  defeated  Hereward  is  full  of  pathos. 
The  genial  abbot  of  Peterborough,  Uncle  Brand,  and  Earl  Leofric,  are  agreeably 
sketched,  Ivo  Taillebois  is  true  to  life,  or  rather  to  the  chronicles  and  ballads;  and 
William  himself  is  well  drawn.  The  novel  is  a  book  for  Englishmen,  and  helps  to 
popularize  their  heroic  traditions;  but  it  is  of  interest  to  all  those  who  cherish  the 
ideals  of  manliness  and  heroism.  The  story  was  first  published  in  Good  Words  in 
1866. 

HERMANN  AND  DOROTHEA,  by  Johann  Wolfgang  Goethe,  is  a  German  idyllic 
pastoral  of  about  2000  hexameter  lines.  The  scene  is  the  broad  Rhineplain,  and 
the  time  the  poet's  own.  This  poem,  considered  the  finest  specimen  of  Goethe's 
narrative  verse,  was  published  in  1797,  during  the  period  of  the  author's  inspiring 
friendship  with  Schiller.  The  sweet  bucolic  narrative  describes  how  the  host  of  the 
Golden  Lion  and  his  "sensible  wife"  have  sent  their  stalwart  and  dutiful  son,  Her- 
mann, to  minister  to  the  wants  of  a  band  of  exiles,  who  are  journeying  from  their 
homes,  burned  by  the  ravages  of  war.  Among  the  exiles  Hermann  meets,  and  imme- 
diately loves,  Dorothea.  How  this  buxom  Teutonic  maiden  of  excellent  good  sense  is 
wooed  and  won,  taking  a  daughter's  place  in  the  cheerful  hostelry,  is  told  with 
charming  simplicity. 

HERMETIC  BOOKS.  The  Greeks  designated  the  lunar  god  of  the  Egyptians, 
Thoth,  by  the  name  of  Hermes  Trismegistus;  *.  e.,  Hermes  the  Thrice  Greatest. 
The  Greeks,  and  after  them  the  Neo-Platonists  and  Christians,  regarded  him  as  an 
ancient  king  of  Egypt,  who  invented  all  the  sciences,  and  concealed  their  secrets  in 
certain  mysterious  books.  These  ancient  books,  to  the  number  of  20,000  according 
to  some,  and  of  36,000  according  to  others,  bore  his  name.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
has  described  the  solemn  procession  in  which  they  were  carried  in  ceremony.  The 
tradition  in  virtue  of  which  all  secret  works  on  magic,  astrology,  and  chemistry  were 
attributed  to  Hermes,  persisted  for  a  long  time.  The  Arabians  composed  several  of 
them;  and  the  fabrication  of  Hermetic  writings  in  Latin  lasted  during  the  entire 
Middle  Ages.  Some  of  these  writings  have  come  down  to  us,  either  in  the  original 
Greek  or  in  Latin  and  Arabic  translations.  From  a  philosophic  point  of  view,  the 
most  interesting  of  them  is  the  'Poimandres'  (voif^v  to$pQvt  the  shepherd  of  men, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  397 

symbolizing  the  Divine  Intelligence).  It  has  been  divided  into  twenty  books  by 
Patricius.  It  is  a  dialogue  composed  some  time  in  the  fourth  century  of  the  Christian 
era,  and  discusses  such  questions  as  the  nature  of  the  Divinity,  the  human  soul,  the 
creation  and  fall  of  man,  and  the  divine  illumination  that  alone  can  save  him.  It  is 
written  in  a  Neo-Flatonic  spirit,  but  bears  evidence  of  the  influence  of  Jewish  and 
Christian  thought.  It  was  translated  into  German  by  Tiedemann  in  1781.  There 
have  been  several  editions  of  it.  The  first  appeared  at  Paris  in  1554,  and  the  last,  by 
Parthez,  in  Berlin,  in  1854.  The  Myos  r&eios  (Logos  teleios,  the  perfect  Word) 
is  somewhat  older;  it  is  a  refutation  of  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  under  the  form  of 
a  dialogue  between  Hermes  and  his  disciple  Asclepius.  An  'Address  to  the  Human 
Soul'  was  translated  from  the  Arabic  and  published  by  Fleischer  in  1870.  It  is, 
doubtless,  itself  a  translation  from  a  Greek  original.  The  most  interesting  passages 
in  the  Hermetic  books  have  been  rendered  into  French  by  Louis  Menard  (Paris,  1886). 
Baumgarten-Crusius  in  his  'De  Librorum  Hermeticorum  Origine  et  Indole'  (Jena, 
1827),  and  Pietschmann  in  his  'Hermes  Trismegistos '  (Leipsic,  1875),  have  discussed 
this  subject  very  fully. 

HERO  OF  OUR  TIMES,  A,  by  Mikhail  Lermontof  (1839).  The  novel  portrays  the 
vices  of  the  modern  Russian  of  rank,  fashion,  and  adventure,  and  his  utter  selfishness 
and  want  of  principle  and  conscience.  The  story  takes  the  form  of  a  series  of  tales, 
of  which  the  libertine  Petchorin,  and  his  unhappy  victims,  mostly  confiding  women, 
are  the  subjects.  Lermontof  was  a  great  admirer  of  Byron;  and  the  fascinating 
Petchorin,  the  rascal  of  the  stories,  with  his  mysterious  attractiveness,  strongly  re- 
sembles Don  Juan.  The  publication  of  the  story  excited  much  controversy;  and  was 
the  cause  of  the  duel  in  which  the  author  was  killed  in  1841.  Many  people  claimed 
that  Petchorin  was  a  portrait;  but  the  author  distinctly  states  that  he  is  not  the 
portrait  of  any  person,  but  personifies  the  vices  of  the  whole  generation.  The  author 
does  not  set  himself  up  as  a  reformer,  his  idea  being  simply  to  denounce  evil. 

HEROES,  HERO-WORSHIP,  AND  THE  HEROIC  IN"  HISTORY,  OK",  by  Thomas 
Carlyle.  Carlyle's  '  Hero-Worship '  made  its  first  appearance  as  a  series  of  lectures 
delivered  orally  in  1840.  They  were  well  attended,  and  were  so  popular  that  in  book 
form  they  had  considerable  success  when  published  in  1841. 

There  are  five  lectures  in  all,  each  dealing  with  some  one  type  of  hero.  In  the 
first,  it  is  the  Hero  as  Divinity,  and  in  this  the  heroic  divinities  of  Norse  mythology 
are  especially  considered.  Carlyle  finds  this  type  earnest  and  sternly  impressive. 

The  second  considers  the  Hero  as  Prophet,  with  especial  reference  to  Mahomet  and 
Islam .  He  chose  Mahomet,  he  himself  says,  because  he  was  the  prophet  whom  he  felt 
the  freest  to  speak  of. 

As  types  of  the  Poet  Hero  in  his  third  lecture,  he  brings  forward  Dante  and 
Shakespeare.  "  As  in  Homer  we  may  still  construe  old  Greece;  so  in  Shakespeare  and 
Dante,  after  thousands  of  years,  what  our  modern  Europe  was  in  faith  and  in  practice 
will  still  be  legible." 

In  the  fourth  lecture  he  considered  the  Hero  as  Priest,  singling  out  Luther  and  the 
Reformation  and  Knox  and  Puritanism.  "These  two  men  we  will  account  our  best 
priests,  inasmuch  as  they  were  our  best  reformers." 

The  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters,  with  Johnson,  Rousseau,  and  Burns  as  his  types, 
forms  the  subject  of  Carlyle's  fifth  lecture.  "  I  call  them  all  three  genuine  Men,  more 
or  less;  faithfully,  for  the  most  part  unconsciously,  struggling  to  be  genuine,  and  plant 
themselves  on  the  everlasting  truth  of  things." 


398  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Finally,  for  the  Hero  as  King  he  selects  as  the  subject  of  his  sixth  lecture  Cromwell 
and  Napoleon,  together  with  the  modern  Revolutionism  which  they  typify. 

"  The  commander  over  men  —  he  is  practically  the  summary  for  us  of  all  the 
various  figures  of  Heroism;  Priest,  Teacher,  whatever  of  earthly  or  of  spiritual 
dignity  we  can  fancy  to  reside  in  a  man,  embodies  itself  here." 

Carlyle  eulogizes  his  heroes  for  the  work  that  they  have  done  in  the  world.  His 
tone,  however,  is  that  of  fraternizing  with  them  rather  than  of  adoring  them.  He 
holds  up  his  typical  heroes  as  patterns  for  other  men  of  heroic  mold  to  imitate,  and 
he  makes  it  clear  that  he  expects  the  unheroic  masses  to  adore  them.  The  style  oi 
*  Hero- Worship '  is  clearer  than  that  in  most  of  the  other  masterpieces  of  Carlyle,  and 
on  this  account  is  much  more  agreeable  to  the  average  reader.  There  is  less  exagger- 
ation, less  straining  after  epigram. 

HIAWATHA,  by  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow,  a  narrative  poem  based  on  tradi- 
tions of  the  North  American  Indians,  was  published  in  1855.  It  deals  with  the 
exploits  of  a  culture-hero  of  various  names,  Michabou,  Chiabo,  Manabozho,  Taren- 
ya wagon,  Hiawatha  —  the  last  and  most  melodious  of  which  was  chosen  by  the 
poet.  The  traditions  of  his  birth,  childhood,  marriage,  prodigious  feats,  invention  of 
agriculture  and  writing,  and  departure  to  the  kingdom  of  the  blest  before  the  coming 
of  the  white  men  are  drawn  from  the  various  collections  of  Indian  anthropology  and 
folk-lore  by  Henry  Rowe  Schoolcraft  (particularly  'Algic  Researches/  1839),  from 
George  Catlin's  'Letters  and  Notes  on  the  Manners,  Customs,  and  Condition  of  the 
North  American  Indians'  (1841),  and  from  other  works  of  travel  and  topography. 
The  metre  of  the  poem  (unrhymed  trochaic  octosyllabic)  and  certain  incidents,  such 
as  the  building  of  Hiawatha's  canoe,  his  fight  with  the  magician,  Pearl-Feather,  the 
objections  of  Nokomis  to  the  marriage  with  a  stranger,  and  the  marvellous  music  of 
Chibiabos,  were  taken  from  the  Finnish  popular  epic,  the  Kalevala,  which  Long- 
fellow knew  in  a  German  translation  and  which  depicted  a  similar  hero  and  a  similar 
stage  of  national  culture.  Hiawatha  comprises  in  a  remarkable  way  practically  all 
that  was  then  known  of  the  beliefs,  songs,  dances,  stories,  superstitions,  manners,  and 
customs  of  the  North  American  Indians;  and  all  this  antiquarian  matter  is  skillfully 
interwoven  into  a  fascinating  heroic  story.  The  locality  selected  is  the  abode  of  the 
Ojibways  on  the  north  coast  of  Lake  Superior.  Here  Hiawatha  is  reared  by  his 
grandmother,  Nokomis,  daughter  of  the  moon,  is  made  a  brother  to  the  birds  and 
animals,  and  learns  their  language.  Growing  older  he  becomes  a  mighty  hunter  and 
secures  magic  mittens  which  will  crush  rocks  and  magic  moccasins  which  enable 
him  to  take  a  stride  a  mile  in  length.  His  first  exploit  is  to  seek  vengeance  on  his 
father,  the  West  Wind,  Mudjekeewis,  for  wrong  committed  against  his  mother, 
Wenonah.  The  fight  ends  in  a  reconciliation  and  Hiawatha  returns  to  be  a  defender 
and  civilizer  of  his  people.  Through  fasting  and  vigil  he  has  revealed  to  him  the 
corn-spirit,  Mondarm'n,  with  whom  he  wrestles,  and  from  whose  buried  body  springs 
the  Indian  corn  or  maize,  the  food  of  the  people.  Then  follow,  the  making  of  Hia- 
watha's canoe,  his  marvellous  contest  with  the  sturgeon,  Nahma,  who  swallows  both 
canoe  and  warrior,  his  destruction  of  the  baleful  magician,  Pearl-Feather,  his  marriage 
to  Minnehaha  of  the  Dacotahs,  the  songs  and  stories  of  the  wedding-feast,  the 
blessing  of  the  cornfields  by  Minnehaha,  the  invention  of  picture-writing,  the  death 
of  his  three  friends,  Chibiabos  the  musician,  Pau-Pulc-Keewis,  the  ne'er-do-weel, 
and  the  strong  man,  Kwasind,  the  coming  of  the  ghosts  of  the  departed,  the  death  of 
Minnehaha  from  famine  and  fever,  the  coming  of  the  missionary  priest,  and  the 
departure  of  Hiawatha  for  the  distant  islands  of  the  blest  in  the  kingdom  of  the 


THE   READER  S  DIGEST  OF   BOOKS  399 

North- West  wind,  Keewaydin,  over  which  he  was  to  rule.  'Hiawatha*  is  a  truly 
American  poem,  preserving  in  delightful  poetic  form  the  characteristics  of  the 
continent  before  its  conquest  by  the  whites.  The  rhythm  has  been  charged  with 
monotony  and  the  narrative  with  prolixity ;  but  the  former  is  adapted  to  the  primitive 
life  depicted  and  the  latter  is  constantly  enlivened  by  striking  incident  and  local 
color. 

HIGH  PRIESTESS,  THE,  by  Robert  Grant  (1915).  This  is  the  story  of  the  married 
life  of  Mary  Arnold,  a  modern  woman,  who  strives  to  show  that  she  can  "fullfil  all 
the  functions  of  a  wife  and  mother  and  yet  demonstrate  her  faculty  in  some  indepen- 
dent field." 

Having  refused  the  wealthy  Henry  Thornton  because  she  could  not  reciprocate  his 
feelings,  she  marries  Oliver  Randall,  a  promising  young  lawyer,  in  whom  she  feels 
that  she  has  found  a  true  soul-mate.  They  start  out  with  the  hope  that  their  marriage 
will  be  "richer  and  more  ennobling  to  both  and  on  a  higher  plane  of  service  and 
companionship  than  the  world  has  hitherto  known." 

Mary's  housekeeping  is  perfection,  according  to  the  most  modern  methods,  but 
she  manages  to  find  some  leisure  each  day  for  her  architectural  design  work.  Two 
children  are  born,  a  boy  and  a  girl.  Although  a  model  mother,  Mary  continues  her 
work  and  after  the  birth  of  the  second  child  wins  a  prize  for  her  design  for  a  fountain. 
This  leads  to  requests  for  more  designs  until  she  has  on  hand  more  work  than  she  can 
attend  to  and  still  look  after  her  household.  Her  husband,  who  is  greatly  interested 
in  politics,  is  inclined  to  make  light  of  her  work.  Finally  Mary  is  compelled  to  secure 
someone  to  assist  her  in  her  household  duties  in  order  to  pursue  her  profession  which 
often  calls  her  away  from  home.  She  installs  as  housekeeper  an  intimate  friend, 
Sybil  Fielding,  whose  father's  death  has  made  it  necessary  for  her  to  support  herself. 

Sybil,  who  is  an  attractive  girl,  carries  out  Mary's  orders  in  the  household  and  is 
beloved  by  the  children. 

All  goes  well  for  two  years  when  Mary  suddenly  discovers  her  husband  making 
love  to  her  friend.  A  scene  ensues  and  both  women  leave  the  house  that  very  evening, 
after  Sybil  announces  her  engagement  to  Henry  Thornton,  Mary's  former  suitor. 
Mary  declares  that  she  can  never  again  live  with  Oliver,  takes  refuge  in  a  friend's 
house,  and  demands  the  children.  In  vain  Oliver  pleads  for  an  interview  with  his 
wife,  saying  that  the  affair  was  only  an  accident,  and  that  he  really  loves  no  one  but 
Mary.  She  is  obdurate,  takes  her  children  to  another  part  of  the  city,  where  she 
lives  for  seven  years,  supporting  herself  and  them  by  means  of  her  architecture. 

Meantime  Oliver,  patiently  waiting  for  Mary's  return,  achieves  success  in  his 
political  career  and  becomes  governor.  The  children  visit  their  father  each  week, 
and  try  to  persuade  their  mother  to  return  to  him,  but  she  still  refuses  to  forgive  his 
transgression;  nevertheless  he  is  constantly  in  her  thoughts,  and  she  follows  his 
progress  with  keen  interest. 

Sybil's  husband  dies,  and  Oliver  becomes  executor  of  his  large  estate.  Sybil  once 
more  tries  to  win  Oliver.  He  can  endure  the  strain  no  longer,  and  writes  to  Mary 
that  he  must  see  her  at  once  and  must  either  have  her  or  his  liberty.  The  note 
reaches  her  just  as  Oliver  arrives  at  her  apartment  where  she  is  wondering  if  she  has 
not  judged  him  too  harshly.  They  find  that  they  love  each  other  as  much  as  ever 
and  are  finally  reunited. 

HILLTOP  ON  THE  MARNE,  A,  by  Mildred  Aldrich  (1915).  This  book,  which 
evoked  great  public  interest,  is  in  the  form  of  letters  written  by  the  author  between 


400  ,  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

June  3,  and  Sept.  8,  1914,  and  describes  the  beginning  of  the  great  conflict  between 
Germany  and  France.  The  writer,  an  American,  who  has  lived  many  years  in  France 
and  become  much  attached  to  the  country,  decides  to  lease  a  little  house  in  a  hamlet 
called  Huiry,  about  thirty  miles  from  Paris.  The  house  is  on  a  hilltop  commanding 
an  extensive  view  of  the  river  Marne  and  the  surrounding  country  for  many  miles. 
The  first  letter  describes  the  writer's  delight  in  her  new  home,  which  she  occupies 
entirely  by  herself,  enjoying  the  peace  and  quiet,  which  surrounds  her.  She  is  served 
by  a  farmer's  wife  named  Amelie,  who  lives  nearby,  and  comes  in  each  day  for  the 
necessary  duties.  After  two  months  of  this  pastoral  existence  all  is  changed,  war  is 
declared,  and  the  little  hilltop  becomes  a  centre  of  activities.  Aeroplanes  pass 
constantly  overhead,  troops  march  by  steadily,  and  the  little  house  becomes  a  refuge 
for  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  Officers  make  their  headquarters  there,  and 
men  come  for  rest  and  refreshment;  though  the  writer  is  urged  by  her  friends  to  flee 
from  the  place  of  danger,  she  stays  bravely  by  her  post,  and  with  the  assistance  of  her 
faithful  Amelie  serves  the  soldiers  untiringly,  providing  them  with  everything  that 
her  larder  can  offer.  The  battle  comes  almost  to  the  door  of  the  little  house;  then 
the  tide  turns  and  the  enemy  is  repulsed.  The  writer  is  an  actual  witness  of  the 
crisis;  she  sees  the  conflict  wage  and  wane  from  her  position  on  the  hilltop,  and  the 
experience  which  she  so  graphically  and  so  modestly  describes  is  one  that  will  thrill 
every  reader. 

HHtD  AND  THE  PANTHER,  THE,  a  controversial  poem  in  heroic  couplets,  by 
John  Dryden,  published  in  the  spring  of  1687.    The  author  had  become  a  Roman 
Catholic  in  the  previous  year,  shortly  after  the  accession  of  James  II.,  who  was  of  that 
persuasion.    In  this  poem  he  pleads  the  cause  of  his  newly-adopted  church  against 
the  Church  of  England  (which  he  had  defended  in  his  poem  'Religio  Laici,'  1682)  and 
against  the  Dissenters.     The  argument  is  presented  under  the  somewhat  incongruous 
form  of  a  beast-fable,  in  which  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  represented  by  "  a  milk- 
white  hind,  unspotted  and  unchanged/1  the  Church  of  England  by  a  spotted  panther, 
the  Presbyterians  by  a  wolf,  the  Independents  by  a  bear,  the  Baptists  by  a  boar,  the 
Sodnians  by  a  fox,  and  the  Atheists  by  an  ape.    The  relation  of  these  sects  to  one 
another  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  James  II.  is  graphically  set  forth  by  the 
statement  that  the  panther  and  the  other  beasts  of  prey,  though  hating  one  another, 
are  united  in  hostility  to  the  hind  but  prevented  from  injuring  her  by  the  interposi- 
tion of  the  lion.    The  reference  is  to  James  II.,  who  since  his  accession  had  on  his  own 
authority  freed  Roman  Catholics  from  the  operation  of  the  penal  laws  against  them. 
He  hoped  to  win  over  the  Church  of  England  to  approve  this  measure  and  even  to  re- 
unite with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.    Dryden  gives  utterance  to  these  hopes  in 
the  dialogue  between  the  hind  and  the  panther  which  makes  up  the  body  of  the 
poem.     In  this  discussion  the-animal  personification  is  practically  forgotten  and  what 
we  have  is  a  theological  debate  conducted  by  the  poet  with  his  usual  vigor,  clear- 
headedness, relative  fairness,  and  dialectic  skill.    The  first  book  is  occupied  by  a 
brilliant  description  of  the  different  churches  and  sects,  with  digressions  in  which 
Dryden  asserts  Ms  own  newly-formed  convictions.     Especially  interesting  is  his 
argument  in  favor  of  the  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  his  arraign- 
ment of  the  Church  of  England  as  an  unworkable  compromise,  his  denunciation  of  the 
Dissenters,  and  the  modification  of  it  introduced  into  the  poem  just  before  publica, 
tion,  when  James  II.,  in  order  to  grant  further  benefits  to  the  Roman  Catholics,  issued 
the  Declaration  of  Indulgence  (April  4,  1687),  granting  freedom  of  worship  to  Dis- 
senters and  Roman  Catholics  alike.    The  second  part  is  a  closely-reasoned  discus- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  401 

sion  of  the  question  of  infallibility  and  authority.  In  the  third  the  policy  of  the  king 
towards  the  different  churches  and  sects  is  minutely  discussed,  and  two  subordinate 
fables  are  introduced  by  way  of  illustration,  the  one  told  by  the  panther  and  satirizing 
the  machinations  of  the  English  Roman  Catholics,  under  a  tale  of  the  swallows 
preparing  to  migrate,  the  other  related  by  the  hind,  and  ridiculing  the  hostility  of  the 
Anglican  to  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  under  the  guise  of  a  tale  of  the  pigeons  and 
the  buzzard  (Bishop  Burnet).  In  spite  of  the  awkwardness  of  a  fable  in  which  the 
animals  represent  new  abstractions  and  new  individuals  and  in  which  the  fiction 
cannot  be  sustained  as  a  cloak  for  the  facts  the  poem  is  in  invention,  expression,  in- 
sight, cogency,  and  intellectual  power  unsurpassed  by  anything  that  Dryden  ever 
wrote. 

HIPPOCRATES,  THE  GENUINE  WORKS  OF.  (English  Translation,  1849.  Best 
complete  edition,  with  French  Translation  of  Littre",  n  vols.,  1839-61).  The  most 
celebrated  physician  of  antiquity,  known  as  the  Father  of  Medicine,  was  born  460 
B.  C.,  of  the  family  of  Priest-physicians,  claiming  descent  from  ^Esculapius.  He  has 
the  great  distinction  of  having  been  the  first  to  put  aside  the  traditions  of  early 
ignorance  and  superstition,  and  to  base  the  practice  of  medicine  on  the  study  of 
nature.  He  maintained,  against  the  universal  religious  view,  that  diseases  must  be 
treated  as  subject  to  natural  laws;  and  his  observations  on  the  natural  history  of 
disease,  as  presented  in  the  living  subject,  show  V»im  to  have  been  a  master  of  clinical 
research.  His  accounts  of  phenomena  show  great  power  of  graphic  description. 
In  treating  disease  he  gave  chief  attention  to  diet  and  regimen,  expecting  nature  to 
do  the  larger  part.  His  ideas  of  the  very  great  influence  of  climate,  both  on  the  body 
and  the  mind,  were  a  profound  anticipation  of  modern  knowledge.  He  reflected 
in  medicine  the  enlightenment  of  the  great  age  in  Greece  of  the  philosophers  and 
dramatists. 

HIS  DAUGHTER  FIRST,  by  Arthur  Sherburne  Hardy  (1903).  This  is  a  story  of 
modern  social  life,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid  in  New  York  and  its  environs.  Mrs. 
Kensett,  who  before  her  marriage  was  Dolly  Graham,  is  a  rich  and  attractive  widow 
with  a  beautiful  country  home  outside  of  the  city.  She  is  in  love  with  John  Temple, 
a  friend  of  her  late  husband's,  who  has  charge  of  her  affairs,  but  refuses  his  offer  of 
marriage  on  account  of  the  opposition  of  his  daughter  Mabel.  The  latter,  who  is  a 
beautiful  but  selfish  girl,  has  been  indulged  by  her  father  who  has  lavished  his  wealth 
and  affection  upon  her  until  she  has  become  self-willed  and  imperious.  In  a  letter 
to  Mrs.  Kensett,  written  after  her  return  from  a  visit  at  her  house,  Mabel  boldly 
declares  her  dislike  of  second  marriages  and  voices  her  antagonism  towards  any  one 
who  might  marry  her  father.  This  letter  causes  Dolly  to  reject  the  advances  of 
John  Temple,  but  she  confides  in  her  cousin,  Paul  Graham,  who  advises  her  not  to 
wreck  two  lives  for  the  whim  of  a  capricious  girl.  Paul,  who  has  returned  home  after 
years  of  travel  abroad,  accepts  Dolly's  invitation  to  stay  at  her  house  and  falls  in 
love  with  Margaret  Frazer,  his  cousin's  dearest  friend,  who  is  also  visiting  her.  Mabel 
Temple  has  for  a  companion  a  very  pretty  girl  named  Helen  Grant,  and  both  become 
interested  in  a  man  named  Reginald  Heald.  The  latter  is  a  handsome  and  fascinat- 
ing man  who,  finding  it  hard  to  choose  between  the  beautiful  heiress  and  her  lovely 
companion,  makes  fervent  love  to  both  of  them.  This  complication  causes  a  rupture 
of  the  friendship  between  the  two  girls  and  although  Mabel  is  deeply  in  love  with 
Heald  she  refuses  him.  Heald,  who  really  loves  Mabel  and  regrets  his  flirtation  with 
Helen,  is  regarded  with  disfavor  by  Temple,  who  suspects  the  doubtful  character  of 
26 


402  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

some  mining  business  in  which  Heald  is  engaged.  This  matter  is  cleared  up  later, 
but  at  the  climax  of  his  affairs  Heald  is  shot  by  a  man  who  is  crazed  by  the  loss  of  his 
money  through  him.  Heald  who  is  wounded  but  not  seriously  injured  makes  good 
the  man's  loss  and  pretends  that  he  has  shot  himself.  Mabel  hearing  of  the  shooting 
flies  to  the  sufferer  and  acknowledges  her  love  for  him;  then  softened  by  her  experi- 
ence she  withdraws  her  opposition  to  her  father's  marriage  and  he  and  Dolly  are 
happily  united. 

HIS  EXCELLENCY  EUGENE  ROUGON,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

HIS  FAMILY,  by  Ernest  Poole  (1916).  New  York  City  is  the  background  for  this 
story  of  an  elderly  man  with  a  family  of  three  grown  daughters.  Roger  Gale  comes 
from  the  New  Hampshire  farm  of  his  forefathers  to  "young  New  York"  "a  city  of 
houses,  separate  homes"  turbulent  "thoroughfares  of  shouting  drivers,"  of  thrilling 
enterprise  compared  with  the  "old  Xew  York"  he  heard  about  from  his  elders.  He 
had  promised  his  wife  to  live  on  in  his  children's  lives,  but  after  her  death  he  had 
fallen  into  a  lethargy,  and  it  is  twenty  years  later,  when  he  is  nearly  sixty,  that  he 
tries  to  fulfil  his  promise  and  awakens  to  the  tremendous  modern  New  York  of  his 
children's  lives.  Edith  the  oldest  daughter  is  a  too  devoted  mother  to  her  five 
children;  even-one  is  sacrificed  to  her  little  family.  Deborah,  who  is  her  father's 
close  friend,  is  principal  of  a  high  school  in  the  tenement  house  district ;  her  vision  of 
maternity  includes  the  thousands  of  pitiful,  striving,  aspiring  children  she  is  making 
*nto  good  citizens,  and  she  postpones  marriage  with  the  man  she  loves  because  she 
fears  a  child  of  her  own  might  force  her  to  choose  between  her  work  and  the  narrow 
motherhood  of  which  her  sister  Edith  is  such  an  awful  example.  Laura,  the  young 
worldly  pleasure-loving  member  of  the  family,  marries  a  wealthy  young  New  Yorker, 
and  does  not  intend  to  be  bothered  with  any  children.  She  is  divorced  while  still  in 
her  twenties  to  marry  another  man  of  the  same  sort,  and  triumphantly  lives  her  own 
gay  luxurious  life.  Edith's  husband  dies  and  her  father  ultimately  provides  for  her 
with  the  old  New  Hampshire  home,  where  her  domestic  tyranny  is  more  circumscribed 
than  in  New  York.  His  great  achievement  is  to  clear  the  way  for  Deborah's  happi- 
ness ;  she  marries  and  has  her  son  and  her  school  family  also.  In  each  of  his  children, 
he  has  seen  some  phase  of  his  own  life  repeated. 

HES  FATHER'S  SON,  by  Brander  Matthews  (1896),  is  a  novel  dealing  with 
the  latter-day  aspects  of  Wall  Street  speculation,  the  social  influences  directly  or 
indirectly  traceable  to  the  spirit  of  respectable  gambling.  A  stern  father  of  Puritan 
stock,  uncompromisingly  orthodox,  even  harshly  just  to  himself  and  others,  in  all 
other  matters  but  those  associated  with  deals  in  futures  and  in  the  stock  market 
generally,  has  a  son  who  inherits  from  his  mother  a  disposition  facile,  impressionable, 
morbidly  sensitive  to  moral  questions,  and  devoid  of  the  iron  strength'  of  will  that  has 
produced  his  father's  business  success.  The  son,  gradually  discovering  his  father's 
inability  to  see  or  confess  any  moral  lapse  or  dishonesty  in  business  methods  that 
trade  upon  uncertainty  and  just  cleverly  evade  legal  responsibility,  gradually  dis- 
integrates throughout  morally  and  goes  to  ruin.  The  stress  and  stir  of  a  great  city 
mirrors  itself  here,  as  in  Mr.  Matthews 's  other  efforts  in  fiction,  —  'The  Story  of 
a  Story  and  Other  Stories'; '  Vignettes  of  Manhattan';  and  *Tom  Paulding,'  an  ex- 
cellent boys'  tale,  full  of  interest  for  younger  readers. 

HIS  LAST  BOW,  see  SHERLOCK  HOLMES. 


THE   READER  S  DIGEST  OF   BOOKS  403 

HIS  VANISHED  STAR,  by  Charles  Egbert  Craddock  (Miss  Mar}'-  Xoailles  Murfree) 
(1894).  Miss  Murfree  is  one  of  the  few  American  writers  who  have  possessed  them- 
selves of  a  distinct  field  in  literature.  She  has  found  in  the  uncouth  and  unique 
inhabitants  of  the  Tennessee  mountains,  human  nature  enough  to  fill  a  dozen  strong 
books.  While  the  general  characteristics  are  the  same,  her  stories  are  all  unlike. 
'His  Vanished  Star'  deals  with  mountain  schemers  and  "moonshiners,"  and  matches 
town  knavery  with  rustic  cunning.  The  plot  rests  upon  the  effort  of  one  Kenneth 
Kenniston,  who  owns  a  tract  in  the  mountain  country,  to  build  a  summer  hotel. 
He  is  indefatigable  in  his  attempts;  but  as  a  hotel  would  kill  the  business  of  the 
"moonshiners,"  his  tricks  are  met  by  equally  unscrupulous  tricks  on  their  part. 
The  entire  story  is  given  to  the  contest  of  wits  between  the  whisky  distillers, — who 
are  "jes'  so  durned  ignorant  they  don't  know  sin  from  salvation,  nor  law  from 
lying," — and  the  schemer  from  civilization  with  legal  right  on  his  side,  who  is  power- 
less to  remove  the  squatters  from  the  land  which  is  legally  his.  Two  beautiful 
mountain  girls  play  into  the  hand  of  fate;  but  they  serve  to  temper  the  belligerent 
air.  Miss  Murfree 's  glowing  descriptions  of  mountain  fastnesses  are  rich  in  color,  dis- 
tinct, and  individual,  and  afford  a  striking  background  for  her  psychological  studies. 

L'HISTOIRE  CONTEMPORAINE,  by  Anatole  France,  includes  the  following  four 
novels:  I.  'L'Orme  du  Mail/  1897  (translated  into  English  tinder  the  title 
'The  Elm-Tree  on  the  Mall');  2.  'Le  Mannequin  d'Osier'  (' The % Wicker-Work 
Woman');  3.  'L'Anneau  d'Amethyste/  1899  ('The  Amethyst  Ring');  4.  'M. 
Bergeret  a  Paris/  1901.  The  first  novel  of  the  series  introduces  us  to  the  provincial 
professor  whose  personality  and  opinions  are  largely  identical  with  those  of  Anatole 
France  himself,  although  he  is  placed  in  entirely  different  surroundings.  His  con- 
versations with  various  people  in  his  provincial  world  and  his  reflections  upon  the 
few  incidents  which  take  place  in  the  course  of  the  story  are  the  backbone  of  the  book, 
which  is  hardly  a  novel  in  the  ordinarily  understood  meaning  of  the  word.  The  next 
book  deals  with  Bergeret's  domestic  infelicity  and  the  means  he  adopts  to  get  rid  of 
an  uncongenial  wife.  In  the  last  two  books  we  see  him  freed  not  only  from  his 
domestic  bonds  but  from  the  limitations  imposed  upon  his  intellectual  activity  by  a 
petty  provincial  society.  Thanks  to  a  single-hearted  devotion  to  the  cause  of  Drey- 
fus, he  is  unexpectedly  promoted  to  a  professorship  at  Paris,  and  continues  his  philo- 
sophical comments  on  life  under  more  favorable  conditions.  There  are  few  aspects 
of  life  in  France  at  the  turn  of  the  century  which  are  not  presented  in  these  novels 
with  the  irony  and  pity  of  which  Anatole  France  is  the  leading  modern  exponent. 
The  particular  incidents  and  issues  may  cease  to  be  of  interest,  but  his  detached  point 
of  view  and  the  extraordinary  lucidity  of  his  style  will  give  the  series  a  place  in  the 
history  of  literature  so  long  as  the  French  language  endures. 

HISTOBIA  BRITOWUM,  by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  is  a 
translation  from  the  Cymric  into  Latin,  made  about  the  middle  of  the  twelfth 
century.  Before  this,  Geoffrey,  who  was  known  as  a  learned  man,  had  translated 
the  prophecies  of  Merlin;  and  the  story  is  that  he  was  asked  to  translate  the  'Historia 
Britonum/  by  Walter  Map  (or  Calenius),  who  had  come  upon  the  manuscript  in 
Brittany. 

There  is  no  known  manuscript  of  the  original  in  existence,  and  we  cannot  now 
decide  to  what  extent  Geoffrey  may  have  interpolated  material  of  his  own.  The 
question  is  still  a  mooted  one  with  scholars;  though  no  one  now,  as  in  former  times, 
professes  to  believe  that  the  work  is  a  true  record  of  events 


404  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  'Historia  Britonum '  occupies  the  border  ground  between  poetry  and  history, 
and  from  the  beginning  was  read  for  the  delight  of  the  fancy.  Students,  even  at  that 
day,  were  indignant  with  its  lack  of  veracity;  and  good  Welshmen  scouted  it  as 
history.  In  that  day  works  of  imagination  were  not  recognized  as  having  a  close 
connection  with  history.  Yet  this  very  chronicle  is  the  source  of  one  of  the  purest 
streams  of  English  poetry,  —  that  which  flows  from  the  story  of  King  Arthur. 

As  finally  arranged,  the  history  is  divided  into  twelve  books.  In  the  first,  Brut, 
escaping  from  Troy,  is  made  the  founder  of  New  Troy,  or  London.  In  the  next  two' 
books,  various  persons  are  invented  to  account  for  the  names  of  English  rivers  and 
mountains  and  places.  The  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  books  give  the  history  of  the 
Romans  and  Saxons  in  Britain;  the  seventh  gives  Merlin's  prophecy;  the  eighth  tells 
about  Arthur's  father,  Uther  Pendragon;  King  Arthur  is  the  hero  of  the  ninth  and 
tenth;  and  the  last  two  give  a  list  of  the  British  kings,  and  an  account  of  Arthur's 
victory  over  Mordred. 

In  the  twelfth  century,  Alfred  of  Beverly  made  an  abridgment  of  this  history, 
but  it  was  not  until  the  eighteenth  century  that  it  was  translated  into  English. 
Geoffrey  Gaimar  made  an  early  translation  into  Anglo-Norman  verse;  and  Wace  or 
Eustace  made  a  version  in  French  verse  which  became  very  popular. 

Although  there  is  probably  much  truth  mingled  with  the  fiction  in  this  chronicle, 
it  is  valued  now  chiefly  for  the  influence  which  it  has  had  on  literature. 

HISTORIC  AMERICANS,  by  Theodore  Parker  (1878),  contains  four  essays,  on 
Franklin,  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Adams,  essays  originally  delivered  as  lectures, 
shortly  before  the  author's  death  in  1860.  They  were  written  when  the  anti-slavery 
agitation  was  at  its  height;  and  the  preacher's  uncompromising  opinions  on  the  evils 
of  slavery  decide  their  point  of  view  and  influence  their  conclusions.  Yet  in  spite 
of  the  obsoleteness  of  that  issue,  the  vigorous  style  and  wide  knowledge  displayed  in 
the  papers  insure  them  a  permanent  interest.  Franklin,  the  tallow-chandler's  son, 
is  in  the  author's  opinion  incomparably  the  greatest  man  America  has  produced. 
Inventor,  statesman,  and  philosopher,  he  had  wonderful  imagination  and  vitality  of 
intellect,  and  true  originality.  In  Washington,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Parker  sees 
the  steady-moving,  imperturbable,  unimaginative  country  gentleman,  directing 
the  affairs  of  the  nation  with  the  same  thoroughness  with  which  he  managed  his  farm. 
Level-headed  and  practical,  Washington  had  organizing  genius;  and  it  was  that 
attribute,  with  his  dauntless  integrity,  which  lifted  him  to  command.  He  had  not 
the  mental  power  of  any  one  of  his  ministers.  Yet  he  was  the  best  administrator  of 
all.  John  Adams  possessed  the  qualities  of  a  brilliant  lawyer,  and  the  large  forecast 
of  a  statesman.  At  the  same  time  he  was  extremely  impetuous,  outspoken,  and 
high-tempered,  and  made  many  enemies.  Jefferson,  like  Washington,  and  unlike 
Franklin  and  Adams,  was  a  man  of  position  and  means;  and  was  perhaps  the  most 
cultivated  man  in  America.  With  these  incitements  to  aristocratic  views,  he  was 
yet  the  truest  democrat  of  them  all,  and  did  more  than  any  one  of  the  others  to 
destroy  the  inherited  class  distinctions  which  were  still  so  strong  in  this  nominally 
republican  country  for  years  after  the  separation  from  England. 

HISTORY  OP  THE  WORLD,  A,  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  This  work,  which  was 
done  by  the  author  during  his  twelve  years'  imprisonment  in  the  Tower  of  London 
was  first  published  in  1 6 1 4.  From  the  present  point  of  view  it  is  obsolete,  historically  ; 
but  it  passed  through  eight  editions,  in  less  time  than  it  took  for  the  plays  of  Shake- 
speare to  attain  four.  In  1615  King  James  ordered  the  whole  impression  called  in, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  405 

giving  as  his  reason  that  it  was  "too  saucy  in  censuring  the  acts  of  princes."  The 
history  is  divided  into  five  books:  the  first  covering  the  time  from  the  Creation  to 
Abraham;  the  second  from  the  Birth  of  Abraham  to  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  of 
Solomon;  the  third  from  the  Destruction  of  Jerusalem  to  the  time  of  Philip  of  Mace- 
don;  the  fourth  from  the  Reign  of  Philip  to  the  death  of  Pyrrhus;  the'fifth,  from  the 
Reign  of  Antigonus  to  the  Conquest  of  Asia  and  Macedon  by  the  Romans.  There 
are  many  digressions:  one,  "wherein  is  maintained  the  liberty  of  using  conjectures  in 
history";  another,  "Of  the  Several  Commandments  of  the  Decalogue";  and  another 
on  "Tyranny."  In  the  preface  the  author  speaks  of  a  second  and  third  volume  "if 
the  first  receive  grace  and  good  acceptance."  It  was  his  ambition  to  relate  the 
successive  fortunes  of  the  four  great  empires  of  the  world,  by  way  of  a  preface  to  the 
History  of  England;  but  his  release  from  imprisonment  in  1615,  his  expedition  to 
Guiana,  and  his  execution  in  1618,  prevented  the  accomplishment  of  his  plan. 

Little  as  it  answers  the  requirements  of  its  comprehensive  title,  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh's  'History'  is  nevertheless  a  monument  to  the  great  learning  of  its  author. 
It  was  written  under  vast  disadvantages,  even  though  it  may  not  have  been  penned 
in  the  narrow  cell  which  the  Tower  "Beef -Eaters"  still  point  out.  Many  passages 
present  a  rare  eloquence,  and  exemplify  an  admirable  English  style,  with  the  Eliza- 
bethan dignity  and  sonorous  music. 

HOLY  LIVING  AND  DYING,  by  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor,  was  published  about  1650, 
and  is  the  work  by  which  the  author  is  most  widely  known  to  the  Christian  world. 
It  was  composed  at  the  desire  of  Lady  Carberry,  his  patron  and  friend,  and  is  in- 
scribed to  the  Earl  her  husband.  The  introductory  chapters  consider  the  'General 
Instruments  and  Means  Serving  to  a  Holy  Life';  emphasizing  particularly  care  of 
time,  purity  of  intention,  and  the  practice  of  realizing  the  presence  of  God.  The  main 
topics,  of  Sobriety  (which  he  subdivides  into  soberness,  temperance,  chastity, 
humility,  modesty,  and  contentedness),  Justice  (in  which  he  includes  duties  to 
superiors  and  inferiors,  civil  contracts,  and  restitution),  and  Religion  (which  he  treats 
under  ten  subdivisions),  are  then  taken  up  and  discussed  with  great  minuteness.  For 
all  conditions  in  life  there  are  copious  rubrics  for  prayer,  which  he  describes  as  "the 
peace  of  our  spirit,  the  stillness  of  our  thoughts,  the  evenness  of  recollection,  the  seat 
of  meditation,  the  rest  of  our  cares,  and  the  calm  of  our  tempest." 

The  second  section,  'Holy  Dying,'  considers  all  the  phases  of  preparation  for  "a 
holy  and  blessed  death, "  dwelling  upon  the  vanity  and  brevity  of  life,  visitation  of 
the  sick,  and  conduct  during  sickness.  The  sentences  are  usually  long  and  involved 

—  many  containing  upwards  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  words  —  and  the  style  is 
heavily  figurative;  though  there  are  many  beautiful  phrases.    It  is  still  read,  and  has 
furnished  suggestions  to  many  modern  religious  writers. 

HOLY  STATE,  THE  (1642).  PROFANE  STATE,  THE  (1648).  By  Thomas 
Fuller.  These  books  by  the  famous  "  Old  Fuller, "  author  of  many  favorite  works  in 
practical  divinity  and  history,  appeared  during  the  stormy  days  of  the  English 
Revolution,  and  at  once  attained  wide  popularity.  Both  contained  many  characters 
drawn  with  great  force  and  freedom,  held  up  as  examples  to  be  imitated  or  execrated 

—  such  as  The  Good  Master,  The  Good  Father,  The  Good  Soldier,  etc.,  etc.    There 
is  no  story,  and  the  works  are  noted  for  their  admirable  sayings  rather  than  for  their 
interest  as  a  whole.    In  whatever  he  did,  Fuller  was  full  of  a  quaint  huraor^andlris" 
comparisons  are  as  pointed  and  effective  as  those  of  Hudibras.    Charles  Lamb  found 
his  pages  "deeply  steeped  in  human  feeling  and  passion";  and  in  all  his  books,  these 


406  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

pages  bear,  thickly  strewed  over  them,  such  familiar  sayings  as:  "The  Pyramids 
themselves,  doting  with  age,  have  forgotten  the  names  of  their  founders";  or  "Cur 
captain  counts  the  image  of  God  —  nevertheless  his  image  —  cut  in  ebony,  as  done 
in  ivory";  or,  again,  "To  smell  to  a  turf  of  fresh  earth  is  wholesome  for  the  body;  no 
less  are  thoughts  of  mortality  cordial  to  the  soul";  or  "Overburden  not  thy  memory 
to  make  so  faithful  a  servant  a  slave.  Remember  Atlas  was  a-weary.  .  .  .  Memory, 
like  a  purse,  if  it  be  over-full  that  it  cannot  shut,  all  will  drop  out  of  it." 

HOMER,  ART  AND  HUMANITY  IN,  by  William  Cranston  Lawton  (1896).  A 
volume  of  essays  designed  to  introduce  readers  earnestly  desirous  of  culture  to  the 
chief  masterpieces  of  ancient  literature,  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  of  Homer.  It  dis- 
cusses intelligently  and  thoughtfully  the  art  of  Homer  in  the  Iliad,  that  perfect 
mastery  of  epic  song  which  so  charmed  the  Greek  ear;  the  picture  which  the  Iliad 
gives  of  womanhood;  the  scenes  of  pathetic  tragedy  with  which  it  closes;  the  story 
which  gives  the  Odyssey  its  plot;  the  conceptions  of  the  future  life  which  the  Homeric 
epics  shadow  forth,  including  all  the  important  passages  alluding  to  the  condition 
of  the  dead;  the  episode  of  Xausicaa,  in  which,  in  a  tale  of  perfect  simplicity,  Homeric 
painting  touched  with  infinite  charm  the  scenes,  the  figures,  the  events,  of  an  escape 
of  Odysseus  from  shipwreck;  and  the  accretions  to  the  Troy  myth  which  befell  after 
Homer.  The  volume  includes  a  scheme  of  aids  to  the  study  of  Homer;  and  it  presents 
a  considerable  number  of  examples  of  admirably  felicitous  use  of  hexameters  in 
the  [essayist's  versions  of  the  poet,  looking  to  the  finding  of  an  ideal  of  Homeric 
translation. 

HOMER  AND  THE  HOMERIC  AGE,  STUDIES  ON,  by  W.  E.  Gladstone  (1858). 
A  work  of  notable  interest  in  its  day,  in  which  Gladstone  endeavored  to  state  the 
results,  in  regard  to  the  authorship  and  age  of  Homer,  which  he  thought  justified 
by  the  text  of  the  poems  ascribed  to  Homer.  In  his  'Juventus  Mundi:  The  Gods 
and  Men  of  the  Heroic  Age'  (1869),  Gladstone  went  over  the  same  ground  again,  and 
embodied  his  results  of  research  under  a  new  form,  but  with  considerable  modifica- 
tions in  the  ethnological  and  mythological  parts  of  the  work.  He  especially  gave  new 
light  on  Phoenician  influence  in  the  formation  of  the  Greek  nation.  To  this  report 
of  his  Homeric  studies  he  added,  in  1876,  his  'Homeric  Synchronism:  An  Enquiry 
intolthe  Time  and  Place  of  Homer.' 

HON.  PETER  STERLING,  THE,  by  Paul  Leicester  Ford  (1896),  is  a  distinctly 
American  novel.  As  a  political  story,  it  shows  a  grasp  on  municipal  politics;  and 
as  a  novel,  insight  into  the  human  heart.  It  introduces  its  hero  as  a  Harvard  student 
in  the  early  seventies.  His  father  has  been  a  mill  overseer,  and  Peter  does  not  belong 
to  the  fashionable  New  York  set,  to  which  he  is  admitted  through  a  favor  which  he 
has  done  by  chance  for  Watts  d'Alloi,  its  leader  and  the  handsomest  man  in  his  class. 
In  spite  of  striking  differences  in  character  and  circumstances,  the  two  become  firm 
friends.  Soon  after  his  graduation,  Peter  falls  in  love;  but  when  he  is  refused,  per- 
suades himself  to  be  the  cheerful  best  man  at  the  lady's  wedding.  He  begins  to 
practice  law  in  New  York,  gains  clients  slowly,  becomes  a  favorite  with  his  neighbors, 
and  enters  politics,  becoming  in  time  a  "boss."  But  Peter  is  a  "boss"  with  clean 
hands  and  a  pure  heart,  and  the  aim  of  the  author  is  to  show  what  might  be  accom- 
plished in  politics  by  men  of  this  high  stamp.  Nor  in  his  new  employment  does 
Peter  neglect  his  profession.  On  the  contrary,  he  rises  to  great  dignity  and  a  large 
income.  The  character  of  Peter  Sterling  is  finely  drawn  and  many  of  the  minor  actors 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  or  BOOKS  407 

in  the  story  are  true  to  life:  Miss  De  Voe,  Ray  Rivington,  Dorothy  Ogden,  Bohlman 
the  brewer,  Dummer  his  attorney,  and  the  various  politicians  in  whom  many  persons 
will  recognize  real  portraits. 

HOOSIER  CHRONICLE,  A,  by  Meredith  Nicholson  (1912).  The  scene  of  this 
story  is  laid  in  Indiana  and  opens  in  the  town  of  Montgomery,  the  seat  of  Madison 
College.  Here  Professor  Kelton,  retired  from  active  labor,  lives  a  quiet  and  secluded 
life  with  his  grand-daughter  Sylvia  Garrison.  The  latter,  a  girl  of  sixteen,  has  lived 
with  her  grandfather  since  the  death  of  her  mother,  his  only  child,  which  occurred 
when  she  was  but  three  years  old.  Her  antecedents  are  mysterious  and  even  the 
Professor  does  not  know  who  her  father  was,  as  her  mother  made  a  runaway  match 
while  away  from  home  and  kept  her  husband's  identity  a  secret  for  some  unexplained 
reason.  Her  short  married  life  was  spent  in  the  Adirondacks  in  seclusion  and  when 
illness  overtook  her,  she  started  to  take  her  child  to  her  father,  but  died  before 
reaching  him.  No  clue  could  be  found  to  the  husband,  who  had  evidently  deserted 
his  young  wife,  and  so  Sylvia  was  cared  for  by  her  grandfather.  She  was  taught 
by  him  until  fitted  for  college  which  she  was  enabled  to  attend  through  the  generosity 
of  an  old  friend  of  the  professor's,  Airs.  Owen.  The  latter's  niece  is  the  wife  of 
Morton  Bassett,  a  prominent  politician,  unscrupulous  and  ambitious.  His  private 
secretary  is  Daniel  Harwood,  a  Yale  graduate,  sound  mentally  and  morally.  Harwood 
loves  Sylvia  who  refuses  him,  and  retains  his  association  with  Bassett  until  the  latter 
in  his  race  for  the  senatorship  employs  methods  which  Harwood  cannot  endorse. 
A  political  rival  unearths  an  episode  in  Bassett's  early  life  which  has  been  carefully 
hidden,  and  which  he  intends  to  divulge  at  the  convention  to  the  detriment  of 
Bassett.  It  relates  t@  his  connection  with  an  unknown  woman  and  child  in  the 
Adirondacks  and  these  are  proven  to  be  Sylvia  and  her  mother.  When  Sylvia 
discovers  the  identity  of  her  father  she  goes  to  "Him  for  an  explanation  and  he  tells 
her  that  his  marriage  to  her  mother  was  legal  and  his  desertion  of  her  unintentional. 
Sylvia  tells  him  that  to  make  reparation  to  her  mother  he  must  give  up  the  senator- 
ship,  and  though  it  has  been  the  ambition  of  his  life  he  does  so.  Sylvia  marries 
Harwood,  whom  she  had  previously  refused  because  of  the  mystery  surrounding 
her  birth. 

HOOSIER  SCHOOL-MASTER,  THE,  by  Edward  Eggleston,  first  appeared  serially 
in  Hearth  and  Home  in  1870.  It  narrates  the  experiences  of  Ralph  Hartsook,  an 
Indiana  youth  who  in  ante-bellum  days  taught  a  back-country  district  school  in  his 
native  State. 

There  is  no  attempt  at  complicated  plot,  the  interest  centring  in  the  provincial 
manners  and  speech  of  the  rustic  characters,  who  find  in  the  young  schoolmaster 
almost  the  only  force  making  for  progress  and  culture  —  crude  though  it  is.  Though 
inexperienced,  Ralph  is  manly  and  plucky,  proving  himself  possessed  of  qualities 
which  command  the  respect  of  the  difficult  patrons  of  the  primitive  country  school. 

With  a  keen  sense  of  humor,  and  fidelity  to  detail,  the"  author  describes  the 
unsuccessful  efforts  of  the  hitherto  incorrigible  pupils  to  drive  out  the  teacher;  the 
spelling-school,  and  how  the  master  was  spelled  down;  the  exhortations  of  the  "Hard- 
shell" preacher;  the  triumphant  rebuttal  of  a  charge  of  theft  lodged  against  Ralph; 
the  sturdy  help  which  he  continually  gives  to  the  distressed;  and  the  final  success  of 
his  love  for  Hannah,  a  down-trodden  girl  of  fine  spirit,  who  begins  really  to  live  under 
the  new  light  of  affection. 

With  its  companion  volume,  'The  Hoosier  School-Boy/  the  novel  occupies  a 


408  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

unique  field;  describing  the  manners,  customs,  thoughts,  and  feelings  of  a  type  full  of 
interesting  and  romantic  suggestiveness,  humorous,  and  grotesque. 

HOP  O»  MY  THUMB,  see  FAIRY  TALES. 

HOPE  LESLIE,  by  Miss  Catherine  M.  Sedgwick  (1827),  is  a  tale  of  early  colonial 
days  in  Massachusetts.  Hope,  an  orphan,  is  brought  up  by  her  uncle  Mr.  Fletcher, 
and  loves  her  cousin  Everett;  but  in  a  moment  of  misunderstanding  he  engages 
himself  to  Miss  Downing,  Governor  Winthrop's  niece.  At  length  Miss  Downing 
discovering  that  he  loves  his  cousin,  releases  him  to  marry  the  impetuous  Hope. 
Colonial  dignitaries  and  noble  women  figure  equally  in  the  book,  which  makes  a 
faithful  attempt  to  present  a  picture  of  the  life  of  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century  in  and  near  Boston.  The  story  is  very  diffuse,  is  told  with  the  long  stride 
of  the  high-heeled  and  stiff-petticoated  Muse  of  Fiction  as  she  appeared  early  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  is  more  sentimental  than  modern  taste  quite  approves.  But 
as  a  picture  of  manners  it  is  faithful ;  and  its  spirit  is  wholesome  and  healthful.  In  its 
day  it  enjoyed  a  very  great  popularity. 

HORSESHOE  ROBINSON,  by  John  P.  Kennedy,  is  a  tale  of  the  Loyalist  as- 
cendency, during  the  American  Revolution.  The  chief  characters  are:  Marion; 
Tarleton;  Cornwallis;  Horseshoe  Robinson  himself,  so  called  because  he  was  originally 
a  blacksmith;  Mary  Musgrove  and  her  lover  John  Ramsay;  Henry  and  Mildred 
Lyndsay,  ardent  patriots;  Mildred's  lover,  Arthur  Butler,  whom  she  secretly  marries; 
Habershaw  and  his  band  of  ruffians  and  brutal  Indians.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Virginia 
and  North  Carolina;  and  we  read  of  battles  and  hair-breadth  captures,  treachery  and 
murder.  Tyrrel,  the  British  spy,  is  Butler's  rival,  favored  by  Mildred's  father;  he 
does  Butler  much  harm,  but  is  finally  hanged  as  a  traitor,  while  Mildred  and  her 
husband  live  happily  after  the  war  is  ended.  Horseshoe  Robinson  is  a  " character" : 
huge  in  size,  of  Herculean  strength  and  endless  craft  and  cunning.  His  adventures 
by  flood  and  field  are  well  worth  reading.  The  story  was  written  in  1835.  Though 
not  his  first  novel,  it  is  perhaps  the  most  famous  work  of  the  author. 

HOITR  AND  THE  MAN,  THE  (1840),  the  most  important  work  of  fiction  among  the 
multitude  of  Harriet  Martineau's  writings,  is  a  historical  novel  based  on  the  career 
of  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  It  opens  with  the  uprising  of  the  slaves  in  St.  Domingo 
in  August,  1791 ;  at  which  time  Toussamt,a  negro  slave  on  the  Breda  estate,  remained 
faithful  to  the  whites,  and  entered  the  service  of  the  allies  of  the  French  king  as 
against  the  Convention.  The  struggle  between  loyalty  to  the  royalist  cause  and 
duty  to  his  race,  when  he  learns  of  the  decree  of  the  Convention  proclaiming  the 
liberty  of  the  negroes,  ends  by  his  taking  the  leadership  of  the  blacks;  and  from  this 
point  the  story  follows  the  course  of  history  through  dramatic  successes  to  the  pathetic 
ending  of  this  remarkable  life.  The  novel  is  a  vivid  page  of  history. 

HOUR  GLASS,  THE,  by  W.  B.  Yeats  (1903).  The  actors  in  this  short  but  exquisite 
morality  are  a  wise  man,  a  fool,  some  pupils,  an  angel,  and  the  wise  man's  wife  and 
two  children.  The  wise  man  is  to  explain  to  his  pupils  a  passage  in  the  book  before 
him  which  says:  "  There  are  two  living  countries,  the  one  visible  and  the  one  invisible 
,  .  .  the  learned  in  old  times  forgot  the  visible  country."  He  thinks  he  has  taught 
his  pupils  better  than  that.  The  fool  asks  for  pennies  and  says  he  has  seen  that 
priests  and  people  on  account  of  the  wise  man's  teaching  have  given  up  their  old 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  409 

religious  observances.  The  fool  says  that  he  often  sees  acgels,  the  wise  man  that 
he  has  shut  people's  ears  to  "the  imaginary  harpings  and  speech  of  the  angels." 
While  he  is  yet  speaking,  an  angel  appears  to  him  and  tells  him  that  he  will  die  within 
the  hour,  because  no  souls  have  passed  over  the  threshold  of  heaven  since  he  came 
to  the  country.  He  pleads  without  avail  for  mercy  from  the  angel,  but  is  told  that 
if  before  the  last  sands  have  run  from  the  hour  glass  he  can  find  one  who  believes, 
he  shall  come  to  heaven  after  years  of  purgatory.  His  pupils  and  the  fool  enter. 
None  of  his  pupils  believe.  His  wife  says  that  a  good  wife  only  believes  what  her 
husband  tells  her.  His  own  children  repeat  what  he  had  formerly  taught  them 
"there  is  no  heaven:  there  is  no  hell:  there  is  nothing  we  cannot  see."  Teigne  the 
fool  says  he  believes  in  "the  Fire  that  punishes,  the  Fire  that  purifies,  and  the  Fire 
wherein  the  soul  rejoices  for  ever."  The  wise  man  asks  the  fool  to  pray  that  a  sign 
may  be  given  to  his  pupils  that  they  may  be  saved,  and  bows  his  head  and  dies. 

HOURS  IN  A  LIBRARY,  by  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  (3  vols.  1874-79.  New  ed.  1892). 
These  agreeable  volumes  are  made  up  almost  entirely  of  papers  on  writers  and  books 
of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries:  Defoe's  Novels,  Richardson's  Novels, 
Balzac's  Novels,  Fielding's  and  Disraeli's  Novels,  Pope  as  a  Moralist,  Hawthorne, 
De  Quincey,  George  Eliot,  Charlotte  Bronte,  Dr.  Johnson,  Lander,  —  these,  and 
three  times  as  many  equally  illustrious  names,  show  the  range  of  Mr.  Stephen's 
reflections.  He  has  no  theory  of  the  growth  of  literature  to  support,  —  like  Taine, 
for  example;  and  so  he  enjoys  what  the  Yankee  calls  a  "good  time,"  as  he  moves  with 
careless  but  assured  step  whither  he  will  through  the  field  of  letters.  He  is  very 
sensible  and  clear-headed;  he  knows  why  one  should  dislike  or  admire  any  given  book; 
and  he  gives  his  reason  in  simple,  direct,  and  easy  speech,  as  if  he  were  seated  in  his 
library  arm-chair  after  a  comfortable  dinner,  an  amiable  Rhadamanthus,  discoursing 
with  a  true  urbanity  upon  the  merits  of  his  friends.  He  is  unflaggingly  agreeable, 
often  extremely  clever,  not  seldom  witty,  and  always  well-bred  and  sensible.  He 
admires  Pope,  and  sets  him  among  the  great  poets,  affirming  that  he  is  "the  incarna- 
tion of  the  literary  spirit, "  with  his  wit,  his  satirical  keenness,  his  intellectual  curiosity 
and  his  brilliant  art  of  putting  things.  In  the  paper  on  Hawthorne,  the  essayist 
makes  the  subtle  suggestion  that  it  was  better  that  that  delicate  genius  should  have 
been  reared  in  America,  because  the  more  affluent  and  romantic  environment  of 
Europe  might  have  dominated  his  gift.  The  essay  on  De  Quincey  has  been  called 
the  best  estimate  of  that  extraordinary  personality  ever  made.  But  the  papers  on 
Macaulay  and  on  George  Eliot  are  hardly  less  admirable,  a  judgment  which  might 
fairly  include  most  of  the  papers. 

HOUSE  BY  THE  MEDLAR  TREE,  THE  (1  Malavoglia')  by  Giovanni  Verga  (1890), 
is  a  realistic  and  touching  story  of  lower-class  life  in  an  Italian  fishing  village.  The 
fortunes  of  the  Malavoglia,  a  title  of  ill  luck  which  seems  to  have  attached  itself  by 
heredity  to  the  family  so  called,  are  connected  with  the  old  homestead,  the  house 
under  the  medlar  tree;  and  these  fortunes  are  affected  by  the  changes  in  the  anchovy 
trade,  the  coming  of  steam  packets  and  railroads,  increased  taxes,  and  the  general 
breaking-up  of  old  ways  in  the  decade  before  1870.  The  good-hearted  and  thrifty 
grandfather,  Padron  ?Ntoni,  sees  his  big  family  of  grandchildren  grow  up  to  dis- 
appoint, one  after  another,  all  his  brave  wishes  and  hopes  for  the  prosperity  both  of 
his  sturdy  little  fishing-sloop,  the  Prowidenza,  and  his  ample  old  house.  The  story 
is  full  of  action  and  of  unsophisticated  human  feeling.  To  read  its  pages  is  to  live 
in  the  little  village  of  Aci  Trezza  and  know  personally  every  one  of  its  forty  or  more 


410  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

vividly  drawn  characters.  Nothing  is  concealed,  nothing  is  indoors.  It  is  all  in  the 
full  glare  of  the  southern  sun,  and  the  forms  of  light  and  shade  stand  out  with  pitiless 
distinctness. 

HOUSE  OF  CLAES,  THE,  see  ALKAHEST. 

HOUSE  OF  MIRTH,  THE,  by  Edith  Wharton  (1905).  This  story  depicts  life 
among  Xew  York's  "Four  Hundred."  The  central  figure  is  Lily  Bart,  a  girl  in  her 
late  twenties,  well  connected,  possessed  of  great  beauty  and  little  money.  Being  an 
orphan  she  is  given  a  home  and  an  allowance  by  her  aunt  Mrs.  Peniston,  with  whom 
she  lives,  but  having  expensive  tastes,  her  limited  resources  and  dependence  make 
her  very  dissatisfied  with  her  lot.  Her  ambition  and  desire  has  been  to  make  a 
successful  marriage,  having  been  reared  by  a  selfish  and  worldly  mother  with  that 
end  in  view,  but  so  far,  her  aim  has  not  been  accomplished.  She  visits  her  rich 
friends  the  Gus  Trenors  and  loses  heavily  at  bridge  thereby  involving  herself  in  debt 
from  which  she  allows  her  host  to  extricate  her.  He  offers  to  invest  her  small  capital 
in  a  way  to  bring  in  large  returns  and  Lily  being  ignorant  of  business  methods  does 
not  realize  the  large  checks  he  hands  her  are  out  of  his  own  pocket.  Trenor  endeavors 
to  force  his  attentions  upon  her  and  when  she  repulses  him  he  taunts  her  with  having 
taken  his  money.  Lily  is  terrified  and  says  she  will  repay  every  cent.  Meantime 
she  has  several  suitors;  among  these  is  Lawrence  Selden,  an  attractive  man  without 
money  for  whom  she  really  cares,  and  a  rich  Jew  named  Simon  Rosedale,  who  is 
personally  repulsive  to  her.  The  former,  she  feels  she  cannot  consider  on  account  of 
his  limited  income,  and  although  the  latter  would  bring  her  the  wealth  she  craves 
she  cannot  bring  herself  to  accept  him.  Lily  goes  on  a  yachting-trip  with  her  friends 
the  Dorsets  and  through  no  fault  of  her  own  becomes  involved  in  a  scandal  which 
causes  all  of  her  fashionable  friends  to  drop  her.  Just  at  this  time  her  aunt  dies  and 
cuts  her  off  with  a  small  legacy.  Without  money,  or  friends,  Lily  finds  her  way  most 
difficult  and  finally  brings  up  in  a  cheap  boarding-house  while  learning  the  trade  of 
milliner.  During  her  declining  fortunes  she  has  reconsidered  her  decision  regarding 
Rosedale  but  finds  to  her  chagrin  that  he  no  longer  cares  to  many  her.  Broken  in 
health  and  completely  discouraged  Lily  finally  takes  an  overdose  of  chloral  which 
ends  her  unhappy  existence.  Just  before  this  tragic  event  she  visits  Selden  and  tells 
him  how  much  he  has  been  to  her,  and  he  is  on  his  way  to  ask  her  to  many  him  when 
he  learns  of  her  death.  Lily's  last  act  is  the  paying  over  to  Trenor  of  her  aunt's 
legacy  which  has  just  come  to  her  and  is  sufficient  to  cancel  her  debt  to  him. 

HOUSE  OF  PENARVAN,  THE  ('  La  Maison  de  PSnarvan')  by  Jules  Sandeau  (1858). 
The  scene  of  this  semi-historical  romance  is  laid  in  Brittany,  and  the  story  opens  in 
the  year  VI.  of  the  Republic.  Mademoiselle  Rene"  de  Pe"narvan  is  living  in  an  old 
chateau  near  Nantes,  her  only  companion  being  the  Abb6  Pyrmil.  They  are  both 
devoted  to  the  glories  of  the  ancient  house;  and  Pyrmil  is  writing  its  history,  the 
chapters  of  which  Rene*  illuminates  with  Gothic  tracery  and  emblazonment.  She  is 
the  last  of  her  race  and  will  not  many.  But  an  unexpected  incident  alters  her  resolve. 
The  Abbe*  has  discovered  that  a  male  heir  exists,  —  a  plain,  simple-hearted  youth 
living  on  the  produce  of  his  farm  and  about  to  many  a  miller's  daughter.  To  prevent 
such  a  horrible  disgrace  Rene"  marries  him  herself,  somewhat  against  his  will.  She 
then  puts  a  sword  into  his  reluctant  hand  and  sends  him  to  La  Vendee"  to  fight  for 
his  legitimate  king.  He  returns  wounded,  and  she  is  prouder  of  him  than  ever.  But 
he  dies,  not  without  telling  her  that  he  no  longer  loves  her,  for  she  does  not  really 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  411 

love  him.  She  is  a  heroine,  not  a  woman.  She  was  in  love  with  a  hero,  a  paladin, 
not  with  the  artless  country  boy,  who  only  desired  to  live  at  peace.  Their  child, 
whom  Rene  cannot  forgive  for  being  a  girl,  grows  up.  Her  timidity,  gentleness,  and 
simple  tastes,  are  hateful  to  the  proud  chatelaine;  and  when  she  falls  in  love  with  a 
bourgeois,  the  mother's  anger  is  terrible.  But  the  daughter  conceals  a  firm  will 
under  her  modest  exterior,  and  ultimately  marries  the  man  of  her  choice.  Rene  is 
forced  to  yield,  and  finally  admits  that  she  has  not  fulfilled  her  duties  as  a  wifr  and  a 
mother.  This  is  the  best  known  of  Sandeau's  works  outside  France.  It  contains 
one  of  his  most  skillfully  constructed  plots.  The  contrasted  characters  of  Rene,  her 
husband,  and  her  daughter,  show  great  psychological  knowledge  and  skill.  The 
portrait  of  the  Abbe*  Pyrmil  is  not  unworthy  to  rank  beside  that  of  Dominie  Sampson. 

HOUSE  OFTHE SEVEN  GABLES,THE  (1851),  thesecondof  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's 
romances,  follows  the  fortunes  of  a  decayed  New  England  family,  consisting  of  four 
members,  —  Hephzibah  Pyncheon,  her  brother  Clifford,  their  cousin  Judge  Pyn- 
cheon,  and  another  cousin,  Phcebe,  a  country  girl.  At  the  time  the  story  opens 
Hephzibah  is  living  in  great  poverty  at  the  old  homestead,  the  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables.  With  her  is  Clifford,  just  released  from  prison,  where  he  had  served  a  term 
of  thirty  years  for  the  supposed  murder  of  a  rich  uncle.  Judge  Pyncheon,  who  was 
influential  in  obtaining  the  innocent  Clifford's  arrest,  that  he  might  hide  his  own 
wrong-doing,  now  seeks  to  confine  him  in  an  asylum  on  the  charge  of  insanity. 
Hephzibah's  pitiful  efforts  to  shield  this  brother,  to  support  him  and  herself  by 
keeping  a  centshop,  to  circumvent  the  machinations  of  the  judge,  are  described 
through  the  greater  portion  of  the  novel.  The  sudden  death  of  the  malevolent  cousin 
frees  them  and  makes  them  possessors  of  his  wealth.  A  lighter  episode  of  the  story  is 
the  wooing  of  little  Phcebe  by  Holgrave,  a  lodger  in  the  old  house.  'The  House  of 
the  Seven  Gables'  has  about  it  the  same  dreamy  atmosphere  that  envelops  Haw- 
thorne's other  novels.  The  usual  background  of  mystery  is  supplied  in  the  hereditary 
curse  resting  upon  the  Pyncheon  family.  Hephzibah,  the  type  of  ineffectual, 
decayed  aristocracy,  the  sensitive  feeble  Clifford,  the  bright  little  flower  Phoebe,  are 
prominent  portraits  in  the  author's  strange  gallery  of  New  England  types. 

HOUSE  OF  THE  WOLF,  THE  (1889),  the  first  of  Stanley  J.  Weyman's  historical 
romances,  deals  with  the  adventures  of  three  young  brothers  (the  eldest  of  whom, 
Anne,  Vicomte  de  Caylus,  tells  the  story)  in  Paris,  during  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew. Catharine,  the  beautiful  cousin  of  these  young  men,  is  sought  in  marriage 
by  the  most  powerful  noble  of  the  province,  the  dreaded  Vidame  de  Bezers,  known 
from  his  armorial  bearings  as  the  "Wolf."  She  prefers  the  Huguenot  Louis  de 
Pavannes,  and  Bezers  swears  to  have  his  life.  To  warn  him,  the  country  lads  Anne, 
Marie,  and  St.  Croix  journey  to  Paris,  only  to  fall  into  the  power  of  the  terrible 
Vidame.  The  plots  of  the  Vidame,  the  struggle  of  the  boys,  and  the  dangers  of  M. 
de  Pavannes,  are  woven  with  thrilling  effect  into  the  bloody  drama  of  the  Massacre; 
and  the  sinister  figure  of  the  proud,  revengeful  "Wolf,"  with  his  burst  of  haughty 
magnanimity,  lingers  long  in  the  memory. 

HOUSE  OF  THE  WOLFINGS,  THE,  by  William  Morris  (1889).  "The  tale  tells 
that  in  times  long  past,  there  was  a  dwelling  of  men  beside  a  great  wood."  Thus 
does  the  first  sentence  of  the  book  take  us  into  the  atmosphere  —  half  real,  half 
mystical,  and  wholly  poetic  —  which  pervades  the  entire  story.  These  "men'* 
belonged  to  one  of  the  Germanic  tribes  of  Central  Europe.  Round  about  this  "great 


412  THE   READER'S  DIGEST  OF   BOOKS 

wood"  were  three  settlements  or  "Marks, "  each  mark  containing  many  Houses;  and 
it  is  with  the  House  of  the  Wolfings  of  Mid-mark  that  the  tale  chiefly  deals. 

The  chief  of  the  Wolfings  was  Thiodolf ,  the  wisest  man,  and  of  heart  most  daunt- 
less. Hall-Sun,  his  daughter,  exceeding  fair  and  with  the  gift  of  prophecy,  was  first 
among  the  women. 

The  leading  theme  of  the  story  is  the  war  between  the  Romans  and  the  Markmen; 
how  it  fared  with  Thiodolf,  and  how  the  Hall-Sun  advises  the  Stay-at-Homes  by 
means  of  her  wonderful  insight.  Thiodolf  is  chosen  War-Duke.  He  meets  the  Wood- 
Sun,  his  beloved,  a  woman  descended  from  the  gods.  She  gives  him  a  hauberk  to 
wear  in  battle;  but  owing  to  a  charm  that  caused  who  so  wore  this  armor  to  weaken 
in  war,  Thiodolf  does  not  acquit  himself  bravely  in  their  first  skirmishes  with  the 
foe.  The  Markmen  become  somewhat  disheartened,  and  the  Romans  advance  even 
to  the  Hall  of  the  Wolfings.  Then  Thiodolf  is  led  by  the  Hall-Sun,  who  personifies 
courage  and  duty,  to  the  throne  of  the  Wood-Sun,  who  confesses  that,  fearing  his 
death  and  the  end  of  their  love  on  earth,  she  had  fastened  the  hauberk  upon  him. 
Thereupon  Thiodolf  casts  it  away,  and  subordinating  love  to  duty,  he  goes  forth 
to  meet  a  hero's  death  on  the  morrow's  battlefield.  The  sight  of  the  War-Duke,  in 
his  old  strength  and  cheer,  incites  the  " stark  men  and  doughty  warriors"  to  the 
complete  undoing  of  the  Romans.  The  day  is  given  up  to  the  chanting  of  dirges  for 
the  dead;  and  the  night  wears  away  in  feasting.  All  the  kindred  hallow  with  song 
the  return  of  the  warriors  "with  victory  in  their  hands."  And  thereafter  the  Wol- 
fings "throve  in  field  and  fold." 

This  fascinating  story  is  pervaded  with  the  charm  of  a  primitive  people,  who  live 
a  picturesque  life  both  in  agriculture  and  on  the  battlefield. 

The  style  of  the  author,  the  quaint  and  simple  English,  molded  frequently  into  a 
beautiful  chant  or  song,  makes  'The  House  of  the  Wolfings'  a  most  artistic  and 
attractive  tale. 

HOUSEHOLD  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE,  THE,  by  Anne  Manning  (1869),  is 
written  in  the  form  of  the  diary  of  the  Chancellor's  daughter,  Margaret.  The  story, 
beginning  when  More  is  merely  a  private  gentleman,  a  great  lawyer,  and  friend  of 
Erasmus,  afterward  introduces  the  reader  to  his  life  at  court,  and  the  prosperous 
days  when  he  stood  first  in  bluff  King  Hal's  favor,  and  pathetically  describes  his 
downfall  and  tragic  death.  The  record  of  the  high-minded  and  cultivated  Margaret 
presents  a  delightful  picture  of  a  lovely  home  life,  and  of  the  noble  and  accomplished 
gentleman  who  was  its  head  and  its  inspiration.  Her  devotion  to  her  father  never 
wanes,  even  in  the  terrible  hour  when,  after  his  execution,  she  "clasped  in  her  last 
trance  her  murdered  father's  head."  The  simplicity  and  sincerity  of  the  author's 
treatment  give  the  book  an  air  of  reality,  while  its  faithfulness  to  the  tone  of  the  period 
makes  it  more  historical  than  history. 

HOW  THE  OTHER  HALF  LIVES,  see  MAKING  OF  AN  AMERICAN. 

HUCKLEBERRY  FINN,  THE  ADVENTURES  OF,  by  Samuel  L.  Clemens  ("Mark 
Twain"),  was  published  in  1884.  It  is  a  sequel  to,  and  follows  the  fortunes  of,  the 
leading  characters  of  the  same  author's  'Tom  Sawyer,'  from  which  it  differs  in  tone 
and  construction,  touching  now  and  again  upon  vital  social  questions  with  an  under- 
tone of  evidently  serious  interest.  Like  its  predecessor,  it  is  a  story  of  boyhood  for 
boys;  but  it  is  also  a  vital  study  of  American  life,  the  Odyssey  of  Adventure  on  the 
Mississippi.  Many  critics  consider  it  Mark  Twain's  masterpiece. 


THE   READER  S  DIGEST   OF   BOOKS  413 

The  story  traces  the  wanderings  of  "Huck"  and  Tom,  who  have  run  away  from 
iiome;  and  tells  how,  with  their  old  friend  the  negro  Jim,  they  proceed  down  the 
Mississippi,  mainly  on  a  raft. 

The  boys  pass  through  a  series  of  experiences,  now  thrilling,  now  humorous; 
falling  in  with  two  ignorant  but  presumptuously  clever  sharpers,  whose  buffoonery, 
and  efforts  to  escape  justice  and  line  their  own  pockets  at  the  expense  of  the  boys 
and  the  kindly  but  gullible  folk  whom  they  meet,  form  a  series  of  the  funniest  epi- 
sodes of  the  story.  Tom's  and  Huck's  return  up  the  river  puts  an  end  to  the  anxiety 
of  their  friends,  and  to  a  remarkable  series  of  adventures. 

The  author  draws  from  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  great  river  and  the  Southern 
country  along  its  banks;  and  not  only  preserves  to  us  a  valuable  record  of  a  rapidly 
disappearing  social  order,  but  throws  light  upon  some  questions  of  moment  to  the 
student  of  history. 

HUDIBRAS,  by  Samuel  Butler,  a  satirical  poem  in  eight-syllable  couplets.  The 
first  part  appeared  in  1662,  the  second  in  1664,  and  the  third  in  1678.  Under  the 
guise  of  a  burlesque  tale  of  knight-errantry  the  author  heaps  ridicule  upon  the  Puritan 
party.  Hudibras,  the  hero,  a  knight  and  justice  of  the  peace  who  rides  out  in  quest 
of  adventure,  represents  the  Presbyterians,  and  perhaps  also  Butler's  former  em- 
ployer, Sir  Samuel  Luke,  a  colonel  in  Cromwell's  army;  Ralpho,  the  squire  of  Hudi- 
bras, typifies  the  Independents.  After  a  long  description  of  the  two  men,  with 
emphasis  on  the  militancy,  metaphysical  subtlety,  and  hypocrisy  of  the  Presbyterians 
and  the  mysticism  and  fanaticism  of  the  Independents,  the  poet  tells  of  the  attempt 
of  Hudibras  and  Ralpho  to  break  up  a  bear-baiting.  Successful  at  first  in  placing  one 
of  the  revellers,  Crowdero,  a  fiddler,  in  the  stocks,  they  are  overcome  by  a  counter- 
attack, led  by  Trulla,  an  Amazonian  warrior,  and  themselves  imprisoned.  From  this 
disgrace  Hudibras  is  released  by  a  wealthy  widow,  to  whom  he  has  paid  his  addresses, 
and  who  promises  not  only  to  loose  him  but  also  to  many  him  if  he  will  promise  to 
give  himself  a  whipping.  Having  made  the  pledge  and  having  been  set  at  liberty 
Hudibras  now  attempts  to  evade  it  by  having  the  whipping  done  by  proxy  in  the 
person  of  his  squire.  In  a  clever  imitation  of  contemporary  theological  discussion  he 
and  Ralpho  dispute  on  the  legitimacy  of  this  subterfuge,  until  they  are  interrupted  by 
a  second  rustic  gathering,  occupied  in  punishing  a  scold  and  her  henpecked  husband. 
Attempting  again  to  interfere  Hudibras  and  his  squire  are  pelted  with  filth  and  seek 
refuge  in  a  horse-pond.  Unwilling  to  endure  anything  further,  even  voluntarily 
inflicted,  the  knight  now  goes  to  an  astrologer,  Sidrophel,  to  inquire  whether  he  is 
destined  to  win  the  widow  or  not.  They  fall  to  dispute,  and  the  astrologer  with  his 
man,  Wachum,  are  beaten  by  the  knight.  The  poem  is  now  brought  to  an  end  by 
three  epistles,  one  from  Hudibras  to  Sidrophel,  one  from  Hudibras  to  the  Widow,  and 
the  third  giving  the  widow's  reply.  The  story  is  of  less  importance  than  the  brilliant 
and  still-quoted  epigrams  with  which  it  abounds  and  the  clever  travesties  on  the 
theological  hair-splitting  and  hypocritical  austerity  of  the  Puritans  in  their  prosperous 
days. 

HUGH  WYITOE,  FREE  QUAKER,  by  Dr.  S.  Weir  Mitchell  (1897).  This 
story  is  written  in  the  form  of  an  autobiography,  and  is  told  by  Hugh  Wynne, 
who  later  becomes  Brevet  Lieutenant-Colonel  on  the  staff  of  his  excellency,  General 
Washington.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Philadelphia  during  the  time  of  the  Revolution, 
and  a  very  truthful  and  striking  picture  is  given  of  the  social  life  and  customs  of  the 
Quaker  City.  The  hero,  Hugh  Wynne,  is  the  son  of  a  rigid  old  Philadelphia  merchant 


414  THE   READER  S  DIGEST  OF   BOOKS 

intolerant  of  youth  and  pleasure,  as  well  as  of  armed  resistance  to  authority,  who  in 
his  youth  had  married  a  gay  and  loving  French  woman,  the  direct  opposite  of  her 
stiff-necked  husband.  Hugh  endures  the  austerities  of  his  grim  father  as  long  as  his 
ardent  and  strong-willed  nature  will  allow,  and  when  the  moment  arrives  that  he 
can  be  spared  from  a  business  which  has  never  been  congenial  to  him,  he  follows  the 
leading  of  his  heart  to  the  camp  of  Washington  and  takes  service  with  the  patriotic 
forces.  Being  a  good  shot  and  an  admirable  swordsman  he  soon  gets  a  commission, 
and  from  that  time  shares  the  hardships  and  successes  of  the  campaign.  At  one  time 
a  prisoner  in  Philadelphia,  at  another  a  spy  seeking  out  weak  spots  in  the  enemy's 
defence,  and  again  on  the  staff  of  Lafayette,  he  participates  in  the  most  important 
scenes  of  the  long  and  wavering  struggle.  Darthea  Peniston,  the  love  of  Hugh's  life, 
is  a  fascinating  and  lovely  girl  whose  coquetry  and  charm  wins  for  her  the  love  of 
Jack  Warder,  Hugh's  faithful  and  constant  friend,  and  also  that  of  Arthur  Wynne, 
Hugh's  cousin,  the  plausible  villain  of  the  story.  Darthea,  however,  remains  true 
to  Hugh,  and  Warder  nobly  stifles  his  affection  and  proves  himself  the  loyal  and 
unselfish  friend.  The  story  is  full  of  charm  and  interest  and  pictures  the  life  of  the 
old  regime  of  Philadelphia  with  all  the  variety  and  grace,  elegance  and  refinement 
which  then  belonged  to  it. 

HULL  HOUSE,  see  TWENTY  YEARS  AT. 

HUMAN  INTERCOURSE,  by  Philip  Gilbert  Hamerton  (1884),  is  a  collection  of 
essays  on  social  relationships,  opening  with  a  short  treatise  on  the  difficulty  of  dis- 
covering fixed  laws  in  this  domain  which  all  inhabit,  which  so  few  understand.  The 
remaining  essays  treat  of  passionate  love,  of  friendship,  of  filial  duties  and  affections, 
r f  priests  and  women,  of  differences  of  rank  and  wealth;  in  short,  they  cover  nearly  all 
divisions  of  the  subject.  The  author  brings  to  the  consideration  of  his  theme  reason- 
ableness and  sympathy.  In  his  essays  on  marriage  and  on  love,  especially,  he  shows 
a  keen  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  of  the  hidden  springs  of  passion.  It  is  his 
comprehension  of  passion,  indeed,  which  makes  possible  his  intelligence  on  other 
subjects  related  to  human  intercourse.  The  essays  are  well  supplied  with  concrete 
examples  from  life,  in  illustration  of  the  points  in  question.  They  are  written  in 
everyday  forcible  English,  well  fitted  to  the  subject-matter. 

HUMAN  MARRIAGE,  THE  HISTORY  OF,  by  E.  A.  Westermarck  (1891).  Prof. 
Westermarck's  definition  of  marriage  is  "a  more  or  less  durable  connection  between 
male  and  female,  lasting  till  after  the  birth  of  the  offspring."  At  the  outset  he  enters 
a  caveat  against  the  custom  of  inferring,  without  sufficient  reasons,  from  the  pre- 
valence of  a  custom  or  institution  among  some  savage  peoples  that  this  custom  or 
institution  is  the  relic  of  a  stage  of  development  through  which  the  whole  human  race 
has  passed.  His  method  is  to  endeavor  to  find  out  from  a  great  variety  of  material 
the  causes  of  social  phenomena,  and  then  from  the  prevalence  of  the  causes  to  infer 
the  prevalence  of  the  phenomena  themselves.  This  quest  is  extremely  difficult 
because  of  the  unsatisfactory  nature  of  much  of  the  evidence  which  sometimes  comes 
from  travelers  and  missionaries  who  on  account  of  ignorance  of  native  languages  and 
customs  have  occasionally  quite  misrepresented  native  customs  about  marriage. 
Prof.  Westermarck  is  of  opinion  that  the  promiscuity  alleged  to  exist  among  primitive 
peoples  is,  in  so  far  as  it  exists  at  all,  frequently  due  to  contact  with  "civilization," 
and  that  "there  is  not  a  shred  of  genuine  evidence  for  the  notion  that  promiscuity 
ever  formed  a  general  stage  in  the  social  history  of  mankind."  There  are  chapters  on 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  415 

celibacy,  sexual  selection,  the  prohibition  ot  marriage  between  kindved,  marriage  by 
capture  and  marriage  by  purchase,  the  forms  and  duration  of  human  marriage.  He 
justifies  his  fearless  treatment  of  a  subject  which  sometimes  involves  the  discussion  of 
unpleasant  details  by  a  doctrine  that  has  almost  become  a  proverb.  "The  conceal- 
ment of  truth  is  the  only  indecorum  known  to  science." 

HUMAN  UNDERSTANDING,  AN  ESSAY  CONCERNING,  see  ESSAY. 

HUMPHRY  CLINKER,  a  novel  in  epistolary  form  by  Tobias  George  Smollett  was 
published  in  1771.  It  records  in  a  series  of  letters  the  adventures  of  a  family  party 
traveling  in  England  and  Scotland.  The  household  consists  of  Matthew  Bramble  of 
Brambleton  Hall  in  Wales,  an  eccentric  and  valetudinarian  bachelor;  his  sister, 
Tabitha,  a  foolish  old  maid;  their  nephew,  Jerry  Melford,  a  Cambridge  student;  their 
niece,  Lydia  Alelford,  just  out  of  boarding-school;  Winifred  Jenkins,  the  maid,  whose 
spelling  is  fearful  and  wonderful;  and  Humphry  Clinker  the  coachman,  a  poor, 
ragged  ostler  picked  up  en  route,  and  taken  into  service  by  the  benevolent  Mr. 
Bramble  in  place  of  another  man,  Thomas,  who  has  been  dismissed.  The  journey 
begins  at  Gloucester,  where  Lydia  has  been  at  boarding-school  and  where  her  brother 
discovers  that  she  is  corresponding  with  a  good-looking  young  actor  who  calls  himself 
Wilson.  A  duel  between  the  two  men  having  been  averted  the  party  proceeds  to 
Bath.  A  lively  and  interesting  picture  of  the  frivolities  and  absurdities  of  this 
famous  watering-place  and  health-resort  is  presented  from  various  points  of  view  in 
the  different  letters  written  from  here.  A  visit  to  London  introduces  us  to  Ranelagh 
and  Vauxhall,  the  wits  and  the  politicians.  Humphry  Clinker  turns  Methodist 
preacher,  and  is  imprisoned  for  a  time  on  a  false  charge  of  robbery.  The  route  then 
turns  northward  through  Yorkshire.  At  Durham  the  party  is  joined  by  an  odd- 
looking  Scottish  soldier  Lieutenant  Obadiah  Lismahago,  who  entertains  them  with  a 
blood-curdling  story  of  the  cruelties  he  suffered  as  a  captive  of  the  Indians,  and  wins 
the  favor  of  Tabitha  Bramble.  The  most  interesting  description,  however,  is  that  of 
Scotland,  the  peculiarities  of  which  country  are  vividly  set  forth.  In  the  end  Lydia's 
suitor,  who  has  appeared  on  various  disguises  at  different  stages  of  the  journey, 
proves  to  be  one  George  Dennison,  a  gentleman  of  rank  and  wealth,  who  was  masquer- 
ading as  an  actor  to  avoid  an  unwelcome  marriage  forced  on  him  by  his  parents.  He 
marries  Lydia  Melford.  Tabitha  is  united  to  Lismahago.  Humphry  Clinker  turns 
out  to  be  a  natural  son  of  Matthew  Bramble,  and  is  happily  married  to  Winifred 
Jenkins.  In  spite  of  its  occasional  coarseness  of  expression  and  its  brutal  realism  the 
book  is  a  highly  entertaining  picture  of  British  society  in  the  eighteenth  century.  It 
contains  some  definitely  characterized  personages,  and  the  plot  is  sufficiently  marked 
to  arouse  the  reader's  interest.  The  epistolary  form  is  not  tedious,  for  each  letter 
sets  the  facts  in  a  new  light  by  reflecting  them  through  a  different  personality. 

HURRISH:  A  Study,  by  Emily  Lawless.  This  is  a  picture  of  life  on  the  west  coast  of 
Ireland,  wild  and  sad  as  is  that  barren  iron  land  itself.  Horatio,  or  Hurrish  O'Brien, 
the  big,  kindly,  simple  farmer,  gives  poor,  pretty  Ally  a  home,  and  is  a  father  to  weak 
vain  Maurice  Brady;  but  he  becomes  the  victim  of  fate.  His  fierce  old  mother  is  an 
ardent  patriot.  They  live  in  the  midst  of  Fenians,  but  he  will  not  strike  a  blow  for 
rebellion.  Maurice  Brady's  brutish  brother  Mat,  hated  by  all,  shoots  at  Hurrish 
from  his  hiding-place;  Hurrish  strikes  one  blow  in  self-defense,  kills  him,  and  is 
betrayed  to  the  police  by  Maurice.  Hurrish  is  tried  and  acquitted,  but  Maurice 
murders  him  in  spite  of  Ally's  warnings.  Ally,  though  betrothed  to  Maurice,  loves 
Hurrish  without  knowing  it.  Hurrish,  in  his  devotion  to  Maurice,  acquits  him  on  his 


416  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

death-bed.  Ally  becomes  a  nun;  Maurice  goes  to  America,  where  he  makes  a  fortune, 
but  is  shunned  by  his  countrymen  as  an  informer  and  a  traitor.  Hurrish's  memory  is 
cherished  in  his  native  village.  This  capital  picture  of  Irish  character,  with  all  its 
weaknesses,  inconsistencies,  and  superstitions,  was  published  in  1886,  — the  writer's 
first  book,  and  giving  her  high  rank  among  Irish  novelists. 

HUTCHINSON,  MEMOIRS  OF  COLONEL,  by  Mrs.  Hutchinson  (1701).  Shortly 
after  the  death  of  her  husband,  who  during  the  Great  Rebellion  in  England  had  taken 
the  side  of  the  Parliament,  and,  as  a  governor  of  Nottingham  Castle,  defended  his 
charge  until  the  Parliamentary  cause  was  victorious,  Airs.  Hutchinson  wrote  this 
biography  to  preserve  his  memory  and  instruct  his  children.  It  is  a  unique  picture 
of  the  life  and  character  of  a  Puritan  gentleman.  "The  figure  of  Colonel  Hutchin- 
son, "  says  J.  R.  Green,  "stands  out  from  his  wife's  canvas  with  the  grace  and  tender- 
ness of  a  portrait  by  Van  Dyck."  The  work  is  valuable  as  a  record  of  the  time  in 
which  Colonel  Hutchinson  lived,  as  an  accurate  account  of  the  Civil  War  in  Notting- 
hamshire, and,  from  the  literary  standpoint,  for  the  simple  beauty  of  the  author's 
style  and  the  unaffected  frankness  with  which  she  details  her  opinions  and  the  inci- 
dents of  her  private  life.  The  personal  description  of  her  husband  is  a  very  good 
example  of  the  manner  of  the  book.  "To  sum  up,  therefore,  all  that  can  be  said  of 
his  outward  frame  and  disposition,  we  must  truly  conclude,  that  it  was  a  very  hand- 
some and  well-furnished  lodging  prepared  for  the  reception  of  that  prince,  who  in  the 
administration  of  all  excellent  virtues  reigned  there  a  while,  till  he  was  called  back  to 
the  palace  of  the  universal  emperor."  Written  between  1664  and  1671. 

HYPATIA,  by  Charles  Kingsley  (1838).  This  famous  romance  presents  a  stirring 
picture  of  the  fifth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  against  the  background  of  the  learned 
city  of  Alexandria  in  Egypt.  A  young  Christian  monk,  Philammon,  a  denizen  of  the 
rock  monasteries  on  the  Upper  Nile,  moved  by  a  burning  desire  to  save  his  f ellowmen 
from  sin  and  destruction,  makes  his  abode  in  Alexandria.  There  his  sleeping  senses 
are  aroused  by  the  magnificent  pageant  of  the  decaying  Roman  world.  His  mystical 
visions  vanish  in  the  garish  light  of  a  too  brilliant  intellectuality.  Greek  culture, 
Roman  order,  the  splendid  certainties  of  the  pagan  world,  fascinate  a  mind  "half 
sick  of  shadows.'1  Yet  he  is  drawn  to  what  is  best  in  the  old  order.  Its  noble  philo- 
sophy, its  sane  ideals,  its  fine  temperance,  seem  embodied  in  Hypatia,  a  beautiful 
woman  over  whom  ancient  Greece  exercises  an  all-potent  fascination.  In  her 
lecture-room  she  expounds  principles  of  religious  philosophy,  the  fruit  of  a  younger, 
purer,  and  brighter  civilization.  To  Philammon  she  makes  her  appeal,  as  a  woman 
and  as  a  guiding  intellect.  Jealousy  of  her  influence  is  however  rife  in  Alexandria 
among  the  followers  of  the  bishop  Cyril,  one  of  the  arch-fanatics  of  history.  Greek 
intelligence  is  brought  face  to  face  with  mediaeval  blindness.  The  temper  of  the 
proselytizer  conquers,  because  the  Zeitgeist  is  in  its  favor,  while  the  Greek  philosophy 
belongs  to  a  dead  age.  The  infuriated  Christians  fall  upon  Hypatia  in  her  lecture- 
room,  and  tear  her  limb  from  limb.  The  book  closes  upon  the  conquerors  each  "going 
to  his  own  place,"  and  upon  world-weary  Alexandria  settling  down  to  its  everlasting 
sleep. 

'Hypatia*  abounds  in  brilliant  descriptions  of  the  strange  life  of  the  period,  with 
its  opalescent  colors  of  decay.  It  does  full  justice  to  the  Christians  of  the  fifth  century 
to  whom  the  urbanity  of  the  earlier  church  was  foreign.  Its  most  beautiful  picture  is 
of  the  woman  Hypatia,  seeking  the  white  light  of  old  Greece  through  the  intervening 
mists  stained  with  the  thought  and  passion  of  well-nigh  a  thousand  years. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  417 

HYPERION,  by  H.  W.  Longfellow] (1839) .  '  Hyperion '  —  The  Wanderer  on  High  — 
is  a  fitting  title  for  this,  the  most  romantic  of  Longfellow's  works.  It  frankly  declares 
itself  '  A  Romance, '  on  the  title-page. 

It  is  the  tale  of  a  young  man  in  deepest  sorrow,  wandering  from  land  to  land  in 
search  of  occupation  for  his  mind,  and  forgetfulness  of  grief.  This  motive  forms  the 
thread  of  story  which  connects  a  series  of  philosophical  discourses,  and  romantic 
legends  and  poems.  Many  of  these  last  are  Longfellow's  translations  of  German 
poems;  and  they  have  found  a  place  in  his  collected  poems.  The  adventures  and 
wanderings  of  the  hero  portray  the  experiences  and  travels  of  the  author  on  his  second 
trip  through  Germany  and  Switzerland  after  the  death  of  his  wife.  Immediately 
after  its  publication,  *  Hyperion  *  had  a  wide  circulation. 

This  book  more  than  any  other  brought  on  Longfellow  the  reproach  of  being 
more  foreign  than  American  in  his  sympathies.  Yet  it  had  great  value  in  creating 
in  this  country  a  more  extensive  acquaintance  with  the  German  romantic  poets, 
especially  Heine  and  TJhland. 

'Hyperion'  also  has  historic  interest  in  marking  the  transition  in  Longfellow's 
work.  It  stands  between  his  translations  and  sketches  of  historical  persons  and 
places,  and  his  original  poems. 

ICELAND  FISHERMAN,  AN  ('Pecheur  d'Islande'),  by  Louis  Marie  Julien  Viaud 
("Pierre  Loti")  (1886),  sometimes  reckoned  his  strongest  story,  obtained  the  Vitet 
prize  of  the  French  Academy,  and  the  honor  of  being  translated  into  German  by 
"  Carmen  Sylva,"  Queen  of  Roumania.  It  was  written  after  the  war  between  France 
and  China,  and  for  a  moment  the  narrative  is  drawn  into  the  current  of  that  campaign, 
in  which  the  author  took  part  as  a  naval  officer.  The  characters  are  not  inhabitants 
of  Iceland,  but  of  the  coast  of  Brittany,  calling  themselves  Iceland  fishermen  because 
every  year,  leaving  their  wives  and  children,  they  are  obliged  to  make  the  voyage  to 
that  island,  remaining  in  its  neighborhood  till  the  fishing  season  is  over.  The  book 
breathes  a  saner  atmosphere  than  others  by  the  same  author,  that  impart  all  the 
languor  as  well  as  glamour  of  the  tropics.  Nothing  could  be  simpler  than  its  motive; 
yet  even  in  this  record  of  humble  life,  telling  only  of  the  gains  and  losses  of  fisher  folk, 
the  lad  Sylvestre  is  pressed  into  the  marine  service  and  transported  to  a  green  meadow 
in  China,  where  he  gets  his  death- wound.  He  lives  long  enough  to  receive  the  medal 
of  honor,  but  dies  on  the  home  voyage,  and  is  buried  at  Singapore,  —  an  episode 
whose  equatorial  pictures  contrast  with  the  cold  scenery,  the  grays  and  greens  of  the 
rugged  Icelandic  coast.  But  the  chief  actor  in  the  story  is  the  ocean,  that  makes 
violent  protest  under  the  eaves  of  the  stone  dwelling,  built  into  the  cliff  and  reached 
by  a  flight  of  granite  steps.  Outside  of  'Childe  Harold'  and  'The  Flying  Dutchman/ 
it  would  be  difficult  to  find  such  intimate  comprehension  and  contemplation  of  sea  and 
sky,  in  so  many  moods  and  latitudes. 

ICONOCLASTS;  'A  Book  of  Dramatists/  by  James  Huneker,  is  a  series  of 
dramatic  essays  which  first  appeared  in  the  New  York  Sun  and  were  collected  in  this 
volume  in  1905.  The  authors  discussed  are  Ibsen  (who  occupies  nearly  a  third  of  the 
book),  Strindberg,  Becque,  Hauptmann,  Sudermann,  Hervieu,  Gorky,  D'Annunzio, 
Maeterlinck,  Villiers  de  1'Isle  Adam,  Princess  Mathilde,  and  George  Bernard  Shaw. 
The  general  resemblance  between  these  modern  dramatists  is,  first,  that  they  have 
broken  the  standards  of  formal  art  and  given  their  creative  instincts  an  outlet  in 
accordance  with  their  own  aesthetic  impulses;  and  secondly,  that  they  are  dominated 
by  symbolism.  The  author  has  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  modern  tendencies 
27 


4i 8  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

in  art,  and  a  brilliant  and  facile  pen.  His  constant  application  of  musical  terms  to 
literary  exposition  is  sometimes  suggestive  but  often  irritating;  and  in  the  attempt  to 
be  epigrammatic  he  occasionally  becomes  affected.  His  analysis  of  modern  dramatic 
thought  and  form  is,  however,  of  value  to  the  student  of  present-day  literature. 

IDIOT,  THE,  by  F.  M.  Dostoe*vsky  (1868).  Prince  Myshkin,  the  hero,  is  an  epilep^ 
tic,  whose  secluded  invalid  life  has  apparently  destroyed  the  faults  of  the  mind,  the 
sins  of  egotism,  ambition,  pride,  and  deceit,  and  left  him  the  wise  fool  of  lovely  simple 
childlike  character  who  wins  all  hearts.  He  returns  to  St.  Petersburg  to  a  mad 
chaotic  world  of  villains  and  egoists,  a  corrupt  and  frivolous  society,  which  laughs  at 
his  sincerity  and  innocence,  but  cannot  escape  his  gentle  influence.  The  reckless 
beautiful  Nastasia  loves  him,  and  Aglaia,  a  young  society  girl,  becomes  engaged  to  him. 
The  jealousy  of  the  two  women  is  incomprehensible  to  his  simple  nature.  He  radiates 
love  and  goodwill  to  both,  and  finally  breaks  his  engagement  to  Aglaia  to  save  Nas- 
tasia from  the  passionate  violent  merchant  Rogozhin.  On  the  wedding  day,  the 
impulsive  Xastasia  leaves  him  knowing  his  love  is  only  pity  and  goes  to  Rogozhin, 
whom  she  hates.  The  jealous  Rogozhin  marries  her  and  kills  her.  Prince  Myshkin 's 
exquisitely  sensitive  spirit  cannot  survive  the  horror  of  the  night  with  the  murderer 
in  the  room  where  she  is  lying  dead,  and  he  becomes  in  fact  what  he  has  often  been 
called  an  "idiot."  The  character  of  Prince  Myshkin  is  revealed  in  conversations  in 
which  he  expresses  the  sweetness  of  his  nature,  his  sympathy  with  the  unfortunate  and 
his  understanding  and  love  for  children.  He  says,  "  What  has  always  surprised  me  ir- 
the  false  idea  that  grown-up  people  have  of  children.  They  are  not  even  understood 
by  their  fathers  and  mothers.  We  ought  to  conceal  nothing  from  children  under  the 
pretext  that  they  are  little  and  that  at  their  age  they  should  remain  ignorant  of 
certain  things.  What  a  sad  and  unfortunate  idea!  And  how  clearly  the  children 
themselves  perceive  that  their  parents  take  them  for  babies  who  can't  understand 
anything,  when  really  they  understand  even-thing."  His  kindness  to  those  who  try 
to  exploit  him  and  his  humility  enrages  Aglaia.  She  exclaims:  "There  isn't  a  person 
who  deserves  such  words  from  you!  here  not  one  of  them  is  worth  your  little  finger, 
not  one  who  has  your  intelligence  or  your  heart  1  You  are  more  honest  than  all  of  us, 
more  noble  than  all,  better  than  all,  more  clever  than  all!  There  isn't  one  of  these 
people  who  is  fit  to  pick  up  the  handkerchief  you  let  fall,  so  why  then  do  you  humiliate 
yourself  and  place  yourself  below  everybody!  Why  have  you  crushed  yourself,  why 
haven't  you  any  pride?"  In  the  " idiot "  DostceVsky  has  drawn  his  own  ideal  of  a 
Christlike  character.  He  was  himself  subject  to  epilepsy. 

IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING,  THE,  by  Alfred  Tennyson,  a  series  of  twelve  narrative 
episodes  in  the  epic  manner  (completed  1885),  the  whole  forming  a  unified  epic  of 
King  Arthur,  though  without  the  structural  continuity  of  the  formal  epic  and  there- 
fore called  by  the  author  'Idylls'  that  is  pictures  or  scenes.  Tennyson's  principal 
sources  were  Malory's  'Morte  D'Arthur,'  Layamon's  'Brut,'  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's 
'Chronicle,'  and  Lady  Guest's  translation  of  the  Welsh  'Mabinogion.'  These  he 
handled  freely,  in  accordance  with  the  more  finished  and  concentrated  effect  that  he 
wished  to  produce  and  the  ideas  that  he  wished  allegorically  to  embody.  The  poem 
sets  forth  the  reign  of  King  Arthur,  from  his  supernatural  coming,  through  his 
conquests  and  beneficent  reign,  to  his  fall  and  supernatural  departure.  Under  the 
whole  story  is  an  allegorical  meaning.  Arthur  is  the  soul  struggling  with  the  flesh 
or  the  temptations  of  the  world,  which  are  represented  by  his  enemies  and  later  by 
the  worldly  and  corrupt  among  his  knights.  He  is  also  the  ideal  knight  and  king 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  419 

contrasted  with  the  less  perfect  though  more  human  types,  Lancelot,  Gawain,  and 
the  rest.  The  poem  developed  gradually,  and  the  twelve  idylls  were  not  written 
according  to  the  chronological  sequence  of  the  story.  ' The  Passing  of  Arthur*  which 
concludes  the  Idylls,  was  in  part  the  first  written,  its  principal  episode  having  ap- 
peared under  this  title  in  the  volume  of  Tennyson's  poems  published  in  1842.  The 
next  idylls  to  be  published  were  'Enid1  (afterwards  divided  into  'The  Marriage  of 
Geraint1  and  'Geraint  and  Enid'),  'Vivien'  (later  'Merlin  and  Vivien'),  'Elaine* 
(later  'Lancelot  and  Elaine'),  and  'Guinevere'  (1859).  'The  Coming  of  Arthur,' 
'The  Holy  Grail/  'Pelleas  and  Etarre'  and  the  completed  'Passing  of  Arthur' 
appeared  in  1869;  and  the  three  additional  phases  of  the  story  were  furnished  by 
'The  Last  Tournament'  (1871) ;  'Gareth  and  Lynette'  (1872),  and  'Balin  and  Balan' 
(i  885) .  To  summarize  briefly  the  completed  poem, '  The  Coming  of  Arthur '  narrates 
Arthur's  mysterious  origin,  his  winning  of  the  kingdom  of  Britain  by  Merlin's  assist- 
ance, his  achievement  of  Guinevere  as  his  bride,  and  his  twelve  great  victories  over 
the  Saxons.  This  Idyll  and  the  ensuing,  '  Gareth  and  L}Taette/  an  attractive  tale  of 
a  youthful  knight  winning  a  lady  through  humility  towards  her  and  valor  against 
gigantic  opponents,  are  characterized  by  a  spirit  of  hope  and  confidence  born  of  the 
high  ideals  and  practical  resolutions  of  a  loyal  and  united  court.  'The  Marriage  of 
Geraint'  and  'Geraint  and  Enid'  based  on  the  Welsh  Mabinogion,  tell  a  romantic 
tale  of  a  brave  young  knight  rescuing  and  wedding  a  youthful  beauty  and  of  the 
wifely  heroism  and  devotion  of  this  same  beauty  when  her  husband  put  her  to  an 
undeserved  test.  In  these  two  Idylls  we  first  hear  the  rumor  of  guilty  love  between 
Lancelot  and  Queen  Guinevere  —  a  disloyalty  destined  to  corrupt  and  disunite  the 
whole  realm.  'Balin  and  Balan'  shows  the  first  disastrous  effects  of  this  poison. 
The  rumor  of  Guinevere's  guilt,  skilfully  fanned  by  the  malignant  Vivien,  mistress  of 
Arthur's  rival,  Mark  of  Cornwall,  so  maddens  Balin  the  Savage,  who  worships  the 
queen,  that  he  insults  her  colors  and  fights  with  his  brother,  Balan,  a  duel  in  which 
both  are  slain.  In  'Merlin  and  Vivien,'  the  woman  responsible  for  the  brother's 
death  comes  to  Arthur's  court,  blackens  its  reputation  by  spreading  the  foulest 
scandal,  and  at  length  captivates  by  her  flatteries  the  mage,  Merlin,  whom  she  im- 
prisons in  a  hollow  oak  by  a  charm  that  he  has  taught  her.  In '  Lancelot  and  Elaine ' 
the  relations  of  Guinevere  and  Lancelot  are  becoming  more  widely  known  and  their 
sense  of  sin  is  manifested  in  their  bickerings  with  one  another.  Yet  Lancelot  puts 
aside  the  pure  love  of  Elaine,  the  lily  maid  of  Astolat,  and  remains  "falsely  true"  to 
the  queen.  In  '  The  Holy  Grail/  to  quote  the  note  by  Hallam,  Lord  Tennyson  "In 
some,  as  faith  declines,  religion  turns  from  practical  goodness  and  holiness  to  super- 
stition." The  knights  ride  out  in  quest  of  the  vision  of  the  Holy  Grail,  which  a  few 
of  their  number  have  the  spiritual  gift  to  see.  Three  of  these,  Galahad,  Percival,  and 
Bors,  attain  the  vision  and  retire  from  the  world  to  the  life  of  contemplation.  The 
remainder,  having  no  vocation,  abandon  the  quest  and  many  perish  of  misadventure. 
Lancelot  fails  to  see  the  Grail  because  he  will  not  abandon  his  love  of  Guinevere. 
'Pelleas  and  Etarre'  and  'The  Last  Tournament'  show  the  gradual  disintegration  of 
the  Table  Round.  The  court  is  growing  more  cynical;  the  relations  of  Lancelot  and 
Guinevere  are  known  to  all  but  the  King;  Etarre  shamelessly  flings  aside  the  devotion 
of  young  Pelleas  for  the  light-of-love,  Gawain;  Tristram,  lover  of  Isote,  King  Mark's 
wife,  openly  proclaims  infidelity  to  her  and  scoffs  at  all  bonds  of  loyalty  and  affection 
('The  Last  Tournament').  In  'Guinevere'  the  love  of  Lancelot  and  the  Queen  is 
reported  to  King  Arthur  by'  his  nephew,"  Modred,  and  Vivien.  The  lovers  flee  and 
part,  Lancelot  for  his  realms  overseas,  Guinevere  to  the  convent  of  Almesbury.  Here 
Arthur,  on  his  way  to  fight  with  Modred,  now  in  rebellion,  rebukes  her,  forgives  her, 


42O  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  bids  her  farewell.  'The  Passing  of  Arthur*  describes  his  last  battle,  his  mortal 
wound  at  the  hands  of  Modred,  and  his  departure  to  the  supernatural  world  from 
whence  he  came.  Although  the  character  of  Arthur  is  too  blameless  to  win  perfect 
sympathy  the  poem  is  not  obtrusively  didactic  and  the  allegorical  meaning  is  so  sub- 
ordinated and  softened  as  to  avoid  inartistic  prominence.  The  love-story  of  Lancelot 
and  Guinevere  is  told  with  dramatic  insight  and  human  sympathy  which  is  never 
sentimentalized  into  approval;  the  subordinate  characters  and  the  mediaeval  inci- 
dents and  backgrounds  are  depicted  in  soft,  brilliant  colors;  and  the  blank  verse  and 
lyrics  mingle  smoothness  and  strength.  The  poem  is  a  thoroughly  adequate  handling 
of  a  great  epic  theme  which  had  long  awaited  modern  poetical  treatment. 

ILIAD,  THE,  an  epic  poem  in  Greek  hexameters,  existent  as  early  as  1100-900  B.  C. 
handed  down  by  the  rhapsodes  or  public  reciters  and  reduced  to  writing  about  the 
time  of  Pisistratus.  The  poem  was  for  ages  attributed  to  Homer,  said  to  have  been 
a  blind  singer  of  one  of  the  Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor  or  one  of  the  islands  of  the 
^Egean.  At  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  theory  was  promulgated  that 
Homer  was  either  a  myth  or  a  figure  of  slight  importance  and  that  the  Iliad  was 
simply  a  compilation  of  various  heroic  lays  of  the  siege  of  Troy.  Most  modern 
scholars,  realizing  the  unity  of  the  poem  both  in  structure  and  in  spirit,  reject  this 
hypothesis  and  hold  that  the  Iliad  is  the  creation  of  one  directing  intellect;  but  it  is 
admitted  that  we  have  no  certain  knowledge  about  the  author  and  that  earlier  lays, 
more  or  less  modified,  must  have  been  incorporated  by  him  into  the  structure  of  his 
great  work.  The  theme  of  the  poem  is  the  wrath  of  Achilles  against  Agamemnon  and 
its  results.  Indignant  at  Agamemnon,  leader  of  the  expedition  against  Troy,  because 
he  has  seized  Briseis,  a  captive  maiden  awarded  to  Achilles,  the  latter  refuses  to  take 
part  in  the  siege  of  Troy.  As  a  result  of  his  withdrawal  the  war  goes  badly  for  the 
Greeks.  At  their  urgent  request  Achilles  allows  his  friend,  Patroclus,  to  put  on  his 
armor  and  fight  in  his  place.  Patroclus,  however,  is  killed  by  Hector,  the  bravest  of 
the  Trojans.  Maddened  by  his  loss,  Achilles  obtains  new  armor  from  his  goddess- 
mother,  Thetis,  executes  great  slaughter  upon  the  Trojans,  and  kills  Hector.  To 
prolong  his  vengeance  he  drags  the  body  around  the  walls  of  Troy  at  the  wheels  of  his 
chariot;  but  through  the  intercession  of  Hector's  father,  Priam,  the  King  of  Troy,  he 
yields  up  the  body  to  the  old  man.  This  simple  story  is  elaborated  by  full  and 
particular  accounts  of  the  various  battles,  embassies,  and  feasts;  by  the  intervention 
of  the  gods  at  numerous  points  in  the  story;  and  by  such  episodes  as  the  exploits  of 
Diomedes,  and  the  funeral  games  of  Patroclus.  The  unity  of  this  great  and  diversified 
poem,  the  passionate  intensity  of  its  central  theme,  the  marvellous  ease,  flexibility,  and 
dignified  simplicity  of  its  style,  and  its  vivid  portrayal  of  the  heroic  age  of  Greece 
are  some  of  the  reasons  of  its  greatness.  The  most  famous  English  translations  are 
Chapman's  (1598-1611)  in  the  long  "fourteener"  couplet,  Pope's  (1715-1725)  in 
heroic  couplets,  Cowper's  (1791)  in  blank  verse,  Lord  Derby's  (1867)  in  blank  verse, 
William  Cullen  Bryant's  (1870)  in  blank  verse,  Andrew  Lang,  Walter  Leaf,  and 
Ernest  Myer's  translation  into  archaic  prose  (1882),  F.  W.  Newman's  translation 
(1856)  in  unrhymed  "fourteener's"  —  famous  because  it  elicited  Matthew  Arnold's 
4 On  Translating  Homer'  —  A.  S.  Way's  translation  (1886),  Samuel  Butler's  prose 
version  (1916). 

ILLUSTRIOUS  PRINCE,  THE,  by  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim  (1910).  This  story  opens 
with  the  mysterious  murder  of  an  American  named  Hamilton  Tynes;  the  deed  is 
perpetrated  on  a  special  train  which  he  has  chartered  to  convey  him  from  Liverpool 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  421 

to  London  and  as  he  is  the  only  passenger,  and  his  identity  unknown,  the  tragedy  is 
inexplicable.  The  following  night  Richard  Vanderpool,  a  young  American  attache  of 
the  Legation,  is  murdered  in  a  taxi  which  is  taking  him  to  the  theatre  to  join  a  party  of 
friends.  Subsequent  events  show  that  both  murdered  men  were  carrying  important 
papers,  which  were  being  conveyed  from  the  American  to  the  English  Government, 
and  which  contained  confidential  information  relating  to  affairs  in  Japan.  Suspicion 
centers  on  a  charming  Japanese  prince,  Maiyo  by  name,  who  is  living  temporarily  in 
London  in  great  magnificence  and  who  is  much  sought  after  socially.  No  clues  to 
the  murderer  can  be  found  except  the  slender  Japanese  dagger  with  which  Tynes  was 
stabbed  and  the  silken  cord  with  which  Vanderpool  had  been  strangled.  Prince 
Maiyo,  who  is  most  courtly  in  manner  and  attractive  in  every  way  is  a  great  favorite 
with  the  ladies  and  among  these  Penelope  Morse,  a  beautiful  American  girl,  is  es- 
pecially attracted  to  him.  Although  suspecting  the  Prince  of  the  crime,  his  charm 
is  so  great  that  when  she  is  in  his  presence  his  strong  personality  conquers  her  distrust. 
The  Prince  invites  his  friends  to  visit  his  house  and  inspect  his  art  treasures  and 
Penelope  noticing  a  curiously  wrought  casket  asks  the  Prince  to  unlock  it  for  her. 
He  does  so  and  Penelope  putting  her  hand  into  its  hidden  recesses  draws  out  a  dagger 
and  a  silken  cord  identical  with  those  used  by  the  murderer.  A  glance  into  the  Prince's 
face  tells  her  the  truth  and  she  is  filled  with  horror  at  her  discovery.  Feeling  it  her 
duty  to  make  her  discovery  known,  she  informs  the  American  minister,  who  is  a 
personal  friend,  and  he  notifies  the  inspectors  who  have  already  secured  other  evi- 
dence. The  prince,  whose  crime  has  been  committed  for  the  good  of  his  country 
and  not  for  any  advantage  to  himself,  is  arrested  and  is  about  to  give  himself  into  the 
hands  of  the  law  when  his  devoted  servant  Soto,  who  bears  a  strong  resemblance  to 
Maiyo,  rushes  in  and  declaring  himself  the  murderer  takes  poison  and  dies,  thereby 
saving  the  life  of  his  beloved  master.  The  Prince's  work  being  accomplished  he 
returns  to  his  own  country  and  Penelope  marries  a  young  English  lord,  named  Sir 
Charles  Somerby. 

IMAGINARY  CONVERSATIONS,  by  Walter  Savage  Landor,  a  series  of  over  one 
hundred  prose  dialogues,  published  from  1824  to  1829  with  a  few  additions  in  1846. 
The  speakers  are  distinguished  persons  historical  or  contemporary,  representing  every 
quarter  of  the  world  and  all  history  from  the  age  of  Pericles  to  modern  times.  Some 
of  the  dialogues  are  represented  as  preceding  or  following  some  great  historical  crisis 
like  the  execution  of  Charles  I.  or  some  interesting  personal  event  like  the  meeting 
of  Milton  and  Galileo;  others  are  mere  calm  discourses  without  dramatic  interest, 
such  as  the  dialogues  between  Porson  and  Southey  in  which  Wordsworth's  poetry  is 
discussed  or  those  between  Southey  and  Landor,  which  are  occupied  by  a  criticism 
of  Milton.  Owing  to  Landor's  classical  studies  and  sympathies  the  Greek  and 
Roman  conversations  are  particularly  fitting  and  beautiful;  but  his  Tudor  and  Stuart 
episodes,  his  French,  Italian,  and  Russian  scenes,  his  eighteenth  century  and  con- 
temporary colloquies,  whether  scholarly  or  arising  from  public  affairs,  all  illustrate 
his  versatility,  wide  reading,  historic  imagination,  and  gift  for  the  management  of 
dialogue.  He  is  not  thoroughly  a  dramatist,  however,  for  the  stately  dignity  and 
classic  finish  of  the  style  is  practically  the  same  in  all  the  characters  and  his  own 
personality  is  traceable  in  them  all. 

IMITATION  OF  CHRIST,  THE,  attributed  to  Thomas  a  Kempis,  a  book  of  religious 
meditations  originally  written  in  Latin  between  1417  and  1421,  and  subsequently 
translated  into  various  languages.  Next  to  the  Bible  it  is  the  most  widely-read 


422  THE   READER'S  DIGEST  OF   BOOKS 

Christian  book  of  devotion.  The  author  was  probably  Thomas  Hammerken,  a 
native  of  Kempen  in  Rhenish  Prussia,  afterwards  priest  and  monk  of  the  monastery 
of  Agnetenberg  near  Zwolle  in  Holland.  In  a  series  of  aphorisms,  grouped  under 
related  headings  into  chapters  and  books,  he  inculcates  submission  to  the  divine  will 
the  subduing  of  the  lower  instincts  and  of  the  impulse  to  self -gratification,  and  the 
endeavor  to  conform  ourselves  to  the  model  of  Christ's  goodness.  Though  ascetic 
and  other-worldly  in  point  of  view,  the  author  puts  strong  emphasis  on  the  need 
of  practical  goodness,  and  lays  down  sound  rules  for  moral  cultivation.  He  is 
shrewd,  clear-sighted,  and  discriminating  in  his  analysis  of  faults  and  his  indica- 
tion of  remedies;  and  he  invests  the  spiritual  life  with  a  charm  and  an  appeal 
which  remind  us  of  the  Gospel  discourses  themselves.  The  fourth  and  last  book 
is  a  manual  for  the  instruction  and  guidance  of  those  preparing  for  the  Com- 
munion; the  fervor  and  devotional  insight  of  its  prayers  and  counsels  are  of  high 
religious  value.  Matthew  Arnold  calls  the  'Imitation7  "the  most  exquisite  docu- 
ment after  those  of  the  New  Testament,  of  all  that  the  Christian  spirit  has  ever 
inspired.* 

IMMENSEE  ('Bee  Lake'),  by  Theodor  Storm,  a  charming  and  idyllic  Novelle  or 
short  story  published  in  1850.  In  a  series  of  slightly-connected  word-pictures  the 
author  tells  a  pathetic  story  of  thwarted  love  and  life-long  regret.  Reinhardt  and 
Elizabeth  live  on  two  neighboring  estates  in  a  delightful  country  region  near  the 
beautiful  wooded  Immensee  or  Lake  of  Bees.  They  have  the  same  tutor,  spend  their 
playtime  together,  and  are  entirely  congenial  playmates.  Reinhardt  has  a  gift  for 
telling  stories  and  often  entertains  Elizabeth  with  fairy-tales  and  later  with  verses. 
One  day  when  the  children  are  in  their  teens  they  lose  their  way  in  the  woods  beside 
the  Immensee  while  hunting  for  strawberries  for  a  picnic  meal.  As  they  sit  resting  in 
the  woods  (the  charm  of  which  is  exquisitely  described)  Reinhardt  seeing  Elizabeth 
in  the  midst  of  this  beauty  comes  half-consciously  to  realize  that  for  him  she  is  the 
center  of  it  all.  Soon  afterwards  we  find  him  at  the  university,  recalled  from  a 
student  kneipe  and  the  fascinations  of  a  gypsy  dancer  by  news  of  a  Christmas 
package  from  home  which  he  goes  off  to  open.  He  finds  a  letter  from  Elizabeth,  the 
freshened  recollection  of  whom  turns  his  thoughts  to  purer  and  simpler  channels. 
On  his  vacation  he  finds  Elizabeth  on  the  threshold  of  womanhood,  and  the  relations 
between  them  pass  from  those  of  boy  and  girl  to  those  of  potential  lovers.  They 
botanize  together,  and  he  presents  her  with  some  of  his  verses,  all  of  which  center 
in  her;  but  he  does  not  venture  as  yet  to  tell  her  of  his  love,  although  he  speaks  of  a 
secret  which  he  will  reveal  when  he  returns  from  the  University  two  years  hence. 
After  his  departure  Elizabeth  is  persistently  wooed  by  a  friend  of  Reinhardt's,  Erich, 
a  young  man  of  wealth,  decision,  and  practicality.  In  the  absence  of  the  dreamier 
Reinhardt  he  at  length  succeeds,  with  the  aid  of  her  mother,  in  persuading  Elizabeth 
to  marry  him.  The  news  reaches  Reinhardt  at  the  University.  Some  years  later  he 
visits  Erich  and  his  wife  at  their  fine  new  estate  on  the  banks  of  Immensee,  where  in 
reading  his  poetry  and  revisiting  the  scenes  of  their  past  happiness  he  gives  an  un- 
obtrusive expression  to  his  regret,  in  which  Elizabeth  evidently  shares.  After  a  short 
visit  Reinhardt  bids  Elizabeth  farewell  and  leaves  in  the  night.  At  the  end  as  at  the 
beginning  of  the  story  he  is  an  old  man,  dreaming  of  this  lost  love  of  his  youth.  The 
artistic  brevity  and  restraint  of  the  book  and  its  truthfulness  and  sincerity  redeem  it 
from  every  trace  of  sentimentality.  It  is  an  attractive  study  of  the  dreamy  side  of  the 
German  character,  and  is  filled  with  beauty  of  landscape  endeared  by  human  asso-. 
ciations  and  habitation. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  423 

IMMORTAL,  THE,  by  Alphonse  Daudet  (1888).  "L'Immortel '  is  the  last  noted 
work  of  the  late  distinguished  French  critic,  dramatist,  and  novelist,  Alphonse 
Daudet.  It  professes  to  be  a  description  of  mosurs  parisiennes,  but  is  really  a  satire 
on  the  pretensions  of  the  French  Academy;  its  title,  'The  Immortal/  being  the 
epithet  popularly  applied  to  the  forty  members  of  that  exclusive  and  self -perpetuating 
body.  Daudet  himself,  although  his  novel  'Fromont  Jeune  et  Risler  Ame'  was 
crowned  by  the  Academy  with  the  Jouy  prize,  was  never  elected  to  its  membership 
and  with  the  brothers  Goncourt,  Zola,  and  others,  he  formed  a  rival  literary  clique. 
The  satirical  thrusts  in  'The  Immortal'  were  keenly  felt  and  resented  by  the  Acade- 
micians. Apart  from  this  personal  connection,  '  L'lrnmortel r  cannot  be  said  to  vie 
in  interest  or  merit  with  the  celebrated  tales  of  the  'Tartarins/  or  with  *Numa 
Roumestan,'  '  Kings  in  Exile,'  or  '  Sappho.'  The  hero  of  the  story  is  a  bookworm,  an 
Academician  whose  works  have  been  successive!}'  "crowned  by  the  Academy"  until 
its  crowns  were  exhausted,  and  nothing  remained  but  to  elect  him  to  membership. 
Meanwhile  he  has  been  employed  by  the  government  as  Archivist  of  Foreign  Affairs; 
but  an  unhappy  expression  introduced  in  the  history  of  the  house  of  Orleans  —  "  Then 
as  to-day,  France,  submerged  under  the  wave  of  demagogism"  —  gave  such  offense 
to  the  government  that  it  cost  him  his  position,  his  salary,  and  his  livelihood.  He 
now  devotes  himself  to  the  editing  of  certain  MSS.  of  untold  value,  which  have  come 
into  his  possession,  and  his  hopes  and  ambitions  hang  upon  the  delight  with  which  the 
world  will  welcome  these  treasures.  Treated  by  his  ambitious  wife  and  spendthrift 
son  with  ironical  contempt  and  heartless  neglect,  his  misfortunes  are  crowned  by  the 
revelation  that  his  prized  archaeological  documents  are  forgeries;  and  that  the  Acad- 
emy, indignant  at  the  disgrace  thus  brought  upon  it,  is  discussing  his  degradation 
among  the  "  mortals."  Ridiculed  by  all  Paris,  and  berated  at  home  by  his  angry  and 
disappointed  wife,  "the  perpetual  secretary  of  the  Academy,"  finding  neither  solace 
nor  protection  in  its  shelter  in  this  hour  of  his  dire  need,  ends  his  troubles  by  throwing 
himself  into  the  Seine. 

IMMORTALITY,  see  INDIVIDUALITY  AND  IMMORTALITY. 

IMPRESSIONS  OF  LONDON  SOCIAL  LIFE,  WITH  OTHER  PAPERS,  by  E.  S.  Nadal 

(1875),  is  a  collection  of  short  essays  suggested  to  the  author  by  his  residence  in 
London  as  a  secretary  of  legation.  From  the  standpoint  of  a  loyal  American,  he 
notes  in  kindly,  not  too  critical  fashion  the  differences  between  life  in  England  and 
at  home.  "London  society  is  far  the  most  perfect  thing  of  the  kind  in  the  world"; 
and  in  NewYork,  with  its  lack  of  social  tradition  and  its  constantly  changing  elements, 
Mr.  Nadal  thinks  there  can  never  be  anything  at  all  like  it.  He  would  admire  it 
still  more  if  it  were  not  for  the  rigid  canons  of  propriety,  which  forbid  all  public 
expression  of  individuality.  The  sturdy  Englishman,  so  fond  of  asserting  his  in- 
dependence, is  after  all  curiously  sensitive  to  public  opinion;  and  hence  his  conserva- 
tism and  apparent  snobbishness.  There  is  a  pleasant  description  of  life  at  Oxford, 
which  makes  that  college  seem  like  a  great  genial  club;  and  one  where  the  under- 
graduate is  a  person  of  far  less  importance  than  at  Harvard  or  Cambridge. 

Mr,  Nadal  touches  lightly  upon  the  social  life  at  court;  the  Queen's  drawing-room 
at  Buckingham  Palace,  and  "the  Prince  of  Wales's  less  grand  but  pleasanter  levees  at 
St.  James's  Palace.  In  its  genial,  homely,  cultivated  charm,  he  finds  English  scenery 
very  different  from  American:  for  "there  [England]  man  is  scarcely  conscious 
of  the  presence  of  nature;  while  here  nature  is  scarcely  conscious  of  the  presence 
of  man." 


424  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

IMPROVISATORE,  THE,  by  Hans  Christian  Andersen  (1834).  This  romance  is 
probably  the  best  known  to  English  readers  of  all  the  works  of  Danish  literature,  and 
its  translation  by  Mary  Howitt  has  become  itself  a  classic.  The  work  possesses  the 
threefold  interest  of  an  autobiography  of  the  author,  a  graphic  description  of  Italy, 
and  a  romance  of  extremely  emotional  and  passionate  type.  To  those  English  and 
American  tourists  who  knew  Rome  in  the  time  when  the  beggar  Beppo  still  saluted 
them  with  his  bon  giorno  on  the  Piazza  de  Spagna  steps,  the  story  will  serve  almost  as 
a  narrative  of  their  impressions  of  the  ruins,  the  galleries  and  churches  of  Italy.  It 
is  to  be  classed  with  its  great  Italian  contemporary  *I  Promessi  Sposi'  of  Manzoni, 
and  the  'Corinne'  of  Madame  de  Stael,  the  national  type  of  genius  of  the  several 
authors  presenting  in  these  three  works  a  very  interesting  contrast.  All  three  are 
intensely  romantic,  —  'Corinne,'  with  the  classic  reserve  of  the  Latin  race;  'I  Pro- 
messi Sposi,'  with  the  frank  naturalness  of  the  Italian;  the  'Improvisatore,'  with  the 
suppressed  warmth  of  the  Teuton. 

The  story  of  the  'Improvisatore'  is  related  by  one  Antonio,  a  poor  chorister  boy 
in  Rome,  whose  voice  and  quickness  in  improvisation  are  at  once  his  fortune  in 
bringing  him  into  the  favor  and  patronage  of  the  aristocracy  of  Rome,  Naples,  and 
Venice,  and  the  cause  of  many  heart-breaking  alliances  and  disengagements  with  the 
charming  women  of  various  types  who  come  under  the  spell  of  his  genius  and  personal 
attractions.  The  events  of  the  story  bring  to  the  reader  a  vivid  sense  of  participation 
in  the  successive  scenes  of  the  Roman  church  festivals:  the  Pifferari  at  Christmas,  the 
Ara  Cceli  Bambino,  and  the  boy  orators  at  Epiphany,  the  Corso  races  and  the  Senza 
Moccolo  of  the  Carnival,  the  Miserere  of  the  Holy  Week,  and  the  illuminations  at 
Easter.  The  chief  romantic  interest  lies  in  the  rival  loves  of  Antonio  and  of  his 
patrician  friend  Bernado  for  a  famous  Spanish  singer,  Annunziata,  who  makes  her 
debut  in  Rome  and  captivates  both  their  hearts.  The  scene  of  the  last  chapters  is 
placed  in  Venice;  and  here  it  is  that  Annunziata,  a  broken-down  singer  on  a  low-class 
stage,  dies  in  poverty,  leaving  her  blessing  for  her  early  lover  and  his  bride.  A  visit 
to  the  Blue  Grotto  closes  the  brilliant  narrative. 

IN  DARKEST  ENGLAND  AND  THE  WAY  OUT,  by  William  Booth  (1890),  general 
of  the  Salvation  Army.  This  book,  whose  title  was  evidently  suggested  by  Stanley's 
'Darkest  Africa/  treats  of  the  want,  misery,  and  vice,  which  cling  like  barnacles  to 
the  base  of  English  society,  as  they  do  the  base  of  all  old  civilizations,  and  which 
it  is  so  much  easier  to  shut  one's  eyes  upon  than  to  analyze,  explain,  and  remedy. 
General  Booth's  opportunities  for  knowing  whereof  he  speaks  were  exceptionally 
good.  The  statements  he  makes  are  appalling,  but  they  are  supported  by  figures  and 
facts.  The  subject  of  his  book  is  the  temporal  and  spiritual  rescue  of  *'a  population 
about  equal  to  that  of  Scotland.  Three  million  men,  women,  and  children  .  .  . 
nominally  free,  but  really  enslaved "  —  what  he  calls  "the  submerged  tenth."  The 
plan  he  proposes  seems  practical  and  practicable,  —  one  indeed  in  the  execution  of 
which  he  has  made  some  progress  since  the  appearance  of  his  book.  The  plan  con- 
templates the  establishment  in  the  great  centres  of  population  of  "city  colonies" 
(establishments  at  which  the  destitute  may  be  provided  for,  the  temporarily  un- 
employed given  work,  etc.) ;  those  for  whom  such  a  course  seems  best  being  passed 
on  to  the  self-supporting  "  farm  colony,"  which  in  turn  contributes  to  English  or 
other  colonies  or  to  the  "colony  over  sea"  (yet  to  be  founded).  The  result 
would  be  a  segregation  of  the  needy  into  localities  where  they  could  be  handled, 
with  a  draining  off  to  unreaped  fields,  as  this  process  became  desirable,  of  a 
part  of  the  great  army  of  occupation.  This  book  is  the  work  of  a  man  in  deadly 


'THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  425 

earnest,  who  feels  himself  to  be  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  God  for  the  rescue 
of  the  lost. 

IN  HIS  NAME,  by  Edward  Everett  Hale  (1873),  is  a  story  of  the  Waldenses,  that 
radical  religious  body,  which,  seven  hundred  years  ago,  believed  that  every  man 
should  be  free  to  read  the  Scriptures  and  to  seek  a  personal  interpretation  of  them. 
The  story  deals  with  the  grievous  punishments  for  heresy  that  were  decreed  against 
them  by  the  Archbishop  of  Lyons.  Pierre  Waldo,  the  leader  of  the  sect,  is  forced  to 
flee  the  country;  and  his  cousin  Jean,  a  rich  weaver,  denies  his  kinship  and  despises 
his  followers.  But  when  Jean's  only  daughter,  the  apple  of  his  eye,  Felice,  falls  ill,  it 
is  found  that  only  Father  John  of  Lugio,  one  of  the  proscribed  Waldenses,  in  hiding 
among  the  hills,  has  the  medical  skill  which  may  save  her.  Jean  Waldo's  prejudices 
melt  away,  and  he  sends  to  entreat  Father  John,  "for  the  love  of  Christ,"  to  come  to 
his  stricken  house.  This  phrase  is  the  password  of  the  secretly  wide-spread  sect,  in 
answer  to  which  gates  fly  open,  and  aid  comes  from  all  sides.  Felice  is  saved,  through 
the  ardent'service  of  those  who  labor  "in  His  name."  Round  this  slight  framework 
are  grouped  the  touching  and  often  dramatic  incidents  of  the  story.  The  tone  of 
the  time  is  sympathetically  caught,  and  the  book  is  steeped  in  a  tender  and  helpful 
religious  feeling.  All  Mr.  Hale's  charm  of  narration  characterizes  it;  and  without 
didacticism,  he  never  forgets  present  problems. 

IN  HONOR'S  NAME,  see  THE  DUEL. 

IN  MEMORIAM,  an  elegiac  and  reflective  poem  by  Alfred  Tennyson,  published  in 
1850.  In  addition  to  the  Prologue  and  the  Epilogue,  it  is  made  up  of  one  hundred 
and  thirty-one  brief  lyrical  pieces  each  forming  a  whole  and  written  on  a  distinct 
occasion,  but  all  connected  by  a  thread  of  association  or  logical  sequence  so  as  to 
contribute  to  the  development  of  one  conception.  The  theme  is  the  death  of  Tenny- 
son's friend,  Arthur  Henry  Hallam,  and  the  poet's  varying  moods  of  grief  and  consola- 
tion arising  from  this  bereavement.  Hallam  was  the  son  of  Henry  Hallam,  the 
historian,  and  was  Tennyson's  junior  by  a  year  and  a  half.  When  they  met  at 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  in  1829,  Hallam  had  already  impressed  his  school- 
fellows and  all  who  knew  him  as  a  man  of  unusual  promise,  both  in  literary  work  and 
in  debate.  Three  years  of  intimate  friendship  followed.  Tennyson  and  Hallam  were 
members  of  the  same  discussion  club  ("The  Apostles")  in  Cambridge,  took  a  walking 
tour  together  through  the  Pyrenees,  and  visited  each  other's  homes  in  Lincolnshire 
and  67  Wimpole  Street,  London,  respectively.  Hallam  became  engaged  to  Tenny- 
son's sister,  Emily,  and  began  the  study  of  law  in  the  Inner  Temple,  London.  But  in 
the  summer  of  1833,  while  on  a  vacation  tour  with  his  father,  he  died  suddenly  of 
apoplexy  in  Vienna,  September  1 5th,  1 833.  The  body  was  brought  to  England  by  sea 
from  Trieste  and  buried  in  Clevedon  Church,  Somersetshire,  January  3d,  1834.  To 
relieve  the  profound  depression  of  these  days  of  bereavement  Tennyson  began  about 
this  time  to  express  his  sorrowful  moods  in  brief  poems: — 

"  Short,  swallow-flights  of  song  that  dip 
Their  wings  in  tears  and  skim  away." 

These  lyrics  were  all  written  in  uniform  metre  —  a  stanza  of  four  iambic  tetrameter 
lines,  with  external  and  internal  rhyme  —  which  Tennyson  believed  he  had  invented, 
although  it  has  since  been  found  in  the  works  of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  George 


426  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Herbert,  and  other  seventeenth  century  poets.  Various  occasions — the  shifting  sea- 
sons, the  recurrent  anniversaries  of  his  association  with  the  dead  man,  changes  in  the 
family  life  and  circumstances  of  the  poet,  and  moods  of  religious  doubt  or  of  confident 
reassurance  —  gave  rise  to  a  large  number  of  these  lyrics.  Finding  that  he  had  done 
so  many  Tennyson  resolved  to  make  them  the  basis  of  a  complete  poem  which  should 
be  a  tribute  to  his  friend.  The  poems  were  therefore  re-grouped  and  new  ones 
written  in  accordance  with  a  general  scheme.  Tennyson  was  engaged  upon  this  work 
for  a  period  of  seventeen  years,  although  the  bulk  of  it  was  probably  completed  by 
about  1842.  It  was  at  length  published  in  1850. 

Analysis  of  'In  Memoriam'  shows  that  the  poems  form  a  cycle,  representing  a 
period  of  three  years,  during  which  the  poet  gradually  passes  from  despairing  grief, 
through  alternating  moods  of  calm  recollection,  agonizing  doubt,  and  confident  re- 
assurance, to  a  serene  faith  in  immortality.  The  Prologue,  written  in  1849,  when  the 
remainder  of  the  work  was  complete,  is  an  acknowledgment  of  faith  in  immortality 
through  the  'Strong  Son  of  God,  Immortal  Love1  whom  the  poet  prays  to  forgive  the 
grief  and  doubts  expressed  in  the  body  of  the  poem.  Sections  i-viii  reflect  the  poet's 
depression  and  anguish  when  the  news  was  still  fresh;  in  ix-xix  he  finds  some  relief 
in  his  concern  for  the  safe  return  of  Hallam's  body  and  in  picturing  the  ship  which 
conveys  it,  and  the  chapel  wherein  it  is  buried;  a  review  of  their  friendship  now  leads 
to  the  conclusion.  "  'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost  than  never  to  have  loved  at 
all"  (xxii-xxvii).  More  positive  comfort  is  furnished  by  the  intuition  of  immortality 
that  comes  during  the  celebration  of  the  first  Christmas  since  Hallam's  death  (xxviii- 
xxx).  This  spiritual  experience  is  strengthened  by  a  consideration  of  the  arguments, 
religious  and  intellectual,  in  favor  of  a  future  life  (  xxxi-xxxvii).  But  with  the 
coming  of  the  first  spring-time  (xxxviii,  xxxix),  new  doubts  arise  as  to  the  possibility 
of  recognition  of  and  association  with  our  friends  in  the  future  life  (xl-xlix).  These 
are  succeeded  by  more  difficult  and  painful  questionings  whether  we  are  justified,  in 
view  of  the  pain,  suffering,  and  evil  of  the  world  and  the  apparent  indifference  of 
nature  to  man's  sorrow  and  aspiration,  in  believing  in  immortality  (1-lviii).  More 
hopeful  thoughts  succeed;  by  a  number  of  analogies  the  poet  gains  conviction  of  the 
possibility  that  our  friends  in  the  other  world  take  an  interest  in  us  (lix-lxvi).  A 
series  of  dreams,  reflecting  the  hopes  and  fears  of  the  poet  with  regard  to  his  friend 
in  the  other  world  (bcvii-lxxi)  leads  to  the  first  anniversary  of  his  friend's  death 
(Ixxii)  —  a  gloomy  day  expressive  of  the  sorrow  which  still  weighs  the  poet  down. 
There  follow  reflections  on  Hallam's  lost  fame,  on  the  transitory  fame  which  a  poem 
can  bestow,  and  on  the  fame  which  survives  in  the  other  world  (Ixxiii-lxxvii).  On 
the  second  Christmas  (Ixxviii)  there  is  no  outward  expression  of  sorrow  though  it  is 
still  mingled  with  the  poet's  whole  being;  but  from  now  on  the  poems  are  more  cheer- 
ful. The  poet  endeavors  to  turn  his  loss  to  good  by  emulating  Hallam's  character 
(Ixxx).  This  means  that  he  must  not  withdraw  from  his  fellowmen;  so  he  assures  his 
brother  (Frederick  Tennyson-Turner)  of  his  fraternal  regard  (Ixxix) ;  and  without 
disloyalty  of  Hallam's  memory  he  seeks  a  new  friendship  (Ixxxv).  Moreover  he 
meditates  on  what  Hallam  was  and  might  have  been;  here  we  get  some  charming 
pictures  of  their  former  association  at  college  and  in  vacation  (ixxxiv,  Ixxxvii, 
Ixxxix).  The  poet's  growing  peace  and  healthfulness  of  mind  find  utterance  in  the 
second  spring-time  poem  (Ixxxiii)  and  two  exquisite  pictures  of  natural  beauty  (Ixxxvi 
and  Ixxxviii).  Concentration  on  Hallam's  character  now  leads  to  the  question 
whether,  if  he  is  yet  living,  he  cannot  communicate  with  his  friend;  and  on  a  calm 
summer  night  Tennyson  at  length  has  a  mystical  experience  in  which,  he  is  convinced, 
he  communes  with  his  living  soul  (xc-xcv). 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  427 

IN  THE  CLOUDS,  by  "Charles  Egbert  Craddock"  (Miss  Murfree)  (1887).  The 
"clouds"  rest  upon  the  Tennessee  Mountains,  where  the  strange  class  of  people, 
"the  poor  whites,  "  whom  the  author  has  immortalized  in  this  and  other  works,  have 
their  homes.  It  is  a  story  of  mountaineering  life:  illicit  distilling,  lawlessness  of 
youth,  and  retribution  for  sins,  made  impressive  by  a  background  of  majestic  silence. 
In  a  drunken  jest,  Reuben  Lorey  (called  Mink  for  obvious  reasons)  destroys  an  old 
tumble-down  mill ;  and  the  idiot  boy,  "Tad, "  who  disappears  at  that  time,  is  supposed 
to  have  been  drowned  in  consequence  of  this  act.  "Mink"  is  indicted  for  man- 
slaughter; and  on  the  witness  stand  Alethea  Sayles,  one  of  his  sweethearts,  who 
remains  faithful  through  all  his  troubles,  discloses  the  whereabouts  of  the  "  moon- 
shiners," a  grave  betrayal  in  that  district.  It  is  this  trial  and  its  results,  Alethea's 
love,  Mink's  final  escape  from  jail,  and  death  by  the  rifle-ball  of  a  friend,  who,  with 
the  superstition  of  the  average  mountaineer,  mistakes  him  for  a  "hamt"  or  ghost, 
with  which  the  story  deals.  Miss  Murfree's  character-drawing  of  these  people  with 
their  pathetic  lives  of  isolation,  of  ignorance,  and  of  superstition,  is  very  strong. 
Interspersed  are  delicate  word-paintings  of  sunsets  and  sunrises,  those  mysterious 
color  effects  of  the  Big  Smoky  Mountains;  and  underlying  all  is  that  conscious  note 
of  melancholy  which  dominates  the  thoughts  and  actions  of  the  dwellers  on  the 
heights. 

IN  THE  PALACE  OF  THE  KING,  see  PALACE,  ETC. 

IN  THE  WORLD,  by  Maxim  Gorky,  see  MY  CHILDHOOD. 

IN  THE  YEAR  OF  JUBILEE,  by  George  Gissing  (1895).  Gissing's  realism  is 
relentless;  and  his  tale  of  middle-class  philistinism  would  be  unbearable  were  it  not 
also  the  story  of  the  growth  of  a  soul  through  suffering.  Nancy  Lord,  the  heroine, 
daughter  of  a  piano-dealer  in  a  small  way,  has  in  her  the  elements  of  strength  which 
under  other  circumstances  would  have  made  her  silent  and  rigid  father  great.  Her 
youth  is  full  of  mistakes,  the  tests  of  life  are  all  too  severe  for  her,  and  she  seems  to 
have  met  total  defeat  before  her  "fighting  soul"  sets  itself  to  win.  Perhaps  it  is  not 
a  very  great  victory  to  turn  a  foolish  and  compulsory  marriage  into  a  calm  and 
comfortable  modus  vivendi.  But  it  is  great  to  her.  Besides  the  vivid  and  headlong 
Nancy,  and  her  faithful  friend  and  servant  Alary  Woodruffe,  there  is  hardly  a  per- 
sonage in  the  book  whose  acquaintance  the  reader  would  voluntarily  make.  Even 
the  hero,  a  gentleman  by  birth  and  tradition,  seems  rather  a  plated  article  than  "the 
real  thing,"  though  he  shows  signs  of  grace  as  the  story  ends.  All  the  women  are 
sordid,  mean,  half -educated  under  a  process  which  is  mentally  superficial  and  morally 
non-existent.  The  men  are  petty,  or  vulgar,  or  both.  Apparently  both  men  and 
women,  typical  as  they  are,  and  carefully  studied,  are  meant  to  show  the  mischief 
that  may  be  done  by  imposing  on  the  commonest  mentality  a  system  of  instruction 
fit  only  for  brains  with  inherited  tendencies  towards  culture.  Yet  the  book  is  not  a 
problem  work.  It  is  a  picture  of  the  cheaper  commercial  London  and  the  race  it 
develops;  and  it  is  so  interesting  a  human  document  that  the  expostulating  reader 
is  forced  to  go  on  to  the  end. 

IN  THE  YEAR  13,  'Ut  de  Franzosentid*  (1860),  is  a  translation  from  the  Low  Dutch 
of  Fritz  Reuter,  by  Charles  Lee  Lewis  ( 1 867) .  It  is  one  of  a  series  to  which  Reuter  gave 
the  general  name  'Old  Camomile  Flowers/  signifying  "old  tales  useful  as  homely 
remedies."  The  delightfully  homely  narration  of  life  in  a  Dutch  village — the  prim 


428  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

orderly  ways  of  the  women,  the  petty  issues  brought  before  the  patriarchal 
Amtshauptmann,  and  the  general  confusion  resulting  from  the  side  issues  of  war  — 
is  both  pathetic  and  humorous.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Reuter's  native  town  of  Staven- 
hagen;  and  the  characters  are  real  people,  whose  real  names  are  preserved.  The 
story  is  an  animated  presentation  of  the  state  of  feeling  prevailing  among  a  people 
who  detested  yet  feared  Napoleon,  and  were  forced  to  treat  the  French  as  allies  while 
regarding  them  as  bitterest  enemies.  A  party  of  "rascally  French"  chasseurs  throw 
the  town  into  tumult,  and  finally  ride  off  with  several  captives  unjustly  accused  of 
theft.  Before  these  are  released  come  man}*  adventures,  quarrels,  and  a  fierce  pursuit 
of  unlawful  booty,  through  which  runs  an  idyllic  love  story,  that  of  Miller  Voss's 
beautiful  daughter  Fieka.  Back  of  all  the  somewhat  slow  and  simple-minded  Dutch 
folk  looms  the  invisible  yet  dominant  presence  of  Napoleon,  as  a  force  which  they  are 
always  conscious  of  and  always  dreading. 

INCIDENTS  OF  TRAVEL  IN  CENTRAL  AMERICA,  see  CENTRAL  AMERICA. 

INDIAN  BIBLE,  THE,  by  John  Eliot,  "The  Apostle  to  the  North-American  Indi- 
ans." This  first  Indian  translation  of  the  Bible  was  in  the  dialect  of  the  Naticks,  a 
Massachusetts  tribe  of  the  Algonkins,  and  was  made  under  the  auspices  of  the  Cor- 
poration for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospels  among  the  Indians  of  New  England, 
Eliot  sending  the  sheets  to  England  for  approval  as  they  came  from  the  printing- 
press  in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts. 

The  New  Testament  appeared  first,  in  1661 ;  and  two  years  after,  the  entire  Bible, 
with  the  following  title: 

MAMUSSEE 

WUNNEETUPANATAMWE 
UP-BIBLUM  GOD 

NANEESIVE 

NUKKONE  TESTAMENT 

KAH  WONZ 

WTJSKU   TESTAMENT 

NE  QUOSHKINNUMUK  NASHPE 
WUTTINNENMOK  CHRIST 

JOHN  ELIOT 

CAMBRIDGE:  PRINTENOOP  NASHPE 
SAMUEL  GREEN  KAH  MARMADUK  JOHNSON  1663 

The  English  of  which  is:  "The  Entire  —  His  Holy  —  Bible  God  —  containing  —  the 
Old  Testament  —  and  the  —  New  Testament  —  translated  by  —  the  Servant  of 
Christ  —  [called] — John  Eliot  —  Cambridge:  printed  by  —  Samuel  Green  and 
Marmaduke  Johnson  1663." 

The  English  title  also  adds:  "Translated  into  the  Indian  Language  and  Ordered 
to  be  printed  by  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies  in  New  England  at  tl.e 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  429 

Charge  and  with  the  Consent  of  the  Corporation  in  England  for  the  Propagation  of 
the  Gospels  among  the  Indians  of  New  England." 

Some  of  the  Indian  words  used  by  Eliot  are  so  extremely  long  that  Cotton  Mather 
thought  they  must  have  been  stretching  themselves  ever  since  the  confusion  of 
tongues  at  Babel.  A.  second  revised  and  corrected  edition  was  printed  in  1685,  only 
twelve  copies  of  which  are  known  to  exist.  An  edition  with  notes  by  P.  S.  Du  Poneau, 
and  an  introduction  by  J.  Pickering,  was  published  in  Boston  in  1822.  When  the 
original  edition  was  issued,  twenty  copies  were  ordered  to  be  sent  to  the  Corporation, 
with  the  Epistle  Dedicatory  addressed  —  "To  the  High  and  Mighty  Prince  Charles 
the  Second  by  the  Grace  of  God,  King  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Ireland,  De- 
fender of  the  Faith,  etc.  The  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies  in  New  Eng- 
land with  all  Happiness:  Most  Dread  Sovereign,  etc.!  " 

The  commercial  as  well  as  the  religious  rivalry  of  England  with  Spain  creeps  out 
in  the  Epistle  which  compares  the  fruits  of  the  Spanish  Conquests  in  America, 
brought  home  in  gold  and  silver,  with  "these  fruits  of  the  colder  northern  clime  as 
much  better  than  gold  as  the  souls  of  men  are  more  worth  than  the  whole  world!" 

Henry  the  Seventh's  failure  to  become  the  sole  discoverer  and  owner  of  America 
finds  its  compensation  in  "the  discovery  unto  the  poor  Americans  of  the  True  and 
Saving  knowledge  of  the  Gospel,'1  and  "the  honor  of  erecting  the  Kingdom  of  Jesus 
Christ  among  them  was  reserved  for  and  does  redound  unto  Your  Majesty  and  the 
English  Nation.  After  ages  will  not  reckon  this  inferior  to  the  other  —  May  this 
nursling  still  suck  the  breast  of  Kings  and  be  fostered  by  Your  Majesty!" 

A  copy  of  the  edition  of  1663,  with  the  Epistle  Dedicatory,  was  sold  in  1882  for 
$2900. 

INDIANA,  by  "George  Sand"  (Madame  Dudevant).  A  romantic  tale  published  in 
1832,  which  is  of  interest  chiefly  as  being  the  first  which  brought  the  distinguished 
author  into  note,  and  also  as  portraying  something  of  the  author's  own  experience  in 
married  life.  The  scene  is  alternately  in  the  Castle  de  Brie,  the  estate  of  the  aged 
Colonel  Delmare,  a  retired  officer  of  Napoleon's  army,  where  he  lives  with  his  youthful 
Creole  wife  Indiana;  and  in  Paris,  where  the  wife  visits  her  aristocratic  aunt,  and 
where  lives  Raymond  de  Ramiere,  the  heartless  and  reckless  lover  first  of  her  foster- 
sister  and  maid  Noun,  and  then  of  herself.  Estranged  from  her  ill-matched  husband, 
the  young  wife  is  drawn  into  the  fascinations  of  Raymond,  whose  artfulness  succeeds 
in  deceiving  the  Colonel,  the  wife,  and  all  save  the  faithful  English  cousin,  Sir  Ralph, 
who  secretly  loves  Indiana,  but  shields  Raymond  from  discovery  for  fear  of  the  pain 
that  would  result  to  her.  Desperate  situations  and  dire  conflicts  of  emotions  follow, 
with  much  discourse  on  love  and  marital  duty,  and  frequent  discussions  of  the  social 
and  political  questions  of  the  day;  the  Colonel  representing  the  Napoleonic  idea  of 
empire,  Raymond  the  conservative  legitimist,  and  Sir  Ralph  the  modern  republican. 
The  descriptions  of  nature  are  vivid,  and  the  characters  are  skillfully  drawn,  however 
untrue  they  may  seem  to  actual  life, 

INDIES,  GENERAL  HISTORY  OF  THE  (Historia  de  las  Indias,  por  Fn  Bartolome* 
de  las  Casas).  The  Spanish  original  in  manuscript,  1527-61;  only  printed  edition, 
5  vols.,  1875-76.  It  is  one  of  the  most  notable  of  books,  not  only  in  its  contents,  — 
as  a  history  of  Spanish  discoveries  from  1492  to  1520,  and  a  contemporary  Spanish 
Catholic  criticism  as  well  as  story  of  Columbus,  —  but  in  the  circumstances  which 
prevented  its  publication  for  more  than  three  hundred  years,  and  which  still  leave  it 
inaccessible  except  to  readers  of  Spanish.  Its  author's  entire  life  and  all  his  writings 


430  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

were  devoted  to  urging  the  duty  of  humane  treatment  of  the  Indians;  and  after  pub- 
lishing in  his  lifetime  appeals  and  protests  which  stirred  the  Catholic  conscience 
throughout  Europe,  he  left  at  his  death  the  great  'History'  which  Spanish  feeling 
refused  the  honors  of  the  press  until  1875.  The  whole  matter  is  dealt  with  by  a 
writer  of  the  highest  authority,  Air.  George  Ticknor,  in  his  'History  of  Spanish 
Literature/  Speaking  of  Oviedo,  —  whose  *  General  and  Natural  History  of  the 
Indies/  an  immense  work  in  fifty-one  books,  of  which  the  first  twenty-one  were 
published  in  1535,  served  as  an  authoritative  account  of  the  discoveries,  treatment  of 
the  natives,  etc.,  —  Mr.  Ticknor  says:  — 

"But,  both  during  his  life  and  after  his  death  (1557),  Oviedo  had  a  formidable 
adversary,  who,  pursuing  nearly  the  same  course  of  inquiries  respecting  the  New 
World,  came  almost  constantly  to  conclusions  quite  opposite.  This  was  no  less  a 
person  than  Bartolome*  de  las  Casas,  the  apostle  and  defender  of  the  American 
Indians,  —  a  man  who  would  have  been  remarkable  in  any  age  of  the  world,  and  who 
does  not  seem  yet  to  have  gathered  in  the  full  harvest  of  his  honors.  He  was  born  in 
1474;  and  in  1502,  having  gone  through  a  course  of  studies  at  [the  university  of] 
Salamanca,  embarked  for  the  Indies,  where  his  father,  who  had  been  there  with 
Columbus  nine  years  earlier,  had  already  accumulated  a  decent  fortune.  The 
attention  of  the  young  man  was  early  drawn  to  the  condition  of  the  natives,  from  the 
circumstance  that  one  of  them,  given  to  his  father  by  Columbus,  had  been  attached 
to  his  own  person  as  a  slave  while  he  was  still  at  the  University;  and  he  was  not  slow 
to  learn,  on  his  arrival  in  Hispaniola  [Hay  ti:  1502],  that  their  gentle  natures  and  slight 
frames  had  already  been  subjected,  in  the  mines  and  in  other  forms  of  toil,  to  a 
servitude  so  harsh  that  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  island  were  beginning  to  waste 
away  under  the  severity  of  their  labors.  From  this  moment  he  devoted  his  life  to  their 
emancipation.  In  1510  he  took  holy  orders,  and  continued,  as  a  priest,  and  for  a 
short  time  as  bishop  of  Chiapa,  nearly  forty  years,  to  teach,  strengthen,  and  console 
the  suffering  flock  committed  to  his  charge.  Six  times  at  least  he  crossed  the  Atlantic, 
in  order  to  persuade  the  government  of  Charles  the  Fifth  to  ameliorate  their  condi- 
tion, and  always  with  more  or  less  success.  At  last,  but  not  until  1547,  when  he  was 
above  seventy  years  old,  he  established  himself  at  Valladolid  in  Spain,  where  he 
passed  the  remainder  of  his  serene  old  age,  giving  it  freely  to  the  great  cause  to  which 
he  had  devoted  the  freshness  of  his  youth.  He  died  in  1566,  at  ninety-two.  Among 
the  principal  opponents  of  his  benevolence  were  Sepulveda,  —  one  of  the  leading  men 
of  letters  and  casuists  of  the  time  in  Spain,  —  and  Oviedo,  who,  from  his  connection 
with  the  mines  and  his  share  in  the  government  of  the  newly  discovered  countries, 
had  an  interest  directly  opposite  to  the  one  Las  Casas  defended.  These  two  persons, 
with  large  means  and  a  wide  influence  to  sustain  them,  intrigued,  wrote,  and  toiled 
against  him,  in  every  way  in  their  power.  But  his  was  not  a  spirit  to  be  daunted  by 
opposition  or  deluded  by  sophistry  and  intrigue.  .  .  .  The  earliest  of  his  works, 
called  'A  Very  Short  Account  of  the  Ruin  of  the  Indies/  was  written  in  1542,  — a 
tract  in  which,  no  doubt,  the  sufferings  and  wrongs  of  the  Indians  are  much  over- 
stated by  the  indignant  zeal  of  its  author,  but  still  one  whose  expositions  are  founded 
"in  truth,  and  by  their  fervor  awakened  all  Europe  to  a  sense  of  the  injustice  they  set 
forth.  Other  short  treatises  followed,  written  with  similar  spirit  and  power;  but  none 
was  so  often  reprinted  as  the  first,  and  none  ever  produced  so  deep  and  solemn  an 
effect  on  the  world.  They  were  all  collected  and  published  in  1522 ;  and  an  edition,  in 
Spanish  with  a  French  version,  appeared  at  Paris  in  1822,  prepared  by  Llorente. 

11  The  great  work  of  Las  Casas,  however,  still  remains  inedited,  —  a  'General 
History  of  the  Indies  from  1492  to  1520,'  begun  by  him  in  1527  and  finished  in  1561, 


THE   READER  S  DIGEST  OF   BOOKS  431 

but  of  which  he  ordered  that  no  portion  should  be  published  within  forty  years  of 
his  death.  Like  his  other  works,  it  shows  marks  of  haste  and  carelessness,  and  is 
written  in  a  rambling  style;  but  its  value,  notwithstanding  his  too  fervent  zeal  for 
the  Indians,  is  great.  He  had  been  personally  acquainted  with  many  of  the  early 
discoverers  and  conquerors,  and  at  one  time  possessed  the  papers  of  Columbus,  and  a 
large  mass  of  other  important  documents,  which  are  now  lost.  He  knew  Gomara 
["the  oldest  of  the  regular  historians  of  the  New  World''],  and  Oviedo,  and  gives  at 
large  his  reasons  for  differing  from  them.  In  short,  his  book,  divided  into  three 
parts,  is  a  great  repository,  to  which  Herrera,  and  through  him  all  the  historians  of  the 
Indies  since,  have  resorted  for  materials;  and  without  which  the  history  of  the  earliest 
period  of  the  Spanish  settlements  in  America  cannot,  even  now,  be  properly  written." 

INDIVIDUALITY  AND  IMMORTALITY,  a  lecture  delivered  by  Wilhelm  Ostwald 
at  Harvard  University  in  1906  and  published  the  same  year.  It  is  one  of  the  series 
of  Ingersoll  Lectures  on  'The  Immortality  of  Alan*  given  annually  at  Harvard  by 
lectures  chosen  without  restriction  as  to  profession  or  religious  belief.  Professor 
Ostwald's  attitude  towards  personal  immortality  is  that  of  a  sceptic  if  not  a  material- 
ist. He  can  find  nowhere  in  the  universe  any  assurance  of  immortality.  It  is  true 
that  the  living  cell,  in  that  it  lives  on  in  its  offspring,  enjoys  a  kind  of  immortality; 
but  there  is  no  guarantee  that  all  cells  may  not  some  day  be  destroyed.  Nor  are 
matter  and  energy  certainly  immortal,  for  the  laws  of  the  eternity  of  matter  and  the 
conservation  of  energy  are  merely  based  on  experience  and  therefore  not  absolute; 
and  recent  experiments  have  shown  that  elements  are  not  immortal  but  may  change, 
and  that  energy  may  develop  where  none  previously  existed.  There  is  no  permanence 
of  individuality  either  in  matter  or  in  force  but  a  constant  diffusion.  Alan's  in- 
dividuality also  changes  from  youth  to  age;  if  he  survives  after  death  there  is  either  a 
continuance  of  change  or  a  transcendent  state  without  any  relation  to  our  life  here. 
The  former  alternative  seems  unlikely  because  up  to  death  it  was  the  body  that 
conditioned  all  changes  and  with  its  decay  there  seems  no  further  reason  for  them. 
On  the  latter  alternative  there  can  be  no  evidence  for  immortality  even  if  it  exists. 
There  is  a  relative  immortality  of  man's  works,  but  these  must  in  turn  pass  away. 
But  if  we  abandon  the  hope  of  immortality  we  still  have  left  the  ethical  inspiration  of 
love  for  our  fellow-man  and  sacrifice  for  his  welfare.  This  essay  has  the  limitations 
of  the  materialistic  position,  but  it  is  free  from  dogmatism,  arrogance,  and  prejudice 
and  is  inspired  by  a  love  of  truth  and  an  honest  and  serious  attempt  to  discover  it. 

INDUCTIVE  SCIENCES,  HISTORY  OF  THE,  by  William  Whewell  (1837.  Final 
edition,  1857).  The  story  of  the  progress  of  the  physical  sciences,  from  the  earliest 
Greek  beginnings,  and  from  the  groping  physical  science  of  the  Middle  Ages,  down  to 
the  time  of  Darwin.  Although  the  book  is  out  of  date,  through  the  immense  progress 
which  science  has  made  since  1837,  and  the  greater  accuracy  and  thoroughness  with 
which  parts  of  the  history  are  known,  yet  the  ample  learning  and  great  ability  of 
Whewell,  and  the  conception  which  he  had  of  the  progress  of  science,  gives  his  work 
a  permanent  interest  and  value.  His  general  ideas  of  science  led  him  to  supplement 
his  'History'  with  a  second  work  on  'The  Philosophy  of  the  Inductive  Sciences, 
Pounded  upon  their  History*  (1840).  This  second  volume  Dr.  Whewell  described  as 
"an  application  of  the  plan  of  Bacon's  'Novum  Organum*  to  the  present  condition 
of  physical  science,"  and  as  an  attempt  "to  extract  from  the  actual  past  progress  of 
science  the  elements  of  a  more  effectual  and  substantial  method  of  discovery"  than 
Bacon's. 


432  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

INDUSTRIAL  AND  COMMERCIAL  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND,  see  ECONOMIC 
INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY. 

INDUSTRIAL  EFFICIENCY,  by  Arthur  Shadwell  (1905).  This  comparative  study 
of  industrial  life  in  England,  Germany,  and  America,  important  at  its  first  appearance 
in  1905,  has  acquired  additional  significance  owing  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War 
and  the  prospect  of  fierce  industrial  competition  in  the  years  succeeding  the  declara- 
tion of  peace.  It  is  written  with  the  purely  objective  aim  of  presenting  an  impartial 
statement  of  facts  and  not  with  the  desire  to  please  or  displease  political  or  industrial 
combinations  of  any  kind  whatsoever.  Dr.  Shadwell  deals  out  praise  and  blame  with 
even-handed  justice  to  Americans,  Germans,  and  English,  the  English,  for  example, 
he  says  are  "less  methodical  than  Germans,  less  alert  than  Americans."  He  discusses 
with  great  fulness  of  detail  the  industrial  districts  of  the  three  countries,  the  stand- 
ards of  hours  and  wages,  the  general  social  conditions,  the  educational  systems,  and 
the  benevolent  institutions  of  Germany,  the  United  States,  and  England.  In  the 
main,  the  picture  which  Dr.  Shadwell  draws  is  still  sound,  and  his  criticisms  should  be 
taken  to  heart  by  every  reader  in  the  three  countries  described,  who  really  cares  for 
the  genuine  progress  of  the  nation  to  which  he  belongs  and  is  not  a  mere  chauvinist  or 
egomaniac. 

INDUSTRIAL  SYSTEM,  THE;  'An  Inquiry  into  Earned  and  Unearned  Income,' 
by  J.  A.  Hobson  (1909).  Failing  to  find  in  current  economic  writings  any  satis- 
factory exposition  of  the  methods  by  which  wealth  is  distributed  among  the  owners 
of  the  several  factors  of  production,  the  author  attempts  to  give  "a  true  outline 
picture  of  the  industrial  system  of  the  present  day  as  a  single  organic  whole,  contin- 
uously engaged  in  converting  raw  materials  into  commodities,  and  apportioning 
them  by  a  continuous  series  of  payments  as  incomes  to  the  owners  of  the  factors  of 
production  in  the  different  processes."  He  finds  that  industry  creates  a  product 
larger  than  is  needed  for  the  cost  of  maintenance,  and  that  this  surplus  is  taken  by  the 
owners  of  the  several  factors  of  production  in  accordance  with  the  economic  "pull" 
they  are  respectively  able  to  exercise  and  passes  in  innumerable  fragments  to  the 
owners  of  a  scarce  factor  of  production  wherever  it  is  found.  The  "unproductive 
surplus"  includes  the  whole  of  the  economic  rent  of  land,  and  such  payments  made  to 
capital,  ability,  or  labor,  in  the  shape  of  high  interests,  profits,  salaries  or  wages,  as 
do  not  tend  to  evoke  a  fuller  or  better  productivity  of  these  factors.  '  *  This  unproduc- 
tive surplus,"  says  the  author  "is  the  principal  source  not  merely  of  waste  but  of 
economic  malady.  .  .  . "  As  unearned  income  "it  acts  upon  its  recipients  as  a  pre- 
mium on  idleness  and  inefficiency;  spent  capriciously  on  luxuries,  it  imparts  irregu- 
larity of  employment  to  the  trades  which  furnish  these;  saved  excessively,  it  upsets 
the  right  balance  between  the  volume  of  production  and  consumption  in  the  industrial 
system."  As  in  the  author's  view,  this  surplus  represents  the  failure  of  the  com- 
petitive system  to  compete,  it  is  the  only  properly  taxable  body.  The  volume  as  a 
whole,  especially  the  last  chapter,  *The  Human  Interpretation  of  Industry/  is  one 
of  the  most  stimulating  and  suggestive  of  modern  books  on  economics. 

INFLUENCE  OF  SEA-POWER  UPON  HISTORY,  THE,  an  historical  study  by 
Captain  A.  T.  Mahan,  U.S.N.  (1890).  The  influence  of  sea-power  on  defeat 
and  victory  had  been  neglected  by  historians,  and  Captain  Mahan  wrote  this 
book  in  order  to  point  out  its  high  importance.  After  showing  conclusively  that  the 
Roman  defeat  of  Carthage  in  the  second  Punic  war  was  in  large  part  due  to  Roma/i 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  433 

superiority  in  the  Mediterranean  and  after  analyzing  the  elements  of  sea-power 
he  proceeds  to  trace  the  naval  history  of  Europe  from  1660  to  1812,  giving  a  delight- 
fully clear  and  accurate  account  of  the  principal  naval  battles  and  campaigns  and 
introducing  discussions  of  strategical  and  tactical  problems  involved,  for  which  he 
draws  on  his  own  experience  of  active  service.  In  this  narrative  he  never  loses  sight 
of  his  thesis  that  the  command  of  the  sea  spells  success,  and  is  quick  to  find  illustra- 
tions of  it.  A  cruiser-war  on  the  enemy's  commerce  by  a  nation  of  inferior  naval 
power  will  not  bring  victory,  though  many  instances  are  pointed  out  in  which  it  was 
tried.  A  leading  practical  aim  of  the  book  was  to  rouse  the  United  States  to  the  need 
of  a  powerful  navy  as  a  defense  against  possible  aggression  from  a  European  power 
and  as  a  protection  to  the  mercantile  marine,  which  he  believed  she  was  destined  to 
develop.  This  history  is  scholarly,  just,  entertaining  in  style,  original  in  its  ideas, 
and  persuasive  in  their  presentation. 

INGOLDSBY  LEGENDS,  a  collection  of  verse  tales  with  a  few  in  prose,  first  pub- 
lished in  'Bentley's  Miscellany/  1837-1840,  under  the  pseudonym  of  Thomas  In- 
goldsby,  and  afterwards  collected  in  three  series,  published  respectively  in  1840, 
1842,  and  1847.  The  real  author  was  Richard  Harris  Barham,  a  beneficed  clergyman 
and  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  whose  comfortable  circumstances,  antiquarian  tastes, 
joviality  of  temper,  and  gifts  of  humor  and  improvisation  were  happily  reflected 
in  these  permanently  entertaining  narratives.  The  greater  number  are  tales 
of  superstition  and  diablerie,  touched  with  uproarious  humor  like  the  Lays  of 
St.  Dunstan  and  St.  Cuthbert,  modern  ghost  stories  like  'The  Legend 
of  Hamilton  Tighe'  (a  narrative  powerful  in  its  tragic  simplicity),  clever  tra- 
vesties on  mediaeval  legends,  like  'The  Jackdaw  of  Rheims/  and  satirical  stories 
of  the  fabliau  type  like  'The  Knight  and  the  Lady/  which  illustrates  feminine 
inconstancy. 

INHERITANCE,  THE,  by  Susan  Edmonstone  Ferrier  (1824).  The  scenes  of  this 
interesting  novel  are  laid  in  Scotland  and  England,  and  the  story  deals  with  the 
gentry  of  both.  Some  years  before  the  opening  of  the  story,  Mrs.  St.  Clair,  an 
ambitious  woman,  has  taken  the  child  of  a  servant  to  bring  up  as  her  own.  After 
the  death  of  her  husband,  Mrs.  St.  Clair  and  her  supposed  daughter  Gertrude,  a 
charming  girl,  go  to  his  brother's  castle  in  Scotland,  of  whose  estates  Gertrude  is  to 
become  the  heiress.  Her  two  cousins,  Edward  Lyndsay  and  Colonel  Delmour,  visit 
their  uncle,  as  well  as  Mr.  Delmour,  the  Colonel's  sedate  brother.  Lord  Rossville 
wishes  his  niece  Gertrude  to  marry  Mr.  Delmour,  but  she  loves  his  handsome  brother 
and  refuses.  Upon  this  the  Earl  sends  Gertrude  and  her  mother  from  the  castle, 
and  the  Colonel  shows  his  true  character  by  withdrawing  his  addresses.  A  reconcilia- 
tion is  brought  about,  and  a  short  time  after  Gertrude's  return  to  the  castle  the  Earl 
dies  and  she  is  made  rich.  Colonel  Delmour  then  renews  his  love-making,  and 
becomes  her  accepted  lover  in  London.  After  their  return  to  Scotland,  a  vulgar  man, 
who  has  previously  had  secret  interviews  with  Airs.  St.  Clair  to  obtain  money,  comes 
boldly  forward  and  claims  to  be  Gertrude's  father.  From  this  point  the  interest  of 
the  story  lies  in  the  development  of  character  in  Gertrude  and  her  lovers,  and  the  way 
in  which  they  face  what  seems  an  irremediable  misfortune.  The  characters  are 
drawn  with  humor,  the  descriptions  are  true  to  nature,  and  there  are  several  original 
situations  in  the  book;  as  for  instance  the  arrival  at  the  castle  of  Miss  Pratt,  a  gossip- 
ing old  spinster,  in  a  hearse  drawn  by  eight  horses,  in  which  she  has  sought  shelter 
from  a  snow-storm. 


(.34  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

.NNER  LAW,  THE,  by  Will  N.  Harben  (1916).  This  story  is  a  study  of  the  powet 
>f  heredity.  Carter  Crofton  is  a  young  Southerner,  rich,  aristocratic,  and  gifted  as  a 
:>oet.  He  has  graduated  from  Harvard,  and  is  the  favorite  child  of  Gilbert  Crofton, 
vho  dies  of  paresis  soon  after  the  story  opens.  The  father  before  his  death  is  visited 
Dy  his  brother  Thomas,  a  melancholy  man  who  warns  Carter  of  the  curse  in  their 
Dlood  and  begs  him  to  refrain  from  wrong-doing  if  he  wishes  happiness.  Carter 
Crofton  receives  the  bulk  of  his  father's  property,  although  he  is  the  younger  son,  as 
lis  brother  Henry,  who  has  succumbed  to  the  family  tendency,  is  plunged  in  dissipa- 
tion; Henry  and  his  sister  Millicent  are,  however,  amply  provided  for.  Carter,  who 
has  high  ideals,  is  strongly  impressed  by  his  uncle's  warning  and  earnestly  resolves 
to  profit  by  it,  but  is  carried  away  by  the  charms  of  a  young  country-girl  named 
Lydia  Romley,  while  visiting  his  uncle  in  his  quiet  home,  and  in  a  moment  of  passion 
betrays  her.  His  anguish  and  horror  when  he  realizes  what  he  has  done  are  great, 
and  he  is  on  the  point  of  marrying  the  girl,  as  his  uncle  begs  him  to  do,  when  he  is 
influenced  by  his  friend  Charles  Farnham,  who  persuades  him  instead  to  go  abroad 
and  enjoy  his  acquired  wealth.  Carter  spends  more  than  twenty  years  in  Europe 
trying  to  amuse  himself  and  forget  his  past,  but  fails  utterly.  He  returns  to  his  native 
land  bored  with  existence  and  broken  in  health  and  spirits.  He  finds  Henry  dying  a 
miserable  death  and  foresees  a  similar  fate  in  store  for  himself.  He  goes  to  New  York, 
where  finding  life  becoming  unbearable  he  decides  to  commit  suicide  and  end  it  all. 
He  is  saved  by  coming  in  contact  with  a  fine  young  fellow  named  Joe  Allen,  whose 
noble  qualities  make  the  elder  man  keenly  realize  his  own  short-comings.  Meanwhile 
he  has  by  chance  met  Lydia  Romley,  whom  he  finds  he  still  loves;  she  has  developed 
into  a  beautiful  woman  and  is  supporting  herself  as  a  trained  nurse.  She  refuses, 
however,  to  listen  to  his  protestations.  Carter's  interest  now  centres  in  young  Allen, 
whose  talent  as  a  poet  recalls  his  own  ruined  career,  and  whose  high  ideals  and  religi- 
ous beliefs  enter  into  his  own  life  and  change  it  completely.  Finally  he  discovers  that 
Allen  is  Lydia  Romley 's  child  and  his  own  son,  and  when  at  last  Lydia  consents  to 
marry  him  his  happiness  is  unbounded. 

INNER  SHRINE,  THE,  by  Basil  King  (1908).  At  the  opening  of  this  story-Diane 
Eveleth  returns  alone  from  a  round  of  social  festivities  in  Paris  to  find  her  mother-in- 
law,  who  fears  some  impending  tragedy,  awaiting  her  in  the  palatial  Paris  residence. 
A  telephone  message  shortly  announces  that  George  Eveleth  has  been  killed  in  a  duel, 
fought  with  the  Marquis  de  Bienville  in  order  to  avenge  the  false  accusations. made 
by  the  latter  against  his  wife.  Diane,  who  has  been  merely  a  reckless  coquette,  has 
led  her  husband  into  great  extravagance  and  at  his  death  finds  herself  face  to  face 
with  poverty,  as  well  as  the  reproaches  of  Mrs.  Eveleth  senior.  The  repentant  widow 
secretly  transfers  her  remaining  patrimony  to  her  mother-in-law  and  the  two  women 
sail  for  New  York,  where  the  elder  woman  has  relatives.  Here  Diane  encounters 
Derek  Pruyn,  a  widower,  whom  she  has  known  and  admired  in  early  years,  and  is 
offered  the  situation  of  chaperone  for  his  daughter  Dorothea,  a  headstrong  young 
woman  in  need  of  feminine  guidance.  After  a  year  in  Pruyn 's  household,  during  which 
time  Diane  holds  aloof  from  Pruyn's  increasing  devotion,  he  makes  her  an  offer  of 
marriage;  she  withholds  her  answer  until  his  return  from  a  voyage  to  South  America, 
when  she  is  prepared  to  accept  him,  but  on  his  home-coming  she  finds  his  attitude 
towards  her  completely  changed.  Pruyn  has  encountered  de  Bienville  on  his  voyage 
and  has  heard  from  him  a  recital  of  the  charge  that  Diane  was  unfaithful  to  her 
husband.  Pruyn  denounces  Diane's  perfidy  and  she  being  too  proud  to  defend  herself 
at  once  takes  leave  of  him."  Subsequently  Pruyn's  highhanded  methods  cause  Doro- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  435 

thea  to  plan  an  elopement  which  is  successfully  frustrated  by  Diane  to  whom  the 
grateful  father  now  turns  again  in  love  and  gratitude;  he  renews  his  suit  begging  her 
to  marry  him  no  matter  what  her  past  may  have  been,  but  she  indignantly  refuses  to 
wed  one  who  could  want  her  while  believing  in  her  previous  guilt.  In  the  end  de 
Bienville  confesses  the  falseness  of  his  charges  and  clears  Diane's  reputation  of  the 
blot  that  has  rested  upon  it,  after  which  she  gladly  enters  the  "Inner  Shrine"  of  the 
love  that  has  been  awaiting  her. 

INNOCENTS  ABROAD,  THE,  by  Samuel  L.  Clemens  ("Mark  Twain").  In  a  vein 
of  highly  original  humor  this  world-read  book  records  a  pleasure  excursion  on  the 
Quaker  City  to  Europe,  the  Holy  Land,  and  Egypt,  in  the  sixties.  Descriptions  of 
real  events  and  the  peoples  and  lands  visited  are  enlivened  by  more  or  less  fictitious 
dialogue  and  adventures.  These,  while  absurdly  amusing,  always  suggest  the  truth, 
stripped  of  hypocrisy  and  cant,  as  to  how  the  reader  "would  be  likely  to  see  Europe 
and  the  East  if  he  looked  at  them  sincerely  with  his  own  eyes  and  without  reverence 
for  the  past."  The  side- wheel  steamer  Quaker  City  carried  the  now  famous  excur- 
sionists across  from  New  York  —  touching  at  the  Azores,  described  in  a  few  rapid  but 
wonderfully  vivid  strokes  —  and  from  important  port  to  port  on  the  other  side;  and 
waited  for  them  during  several  of  their  inland  journeys.  Returning,  they  touched  at 
Gibraltar,  Madeira,  and  the  Bermudas.  As  to  the  advertised  "select"  quality  of  the 
voyagers,  a  characteristic  paragraph  states:  "Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  to  have 
accompanied  the  expedition,  but  urgent  duties  obliged  him  to  give  up  the  idea. 
There  were  other  passengers  who  might  have  been  spared  better,  and  would  have 
been  spared  more  willingly.  Lieutenant-General  Sherman  was  to  have  been  one  of 
the  party  also,  but  the  Indian  war  compelled  his  presence  on  the  plains.  A  popular 
actress  had  entered  her  name  on  the  ship's  books,  but  something  interfered,  and  she 
couldn't  go.  The  '  Drummer  Boy  of  the  Potomac  '  deserted;  and  lo,  we  had  never  a 
celebrity  left!" 

INQUISITION  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES,  A  HISTORY  OF  THE,  by  Henry  Charles 
Lea  (3  vols.,  1888).  A  work  at  once  comprehensive  in  scope,  complete  in  learning, 
and  judicious  in  thought.  It  tells  the  story  of  the  organized  effort  against  heresy 
made  by  the  Christian  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages,  or  for  about  three  centuries 
previous  to  the  Reformation  (1215-1515  A.  D.).  For  the  entire  history  of  this  effort 
Lea  makes  two  periods,  that  of  the  old  or  mediaeval  Inquisition,  before  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  that  of  the  new  or  reorganized  Inquisition  coming  after  the  Reformation, 
except  in  Spain,  where  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  "founded  the  New  Inquisition." 

This  famous  institution  is  not  viewed  by  Lea  as  an  organization  arbitrarily 
devised  and  imposed  upon  the  judicial  system  of  Christendom  by  any  ambition  of  the 
Church  of  that  age  or  any  special  fanaticism.  It  was  a  natural  development,  an 
almost  inevitable  expression  of  the  forces  universally  at  work  in  the  thirteenth  and 
following  centuries.  To  clearly  understand  it  and  judge  it  fairly,  Lea  carefully 
examines  the  whole  field  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  developments,  and  the  condition 
of  the  jurisprudence  of  the  period,  as  a  means  of  ascertaining  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  the  inquisitorial  process:  some  of  the  worst  features  of  which  would  have 
been  a  blot  upon  the  history  none  the  less  if  there  had  never  been  any  quest  for 
heresy;  while  the  idea  of  heresy  was  one  of  the  deepest  seated,  not  only  of  the  period, 
but  of  later  generations,  and  as  relentlessly  applied  under  Protestantism,  in  some 
special  instances  as  under  Catholicism. 

An  entire  volume  is  devoted  to  'The  Origin  and  Organization  of  the  Inquisition/ 


436  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  sad  story  of  how  the  giving  way  in  jurisprudence  of  the  old  barbarisms  was  ar- 
rested by  the  use  of  those  made  by  the  Church;  and  how  the  worst  of  these  barbarisms 
were  given  a  consecration  which  kept  them  in  force  five  hundred  years  after  they 
might  have  passed  away;  and  in  force  without  the  restraints  which  Roman  law  had 
imposed.  The  darkest  curse  brought  by  the  Inquisition,  in  Lea's  view,  was  the 
application  of  its  unjust  and  cruel  processes  to  all  criminals,  down  to  the  closing  years 
of  the  eighteenth  century;  and  not  to  criminals  only,  but  to  all  accused  persons. 

In  his  second  volume  Lea  follows  the  story  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  several  lands 
of  Christendom.  The  third  he  devotes  to  special  fields  of  Inquisitorial  activity.  It 
is  a  story,  not  only  of  how  those  whose  motives,  by  the  standard  of  their  age,  were 
only  good,  inflicted  the  worst  wrong  and  cruelty  upon  their  fellow-creatures  under  a 
false  idea  of  the  service  of  God,  but  how  ambition  and  avarice  took  advantage  of  the 
system.  At  the  best  it  was  a  monstrous  application  of  mistaken  zeal  to  keep  men 
from  following  their  honest  thoughts  into  paths  of  desirable  progress.  Lea's  masterly 
treatment  of  the  whole  history  makes  his  work  an  authority  second  to  none,  and  one 
of  the  great  triumphs  of  American  scholarship. 

INSIDE  OF  THE  CUP,  THE,  by  Winston  Churchill  (1913).    The  rich  men  who 
control  a  fashionable  city  church  call  John  Hodder  to  the  pulpit  from  a  small  New 
England  parish,  because  he  is  orthodox  and  not  affected  by  the  dangerous  modern 
liberal  ideas.     The  residence  section  of  the  city  has  moved  farther  up  town,  and  the 
neighborhood  of  St.  John's  church  is  the  home  of  poverty  and  vice.    Modern  problems 
are  thrust  upon  the  young  rector,  and  he  realizes  the  inadequacy  of  his  mediaeval 
theology  and  the  shortcomings  of  his  church  and  creed.     He  spends  the  summer 
vacation  in  the  city  slum,  and  learns  a  great  deal  about  the  lif  e  of  the  poor  in  his 
parish  and  the  unsocial  business  methods  of  his  parishioners.    He  also  reads  the  books 
of  higher  criticism  which  he  has  neglected.    When  his  congregation  assemble  agair 
in  the  fall,  he  preaches  a  sermon  in  which  he  enlightens  his  parishioners  as  to  his 
change  of  views  and  admonishes  them  from  the  text,  "For  ye  make  clean  the  outsid( 
of  the  cup  and  of  the  platter,  but  within  they  are  full  of  extortion  and  excess."    Eldor 
Parr,  the  magnate  who  is  head  of  the  vestry,  demands  his  resignation,  but  he  claim: 
his  right  to  remain  rector,  and  his  bishop  and  some  of  his  old  parishioners  and  man? 
new  ones  from  the  neighborhood  stand  by  him.     Eldon  Parr's  daughter  choose 
between  him  and  her  father,  and  marries  the  rector.    It  is  a  remarkable  discussion  o 
religious  problems  in  fiction,  and  a  powerful  presentation  of  the  author's  convictions 

INSTITUTES  OF  QUINTILIAN  ('Institutions  Oratoriae  XII  Libri').  'Twelv 
Books  concerning  the  Education  of  an  Orator'  is  a  treatise  on  pedagogy  and  rhetori 
written  at  Rome  by  Marcus  Fabius  Quintilianus  in  the  reigns  of  Vespasian,  Titui 
and  Domitian.  For  a  summary  and  comment  see  the  LIBRARY  under  Quintilian. 

INSTITUTES  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION,  by  John  Calvin  (1536).  Tl 
first  great  theological  work  after  the  Reformation,  undertaking  to  establish,  again 
Roman  Catholic  belief  and  usage,  a  Protestant  system  of  doctrine  and  communio 
and  through  its  service  as  such,  and  its  masterly  grasp  of  system  and  argumer 
widely  accepted  as  the  standard  of  reformed  theology.  The  original  design  of  t" 
author  was  to  make  a  small  work  for  popular  instruction;  and  his  first  edition  co 
formed  to  this  design,  except  as  he  changed  his  plan  in  order  to  lay  before  the  Ki 
of  France,  Francis  I.,  a  defense  of  the  Reformed  Confession.  By  enlargement 
successive  editions,  the  work  reached  the  form  in  which  it  is  now  known. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  437 

INSTITUTES  OF  VISHNU,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

INTEREST  OF  AMERICA  IN  SEA  POWER,  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE,  by  Captain 
A.  T.  Mahan  (1897).  A  work  of  significance  because  of  the  author's  idea  of  "an 
approaching  change  in  the  thoughts  and  policy  of  Americans  as  to  their  relations 
with  the  world  outside  their  own  borders."  The  age  of  "home  markets  for  home 
products"  has  about  closed,  in  Captain  Mahan's  view,  and  the  United  States  must 
consider  interests  reaching  to  all  parts  of  the  world.  Although,  therefore,  his  volume 
consists  only  of  a  collection  of  detached  papers,  and  he  makes  no  attempt  to  recast 
them  into  a  continuous  work,  he  yet  puts  over  them  a  broadly  significant  title,  and 
offers  them  to  the  reader  as  studies  of  a  great  theme.  They  are  in  that  view  of  par- 
ticular interest. 

INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  STUDY  OF  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE,  AN,  see 
GOTHIC. 

INTRUDER,  THE  ('L'lntruse'),  by  Maurice  Maeterlinck  (1890),  is  a  play  by  which 
the  writer  achieved  an  international  reputation.  It  is  a  one-act  piece  of  few  char- 
acters and  little  action,  simple  in  construction,  rich  in  suggestion,  potent  in  its  realism. 
A  family  sit  in  the  gloomy  room  of  an  old  chateau  and  talk  in  the  most  natural,  matter- 
of-fact  way,  while  one  member,  a  young  wife,  lies  very  ill  in  childbirth  in  the  adjacent 
room.  Through  the  commonplace  speech  one  can  feel  the  tension  of  their  nerves;  the 
effect  is  heightened  by  the  skillful  use  of  details  by  the  dramatist.  All  is  indirect, 
symbolic,  pregnant  with  innuendo.  It  is  as  if  Death,  the  Intruder,  were  knocking  at 
each  door  and  window.  At  length  a  sister  of  charity  enters,  and  by  the  sign  of  the 
cross  makes  known  that  the  wife  is  no  more. 

ION,  a  drama,  by  Euripides  (423  B.  C.).  The  story,  wrought  into  a  drama  of 
high  patriotic  and  of  profound  human  interest  by  Euripides,  was  that  of  Ion  as  the 
ancestor  of  the  lonians,  or  Athenian  Greeks,  reputed  to  be  the  son  of  Xuthus  and  his 
wife  Creusa,  but  in  reality  a  son  of  Apollo  and  Creusa.  The  god  had  caused  the  infant 
to  be  taken  by  Mercury  from  the  cave  where  his  mother  had  left  "him,  and  to  be  carried 
to  his  temple  at  Delphi,  and  brought  up  as  a  youthful  attendant.  Ion's  character, 
and  the  part  he  plays  as  a  child  devotee  at  the  time  of  the  play,  offer  a  singularly 
beautiful  parallel  to  the  story  of  the  child  Samuel  in  the  Hebrew  Scripture.  The 
situation  in  this  play,  which  circumstances  had  created,  is  that  of  Creusa,  the  mother, 
in  a  distracted  state,  seeking  unwittingly  the  death  of  her  own  son.  One  of  the  finest 
passages  is  a  dialogue  of  splendid  power  and  beauty  between  Ion  and  Creusa.  For 
freshness,  purity,  and  charm,  Ion  is  a  character  unmatched  in  all  Greek  drama.  The 
whole  play  is  often  pronounced  the  finest  left  by  Euripides.  Its  melodramatic  rich- 
ness in  ingenious  surprises  was  a  new  feature  of  Greek  drama,  which  was  especially 
characteristic  of  the  new  comedy  of  the  next  century.  Mr.  Paley  says  that  "none  of 
the  plays  of  Euripides  so  clearly  show  his  fine  mind,  or  impress  us  with  a  more  favor- 
able idea  of  his  virtuous  and  humane  character."  The  revelation  of  domestic 
emotions  in  the  play,  the  singular  beauty  of  the  scenes  which  it  presents,  and  the 
complexity  and  rapid  transitions  of  its  action,  suggest  a  modern  romantic  drama 
rather  than  one  strictly  Greek.  In  its  general  design  to  represent  Apollo,  the  god  of 
music,  poetry,  medicine,  and  prophecy,  as  the  head,  through  Ion,  of  the  lonians,  the 
play  was  of  great  religious  and  patriotic  interest  to  its  Athenian  audience.  It  can 
never  fail,  with  its  revelations  of  Greek  "sweetness  and  light,"  to  be  of  the  deepest 
human  interest. 


438  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  'Ion*  of  Talfourd  bears  no  relation  beyond  that  of  a  borrowed  name  to  the 
play  of  Euripides.  Its  Ion  figures  as  king  of  Argos,  and  the  dramatic  interest  centres 
in  his  readiness  to  give  his  life  to  appease  the  Divine  anger  shown  by  a  pestilence 
raging  at  Argos.  The  king's  character  is  finely  brought  out,  and  the  impression  given 
of  the  relentless  working  of  destiny  is  in  the  Greek  spirit. 

IPHIGENIA,  a  drama,  by  Euripides  (407  B.C.).  The  third  and  latest,  and  altogether 
the  most  modern,  of  the  great  masters  of  Greek  drama,  twice  used  the  Iphigenia 
story,  —  once  in  the  fine  masterpiece  which  was  represented  during  his  life,  and 
again  in  a  drama  brought  out  after  his  death.  The  latter  represented  the  time  and 
scene  of  the  bringing  of  the  heroine  to  the  altar  of  sacrifice,  and  the  climax  of  the 
play  was  her  readiness  to  accept  a  divine  behest  by  giving  up  her  life.  The  other  and 
the  finer  play  represented  a  time  twenty  years  later.  It  told  how  she  was  snatched 
from  under  the  knife  of  sacrifice  by  Divine  intervention,  and  carried  away  to  the 
land  of  the  Tauri  (where  is  now  the  Crimea),  to  live  in  honor  as  a  priestess  of  Artemis, 
a  feature  of  whose  Taurian  worship  was  the  sacrificial  immolation  of  any  luckless 
strangers  cast  on  shore  by  shipwreck.  Twenty  years  had  passed,  and  the  Greek 
passion  of  Iphigenia  to  return  to  her  own  land,  to  at  least  hear  of  her  people,  was  at  its 
height,  when  two  strangers  from  a  wreck  were  taken,  and  it  was  her  duty  to  preside 
at  their  sacrifice.  They  were  Orestes  and  Pylades,  the  former  her  own  brother. 
The  climax  of  the  play  is  in  her  recognition  of  Orestes,  and  in  the  means  employed 
by  her  for  her  own  and  their  escape.  A  singularly  fine  soliloquy  of  Iphigenia,  upon 
hearing  of  the  capture  of  two  strangers,  is  followed  by  a  dialogue  between  her  and 
Orestes,  unsurpassed,  if  not  unequaled,  by  anything  in  Greek  dramatic  poetry.  Her 
proposal  to  spare  one  to  be  the  bearer  of  a  letter  to  her  Greek  home,  brings  on  a 
contest  of  self-devotion  between  Orestes  and  Pylades  of  wonderful  dramatic  power. 
The  whole  play  shows  Euripides  at  his  best  in  ingenuity  of  construction  and  depth 
of  feeling;  and  all  the  odes  of  the  play  are  marked  by  extreme  lyrical  beauty?  A 
notable  one  among  them  is  the  final  one  on  the  establishment  of  the  worship  of 
Apollo  at  Delphi. 

A  celebrated  parallel  to  the  'Iphigenia'  of  Euripides  "was  conceived  and  executed 
by  Goethe.  It  is  not  properly  an  imitation.  Although  using  scenery  and  characters 
nominally  Greek,  it  is  a  thoroughly  modern  play,  on  lines  of  thought  and  sentiment 
quite  other  than  Greek,  and  with  a  diction  very  unlike  Greek.  Of  this  modern  kind 
it  is  a  drama  of  the  highest  merit,  a  splendid  example  of  modern  psychological  dra- 
matic composition. 

IRON  WOMAN,  THE,  by  Margaret  Deland  (1911).  This  is  a  sequel  to  the '  Awaken- 
ing of  Helena  Ritchie'  and  continues  the  narrative  of  her  life.  The  story  opens 
when  her  adopted  son  David  is  ten  years  old  and  she  is  living  with  him  in  the  manu- 
facturing town  of  Mercer,  situated  but  a  short  distance  from  Old  Chester.  David 
has  three  playmates  of  his  own  age:  Elizabeth  Ferguson,  a  fascinating  and  passionate 
child,  who  lives  with  her  bachelor  uncle,  and  Blair  and  Nannie  Maitland,  whose 
mother  is  known  as  the  "Iron  Woman."  Sarah  Maitland  is  a  woman  of  eccentric 
habits  and  masculine  style.  She  manages  the  Maitland  Iron  Works  which  she  has 
inherited  from  her  husband,  who  only  survived  his  marriage  to  her  by  a  few  months, 
and  who  died  before  the  birth  of  Blair.  Nannie,  the  child  by  a  previous  marriage, 
is  a  gentle  and  timid  girl  devoted  to  her  stepbrother.  The  children  grow  up  and 
Elizabeth  after  having  a  youthful  affair  with  Blair,  becomes  engaged  to  David  who 
is  studying  to  be  a  doctor.  A  misunderstanding  arises  between  them  and  Elizabeth, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  439 

in  a  burst  of  wild  passion,  marries  Blair  who  is  so  much  in  love  with  her  that  he  is 
willing  to  be  false  to  his  old  friend.  Mrs.  Maitland,  whose  rough  exterior  hides  an 
honest  and  affectionate  nature,  is  overwhelmed  by  the  dishonorable  action  of  her  son, 
whom  she  has  idolized,  and  at  once  disinherits  him.  Blair  whose  artistic  nature  has 
been  so  shocked  and  repulsed  by  his  mother's  eccentricities  that  he  has  no  real  affec- 
tion for  her,  is  furious,  and  severs  all  connection  with  her.  An  explosion  occurs  at 
the  works,  and  Sarah  Maitland  is  fatally  hurt.  Before  her  death  she  writes  the  name 
of  Blair  upon  a  check  for  a  large  sum  of  money  which  she  had  planned  to  give  David 
for  building  a  hospital.  She  is  unable  to  sign  the  check  and  Nannie  who  is  the  only 
one  present,  anxious  that  Blair  shall  have  the  money,  forges  her  mother's  name  after 
her  death.  Blair  is  gratified  with  the  bequest  and  is  preparing  to  invest  it  when  the 
truth  becomes  known.  Elizabeth,  who  has  always  loved  David,  asks  Blair  to  give 
him  the  money  and  when  he  declines  to  do  so,  leaves  him  and  goes  to  David.  David, 
who  has  continued  to  love  Elizabeth  passionately,  urges  her  to  flee  with  him,  and 
she  is  ready  to  do  so  when  Helena  Ritchie  appears  upon  the  scene  and  prevents  the 
action  by  confessing  to  them  her  own  experience.  Elizabeth  returns  to  Blair.  But 
after  futile  -efforts  to  win  her  love  he  finally  agrees  to  free  her  and  allows  her  to  get 
a  divorce  and  marry  David.  Helena,  who  has  been  ardently  sought  in  marriage 
by  Robert  Ferguson,  Elizabeth's  uncle,  at  last  gives  in  and  acknowledges  her  love 
for  him. 

IRONMASTER,  THE  (*Le  Maitre  de  Forges'),  by  Georges  Ohnet  (1882),  has  both 
as  novel  and  play,  in  English  as  well  as  French,  been  persistently  popular;  and  in  all 
the  history  of  French  fiction,  few  books  have  sold  better.  Ohnet  wrote  the  story  as  a 
play;  but  no  manager  would  accept  it  until,  after  its  success  as  a  novel,  he  redrama- 
tized  it.  It  is  a  dramatic  love  story,  whose  characters  are:  Claire  de  Beaulieu; 
Madame  de  Beaulieu ;  Gaston,  Duke  de  Bligny,  a  mercenary  lover  who  breaks  faith 
withrClaire  for  the  sake  of  a  fortune,  and  engages  "himself  to  Athenais,  the  daughter  of 
a  rich  but  vulgar  manufacturer;  and  a  rich  young  ironmaster,  Philippe  Derblay, 
of  plebeian  birth  but  excellent  character.  Around  this  small  group  of  actors  moves 
an  energetic  drama  of  baffled  hopes,  disappointed  ambitions,  tribulations  that  purify, 
and  final  happiness.  The  book  has  little  literary  merit;  but  the  rapidity  of  its  move- 
ment and  its  strong  situations  have  given  it  a  secure,  if  temporary,  place  in  French 
and  English  approval. 

ISRAEL  AMONG  THE  NATIONS:  'A  Study  of  the  Jews  and  Anti-Semitism/ 
by  Anatole  Leroy-Beaulieu,  Translated  by  Frances  Hellman  (1896).  A  specially 
careful,  thoughtful,  philosophical  study  of  the  facts  bearing  upon  the  character  of  the 
Jew  in  history  and  his  place  in  modern  life.  It  is  not  so  much  a  defense  of  the  Jews 
against  complaint  and  prejudice,  as  it  is  an  impartial  examination  of  the  Jewish 
situation,  and  a  summary  of  interesting  facts  in  regard  to  the  seven  or  eight  millions 
of  Jews  scattered  amongst  five  or  six  hundred  millions  of  Christians  in  Europe  and 
America,  or  Mohammedans  in  Asia.  The  author  is  a  Frenchman  and  a  Christian, 
who  specially  desires  to  see  France  maintain  the  ground  taken  in  the  emancipation 
of  the  Jews  by  the  French  Revolution.  He  is  familiar  with  the  Jewish  situation  in 
Russia,  Poland,  Roumania,  and  Hungary,  where  Jewish  concentration  is  greatest, 
where  "Israel's  centre  of  gravity"  is  found,  *'a  vast  reservoir  of  Jews  in  the  centre  of 
Europe,  whose  overflow  tends  towards  the  West, "  and  in  view  of  whose  movements 
it  appears  not  unlikely  that  "the  old  European  and  especially  the  young  American 
States  will  be  swept  by  a  long  tidal  wave  of  Jewish  emigration."  The  reader  of  the 


440  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

story,  with  its  episodes  of  discussion,  will  get  a  clear  view  of  many  interesting  points 
touching  Jewish  origins  and  developments,  and  will  find  himself  in  a  position  to  fairly 
judge  the  Jewish  problem.  There  is  no  lack  of  sympathy  in  the  writer,  yet  he  frankly 
says  that  "modern  Israel  would  seem  to  be  morally,  as  well  as  physically,  a  dying 
race."  Conscience,  he  says,  "has  become  contracted  and  obscured";  and  "as 
to  honor,  where  could  the  Jew  possibly  have  learnt  its  meaning? — beaten,  reviled, 
scorned,  abused  by  everybody." 

ISRAEL,  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF,  by  Ernest  Renan  (5  vols.).  The 
1  Vie  de  Je"sus, '  or  Life  of  Jesus,  of  the  most  accomplished  of  recent  authors,  the  charm 
of  which  has  carried  its  sale  in  France  alone  to  over  300,000  copies,  came  out  in  1863 1 
and  was  the  first  of  a  series  of  seven  volumes  devoted  to  a  review  of  the  origins  and 
early  development  of  Christianity,  down  to  the  date  in  Roman  history  marked  by  the 
death  of  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius.  Upon  the  completion  of  this  work  M. 
Renan  set  himself  the  task  of  adding,  by  way  of  introduction  to  his  history  of  Christian 
origins,  a  history  of  the  Jews;  and  on  October  24th,  1891,  he  was  able  to  write,  at  the 
close  of  a  fifth  volume,  that  the  task  was  finished.  There  are  two  "books"  in  each 
of  his  five  volumes,  and  the  successive  stages  of  the  history  are  these:  (i)  the  Israel- 
ites in  their  nomad  state,  until  their  establishment  in  the  land  of  Canaan;  (2)  the 
Israelites  as  settled  tribes,  until  the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  David;  (3) 
the  Single  Kingdom;  (4)  the  two  kingdoms;  (5)  the  Kingdom  of  Judah  alone;  (6) 
the  Captivity  in  Babylon;  (7)  Judaea  under  Persian  Domination;  (8)  the  Jews  under 
Greek  Domination;  (9)  Jewish  Autonomy;  (10)  the  Jewish  People  under  Greek 
Domination. 

Asaphilologist  of  distinction,  an  expert  in  the  whole  field  of  Semitic  studies,  a  traveler 
and  archaeologist  familar  with  the  scenes  and  the  surviving  monuments  of  Palestine, 
Renan  brought  exceptional  knowledge  to  the  work  of  restoring  the  past  of  the  Israelite 
race.  The  freedom  of  his  opinions  led  him  away  from  traditional  paths  while  the 
warmth  of  his  sentiment,  often  ardently  Jewish,  and  the  richness  of  his  imagination, 
gave  to  the  more  significant  pages  of  Hebrew  story  an  illumination  rarely  found  in 
sober  history. 

ITALIAN  JOURNEYS,  by  W.  D.  Howells  (1867),  is  the  record  of  leisurely  excursions 
up  and  down  the  land, — to  Padua,  Ferrara,  Genoa,  Pompeii,  Naples,  Rome,  and  many 
other  towns  of  picturesque  buildings  and  melodious  names,  from  Capri  to  Trieste. 
Mr.  Howells  knows  his  Italy  so  well  that  though  he  writes  as  a  foreigner  he  is  in  perfect 
sympathy  with  his  subject.  He  knows  the  innkeepers,  guides,  and  railway  men  to  be 
dead  to  truth  and  honesty,  but  he  likes  them;  and  he  knows  that  Tasso's  prison 
never  held  Tasso,  and  that  the  history  of  most  of  the  historic  places  is  purely  legendary, 
but  he  delights  to  believe  in  them  all.  He  sees  in  the  broken  columns  and  fragmentary 
walls  of  Pompeii  all  the  splendor  of  the  first  century,  that  time  of  gorgeous  wealth ; 
and  in  an  old  house  of  Arqua,  he  has  a  vision  of  Petrarch  writing  at  his  curious  carved 
table.  In  crumbling  Herculaneum  his  spirit  is  touched  to  wistful  sympathy  by  a 
garden  of  wild  flowers:  "Here  —  where  so  long  ago  the  flowers  had  bloomed,  and 
perished  in  the  terrible  blossoming  of  the  mountain  that  sent  .up  its  awful  fires  in  the 
awful  similitude  of  Nature's  harmless  and  lovely  forms,  and  showered  its  dcstroyr 
petals  all  abroad  —  was  it  not  tragic  to  find  again  the  soft  tints,  the  graceful  sh 
the  sweet  perfumes,  of  the  earth's  immortal  life?  Of  them  that  planted  and  tena., 
and  plucked  and  bore  in  their  bosoms  and  twined  in  their  hair  these  fragile  childrei 
of  the  summer,  what  witness  in  the  world?  Only  the  crouching  skeletons  under  the 


THE   READER'S   DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  44! 

tables —  Alas  and  alas! "  His  love  of  the  beautiful  is  tempered  by  a  keen  sense  ol 
humor;  and  the  combination  makes  his  volume  a  delightful  record,  with  the  sunshine 
of  Italy  shut  between  its  covers. 

ITALIAN  REPUBLICS:  'The  Origin,  Progress,  and  Fall  of  Italian  Freedom,1 
by  J.  C.  L.  de  Sismondi  (1832).  An  extremely  useful  story  of  Italy  from  the 
beginning  of  the  twelfth  century  to  1814  A.DM  with  an  introductory  sketch  of  the 
history  from  476  A.D.  to  1138.  The  work  was  prepared  for  Lardner's  Cabinet  'Cy- 
clopaedia,' after  its  author  had  told  the  larger  story  in  an  elaborate  work  extending  tc 
sixteen  volumes. 

ITALY,  see  RENAISSANCE  IN. 

ITALY  OF  TO-DAY,  by  Bolton  King  and  Thomas  Okey  (1901).  The  authors  limit 
themselves  tu  an  attempt  to  describe  the  outer  manifestations  of  the  life  of  Italy,  as 
they  shape  themselves  in  politics,  in  social  mo\  ements,  in  literature.  Approaching 
the  subject  without  prepossessions  they  have  endeavored  to  understand  and  describe 
the  point  of  view  of  each  section  of  the  national  life  as  described  by  its  own  advocates, 
whether  Catholic,  Liberal,  Socialist,  or  Conservative.  To  the  student  who  desires 
to  understand  the  special  characteristics  of  Northern  and  Southern  Italy,  the  activi- 
ties of  trade  and  manufacture,  the  lives  uf  the  peasants  and  the  remarkable  agricultural 
revival,  the  education,  finance,  and  local  government  of  Italy,  the  existing  relations 
between  Church  and  State,  the  present  volume  will  be  most  informing.  A  concluding 
chapter  deals  with  the  great  names  in  the  literature  of  the  present  generation,  Carduc- 
ci,  Fogazzaro,  Verga,  Gabriele  d'Annunzio.  The  conclusion  to  which  the  authors' 
careful  and  sympathetic  investigation  has  led  them  is  that  "the  divisions  in  Italian 
life  are  neither  as  deep  nor  as  permanent  as  they  are  often  thought  to  be;  next,  that 
underneath  the  slough  of  misgovernment  and  corruption  and  political  apathy  there 
is  a  rejuvenated  nation,  instinct  with  the  qualities  that  make  a  great  people." 

IVANHOE,  one  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  most  famous  novels,  was  written  and  published 
in  1819,  a  year  of  great  domestic  sorrow  to  its  author.  The  manuscript  is  now  at 
Abbotsford;  and,  according  to  Lockhart,  is  a  remarkable  and  characteristic  specimen 
of  his  penmanship.  Immediately  after  its  appearance, '  Ivanhoe '  became  a  favorite. 
and  now  ranks  among  the  most  brilliant  and  stirring  of  romantic  tales.  Sir  Wilfred, 
Knight  of  Ivanhoe,  a  young  Saxon  knight,  brave,  loyal,  and  handsome,  is  disinherited 
by  his  father,  Cedric  of  Rotherwood,  on  account  of  his  love  for  Rowena,  a  Saxon 
heiress  and  ward  of  Cedric's.  Ivanhoe  is  a  favorite  with  Richard  L,  Cteur-de-Lion, 
has  won  renown  in  Palestine,  and  now  returns  in  the  disguise  of  a,. palmer  to  see 
Rowena  at  Rotherwood.  Under  the  name  of  Desdichado  (The  Disinherited^  nt 
enters  the  lists  of  the  Ashby  Tournament;  and  having  won  the  victory,  is  crowned 
by  the  Lady  Rowena.  He  is  wounded,  however ,  and  returns  to  the  care  of  his  friends, 
Isaac  of  York,  a  wealthy  Jew,  and  his  daughter  Rebecca,  The  latter  tends  him,  and 
loses  her  heart  to  this  chivalrous  knight.  On  returning  from  the  Tournament,  Row* 
is  captured  by  the  enamored  De  Bracy  and  confined  in  the  Tower  of  Torquil- 
After  her  release  she  is  united  in  marriage  to  Ivanhoe,  through  the  effort  of 
Richard.  While  the  Lady  Rowena  is  a  model  of  beauty,  dignity,  and  gentle- 
she  is  somewhat  overshadowed  by  Rebecca,  who  was  Scott's  favorite  of  all  his 
She  is  as  generous  as  her  father  is  avaricious;  and  although  loving  Ivan- 
fco*  with  intense  devotion,  realizes  that  her  union  with  him  is  impossible.  She  noblj 


442  THE  READER'S   DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

offers  to  the  Templar  Bois-Guilbcrt  any  sum  that  he  may  demand  for  the  release  ol 
the  imprisoned  Rowena.  A  strong  scene  occurs  when  she  defies  this  infatuated  Cru- 
sader, and  threatens  to  throw  herself  from  the  turret  into  the  court  yard.  Bois* 
Guilbert  carries  her  to  the  Preceptory  of  Templestowe,  where  she  is  convicted  of 
sorcery  on  account  of  her  religion,  her  skill  in  medicine,  and  her  attractiveness, 
Condemned  to  the  stake,  she  is  permitted  a  trial  by  combat,  and  selects  Ivanhoe  for 
her  champion.  Rebecca  is  pronounced  guiltless  and  free. 

Another  important  character  is  Richard  the  Lion-Hearted,  who  returns  to  England 
from  Palestine  at  the  moment  when  his  brother's  conspiracy  against  him  is  most 
rank.  Disguised  as  the  Black  Sluggard  and  the  Knight  of  the  Fetterlock,  he  per- 
forms feats  of  valor  at  the  Ashby  Tournament  and  as  the  Black  Knight,  wanden 
through  Sherwood  Forest  and  holds  high  revel  with  the  Hermit  of  Copmanhurst,  th« 
jovial  Friar  Tuck.  Through  Robin  Hood  he  escapes  assassination,  and  conducts  th* 
successful  siege  against  Torquilstone  Castle.  Maurice  de  Bracy,  a  conspirator 
against  King  Richard,  is  a  suitor  for  the  hand  of  Rowena;  Front  de  Bceuf  is  a  brutal 
baron  in  league  with  Prince  John;  Cedric  the  Saxon,  Ivanhoe's  father,  support* 
Athelstane's  suit  for  Rowena,  desiring  to  see  the  Saxons  reinstated;  and  Isaac  Oi 
York,  the  wealthy  Jew,  is  a  well-drawn  character.  Gurth,  Cedric's  swineherd,  who 
is  generally  accompanied  by  his  faithful  dog  Fangs,  is  a  typical  feudal  retainer; 
Wamba,  Cedric's  jester,  is  another;  and  Ulrica,  a  vindictive  old  Saxon  hag,  whA 
perishes  in  the  flames  of  Torquilstone  Castle  to  which  she  sets  fire,  is  one  of  those 
strange,  half  prophetic,  half  weird  women  whom  Scott  loves  to  introduce  into  his 
stories. 

In  the  scenes  in  Sherwood  Forest,  Robin  Hood's  men  perform  feats  of  archery  and 
deeds  of  valor,  drawn  from  the  Robin  Hood  ballads  and  legends. 

Retainers,  lords  and  ladies,  knights,  Templars,  monks,  priests,  prisoners,  jailors, 
and  men-at-arms  are  introduced;  and  the  book  is  full  of  brilliantly  colored 
pictures  of  the  period  which  abounds  in  contrast  between  the  Saxons  and  the 
Normans. 

JACK,  by  Alphonse  Daudet  (1876),  is  a  story  of  experience  and  emotion.  Less 
skillful  treatment  would  have  made  so  tragical  a  tale  revolting.  But  Daudet  does 
not  content  himself  with  cold  psychological  analysis  or  brilliant  exposition  of  character* 
His  dominant  quality  is  a  passionate  sympathy,  whu-h  communicates  itself  to  his 
readers,  and  forces  them  to  share  his  pity  or  anger  or  admiration.  Jack,  introduced 
to  us  as  a  pretty  boy,  beautifully  dressed,  might  have  lived  an  adequate  life  but  for 
his  light  and  selfish  mother.  He  is  sacrificed  to  her  moral  weakness,  and  to  the 
bitter  selfishness  of  his  stepfather  D'Argenton.  The  latter,  a  noble  idealist  in  theory, 
while  petty  and  base  in  practice,  is  jealous  of  this  inconvenient,  superfluous  Jack 
and  thrusts  him  outside  the  home.  Jack's  life  is  a  long  martyrdom,  from  his  home- 
sick days  with  the  little  black  King  of  Dahomey,  in  a  nondescript  school  somewhat 
like  the  Dotheboys  Hall  made  famous  by  Dickens,  until  his  final  "release7'  from  a 
bed  in  the  charity  hospital.  He  becomes  dull,  sickly,  inert;  but  his  finer  qualities 
die  hard,  and  are  perhaps  only  latent  even  during  his  worst  days  of  labor  in  an  iron 
foundry,  and  of  fevered  exhaustion  as  stoker  on  an  ocean  steamer.  But  life  never 
becomes  quite  hopeless;  for  love  and  sympathy  reach  even  to  Jack,  and  offer  him  a 
partial  compensation.  After  the  publication  of '  Jack, '  Daudet  wrote  a  sketch  of  the 
original  of  the  hero;  for  in  its  main  outline  the  story  is  a  true  one.  Here,  as  usual, 
he  took  a  framework  of  fact,  upon  which  his  poetic  instinct  and  sympathetic  imagi- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  443 

JACK  OF  THE  MILL,  THE  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  OF.  Jack  of  the  Mil£ 
commonly  called  Lord  Othmill,  created  for  his  eminent  services  Baron  Waldeck  and 
Knight  of  Kitcottie.  A  fireside  stnry,  by  William  Howitt  (1844).  The  scenes  oi 
these  adventures  lie  partly  in  England  during  the  reign  of  Henry  V.,  partly  in  Bohe- 
mia and  Germany.  They  are  a  sucees^ion  of  bloodthirsty  and  thrilling  conflicts, 
m  which  Jack,  the  hero,  with  Maru-ly  an  effort,  overcomes  robbers  and  gipsies, 
fights  the  opponents  of  tin-  Lollards  and  the  Hussites  with  equal  vigor,  and  obtains 
honors,  preferment,  rind  a  lively  v»ifc.  From  the  moment  when,  a  runaway  boy,  he 
fills  his  pockets  with  fish-ho^ks  tu  trap  the  handb  uf  thieving  companions,  to  the  time 
when,  with  a  single  mrnpamnn,  he  overcomes  the  robber-baron  Hans  von  Stein,  with 
his  train,  —  a  .semi-historical  character  whose  castle,  honeycombed  with  dungeons, 
is  still  viaited  by  tourists  in  Germany,  —  hi&  wit  and  success  never  fail;  and  as  valor 
as  well  as  virtue  has  its  due  reward,  Jack,  the  vagrant  frequenter  uf  the  old  mill, 
becomes  in  turn  John  Othmill,  respected  and  feared  by  society,  and  finally  the  great 
Lord  Waldeck.  The  author  allows  himself  considerable  latitude  of  imagination 
and  plot,  and  the  result  is  aptly  named  in  the  quaint  term  of  apology  he  uses  in  the 
preface,  a  "  hatch-up." 

JACOB  FAITHFUL;  OR,  THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  WATERMAN,  a  novel,  by  Captain 
Marryat  (1834),  describes  the  career  of  a  ymng  man  who  is  born  on  a  Thames 
"lighter,"  and  up  to  the  age  of  eleven  has  never  set  foot  on  land.  The  "lighter" 
is 'manned  by  his  father,  his  mother,  and  lum^elf.  His  father  is  a  round-bellied, 
phlegmatic  little  man,  addicted  to  his  pipe,  and  indulging  in  but  few  words:  three 
apothegms,  "It's  no  use  crying — what's  done  can't  be  helped";  "Take  it  coolly"- 
"  Better  luck  next  time, "  serving  him  on  every  occasion.  These  Jacob  inherits,  and 
makes  frequent  use  of  in  after  life.  His  mother  indulges  in  strong  drink  and  comes 
to>a.  terrible  end.  One  of  his  first  acts  on  beginning  a  life  on  shore  is  to  sell  his  mother's 
ass'es  for  twenty  pounds,  —  the  earliest  bargain  he  ever  made.  After  spending 
several  years  at  school,  where  his  adventures  are  interesting,  and  some  of  them 
laughable,  he  is  bound  apprentice,  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  to  a  waterman.  Now  fairly 
launched  in  life,  his  real  adventures  begin.  Some  of  the  curious  experiences  that 
;im$y  befall  a  waterman  form  the  staple  of  the  book.  It  is  written  in  a  lively  style, 
and  is  thought  to  DC  Gue  of  Marryat's  best  books. 

JAN  VEDDER'S  WIFE,  by  Mrs.  Amelia  Barr  (1885),  is  a  story  of  life  in  the  Shet- 
land Islands  seventy  years  ago.  It  is  highly  dramatic,  with  a  delightful  breeziness  of 
atmosphere.  The  personages  feel  and  think  with  the  simple  directness  that  seems  a 
result  of  close  contact  with  nature.  Jan  Vedder,  a  handsome  young  sailor,  "often 
at  the  dance,  seldom  at  the  kirk,  "  marries  Margaret,  the  daughter  of  rich  Peter  Fae. 
He  is  clever  but  self-indulgent,  and  fettered  by  inertia;  while  Margaret  is  exacting, 
selfish,  self-satisfied,  and  thrifty  to  meanness.  He  needs  money,  and  when  she 
refuses  to  help  him,  draws  her  savings  from  the  bank  \\ithout  her  knowledge.  Then 
Mirgaret  returns  to  her  father's  house,  and  refuses  to  see  him.  From  this  point 
•a  double  thread  of  interest  attracts  the  reader,  who  follows  the  separated  fortunes 
of  Jan  and  Margaret  through  years  of  unhappiness,  poverty,  and  distrust.  .  The 
moral  of  the  story  is  the  danger  of  the  sin  of  selfishness;  and  when  the  "offending 
Adam  is  whipped  out"  of  two  stru^ling  soul-.,  the  reader  shares  their  happiness. 
The  local  color  is  vivid,  and  the  story  delightfully  simple. 

fANE  EYRE  (1847),  the  novel  wl.'n  li  «.•;.' abli  hrd  Charlotte  Bronte's  reputation  as  a 
Jmter  of  fiction,  is  in  a  large  decree  the  remrd  of  her  own  development.  In  thO 


444  THE  READER'S  DRIEST  OF  BOOKS 

character  of  Jane  Eyre,  the  young  authoress  first  found  an  outlet  for  the  storm  and 
stress  of  her  own  nature*.  The  hook  is  therefore  autobiographical  in  the  truest  sense, 
The  heroine,  Jane  Eyre,  is  an  orphan.  As  u  child  she  ::>  misunderstood  and  dis- 
liked by  her  protectors.  She  is  sent  early  to  Lowood  School,  an  institution  charitable 
in  the  coldest  sense  of  the  term.  Its  original  was  Cowan  Bridge,  the  school  attended 
by  four  of  the  Bronte  sisters;  from  which  Maria  and  Elizabeth  were  removed  in  a 
dying  condition.  The  description  of  Jane  Eyre's  school  days  forms  one  of  the  most 
vivid,  and  in  a  sense  dramatic,  portions  of  the  novel.  After  leaving  Lowood,  she 
becomes  governess  to  the  ward  of  a  certain  Mr.  Rochester,  an  eccentric  man  of  the 
world,  whose  eccentricity  is  largely  the  fruit  of  misfortune.  He  is  tied  to  an  insane 
wife,  her  insanity  being  the  result  of  vicious  living.  She  is  confined  atThornwood, 
the  house  of  Rochester;  but  the  heroine  docs  not  know  of  her  existence.  Rochester 
falls  in  love  with  Jane  Eyre,  attracted  by  her  nobility  of  nature,  her  strength,  and  her 
unconventionally ;  and  finally  asks  her  to  marry  him.  His  force  and  his  love  for  her 
win  her  consent.  They  are  separated  at  the  altar,  however,  by  the  revelation  of  the 
existence  of  Rochester's  iirst  wife.  The  two  are  reunited  at  last  only  by  a  tragedy. 
Charlotte  Bronte  invested  the  character  of  Rochester  with  a  fascination  that 
made  him  the  hero  in  fiction  of  half  the  women  in  England.  Jane  Eyre  herself 
is  no  ordinary  heroine.  Her  creator  had  the  boldness  to  reject  the  pink-and-white 
Amelia  type  of  woman,  that  had  reigned  in  the  novel  since  Richardson,  and  to  sub- 
stitute one  whose  mind,  not  her  face,  was  her  fortune.  Rochester  himself  is  destitute 
of  gallantry,  of  all  those  qualities  belonging  to  the  ideal  lover  in  fiction.  This  new 
departure  made  the  book  famous  at  once.  Its  literary  originality  was  not  less 
.striking  than  the  choice  of  types. 

JANICE   MEREDITH,    by   Paul    Leicester  Ford    (1899).      This    book   presents 
with  realistic   accuracy  the  most   dramatic  episodes  of   the    American   Revolu- 
tion.    It  gives  a  fair-minded  picture  of  events  and  conditions  and  is  most  amusing 
in  its  old-time  flavor,  being  faithful  to  the  spirit  of  tin-  timrs,  and  offering  the  reader 
a  striking  sketch  of  George  Washington,     The  opening  scene  is  laid  near  Brunswick 
in  the  province  of  New  Jersey  in  the  year  1774,  and  &  view  i.-;  presented  of  the  Tory- 
household  of  the  Merediths,  whoso  toa-<]rinking  habits  are  protested  against  by  the 
Sons  of  Liberty.    Janice,  the  heroine,  is  n  vi various  maid  of  fif  Urn  at  the  time  the 
story  opens,  and  a  natural  coquette,    This  sprightly  heroine  is  made  the  centre 
around  which  the  most  thrilling  episodes  of  the  Revolution  revolve.    She  subdues 
the  British  hearts  at  I'hiludclphin,  i.;  tin- life  of  ihe  cnptmr,  in  Virginia,  and  conquers 
both  friend  and  foe  in  Hie  trenclus  of  Yorktcwn.     The  t.lfiy  of  her  varying  fortunes 
is  capitally  told,  and  the  reader  follows  Janice  ami  her  l:<'i"\  lover,  Col.  John  Brcrcton, 
through  manifold  wild  adventures  and  hmrbreudth  e-,enpr;,    Brereton  fulfils  perilous 
missions  for  the  patriotic  cause,  undergoes  the  m<  ist  t  n  iutf '  'nk'uls  and  narrowly  escapes 
being  hanged  as  a  spy.    He  exerts  himself  to  (heulmost  toresetie  the  Meredith  family 
from  impending  misfortunes  and  is  misrepresented  and  unjustly  accused  of  crueltj 
towards  them.    Ke  becomes  the  trusted  friend  of  \Vnshiiitfton,  and  in  the  end  wins  th< 
hand  and  heart  of  the  impulsive  and  capricious  Janue,  \vhuse  fair  fare  has  wrough' 
such  havoc  among  her  countrymen  and  their  opponents.    After  endless  misunder 
standings,  separations,  and  the  unraveling  of  many  complicated  circumstances,  Jama 
and  Brereton  are  united  and  receive  the  blessing  of  General  and  Mrs,  Washington. 

JAPAN,  AN  ATTEMPT  AT  INTERPRETATION,   by   Lafcadio   Hearn    (1904! 
"s  an  account  of  that  countrv  bv  one  who  had  identified  himself  as  closely  as  i 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  445 

European  possibly  could  with  the  life  of  Japan  and  who  was  moreover  a  master  of 
English  style.  After  a  graceful  introduction,  emphasizing  the  unfamiliarity  and 
charm  of  Japan  for  the  foreigner,  he  proceeds  to  an  exposition  of  the  religion  and  the 
social  institutions  of  the  country,  laying  great  importance  on  the  former  as  the  spring 
of  all  Japanese  art,  ethics,  and  government.  In  Shintoism,  an  indigenous  type  of 
ancestor-worship,  modified  by  Chinese  culture  and  by  Buddhism,  he  finds  the  essence 
of  the  Japanese  religion.  The  principle  of  loyalty,  whether  to  the  family  dead,  or  to 
the  great  men  of  the  nation  as  represented  in  the  government,  is  the  fundamental  in 
all  Japanese  conduct.  Its  elaboration  by  Buddhism  both  popular  and  philosophic, 
its  modification  in  feudal  times,  its  return  to  an  earlier  simplicity  in  the  present  cult 
of  the  Emperor  are  all  pointed  out.  The  crushing  of  Roman  Catholicism  in  the 
seventeenth  century  is  described  as  a  process  regrettable  for  its  cruelty  but  necessary 
to  the  happy  and  successful  development  of  the  nation.  The  writer  also  looks  with 
disfavor  on  such  modern  missionary  effort  as  shows  no  tolerance  for  the  principle  of 
ancestor- worship,  which,  he  maintains,  in  an  essential  factor  in  the  social  continuity 
of  Japan.  There  are  some  interesting  speculations  on  the  future  development, 
political,  social,  and  religious,  of  the  nation  which  had  just  discomfited  Russia  and 
entered  the  ranks  of  the  modern  military  powers  and  industrial  states.  In  general 
Hearn  believed  that  the  way  of  safety  for  Japan  lay  in  conservatism  as  to  the  re- 
linquishing of  her  old  beliefs  and  institutions. 

JEAN  CHRISTOPHE,  by  Remain  Rolland  ( 1904-12) .  A  biographical  psychological 
novel  in  ten  volumes.  The  hero,  Jean  Christophe,  is  a  musical  genius  of  heroic 
character.  He  rebels  against  sham  and  hypocrisy  and  seeks  sincerely  for  truth  in 
literature,  politics,  and  society  as  well  as  music.  The  book  is  a  discussion  of  the 
intellectual  movements  and  activities  of  modern  times.  "Nothing  that  has  ever 
been  said  or  thought  of  life  is  accepted  without  being  brought  to  the  test  of  Jean 
Christophe 's  own  life."  He  is  born  into  sordid  poverty  in  a  small  German  town,  near 
the  French  frontier.  His  drunken  father  trains  him  to  appear  as  a  musical  prodigy 
before  he  is  seven  years  old,  and  at  fourteen  he  is  the  breadwinner  for  the  family. 
He  offends  the  musicians  of  his  native  town  by  his  original  ideas  in  music  and  the 
independence  of  his  thought.  A  brawl  with  the  soldiers  is  the  occasion  for  a  dis- 
cussion of  militarism,  and  forces  Jean  Christophe  to  leave  Germany  when  he  is 
twenty,  and  escape  to  Paris.  Here  in  direst  poverty  he  fights  for  recognition  for  his 
music  and  his  uncompromising  ideals,  and  French  morals,  manners,  and  music  are 
1  passed  in  review.  The  true  France  is  revealed  to  him  through  his  rich  friendship 
with  Oliver.  A  volume  is  given  to  the  story  of  Antoinette,  the  lovely  devoted  sister 
of  Oliver,  her  struggle  with  poverty  to  educate  her  brother,  and  keep  a  home  for  him, 
and  her  death  when  she  attains  success.  Oliver  marries  Jacqueline,  and  their  love, 
marriage,  and  estrangement  is  an  exquisite  study.  Jean  Christophe  becomes  in- 
terested in  syndicalism.  In  a  first  of  May  street  fight  Oliver  is  killed  and  Jean 
Christophe  made  a  fugitive  again.  He  crosses  the  frontier  into  Switzerland.  There 
is  a  passionate  episode  with  Anna,  the  wife  of  his  friend  and  host.  Jean  Christophe 
falls  desperately  in  love  many  times  both  spiritually  and  grossly.  He  suffers  dis- 
illusion and  recovers  and  then  falls  in  love  again.  He  finds  happiness  at  last  in  a 
platonic  friendship  with  Grazia,  an  Italian  countess,  whom  he  had  known  in  Paris. 
In  her  salon  in  Rome  he  meets  the  young  party  of  truth  seekers  of  Italy  whose  motto 
is  "Think  with  courage. "  His  genius  is  recognized,  and  he  returns  to  Paris,  and  dies 
unaffected  by  his  success,  and  happy  to  have  brought  together  Oliver's  son  and 
Grazia 's  daughter.  The  discussions  of  modern  music  and  the  conditions  of  musical 


446  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

success  take  up  a  large  part  of  the  series,  one  or  two  volumes  being  almost  entirely 
devoted  to  these  subjects.  A  description  of  the  first  appearance  of  the  hero  as  an 
infant  prodigy  will  be  found  in  the  LIBRARY  under  Romain  Holland. 

JEAN  TETEROL'S  IDEA  ('L'Idcc  de  Jean  Teterol'),  by  Charles  Victor  Cherbuliez 
(1878).  A  clever  narrator  rather  than  a  keen  psychologist,  Cherbuliez  can  tell  a 
good  story  in  a  picturesque  style,  with  an  accompaniment  of  interesting  philosophic 
reflections.  Jean  Teterol,  a  young  peasant  abused  by  his  master,  the  Baron  Sali- 
gneux,  shakes  the  dust  of  Saligneux  from  his  shoes,  and  departs,  vowing  vengeance. 
The  idea  which  comes  to  him  then,  and  which  thenceforth  dominates  his  life,  is  a 
determination  to  become  a  rich  proprietor  of  land  instead  of  a  serf.  He  goes  to  Paris, 
and  there  by  hard  work  and  by  shrewdness  amasses  a  fortune.  At  fifty-five,  many 
times  a  millionaire,  he  is  a  widower  with  one  son,  Lionel,  to  whom  he  looks  for  the 
fruition  of  all  his  ambitions.  This  boy,  his  "Prince  of  Wales, "  has  had  every  sort  of 
advantage.  He  may  marry  an  aristocrat  and  become  one  himself.  His  father  regards 
him  with  a  tyrannical  pride  and  affection,  somewhat  galling  to  Lionel's  more  refined 
nature.  Jean  Teterol  returns  to  the  village  of  Saligneux  and  there  learns  that  his 
old  master  is  dead;  that  his  son,  the  present  Baron,  has  a  beautiful  daughter,  Claire; 
and  that  the  estate  is  embarrassed  and  the  Baron  in  debt.  Jean  craftily  manages  to 
become  his  chief  creditor,  and  then  demands  Claire's  hand  for  Lionel.  Prom  this 
point  the  complications  of  the  story  multiply  rapidly  Claire  is  made  an  interesting 
heroine;  Lionel  rises  in  the  esteem  of  the  reader:  and  the  fortunes  of  the  two,  and  of 
the  old  estate,  offer  to  Cherbuliez  the  material  of  an  agreeable  domestic  tale.  The 
manner  of  it  is  graceful,  and  its  touch  delightfully  free. 

JEFFERSON,  JOSEPH,  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  (1890).  The  story  of  the 
third  Joseph  Jefferson,  grandson  of  the  great  comedian  of  that  name,  runs  from 
February  20,  1829,  through  more  than  sixty  years  to  1890;  and  it  is  little  to  say  that 
there  is  not  a  dull  page  in  it.  In  clearness  and  charm  of  manner,  humor,  and  wealth 
of  anecdote,  Mr.  Jefferson  commands  his  readers  in  his  story  precisely  as  he  has  so 
long  commanded  his  hearers  on  the  stage. 

The  narrative  begins  at  the  beginning,  —  toddling  infancy  in  Washington,  and 
childhood  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore,  —  wherever  the  father,  Joseph 
Jefferson,  manager  of  a  theatre,  might  be.  The  young  actor  is  in  Chicago  in  1839, 
where  James  Wallack,  Sr.,  the  elder  Booth,  and  Macready  came  into  view;  he  goes 
to  Mississippi  and  to  Mexico;  and  returns  to  Philadelphia  and  New  York.  His 
reminiscences  arc  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  James  Wallack,  Jr.,  John  E.  Owens,  William  Bur- 
ton, Charles  Burke,  Julia  Dean,  James  E.  Murdock,  and  Edwin  Forrest.  Then  the 
scene  shifts  to  London  and  Paris.  Once  more  at  home,  we  make  acquaintance  with 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  and  the  climax  of  the  master's  creative  power.  Again  he  ranges 
the  world  as  far  as  Australia,  Van  Diemen's  Land,  and  New  Zealand,  coming  home 
by  way  of  London.  Of  so  wide  a  life  the  scenes  were  many  and  varied,  and  a  great 
number  of  the  chief  masters  and  notable  ladies  of  the  stage  for  half  a  century  come  up 
for  mention;  and  always,  in  report  of  scenes  or  portrayal  of  character,  a  refinement 
both  of  thought  and  of  style  gives  the  narrative  a  peculiar  charm. 

JEROME;  'A  Poor  Man/  by  Mary  E.  Wilkins  (1897).  Jerome  is  the  vignette  of  a 
New  England  youth,  relieved  against  a  background  of  provincial  types.  When  hardly 
out  of  his  teens,  he  is  called  upon  by  the  sudden  disappearance  of  his  father  to  take 
upon  his  shoulders  the  burden  of  the  family.  His  course  is  a  pathway  of  misfortune, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  447 

sacrifice,  and  hardship,  leading  by  rugged  steps  to  a  summit  of  well-earned  prosperity. 
A  great  sacrifice  to  a  high  ideal  is  the  turning-point  of  the  story.  Like  Miss  Wilkins's 
other  works, '  Jerome '  is  a  careful  and  truthful  study  of  New  England  village  character. 

JERUSALEM,  by  Selma  Lagerlof  (1901).  Part  i  of  this  story  is  a  series  of  quaint 
pictures  of  Swedish  village  life,  centering  around  tne  fortunes  of  an  ancient  peasant 
family,  the  Ingmars  of  Ingmarson.  The  young  owner  of  the  Ingmar  estate  courted 
Brita  and  brought  her  home,  but  his  thrift  postponed  the  wedding  too  long,  and  the 
unhp.ppy  Brita  did  away  with  her  child  and  is  now  serving  a  term  in  prison.  Ingmar 
and  his  conscience  debate  as  to  whether  he  shall  accept  her  family's  offer  to  send  her 
to  America,  or  right  the  wrong  he  has  done  by  bringing  her  home.  He  meets  Brita 
at  the  prison,  wins  her  love,  and  finds  to  his  surprise  that  he  has  earned  the  respect  of 
the  community  and  his  father's  title  of  "Great  Ingmar."  Karin,  Ingmar 's  daughter, 
takes  the  management  of  the  estate  at  his  death,  and  little  Ingmar  goes  to  live  with  the 
schoolmaster  to  escape  his  drunken  brother-in-law,  who  fortunately  dies  before  the 
inheritance  is  wasted.  Karin  marries  her  first  love,  joins  a  religious  sect  led  by  a 
revivalist  from  America,  and  puts  up  the  farm  at  auction  to  get  the  money  to  join  a 
pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem.  Young  Ingmar,  penniless,  stands  watching  the  possessions 
of  generations  of  Ingmars  dispersed  by  the  auctioneer,  and  finally  yields  to  his  devo- 
tion to  the  land,  agreeing  to  give  up  his  betrothed  Gertrude,  the  schoolmaster's 
daughter,  to  marry  a  rich  wife  to  save  the  farm.  Gertrude  joins  the  pilgrims.  Part 
2  is  the  community  life  of  the  peasants  in  Jerusalem.  The  story  ends  in  Sweden  at 
the  Ingmar  farm,  with  the  reconciliation  and  the  love  story  of  Ingmar  and  his  wife 
after  Ingmar  has  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem  to  bring  back  Gertrude.  This 
part  of  the  story  is  founded  on  a  religious  pilgrimage  made  by  the  peasants  of  Dale- 
carlia,  Switzerland,  to  the  Holy  Land,  an  enterprise  in  which  the  author  took  part. 

JERUSALEM,  THE  CITY  OF  HEROD  AND  SALADIN,  by  Sir  Walter  Besant  and 
Professor  E.  H.  Palmer  (1871,  1888).  A  history  published  under  the  auspices  of  the 
society  known  as  "The  Palestine  Exploration  Fund."  It  covers  a  period  and  is 
compiled  from  materials  not  included  in  any  other  work.  It  begins  with  the  siege  by 
Titus,  70  A.D.,  and  continues  to  the  fourteenth  century;  including  the  early  Christian 
period,  the  Moslem  invasion,  the  mediaeval  pilgrimages,  the  pilgrimages  by  Moham- 
medans, the  Crusades,  the  Latin  Kingdom  from  1099  A.D.  to  1291,  the  victorious 
career  of  Saladin,  the  Crusade  of  the  Children,  and  other  episodes  in  the  history  of  the 
city  and  of  the  country.  The  use  of  Crusading  and  Arabic  sources  for  the  preparation 
of  the  work,  and  the  auspices  under  which  it  has  been  published,  give  this  history  a 
value  universally  recognized. 

JERUSALEM  DELIVERED  ('  Gerusalemme  Liberata'),  an  epic  poem  on  the  First 
Crusade  by  Torquato  Tasso,  completed  in  1575  and  published  in  a  pirated  edition  in 
1580  and  with  Tasso's  authorization  in  1581.  The  poem  consists  of  twenty  cantos 
written  in  ottava  rima  or  eight-lined  stanzas.  The  best  known  translation  is  that 
by  Edward  Fairfax  ( 1 600) .  A  revision  of  the  poem ,  'Jerusalem  Conquered '  ('  Gerusa- 
lemme Conquistata'),  was  published  by  Tasso  in  1593,  but  has  been  universally 
judged  inferior  to  the  original.  A  general  summary  and  estimate  of  the  poem  will 
be  found  in  the  biographical  essay  on  Tasso  in  the  LIBRARY,  pp.  14473-14475. 

THE  JESUIT  RELATIONS  AND  ALLIED  DOCUMENTS :  *  TRAVELS  AND  EXPLORA- 
TIONS OF  THE  JESUIT  MISSIONARIES  IN  NEW  FRANCE'  (1610-1791).  The  original 


448  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

French,  Latin,  and  Italian  texts,  with  English  translations  and  notes;  illustrated  by 
portraits,  maps,  and  fac-similes.  Edited  by  Reuben  Gold  Thwaites.  A  republication 
of  great  magnitude  and  importance;  the  entire  work  consists,  as  to  'The  Jesuit 
Relations,'  in  forty  volumes  of  Jesuit  annual  reports  in  French,  which  began  to  appear 
in  Paris  in  1632,  and  came  out  year  by  year  to  1673.  The  very  great  value  of  the 
work  is  that  of  original  materials  of  the  most  interesting  character  for  the  history  of 
North  America  from  1611,  the  date  of  the  first  landing  of  Jesuit  missionaries  on  the 
shores  of  Nova  Scotia. 

JESUITS  IN  NORTH  AMERICA  IN  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY,  see 
FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND  IN  NORTH  AMERICA. 

JESUS,  THE  LIFE  OF.  The  rationalistic  movement  of  the  eighteenth  and  nine- 
teenth centuries  is  responsible  for  a  large  number  of  lives  of  Jesus  in  which  an  attempt 
is  made  to  account  for  Jesus  and  for  the  rise  of  Christianity  by  modern  critical  and 
historical  methods.  Other  biographies  are  then  written  with  the  aim  of  re-establishing 
the  orthodox  view.  '  Das  Leben  Jesu '  by  David  Friedrich  Strauss  was  first  published 
in  1835,  and  was  translated  into  English  by  George  Eliot  in  1846;  a  second  Life  of 
Jesus  from  his  pen  appeared  in  1864.  Strauss  agreed  neither  with  those  who  accept 
the  Gospels  as  literally  true  nor  with  those  who  explain  them  as  a  record  of  actual 
facts,  distorted  by  popular  delusion  into  miracles.  In  his  opinion,  the  Gospel  stories 
are  almost  pure  myth,  unintentionally  created  by  the  early  Christian  writers,  and 
expressing  the  Hegelian  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  man  with  God.  '  La  vie  de  Je"sus '  by 
Ernest  Renan  was  published  in  1863.  In  preparation  for  writing  it  the  author  had 
journeyed  through  Palestine,  and  he  endeavors  to  paint  the  landscapes,  the  costumes, 
and  the  manners  of  the  time,  with  a  richness  of  color  which  is  somewhat  touched  with 
sentimentality.  His  general  position  is  one  of  rationalistic  interpretation  of  the 
miraculous  which  he  explains  as  the  unconscious  distortion  of  natural  incident. 
Frederick  W.  Farrar's  'Life  of  Christ'  (1874)  is  an  attractively- written  biography 
and  commentary  with  an  orthodox  point  of  view.  German  Liberal  theology  is 
represented  by  Theodor  Keim's  'Geschichte  Jesu  von  Nazara'  (1867-1872),  and  by 
Bernhard  Weiss's  'Das  Leben  Jesu'  (1882).  Alfred  Edersheim's  'Life  and  Times 
of  Jesus  the  Messiah1  (1883)  illustrates  the  subject  with  a  wealth  of  rabbinical 
learning  and  is  conservative  in  its  attitude.  A  recent  liberal  treatment  is  Oskar 
Holzmann's  'Leben  Jesu, '  published  in  Germany  in  1901  and  in  English  translation 
in  1904.  The  literature  of  the  subject  is  immense  and  shows  no  sign  of  diminution 
after  more  than  a  century  of  investigation.  The  attempt  to  rationalize  the  Gospel 
story  has  largely  given  place  to  a  serious  endeavor  to  appreciate  it  as  a  great  fact 
of  human  experience.  See  also  'Ecce  Homo.1 

JEW,  THE,  by  Joseph  Ignatius  Kraszewski  (1865),  is  a  story  of  the  soil,  simply  told 
by  one  of  Poland's  best-known  writers.  When  Jean  Huba,  a  Polish  exile,  enters  a 
tavern  and  swoons  at  the  feet  of  the  guests,  Signer  Firpo  the  landlord  wishes  to  send 
him  elsewhere  to  die;  but  the  stranger  regains  consciousness,  and  finds  himself  sur- 
rounded by  a  motley  society  of  Russians,  Italians,  Poles,  Jews,  Danes,  and  Tsigane 
(Gipsies),  gathered  at  little  tables  enjoying  themselves.  A  strange  friendship  is 
set  on  foot  between  Jacob  Harmon,  an  educated  Jew,  and  the  exile  Jean  Huba, 
familiarly  known  as  Ivas.  Their  conversation  serves  to  put  the  reader  in  possession 
of  many  facts  in  Jewish  history.  Jacob  undertakes  to  convert  Ivas  to  Judaism;  and 
argues  well,  using  politics  and  philosophy  as  well  as  religion  for  illustrations.  They 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  449 

agree  to  return  to  Poland  to  improve  the  intellectual  condition  of  the  Jews,  become 
involved  in  political  intrigues  there,  and  are  forced  to  quit  the  country.  One  or 
two  love  affairs  give  a  slight  tinge  of  romance  to  the  story.  The  book  is  powerful, 
but  possesses  little  interest  for  those  readers  who  do  not  care  for  the  ethical  and 
ethnical  questions  it  discusses. 

JEWS,  HISTORY  OF  THE  ('  Antiquitates  Judaicse'),  by  Flavius  Josephus.  This 
work  was  concluded  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  Domitian.  It  was  ad- 
dressed especially  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Gentiles;  and  for  this  purpose  the  author 
had  condescende  !  to  acquire  the  Greek  language,  and  to  adopt  the  "smooth  periods  " 
of  the  pagan  writers,  held  generally  in  contempt  by  a  people  who  believed  their 
language  sacred  and  their  law  the  repository  of  all  wisdom.  The  well-known  events 
of  Josephus 's  life  go  to  account  for  the  singular  largeness  of  view,  liberal  culture,  and 
tolerant  judgment  which  everywhere  characterize  his  historic  writings,  and  give 
them  a  liveliness  of  style  not  often  found  in  lengthy  national  annals. 

The  'Antiquities, '  so  far  as  they  relate  to  events  covered  by  the  Bible,  are  hardly 
more  than  a  free  version  of  and  running  commentary  on  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, including  the  Apocrypha.  After  that  the  Persian,  Macedonian,  and  Roman 
invasions,  and  the  Herodian  reigns,  are  told  with  varying  degrees  of  thoroughness 
down  to  Nero's  twelfth  year,  when  the  uprising  occurred  which  gave  rise  to  the 
Jewish  War  in  which  Josephus  bore  so  conspicuous  a  part,  and  which  he  relates  in 
the  book  so  named.  To  Christians  the  most  interesting  passage  in  his  writing, 
notwithstanding  its  disputed  authenticity,  is  that  containing  his  description  of  Jesus, 
Chapter  iii.,  Book  xviii. 

"Now  there  was  about  this  time  Jesus,  a  wise  man,  if  it  be  lawful  to  call  him  a 
man;  for  he  was  a  doer  of  wonderful  works,  a  teacher  of  such  men  as  receive  the  truth 
with  pleasure.  He  drew  over  to  him  both  many  of  the  Jews,  and  many  of  the  Gen- 
tiles. He  was  [the]  Christ.  And  when  Pilate,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  principal 
men  among  us,  had  condemned  him  to  the  cross,  those  that  loved  him  at  the  first 
did  not  forsake  him :  for  he  appeared  to  them  alive  again  the  third  day,  as  the  divine 
prophets  had  foretold  these  and  ten  thousand  other  wonderful  things  concerning 
him.  And  the  tribe  of  Christians,  so  named  from  him,  are  not  extinct  at  this  day." 

This  passage  is  twice  quoted  by  Eusebius,  and  is  found  in  all  the  MSS. 

JEWS  OF  ANGEVIN  ENGLAND,  THE,  by  Joseph  Jacobs  (1893).  A  most  interest- 
ing volume  of  "Documents  and  Records  from  Latin  and  Hebrew  sources,  printed 
and  manuscript,  for  the  first  time  collected  and  translated, "  with  notes  and  narrative 
forming  an  exhaustive  history  of  the  Jews  in  England,  from  the  Norman  Conquest 
to  the  year  1206.  Mr.  Jacobs  finds  no  evidence  that  the  Jews,  as  a  class,  were  known 
in  England  until  they  were  brought  in  by  the  Norman  kings.  It  was  not  until  the 
accession  of  Henry  II.,  1 154  A.D.,  that  they  began  to  have  a  specially  English  history. 
It  is  substantially  a  history  of  their  position  as  usurers  in  the  service  of  the  Royal 
Treasury.  The  whole  story  of  the  Jews  in  England  goes  on  to  their  expulsion  in 
1290;  and  Mr.  Jacobs  estimates  that  a  score  of  volumes  would  be  required  to  complete 
their  history  on  the  scale  of  the  volume  which  he  has  executed.  It  is  thus  a  begin- 
ning only  which  he  has  made;  but  it  is  a  very  valuable  beginning,  as  it  enables  him,  to 
indicate  clearly  what  were  the  notable  aspects  of  English  Jewish  life. 

JOAN  OF  ARC,  PERSONAL  RECOLLECTIONS  OF,  by  "Mark  Twain"  (S.  L. 
Clemens  ^  (1896).  This  Ftory,  founded  on  the  history  of  Joan  of  Arc,  professes  to  be  a 


45O  THE    READER  S   DIGEST  OF   BOOKS 

translation  by  Jean  Francois  Alden  from  the  ancient  French  of  the  original  un- 
published MSS.  in  the  national  archives  of  France,  written  by  the  Sieur  Louis  de  Contc, 
her  page  and  secretary.  De  Conte,  who  tells  the  story  in  the  first  person,  has  been 
reared  in  the  same  village  with  its  subject,  has  been  her  daily  playmate  there,  and 
has  followed  her  fortunes  in  later  life,  serving  her  to  the  end,  his  being  the  friendly 
hand  that  she  touches  last.  After  her  death,  he  comes  to  understand  her  greatness ; 
he  calls  hers  "the  most  noble  life  that  was  ever  born  into  this  world  save  only  One." 
Beginning  with  a  scene  in  her  childhood  that  shows  her  innate  sense  of  justice,  good- 
ness of  heart,  and  unselfishness,  the  story  follows  her  throughout  her  stormy  career. 
We  have  her  audiences  with  the  king;  her  marches  with  her  army;  her  entry  into 
Orleans;  her  fighting;  her  trial;  her  execution:  all  simply  and  naturally  and  yet 
vividly  told.  The  historical  facts  are  closely  followed,  while  the  fictitious  form  and 
simple  style  adopted  bring  the  strange  drama  within  the  reader's  understanding 
and  sympathies.  In  the  person  of  the  Paladin,  a  boastful  peasant  of  her  native 
village  who  becomes  her  standard-bearer,  is  interwoven  a  humorous  element  in  the 
author's  own  unmistakable  vein,  a  humor  essentially  of  the  late  nineteenth  century. 
He  crowds  his  stage  with  figures,  most  of  them  sufficiently  individualized;  and  the 
energy  and  romantic  atmosphere  of  his  drama  carry  it  to  a  successful  conclusion. 

JOCELYN,  by  Alphonse  de  Lamartine.  A  romantic  and  sentimental  poem  pub- 
lished in  Paris  in  1836,  intervening  between  the  author's  'Eastern  Travels'  and  his 
'Fall  of  an  Angel/  and  succeeded  ten  years  after  by  his  great  prose  work,  the  'History 
of  the  Girondins. '  '  Jocelyn '  was  widely  read  in  England,  and  was  the  outcome  of  the 
extreme  romanticism  that  held  sway  at  the  time  in  Europe.  Suspected  of  containing 
a  concealed  attack  on  the  celibacy  of  the  priesthood,  the  author  defends  his  poem  as 
being  purely  a  poetic  creation,  constituting  a  fragment  of  a  great  'Epic  of  Humanity ' 
which  he  had  aspired  to  write.  The  poem  expresses  the  conservative  religious  feeling 
of  the  country  as  opposed  to  the  military  and  democratic  spirit.  There  are  in  it 
echoes  of  Chateaubriand,  St.  Pierre,  and  Wordsworth ;  and  despite  its  wordiness  and 
long-drawn-out  descriptions,  which  have  called  forth  the  comment  of  a  reviewer  that 
the  author  "will  not  allow  even  the  sun  to  rise  and  set  in  peace,"  the  piece  often 
reaches  a  very  high  mark  of  poetic  fervor  and  beauty.  Jocelyn  is  a  priest  who  leaves 
behind  him  certain  records  describing  his  suffering  and  temptations,  which  are  after- 
wards discovered  by  his  neighbor,  a  botanist,  —  the  supposed  writer  of  the  poem,  — 
who  after  the  pastor's  decease  visits  his  dwelling.  The  story  begins  with  a  picture 
of  Jocelyn  at  sixteen,  a  village  youth  of  humble  but  respectable  parentage.  Morning 
and  evening  scenes  of  village  life  are  graphically  depicted,  and  the  episodes  of  youth- 
ful love  among  the  lads  and  maidens,  in  which  Jocelyn,  destined  as  he  is  for  the  priest- 
hood, feels  that  he  has  no  rightful  share.  To  provide  for  a  suitable  dowry  in  marriage 
for  his  sister,  he  has  vowed  himself  to  the  Church.  War  breaking  out,  and  the  lives 
of  the  clergy  being  threatened,  Jocelyn  finds  refuge  among  the  solitudes  of  the  Alps. 
There  he  meets  an  old  man  accompanied  by  a  boy  who  as  refugees  are  passing  near  his 
cave,  pursued  by  soldiers.  In  the  attack  which  follows,  the  old  man  is  killed,  and 
Jocelyn  takes  the  boy  into  his  cave.  They  enjoy  a  delightful  companionship  as 
brothers  under  the  pure  and  sublime  influences  of  the  Alpine  home.  At  length  an 
accident  reveals  to  Jocelyn  that  his  orphan  protege*  and  friend  is  a  maiden,  who  had 
disguised  herself  in  flight  in  male  attire,  and  since  had  maintained  the  deception  out  of 
reverence  for  the  priestly  vows  of  her  protector.  The  friendship  of  the  two  com- 
panions becoming  now  an  avowed  love,  Jocelyn  seeks  his  bishop  for  advice  as  to  his 
duty,  and  is  directed  to  renounce  his  passion  as  unlawful,  and  to  be  separated  from 


THE   READER  S  DIGEST  OF   BOOKS  451 

Laurence,  the  object  of  his  love.  Laurence  goes  to  Paris,  where  years  afterwards 
Jocelyn  finds  her  married,  but  unworthily,  and  leading  a  gay  but  miserable  life 
He  returns  to  his  mountain  home  to  find  solace  in  his  severe  round  of  duty.  Called 
later  to  minister  to  a  dying  traveler  on  the  pass  to  Italy,  he  discovers  her  to  be  his 
Laurence,  who  in  breathing  her  last  tells  of  her  never-dying  love  for  him,  and  be- 
queathes  to  him  all  her  fortune,  and  the  prayer  that  her  body  may  be  buried  near  the 
scene  of  their  mountain-home  refuge.  With  the  execution  of  this  wish  the  story  closes. 
There  are  passages  of  tender  emotion  and  deep  piety  in  the  poem  that  recall '  St. 
Augustine '  and  the  '  Imitation ' ;  and  a  pure  and  lofty  moral  atmosphere  pervades 
the  whole  narrative. 

JOHN  BRENT,  by  Theodore  Winthrop,  was  published  in  1862,  after  the  death  of 
the  author  in  one  of  the  earliest  engagements  of  the  American  Civil  War,  —  that  at 
Big  Bethel,  Virginia.  It  is  his  best-known  and  most  striking  story.  Richard  Wade 
an  unsuccessful  California  miner,  has  been  summoned  East  by  family  news  and 
decides  to  travel  across  the  plains  on  horseback.  He  exchanges  his  mine  for  a  superb 
black  stallion  which  is  supposed  to  be  unmanageable.  In  Wade's  hands  it  becomes 
docile  and  kind,  and  he  names  it  Don  Fulano.  An  old  friend,  John  Brent,  a  roving 
genius  of  noble  character,  agrees  to  ride  with  him,  Brent  having  a  fine  iron-gray  horse. 
On  the  way  they  are  joined  by  a  couple  of  low  scoundrels,  giving  the  names  of  Smith 
and  Robinson ;  and  near  Salt  Lake  City  they  meet  a  cavalcade  of  Mormons  under  the 
leadership  of  a  sleek  rascal  named  Sizzum.  In  the  company  is  an  English  gentleman, 
Mr.  Clitheroe,  with  his  beautiful  daughter  Ellen;  Clitheroe  has  become  a  Mormon 
half  against  his  will,  and  is  under  the  influence  and  in  the  power  of  Sizzum,  who  has 
lured  him  to  America  and  who  admires  Ellen.  In  the  Rockies  she  is  abducted  by 
Smith  and  Robinson,  whose  real  names  are  Murker  and  Larrap.  Wade  and  Brent, 
joined  by  one  Armstrong,  whose  brother  has  been  murdered  by  the  abductors,  give 
chase  on  their  horses.  This  ride  of  the  three  avengers,  side  by  side,  over  the  plains,  is 
described  with  great  vividness  and  dramatic  power.  There  is  something  epic  in  its 
intensity,  largeness  of  sweep,  and  nobility  of  motive.  Brent's  horse,  Pumps,  breaks 
down;  but  Wade  takes  his  friend  on  Don  Fulano,  and  they  finally  ride  the  villains 
down  in  a  mountain  defile.  Brent  is  wounded,  but  not  dangerously.  The  tale  then 
continues  the  account  of  the  eastward  trip  and  the  heroic  exploits  of  Fulano,  who  is  a 
paragon  of  horses,  Winthrop's  warm  love  for  these  animals  making  the  sketch  very 
sympathetic.  Don  Fulano  is  shot  by  Murker's  brother,  who  thus  avenges  the  death 
of  his  kin.  Brent  loves  Ellen  and  she  returns  his  love,  but  her  faithfulness  to  her 
father  leads  her  to  return  to  London  with  him,  and  the  friends  lose  track  of  them. 
Wade  goes  to  find  them,  and  by  the  aid  of  some  paintings  of  their  wild  experiences  in 
the  West,  which  he  recognizes  as  the  work  of  Miss  Clitheroe,  he  is  able  to  track  down 
father  and  daughter,  and  the  lovers  are  reunited.  In  spite  of  the  pleasant  love  element 
that  runs  through  the  story,  the  reader  feels  that  Fulano,  the  noble  brute,  shares  with 
John  Brent  the  honors  of  hero. 

JOHN  BULL  AND  HIS  ISLAND  was  translated  from  the  French  of  "Max  O'Rell" 
(Paul  Blouet)  in  1884.  It  is  a  humorous  exposition  of  his  view  of  English  life  and 
character,  which  by  its  paradoxes  attracted  much  attention  when  it  appeared.  The 
keen-visioned  author  was  too  fond  of  exercising  his  wit  to  be  impartial.  Some  of  his 
conclusions,  drawn  from  sensational  articles  in  the  daily  newspapers,  are  based  upon 
insufficient  premises.  He  presents  a  caricature  rather  than  a  portrait,  but  draws  it  so 
cleverly  that  even  its  subject  is  forced  to  recognize  his  own  faults  and  foibles.  His 


452  THE   READER  S   DIGEST  OF   BOOKS 

mockery  of  the  conceited,  domineering  type  of  Englishman,  always  sure  that  he  is 
right  and  others  wrong,  quibbling  to  preserve  the  letter  of  truth  while  disregarding  its 
spirit,  and  referring  all  values  to  a  money  standard,  is  sharp  but  without  bitterness. 
He  hits  off  the  national  character  in  startling  paradox;  for  example,  he  says  that 
every  year  "a  sum  of  money  is  spent  in  Bibles  and  alcoholic  liquors  alone,  sufficient 
to  abolish  pauperism  and  allow  every  freeborn  Briton  to  live  like  a  gentleman." 
But  he  recognizes  fairly,  too,  the  physical,  mental,  and  moral  qualities  which 
make  the  English  strong;  and  he  finds  much  to  admire  in  their  home  life  and  social 
institutions. 

JOHN  HALIFAX,  GENTLEMAN,  by  Dinah  Maria  Muloch  Craik  (1856).  The  hero 
of  this  story,  John  Halifax,  is  one  of  "nature's  noblemen,"  who,  beginning  life  as  a 
poor  boy,  works  his  way  up  to  prosperity  and  happiness,  by  means  of  his  high  prin- 
ciples, undaunted  courage,  and  nobility  of  character.  Orphaned  at  the  age  of  eleven 
years,  from  that  time  he  is  dependent  on  his  own  resources.  He  willingly  undertakes 
any  kind  of  honest  work,  and  for  three  years  gains  a  livelihood  by  working  for  farmers, 
but  at  the  end  of  that  time  is  taken  into  the  employ  of  a  Mr.  Fletcher,  a  wealthy 
tanner.  This  is  the  beginning  of  his  better  fortune ;  for  Phineas  Fletcher,  his  master's 
invalid  son,  takes  a  great  fancy  to  him  and  aids  him  with  his  education.  The  heroine 
is  Ursula  March ;  and  the  simple  domestic  story  includes  few  minor  characters.  The 
interest  lies  in  the  development  of  character;  and  the  author's  assertion  is  that  true 
nobility  is  of  the  soul,  and  does  not  inhere  in  wealth,  in  learning,  or  in  position ;  and 
that  integrity  and  loftiness  of  purpose  form  the  character  of  a  true  gentleman.  The 
story  is  fresh,  healthful,  and  full  of  interest,  and  gives  an  ideal  picture  of  home  life 
in  England  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

JOHN  INGLESANT,  a  notable  historical  romance  by  J.  H.  Shorthouse,  was  pub- 
lished in  1 88 1,  when  he  was  forty-seven  years  old.  It  depicts  with  a  wonderful  at- 
mosphere of  reality  the  England  of  Charles  I.'s  time,  and  the  Italy  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  when  the  tarnished  glories  of  the  Renaissance  were  concealed  by  exaggera- 
tions of  art  and  life  and  manners.  In  'John  Inglesant,'  the  hero,  is  drawn  one  of  the 
most  complete  portraits  of  a  gentleman  to  be  found  in  the  whole  range  of  fiction. 
Like  a  Vandyke  courtier,  he  is  an  aristocrat  of  the  soul,  sustaining  the  obligations  of 
his  rank  with  a  kind  of  gracious  melancholy.  Of  a  sensitive,  dreamy  temperament, 
possessing  consummate  tact,  he  has  been  trained  from  childhood  by  a  Jesuit  Father, 
St.  Clare,  for  the  office  of  court  diplomat,  and  of  mediator  between  the  Catholics  and 
Protestants  in  England.  His  introduction  to  the  court  of  Charles  I.  is  the  beginning 
of  a  most  picturesque  and  dramatic  career  in  England,  and  afterwards  in  Italy,  where 
he  goes  to  seek  the  murderer  of  his  twin-brother  Eustace.  He  enters  into  the  sump- 
tuous life  of  the  Renaissance ;  but  in  his  worldly  environment  he  never  blunts  his  fine 
sense  of  honor,  nor  loses  his  ethereal  atmosphere  of  purity.  When  he  at  last  finds  his 
brother's  murderer  in  his  power,  he  delivers  him  over  in  a  spirit  of  divine  chivalry  to 
the  vengeance  of  Christ.  The  novel  as  a  whole  is  like  an  old-world  romance,  a 
seventeenth-century  Quest  of  the  Holy  Grail.  It  abounds  in  rich  descriptions  of  the 
highly  colored  spectacular  existence  of  the  time,  and  follows  with  sympathy  and 
comprehension  the  trend  of  its  complex  religious  life. 

JOHN  WARD,  PREACHER,  a  novel  by  Margaret  Deland  (1888).  The  Presby- 
terian minister  whose  name  gives  its  title  to  the  story  has  married  Helen 
Jeffrey.  Mr.  Ward  is  a  logical  Calvinist,  who  is  assured  that  belief  in  election  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  453 

reprobation,  eternal  punishment,  and  kindred  doctrines,  is  necessary  to  salvation ;  and 
so  preaches  them  with  force  and  conviction.  While  his  congregation  agrees  with 
him,  his  wife,  who  is  the  niece  of  a  liberal,  easy-going  Episcopal  rector,  entertains 
decidedly  broad  theological  views  in  general.  The  couple  love  each  other  with  that 
singleness  of  devction  without  which  the  course  of  the  story  would  be  manifestly 
improbable ;  for  it  depends  upon  the  question  whether  love  will  be  able  to  hold  together 
what  conscientious  habits  of  thought  and  ethical  convictions  tend  to  drive  apart. 
The  comments  of  the  congregation  of  course  have  their  part  in  promoting  the  difficul- 
ties that  follow.  The  story  is  well  told,  and  extremely  interesting,  although  it  con- 
fesses itself  a  problem-novel  on  the  very  first  page. 

JOHNSON,  LIFE  OF,  by  James  Boswell,  was  published  in  1791;  Johnson's  own 
'Journal  of  a  Tour  to  the  Hebrides'  (1786)  is  usually  included  in  editions  of 
the  'Life.' 

The  result  of  the  association  of  Boswell,  the  born  reporter,  and  Dr.  Johnson,  the 
eighteenth-century  great  man,  was  a  biography  unsurpassed  in  literature.  It  has 
gone  through  many  editions;  it  has  been  revised  by  many  editors.  It  became  at  once 
a  classic.  Why  this  is  so  is  not  easy  of  explanation,  since  the  man  who  wrote  it  was 
onlyBoswell.  But  in  him  hero-worship  took  on  the  proportions  of  genius.  He  merged 
himself  in  Johnson.  The  Doctor  looms  large  in  every  sentence  of  this  singular  work, 
written  in  the  very  hypnotism  of  admiration.  Every  word  is  remembered ;  no  detail 
of  speech  or  manner  is  forgotten.  Boswell  begins  with  Johnson's  first  breath  (drawn 
it  seems,  with  difficulty),  and  will  not  let  him  draw  a  later  breath  without  full 
commentary. 

"We  dined  at  Elgin,  and  saw  the  noble  ruins  of  the  Cathedral.  Though  it  rained, 
Dr.  Johnson  examined  them  with  the  most  patient  attention."  "Mr.  Grant  having 
prayed,  Dr.  Johnson  said  his  prayer  was  a  very  good  one."  "Next  Sunday,  July 
3  ist,  I  told  him  I  had  been  at  a  meeting  of  the  people  called  Quakers,  where  I  had 
heard  a  woman  preach.  Johnson:  'Sir,  a  woman's  preaching  is  like  a  dog's  walking 
on  his  hind  legs.  It  is  not  done  well,  but  you  are  surprised  to  find  it  done  at  all.*  " 
The  best-known  edition  is  Croker's,  upon  which  Macaulay  poured  out  the  vials  of  his 
wrath;  but  the  new  edition  of  Mr.  George  Birkbeck  Hill  is  likely  to  supersede  all 
others,  for  its  admirable  taste  and  scholarship. 

JOHNSONIAN  MISCELLANIES,  arranged  and  edited  by  George  Birkbeck  Hill 
(2  vols.,  1897).  A  work  supplementing  Mr.  Hill's  six  volumes  of  the  'Life/  and  two 
volumes  of  the  'Letters,'  of  the  famous  Dr.  Johnson.  The  first  volume  includes: 
(i)  A  collection  of  prayers  and  meditations;  (2)  Annals  of  his  life  to  his  eleventh  year, 
written  by  himself;  (3)  The  Piozzi  collection  of  anecdotes  of  the  last  twenty  years  of 
his  life;  and  (4)  An  essay  on  the  life  and  genius  of  Johnson,  by  Arthur  Murphy, 
originally  published  as  an  introduction  to  the  twelve-volume  edition  of  the  complete 
works  brought  out  in  1792.  The  second  volume  is  largely  concerned  with  anecdotes, 
recollections,  studies  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  of  Johnson's  character  and  influence, 
and  a  considerable  variety  of  Johnson's  letters.  The  work  abounds  in  strikingly 
interesting  revelations  of  Johnson's  character,  habits,  learning,  wit,  sincere  piety, 
tenderness  of  sympathy,  unaffected  goodness,  and  endlessly  active  intellect.  Equally 
rich  in  literary  and  in  human  interest,  in  many  of  its  pages  delightfully  picturesque,  it 
worthily  completes  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill's  monument  to  the  great  master. 

JOIE  DE  VIVRE,  LA,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 


454  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

JOLLY  BEGGARS,  THE,  a  cantata  by  Robert  Burns,  was  first  published  in  a  poetical 
miscellany  in  1 799.  It  consists  of  a  series  of  recitatives  and  arias,  the  latter  adapted 
to  well-known  Scottish  tune?,  dramatically  representing  an  assembly  of  vagrants  at 
the  ale-house  of  Agnes  Gibson —  "Poosie  Nansie"  in  Burns's  native  place,  Mauch- 
line.  A  wounded  veteran  of  Quebec  and  Gibraltar  and  his  mistress,  a  camp-follower, 
recount  their  adventures  and  pledge  their  love;  a  traveling  mountebank  rails  at  kirk 
and  state  as  he  drinks  with  a  tinker- wench ;  a  female  pickpocket  laments  the  death  of 
her  John  Highlandman,  hanged  for  theft.  She  is  wooed  by  a  little  fiddler,  who  is, 
however,  scared  off  by  a  rival  suitor,  a  sturdy  tinker.  The  fiddler  gets  consolation  in 
the  embraces  of  another  dame,  magnanimously  yielded  to  him  by  a  ballad-singer, 
"a  wight  of  Homer's  craft,"  who  has  two  doxies  still  left.  Amid  deeper  potations 
and  thunderous  applause  he  defies  law  and  decorum  in  a  rollicking  ballad  accom- 
panied by  a  roaring  chorus.  '  The  Jolly  Beggars '  is  a  masterly  picture  of  the  outcasts 
of  society.  Its  frank  realism  is  saved  from  grossness  by  the  poet's  sympathetic 
presentation  of  the  humanity  of  these  vagabonds,  by  his  incomparable  humor,  and 
by  the  literary  deftness  of  his  narration.  The  poem  illustrates  Burns's  command  of 
the  various  Scottish  staves  and  his  gifts  as  a  writer  of  convivial  lyrics. 

JONATHAN  WILD  THE  GREAT,  THE  HISTORY  OF,  by  Henry  Fielding.  A 
satirical  portraiture,  written  by  the  author  at  the  time  of  his  retirement  from  play- 
writing,  1742,  owing  to  the  prohibition  of  his  plays  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain  because 
of  satirical  allusions  to  persons  of  quality.  At  this  time  the  writer,  who  was  of  noble 
descent  and  had  been  raised  in  affluence,  was  reduced  to  the  hardships  of  poverty 
and  the  persecutions  of  many  literary  and  social  enemies;  to  actual  suffering  was  added 
that  of  the  extreme  illness  of  his  wife.  His  resentment  at  the  disordered  social  condi- 
tions of  the  time,  when  merit  was  allowed  to  suffer  and  be  laughed  at,  while  dullness 
and  vulgarity  were  worshiped  in  the  highest  circles,  found  vent  in  the  three  volumes 
of  'Miscellanies'  published  in  1743,  the  last  of  which  contained  the  'History  of 
Jonathan  Wild  the  Great.'  Thus  the  work  has  its  place  between  'Joseph  Andrews,' 
published  in  1742,  and  the  group  of  'Torn  Jones'  (1749),  and  'Amelia'  (1751). 

'Jonathan  Wild'  portrays  the  life  of  a  dissolute  rake,  and  of  his  low-lived  com- 
panions, male  and  female,  in  unrestrained  and  often  revolting  frankness.  The  hero, 
the  embodiment  of  the  "greatness"  that  is  measured  by  success  in  crime  and  wicked- 
ness, is  of  descent  more  ancient  than  the  Conqueror,  his  ancestor  having  come  in 
with  Hengist  himself.  Brought  to  London  a  youth,  he  is  thrown  in  with  a  French 
Count  La  Ruse,  of  whom  he  learns  the  gambler's  art  so  skillfully  that  the  count 
himself  soon  falls  victim  to  it.  Conspiring  with  Bagshot  and  a  gang  of  scoundrels  and 
villains,  he  persecutes  the  innocent  Heartfree  and  his  family  even  to  having  them 
committed  to  prison.  During  the  imprisonment  Mrs.  Heartfree  tells  the  long  tale  of 
her  adventures  at  sea,  whither  she  had  been  allured  by  Wild  after  having  her  husband 
lodged  in  prison.  Wild  is  married  to  Letitia  Snap,  a  match  with  himself  in  deceit  and 
vileness.  They  all  are  brought  up  at  last  in  prison,  and  most  of  the  characters  come 
to  the  gallows.  The  visit  of  the  ordinary  of  the  prison  to  Wild,  and  their  interview 
on  the  night  before  Wilds  execution,  is  a  sharp  satire  on  the  "consolations  of  re- 
ligion "  as  afforded  in  that  day.  Between  the  chapters  there  are  discourses  on  "great- 
ness" as  exhibited  in  its  successive  stages  in  the  progress  of  Wild's  villainy. 

JORN  TTHL,  a  novel  by  Gustav  Frenssen  (1901).  "This  book  has  appealed  to 
modern  Germany  in  somewhat  the  same  way  as  Dickens  appealed  to  the  England  of 
his  day."  (Preface.)  It  is  a  story  of  country  life  in  Schleswig-Holstein.  Jorn, 


THE   READER  S   DIGEST  OF   BOOKS  455 

youngest  son  of  a  brutal  farmer,  tries  by  his  own  hard  work  to  save  the  farm,  which  is 
going  to  waste  while  his  father  and  brothers  are  carousing.  He  leaves  school,  giving 
up  his  ambition  to  be  a  scholar  to  see  "that  the  land  and  the  cattle  on  the  Uhl  get 
fair  treatment."  The  Franco-Prussian  war  takes  him  away  from  the  farm  for  active 
service.  The  description  of  the  battle  of  Gravelotte  is  a  powerful  picture  of  war  as 
experienced  by  the  peasant  soldiers  who  do  the  fighting.  On  his  return  home  he 
finds  the  farm  bankrupt  and  settles  down  to  fight  debt  and  bad  harvests.  He  is  as 
impressive  as  a  figure  in  a  Millet  picture.  Finally  the  old  house  is  struck  by  lightning 
and  burned  and  Jorn  gives  up  his  long  struggle  to  save  the  family  acres  by  hard  toil. 
He  finds  himself  free  to  study  again  and  make  a  new  life  for  himself.  His  first  mar- 
riage had  been  a  charming  rustic  peasant  idyll,  ending  with  the  death  of  his  wife.  The 
story  ends  with  his  happy  marriage  to  the  minister's  daughter  whom  he  has  known 
from  childhood.  He  suggests  to  the  friend  who  is  to  write  about  him  that  he  shall 
say  "Although  his  path  led  through  gloom  and  tribulation,  he  was  still  a  happy  man, 
because  he  was  humble  and  had  faith." 

JOSEPH  ANDREWS,  by  Henry  Fielding,  was  the  first  novel  by  that  master.  It 
appeared  in  1742,  its  full  title  being  'The  Adventures  of  Joseph  Andrews  and  his 
Friend  Abraham  Adams.'  Fielding  was  thirty-five  years  old  when  it  was  published. 
His  intention  in  writing  it  was  to  satirize  Richardson's  'Pamela.'  This  novel,  given 
to  the  world  two  years  before,  had  depicted  the  struggle  of  an  honest  serving-maid 
to  escape  from  the  snares  laid  for  her  by  her  master.  Andrews,  the  hero  of  Fielding's 
story,  is  a  brother  of  Pamela,  like  her  in  service;  and  the  narrative  details  the  trials  he 
endures  in  the  performance  of  his  duty.  This  story  was  begun  satirically,  with  an 
evident  intention  of  burlesquing  the  high-flown  virtue  of  Richardson's  heroine  by  the 
representation  of  a  man  under  similar  temptation.  But  as  the  tale  developed, 
Fielding  grew  serious,  warming  to  his  work  so  that  it  became  in  many  respects  a 
genuine  picture  of  life,  and  contained  a  number  of  his  most  enjoyable  creations, 
notably  Parson  Adams,  a  fine  study  of  the  old-style  country  clergyman,  simple- 
minded,  good-hearted,  with  a  relish  for  meat  and  drink  and  a  wholesome  disdain  of 
hypocrisy  and  meanness.  Andrews  and  Adams  have  numerous  amusing  adventures 
together,  many  of  these  being  too  coarse  to  please  modern  taste.  In  the  end  it  falls 
out  that  Andrews  is  really  of  good  birth,  while  his  sweetheart  Fanny,  a  handsome  girl 
of  humble  rank,  is  the  daughter  of  the  parents  who  had  adopted  him;  and  the  pair 
are  wedded  amidst  general  jubilation.  The  confusion  arising  from  the  exchange  of 
children  at  birth  —  a  device  since  much  used  in  English  fiction  —  is  cleverly  managed. 
The  chief  charm  of  the  story,  however,  lies  in  its  lively  episodes,  high  spirits,  and 
delightful  humor. 

JOSEPH  VANCE;  'An  Ill-Written  Autobiography,1  by  William  De  Morgan  (1906). 
An  elderly  Englishman  tells  the  story  of  his  life,  beginning  with  his  inimitable 
father,  a  workman  out  of  work,  who  becomes  a  wealthy  contractor  in  a  few  years, 
through  the  accident  of  acquiring  from  a  peddler  an  old  signboard, "  C.  Dance.  Builder ' ' 
easily  changed  to  C.  Vance.  The  magic  board  brings  him  a  job,  and  a  helper  who  is 
able  to  do  the  work,  while  Vance  stands  by  and  looks  wise.  Without  knowledge  of 
building  or  any  capital,  he  succeeds  as  an  employer  of  labor.  For  an  amusing  picture 
of  Joseph  Vance  at  the  beginning  of  his  career,  see  chapters  quoted  in  the  LIBRARY. 
His  father's  first  patron,  Dr.  Thorpe,  takes  an  interest  in  the  vulgar  little  boy,  Joey, 
because  he  shows  a  genius  for  mathematics,  and  arranges  to  send  him  to  school. 
Miss  Lossie  Thorpe,  the  daughter,  makes  a  pet  of  the  child,  and  adopts  him  as  a 


456  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

small  brother.  From  the  first  day  when  he  "glues "  his  eyes  upon  her,  and  devotedly 
trots  after  her,  she  is  the  guiding  influence  of  his  life.  While  he  is  at  Oxford,  she  is 
happily  married,  and  he  wakes  up  to  realize  his  love  for  her  and  his  loss.  Later  he 
marries  a  woman  he  sincerely  loves,  who  knows  she  is  his  second  choice.  After  his 
mother's  death  his  father  takes  to  drink  again,  burns  up  his  factory,  and  is  ruined 
because  he  has  neglected  the  insurance.  In  a  shipwreck,  Joseph's  wife  slips  away 
from  him  in  the  water  and  is  lost.  Lossie's  brother  borrows  his  name  along  with  his 
trunk,  and  goes  through  a  mock  marriage  in  Italy.  Joseph  adopts  the  child  of  this 
Italian  marriage,  who  bears  his  name.  For  Lossie's  sake,  he  makes  the  sacrifice  of 
accepting  the  paternity  of  this  child,  to  save  her  memory  of  the  brother  she  loved. 
Years  afterward,  Lossie  learns  the  truth,  and  finds  him  lonely  and  under  a  cloud, 
and  they  are  married.  The  story  is  leisurely  told  in  the  fashion  of  early  Victorian 
fiction,  and  is  reminiscent  of  Dickens. 

JOSHUA  DAVIDSON,  CHRISTIAN  AND  COMMUNIST,  THE  TRUE  HISTORY  OF, 
by  E.  Lynn  Linton.  (Final  edition  [6th],  1874).  The  name  of  the  hero  of  this 
story  is  meant  to  be  read  "Jesus  David's  Son";  the  word  "Jesus"  being  the  old 
Hebrew  word  "Joshua,"  changed  by  Greek  usage.  The  idea  of  the  writer  was  to 
picture  a  man  of  to-day,  a  man  of  the  people,  repeating  under  altered  circumstances 
the  life  of  Jesus,  and  setting  the  world  a  Christ-example.  The  work  was  planned  on 
the  theory  that  "pure  Christianity,  as  taught  by  Christ  himself,  leads  us  inevitably  to 
communism";  and  with  this  view  the  hero  of  the  story,  who  begins  as  a  Cornish 
carpenter,  is  carried  to  Paris,  to  lose  his  life  in  the  Communard  insurrection.  He  is 
represented  as  "a  man  working  on  the  Christ  plan,  and  that  alone;  dealing  with 
humanity  by  pity  and  love  and  intolerance,"  living  the  life  of  "the  crucified  Com- 
munist of  Galilee."  The  question  raised  by  the  author  is,  "Which  is  true:  modern 
society,  earnest  for  the  dogma  of  Christianity,  and  rabid  against  its  acted  doctrines, 
or  the  brotherhood  and  communism  taught  by  the  Jewish  carpenter  of  Nazareth?" 

JOURNEY  IN  THE  SEABOARD  SLAVE  STATES,  A,  by  Frederick  Law  Olmsted 
( 1 856),  first  appeared  as  a  series  of  sketches  in  the  New  York  Times.  It  is  the  record  of 
a  trip  made  by  Mr.  Olmsted  at  that  period,  through  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South 
Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  and  Louisiana,  for  the  purpose  of  noting  the  general 
aspects  of  those  States;  and  particularly  of  studying  the  labor  and  agricultural  condi- 
tions in  comparison  with  those  of  the  North.  His  personal  observations,  enlivened 
with  humorous  and  anecdotal  touches,  are  supplemented  with  statistics.  This 
"honest  growler"  found  much  to  criticize.  He  detested  slavery  as  an  unmixed  evil, 
and  made  it  largely  responsible  for  the  prevailing  ills.  Everywhere  he  finds  plenty  of 
servants  and  no  service.  He  is  astonished  at  the  familiar  intercourse  between  blacks 
and  whites,  which  however  appears  to  be  only  tolerable  to  the  latter  as  long  as  their 
mastership  is  recognized.  He  finds  that  the  South  has  advanced  far  less  in  civiliza- 
tion than  the  North  since  the  Revolution.  Shiftlessness  prevails  everywhere.  The 
slave  system  seems  to  enervate  the  whites,  while  rendering  the  blacks  childish  and 
irresponsible.  It  takes  more  of  the  latter  than  of  Northern  workmen  to  do  a  given 
piece  of  work.  In  spite  of  the  abundance  of  labor,  buildings  remain  out  of  repair, 
estates  are  neglected.  The  farming  is  unintelligent.  There  is  a  surprising  quantity 
of  uncultivated  land,  and  of  land  needlessly  impoverished  by  repeated  plantings  of 
the  same  crop.  The  Southern  economic  conditions  need  revolutinizing;  and  already 
Mr.  Olmsted  notes  their  instability,  and  anticipates  the  storm  of  civil  war  soon  to 
break. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  457 

JOURNEYS  THROUGH  FRANCE  ('Un  Sejour  en  France  de  1792  a  1795')  by  H. 
Taine  (1897).  This  book  is  one  of  the  French  critic's  earlier  works,  written  in  the 
form  of  a  diary.  In  the  sixties,  M.  Taine,  then  an  official  examiner  in  the  government 
schools,  traveled  about,  up  and  down  France,  taking  notes  as  he  went,  upon  all  the 
features  of  life  in  the  provinces:  agriculture  and  landscape,  market-places  and  shops, 
castles  and  town-halls,  professors  and  officers,  peasants  and  bourgeois,  as  these 
existed  in  the  years  preceding  the  downfall  of  the  Empire.  He  constantly  accom- 
panies his  entertaining  descriptions  by  social  or  economic  inferences,  and  neat  gen- 
eralizations of  French  life  and  habits  of  thinking.  Brilliantly  written,  and  full  of 
insight  as  to  the  relation  of  the  institution  or  the  custom  examined  to  the  idea  which  - 
it  incarnates,  the  whole  volume  is  one  more  illustration  of  Taine's  formula  of  the 
effects  of  heredity  and  environment. 

JOWETT,  BENJAMIN,  'Master  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford,'  by  Evelyn  Abbott 
and  Lewis  Campbell  (2  vols.,  1897).  A  work  exceptionally  rich  in  personal 
interest  and  in  Oxford  interest  during  nearly  sixty  years  (1836-93).  Born  April  I5th, 
1817,  and  a  student  at  St.  Paul's  School  1829-36,  young  Jowett  won  a  scholarship  in 
Balliol  College,  Oxford,  in  1835;  and  from  1836  to  the  close  of  his  career  remained 
at  Oxford.  While  yet  an  undergraduate  he  won  a  Balliol  Fellowship,  1838,  achieving 
thus  early  rare  distinction  as  a  scholar.  In  1842  he  became  a  Balliol  tutor,  and  also 
an  ordained  clergyman.  He  was  an  Examiner  of  Classical  Schools  in  1849,  and  again 
in  1853.  In  1854  the  death  of  the  Master  of  Balliol  gave  him  a  chance  to  be  elected 
to  the  position,  as  beyond  question  the  ablest  of  Balliol  tutors,  and  an  eminent  uni- 
versity man ;  but  the  more  conservative  party  among  the  Fellows  defeated  him  by  a 
single  vote.  He  served  the  same  year  as  a  member  of  the  Commission  on  Examina- 
tions for  the  Indian  civil  service,  and  wrote  their  elaborate  report.  He  published,  in 
June,  1855,  his  remarkably  bold  and  thoughtful  commentary  on  Thessalonians,  Gala- 
tians,  and  Romans,  with  special  dissertations  which  greatly  stirred  public  interest. 
The  same  year  Lord  Palmerston's  government  appointed  him  Regius  Professor  of 
Greek,  with,  however,  only  the  nominal  salary  of  £40.  He  was  obliged  to  add  his 
new  duties  to  those  of  tutorship,  and  to  figure  as  the  most  eminent  scholar  of  his 
college,  and  an  educator  second  to  none  at  Oxford,  not  given  a  decent  support. 
Jowett  accepted  his  Greek  chair  as  more  to  his  mind  than  any  other  "  except  one  of 
theology."  But  influences  adverse  to  him  on  account  of  the  broad  views  expressed 
in  his  '  Commentary '  were  at  work.  A  favorable  review  of  the  book  was  stopped  in 
the  Times  office  by  these  influences  after  it  had  been  put  in  type,  and  even  the 
beggarly  Greek  position  would  have  met  the  same  fate  if  it  had  come  on  a  little  later. 
An  accusation  of  heresy  against  Jowett  was  brought  before  the  Vice-Chancellor,  and 
the  indignity  put  upon  him  of  being  summoned  to  appear  and  anew  sign  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles.  It  was  assumed  that  he  would  not,  but  he  did  it,  and  taking  up  the 
duties  of  his  Greek  chair  began  lectures  on  Plato's  'Republic,'  which  he  called  "the 
greatest  uninspired  writing.''  Though  practically  unpaid,  he  made  the  lectures 
free,  and  for  many  years  made  them  a  great  success.  "  I  often  think,"  he  said, '  'that 
I  have  to  deal  with  the  greatest  of  all  literatures."  The  sharp  attacks  made  upon 
him  caused  a  rapid  sale  of  his  book,  and  he  gave  great  labor  to  its  revision  for  a 
second  edition,  and  it  came  out  in  the  summer  of  1859,  much  enlarged  and  in  great 
part  rewritten.  The  Times  now  published  his  friend  Arthur  P.  Stanley's  review  of  it. 
But  the  period  of  disfavor  with  conservatism  upon  which  he  had  entered,  and  which 
specially  found  expression  in  the  repeated  defeats  until  February  i/th,  1865,  of  all 
effort  to  provide  pay  for  his  brilliant  labor  in  the  Greek  professorship,  was  made 


458  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

greatly  darker  in  1860-65  by  the  storm  which  arose  over  the  publication  of  'Essays 
and  Reviews. '  In  1 863  a  prosecution  of  Jo wett  on  account  both  of  his  '  Commen  tary ' 
and  of  his  '  Essay '  was  set  on  foot,  but  only  to  collapse  upon  being  pressed.  Two 
years  later,  the  scandal  of  a  great  scholar  at  Oxford  brilliantly  discharging  the  duties 
of  a  professorship  of  Greek  for  ten  years  with  hardly  any  salary  came  to  an  end.  The 
next  three  years,  1865-68,  saw  liberal  measures  carried  in  Balliol  councils,  and  great 
advances  made.  In  1869  Jo  wett  was  appointed  preacher  to  the  college.  The  next 
year,  June,  1870,  brought  a  vacancy  in  the  Balliol  Mastership.  A  plan  for  a  second 
'Essays  and  Reviews'  volume  was  earnestly  pressed  by  Jowett  in  1869  and  1870,  but 
not  finally  executed.  In  February,  1871,  the  earliest  four- volume  edition  of  Jowett's 
'  Plato '  appeared.  The  second  edition,  with  very  great  improvement  of  the  transla- 
tion and  large  additions  to  the  introductions,  came  out  in  1875.  The  final  edition, 
constituting  Jowett's  magnum  opus,  was  published  in  1892,  with  the  perfected  work 
in  notes  and  dissertations,  the  matter  and  style  of  which  are  the  author's  lasting 
claim  upon  a  high  place  in  the  literature  of  the  century.  From  Plato,  Jowett  in  187 1- 
72  went  on  to  the  translation  of  Thucydides,  which  appeared  in  1881,  and  to  a  trans- 
lation of  Aristotle's  'Politics/  which  was  published  in  1882.  A  work  on  the  life  of 
Christ  had  a  place  in  his  plans  almost  to  the  end  of  his  life,  but  he  did  nothing  towards 
it.  His  idea  was  that  the  life  of  Christ  should  be  written  "as  a  history  of  truths,  to 
bring  the  mind  and  thoughts  of  Christ  a  little  nearer  to  the  human  heart,  in  the  spirit, 
not  in  the  letter";  and  this  he  thought  might  be  the  work  of  another  generation  in 
theology.  In  1882  Jowett  became  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  university,  and  held  the 
office  four  years.  It  was  his  final  recognition  as  the  foremost  of  Oxford  educators. 
His  'Life'  is  exceedingly  rich  in  indications  of  character,  in  penetrating  thoughts  on  a 
great  variety  of  themes,  in  sagacious  independent  criticisms,  and  in  reminiscences  of 
Oxford  and  of  English  culture  during  sixty  years,  which  will  long  give  it  a  high  place 
among  books  of  the  century. 

JOY  OF  LIVING,  THE  ('Es  lebe  das  Leben'),  by  Hermann  Sudermann  (1902). 
Fifteen  years  before  the  opening  of  the  play,  the  Countess  Beata  and  Baron  Richard 
were  lovers.  Richard  becomes  her  husband's  intimate  friend,  and  though  their  love 
does  not  cease  the  liaison  is  broken  off.  Beata's  influence  inspires  Richard's  ambition, 
and  as  the  play  opens  she  has  induced  her  husband,  a  man  of  mediocre  intelligence,  to 
resign  his  seat  in  the  Reichstag  in  favor  of  the  brilliant  Count  Richard.  During  the 
political  campaign,  Richard's  opponent,  a  former  secretary,  brings  to  light  the  secret 
of  their  past.  Duty  to  their  party  forbids  the  public  scandal  of  the  divorce  court  or 
the  duel  for  the  outraged  husband ;  the  men  ask  Richard's  young  son  what  should  be 
done  in  such  a  case,  and  he,  not  knowing  he  is  judging  his  father,  replies  that  "a  man 
of  honor  would  be  more  eager  to  give  his  life  than  the  husband  could  possibly  be  to 
take  it."  It  is  understood  by  the  two  men,  and  guessed  by  Beata,  that  Richard  will 
commit  suicide.  The  party  leaders  call  on  Richard  to  make  a  speech  against  divorce 
upon  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  bond.  Beata  makes  him  promise  to  attend  a 
political  luncheon  she  and  her  husband  give  the  day  following  the  speech  for  the 
sake  of  appearances.  At  the  luncheon  Beata  proposes  a  toast  to  the  joy  of  living. 
Taking  an  overdose  of  her  heart  medicine  which  she  has  dropped  unobserved  into 
her  glass  she  asks  "which  of  us  really  dares  to  live?"  and  answers  "the  only  living 
soul  among  you,  I  drink  to  the  joy  of  living."  The  guests  believe  that  she  has 
succumbed  to  heart  disease,  but  she  has  left  a  letter  of  explanation  for  her  husband. 
"I  see  that  someone  must  pay  the  penalty  —  better  I  than  he.  He  has  his  world 
before  him  —  I  have  lived  my  life.  ...  He  cannot  die  without  causing  the  scandal 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  459 

you  have  been  so  anxious  to  avert.  I  have  always  loved  happiness,  and  I  find  happi- 
ness in  doing  this  for  his  sake  and  the  children's  and  yours." 

JUDAISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY,  by  Crawford  Howell  Toy,  professor  in  Harvard 
University  (1890).  The  sub- title  of  this  valuable  book  modestly  describes  it  as  a 
sketch  of  the  progress  of  thought  from  Old  Testament  to  New  Testament.  The 
history  opens  with  an  introduction  of  less  than  fifty  pages,  as  clear  as  it  is  condensed, 
on  the  general  laws  of  the  advance  from  national  to  universal  religions.  The  rise  of 
Christianity  out  of  Judaism  Professor  Toy  treats  as  a  logical  and  natural  instance  of 
progress.  He  points  out  the  social  basis  of  religion,  and  analyzes  and  describes  the 
growth  of  society,  with  its  laws  of  advance,  retrogression,  and  decay;  the  internal 
development  of  ideas,  and  the  relation  between  religion  and  ethics.  He  then  treats 
of  the  influence  of  great  men;  of  the  external  conditions  that  must  modify  a  religion; 
of  the  general  lines  of  progress;  of  the  extra-national  extension  of  a  conquering  re- 
ligion; and  of  the  universal  religions,  which  he  limits  to  three:  Brahmanism,  which 
has  grown  into  Buddhism;  Judaism,  which  has  grown  into  Christianity;  and  the  old 
Arabian  faith,  whose  product  is  Islam.  And  the  outlook  is  that  as  the  great  civilized 
and  civilizing  nations  of  the  world,  in  whose  hands  are  science  and  philosophy,  lit- 
erature and  art,  political  and  social  progress,  hold  also  to  the  tenets  of  Christianity, 
they  will  carry  that  faith  with  them  and  plant  it  wherever  they  go,  but  in  a  higher 
form  than  it  now  assumes. 

In  following  the  subject  proper,  Professor  Toy  begins  with  the  period  repre- 
sented by  the  name  of  Ezra,  examines  the  prophetic  writings,  and  follows  the  literary 
development  of  the  time  as  represented  in  the  ceremonial  and  uncanonical  books. 
The  progress  and  variations  of  the  doctrine  of  God  and  of  subordinate  supernatural 
intelligences,  both  good  and  evil;  the  Jewish  and  Christian  ideas  of  the  nature  of 
man,  his  attitude  towards  God,  his  hopes  of  perfection,  the  nature  of  sin  and  right- 
eousness; the  inclusions  of  the  ethical  code  of  both  Jew  and  Christian;  the  two  con- 
ceptions of  the  kingdom  of  God;  the  beliefs  respecting  immortality,  resurrection,  and 
the  new  dispensation;  and  finally,  an  examination  of  the  relation  of  Jesus  to  Chris- 
tianity, —  these  occupy  the  remainder  of  the  volume. 

Mr.  Toy  concludes  that  both  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  branches  of  Christianity 
have  followed  the  currents  of  modern  thought;  that  there  is  not  a  phase  of  science, 
philosophy,  or  literature,  but  has  left  its  impress  on  the  body  of  beliefs  that  control 
Christendom,  yet  that  the  person  of  Jesus  has  maintained  its  place  as  the  centre  of 
religious  life.  The  tone  of  the  book  is  undogmatic;  and  its  fine  scholarship,  clearness 
of  statement,  and  delightful  narrative  style,  make  it  agreeable  and  instructive  reading 
for  the  laic. 

JTJDE  THE  OBSCURE,  a  novel  by  Thomas  Hardy  (1896).  The  bar  sinister  which 
crosses  many  of  his  books  is  most  prominent  in  *  Jude.' 

It  is  the  story  of  a  young  man  of  the  people,  ambitious  to  go  to  Oxford  and  to 
become  a  scholar.  He  is  prevented  from  rising  in  the  social  scale  by  himself,  by  his 
environment,  by  a  vulgar  natural  woman  who  loves  him,  and  by  a  refined  morbid 
woman  whom  he  loves.  Arabella  first  drags  him  in  the  mud ;  Sue  then  seeks  to  soar 
with  him  to  the  stars.  Between  Arabella's  earthiness  and  Sue's  heavenly  code  of 
love,  poor  Jude  has  not  a  shred  of  morals  left. 

He  is  pushed  farther  and  farther  from  Oxford  as  the  story  goes  on.  The  novel  be- 
comes at  last  a  hopeless  jumble  of  illegitimate  children,  other  men's  wives,  misery,  more 
misery,  revolt,  and  death.  It  is  a  remarkable  work,  but  not  a  cheerful  or  pleasant  one. 


460  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

JUDGMENT  HOUSE,  THE,  by  Gilbert  Parker  (1913).  This  is  a  powerful  story 
dealing  with  social  and  political  life  in  England.  It  opens  at  the  opera  in  London, 
when  Rudyard  Byng,  a  young  multi-millionaire,  who  has  made  his  fortune  in  South 
Africa  by  his  own  efforts,  meets  for  the  first  time  Jasmine  Grenfel.  The  latter,  a 
beautiful  but  ambitious  girl,  is  the  same  as  engaged  to  Ian  Stafford,  a  brilliant  young 
diplomat,  who  has  been  devoted  to  her  for  some  time  and  who  is  responsible  for  the 
introduction  of  Byng.  At  the  close  of  the  opera  the  clothing  of  the  Prima  Donna, 
who  is  named  Almah,  accidently  catches  fire,  but  the  prompt  action  of  Byng,  who 
rushes  to  her  rescue  prevents  a  catastrophe.  Jasmine,  who  is  impressed  by  Byng's 
strong  character,  as  well  as  by  his  great  wealth,  throws  over  Stafford  and  accepts 
Byng's  offer  of  marriage,  though  she  is  not  really  in  love  with  him.  Three  years 
elapse  and  Stafford,  who  has  spent  the  time  in  foreign  service,  returns  to  England, 
where  he  and  Jasmine  meet  again.  Stafford  treats  Jasmine  with  indifference  and  in 
pique  she  makes  up  her  mind  to  win  him  back  to  her.  She  succeeds  in  doing  this  and 
by  political  intriguing  gets  him  an  appointment  for  which  he  is  working.  At  the 
same  time  she  finds  herself  deeply  in  love  with  him  and  realizes  that  she  has  always 
cared  for  him.  Jasmine  has  other  admirers,  one  of  whom  is  Adrian  Fellowes  who 
has  had  a  long  standing  affair  with  Almah.  A  love-letter,  written  by  Fellowes  to 
Jasmine,  falls  into  her  husband's  hands  and  he  is  horrified  at  the  knowledge  of  her 
disloyalty.  He  denounces  Fellowes  and  orders  him  to  leave  the  country  but  before 
his  departure  Fellowes  is  mysteriously  murdered.  No  clue  is  found  to  the  murderer, 
and  Stafford  suspects  Jasmine,  and  Jasmine  and  her  husband  suspect  each  other. 
The  Boer  War  is  declared  and  Byng  and  Stafford  join  the  army,  while  Jasmine,  who 
has  separated  from  her  husband,  gives  most  of  her  money  for  a  hospital  ship  and  goes 
with  it  to  South  Africa,  as  a  nurse.  Almah  also  is  there  in  the  same  capacity  and 
confesses  to  the  murder  of  Fellowes  who  had  deceived  her.  Stafford  is  finally  killed 
in  battle,  and  Rudyard  and  Jasmine  are  again  united,  the  latter  realizing  at  last  that 
she  is  deeply  in  love  with  her  husband. 

JULIA  FRANCE  AND  HER  TIMES;  a  novel  by  Gertrude  Atherton  (1912)*  The 
beautiful  Julia,  just  eighteen,  at  her  first  ball  attracts  a  dissolute  English  officer, 
whose  ship  is  at  anchor  at  St.  Kitts,  in  the  West  Indies.  Her  worldly,  ambitious 
mother  forces  her  innocent  daughter  to  marry  Capt.  France,  because  he  is  heir 
presumptive  to  a  dukedom.  Julia,  trained  to  obedience  and  to  her  mother's  belief  in 
her  horoscope,  predicting  a  great  destiny,  sails  away  to  England  to  discover  the 
wickedness  of  the  world  in  general  and  of  her  husband  in  particular.  She  makes  two 
friends,  Bridgit  and  Ishbel,  who  give  her  aid  and  comfort  and  finally  rescue  her  from 
her  husband,  who  is  rapidly  becoming  a  paranoic.  Ishbel,  one  of  fourteen  beautiful 
daughters  of  an  impoverished  Irish  peer,  tired  of  society  life  and  her  dull  millionaire 
husband,  sets  up  a  flourishing  millinery  business.  Julia  joins  her,  but  her  plans  arc 
foiled  by  her  husband,  and  she  has  to  go  back  to  him.  Armed  with  five  pistols  she  is 
able  to  protect  herself,  but  is  a  prisoner  waiting  for  his  inevitable  mental  breakdown. 
Before  he  becomes  dangerous,  she  escapes  again,  this  time  to  be  secretary  to  Bridgit, 
who  is  an  ardent  suffrage  leader.  France  tries  to  assassinate  the  duke  and  is  sent 
to  an  asylum.  Julia,  after  a  trip  to  the  East,  devotes  her  freedom  to  the  cause, 
becoming  a  militant  leader  and  speaker,  getting  herself  maltreated  by  the  police  and 
imprisoned.  An  American  boy,  Daniel  Tay,  whom  she  had  met  in  the  first  years  of 
her  married  life,  had  sworn  to  come  back  for  her  in  ten  years.  He  finds  her  at  the 
height  of  her  fame  as  suffrage  leader,  falls  in  love  with  her  again,  and  wins  her,  an 
unwilling  victim  to  the  "splendid  disease"  of  love,  "induced  by  nature  to  further 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  46r 

her  one  end."  She  decides  to  visit  her  old  home  in  the  West  Indies  to  take  time  to 
make  her  decision.  Her  mother,  still  clinging  to  the  great  destiny  of  Julia's  horoscope 
again  tries  to  dominate  her  life.  She  must  remain  a  leader  of  women  if  she  is  not  to 
be  a  duchess.  The  old  lady  throws  her  grandchild,  Fanny,  a  young  beauty,  in  Tay's 
way,  while  Julia  is  in  retirement.  A  cablegram  comes  announcing  the  death  of 
France,  and  Julia  gives  up  her  career  and  the  comradeship  of  the  women  she  admires, 
to  be  Tay's  wife. 

JULIUS  CAESAR.  (First  printed  in  1623.)  The  material  for  this  stately  drama,  the 
noblest  of  Shakespeare's  historical  plays,  was  taken  from  Plutarch.  The  action 
covers  nearly  two  years,  —  44  to  42  B.  C.  The  dramatic  treatment,  and  all  the 
splendid  portraiture  and  ornamentation,  cluster  around  two  points  or  nodes,  —  the 
passing  of  Caesar  to  the  Capitol  and  his  assassination  there,  and  the  battle  of  Philippi. 
Of  the  three  chief  conspirators,  —  Brutus,  Cassius,  and  Casca,  —  Brutus  had  the 
purest  motives:  "all  the  conspirators,  save  only  he,  did  that  they  did  in  envy  of 
great  Caesar";  but  Brutus,  while  loving  him,  slew  him  for  his  ambition  and  to  serve 
his  country.  His  very  virtues  wrought  Brutus's  ruin:  he  was  too  generous  and  un- 
suspecting. The  lean-faced  Cassius  gave  him  good  practical  advice:  —  first,  to 
take  off  Antony  too;  and  second,  not  to  allow  him  to  make  an  oration  over  Caesar's 
body.  Brutus  overruled  him :  he  spoke  to  the  fickle  populace  first,  and  told  them  that 
Antony  spoke  only  by  permission  of  the  patriots.  The  eloquent  and  subtle  Antony 
seized  the  advantage  of  the  last  word,  and  swayed  all  hearts  to  his  will.  There  lay 
the  body  of  the  world-conqueror  and  winner  of  hearts,  now  a  mere  piece  of  bleeding 
earth,  with  none  so  poor  to  do  him  reverence.  Antony  had  but  to  hold  up  the  toga 
with  its  dagger-rents  and  show  the  pitiful  spectacle  of  the  hacked  body,  and  read  the 
will  of  Caesar,  —  giving  each  citizen  a  neat  sum  of  money,  and  to  all  a  beautiful  park 
for  their  recreations,  —  to  excite  them  to  a  frenzy  of  rage  against  the  patriots.  These 
fly  from  Rome,  and,  drawing  their  forces  to  a  head  at  Philippi,  are  beaten  by  Octavius 
Caesar  and  Antony.  Both  Brutus  and  Cassius  fall  upon  their  swords.  The  great 
"show"  passages  of  the  play  are  the  speech  of  the  tribune  Marullus  ("O  you  hard 
hearts,  you  cruel  men  of  Rome");  the  speeches  of  Antony  by  Pompey's  statue  ("0 
mighty  Caesar!  dost  thou  lie  so  low?"  —  "Here  wast  thou  bayed,  brave  hart."  — 
"Over  thy  wounds  now  do  I  prophesy");  and  of  Brutus  and  Antony  in  the  rostrum 
("Not  that  I  loved  Caesar  less,  but  that  I  loved  Rome  more";  and  "I  come  to  bury 
Caesar,  not  to  praise  him"),  —  these  together  with  the  quarrel  and  reconciliation  of 
Brutus  and  Cassius  in  the  tent  at  Philippi.  Certain  episodes,  too,  are  deservedly 
famous:  such  as  the  description  by  blunt-speaking,  superstitious  Casca  of  the  night- 
storm  of  thunder  and  lightning  and  rain  (the  ghosts,  the  surly-glaring  lion,  and  other 
portents) ;  the  dispute  at  Brutus's  house  about  the  points  of  the  compass  ("Yon  grey 
lines  that  fret  the  clouds  are  messengers  of  day");  the  scenes  in  which  that  type  of 
loyal  wifeliness,  Portia,  appears  (the  wound  she  gave  herself  to  prove  her  fortitude, 
and  her  sad  death  by  swallowing  fire) ;  and  finally  the  pretty  scene  in  the  last  act,  of 
the  little  page  falling  asleep  over  his  musical  instrument,  in  the  tent  in  the  dead 
silence  of  the  small  hours  of  morning,  when  by  the  waning  taper  as  he  read,  Brutus 
saw  the  ghost  of  murdered  Caesar  glide  before  him,  a  premonition  of  his  death  on  the 
morrow  at  Philippi. 

JUNGLE,  THE,  by  Upton  Sinclair  (1906).  In  this  book  the  author  has  vividly 
portrayed  life  in  the  Chicago  stockyards  and  his  revelations  are  so  shocking  and 
revolting  that  one  cannot  read  them  without  being  rilled  with  horror.  In  fact  after 


462  THK  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  book's  publication  the  indignation  of  the  general  public  was  aroused  and  an 
investigation  into  the  prevailing  conditions  of  the  stockyards  was  instituted  by  the 
United  States  government.  The  central  figure  in  the  story  is  Jurgis  Rudkus,  a  poor 
Slav  immigrant,  who  comes  to  the  new  world  to  make  his  fortune.  He  is  accom- 
panied on  his  venture  by  his  father,  Ona  Lukoszaite  the  girl  to  whom  he  is  engaged, 
and  her  family  consisting  of  a  stepmother  and  half  a  dozen  brothers  and  sisters. 
Their  experiences  are  harrowing  in  the  extreme;  they  are  cheated,  abused,  and 
oppressed  on  every  hand,  suffer  privations  of  every  kind  and  find  death  a  blessed 
release  when  it  finally  ends  their  sufferings.  In  the  beginning  of  the  story  Jurgis  is 
young  and  strong,  and  fortified  by  undaunted  courage  and  hope,  but  after  struggling 
against  the  terrible  conditions  which  surround  him  without  avail,  he  becomes 
wrecked  physically  and  morally.  The  first  year  of  existence  in  the  new  country  is 
hard  for  the  newcomers,  but  they  manage  to  get  work  in  the  yards  and  keep  their 
heads  above  water,  and  Jurgis  and  Ona  are  married.  Soon  after,  however,  their 
troubles  begin  to  increase  and  misfortunes  of  every  kind  overtake  them.  Ill  treatment 
from  those  who  employ  them,  unhealthy  conditions  where  they  are  forced  to  work, 
and  other  evils,  undermine  their  health  and  happiness.  One  by  one  the  members  of 
this  unfortunate  household  sicken  and  die,  working  to  the  last  in  order  to  do  their 
part  in  the  great  struggle.  The  death  of  Ona  is  particularly  tragic  as  she  dies  in 
giving  birth  to  her  second  child  surrounded  by  the  most  frightful  conditions  of 
poverty  and  want  that  can  be  imagined.  Jurgis  takes  to  drink  and  finding  it  im- 
possible to  gain  a  living  in  an  honest  way  gives  way  to  the  temptations  that  surround 
him  and  becomes  utterly  debased.  In  conclusion  Jurgis  becomes  a  socialist  hoping 
thereby  to  improve  his  condition.  Throughout  the  story  the  dominating  influence 
of  the  trades'  unions  is  strikingly  illustrated  and  the  futility  of  a  workingman's 
struggle  against  them. 

JUNGLE  BOOKS,  THE,  by  Rudyard  Kipling.  The  central  figure  in  these  books  is 
the  boy  Mowgli,  who,  straying  from  his  village  home  when  an  infant,  had  been  lost 
in  the  forest,  and  there  sheltered  and  nursed  with  her  own  cubs  by  a  mother-wolf, 
and  the  hairy  Orson.  Joined  to  this  element  of  human  interest,  and  with  the  coloring 
of  high  romance,  these  stories  picture  the  personal  characteristics  and  social  and 
political  life  of  the  gaunt  wolf -family  in  their  cave  and  the  free  republic  of  wolves, 
assembled  in  the  Pack;  the  snarling  Bengal  tiger,  Shere  Khan,  who,  though  fearful, 
like  the  other  beasts,  of  man's  superior  wit,  roams  boastfully  for  prey,  attended  by  his 
obsequious  but  mischief -making  jackal  servant,  Tabaqui,  the  Dish-Licker;  they  tell 
about  Baloo,  "the  sleepy  brown  bear  who  teaches  the  wolf-cubs  the  Law  of  the  Jungle, 
which  is  the  reproof  of  human  codes  in  its  comprehensive  justice  ";  the  black  panther, 
Bagheera;  Kaa,  the  big  rock  python;  and  many  others,  including  the  monkey  people, 
filthy  chatterers  despised  by  all  the  rest.  They  describe  also  how  Mowgli's  coming 
disturbed  these  forest  creatures;  how  his  human  will  proved  more  powerful  than 
Shere  Khan's  jaws  and  claws;  and  how  the  brown  bear  and  other  friends  rescued  him 
with  some  trouble  when  he  had  been  carried  off  through  the  tree-tops  by  the  monkey 
people;  and  how  he  finally  went  back  to  live  among  men,  but  with  a  better  knowledge 
of  beasts.  Unlike  the  talking  beasts  in  JLsop's  fables,  those  of  the  'Jungle  Books* 
are  not  men  in  hides  and  on  all  fours  discussing  human  problems.  Kipling's  genius 
represents  them  thinking  and  behaving,  each  according  to  his  own  peculiar  beastly 
habit  and  experience,  with  such  dramatic  skill  that  one  is  almost  forced  to  believe 
that  he  has  intimately  dwelt  among  them  as  Mowgli  did.  The  stories  were  published 
in  St.  Nicholas,  and  collected  into  two  volumes  in  1894  and  1895. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  463 

JUNTOS  LETTERS,  THE.  During  the  period  between  November  2ist,  1768,  and 
January  2 1st,  1772,  there  appeared  in  the  London  Daily  Advertiser  a  series  of  mysteri- 
ous letters  aimed  at  the  British  ministry  of  that  day,  and  signed  by  various  pen- 
names  —  the  most  remarkable  of  them  by  that  of  one  ' '  Junius. ' '  During  the  century 
ensuing,  the  authorship  of  these  epistles  has  been  assigned  with  some  degree  of 
probability.  Yet  enough  of  uncertainty,  of  mystery,  still  remains  to  make  the 
genesis  of  the  'Junius  Letters'  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  literary  puzzles.  A 
bibliography  has  developed,  and  new  light  is  still  shed  from  time  to  time  upon  the 
problem.  Meanwhile  the  merits  of  the  '  Letters '  have  been  sufficient  to  give  them  a 
life  all  the  more  vigorous,  perhaps,  because  they  have  been  conjecturally  assigned  to 
Sir  Philip  Francis. 

The  author  was  a  man  thoroughly  cognizant  of  British  politics;  a  vehement 
opponent  of  the  government,  and  of  the  ministerial  leaders,  Sir  William  Draper,  the 
Duke  of  Graf  ton,  and  the  Duke  of  Bedford;  a  supporter  of  Wilkes,  the  opposition 
chief;  and  a  fiery  pleader  for  popular  liberty.  The  dominant  message  is  sounded  in 
these  words  from  the  first  letter  of  the  series:  "The  admission  of  a  free  people  to 
the  executive  authority  of  government  is  no  more  than  compliance  with  laws  which 
they  themselves  have  enacted."  Much  constitutional  knowledge  is  shown  in  these 
trenchant  attacks,  which  continually  refer  to  the  British  Constitution  as  the  bulwark 
of  the  people's  rights.  In  manner,  the  letters  are  vigorous,  bold,  and  among  the 
finest  specimens  of  impassioned  invective  and  irony  in  English  literature.  To  read 
them  now  is  to  understand  readily  the  stir  they  made  on  their  appearance  before  an 
already  excited  public. 

For  years  their  authorship  was  not  assigned  to  Francis.  Burke,  Lord  Temple, 
Hamilton,  Dr.  Butler,  Wilkes,  and  several  others  were  suspected,  and  many  ingenious 
arguments  proved  the  validity  of  this  claim  or  that,  no  less  than  thirty-five  names 
having  been  considered  by  students  of  the  subject.  In  1813,  forty  years  after  their 
publication,  John  Taylor  published  his  'Discovery  of  the  Author  of  the  Letters  of 
Junius,'  in  which  they  were  attributed  to  Sir  Philip  Francis  and  his  father;  the  first 
of  whom  was  still  living  when  the  volume  appeared,  and  did  not  deny  them. 

Sir  Philip  Francis,  son  of  an  Irish  clergyman  and  schoolmaster  of  repute,  a  man  of 
culture  and  travel,  holding  important  governmental  positions  and  having  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  political  machine,  was,  at  the  time  the  '  Letters '  appeared,  in  the 
War  Office.  Taylor  points  out  that  Junius  shows  remarkable  familiarity  with  that 
department,  many  of  the  letters  having  been  written  upon  war-office  paper.  It  is 
known,  too,  that  Francis  kept  elaborate  note-books  on  the  English  constitutional 
questions  so  ably  discussed  in  the  'Letters.'  Woodfall,  the  publisher  of  the  Daily 
Advertiser,  in  which  the  'Junius  Letters'  were  printed,  was  a  schoolmate  of  Francis 
at  Eton.  Expert  examination  of  the  disguised  handwriting  in  which  the  letters  were 
penned,  identified  it  with  the  hand  of  Francis.  W.  R.  Francis,  Sir  Philip's  grandson, 
in  his  'Junius  Revealed,'  strengthens  the  case.  He  discovered  a  poem  known  to  be 
written  by  Francis,  yet  copied  out  in  the  feigned  hand  of  Junius.  He  found  also  that 
several  of  the  seals  used  on  the  'Junius  Letters '  were  used  on  private  letters  by  Fran- 
cis, To  these  significant  facts  the  grandson  adds  that  Sir  Philip's  character,  as 
revealed  in  his  official  work,  was  of  the  same  arrogant,  sarcastic  strain  which  comes 
out  in  the  Advertiser  communications. 

This  testimony,  some  of  it  very  significant,  more  of  it  cumulative  in  effect,  makes 
altogether  a  good  case  for  the  Franciscan  theory.  Judging  the '  Letters '  as  literature, 
however,  the  whole  question  of  the  personality  of  Junius  becomes  a  secondary  one. 
Enough  that  they  represent  one  of  the  most  powerful  examples  of  political  polemics  • 


464  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

in  English  literature,  which  even  now,  when  the  events  that  begot  them  seem  but  the 
shadow  of  a  shade,  stir  the  blood  and  compel  admiration.  The  letter  which  made 
the  deepest  sensation  at  the  moment  is  the  famous  one  addressed  to  the  King. 
The  edition  of  1812,  upon  which  the  many  later  ones  are  based,  is  that  of  Wood- 
fall,  the  publisher,  who  was  arraigned  for  trial  because  of  printing  the  Junius 
screeds. 

JUST  DAVID,  by  Eleanor  H.  Porter  (1916),  is  the  story  of  a  little  boy  who  is  a 
musical  genius  and  who  by  his  loving  and  unworldly  nature  wins  the  hearts  of  all 
about  him.  The  death  of  David's  father,  a  once  celebrated  musician,  who  has 
brought  the  motherless  boy  up  in  a  lonely  cabin  on  a  mountain-top,  teaching  him  to 
love  nature  and  his  music,  leaves  the  orphan  of  ten  years,  a  wanderer  with  only  his 
violin  for  company.  The  boy  is  taken  into  the  household  of  a  farmer,  named  Holley, 
who  with  his  wife,  takes  pity  upon  the  waif.  At  first  David  finds  his  new  home 
almost  unbearable  as  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Holley  are  plain,  hard-working  people  with  little 
sympathy  for  the  artistic  and  spiritual  side  of  life  to  which  the  boy  has  been  accus- 
tomed in  his  intercourse  with  his  father.  David's  past  is  a  mystery,  as  a  letter  left 
by  his  father,  which  contains  certain  suggestions  for  his  future,  has  a  signature  which 
none  of  the  village-folk  can  decipher.  David  makes  many  friends  among  both  rich 
and  poor;  he  brightens  the  life  of  a  blind  boy,  Joe  Glaspell,  to  whom  he  lends  his 
father's  violin,  and  becomes  devotedly  attached  to  a  rich  and  beautiful  young  woman 
named  Barbara  Holbrook,  whom  he  calls  his  "Lady  of  Roses."  He  acquires  a  warm 
friend  in  Jack  Guernsey,  a  young  man  who  is  in  love  with  Barbara  Holbrook,  but 
who  does  not  approach  her  on  account  of  her  great  wealth  and  his  own  poverty. 
Guernsey's  little  sister  Jill  becomes  David's  playmate  and  they  spend  happy  hours 
together.  When  at  last  David  becomes  dangerously  ill  his  many  friends  realize  his 
worth  in  the  community  and  lavish  attentions  upon  him.  By  his  bedside  Jack 
Guernsey  and  Barbara  Holbrook  meet  and  are  reunited  through  the  boy's  efforts. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Holley,  who  are  softened  by  the  boy's  influence,  become  reconciled  to 
their  son  John,  from  whom  they  have  been  estranged  for  years.  John  returns  and 
discovers  that  David's  father  was  a  world-famous  musician  and  that  wealthy  rela- 
tives are  awaiting  the  coming  of  the  gifted  child,  who  is  from  this  time  to  have  the 
long-dreamed-of  opportunity  to  develop  his  art. 

JUSTICE;  a  tragedy  by  John  Galsworthy  (1910).  William  Falder,  a  young  clerk 
in  a  solicitor's  office  is  in  love  with  a  woman,  who  is  being  cruelly  treated  by  her 
husband.  In  an  ill-balanced  moment  he  commits  forgery  in  order  to  find  money  to 
rescue  her  from  her  husband's  brutality.  He  is  discovered  as  he  is  on  the  point  of 
sailing  with  her  to  South  America.  At  his  trial  his  counsel  pleads  guilty  for  him,  but 
asks  the  jury  to  believe  that  the  prisoner  acted  under  great  emotional  stress,  and 
adds,  "men  like  the  prisoner  are  daily  destroyed  under  our  law  for  want  of  that 
human  insight,  which  sees  them  as  they  are,  patients,  and  not  criminals."  The  judge 
sums  up  against  this  plea,  and  the  prisoner  is  sentenced  to  three  years'  penal  servi- 
tude. On  his  release,  he  is  unable  to  keep  employment  that  had  been  found  for  him, 
as  his  fellow-employees  learned  about  his  past.  "He  seems  (he  tells  someone  who 
knew  him)  to  be  struggling  against  a  thing  that  is  all  around  him. ' '  His  old  employers 
offer  to  take  him  back  again  on  condition  that  he  gives  up  the  company  of  the  woman 
for  love  of  whom  he  had  committed  forgery.  He  refuses,  and  his  employers  relent, 
but  at  that  moment  a  detective  enters  to  arrest  him  because  for  four  weeks  he  has 
failed  to  report  himself.  He  throws  himself  out  of  a  window  and  is  killed.  This 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  465 

play  made  so  great  an  impression  on  the  public  mind  that  certain  important  reforms 
in  prison  administration  in  England  are  directly  to  be  traced  to  its  influence. 

"K,"  a  novel  by  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart  (1915),  depicts  a  brilliant  young  surgeon 
who  because  of  a  fatal  error  in  his  work  drops  his  chosen  profession  and  takes  an 
assumed  name.  He  first  appears  in  the  narrative  as  K.  Le  Moyne,  known  familiarly 
as  "K";  he  has  taken  the  position  of  bookkeeper  in  a  gas-office  and  boards  quietly 
with  a  family  named  Page.  He  falls  in  love  with  Sidney  Page,  a  charming  and 
attractive  girl,  but  she  does  not  suspect  his  feelings  towards  her  and  regards  him  only 
as  a  dear  friend.  Sidney  enters  a  hospital  to  become  a  trained  nurse  and  wins  the 
love  of  the  head  surgeon  Dr.  Max  Wilson  who  is  handsome  and  fascinating  but  of 
doubtful  reputation  where  women  are  concerned.  Sidney  becomes  engaged  to  Max 
and  although  "K"  has  been  associated  with  him  in  his  old  professional  days  and 
knows  his  character,  he  does  not  feel  at  liberty  to  interfere.  Carlotta  Harrison, 
an  attractive  young  nurse,  who  had  previously  received  the  head  surgeon's 
attentions,  is  violently  jealous  of  Sidney  and  does  everything  possible  to  break 
up  the  match.  She  finally  traps  Dr.  Wilson  into  a  compromising  situation  with 
her  at  a  disreputable  road-house,  and  there  he  is  shot  by  a  jealous  boy  who  loves 
Sidney  and  thinks  she  is  Wilson's  companion  on  this  occasion.  Wilson  is  thought  to 
be  fatally  injured,  but  his  old  friend  "K"  saves  his  life  by  coming  forward  and  per- 
forming the  operation  for  which  he  was  once  famous.  Subsequently  Carlotta,  who 
had  also  been  associated  with  "K"  in  the  past,  confesses  that  while  assisting  at  the 
fatal  operation  she  had  caused  him  to  make  the  blunder  which  had  shattered  his 
career.  "K"  resumes  his  chosen  profession,  and  Sidney,  whose  eyes  have  been 
opened  to  Wilson's  failings,  realizes  that  she  does  not  love  him,  but  does  care  for 
"K"  the  devoted  and  faithful  friend  who  has  been  her  protector  and  guide  through 
all  her  trials. 

KANT,  IMMANUEL,  HIS  LIFE  AND  DOCTRINE,  by  F.  Paulsen,  translated  by 
J.  E.  Creighton  and  A.  Lefevre  (1902).  The  recluse  philosopher  of  Konigsberg  led 
such  a  routine  and  retired  existence,  that  it  is  almost  difficult  to  realize  that  he  lived 
a  human  life  at  all.  Born  in  the  East  Prussian  town  in  1724,  he  spent  his  days 
within  a  narrow  circle,  "He  was  a  German  professor  of  the  old  style:  to  work,  to 
teach,  to  write  books,  was  the  sum  and  substance  of  his  life.  Important  external 
events,  exciting  crises,  other  than  intellectual,  in  his  history  there  are  none.  His 
birthplace  Konigsberg,  with  its  university,  is  the  scene  of  his  life  and  activity.  He 
spent  only  a  few  years,  as  tutor  in  a  country  family,  outside  its  walls,  and  never  passed 
the  boundaries  of  his  native  province."  Sprung  from  parents  of  the  poorest  class,  he 
nevertheless  had  the  luck  to  get  good  schooling  and  to  be  entered  at  the  University. 
His  biographer  traces  the  evolution  of  his  thought  and  the  development  in  his  mind 
of  the  firm  belief  in  immortality,  the  freedom  of  the  human  will,  the  existence  of  God, 
the  "categorical  imperative"  or  law  of  duty.  Over  his  grave  in  the  Cathedral  are 
inscribed  the  well-known  words  from  his  Critique  of  Practical  Reason, 

*'  The  starry  heavens  above  me 
The  moral  law  within." 

It  is  remarkable  that  to  a  philosopher  whose  influence  upon  thought  has  been  incal- 
'culably  great,  the  outer  world  was  known  only  through  books.  Though  he  was  the 
first  academic  teacher  of  physical  geography,  he  had  never  seen  a  mountain,  and  had 
never  visited  the  sea,  though  it  was  not  more  than  forty  miles  away.  While  grateful 
30 


466  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

to  Frederick  the  Great  for  his  firm  administration,  he  was  not  one  of  that  monarch's 
unqualified  admirers.  "He  so  often,"  says  Dr.  Paulsen,  "and  so  emphatically 
expressed  his  abhorrence  of  war,  this  scourge  of  mankind,  this  destroyer  of  all  that  is 
good,  expecially  of  war  undertaken  without  necessity  for  political  reasons,  that  one 
cannot  refrain  from  including  the  wars  of  Frederick  the  Great  in  this  judgment." 
His  political  sympathies  were  not  with  an  absolute  and  monarchical  form  of  govern- 
ment, but  with  a  democracy  of  the  kind  that  had  recently  been  established  in  North 
America,  and  seemed  likely  to  be  set  up  in  France.  His  philosophy  brought  him  into 
contact  with  the  ruling  powers,  especially  on  publication  of  his  work  'Religion  within 
the  Bounds  of  Pure  Reason.'  In  October,  1794,  he  received  an  order  of  the  cabinet 
in  these  terms.  "Our  highest  person  has  been  greatly  displeased  to  observe  how 
you  misuse  your  philosophy  to  undermine  and  destroy  many  of  the  most  important 
and  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  of  Christianity.  We  demand 
of  you  immediately  an  exact  account,  and  expect  that  in  the  future  you  will  give  no 
such  cause  of  offence,  but  rather  that,  in  accordance  with  yourjiuty,  you  will  employ 
your  talents  and  authority  so  that  our  paternal  purpose  may  be  more  and  more 
attained.  If  you  continue  to  oppose  this  order,  you  may  certainly  expect  unpleasant 
consequences  to  yourself."  Kant  in  reply  maintained  the  right  of  the  scholar  to 
form  independent  judgments  on  religious  matters  and  to  make  his  opinions  known, 
but  nevertheless  agreed  to  refrain  in  future  from  all  public  address  on  religion,  both 
natural  and  revealed,  either  in  lectures  or  in  writings. 

KEMBLE,  FRANCES  ANNE,  see  RECORDS  OF  A  GIRLHOOD:  RECORDS  OF 
LATER  LIFE. 

KENELM  CHILLINGLY,  'His  Adventures  and  Opinions,'  by  Edward  Bulwer 
Lytton  (Lord  Lytton)  (1873).  This,  one  of  Bulwer's  artistic  novels  of  English  life,  is 
considered  by  many  a  masterpiece,  and  is  certainly  one  of  his  most  popular  works. 
Kenelm  Chillingly  is  the  long-desired  heir  of  an  old  family,  who  develops  symptoms 
of  remarkable  precocity,  to  the  anxiety  of  his  parents  and  teachers.  After  leaving 
school,  he  is  given  an  insight  into  London  society,  and  enters  Cambridge  with  matured 
opinions  and  judgment,  graduating  with  honors.  Coming  of  age  in  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  —  a  time  of  unwonted  progress,  of  unsettlement  of  beliefs, 
and  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing  state  of  affairs,  —  he  adds  to  the  general 
unrest  of  his  generation  an  individual  melancholy  of  temperament,  a  phenomenal 
clearness  of  vision  which  detects  and  despises  shams,  and  an  inability  to  fit  himself 
into  commonplace  grooves  and  the  ruts  of  inherited  habit.  In  various  phrases 
throughout  his  biography  he  is  described,  or  describes  himself  —  "A  mere  dreamer"; 
"He  had  woven  a  solitude  round  him  out  of  his  own  heart";  "I  do  not  stand  in  this 
world:  like  a  ghost  I  glide  beside  it  and  look  on."  With  the  temperament  of  the 
idealist,  Kenelm  possesses  an  attractive  face  and  figure,  a  fondness  for  athletic  exer- 
cise, and  a  perfect  physical  development.  He  leaves  home  in  search  of  adventures, 
an  unknown  pedestrian  with  a  few  pounds  in  his  pocket  (and  unlimited  credit  at  his 
bankers '),  unincumbered  by  letters  of  introduction  or  social  fetters.  His  adventures, 
which  are  in  keeping  with  his  personality,  extend  over  a  few  years,  varied  by  periodical 
returns  to  his  family  and  reappearances  in  society;  where  he  is  courted  for  his  wealth, 
his  gentle  birth,  and  his  eccentricities.  The  culmination  of  his,  fortunes  is  reached  in 
an  unfortunate  love  affair  with  Lily  Mordaunt,  a  spirituelle  creature,  half  child,  half 
woman,  a  "human  poem,"  who  dies  broken-hearted  when  a  cruel  fate  separates 
her  from  her  lover. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  467 

'Kenelm  Chillingly '  is  less  the  life  of  a  man  than  the  prelude  to  a  life;  a  preface  of 
dreams,  of  disappointments,  of  disillusionments,  before  the  realities  begin.  He 
himself  epitomizes  his  future  and  his  past,  when  he  says  to  his  father,  in  their  last 
recorded  interview,  "We  must  —  at  whatever  cost  to  ourselves  —  we  must  go 
through  the  romance  of  life  before  we  clearly  detect  what  is  grand  in  its  possibilities  " ; 
and  again,  "My  choice  is  made:  not  that  of  deserter,  but  that  of  soldier  in  the  ranks." 

Round  him  are  grouped  many  interesting  characters,  —  Sir  Peter  and  Lady 
Caroline,  his  father  and  mother  ;  his  cousin,  Gordon  Chillingty,  the  ambitious  politi- 
cian; Chillingly  Mivers,  the  caustic  editor  of  The  Londoner;  the  reformed  bully, 
Tom  Bowles;  the  pretty  village  belle,  Jessie  Somers,  and  her  crippled  husband; 
Cecilia  Travers,  who  remains  faithful  to  her  unreciprocated  attachment  for  Kenelm; 
Mr.  Welby,  the  polished  man  of  society;  Walter  Melville,  the  celebrated  artist  and 
"Wandering  Minstrel";  and  several  others. 

KENILWORTH,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  appeared  in  1819,  when  its  author  was  fifty 
and  had  long  been  distinguished  both  as  poet  and  novelist.  '  Kenil  worth '  was  the 
second  of  his  great  romances  drawn  from  English  history.  The  central  figure  is 
that  of  Elizabeth,  the  haughty  queen.  She  is  surrounded  by  the  brilliant  and  famous 
characters  of  the  period  —  Burleigh,  Edmund  Spenser,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh;  and  also 
by  a  host  of  petty  sycophants.  The  Earl  of  Surrey  and  the  Earl  of  Leicester  are 
rivals,  each  high  in  her  favor,  each  thought  to  be  cherishing  a  hope  of  winning  her 
hand.  But  beguiled  by  the  charms  of  Amy  Robsart,  the  daughter  of  a  country 
gentleman,  Leicester  has  secretly  married  her,  and  established  her  at  Cumnor  Place, 
a  lonely  manor-house  where  she  lives  with  surly  Tony  Foster  as  guardian,  and  his 
honest  young  daughter,  Janet,  as  attendant.  Amy  had  formerly  been  engaged  to 
Tressilian,  a  worthy  protege*  of  her  father.  Tressilian  discovers  her  hiding-place;  and 
not  believing  her  married,  vainly  tries  to  induce  her  to  return  home.  He  then  appeals 
to  the  queen  before  the  whole  court.  A  disclosure  of  the  truth  means  Leicester's 
ruin,  but  seems  inevitable,  when  his  confidential  follower,  the  unscrupulous  Richard 
Varney,  saves  the  situation.  He  affirms  Amy  to  be  his  own  wife,  and  is  ordered  to 
appear  with  her  at  the  approaching  revels  at  Kenilworth,  Leicester's  castle,  which 
the  queen  is  to  visit.  Amy  scornfully  refuses  to  appear  as  Varney's  wife,  and  Varney 
attempts  to  drug  her.  In  fear  of  her  life,  she  escapes  and  makes  her  way  to  Kenil- 
worth.  The  magnificent  pageant  prepared  there  for  Elizabeth,  and  the  motley  crowds 
flocking  to  witness  it,  are  brilliantly  described.  Amy  cannot  gain  access  to  her 
husband,  but  is  discovered  and  misjudged  by  Tressilian.  The  Queen  finds  her  half- 
fainting  in  a  grotto,  and  again  Varney  keeps  her  from  learning  the  truth.  He  per- 
suades Elizabeth  that  Amy  is  mad.  He  persuades  Leicester  that  she  is  false  and  loves 
Tressilian,  and  obtains  the  earl's  signet  ring  and  authority  to  act  for  him.  Amy  is 
hurried  back  to  Cumnor  Place.  There,  decoyed  from  her  room  by  her  husband's 
signal,  she  steps  on  a  trap-door  prepared  by  Varney  and  Foster,  and  is  plunged  to 
death,  just  before  Tressilian  and  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  arrive  to  take  her  back  to  Kenil- 
worth.  They  have  been  sent  by  Elizabeth  to  whom  Leicester,  discovering  the  in- 
justice of  his  suspicions,  has  confessed  all.  He  falls  into  the  deepest  disgrace;  and 
Elizabeth,  feeling  herself  insulted  both  as  queen  and  as  woman,  treats  him  with  scorn 
and  contempt.  'Kenil  worth'  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  delightful  of  English 
historical  romances. 

KENNEDY  SQUARE,  by  F.  Hopkinson  Smith  (1911).  This  is  a  story  of  life  in  the 
South  in  the  Ante-Bellum  days.  Kennedy  Square  is  an  aristocratic  spot  in  one  of 


468  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Maryland's  principal  cities,  and  here  abides  St.  George  Temple,  in  the  ancestral 
mansion  which  his  family  has  occupied  for  generations.  He  is  a  genial  bachelor  of 
middle  age,  who  dispenses  hospitality  in  a  generous  and  courtly  fashion,  and  is 
beloved  by  all,  especially  by  the  young  people  to  whom  he  is  "Uncle  George."  His 
particular  favorites  in  this  circle  are  Harry  Rutter  and  Kate  Seymour,  both  endowed 
with  wealth,  social  position  and  personal  charm,  and  who  are  in  love  with  each  other. 
Their  engagement  is  to  be  announced  at  a  large  ball  given  by  Harry's  parents,  but 
while  it  is  in  progress,  and  before  the  good  news  has  been  made  public,  Langdon 
Willetts,  one  of  Harry's  rivals,  being  excited  by  liquor,  insults  Kate.  Harry's  hot 
blood  is  aroused  and  he  challenges  Willetts  to  a  duel,  which  takes  place  immediately, 
and  Willetts  is  seriously  wounded.  This  unhappy  occurrence  causes  Harry's  proud 
and  autocratic  father  to  disown  him  on  the  spot,  as  he  considers  his  son  has  disgraced 
his  blood  by  shooting  a  guest  under  his  own  roof.  Kate  also  heart-broken  over  the 
affair,  tells  Harry  all  is  over  between  them.  St.  George  then  slips  into  the  breach  and 
exonerating  Harry  from  blame  says  he  shall  henceforth  be  as  his  own  son.  Harry 
stays  with  St.  George  until  business  reverses  come  to  him  and  then  rather  than  be  a 
burden  on  his  kind  friend  he  books  as  a  common,  seaman  on  a  ship  sailing  for  South 
America  and  is  gone  for  three  years.  On  his  return  he  finds  his  kind  Uncle  George  in 
poor  health,  reduced  to  absolute  poverty,  and  living  in  the  wretched  home  of  one  of 
his  faithful  negro  servants.  Harry  makes  immediate  plans  to  restore  to  his  old 
friend  his  home  and  his  beloved  possessions  and  is  successful  in  his  efforts.  He  and 
his  father  become  reconciled  and  he  is  re-united  to  Kate  who  has  never  ceased  to  love 
him.  The  story  closes  with  the  return  of  St.  George  to  his  ancestral  home,  which 
Harry  and  Elate  have  restored  and  put  in  perfect  order  for  his  coming. 

KENTTTCKIANS,  THE,  by  John  Pox,  Jr.  (1898)  is  a  study  of  the  two  races  that 
inhabit  the  State  of  Kentucky:  the  prosperous  and  cultured  dwellers  of  the  "blue- 
grass"  region,  and  the  rough,  savage,  ignorant  mountaineers,  whose  civilization  to- 
day is  exactly  that  of  their  ancestors,  the  early  settlers.  Hallard,  the  mountain 
leader,  and  Marshall,  the  brilliant  townsman,  are  rivals  in  the  legislature,  and  rivals 
for  the  love  of  Anne  Bruce,  the  governor's  daughter;  and  the  struggle  between  them 
forms  the  story  of  the  book,  which  is  a  remarkably  brilliant  picture  of  some  interesting 
phases  of  American  life,  as  well  as  a  sober  statement  of  certain  social  problems  which 
insist  on  a  settlement.  Fox's  pages  bear  their  own  assurance  of  authenticity,  not  less 
in  their  vividness  of  portraiture  than  in  their  reserve.  Nothing  is  overstated. 

KENTUCKY  CARDINAL,  A,  and  AFTERMATH,  by  James  Lane  Allen  (1895-96), 
The  'Kentucky  Cardinal'  is  a  fresh  and  dainty  tale,  which  may  be  called  an  "idyl 
of  the  woods."  The  story  tells  of  the  wooing  of  Adam  Moss,  a  recluse  who  devotes 
himself  to  nature,  and  who  dwells  in  a  garden,  which  his  loving  touch  converts  almost 
into  fairyland,  where  all  the  fruits  and  flowers  blossom  and  ripen  to  perfection,  and 
where  all  the  birds  have  learned  to  rest  on  their  migratory 'journeys.  Adam  knows  all 
the  birds  and  loves  them  best  of  all  living  creatures,  until  he  meets  Georgianna,  his 
beautiful  next-door  neighbor.  She  is  a  lovely,  tormenting,  bewildering  creature,  who 
eludes  him  one  day,  encourages  him  the  next,  and  scorns  him  on  a  third.  Despite  her 
endless  resources  for  tormenting  Adam,  she  is  undeniably  charming  and  alluring. 
She  is,  however,  possessed  by  a  vague  fear  that  her  lover's  fondness  for  nature  and 
for  his  birds  is  something  that  must  prevent  his  entire  allegiance  to  her.  She  tests 
his  affection  by  demanding  that  he  cage  for  her  the  splendid  "Kentucky  cardinal"; 
and  Adam  wages  a  bitter  warfare  with  himself  before  allowing  his  love  for  Georgiann 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  469 

to  triumph  over  hisjifelong  principle  and  conscientious  attitude  towards  his  feathery 
friends.  The  caging  of  the  bird,  which  beats  its  life  out  in  the  prison,  is  converted  by 
the  author's  skill  into  a  veritable  tragedy,  wherein  the  reader  keenly  shares  Adam's 
remorse  and  Georgianna's  grief.  The  lovers  quarrel ;  and  then  follows  a  reconciliation 
which  reveals  each  more  clearly  to  the  other,  and  unites  them  finally.  The  conversa- 
tions of  Georgianna  from  her  window  to  Adam  in  his  strawberry  bed  below  are  a 
delightful  feature  of  the  story,  which  is  enlivened  by  his  dry  humor  and  her  witty 
repartee.  'Aftermath,'  the  second  part  of  'A  Kentucky  Cardinal,'  follows  the  lovers 
through  the  days  of  their  engagement  and  their  brief  wedded  life,  which  is  one  of  ideal 
happiness  while  it  lasts.  Georgianna  strives  to  win  her  husband  from  his  overmaster- 
ing fondness  for  nature;  and  he,  to  please  her,  enters  into  social  life  and  seeks  to 
interest  himself  more  in  the  "study  of  mankind."  At  the  birth  of  a  son  Georgianna 
passes  away,  leaving  her  husband  to  seek  consolation  where  he  can  best  obtain  it,  — 
from  his  beloved  "nature."  Mr.  Allen  has  a  delicate  touch  and  a  charm  of  style; 
and  his  descriptions  of  nature  and  of  bird  life  possess  a  really  poetic  beauty,  while 
they  are  characterized  by  a  ring  of  truthfulness  which  convinces  the  reader  that  the 
author's  heart  is  in  his  words.  There  is  a  blending  of  pathos  and  humor  in  the  work 
which  makes  it  delightful  reading. 

KIDNAPPED,  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  was  published  in  1886,  when  the  author 
was  thirty-six,  and  was  his  seventh  work  of  fiction.  In  his  own  opinion,  it  was  his 
best  novel;  and  it  is  generally  regarded  as  one  of  his  finest  performances  in  romantic 
story-telling.  The  full  title  reads:  'Kidnapped:  Being  Memoirs  of  the  Adventures 
of  David  Balfour  in  the  Year  1751 ';  and  the  contents  of  the  tale  are  further  indicated 
on  the  title-page,  thus:  "How  he  was  Kidnapped  and  Cast  away;  his  Sufferings  in  a 
Desert  Isle;  his  Journey  in  the  Wild  Highlands;  his  Acquaintance  with  Alan  Breck 
Stewart  and  other  notorious  Highland  Jacobites;  with  all  that  he  Suffered  at  the 
hands  of  his  Uncle,  Ebenezer  Balfour  of  Shaws,  falsely  so  called."  David,  on  his 
father's  death,  visits  his  uncle  near  Edinburgh,  and  finds  him  a  miser  and  villain,  who, 
to  get  rid  of  his  nephew,  packs  him  off  on  the  brig  Covenant,  intending  to  have  him 
sold  in  America.  On  shipboard  he  falls  in  with  Alan,  the  dare-devil  Jacobite,  one  of 
the  most  spirited  and  vivid  characterizations  of  Stevenson.  David  espouses  the 
Stuart  cause,  and  in  company  with  Alan  has  a  series  of  lively  experiences  narrated 
with  great  swing  and  color.  The  fight  in  the  roundhouse  of  the  brig,  the  flight  in  the 
heather  from  the  red-coats  of  King  George,  and  other  scenes,  are  conceived  and 
carried  out  in  the  finest  vein  of  romance.  After  these  wanderings,  David,  circum- 
venting his  rascally  uncle,  comes  into  his  own. 

KIM,  by  Rudyard  Kipling  (1901).  In  this  brilliant  piece  of  work  the  author  offers 
a  new  example  of  his  remarkable  versatility.  It  exhibits  his  extraordinary  power 
of  characterization  as  well  as  his  probably  unsurpassed  knowledge  of  Indian 
modes  and  customs.  Kimball  O'Hara,  known  as  Kim,  is  a  little  vagabond  of  Irish 
parentage,  orphaned  when  a  baby,  and  left  to  shift  for  himself  in  the  depths  of  the 
native  quarter  of  Lahore.  He  meets  an  aged  lama  from  Thibet,  who  is  seeking 
the  all-healing  River  of  the  Arrows,  or  stream  of  Immortality,  and  roams  through 
India  in  his  company.  The  two  are  lodged  and  fed  by  the  pious  people  of  the  coun- 
try and  as  they  tramp  abotit  undergoing  manifold  experiences,  a  deep  affection 
springs  up  between  them.  Kim  is  presently  recognized,  reclaimed  and  adopted  by 
the  Irish  regiment,  to  which  his  father  belonged,  and  is  given  an  education  in  a 
Catholic  college.  He  endures  the  thraldom  of  St.  Xavier's  in  Lucknow,  only  upon  the . 


47°  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

condition  of  being  allowed  to  tramp  the  continent  in  the  long  vacation  with  his 
beloved  Buddhist  priest.  Col.  Creighton  discovers  Kim's  remarkable  fitness  for 
employment  in  the  Secret  Service  of  the  English  government  and  he  receives  tuition 
from  proficient  natives.  The  result  is  that  he  distinguishes  himself  while  yet  a 
stripling  by  capturing  in  the  high  Himalayas,  the  credentials  and  dispatches  of  a 
formidable  Russian  spy.  The  author  takes  leave  of  Kim  in  the  flush  of  his  first 
victory.  The  book  contains  a  marvelous  picture  of  India  with  its  wealth  and  poverty, 
and  its  crowded  cities  teeming  with  human  life,  where,  with  Earn,  one  may  enter  the 
bazaars  of  the  natives  and  become  intimately  acquainted  with  the  "brown"  men  and 
women  who  live  and  move  in  an  atmosphere  of  their  own.  One  may  view  the  for- 
gotten temples  and  holy  rivers  and  terrible  stretches  of  burning  plain,  and  learn  to 
appreciate  the  grandeur  of  the  magnificent  mountain  barrier  of  the  North.  In  ' Kim,' 
Kipling  seems  to  have  embodied  not  only  the  wonderful  material  and  physical  aspect, 
but  the  human  soul  of  the  Orient. 

KING  JOHN,  a  drama  by  Shakespeare,  the  source  of  which  is  an  older  play  published 
in  1591.  The  date  of  the  action  is  1200  A.  D.  John  is  on  the  throne  of  England, 
but  without  right;  his  brother,  Richard  the  Lion-Hearted,  had  made  his  nephew 
Arthur  of  Bretagne  his  heir.  Arthur  is  a  pure  and  amiable  lad  of  fourteen,  the  pride 
and  hope  of  his  mother  Constance.  The  maternal  affection  and  the  sorrows  of  this 
lady  form  a  central  feature  of  the  drama.  Arthur's  father  Geoffrey  has  long  been 
dead,  but  his  mother  has  enlisted  in  his  behalf  the  kings  of  Austria  and  of  France. 
Their  forces  engage  King  John's  army  under  the  walls  of  Angiers.  While  the  day  is 
still  undecided,  peace  is  made,  and  a  match  formed  between  Lewis,  dauphin  of  France, 
and  John's  niece  Blanche.  The  young  couple  are  scarcely  married  when  the  pope's 
legate  causes  the  league  to  be  broken.  The  armies  again  clash  in  arms,  and  John  is 
victorious,  and  carries  off  Prince  Arthur  to  England,  where  he  is  confined  in  a  castle 
and  confided  to  one  Hubert.  John  secretly  gives  a  written  warrant  to  Hubert  to  put 
him  to  death.  The  scene  in  which  the  executioners  appear  with  red-hot  irons  to  put 
out  the  boy's  eyes,  and  his  innocent  and  affectionate  prattle  with  Hubert,  reminding 
him  how  he  had  watched  by  him  when  ill,  is  one  of  the  most  famous  and  pathetic  in 
all  the  Shakespearian  historical  dramas.  Hubert  relents;  but  the  frightened  boy 
disguises  himself  as  a  sailor  lad,  and  leaping  down  from  the  walls  of  the  castle,  is 
killed.  Many  of  the  powerful  lords  of  England  are  so  infuriated  by  this  pitiful  event 
(virtually  a  murder,  and  really  thought  to  be  such  by  them),  that  they  join  the 
Dauphin,  who  has  landed  to  claim  England's  crown  in  the  name  of  his  wife. 
King  John  meets  him  on  the  battle-field,  but  is  taken  ill,  and  forced  to  retire  to 
Swinstcad  Abbey.  He  has  been  poisoned  by  a  monk,  and  dies  in  the  orchard 
of  the  abbey  in  great  agony.  His  right-hand  man  in  his  wars  and  in  counsel  has 
been  a  bastard  son  of  Richard  I.,  by  Lady  Faulconbridge.  The  bastard  figures 
conspicuously  in  the  play  as  braggart  and  ranter;  yet  he  is  withal  brave  and 
patriotic  to  the  last.  Lewis,  the  dauphin,  it  should  be  said,  makes  peace  and  retires 
to  France. 

KING  LEAR.  Shakespeare's  great  drama,  'King  Lear,'  was  written  between  1603 
and  1606.  The  bare  historical  outline  of  the  story  of  the  King  he  got  probably  from 
Holinshed  or  from  an  old  play,  the  'Chronicle  History  of  Leir';  the  sad  story  of 
Gloster  was  found  in  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  'Arcadia.'  The  motifs  of  the  drama  are 
the  wronging  of  children  by  parents  and  of  parents  by  children.  With  the  for- 
tunes of  the  King  are  interwoven  those  of  Cluster,  Lear  has  she-devils  for  daughters 


"THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  471 

(Goneril  and  Regan),  and  one  ministering  angel,  Cordelia;  Gloster  has  a  he-devil  fot 
son  (Edmund),  and  one  faithful  son,  Edgar.  The  lustre  of  goodness  in  Cordelia, 
Edgar,  Albany,  loyal  Kent,  and  the  faithful  Fool,  redeems  human  nature,  redresses 
the  balance.  At  the  time  the  play  opens,  Lear  is  magnanimously  dividing  his  king- 
dom between  his  sons-in-law  Cornwall  and  Albany.  But  he  has  already  a  predis- 
position to  madness,  shown  by  his  furious  wrath  over  trifles,  his  childish  bids  for 
affection,  and  his  dowering  of  his  favorite  daughter  Cordelia  with  poverty  and  a 
perpetual  curse,  simply  for  a  little  willful  reserve  in  expressing  her  really  profound 
love  for  him.  Blind  impulse  alone  sways  him ;  his  passions  are  like  inflammable  gas; 
for  a  mere  whim  he  banishes  his  best  friend,  Kent.  Coming  into  the  palace  of  Goneril, 
after  a  day's  hunt  with  his  retinue  of  a  hundred  knights,  his  daughter  (a  fortnight 
after  her  father's  abdication)  calls  his  men  riotous  and  asks  him  to  dismiss  half  of 
them.-  Exasperated  to  the  point  of  fury,  he  rushes  out  tired  and  supperless  into  a 
wild  night  storm;  he  is  cut  to  the  heart  by  her  ingratitude.  And  there  before  the 
hovel,  in  the  presence  of  Kent,  the  disguised  Edgar,  and  the  Fool,  insanity  sets  in 
and  never  leaves  him  until  he  dies  at  Dover  by  the  dead  body  of  Cordelia.  In  a 
hurricane  of  fearful  events  the  action  now  rushes  on:  Gloster 's  eyes  are  plucked  out, 
and  he  wanders  away  to  Dover,  where  Cordelia,  now  Queen  of  France,  has  landed 
with  an  army  to  restore  her  father  to  his  rights.  Thither,  too,  the  stricken  Lear  is 
borne  at  night.  The  joint  queens,  most  delicate  friends,  lust  after  Edmund.  Regan, 
made  a  widow  by  the  death  of  Cornwall,  is  poisoned  by  Goneril.  Cordelia  and  Lear 
are  taken  prisoner,  and  Cordelia  is  hanged  by  Edmund's  order.  Edmund  is  slain  in 
the  trial  by  combat.  Lear  dies;  Gloster  and  Kent  are  brokenhearted  and  dying; 
Regan  has  stabbed  herself;  Edgar  and  Albany  alone  survive.  The  Fool  in  '  Lear*  is  a 
man  of  tender  feeling,  and  clings  to  his  old  comrade,  the  King,  as  to  a  brother.  His 
jests  are  like  smiles  seen  through  tears;  they  relieve  the  terrible  strain  on  our  feelings. 
Edmund  is  a  shade  better  than  lago ;  his  bastardy,  with  its  rankling  humiliations,  is 
an  assignable  cause,  though  hardly  a  palliation  of  his  guilt. 

KING  MILINDA,  QUESTIONS  OF  THE,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE 
EAST. 

KING  NOANETT,  by  F.  J.  Stimson  ("J.  S.  of  Dale"  1897).  This  novel  is  based 
upon  the  history  of  old  New  England  and  of  England  during  the  Protectorate. 
Bampfylde  Moore  Carew  tells  the  story  of  his  life.  As  a  lad  of  twenty  he  is  living 
with  his  grandfather,  Farmer  Slocombe.  While  wandering  over  his  favorite  moors 
of  Devonshire,  Carew  first  meets  Mistress  St.  Aubyn,  with  whom  he  falls  desperately 
in  love.  This  love  is  henceforth  to  be  the  leading  influence  of  his  life ;  its  first  effect 
being,  however,  to  bring  him  to  arrest  and  exile.  Having  drawn  his  sword  in  defense 
of  her  grandfather,  Lord  Penruddock,  he  is  taken  under  arms  by  Cromwell's  soldiers, 
and  is  sentenced  to  the  Colonies.  Among  his  fellow-prisoners  on  the  ship  he  meets 
Miles  Courtenay,  an  Irishman  and  cavalier,  and  Jennifer,  a  young  girl  whom  they 
take  under  their  protection.  Her  gratitude  to  Courtenay  expresses  itself  in  a.  great 
and  self-sacrificing  love.  Though  themselves  in  ignorance  of  the  fact,  Carew  and 
Courtenay  both  love  the  same  woman,  Mistress  St.  Aubyn.  The  desire  of  each  is  to 
find  her.  In  Virginia  they  work  as  slaves  on  the  tobacco  plantations,  then  escape  to 
join  the  army.  While  warring  with  a  tribe  of  Indians,  they  capture  the  mighty  chief 
King  Noanett.  The  mystery  surrounding  this  strange  personage  is  at  once  pene- 
trated by  the  two  young  men,  and  a  romantic  episode  closes  the  story.  The  book 
contains  beautiful  descriptions  of  Devonshire,  and  most  interesting  sketches  of  old 


472  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Dedham  and  its  laws.  It  is  said  that  the  dashing  and  warm-hearted  Irishman  was 
modeled  on  the  character  of  the  late  John  Boyle  O'Reilly,  with  whom  the  author 
often  talked  over  the  plan  of  the  book. 

KING  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS,  THE  ('Le  Roi  des  Montagnes'),  by  Edmond  About, 
appeared  in  1856,  when  he  was  twenty-eight.  The  scene  is  laid  in  and  near  con- 
temporary Athens.  The  story  is  an  animated  and  delightfully  humorous  account  of 
the  adventures  befalling  two  English  ladies  and  a  young  German  scientist,  who  are 
captured  and  held  for  ransom  by  the  redoubtable  Hadgi-Stavros,  king  of  the  brigands. 
Mrs.  Simons  is  an  amusing  caricature  of  British  arrogance.  ' '  I  am  an  Englishwoman, ' ' 
is  her  constant  refrain;  and  she  cannot  comprehend  how  any  one  dare  interfere  with 
the  rights  of  herself  and  her  daughter  Mary  Ann.  The  Simons  family  is  rich.  Her- 
mann Schultze,  the  young  German,  is  attracted  by  pretty  Mary  Ann,  and  with  the 
thrift  of  his  nation,  wants  to  make  his  fortune  by  marrying  her.  He  tries  to  ingratiate 
himself  by  proposing  plans  of  escape  which  Mrs.  Simons  rejects.  Hadgi-Stavros 
dictates  his  private  correspondence  in  the  presence  of  his  captives.  Thus  Schultze 
learns  that  the  king  has  a  large  sum  of  money  in  a  London  banking  house  to  which 
Mrs.  Simons's  brother  belongs.  She  writes  to  have  the  amount  of  her  ransom  paid; 
and  the  king  is  persuaded  to  give  a  receipt  by  which  he  can  be  tricked  out  of  the 
amount.  Mother  and  daughter  are  released.  Schultze  tries  to  escape,  but  fails,  and 
is  severely  punished.  He  attacks  the  king,  and  nearly  succeeds  in  poisoning  him.  A 
friend  in  Athens,  John  Harris,  a  typical  American  full  of  resources,  rescues  Hermann. 
The  king  is  devoted  to  his  one  child  Photini,  a  schoolgirl  in  Athens.  Harris  persuades 
Photini  aboard  his  barge,  keeps  her  prisoner,  and  threatens  to  treat  her  as  Schultze  is 
treated.  Thereupon  Schultze  is  released.  He  afterward  narrates  the  whole  story  to  a 
friend,  between  whiffs  of  his  long  porcelain  pipe.  This  story  is  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  and  delightful  of  About 's  telling. 

KING  RENE'S  DAUGHTER:  A  Danish  lyrical  drama,  by  Henrik  Hertz.  (Trans- 
lation by  Theodore  Martin:  1849.)  The  seven  scenes  of  this  drama  are  located  in 
Provence,  in  the  valley  of  Vaucluse,  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The 
chief  characters  are  King  Rene1  of  Provence,  and  his  daughter  lolanthe,  rendered 
blind  by  an  accident  in  early  infancy,  but  raised  in  ignorance  of  this  deficiency  to 
her  sixteenth  year,  when  by  the  skill  of  her  Moorish  physician  she  is  to  be  restored 
to  sight.  Plighted  in  marriage  by  her  father  to  Count  Tristan  of  Vaudemont,  for 
state  reasons,  without  love,  the  two  destined  partners  have  never  met;  and  the  count 
on  arriving  at  manhood  repudiates  the  forced  contract.  Wandering  with  his  fellow 
troubadours  through  the  valley  of  Vaucluse,  he  comes  by  accident  upon  the  secluded 
garden  and  villa  where  King  Rene*  had  kept  his  daughter  in  confinement  under  the 
care  of  the  faithful  Bertrand  and  Martha.  The  count,  entering  while  lolanthe  is 
sleeping  under  the  spell  of  the  Moorish  physician,  and  ignorant  that  she  is  the  king's 
daughter,  is  ravished  by  her  beauty,  and  lifts  the  amulet  from  her  breast,  at  which  she 
awakes.  He  first  reveals  to  her  the  secret  of  her  blindness,  and  declares  his  love. 
Surprised  by  the  arrival  of  the  king,  he  renounces  his  engagement  with  his  daughter, 
and  thereby  his  inheritance  of  a  kingdom,  that  he  may  marry  this  beautiful  stranger. 
The  Moor  appears,  declaring  the  time  and  the  conditions  fulfilled  for  lolanthe's 
restoration.  lolanthe  comes  forth  seeing,  and  is  owned  by  the  king  as  his  daughter, 
and  the  count  as  his  bride.  The  whole  transaction  is  between  noonday  and  sunset, 
and  takes  place  in  the  rose  garden  of  lolanthe's  villa.  The  deep  psychological  motive 
of  the  play  lies  in  the  fact  of  the  soul's  vision  independent  of  the  physical  sight,  and 


THE   READER'S  DIGEST  OF   BOOKS  473 

of  the  inflowing  of  the  soul's  vision  into  the  sense  rather  than  the  reverse,  as  the 
principle  of  seeing.  Ebn  Jahia,  the  Moor,  teaches  thus :  — 

"You  deem,  belike,  our  sense  of  vision  rests 
Within  the  eye;  yet  it  is  but  a  means. 
From  the  soul's  depths  the  power  of  vision  flows.  .  .  . 
lolanthe  must  be  conscious  of  her  state. 
Her  inward  eye  must  first  be  opened  ere 
The  light  can  pour  upon  the  outward  sense. 
A  want  must  be  developed  in  her  soul: 
A  feeling  that  anticipates  the  light." 

The  coming  of  the  count,  and  the  love  inspired  in  lolanthe  by  the  sound  of  his  voice 
and  the  touch  of  his  hand,  creates  the  necessary  discontent :  — 

"Deep  in  the  soul  a  yearning  must  arise 
For  a  contentment  which  it  strives  to  win." 

The  interview  between  lolanthe  and  the  count  and  his  companion  is  partly  in  inter- 
changed songs  after  the  Minnesingers 's  manner.  The  construction  of  the  drama  is 
highly  artistic,  and  the  work  is  of  rare  and  unique  beauty.  The  play  was  performed 
with  success  at  the  Strand  Theatre,  London,  in  1849. 

KLAUS  HINRICH  BAAS ;  the  story  of  a  Self-Made  Man,  by  Gustav  Frenssen  (1909). 
The  life  story  of  an  energetic  peasant  boy  from  his  childhood  until  he  is  a  successful 
merchant  in  a  commercial  German  city,  a  typical  self-made  man.  His  father's  death 
makes  it  necessary  for  him  to  leave  school  and  go  to  work.  A  kind  old  woman,  an 
artist,  hires  him  to  clean  her  studio,  and  introduces  him  to  a  merchant  who  gives  him 
employment.  He  is  a  faithful  clerk,  and  is  chosen  to  go  with  the  son  of  the  head  of 
the  firm  to  India  to  examine  a  mine.  He  gains  business  experience,  which  helps  him 
to  get  a  better  position  when  he  returns  to  Hamburg  after  two  years.  When  he  is 
twenty-six  he  marries  a  frail  flower  of  a  girl  whose  nature  is  too  different  from  his  for 
companionship.  This  ill-assorted  marriage  ends  in  a  separation.  His  genius  for 
finance  enables  him  to  save  from  failure  the  aristocratic  firm  of  Eschen,  which  had 
sent  him  to  India,  and  he  becomes  a  partner.  He  marries  Sanna  Eschen  and  is  happy 
with  her.  Always  he  remains  the  primitive  natural  peasant  secretly  amazed  at  his 
comfortable  surroundings,  his  self-possessed  fine  looking  wife  and  dainty  children. 
The  book  leaves  him  at  middle-age,  with  his  character  formed  through  hardship, 
labor,  and  passion  to  self-knowledge  and  self-mastery.  A  great  variety  of  characters 
appear  in  the  story.  The  LIBRARY  reprints  chapters  in  the  hero's  early  life  which 
picture  his  father  and  mother.  His  mother  is  a  stern  hard  woman,  from  whom  Klaus 
inherits  his  masterful  disposition.  She  works  day  and  night  to  keep  a  home  for  her 
children,  and  spends  her  life  in  the  effort  to  stamp  out  the  weakness  and  vanity  which 
comes  to  him  from  his  handsome,  lively  father.  Klaus  is  less  arrogant  in  his  success 
in  the  closing  chapters.  He  says  to  his  wife,  "  Nature  blindly  endows  people  with  a 
collection  of  gifts  which  their  ancestors  had.  They  may  be  useful  or  useless,  good  or 
bad.  It  is  not  possible  to  break  or  to  reform  the  original  character;  nor  is  it  right  to 
blame  or  despise  it.  The  only  thing  that  can  be  done  is  to  improve  it.  You  can 
strengthen  the  weak  somewhat,  and  soften  the  obstinate,  and  turn  the  mischievous 
toward  good ;  and  you  can  humble  the  arrogant  and  presumptuous  a  little.  I've  found 
that  out." 

KNICKERBOCKER'S  HISTORY  OF  NEW  YORK.  In  a  later  preface  to  this  work, 
first  published  in  1809,  Washington  Irving  says:  "Nothing  more  was  contemplated 


474  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

than  a  jeu  $  esprit,  written  in  a  serio-comic  vein,  and  treating  local  errors,  follies, 
and  abuses  with  good-humored  satire."  Diedrich  Knickerbocker  is  the  imaginary 
historian  who  records  the  traditions  of  New  Amsterdam.  The  book  begins  with  the 
creation  of  the  world,  the  discovery  of  America  by  the  Dutch,  and  the  settlement  of 
the  New  Netherlands.  Hendrick  Hudson  appears,  with  other  navigators;  there  are 
descriptions  of  the  "Bouwerie,"  Bowling  Green,  the  Battery,  and  Fort  Amsterdam, 
with  the  quaint  Dutch  houses,  tiled  roofs,  and  weathercocks,  all  complete.  Dutchmen 
in  wide  trousers,  big  hats,  feathers,  and  large  boots,  continually  puffing  long  pipes, 
are  seen  with  their  wives  and  daughters  in  voluminous  petticoats,  shoes  with  silver 
buckles,  girdles,  and  neat  head-dresses.  Along  the  Hudson  sail  high-pooped  Dutch 
ships.  Legends  of  the  island  of  Manhattan  and  its  surrounding  shores  are  interwoven 
with  the  humorous  chronicle.  The  history  treats  of  Oloffe  Van  Kortlandt,  the  valiant 
"Kip,  the  Ten  Broecks,  Hans  Reiner  Oothout,  the  renowned  Wouter  Van  Twiller, 
descendant  of  a  long  line  of  burgomasters,  the  patroon  Killian  Van  Rensselaer,  Stoffel 
Brinkerhoff,  William  Kieft  called  "William  the  Testy,"  Antony  Van  Corlear  the 
trumpeter,  Peter  Stuyvesant  with  his  silver  leg,  and  a  complement  of  Indians,  Dutch, 
and  Yankee  settlers.  "  Before  the  appearance  of  my  work, "  says  Irving,  "the  popu- 
lar traditions  of  our  city  were  unrecorded;  the  peculiar  and  racy  customs  and  usages 
derived  from  our  Dutch  progenitors  were  unnoticed  or  regarded  with  indifference,  or 
adverted  to  with  a  sneer." 

KNIGHT  OF  THE  BURNING  PESTLE,  THE,  by  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  (1607). 
This  mock-heroic  drama  owed  in  large  part  its  influence  to  Don  Quixote;  the  aim  of 
the  authors  was  to  ridicule  the  military  enthusiasm  of  the  city  of  London  and  the  ro- 
mantic dramas  by  which  it  was  stimulated  in  the  same  way  as  Cervantes  had  sati- 
rized the  antiquated  chivalry  of  Spain.  Naturally,  therefore,  it  did  not  meet  with  a 
favorable  reception  at  first,  though  it  began  to  have  a  reputation  a  generation  later. 
The  play  opens  with  an  entertainment  performed  before  a  citizen-grocer  and  his  wife 
who  keep  up  a  running  fire  of  comments  on  the  progress  of  the  piece.  They  are 
specially  interested  in  the  acting  of  Ralph,  an  apprentice  of  their  own,  for  whom  they 
have  managed  to  secure  a  place  in  the  cast  in  order  that  he  may  play  the  part  of  the 
hero.  The  pompous  dialogues  in  the  Quixotic  manner  between  the  Knight  and  his 
Squire,  and  between  the  Knight  and  the  landlord  of  the  Bell  Inn  are  perhaps  the  most 
diverting  parts  in  a  diverting  play. 

KNIGHTLY  SOLDIER,  THE,  by  H.  Clay  Trumbull  (1865)  is  a  biography  of  Major 
Henry  Ward  Camp  of  the  Tenth  Connecticut  Volunteers,  who  fell  in  one  of  the 
battles  before  Richmond  in  1864.  It  was  written  while  the  War  was  still  in  progress; 
while  the  author,  who  was  chaplain  in  the  army  and  an  attached  friend  of  the  subject 
of  the  memoir,  was  still  amid  the  stress  of  the  great  conflict;  and  he  writes  with  the 
warmth  of  personal  affection  and  comradeship  of  the  career  of  a  young  American 
soldier.  It  is  a  noble  monument  to  the  memory  of  the  author's  friend;  at  the  same 
time  it  is  a  graphic  chronicle  of  a  soldier's  life  in  the  field.  The  letters  of  Major  Camp 
interwoven  with  the  narrative  reveal  the  man's  study  of  himself  in  the  experiences 
of  battle,  prison,  flight,  recapture,  liberation;  and  show  him  to  be  indeed  a  "knightly 
soldier." 

KNITTERS  IN  THE  SUN,  by  "Octave  Thanet"  (Miss  Alice  French,  1887)  is  a 
collection  of  nine  short  stories,  all  but  one  illustrating  the  life  of  the  South  or  West. 
They  are  tales  of  every-day  life  and  more  or  less  every-day  people;  notable  for 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  475 

simplicity  and  honesty,  excellent  as  character-studies,  and  without  striking  incident, 
while  a  sunny  wholesome  philosophy  pervades  them  all. 

KORAN,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

LADDER  OF  SWORDS,  A,  by  Gilbert  Parker  (1904).  The  scene  of  this  romance 
is  laid  in  the  Isle  of  Jersey  during  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  principal 
characters  in  the  story  are  a  pair  of  Huguenot  lovers  named  Michel  de  la  Foret  and 
Angele  Aubert  who  have  been  forced  to  flee  from  France.  Angele  with  her  family 
precedes  her  lover  to  the  Island  of  Jersey  and  there  awaits  his  coming.  Before  his 
arrival  she  is  sought  in  marriage  by  the  Seigneur  of  Rozel,  a  big  and  blustering,  but 
kind-hearted  man,  and  when  she  declines  the  honor  he  has  done  her  he  tells  her  he 
will  remain  her  true  friend.  The  ship  which  is  bringing  Michel  to  his  expectant 
betrothed  is  overtaken  by  a  storm  and  wrecked  within  sight  of  land  and  those  waiting 
to  welcome  him.  Michel  and  his  companion,  a  pirate  named  Buonespoir,  are  thrown 
into  the  sea  where  they  would  have  perished  had  not  the  Seigneur  of  Rozel  manned 
a  boat  and  brought  about  their  rescue.  The  re-united  lovers  have  but  a  short  time 
to  enjoy  their  happiness  as  their  intercourse  is  rudely  interrupted  by  the  arrest  of 
Michel  by  the  order  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  cause  of  this  edict  is  that  Michel, 
who  wa"  an  officer  in  the  army  of  Comte  Gabriel  de  Montgomery,  who  was  slain  by 
the  Medici,  is  an  innocent  victim  of  the  latter's  rage.  Catherine  de  Medici  requests 
Elizabeth  to  render  him  into  their  hands  and  she  in  order  to  keep  on  good  terms 
with  France  accedes  to  the  other's  request.  Michel  is  taken  to  London  where  he 
is  on  tr^al  for  his  life  and  is  finally  pardoned  by  Elizabeth.  His  two  friends,  the 
Seigneur  of  Rozel  and  Buonespoir,  follow  him  to  London  and  work  faithfully  for  his 
release.  Angele  also  intercedes  with  the  Queen  and  does  everything  in  her  power  to 
save  her  lover's  life.  After  his  acquittal  Michel  and  Angele  are  married  and  return 
to  the  Isle  of  Jersey.  After  seven  years  of  happiness  Angele  and  her  baby  die  of  the 
plague  and  Michel,  who  prefers  death  to  life,  is  killed  in  combat  a  year  later. 

LADY  BALTIMORE,  by  Owen  Wister  (1906).  The  scene  of  this  story  is  laid  at  the 
present  time  in  a  southern  city  called  Kings  Port,  which  has  retained  all  the  con- 
servatism and  old-fashioned  customs  which  existed  before  the  Civil  War.  It  is 
visited  by  a  young  man  from  the  North  who  makes  quite  a  sojourn  within  its  sacred 
limits,  and  has  brought  letters  which  admit  him  to  the  inner  circles  of  society.  The 
title  of  the  story  is  derived  from  a  certain  kind  of  cake  which  is  described  as  being 
most  delectable  and  goes  by  the  name  of  "  Lady  Baltimore."  The  visitor  has  his  first 
introduction  to  it  when  he  is  taking  luncheon  at  the  Woman's  Exchange,  which  is 
presided  over  by  a  very  charming  young  woman  whom  he  afterwards  learns  is  Miss 
Eliza  La  Heu,  a  member  of  one  of  the  oldest  families  but  who  is  financially  reduced. 
On  this  occasion,  the  visitor  becomes  interested  in  a  young  man  who  comes  to  the 
Exchange  to  order  a  Lady  Baltimore  cake  for  his  wedding  the  following  week.  The 
visitor's  curiosity  being  aroused  he  makes  inquiries  and  finds  that  the  young  man  is 
named  John  Mayrant  and  that  he  is  also  a  member  of  an  aristocratic  family  and  is 
making  a  match  which  is  highly  disapproved  of  by  his  relations.  The  young  lady 
in  question  who  possesses  beauty  and  much  worldly  wisdom  is  Hortense  Rieppe, 
the  daughter  of  an  indigent  General.  She  arrives  upon  the  scene  with  a  party  of 
fashionable  friends  in  the  automobile  of  a  rich  admirer  known  to  the  reader  as 
"Charley,"  and  the  visitor  is  puzzled  to  find  out  how  John  Mayrant  fits  into  her 
scheme  of  life.  He  surmises  that  John  has  changed  in  his  feelings  towards  Hor- 


476  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

tense  but  is  too  honorable  to  withdraw.  The  denouement  comes  when  Hortense 
jumps  overboard  from  Charley's  steam  yacht  to  try  her  lovers  and  on  being  rescued 
by  John,  the  latter  feels  that  he  can  honorably  release  himself  from  his  engagement 
and  does  so  on  the  spot.  John  then  marries  Eliza  who  was  to  have  made  the  wedding 
cake  for  Hortense  and  makes  it  instead  for  her  own  wedding,  and  Hortense  marries 
Charley  who  will  be  able  to  supply  her  with  all  the  worldly  goods  she  requires. 

LADY  OF  FORT  ST.  JOHN,  THE,  by  Mary  Hartwell  Catherwood  (1892).  This 
weird  and  highly  imaginative  little  story  is  a  romance  based  on  the  history  of  Acadia 
in  1645,  and  describing  how  Marie  de  la  Tour,  in  the  absence  of  her  lord,  defends 
Fort  St.  John  against  the  besieging  forces  of  D'Aulnay  de  Charnisay.  La  Tour,  as 
a  Protestant,  is  out  of  favor  with  the  king  of  France;  D'Aulnay,  with  full  permission 
from  Louis  XIII.,  is  driving  him  from  his  hereditary  estates.  Marie  sustains  the 
siege  with  great  courage,  until  news  comes  from  her  husband  that  their  cause  is 
definitely  lost;  then  she  capitulates.  The  end  is  tragic.  There  are  several  well- 
drawn  subordinate  characters.  The  story  takes  good  rank  among  the  hosts  of 
historic  romances  of  the  time. 

LADY  OF  QUALITY,  A,  by  Mrs.  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett  (1896).  The  scene 
of  this  story  is  laid  in  England,  during  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.  Clorinda,  the 
unwelcome  daughter  of  a  dissolute,  poverty-stricken  baronet,  Sir  Geoffrey  Wildairs, 
loses  her  mother  at  birth,  and  with  her  little  sister  grows  up  neglected  and  alone, 
fleeing  from  the  sound  of  her  father's  footsteps.  At  the  age  of  six  she  wins  his 
heart  by  belaboring  him  with  blows  and  kicks ;  and  from  that  day,  dressed  a?  a  boy, 
she  is  the  champion  and  plaything  of  his  dissolute  friends.  Her  child-life  is  pathetic 
in  its  lawlessness,  and  prophesies  a  future  of  wretchedness  if  not  of  degradation. 
But  at  fifteen  she  suddenly  blossoms  into  a  beautiful,  fascinating,  and  —  strange  to 
say  —  refined  young  lady.  Her  adventures,  from  the  time  of  this  metempsychosis 
defy  the  potency  of  heredity  and  environment,  and  hold  the  reader  in  amazed  atten- 
tion till  the  curtain  falls  upon  an  unexpected  conclusion.  This  story  achieved  so 
great  a  popular  success  that  it  has  been  followed  by  a  sequel  called  'His  Grace  of 
Osmonde, '  wherein  the  same  characters  reappear,  but  the  story  is  told  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  hero  instead  of  that  of  the  heroine.  'A  Lady  of  Quality/  in  spite 
of  the  severe  strictures  of  many  critics,  has  been  dramatized  by  the  author  and 
performed  with  much  success. 

LADY  OF  ROME,  A,  by  F.  Marion  Crawford  (1906).  This  is  a  story  of  Maria, 
Countess  of  Montalto,  a  beautiful  woman  with  a  past.  In  the  opening  of  the  nar- 
rative she  is  twenty-seven  years  of  age  and  has  been  separated  for  seven  years  from 
her  husband  Count  of  Montalto,  whom  she  had  married  at  the  age  of  eighteen. 
This  marriage,  which  was  a  brilliant  one,  brought  about  by  parental  persuasion, 
was  contrary  to  the  dictates  of  Maria's  heart  as  she  was  deeply  in  love  with  Baldassare 
del  Castiglione,  a  penniless  young  officer.  After  the  marriage,  a  flirtation  which  at 
first  seems  harmless,  is  indulged  in  by  the  young  wife  and  her  old  lover  but  before 
they  realize  their  danger  their  passion  has  carried  them  beyond  the  limits  of  virtue. 
In  course  of  time  Maria's  husband  discovers  the  truth  and  being  an  honorable  and 
generous  man,  avoids  a  public  scandal  and  leaving  his  wife  quietly  goes  to  live  with 
his  mother  in  Spain.  Maria  continues  to  live  in  Rome  with  unsullied  reputation 
and  devotes  herself  to  her  son  Leone,  whose  unlikeness  to  the  Count  cannot  fail  to 
be  noticed.  After  seven  years  of  absence  Castiglione  returns  to  Rome  and  Maria 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  477 

realizes  that  she  still  adores  the  man  she  has  tried  so  hard  to  despise.  Castiglione, 
who  has  bitterly  repented  of  his  sin  and  has  since  led  a  blameless  life,  sues  for  Maria's 
forgiveness  and  they  agree  to  a  platonic  friendship.  Soon  after  this  the  Count's 
mother  dies  and  he  writes  to  Maria  begging  for  a  reconciliation,  as  he  still  loves  her 
passionately  and  she  acquiesces  to  his  proposal  though  she  has  no  affection  for  him 
and  is  actually  repelled  by  his  presence.  The  Count  returns  and  he  and  Maria  take 
up  life  again,  she  promising  to  put  Castiglione  from  her  forever.  This  is  a  difficult 
proceeding  and  she  goes  frequently  to  the  confessional  for  help.  Finally  some  old 
love-letters  of  Castiglione's  are  stolen  from  her  desk  and  are  used  for  the  purpose 
of  blackmail.  The  matter  is  straightened  out  by  Castiglione  through  the  interven- 
tion of  Maria's  confessor,  but  her  husband  convinced  that  Maria  has  deceived  him 
again  becomes  violently  angry.  He  appreciates  his  mistake  and  is  filled  with  remorse 
but  is  stricken  with  apoplexy  and  dies,  leaving  a  letter  telling  Maria  to  marry  Castigli- 
one, which  it  is  assumed  she  will  do,  after  a  proper  period  has  elapsed. 

LADY  OF  THE  AROOSTOOK,  THE,  a  novel  of  the  present  day,  by  W.  D.  Howells, 
was  published  in  1879.  In  its  heroine,  Lydia  Blood,  is  drawn  the  portrait  of  a  lady 
of  nature's  own  making.  She  is  a  New  England  school-teacher,  young,  beautiful, 
and  fragile.  For  the  benefit  of  the  sea  voyage  she  leaves  her  grandparents  on  a  remote 
New  England  farm,  to  visit  an  aunt  and  an  uncle  in  Venice.  Two  of  her  fellow- 
passengers  on  the  Aroostook  are  a  Mr.  Dunham  and  a  Mr.  Stamford,  young  gentle- 
men not  at  first  attracted  by  a  girl  who  says  ' '  I  want  to  know."  Before  the  voyage  is 
over,  however,  Mr.  Stamford  falls  in  love  with  Lydia,  whose  high-bred  nature  can- 
not be  concealed  by  her  village  rusticity.  In  Venice,  among  fashionable  sophisti- 
cated people,  she  shows  in  little  nameless  ways  that  she  is  a  lady  in  the  true  sense. 
The  book  closes  with  her  marriage  to  Staniford. 

'The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook'  is  in  Howells 's  earlier  manner,  its  genial  realism 
imparting  to  it  an  atmosphere  of  delicate  comedy. 

LADY  OR  THE  TIGER,  THE,  the  first  of  a  brief  collection  of  short  stories  published 
under  this  title  in  1884.  A  semi-barbaric  king  of  olden  times  had  decreed  that  every 
person  accused  of  crime  should  be  placed  in  a  vast  amphitheatre,  where,  in  the 
presence  of  the  king,  the  court,  and  the  assembled  multitude  he  was  compelled  to 
open  one  of  two  doors  which  were  exactly  alike  and  side  by  side.  He  might  open 
which  ever  door  he  pleased,  but  had  absolutely  no  guidance  or  suggestion  to  direct 
"Him.  Behind  one  door  was  a  hungry,  man-eating  tiger  and  behind  the  other  a 
beautiful  lady,  dressed  as  a  bride.  If  he  opened  the  door  which  concealed  the  tiger 
he  was  at  once  devoured,  and  the  operation  of  chance  was  judged  to  have  proved 
him  guilty;  if  he  opened  the  door  which  concealed  the  lady,  he  was  held  to  be  proved 
innocent  and  was  immediately  married  to  her  with  great  rejoicings.  No  previous 
ties  were  allowed  to  put  a  stop  to  this  marriage.  The  disposition  of  the  lady  and  of 
the  tiger  behind  the  two  doors  was  subject  to  change  on  every  occasion  and  was,  of 
courser  a  profound  secret.  Now  it  happened  that  a  young  courtier  of  humble  rank 
won  the  love  of  the  king's  daughter;  and  being  detected  by  the  king  was  imprisoned 
and  brought  to  trial  in  the  arena.  The  princess  by  means  of  gold  and  a  woman's 
determination  discovered  behind  which  doors  the  lady  and  the  tiger  were -to  be  placed. 
She  went  through  a  long  and  agonized  conflict  between  horror  at  the  thought  of  her 
lover's  destruction  by  a  ferocious  tiger  and  jealousy  at  the  idea  of  his  possession  by 
another,  the  fairest  maid  of  honor  of  the  court.  At  length  her  mind  was  made  up. 
On  the  day  of  the  trial  she  unobtrusively  signalled  to  her  lover,  to  open  the  right- 


4/8  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

hand  door.  This  he  immediately  did.  The  author  does  not  undertake  to  say  what 
followed,  but  leaves  the  question  to  his  readers:  "Which  came  out  of  the  opened 
door, — the  lady,  or  the  tiger?"  The  force  and  succinctness  of  this  story,  the  surprise 
of  the  conclusion,  and  the  piquancy  of  the  concluding  question  (which  has  a  parallel 
in  the  questions  d'amour  of  the  mediaeval  courts  of  love)  have  made  this  tale  justly 
famous . 

LADY  ROSE'S  DAUGHTER,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  (1903).  This  is  the  story 
of  Julie  le  Breton,  a  brilliant  and  fascinating  young  woman  who  is  introduced  to  the 
reader  as  the  companion  and  protege  of  Lady  Henry.  The  latter,  an  elderly  and 
infirm  woman  of  domineering  nature,  who  has  been  a  social  leader  in  her  day,  finds 
her  companion's  tact  and  cleverness  indispensable  in  the  entertainment  of  the  guests 
who  still  flock  to  her  house.  Julie,  whose  antecedents  are  known  to  but  few  persons, 
is  really  the  daughter  of  Lady  Rose  Delaney,  who  left  her  uncongenial  husband 
and  went  away  with  an  artist  named  Marriott  Dalrymple.  Julie  was  the  child  of  this 
union,  which  was  never  sanctioned  by  the  marriage  rite,  and  after  the  death  of  her 
parents  took  the  name  of  the  governess  in  whose  care  she  was  left.  Lady  Rose  was 
the  daughter  of  Lord  Lackington,  an  habitu£  at  Lady  Henry's,  who  becomes  very 
fond  of  the  charming  Miss  Le  Breton;  she  finally  makes  known  her  identity  to  him 
and  he  accepts  her  affectionately  as  his  grand-daughter  and  provides  for  her  at  his 
death.  When  upon  his  death-bed  he  exacts  a  promise  from  Julie  to  marry  Jacob 
Delafield,  a  nephew  of  Lady  Henry's  and  the  heir  to  a  title  and  large  estates.  Delafield 
has  loved  Julie  for  years  but  she  has  refused  his  offer  of  marriage  and  given  her  affec- 
tion to  Captain  Warkworth,  a  handsome  and  selfish  fellow,  who  is  already  engaged  to 
her  cousin  Aileen  Moffatt.  Julie  does  everything  in  her  power  to  further  Warkworth's 
interests  and  through  her  influence  with  those  in  authority  he  is  made  a  major. 
He  wins  Julie's  love  under  the  guise  of  friendship  and  plays  with  her  affection.  When 
the  time  comes  for  his  return  to  the  army,  Julie  feels  she  cannot  give  him  up  and 
consents  to  meet  him  in  France  and  stay  with  him  till  his  departure.  This  plan 
is  frustrated  by  Delafield,  who  discovers  her  as  she  is  alighting  from  the  train  at 
Paris  and  telling  her  that  her  grandfather  is  dying  escorts  her  back  to  his  bedside. 
Julie  does  not  see  Warkworth  again  and  in  time  consents  to  marry  Delafield,  who  in 
spite  of  his  knowledge  of  her  previous  experience  remains  true  to  her.  Warkworth 
dies  of  fever  leaving  his  fiancee  heartbroken  and  Julie  crushed  with  grief.  Her  hus- 
band nobly  comforts  her  and  she  begins  to  appreciate  his  sterling  qualities.  Dela- 
field's  cousin,  the  Earl  of  Chudleigh,  dies  leaving  him  his  title  and  possessions  and 
Julie  who  has  grown  to  love  her  husband  is  happy  in  the  thought  of  the  new  life  that 
is  opening  for  them. 

LADY  WINDERMERE'S  FAN,  by  Oscar  Wilde  (1892).  Lady  Windermere  quarrels 
with  her  husband  on  the  ground  that  he  is  paying  undue  attentions  to  another  wo- 
man. The  real  fact  is  that  this  woman  is  her  own  mother  whom  she  has  not  seen 
»ince  she  was  a  child  and  whom  she  believes  to  have  died  long  since.  Lord  Winder- 
mere  has  been  trying  to  help  her  without  revealing  who  she  is.  He  invites  her  to  his 
house  under  an  assumed  name,  whereupon  Lady  Windermere  leaves  him  with  the 
intention  of  running  away  with  a  lover,  Lord  Darlington.  She  writes  a  letter  to  her 
husband  stating  that  she  is  leaving  him,  but  her  mother,  Mrs.  Erlynne  finds  it  and 
tears  it  up.  She  goes  to  Lord  Darlington's  room  whither  her  daughter  has  gone  and 
persuades  her  to  go  back  to  her  husband.  She  herself  waits  to  meet  Lord  Darlington 
and  his  friends  including  Lord  Windermere,  returning  from  their  club.  Lord  Winder- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  479 

mere  picks  up  his  wife's  fan  on  the  floor  and  wrathfully  asks  how  it  comes  to  be  in 
Lord  Darlington's  rooms.  Mrs.  Erlynne  promptly  says  that  she  took  his  wife's 
fan  in  mistake  and  allows  it  to  appear  that  she  herself  had  come  in  secret  to  Lord 
Darlington's  rooms.  Lady  Windermere  is  reconciled  to  her  husband  and  Mrs, 
Erlynne  marries  Lord  Augustus  Lawton  on  condition  that  they  live  out  of  England. 
The  play  abounds  in  the  wit  which  made  Wilde  the  most  brilliant  talker  of  his  time. 

LALLA  ROOKH,  by  Thomas  Moore  (1817)  a  series  of  Oriental  tales  in  verse,  enclosed 
in  a  prose  framework.  This  latter  relates  the  journey  of  Lalla  Rookh,  the  beautiful 
daughter  of  the  Emperor  Aurengzebe,  from  Delhi  to  meet  her  betrothed,  the  young 
king  of  Bucharia,  in  the  vale  of  Cashmere.  On  the  way  she  and  her  train  are  enter- 
tained by  four  tales  related  by  Feramorz,  a  beautiful  young  poet  from  Cashmere 
with  whom  she  falls  in  love  and  who  proves  at  the  conclusion  of  the  journey  to  be  the 
king  of  Bucharia  himself.  A  touch  of  humor  is  supplied  by  her  chamberlain,  Fad- 
ladeen,  whose  suspicion  of  the  young  poet's  impression  upon  the  princess  finds  voice 
in  caustic  criticisms  of  his  verses,  and  who  is  astonished  and  discomfited  by  the  dis- 
covery of  the  youth's  identity.  The  first  tale,  which  is  in  heroic  couplets,  treats  of 
Mokanna,  the  'Veiled  Prophet  of  Khorassan,'  a  hideous  impostor  who  by  his  magic 
arts  gained  control  of  that  province,  hiding  his  face  from  his  devoted  followers  by  a 
silver  veil.  To  his  haram  he  has  enticed  the  beautiful  Zelica  a  maiden  of  Bokhara, 
on  the  promise  of  admission  to  Paradise,  where  she  hopes  to  be  the  bride  of  her  lover, 
Azim,  supposedly  dead.  Azim,  however,  returning  from  the  wars  in  Greece,  joins 
the  veiled  prophet.  But  when  he  finds  his  love,  Zelica,  wedded  to  Mokanna  and  cruelly 
treated,  Azim  deserts  him  and  joins  the  invading  army  of  the  Caliph.  The  Veiled 
Prophet  is  defeated  and  kills  himself  by  plunging  into  a  vat  of  corrosive  poison  which 
consumes  him.  Zelica,  who  wishes  only  to  die,  puts  on  his  veil ,  confronts  the  Caliph's 
army,  and  is  slain  by  Azim,  with  whom  she  exchanges  forgiveness  in  death.  In  the 
second  story,  '  Paradise  and  the  Peri, '  one  of  the  airy  spirits,  offspring  of  the  fallen 
angels,  who  live  on  perfume  and  perform  beneficent  tasks  though  excluded  from 
Paradise,  was  promised  admission  by  the  angelic  guardian  of  the  portal  if  she  could 
bring  thither  the  gift  most  dear  to  Heaven.  She  brought  first  a  drop  of  blood  from 
a  patriot  dying  to  free  India  from  a  tyrant,  then  the  last  sigh  of  an  Egyptian  maiden, 
expiring  of  grief  at  the  loss  of  her  lover,  whom  she  had  nursed  through  the  plague; 
and  finally,  from  the  valley  of  Balbec  a  tear  of  repentance  dropped  by  an  impious 
criminal  as  the  result  of  a  child's  prayer.  This  penitent's  tear,  the  gift  most  prized 
by  Heaven,  opens  Paradise  to  the  Peri.  The  metre  of  this  second  story  is  stanzaic, 
each  stanza  containing  twelve  octosyllabic  lines,  six  rhyming  in  couplets,  and  the  last 
four  alternately.  The  third  narrative,  'The  Fire- Worshippers '  deals  with  the 
Ghebers,  or  Persians  of  the  old  religion,  who  retained  their  ancient  beliefs  after  the 
Mohammedans  had  conquered  the  country,  keeping  up  a  resistance  in  the  moun- 
tainous districts.  Hafed,  their  leader,  falls  in  love  with  Hinda,  daughter  of  Al  Has- 
san, the  Arabian  emir  who  has  come  to  root  out  these  enemies  of  Islam.  The  young 
Gheber  gains  admission  to  her  bower,  incognito,  and  wins  her  love.  Later  she  is 
captured  by  the  Ghebers  and  learns  that  her  beloved  is  their  chieftain.  In  a  sudden 
attack  the  Arabs  defeat  the  Persians  and  Hafed  immolates  himself  on  a  funeral  pyre. 
Hinda  who  is  being  sent  back  to  her  father  for  safety's  sake,  leaps  from  a  galley  into 
the  lake  and  is  drowned.  The  metre  of  this  and  the  succeeding  tale  is  a  varied  one, 
like  that  of  Scott's  'Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel.'  Fourth  and  last  comes  the  story 
of  the  Sultana  Nourmahal,  the  'Light  of  the  Haram'  favorite  wife  of  the  Emperor 
Selim,  son  of  the  great  Akbar.  While  they  are  celebrating  the  Feast  of  Roses  in  the 


480  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Vale  of  Cashmere  she  quarrels  with  her  husband.  In  order  to  effect  a  reconciliation 
she  persuades  an  enchantress,  Namouna,  to  teach  her  a  magic  song.  The  singing  of 
this  by  Nounnahal,  masked,  at  the  Emperor's  banquet,  wins  back  his  love.  The 
work  is  graceful  in  style,  bright,  sometimes  luscious  in  coloring,  occasionally  over- 
sentimental  and  theatrical  in  incidents  and  dialogue,  but  unbroken  in  narrative 
interest.  As  an  entertaining  series  of_romantic  tales  it  fully  accomplishes  its  purpose, 
which  can  have  been  only  to  give  pleasure. 

LAMPLIGHTER,  THE,  by  Maria  Susanna  Cummins,  was  the  author's  first  book, 
and  appeared  in  1854,  when  she  was  twenty-seven.  This  simple  home  story  secured 
an  immediate  popularity.  The  scene  is  laid  in  New  York.  Gerty,  a  forlorn  and 
ignorant  girl,  spends  her  early  years  with  Nan  Grant,  a  coarse,  brutal  woman  who 
abuses  her.  Her  greatest  pleasure  is  watching  old  Trueman  Flint  as  he  goes  his 
rounds  to  light  the  city  lamps.  Trueman  rescues  the  child,  and  although  he  is  poor 
himself,  adopts  her.  Under  his  loving  care,  and  in  association  with  his  neighbors,  — 
thrifty  Airs.  Sullivan  and  her  son  Willie,  a  boy  somewhat  older  than  herself, — 
Gertrude  grows  into  a  happy  and  beautiful  young  girl,  the  great  comfort  of  Uncle 
True.  She  is  befriended  by  Emily  Graham,  a  noble  Christian  character,  the  beautiful 
only  daughter  of  a  rich,  indulgent  father.  Emily  is  blind  as  the  result  of  a  careless 
act  of  her  young  brother.  Overcome  by  remorse,  and  embittered  by  his  father's 
reproaches,  this  brother  has  disappeared,  to  Emily's  great  sorrow.  Gerty  is  sent 
to  school,  where  she  is  fitted  to  teach;  but  after  Trueman 's  death  she  becomes  a 
member  of  the  Graham  family.  Willie  Sullivan,  the  friend  of  her  childhood,  becomes 
a  noble-minded  and  successful  young  man  who  falls  in  love  with  Gertrude.  In 
Philip  Amory,  a  high-minded  man  whom  Emily  and  Gertrude  meet  while  traveling, 
they  discover  the  long-lost  brother;  and  he  proves  in  the  end  to  be  Gertrude's  father, 
who  for  years  has  been  vainly  searching  for  her.  The  story  is  weak  in  plot  and  char- 
acterization; but  the  idyllic  charm  of  its  first  hundred  pages  or  so  gave  it  for  a  few 
years  a  very  extraordinary  vogue.  It  is  now  little  read. 

LAND  AND  LABOR,  'Lessons  from  Belgium,'  by  Seebohm  Rowntree  (1910). 
"This  book"  (says  its  author)  "is  written  in  the  hope  of  contributing  to  the  solution 
of  the  problem  of  poverty  in  Britain  by  throwing  some  light  on  its  relation  to  the 
system  of  land  tenure."  It  records  the  results  of  four  years'  microscopic  investigation 
(which  could  only  have  been  undertaken  by  a  very  wealthy  and  disinterested  man 
into  all  the  main  aspects  of  the  social  and  economic  life  of  Belgium.  Part  I  is  devoted 
to  the  history  and  constitution  of  the  country,  the  history  of  land  tenure,  and  the 
number  of  landowners  in  Belgium  classified  according  to  the  size  of  their  holdings. 
Three  quarters  of  the  landowners  in  Belgium  had  less  than  five  acres  each,  95%  had 
less  than  25  acres,  and  only  146  men  more  than  2500  acres  each.  Parts  2  and  3 
deal  with  the  industrial  and  agricultural  conditions  of  Belgium,  part  4  with  the  chief 
factors  which  account  for  its  extraordinary  productiveness  before  the  war,  whether 
in  industry  or  agriculture  and  part  5  with  the  standard  of  life.  No  European  country 
before  the  war  was  producing  so  much  per  capita  either  in  industry  or  in  agriculture. 
Detailed  information  is  given  as  to  methods  of  scientific  farming,  market  gardening, 
afforestation,  agricultural  societies,  and  other  activities.  The  means  of  transport  in 
Belgium,  whether  by  rail  or  water,  were  not  only  the  cheapest  but  the  most  complete 
in  the  world,  and  had  an  extraordinary  effect  not  only  in  industry  and  agriculture  but 
upon  the  general  life  of  Belgium.  The  volume  as  a  whole  is  a  model  of  disinterested, 
impartial,  and  thorough  investigation. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  481 

LAND  OF  COCKAYNE,  THE,  by  Matilde  Serao  (1891).  A  powerful  study  in 
fiction  of  the  passion  for  gambling  and  the  evil  effect  of  the  national  lottery  in  Naples 
on  all  classes  of  society.  The  lottery  is  the  joy  and  curse  of  the  Marquis  di  Formosa 
as  well  as  Gaetano,  the  glove-maker,  Carmela,  the  factory  girl  and  her  insolent  lover 
Raffaele.  Cesare,  the  wealthy  pastry  maker,  loses  everything  he  has  in  the  hope  of 
getting  money  from  the  lottery  for  a  new  venture.  The  Marquis  has  ruined  himself 
and  is  sacrificing  his  frail  young  daughter,  the  Lady  Bianca,  to  his  terrible  passion. 
A  medium  whom  he  and  his  friends  consult  about  winning  numbers  makes  him  believe 
that  Bianca's  innocence  may  call  on  the  spirits  to  reveal  lucky  numbers,  and  the 
Marquis  destroys  her  health  and  happiness  trying  to  force  the  sensitive  neurotic 
girl  to  see  spirits  for  him.  She  loves  Dr.  Amanti,  peasant  born,  but  a  great  and 
wealthy  physician,  but  her  father,  advised  by  the  medium,  forbids  her  to  marry  and 
she  obeys.  The  idyllic  love  story  of  Bianca  and  Dr.  Amanti  has  a  tragic  ending. 
Her  father  refuses  her  prayers  to  bring  him  to  her  until  it  is  too  late  for  him  to  save 
her  life.  All  the  characters  lose  money,  honor,  and  self-respect  through  the  curse  of 
their  obsession.  The  story  is  also  a  description  of  Naples,  of  its  people  and  scenes 
at  all  times  and  seasons.  The  panorama  of  the  procession  of  the  festival  of  San 
Genaro  is  a  vivid  picture. 

LAND  OF  COKAJNE,  THE.  An  old  English  poem,  of  a  date  previous  to  the  end 
of  the  twelfth  century,  preserved,  among  other  sources,  in  Hickes's  'Thesaurus'  and 
the  '  Early  English  Poems '  of  Furnivall.  The  name  appears  also  in  the  French  and 
German  literatures,  sometimes  as  'Cocaigne,'  again  as  'Cokaygne.1  In  every  instance 
it  represents  an  earthly  land  of  delight,  a  kind  of  Utopia.  Dr.  Murray  thinks  the 
name  implies  "fondling, " — a  gibe  of  countryfolk  at  the  luxurious  Londoners. 

The  old  English  poem  in  question  is  a  naive  description  of  the  extremely  un- 
spiritual  delights  of  a  land  on  the  borders  of  the  earth,  "beyond  West  Spain, "  where 
all  the  rivers  run  wine  or  oil,  or  at  least  milk,  where  the  shingles  of  the  houses  are 
wheaten  cakes,  and  the  pinnacles  "fat  puddings,"  and  where,  —  undoubted  climax 
of  felicity,  —  "water  serveth  to  nothing  but  to  siyt  [boiling]  and  to  washing." 

In  this  fair  land  of  Cokaine,  where  no  one  sleeps  or  works,  and  where  men  fly 
at  will  like  the  birds,  stand  a  great  abbey  and  cloisters  both  for  nuns  and  monks. 
The  ease  and  gayety  of  the  religious  vocation  in  this  paradise  of  gray  friars  and 
white  is  depicted  with  the  broad  humor  and  exceeding  frankness  of  our  forefathers. 
It  is  a  satire  on  the  morals  and  pretensions  of  the  ecclesiastical  body;  but,  though  the 
picture  is  painted  in  colors  veiled  by  no  reverence,  they  are  mixed  with  little  bitter- 
ness. The  author  laughs  rather  than  sneers. 

The  French  poem  of  the  same  name, '  Pays  de  Cocaigne, '  differs  from  the  English 
in  that  it  lacks  the  whole  satirical  description  of  the  cloisters. 

LAND  OF  HEART'S  DESIRE,  THE,  by  W.  B.  Yeats  (1894).  A  fairy  play  based 
on  the  legend  that  on  May  Eve  the  fairies  may  steal  away  a  newly  married  bride  if 
only  she  be  tempted  to  give  them,  at  their  asking,  fire  and  milk.  Maurteen  Bruin 
and  Bridget  his  wife,  Shawn,  their  son  and  his  "newly-married  bride,  Maire,"  and  the 
village  priest,  Father  Hart,  are  sitting  in  the  kitchen  in  the  twilight.  Old  Bridget 
has  been  scolding  her  son's  wife  for  reading  a  book  about  the  fairies,  instead  of  helping 
with  the  work.  "A  little  queer  old  woman"  knocks  at  the  door  begging  "a  por- 
ringer of  milk, "  and  the  girl  gives  it  to  her  in  spite  of  Bridget's  warning.  Later  she 
gives  "a  burning  sod  "  to  "a  little  old  man "  to  light  his  pipe.  To  Bridget's  reproaches 
she  answers,  in  anger  at  her  nagging  tongue,  that  she  calls  on  the  fairies  to  take 

31 


482  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

her  from  the  dull  house,  where  she  is  unhappy.  They  hear  singing,  and  the  father 
opens  the  door  to  a  little  child  with  red  gold  hair  dressed  in  pale  green.  They  play 
with  her  and  pet  her,  thinking  she  is  only  a  human  child,  and  the  priest  takes  down  the 
crucifix  from  the  wall  because  it  frightens  her.  The  child  begins  to  dance  and  calls 
the  young  bride  to  ride  upon  the  winds  with  her.  The  family,  except  Maire,  gather 
around  the  priest  in  terror.  Without  the  crucifix  he  is  powerless.  Shawn  tries  to 
keep  his  wife,  reminding  her  of  their  love,  and  she  turns  to  him,  but  the  fairy  child 
has  lured  her  away.  "When  the  child  leaves  and  Shawn  crosses  the  primroses  the 
child  has  strewn  around  the  "newly-married  wife,"  he  clasps  in  his  arms  no  more 
than  "a  drift  of  leaves,  or  bole  of  an  ash- tree  changed  into  her  image." 

LAND  OF  POCO  TIEMPO,  THE,  by  Charles  F.  Lummis  (1893),  is  a  delightful 
record  of  the  author's  travels  in  New  Mexico;  a  land,  as  he  describes  it,  of  "sun, 
silence,  and  abode  .  .  .  the  Great  American  Mystery  —  the  National  Rip  Van 
Winkle."  The  different  chapters  treat  of  New-Mexican  customs  of  the  inhabitants, 
of  the  folk-songs,  of  the  religious  rites.  Perhaps  the  most  fascinating  portion  of  the 
work  is  that  devoted  to  the  "cities  that  were  forgotten";  those  great  stone  ruins, 
rearing  ghost-like  from  illimitable  plains,  with  as  little  reason  for  being  there  as  the 
Pyramids  in  the  sands  of  the  desert.  The  book  is  written  in  a  pleasant  conversa- 
tional style,  and  with  much  picturesqueness  of  description. 

LANDLORD  AT  LION'S  HEAD,  THE,  by  W.  D.  Howells  (1897),  is  a  subtle 
study  of  types  of  character  essentially  the  product  of  present-day  conditions  of  life 
in  New  England.  It  is  a  masterpiece  in  the  sense  of  its  having  been  written 
with  the  strong  and  sure  hand  of  the  finished  artist.  The  author  assumes  complete 
responsibility  for  his  work,  and  the  reader  is  at  ease.  The  story  is  concerned  chiefly 
with  the  fortunes  of  the  Durgin  family,  New  England  farm-people,  who  own  little 
but  a  magnificent  view  of  Lion's  Head  Mountain.  By  the  chance  visit  of  an  artist, 
Westover,  they  are  made  to  realize  its  mercantile  value.  Mrs.  Durgin's  ambitions, 
aroused  by  the  success  of  her  "hotel,"  are  centred  in  her  son,  Jeff  Durgin.  The 
portrait  of  this  country  boy  swaggering  through  Harvard,  standing,  but  with  a 
certain  impudence,  always  on  the  edge  of  things,  is  drawn  with  wonderful  clarity. 
Another  admirable  creation  is  Whitwell,  a  neighbor  of  the  Durgins,  a  sort  of  rural 
philosopher,  with  a  mind  reaching  helplessly  out  to  the  pseudo-occult,  and  to  the 
banalities  of  planchette.  His  daughter  Cynthia,  the  most  hopeful  figure  in  the 
book,  is  a  sweet,  strong  mountain  girl,  "capable"  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word.  In 
strong  contrast  to  her  is  the  Boston  society  girl,  Bessie  Lynde,  who  flirts  with  Jeff 
for  the  sake  of  a  new  sensation.  The  scenes  are  laid  partly  in  Boston,  partly  in  the 
mountains.  The  vulgarity  of  certain  aspects  of  both  city  and  country  life  is  mildly 
satirized.  The  novel  is  supremely  American. 

LANGUAGE  AND  THE  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGE,  by  William  Dwight  Whitney 
(1867).  This  work  attempts  to  answer  the  question,  How  did  language  originate? 
The  growth  of  language  is  first  considered,  with  the  causes  which  affect  the  kind 
and  the  rate  of  linguistic  change;  then  the  separation  of  languages  into  dialects; 
then  the  group  of  dialects  and  the  family  of  more  distantly  related  languages  which 
include  English;  then  a  review  of  the  other  great  families;  the  relative  value  and 
authority  of  linguistic  and  of  physical  evidence  of  race,  and  the  bearing  of  language 
on  the  ultimate  question  of  the  unity  or  variety  of  the  human  species:  the  whole 
closing  with  an  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  language,  its  relation  to  thought,  and  its 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  483 

value  as  an  element  in  human  progress.  Professor  Whitney's  theory  is  that  acts  and 
qualities  were  the  first  things  named,  and  that  the  roots  of  language  —  from  which 
all  words  have  sprung  —  were  originally  developed  by  man  in  striving  to  imitate 
natural  sounds  (the  onomatopoetic  theory)  and  to  utter  sounds  expressive  of  excited 
feeling  (the  interjectional  theory);  not  by  means  of  an  innate  "creative  faculty" 
for  phonetically  expressing  his  thoughts,  which  is  Max  Muller's  view. 

LAOKOON.  Lessing's  '  Laokoon, '  written  in  1766,  marked  an  epoch  in  German 
art-criticism.  It  derives  its  title  from  the  celebrated  piece  of  sculpture  by  the 
Greek  artists  Polydor,  Agesander,  and  Athenodor,  which  is  taken  as  the  starting- 
point  for  a  discussion  on  the  difference  between  poetry  and  the  plastic  arts.  The 
group  represents  the  well-known  episode  during  the  siege  of  Troy,  when  the  Trojan 
priest,  Laokoon,  and  his  two  sons,  are  devoured  by  snakes  as  a  punishment  for  having 
advised  against  admitting  the  decoy  horse  of  the  Greeks  into  the  town.  In  this 
group  Laokoon  apparently  does  not  scream,  but  only  sighs  painfully.  Virgil,  who 
recounted  the  sa'me  episode  in  his  ^neid,  makes  the  priest  cry  out  in  his  agony. 
Lessing  asks  why  this  divergence  in  treatment  between  the  artist  and  poet?  and  an- 
swers—  because  they  worked  with  different  materials.  The  poet  could  present 
his  hero  as  screaming,  because  the  heroes  of  classical  antiquity  were  not  above  such 
shows  of  human  weakness.  But  the  artist,  in  presenting  human  suffering,  was 
limited  by  the  laws  of  his  art,  the  highest  object  of  which  is  beauty;  hence  he  must 
avoid  all  those  extremes  of  passion,  that,  being  in  their  nature  transitory,  mar  the 
beauty  of  the  features.  He  can  reproduce  only  one  moment,  whereas  the  poet  has 
the  whole  gamut  of  expression  at  command.  This  constitutes  the  radical  difference 
between  poetry  and  the  plastic  arts,  related  though  they  be  in  many  ways.  The 
plastic  arts  deal  with  space,  and  have  for  their  proper  objects  bodies  with  their 
visible  attributes ;  they  may,  however,  suggest  these  bodies  as  being  in  action.  Poetry 
deals  with  time,  and  has  for  its  proper  objects  a  succession  of  events  or  actions;  at 
the  same  time  it  may  suggest  the  description  of  bodies.  Homer  already  knew  this 
principle,  for  in  describing  the  shield  of  Achilles  he  invites  us  to  be  present  at  its 
making.  In  like  manner  we  know  what  Agamemnon  wore  by  watching  him  dress. 
All  descriptive  poetry  and  allegorical  painting  is  hereby  ruled  out  of  court.  There 
is  yet  another  difference.  The  plastic  arts  in  their  highest  development  treat  only 
of  beauty.  Poetry,  not  being  confined  to  the  passing  moment,  has  at  its  disposal  the 
whole  of  nature.  It  treats  not  only  of  what  is  beautiful  or  agreeable,  but  also  of 
what  is  ugly  and  terrible. 

These  principles,  developed  by  Lessing  in  his  small  treatise,  came  like  a  revelation 
to  the  German  mind.  Goethe  thus  described  the  effect:  "We  heartily  welcomed 
the  light  which  that  fine  thinker  brought  down  to  us  out  of  dark  clouds.  Illumined 
as  by  lightning  we  saw  all  the  consequences  of  that  glorious  thought  which  made 
clear  the  difference  between  the  plastic  and  the  poetic  arts.  All  the  current  criticism 
was  thrown  aside  as  a  worn-out  coat." 

LA  SALLE  AND  THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  GREAT  WEST,  see  FRANCE  AND 
ENGLAND  IN  NORTH  AMERICA. 

LAST  ATHENIAN,  THE  ('Sidste  Athenaren'),  by  Viktor  Rydberg  (1880),  translated 
from  the  Swedish  by  W.  W.  Thomas  in  1883.  The  scene  of  the  novel  is  laid  in 
Athens  in  the  fourth  century  of  our  own  era ;  and  deals  with  the  inner  dissensions  of 
•tba  Christian  church,  the  struggles  and  broils  of  the  Homoiousians  and  Athanasians, 


484  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  the  social  and  political  conditions  involved  in  or  affected  by  these  differences. 
The  corruption  of  the  upper  classes,  the  lingering  power  of  the  old  religion  of  Greece, 
the  strange  melee  of  old  and  new  philosophies  and  erratic  social  codes,  are  presented 
by  the  introduction  of  many  types  and  individuals.  But  a  confusing  multiplicity  of 
interests  and  characters  interferes  with  a  clear  view.  The  stage  is  too  crowded. 
The  parts  of  the  plot  are  woven  together  about  the  love-story  of  Hermione,  daughter 
of  the  philosopher  Chrysanteus,  and  a  young  Athenian  of  the  degenerate  type,  who 
from  a  promising  youth  passes  into  the  idle  and  heartless  dissipation  of  the  typical 
Athenian  aristocrat.  Influenced  by  divided  motives,  he  makes  an  attempt  to  regain 
his  moral  standing,  and  does  regain  Hermione's  confidence;  but  on  his  wedding  night, 
he  is  killed  by  the  lover  of  a  young  Jewish  girl  whom  he  has  betrayed  and  deserted. 
The  famous  historic  figures  of  the  epoch  are  all  introduced  into  Rydberg's  picture,  — 
emperors  and  bishops,  political  schemers  and  professional  beauties,  soldiers  and 
merchants,  princes  and  beggars.  Even  St.  Simeon  Stylites  on  his  pillar  is  painted 
in  all  his  repulsive  hideousness  of  saintly  squalor.  A  pretty  interlude  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  story  is  afforded  by  several  charming  interpretations  of  the  old  legend  of 
Narcissus  and  the  Echo. 

LAST  DAYS  OF  POMPEII,  THE,  by  Edward  Bulwer,  Lord  Lytton  (1834).  The 
characters  and  scenes  of  this  story  are  in  a  great  measure  suggested  by  the  peculiarities 
of  the  buildings  which  are  still  to  be  seen  at  Pompeii.  The  tale  begins  a  few  days 
before  the  destruction  of  Pompeii,  and  ends  with  that  event.  The  simple  story  re- 
lates principally  to  two  young  people  of  Grecian  origin,  Glaucus  and  lone,  who 
are  deeply  attached  to  each  other.  The  former  is  a  handsome  young  Athenian, 
impetuous,  high-minded,  and  brilliant,  while  lone  is  a  pure  and  lofty-minded  woman. 
Arbaces,  her  guardian,  the  villain  of  the  story,  under  a  cloak  of  sanctity  and  religion, 
indulges  in  low  and  criminal  designs.  His  character  is  strongly  drawn;  and  his 
passion  for  lone,  and  the  struggle  between  him  and  Glaucus,  form  the  chief  part  of 
the  plot.  Nydia,  the  blind  girl,  who  pines  in  unrequited  affection  for  Glaucus,  and 
who  saves  the  lives  of  the  lovers  at  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  the  city,  by  conduct- 
ing them  in  safety  to  the  s^a,  is  a  touching  and  beautiful  conception.  The  book,  full 
of  learning  and  spirit,  is  not  only  a  charming  novel,  but  contains  many  minute  and 
interesting  descriptions  of  ancient  customs;  among  which,  those  relating  to  the 
gladiatorial  combat,  the  banquet,  the  bath,  are  most  noteworthy. 

LAST  LETTERS  FROM  EGYPT,  see  LETTERS  FROM  EGYPT,  by  Lady  Duff- 
Gordon. 

LAST  OF  THE  MOHICANS,  THE,  a  novel  of  frontier  life,  one  of  the  'Leatherstock- 
ing  Tales'  by  James  Fenimore  Cooper,  published  in  1826.  During  the  siege  of  Fort 
William  Henry  on  Lake  George  by  the  French  and  Iroquois  under  Montcalm  (1757) 
two  daughters  of  its  commander,  Colonel  Munro,  set  out  from  the  neighboring  Fort 
Edward  to  join  their  father.  They  are  accompanied  by  Major  Duncan  Heyward, 
and  the  singing  master  David  Gamut,  and  guided  by  a  renegade  Huron,  called  by  the 
French  "Le  Renard  Subtil."  The  latter  leads  them  astray  with  a  view  to  betraying 
them  into  the  hands  of  a  wandering  party  of  Iroquois.  But  his  designs  are  foiled 
by  the  scout,  Natty  Bumppo  (called  "Hawkeye"  in  this  story),  and  his  comrades,  the 
Mohican,  Chingachgook,  and  his  son,  Uncas,  who  rescue  the  party  from  the  scalping- 
knife  and  bring  them  safely  to  the  fort.  Soon  afterwards  Munro  surrenders  on 
honorable  terms  to  Montcalm  and  is  permitted  to  march  out  of  the  fort  with  arms 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  485 

and  colors.  The  stragglers,  however,  are  massacred  by  the  Indian  allies  of  the 
French,  and  in  the  confusion  the  two  girls,  Cora  and  Alice  Munro,  are  again  carried 
off  by  Le  Renard  Subtil.  Munro  and  Heyward  set  out  in  search  of  them,  aided  by 
Hawkeye,  Chingachgook,  and  Uncas.  After  a  series  of  hair-breadth  escapes  and 
cunning  ruses  Alice  is  rescued  but  Cora  is  slain  rather  than  become  the  wife  of  Le 
Renard  Subtil  and  Uncas  dies  in  avenging  her.  Lastly,  Le  Renard  Subtil  perishes 
by  falling  from  a  cliff. 

LAVENGRO:  'The  Scholar,  Gipsy,  Priest'  (1851).  ROMANY  RYE  (1857) 
(Sequel  to  Lavengro).  By  George  Borrow.  These  books  comprise  a  tale  of  loosely 
connected  adventures  introducing  romantic,  grotesque,  and  exciting  episodes,  and 
interwoven  with  reflections  on  the  moral  and  religious  condition  of  the  world,  with  a 
large  intermixture  of  mystic  and  philosophic  lore.  They  suggest  Le  Sage's  story; 
and  like  the  'Gil  Bias,'  the  characters  are  drawn  largely  from  Spanish  sources. 
Gipsy  life  and  legends  form  a  kind  of  background  to  the  writer's  reflections  on  the 
men  and  morals  of  his  time.  The  author,  born  in  East  Dereham,  Norfolk,  England, 
1803,  had  been  employed  in  1840-50  as  an  agent  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible 
Society  in  distributing  Bibles  in  the  mountainous  districts  of  Spain,  and  had  met  with 
hardships  and  rough  usage  which  helped  to  embitter  his  feelings  toward  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion,  at  the  same  time  that  they  afforded  him  glimpses  of  the  simple 
life  of  the  lower  classes,  and  especially  an  acquaintance  with  the  Gipsy  tribe-life, 
which  had  a  peculiar  charm  for  him.  "Lavengro"  is  depicted  as  a  dreamy  youth 
following  the  fortunes  of  his  father,  who  is  in  military  service.  His  visits  are  divided 
between  the  Gipsy  camp,  the  "Romany  chal, "  and  the  "parlor  of  the  Anglo-German 
philosopher."  The  title  "Romany  Rye"  (Gipsy  Gentleman)  is  introduced  in  the 
verse  of  a  song,  "The  Gipsy  Gentleman, "  sung  in  Chapter  liv.  of  ' Lavengro ' : — 

"Here  the  Gypsy  gemman  see, 
With  his  Kernan  jib  and  his  rome  and  dree; 
Rome  and  dree,  rum  and  dry, 
Rally  round  the  Romany  Rye." 

The  song  is  sung  by  "Mr.  Petulengro,"  the  author's  favorite  Gipsy  character. 
The  hero's  trials  of  mind  and  faith  are  depicted,  when,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  he  is 
cast  upon  the  world  in  London  to  make  his  living  as  a  hack  author.  Meeting  with 
success  with  one  of  his  books,  he  leaves  London  to  roam  abroad,  and  becomes  in  turn 
tinker,  gipsy,  postilion,  and  hostler;  but  ever  preserves  the  self-respect  of  the  poor 
gentleman  and  the  scholar  in  disguise.  His  object  in  writing  is  to  show  the  goodness 
of  God,  and  to  reveal  the  plots  of  popery;  he  shows  much  contempt  for  the  pope, 
whom  he  calls  "Mumbo- Jumbo, "  and  for  all  his  ceremonies.  He  would  encourage 
charity,  free  and  genial  manners,  the  exposure  of  the  humbugs  of  "gentility,"  and 
the  appreciation  of  genuine  worth  of  character  in  whatever  social  station.  The  titles 
"Scholar,  Gipsy,  Priest,"  are  not  successive  characters  assumed  by  the  author,  but 
stand  for  these  various  types  of  humanity.  A  marked  feature  of  these  books  is  their 
use  of  elaborate  fables  for  moral  instruction.  Such  are  those  of  the  '  Rich  Gentleman ' 
and  the  'Magic  Touch, '  the  '  Old  Applewoman, '  and  ' Peter  William,  the  Missionary.' 

LAWS  OF  EN.GLAND,  by  Sir  William  Blackstone,  see  COMMENTARIES  ON  THE. 

LAWS,  THE  (Leges),  of  Plato,  translated  by  Benjamin  Jowett.  In  the  early  years  of 
life  according  to  the  doctrine  contained  in '  The  Laws '  education  is  wholly  a  discipline 
imparted  by  means  of  pleasure  and  pain.  The  discipline  of  pleasure  is  imposed 
chiefly  by  the  practice  of  the  song  and  dance.  The  forms  of  these  should  be  fixed, 


486  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

for  it  would  be  political  unwisdom  to  depend  on  the  fickleness  of  the  multitude. 
There  should  be  choruses  of  boys  and  girls  and  grown-up  persons,  and  all  will  be 
heard  repeating  the  same  strain  that  "virtue  is  happiness."  The  chorus  of  aged 
minstrels,  who  will  sing  the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  useful  of  songs  will  give  the 
law  to  the  rest.  Education  is  to  begin  at  or  rather  before  birth,  to  be  continued 
for  a  time  by  mothers  and  nurses  under  state  inspection  and  finally  is  to  include 
music  and  gymnastics.  In  the  category  of  music  Plato  included  reading,  writing, 
playing  on  the  lyre,  arithmetic,  and  a  knowledge  of  mathematics,  enough  to  preserve 
the  citizens  in  after-life  from  impiety,  which  to  Plato  meant  either  atheism  or  denial 
of  Providence  or  grotesque  and  immoral  superstitions.  Gymnastics,  the  primary 
aim  of  which  was  mental  and  not  merely  physical  development,  are  to  be  practised  in 
order  that  the  pupil  might  acquire  the  due  balance  between  mental  and  physical  which 
would  make  him  useful  in  war. 

'The  Laws'  abounds  in  profound  reflections  which  suggest  principles  that  are 
only  in  the  twentieth  century  beginning  to  be  carried  out  by  social  and  educational 
reformers.  "  Cities  will  never  cease  from  ill  until  they  are  better  governed. ' '  Educa- 
tion should  begin  with  birth  and  even  before  it.  Wise  policy  must  include  a  pro- 
gramme of  sanitation.  These  and  other  suggestive  ideas  make  '  The  Laws '  even  yet 
one  of  the  stimulating  treatises  on  education  (circa  360-347  B.C.). 

LAWS  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY,  THE,  by  Richard  Hooker  (1593-97).  A 
learned  and  broadly  rational  treatise  on  the  principles  of  church  government,  the 
special  aim  of  which  was  to  prove,  against  the  Puritanism  of  the  time,  that  religious 
doctrines  and  institutions  do  not  find  their  sole  sanction  in  Scripture,  but  may  be 
planned  and  supported  by  the  use  of  other  sources  of  light  and  truth ;  and  that  in  fact 
the  Scriptures  do  not  supply  any  definite  form  of  church  order,  the  laws  of  which  are 
obligatory.  The  course  of  church  matters  under  Queen  Elizabeth  had  so  completely 
disregarded  the  views  and  demands  of  the  Puritans  as  to  give  occasion  for  a  work 
representing  other  and  wider  views;  and  Hooker's  genius  exactly  fitted  him  to  supply 
a  philosophical  and  logical  basis  to  the  Elizabethan  church  system.  Of  the  eight 
books  now  found  in  the  work,  only  four  were  published  at  first;  then  a  fifth,  longer 
by  sixty  pages  than  the  whole  of  the  first  four,  in  1597;  and  three  after  his  death 
(November  2d,  1600), — the  sixth  and  eighth  in  1648,  and  the  seventh  in  1617. 
The  admirable  style  of  the  work  has  given  it  a  high  place  in  English  literature ;  while 
its  breadth  of  view,  wealth  of  thought,  and  abundant  learning,  have  caused  it  to 
increase  in  favor  with  the  advance  of  time. 

LAY  DOWN  YOUR  ARMS,  see  GROUND  ARMS. 

LAY  SERMONS,  ADDRESSES,  AND  REVIEWS,  by  Thomas  Henry  Huxley,  a 
series  of  fifteen  lectures  and  essays,  written  at  various  times  between  1854  ano^  1870 
and  collected  in  the  latter  year.  Six  of  the  individual  essays  or  addresses  are  educa- 
tional, pleading  for  the  recognition  of  natural  science  as  not  only  a  utilitarian  but 
also  a  liberal  stud}7".  Huxley  had  deep  convictions  on  this  subject,  and  strong  opposi- 
tion to  overcome.  He  writes,  therefore,  with  great  vigor  and  effectiveness,  as  also 
in  the  two  articles  defending  Darwin's  'Origin  of  Species.'  Two  of  the  lectures  were 
delivered  with  the  aim  of  popularizing  scientific  knowledge.  The  address  '  On  the 
Physical  Basis  of  Life1  shows  that  every  living  creature  is  formed  by  different  dis- 
positions of  one  substance  —  protoplasm,  and  argues  that  this  material  substance  is 
the  source  of  all  life;  at  the  same  time  Huxley  repudiates  the  charge  of  materialism 
on  the  ground  that  he  makes  no  inquiry  into  the  essential  nature  of  protoplasm, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  487 

since  that  question  is  unanswerable.  'On  a  Piece  of  Chalk/'  a  lecture  delivered  to 
workingmen  in  Norwich,  makes  the  chalk  a  text  for  a  discourse  on  geology  and  the 
origin  of  species.  The  chalk,  being  composed  of  the  shells  of  aquatic  animals, 
naturally  leads  to  these  topics.  An  address  on  Descartes  traces  the  influence  of  his 
philosophy  through  the  two  developments  of  idealism  and  scepticism,  and  a  review 
of  one  of  Huxley's  hostile  critics  emphasizes  the  distinction  between  agnosticism 
and  positivism.  Finally,  there  are  three  presidential  addresses,  delivered  before 
scientific  societies,  on  evolution  as  applied  to  geology  and  to  botany,  and  on  spontane- 
ous generation.  The  value  and  charm  of  these  essays  lie  in  their  honesty,  directness, 
simplicity,  clearness,  and  incisive  reasoning  power. 

LAZARILLO  DE  TORMES,  formerly  attributed  to  Diego  Hurtado  de  Mendoza. 
This  "picaresque"  novel  was  first  published  in  1553,  but  was  written  when  the 
author  was  a  student  at  Salamanca  (1520-23).  Mendoza 's  authorship  has  been 
questioned,  and  it  has  been  attributed  to  Juan  de  Ortega,  and  to  certain  bishops,  who 
are  said  to  have  composed  it  on  their  way  to  the  Council  of  Trent.  Still,  the  prob- 
abilities are  all  in  favor  of  Mendoza,  and  it  is  the  work  upon  which  his  literary  fame 
chiefly  rests.  The  hero  is  a  young  rogue  who  begins  his  career  as  guide  to  a  rascally 
blind  beggar.  The  beggar  ill-treats  him,  and  he  avenges  himself  cruelly  but  comically. 
He  then  passes  into  the  service  of  a  priest,  a  country  squire,  a  "pardoner, "  a  chaplain, 
and  an  alguazil.  The  author  leaves  him  in  the  position  of  town-crier  of  Toledo. 
The  story  opened  the  way  for  the  novela  picaresca,  i.  e.,  the  novel  of  thieves,  to 
which  we  owe  '  Guzman  d'Alfarache '  and  '  Gil  Bias ' ;  and  is  one  of  the  best  of  its  kind. 
The  author  shows  his  originality  by  breaking  away  from  the  magicians,  fairies, 
knights  errant,  and  all  the  worn-out  material  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  borrowing  his 
characters  from  the  jovial  elements  to  be  found  in  the  shady  side  of  society.  All  his 
characters,  as  well  as  the  hero,  are  vagabonds,  beggars,  thievish  innkeepers,  knavish 
lawyers,  or  monks  who  have  become  disreputable;  and  all  throb  with  intense  life  in 
his  brisk  and  highly  colored  narrative.  Every  episode  in  Lazarillo's  checkered 
existence  is  a  masterpiece  of  archness  and  good-humor.  The  work,  which  created 
an  epoch  in  the  history  of  Spanish  prose,  is,  unfortunately,  unfinished:  the  author, 
having  apparently  become  a  little  ashamed  of  this  offspring  of  his  youth,  refused 
to  complete  it.  A  second  part  was  added  by  De  Luna,  a  refugee  at  Paris,  in  the 
following  century;  but  it  is  far  from  having  the  qualities  of  Mendoza's  fragment. 

LAZARRE,  by  Mary  Hartwell  Catherwood  (1901).  This  romantic  novel  is 
founded  upon  the  legend  that  at  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution,  the  Dauphin 
was  spirited  away  to  America  by  the  court  painter  Bellenger.  In  the  story  the 
young  Prince  grows  up  among  the  Indians  of  the  Northwest  under  the  name  of 
Eleazer  Williams  —  softened  by  them  to  Lazarre.  Having  been  reduced  almost  to 
imbecility  by  previous  harsh  treatment,  the  child  at  first  believes  himself  to  be  the 
son  of  the  Indian  chief  in  whose  care  he  has  been  placed.  Under  the  healthful 
influence  of  the  climate,  he  regains  both  mental  and  physical  strength  and,  attracting 
the  notice  of  the  settlers,  gains  an  education.  While  studying  at  the  manor  house, 
he  falls  in  love  with  Eagle,  Madame  De  Ferrier,  who  recognizes  him  as  the  Dauphin, 
seen  by  her  years  before  in  St.  Bat's  Church,  London.  When  news  is  received  from 
France  of  the  death  of  Eagle's  husband,  Lazarre  confesses  his  love  and  asks  her  hand 
in  marriage.  Though  deeply  attached  to  him,  she  tells  him  she  cannot  marry  a 
King,  and  starts  for  France  to  reclaim  her  estates.  He  follows  her  to  France  and 
mingles  in  the  brilliant  court  of  Napoleon,  making  an  unsuccessful  plea  for  recogni- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

tion  to  Louis  XVIII.  After  various  thrilling  adventures  he  returns  to  his  beloved 
wilderness  in  America,  where,  after  years  of  waiting  and  searching,  he  finds  Eagle 
for  whom  he  renounces  the  crown,  which  is  offered  him  by  an  envoy  of  the  Bour- 
bons, who  turn  to  him  as  a  last  resource.  The  story  is  one  of  sustained  interest  and 
displays  the  author's  knowledge  of  the  wild  country  in  the  old  time,  as  well  as  her 
fertile  imagination.  The  character  of  the  Prince  is  an  interesting  study  and  that  of 
Eagle  is  drawn  with  remarkable  charm  and  skill. 

LEARNED  LADIES  ('Les  Pemmes  Savantes'),  a  comedy  by  Jean  Baptiste  Poquelin, 
universally  known  as  Moliere,  was  first  acted  in  1672,  when  the  author,  although 
then  in  the  last  stages  of  consumption,  played  a  leading  part.  One  of  the  brilliant 
social  satires,  in  which  the  great  realist  dared  point  out  the  faults  and  follies  of  con- 
temporary society,  it  ridicules  the  pedantry  and  affectation  of  learning  then  fashion- 
able among  court  ladies.  Chrysale,  an  honest  bourgeois,  loving  quiet  and  comfort,  is 
kept  in  continual  turmoil  by  his  wife  Philaminte  —  who  affects  a  love  of  learning 
and  refuses  to  keep  even  a  kitchen  maid  who  speaks  incorrectly  —  and  by  her  disciple, 
his  foolish  old  sister  Belise,  who  fancies  every  man  she  sees  secretly  in  love  with  her. 
Chrysale  and  Philaminte  have  two  daughters,  —  Armande,  a  pedant  like  her  mother, 
who  scorns  marriage  and  rebuffs  her  lover  Clitandre,-  and  Henriette,  honest  and  sim- 
ple, who  when  Clitandre  transfers  his  love  to  her,  accepts  it  in  spite  of  her  sister's 
jealous  sneers.  Chrysale  prefers  Clitandre  as  son-in-law,  but  is  too  hen-pecked  to 
resist  his  wife's  will  until  spurred  by  the  scorn  of  his  brother  Ariste.  The  plot  is  too 
complicated  to  be  reproduced,  and  the  strength  of  the  play  lies  in  its  character- 
drawing.  The  wit  with  which  Moliere  heaps  scorn  upon  ill-founded  pretension  to 
learning,  and  his  powerful  exposition  of  vanity  and  self-love,  have  kept  the  play  popu- 
lar in  France  for  over  two  hundred  years. 

LEATHERSTOCKING  TALES,  a  series  of  five  novels  of  frontier  life  by  James 
Fenimore  Cooper.  The  title  is  derived  from  one  of  the  nicknames  applied  to  the 
hero,  Natty  Bumppo,  a  brave  pioneer  and  woodsman  who  appears  in  each  of  the 
stories.  He  is  also  called  Hawkeye  and  Deerslayer.  The  novels  were  not  written 
according  to  the  chronological  sequence  of  the  hero's  life.  The  earliest  novel,  'The 
Pioneers';  or,  'The  Sources  of  the  Susquehanna'  (1823)  represents  him  as  an  old  man, 
retreating  across  the  Alleghanies  before  the  advance  of  civilized  settlement.  In  the 
next  novel,  'The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  a  Narrative  of  1757'  (published  in  1826)  he 
appears  in  the  prime  of  life  as  a  scout  in  the  campaign  of  Fort  William  Henry.  '  The 
Prairie  '(1827),  reverting  to  his  old  age,  describes  his  further  retirement  to  the  western 
plains,  and  his  death.  Some  years  later  Cooper  returned  to  the  subject  and  wrote 
two  stories  of  Natty  Bumppo 's  youth.  In  the  first  of  these,  'The  Pathfinder,  or 
the  Inland  Sea'  (1840)  he  appears  as  the  lover  of  Mabel  Dunham.  The  other, 
'The  Deerslayer,  or  the  First  War  Path'  (1841),  though  the  latest  of  the  novels, 
depicts  incidents  earlier  than  appear  in  any  of  the  others.  It  describes  Natty's  first 
experience  of  Indian  warfare.  The  order  of  publication  and  the  fictitious  chronology 
may  best  be  indicated  by  the  following  table: 

Order  of  Publication  Fictitious  Chronology 

'The  Pioneers '  (i 823)  '  The  Deerslayer '  ) 

'  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans '  (1826)  '  The  Pathfinder '  ) 

1  The  Prairie  '(1827)  '  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans '  (prime  of  life) 

'  The  Pathfinder '  (1840)  '  The  Pioneers '  \ 

'The  Deerslayer1  (1841)  'The  Prairie'    j    old  a^e 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  489 

The  whole  series  forms  an  admirable  picture  of  the  period  of  settlement  and 
Indian  warfare  and  offers  some  excellent  portrayals  of  character.  For  further  details 
see  under  'Deerslayer'  and  'Last  of  the  Mohicans.' 

LEAVES  OF  GRASS,  a  collection  of  poems  in  free  rhythms  by  Walt  Whitman,  first 
published  in  1855,  and  re-issued  with  additional  poems  in  1856,  in  1860,  in  1866,  in 
1871,  and  in  1 8  76.  Whitman  said  that  the  purpose  of  the  book  was  ' '  to  articulate  and 
faithfully  express  in  literary  or  poetic  form,  and  uncompromisingly,  my  own  physical, 
emotional,  moral,  intellectual,  and  assthetic  Personality,  in  the  midst  of,  and  tallying, 
the  momentous  spirit  and  facts  of  its  immediate  days,  and  of  current  America  — 
and  to  exploit  that  Personality,  identified  with  place  and  date,  in  a  far  more  candid 
and  comprehensive  sense  than  in  any  hitherto  poem  or  book.'*  ' Leaves  of  Grass'  is 
accordingly  the  frankest  self-revelation,  the  fullest  embodiment  of  American  life, 
and  the  most  original  stylistic  and  metrical  experiment  of  any  poetical  work  ever 
published.  Whitman  portrays  himself  as  a  lover  of  life  in  all  its  forms,  particularly 
of  men  and  women,  a  wanderer  of  city  streets,  country  roads,  battlefields,  and  hospitals, 
eager  to  fraternize  with  people  of  every  rank,  and  especially  with  the  rough  and  poor. 
He  is  keenly  sensitive  to  all  the  delights  of  life,  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual,  and 
it  is  his  cardinal  doctrine  that  matter,  mind,  and  spirit  are  equally  noble;  hence  the 
extreme  sensuousness  of  some  of  his  poems  never  becomes  sensuality  but  is  a  part  of 
his  faith  in  the  goodness  of  life  as  a  whole.  But  above  all  the  joys  of  physical  satis- 
faction, beautiful  landscape,  human  comradeship,  and  spiritual  contemplation,  is  the 
joy  of  self -consciousness,  the  feeling  of  his  individual  being.  It  is  not  conceit  or  ex- 
aggerated egotism  but  a  delight  in  being  alive,  which  turns  impatiently  from  doctrines 
of  asceticism  and  original  sin  to  happy  contemplation  of  self  and  the  world.  One  of  the 
longest  poems  of  the  collection  is  entitled  '  Song  of  Myself, '  and  this  title  might  have 
been  given  to  the  whole  book.  Again,  Whitman  is  an  American  through  and  through, 
and  his  poems  depict  almost  every  conceivable  type  of  American  landscape,  American 
social  life,  and  American  manhood  and  womanhood,  as  observed  by  a  man  who  had 
mingled  with  it  all  in  a  human,  democratic  way.  On  the  sea-beaches  of  Long  Island, 
the  crowded  ferries  and  pavements  of  Manhattan,  the  farms  and  lumber-camps  of  the 
Alleghanies,  the  tents  and  battlefields  of  the  Civil  War,  the  plantations  of  the  South, 
the  prairies,  the  Rockies,  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  hundreds  of  other  typical  American 
backgrounds  he  constantly  portrays  that  sense  of  equality,  comradeship,  and  confident 
hopefulness  in  pioneer  enterprise  which  is  the  distinctive  American  characteristic. 
Most  striking  of  all  Whitman's  peculiarities,  however,  is  the  freedom  of  his  style  and 
metre.  Discarding  all  literary  references  and  borrowings,  all  conventional  and  orna- 
mental poetic  diction,  and  all  regular  measures,  he  wrote  in  a  style  which,  though 
fluent  and  exuberant  in  imagery,  was  clear  and  direct.  His  typical  poetic  form  is  a 
long  rhapsody  in  lines  of  a  length  and  metre  varying  with  the  emotional  mood  and 
of  a  rhythm  exquisitely  corresponding  to  it.  The  predominating  line  is  very  long, 
of  six,  seven,  or  eight  stresses,  and  an  ^determined  number  of  unstressed  syllables; 
such  long  lines  are  occasionally  varied  by  the  insertion  of  very  short  lines.  Whit- 
man's work  is  by  no  means  to  be  called  "prose  poetry"  for  it  has  a  very  marked 
poetic  though  unstandardized  rhythm;  and,  although  the  logical  connection  of 
his  thought  is  not  always  fully  expressed,  each  poem,  and  indeed  the  whole 
work,  has  an  organic  unity  of  idea  and  sentiment.  Although  the  frankness 
of  some  of  Whitman's  verse  injured  his  reputation  among  the  more  Puritanic 
of  his  fellow-countrymen,  his  powers  were  early  recognized  by  men  of  letters, 
including  Emerson.  They  were  eagerly  read  in  English  and  French  intellectual 


49O  THE    READER  S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS 

circles  and  have  been  highly  influential  in  the  development  of  twentieth-century 
verse,  English  and  American. 

LECTURES  ON  ART,  see  ART,  LECTURES  ON,  by  H.  A.  Taine. 
LECTURES  ON  HEAT,  see  HEAT,  LECTURES  ON,  by  John  Tyndall. 

LED  HORSE  CLAIM,  THE,  by  Mary  Hallock  Foote.  The  scene  of  this  charming 
romance  is  laid  in  a  Western  mining-town.  On  opposite  sides  of  the  Led  Horse 
Gulch  are  the  two  rival  mining-camps,  the  Shoshone  and  the  Led  Horse.  Cecil 
Conrath,  lately  come  to  join  her  brother,  superintendent  of  the  Shoshone  camp, 
while  wandering  alone  one  morning,  finds  herself,  to  her  dismay,  on  Led  Horse 
ground,  and  face  to  face  with  Hilgard,  superintendent  of  the  rival  camp.  He  is  a 
handsome  and  fascinating  man,  and  the  two  young  people  rapidly  fall  in  love  with 
each  other,  though  they  meet  but  seldom,  on  account  of  the  animosity  existing 
between  the  two  mines.  From  sounds  that  reach  him  through  the  rock,  Hilgard 
discovers  that  Conrath  has  secretly  pushed  his  workings  beyond  the  boundary  line, 
and  that  the  ore  of  which  the  Shoshone  bins  are  full  is  taken  from  the  Led  Horse 
claim.  The  case  is  put  into  the  hands  of  lawyers;  but  before  anything  can  be  done, 
Conrath  makes  an  attempt  to  jump  the  Led  Horse  mine.  Hilgard  has  been  warned; 
and  with  his  subordinate,  West,  awaits  the  attacking  party  at  the  passage  of  the  drift. 
Shots  are  exchanged,  and  Conrath  is  killed,  whether  by  Hilgard  or  West  is  unknown. 
Though  Hilgard  has  done  but  his  duty  in  defending  his  claim,  Cecil  cannot  marry  the 
possible  murderer  of  her  brother.  He  returns  to  New  York,  where  he  would  have 
died  of  typhoid  fever,  had  not  Cecil  and  her  aunt  opportunely  appeared  at  the  same 
hotel  to  nurse  him  back  to  life.  In  spite  of  the  disapproval  of  her  family,  the  lovers 
are  finally  married.  This  book  was  published  in  1883,  and  was  read  with  great 
interest,  as  being  one  of  the  first  descriptions  of  mining  life  in  the  West,  as  it  remains 
one  of  the  best. 

LEE,  GENERAL  ROBERT  E.,  RECOLLECTIONS  AND  LETTERS  OF,  by  his 

son,  Captain  Robert  E.  Lee,  was  published  in  1904.  It  is  a  pleasant,  intimate  record 
of  the  great  Confederate  general  from  the  point  of  view  of  his  family.  In  an  informal 
and  conversational  style  the  author  gives  his  recollections  of  his  father  beginning 
with  the  earliest,  and  intersperses  them  with  extracts  from  his  letters  and  a  running 
account  of  the  various  incidents  of  his  career.  The  book  thus  conveys  in  its  quiet 
way  a  very  fair  idea  of  what  Lee  accomplished  and  an  admirable  picture  of  his 
private  life  and  character.  This  narrative  confirms  the  general  impression  of  his 
manliness,  nobility,  and  simple  dignity.  Particularly  interesting  is  the  account  of 
his  work  as  president  of  Washington  College  in  Virginia  and  its  contribution  to  the 
reconstruction  of  the  South. 

LEIGHTON  COURT,  by  Henry  Kingsley  (1866).  This  book  is  an  interesting  story 
of  English  social  life  at  the  time  of  the  Indian  mutiny.  Robert,  the  younger  brother 
of  Sir  Harry  Poynitz,  masquerading  as  a  master-of -hounds  under  the  name  of  Ham- 
mersley,  is  engaged  by  Sir  Charles  Seckerton  to  take  care  of  his  pack.  He  falls  in 
love  with  Laura  Seckerton,  and  at  last  tells  her  of  his  attachment,  when  she  urges  him 
to  leave  the  country.  The  next  morning  Hammersley's  horse  is  discovered  drowned 
on  the  sea-shore,  and  his  master  is  supposed  to  have  shared  the  same  fate.  Laura, 
believing  him  dead,  accepts  the  hand  of  Lord  Hatterleigh.  The  plot  now  concerns 
itself  with  gambling  debts,  family  quarrels,  and  intrigues  social  and  financial,  tale- 
bearings, challenges,  and  sudden  deaths.  .  It  moves  rapidly,  however,  to  a  proper 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  491 

ending.  The  author  calls  the  story  "a  simple  tale  of  country  life."  The  character 
of  Hatterleigh,  with  his  sterling  worth  hidden  under  a  rather  dull  and  effeminate 
exterior,  is  very  cleverly  drawn,  as  is  also  Sir  Henry  Poynitz,  with  his  life  of  apparent 
villainy  and  final  justification. 

LEILA,  by  Antonio  Fogazzaro,  see  THE  PATRIOT. 
LEISURE  CLASS,  see  THEORY  OF  THE. 

LEO  THE  TENTH,  THE  LIFE  AND  PONTIFICATE  OF,  by  William  Roscoe. 
(2  vols.,  1868).  This  work  is  a  natural  sequel  to  its  author's  'Life  of  Lorenzo  der 
Medici,'  which  made  his  reputation.  It  was  translated  into  French  (1808),  German 
(1818),  and  Italian  (1816-17).  Though  the  Italian  version,  Count  Bossi's,  was 
placed  on  the  Index  Expurgatorius,  2800  copies  were  sold  in  Italy.  The  work  was 
severely  criticized  by  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  an  affectation  of  profundity  of 
philosophy  and  sentiment,  and  for  being  prejudiced  against  Luther.  On  the  whole, 
however,  it  is  one  of  the  best  works  on  one  of  the  most  fascinating  and  instructive 
periods  of  human  history,  containing  not  merely  the  biography  of  Leo  but  to  a  large 
extent  the  history  of  his  time;  describing  not  only  Caesar  Borgia  and  Machiavelli,  but 
Wolsey,  Bayard,  and  Maximilian.  It  was  the  first  adequate  biography  of  Leo  X.; 
and  its  attempt  to  prove  him  widely  influential  in  the  promotion  of  literature  and  the 
restoration  of  the  fine  arts,  as  well  as  in  the  general  improvement  of  the  human  in- 
tellect that  took  place  in  his  time,  is  certainly  successful. 

LEON  ROCH  (La  Familia  de  Le6n  Roch)  by  B.  Perez  Galdos  (1878).  This  novel  is 
a  painful  study  of  the  struggle  which  is  to-day  taking  place  between  dogma  and 
modern  scientific  thought.  The  field  of  battle  is  the  family  of  Leon  Roch,  a  young 
scientist,  married  to  Maria,  the  daughter  of  the  Marquis  de  Telleria.  Leon  thinks  he 
will  have  no  trouble  in  molding  the  young  girl,  but  finds  soon  after  marriage  that  she 
expects  to  convert  him.  When  he  laughingly  asks  her  how,  she  tears  a  scientific 
book  from  his  hand  and  destroys  it.  Knowing  that  his  wife's  confessor  is  responsible 
for  her  conduct,  he  offers  to  forsake  his  scientific  studies  if  she  will  leave  Madrid  and 
confine  her  churchgoing  to  Sundays.  She  refuses ;  but  when  he  insists  on  a  separation, 
she  consents.  The  visit  of  her  brother  Luis,  a  religious  fanatic,  prevents  its  accom- 
plishment; and  his  death  places  an  insuperable  barrier  between  husband  and  wife. 
From  this  event  the  story  moves  rapidly  to  a  sad  ending. 

LETTERS  CONCERNING  THE  ENGLISH  NATION,  by  Arouet  de  Voltaire  (1733). 
These  letters  were  written  by  Voltaire  while  on  a  visit  to  London  to  his  friend  Thiriot. 
Though  very  simple  in  style  and  diction,  they  are  graced  by  a  certain  charm  and  by 
delicate  touches  which  are  a  constant  delight. 

They  might  be  divided  into  four  main  sections.  The  Quakers,  Presbyterians, 
Episcopalians,  and  Unitarians  occupy  the  first  seven  letters,  and  are  subjected  to  the 
witty  but  not  biting  remarks  of  the  French  critic.  The  second  division  discusses  the 
government  of  England  as  a  whole.  The  philosophy  of  Locke  and  the  science  of  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  with  an  interesting  letter  on  Inoculation,  including  its  history  and 
uses,  can  be  classed  together  in  the  third  division.  To  all  lovers  of  English  literature, 
and  especially  of  Shakespeare,  the  fourth  division  is  of  much  interest.  In  his  remarks 
on  the  English  drama,  Voltaire  says  of  Shakespeare,  "He  was  natural  and  sublime, 
but  had  nott  so  much  as  a  single  spark  of  good  taste." 

In  speaking  of  religion,  Voltaire  says:  "Is  it  not  whimsical  enough  that  Luther, 
Calvin,  and  Zuinglius,  all  of  'em  wretched  authors,  should  have  founded  sects  which 


492  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

are  now  spread  over  a  great  part  of  Europe,  when  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Dr.  Clark,  John 
Locke,  and  Mr.  Le  Clerc,  the  greatest  philosophers  as  well  as  the  ablest  writers,  should 
scarce  have  been  able  to  raise  a  small  handful  of  followers? " 

LETTERS  FROM  A  CHINESE  OFFICIAL  ('Being  an  Eastern  View  of  Western 
Civilization')  is  a  brief  series  of  essays  contrasting  Chinese  and  Western  life  to  thd 
strong  advantage  of  the  former.  Originally  published  anonymously  in  England  in 
1902  and  in  America  in  1903,  they  attracted  wide  attention  by  the  pungency  of  their 
criticism,  the  boldness  of  their  accusation  of  modern  civilization,  and  the  piquancy  of 
their  concealed  authorship.  It  was  at  first  generally  believed  that  they  were  actual 
products  of  a  Chinese  visitor;  but  it  afterwards  transpired  that  the  author  was  Mr. 
G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  a  brilliant  English  essayist.  Writing  with  reference  to  the 
European  reprisals  against  China  after  the  Boxer  uprising,  the  supposed  mandarin 
sets  forth  an  explanation  of  Chinese  hostility  to  the  Western  peoples  by  pointing  out 
the  fundamental  distinction  between  the  two  civilizations.  In  China  the  typical 
community  is  agricultural,  economically  self -sufficient,  and  stable,  governed  by  strong 
family  obligations;  in  England,  the  prevailing  type  of  society  is  urban,  dependent  on 
trade  for  the  necessities  of  life,  impelled  primarily  by  individual  self-interest  and  the 
love  of  gain.  The  typical  Chinese  is  industrious,  contented,  appreciative  of  beauty, 
able  to  enjoy  life;  the  typical  Westerner  is  restless,  dissatisfied,  striving  for  greater 
wealth,  concerned  with  the  means  of  life  rather  than  its  enjoyment.  The  Chinese 
religion  is  a  simple  belief  in  human  brotherhood  and  the  dignity  of  labor  and  it  is 
actually  practised.  The  Christian  religion  is  a  glorification  of  the  spiritual  at  the 
expense  of  the  physical,  elevating  human  love  and  brotherhood  but  condemning  all 
other  worldly  interests,  all  violence,  aggressiveness,  and  selfishness.  But  the  West- 
ern nations  though  professing  this  creed,  always  evade  it  in  practical  life;  as  witness 
their  treatment  of  the  Chinese  after  the  Boxer  outbreak.  The  Chinese  government  is 
decentralized  but  stable,  resting  on  immemorial  custom  and  family  loyalty;  Western 
government  is  highly  developed  but  constantly  changing,  often  with  the  overthrow 
of  long-established  institutions.  Chinese  art  and  literary  culture  aim  at  the  apprecia- 
tion of  beauty  in  the  ordinary  relations  of  life.  Western  art  is  commonplace,  choked 
by  materialistic  science  and  commercialism.  For  all  these  reasons  the  Chinese  prefer 
their  own  civilization;  and  it  was  their  resentment  at  the  attempt  to  force  on  them  a 
culture  inferior,  as  they  believed,  to  their  own  which  caused  the  Boxer  uprising  and 
its  cruel  suppression  by  the  Western  powers.  This  little  book  is  most  effectively 
written  and  may  be  accepted  as  a  faithful  representation  of  the  point  of  view  which  it 
pretends  to  give  at  first  hand. 

LETTERS  FROM  EGYPT,  LAST,  of  Lady  Duff-Gordon,  to  which  are  added  '  Letters 
from  the  Cape.'  (1875).  These  letters,  which  cover  the  period  from  1862  to  1869, 
are  written  in  a  free  and  familiar  vein,  at  once  engaging  and  frank.  The  descriptions 
of  travels,  adventures  encountered,  people  met,  and  sights  seen,  are  written  to  give 
friends  at  home  a  gossipy  account  of  all  her  movements,  and  with  no  view  to  publica- 
tion. But  Lady  Gordon,  as  Lucy  Austin,  had  begun  in  early  childhood  to  write 
fascinating  letters,  and  these  were  too  good  to  be  withheld  from  the  public.  They 
touch  upon  an  endless  variety  of  topics,  with  the  readiness  of  a  mind  quick  to  observe, 
trained  by  happy  experience,  and  always  sympathetic  with  the  best. 

LETTERS  OF  F.  M.  DOSTOEVSKY  (1915).  These  seventy-seven  selected  letters 
cover  forty  years.  The  first  letter,  written  to  his  father  when  Dostoevsky  was 


THE   READER  S  DIGEST  OF   BOOKS  493 

seventeen,  is  a  pitiful  appeal  for  money.  The  humiliating  struggle  with  poverty 
continues  all  his  life  to  be  topic  of  his  correspondence.  When  he  leaves  the  army  at 
twenty-three,  he  writes  to  his  brother  that  he  is  in  danger  of  imprisonment  because 
he  has  not  money  to  buy  civilian  clothes.  The  letters  to  his  brother  tell  of  his  omni- 
vorous reading  of  European  literature.  At  twenty-four  the  publication  of  his  first 
novel  'Poor  Folk'  brings  him  fame  and,  for  a  time,  fortune.  The  four  years'  exile 
to  Siberia  follows  this  extravagant  and  unproductive  period.  He  writes  to  his  brother 
a  vivid  account  of  the  journey  of  the  political  prisoners  to  Siberia,  and  the  tragic 
suffering  of  his  life  in  prison.  At  thirty-eight  he  was  permitted  to  return  to  European 
Russia,  but  was  obliged  to  leave  finally  to  escape  his  creditors.  For  ten  years  he 
wanders,  ill  and  unhappy,  in  Germany,  France,  Italy,  and  Switzerland,  writing  to 
make  money  to  pay  his  debts  so  that  he  may  return  to  Russia.  Dostoevsky  cannot 
work,  cannot  think,  cannot  truly  live  except  on  Russian  soil  and  in  Russian  atmos- 
phere. His  passion  for  Russia  makes  him  despise  the  culture  of  Germany  and  France. 
The  letters  show  that  his  antipathy  to  TurgenefE  was  due  to  the  latter's  affectation  of 
contempt  for  Russian  ideals  and  achievement.  Russia  is  always  his  inspiration.  A 
month  before  his  death,  he  writes,  "I  hold  all  evil  to  be  founded  upon  disbelief," 
"and  maintain  that  he  who  abjures  nationalism  abjures  faith  also."  "The  national 
consciousness  of  Russia, "  he  says,  "is  based  on  Christianity."  "The  inmost  essence 
and  ultimate  destiny  of  the  Russian  nation  is  to  reveal  to  the  world  her  own  Russian 
Christ."  The  last  ten  years  of  his  life  he  spent  in  Russia,  recognized  as  a  genius  and 
enjoying  great  popularity. 

LETTERS  OF  HORACE  WALPOLE,  fourth  Earl  of  Orford  (1798),  are  among  the 
most  brilliantly  written  correspondence  of  the  eighteenth  century;  and  new  editions, 
with  added  pages,  continued  to  appear  down  to  1847.  Enjoying  the  income  of  three 
sinecures  secured  to  him  through  his  father,  the  thrifty  Sir  Robert,  the  elegant 
Horace  dawdles  through  a  charming  society  life,  dilating,  for  the  pleasure  of  the 
pretty  women  and  fashionable  men  whom  he  chooses  to  favor  with  his  observations, 
on  the  butterfly  world  of  trifles  and  triflers  in  which  he  flutters  his  fragile  wings.  A 
fascinating  chronicle  of  small-talk  it  is,  which  this  busy  idle  gentleman  has  bequeathed 
to  later  generations.  His  own  hobbies  and  fancies,  as  he  indulges  them  in  his  Gothic 
villa  at  Strawberry  Hill,  he  dwells  upon  with  an  indulgent  smile  at  his  own  weakness; 
and  he  praises  or  condemns,  with  equal  mind,  the  latest  fashions  of  Miss  Chudleigh's 
ball,  the  American  war,  or  his  own  love  of  scenery.  Witty,  lively,  thoroughly  cheery, 
are  his  descriptions  of  his  environment.  "Fiddles  sing  all  through  them,"  says 
Thackeray;  "wax-lights,  fine  dresses,  fine  jokes,  fine  plate,  fine  equipages,  glitter  and 
sparkle  there:  never  was  such  a  brilliant,  jigging,  smirking  Vanity  Fair  as  that  through 
which  he  leads  us."  Perfectly  heartless,  quite  superior  to  emotion,  these  gossipy 
pages  of  the  "most  whimsical  of  triflers  and  the  wittiest  of  fops"  have  never  failed  to 
delight  the  literary  public  of  succeeding  generations,  which  enjoys  seeing  the  eigh- 
teenth century  reflected  in  the  mirror  of  a  lif e  long  enough  to  stretch  from  Congreve 
to  Carlyle. 

LETTERS  OF  MADAME  DE  SEVIGNE,  THE,  first  published  about  thirty  years 
after  her  death  at  La  Haye  in  1676,  compose  the  most  famous  correspondence  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Contained  in  fourteen  stout  volumes,  their  copiousness  alone 
implies  an  atmosphere  of  leisure.  Most  of  the  letters  were  written  to  her  only  daugh- 
ter, after  that  young  lady  married  and  went  to  her  husband's  estates  in  southern 
Prance.  Here  are  the  lively  records  of  her  daily  interests  and  occupations  at  the 


494  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

H6tel  Carnavalet  in  Paris,  at  Livry,  or  at  her  country  seat, '  Les  Rochers,'  in  Brittany. 
She  is  now  a  financier,  cramping  her  income  to  meet  the  reckless  obligations  of  her 
son;  now  a  fervent  devotee,  working  altar-cloths  with  her  own  hands,  and  ardently  in 
sympathy  with  the  school  of  Port  Royal  and  the  Jansenists;  now  a  noted  beauty  at 
court  01  a  brilliant  wit  among  the  "precious  ones"  at  the  H6tel  de  Rambouillet;  at  all 
times  a  fine  lady,  resourceful,  gracious,  captivating.  Her  affection  for  her  daughter 
vents  itself  in  a  thousand  reiterations  of  her  desire  to  have  her  again  at  Paris ;  while 
passages  of  delightful  gossip,  always  amusing,  often  pathetic,  crowd  the  pages. 
Among  her  other  correspondents,  Madame  de  Se"vigne  reckoned  the  Due  de  Roche- 
foucauld and  the  famous  literary  twins,  Madame  de  La  Fayette  and  Madame  de 
Scudery,  all  of  them  her  intimate  friends.  Essentially  intellectual,  familiar  with 
Quintilian,  Tacitus,  and  St.  Augustine,  she  greatly  admired  Corneille,  while  she 
merely  tolerated  Racine,  whose  pathos  left  her  unmoved.  Yet  so  vivid  was  her 
imagination  that  where  she  could  not  feel,  she  divined;  and  her  literary  judgments 
are  thoroughly  appreciative.  This  imaginative  force  in  a  naturally  reserved  tempera- 
ment gives  an  extraordinary  value  to  the  pictures  which  she  has  drawn  of  the  society 
of  her  time,  admirably  faithful  to  all  its  aspects  and  employments  in  the  country,  the 
domestic  circle,  at  the  play,  at  the  court,  in  the  undertaking  of  momentous  social  and 
political  reforms.  The  literary  charm  and  vivacity  of  the  letters,  where  she  lets  the 
pen  "gallop  away  with  the  bridle  on  its  neck, "  make  them  classic  in  a  literature  rich 
in  famous  letters. 

LETTERS  OF  OBSCURE  MEN,  see  EPISTOLB  OBSCURORUM  VIRORUM. 

LETTERS  OF  PLINY,  a  collection  of  ten  books  of  letters  by  Pliny  the  Younger, 
published  between  97  and  109  A.  D.  For  a  synopsis  of  their  contents  and  a  critical 
estimate  see  the  LIBRARY  under  'Pliny  the  Younger.' 

LETTERS  OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  AND  ELIZABETH  BARRETT  BROWNING, 
1845-1846,  THE,  were  published  by  Robert  Barrett  Browning,  son  of  the  two  poets, 
in  1899.  The  two  volumes  comprise  all  the  letters  that  passed  between  Browning 
and  Miss  Barrett  from  their  first  acquaintance  to  their  marriage,  September  12, 
1846,  and  clandestine  departure  for  Italy.  Since  they  were  never  separated  there- 
after no  other  letters  are  in  existence.  The  circumstances  of  the  correspondence 
were  unusual  and  romantic.  Miss  Barrett  was  an  invalid,  confined  to  the  house  and 
subject  to  the  whims  of  a  selfish  and  eccentric  father.  She  was  the  best-known 
woman  poet  of  her  day,  and  much  more  famous  than  Browning,  whose  work  was 
appreciated  only  by  a  few.  Each  was  greatly  impressed  by  the  poetry  of  the  other, 
and  he  fell  in  love  with  her  before  they  met.  After  some  months'  correspondence 
they  were  brought  together  through  the  good  offices  of  a  common  friend,  and  Brown- 
ing was  thereafter  a  weekly  visitor.  In  the  letters,  which  are  almost  daily  through 
the  eighteen  months  of  their  courtship,  we  read  their  discussions  of  one  another's 
poetry,  their  expression  of  intimate  friendship  rapidly  growing  into  love,  their  playful 
contention  in  unselfish  devotion,  their  expression  of  all  that  love  has  effected  in 
transforming  and  enriching  their  lives.  As  the  correspondence  continues  we  note  the 
difficulty  caused  by  the  father's  irrational  opposition  to  the  match,  the  daughter's 
final  determination  to  act  without  his  consent,  the  marriage  concealed  from  him  for  a 
time,  and  the  arrangement  for  Elizabeth  Browning's  departure  with  her  husband  for 
Italy — a  step  which  in  spite  of  her  father's  predictions  of  disaster  proved  the  foundation 
of  health  and  happiness,  though  it  was  never  forgiven.  At  the  time  of  publication 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  495 

some  controversy  arose  as  to  the  propriety  of  giving  these  letters  to  the  world.  It 
should  be  noted  that  Browning  left  them  to  his  son  to  use  as  he  saw  fit,  and  that 
therefore  he  could  not  have  objected  to  the  idea  of  their  publication.  Moreover, 
although  the  reader  sometimes  has  a  feeling  that  he  is  an  eavesdropper  in  a  conversa- 
tion sacred  to  two  persons  only,  this  feeling  disappears  in  his  enthusiasm  at  witnessing 
the  idealizing  power  of  love  in  its  noblest  form.  To  destroy  the  record  of  the  love 
of  two  such  highly-gifted  natures,  whose  love  was  itself  a  poem,  would  have  been  a 
wrong  to  the  world. 

LETTERS  OF  THOMAS  GRAY,  THE,  published  after  his  death  by  his  friend  Mason 
in  1775,  constitute  not  the  least  brilliant  title  of  this  author  to  the  fame  of  a  great 
letter- writer,  in  a  century  of  letter- writers.  The  letters  contain  a  series  of  minute 
sketches  of  the  poet's  life,  and  afford  an  insight  into  the  endless  choosing  and  refining 
of  his  supersensitive  taste.  His  daily  noting  of  the  direction  of  the  wind,  his  chrono- 
logical lists,  his  confession  that  he  would  like  to  lie  upon  his  back  for  hours  and  read 
new  romances  by  Marivaux  and  Crebillon,  his  careful  annotations  in  books,  alternate 
with  discussions  of  his  own  theory  of  verse  and  of  poetical  language,  or  criticisms  on 
his  friends.  A  certain  playfulness,  as  distinct  from  humor  on  the  one  hand  as  from 
wit  on  the  other,  gives  these  epistles  an  air  of  careless  ease  and  cheerfulness  quite 
unique  and  individual.  Writing  to  Walpole,  a  martyr  to  the  gout,  he  says:  "The 
pain  in  your  feet  I  can  bear."  Concerning  the  contemporary  French  he  says: 
"Their  atheism  is  a  little  too  much,  too  shocking  to  be  rejoiced  at.  ...  They  were 
bad  enough  when  they  believed  everything."  The  pregnant  obiter  dicta,  "Froissart 
is  the  Herodotus  of  a  barbarous  age,"  and  "Jeremy  Taylor  is  the  Shakespeare  of 
divines,"  are  well-known  illustrations  of  his  keen  critical  perception.  These  letters 
have  held  their  own,  since  they  appeared,  as  models  of  epistolary  style,  easy,  un- 
affected, and  brilliant. 

LETTERS  TO  AN  UNKNOWN,  by  Prosper  M<§rime*e,  was  published  after  his  death, 
in  1873,  under  the  editorship  of  Taine.  The  Inconnue  was  Mademoiselle  Jenny 
Dacquin,  the  daughter  of  a  notary  of  Boulogne,  whose  friendship  with  Merimee 
extended  over  nearly  forty  years.  For  some  time  after  the  publication  of  the  letters 
her  identity  remained  a  mystery  to  the  public,  as  it  had  been  to  M6rime*e  during  the 
first  nine  years  of  their  correspondence. 

The  letters  have  a  double  value.  They  throw  light  upon  two  complex  types  of 
modem  character.  They  record  subjective  impressions  of  contemporary  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  fearful  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  personality.  She  knew  the  power  of  mystery,  of 
silence,  of  contradiction.  She  preferred  to  keep  friendship  by  carelessness,  than  to 
lose  it  by  intensity.  The  letters  begin  before  1842,  and  continue  until  M&ime'e'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  Chateau  de  Fontainebleau.  They 
mention  everybody,  everything,  yet  in  a  spirit  of  detachment,  of  indifference,  some* 
times  of  weariness  and  irony:  —  "Bulwer's  novel  'What  will  He  Do  with  It? '  appears 
to  me  senile  to  the  last  degree;  nevertheless  it  contains  some  pretty  scenes,  and  has  a 


496  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

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  'Tannhauser.'  .  .  .  The 
fact  is,  it  is  prodigious,  I  am  convinced  that  I  could  write  something  similar  if 
inspired  by  the  scampering  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  illustrate  the  keen  observation  and 
good  sayings  of  the  'Letters.' 

LETTERS  TO  DEAD  AUTHORS,  by  Andrew  Lang  (1886),  are  little  essays  in 
criticism,  addressed  in  a  spirit  of  gentle  humor  to  the  "dear,  dead  women"  and  men 
of  whom  they  treat.  The  ninth,  to  Master  Isaak  Walton,  begins:  "Father  Isaak  — 
When  I  would  be  quiet  and  go  angling,  it  is  my  custom  to  carry  in  my  wallet  thy 
pretty  book,  'The  Compleat  Angler.1  Here,  methinks,  if  I  find  not  trout  I  shall  find 
content."  The  letter  to  Theocritus  is  heavy  with  the  scent  of  roses  and  dew- 
drenched  violets.  The  author's  pagan  sympathies  lead  him  to  inquire —  "In  the 
House  of  Hades,  Theocritus,  doth  there  dwell  aught  that  is  fair?  and  can  the  low 
light  on  the  fields  of  Asphodel  make  thee  forget  thy  Sicily?  Does  the  poet  remember 
Nycheia  with  her  April  eyes?"  To  Thackeray  he  says:  "And  whenever  you  speak 
in  earnest,  how  magical,  how  rare,  how  lonely  in  our  literature  is  the  beauty  of  your 
sentences ! ' '  And  to  Dumas :  ' '  Than  yours  there  has  been  no  greater  nor  more  kindly 
and  beneficent  force  in  modern  letters."  Each  letter  gives  the  serene  compliments  of 
the  author  to  the  author  on  what  was  really  best  in  his  work.  Each  letter  is  gay  and 
unassuming,  but  under  the  nonchalance  is  the  fine  essence  of  criticism.  An  odor  as  of 
delicate  wine  pervades  the  volume,  the  fragrance  of  an  oblation  to  the  great  Dead, 
by  a  lover  of  their  work. 

LETTERS  TO  HIS  SON,  by  Philip  Dormer  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  mixture  of  frivolity  and  serious- 
ness, 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  precept  worthy  to  be  remembered.  Chesterfield  en- 
deavors to  unite  in  his  son  the  best  qualities  of  the  French  and  English  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  application;  but  the  most  useful  art  of  all,  that  of  pleasing, 
requires  only  the  desire."  The  letters  show  evidences  of  the  lax  morality  of  the 
times;  but  are  remarkable  for  choice  of  imagery,  taste,  urbanity,  and  graceful  irony. 

LETTRES  DE  FEMMES,  by  Marcel  PreVost  (1892)  was  succeeded  in  1894  by  'Nou- 
velles  Lettres  de  Femmes'  in  1894  and  'Dernieres  Lettres  de  Femmes'  in  1897.  The 
letters  are  supposed  to  be  written  by  women  to  each  other,  the  correspondent  think- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  497 

ing  no  one  but  the  recipient  will  see  the  letter.  They  are  entertaining  and  gracefully 
written  composed  at  mahogany  desks  in  boudoirs,  and  are  always  intimate  revela- 
tions of  character  and  mood.  The  subject  is  invariably  the  writer's  love  affairs  with 
husband,  lover,  or  both.  They  are  witty  and  ironic.  The  author  has  been  heralded 
as  the  "master  of  feminism."  They  are  written  from  the  French  standpoint  of 
morals  and  taste. 

LETTRES  PERSANES,  LES  ('Persian  Letters'),  by  Montesquieu,  were  at  first  pub- 
lished anonymously  in  1721.  The  book  is  a  piquant  satire  on  French  society  during 
the  eighteenth  century,  its  manners,  customs,  oddities,  and  absurdities  being  exposed 
through  the  medium  of  a  wandering  Persian,  who  happens  to  find  himself  in  Paris. 
Usbek  writes  to  his  friends  in  the  East  and  in  Venice.  The  exchange  of  letters  with 
his  correspondent  in  the  latter  city  has  for  its  object  to  contrast  two  centres  of  Euro- 
pean life  with  each  other  and  with  Ispahan,  the  centre  of  social  life  in  Persia.  But 
Montesquieu  is  not  only  a  keen  and  delicate  observer  of  the  fashionable  world,  — 
some  of  his  dissections  of  the  beaux  and  belles  of  his  time  remind  one  of  Thackeray 
—  but  he  touches  with  firmness,  though  with  tact  and  discretion,  on  a  crowd  of 
questions  which  his  age  was  already  proposing  for  solution:  the  relations  of  popula- 
tions to  governments,  laws,  and  religion;  the  economic  constitution  of  commerce; 
the  proportion  between  crimes  and  their  punishment;  the  codification  of  all  the  laws 
of  the  various  provinces  of  France;  liberty,  equality,  and  religious  toleration.  These 
questions  were  particularly  menacing  at  the  time  the  author  wrote,  and  the  skill 
with  which  he  stated  them  through  the  mouths  of  his  Persians  had  something  to  do 
with  their  ultimate  settlement.  The  portraits  of  different  types  in  the  'Lettres,' 
sketched  with  apparent  carelessness,  would  not  be  out  of  place  in  the  gallery  of  La 
Bruyere;  they  are  less  austere,  but  they  reveal  more  force  and  boldness.  The  work 
is,  unfortunately,  disfigured  by  many  scenes  that  are  grossly  immoral;  and  this  fact 
had  as  much  to  do  with  its  extraordinary  success  as  its  pictures  of  ideal  social  virtues. 
Its  mysterious  and  incomplete  descriptions  of  Oriental  voluptuousness  delighted 
the  profligates  of  the  Regency.  To  the  pbilosophes  and  skeptics  of  the  time,  also, 
the  'Lettres'  showed  that  Montesquieu  was  one  of  themselves;  and  they  were  happy 
to  have  an  opportunity  of  laughing  at  the  Christian  religion,  while  pretending  to 
laugh  at  the  Mohammedan.  Still,  if  the  objectionable  portions  of  the  'Lettres 
Persanes '  were  removed,  there  would  yet  remain  enough  matter  to  furnish  a  volume 
at  least  as  wise  as  Bacon's  Essays,  and  far  more  witty. 

LEVIATHAN,  or  'The  Matter,  Form,  and  Power  of  a  Commonwealth,  Ecclesiastical 
and  Civil,'  a  political  and  sociological  treatise  by  Thomas  Hobbes,  published  in  1651. 
The  book  was  written  in  defence  of  monarchy  but  its  arguments  were  based  not  on 
divine  right  but  on  natural  law.  After  a  psychological  analysis  of  man  as  an  indi- 
vidual, in  which  all  his  powers  and  faculties  are  traced  to  natural  sources,  Hobbes 
asserts  that  the  natural  state  of  man  in  society  would  be  one  of  war  —  "a  war  of 
every  man  against  every  man."  To  avoid  this  anarchy  the  individual  must  yield  up 
his  rights  to  one  supreme  individual  or  body,  the  'Leviathan,'  which  should  have 
supreme  power  to  dispose  the  state  as  it  sees  fit;  and  this  absolutism  in  the  state  must 
extend  also  to  the  churck.  This  conclusion  pleased  neither  the  Puritans,  who  had 
overthrown  King  Charles,  nor  the  Royalists,  who  believed  that  all  rightful  govern- 
ments were  divinely  established.  In  deriving  the  power  of  a  sovereign  from  an 
agreement  made  by  the  people  Hobbes  placed  the  ultimate  power  in  their  hands  and 
thus  prepared  the  way  for  the  '  Social  Contract '  theory  of  the  eighteenth  century, 


498  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  for  the  French  Revolution.  The  'Leviathan1  is  noteworthy  in  an  age  of  long 
periods  and  elaborate  displays  of  erudition  for  the  directness,  concentration,  and 
business-like  plainness  of  its  style.  In  the  history  of  English  thought  it  marks  an 
important  stage  in  the  progress  of  naturalistic  views. 

LIARS,  THE,  a  comedy  by  Henry  Arthur  Jones  (1901).  Young  and  pretty  Lady 
Jessica  resents  the  neglect  of  her  husband,  Gilbert  Nepean,  and  indulges  in  a  des- 
perate flirtation  with  a  distinguished  diplomat,  Edward  Falkner,  who  adores  her. 
She  has  met  her  lover  at  the  "Star  and  Garter"  but  their  little  dinner  is  interrupted 
by  the  arrival  of  her  brother-in-law,  who  threatens  to  tell  her  husband  of  her  indis- 
cretion. Lady  Jessica  and  her  sister  and  her  cousin  Dolly  invent  an  elaborate  maze 
of  lies  to  save  the  situation.  The  husbands  and  men  friends  are  dragged  unwillingly 
into  the  conspiracy.  All  seems  to  go  well  until  the  lover  arrives  and  tells  the  wrong 
lie,  and  then  the  truth  "  with  a  vengeance."  Lady  Jessica,  irritated  at  her  husband's 
attitude,  is  ready  to  elope  with  her  hero,  but  yields  to  the  persuasion  of  the  wise 
family  friend,  Sir  Christopher,  who  points  out  to  her  the  social  inconvenience  of 
liaisons  on  this  particular  planet.  She  becomes  reconciled  to  her  thoroughly  fright- 
ened husband,  and  the  unhappy  lover  departs  for  the  wilds  of  Africa. 

LIBERTY,  ON,  by  John  Stuart  Mill  (1858).  A  small  work  on  individual  freedom 
under  social  and  political  law.  It  had  been  planned  and  written  as  a  short  essay  in 
1854,  and  during  the  next  three  years  it  was  enlarged  into  a  volume,  as  the  joint  work 
of  the  author  and  his  wife;  but  according  to  Mr.  Mill's  protestation,  more  her  book 
than  his.  His  own  description  of  it  is,  that  it  is  a  philosophic  text-book  of  this  two- 
fold principle:  —  (i)  The  importance,  to  man  and  society,  of  the  existence  of  a  large 
variety  in  types  of  character,  the  many  different  kinds  of  persons  actually  found  where 
human  nature  develops  all  its  possibilities;  and  (2)  the  further  importance  of  giving 
full  freedom  of  opinion  and  of  development  to  individuals  of  every  class  and  type. 
Mr.  Mill  thought  he  saw  the  possibility  of  democracy  becoming  a  system  of  suppres- 
sion of  freedom,  compulsion  upon  individuals  to  act  and  to  think  all  in  one  way;  a 
tyranny  in  fact  of  the  populace,  not  less  degrading  to  human  nature  and  damaging 
to  human  progress  than  any  of  which  mankind  has  broken  the  yoke.  A  reply  to 
Mill's  views  was  made  by  Sir  J.  F.  Stephen  in  his  '  Liberty,  Fraternity,  and  Equality ' 
(1874).  Stephen  attempted  to  so  re-analyze  and  re-state  the  democratic  ideas  as  to 
show  that  Mill's  fears  were  needless. 

LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  OF  GUZMAN  D'ALFARACHE,  see  GUZMAN 
D>  ALFARACHE. 

LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  OF  JACK  OF  THE  MILL,  see  JACK  OF  THE  MILL. 

LIFE  AND  DEATH  OF  RICHARD  YEA-AND-NAY,  THE,  by  Maurice  Hewlett 
(1900).  A  historical  romance  of  the  third  Crusade.  The  story  purports  to  be 
written  by  the  Abbot  Milo,  confessor  and  friend  of  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  called 
Richard  Yea-and-Nay  by  Bertran  de  Born,  the  troubadour,  because  of  the  strange 
self-contradictions  that  mark  this  masterful  ruler,  "torn  by  two  natures,"  "sport  of 
two  fates,"  "the  loved  and  loathed,"  "king  and  a  beggar,"  "god 'and  man." 
Jehane  Saint-Pol  is  the  beautiful  girl  he  loves  and  wrongs.  'He  renounced  her  saying 
Nay  to  his  heart,  but  stole  her  back  from  before  the  altar  of  her  marriage  with  another 
saying  Nay  to  his  head.  He  crowned  her  Countess  of  Anjou,  but  repudiated-the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  499 

marriage  when  he  becomes  king,  to  make  Berengere  his  queen  in  order  to  have  her 
dowry  to  make  his  crusade  to  the  Holy  Land.  He  refused  to  be  husband  to  the 
queen  and  was  faithful  to  Jehane  to  the  end.  Jehane  sacrifices  all  for  the  man  she 
ioves.  She  becomes  a  wife  in  the  harem  of  the  Old  Man  of  Musse  as  the  price  of 
Richard's  life.  Richard  dies  in  Jehane's  arms,  the  romantic  hero  of  chivalry.  The 
pageant  of  this  feudal  age  is  reproduced  in  brilliant  pictures. 

LIFE  OF  JESUS,  see  JESUS. 

LIFE  OF  THE  BEE,  THE  ('La  Vie  des  Abeilles'),  a  literary  description  of  the  social 
life  of  bees,  by  Maurice  Maeterlinck,  was  published  in  1901.  An  English  translation 
by  Alfred  Sutro,  to  whom  the  work  was  dedicated,  appeared  in  1902.  The  author  is 
familiar  with  all  the  scientific  literature  of  bees  and  is  himself  an  experienced  apicul- 
turist,  but  in  this  book  he  aims  to  present  the  facts  not  in  the  arid  manner  of  the 
matter-of-fact  scientist  or  writer  of  practical  directions  but  with  such  literary  charm 
as  to  bring  out  the  romantic,  poetic,  and  picturesque  aspects  of  the  subject  and  to 
show  its  appeal  to  the  scientific  and  philosophic  imagination.  This  end  he  accom- 
plishes without  any  sacrifice  of  scientific  truth  and  accuracy,  all  of  his  details  being 
precise  and  proven  fact  being  sharply  distinguished  from  "pathetic  fallacy."  A 
meditative  preface,  'At  the  Threshold  of  the  Hive,'  discusses  the  literature,  general 
outlines,  and  philosophic  bearings  of  the  subject.  £The  Swarm*  traces  the  life  of  a 
hive  from  early  spring  to  the  establishment  of  a  new  colony.  '  The  Foundation  of  the 
City'  describes  the  construction  of  the  new  home  and  the  functions  of  the  queen, 
workers,  and  drones.  '  The  Young'Queens f  pictures  the  rivalry  between  the  queens, 
the  elder  of  whom  destroy  the  younger  unless  restrained  by  the  workers  in  the  interest 
of  new  colonies,  and  the  process  of  parthenogenesis  by  which  the  queen  lays  eggs 
which  develop  only  male  bees  or  drones.  In  'The  Nuptial  Flight'  is  described  the 
remarkable  union  of  one  male  bee  and  the  queen.  It  can  take  place  only  at  the  summit 
of  a  lofty  flight,  where  the  queen  is  overtaken  by  the  strongest  male;  it  is  immediately 
followed  by  the  death  of  the  male;  and  it  suffices  to  fecundate  the  queen  for  life, 
enabling  her  to  lay  thousands  of  eggs  which  produce  males,  females,  and  workers. 
1  The  Massacre  of  the  Males '  shows  how  the  drones,  useless  encumbrances  after  the 
fertilization  of  the  queen,  are  ruthlessly  killed  by  the  workers;  and  how  the  bees 
hibernate.  The  last  chapter,  'The  Progress  of  the  Species,'  is  devoted  to  a  demon- 
stration of  the  thesis  that  bees  have  not  a  mere  mechanical  instinct  but  an  active 
intelligence  and  are  capable  of  material  and  social  progress.  The  whole  book  is  an 
admirable  union  of  scientific  accuracy  and  literary  grace. 

LIFE  ON  THE  LAGOONS,  by  Horatio  F.  Brown  (1890).  Beginning  where  Nature 
began  to  hint  at  Venice,  Mr.  Brown  describes  the  peculiar  topography  of  the  region: 
the  deltaed  rivers  flowing  into  the  broad  lagoon;  the  Lidi,  or  sandy  islands,  that 
separate  the  lagoon  from  the  Adriatic,  and  guard  the  city  for  seven  miles  inland, 
from  attack  by  war-fleet  or  storm;  and  the  Porti,  or  five  channels  that  lead  from  the 
lagoon  to  the  sea.  When  the  reader  knows  the  natural  geography  of  Venice  as  if  he 
had  seen  it,  he  may  pass  on  and  behold  what  man  has  done  with  the  site,  since  the 
year  452,  when  the  inhabitants  of  the  near  mainland,  fleeing  before  Attila  the  Hun, 
the  scourge  of  God,  took  refuge  on  the  unattractive  islands,  amid  six  miles  of  shoals 
and  mud-banks  and  intricate  winding  channels.  The  descendants  of  these  fugitives 
were  the  earliest  Venetians,  a  hardy,  independent  race  of  fishermen,  frugal  and  hard- 
working, little  dreaming  that  their  children's  children  would  be  merchant  princes, 


500  THE  READER  S  DIGEST   OF  BOOKS 

rulers  of  the  commercial  world,  or  that  the  queen  city  of  the  Middle  Ages  should  rise 
from  their  mud-banks.  Mr.  Brown  gives  a  concise  sketch  of  the  history  of  Venice, 
from  its  early  beginnings  to  the  end  of  the  Republic  in  1797,  when  Napoleon  was 
making  his  new  map  of  Europe.  These  preliminaries  gone  through  (but  not  to  the 
reader's  relief,  for  they  are  very  interesting),  he  is  free  to  play  in  the  Venice  of  to-day, 
to  see  all  its  wonderful  sights,  and  read  its  wonderful  past  as  this  is  written  in 
the  ancient  buildings  and  long-descended  customs.  He  may  behold  it  all,  from 
the  palace  of  the  Doges  to  the  painted  sails  of  the  bragozzi.  The  fishing  boats,  the 
gondolas,  the  ferries,  the  churches,  the  fisheries,  the  floods,  the  islands  across  the 
lagoon,  the  pictures,  the  palaces,  the  processions  and  regattas,  and  saints'  days,  al] 
have  their  chapters  in  "this  spirited  and  happy  book, "  as  Stevenson  called  it.  All 
the  beauty  and  fascination  of  the  city,  which  is  like  no  other  city  in  the  world,  have 
been  imprisoned  in  its  pages;  and  the  fortunate  reader,  though  he  may  never  have 
set  foot  in  a  gondola,  is  privileged  to  know  and  love  it  all. 

LIFE  ON  THE  MISSISSIPPI,  by  Mark  Twain  (1883),  is  in  part  an  autobiographic 
account  of  the  author's  early  life,  during  which  he  learned  and  practiced  a  pilot's 
profession  on  the  river,  wholly  unconscious  of  the  literary  channels  in  which  his  later 
course  would  be  steered.  It  is  prefaced  by  a  graphic  description  of  the  mighty 
Mississippi,  its  history,  its  discovery  by  La  Salle  and  others,  and  its  continuous  and 
wonderful  change  of  bed,  so  that  "nearly  the  whole  one  thousand  three  hundred 
miles  which  La  Salle  floated  down  in  his  canoes  is  good  solid  ground  now."  He  re- 
lates his  boyish  ambition  to  be  a  steamboat-man,  and  how  he  attained  it.  His 
descriptions  of  his  training  and  experiences  before  he  became  a  full-fledged  pilot  are 
as  characteristic  and  unique  in  handling  as  is  the  subject  itself,  which  covers  a  long- 
vanished  phase  of  Western  life.  The  second  half  of  the  book  recounts  a  trip  made 
by  the  author  through  the  scenes  of  his  youth  for  the  purposes  of  the  work  and  the 
acquirement  of  literary  materials:  he  enumerates  the  changes  in  men,  manners,  and 
places,  which  the  intervening  twenty  years  have  brought  about,  and  intersperses  the 
whole  with  many  lively  digressions  and  stories,  comments  upon  foreign  tourists 
(Captain  Hall,  Mrs.  Trollope,  Captain  Marryat,  Dickens,  and  others);  Southern 
vendettas;  a  thumbnail  story,  probably  the  nucleus  of  'Pudd'nhead  Wilson ';  'Murel's 
Gang';  the  "fraudulent  penitent";  and  others.  The  book  is  especially  valuable  as 
the  author's  personal  record  of  an  epoch  in  the  country's  growth  which  has  now 
passed  into  history. 

LIGHT  OF  ASIA,  THE,  by  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  (1878).  'The  Light  of  Asia'  is  a 
poetic  exposition  in  eight  books  of  the  Hindoo  theology.  "  It  was, "  the  author  says, 
"inspired  by  an  abiding  desire  to  aid  in  the  better  mutual  knowledge  of  East  and 
West."  Through  the  medium  of  a  devout  Buddhist,  Arnold  presents  the  life  of  the 
young  Gautama,  living  in  princely  joy,  shielded  from  every  care  and  pain.  He 
develops  the  wistfully  dreamy  character  of  the  young  prince  into  the  loftiness  of  the 
noble,  loving  Buddha,  who  "cast  away  the  world  to  save  the  world."  The  religious 
teaching  is  merely  indicated,  because  of  the  limitations  of  the  laws  of  poetry  and  the 
sacrifice  of  philosophical  details  to  dramatic  effect. 

The  Buddha  of  Arnold  teaches  that  the  way  to  attain  Nirvana,  the  highest  desire 
of  every  soul,  is  through  four  truths.  The  first  truth  is  Sorrow:  "Life  which  ye 
prize  is  long-drawn  agony."  The  second  truth  is  Sorrow's  Cause:  "Grief  springs  of 
desire."  The  third  truth  is  Sorrow's  Ceasing.  The  fourth  truth  is  the  way,  by  an 
eightfold  path,  "To  peace  and  refuge";  to  Nirvana,  the  reward  of  him  who  van- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  501 

quishes  the  ten  great  sins.  Nirvana,  according  to  the  poet,  is  not  annihilation.  It  is 
the  calm  sinless  state  reached,  by  the  suppression  of  all  fond  desires,  through  an 
existence  continually  renewed  according  to  the  law  of  Karma.  The  poem,  which 
was  published  in  1878,  is  rich  in  sensuous  Oriental  pictures  and  imagery.  It  has  been 
translated  into  many  languages,  both  European  and  Asiatic;  and  has  done  much  to 
create  an  interest  in  the  religion  of  Buddha. 

In  1890  appeared  'The  Light  of  the  World/  written,  it  was  said,  to  silence  the 
criticism  that  Buddha  was  Christ  under  another  name,  and  to  show  the  essential 
differences  in  the  teachings  of  the  two.  The  story  follows  the  historical  life  of  Jesus. 
It  is  divided  into  five  sections,  each  of  which  sets  forth  a  special  aspect  of  the  divine 
life.  Despite  its  Oriental  setting,  the  character  of  Christ  remains  simple  and  dignified. 
Like  its  predecessor,  the  book  quickly  became  a  popular  favorite. 

LIGHT  THAT  FAILED,  THE,  by  Rudyard  Kipling,  appeared  in  1890,  and  was  his 
first  novel.  It  is  a  story  of  the  love  of  Dick  Heldar,  a  young  artist,  for  Maisie,  a 
pretty,  piquant,  but  shallow  girl,  brought  up  with  him  as  an  orphan.  Dick  goes  to 
the  Soudan  during  the  Gordon  relief  expedition,  does  illustrations  for  the  English 
papers,  gains  a  true  friend  in  Torpenhow,  a  war  correspondent;  and  winning  success, 
returns  to  London  to  enjoy  it.  But  a  sword-cut  on  his  head,  received  in  the  East, 
gradually  brings  on  blindness;  and  he  tries  heroically  to  finish  his  masterpiece,  a 
figure  of  Melancholia,  before  the  darkness  shuts  down,  —  the  scene  in  which  he  thus 
works  against  the  physical  disability  which  means  ruin,  being  very  effective.  When 
blindness  comes,  he  is  too  proud  to  let  Maisie  know;  but  Torpenhow  fetches  her,  and 
she  shows  the  essential  weakness  of  her  nature  by  not  standing  by  him  when  he  is 
down  in  the  world.  Heart-broken,  he  returns  to  the  British  army  in  the  East,  and  is 
killed  as  he  sits  on  a  camel  fully  exposed  to  the  enemy's  fire,  as  he  desired  to  be.  The 
sketch  of  the  early  friendship  and  love  of  Dick  and  Maisie,  the  vivid  scenes  in  the 
Soudan,  the  bohemian  studio  life  in  London,  and  the  pathetic  incidents  of  Heldar's 
misfortune,  are  portrayed  with  swift  movement,  sympathetic  insight,  and  dramatic 
force.  The  relation  between  Dick  and  Torpenhow  runs  through  the  tale  like  a  golden 
strand.  The  denouement  here  described  is  that  of  the  first  version,  and  preferred 
by  Kipling;  in  another  version  Maisie  remains  true  to  Dick,  and  the  novel  ends 
happily. 

THE  LIGHTNING  CONDUCTOR,  by  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson  (1903).  This 
is  a  lively  and  entertaining  description  of  a  tour  through  France  and  Italy  in  a  motor 
car.  The  story  is  told  in  a  series  of  letters  emanating  from  the  pens  of  the  principal 
characters,  namely  Miss  Molly  Randolph  and  the  Honorable  John  Winston.  The 
former,  a  pretty  and  attractive  American  girl  with  a  rich  father,  who  provides  her 
with  an  unlimited  letter  of  credit,  is  traveling  in  Europe  with  her  aunt,  Miss  Kedison, 
as  chaperon.  While  in  England  Molly  is  inspired  with  the  idea  of  possessing  a  motor 
car  in  which  to  tour  through  France,  and  buys  a  second-hand  machine  of  Mr.  Cecil 
Landstown,  who  gives  her  to  understand  that  it  is  in  fine  condition.  Delighted  with 
her  bargain,  Molly  provides  her  aunt  and  herself  with  automobile  outfits,  engages  a 
chauffeur  and  sets  forth  on  her  travels.  Her  satisfaction,  however,  is  but  short-lived 
as  the  machine  proves  to  be  an  utter  failure  and  accidents  and  catastrophes  follow 
each  other  in  rapid  succession.  The  chauffeur  proves  incompetent  and  disagreeable 
and  finally  goes  off  to  purchase  a  new  crank  for  the  machine  with  a  five-hundred-franc 
note  and  never  returns.  At  this  point  the  Honorable  John  Winston,  who  is  touring 
the  same  country  in  his  new  "Napier,"  is  strongly  attracted  by  the  "beauty  in 


502  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

distress, "  and  wishing  to  keep  near  her,  offers  his  services  as  chauffeur  and  is  accepted. 
Under  the  name  of  Brown  he  proves  a  most  valuable  and  efficient  guide  and  is 
dubbed  the  "Lightning  Conductor"  by  his  vivacious  mistress.  A  Frenchman 
named  Talleyrand  comes  upon  the  scene  and  in  order  to  get  Molly  to  continue  her 
journey  in  his  automobile  sets  fire  to  her  machine  and  destroys  it.  His  deed  is  dis- 
covered, he  is  dismissed  by  Molly,  and  Brown  substitutes  his  beloved  "Napier" 
which  he  claims  his  late  master,  Mr.  Winston,  is  desirous  of  renting.  After  a  series  of 
exciting  and  entertaining  adventures  the  denouement  finally  comes,  Brown's  real 
identity  is  revealed,  and  Molly  forgives  his  deception  and  listens  favorably  to  his 
declaration  of  love. 

LIGHTS  AND  SHADOWS  OF  SCOTTISH  LIFE,  by  "Christopher  North"  (Pro- 
fessor John  Wilson,  author  of  'Noctes  Ambrosianas').  First  published  in  1822  in 
book  form,  and  dedicated  to  Sir  Walter  Scott.  The  stories  deal  with  the  deepest  and 
the  simplest  passions  of  the  soul,  —  such  themes  as  the  love  of  man  and  maid,  of 
brother  and  sister,  of  husband  and  wife;  death,  loyal-heartedness,  and  betrayal;  of 
the  Lily  of  Liddesdale  (the  shepherdess  lassie),  and  how  she  overcame  the  temptation 
to  be  false  to  her  manly  farmer  lover  and  marry  a  lord ;  of  tne  reconciliation  of  two 
brothers  over  their  father's  grave;  of  the  death  in  childbirth  of  a  beautiful  wife;  of 
the  reconcilement  of  a  deserted  betrothed  girl  to  her  lover  by  the  girl's  friend,  who 
was  herself  on  the  morrow  about  to  become  his  bride.  The  tales  resemble  a  little 
Hawthorne's  'Twice-Told  Tales,'  but  a  good  deal  more  the  recent  beautiful  Scottish 
stories  of  the  'Bonnie  Briar  Bush*  and  'Margaret  Ogilvy'  variety,  though  devoid  of 
the  Scotch  dialect  of  these  latter.  Artless  tales  -hey  are,  full  of  tenderest  emotion 
and  pathos,  dealing  with  lowly  but  honest  family  life.  A  little  of  the  melodramatic 
order,  with  just  a  suspicion  of  a  taste  for  scarlet  and  the  luxury  of  tears  (as  in  the 
story  of  Little  Nell  in  Dickens),  and  written  in  a  florid  high-flown  diction.  Yet  ad* 
mirably  wholesome  reading,  especially  for  young  people,  who  have  always  passion- 
ately loved  them  and  cried  over  them.  They  give  also  fine  pictures  of  Scotch  rural 
scenery,  —  mountain,  heath,  river,  snow-storm,  the  deep-mossed  cottage  with  its 
garden  of  tulips  and  roses,  the  lark  overhead,  and  within,  the  little  pale-faced  dying 
daughter.  Such  a  story  as  'Moss-Side7  gives  as  sweet  and  quiet  a  picture  as  Burns's 
'Cotter's  Saturday  Night/ 

LIN  MCLEAN,  by  Owen  Wister  (1897).  This  volume  contains  six  sketches  and  a 
short  poem;  and  in  each  of  them  the  "charming  cowboy,"  as  the  Vassar  girls  call 
him,  is  the  central  figure.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Wyoming  "in  the  happy  days  when  it 
was  a  Territory  with  a  future,  instead  of  a  State  with  a  past."  Lin  McLean  is  a 
brave  boy  and  a  manly  man,  who  does  right  from  inherent  goodness,  not  because  he  is 
afraid  of  the  law;  and  he  is  successful,  whether  he  is  trying  to  rope  a  steer  or  win  a 
sweetheart.  He  has  his  troubles,  too,  but  rises  above  them  all,  his  imperturbable 
good-nature  being  a  ready  ally.  The  chapters  are  sketches,  primarily,  for  those  who 
are  tired  of  the  pavements  and  brick  walls  of  cities;  the  air  breathes  of  summer,  and 
the  little  cabin  on  Box  Elder  is  like  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land.  The 
most  noteworthy  of  these  sketches  is  '  A  Journey  in  Search  of  Christmas ' ;  others  are  ? 
'How  Lin  McLean  Went  East';  'The  Winning  of  the  Biscuit-Shooter';  'Lin  McLean's 
Honeymoon';  'Separ's  Vigilante';  and  'Destiny  at  Drybone.' 

LINCOLN,  ABRAHAM,  by  Lord  Charnwood  (1916),  published  in  the  Makers  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century  Series.  This  "first  considered  attempt  by  an  Englishman  to 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  503 

give  a  picture  of  Lincoln"  is  the  most  successful  interpretation  of  Hs  character  yet 
presented.  Its  originality  lies  in  the  perspective  view  probably  impossible  to  an 
American  writer.  Lord  Charnwood  is  an  admirer  of  Lincoln,  whom  he  ranks  as  one 
of  the  greatest  men  of  our  time,  but  he  depicts  with  full  candor  the  crudities  and 
faults  in  his  hero.  He  describes  the  frontier  life  of  which  he  was  a  product,  his 
originality  of  mind  and  persistent  self-training,  and  the  gradual  development  of  a 
rare  character,  and  its  adaption  to  great  events  and  demands,  until  his  leadership  is 
recognized  by  his  country  and  he  bears  "on  his  shoulders  such  a  weight  of  care  and 
pain  as  few  other  men  have  borne."  Writing  for  English  readers,  the  author  sum- 
marizes American  history  and  conditions  in  order  to  give  background  to  the  biog- 
raphy. The  second  chapter  traces  the  growth  of  the  American  nation  through 
Colonial  days,  the  Revolution,  and  the  War  of  1812,  and  discusses  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  and  leaders,  parties,  and  tendencies  in  Lincoln's  youth.  He  dwells  at 
length  upon  the  Lincoln  and  Douglas  debates  which  brought  Lincoln  into  prominence. 
A  later  chapter  is  devoted  to  Secession,  and  the  case  of  the  South  against  the  Union. 
The  last  half  of  the  book  is  the  history  of  the  Civil  War.  He  discusses  English  opin- 
ion at  the  time  of  the  war,  regretting  the  "  powerlessness  to  comprehend  another 
country  and  a  self-sufficiency  in  judging  it"  and  explains  that  the  case  of  the  North 
was  not  apprehended.  England  was  actuated  by  a  "sincere  belief  that  the  cause  of 
the  North  was  hopeless  and  that  intervention  .  .  .  might  prove  the  course  of  honest 
friendship  to  all  America."  The  British  working  people  were  persistently  on  the 
side  of  the  North.  Aside  from  the  politicians  for  and  against  the  war,  Darwin  and 
Tennyson  are  known  to  have  taken  the  Northern  cause  to  heart.  Dickens,  who 
hated  slavery  and  "who  in  'Martin  Chuzzlewit'  had  appealed,  however  bitterly,  to 
the  higher  national  spirit  which  he  thought  latent  in  America,  now,  when  that  spirit 
had  at  last  and  indeed  asserted  itself,  gave  way  in  his  letters  to  nothing  but  hatred 
of  the  whole  country."  Lincoln's  claim  to  universal  interest  Lord  Charnwood 
believes  is  that  "he  elected  to  right  the  war  not  so  much  to  preserve  the  United  States 
government  as  because  he  believed  that  the  preservation  of  that  government  was 
necessary  to  the  triumph  of  democracy."  His  greatest  deed  "was  the  keeping  of  the 
North  together  in  an  enterprise  so  arduous,  and  an  enterprise  for  objects  so  confusedly 
related  as  the  Union  and  freedom."  "He  had  been  able  to  free  the  slaves,  partly 
because  he  would  not  hasten  to  this  object  at  the  sacrifice  of  what  he  thought  a 
larger  purpose."  He  wrote  before  his  presidency,  "As  I  would  not  be  a  slave  so  I 
would  not  be  a  master.  This  expresses  my  idea  of  democracy."  Full  credit  is  given 
to  Lincoln's  administrative  genius  in  his  conduct  of  affairs,  his  recognition  of  public 
opinion,  and  the  necessity  of  trusting  subordinates,  his  neglect  of  the  lesser  for  the 
greater,  and  his  inflexibility  on  essentials.  Lord  Charnwood  includes  war  strategy 
as  one  of  the  subjects  on  which  Lincoln  exercised  a  masterly  guidance.  His  picture 
of  Lincoln  is  a  convincing  portrait  of  a  forceful  and  charming  personality,  and  a 
great  statesman. 

LINCOLN,  ABRAHAM,  A  HISTORY,  by  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  was  first 
published  serially  in  the  Century  Magazine  between  1886  and  1890  and  then  in  a 
ten- volume  edition,  in  which  certain  chapters  on  military  and  political  events  omitted 
from  the  magazine  were  printed  in  full.  The  work  is  profusely  illustrated  with 
portraits  of  Lincoln  and  of  his  contemporaries  and  with  a  few  photographs  of  scenes 
and  documents  connected  with  his  life.  The  authors  were  private  secretaries  to 
Lincoln,  and  were  intimately  associated  with  him  from  a  time  previous  to  his  election 
to  the  presidency  until  his  death.  They  knew  his  correspondence,  were  acquainted 


504  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

with  his  problems  and  anxieties,  and  had  daily  intercourse  with  his  advisers  both 
political  and  military.  They  also  had  charge  of  all  of  Lincoln's  private  papers  after 
his  death  and  conducted  the  widest  researches  into  the  diaries  and  records  of  the 
period.  From  all  these  materials  they  constructed  not  only  the  standard  biography 
of  Lincoln  but  a  history  of  the  Civil  War.  Although  there  is  some  natural  exaggera- 
tion of  the  dominating  influence  of  Lincoln  and  a  tendency  to  find  his  judgment  un- 
erring in  every  instance  and  to  exhibit  his  colleagues  at  a  corresponding  disadvantage, 
the  work  is  based  on  honest  convictions  and  gives  a  fair,  reliable,  and  picturesque 
view  of  the  great  events  of  the  period.  It  is  a  significant  comment  on  Lincoln's 
personality  that  his  two  most  intimate  associates  should  have  devoted  so  many  years 
after  his  death  to  the  erecting  of  such  a  monument  to  his  memory. 

LINCOLN,  ABRAHAM,  THE  LIFE  OF,  by  Ida  M.  Tarbell.  (2  vols.,  1900.  New 
edition,  1917).  The  material  for  Miss  Tarbell's  biography  was  first  published  in  a 
series  of  articles  in  McClure's  Magazine  in  1895  and  1896,  the  result  of  an  attempt 
made  by  the  publishers  and  the  author  to  secure  reminiscences  of  Lincoln  from  his 
surviving  contemporaries.  The  value  of  the  work  is  that  it  is  to  some  extent  based 
on  independent  research  and  new  material.  An  appendix  of  200  pages  gives  a  mis- 
cellaneous collection  of  hitherto  unpublished  speeches,  letters,  and  telegrams.  It  is  a 
popular  detailed  biography  presenting  in  an  attractive  series  of  pictures  the  leader 
who  won  the  love  of  the  people.  The  story  of  his  early  life  and  development  is  traced 
in  more  detail  than  in  any  other  biography.  Miss  Tarbell  corrects  the  commonly 
accepted  story  of  the  extreme  poverty  and  unusual  hardship  of  his  boyhood  as  com- 
pared with  average  pioneer  conditions.  While  Lincoln  spoke  of  his  life  in  Indiana 
as  "pretty  pinching  times/'  his  description  of  his  youth  was  that  of  a  happy  joyous 
boyhood.  The  pioneer  life  was  rude,  but  the  pioneers  were  independent,  self-reliant 
citizens  enduring  temporary  hardship  to  accomplish  their  work  of  settling  the  new 
country.  Documents  are  presented  which  show  his  mother  to  have  been  of  good 
family  and  his  father  something  more  than  a  shiftless  ' '  poor  white. ' '  Lincoln  had  few 
books  of  his  own  but  they  were  the  best,  and  he  once  told  a  friend  that  he  "read 
through  every  book  he  had  ever  heard  of  in  that  country  for  a  circuit  of  fifty  miles." 
One  of  the  books  he  read  and  studied  when  he  was  eighteen  was  the  Indiana  Statutes, 
which  began  with  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  the  Constitution.  Lincoln 
said  later,  "I  never  had  a  feeling  politically  that  did  not  spring  from  the  sentiments 
embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence."  The  author  tries  to  do  away  with 
the  legend  of  miraculous  growth  which  has  gathered  about  his  remarkable  career. 
To  the  later  life  of  the  President  little  that  is  new  is  added.  Anecdotes  of  his  rela- 
tions with  his  associates,  with  the  soldiers  and  office-seekers,  present  a  clear  picture 
of  the  real  Lincoln.  The  illustrations  include  portraits  of  Lincoln  at  different  ages. 
The  new  edition  adds  a  new  chapter  and  a  twenty-page  preface  summing  up  recent 
publications  on  Lincoln  and  the  effect  of  this  new  knowledge  on  our  conception  of 
Lincoln.  She  says:  "He  is  to-day  our  national  touchstone  as  well  as  the  source  to 
which  liberal  statesmen  of  all  lands  look  for  the  most  perfect  understanding  and 
expression  of  the  spirit  and  aims  of  democracy." 

LINCOLN,  ABRAHAM ;  THE  TRUE  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE,  by  William  Henry 
Herndon.  (Second  edition,  1892).  This  biography  of  the  "foremost  American' 
covers  his  life  from  birth  to  death,  being  extremely  full  with  regard  to  his  origin  anc 
early  days.  These  first  chapters  contain  many  things  that  have  been  severely  criti 
cized  as  trivial,  misleading,  or  false  in  effect  if  not  in  intention.  Mr.  Herndon  was  foi 


THE   READER  S   DIGEST  OF   BOOKS  505 

twenty  years  President  Lincoln's  intimate  personal  friend  as  well  as  his  law  partner, 
and  had  perhaps  a  closer  knowledge  of  his  character  and  idiosyncrasies  than  any 
other  man.  Feeling,  as  he  himself  says,  that  "'  God's  naked  truth'  can  never  injure 
the  fame  of  Abraham  Lincoln, "  he  told  what  he  thought  to  be  the  truth  unreservedly 
—  even  unsparingly.  One  of  Thackeray's  objects  in  writing  '  The  Virginians '  was  to 
draw  George  Washington  as  he  really  was,  with  the  glamour  of  historic  idealization 
stripped  away.  Criticism  objected  to  Mr.  Herndon's  book  that  it  would  go  nigh  to 
prevent  the  process  of  idealization  altogether  as  to  Lincoln.  Yet  throughout  its 
minute  and  often  trifling  details,  as  throughout  its  larger  generalities  and  syntheses, 
it  is  evident  that  the  biographer  loved  his  hero,  and  meant  to  do  him  full  justice; 
and  that  whatever  shortcomings  the  history  presents  are  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
historian  lacked  the  quality  of  imagination,  without  whose  aid  no  object  can  be  seen 
in  its  true  proportions. 

LINNET,  by  Grant  Allen  (1900).  This  is  a  romance  of  the  Tyrol  and  its  scenery 
and  people  are  described  in  a  manner  both  effective  and  pleasing.  Two  young 
English  tourists  come  to  a  little  mountain  village  where  they  find  the  Tyrolese 
in  all  their  native  simplicity;  the  young  men,  with  the  pride  and  aspirations 
of  the  hunter,  who  dance  wildly  and  make  love  fiercely,  and  the  maidens  of  easy 
virtue  who  tend  their  cows  in  the  summer  and  serve  a  master  in  the  village  through 
the  long  winter.  One  of  these  is  Linnet,  the  heroine,  an  innocent,  modest  girl  among 
her  bold  associates,  who  possesses  a  marvelous  voice.  Both  tourists  are  charmed  with 
the  lovely  singer,  but  while  one  is  selfish  and  conceited  and  pays  her  meaningless  com- 
pliments, the  other,  who  is  quiet  and  undemonstrative,  really  wins  her  love.  His 
friend,  however,  being  more  wise  in  worldly  affairs  than  himself,  persuades  him  of  the 
folly  of  his  course,  and  takes  him  away  from  the  place.  Linnet  has  other  lovers, 
among  whom  is  the  taciturn  inn-keeper,  who  is  a  musician  and  travels  with  minstrel 
troupes  of  his  own  training,  and  who  means  to  marry  her  as  a  matter  of  business. 
He  takes  Linnet  with  him  on  his  next  tour  and  while  she  is  rapidly  becoming  famous 
she  again  meets  her  "Englander  "  and  the  love  which  began  in  the  Tyrolese  mountain 
again  assumes  its  sway.  The  love  story  is  told  with  much  charm  and  grace,  and  when 
the  scene  changes  to  London  the  contrast  in  character  and  national  traits  between 
that  city  and  the  land  of  the  Tyrol  is  strikingly  shown. 

LION  OF  FLANDERS,  THE,  by  Hendrik  Conscience  (1838).  In  this  Flemish 
historical  romance,  among  the  best  he  has  written,  the  author  deals  with  one 
of  the  most  glorious  episodes  in  his  country's  history;  the  expulsion  of  the 
armies  of  Philip  le  Bel  in  the  thirteenth  century  from  Flemish  soil  by  a  rising  of  the 
common  people.  His  hero  is  Robert  de  Bethune,  the  "Lion  of  Flanders";  whose 
father,  Guy  de  Dampierre,  had  incurred  the  enmity  of  his  French  suzerain  by  siding 
with  the  English  king.  The  story  opens  with  a  stirring  picture  of  the  turbulence  and 
fury  of  the  Flemings  on  learning  of  the  approach  of  the  French  army.  Conscience 
shows  in  this  novel  that  he  was  a  close  student  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  He  has  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  manners  as  well  as  of  the  history  of  the  period  in  which  its  scenes 
are  laid,  and  he  has  been  entirely  successful  in  giving  a  faithful  and  lifelike  conception 
of  Flanders  in  the  thirteenth  century. 

LITERARY  AND  SOCIAL  ESSAYS,  by  George  William  Curtis.  The  nine  essays 
which  compose  this  volume  were  collected  from  several  sources,  and  published  in 
book  form  in  1895.  Written  with  all  the  exquisite  finish,  the  lucidity  and  grace  which 


506  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

characterized  every  utterance  of  Mr.  Curtis,  these  essays  are  like  an  introduction 
into  the  actual  presence  of  the  gifted  men  of  our  century  in  whose  splendid  circle  the 
author  was  himself  at  home.  Emerson,  Hawthorne,  and  the  placid  pastoral  Concord 
of  their  homes,  are  the  subjects  of  the  first  three  chapters  and  are  treated  with  the 
fine  power  of  apt  distinction,  with  the  richness  of  rhetoric  and  the  play  of  delicate 
humor,  which  those  who  heard  Mr.  Curtis  remember,  and  those  who  know  him  only 
in  his  published  works  must  recognize.  To  lovers  of  Emerson  and  Hawthorne  these 
chapters  will  long  be  a  delight,  written  as  they  were  while  the  companionship  of 
which  they  spoke  was  still  warm  and  fresh  in  the  author's  memory. 

Equally  interesting  and  valuable  as  contributions  to  the  biography  of  American 
letters  are  the  chapters  on  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Washington  Irving,  and  Long- 
fellow. Perhaps  no  one  has  given  us  more  intimately  suggestive  portrait-sketches 
of  the  personalities  of  these  familiar  authors  than  are  given  in  these  collected  essays. 
Particularly  interesting  to  American  readers  are  the  occasional  reminiscences  of 
personal  participation  in  scenes,  grave  or  humorous,  where  the  actors  were  all  makers 
of  history  for  New  England.  The  book  contains  Mr.  Curtis's  brilliant  essay  on  the 
famous  actress  Rachel,  which  appeared  in  Putnam's  Magazine,  1855;  a  delightful 
sketch  of  Thackeray  in  America,  from  the  same  source;  and  a  hitherto  unpublished 
essay  on  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  which  is  instinct  with  the  author's  enthusiasm  for  all  that 
is  strong  and  pure  and  truly  gentle. 

LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION,  THE.  Vol.  i. ,  1 763- 
1776;  Vol.  ii.,  1776-1783.  By  Moses  Coit  Tyler  (1897).  A  work  of  great  research 
and  accurate  learning,  presenting  the  inner  history  of  the  Revolution  period,  1763- 
1783,  as  set  forth  in  the  writings  of  the  two  parties  in  the  controversy  of  the  time. 
The  Loyalists  or  Tories,  as  well  as  the  Revolutionists,  are  heard;  and  all  forms  of  the 
literature  of  the  time  have  been  made  use  of,  the  lighter  as  well  as  the  more  serious, 
poetry  as  well  as  prose,  and  in  fact  everything  illustrative  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
of  the  people  during  the  twenty  years'  struggle  for  independence.  The  care  and 
thoroughness  with  which  neglected  persons  and  forgotten  facts  have  been  brought 
into  the  picture  make  the  work  not  only  very  rich  in  interest,  but  an  authority  not 
likely  to  be  displaced  by  future  research.  A  conspicuous  feature  of  the  work,  on 
which  the  author  lays  great  stress,  and  which  is  likely  to  give  it  increasing  interest 
with  the  lapse  of  time,  is  the  pains  taken  to  show  that  the  Revolution  ought  not  to 
have  created  an  almost  hopeless  feud  between  America  and  England,  and  that  a  cor- 
rect understanding  of  its  history  is  calculated  to  do  away  with  this  feud.  The 
fascination  of  Mr.  Tyler's  history  is  greatly  heightened  by  its  spirit  of  charity  and 
fairness,  and  by  his  suggestions  looking  to  complete  future  reconciliation  between 
America  and  England. 

LITERARY  LANDMARKS  OF  LONDON,  by  Laurence  Hutton  (1887).  The 
author  has  not  attempted  to  make  of  this  either  a  text-book  or  biographical  dictionary. 
It  is  a  work  which  appeals  to  those  "who  love  and  are  familiar  with  Pepys  and 
Johnson  and  Thackeray,  and  who  wish  to  follow  them  to  their  homes  and  haunts  in 
the  metropolis,  —  not  to  those  who  need  to  be  told  who  they  were  and  what  they 
have  done."  The  sketches  are  arranged  in  alphabetical  order,  beginning  with  Addi- 
son  and  ending  with  Young;  and  the  rank  of  the  poet  or  writer  is  not  determined  by 
amount  of  space.  For  instance,  Wordsworth  and  Herrick  have  assigned  to  them  but 
a  few  lines,  for  they  were  not  poets  of  brick  and  mortar;  while  whole  pages  are  given 
to  half -forgotten  authors  of  one  immortal  song,  who  spent  all  their  days  in  London. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  507 

Full  indices,  local  as  well  as  personal,  enable  the  reader  to  find  what  appeals  to  him 
most  in  whatever  part  of  the  town  he  may  be.  He  can  walk  with  Johnson  and  Boswell 
from  the  Club  in  Gerard  Street,  and  call  on  the  way  on  Dryden,  Waller,  Lamb,  or 
Evelyn;  stop  for  refreshments  at  "Will's"  or  "Tom's"  with  Steele,  or,  in  the  church 
of  St.  Paul,  Co  vent  Garden,  pray  for  the  repose  of  the  souls  of  Butler,  Wycherley, 
and  "Peter  Pindar"  who  sleep  within  its  gates.  London  has  no  associations  more 
interesting  than  those  connected  with  its  literary  men,  and  nothing  of  moment 
connected  with  their  careers  in  the  city  has  been  omitted.  It  is  plainly  evident  that 
the  author's  chief  aim  has  been  completeness  and  exactness. 

LITERARY  LAPSES,  by  Stephen  Leacock  (1910).  A  collection  of  humorous 
sketches:  'Boarding-House  Geometry/  the  postulates  and  axioms  of  this  story  are 
reprinted  in  THE  LIBRARY;  ' How  to  Live  to  be  200,' '  How  to  Avoid  Getting  Married, ' 
'Men  who  have  Shaved  me,'  ' Insurance  up  to  Date,'  'Borrowing  a  Match,'  etc. 
One  of  the  most  amusing  is  'My  Financial  Career,'  the  experience  of  a  shy  young 
man  who  decides  to  deposit  his  fifty  dollars  a  month  salary  in  a  bank.  In  '  Number 
Fifty-Six '  a  Chinese  laundryman,  a  second  Sherlock  Holmes,  deducts  the  character 
and  history  of  a  man  from  study  of  his  weekly  wash,  a  logical  biography  but  unfor- 
tunately absurdly  mistaken.  'A  New  Pathology'  takes  up  the  powerful  reaction  of 
clothes  on  the  wearer,  and  the  diagnosis  and  treatment  of  such  common  diseases  as 
"Contractio  Pantalunae;  or  Shortening  of  the  Legs  of  the  Trousers,"  the  painful 
malady  of  growing  youth,  and  "Inflatio  Genu;  or,  Bagging  of  the  Knees  of  the  Trou- 
sers,"  in  which  "the  patient  shows  an  aversion  to  the  standing  posture."  The 
author's  advice  to  those  who  fear  germs  and  bacilli  is:  "If  one  flies  into  your  room, 
strike  at  it  with  your  hat  or  with  a  towel.  Hit  it  as  hard  as  you  can  between  the 
neck  and  the  thorax.  It  will  soon  get  sick  of  that."  "A,  B,  and  C"  are  the  heroes 
of  the  "short  stories  of  adventures  and  industry  with  the  end  omitted"  we  meet  as 
John,  William,  and  Henry  in  early  chapters  of  the  arithmetic,  and  who  conceal  their 
identity  as  X,  Y,  and  Z  later  in  problems  of  algebra.  These  delightful  absurdities 
are  the  '  Literary  Lapses '  of  a  professor  of  economics. 

LITERARY  MOVEMENT  IN  FRANCE  DURING  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY, 

by  Georges  Pellissier  (1889.  Authorized  English  version,  by  Anne  Garrison 
Brinton,  1897).  A  work  which  Brunetiere  pronounced  upon  its  appearance  not  less 
the  picture  than  the  history,  and  at  the  same  time  the  philosophy,  of  contemporary 
French  literature.  It  is  without  doubt  the  best  history  of  French  achievement  in 
letters  during  the  last  hundred  years.  The  list  of  authors,  sixty  in  number,  whose 
works  are  used  as  examples  of  the  literary  movement,  begins  with  Rousseau  and 
Diderot,  and  embraces  all  the  names  that  are  of  greatest  interest  for  their  relation  to 
developments  subsequent  to  the  Revolution.  The  chief  conceptions  which  have  held 
sway  in  France,  creating  schools  of  literature,  are  carefully  studied;  and  the  examples 
in  writers  of  various  types  are  pictured  with  felicitous  insight.  After  the  classic 
period  had  lasted  from  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  nearly  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years,  Rousseau  and  Diderot  became  the  precursors  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
its  initiators  in  fact.  Then  Madame  de  Stael  and  Chateaubriand  preside  at  its 
opening.  The  founders  of  Romanticism,  modern  French  literature  begins  with 
them.  There  still  lingered  a  school  of  pseudo-classicists,  and  then  Victor  Hugo 
brings  in  the  full  power  of  Romanticism.  There  is  a  renovation  of  language  and  of 
versification,  and  a  wide  development  of  lyric  poetry.  The  culmination  of  Roman- 
ticism is  in  the  new  drama,  and  again  it  renews  history  and  criticism,  and  creates  the 


508  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

novel.  But  half  a  century  brought  the  decadence  of  Romanticism;  and  Realism, 
essentially  prosaic,  a  fruit  of  the  scientific  spirit,  succeeded.  Its  evolution,  its  effect 
on  poetry  and  criticism,  and  its  illustration  in  the  novel  and  the  theatre  are  carefully 
traced. 

LITERATURE,  by  Hermann  Grimm  (1886),  is  a  collection  of  scholarly  essays,  upon 
half  a  dozen  of  the  great  figures  of  literature.  The  book  has  a  peculiar  interest  for 
Americans  in  its  two  essays  on  Emerson,  whose  genius  Professor  Grimm  was  the  first 
German  to  recognize.  Even  to-day  Emerson  has  not  a  large  hearing  in  Germany,  — 
his  style  is  different  and  his  ideas  strange  to  the  whole  tone  of  German  thought;  and 
thirty-five  years  ago,  when  Professor  Grimm  had  just  discovered  him,  and  went 
about  sounding  his  praises  and  persuading  his  friends  to  read  him,  he  (Grimm)  was 
considered  slightly  mad.  He  persisted,  however,  in  considering  Emerson  as  the  most 
individual  thinker  the  world  has  seen  since  Shakespeare. 

In  two  illuminative  papers,  the  author  undertakes  to  explain  the  most  brilliant 
figure  of  eighteenth-century  letters,  Voltaire.  In  'France  and  Voltaire,'  he  traces, 
from  the  time  of  Louis  XIII.,  the  governing  ideas  of  French  life,  and  their  expression 
in  the  great  writers,  Corneille,  Racine,  Moliere,  and  the  rest,  till  Voltaire  came  to 
give  voice  to  the  new  feelings  that  were  surging  up  in  the  hearts  of  the  subjects  of 
Louis  the  well-beloved.  In  'Frederick  the  Great  and  Voltaire,'  he  chronicles  the 
stormy  friendship  of  the  erratic  German  genius  for  the  erratic  French  one.  '  Frederick 
the  Great  and  Macaulay'  treats  of  Macaulay's  essay  on  that  monarch,  and  inci- 
dentally Macaulay's  theory  of  history.  Other  essays  are  on  Albert  Durer,  the  great 
pioneer  of  modern  artists;  on  Bettina  von  Arnim,  the  girl-friend  of  Goethe;  on  Dante; 
and  on  the  brothers  Grimm,  father  and  uncle  of  Hermann  Grimm,  and  known 
everywhere  as  the  compilers  of  'Grimm's  Fairy  Tales.' 

LITERATURE  OF  THE  SOUTH  OF  EUROPE,  HISTORICAL  VIEW  OF  THE,  by 

Jean  Charles  Leonard  Sismondi.  L.  L.  de  Lome*nie,  in  the  'Galerie  des  Contem- 
porains  Illustres/  calls  Sismondi  "the  most  eminent  historian  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  everything  relating  to  the  science  of  facts";  and  George  Ticknor  says  his 
brilliant  'Literature  of  Southern  Europe'  will  always  be  read  for  the  beauty  of  its 
style  and  the  richness  and  wisdom  of  its  reflections.  He  was  a  man  of  enormous 
erudition  (published  sixty-nine  volumes),  and  made  truth  his  idol,  he  says.  He  lived 
eighteen  months  in  England  and  five  or  six  years  in  Italy,  accompanying  Madame  de 
Stael  on  two  Italian  tours.  His  portrait  shows  a  face  strikingly  like  that  of  our 
Washington  Irving.  He  was  born  in  Geneva  in  1773,  and  in  1811  gave  there  the 
lectures  out  of  which  the  books  we  are  considering  grew.  The  lectures  were  published 
in  four  volumes  (Paris),  in  1813.  The  work  is  a  little  feeble  in  parts,  but  as  a  whole 
strikingly  original.  He  begins  with  a  full  account  of  the  Troubadour  literature  and 
of  the  Trouveres,  with  copious  illustrative  citations;  and  discusses  with  ample  learn- 
ing the  work  of  Dante,  Boccaccio,  Tasso,  Petrarch,  and  Alfieri.  Then  he  gives  rich 
tableaux  of  Spanish  and  Portuguese  literature,  —  '  The  Cid, '  Cervantes,  Camoens, 
and  others.  In  his  treatment  of  Spanish  literature,  he  did  not  have  access  to  all  the 
original  authors,  but  depended  largely  on  his  predecessor,  Bouterwek.  But  Ticknor 
gives  him  very  high  praise  for  wide  research  and  breadth  of  view. 

LITTLE  BAREFOOT  ('Barfussele').  From  the  German  of  Berthold  Auerbach  (1856). 
This  Black  Forest  peasant  story  relates  with  rustic  simplicity  how  two  children, 
Amrie  and  her  brother  Dame,  are  left  orphans  with  their  home  broken  up;  and  how, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  509 

not  understanding  what  death  means,  they  wander  back  night  after  night  to  the 
deserted  woodcutter's  hut  where  they  lived  with  their  parents,  and  lifting  the  latch, 
call  again  and  again:  "Father,  Mother."  They  are  separated,  and  brought  up  as 
parish  orphans,  Amrie  living  with  brown  Mariann,  an  old  woman  who  is  called  a 
witch,  but  who  is  kind  to  her.  The  dreamy,  imaginative  child  passes  her  lonely  days 
on  the  common  as  goose-girl;  and  to  save  her  earnings  for  her  little  brother  Danie, 
goes  without  shoes,  thus  winning  the  name  of  ' '  Little  Barefoot. ' '  An  old  friend  of  her 
mother  who  has  married  the  richest  farmer  in  the  adjoining  district  offers  to  adopt 
her;  but  on  Amrie's  refusing  to  forsake  her  brother,  she  hangs  a  garnet  necklace  round 
the  child's  neck,  and  tells  her  if  she  is  ever  in  need  of  a  friend  to  come  to  Fanner 
Landfried's  wife.  Amrie  is  promoted  to  be  maid  in  the  family  of  the  rich  peasant 
Rudel,  whose  daughter  Rose  treats  her  with  scorn;  but  one  day  Rudel's  young 
daughter-in-law  takes  pity  on  the  pretty  Barefoot,  and  dresses  her  with  her  own 
hands  for  a  village  wedding.  Here  Amrie  dances  with  a  stranger,  a  handsome  youth, 
who  has  ridden  to  the  Feast  on  a  fine  white  horse,  and  who  chooses  no  partner  but 
her.  She  has  one  day  of  perfect  happiness,  and  is  still  dreaming  of  her  unknown 
partner  when  she  sees  him  riding  up  to  Farmer  Rudel's  door,  having  been  sent  by  his 
parents,  the  wealthy  Landfrieds,  to  seek  a  bride.  They  wish  him  to  marry  Rudel's 
Rose;  but  the  youth,  on  beholding  again  his  pretty  partner,  has  eyes  only  for  her,  and 
rinding  that  Rose  treats  her  cruelly,  he  comes  to  the  rescue  and  carries  her  off  on  his 
white  horse.  When  they  approach  his  father's  farm  to  which  he  is  expected  to  bring 
a  less  humble  bride,  John's  heart  fails  him;  but  the  brave  " Little  Barefoot"  goes 
before  him,  charms  his  old  father  with  her  artless  sweetness  and  tact,  and  showing 
his  mother  the  necklace  she  once  gave  her,  appeals  to  the  kindness  of  her  dead  mother's 
friend.  So  the  old  people's  hearts  are  melted,  and  they  give  her  a  grand  wedding. 
Danie  is  made  head  dairyman  on  the  great  farm;  and  when  Amrie's  first  child  comes, 
she  is  christened  Barbara,  but  is  always  called  by  her  father  "Little  Barefoot." 

LITTLE  DOKRIT,  by  Charles  Dickens,  was  published  1856-57,  when  the  author's 
popularity  was  at  its  height.  The  plot  is  a  slight  one  on  which  to  hang  more  than 
fifty  characters.  The  author  began  with  the  intention  of  emphasizing  the  fact  that 
individuals  brought  together  by  chance,  if  only  for  an  instant,  continue  henceforth 
to  influence  and  to  act  and  react  upon  one  another.  But  this  original  motive  is  soon 
altogether  forgotten  in  the  multiplication  of  characters  and  the  relation  of  their 
fortunes.  The  central  idea  is  to  portray  the  experiences  of  the  Dorrit  family,  immured 
for  many  years  on  account  of  debt  in  the  old  Marshalsea  Prison,  and  then  unex- 
pectedly restored  to  wealth  and  freedom.  Having  been  pitiable  in  poverty,  they 
become  arrogant  and  contemptible  in  affluence.  Amy,  "Little  Dorrit,"  alone  re- 
mains pure,  lovable,  and  self-denying.  In  her,  Dickens  embodies  the  best  human 
qualities  in  a  most  beautiful  and  persuasive  form.  She  enlists  the  love  of  Arthur 
Clennam,  who  meantime  has  had  his  own  trials.  Returning  from  India,  after  long 
absence,  he  finds  his  mother  a  religious  fanatic,  domineered  over  by  the  hypocritical 
old  Flintwinch,  and  both  preyed  upon  by  the  Mephistophelian  Blandois,  perhaps 
the  most  dastardly  villain  in  the  whole  Dickens  gallery.  The  complications,  however, 
end  happily  for  Arthur  and  Amy.  The  main  attack  of  the  book  is  aimed  against 
official  "red  tape"  as  exemplified  in  the  Barnacle  family  and  the  "Circumlocution 
Office."  It  also  shows  up  Merdle  the  swindling  banker,  "Bar, "  "  Bishop, "  and  other 
types  of  "Society."  The  Meagleses  are  "practical"  people  with  soft  hearts;  their 
daughter  is  married  to  and  bullied  by  Henry  Gowan,  whose  mother  is  a  genteel 
pauper  at  Hampton  Court.  Other  characters  are  Pancks  the  collector,  "puffing 


5io  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

like  a  steam-engine,"  his  hypocritical  employer  Casby,  the  humble  and  worthy 
Plornishes,  the  love-blighted  and  epitaphic  young  John  Chi  very,  and  the  wonderful 
Mr.  F.'s  aunt  with  her  explosive  utterances. 

LITTLE  FADETTE  ('La  Petite  Fadette1),  a  novel  by  George  Sand,  appeared 
in  1848. 

It  is  one  of  George  Sand's  short  studies  of  peasant  life,  considered  by  many  critics 
her  finest  work,  in  which  she  embodied  loving  reminiscences  of  her  childish  days  in 
the  province  of  Berry.  It  is  a  poetic  idyl,  recounted  with  a  simple  precision  which 
places  the  reader  vividly  in  the  midst  of  the  homely  incidents  and  daily  interests  of 
country  life. 

To  Pere  and  Mere  Barbeau,  living  thriftily  upon  their  little  farm,  arrive  twin 
boys  whom  they  name  Landry  and  Sylvain.  As  the  boys  grow  up,  they  show  an 
excessive  fondness  for  each  other,  which  their  father  fears  may  cause  them  sorrow. 
So  he  decides  to  separate  them  by  placing  one  at  service  with  his  neighbor,  Pere 
Cailland.  Landry,  the  sturdier  and  more  independent,  chooses  the  harder  lot  of 
leaving  home.  He  adapts  himself  to  the  change  and  is  happy;  while  Sylvain,  idle, 
and  petted  by  his  mother,  suffers  from  the  separation  and  is  jealous  of  his  brother's 
new  friends.  Later  the  two  brothers  both  love  the  same  woman,  little  Fadette. 
The  plot  centers  itself  in  the  outcome  of  this  situation. 

LITTLE  MINISTER,  THE,  by  J.  M.  Barrie.  (1891).  A  love  story,  the  scene 
of  which  is  laid  in  the  little  Scotch  weaving  village  of  Thrums  at  about  the 
middle  of  the  last  century.  Aside  from  its  intrinsic  interest,  there  is  much  skilful 
portrayal  of  the  complexities  of  Scotch  character,  and  much  sympathy  with  the 
homely  lives  of  the  poverty-stricken  weavers,  whose  narrow  creed  may  make  them 
cruel,  but  never  dishonorable.  The  hero,  Gavin  Dishart,  is  a  boy  preacher  of  twenty- 
one,  small  of  stature  but  great  in  authority,  and  given  to  innocent  frolic  in  exuberant 
moments.  Grouped  about  him  are  his  people,  who  watch  him  with  lynx-eyed  vigil- 
ance, ready  to  adore,  criticize,  and  interfere;  while  an  all-pervasive  influence  is  the 
mother  love  and  worship  of  "soft-faced"  Margaret  Dishart. 

Across  the  narrow  path  of  the  Little  Minister,  and  straight  into  his  orthodox 
life,  dances  Babbie  the  Egyptian,  in  a  wild  gipsy  frock,  with  red  rowans  in  her  hair. 
Against  the  persuasiveness  of  her  beautiful  eyes  and  her  madcap  pranks,  even  three 
scathing  sermons  against  Woman,  preached  by  Gavin  in  self-defense,  are  of  no  avail; 
and  the  reader  follows  with  absorbed  interest  his  romantic  meetings  with  the  repre- 
hensible Babbie,  and  the  gossip  of  the  scandalized  community.  The  rapid  unfolding 
of  the  story  reveals  Babbie's  sorrowful  and  unselfish  renunciation  of  Gavin,  and  her 
identity  as  the  promised  bride  of  Lord  Rintoul,  who  is  many  years  her  senior.  A  false 
report  of  Gavin's  death  brings  the  lovers  together  again  on  the  eve  of  Babbie's  mar- 
riage. Fearing  pursuit,  she  consents  to  a  hasty  gipsy  marriage  with  Gavin  in  the 
woods;  and  the  climax  is  reached  when  a  flash  of  lightning  reveals  the  ceremony  to 
Lord  Rintoul,  two  stern  elders  of  the  Kirk,  and  Rob  Dow,  who  is  seeking  to  save  the 
Little  Minister  from  his  wrathful  people  by  killing  the  Egyptian.  In  the  flood  that 
follows,  the  chief  actors  in  this  dramatic  scene  are  scattered;  but  Gavin  and  Babbie, 
after  many  adventures,  are  reunited,  a  deed  of  heroism  on  the  part  of  the  Little 
Minister  having  reinstated  him  in  the  love  of  his  people. 

The  story  is  recounted  by  Dominie  Ogilvy,  who  is  at  last  revealed  as  the  father  of 
Gavin.  It  is  lighted  by  touches  of  quaint  humor  that  soften  what  might  otherwise 
seem  stern  and  forbidding  in  the  picture.  An  instance  in  point  is  that  of  Tibbie 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  511 

Craik,  who  would  be  "fine  pleased"  with  any  bride  that  the  minister  might  choose, 
because  she  "had  a  magenta  silk,  and  so  was  jealous  of  no  one." 

In  1897  the  book  was  dramatized,  with  a  violent  wrenching  of  the  plot  to  meet 
dramatic  necessities. 

LITTLE  RED  RIDING-HOOD,  see  FAIRY  TALES. 

LITTLE  RIVERS,  by  Rev.  Henry  Van  Dyke,  D.D.  (1895),  breathes  the  very  spirit 
of  wholesome  pleasure.  The  book  is  called  a  record  of  profitable  idleness,  and  de- 
scribes the  author's  wanderings  with  rod  and  line,  exploring  the  Adirondack  woods, 
canoeing  along  the  silver  streams  of  Canada  to  the  music  of  the  old  French  ballads 
sung  by  the  guides,  tramping  the  heathery  moors  of  historic  Scotland,  following  the 
fir-covered  banks  of  the  Austrian  Traun,  and  trying  casts  in  the  clear  green  lakes  of 
the  Tyrol.  Dr.  Van  Dyke  has  heard  of  people  who,  like  Wordsworth,  feel  a  passion 
for  the  sea  or  the  mountains;  but  for  his  part  he  would  choose  a  river.  Like  David's 
hart  he  pants  for  the  water-brooks,  and  asks  for  nothing  better  than  a  quiet  stream 
with  shady  banks,  where  trout  are  not  too  coy.  He  loves  nature  with  the  love  of  a 
poet  and  a  close  observer;  the  love  of  a  man  whose  busy  working-life  is  spent  among 
bricks  and  mortar,  but  who  has  a  country  heart.  When  he  was  a  little  boy,  he  slipped 
away  without  leave  one  day,  with  a  heavy  old  borrowed  rod,  and  spent  a  long  delight- 
ful afternoon  in  landing  three  tiny  trout.  Soon  afterwards  he  was  made  happy  by 
a  rod  of  his  own,  and  began  to  ply  the  streams  with  a  zest  that  has  never  since  failed. 
The  good  sport,  the  free,  irresponsible,  out-door  life,  and  the  beauty  of  wild  nature 
are  the  subject-matter  of  the  volume.  Bird  songs  and  falling  waters  are  the  music, 
and  happy  summer  sunshine  lights  its  pages.  There  is,  says  the  author,  very  little 
useful  information  to  be  found  here,  and  no  criticism  of  the  universe,  but  only  a 
chronicle  of  plain  pleasures,  and  friendly  observation  of  men  and  things. 

LITTLE  SHEPHERD  OF  KINGDOM  COME,  THE,  by  John  Fox,  Jr.  (1903). 
This  is  a  story  of  Kentucky  and  the  Civil  War.  It  opens  in  the  mountain  region, 
where  Chadwick  Buford,  a  small  boy  of  unknown  antecedents,  finds  himself  suddenly 
homeless  through  the  death  of  the  kind  mountaineer  and  his  wife,  with  whom  he  has 
lived.  His  only  possession  is  a  fine  shepherd  dog  named  Jack  to  whom  he  is  devotedly 
attached,  and  with  him  for  a  companion  he  starts  out  in  search  of  an  abiding  place. 
After  much  weary  tramping  he  arrives  at  the  settlement  of  Kingdom  Come,  where 
he  is  taken  in  and  made  welcome  by  a  family  named  Turner.  "Chad,"  as  he  is 
called,  makes  himself  useful  in  tending  the  sheep  and  Jack  shows  his  wonderful 
ability  in  that  line. 

In  the  household  is  a  pretty  little  girl  named  Melissa,  an  adopted  waif,  who 
forms  a  warm  attachment  for  Chad.  He  goes  to  school  and  becomes  the  protege* 
of  the  schoolmaster,  Caleb  Hazel,  who  appreciates  his  sterling  qualities.  While 
on  a  logging  trip  with  the  Turners  and  Hazel,  Chad  becomes  separated  from  them 
and  is  left  behind  in  the  city  of  Lexington. 

He  falls  into  the  hands  of  Major  Buford  who  becomes  interested  in  his  namesake 
and  takes  him  to  his  home. 

There  Chad  becomes  acquainted  with  the  Deans,  the  Major's  neighbors,  and 
finds  in  Margaret,  the  daughter  of  the  house,  the  ideal  of  his  life.  He  soon  finds  out 
that  his  unknown  pedigree  causes  him  to  be  shunned  by  his  companions,  and,  heart- 
broken, he  steals  away  from  the  Major's  house,  and  returns  to  the  Mountains. 

Later  the  supposed  blot  upon  his  birth  is  removed.     He  is  proved  the  Major's 


512  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

kinsman,  and  returns  to  college  and  occupies  his  rightful  position.  He  becomes 
engaged  to  Margaret,  but  with  the  opening  of  the  Civil  War  feels  that  his  duty  is 
towards  the  Union  and  enlists  in  that  Army,  thereby  estranging  himself  from  both 
Margaret  and  the  Major.  His  career  during  the  war  is  one  of  brave  deeds  and 
generous  actions,  and  he  risks  his  life  to  save  that  of  his  enemy,  Daniel  Dean.  Melissa 
makes  a  hazardous  trip  at  night  to  warn  Chad  that  his  life  is  in  danger,  and  dies 
later  as  a  result  of  her  exposure  on  that  occasion.  When  peace  is  finally  declared, 
Chad  returns  home  a  Major,  all  is  forgiven,  and  he  and  Margaret  are  re-united. 

LITTLE  WOMEN,  by  Louisa  M.  Alcott  (1868-69).  A  story  of  the  daily  home  life 
of  four  girls  in  a  New  England  family  of  half  a  century  ago.  The  March  family  is  the 
author's  own  family,  and  the  "little  women"  are  herself  and  her  sisters.  In  the  first 
chapter  Jo,  the  heroine,  is  fifteen,  a  lovable  tomboy,  with  ambition  to  be  a  writer. 
The  oldest  sister,  pretty  Meg,  is  sixteen  and  aspiring  to  be  a  young  lady.  Beth  is  a 
shy  timid  little  girl  of  thirteen,  the  saint  of  the  family.  Golden-haired  Amy,  the 
youngest,  tells  her  sisters  that  her  ambition  is  to  be  a  great  artist  and  to  overcome  her 
selfishness.  Their  mother  is  "a  stout  motherly  lady, "  with  a  "can  I  help  you "  look 
about  her,  whom  the  girls  know  is  the  most  splendid  woman  in  the  world.  The  girls 
go  to  parties,  and  jolly  picnics,  act  out  Pilgrim  Progress  to  make  their  work  more 
interesting,  and  take  turns  reading  aloud  to  irascible  old  Aunt  March.  There  are 
tragedies  as  when  the  proud  Amy  is  obliged  by  the  teacher  at  school  to  open  her 
desk  and  throw  two  dozen  delicious  pickle  limes  out  of  the  window  and  have  her 
hands  slapped  with  a  ruler.  See  this  sad  chapter  quoted  in  the  LIBRARY.  Jo  writes 
wonderful  melodramas  in  her  den  in  the  attic  when  genius  burns,  and  the  'Witches' 
Curse'  is  acted  by  the  sisters  to  an  admiring  audience  of  girl  friends.  Their  best 
friend  is  Laurie,  the  boy  who  lives  with  his  grandfather  in  the  great  house  next  door. 
Meg  becomes  engaged  to  Laurie's  tutor  and  the  first  wedding  in  the  family  is  a  great 
event.  It  is  a  disappointment  to  girl  readers  that  Jo  will  not  marry  Laurie.  He 
decides  to  go  to  Europe  to  forget  her,  and  says  good-bye  to  them  all  racing  down  the 
stairs  "as  if  for  his  life, "  turning  back  to  ask  once  more  "Oh  Jo,  can't  you? "  but  she 
sends  him  away.  Gentle  Beth  grows  more  frail  and  Jo  loses  her  best  loved  sister. 
Aunt  March  prefers  Amy's  politeness  to  Jo's  blunt  manners  and  independent  spirit 
and  invites  Amy  to  go  to  Europe.  Jo  struggles  along  with  her  stories  and  goes  to 
New  York  to  try  her  literary  wings.  She  intends  to  be  the  old  maid  of  the  family, 
but  instead  falls  in  love  with  a  middle-aged  German  professor,  a  striking  contrast 
to  the  polished  boyish  Laurie.  Laurie  meets  Amy  in  Italy  and  consoles  himself  with 
her.  The  charm  and  wholesomeness  of  the  story  made  it  a  prime  favorite  with  the 
last  generation  and  it  remains  one  of  the  best  juvenile  books  ever  written. 

LIVES  OF  THE  ENGLISH  POETS,  by  Samuel  Johnson.  The  first  four  volumes  of 
this  once  very  popular  work  were  published  in  1779,  the  last  six  in  1781.  Macaulay 
pronounced  them  the  best  of  Samuel  Johnson's  works.  The  style  is  largely  free  from 
the  ponderous  lumbering  sentences  of  most  of  his  other  works,  the  narratives  enter- 
taining and  instructive,  and  the  criticisms  often  just,  yet  sometimes  grossly  prejudiced. 
The  volumes  were  small  in  size,  but  Johnson  had  intended  to  make  his  sketches  much 
smaller.  They  had  been  ordered  by  forty  of  the  best  booksellers  in  London  to  be 
used  as  prefaces  for  a  uniform  edition  of  the  English  poets.  Johnson  was  peculiarly 
qualified  for  the  work,  deriving  his  material  largely  from  personal  recollections. 
The  publishers,  it  is  said,  made  $25,000  or  $30,000,  while  the  writer  got  only  $2,000. 
The  MS.  of  the  work  he  gave  to  Boswell,  who  gives  us  certain  variorum  readings. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  513 

Johnson  himself  thought  the  life  of  Cowley,  the  best,  and  Macaulay  agrees  with  him. 
The  account  of  Pope  he  wrote  con  amore  said  that  it  would  be  a  thousand  years 
before  another  man  appeared  who  had  Pope's  power  of  versification.  In  the  sketch 
of  Milton  the  old  Tory  spoke  with  scorn  and  indignation  of  that  patriot  poet's  Round- 
head politics,  calling  him  "an  acrimonious,  surly  Republican"  and  "brutally  inso- 
lent," and  poured  contempt  on  his  'Lycidas.'  Such  things  as  this,  with  his  injustice 
to  Gray,  called  down  on  his  head  a  storm  of  wrath  from  the  Whigs;  which,  however, 
failed  to  ruffle  in  the  least  the  composure  of  the  erudite  old  behemoth.  It  is  amazing 
to  read  the  names  of  "the  English  poets"  in  this  collection.  Who  now  ever  hears  of 
Rochester,  Roscommon,  Pomfret,  Dorset,  Stepney,  Philips,  Walsh,  Smith,  King, 
Sprat,  Halifax,  Garth,  Hughes,  Sheffield,  Blackmore,  Fenton,  Granville,  Tickell, 
Hammond,  Somerville,  Broome,  Mallet,  Duke,  Denham,  Lyttleton? 

LIVES  OF  THE  HUNTED,  by  Ernest  Seton-Thompson,  was  published  in  1901, 
and  has  added  a  companion  volume  to  his  former  successful  book,  'Wild  Animals 
I  Have  Known,'  It  is  a  collection  of  eight  short  stories  and  each  one  bears  its  under- 
lying message  of  the  kinship  between  man  and  animals,  and  shows  that  the  enduring 
interests  and  passions,  mother  love,  pride,  and  the  desire  of  liberty,  are  shared  alike 
by  all  living  creatures.  Five  of  the  stories  relate  to  the  four-footed  race  and  three 
to  the  birds,  and  they  are  all  vital  with  interest  and  display  the  author's  keen  obser- 
vation and  his  sympathetic  knowledge  of  his  subject.  In  the  snowy  ranges  of  the 
Northwest,  we  are  shown  Krag,  the  mighty  Kootenay  ram,  delighting  in  his  strength 
and  beauty,  who  at  last  falls  victim  to  man 's  desire  for  ' '  trophies  of  the  chase . "  In  the 
guarded  forests  of  the  Yellowstone  Park  we  see  little  "Johnny  Bear"  borne  down 
in  his  struggles  for  existence,  and  Chink,  the  trembling  little  pup,  who  rises  to  the 
heights  of  dog-like  fidelity  and  courage.  In  the  sage-brush  deserts  of  New  Mexico, 
we  follow  the  Kangaroo  rat  to  the  fairylike  labyrinths  of  his  underground  kingdom, 
or  view  the  experiences  of  Coyotito.  Mother  Teal,  guarding  her  helpless  brood 
against  the  perils  of  the  world,  Randy,  the  busy  little  cock-sparrow,  and  the  chicka- 
dees of  the  North  woods,  are  all  pictured  in  a  way  that  cannot  fail  to  impress  the 
reader.  This  book,  like  its  predecessor,  strikes  a  note  that  is  clear  and  forcible  as 
well  as  appealing,  and  will  do  more  to  change  one's  attitude  towards  the  dumb  animals 
than  protective  and  preventive  legislation  could  ever  have  accomplished. 

LIVES  OF  THE  PAINTERS,  by  Giorgio  Vasari,  more  fully  'Lives  of  the  most 
excellent  painters,  sculptors,  and  architects'  was  published  in  1550,  and  in  a  revised 
and  enlarged  edition  in  1568.  This  work  is  our  chief  source  of  information  concerning 
the  artists  of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  Its  author  was  himself  an  accomplished 
painter  and  architect,  a  sympathetic  yet  discriminating  critic,  and  an  excellent  stylist. 
He  had  wide  acquaintance  among  artists  and  wrote  of  them  with  delight,  though 
somewhat  too  ready  to  accept  unverified  statements  and  to  neglect  accuracy  of  detail. 
Browning  knew  the  '  Lives '  well  and  drew  from  them  the  materials  for  his  'Fra  Lippo 
Lippi'  and  'Andrea  del  Sarto.' 

LIZA-DVORYANSKOE  GNYEZDO  ('Nest  of  Nobles'),  by  Ivan  Turgeneff  (1858. 
English  translation  1869).  The  story  of  this  gloomy  novel  is  not  easily  analyzed, 
but  a  bare  statement  of  the  plot  would  run  thus:  Maria  Dmitrievna  Kalitine,  a 
rich  widow  living  in  a  Russian  provincial  town,  has  a  beautiful  daughter  Liza,  who  is 
deeply  religious.  Vladimir  Nikolaevich  Panshin,  who  pays  court  to  her,  is  a  young 
man  with  charming  manners  and  an  easy  flow  of  egotistical  talk.  Presently  appears 

33 


514  THE   READERS  DIGEST   OF   BOOKS 

Fedor  Ivanovich  Lavretsky,  a  distant  cousin  of  Maria  Dmitrievna,  who  is  known 
to  live  unhappily  with  his  wife.  Between  his  father,  a  despotic,  narrow-minded  ego- 
tist, and  his  aunt  Glafira,  a  harsh,  fierce  old  woman,  Lavretsky's  bringing-up  has 
been  a  strange  and  solitary  one;  and  at  the  age  of  twenty- three  he  naturally  falls 
in  love  with  the  first  pretty  girl  he  sees,  —  Varvara  Pavlovna  Korobine,  —  whom 
he  marries.  As  she  detests  Russia,  they  finally  settle  in  Paris  where  he  discovers 
her  faithlessness  and  leaves  her.  Maria  Dmitrievna  receives  him  cordially,  and 
he  becomes  a  frequent  visitor  to  the  house.  Little  by  little  he  and  Liza  fall  in  love; 
and  upon  the  complications  that  thus  arise,  the  interest  of  the  story  is  founded.  The 
difficult  situations  are  skillfully  managed,  and  the  reader  cannot  resent  the  sadness 
of  the  tale  as  needless,  because  it  results  inevitably  from  the  conditions.  Like  all 
Turgeneff 's  books,  the  chief  interest  of  '  Liza '  lies  in  its  study  of  character. 

LOG-BOOK  OF  A  FISHERMAN  AND  ZOOLOGIST,  by  Frank  Buckland  (1875). 
The  chapters  of  this  book  were  originally  published  as  articles  in  the  periodical  Land 
and  Water.  They  all  have  some  bearing  on  zoology;  and  possess  such  titles  as 
'Exhibitions  Outside  the  Cattle  Show,1  'King  Charles  the  First's  Parrot,'  'Foot  of 
Napoleon's  Charger, '  '  Fish  at  Great  Grimsby  Docks,  '  '  Singing  Mice, '  '  Experience 
of  a  Whitstable  Diver,'  'The  Woodpecker  and  the  Bittern,'  'Reminiscences  of 
Natural  History  in  Scotland,'  'My  Monkeys,'  etc.  The  book  is  agreeable  light 
reading;  always  entertaining,  and  often  instructive.  In  the  chapter  on  'Horseflesh 
Dinner  at  the  Langham  Hotel, '  the  author's  opposition  to  hippophagy  is  recorded ; 
while  the  chapter  on  'Dinner  of  American  Game  at  the  Langham  Hotel'  is  duly 
appreciative.  The  account  of  a  fight  between  a  scorpion  and  a  mouse,  in  which  the 
mouse  comes  off  victorious,  is  very  curious.  The  essayist  is  a  firm  believer  in  the  value 
of  observation.  He  thinks  the  education  of  the  present  day  is  too  mu  derestricted 
to  book-learning,  taking  quite  too  much  for  granted  the  authority  of  whatever  ideas 
and  opinions  obtain  the  authenticity  of  print.  Adults,  even  more  than  the  young 
he  thinks,  should  be  not  only  trained  to  observe  and  impress  exact  images  of  objects 
on  the  memory,  but  to  use  their  fingers  in  analyzing  and  drawing,  and  above  all, 
in  dissecting  beasts,  birds,  and  fishes,  so  as  to  understand  their  wonderful  structure 
and  mechanism.  Few  naturalists  have  united  exact  knowledge  and  minute  observa- 
tion with  so  agreeable  a  faculty  of  description. 

LOKIS,  by  Prosper  Merimee  (1868),  is  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  skillfully  con- 
structed of  his  works.  The  motive  is  the  almost  universal  belief  that  human  beings 
may  be  transformed  into  animals.  A  German  professor  and  minister,  commissioned 
to  make  a  new  translation  of  the  Scriptures  into  the  Zhmud  language,  is  invited  by  a 
Lithuanian  nobleman  (Count  Szemioth)  to  reside  at  his  castle  and  use  his  valuable 
library  during  his  labors. 

The  Count's  mother,  on  the  day  of  her  marriage,  had  been  carried  off  by  a  bear, 
and  when  rescued,  found  to  be  hopelessly  insane,  even  the  birth  of  her  son  having 
failed  to  restore  her  reason. 

The  Professor  finds  the  Count  an  agreeable  companion,  but  observes  in  him  certain 
strange  and  often  alarming  characteristics.  The  Count  is  in  love  with  a  beautiful, 
witty,  but  rather  frivolous  young  girl,  Miss  Julia  Ivinska,  and  the  Professor  goes 
with  him  several  times  to  visit  her  at  Doughielly.  At  last  their  engagement  is 
announced,  _and  the  Professor  is  recalled  to  the  castle  to  perform  the  marriage 
ceremony. 

The  next  morning  the  bride  is  found  dead,  and  the  Count  has  disappeared. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  515 

The  whole  trend  of  the  story,  the  incidents  and  conversations,  often  seemingly 
irrelevant,  the  hinted  peculiarities  of  the  Count,  all  serve  to  point,  as  it  were  in- 
exorably, at  the  inevitable  conclusion  that  the  man  has  at  last  undergone  the  terrible 
transformation  and  become  a  bear,  after  killing  and  partially  eating  his  helpless 
victim. 

The  perfect  simplicity  and  naturalness  of  the  language,  the  realism  of  its  romance, 
the  grace  and  wit  of  the  dialogue,  and  the  consistency  of  the  characters,  —  particu- 
larly of  the  Professor,  who  narrates  the  story  with  the  utmost  plausibility,  —  give 
it  the  effect  of  history.  While  the  supernatural  is  the  most  dramatic  quality  of  the 
story,  every  incident  in  it  might  nevertheless  be  explained  scientifically. 

LOMBARD  STREET,  'A  Description  of  the  Money  Market,'  by  Walter  Bagehot, 
is  a  lucid  exposition  of  the  English  banking  system  published  in  1873.  The  Bank  of 
England,  the  Private  Banks,  the  Joint  Stock  Banks  and  the  bill-brokers  are  considered 
in  turn,  the  main  features  of  the  whole  system  explained,  and  the  problems  arising 
from  them  discussed.  "Two  fundamental  ideas  run  through  the  whole  of  Mr. 
Bagehot 's  book,  of  which  the  first  is  this:  that  it  is  wrong,  unjust,  and  dangerous  that 
the  whole  banking  reserve  of  the  kingdom  should  be  kept  in  one  bank,  the  Banking 
Department  of  the  Bank  of  England.  He  points  out  in  detail  how  all  the  country 
banks  of  Great  Britain  keep  their  cash  resources  in  some  one  of  the  London  banks,  and 
how  all  of  these  London  banks  keep  their  cash  resources  with  the  Bank  of  England, 
so  that  the  reserve  of  notes  in  this  one  institution  constitutes  the  fund  which  must 
meet  a  sudden  demand  from  all  parts  of  the  kingdom.  .  .  .  While  admitting,  how- 
ever, the  grave  defects  of  the  one  reserve  system  as  practised  in  England,  Mr.  Bage- 
hot frankly  states  that  it  is  useless  to  hope  for  or  advocate  any  change.  He  treats 
the  adoption  of  a  many  reserve  system  as  wholly  impracticable  .  .  .  confining  him- 
self to  the  consideration  of  what  should  be  the  proper  management  of  the  single 
reserve  in  the  Bank  of  England."  (Gamaiel  Bradford  in  North  American  Review, 
vol.  cxix,  October,  1874).  The  second  fundamental  idea  is  that  in  a  time  of  panic 
it  is  the  true  policy  of  a  reserve-holding  bank  to  be  liberal  in  granting  loans  and  dis- 
counts and  not  to  be  too  rigid  hi  scrutinizing  security.  Only  thus  can  public  confidence 
be  maintained;  otherwise  the  impression  that  money  cannot  be  obtained  will  create  a 
rush  for  money.  The  book  is  an  admirable  and  rare  example  of  business  ability  and 
experience  united  with  literary  skill,  economic  insight  and  the  gift  of  clarity  in 
exposition. 

LONDON,  by  Sir  Walter  Besant  (1892,  New  ed.  1894),  is  a  comprehensive  survey 
of  the  metropolis  of  the  modern  world  from  the  Roman  days  to  those  of  George  the 
Second.  The  material  is  of  course  well  worn,  but  the  skill  of  the  writer's  method  and 
the  freshness  of  his  interest  make  it  seem  new.  He  begins  his  tale  with  the  occupation 
of  the  Romans,  who  appreciating  the  value  of  the  river  Thames,  picked  out  a  dry 
hillock  in  the  great  stretches  of  marsh  along  the  stream,  and  founded  the  town  of 
Augusta,  —  an  isolated  spot  in  the  midst  of  fen  and  forest.  After  the  Roman  evacua- 
tion of  Britain,  no  more  is  heard  of  Augusta;  the  town  having  been  deserted  or 
destroyed.  It  was  a  new  settlement  in  the  old  spot  that  rose  again  to  prosperity  as 
Lud's  Town.  Prom  the  sixth  century  onward,  the  city,  though  ravaged  by  plagues, 
and  more  often  by  fires,  always  its  bane,  has  grown  steadily  in  population,  wealth, 
and  importance.  Roman,  Saxon,  Danish,  Norman,  Plantagenet,  and  at  last  English, 
it  has  always  been  a  city  of  churches  and  palaces.  Its  burghers  have  always  been 
free  men,  owning  no  lord  but  the  king;  and  its  mayors  have  rivaled  great  nobles  in 


5i6  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

power  and  splendor.  Dick  Whittington  may  not  have  made  his  fortune  by  selling  a 
cat;  but  it  is  certain  that  when,  as  mayor  of  London,  he  entertained  King  Henry  V., 
he  burned  £60,000  worth  of  royal  bonds,  as  a  little  attention  to  royalty.  The  city's 
greatest  mayor  was  Sir  Thomas  Gresham,  who,  in  Elizabeth's  Day,  conceived  the 
idea  of  transferring  the  center  of  the  world's  commerce  from  Antwerp  to  London, 
and  to  that  end  built  the  Royal  Exchange.  The  record  of  each  century  is  full  of 
incident,  story,  and  social  changes.  Mr.  Besant  is  writing  on  a  subject  he  loves,  and 
spares  no  pains  to  lay  before  the  reader  a  brilliant  picture  of  the  streets  and  buildings, 
businesses,  customs,  and  amusements  of  the  ever-flourishing,  ever-changing  city,  now 
the  great  center  of  the  financial,  economical,  and  social  world. 

LONDON,  see  LITERARY  LANDMARKS  OF,  by  Laurence  Hutton. 
LONDON  SOCIAL  LIFE,  see  IMPRESSIONS  OF,  by  E.  S.  Nadal. 

LONELY  WAY,  THE  ('  Der  einsame  Weg ')  by  Arthur  Schnitzler  (1904) .  The  theme 
of  the  play  is  the  inevitable  emptiness  and  loneliness  of  lives  devoted  wholly  to  self- 
indulgence  without  regard  to  the  welfare  or  suffering  of  others.  In  a  succession  of 
quiet  conversations  the  characters  reveal  themselves  and  their  relations  to  each  other, 
which  make  the  situation  a  tragedy.  A  young  art  student,  Wegrath,  takes  his 
friend,  Julian  Fichtner,  to  visit  his  betrothed,  Gabrielle.  The  fascinating  Julian  falls 
in  love  with  her,  and  they  plan  to  elope  a  week  before  the  wedding.  The  night  before 
they  are  to  leave  together,  Julian  decides  that  he  wishes  to  be  free  from  the  ties  and 
duties  which  marriage  brings,  and  he  deserts  her.  She  marries  Wegrath,  who  becomes 
a  professor  of  art  and  president  of  the  Academy.  The  oldest  of  her  two  children 
Felix,  is  Julian's  son.  The  play  opens  just  before  GabrieUe's  death  when  Philip  is 
twenty-three.  Julian  has  drifted  about  in  pursuit  of  pleasure  and  has  not  fulfilled 
the  great  promise  of  his  early  years.  His  hope  of  solving  the  problem  of  the  "lonely 
way"  is  to  claim  the  love  and  companionship  of  his  son  Felix.  Felix  turns  from  him 
to  the  father  he  has  always  known  and  loved  as  his  own.  Von  Sala,  a  middle-aged 
dramatic  poet,  who  like  Julian  has  lived  for  himself,  disregarding  human  ties,  points 
out  to  Julian  that  he  had  acquired  no  right  of  possession  in  Felix.  He  defines  love  as 
service.  For  those  who  will  not  serve,  there  lies  ahead  the  "lonely  way.'*  The 
lonely  are  "their  kind"  who  are  free  because  they  have  never  belonged  to  anyone  but 
themselves.  Johanna,  the  sister  of  Felix,  loves  Von  Sala,  and  he  commits  suicide 
when  he  learns  she  has  drowned  herself  for  his  sake.  The  characters  of  the  two 
egoists,  Julian  and  Von  Sala,  are  brilliantly  and  consistently  drawn. 

LONG  ROLL,  THE,  by  Mary  Johnston  (1911).  TJiis  is  the  first  of  two  books 
dealing  with  the  Civil  War,  and  opens  out  before  the  secession  has  taken  place.  The 
scene  is  laid  in  Virginia  and  the  opening  chapters  show  how  generally  opposed  the 
people  are  to  war  and  how  they  hope  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  When  war 
is  declared,  however,  all  the  loyal  Virginians  put  their  state  first,  and  enter  upon  the 
great  struggle.  The  book  contains  many  stirring  descriptions  of  battles  and  skir- 
mishes and  shows  the  sufferings  of  the  soldiers  and  of  those  left  behind.  The  family 
of  General  Warwick  Gary  figure  prominently  in  the  story  and  he  and  his  son  Edward 
are  among  the  first  to  volunteer.  There  are  three  daughters  the  most  beautiful  of 
whom  is  Judith,  whose  romance  is  shadowed  by  the  sadness  of  war.  She  has  two 
suitors,  Richard  Cleave  and  Maury  Stafford;  the  former  is  the  chosen  one,  while  the 
latter  filled  with  jealous  rage  vows  vengeance  on  his  rival.  Both  men  are  officers  in 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  517 

the  Confederate  army  and  during  the  conflict  the  moment  comes  when  Stafford  can 
gratify  his  evil  desire.  He  is  given  a  message  by  General  Stonewall  Jackson  to  convey 
to  Colonel  Cleave  and  he  changes  the  order  in  such  a  manner  that  Cleave  commits  a 
great  indiscretion  which  results  in  disaster  to  his  troops.  He  is  court-martialed,  found 
guilty  of  disobedience  to  orders,  and  dismissed  from  the  Army,  a  disgraced  man. 
Though  innocent  of  wrong-doing  Cleave  is  unable  to  clear  himself,  as  the  man  to 
whom  Stafford  gave  the  message  to  deliver  verbally  to  him  is  dead.  However, 
desirous  of  doing  his  duty  against  all  odds  Cleave  changes  his  name  and  enlists  as  a 
gunner  in  the  Artillery.  Here  he  does  notable  service  and  is  finally  recognized  by 
General  Stonewall  Jackson  who  has  an  explanation  with  him  which  clears  up  much 
that  has  been  mysterious.  The  next  day  Jackson  is  shot  in  battle  and  subsequently 
dies,  but  before  his  death  requests  that  Richard  Cleave  be  given  another  trial.  The 
story  ends  with  the  description  of  the  funeral  of  Stonewall  Jackson,  the  eccentric  but 
beloved  soldier,  and  the  reader  is  convinced  that  Cleave's  innocence  will  soon  be 
acknowledged  and  that  the  faithful  and  devoted  Judith  who  has  been  nursing  the 
sick  and  wounded  in  the  hospitals,  will  have  her  patience  and  loyalty  rewarded. 

LOOKING  BACKWARD  (1888),  and  EQUALITY  (1897)  by  Edward  Bellamy. 
Bellamy's  nationalistic  romance,  or  vagary,  'Looking  Backward,'  has  had  a  sale  of 
nearly  400,000  copies  in  ten  years,  and  is  still  in  demand.  It  recounts  the  strange 
experiences  of  Julian  West,  a  wealthy  young  Bostonian,  born  in  1857,  a  favorite  in 
the  highest  social  circles,  engaged  to  a  beautiful  and  accomplished  lady,  Miss  Edith 
Bartlett.  West  has  an  elegantly  furnished  subterranean  apartment,  where  he  is 
accustomed  to  retire  for  privacy  and  rest.  In  1887  he  is  put  into  a  hypnotic  sleep. 

In  the  year  2000,  Dr.  Leete,  a  retired  physician,  is  conducting  excavations  in  his 
garden,  when  West's  chamber  is  disclosed.  The  doctor,  assisted  by  his  daughter 
Edith,  discovers  and  resuscitates  the  young  man,  who  finds  himself  in  a  regenerated 
world. 

The  changed  appearance  of  the  city,  the  absence  of  buying  and  selling,  the  system 
of  credits,  the  method  of  exchanges  between  nations,  the  regulation  of  employment 
by  means  of  guilds,  all  overwhelm  him  with  surprise. 

He  notes  no  distinctions  of  rich  and  poor,  no  poverty,  no  want,  no  crime.  All  the 
people  are  mustered  into  an  industrial  army  at  the  age  of  2 1,  and  mustered  out  at  45. 

The  national  system  of  dining-rooms,  the  condition  of  literary  men,  the  abolition 
of  middlemen,  the  saving  of  waste  through  misdirected  energy,  matters  of  religion,  of 
love,  of  marriage,  all  open  up  lines  of  thought  and  of  action  new  and  strange  to  him ; 
and  falling  in  love  with  Edith,  he  finds  he  has  fixed  his  affections  upon  the  great- 
granddaughter  of  his  old  love,  Edith  Bartlett. 

He  falls  asleep,  and  seems  awake  and  finds  himself  back  again  in  the  old  Boston 
with  its  monopolies  and  trusts  and  the  frenzied  folly  of  its  competitive  system,  with 
its  contrasts  of  living  and  its  woe,  with  all  its  boundless  squalor  and  wretchedness. 
He  dines  with  his  old  companions,  and  endeavors  to  interest  them  in  regenerating  the 
world  by  well-planned  cooperative  schemes.  They  denounce  him  as  a  pestilent 
fellow  and  an  anarchist,  and  he  is  driven  out  by  them.  He  awakes  from  this  troubled 
dream  to  find  himself  in  harmony  with  the  new  conditions;  and  here  'Equality1 
takes  up  the  story,  and  through  the  explanations  of  Dr.  Leete  and  Edith,  and  through 
his  own  experiences,  he  learns  how  the  crude  ideals  of  the  nineteenth  century  were 
realized  in  the  year  2000. 

The  first  step  is  substituting  democracy  for  monarchy.  To  establish  public 
schools  is  next,  since  public  education  is  policy  for  the  public  welfare.  It  is  further 


5i8  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

urged  that  each  citizen  be  intrusted  with  a  share  of  the  public  wealth,  in  the  interests 
of  good  government.  He  will  then  no  longer  be  a  champion  of  a  part  against  the 
rest,  but  will  become  a  guardian  of  the  whole. 

Life  is  recognized  as  the  basis  of  the  right  of  property,  since  inequality  of  wealth 
destroys  liberty  —  private  capital  being  stolen  from  the  public  fund.  Equality  of 
the  sexes  is  permitted  in  all  occupations;  even  the  costumes  are  similar,  fashion  having 
been  dethroned. 

The  profit  system  is  denounced  as  "economic  suicide,"  because  it  nullifies  the 
benefits  of  common  interests,  is  hostile  to  commerce,  and  largely  diminishes  the 
value  of  inventions. 

There  is  a  common  religion  (  based  upon  the  doctrine  of  love) ;  the  old  sects  are 
abolished.  "If  we  love  one  another,  God  dwelleth  in  us, "  is  the  keynote  of  the  new 
dispensation. 

There  are  no  more  wars;  "Old  Glory"  now  betokens  that  nowhere  in  the  land 
it  floats  over  is  there  found  a  human  being  oppressed  or  suffering  any  want  that 
human  aid  can  relieve. 

All  questions  concerning  "killing  competition,"  "discouraging  independence 
and  originality,"  "threatening  liberty/'  etc.,  as  well  as  the  Malthusian  objection, 
seem  to  be  satisfactorily  settled  in  the  wonderful  success  of  this  great  cooperative 
commonwealth;  which  would  be  a  less  futile  dream,  if  the  author  had  taken  the 
trouble  to  abolish  "human  nature"  in  the  beginning. 

LORD  JIM,  a  romance  by  Joseph  Conrad^(i9i5).  A  promising  young  Englishman, 
son  of  a  clergyman,  becomes  chief  mate  of  the  "Patua"  before  he  has  been 
tested  by  experience  of  the  hardships  of  life  at  sea.  He  dreams  of  heroic  deeds,  but 
when  the  real  crisis  comes,  panic  seizes  him,  and  he  deserts  the  sinking  ship  with  the 
other  officers,  leaving  the  eight  hundred  sleeping  pilgrim  passengers  to  their  fate. 
The  ship,  by  some  miracle,  keeps  afloat,  and  is  towed  into  Suez  by  a  French  man-of- 
war^and  its  officers  are  disgraced.  The  issue  of  Jim's  honor  is  for  him  beyond  the 
decision  of  any  court  of  inquiry.  Another  chance  must  come  to  let  him  prove  himself 
the  hero  of  his  romantic  imagination.  He  tries  to  make  a  fresh  start,  but  the  wretched 
story  follows  him  everywhere.  Finally  he  accepts  the  position  of  trader  in  a  remote 
Malay  village,  where  as  adviser,  practically  chief,  he  is  loved,  trusted,  and  admired 
by  a  savage  tribe.  By  courage  and  self-sacrifice,  he  feels  he  has  mastered  his  fate, 
and  atoned  for  his  moment  of  cowardice.  Unfortunately  his  people  endow  him  with 
supernatural  power.  He  allows  a  band  of  pirates  to  go  free  after  an  attack  on  the 
village.  They  abuse  his  safe  conduct,  and  kill  the  young  son  of  Chief  Dorian,  his  own 
closest  friend.  Instantly  his  prestige  is  gone.  He  is  regarded  as  a  devil  who  has 
brought  about  this  dire  misfortune.  He  refuses  to  fight  for  his  life,  leaves  the  girl  he 
loves,  and  gives  himself  up  to  be  shot  by  the  aged  Dorian.  Descriptions  of  the  calm 
moonlight  night  on  the  tropic  sea  in  the  "Patua"  are  quoted  in  the  LIBRARY  from 
the  second  and  third  chapters. 

LORD  ORMONT  AND  HIS  AMENTA,  by  George  Meredith  (1894).  In  this  novel 
the  author  deals  with  a  weighty  social  question  with  a  light  and  graceful  touch. 

Lord  Ormont,  a  distinguished  general,  is  the  object  of  the  hero-worship  of  two 
children:  Aminta  Farrell,  called  "Browny,"  and  Matey  Weyburn.  When  Aminta 
becomes  a  young  lady,  she  marries  Ormont,  no  longer  a  hero,  but  a  mere  civilian 
dismissed  from  his  country's  service,  and  soured  by  public  neglect.  To  show  the 
world  how  he  despises  its  opinion,  he  refuses  openly  to  acknowledge  his  marriage  to 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  519 

Aminta.  She,  of  course,  is  the  chief  sufferer  from  this  perversity  of  humor.  Weyburn 
meantime  becomes  Lord  Ormont's  secretary,  falls  in  love  with  his  old  playmate,  and 
does  not  conceal  his  love.  The  ensuing  scandal  is  less  tragic  than  humorous.  Matey 
and  Browny  betake  themselves  to  the  Continent;  and,  contrary  to  all  precepts 
of  conventional  morality,  "live  happily  ever  afterwards."  The  novel  is  at  once 
sprightly  and  judiciously  sober.  It  is  remarkable  for  one  or  two  magnificent  scenes, 
scarcely  surpassed  in  the  whole  range  of  fiction.  Nothing  could  be  more  beautiful 
and  effective  as  a  study  of  sky  and  sea,  of  light  and  air  and  out-door  glory,  than  the 
scene  where  Aminta  and  Weyburn  swim  in  the  ocean  together,  creatures  for  the  time 
being  of  nature,  of  love,  and  of  joy. 

LORNA  DOONE:  A  Romance  of  Exmoor  (1869),  ^y  R.  D.  Blackmore,  is  its  author's 
best  known  work;  and  is  remarkable  for  its  exquisite  reproduction  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  "satis- 
fied natives  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  without  so  swift  a  succession  of  exciting  incident,  the  unhack- 
neyed style,  abounding  in  fresh  simile,  with  its  poetic  appreciation  of  "the  fairest 
county  in  England, "  combined  with  homely  realism,  would  make  it  delightful  reading. 
Much  as  Hardy  acquaints  us  with  Wessex,  Blackmore  impresses  Exmoor  upon  us, 
with  a  comprehensive  "  Englishness "  of  setting  and  character.  It  is  out-of-door 
England,  with  swift  streams,  treacherous  bogs,  dangerous  cliffs,  and  free  winds  across 
the  moors.  The  story  is  founded  on  legends  concerning  the  robber  Doones,  a  fierce 
band  of  aristocratic  outlaws,  who  in  revenge  for  wrongs  done  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  fairest,  daintiest  child  he  has  ever  seen.  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  glow- 
ing pictures. 

LOST  MANUSCRIPT,  THE  ('Die  verlorene  Handschrift')  by  GustavFreytag  (1865). 
The  scene  of  this  strong  and  delightful  story  is  laid  in  Germany  towards  the  middle 
of  this  century.  A  young  but  very  learned  philologist,  Professor  Felix  Werner,  goes 
with  his  friend  Fritz  Halm,  also  a  learned  man,  in  search  of  a  lost  manuscript  of 
Tacitus,  to  the  castle  of  Bielstein,  near  Rossau,  where  he  supposed  it  to  have  been 
hidden  by  the  monks  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Though  the  quest  is  for  the  moment 
fruitless  as  regards  the  manuscript,  the  professor  finds  in  Use,  the  beautiful  fair- 
haired  daughter  of  the  proprietor  of  the  castle,  a  high-minded  and  noble  woman. 
He  brings  her  home  as  his  wife.  Werner  is  professor  at  the  university;  and  Use, 
though  brought  up  among  such  different  surroundings,  adapts  herself  readily  to  her 
new  life,  and  becomes  very  popular  among  her  husband's  colleagues  and  with  the 
students.  The  reigning  sovereign,  hearing  of  Use's  charms,  invites  the  professor  to 


520  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

pass,  with  his  wife,  some  weeks  at  the  palace;  offering,  as  an  inducement,  all  the  aid 
in  his  power  towards  finding  the  missing  manuscript.  The  invitation  is  accepted,  and 
all  at  first  goes  well.  Use  is  not  long,  however,  in  perceiving  that  while  her  husband 
is  treated  with  marked  distinction,  she  is  shunned  by  the  ladies  of  the  court,  the 
sovereign  alone  singling  her  out  by  his  too  marked  attentions.  Her  position  is 
equivocal.  Werner,  however,  intent  only  upon  his  manuscript,  is  blind  to  the  danger 
of  his  wife.  During  a  temporary  absence  of  her  husband,  Use,  to  save  her  honor, 
escapes  to  Bielstein.  The  professor,  returning,  misses  his  wife,  and  follows  her  in  hot 
haste,  and  they  are  >appily  reunited.  All  hope  of  finding  the  manuscript  proves 
vain,  and  the  professor  realizes  with  remorse  that  while  pursuing  this  wild  quest,  he 
has  risked  losing  what  was  dearest  to  him.  The  book  is  lightened  by  a  humorous 
account  of  the  hostility  between  two  rival  hat-makers:  Herr  Hummel,  the  prof essor's 
landlord,  and  Herr  Halm,  the  father  of  Fritz  Halm,  who  lives  directly  opposite.  There 
is  a  subordinate  love  affair  between  Fritz  Halm  and  Laura  Hummel,  the  son  and 
daughter  of  the  rival  houses,  ending  in  marriage.  The  story,  if  not  the  most  brilliant 
of  Freytag's  telling,  is  yet  graphic  and  entertaining,  and  is  a  great  favorite  in  Germany. 

LOST  SIR  MASSINGBERD,  by  James  Payn  (1864).  This  novel,  generally  con- 
sidered the  best  of  this  indefatigable  novelist's  stories,  was  one  of  the  earliest.  It  is 
a  modern  tale  of  English  country  life,  told  with  freedom,  humor,  and  a  certain  good- 
natured  cynicism.  A  bare  synopsis,  conveying  no  idea  of  the  interest  of  the  book, 
would  run  as  follows:  Sir  Massingberd  Heath  neither  feared  God  nor  regarded  man. 
His  property  was  entailed,  the  next  heir  being  his  nephew  Marmaduke,  whom  he 
tries  to  murder  in  order  to  sell  the  estates.  Marmaduke  is  befriended  by  Harvey 
Gerald  and  his  daughter  Lucy,  falls  in  love  with  Lucy,  and  finally  marries  her.  Sir 
Massingberd  in  his  youth  secretly  married  a  gipsy,  whom  he  drove  mad  with  his 
cruelty.  She  curses  him:  "May  he  perish,  inch  by  inch,  within  reach  of  aid  that  shall 
not  come."  Sir  Massingberd  disappears,  and  all  search  for  him  in  vain;  many 
months  later  his  bones  are  found  in  an  old  tree,  known  as  the  Wolsey  Oak.  It  was 
supposed  that  he  climbed  the  tree  to  look  about  for  poachers,  that  the  rotton  wood 
gave  way,  and  he  slipped  into  the  hollow  trunk,  whence  he  could  not  escape.  Had 
he  not  closed  up  the  public  path  which  skirted  the  tree,  his  cries  for  help  must  have 
been  heard.  With  his  disappearance  and  death  all  goes  well  with  the  households  on 
which  the  blight  of  his  evil  spirit  had  fallen,  and  the  story  ends  happily. 

LOTHAIR,  by  Benjamin  Disraeli,  Lord  Beaconsfield  (1870).  The  scene  of  this 
extravagant,  but  at  the  same  time  remarkable,  story  is  laid  chiefly  in  England  about 
1570,  at  the  time  when  it  was  published. 

The  hero,  Lothair,  a  young  nobleman  of  wide  estates  and  great  wealth,  is  in- 
troduced a  short  time  before  the  attainment  of  his  majority.  Brought  up  under  the 
influence  of  his  uncle,  Lord  Culloden,  "a  member  of  the  Free  Kirk,"  he  has  been 
surrounded  by  a  Protestant  atmosphere.  When,  in  accordance  with  his  father's  will, 
he  goes  to  Oxford  to  complete  his  education,  his  other  guardian,  Cardinal  Grandison, 
determines  to  bring  him  into  the  Roman  Church. 

The  story  is  a  graphic  description  of  the  struggles  of  rival  ecclesiastics,  statesmen, 
and  leaders  of  society  to  secure  the  adherence  of  the  young  nobleman. 

On  a  visit  to  the  ducal  seat  of  Brentham,  the  home  of  Lothair's  college  friend 
Bertram,  he  falls  in  love  with  Bertram's  sister,  Lady  Corisande,  and  asks  for  her 
hand,  but  is  refused  by  her  mother. 

Lothair  next  comes  under  the  influence  of  Lord  and  Lady  St.  Jerome,  and  Miss 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  521 

Arundel.  Charmed  with  the  beauty  and  peace  of  their  life,  he  is  almost  won  over 
to  the  Romanist  side.  At  the  critical  moment  he  meets  Theodora,  the  wife  of  Colonel 
Campian,  an  American,  "a  gentleman,  not  a  Yankee;  a  gentleman  of  the  South,  who 
has  no  property  but  land."  Theodora  is  an  Italian  but  not  a  Romanist,  and  the 
scale  is  turned  toward  the  Protestant  side.  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Campian  are  friends 
of  Garibaldi;  and  through  them  Lothair  is  inspired  to  join  the  campaign  of  1867 
against  the  papal  forces.  He  is  severely  wounded  at  Montana,  and  is  nursed  back  to 
health  by  Miss  Arundel,  who  by  degrees  re-establishes  her  influence  over  him.  Again 
he  is  saved  by  Theodora,  who  appears  to  him  in  a  vision  and  reminds  him  of  the 
promise  given  to  her  on  her  death-bed,  that  he  will  never  join  the  church  of  Rome. 

By  a  desperate  effort,  Lothair  escapes  the  vigilance  of  his  Romanist  friends,  and 
after  travels  in  the  East  returns  to  London. 

A  second  visit  to  Brentham  renews  his  deep  admiration  for  Lady  Corisande,  whose 
love  he  succeeds  in  winning. 

The  narrative  of  'Lothair'  never  lags  or  lacks  movement.  The  intervals  be- 
tween the  adventures  are  filled  with  witty  sketches  of  English  society  and  portraits 
of  English  personalities.  The  character  of  Lord  St.  Aldegonde  is  perhaps  the  happiest 
of  these.  "When  St.  Aldegonde  was  serious,  his  influence  over  men  was  powerful." 
He  held  extreme  opinions  on  political  affairs.  "He  was  opposed  to  all  privilege  and 
to  all  orders  of  men  except  dukes,  who  were  a  necessity.  He  was  also  strongly  in 
favor  of  the  equal  division  of  all  property  except  land.  Liberty  depended  on  land, 
and  the  greater  the  land-owners  the  greater  the  liberty  of  a  country."  "St.  Alde- 
gonde had  married  for  love,  but  he  was  strongly  in  favor  of  woman's  rights  and  their 
extremest  consequences. ' ' 

LOVE  EPISODE,  A,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

LOVE  ME  LITTLE,  LOVE  ME  LONG  (1857).  In  this  story,  Charles  Reade 
turned  away  from  his  wonted  exposition  of  social  abuses  to  write  a  love  story, 
pure  and  simple.  It  is  a  pleasant  study  of  upper  middle-class  English  life.  Lucy 
Fountain,  a  young  heiress,  has  two  guardians,  —  her  uncle  Mr.  Fountain,  and 
Mr.  Bazalgette,  the  husband  of  her  mother's  half-sister;  and  she  divides  the  year 
between  their  two  homes.  She  is  pretty,  charming,  and  useful;  and  both  Uncle 
Fountain  and  Aunt  Bazalgette  want  to  establish  her  close  at  hand  by  choosing  a 
husband  for  her.  But  Lucy  is  indifferent  both  to  Mr.  Hardy,  the  banker  selected  by 
her  aunt,  and  Mr.  Talboys,  the  man  of  ancient  lineage  who  is  favored  by  her  uncle. 
She  falls  in  love  with  David  Dodd,  a  manly  young  sailor  in  the  merchant  service, 
who  loves  her,  but  who  recognizes  her  social  superiority,  while  he  is  forced  to  admit 
that  his  Lucy  is  freakish,  —  now  kind,  now  cold.  To  escape  importunity  at  home,  she 
runs  away  and  stays  with  her  old  nurse,  where  David  discovers  and  wins  her.  They 
have  a  few  blissful  weeks  together  before  David  sails  on  the  Rajah,  of  which  through 
Lucy's  influence  he  has  been  made  captain.  The  story  is  simple,  but  full  of  homely 
incident,  clever  dialogue,  shrewd  character-drawing,  and  overflowing  humor.  With 
its  sequel,  'Very  Hard  Cash,'  it  is  considered  among  the  best  of  Reade's  novels. 
Lucy  herself  is  the  type  of  woman  oftenest  drawn  by  Reade,  —  pretty,  emotional, 
noble  at  heart,  but  given  to  coquettish  deceits  and  uncertain  moods,  until  steadied 
by  love. 

LOVEL,  THE  WIDOWER,  by  W.  M.  Thackeray  (1860).  One  of  the  great  master's 
later  books,  written  after  his  first  visit  to  America,  this  simple  story  touches,  perhaps, 


522  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

a  narrower  range  of  emotion  than  some  of  his  more  famous  novels ;  but  within  its  own 
limits,  it  shows  the  same  power  of  characterization,  the  same  insight  into  motive,  the 
same  intolerance  of  sham  and  pharisaism,  the  same  tenderness  towards  the  simple 
and  the  weak,  that  mark  Thackeray's  more  elaborate  work.  Frederic  Lovel  has 
married  Cecilia  Baker,  who  dies  eight  years  later,  leaving  two  children,  the  little  prig 
Cecilia  and  Popham.  Their  governess,  Elizabeth  Prior,  wins  the  affection  of  the 
doctor,  the  butler,  and  the  bachelor  friend  who  visits  Mr.  Lovel  and  tells  the  story. 
Lady  Baker's  son  Clarence,  a  drunken  reprobate,  reveals  the  fact  that  Miss  Prior  was 
once  a  ballet-dancer  (forced  to  this  toil  in  order  to  support  her  family) .  Lady  Baker 
orders  her  out  of  the  house;  Lovell  comes  home  in  the  midst  of  the  uproar,  and  chival- 
rously offers  her  his  heart  and  hand,  which  she  accepts,  and  he  ceases  to  be  Lovel  the 
Widower.  Lady  Baker,  his  tyrannical  mother-in-law,  has  become  immortal. 

LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  is  one  of  Shakespeare's  early  dramatic  productions, 
written  about  1588  or  '89,  and  has  all  the  marks  of  immature  style;  yet  its  repartees 
and  witticisms  give  it  a  sprightly  cast,  and  its  constant  good-humor  and  good-nature 
make  it  readable.  The  plot,  as  far  as  is  known,  is  Shakespeare's  own.  There  is  an 
air  of  unreality  about  it,  as  if  all  the  characters  had  eaten  of  the  insane  root,  or  were 
at  least  light-headed  with  champagne.  Incessant  are  their  quick  venues  of  wit,  — 
"snip,  snap,  quick,  and  home."  In  a  nutshell,  the  play  is  a  satire  of  Utopias,  of  all 
thwarting  of  natural  instincts.  Ferdinand,  King  of  Navarre,  and  his  three  associate 
lords,  Biron,  Dumain,  and  Longaville,  have  taken  oath  to  form  themselves  into  a  kind 
of  monastic  academy  for  study.  They  swear  to  fast,  to  eat  but  one  meal  a  day,  and 
for  three  years  not  to  look  on  the  face  of  woman;  all  of  which  "is  flat  treason  against 
the  kingly  state  of  youth."  But,  alas!  the  King  had  forgotten  that  he  was  about  to 
see  the  Princess  of  France  and  three  of  her  ladies,  come  on  a  matter  of  State  business. 
However,  he  will  not  admit  them  into  his  palace,  hut  has  pavilions  pitched  in  the 
park.  At  the  first  glance  all  four  men  fall  violently  in  love,  each  with  one  of  the 
ladies,  —  the  king  with  the  princess,  Biron  with  Rosaline,  etc. :  Cupid  has  thumped 
them  all  "with  his  bird-bolt  under  the  left  pap."  They  write  sentimental  verses, 
and  while  reading  them  aloud  in  the  park,  all  find  each  other  out,  each  assuming  a 
stern  severity  with  the  perjured  ones  until  he  himself  is  detected.  One  of  the  humor- 
ous characters  is  Don  Adriano  de  Armado,  "who  draweth  out  the  thread  of  his 
verbosity  finer  than  the  staple  of  his  argument."  In  him,  and  in  the  preposterous 
pedant  Holofernes,  and  the  curate  Sir  Nathaniel,  the  poet  satirizes  the  euphuistic 
affectations  of  the  time,  —  the  taffeta  phrases,  three-piled  hyperboles,  and  foreign 
language  scraps,  ever  on  the  tongues  of  these  fashionable  dudes.  The  "pathetical 
nit,"  Moth,  is  Armado 's  page,  a  keen-witted  rogueling.  Dull  is  a  constable  of 
"twice-sodden  simplicity,"  and  Costard  the  witty  clown.  Rosaline  is  the  Beatrice 
of  the  comedy,  brilliant  and  caustic  in  her  wit.  Boyet  is  an  old  courtier  who  serves  as 
a  kind  of  usher  or  male  lady's-maid  to  the  princess  and  her  retinue.  The  loves  of 
the  noblesse  are  parodied  in  those  of  Costard  and  of  the  country  wench  Jaquenetta. 
The  gentlemen  devise,  to  entertain  the  ladies,  a  Muscovite  masque  and  a  play  by  the 
clown  and  pedants.  The  ladies  get  wind  of  the  masque,  and,  being  masked  them- 
selves, guy  the  Muscovites  who  go  off  "all  drybeaten  with  pure  scoff";  Rosaline 
suggests  that  maybe  they  are  sea-sick  with  coming  from  Muscovy.  The  burlesque 
play  tallies  that  in  'Midsummer  Night's  Dream,'  the  great  folk  making  satirical 
remarks  on  the  clown's  performances.  Costard  is  cast  for  Pompey  the  Huge,  and  it 
transpires  that  the  Don  has  no  shirt  on  when  he  challenges  Costard  to  a  duel.  While 
the  fun  is  at  its  height  comes  word  that  sobers  all:  the  princess's  father  is  dead.  As  a 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  523 

test  of  their  love  the  princess  and  Rosaline  impose  a  year's  severe  penance  on  their 
lovers,  and  if  their  love  proves  true,  promise  to  have  them;  and  so  do  the  other  ladies 
promise  to  their  wooers.  Thus  love's  labor  is,  for  the  present,  lost.  The  comedy  ends 
with  two  fine  lyrics,  —  the  cuckoo  song  ('Spring'),  and  the  'Tu-whit,  tu-whoo'  song 
of  the  owl  (' Winter'). 

LOVES  OF  THE  TRIANGLES,  THE,  by  George  Canning.  In  1797  George  Canning 
then  Under-Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  planned  in  conjunction  with 
George  Ellis,  John  Hookham  Frere,  and  others,  the  Anti- Jacobin,  a  political  paper 
edited  in  the  interests  of  the  Tory  party. 

Satire  and  parody  were  the  vehicles  by  which  editors  and  contributors  tried  to 
effect  their  end;  and  among  the  various  articles  and  poems,  none  were  wittier  than 
those  written  by  Canning,  then  barely  twenty-seven.  One  object  of  these  contribu- 
tions was  to  cast  ridicule  on  the  undue  sentimentality  of  various  literary  men  of  the 
day,  in  their  alleged  false  sympathy  with  the  revolutionary  spirit  in  France. 

'  The  Loves  of  the  Triangles '  was  presented  as  the  work  of  a  quasi-contributor, 
Mr.  Higgins,  who  says  that  he  is  persuaded  that  there  is  no  science,  however  abstruse, 
nay,  no  trade  nor  manufacture,  which  may  not  be  taught  by  a  didactic  poem.  .  .  . 
And  though  the  more  rigid  and  unbending  stiffness  of  a  mathematical  subject  does 
not  admit  of  the  same  appeals  to  the  warmer  passions  which  naturally  arise  out  of  the 
sexual  system  of  Linnaeus,  he  hopes  that  his  poem  will  ornament  and  enlighten  the 
arid  truths  of  Euclid  and  algebra,  and  will  strew  the  Asses'  Bridge  with  flowers. 

This  is  of  course  a  satire  on  the  Botanic  Garden  of  Dr.  Darwin,  to  whom  indeed 
the  parody,  'The  Loves  of  the  Triangles,'  is  dedicated.  Only  about  three  hundred 
verses  in  rhymed  iambics  were  published  of  this  poem,  forming  one  canto;  yet  argu- 
ment, notes,  as  well  as  the  body  of  the  poem  itself,  are  the  perfection  of  parody,  and 
in  the  midst  of  it  all  are  several  lines  assailing  Jacobins. 

A  portion  of  the  invocation  may  serve  as  a  specimen  of  the  style:  — 

"But  chief,  thou  nurse  of  the  didactic  Muse, 
Divine  Nonsensia,  all  thy  sense  infuse: 
The  charms  of  secants  and  of  tangents  tell, 
How  loves  and  graces  in  an  angle  dwell; 
How  slow  progressive  points  protract  the  line. 
As  pendant  spiders  spin  the  filmy  twine. 
How  lengthened  lines,  impetuous  sweeping  round, 
Spread  the  wide  plane  and  mark  its  circling  bound; 
How  planes,  their  substance  with  their  motion  grown, 
Form  the  huge  cube,  the  cylinder,  the  cone.'* 

LOVEY  MARY,  by  Alice  Hegan  Rice  (1903).  This  story  continues  the  experience  of 
"Mrs.  Wiggs  of  the  Cabbage  Patch,"  and  is  written  im  the  same  entertaining  vein. 
A  new  heroine,  however,  is  introduced  in  the  person  of  "Lovey  Mary,"  who  having 
begun  life  as  a  foundling,  has  spent  her  first  fifteen  years  in  a  "Home."  She  has 
never  known  anything  but  rebuffs  and  cold  treatment,  and  longs  for  affection  and 
some  of  the  good  things  of  life.  Her  first  real  pleasure  is  derived  from  taking  care  of  a 
child  named  Tommy,  who  is  brought  to  the  Home  by  his  wayward  mother  Kate 
Rider,  who  has  been  a  previous  inmate.  Lovey  Mary,  who  has  a  deep  aversion  for 
Kate  who  has  treated  her  unkindly  in  the  past,  is  at  first  much  opposed  to  the  child 
who  is  put  in  her  charge  but  soon  overcomes  this  feeling  and  grows  to  love  him 
passionately.  After  two  years  of  devotion  during  which  time  Tommy  has  grown  to 
return  some  of  the  affection  which  Lovey  Mary  lavishes  upon  him,  she  discovers  that 


524  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Kate  is  planning  to  take  her  child  and  decides  to  prevent  this  calamity.  Accordingly 
she  slips  away  at  early  dawn  with  Tommy  in  her  arms  and  at  the  end  of  a  fruitless 
day  finds  herself  at  the ' '  Cabbage  Patch. ' '  Here  she  is  met  by  the  kind-hearted  Mrs. 
Wiggs  who  immediately  sets  about  making  her  comfortable.  It  is  decided  that  she 
shall  take  up  her  location  with  Miss  Hazy,  a  shiftless  individual  who  is  helped  along 
in  her  struggles  for  existence  by  the  inmates  of  the  "Patch."  Lovey  Mary  finds 
work  in  the  factory  and  restores  Miss  Hazy's  untidy  abode  to  cleanly  conditions. 
The  matron  of  the  Home  discovers  the  whereabouts  of  her  missing  charge  but  instead 
of  making  the  fact  known  decides  to  let  Lovey  Mary  continue  in  the  course  she  has 
chosen.  However,  Lovey  Mary  who  has  a  well-developed  conscience  feels  she  is  not 
really  justified  in  keeping  Tommy  from  his  mother  and  finally  decides  to  restore 
him;  she  goes  to  Kate  who  is  sick  in  the  hospital  and  after  a  reconciliation  takes  her 
home  and  nurses  her  till  she  dies.  The  reader  takes  leave  of  Lovey  Mary  and  Tommy 
as  they  are  starting  off  on  a  trip  with  their  kind  friends  the  Reddings,  life  having 
assumed  a  brighter  aspect  for  the  heroine  than  she  had  ever  deemed  possible. 

LOYAL  RONINS,  THE,  by  Shunsui  Tamenaga.  This  historical  tale,  translated  from 
the  Japanese  by  Edward  Greey  and  Shinichiro  Saito,  was  published  in  English  in 
1880.  It  relates  to  affairs  that  occurred  in  1698.  The  book  is  profusely  illustrated 
with  characteristic  Japanese  pictures  by  Kei-Sai  Yei-Sen  of  Yedo  or  Tokio.  The 
graceful  poetic  style  gives  great  charm  to  this  naive  romance,  the  names  of  the 
characters  are  quaint  even  in  translation,  and  the  pictures  of  feudal  Japan  are  vivid 
and  fascinating.  The  Japanese  atmosphere  pervades  the  entire  book.  The  main 
story  is  very  simple,  though  there  are  numerous  episodes  touching  or  humorous. 
Lord  Morningfield,  Daimio  of  Ako,  is  condemned  to  commit  hara-kiri  (through  the 
treachery  and  deceit  of  Sir  Kara,  master  of  ceremonies  to  the  Shogun),  and  his 
property  is  confiscated.  His  widow,  Lady  Fair-Face,  assumes  the  religious  name  of 
Pure-Gem  and  lives  in  retirement.  Forty-seven  of  his  retainers  —  now  Ronins,  or 
outlaws  of  the  Samurai  class  —  sign  with  their  blood  an  agreement  to  avenge  his  death. 
Under  the  leadership  of  Sir  Big-Rock,  who  divorces  his  wife  and  disowns  his  chil- 
dren, that  they  may  not  be  punished  for  his  deeds,  the  Ronins  slay  Sir  Kira  in  his 
own  house.  After  imposing  ceremonies  of  respect  at  the  tomb  of  their  illustrious 
chief,  the  Ronins  surrender  themselves  to  the  Council  at  Yedo.  They  are  condemned 
to  death  and  sentenced  to  commit  hara-kiri.  Forty-six  forms  clothed  in  pure  white, 
headed  by  Sir  Big-Rock,  mount  the  hill  of  death,  plunge  into  the  dark  river,  and  pass 
over  to  Paradise,  where  they  are  welcomed  by  the  spirit  of  their  beloved  chief. 

LUCK  OF  ROARING  CAMP,  THE,  and  other  sketches,  by  Bret  Harte  (1870),  have 
for  their  subjects  strange  incidents  of  life  in  the  far  West  during  the  gold-fever  of  '49. 
The  essential  romance  of  that  adventurous,  lawless,  womanless  society  is  embodied 
in  these  tales.  Representative  members  of  it,  gamblers  "with  the  melancholy  air 
and  intellectual  abstraction  of  a  Hamlet";  all-around  scamps  with  blond  hair  and 
Raphael  faces;  men  with  pasts  buried  in  the  oblivion  east  of  the  Mississippi;  young 
men,  battered  men,  decayed  college  graduates,  and  ex-convicts,  are  brought  together 
in  picturesque  confusion,  —  their  hot,  fierce  dramas  being  played  against  the  loneli- 
ness of  the  Sierras,  the  aloofness  of  an  unconquerable  nature.  '  The  Luck  of  Roarine 
Camp'  is  perhaps  the  most  beautiful  of  the  sketches;  'The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat' 
is  scarcely  less  pathetic.  In  'Tennessee's  Partner,'  and  in  'Miggles,'  humor  and 
pathos  are  mingled.  The  entire  book  is  a  wonderfully  dramatic  transcript  of  a  phase 
of  Western  life  forever  passed  away. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  525 

LYRICAL  BALLADS,  a  collection  of  lyrical  poems,  mainly  by  William  Wordsworth, 
but  including  "The  Ancient  Mariner'  and  'The  Nightingale*  by  Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge,  was  first  published  in  1/98.  A  second  edition,  with  corrections  and 
additions  and  a  famous  preface  by  Wordsworth,  appeared  in  1800.  As  originally 
planned  the  volume  was  to  have  been  the  joint  production  of  Coleridge  and  Words- 
worth, the  former  treating  supernatural  themes  in  such  a  manner  as  to  create  poetic 
belief,  and  the  latter  investing  common  incidents  with  an  atmosphere  of  wonder  and 
imagination.  Wordsworth's  superior  industry  and  Coleridge's  indolence  brought  it 
about  that  with  the  brilliant  exception  of  'The  Ancient  Mariner'  the  volume  was 
confined  to  the  second  of  these  two  objects.  In  his  preface  Wordsworth  upholds  his 
choice  of  ordinary  events  and  humble  life  on  the  ground  of  the  greater  emotional 
sincerity  and  the  more  beautiful  natural  background  afforded  by  them;  and  he 
defends  the  plainness  and  baldness  of  his  style  and  metre  on  the  ground  that  the 
language  of  poetry  should  closely  approximate  to  the  language  of  everyday  life  and 
that  metre  is  not  essential  to  poetry.  (For  Coleridge's  criticism  of  these  opinions, 
which  are  a  natural  reaction  from  the  conventionality  of  eighteenth-century  poetic 
diction,  see  the  digest  of  his  'Biographia  Literaria'.)  Many  of  the  'Lyrical  Ballads' 
like  'Anecdote  for  Fathers, '  'Simon  Lee/  'The  Idiot  Boy,'  'We are  Seven/  and  'Lucy 
Gray'  incurred  ridicule  through  their  simple  ballad  metre,  the  prosaic  matter-of- 
factness  of  their  expression,  and  the  absence  of  externally  striking  incidents  and 
climaxes;  yet  each  of  these  poems,  if  sympathetically  read,  stirs  the  imagination  and 
emotions  of  the  reader  and  awakens  him  to  the  spiritual  significance  of  the  humblest 
and  most  commonplace  events.  More  arresting  but  still  simple  in  treatment  are 
those  rural  tragedies  'Goody  Blake/  'The  Thorn,'  and  'Ruth.1  The  landscape 
beauty  of  the  Lake  District  and  the  simple  dignity  of  a  humble  life  lived  close  to 
nature  appears  in  'The  Old  Cumberland  Beggar'  and  in  'Michael,'  both  in  blank 
verse.  Vhe  poet's  early  love  of  his  native  dales,  his  moods  of  mystical  insight,  and 
his  ties  of  kinship  and  affection  are  reflected  in  'There  was  a  Boy,'  'Nutting, '  and 
'Influence  of  Natural  Objects'  (all  in  blank  verse,  afterwards  included  in  the  'Pre- 
lude'), 'Tintern  Abbey1  (a  magnificent  hymn  to  the  immanent  presence  in  nature), 
the  address  to  his  sister,  Dorothy,  in  the  same  poem  and  in  others,  the  Matthew 
poems  dedicated  to  an  old  friend  and  the  exquisite  Lucy-poems,  lamenting  the  loss  of 
a  real  or  ideal  love,  who  had  grown  up  under  the  influences  of  nature.  Coleridge's 
'Ancient  Mariner/  by  a  marvelous  tour  de  force  creates  and  endows  with  reality  a 
succession  of  fantastic  adventures  in  the  South  Seas,  involving  a  sailor  who  has 
incurred  the  enmity  of  the  elemental  spirits  by  killing  an  albatross.  Spell-bound  by 
the  poet's  consummate  art  we  follow  the  mariner's  punishment  and  purgation  with  a 
painful  interest  and  a  temporary  conviction  of  reality;  and  are  meanwhile  delighted 
by  a  series  of  marvelous  pictures,  horrible  and  exquisite  in  turn.  The  '  Lyrical 
Ballads '  began  a  new  era  in  English  poetry.  They  stirred  contemporary  writers  to 
throw  off  the  last  restraints  of  conventional  diction  and  to  draw  from  the  springs  of 
sentiment,  feeling,  and  imagination. 

LYS  ROUGE,  LE,  see  RED  LILY. 

MACAULAY,  LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF  LORD,  edited  and  arranged  by  his  nephew, 
Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan  (1876),  is  recognized  as  a  biography  of  whose  excellence 
English  literature  may  boast.  From  the  great  historian's  correspondence,  private 
memoranda,  and  original  drafts  of  his  essays  and  speeches,  and  from  the  recollections 
of  friends  and  relatives,  the  author  has  produced  a  model  book.  Macaulay's  untiring 


526  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

patience  of  preparation,  the  tireless  labor  expended  in  collecting  materials,  his 
amazing  assiduity  in  arranging  them,  his  unequaled  memory,  and  his  broad  popular 
sympathies,  are  sympathetically  described,  and  reveal  to  us  the  most  distinguished, 
progressive,  industrious,  able,  versatile  party  leader  of  the  first  half  of  this  century. 
The  genuine  honesty  and  worth  of  his  character,  and  his  brilliant  scholarship,  are  as 
evident  as  his  limitation  in  the  fields  of  the  highest  imagination.  Throughout  the 
book  Trevelyan  suppresses  himself  conscientiously,  with  the  result  that  this  work 
ranks  among  the  most  faithful  and  absorbing  biographies  in  English. 

MACBETH,  Shakespeare's  great  tragedy  of  ambition  and  retribution,  was  written 
about  1606.  The  prose  story  used  was  found  in  Holinshed's  'Chronicles.'  The 
sombre  passions  of  the  soul  are  painted  with  a  brush  dipped  in  blood  and  darkness. 
In  every  scene  there  is  the  horror  and  redness  of  blood.  The  faces  of  the  murdered 
King  Duncan's  guards  are  smeared  with  it,  it  stains  the  spectral  robes  of  Banquo, 
flows  from  the  wounds  of  the  pretty  children  of  Macduff ,  and  will  not  off  from  the 
little  hand  of  the  sleep-walking  Lady  Macbeth.  Banquo  and  Macbeth  have  just 
returned  from  a  successful  campaign  in  the  north.  On  the  road  they  meet  three 
weird  sisters,  who  predicted  for  Macbeth  kingship,  and  for  Banquo  that  his  issue 
should  be  kings.  'Tis  very  late;  the  owl  has  shrieked  good -night;  only  the  lord  and 
lady  of  the  castle  are  awake.  He,  alone  and  waiting  her  signal,  sees  a  vision  of  a 
phantasmal  dagger  in  the  air  before  him.  He  enters  the  chamber.  "Hark!  it  was 
but  the  owl. "  —  "  Who's  therer*  what  ho! "  —  " I  have  done  the  deed:  didst  thou  not 
hear  a  noise?  "  In  the  dead  silence,  as  day  dawns,  comes  now  a  loud  knocking  at  the 
south  entry,  and  the  coarse  grumbling  of  the  half -awakened  porter  brings  back  the 
commonplace  realities  of  the  day.  Macbeth  is  crowned  at  Scone.  But  his  fears 
stick  deep  in  Banquo,  and  at  a  state  banquet  one  of  his  hired  murderers  whispers  him 
that  Banquo  lies  dead  in  a  ditch  outside.  As  he  turns  he  sees  the  ghost  of  that  noble- 
man in  his  seat.  ' '  Prithee,  see  there !  behold !  look ! "  —  "  Avaunt !  and  quit  my  sight ! 
Thy  bones  are  marrowless,  thy  blood  is  cold ;  thou  hast  no  speculation  in  those  eyes 
which  thou  dost  glare  with. "  —  "Gentlemen,  rise,  his  Highness  is  not  well."  Mac- 
beth, deep  in  crime,  has  no  resource  but  to  go  deeper  yet  and  becomes  a  bloody  tyrant  ; 
but  ends  his  career  at  Dunsinane  Castle,  where  the  slain  king's  sons,  Malcolm  and 
Macduff,  and  ten  thousand  stout  English  soldiers  meet  their  friends  the  Scottish 
patriot  forces.  The  tyrant  is  fortified  in  the  castle.  The  witches  have  told  him  he 
shall  not  perish  till  Birnam  wood  shall  come  to  Dunsinane,  and  that  no  one  of  woman 
born  shall  have  mortal  power  over  him.  But  the  enemy,  as  they  approach,  cut 
branches  from  Birnam  wood  "to  shadow  the  number  of  their  host."  This  strikes 
terror  to  Macbeth 's  heart;  but  relying  on  the  other  assurance  of  the  witches,  he  rushes 
forth  to  battle.  He  meets  the  enraged  Macduff,  learns  from  him  that  he  (Macduff) 
was  ripped  untimely  from  his  mother's  womb,  and  so  is  not  strictly  of  woman  born. 
With  the  energy  of  despair  Macbeth  attacks  him,  but  is  overcome  and  beheaded. 

McFINGAL,  by  John  Trumbull.  The  author  of  'McFingal,1  "the  American  epic, " 
was  a  distinguished  Connecticut  jurist  and  writer.  The  poem  aims  to  give  in  Hudi- 
brastic  verse  a  general  account  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  a  humorous  descrip- 
tion of  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  time,  satirizing  the  follies  and  extravagances 
of  the  author's  own  Whig  party  as  well  as  those  of  the  British  and  Loyalists.  McFin- 
gal  is  a  Scotchman  who  represents  the  Tories;  Honorius  being  the  representative  and 
champion  of  the  patriotic  Whigs.  McFingal  is  of  course  out-argued  and  defeated; 
and  he  suffers  disgrace  and  ignominy  to  the  extent  of  being  hoisted  to  the  top  of  a 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  527 

flag-pole,  and  afterwards  treated  to  a  coat  of  tar  and  feathers.  The  first  canto  was 
published  in  1774,  and  the  poem  finally  appeared  complete  in  four  cantos  in  1782. 
The  work  is  now  unread  and  comparatively  unknown,  but  its  popularity  at  the  time 
of  its  issue  was  very  great;  and  more  than  thirty  pirated  editions  in  pamphlet  and 
other  forms  were  printed,  which  were  circulated  by  "the  newsmongers,  hawkers, 
peddlers,  and  petty  chapmen"  of  the  day.  It  contains  many  couplets  that  were 
famous  at  the  time,  some  of  which  are  still  quoted.  The  two  that  are  perhaps  the 
most  famous,  and  which  are  often  attributed  to  Samuel  Butler,  the  author  of  'Hudi- 
bras, '  are  — 

"No  man  e'er  felt  the  halter  draw 
With  good  opinion  of  the  law." 

and 

"But  optics  sharp  it  needs  I  ween, 
To  see  what  is  not  to  be  seen." 

'McFirtgal'  was  considered  by  many  fully  equal  in  wit  and  humor  to  its  great 
prototype  '  Hudibras ' ;  and  its  subsequent  decadence  in  popularity  is  thought  not  to 
be  owing  to  any  deficiency  in  these  respects,  but  to  a  lack  of  picturesqueness  in  the 
story  and  of  the  elements  of  personal  interest  in  its  heroes. 

MACHJAVELLI,  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  NICCOLO,  a  biography  by  Pasquale 
Villari,  published  between  1877  and  1882,  and  in  a  complete  English  version  by  Linda 
Villari  in  1898.  In  order  to  interpret  and  account  for  the  doctrines  of  MachiavelH 
the  author  traces  the  history  of  his  life  in  connection  with  the  events  of  his  time.  The 
book  is  thus  an  extremely  illuminating  study  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  as  well  as 
the  fullest  and  best  account  of  MachiavelH  and  his  works.  A  general  conspectus  of 
the  Italian  states,  and  their  literary  and  political  condition  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
century  is  followed  by  an  account  of  the  political  career  of  MachiavelH,  from  his 
appointment  as  secretary  to  the  Florentine  Council  of  Ten  in  1498  to  his  loss  of  office 
on  the  fall  of  the  repubHc  in  1512.  A  full  history  of  his  official  activities  is  combined 
with  an  account  of  the  poHtical  and  miHtary  struggles  of  the  period  and  of  their  effect 
upon  MachiavelH 's  views.  In  particular  he  was  impressed  by  the  ruthless  yet  efficient 
poHcy  of  Csesar  Borgia  in  his  conquest  of  Romagna,  and  took  him  as  a  model  for  his 
ideal  prince.  In  the  second  book  is  described  MachiavelH's  Hterary  career  forced 
on  him  by  his  retirement  from  pubHc  life.  ' The  Prince, '  ' The  Discourses,'  ' The  Art 
of  War'  the  comedies,  and  the  'Florentine  Histories'  are  all  analyzed  and  critically 
estimated.  A  concluding  chapter  sums  up  the  chief  events  and  the  significance  of 
MachiavelH.  In  Villari's  opinion  he  was  a  great  and  original  poHtical  thinker,  who 
first  frankly  recognized  the  distinction  between  pubHc  and  private  moraHty  and  in  a 
scientific  and  impersonal  fashion  (marred  by  too  great  moral  insensibility)  attempted 
to  determine  the  principles  of  successful  government.  If  he  beHeved  in  doing  un- 
scrupulous acts  for  the  sake  of  efficient  government  his  aims  were  high  and  disin- 
terested, embracing  nothing  less  than  the  unity  of  Italy. 

MADAME  BOVARY,  by  Gustave  Flaubert,  appeared  in  1856,  when  the  author  was 
thirty-five.  It  was  his  first  novel,  and  is  regarded  as  the  book  which  founded  the 
reaHstic  school  in  modern  French  fiction,  —  the  school  of  Zola  and  Maupassant. 
The  novel  is  a  powerful,  unpleasant  study  of  the  steps  by  which  a  married  woman 
descends  to  sin,  bankruptcy,  and  suicide.  It  is  fataHstic  in  its  teaching,  Flaubert's 
theory  of  life  being  that  evil  inheres  in  the  constitution  of  things.  Madame  Bpvary, 


528  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

a  doctor's  wife,  has  been  linked  to  him  without  really  loving  him ;  he  is  honest,  un- 
interesting, and  adores  her.  Reared  in  a  convent,  her  romanticism  leads  her  tc 
dream  of  a  lover.  She  finds  one,  then  another;  spends  money  after  the  manner  of  a 
light  woman;  and  when  she  has  involved  her  husband  in  financial  ruin,  kills  herself 
and  leaves  him  to  face  a  sea  of  troubles.  The  time  is  the  first  half  of  last  century; 
the  action  takes  place  in  provincial  French  towns.  The  merit  of  the  novel  lies  in  its 
truth  in  depicting  the  stages  of  this  moral  declension,  the  wonderful  accuracy  of 
detail,  the  subtle  analysis  of  the  passionate  human  heart.  Technically,  in  point  of 
style,  it  ranks  with  the  few  great  productions  of  French  fiction.  It  is  sternly  moral 
in  the  sense  that  it  shows  with  unflinching  touch  the  logic  of  the  inevitable  misery 
that  follows  the  breaking  of  moral  law. 

MADAME  CHRYSANTHEME,  by  Pierre  Loti  (whose  real  name  is  Louis  Marie 
Julien  Viaud),  appeared  in  1887,  when  he  was  thirty-seven.  It  is  the  seventh  of  the 
novels  in  which  Loti  has  tried  to  fix  in  words  the  color,  atmosphere,  and  life  of  differ- 
ent countries.  The  scene  of  '  Madame  Chrysantheme '  is  Japan,  and  the  reader  sees 
and  feels  that  strange  land  as  Loti  saw  and  felt  it,  —  a  little  land  of  little  people  and 
things;  a  land  of  prettiness  and  oddity  rather  than  of  beauty;  where  life  is  curiously 
free  from  moral  and  intellectual  complexities.  Loti  has  but  a  single  theme,  the 
isolated  life  of  one  man  with  one  woman;  but  the  charm  of  'Madame  Chrysantheme ' 
is  not  in  its  romance.  The  pretty  olive-hued  wife  whom  the  sailor  Loti  upon  his 
arrival  at  Nagasaki  engages  at  so  much  a  month,  conscientiously  does  her  part.  She 
pays  him  all  reverence,  keeps  the  house  gay  with  Japanese  blossoms,  plays  her  harp, 
and  is  as  Japanese  a  little  oddity  as  he  could  find;  but  fails  even  to  amuse  him.  She 
is  as  empty  of  ideality  as  her  name-flower  is  of  fragrance,  or  as  the  little  apartment 
which  he  rents  for  her  and  for  himself  is  of  furniture.  But  the  disillusion  of  Loti 
himself,  the  mocking  pessimism  underlying  his  eager  appreciation  of  the  new  sense- 
impressions,  and  the  exact  touch  and  strong  relief  of  his  descriptions  of  exotic  scenes, 
exercise  a  curious  magnetism. 

MADEM  GISELLE  IXE,  by  Lanoe  Falconer  (1891).  This  short  and  vivid  story  gives 
a  graphic  description  of  an  episode  in  the  life  of  a  Russian  Nihilist.  Mademoiselle 
Ixe,  who  is  the  principal  figure  in  the  tale,  is  first  introduced  as  governess  in  an  Eng- 
lish family  by  the  name  of  Merrington,  where  on  account  of  her  extreme  reticence  she 
is  regarded  with  some  distrust.  However,  owing  to  her  unquestionable  ability,  and 
her  satisfactory  management  of  the  children,  she  is  retained  in  the  household.  She 
wins  the  affection  of  Evelyn  Merrington,  the  eldest  daughter,  a  pretty  and  attractive 
girl,  who  is  just  finishing  her  studies,  and  who  has  a  devoted  admirer  in  Parry  Leth- 
bridge,  a  young  fellow  of  wealth,  who  is  a  constant  visitor  at  the  house.  In  the  course 
of  time  the  Merringtons  give  a  ball,  and  among  the  guests  is  a  Russian  count,  who  is 
visiting  in  the  neighborhood.  Before  the  event  Mademoiselle  Ixe  confides  to  Evelyn 
that  she  has  a  message  to  deliver  to  the  count,  whom  she  has  previously  known.  The 
climax  of  the  story  is  reached  when  the  guests  at  the  ball  are  startled  by  a  pistol  shot 
and  see  the  count  stagger  and  fall,  while  Mademoiselle  Ixe  stands  immovable  with  a 
smoking  pistol  in  her  hand.  She  is  immediately  secured  in  her  own  chamber  while 
the  police  are  sent  for;  but  during  this  interval,  Evelyn  persuades  her  to  escape,  and 
is  assisted  by  Parry,  who  drives  her  in  his  dog-cart  to  the  next  town.  Before  her 
departure  Mademoiselle  Ixe  explains  to  Evelyn  that  it  is  for.  love  of  her  country,  and 
from  no  personal  motive,  that  she  has  tracked  her  victim  to  this  place,  and  com- 
mitted the  desperate  act.  The  count  proves  to  be  not  seriously  injured,  and  shortly 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  529 

recovers,  and  Evelyn  some  three  years  later  marries  her  devoted  lover.  Soon  after 
her  marriage  she  receives  a  pathetic  letter  from  a  Russian  prison  congratulating  her 
on  her  well-deserved  happiness  and  signed  simply  "X. "  The  story  is  told  in  a  very 
interesting  vein,  and  has  many  interesting  character-sketches  and  a  decided  touch  of 
wit  and  humor  running  through  the  book. 

MADONNA'S  CHILD,  by  Alfred  Austin.  This  romantic  poem,  which  its  author, 
later  poet-laureate,  calls  the  "firstborn  of  his  serious  Muse,"  was  first  published  in 
1872.  The  scene  is  laid  at  Spiaggiascura,  on  the  Riviera;  and  Olympia,  the  heroine, 
"a  daughter  of  the  sunlight  and  the  shrine, "  is  sacristan  of  a  little  seaside  chapel: 

"  Sacred  to  prayer,  but  quite  unknown  to  fame, 
Maria  Stella  Maris  is  its  name.  .  .  . 
Breaks  not  a  morning  but  its  snow-white  altar 

With  fragrant  mountain  flowers  is  newly  dight; 
Comes  not  a  noon  but  lowly  murmured  psalter 
Again  is  heard  with  unpretentious  rite." 

To  this  chapel  comes  a  stranger,  Godfrid,  and  surprises  Olympia, 


He 


"Atiptoe,  straining  at  a  snow-white  thorn 
Whose  bloom  enticed  but  still  escaped  her  hand." 


"deftly  broke 
A  loftier  bow  in  lovelier  bloom  arrayed." 


and  gave  it  to  her;  and  then  accompanied  her  to  the  chapel,  kneeling  with  her  before 
the  Madonna.  Later,  she  finds  to  her  horror  that  he  is  an  unbeliever.  To  her 
supplications  to  — 

"Bend  pride's  stiff  knee;  no  longer  grace  withstand," 

his  answer  is,  "I  cannot."  With  her  he  makes  a  pilgrimage  to  Milan.  She  leaves 
him  with  a  priest  who  has  been  her  adviser;  but  the  old  priest's  efforts  are  in  vain, 
and  he  tells  her : 

4  'Through  his  parched  bosom,  prayer  no  longer  flows. 
By  Heaven  may  yet  the  miracle  be  wrought: 
But  human  ways  are  weak,  and  words  are  naught." 

She  decides  that  they  must  part,  but  he  asks: 

"Is  there  no  common  Eden  of  the  heart, 
Where  each  fond  bosom  is  a  welcome  guest? 
No  comprehensive  Paradise  to  hold 
All  loving  souls  in  cne  celestial  fold?" 


She  answers: 


"Leave  me,  nay,  leave  me  ere  it  be  too  late: 
Better  part  here,  than  part  at  Heaven's  gate." 


ALffiVIAD,  THE,  see  BAVIAD. 

MADRAS  HOUSE,  THE,  by  Granville  Barker  (1910).     This  play  is  a  clever  dis- 
cussion of  the  woman  problem,  chiefly  by  a  number  of  types  of  men,  members  of  the 
firm  of  the  Madras  House,  a  great  shop  which  caters  to  women.    Act  I.  shows  the 
34 


530  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

suburban  home  on  Sunday  where  Mr.  Huxtable,  one  of  the  owners,  lives  with  six 
grown  unmarried  daughters.  Society  provides  no  real  interests  to  take  the  place  of 
husbands,  children  or  work  to  mitigate  the  dullness  of  the  lives  of  the  Misses  Hux- 
table.  District  nursing,  foreign  missions,  and  water-color  sketching  are  not  suf- 
ficiently engrossing.  In  Act  II.  we  hear  about  a  scandal  in  the  store.  Mr.  Philip 
Madras,  the  young,  progressive  member  of  the  firm,  has  to  consider  the  slavery  of 
the  shop  for  the  employees,  and  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  clerk  who  ventures  to 
become  an  unmarried  mother.  Act  III.  is  the  business  meeting  to  consider  the  pro- 
position of  an  American  millionaire  to  buy  the  store.  The  men  discuss  the  position 
of  women  in  modern  life.  Mr.  Charles  Madras,  the  head  of  the  house,  resenting  the 
stimulating  presence  of  women  in  politics,  business,  and  art,  has  solved  the  problem 
tor  himself  by  retiring  to  a  Mohammedan  country  where  women  are  segregated. 
The  models,  parading  before  them  in  the  new  costumes,  illustrate  the  sex  appeal  of 
dress.  Act  IV.  introduces  Jessica,  the  attractive  modern  woman,  wife  of  Philip 
Madras.  After  the  meeting  at  the  store  the  young  husband  and  wife  talk  together 
of  the  price  to  be  paid  for  free  womanhood,  and  the  problem  of  making  the  world  less 
of  a  "barnyard"  in  spirit. 

MAGDA  ('Die  Heimat'),  by  Hermann  Sudermann  (1893).  The  high  spirited  Magda 
has  been  driven  from  home  by  the  tyranny  of  her  father,  an  ex-soldier,  who  rules  his 
household  with  military  despotism.  She  has  sinned  and  suffered  and  worked,  and 
at  the  opening  of  the  play,  returns  to  the  home  of  her  girlhood,  after  an  absence  of 
many  years,  a  famous  opera  star.  The  pastor,  Magda 's  rejected  suitor,  who  still 
loves  her,  persuades  her  father  to  consent  to  receive  her.  She  realizes  that  the  free 
independent  life  of  the  artist  has  led  her  far  beyond  the  petty  bourgeois  society  and 
the  commonplace  family  life,  as  well  as  the  yoke  of  paternal  authority.  By  mis- 
chance her  father  learns  the  secret  of  her  past,  and  in  a  frenzy  orders  her  to  marry  the 
father  of  her  child,  now  a  government  councillor  in  the  little  town.  The  interview 
with  her  lover  and  her  father  is  quoted  in  the  LIBRARY.  The  former  lover  is  willing 
enough  to  marry  the  rich  woman  and  distinguished  artist,  and  though  she  despises 
the  man,  Magda  at  first  consents  for  love  of  her  father  and  to  give  her  son  a  name. 
When  it  transpires  that  the  condition  made  is  that  she  shall  part  from  the  child  to 
avoid  scandal,  she  spurns  the  marriage.  The  old  soldier  insists  that  the  marriage 
shall  take  place  to  redeem  the  family  honor.  He  threatens  to  take  her  life  and  his 
own  if  she  persists  in  her  refusal.  In  vain  she  tries  to  convince  him  that  it  is  because 
she  is  now  pure  and  true  that  she  cannot  act  otherwise.  As  a  last  argument,  she 
hints  that  she  has  had  other  lovers.  As  he  is  on  the  point  of  firing  his  pistol  at  her, 
he  succumbs  to  apoplexy.  Two  types  of  conflict  are  presented,  the  struggle  ot  the 
individual  against  the  accepted  rules  of  conduct,  and  the  struggle  between  individual 
self-respect  and  the  conventional  ideal  of  absolute  contrition  and  self-abasement  for 
sins  committed;  but  the  success  of  the  play  depends  upon  its  well-contrived  situa- 
tions and  the  opportunity  it  offers  to  a  gifted  actress. 

MAGNALIA  CHRISTI  AMERICANA,  by  Cotton  Mather.  This  'Ecclesiastical 
History  of  New  England,  from  1620  to  1628,'  treats  more  extensively  of  the  early 
history  of  the  country  than  its  title  seems  to  indicate,  unless  it  is  borne  in  mind  that 
at  this  time  the  Church  and  State  were  so  closely  connected  that  the  history  of  one 
must  necessarily  be  that  of  the  other.  It  was  first  published  in  London,  in  1 702,  and 
is  a  standard  work  with  American  historians.  It  is  divided  into  seven  books:  the 
first  treating  of  the  early  discoveries  of  America  and  the  voyage  to  New  England; 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  531 

the  second  is  'Lives  of  the  Governors ';  the  third,  'Lives  of  many  Reverend,  Learned, 
and  Holy  Divines';  the  fourth,  'Of  Harvard  University';  the  fifth,  'The  Faith  and 
the  Order  in  the  Church  of  New  England ' ;  the  sixth,  '  Discoveries  and  Demonstra- 
tions of  the  Divine  Providence  in  Remarkable  Mercies  and  Judgments  on  Many 
Particular  Persons';  the  seventh,  'Disturbances  Given  to  the  Churches  of  New  Eng- 
land.' In  the  sixth  book,  the  author  gives  accounts  of  the  wonders  of  the  invisible 
world,  of  worthy  people  succored  when  in  dire  distress,  of  the  sad  ending  of  many 
wicked  ones,  and  of  the  cases  of  witchcraft  at  Salem  and  other  places.  Of  the  last  he 
says:  " I  will  content  myself  with  the  transcribing  of  a  most  unexceptionable  account 
thereof,  written  by  Mr.  John  Hales," 

The  situation  and  character  of  the  author  afforded  him  the  most  favorable  oppor- 
tunities to  secure  the  documents  necessary  for  his  undertaking,  and  the  large  portion 
of  it  devoted  to  biography  gives  the  reader  a  very  faithful  view  of  the  leading  charac- 
ters of  the  times. 

MAHABHARATA  OF  KRISHNA-DWAIPAYANA  VYASA,  THE.  This  great 
Indian  epic  has  been  compared  to  a  national  bank  of  unlimited  resources,  upon  which 
all  the  poets  and  dramatists  of  succeeding  ages  have  freely  drawn,  so  that  scarcely  a 
Sanskrit  play  or  song  lacks  references  to  it.  As  the  compilation  of  long  series  of  poets, 
it  contains  not  only  the  original  story  of  the  Kaurava-Pandava  feud,  but  also  a  vast 
number  of  more  or  less  relevant  episodes:  it  is  a  storehouse  of  quaint  and  curious 
stories.  It  tells  of  the  mental  and  moral  philosophy  of  the  ancient  Rishis,  their 
discoveries  in  science,  their  remarkable  notions  of  astronomy,  their  computations  of 
time,  their  laws  for  the  conduct  of  life,  private  and  public,  their  grasp  of  political 
truths  worthy  of  Machiavelli.  Stories  and  histories,  poems  and  ballads,  nursery 
tales  and  profound  discourses  on  art,  science,  daily  conduct,  and  religion,  are  all  sung 
in  sonorous  verse.  Written  in  the  sacred  language  of  India,  it  is  the  Bible  of  the 
Hindus,  being  held  in  such  veneration  that  the  reading  of  a  single  Parva  or  Book  was 
thought  sufficient  to  cleanse  from  sin.  It  has  been  translated  into  English  prose  by 
Kisari  Mohan  Ganguli,  and  published  in  fifteen  octavo  volumes.  Sir  Edwin  Arnold 
has  translated  the  last  two  of  the  eighteen  parvas  into  blank  verse;  and  in  his  preface 
he  gives  a  succinct  analysis  of  the  epic  which  has  been  called  "the  Fifth  Veda."  To 
ordinary  readers  much  of  the  figurative  language  of  the  '  Mahabharata '  seems 
grotesque,  and  the  descriptions  are  often  absurd ;  but  no  one  can  help  being  amazed 
at  its  enormous  range  of  subjects,  the  beauty  of  many  of  the  stories  it  enshrines,  and 
the  loftiness  of  the  morality  it  inculcates.  In  grandeur  it  may  well  be  compared  to 
the  awe-inspiring  heights  of  the  Himalayas. 

MAID  OF  SKER,  THE,  by  Richard  D.  Blackmore  (1872),  carries  one  through  the 
last  twenty  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  England  and  Wales.  "Fisherman 
Davy"  Llewellyn,  'longshore  sailor,  and  later,  one  of  Lord  Nelson's  very  bravest 
"own, "  —  while  fishing  along  the  shores  of  Bristol  Channel  and  Swansea  Bay,  finds 
in  a  drifting  boat,  which  is  carried  by  the  seas  into  Pool  Tavan,  a  wee  two-year-old 
child  asleep,  —  the  Maid  of  Sker.  "Bom  to  grace, "  and  very  beautiful  too,  is  this 
"waif  of  the  sea, "  first  known  as  "Bardie, "  then  Andalusia;  and  last  proved  by  the 
true  Bampfylde  peculiarity  of  thumbs,  to  be  Bertha,  the  long-lost  daughter  of  that 
aristocratic  family.  Brave  Commander  Rodney  Bluett's  proud  relations  do  not 
therefore  object  to  his  marriage  with  the  heroine.  The  old  veteran's  description  of 
naval  engagements,  and  his  quaint  views  of  "the  quality"  (the  story  is  a  first-person 
narrative  throughout),  makes  it  intensely  dramatic.  The  death  and  disinterment  of 


532  THE   READER  S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS 

"Black  Evan's"  five  sons,  smothered  in  a  sand-storm;  the  villainy  of  giant  Parson 
Chowne,  and  his  savage  death  from  hydrophobia ;  and  the  honest  love  of  the  narrator 
for  Lady  Isabel  Carey,  are  prominent  factors  in  the  development  of  the  plot.  It  is 
to  the  latter  that  old  Davy,  describing  "the  unpleasantness  of  hanging, "  remarks, 
"I  had  helped,  myself,  to  run  nine  good  men  up  at  the  yard-arm.  And  a  fine  thing 
for  their  souls,  no  doubt,  to  stop  them  from  more  mischief,  and  Jet  them  go  up  while 
the  Lord  might  think  that  other  men  had  injured  them  ..."...  In  another  place 
he  is  made  to  admit,  "If  my  equal  insults  me,  I  knock  him  down ;  if  my  officer  does  it, 
I  knock  under  ..."  These  illustrations  show  something  of  the  drollery  of  much  of 
Blackmore's  writing. 

MAID'S  TRAGEDY,  THE,  by  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  was  acted  probably  in  1610 
and  first  printed  in  1619.  It  is  the  most  powerful  drama  of  these  authors.  Evadne, 
a  lady  of  the  court  of  Rhodes,  is  the  secret  mistress  of  its  king.  To  hide  his  guilt  the 
monarch  commands  a  young  courtier,  Amintor,  to  wed  Evadne.  Although  Amintor 
is  already  plighted  to  another  lady,  Aspatia,  whom  he  loves,  he  conceives  it  his  duty 
to  obey;  moreover  he  is  dazzled  by  Evadne's  beauty.  In  the  first  act  the  wedding  is 
being  concluded  by  a  masque,  and  amid  many  compliments  the  bride  is  escorted  to 
the  nuptial  chamber.  Bride  and  bridegroom  are  left  alone;  and  then  gradually,  with 
a  cold,  contemptuous  delight  in  the  torture  she  is  inflicting,  Evadne  reveals  to  Amin- 
tor that  she  is  the  king's  mistress  and  that  the  marriage  is  to  be  a  marriage  in  name 
only.  Amintor  submits  to  the  principle  of  unswerving  loyalty  to  the  king ;  and  in  the 
morning  they  accept  the  railing  congratulations  of  their  friends  as  if  they  were  an 
ordinary  happy  married  couple.  But  Melantius,  Evadne's  brother,  and  Amintor's 
dearest  friend,  suspects  from  his  bearing  that  something  is  wrong  and  gets  the  secret 
out  of  him.  Being  of  a  more  resolute  character  he  decides  at  once  on  vengeance. 
First  he  summons  his  relatives  and  friends  for  an  attack  on  the  king  and  makes 
arrangements  to  seize  the  fortifications.  Then  he  goes  to  his  sister,  forces  her  to 
confess,  and  stirs  her  not  only  to  repentance  but  to  undertake  in  her  own  person  to 
kill  the  king.  After  an  affecting  scene  of  contrition  with  her  husband  she  goes  off 
to  perform  this  task.  She  dismisses  the  king's  attendants,  finds  him  sleeping,  ties 
his  arms  to  the  bed,  and  then  wakening  him  denounces  his  lust  and  cruelty  before 
stabbing  him  to  death.  Meanwhile  Melantius  has  seized  the  fort  and  holds  it  to 
obtain  justification  from  the  new  king,  Lysippus.  At  the  same  time  Aspatia,  eager 
for  death,  disguises  herself  as  a  youth  and  goes  to  Amintor,  declaring  herself  a  young 
brother  of  Aspatia  who  is  seeking  by  single  combat  to  avenge  her  wrongs.  Forced 
at  length  to  fight,  Amintor  mortally  wounds  her.  At  this  moment  Evadne  enters, 
fresh  from  the  king's  murder,  and  begs  Amintor  to  receive  her  as  a  wife.  But  he 
refuses,  and  Evadne  kills  herself.  The  dying  Aspatia  now  reveals  her  identity  and 
the  two  lovers  are  for  a  moment  happily  reconciled;  but  her  death  speedily  follows 
and  Amintor  will  not  survive  her.  Melantius  is  prevented  from  following  his  example 
only  by  force  and  threatens  to  die  of  starvation. 

Though  over-sensational  and  lacking  in  consistency  of  characterization  this  play 
includes  situations  not  only  of  tremendous  theatrical  effect  but  of  real  tragic  pathos 
and  horror. 

MAIN  CURRENTS  IN  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LITERATURE,  by  Georg 
Brandes,  a  series  of  lectures  originally  given  in  Danish  at  the  University  of  Copenhag- 
en (published  1 87 1-1890  under  the  title  '  Hovedstromninger  i  det  19  de  aarhundredes 
litteratur';  translated  into  German,  1894-1896  under  the  title  'Hauptstrom- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  533 

ungen  der  Literatur  des  neunzehnten  Jahrhunderts ' ;  and  into  English,  1901-1905). 
The  author's  object  was  to  trace  the  course  of  European  thought  in  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  by  describing  the  most  important  movements  in 
French,  German,  and  English  literature.  In  his  view,  these  exhibit  a  reaction  from 
the  revolutionary  principles  of  the  eighteenth  century,  followed  by  the  gradual 
emergence  of  the  idea  of  progress  in  more  vigorous  form.  Volume  I.,  'The  Emigrant 
Literature,'  illustrates  the  first  reactionary  movement  by  essays  on  Chateaubriand, 
Goethe's  Werther,  Senancour,  and  others.  Volume  II.  is  devoted  to  'The  Romantic 
School  in  Germany'  with  its  strong  Catholic  tendencies,  its  mysticism  and  mediasval- 
ism.  In  Volume  III.,  '  The  Reaction  in  France, '  the  triumph  of  the  Catholic  Reaction 
is  illustrated  by  reference  to  Joseph  de  Maistre,  Lamennais,  Lamartine,  and  Victor 
Hugo,  when  they  supported  the  clerical  party.  Volume  IV., '  Naturalism  in  England, ' 
shows  how  a  naturalistic  revolt  against  convention  in  literature  led  to  a  rebellion 
against  religious  and  political  reaction,  culminating  in  Byron,  who  gave  the  impetus  to 
a  new  progressive  movement  throughout  Europe.  Volume  VI.,  'The  Romantic 
School  in  France,'  illustrates  the  effect  of  this  movement  in  French  Literature,  from 
the  Revolution  of  1830  to  that  of  1848,  discussing  such  writers  as  Lamennais,  Hugo, 
and  Lamartine  in  their  later  phases,  Alfred  de  Musset,  and  George  Sand.  In  Volume 
VII.,  'Young  Germany,'  a  similar  return  to  progressive  ideas  is  traced  in  the  works  of 
men  like  Heine,  Borne,  and  Feuerbach,  who  prepared  for  the  German  uprising  of 
1848.  Brandes  is  a  critic  of  the  school  of  Taine,  and  is  fond  of  tracing  the  inter- 
relations of  literature,  politics,  philosophy,  science,  and  religion.  His  style  is  made 
eminently  readable  by  his  definiteness  of  opinion,  forcefulness  of  statement,  and 
copiousness  of  citation  and  illustration. 

MAINE  WOODS,  THE,  by  Henry  D.  Thoreau,  was  published  in  1864.  When  the 
first  essay  was  written  the  author  was  forty-seven  years  old;  but  the  whole  book, 
while  filled  with  shrewd  philosophic  observations,  has  all  the  youthful  enthusiasm 
of  a  boy's  first  hunting  expedition  into  the  wilds  of  Maine.  And  it  is  this  quality 
that  makes  his  experiences  so  charming  alike  to  young  and  old.  Lowell  says,  "among 
the  pistillate  plants  kindled  to  fruitage  by  Emersonian  pollen,  Thoreau  is  thus  far 
the  most  remarkable,  and  it  is  eminently  fitting  that  his  posthumous  works  should 
be  offered  us  by  Emerson,  for  they  are  strawberries  from  his  own  garden.  A  singular 
mixture  indeed  there  is:  Alpine  some  of  them,  with  the  flavor  of  rare  mountain  air; 
others  wood,  tasting  of  sunny  roadside  banks  or  shy  openings  in  the  forest;  and  not  a 
few  seedlings  swollen  hugely  by  culture,  but  lacking  the  fine  natural  aroma  of  the 
more  modest  kinds.  Strange  books  these  are  of  his,  and  interesting  in  many  ways, 
instructive  chiefly  as  showing  how  considerable  a  crop  may  be  raised  in  a  compara- 
tively narrow  close  of  mind."  If  the  lovers  of  Thoreau  count  this  judgment  as  less 
than  the  truth,  it  nevertheless  contains  a  truth.  These  sketches  treat  of  expeditions 
with  the  Indians  among  Maine  rivers  and  hills,  where  unsophisticated  nature  delights 
the  botanist,  zoologist,  and  social  philosopher.  In  the  first  essay  are  many  shrewd 
comments  upon  the  pioneers  as  he  sees  them.  "The  deeper  you  penetrate  into  the 
woods, "  he  says,  "the  more  intelligent,  and  in  one  sense  the  less  countrified,  do  you 
find  the  inhabitants;  for  always  the  pioneer  has  been  a  traveler  and  to  some  extent 
a  man  of  the  world."  .  .  .  "There  were  the  germs  of  one  or  two  villages  just 
beginning  to  expand."  .  .  .  "The  air  was  a  sort  of  diet-drink!"  .  .  .  "the  lakes, 
a  mirror  broken  into  a  thousand  fragments  and  wildly  scattered  over  the  grass, 
reflecting  the  full  blaze  of  the  sun."  The  book  is  full  of  strange  doings  of  the 
Indians  who  talk  with  the  musquashes  (muskrats)  as  with  friends,  of  the  varied 


534  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

panorama  of  nature  and  the  picturesque  lives  of  the  busy  lumbermen  and  the  hardy 
pioneers. 

MAINTENON,  MADAME  DE,  by  J.  Cotter  Morison  (1885),  is  a  brief  but  capable 
effort  to  extricate  the  memory  of  the  famous  Frenchwoman  from  willful  misrepresen- 
tation, either  by  her  friends  or  by  her  enemies.  This  study  is  a  strong  and  thoughtful 
presentment  of  her  extraordinary  career,  beginning  with  poverty  and  humiliation; 
culminating  as  Queen  of  France,  wife  of  Louis  the  Magnificent;  and  ending  in  digni- 
fied seclusion  at  the  convent  school  of  St.  Cyr,  which  she  herself  had  established  for 
poor  girls  of  noble  birth.  But  it  is  not  mere  narration,  for  Madame  de  Maintenon's 
character  is  drawn  with  sympathy,  and  keen  although  not  obtrusive  psychological 
analysis.  Through  all  her  experiences,  whether  clad  in  sabots  and  guarding  poultry 
for  her  unwilling  guardian  and  aunt,  Madame  de  Neuillant;  or  as  wife  of  the  crippled 
poet  of  burlesque,  Paul  Scarron;  or  in  her  subsequent  glory,  —  she  is  a  shrewd  utili- 
tarian, making  the  best  of  her  present,  and  concerning  herself  little  with  the  future. 
She  successfully  serves  two  masters,  and  by  clever  scheming  and  religious  devotion 
lays  up  treasure  both  in  this  world  and  in  the  next.  Her  friends  have  declared  her  to 
be  an  angel  of  goodness;  her  enemies  have  accused  her  of  great  deceit  and  immorality . 
Both  were  wrong.  She  was  not  passionate  enough  to  be  wicked,  and  her  head  always 
governed  her  heart.  "A  wish  to  stand  well  with  the  world,  and  win  its  esteem,  was 
her  master  passion";  and  her  other  chief  preoccupation  was  with  spiritual  affairs, 
which  she  treats  "as  a  sort  of  prudent  investment,  — a  preparation  against  a  rainy 
day,  which  only  the  thoughtless  could  neglect. "  Her  ruling  characteristics  were  tact 
and  good  sense.  They  showed  her  how  to  make  herself  agreeable,  and  how  to  serve 
other  people;  and  thus  she  gained  the  popularity  she  craved. 

MAISON  DE  PENARVAN,  LA,  see  HOUSE  OF  PENARVAN. 
MAITRE  DES  FORGES,  see  IRONMASTER. 

MAJESTY,  by  Louis  Marie  Anne  Couperus  (1894).  This  is  one  of  the  great  works 
of  modern  Dutch  fiction,  said  to  be  based  on  the  life  of  the  Tsar  of  Russia,  Nicholas 
II.  Othomar,  Crown  prince  of  Liparia,  is  the  son  of  the  Emperor  Oscar  and  his  wife 
Elizabeth.  He  is  a  delicate,  nervous,  morbid,  over-conscientious  boy,  who  loves  his 
people,  but  dreads  the  responsibility  one  day  to  be  his.  Oscar,  on  the  contrary,  is 
confident  that  majesty  is  infallible;  while  Elizabeth  lives  in  constant  terror  of  an 
anarchist's  bomb,  not  for  herself,  but  for  her  husband  and  children.  Othomar  is 
led  into  a  love  affair  by  the  Duchess  of  Yemena,  a  beautiful  coquette,  much  older 
than  himself.  He  falls  ill,  is  sent  away  with  his  cousin  Hermann,  visits  his  grand- 
father (King  of  Denmark)  Siegfried  of  Gothland,  and  is  betrothed  for  state  reasons 
to  the  Archduchess  Valerie.  He  wishes  to  abdicate  in  favor  of  his  younger  brother, 
who  however  dies,  and  he  is  forced  to  take  up  his  burden.  Soon  after  his  marriage, 
his  father  is  assassinated  and  he  is  crowned.  The  story  of  his  noble  deeds  (a  romantic 
forecast)  as  Emperor  is  told  in  a  second  volume,  called  'The  Peace  of  the  World.' 
Couperus  was  the  leader  of  the  Dutch  "  sensitivists "  who  revolutionized  Dutch 
taste  in  the  last  twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century.  '  Majesty '  may  be  regarded 
rather  as  a  prose  poem  than  as  a  novel. 

MAKING  OF  A  MARCHIONESS,  THE,  by  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett  (1901). 
scene  is  laid  in  contemporary  England,  and  the  heroine  is  Emily  Fox-Seton, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  535 

an  amiable  and  unselfish  young  woman  of  good  family  who  is  obliged  to  support 
herself.  She  lives  in  inexpensive  lodgings  spending  her  slender  earnings  to  the  best 
advantage,  and  being  possessed  of  a  sunny  and  cheerful  disposition,  is  contented 
with  her  lot.  To  her  astonishment  and  delight  she  is  invited  by  her  patroness  Lady 
Maria  Bayne  to  make  her  a  visit  at  Mallowe,  her  beautiful  country  seat.  She  is  to 
be  one  of  a  large  house  party  among  whom  is  to  be  the  Marquis  of  Walderness,  who 
is  considered  the  "catch"  of  the  season.  Emily  finds  an  unselfish  happiness  in 
promoting  the  comfort  and  pleasure  of  Lady  Maria's  guests  and  is  untiring  in  her 
efforts  to  add  to  their  enjoyment.  She  keeps  herself  in  the  background  never  dream- 
ing that  she  is  herself  an  object  of  attention,  but  hoping  with  unselfish  interest  that 
the  affections  of  the  Marquis  will  be  won  by  Lady  Agatha  Slade,  a  dainty  and  lovely 
girl,  who  is  anxious  to  win  a  matrimonial  prize.  Nevertheless,  the  Marquis,  who 
prefers  beauty  of  character,  to  external  charms,  is  impressed  by  Emily's  noble  quali- 
ties, and  asks  her  to  be  his  wife.  The  Marquis's  proposal  is  such  a  complete  surprise 
to  Emily  that  at  first  she  cannot  believe  her  good  fortune,  but  he  soon  convinces  her 
that  she  is  really  the  object  of  his  choice  and  she  accepts  him  with  all  the  joy  of  a 
simple  nature.  Lady  Maria  greets  this  unexpected  denouement  with  remarkable 
composure  and  the  story  ends  happily  for  all  concerned. 

MAKING  OF  AN  AMERICAN,  THE,  an  autobiography  by  Jacob  A.  Riis,  was 
published  in  1901,  having  previously  appeared  serially  in  the  New  York  Outlook. 
In  a  delightful  vein  of  conversational  reminiscence  the  author  describes  his  boyhood 
in  the  ancient  Danish  sea-port  of  Ribe,  his  attachment  to  the  girl,  Elizabeth,  who  was 
to  be  his  wife,  his  varied  experiences  in  America  as  factory-workman,  ship-laborer, 
and  canvasser,  with  seasons  of  unemployment  and  tramp  life,  and  his  entrance  into 
journalism  as  reporter,  editor  of  the  Brooklyn  News,  and  police  editor  for  the  Tribune. 
Meanwhile  he  had  revisited  Denmark  and  been  happily  married  to  the  girl  whom  he 
had  loved  from  boyhood.  The  latter  half  of  the  book  describes  his  labors  to  improve 
the  conditions  of  the  New  York  slums,  the  success  of  his  book  'How  the  Other  Half 
Lives '  in  rousing  the  public  to  the  horribly  overcrowded  and  unsanitary  condition  of 
the  tenements,  and  the  destruction  through  his  efforts  of  a  squalid  district  called 
11  Mulberry  Bend, "  which  was  turned  into  a  public  playground.  The  account  of  the 
author's  relations  with  Theodore  Roosevelt,  then  Police  Commissioner  for  New  York, 
and  a  strong  upholder  of  his  efforts,  is  extremely  interesting.  A  charming  account  of  a 
visit  to  the  old  Danish  home  and  of  the  happy  domestic  life  of  the  family  closes  the 
narrative.  There  are  many  illustrations  of  Danish  and  American  persons  and  places 
connected  with  the  author,  and  the  whole  book  has  an  intimate  and  homely  personal 
touch. 

MALADE  IMAGINAIRE,  LE,  by  Moliere.  This  comedy  is  in  three  acts,  and  was 
first  produced  in  Paris  in  1673.  It  was  the  last  work  of  the  author;  and  in  it,  as 
Argan,  he  made  his  last  appearance  on  the  stage.  Argan,  who  imagines  himself  ill,  is 
completely  under  the  dominion  of  Monsieur  Purgon  his  physician.  By  his  advice,  he 
wishes  to  marry  his  daughter  Ange*lique  to  Thomas  Diafoirus,  a  young  booby,  just 
graduated  as  a  doctor.  Beline,  his  second  wife,  wishes  him  to  oblige  both  of  his 
daughters  to  become  nuns,  that  she  may  inherit  his  property.  Ange"lique  is  at  first 
pleased,  thinking  that  he  wishes  her  to  marry  Cle"ante  with  whom  she  is  in  love. 
Argan  insists  upon  the  marriage  with  Thomas,  whose  studied  oratorical  speeches 
entirely  captivate  him. 

Be"ralde,  the  brother  of  Argan,  pleads  for  Cle*ante,  and  tries  to  convince  his  brother 


536  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

of  the  charlatanism  of  his  doctors  and  the  selfish  designs  of  his  wife.  Argan  is  deaf 
to  all  reason ;  but  to  please  his  brother,  asks  the  apothecary  to  defer  the  administering 
of  an  injection.  Purgon  is  indignant  at  this  "crime  of  Lese  Faculte", "  and  to  Argan's 
great  despair,  declines  to  treat  him  longer.  Toinette,  a  servant-girl,  disguised  as  a 
traveling  physician,  examines  into  his  case,  and  tells  him  the  diagnosis  of  Purgon  was 
entirely  erroneous.  In  her  proper  character  she  defends  Byline,  and  to  prove  to 
Beralde  that  his  opinion  of  her  is  false,  asks  Argan  to  counterfeit  death.  He  does  so, 
and  learns  the  true  character  of  his  wife  and  Angelique's  love  for  him. 

He  consents  to  her  marriage  with  Cle"ante,  with  the  proviso  that  he  shall  become  a 
physician.  Beralde  suggests  that  Argan  himself  become  one,  assuring  him  that  with 
the  bonnet  and  gown  come  Latin  and  knowledge.  He  consents,  and  by  a  crowd  of 
carnival  masqueraders  is  made  a  member  of  the  Faculty.  To  the  questions  as  to 
what  treatment  is  necessary  in  several  cases,  he  replies :  "Injection  first,  blood-letting 
next,  purge  next. "  He  takes  the  oaths  to  obey  the  laws  of  the  Faculty,  to  be  in  all 
cases  of  the  ancient  opinion,  be  it  good  or  bad,  and  to  use  only  the  remedies  pres- 
cribed by  the  Faculty,  even  though  his  patient  should  die  of  his  illness.  It  was  when 
responding  "  Juro"  (I  swear),  to  one  of  these  questions,  that  Moliere  was  attacked  by 
a  fit  of  coughing,  causing  the  rupture  of  a  blood-vessel,  from  the  effects  of  which  he 
died  a  few  hours  later.  . 

MALAY  ARCHIPELAGO,  THE,  by  Alfred  Russel  Wallace  (1869),  is  divided  into 
five  sections,  each  of  which  treats  of  a  naturalist's  travels  and  observations  in  one  of 
the  groups  of  the  Malay  Archipelago.  The  sections  are  named:  'The  Indo-Malay 
Islands,'  'The  Timor  Group,'  'Celebes,1  'The  Moluccan  Group,'  and  'The  Papuan 
Group.'  The  author  traveled  more  than  fourteen  thousand  miles  within  the  Archi- 
pelago, making  sixty  or  seventy  separate  journeys,  and  collecting  over  125,000  speci- 
mens of  natural  history,  covering  about  eight  thousand  species. 

The  records  of  these  journeys,  which  are  arranged  with  reference  to  material 
collected,  instead  of  to  chronology,  are  delightful.  Besides  the  valuable  scientific 
notes,  there  are  most  interesting  accounts  of  the  islanders  and  the  dwellers  on  the 
neighboring  mainland,  their  manners  and  customs.  The  style  is  felicitous,  making  a 
scientific  treatise  as  fascinating  to  read  as  a  story. 

MALAYSIA  AND  THE  PACIFIC  ARCHIPELAGOES,  see  AUSTRALASIA. 

MAN  AND  NATURE;  or,  PHYSICAL  GEOGRAPHY  AS  MODIFIED  BY  HUMAN  ACTION. 
By  George  Perkins  Marsh  (1864).  A  work  of  great  research  and  admirable  exposi- 
tion of  interesting  facts;  showing  how  human  action,  such  as  the  clearing  away  of 
forests,  the  drainage  of  land,  the  creation  of  systems  of  irrigation,  etc.,  very  greatly 
modifies  the  conditions  belonging  to  the  surface  of  the  earth.  Not  only  are  the 
matters  treated  of  great  practical  importance,  but  the  pictures  of  conditions  and 
changes  in  different  lands,  and  over  the  many  varieties  of  the  earth's  surface,  are 
very  entertaining.  The  work  became  at  once  a  standard  with  international  recogni- 
tion; a  considerably  enlarged  Italian  edition  was  issued  at  Florence  in  1870;  and  a 
second  American  edition,  with  further  changes,  appeared  in  1874.  In  this  final  form 
the  title  was  altered  to  'The  Earth  as  Modified  by  Human  Action.'  The  earlier 
title  was  peculiarly  appropriate;  as  it  is  not  the  earth  only  which  the  modifications 
by  the  hand  of  man  reach,  but  the  course  of  nature,  climate  for  example,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  earth,  or  vegetation  wholly  created  by  human  action.  In  every  way  the 
book  is  a  most  suggestive  one. 


THE   READER  S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  537 

MAN  AND  SUPERMAN;  a  comedy  and  a  philosophy,  by  Bernard  Shaw  (1903). 
Jack  Tanner  is  Shaw's  whimsical  and  paradoxical  conception  of  the  modern  Don 
Juan,  no  longer  the  huntsman  in  the  duel  of  sex  but  the  helpless  quarry.  An  attrac- 
tive young  English  girl,  Ann  Whitefield,  decides  to  marry  Tanner.  Her  first  step 
toward  her  "marked  down  victim"  is  to  have  him  appointed  her  guardian  by  her 
father's  will.  Tanner  objects  violently  to  this  responsibility,  but  predicts  that  Ann 
will  do  exactly  as  she  likes,  and  she  does  like  that  "dear  father's  will"  be  carried  out. 
He  is  panic-stricken  when  'Enery,  his  chauffeur,  opens  his  eyes  to  Ann's  real  inten- 
tions. Tanner  considers  his  only  hope  of  escape  from  marriage,  the  loss  of  his  free- 
dom, and  individuality,  is  flight.  He  dashes  off  to  Europe  in  his  motor  car,  seeking  a 
"  Mohammedan  country  where  men  are  protected  from  women. "  Ann,  with  a  party 
of  friends,  pursues  him  in  another  car.  The  destined  husband- to-be  struggles  in  vain 
when  Ann  overtakes  him  in  the  mountains  of  Spain.  He  denounces  her  as  a  vampire, 
and  declares  he  will  not  marry.  Ann  triumphs,  because  she  is  Everywoman,  the  Life 
Force  incarnate,  the  instrument  of  Nature  who  brooks  no  defeat.  The  unwilling 
Tanner  surrenders  to  the  Life  Force.  The  play  gives  the  author  opportunity  for  the 
expression  of  amusingly  brilliant  talk  against  existing  social  institutions.  An  inter- 
lude reprinted  in  part  in  the  LIBRARY  is  Tanner's  dream,  in  which  he  plays  the  part 
of  Don  Juan  Tenorio,  while  the  other  characters  appear  in  other  r61es  of  the  Don 
Juan  legend. 

MAN  AND  WOMAN,  'A  Study  of  Human  Secondary  Sexual  Characters,'  by 
Havelock  Ellis,  was  first  published  in  1894,  in  the  'Contemporary  Science  Series/  of 
which  he  is  the  editor.  This  impartial,  detailed,  and  accurate  comparison  of  the 
physical  and  mental  qualities  of  the  two  sexes  is  of  high  value  to  all  who  are  interested 
in  the  social  and  economic  problems  connected  with  the  position  of  woman.  After 
tracing  the  history  of  woman  from  savage  days  when  she  was  a  slave  and  a  chattel, 
through  mediaeval  times,  when  she  was  regarded  as  a  necessary  evil,  down  to  the 
modern  period  of  relative  social  equality  the  author  proceeds  to  inquire  what  are  the 
permanent  distinctions  between  the  sexes,  confining  himself  to  the  secondary  sexual 
characteristics  (i.  e.  those  not  directly  connected  with  sexual  reproduction).  Taking 
the  child  and  the  ape  as  standards  of  comparison  he  points  out  that  women  develop 
more  rapidly  than  men  but  stop  at  an  earlier  stage,  resembling  that  of  the  infant. 
This  is  no  disparagement,  however,  as  man's  growth  approximates  him  more  closely 
to  the  ape.  Though  man  is  larger  and  stronger  than  woman,  the  formation  of  his 
skeleton  is  not  markedly  different  from  hers  except  in  the  case  of  the  thigh-bone  and, 
to  some  extent,  of  the  pelvis.  Man's  brain  is  not  relatively  heavier  than  woman's. 
Contrary  to  the  usual  view  woman's  senses  are  less  keen  than  man's,  and  women  can 
endure  a  greater  amount  of  pain.  The  popular  mistake  is  due  to  the  fact  that  sensi- 
bility is  confused  with  affectability.  Women  perceive  less  quickly  but  react  more 
strongly  to  perceptions  and  suggestions.  Hence  they  are  more  emotional,  more 
subject  to  hypnotism  and  nervous  affections  than  men.  As  manual  workers  men 
surpass  women  in  rapidity  and  perhaps  in  dexterity.  Intellectually,  women  are  more 
precocious  and  quicker  than  men,  who  are  slower  but  more  logical,  and  more  capable 
of  abstract  thought.  In  business  women  are  more  docile  and  industrious  than  men. 
Woman's  proverbial  tendency  to  concealment  and  deception  is,  according  to  Mr. 
Ellis,  a  fact  attributable  to  her  restricted  social  position,  to  her  comparative  physical 
weakness,  to  her  sense  of  modesty,  and  tb,  the  maternal  instinct  of  protection.  "The 
artistic  impulse  is  vastly  more  spontaneous,  more  pronounced,  and  more  widely 
spread  among  men  than  among  women"  although  the  latter  excel  in  the 


538  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  more  interpretative  forms  of  art,  as  novel-writing  and  acting.  Man,  finally,  is 
more  variable  than  woman,  producing  more  abnormalities,  both  geniuses  and  idiots ; 
woman  is  more  affectible  than  man,  and  hence  more  emotional  and  sensitive. 
11  Woman  is  not  undeveloped  man,  but  diverse."  Her  different  organization  must 
be  recognized  as  equally  valuable  with  man's  and  equally  entitled  to  development. 
The  book  is  eminently  fair  and  reasonable  and  free  from  arbitrary  conclusions. 
Evidence  is  given  in  support  of  direct  assertions,  and  where  testimony  is  weak  or 
conflicting  that  fact  is  noted. 

MAN  FROM  GLENGARRY,  THE,  by  Ralph  Connor  (1901).  This  is  a  tale 
of  the  life  among  the  Canadian  lumbermen,  of  their  toil  in  the  great  forest  and 
their  work  of  floating  the  timber  down  the  rivers.  The  book  opens  with  a  vivid 
description  of  a  fight  between  "Murphy's  gang"  and  that  of  Macdonald,  at  a  tavern 
where  the  rival  lumbermen  are  assembled.  In  this  fight,  "Black  Hugh"  Macdonald 
is  fatally  injured  and  one  of  the  motives  of  the  story  is  the  subduing  of  his  intense 
desire  to  be  revenged  upon  his  enemy  Le  Noir.  His  son  Ranald  Macdonald,  "The 
Man  from  Glengarry, "  takes  up  the  feud  and  the  author  depicts  the  mental  conflict 
which  he  undergoes  before  he  rises  to  the  height  of  saving  the  life  of  his  mortal  foe. 
The  character  of  Mrs.  Murray,  the  wife  of  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  minister,  is 
interestingly  presented  in  the  description  of  her  religious  influence  over  Ranald 
Macdonald  and  the  other  rough  lumbermen,  "a  hundred  of  whom  are  ready  to  die 
for  her. "  The  story  traces  the  development  of  Ranald's  character  from  his  introduc- 
tion as  a  lad  of  seventeen  years,  at  the  tavern  brawl,  through  many  thrilling  adven- 
tures in  the  woods  and  on  the  river,  up  to  the  time  that  he  becomes  the  educated  and 
successful  manager  of  the  British  American  Coal  and  Lumber  Company.  The 
religious  element  in  the  book  is  a  strong  one  and  predominates  over  that  of  the  love 
theme.  Ranald's  wild  nature  is  strongly  influenced  by  his  love  for  the  beautiful  but 
ambitious  Maimie  St.  Clair,  whose  life  he  saves,  and  who  accepts  his  boyish  devotion, 
but  who  later  turns  from  him  in  order  to  make  a  brilliant  match.  Ranald  in  the  end 
finds  his  true  affinity  in  the  loyal  and  sprightly  Kate  Raymond,  Maimie  St.  Clair's 
intimate  friend.  The  story  has  much  force  and  graphic  quality  and  the  picture  of  the 
sturdy  Glengarry  men,  led  by  the  moral  and  physical  giant  Macdonald  Bhain,  is 
truthful  and  convincing,  as  are  the  descriptions  of  life  in  the  backwoods  and  on  the 
river. 

MAN  OF  FEELING,  A,  by  Henry  Mackenzie.  This  short  novel,  published  anony- 
mously in  1771,  is  said  to  have  created  as  much  interest  in  England,  when  first 
published,  as  did  '  La  Nouvelle  Heloise '  in  France.  It  is  remarkable  for  its  perspi- 
cuity of  style;  though  it  shows  the  influence  which  Sterne  exercised  over  the  author. 
Endeavoring  to  profit  by  the  fact  that  the  author  was  unknown,  a  clergyman  of  Bath, 
Mr.  Eccles,  claimed  to  be  the  author,  presenting  a  manuscript  with  corrections,  era- 
sures, etc.  Although  the  publisher  then  announced  the  name  of  the  real  author,  on 
Eccles's  tomb  is  inscribed:  "Beneath  this  stone,  the  Man  of  Feeling  lies/'  The 
story  purports  to  be  the  remainder  of  a  manuscript  left  after  the  curate  had  extracted 
several  leaves  at  random  for  gun-wadding.  Young  Harley,  who  is  in  love  with  his 
neighbor's  daughter,  Miss  Walton,  sets  out  for  London  with  the  object  of  acquiring 
the  lease  of  an  adjoining  property.  His  experiences  on  the  trip  make  up  several  short 
stories.  He  is  a  great  physiognomist,  but  is  deceived  by  two  plausible  gamblers.  He 
visits  Bedlam  Hospital;  and  the  pitiable  sights  there  seen  are  described.  A  very 
interesting  chapter  is  that  describing  a  dinner  with  a  Misanthrope,  in  which  the 


THE   READER  S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS  539 

ktter's  complaints  of  his  time  seem  to  be  the  sempiternal  ones  of  all  nations.  The 
story  of  his  meeting  with  Miss  Atkins,  her  rescue  from  a  brothel  and  return  to  her 
father,  is  skillfully  told.  The  cruelties  of  the  press-gang,  and  of  the  treatment  of 
East-Indian  subjects,  afford  an  opportunity  for  the  "Man  of  Feeling"  to  condemn 
the  East-Indian  policy  of  the  government.  Upon  his  return,  believing  that  Miss 
Walton  is  to  marry  another,  he  falls  ill.  She  visits  him;  but  her  acknowledgment 
that  she  returns  his  affection  does  not  come  soon  enough  to  save  his  life. 

MAN  OF  THE  HOUR,  THE,  by  Octave  Thanet  (1905).  This  story  deals  with  the 
labor  problem  and  with  socialistic  efforts  to  solve  it.  The  hero  of  the  tale  is  John 
Ivan  Winslow,  the  only  son  of  a  Russian  mother  and  an  American  father.  As  a  child 
he  is  sensitive  and  impressionable  and  imbibes  the  nihilistic  views  of  his  mother  who 
is  strongly  in  sympathy  with  her  oppressed  people.  Before  her  marriage  Mrs. 
Winslow  had  been  the  Princess  Olga  Galitsuin  and  had  met  her  husband  when  he 
was  on  a  business  trip  to  Russia.  Not  till  after  their  marriage  did  Mr.  Winslow 
discover  his  wife's  socialistic  tendencies,  and  these  in  connection  with  her  imprac- 
ticability and  foreign  ways  caused  unhappiness  between  them  which  led  finally  to 
their  separation.  This  was  a  great  source  of  sorrow  to  Johnny-Ivan,  as  our  hero  was 
called,  and  the  departure  of  his  beautiful  mother  across  the  sea  and  her  subsequent 
death  almost  broke  his  heart.  Mr.  Winslow  had  married  a  second  wife,  who  was  a 
noble  woman,  but  John-Ivan  had  steeled  his  heart  against  her;  after  his  father's 
death,  which  occurs  after  his  leaving  college,  he  is  incensed  at  the  division  of  the 
property.  John-Ivan  is  left  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  while  the  rest  of  the  large 
fortune  goes  to  his  stepmother,  but  this  legacy  is  soon  dissipated  as  he  scatters  it 
broadcast  in  his  effort  to  aid  suffering  humanity.  At  the  end  of  a  year  John- 1  van 
is  penniless  and  seeks  employment  as  a  common  workman  in  a  factory.  He  sees  life 
in  all  its  phases,  suffers  many  hardships,  and  meets  with  injuries  and  misfortunes. 
During  this  time  his  stepmother  and  his  sweetheart,  Peggy  Rutherford,  have  been 
doing  everything  in  their  power  to  find  him,  but  he  has  purposely  hidden  his  identity. 
Peggy  finally  discovers  his  whereabouts  and  corresponds  with  him  under  the  assumed 
name  of  Roger  Mack,  a  boy  he  had  once  befriended.  At  length  John-Ivan  returns  to 
his  father's  factory  in  order  to  assist  in  suppressing  a  labor  uprising  and  is  shot  and 
seriously  wounded.  Upon  his  recovery  his  stepmother  gives  him  a  letter  written  by 
his  father  before  his  death,  telling  him  that  the  legacy  was  given  him  as  an  experiment 
and  the  whole  fortune  is  to  be  his  eventually.  By  this  time  John-Ivan  has  realized 
the  futility  of  his  socialistic  efforts  and  is  ready  to  begin  life  anew  with  the  faithful 
Peggy  as  his  helpmate, 

MAN  ON  THE  BOX,  THE,  by  Harold  MacGrath  (1904).  Robert  Warburton,  the 
hero  of  this  tale,  handsome  and  fascinating,  and  of  independent  fortune,  resigns  his 
commission  in  the  United  States  Army  owing  to  a  wound  from  an  Indian  bullet,  which 
incapacitates  him  from  service.  He  travels  abroad,  and  one  day  in  Paris  is  struck  by 
the  charm  and  beauty  of  an  American  girl  whom  he  sees  in  a  steamship  office  arrang- 
ing for  passage  home,  and  he  immediately  books  himself  for  the  same  steamer.  He 
does  not  succeed  in  meeting  the  object  of  his  admiration  during  the  voyage  as  she  and 
her  lather  are  very  exclusive  and  avoid  introductions.  However,  he  learns  that  she 
is  Miss  Betty  Annesley,  an  heiress,  and  her  father,  Colonel  Annesley,  recently  retired 
from  a  responsible  position  in  the  War  Department.  Warburton  goes  to  his  brother's 
house  in  Washington  and  discovers  that  his  sister  Nancy  is  well  acquainted  with  the 
Annesleys  who  are  living  in  the  same  city.  The  evening  of  his  arrival,  in  order  to 


54O  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

play  a  joke  on  his  sister,  he  dresses  in  the  clothes  of  the  groom  and  plans  to  drive  the 
family  home  from  a  reception.  By  mistake  he  gets  the  wrong  carriage,  drives  the 
occupants  at  breakneck  speed,  and  wLen  terrified  they  call  on  him  to  stop,  he  jumps 
down  and  kisses  the  young  lady  who  alights,  who  proves  to  be  Miss  Annesley.  She 
has  him  arrested  and  he  spends  the  night  in  jail,  but  the  next  morning  she  pays  his 
fine  and  offers  him  a  groom's  position  wiih  her.  He  accepts  and  does  the  menial  work 
that  falls  to  his  share,  becoming  meanwhile  more  and  more  deeply  in  love  with  her. 
Colonel  Annesley  has,  by  gaming,  lost  his  daughter's  fortune  and  to  retrieve  it  has 
agreed  to  sell  plans  of  his  country's  fortifications  to  a  Russian,  Count  Karloff,  who 
threatens  to  make  the  treachery  kno^n  unless  Betty  agrees  to  marry  him.  At  the 
critical  moment  Warburton  interferes  find  saves  the  day.  Betty,  who  has  penetrated 
his  disguise,  owns  up  to  her  share  of  the  deception  and  gives  him  her  love  for  which 
he  has  not  dared  to  hope. 

MANDEVILLE,  SIR  JOHN,  see  THE  TRAVELS  OF. 

MANNEQUIN  D'OSIER,  LE,  see  L'HISTOIRE  CONTEMPORAINE. 

MANON  LESCATJT,  by  L'Abbe"  Prevost.  This  masterpiece  was  first  published  in 
Amsterdam  in  1753,  when  its  authoi  was  in  exile.  When  but  seventeen  years  old,  the 
Chevalier  Des  Grieux,  who  is  stud}  ing  for  holy  orders,  meets  Manon  Lescaut  at  an 
inn.  She  tells  him  she  is  being  carried  to  a  convent  against  her  will.  They  elope;  but 
Des  Grieux's  happiness  is  of  short  duration.  A  rich  neighbor  informs  his  parents  of 
his  whereabouts,  and  his  father  takes  him  home.  Convinced  of  Manon 's  complicity 
in  this,  he  resumes  his  studies.  At  the  end  of  eighteen  months,  Manon,  then  sixteen 
years  old,  seeks  him  out,  and  they  again  elope. 

When  all  their  money  is  spent,  he  resorts  to  gambling,  and  she  to  the  life  of  a 
courtesan.  At  this  time,  a  wealthy  prince  offers  to  marry  her;  but  pulling  Des 
Grieux  into  the  room,  and  giving  the  prince  a  mirror,  she  says:  "This  is  the  man  I 
love.  Look  in  the  glass,  and  tell  me  if  you  think  it  likely  that  I  shall  give  him  up  for 
you." 

Soon  after,  they  are  both  imprisoned.  Des  Grieux  escapes,  killing  a  man  in  so 
doing,  and  then  assists  Manon  to  escape.  Dazzled  by  the  offers  of  the  son  of  her 
former  lover,  she  leaves  Des  Grieux  again.  He  finds  his  way  to  her,  and  is  about  to 
decamp  with  her  and  the  riches  which  her  last  lover  has  showered  upon  her,  when  they 
are  again  arrested.  By  his  father's  influence  he  is  released,  but  Manon  is  sent  to 
America,  and  he  goes  with  her  on  the  same  ship,  which  lands  them  in  Louisiana. 
They  are  supposed  by  the  Governor  to  be  man  and  wife,  and  are  treated  as  such.  Des 
Grieux  is  about  to  marry  Manon,  and  tells  the  Governor  the  truth  of  their  relations; 
but  Synnelet,  the  Governor's  nephew,  falls  in  love  with  Manon,  and  the  Governor 
lorbids  the  banns.  Des  Grieux  and  Synnelet  fight,  and  the  latter  is  wounded.  The 
lovers  try  to  make  their  way  to  the  English  settlements,  but  Manon  dies,  and  Des 
Grieux  buries  her  in,  the  woods  and  lies  down  on  her  grave  to  die.  He  is 
found,  accused  of  her  murder,  but  acquitted  and  returns  to  France  to  find  his 
father  dead. 

It  is  difficult  to  give  any  idea  of  the  charm  with  which  the  author  has  enveloped 
these  characters,  and  the  censors  of  the  book  allege  that  in  this  very  charm  lies  its 
insidiousness.  It  is  a  classic,  and  has  served  as  model  for  many  other  books;  some 
writers  claiming  that  the  authors  of  'Paul  and  Virginia,' ' Atala,'  and  'Carmen'  have 
*7ut  clothed  Des  Grieux  and  Manon  in  other  garments. 


THE   READER  S   DIGEST  OF   BOOKS  541 

MANU,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 
MANUAL  of  Epictetus,  see  MORALS. 

MANXMAN,  THE,  by  Hall  Caine,  is  a  present-day  romance,  the  scene  of  which  is 
the  Isle  of  Man.  It  was  published  in  1894;  and  was  the  most  successful  of  the 
author's  novels  up  to  that  time.  Old  Iron  Christian,  Deemster  Cor  Judge)  of  the  Isle, 
has  two  sons,  Thomas  and  Peter.  The  elder,  Thomas,  marries  below  him  and  i? 
disinherited.  He  dies,  leaving  a  son,  Philip,  who  is  reared  in  the  Deemster's  house. 
The  younger,  Peter,  has  an  illegitimate  son,  Peter  Quilliam,  who  loves  pretty  Kate 
Cregeen,  daughter  of  an  innkeeper.  The  two  lads  grow  up  together  as  sworn  friends. 
Peter  and  Elate  are  sweethearts,  but  her  father  objects  to  him  because  of  his  birth 
and  poverty.  Pete  goes  off  to  make  his  fortune,  leaving  Kate  in  Philip's  charge. 
Philip,  during  his  absence,  wins  her  love  and  betrays  her.  Meanwhile  tidings  come  of 
Pete's  death.  Philip  cares  for  Kate,  but  feels  that  she  is  in  the  way  of  his  ambition 
to  become  Deemster.  He  tells  her  that  they  must  part;  and  on  the  return  of  Pete, 
who  was  falsely  reported  dead,  she  marries  the  latter  out  of  pique,  hoping  until  the 
last  that  Philip  will  interfere  and  marry  her  himself.  She  has  a  child  by  her  husband, 
but  is  tortured  by  the  thought  that  it  may  be  Philip's.  The  shame  of  her  loveless 
marriage  nearly  drives  her  crazy;  and  on  Philip's  return  from  abroad  she  runs  away 
on  the  very  day  that  he  becomes  Deemster,  to  live  with  him  secretly,  under  an 
assumed  name.  The  blow  well-nigh  crushes  Pete  when  he  returns  to  the  empty  house. 
He  does  not  suspect  that  she  has  joined  Philip;  whom  he  tells  that,  solicitous  for  her 
health,  he  has  sent  her  to  England.  To  guard  her  good  name  he  even  receives  mock 
letters  from  her,  written  by  himself.  Philip  represents  to  Pete  that  she  is  dead.  The 
husband  never  learns  the  truth,  but  leaves  the  island  forever,  placing  the  boy  in 
Philip's  keeping.  Their  guilty  union  so  preys  upon  the  conscience  of  both  Philip  and 
Kate,  however,  that  the  woman  at  last  leaves  him,  and  Philip  offers  what  restitution 
he  can.  He  makes  a  public  declaration  of  his  sin,  resigns  his  high  office,  and  takes  in 
his  own  the  hand  of  the  woman  he  has  loved  and  wronged,  that  they  may  begin  life 
openly  together.  With  this  dramatic  scene  of  the  confession  the  story  closes. 

MARBLE  FAUN,  THE,  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  (1860).  This  is  the  last  complete 
romance  by  the  author,  and  was  thought  by  him  to  be  his  best.  It  was  composed 
carefully  and  maturely,  Hawthorne  not  having  published  anything  for  seven  years; 
and  appeared  simultaneously  in  Boston  and  London  under  different  titles.  The 
original  name  proposed  was  'The  Transformation  of  the  Faun,'  shortened  by  the 
English  publisher  into  'Transformation,'  and  changed  in  America  by  Hawthorne  to 
1  The  Marble  Faun.'  The  scene  is  laid  in  Rome;  the  chief  characters,  four  in  number, 
are  introduced  together  in  the  first  chapter:  Kenyon,  an  American  sculptor;  Hilda 
and  Miriam,  art  students;  and  Count  Donatello,  an  Italian  friend.  Hilda,  blonde 
and  gentle,  with  New  England  training  and  almost  Puritanic  feeling,  is  beloved  by 
Kenyon.  Miriam,  dark  and  passionate,  is  admired  by  Donatello.  An  accidental 
resemblance  of  Donatello  to  the  famous  Faun  of  Praxiteles  is  used  by  the  author  to 
picture  a  corresponding  human  character,  —  beautiful,  but  heedless  and  morally 
unconscious,  until  brought  into  contact  with  sin  and  suffering.  This  "transforma- 
tion" is  occasioned  by  the  persecution  of  Miriam  by  a  mysterious  person,  accidentally 
encountered  in  the  Catacombs,  who  thereafter  attaches  himself  to  her,  haunts  her, 
and  dogs  her  footsteps.  He  finally  intrudes  himself  upon  her  during  a  moonlight 
excursion  to  the  Capitoline  Hill:  when  Donatello,  enraged  beyond  endurance  and 


542  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

encouraged  by  a  glance  from  Miriam,  grasps  him  and  flings  him  from  the  Tarpeian 
rock  to  his  death.  From  that  instant  Miriam  and  Donatello  become  linked  together 
by  their  guilty  secret;  and  the  happy,  heedless,  faunlike  Donatello  becomes  the 
remorseful,  conscience-stricken  man.  Hilda,  meanwhile,  is  involved  in  the  catas- 
trophe. She  has  seen  the  deed  committed,  and  is  overwhelmed;  she  can  neither  keep 
nor  betray  her  terrible  secret,  and  breaking  down  under  the  weight  of  its  oppression, 
the  Puritan  maiden  seeks  the  bosom  of  the  Roman  Church  and  pours  out  her  secret 
at  the  confessional.  In  the  end  Donatello  gives  himself  up  to  justice,  Hilda  and 
Kenyon  are  married,  and  the  unhappy  Miriam  disappears.  The  underlying  interest 
of  the  book  rests  in  the  searching  analysis  of  the  effect  of  the  murder  upon  the  charac- 
ters of  those  involved  in  the  deed.  Donatello  is  awakened  from  a  blissfully  immature 
unconsciousness  of  the  world  into  a  stern  realization  of  crime,  and  its  consequences, 
remorse  and  suffering;  while  Hilda  is  crushed  with  a  sense  of  the  wickedness  which 
has  been  thrust  upon  her  innocent  vision.  Incidentally  the  book  is  filled  with  the 
spirit  of  Rome  and  with  Roman  sights  and  impressions,  which  have  made  it  the 
inseparable  manual  of  every  sojourner  in  the  "Eternal  City";  to  each  and  all  of 
whom  is  pointed  out  "Hilda's  tower,"  where  she  kept  the  legendary  lamp  burning 
before  the  shrine,  and  fed  the  doves,  until  the  day  when  another's  crime  drove  her 
from  her  maiden  refuge. 

MARCELLA,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  is  the  writer's  fourth  novel,  and  was  pub- 
lished in  1894,  when  she  was  forty-three  years  of  age.  It  is  the  story  of  the  life  of 
the  heroine  from  her  girlhood,  when  she  has  vague  dreams  of  social  amelioration,  is 
ignorant  of  facts  and  unjustly  impatient  with  the  existing  order,  especially  with  the 
upper  classes.  The  story  opens  with  scenes  amidst  the  country  gentry  and  their 
dependents.  Marcella  becomes  engaged  to  Aldous  Raeburn,  the  son  of  a  nobleman, 
but  breaks  the  engagement,  partly  through  the  influence  of  Wharton,  a  brilliant 
socialistic  demagogue.  She  goes  to  the  city,  and  by  her  intercourse  with  the  poor, 
through  her  work  as  a  trained  nurse,  she  learns  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  enforced 
social  reform,  and  gradually  comes  to  a  clearer  appreciation  of  her  early  mistakes  and 
the  noble  character  of  Aldous;  with  the  result  that  *he  finally  returns  to  him.  The 
novel  contains  graphic  sketches  of  the  state  of  the  lower  classes  in  England,  rural  and 
urban,  one  of  the  dramatic  incidents  of  the  plot  being  the  trial  and  execution  of  the 
poacher  Hurd.  The  scenes  in  Parliament,  too,  where  Wharton 's  knavery  is  exposed, 
are  powerfully  realistic  and  effective.  Marcella  evolves  into  a  noble  type  of  the  higher 
womanhood,  and  the  story  is  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  successful  Mrs.  Ward 
has  written. 

MARCO  POLO,  see  TRAVELS  OF. 

MARGARET  OGILVY,  by  Sir  J.  M.  Barrie  (1896).  This  is  Barrie's  loving  tribute 
to  the  memory  of  his  fond  mother,  who,  according  to  an  old  Scotch  custom,  was 
called  by  her  maiden  name,  Margaret  Ogilvy.  "God  sent  her  into  the  world,"  he 
says,  "to  open  the  minds  of  all  who  looked  to  beautiful  thoughts."  Margaret  was 
a  great  reader;  she  would  read  at  odd  moments,  and  complete,  the  'Decline  and  Fall' 
in  a  single  winter.  It  was  her  delight  to  learn  scraps  of  Horace  from  her  son,  and 
then  bring  them  into  her  conversation  with  "colleged  men. " 

Barrie,  after  leaving  the  university,  enters  journalism,  and  his  proud  mother 
cherishes  every  scrap  he  has  written.  She  laughs  when  she  sees  the  title  of  'An  Auld 
Licht  Community '  in  a  London  paper,  and  is  eager  to  know  if  her  son  receives  pay 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  543 

for  such  an  article,  being  greatly  amazed  to  learn  that  this  is  the  best  remunerated 
of  all  his  writing.  "It's  dreary,  weary,  up-hill  work,  but  I've  wrastled  through  with 
tougher  jobs  in  my  time,  and  please  God,  I'll  wrastle  through  with  this  one,"  said  a 
devout  lady  to  whom  some  one  had  presented  one  of  Barrie's  books.  He  feared  that 
his  mother  wrestled  with  his  writings  in  the  same  spirit. 

Margaret  was  a  great  admirer  of  Carlyle,  but  her  verdict  of  him  was  "  I  would 
rather  have  been  his  mother  than  his  wife."  She  always  spoke  of  "that  Stevenson" 
with  a  sneer,  but  could  not  resist  reading  'Treasure  Island'  and  his  other  books. 
Barrie  asks,  "What  is  there  about  the  man  that  so  infatuates  the  public?"  His 
mother's  loyal  reply  is,  "He  takes  no  hold  of  me;  I  would  hantle  rather  read  your 
books. "  Margaret  is  greatly  pleased  and  very  proud  to  find  herself  so  often  depicted 
in  her  son's  books.  She  affects  not  to  recognize  it,  but  would  give  herself  away  un- 
consciously. She  says,  chuckling,  "He  tries  to  keep  me  out,  but  he  canna;  it's  more 
than  he  can  do." 

At  the  ripe  age  of  seventy-five,  Margaret  Ogilvy  peacefully  passed  away.  Her 
last  words  were  "God"  and  "love"';  and  her  son  adds,  "I  think  God  was  smiling 
when  he  took  her  to  him,  as  he  had  so  often  smiled  at  her  during  these  seventy-six 
years. " 

MARIUS,  THE  EPICUREAN,  a  philosophical  romance  by  Walter  Pater,  and  his 
first  important  work,  was  published  in  1885.  The  book  has  but  a  shadowy  plot. 
It  is,  as  the  sub-title  declares,  a  record  of  the  hero's  "sensations  and  ideas, "  a  history 
of  a  spiritual  journey.  Marius  is  a  young  Roman  noble,  of  the  time  of  Marcus  Au- 
relius.  Like  the  philosophic  emperor  himself,  he  is  the  embodiment  of  the  finer  forces 
of  his  day;  his  temperament  being  at  once  a  repository  of  the  true  Roman  greatness 
of  the  past,  and  a  prophecy  of  the  Christian  disposition  of  the  New  Rome.  He  seeks 
satisfaction  for  the  needs  of  his  soul  in  philosophy,  the  finer  sort  of  epicureanism,  that 
teaches  him  to  enjoy  what  this  world  has  to  offer,  but  to  enjoy  with  a  certain  aloofness 
of  spirit,  a  kind  of  divine  indifference.  In  his  earliest  manhood  he  goes  to  Rome, 
meets  there  the  philosophic  emperor,  mingles  in  the  highly  colored  life  of  the  time, 
studies,  observes,  reflects.  His  closest  friend  is  Cornelius  of  the  imperial  guard,  a 
Christian  who  loves  Marius  as  one  in  spirit  a  brother  Christian.  Through  association 
with  Cornelius,  and  by  the  law  of  his  own  character,  Marius  is  drawn  into  sympathy 
with  the  new  religion;  yet,  as  becomes  one  who  shares  the  indifference  of  the  gods,  he 
makes  no  open  profession:  but  at  a  critical  moment  he  lays  down  his  life  for  his 
friend. 

'Marius,  the  Epicurean,'  is  a  remarkable  story  of  spiritual  development,  as  well  as 
of  the  strange,  luxurious,  decaying  Rome  of  the  second  century  of  the  Christian  era. 
Pater  has  drawn  this  panoramic  background  with  the  accuracy  of  the  scholar  and  the 
sympathy  of  the  artist.  "The  air  of  the  work,  the  atmosphere  through  which  we  see 
the  pictures  pass  and  succeed  each  other,  is  chill  and  clear,  like  some  silver  dawn  of 
summer  breaking  on  secular  olive-gardens,  cold  distant  hills,  and  cities  built  of 
ancient  marbles." 

MARJORIE  DAW,  by  '.Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich.  The  well-known  story  of  Marjorie 
Daw  is  developed  through  the  correspondence  of  two  young  men,  named  respectively 
John  Flemming  and  Edward  Delaney.  The  latter  seeks  to  relieve  the  tedium  of  his 
friend's  sick-room  by  a  description  of  his  neighbor,  Marjorie  Daw.  He  paints  her 
charms  in  glowing  colors,  and  enlarges  upon  her  attractions,  the  wealth  of  her  father, 
and  the  delightful  colonial  mansion  in  which  she  dwells.  Flemming,  who  is  com- 


544  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

pletely  fascinated  with  his  friend's  description,  falls  in  love  with  the  maiden,  and 
presses  Delaney  for  more  and  more  particulars,  which  he  generously  furnishes,  until 
he  has  convinced  Flemming  that  Marjorie  has  been  led  to  reciprocate  his  feelings. 
The  critical  moment  at  last  arrives  when  Flemming,  having  sufficiently  recovered, 
telegraphs  that  he  intends  to  press  his  suit  in  person.  His  friend,  now  realizing  how 
serious  the  affair  has  become,  endeavors  frantically  to  prevent  Flemming  from  carry- 
ing out  his  purpose;  but  rinding  his  efforts  unavailing,  he  departs  hastily  from  town 
leaving  a  note  of  explanation  behind  him.  Flemming  arrives,  receives  Delaney 's 
note,  and  encounters  the  surprise  of  his  life.  This  short  story  was  first  published  in 
1873,  an<l  is  a  very  characteristic  piece  of  Aldrich's  clever  workmanship. 

MARKETS  OF  PARIS,  THE,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 
MARRIAGE,  THE  HISTORY  OF  HUMAN,  see  HUMAN,  etc. 

MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  IN  MANY  LANDS,  by  Rev.  H.  N.  Hutchinson  (1897). 
A  volume  presenting  for  general  readers  a  careful  account  of  quaint  and  interesting 
customs  connected  with  betrothal  and  marriage  among  peoples  and  races  in  all  parts 
of  the  world,  with  a  large  number  of  carefully  selected  illustrations.  The  purpose  of 
the  book  is  not  to  discuss  the  origin  of  the  customs  of  various  peoples,  but  to  give  a 
picture  of  them,  and  thereby  contribute  a  chapter  to  the  story  of  the  human  race 
as  it  is  seen_in  all  its  varieties  at  the  present  time.  A  work  adequately  dealing  with  the 
subject  has  become  possible  through  the  comprehensive  character  of  the  reports  of 
travel  and  observation  which  are  now  available,  and  Mr.  Hutchinson  has  made 
excellent  use  of  these  sources  of  information.  A  special  value  will  attach  to  his  work 
from  the  fact  that  in  many  instances  existing  old  customs  have  rapidly  given  way  to 
the  spirit  of  modern  change. 

MARRIAGE  OF  FIGARO,  THE,  a  comedy  by  Beaumarchais,  written  in  1776,  first 
acted  in  1 784,  is  a  sequel  to  '  The  Barber  of  Seville '  (acted  1 775) .  Figaro,  confidential 
servant  of  the  Count  of  Almaviva,  is  engaged  to  Suzanne,  waiting-gentlewoman  to 
the  Countess.  In  promoting  Figaro  and  paying  Suzanne's  dowry  the  Count  inti- 
mates to  her  his  wish  to  make  her  secretly  his  mistress,  or  as  he  puts  it,  to  revive  the 
seignorial  rights  in  the  marriage  of  his  vassals  which  he  had  renounced  in  marrying 
the  Countess.  Suzanne  reveals  this  proposal  both  to  the  Countess  and  to  Figaro,  who 
plans  an  intrigue  by  which  the  Count,  though  duped  in  his  pretensions  to  Suzanne, 
may  yet  approve  of  her  marriage.  He  proposes  that  Suzanne  should  give  the  Count 
a  rendezvous  which  should  be  kept  by  a  young  page,  Cherubin,  dressed  in  Suzanne's 
clothes,  and  that  the  Count  should  then  be  surprised  by  his  wife,  Suzanne,  and  Figaro. 
But  while  Cherubin  is  being  dressed  for  the  part  by  the  Countess  and  Suzanne  they 
are  surprised  by  the  Count,  who  with  some  reason  is  jealous  of  Cherubin,  an  adoles- 
cent, in  love  with  every  woman  he  meets  and  worshipping  the  Countess,  who  in  her 
neglected  condition  has  a  sentimental  tenderness  for  him.  By  Suzanne's  cleverness  he 
manages  to  escape  undetected,  and  the  Countess  now  decides,  without  telling  Figaro, 
to  keep  the  rendezvous  herself.  Meanwhile  the  Count,  suspecting  that  Figaro  and 
Suzanne  are  plotting  against  him,  resolves  to  prevent  their  marriage  by  favoring  the 
claims  of  Marceline,  a  lady  no  longer  young,  from  whom  Figaro  has  unfortunately 
borrowed  ten  thousand  francs  on  the  promise  of  marrying  her  if  he  cannot  pay. 
Marceline  now  urges  her  suit,  Figaro  is  unable  to  produce  the  money,  and  the  Count 
renders  judgment  that  he  must  marry  her  at  once;  but  from  this  fate  Figaro  is  res- 
tued  by  the  opportune  discovery  that  he  is  Marceline's  son.  Preparations  for  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  545 

marriage  of  Figaro  and  Suzanne  are  now  resumed;  but  the  Countess  resolves  never- 
theless to  carry  out  the  ruse  already  planned  of  meeting  the  Count  in  the  guise  of 
Suzanne,  hoping  by  this  means  to  win  back  his  love.  Under  her  direction  Suzanne 
arranges  a  meeting  with  the  Count  in  the  garden  during  the  wedding  festivities. 
Figaro,  who  is  not  in  the  secret  but  who  accidentally  learns  of  the  assignation,  be- 
lieves Suzanne  disloyal  and  goes  to  spy  upon  her.  An  entertaining  series  of  meetings, 
cross-purposes,  and  mistaken  identities  follows,  in  which  the  Countess,  Suzanne, 
Figaro,  Cherubin,  and  other  characters  are  concerned.  In  the  end  the  Count  and 
Countess  are  reconciled  and  Figaro  and  Suzanne  happily  married.  The  interest  of 
this  comedy  is  sustained  throughout  by  the  skilful  conduct  of  a  complicated  intrigue, 
the  brilliance  of  the  dialogue,  the  truth  of  the  portraiture,  and  above  all  by  Figaro's 
denunciation  of  aristocratic  pretensions  which  definitely  foreshadows  the  Revolution. 

MARRIAGE  OF  LOTI,  THE  ('Le  Manage  de  Loti'),  by  Louis  Marie  JuHen  Viaud 
("  Pierre  Loti  ")i  was  first  published  in  1880  under  the  title  'Rarahu/  the  name  of  its 
heroine.  While  not  one  of  Loti's  strongest  books,  it  shows  his  power  of  re-creating 
the  peculiar  atmosphere  of  a  remote  island  visited  during  his  long  connection  with 
the  French  navy.  There  is  a  curious  mingling  of  fact  and  fiction,  difficult  to  dis- 
entangle, in  this  glowing  study  of  Tahiti  in  the  declining  years  of  its  Queen,  Pomare 
IV.  A  photograph  of  the  South  Sea  maiden  of  fourteen,  whose  passion  for  Loti 
neutralized  his  love  for  Princess  Ariitea,  and  finally  captured  him,  is  still  in  existence; 
and  Rarahu's  whole  mournful  history  is  traceable  in  the  wistful  features  and  flowing 
hair.  It  is  not  so  clear  whether  the  large  single  blossom  worn  over  one  ear  is  the 
hibiscus  flower  she  had  on  when  she  first  met  the  young  officer,  or  the  white  gardenia 
that  became  her  favorite  ornament.  A  victim  of  the  extraordinary  blending  of  primi- 
tive with  conventional  conditions  that  prevailed  in  the  Society  Islands  in  1872,  this 
child  of  nature,  strikingly  beautiful,  but  still  more  remarkable  for  her  poetic  imagina- 
tion and  profound  love  for  Loti,  is  placed  for  a  while  on  a  better  social  footing  than 
the  usual  so-called  Tahitian  marriage  could  give.  Loti's  sincere  love  for  the  half- 
taught  savage,  able  to  read  in  her  Polynesian  Bible,  and  intelligent  enough  to  be 
saddened  by  the  intellectual  gulf  between  them,  does  not  prevent  him  from  laying 
down  laws  for  her  conduct  during  his  absence,  without  the  slightest  intention  of 
observing  similar  ones.  If  Loti  is  unconscious  of  the  moral  inconsistency,  Rarahu  is 
not;  and  after  his  final  departure  she  ceases  —  not  indeed  to  pine  for  him,  but  to  be 
true  to  his  memory  and  precepts.  Ground  between  the  upper  and  nether  millstones 
of  desertion  and  temptation,  she  dies  at  eighteen  of  consumption,  retaining  only  the 
Queen's  pity  and  the  affection  of  her  cat  Turin,  —  a  good  study  of  a  cat  by  a  true 
philofelist,  who  has  devoted  a  volume  to  his  own  cats.  This  Tahitian  idyl  is  slight; 
its  charm  lies  in  the  delicate  analysis  of  moods  and  emotions  growing  directly  out  of 
island  life  and  scenery.  Its  originality  suffers  somewhat  in  the  reader's  imagination, 
after  the  classic  'Typee'  of  Herman  Melville,  whose  voyage  to  the  Marquesas  was 
made  in  the  fifties ;  but  its  merits  are  its  own. 

MARRIAGE  OF  WILLIAM  ASHE,  THE,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  (1905).  This 
is  a  story  of  English  life,  social  and  political.  William  Ashe,  the  hero  of  the  tale,  rich, 
handsome,  and  well-born,  heir  to  the  title  of  Earl  of  Tranmore,  and  successful  poli- 
tician, makes  a  hasty  marriage  with  Lady  Kitty  Bristol,  the  eighteen-year-old  daugh- 
ter of  Madame  d'Estrees  (by  her  first  husband,  Lord  Blackwater).  Ashe  first  meets 
Kitty  at  a  reception  given  by  her  mother,  who  in  spite  of  her  questionable  reputation 
draws  many  influential  men  about  her  by  her  personal  charm.  Ashe  proposes  to 

35 


546  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Kitty  and  is  accepted,  though  she  warns  him  that  her  hasty  temper  and  uncontrolla- 
ble nature  may  cause  him  to  regret  this  step.  They  are  next  seen  three  years  later 
settled  in  a  house  in  London  where  Kitty's  love  of  excitement  causes  her  to  plunge 
madly  into  the  social  vortex.  Ashe  proves  a  devoted  and  indulgent  husband,  allow- 
ing his  wife  every  liberty  which  her  unconventional  nature  demands.  They  have  one 
child,  a  partially  crippled  boy,  who  is  a  great  disappointment  to  Kitty  and  whom  she 
alternates  in  treating  with  affection  and  indifference.  Kitty's  waywardness  proves  a 
serious  drawback  to  her  husband's  promising  political  career;  she  alienates  the 
friendship  of  Lord  Parham,  the  prime  minister  upon  whom  Ashe's  promotion  depends, 
and  enters  into  a  violent  flirtation  with  Geoffrey  Cliff e,  whose  poetic  and  unprincipled 
nature  has  a  strong  fascination  for  her.  The  death  of  her  child,  following  a  season  of 
extreme  gaiety,  leaves  Kitty  a  physical  wreck ;  and  Ashe  takes  her  to  Italy  to  try  to 
win  back  her  health.  Here  she  again  meets  Cliffe  and  eventually  flees  with  him 
while  her  husband  is  in  England  endeavoring  to  suppress  a  scurrilous  book  which 
she  has  written.  The  finale  comes  some  two  years  later  when  Ashe  and  Kitty  meet 
unexpectedly  at  a  small  inn  in  the  Alps;  the  latter  who  has  sustained  many  hardships 
is  in  a  dying  condition  and  passes  away  soothed  and  comforted  by  her  husband's 
presence. 

Mrs.  Ward  found  suggestion  for  her  fiction  in  historical  persons.     Kitty  is  drawn 
from  Lady  Caroline  Lamb,  William  Ashe  from  Lord  Melbourne,  and  Cliffe  from  Lord 
•  Byron. 

MARTHE,  see  EN  ROUTE. 

MARTIAN,  THE,  by  George  Du  Marnier,  his  third  and  last  novel,  was  published 
posthumously  in  1897.  The  hero  is  Barty  Josselin,  the  story  of  whose  life  is  told  by 
his  friend  and  companion,  Robert  Maurice.  The  school  life  of  the  two  lads  in  the 
"Institution  F.  Brossard, "  in  Paris,  is  sketched  in  detail  in  Du  Maurier's  inimitable 
manner,  the  account  being  largely  autobiographic.  Barty  is  from  the  start  a  hand- 
some, high-spirited,  mischievous,  and  gifted  fellow,  thoroughly  practical,  yet  with 
traits  that  have  in  them  a  strange  idealism.  After  school,  the  boys  return  to  England, 
and  Barty  goes  into  the  army,  but  does  not  like  it,  and  resigns.  Then  his  eyes  give 
out ;  and  he  travels  for  a  time,  and  consults  various  physicians,  being  helped  finally 
by  a  celebrated  German  specialist,  Dr.  Hasenclover,  who  assures  him  that  he  will  be 
blind  in  only  one  eye.  Before  this,  he  has  come  to  such  melancholic  discouragement 
that  he  intends  suicide;  being  saved  therefrom  by  discovering  in  a  dream  that  he  has  a 
kind  of  guardian  spirit,  the  Martian,  a  woman  soul,  who  has  undergone  a  series  of 
incarnations,  and  is  now  an  inhabitant  of  Mars.  She  advises  him  about  his  eyes, 
and  thereafter,  for  many  years,  she  constantly  communicates  with  him  and  helps 
him,  using  a  kind  of  shorthand  called  blaze.  She  inspires  him  to  write  wonderful 
books,  whereby  he  becomes  a  famous  author.  Against  her  advice,  he  obeys  the 
dictates  of  his  heart  by  marrying  Leah  Gibson,  a  noble  Jewess,  when  the  Martian 
would  have  had  him  choose  Julia  Royce,  an  English  belle  whom  he  meets  in  Germany. 
The  marriage  is  so  happy  that  the  Martian  acknowledges  her  mistake.  When 
Barty 's  daughter  Martia  is  born,  the  Martian  becomes  incarnated  in  her  form;  and 
upon  the  young  girl's  death,  the  strange  being  from  another  world  returns  to  Mars, 
whereupon  Barty  himself  also  passes  away.  The  charm  of  the  story  lies  in  the  genial 
description  of  bohemian  friendship  and  love,  seen  retrospectively  in  the  half-light  of 
illusion;  and  in  the  suggestive  way  in  which  the  odd  supernatural  element  is  woven 
into  the  narrative 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  547 

MARY  BARTON,  by  Elizabeth  Cleghorn  Gaskell  (1848),  is  a  forcible  tale  of 
Manchester,  at  the  time  when  the  manufacturing  districts  suffered  the  terrible 
distress  that  reached  its  height  in  1842.  It  deals  with  the  saddest  and  most 
terrible  side  of  factory  life,  and  was  one  of  the  first  English  novels  to  attempt 
this  subject. 

John  Barton,  the  father  of  Mary,  is  a  weaver,  an  honest  man,  possessing  more 
than  the  usual  amount  of  intelligence  of  his  class.  When  the  story  opens,  he  has 
plenty  of  work  and  high  wages,  which  he  spends  to  the  last  penny  with  no  thought  of 
the  possible  "rainy  day."  Suddenly  his  master  fails,  and  he  feels  the  effect  of  his 
improvidence.  His  wife  and  little  son  die  from  the  want  of  ordinary  necessaries, 
and  Mary  alone  is  left  to  him. 

Mary's  beauty  has  attracted  the  attention  of  young  Mr.  Carson,  the  son  of  a 
wealthy  mill-owner.  Meanwhile  she  is  deeply  loved  by  Jem  Nilson,  a  man  of  her 
own  class.  In  the  distress  of  this  time  it  is  decided  to  send  a  petition  to  Parliament. 
John  Barton  is  chosen  one  of  the  delegates  to  present  it.  The  failure  of  the  petition 
embitters  him  so  that  he  becomes  a  Chartist.  He  further  increases  his  morbid  feelings 
by  the  use  of  opium  to  deaden  the  pangs  of  hunger.  Young  Air.  Carson  has  indulged 
in  satires  against  the  delegates,  which  unfortunately  reach  their  ears  and  rouse  their 
anger.  They  resolve  on  his  assassination  and  determine  the  instrument  by  lot,  which 
falls  to  John  Barton.  Suspicious  circumstances  lead  to  the  apprehension  of  Jem 
Nilson.  Mary  suspects  the  truth,  and  determines  to  rescue  her  lover  without 
exposing  her  father.  At  the  trial  Jem  learns  for  the  first  time  of  Mary's  love  for  him. 
John  Barton  disappears  without  rousing  suspicion,  and  Jem  is  cleared  through  his 
ability  to  prove  an  alibi.  The  story  ends  with  Barton's  return  to  his  home,  and  his 
death  after  a  confession  of  his  guilt.  The  chief  interest  of  'Mary  Barton'  lies  in  the 
touching  simplicity  of  the  descriptions  of  daily  life  among  the  artisan  class.  Their 
graphic  power  brings  the  reader  into  a  vital  sympathy  with  the  life  and  scenes 
described.  Some  of  the  sad  pictures  of  those  toiling,  suffering  people  are  presented 
with  intense  pathos. 

MASON-BEES,  THE,  a  collection  of  essays  on  the  chalicodomse  or  mason-bees 
proper  by  Jean  Henri  Casimir  Fabre,  translated  from  the  author's  great  work  *  Sou- 
venirs entomologiques'  (1879-1905)  by  Alexander  Teixeira  de  Mattos  (1914).  With 
another  volume,  'Bramble-Bees  and  Others'  (1915)  by  the  same  translator,  this 
book  constitutes  a  complete  treatise  on  wild  bees.  The  mason-bees  were  first  ob- 
served by  the  author  when  he  was  teaching  surveying  to  a  class  of  boys  on  the  open 
plains  or  "harmas"  near  Carpentras.  Noticing  that  the  boys  would  pause  in  their 
work  to  lick  straws  he  discovered  that  they  were  eating  honey  from  the  clay  nest  of  a 
large  black  bee.  With  these  bees,  the  chalicodomae,  he  performed  a  number  of  experi- 
ments, attempting  to  determine,  by  means  of  marking  them  with  chalk,  the  limits  and 
nature  of  their  power  to  find  their  way  to  their  hives.  He  found  that  a  large  per- 
centage made  their  way  back  through  any  obstacles  and  in  spite  of  being  swung 
about  in  boxes  and  confused;  but  he  could  not  explain  their  instinct  of  direction. 
Fabre  is  conservative  as  to  the  reasoning  power  of  bees,  as  distinguished  from  instinct, 
and  is  extremely  sceptical  with  regard  to  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  of  protective 
mimesis.  The  book  consists  largely  of  records  of  experiments,  which  must  be 
carefully  followed  but  well  repay  the  effort  by  the  fascinating  pictures  and  truths 
which  they  reveal.  Fabre's  graphic  style  and  absolute  sincerity  render  his  scientific 
observations  more  attractive  than  the  picturesque  fancies  of  humanizing  naturalists. 
He  unveils  the  romance  and  mystery  of  the  actual  insect  world. 


548  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

MASQUERADER,  THE,  by  Katherine  Cecil  Thurston  (1904).  This  is  the  story 
of  two  men  of  totally  different  characteristics  and  identical  physical  endowments, 
who  bargain  to  exchange  places.  The  exchange  allows  one  the  liberty  to  indulge  his 
craving  for  opium,  the  other  an  opportunity  to  satisfy  his  ambition  for  statesmanship 
and  a  public  career.  John  Chilcote,  M.P.,  rich,  aristocratic,  and  prominent  in  the 
social  and  political  world,  encounters  by  chance  in  a  London  fog  his  double,  John 
Loder,  poor,  obscure,  and  without  friends.  The  fragmentary  conversation  which  takes 
place  at  their  meeting  reveals  to  Chilcote  the  other's  ambition,  and  to  Loder  the 
secret  of  his  companion's  weakness  for  morphia.  Then  follow  a  series  of  exchanges. 
The  likeness  deceives  every  one,  even  Chilcote's  lovely  wife  who  has  long  shunned 
and  despised  her  uncongenial  mate  but  now  sees  an  encouraging  change  of  mood  which 
indicates  a  struggle  to  regain  lost  ambition  and  interest.  Loder  throws  himself  heart 
and  soul  into  the  political  world  and  rekindles  the  public  faith  in  his  double,  as  well 
as  the  faith  of  his  wife  who  clings  with  more  and  more  hopefulness  to  the  bright 
image  which  is  at  intervals  blurred  by  the  return  of  Chilcote.  The  two  men  find  it 
more  and  more  difficult  to  return  to  their  original  spheres:  Chilcote  because  of  his 
craving  for  morphia;  Loder  because  of  his  marvelous  gift  for  oratory  as  well  as  his 
increasing  love  for  Eve,  his  double's  wife.  The  crisis  comes  after  Loder  has  won  fame 
by  his  brilliant  Parliamentary  speech  and  has  called  forth  from  the  delighted  wife  a 
passionate  response  to  his  own  love.  Loder  feels  his  position  unbearable  and  deter- 
mines to  relinquish  it  for  ever.  Chilcote's  excesses  make  his  continuance  of  the 
deception  necessary,  however,  and  he  determines  to  explain  everything  to  Eve;  she 
has  meanwhile  discovered  his  secret,  but  nevertheless  begs  him  not  to  leave  her. 
Loder  convinces  her  that  their  duty  lies  in  the  way  of  renunciation  and  together  they 
go  in  search  of  Chilcote.  Upon  reaching  his  lodging  they  find  him  dead.  After  the 
relaxing  of  the  strain  under  which  both  have  been  laboring  they  hesitate  as  to  their 
future  decision.  Loder  suggests  going  away  to  win  a  new  position  for  himself,  but 
Eve  points  out  to  him  that  his  duty  lies  in  the  direction  of  the  discharge  of  those 
obligations  and  responsibilities  which  he  has  assumed  so  extensively  and  he  acknowl- 
edges that  he  has  now  to  consider  the  needs  of  his  country  which  has  honored  him 
with  its  confidence,  and  of  the  woman  who  loves  him. 

MASTER,  THE,  by  I.  Zangwill  (1895).  This  story  is  the  biography  of  an  artist; 
and  in  it  the  reader  is  led  to  an  artist's  London,  and  wanders  through  an  artist's 
world.  From  early  boyhood  the  ruling  passion  of  Matthew  Strang's  life  is  a  love  of 
art  and  a  desire  to  paint  pictures.  A  poor  boy,  struggling  against  poverty  and  mis- 
fortune, he  ever  keeps  this  goal  in  view.  Overwhelmed  by  want  and  suffering,  he 
marries  a  young  woman  his  intellectual  inferior,  but  possessed  of  a  small  competency 
by  which  he  is  enabled  to  pursue  his  beloved  vocation.  He  becomes  a  great  artist; 
and  the  distance  widens  between  him  and  his  commonplace  wife,  who  has  no  appre- 
ciation of  his  work  or  ideals.  Matthew  Strang  is  courted  by  distinguished  people, 
and  breathes  an  atmosphere  that  intensifies  the  contrast  with  his  own  home,  which  he 
rarely  visits.  He  is  thrown  into  the  society  of  Eleanor  Wyndwood,  a  beautiful  and 
accomplished  woman.  She  is  his  ideal,  and  he  falls  in  love  with  her.  He  feels  that 
inspired  by  her  companionship  he  could  achieve  the  highest  success.  Eleanor  returns 
his  love ;  and  Strang  is  on  the  point  of  forgetting  all  but  his  passion  for  her,  when  he  is 
suddenly  awakened  to  the  realization  that  his  highest  duty  lies  in  the  renunciation  of 
his  desires.  He  goes  back  to  his  nagging,  prosaic  wife,  and  irritating  household, 
having  bid  farewell  to  his  love  and  art.  But  the  latter  is  not  to  be  taken  leave  of; 
for.  away  from  the  whirl  of  society  and  in  the  solitude  of  his  out-of-town  studio,  he 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  549 

toils  to  accomplish  his  best  work.  Here  "the  master "  at  last  produces  his  greatest 
pictures;  here  he  becomes  not  only  master  of  his  art,  but  "master  of  his  own  soul." 
Throughout  the  book  the  point  of  view  is  profoundly  poetic,  and  the  character  of 
"the  master"  is  developed  with  truly  masterly  skill:  as  are  also  the  portraits  of  Billy, 
the  artist's  deformed  brother;  the  sharp-tongued  Rosina,  his  wife  and  his  foster-sister, 
steadfast  Ruth  Hailey,  whose  gentle  influence  and  self-effacing  love  are  contrasted 
with  the  more  selfish  affection  of  the  impressionable  and  impulsive  Eleanor.  The 
book  is  filled  with  clever  epigrammatic  phrases,  and  abounds  in  humor. 

MASTER  AND  MAN,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

MASTER  CHRISTIAN,  THE,  by  Marie  CorelH  (1900).  This  book  is  an 
arraignment  of  the  ecclesiastical  system  and  of  modern  Christianity  as  typified 
partly  by  the  Church  of  Rome  and  partly  by  the  Church  of  England.  The  key- 
note is  struck  in  the  opening  chapter,  when  the  author  describes  the  sensuous 
atmosphere  of  a  great  cathedral  as  the  background  for  the  ascetic  figure  of  Cardinal 
Boupre,  who  typifies  the  simple-minded  and  saintly  son  of  the  church,  and  is  con- 
trasted with  the  Abbe*  Vergniaud  and  other  ecclesiastics  in  the  tale,  who  were  both 
worldly  and  wicked.  The  book  is  for  the  most  part  a  series  of  conversations  carried 
on  sometimes  among  the  "servants  of  Christ,"  sometimes  in  fashionable  society, 
while  the  motive  running  throughout  all  is  the  constant  struggle  of  the  spiritual 
against  the  material.  The  Cardinal  has  been  present  at  a  service  in  a  Paris  church 
during  which  the  immoral  Abbe"  is  nearly  murdered  by  his  own  natural  son,  and  the 
Abba's  confession  of  his  sin  and  acknowledgment  of  his  child  give  great  offense  at 
Rome,  whither  the  Cardinal  is  summoned.  Here  the  principal  characters  of  the 
story  are  assembled,  among  them  Aubrey  Leigh,  an  American  actor  and  journalist, 
who  is  deeply  pained  by  the  pride  and  wickedness  of  the  modern  churches,  and  the 
Cardinal's  beautiful  niece  Anglea,  who  has  painted  a  wonderful  picture  which  ulti- 
mately brings  her  under  the  ban  of  the  church.  A  brief  outline  can  give  only  a 
faint  idea  of  the  many  subjects  touched  upon  by  Miss  Corelli  in  this  book;  its  six 
hundred  pages  contain  her  opinions  on  many  of  the  topics  of  the  day. 

MASTER  OF  BALLANTRAE,  THE,  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  (1889),  is  a 
Scotch  romance  of  the  eighteenth  century,  beginning  with  the  Stuart  uprising  of 
1745.  It  is  a  sombre  tragedy  of  the  enmity  of  two  brothers,  of  whom  the  elder, 
James  Durrie  the  Master,  takes  the  side  of  King  Charlie;  the  younger,  Henry, 
that  of  King  George.  Alison  Graeme,  a  kinswoman  with  a  fortune,  is  intended  for 
the  wife  of  the  Master;  but  on  his  going  to  join  the  Stuart  and  being  believed  dead 
she  is  married  to  Henry,  without  loving  him.  The  tale  is  narrated  mostly  by  the 
steward  of  Ballantrae,  John  MacKellar,  who  is  devoted  to  the  house  and  to  Henry 
Durrie,  whose  nobility,  set  beside  the  wickedness  of  his  brother,  he  realizes  to  the 
full.  After  the  marriage  appears  Chevalier  Burke,  a  companion  of  the  Master,  to 
say  that  he  is  not  dead;  Burke  narrates  their  wanderings,  which  include  an  episode 
on  a  pirate  ship  and  adventures  among  Indians  in  the  wilds  of  New  York.  Mac- 
Kellar then  takes  up  the  tale,  describing  the  persecutions  suffered  by  Mr.  Henry, 
whose  brother  first  writes  to  demand  a  large  sum  of  money;  then  returns,  impover- 
ished and  disgraced,  to  his  paternal  home,  where  he  foments  trouble  between  Henry 
and  his  wife.  Finally,  goaded  by  the  Master's  insults,  Henry  fights  a  duel  with 
him  and  leaves  him  for  dead;  but  he  is  carried  off  to  sea  by  smugglers  and  recovers, 
remaining  away  for  some  time,  and  traveling  in  India,  as  is  communicated  by  Burke. 
Then  the  Master  reappears  with  Secundra  Dass,  an  East-Indian,  whom  he  has 


550  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

made  his  creature;  whereupon  Henry  and  his  wife  and  children  betake  themselves 
secretly  to  New  York,  where  Mrs.  Durrie  owns  an  estate,  leaving  the  Master  at 
Ballantrae  in  the  charge  of  MacKellar.  James  soon  finds  out  his  brother's  where- 
abouts and  pursues  him,  keeping  to  his  tactics  of  persecution.  Arrived  there,  he 
does  all  he  can  to  harm  Henry,  who  is  installed  in  a  position  befitting  his  rank. 
False  news  from  Scotland  to  the  effect  that  the  Master,  though  a  rebel,  is  to  have 
his  title  restored,  which  will  cut  off  Henry's  son  from  the  succession,  leads  the  younger 
brother  to  concoct  a  plan  whereby  James,  who  intends  going  to  the  northern  wil- 
derness to  regain  pirate  treasure  he  has  buried  there,  shall  be  led  to  his  death.  The 
Master  for  a  time  outwits  the  party  of  adventurers  who  attend  him,  with  the  pur- 
pose of  first  getting  the  treasure,  then  making  away  with  their  nominal  leader. 
Finally,  to  escape  them,  he  feigns  death  and  is  buried  by  Secundra  Dass,  who  puts 
him  in  a  state  of  suspended  animation.  When  Henry  and  his  party  seek  the  grave, 
they  find  the  Indian  digging  up  the  buried  Master,  who  lives  long  enough  to  open 
his  eyes,  at  which  vital  sign  his  brother  falls  dead.  Thus  the  fraternal  enemies  lie 
at  last  in  one  grave  in  the  western  wilderness. 

MASTERMAN  READY;  OR,  THE  WRECK  OF  THE  PACIFIC,  by  Captain  Marryat 
(1842).  This  book  was  written  with  a  double  motive:  to  amuse  the  author's  chil- 
d-^n,  and  to  correct  various  errors  which  he  found  in  a  work  of  a  similar  nature 
'The  Swiss  Family  Robinson.' 

Mr.  Seagrave  and  his  family,  returning  to  their  Australian  home  after  a  visit  to 
England,  are  shipwrecked  on  an  uninhabited  island  with  their  black  servant  Juno, 
and  Masterman  Ready,  an  old  sailor.  As  they  see  no  signs  of  immediate  relief,  they 
build  a  house,  and  make  themselves  comfortable.  They  cultivate  and  explore  the 
island,  finding  many  animals  of  which  they  make  use,  and  build  a  strong  stockade 
around  the  house  in  order  to  be  fortified  in  case  of  attack.  It  is  not  long  before  they 
are  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  its  protection  against  a  band  of  cannibals  from  a  neigh- 
boring island.  They  beat  off  the  savages  again  and  again,  but  are  kept  in  a  close 
state  of  siege  until  their  water  gives  out.  Ready,  attempting  to  procure  some  from 
an  unprotected  part  of  the  inclosure,  is  severely  wounded  by  a  savage  who  has 
managed  to  steal  upon  him  unawares.  Another  and  more  determined  attack  is 
made,  which  seems  certain  of  success,  when  the  booming  of  cannon  is  heard  and 
round  shot  come  plowing  through  the  ranks  of  the  terrified  savages,  who  now  think 
of  nothing  but  safety.  The  shots  come  from  a  schooner  commanded  by  Captain 
Osborn,  the  former  master  of  the  Pacific,  who  has  come  to  rescue  the  Seagraves. 
Ready  dies  of  his  wounds  and  is  buried  on  the  island,  and  the  survivors  are  carried 
in  safety  to  Australia.  The  story  is  told  in  an  interesting  and  entertaining  manner, 
and  is  enlivened  throughout  by  the  many  amusing  experiences  of  Tommy  Seagrave, 
the  scapegrace  of  the  family.  The  descriptions  of  the  ingenious  contrivances  of  the 
castaways  are  accurately  given  and  form  an  interesting  feature  of  the  book. 

MATHILDE,  by  Sophie  Cottin,  see  her  ELIZABETH, 

MATING  OF  LYDIA,  THE,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  (1913).  The  scene  of  this 
story  is  laid  in  England,  in  the  Lake  country,  and  it  deals  largely  with  the  affairs  of 
a  pretty  and  unworldly  young  artist  named  Lydia  Penfold,  She  lives  in  a  simple 
way  with  her  widowed  mother  and  her  sister  Susan,  and  ekes  out  the  family  income 
with  her  painting.  By  her  charm  and  beauty  Lydia  wins  the  heart  of  Lord  Tatham, 
a  rich  young  land-owner  who  desires  to  marry  her.  Lydia,  however,  who  is  not 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  551 

dazzled  by  wealth  or  position,  refuses  his  offer  because  she  does  not  love  him1.  She 
later  becomes  interested  in  a  young  barrister,  named  Claude  Faversham,  who  is 
acting  as  private  secretary  for  a  rich  and  tyrannical  old  man  named  Edmund  Mel- 
rose.  Twenty  years  before,  Melrose  had  brought  to  his  Cumbrian  estate  an  Italian 
wife,  many  years  his  junior,  whom  he  had  treated  with  harshness  and  cruelty.  When 
no  longer  able  to  endure  existence  with  him,  Netta  Melrose  had  taken  her  little  daugh- 
ter Felicia  and  fled  with  her  to  her  own  country.  Since  that  time  she  had  been 
forced  to  subsist  on  a  pittance  of  eighty  pounds  a  year  which  was  all  her  million- 
aire husband  would  allow  for  the  support  of  his  wife  and  child.  Melrose  meanwhile, 
having  a  mania  for  collecting  curios,  had  spent  his  money  lavishly  on  his  hobby. 
After  having  lived  for  years  as  a  recluse,  Melrose  at  last  becomes  interested  in  young 
Faversham,  who  having  been  thrust  upon  his  hospitality  by  being  brought  to  his 
house  when  seriously  injured,  finally  becomes  a  necessity  to  him  as  a  companion. 
Melrose  makes  Faversham  manager  of  his  estate,  paying  him  a  fabulous  salary,  and 
also  makes  him  his  heir  on  the  condition  he  will  not  interfere  with  his  own  harsh 
measures  to  his  tenants.  Faversham,  who  is  an  honorable  man  and  had  hoped 
to  better  the  terrible  existing  conditions,  agrees  to  the  management,  feeling  it  will 
only  be  temporary  as  Melrose  is  aged  and  infirm.  Lydia,  however,  is  terribly  dis- 
appointed in  the  man  she  had  learned  to  love  and  refuses  his  offer  of  marriage.  Mel- 
rose is  secretly  murdered  by  one  of  his  ill-treated  tenants  and  Faversham  is  accused 
of  the  crime.  The  real  murderer  confesses  his  guilt,  Faversham  is  acquitted,  and 
makes  over  all  his  inheritance  to  Melrose's  wife  and  daughter  who  have  reappeared 
upon  the  scene.  Lydia  then  marries  Faversham  and  Lord  Tatham  consoles  himself 
with  Felicia  Melrose. 

MATRIMONY,  by  W.  E.  Morris  (1881).  Mr.  Norris's  third  novel  is  the  story  of 
the  fortunes  of  a  county  family  named  Gervis,  the  scene  being  laid  partly  in  Beach- 
borough,  an  English  county-town,  and  partly  among  an  aristocratic  half-bohemian 
set  in  Paris.  Mr.  Gervis,  a  brilliant  diplomat,  marries  an  Italian  woman,  by  whom 
he  has  two  children,  Claud  and  Genevieve.  His  second  wife  is  a  Russian,  Princess 
Omanoff,  who  has  already  been  twice  married,  and  has  her  own  cynical  views  as 
to  the  blessings  of  matrimony.  Mr.  Gervis  and  the  Princess  maintain  separate 
establishments,  but  are  on  friendly  terms.  When  the  story  opens,  Mr.  Gervis, 
with  his  son  Claud,  after  a  long  residence  abroad,  has  just  returned  to  England  to 
take  possession  of  a  family  estate,  lately  inherited.  From  this  point  the  true  story 
begins.  Its  complications  arise  trom  the  love-affairs  of  Claud  and  his  beautiful 
sister,  from  certain  outlived  episodes  in  the  life  of  the  Princess,  and  from  the  serious 
effects  that  spring  from  the  frivolous  cause  of  the  Beachborough  Club's  reading- 
room  gossip.  Nothing  is  out  of  the  common,  yet  the  elements  of  disaster  and  of 
tragedy  are  seen  to  be  potential  in  the  every-day  lives  of  the  every-day  characters. 
The  book  abounds  in  types  of  character  done  to  the  life.  Even  the  callow  club- 
house smokers  have  an  individuality  of  their  own;  and  French  dandies,  men  of 
letters,  gamblers,  scoundrels,  Russian  adventurers,  and  backbiting  ladies  of  quality, 
rowdies,  and  philosophic  speculators  on  the  cosmos  in  general,  are  each  and  all  as 
real  as  the  crowd  in  the  street. 

MAUREEN'S  FAIRING,  by  Jane  Barlow.  This  delightful  collection  of  eight 
short  stories,  descriptive  of  Irish  peasant  life,  first  appeared  in  1895,  and  its  title 
is  that  of  the  first  story.  Maureen  O'Dell  is  a  blind  girl  with  a  brother  Rody,  who 
is  not  "too  bad-manin'  a  poor  lad  whatever,  but  sorra  the  ha'porth  of  use.  Moon- 


552  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

in'  about  the  place  from  mornin'  till  night;  but  rael  good  he  is  to  Maureen.  He'd 
be  hard  set  to  make  more  of  her  if  she  could  see  from  this  to  the  land  of  Agypt  and 
back  again."  It  is  his  custom  to  sit  with  her  and  watch  the  wild  rabbits  coming 
out  to  play  in  the  dusk,  but  he  tells  her  they  are  fairies.  On  the  night  on  which  the 
story  begins,  he  tells  her  they  are  holding  "a  cattle  fair,  no  less,  wid  every  manner  of 
little  baste  a-dhrivin'  out  to  it,  only  the  quarest  little  bigness  on  them  that  ever 
you  beheld.  There's  a  drove  of  bullocks.  The  whole  of  them  'ud  trot  aisy  on 
the  palm  of  me  hand.  But  what  'ud  you  suppose  they've  got  be  the  way  of  cattle 
pens?  The  peelin's  of  the  apple  you  had  aitin'  here  last  night."  Rody's  descrip- 
tions are  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  Christy  M'Kenna,  who  unwittingly  destroys 
Maureen's  belief  in  fairies  and  in  Rody  as  well,  by  speaking  of  the  rabbits.  Grieved 
at  his  mistake,  he  tries  to  atone  for  it  by  describing  his  adventures  at  sea.  Then 
he  makes  her  a  "fairing,"  or  present,  of  a  shell  he  had  picked  up  on  the  beach  at 
Jamaica,  and  promises  to  come  the  next  day  and  show  her  others.  A  few  weeks 
after,  Mrs.  O'Dell  in  telling  of  her  good  luck  says:  "Goodness  help  you  lad,  sez  I, 
and  what  at  all  will  you  be  doin'  wid  only  a  dark  wife  to  keep  house  for  you?  And 
sez  he  to  me,  'Bedad,  ma'am,  I'll  tell  you  that  aisy,  if  you'll  tell  me  what  I'm  to  do 
widout  her;  for  me  soul  to  the  saints,  if  I  know,  be  any  manner  of  manes. '  " 

MAXIMINA,  by  Armando  Palacio  Valde"s  (1887).  A  vivid  picture  of  modern 
Spain  is  shown  in  this  interesting  novel,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid  chiefly  in  Madrid. 
Miguel  de  Rivera  marries  Maximina,  a  modest  country  girl.  He  brings  her  to  Mad- 
rid and  lives  happily  until  he  finds  his  fortune  compromised.  As  editor  of  a  Liberal 
newspaper,  he  signs  notes  to  enable  the  paper  to  continue;  with  the  promise  of 
Mendoza,  a  politician  and  one  of  the  backers,  that  they  shall  be  taken  up  when 
due.  When  the  Liberals  come  into  power,  the  holder  of  the  notes  calls  for  pay- 
ment. The  responsible  parties  neglect  to  protect  Miguel;  and  Mendoza  suggests 
that  he  sign  more  notes  to  gain  time,  and  be  a  candidate  for  Congress,  so  that  by 
their  united  efforts  they  can  force  the  minister  to  settle.  Against  his  will  he  enters 
the  contest,  with  a  promise  of  government  support;  but  is  sacrificed  for  political 
reasons,  and  his  entire  fortune  is  swept  away.  A  son  is  born  to  him  at  this  time, 
and  he  finds  himself  without  employment  or  funds.  Maximina  dies,  and  Miguel 
becomes  secretary  to  Mendoza,  who  has  become  minister.  The  story  of  the  un- 
successful attacks  on  Maximina  by  Don  Alphonso,  a  fashionable  roue*,  and  his  success 
with  Miguel's  sister,  is  interwoven  with  the  main  plot.  The  author  introduces  us 
to  life  behind  the  scenes  at  the  newspaper  office,  and  the  halls  of  Congress,  and  shows 
the  petty  political  intrigues  of  the  rural  districts  of  Spain,  which  are  readily  recog- 
nized for  their  fidelity  by  any  one  acquainted  with  the  life  depicted. 

MAXIMS,  or  according  to  the  original  title  'Reflexions  ou  Sentences  et  Maximes 
Morales,'  a  collection  of  504  brief  observations  by  Francois,  due  de  la  Rochefoucauld, 
published  in  1665.  They  are  the  epigrammatically  phrased  experiences  of  a  courtier 
and  man  of  the  world  who  has  seen  the  weakness  and  selfishness  of  human  nature. 
Their  general  character  is  indicated  by  the  remark  prefixed  as  a  motto  to  the  fourth 
edition:  'Our  virtues  are  most  commonly  mere  vices  in  disguise.'  For  a  fuller 
characterization,  see  the  LIBRARY,  tinder  'La  Rochefoucauld,'  p.  12321. 

MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE,  written  about  1604,  is  one  of  Shakespeare's  later 
comedies,  the  outline  of  the  plot  taken  from  the  Italian  novelist  Cinthio  and  from 
Whetstone's  tragedy  of  'Promos  and  Cassandra.'  License  has  now  for  a  long 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  553 

while  in  Vienna  run  by  the  hideous  law,  as  mice  by  lions;  and  the  sagacious  but 
eccentric  duke  attempts  to  enforce  it,  especially  against  sins  of  lust.  The  scenes 
that  follow  are  gloomy  and  painful,  and  search  deep  into  the  conscience;  yet  all 
ends  happily  after  all.  The  motif  is  mercy;  a  meting  unto  others,  measure  for 
measure,  as  we  would  wish  them  to  mete  unto  us.  The  duke  feigns  a  desire  to  travel, 
and  appoints  as  deputies  Angelo  and  Escalus.  They  begin  at  once  to  deal  with 
sexual  immorality:  Escalus  none  too  severely  with  a  loathsome  set  of  disreputable 
folk;  but  Angelo  most  mercilessly  with  young  Claudio,  who,  in  order  to  secure 
dower  for  his  betrothed,  had  put  off  legal  avowal  of  their  irregular  relation  until 
her  condition  had  brought  the  truth  to  light.  Angelo  condemns  Claudio  to  death. 
His  sister  Isabella,  about  to  enter  a  nunnery  of  the  votarists  of  Saint  Clare,  is  in- 
duced to  plead  for  his  life.  As  pure  as  snow,  yet,  as  her  "cheek-roses"  show,  not 
cold-blooded,  her  beauty  ensnares  the  outward-sainted  deputy  and  "seemer," 
who  proposes  the  release  of  her  brother  to  her  as  the  price  of  her  chastity.  Isabella 
has  plenty  of  hot  blood  and  moral  indignation.  She  refuses  with  noble  scorn;  and 
when  her  brother  begs  his  life  at  her  hands,  bids  him  die  rather  than  see  her  dis- 
honored. The  duke,  disguised  as  a  friar,  has  overheard  in  the  prison  her  splendid 
defense  of  virtue,  and  proposes  a  plan  for  saving  her  virtue  and  her  brother's  life 
too.  It  is  this:  There  dwells  alone,  in  a  certain  moated  grange,  forgotten  and  for- 
lorn now  these  five  years,  Mariana,  legally  affianced  to  Lord  Angelo,  and  who  loves 
him  still,  although  owing  to  the  loss  of  her  dowry  he  has  cast  her  off.  The  friar- 
duke  proposes  that  Isabella  shall  feign  compliance,  make  an  appointment,  and  then 
send  Mariana  in  her  place.  Isabella  agrees  to  risk  her  reputation,  and  the  dejected 
grass-widow  is  easily  won  over  to  meet  Angelo  by  night  in  his  brick-walled  garden, 
The  base  deputy,  fearing  Claudio's  revenge  if  he  frees  him,  breaks  his  promise  and 
sends  word  to  have  him  executed.  The  duke  and  the  provost  of  the  prison  send 
Angelo  the  head  of  a  prisoner  (much  like  Claudio)  who  has  died  overnight;  Isabella 
supposes  her  brother  to  be  dead.  The  duke,  entering  the  city  gates  in  state,  in 
propria  persona,  hears  her  petition  for  justice.  Angelo  confesses;  and  after  (by 
the  duke's  order)  marrying  Marianna,  is  pardoned.  Indeed,  there  is  a  general 
amnesty;  and  the  duke  takes  to  wife  Isabella,  who  thus  enters  upon  a  wider  sphere 
of  usefulness  than  that  of  a  cloister. 

MECHANISM  OF  THE  HEAVENS,  THE  ('Me"canique  celeste'),  by  Pierre  Simon 
Laplace.  The  first  two  volumes  of  this  remarkable  work  were  published  in  1799, 
the  third  appeared  in  1803,  the  fourth  in  1805,  and  the  fifth  in  1825.  The  author 
has  set  forth  in  one  homogeneous  work  the  leading  results  which  had  been  separately 
achieved  by  his  predecessors,  at  the  same  time  proving  their  harmony  and  inter- 
dependence. The  entire  work  is  divided  into  sixteen  books,  treating  of:  The  Gen- 
eraTLaws  of  Equilibrium  and  Motion;  The  Law  of  Universal  Gravity;  The  Form 
of  the  Heavenly  Bodies;  The  Oscillation  of  the  Sea,  and  of  the  Atmosphere;  The 
Movement  of  the  Heavenly  Bodies  on  their  Axes;  The  Theory  of  Planetary  Move- 
ments; The  Theory  of  the  Moon;  The  Satellites  of  Jupiter,  Saturn,  and  Uranus; 
Comets;  The  Form  and  Rotation  of  the  Earth;  Attraction  and  Repulsion  of  the 
Spheres;  The  Laws  of  Equilibrium  and  Movements  of  Fluids;  The  Oscillation 
of  Fluids  that  cover  the  Planets;  The  Movement  of  Planets  and  Comets;  and  the 
Movement  of  Satellites.  The  work  is  very  diffuse,  and  it  is  said  that  the  author 
found  himself  at  times  obliged  to  devote  an  hour's  labor  to  recovering  the  lost  links 
in  the  chain  of  reasoning  covered  by  the  recurring  formula,  " It  is  easy  to  see."  'The 
Exposition  of  the  System  of  the  World,'  by  the  same  author,  is  a  more  popular 


554  THE   READER  S  DIGEST   OF   BOOKS 

dissertation  on  the  same  subject,  disembarrassed  of  the  analytical  paraphernalia, 
of  the  greater  work.  It  has  been  truly  said  that  Laplace  was  not  properly  an  as- 
tronomer, but  rather  belonged  to  that  class  of  savants  who,  neglecting  direct  ob- 
servation of  phenomena,  depend  upon  the  observations  of  others,  and  discover 
by  force  of  calculation  and  meditation  those  great  laws  of  which  the  patient  re- 
searches of  observers  have  shown  the  elements,  without  suspecting  the  principle. 

Translated  by  Mrs.  Mary  Somerville  in  England,  and  by  Nathaniel  Bowditch 
in  America. 

MEDEA,  a  tragedy  by  Euripides,  acted  431  B.C.  The  play  opens  on  the  day 
when  Jason,  having  put  aside  Medea,  daughter  of  GEetes,  King  of  Colchis,  is  to  wed 
the  daughter  of  Creon,  King  of  Corinth.  Medea,  by  her  magic  art  had  enabled 
Jason  to  win  from  her  father  the  Golden  Fleece,  had  joined  him  in  his  flight  to 
Greece,  had  killed  her  brother,  Absyrtus,  who  pursued  them,  had  restored  Jason  to 
his  kingdom  of  lolcos  by  inducing  the  daughters  of  the  usurper,  Peleus,  to  murder 
their  father,  and  had  then  accompanied  Jason  to  Corinth,  where  she  had  borne  him 
two  children.  Overcome  with  indignation  at  the  faithlessness  of  her  husband,  she 
has  now  uttered  threats  against  his  proposed  new  bride.  These  have  been  reported 
to  Creon,  who  at  the  beginning  of  the  play  punishes  Medea  by  banishing  her  and 
her  children.  An  introductory  dialogue  between  Medea's  nurse  and  the  children's 
pedagogue  puts  these  facts  before  the  audience,  and  is  followed  by  the  entrance  of 
the  chorus  of  Corinthian  ladies  whose  ode  is  frequently  interrupted  by  the  laments 
of  Medea,  hidden  behind  the  scenes.  There  ensues  a  dialogue  between  Medea  and 
Creon  in  which  he  agrees  at  her  request  to  defer  the  exile  for  a  day;  a  scene  with 
Jason,  who  excuses  his  course  on  the  ground  of  desire  for  royal  authority  to  benefit 
his  sons  and  Medea,  attributes  her  exile  to  her  own  unrestrained  tongue,  and  offers 
her  money;  a  conversation  with  -<3£geus,  King  of  Athens,  whom  Medea  induces  to 
swear  to  give  her  an  asylum;  an  explanation  to  the  chorus  of  her  plan  of  vengeance; 
and  an  episode  with  Jason  in  which  she  pretends  to  justify  his  conduct,  urges  him 
to  plead  with  his  new  bride  that  the  children  may  not  be  exiled,  and  sends  her  two 
sons  to  enforce  this  plea  with  a  present  of  a  crown  and  robes,  both  poisoned.  The 
children  soon  announce  the  success  of  their  mission.  Medea  bids  them  a  tender 
fareweE  and  sends  them  into  the  house,  resolved  to  put  them  to  death.  A  messen- 
ger now  comes  in  reporting  the  death  of  the  bride  and  also  of  Creon,  through  the 
poisoned  ornaments.  Medea  now  enters  the  house,  whence  are  heard  the  death 
cries  of  her  children  as  she  murders  them.  Jason,  coming  in  to  rescue  his  children 
from  the  vengeance  of  the  Corinthians,  is  horrified  to  learn  that  they  have  fallen 
by  the  hand  of  their  own  mother.  He  attempts  to  break  into  the  palace;  but  Medea 
appears  on  the  roof  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  dragons,  and  after  bitterly  denouncing 
her  faithless  husband  departs  for  the  asylum  promised  her  in  Athens.  The  chorus 
in  this  play  is  sympathetic  with  Medea,  but  shocked  at  her  crime,  which,  however, 
it  makes  no  movement  to  prevent.  Like  all  the  plays  of  Euripides,  'Medea'  is 
full  of  rebellious  questionings  of  the  ways  of  God  to  Man.  It  excels  in  pathos  and 
in  psychological  insight. 

MEDECIN  DE  CAMPAGNE,  LE,  see  COUNTRY  DOCTOR. 

MEDITATIONS  OF  MARCUS  AURELIUS,  a  collection  of  ethical  and  philosophical 
reflections,  written  in  Greek  by  the  Roman  Emperor,  Marcus  Aurelius  (121-180 
A.D.),  at  leisure  moments  during  his  campaigns  against  the  tribes  east  of  the  Dan- 


.THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  555 

ube  (c  170  A.D.).  The  book  consists  of  detached  paragraphs,  some  very  short, 
others  running  to  one  or  two  hundred  words  in  length,  evidently  set  down  at  times 
of  contemplation  as  a  guidance  to  self-examination  and  an  incentive  to  self -improve- 
ment. Marcus  Aurelius  is  the  most  distinguished  exponent  of  the  Stoic  philosophy. 
His  book  illustrates  its  practical  working  in  a  mind  and  character  unusually  pure, 
lofty,  and  humane  and  in  a  sphere  of  life  offering  the  greatest  opportunities  for  be- 
neficent action.  The  leading  ideas  are  that  the  universe  is  governed  by  Supreme 
Reason;  that  all  things  therefore  are  for  the  best;  that  we  should  not  complain  or 
be  perturbed  at  suffering,  or  injuries  which  are  not  in  our  control,  since  these  are 
evidently  permitted  by  an  all- wise  Providence;  that  towards  everything  not  in  our 
power  we  should  adopt  an  attitude  of  complete  indifference;  and  that  our  one  con- 
cern should  be  the  attainment  of  virtue  through  the  exercise  of  our  free  will.  Virtue 
consists  in  the  control  of  the  lower  appetites  and  passions,  the  maintenance  of 
equanimity  in  all  circumstances,  however  distressing,  the  performance  of  justice 
and  charity  to  our  fellowmen,  and  the  reverencing  of  the  Supreme  Reason  and  its 
manifestations.  The  austerity  of  this  creed  is  lightened  up  by  the  delicacy  of  the 
emperor's  moral  insight,  his  human  sympathy,  and  the  simple  unassuming  dignity 
of  his  character. 

MEHALAH,  by  Sabine  Baring-Gould,  1880,  is  a  tale  of  the  salt  marshes  on  the  east 
coast  of  Essex,  England,  a  strange  region,  where  even  at  the  present  day,  when  this 
story  is  dated,  superstition  is  rife.  Every  character  in  the  book  is  eccentric,  the  half- 
mad  Mrs.  De  Witt  with  her  soldier  jacket  and  her  odd  oaths,  Elijah  Rebow,  the 
fiery  gipsy-beauty  Mehalah,  or  Glory,  as  she  is  called.  Mehalah  loves  George  De 
Witt,  but  quarrels  with  him  about  Phcebe  Musset.  Elijah  loves  Mehalah,  and  vows 
to  make  her  his  wife.  To  do  this,  he  robs  her  of  her  savings,  burns  the  house  over  her 
head,  and  compels  her  to  seek  shelter  under  his  roof  with  her  sick  mother.  So, 
among  this  half -barbarous  folk,  go  on  the  amenities  of  life;  and  the  story  grows  more 
and  more  lawless  to  the  end.  It  is  a  powerful  study  of  primitive  characters,  never 
agreeable,  but  always  absorbing.  Its  strength  is  in  the  skill  with  which  the  ro- 
mancer environs  his  Serge  human  creatures  with  an  equally  untamable  nature.  "Wild, 
singular,  and  extraordinary  as  the  conceptions  and  combinations  of  the  author  of 
1  Mehalah '  are,  they  are  almost,  if  not  entirely,  removed  from  the  realm  of  imagina- 
tion. It  is  on  this  fact  that  their  value  and  their  permanence  as  literature  rest. 
They  are  bits  of  human  history,  studies  of  eccentric  development,  scenes  from  the 
comedy  of  unsophisticated  life." 

MELTING  POT,  THE,  by  Israel  Zangwill  (1910).  The  hero  of  this  drama  is  a 
young  Jewish  musician,  who  has  escaped  to  New  York  from  the  massacre  of  Kishe- 
nev  and  sees  in  America  the  great  crucible,  the  melting  pot,  in  which  people  of  every 
race  and  creed  are  fused  into  one  nation.  He  earns  his  living  playing  the  violin  in 
cheap  music  halls,  and  devotes  all  his  spare  time  to  the  composition  of  a  symphony 
'America'  which  shall  express  his  ardent  patriotism.  At  the  settlement  he  meets 
and  loves  Vera  Revendal,  also  a  Russian,  but  a  Gentile  and  the  daughter  of  a  noble- 
man. She  tries  to  interest  Quincy  Davenport,  a  spendthrift  millionaire,  in  David's 
symphony,  but  David  rejects  this  help  and  denounces  him  and  his  class  as  untrue 
to  American  ideals.  His  love  for  Vera  causes  his  orthodox  uncle  to  turn  him  out 
of  his  home.  Davenport,  who  wants  to  divorce  his  wife  and  marry  Vera,  brings 
her  father  to  America  to  prevent  her  marriage  to  a  Jew.  David  recognizes  in  Baron 
Revendal  the  inhuman  officer  who  directed  the  slaughter  of  his  father,  mother,  and 


556  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

sister  at  Kishenev,  and  in  a  frenzy  of  remembrance  renounces  Vera.  As  his  sym- 
phony is  being  played  to  the  immigrants  at  the  settlement  on  a  Fourth  of  July, 
he  realizes  that  he  has  been  false  to  the  ideals  of  his  music;  he  returns  to  his  concep- 
tion of  the  United  States  as  the  crucible  that  could  melt  all  race  differences  and 
feuds,  and  the  lovers  are  reunited. 

MEMOIRS  OF  SHERLOCK  HOLMES,  see  SHERLOCK  HOLMES. 

MEMORABILIA,  THE.  The  'Apomnemoneumata,'  by  Xenophon  (c  434-0  355 
B.C.),  is  generally  known  by  its  Latin  title  of  'The  Memorabilia, ' — an  incorrect  and 
somewhat  misleading  translation  of  the  Greek  word.  This  is  the  most  important 
of  the  writings  that  the  author  has  devoted  to  the  memory  of  Socrates.  Like  Plato, 
he  dwells  principally  on  those  doctrines  of  the  master  that  harmonize  with  his  own 
views.  In  the  beginning,  by  way  of  preface,  he  replies  to  the  positive  accusations 
brought  against  the  philosopher,  Then  he  proceeds  to  develop  his  real  purpose; 
which  is  to  depict  the  true  Socrates,  not  from  the  opinions  of  others,  which  are  al- 
ways controvertible,  but  from  his  own  words  and  actions,  and  in  this  way  place 
under  the  eyes  of  the  Athenians  a  correct  likeness  of  the  man  they  condemned 
because  they  did  not  know  him.  He  next  treats  of  the  many  examples  of  right 
living  given  by  Socrates  to  his  countrymen,  and  of  the  lesson  of  his  life.  After  the 
lesson  of  his  life  comes  the  lesson  of  his  discourses.  This  is  embodied  in  a  series 
of  dialogues  between  Socrates  and  persons  engaged  in  different  occupations,  upon 
the  subjects  which  engrossed  his  whole  attention :  piety  towards  the  gods,  temper- 
ance, the  duties  incumbent  on  children  with  regard  to  parents,  friendship,  the  po- 
litical virtues,  the  useful  arts,  and  the  science  of  dialectics.  As  it  was  Xenophon 's 
object  to  create  a  feeling  of  love  and  veneration  for  his  master  among  the  Athenians, 
he  touches  chiefly  on  those  points  in  the  character  of  Socrates  that  he  believed 
would  conduce  to  this  end.  Thus  he  describes  him  as  teaching  that  in  matters 
of  religion  every  one  should  follow  the  usages  of  his  city.  Socrates,  he  says,  sacri- 
ficed openly  and  publicly;  he  not  only  consulted  the  oracles,  but  he  strongly  ad- 
vised his  friends  to  consult  them ;  he  believed  in  divination,  and  paid  close  attention 
to  the  signs  by  which  the  divinity  communicated  with  himself.  More  than  half 
of  the  chapters  in  the  third  book  are  devoted  to  the  conversation  of  Socrates  with 
generals  and  hipparchs,  and  Xenophon  attributes  much  of  his  own  knowledge  of 
military  matters  to  his  good  fortune  in  having  been  acquainted  with  his  master. 
The  most  beautiful  dialogues,  however,  are  those  which  deal  with  the  feelings  that 
ought  to  actuate  the  members  of  the  same  family, — the  love  of  the  mother  for  her 
child,  and  of  brother  for  brother.  The  chapters  which  conclude  the  work  are  noted 
for  deep  feeling,  tenderness,  and  elevation  of  thought. 

MEN  OF  THE  OLD  STONE  AGE:  'Their  Environment,  Life,  and  Art,'  by 
Henry  Fairfield  Osborn  (1915).  The  book  is  a  history  of  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  man  from  the  anthropoid  apes  to  the  Old  Stone  Age  and  the  beginnings 
of  the  modern  European  races.  The  latest  anthropological  discoveries,  includ- 
ing the  various  skeletons  of  primitive  man  found  at  Heidelberg  and  Neander- 
thal, and  the  later  specimens  of  the  more  civilized  Cr6-magnon  race,  occurring  in 
the  valleys  of  Southern  France  and  Northern  Spain,  are  combined  with  the  latest 
archaeological  and  geological  data  relevant  to  the  subject  in  a  clear  and  orderly 
narrative  of  human  development.  The  book  is  superbly  illustrated  with  reconstruc- 
tions of  early  types  of  men  and  animals  and  reproductions  of  drawings  of  men, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  557 

horses,  fish,  and  other  creatures,  made  on  the  walls  of  caverns  in  the  regions  men- 
tioned by  "upper  palaeolithic  artists/'  These  representations  show  considerable 
skill  and  appreciation  of  nature  on  the  part  of  a  race  which  existed  at  least  25,000 
years  ago.  Abundant  maps  and  diagrams  accompany  the  text,  which  expounds 
the  subject  clearly,  avoiding  undue  discussion  of  controverted  points,  and  aiming 
at  a  straightforward  presentation  of  admitted  facts.  As  the  writer  lays  no  claim 
to  authority  as  an  anthropologist,  and  relies  in  part  on  the  investigations  of  Car- 
tilhac,  Breuil,  Obermaies,  and  others,  the  book  is  rather  a  compilation  for  the 
layman  and  a  general  conspectus  for  the  scientist  than  a  piece  of  original  investiga- 
tion; but  it  is  an  exceedingly  valuable  summary,  skilfully  arranged  by  an  archaeolo- 
gist of  distinction,  of  the  latest  conclusions  as  to  the  history  of  primitive  mankind. 

MEN^ECHMI,  a  comedy  by  Plautus,  the  source  of  Shakespeare's  'Comedy  of  Er- 
rors. '  A  full  summary  of  the  Plautine  comedy  is  given  in  the  LIBRARY  under  '  Plau- 
tus, 'pp.  11561-2.  Shakespeare  by  representing  the  two  servants  as  twin-brothers, 
doubles  the  fun  and  the  entanglement.  The  play  is  an  excellent  example  of  classical 
comedy — its  stock  characters,  its  complicated  intrigue,  and  its  witty  dialogue. 

MERCHANT  OF  VENICE,  THE,  is  a  drama  of  Shakespeare's  middle  period  (1597). 
The  story  of  the  bond  and  that  of  the  caskets  are  both  found  in  the  old  Gesta  Roma- 
norum,  but  the  poet  used  especially  Florentine's  *I1  Pecorone'  (Milan,  1558).  An 
atmosphere  of  high  breeding  and  noble  manners  enwraps  this  most  popular  of 
Shakespeare's  plays.  The  merchant  Antonio  is  the  ideal  friend,  his  magnificent 
generosity  a  foil  against  which  Shylock's  avarice  glows  with  a  more  baleful  lustre. 
Shylock  has  long  hated  him,  both  for  personal  insults  and  for  lending  money  gratis. 
Now,  some  twenty  and  odd  miles  away,  at  Belmont,  lives  Portia,  with  her  golden 
hair,  and  golden  ducats;  and  Bassanio  asks  his  friend  Antonio  for  a  loan,  that  he 
may  go  that  way  a- wooing.  Antonio  seeks  the  money  of  Shylock,  who  bethinks  him 
now  of  a  possible  revenge.  He  offers  three  thousand  ducats  gratis  for  three  months, 
if  Antonio  will  seal  to  a  merry  bond  pledging  that  if  he  shall  fail  his  day  of  payment, 
the  Jew  may  cut  from  his  breast,  nearest  the  heart,  a  pound  of  flesh.  Antonio  ex- 
pects ships  home  a  month  before  the  day,  and  signs.  While  Shylock  is  feeding  at 
the  Christian's  expense,  Lorenzo  runs  away  with  sweet  Jessica,  his  dark-eyed  daughter, 
and  sundry  bags  of  ducats  and  jewels.  Bassanio  is  off  to  Belmont.  Portia  is  to 
be  won  by  him  who,  out  of  three  caskets, — of  gold,  silver,  and  lead,  respectively, — 
shall  choose  that  containing  her  portrait.  Bassanio  makes  the  right  choice.  But 
at  once  comes  word  that  blanches  his  cheeks;  all  of  Antonio's  ships  are  reported  lost 
at  sea;  his  day  of  payment  has  passed,  and  Shylock  clamors  for  his  dreadful  forfeit. 
Bassanio,  and  his  follower,  Gratiano,  only  tarry  to  be  married,  the  one  to  Portia, 
and  the  other  to  her  maid  Nerissa;  and  then,  with  money  furnished  by  Portia 
they  speed  away  toward  Venice.  Portia  follows  disguised  as  a  young  doctor-at- 
law,  and  Nerissa  as  her  clerk.  Arrived  in  Venice,  they  are  ushered  into  court, 
where  Shylock,  fell  as  a  famished  tiger,  is  snapping  out  fierce  calls  for  justice  and  his 
pound  of  flesh,  Antonio  pale  and  hopeless,  and  Bassanio  in  vain  offering  him  thrice 
the  value  of  his  bond.  Portia,  too,  in  vain  pleads  with  him  for  mercy.  Well,  says 
Portia,  the  law  must  take  its  course.  Then,  "A  Daniel  come  to  judgment!"  cries 
the  Jew:  "Come,  prepare,  prepare."  Stop,  says  the  young  doctor,  your  bond 
gives  you  flesh,  but  no  blood;  if  you  shed  one  drop  of  blood  you  die,  and  your  lands 
and  goods  are  confiscate  to  the  State.  The  Jew  cringes,  and  offers  to  accept  Bas- 
sanio's  offer  of  thrice  the  value  of  the  bond  in  cash;  but  learns  that  for  plotting 


558  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

against  the  life  of  a  citizen  of  Venice  all  his  property  is  forfeited,  half  to  Antonio 
and  half  to  the  State.  As  the  play  closes,  the  little  band  of  friends  are  grouped  on 
Portia's  lawn  in  the  moonlight,  under  the  vast  blue  dome  of  stars.  The  poet,  how- 
ever, excites  our  pity  for  the  baited  Jew. 

MERIMEE,  PROSPER,  see  LETTERS  TO  AN  UNKNOWN. 

MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR,  by  Shakespeare  (printed  1602),  is  a  play  writ- 
ten, according  to  tradition,  at  the  request  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  wanted  to  see 
Falstaff  in  love.  With  its  air  of  village  domesticity  and  out-o'-doorness  is  united 
the  quintessential  spirit  of  fun  and  waggery.  Its  gay  humor  never  fails,  and  its 
readers  alway  wish  it  five  times  as  long  as  it  is.  The  figures  on  this  rich  old  tapestry 
resolve  themselves,  on  inspection,  into  groups:  The  jolly  ranter  and  bottle-rinser, 
mine  host  of  the  Garter  Inn,  with  Sir  John  Falstaff  and  his  men,  Bardolph,  Nym, 
and  Pistol;  the  merry  wives,  Mrs.  Ford  and  Mrs.  Page,  and  their  families;  then 
Shallow  (the  country  justice),  with  his  cousin  of  the  "wee  little  face  and  little 
yellow  beard"  (Slender),  and  the  latter 's  man  Simple;  further  Dr.  Caius,  the  French 
physician,  who  speaks  broken  English,  as  does  Parson  Hugh  Evans,  the  Welshman; 
lastly  Dame  Quickly  (the  doctor's  housekeeper),  and  Master  Fenton,  in  love  with 
sweet  Anne  Page.  Shallow  has  a  grievance  against  Sir  John  for  killing  his  deer; 
and  Slender  has  matter  in  his  head  against  him,  for  Sir  John  broke  it.  But  Falstaff 
and  his  men  outface  the  two  cheese-parings,  and  they  forget  their  "pribbles  and 
prabbles"  in  the  parson's  scheme  of  marrying  Slender  to  Anne  Page.  But  the  iras- 
cible doctor  has  looked  that  way  too,  and  sends  a  "challenge"  to  Evans.  Mine 
host  fools  them  both  by  sending  each  to  a  separate  place  for  the  duel.  They  make 
friends,  and  avenge  themselves  on  the  Boniface  by  getting  his  horses  run  off  with. 
Falstaff  sends  identically  worded  love-letters  to  Mrs.  Ford  and  Mrs.  Page,  hoping 
to  replenish  his  purse  from  their  husbands'  gold.  But  Pistol  and  Nym,  in  revenge 
for  dismissal,  peach  to  said  husbands.  The  jealous  Ford  visits  Falstaff  under  the 
name  of  Brook,  and  offers  him  a  bag  of  gold  if  he  will  seduce  Mrs.  Ford  for  him. 
Jack  assures  him  that  he  has  an  appointment  with  her  that  very  day.  And  so  he 
has.  But  the  two  wives  punish  him  badly,  and  he  gets  nothing  from  them  but  a 
cast  out  of  a  buck-basket  into  a  dirty  ditch,  and  a  sound  beating  from  Ford.  The 
midnight  scene  in  Windsor  Park,  where  Falstaff,  disguised  as  Herne  the  Hunter, 
with  stag-horns  on  his  head,  is  guyed  by  the  wives  and  their  husbands  and  pinched 
and  burned  by  the  fairies'  tapers,  is  most  amusing.  During  the  fairies'  song  Fenton 
steals  away  Anne  Page  and  marries  her.  The  doctor,  by  previous  arrangement, 
with  mother  Ford,  leads  away  a  fairy  in  green  to  a  priest,  only  to  discover  that  he 
has  married  a  boy.  And  Slender  barely  escapes  the  same  fate;  for  he  leads  off  to 
Eton  Church  another  "great  lubberly  boy,"  dressed  in  white  as  agreed  with  Mr. 
Page.  Anne  has  given  the  slip  to  both  father  and  mother,  having  promised  her 
father  to  wear  white  for  Slender  and  her  mother  to  dress  in  green  for  the  doctor. 

METHODISM  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES,  A  HISTORY  OP,  by  James  M.  Buck- 
ley (1897).  A  work  of  description  and  history,  designed  to  present  Methodism  in 
comparison  with  other  forms  of  American  Protestant  Christianity;  to  show  its  ori- 
gins and  follow  its  developments;  to  mark  the  modifications  which  it  has  undergone; 
and  to  note  into  what  branches  it  has  divided,  through  what  conflicts  it  has  passed, 
and  what  have  been  the  controversies  with  which  it  has  had  to  deal.  Dr.  Buckley 
is  an  accomplished  journalist  of  his  denomination,  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  men 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  559 

and  movements  representing  nineteenth-century  Methodism,  and  not  less  with 
the  history  of  other  churches  in  America;  and  his  story  of  the  wide  sweep  and  vast 
weight  of  the  faith  and  fellowship  running  in  the  names  of  Wesley  and  of  Methodism 
is  as  interesting  as  it  is  opportune. 

METHODS  OF  SOCIAL  REFORM,  by  William  Stanley  Jevons  (1883).  This 
volume  appeared,  with  a  preface  by  the  author's  wife,  after  his  too  early  death  in 
1882,  the  papers  composing  it  having  already  been  published  in  the  Contemporary 
Review.  Professor  Jevons  takes  the  view  that  the  possible  methods  of  social  reform 
are  well-nigh  infinite  in  number  and  diversity,  becoming  more  numerous  as  society 
grows  more  complex,  and  that  the  recognized  methods  at  any  given  time  are  to  be 
used  not  disjunctively  but  collectively.  In  this  volume,  he  considers  Amusements, 
Public  Libraries,  Museums,  "Cram"  (in  its  university  sense),  Trades  Societies, 
Industrial  Partnerships,  Married  Women  in  Factories,  Cruelty  to  Animals,  Experi- 
mental Legislation,  and  the  Drink  Traffic,  Systems  of  Conveyance  of  Documents, 
other  than  the  Post-Office  under  government  control,  the  Post-Office  Telegraphs 
and  their  Financial  Results,  Postal  Notes,  Money  Orders  and  Bank  Checks,  a 
State  Parcel  Post,  the  Railways  and  the  State.  His  Inaugural  Address  before  the 
Manchester  Statistical  Society,  his  opening  address  as  president  of  Section  C  of  the 
British  Association,  and  a  paper  on  the  United  Kingdom  Alliance,  economic  science, 
and  statistics,  are  also  given.  Libraries  he  regards  as  one  of  the  best  and  quickest 
paying  investments  in  which  the  public  money  can  be  used,  attributing  the  recent 
advance  in  British  library  economics  and  extension  largely  to  American  example. 
The  paper  on  "Cram"  takes  the  view  that  while  the  method  of  university  examina- 
tions is  not  perfect,  it  is  the  most  effective  known  for  enforcing  severe  and  definite 
mental  training,  and  of  selecting  for  high  position  the  successful  competitors;  while 
any  system  of  preparation  for  the  examinations  that  leads  to  success  is  a  good  sys- 
tem. He  favors  co-operation  and  profit-sharing,  but  opposes  government  owner- 
ship of  the  railways.  In  all  his  work,  Professor  Jevons  has  shown  that  his  practical 
and  exact  mind  is  always  informed  by  a  spiritual  and  ethical  influence  that  gives  his 
conclusions  a  special  weight  on  their  moral  side;  and  this  work,  written  with  great 
clearness  and  attractiveness,  is  no  exception  to  the  rule. 

MICAH  CLARKE,  by  A.  Conan  Doyle  (1888),  presents  in  the  form  of  a  novel  a 
graphic  and  vivid  picture  of  the  political  condition  in  England  during  the  Western 
rebellion,  when  James,  Duke  of  Monmouth,  aspired  to  the  throne,  and  when  Eng- 
lishmen were  in  arms  against  Englishmen.  The  story  tells  of  the  adventures 
of  the  young  man  whose  name  the  book  bears,  of  the  many  perils  which  he  encoun- 
tered on  his  journey  from  Havant  to  Taunton  to  join  the  standard  of  Monmouth, 
and  of  the  valiant  part  he  played  in  the  final  struggle,  when  the  King's  troops  were 
victorious  and  hundreds  of  Protestants,  who  had  escaped  death  on  the  field,  were 
hanged  for  treason. 

Through  this  melancholy  but  thrilling  narrative  runs  a  pretty  vein  of  love-mak- 
ing. The  gentle  and  innocent  Puritan  maid,  Mistress  Ruth  Timewell,  who  had 
never  heard  of  Cowley  or  Waller  or  Dryden,  and  who  was  accustomed  to  derive 
enjoyment  from  such  books  as  the  *  Alarm  to  the  Unconverted/  'Faithful  Contend- 
mgs,'  or  'Bull's  Spirit  Cordial,7  finds  love  more  potent  than  theology,  and  prefers 
Reuben  Lockarby,  a  tavern-keeper's  son,  to  Master  John  Derrick,  a  man  of  her 
own  faith. 

But  the  climax  of  'Micah  Clarke1  is  reached  in  the  description  of  the  battle  on 


560  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  plain  in  the  early  morning,  in  which  one  learns  what  religion  meant  in  England 
toward  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Against  the  disciplined  and  well- 
equipped  regiments  of  the  King  are  opposed  Monmouth's  untrained  and  ragged 
forces — peasants,  armed  only  with  scythes,  pikes,  and  clubs,  but  with  the  unfaltering 
courage  of  fanaticism  in  their  hearts  and  with  psalms  on  their  lips. 

'Micah  Clarke'  is  a  book  for  old  and  young;  a  book  which  instructs,  while  it 
quickens  the  imagination  and  stirs  the  blood. 

MICHAEL  AND  HIS  LOST  ANGEL,  by  Henry  Arthur  Jones  (1896).  The  play 
opens  with  a  scene  in  which  the  Rev.  Michael  Faversham,  an  ascetic  clergyman  of 
the  Church  of  England,  who  had  taken  vows  of  celibacy,  insists  that  Rose  Andrew, 
who  had  secretly  given  birth  to  an  illegitimate  child,  and  her  father,  who  had  been 
assisting  her  to  deceive  the  public  about  this  circumstance  in  her  life,  should  confess 
their  fault  in  public  before  his  congregation.  Michael's  dearest  aim  at  the  moment 
is  the  restoration  of  the  Minster,  and  he  has  just  received  a  large  anonymous  con- 
tribution, which  he  suspects  has  come  from  Mrs.  Lesden,  a  wealthy  woman  who 
has  recently  come  to  live  in  the  district;  and  whom  at  first  he  dislikes  on  account 
of  her  apparent  frivolity  and  insincerity.  She  persists  in  making  excuses  to  see  him 
and  he  gradually  falls  a  prey  to  her  fascinations  and  admits  to  her  that  he  is  enamored 
of  her.  In  great  mental  agony  he  retires  for  meditation  and  prayer  to  St.  Decuman 's 
Island,  an  uninhabited  island,  where  he  had  built  a  small  cabin  around  the  shrine 
of  the  saint.  Mrs.  Lesden  had  written  to  him  that  he  is  the  only  man  living  who 
can  inspire  her  to  attempt  the  life  of  a  saint,  but  that  the  cost  to  him  would  be  too 
great.  He  burns  her  letter  and  hopes  that  he  has  overcome  the  temptation,  when 
a  tap  comes  to  the  door  and  she  appears.  He  persuades  her  to  renounce  their 
love,  but  finds  that  there  is  no  means  of  return  for  her  from  the  island  that  night. 
Afterwards  Michael  in  the  presence  of  Rose  makes  public  renunciation  of  his  fault 
in  his  own  church.  Going  to  Italy  to  spend  his  time  in  penance  and  retirement,  he 
again  meets  Mrs.  Lesden,  wasted  and  dying,  who  has  followed  him  and  who  dies 
in  his  arms. 

MIDDLEMARCH,  by  George  Eliot  (1872).  This,  the  last  but  one  of  George  Eliot's 
novels,  she  is  said  to  have  regarded  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  to  two  stories,  one  centring  around  the  Vincy  family,  and  the 
other  around  Dorothea  Brooke  and  her  relatives.  On  account  of  this  division  of 
interest,  the  construction  of  the  story  has  been  severely  criticized  as  clumsy  and 
inartistic. 

Dorothea  Brooke,  the  most  prominent  figure  on  the  very  crowded  canvas,  is  an 
orphan,  who,  with  her  sister  CeHa,  lives  with  her  uncle  Mr.  Brooke,  a  man  of  vacil- 
lating and  uneven  temperament.  Dorothea's  longing  for  a  lofty  mission  leads  her 
to  marry  an  elderly  and  wealthy  clergyman,  Rev.  Edward  Casaubon,  who  has 
retired  from  the  ministry  to  give  his  time  to  an  important  piece  of  literary  work. 
Dorothea,  though  not  yet  twenty,  hopes  to  be  his  amanuensis  and  helper;  and  is 
greatly  grieved  to  find  that  her  husband  sets  slight  value  on  her  services.  In  other 
ways  she  has  been  disillusioned  before  the  death  of  Mr.  Casaubon,  a  year  and  a  half 
after  their  marriage.  A  rather  insulting  provision  of  his  will  directs  that  his  widow 
shall  lose  her  income  if  she  marries  Will  Ladislaw,  a  young  cousin  of  Mr.  Casaubon 's. 
Ladislaw  is  partly  of  Polish  descent;  and  both  his  mother  and  his  grandmother  had 
been  disinherited  by  their  English  relatives  for  marrying  foreigners.  Ladislaw  owes 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  561 

his  education  to  Mr.  Casaubon;  but  not  until  after  the  death  of  the  latter  does  the 
friendship  between  the  younger  man  and  Dorothea  take  the  tinge  of  love. 

Rosamond  Vincy,  who  may  be  called  a  minor  heroine,  is  the  daughter  of  the 
mayor  of  Middlemarch.  She  is  a  beautiful  girl,  whose  feeling  that  she  is  much  more 
refined  than  her  commonplace  relatives,  leads  her  to  lofty  matrimonial  aspirations. 
She  wins  the  love  of  Dr.  Lydgate,  who,  though  nephew  to  a  baronet,  has  a  hard 
struggle  to  establish  himself  as  a  Middlemarch  physician,  with  Dr.  Sprague  and 
Dr.  Minchin  as  rivals.  Neither  he  nor  his  wife  knows  how  to  economize;  and  the 
latter,  feeling  her  husband's  poverty  an  insult  to  herself,  is  a  hindrance  to  him  in 
every  way.  The  story  of  his  efforts  to  maintain  his  family,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  be  true  to  his  ambition  to  add  to  the  science  of  his  profession,  is  a  sad  one.  In 
the  characters  of  Dorothea  and  Lydgate,  George  Eliot  develops  the  main  purpose  of 
this  novel,  which  is  less  distinctly  ethical  than  some  of  the  others.  Her  aim  in 
'  Middlemarch '  was  to  show  how  the  thought  and  action  of  even  very  high-minded 
persons  is  apt  to  be  modified  and  altered  by  their  environment.  Both  Dorothea 
and  Lydgate  become  entangled  by  their  circumstances;  though  in  his  case  the  dis- 
aster is  greater  than  in  hers,  and  in  each  case  it  is  a  moral  and  not  a  social  decline 
which  is  pointed  out.  Two  secondary  love  stories  in  '  Middlemarch '  are  those  of 
the  witty  Mary  Garth  and  the  spendthrift  Fred  Vincy,  and  of  Celia  Brooke,  and  Sir 
James  Chettam.  The  chorus,  which  constantly  reflects  Middlemarch  sentiment 
at  every  turn  of  affairs,  is  a  large  one,  including  Mrs.  Fitchett,  Kirs.  Dill,  Mrs.  Waule, 
Mrs.  Renfrew,  Mrs.  Plymdale,  Mrs.  Bulstrode,  Mrs.  Vincy;  and  among  the  men, 
Mr.  Dollop,  Mr.  Dill,  Mr.  Brothrop  Trumbull,  Mr.  Horrock,  Mr.  Wrech,  Mr.  The- 
siger,  and  Mr.  Standish. 

More  carefully  drawn  are  the  caustic  Airs.  Cadwallader,  the  self-denying  Air. 
Farebrother,  hypocritical  Mr.  Bulstrode,  the  miser  Featherstone,  and  the  honor- 
able Caleb  Garth  and  his  self-reliant  wife. 

MIDSUMMER  NIGHT'S  DREAM,  by  Shakespeare,  was  written  previous  to  1598; 
the  poet  drawing  for  materials  on  Plutarch,  Ovid,  and  Chaucer.  The  roguish  sprite 
Puck,  or  Robin  Goodfellow,  is  a  sort  of  half-brother  of  Ariel,  and  obeys  Oberon  as 
Ariel  obeys  Prospero.  The  theme  of  this  joyous  comedy  is  love  and  marriage. 
Duke  Theseus  is  about  to  wed  the  fair  Hippolyta.  Lysander  is  in  love  with  Hermia, 
and  so  is  Demetrius;  though  in  the  end,  Demetrius,  by  the  aid  of  Oberon,  is  led  back 
to  his  first  love  Helena.  The  scene  lies  chiefly  in  the  enchanted  wood  near  the 
duke's  palace  in  Athens.  In  this  wood  Lysander  and  Hermia,  and  Demetrius  and 
Helena,  wander  all  night  and  meet  with  strange  adventures  at  the  hands  of  Puck 
and  the  tiny  fairies  of  Queen  Titania's  train.  Like  her  namesake  in  'All's  Well,* 
Helena  is  here  the  wooer:  "Apollo  flies  and  Daphne  leads  the  chase."  Oberon  pities 
her,  and  sprinkling  the  juice  of  the  magic  flower  love-in-idleness  in  Demetrius's 
eyes,  restores  his  love  for  her;  but  not  before  Puck,  by  a  mistake  in  anointing  the 
wrong  man's  eyes,  has  caused  a  train  of  woes  and  perplexities  to  attend  the  footsteps 
of  the  wandering  lovers.  Puck,  for  fun,  claps  an  ass's  head  on  to  weaver  Bottom's 
shoulders,  who  thereupon  calls  for  oats  and  a  bottle  of  hay.  By  the  same  flower 
juice,  sprinkled  in  her  eyes,  Oberon  leads  Titania  to  dote  on  Bottom,  whose  hairy 
head  she  has  garlanded  with  flowers,  and  stuck  musk  roses  behind  his  ears.  Every- 
body seems  to  dream :  Titania,  in  her  bower  carpeted  with  violets  and  canopied  with 
honeysuckle  and  sweet-briar,  dreamed  she  was  enamored  of  an  ass,  and  Bottom 
dared  not  say  aloud  what  he  dreamed  he  was ;  while  in  the  fresh  morning  the  lovers 
felt  the  fumes  of  the  sleepy  enchantment  still  about  them. 


562  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

But  we  must  introduce  the  immortal  players  of  i  Pyramus  and  Thisbe. '  Bottom 
is  a  first  cousin  of  Dogberry,  his  drollery  the  richer  for  being  partly  self-conscious. 
With  good  strings  to  their  beards  and  new  ribbons  for  their  pumps,  he  and  his  men 
meet  at  the  palace,  "on  the  duke's  wedding-day  at  night."  Snout  presents  Wall; 
in  one  hand  he  holds  some  lime,  some  plaster  and  a  stone,  and  with  the  open  fingers 
of  the  other  makes  a  cranny  through  which  the  lovers  whisper.  A  fellow  with  lan- 
tern and  thorn-bush  stands  for  Moon.  The  actors  kindly  and  in  detail  explain  to 
the  audience  what  each  one  personates;  and  the  lion  bids  them  not  to  be  afeard, 
for  he  is  only  Snug  the  joiner,  who  roars  extempore.  The  master  of  the  revels 
laughs  at  the  delicious  humor  till  the  tears  run  down  his  cheeks  (and  you  don't 
wonder),  and  the  lords  and  ladies  keep  up  the  fun  by  a  running  fire  of  witticisms 
when  they  can  keep  their  faces  straight.  Theseus  is  an  idealized  English  gentleman, 
large-molded,  gracious,  and  wise.  His  greatness  is  shown  in  his  genuine  kindness 
to  the  poor  players  in  their  attempt  to  please  him. 

MILL,  JOHN  STUART,  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  (1873).  The  reader  who  for  the 
first  time  learns  how  John  Stuart  Mill  was  brought  up  by  his  father,  James  Mill, 
will  perhaps  wonder  how  the  scholar  ever  survived  so  arduous  a  regime,  so  early 
imposed.  Starting  Greek  at  the  age  of  three,  he  had  read  many  works  in  that 
language  before  he  began  Latin  in  his  eighth  year.  Numerous  histories  occupied 
a  large  part  of  the  interval  until  his  twelfth  year-,  when  he  began  logic,  to  which  he 
added  political  economy  a  year  later.  Brought  up  by  his  father 'to  think  that 
nothing  was  known  of  the  manner  in  which  the  world  came  into  existence,  he  says 
of  himself  in  this  book  that  he  had  not  thrown  off  religious  belief,  he  had  never  had  it, 
a  circumstance  which  lends  all  the  greater  interest  to  views  which  he  was  elsewhere 
to  express  in  'The  Utility  of  Religion  and  Theism. '  He  records  the  formation  of  the 
Utilitarian  Society  (whence  the  term  Utilitarian  passed  into  general  use,  though 
Mill  had  borrowed  it  from  Gait's  'Annals  of  the  Parish'),  by  himself  and  a  group  of 
other  young  men  who  took  Utility  as  their  standard  in  ethics  and  politics.  Later 
he  helped  to  found  the  Westminster  Review  as  a  Radical  offset  to  the  Edinburgh 
and  Quarterly,  then  in  the  heyday  of  their  power.  At  that  time  he  and  his  fellow- 
workers  based  their  political  faith  on  representative  government  and  complete 
freedom  of  discussion.  His  intercourse  for  twenty  years  with  the  lady  who  was 
afterwards,  on  the  death  of  her  first  husband,  to  become  his  wife,  was  a  source  of 
profound  intellectual  stimulus  to  him  and  modified  his  views  on  religion,  ethics, 
political  economy  and  every  subject  which  occupied  his  mind.  It  is  interesting 
to  note  that  the  man  who  wrote  a  classic  treatise  '  On  Liberty '  could  also  epitomise 
in  these  words  his  own  and  his  most  intimate  fellow- workers'  views.  "While  we 
repudiated  with  the  greatest  energy  that  tyranny  of  society  over  the  individual 
which  most  Socialistic  systems  are  supposed  to  involve,  we  yet  looked  forward  to  a 
time  when  society  will  no  longer  be  divided  into  the  idle  and  the  industrious;  when 
the  rule  that  they  who  do  not  work  shall  not  eat,  will  be  applied  not  to  paupers 
only,  but  impartially  to  all;  when  the  division  of  the  produce  of  labour,  instead 
of  depending,  as  in  so  great  a  degree  it  now  does,  on  the  accident  of  birth,  will  be 
made  by  concert  on  an  acknowledged  principle  of  justice;  and  when  it  will  no 
longer  either  be,  or  be  thought  to  be,  impossible  for  human  beings  to  exert  them- 
selves strenuously  in  procuring  benefits  which  are  not  to  be  exclusively  their 
own,  but  to  be  shared  with  the  society  they  belong  to."  The  most  poignant 
section  of  a  pathetically  interesting  self -revelation  is  Mill's  lament  for  the 
loss  of  his  wife.  "Her  memory  is  to  me  a  religion,  and  her  approbation  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  563 

standard  by  which,  summing  up  as  it  does  all  worthiness,  I  endeavour  to  regulate 
my  life." 

MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS,  THE,  by  George  Eliot  (1860),  one  of  the  masterpieces  of 
fiction,  is  like  '  Middlemarch '  a  tragedy,  though  a  tragedy  destitute  of  the  usual 
heroic  setting  and  grandiloquent  circumstances.  The  author  found  her  tragic 
material  in  the  commonplace  lives  of  English  working-people;  and  traced  the  work- 
ings of  fate  in  the  obscure  development  of  a  young  girl,  with  passions  no  less  strong 
than  those  of  a  woman  in  some  ancient  Greek  tragedy,  suffering  in  a  magnificent 
environment,  under  the  gaze  of  the  world,  f. Maggie  Tulliver,  the  daughter  of  the 
Miller  of  Dorlcote  Mill,  is  from  childhood  'misunderstood  and  dominated  by  the 
coarse-grained  well-meaning  people  about  her.  Her  brother  Tom,  a  hearty  young 
animal,  with  selfish  masculine  instincts,  accepts  her  devotion  as  he  would  that  of  a 
dog.  He  teases  her  because  she  is  a  girl.  He  hates  her  when  she  eludes  him  by 
going  into  her  fairyland  of  imagination,  whither  he  cannot  follow  her.  She  loves 
him  devotedly;  but  to  her  love  always  brings  suffering.  She  is  ill  regulated,  and  is 
therefore  not  a  favorite  with  her  aunts,  Mrs.  Glegg  and  Mrs.  Pullet,  who  can  see 
no  trace  of  the  respectable  Dodson  blood  in  her.  Maggie's  childhood  is  a  series  of 
conflicts  with  respectability.  In  her  girlhood  the  passionate  little  heart  is  somewhat 
subdued  to  her  surroundings.  Family  troubles  are  brewing.  They  culminate  in 
the  death  of  Mr.  Tulliver,  and  in  the  sale  of  Dorlcote  Mill.  Maggie  ceases  to  be 
a  child,  becomes  a  woman.  The  needs  of  her  nature  find  satisfaction  in  the  com- 
panionship of  Philip  Wakem,  the  crippled  son  of  the  lawyer  who  helped  to  ruin  Mr. 
Tulliver.  It  is  the  old  story  of  Verona,  of  the  lovers  whose  families  are  at  feud, 
translated  into  homely  English  life.  Maggie  must  renounce  Philip.  Tom  hates 
him  and  his  race  with  all  the  strength  of  his  hard-and-fast  uncompromising  nature. 
Maggie,  starving  for  beauty,  for  the  joy  of  love  and  life,  seeks  to  satisfy  her  spiritual 
cravings  in  that  classic  of  renunciation,  the  'Imitation  of  Christ.'  She  feeds  her 
rich  nature  with  the  thoughts  of  the  dead.  The  next  temptation  in  her  way  is 
Stephen  Guest,  betrothed  to  her  cousin  Lucy.  Stephen  represents  to  Maggie, 
although  she  does  not  know  it,  the  aesthetic  element  that  is  lacking  in  her  barren 
life.  The  two  are  thrown  together.  Their  mutual  passion  masters  them.  Maggie 
almost  consents  to  go  away  with  Stephen,  finds  herself  indeed  on  the  journey;  but 
at  the  last  minute  turns  back,  though  she  knows  that  she  has  endangered  her  good 
name.  The  worst  interpretation  is  put  upon  her  conduct.  From  that  time  on 
she  faces  the  contumely  of  the  little  village  community.  Death,  and  death  only, 
can  reconcile  her  to  the  world  and  to  Tom,  who  has  stood  as  the  embodiment  of  the 
world's  harshest  judgment.  They  are  drowned  in  the  great  flood  of  the  Floss: 
''Brother  and  sister  had  gone  down  together  in  an  embrace  never  to  be  parted; 
living  through  again  in  one  supreme  moment  the  days  when  they  had  clasped  their 
little  hands  in  love  and  roamed  the  daisied  fields  together."  The  tragic  atmosphere 
of  the  novel  is  relieved  by  passages  of  quaint,  primitive  humor,  by  marvelous  de- 
scriptions of  well-to-do  rural  types.  The  Dodson  family  is  hardly  surpassed  in 
fiction. 

MILLIONAIRE,  THE,  by  Mikhail  Artsybashev  (1904).  The  three  stories  are 
painful  Russian  realism.  The  millionaire  is  the  unhappy  rich  man,  who  cannot 
buy  the  love  and  friendship  he  longs  to  have.  He  suspects  everyone  who  approaches 
him  of  a  design  to  get  money  from  him.  His  morbid  obsession  makes  life  a  burden 
and  he  commits  suicide  by  drowning.  The  story  of  'Ivan  Lande'  is  that  of  the 


564  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

man  who  tries  to  live  on  earth  like  Jesus.  Ivan's  first  act  is  to  try  to  give  his  inherit- 
ance of  four  thousand  rubles  to  the  starving  families  of  the  workmen  who  are  out 
of  employment,  but  he  succeeds  only  in  making  his  mother  furious  that  the  money 
which  his  father  worked  to  save  should  go  to  a  "pack  of  paupers."  The  church  is 
against  him  because  he  disregards  the  letter  for  the  sake  of  the  spirit,  and  his  refusal 
to  fight  the  man  who  has  struck  him  wins  him  only  contempt.  He  dies  miserably 
and  alone.  'Nina,'  called  'The  Horror,'  in  Russian,  is  a  story  of  criminal  attack  and 
murder  of  an  innocent  young  girl.  Because  the  murderers  are  a  magistrate,  a 
police  commissioner,  and  a  doctor,  the  Russian  police  shoot  down  the  crowd  who 
call  for  justice. 

MILLIONAIRE  BABY,  THE,  by  Anna  Katharine  Green  (1905).  This  is  a  detective 
story  founded  on  the  mysterious  disappearance  of  Gwendolen  Ocumpaugh,  the  only 
child  of  wealthy  parents  and  heiress  to  a  fortune  which  gives  her  the  name  of  the 
"Millionaire  Baby."  She  disappears  from  a  bungalow  on  the  family  estate  while 
in  the  charge  of  her  nursery  governess,  Miss  Graham.  Mrs.  Ocumpaugh  is  giving 
a  large  reception  at  the  time  the  loss  of  Gwendolen  is  discovered  and  frenzied  with 
grief  she  leads  the  search  for  the  child.  The  river  is  dragged,  at  her  suggestion, 
and  one  small  shoe  belonging  to  Gwendolen  is  found  in  the  bushes  and  another  in 
the  river.  However,  Mr.  Trevitt,  the  private  detective,  who  is  at  work  on  the 
case,  discovers  that  the  two  shoes  are  for  the  same  foot  and  immediately  scents  a 
conspiracy  and  is  convinced  that  the  child  has  been  abducted.  In  the  next  house 
to  the  Ocumpaughs  lives  an  attractive  widow,  named  Mrs.  Carew,  who  on  the  day 
of  the  disappearance  has  been  to  the  city  and  brought  back  with  her  an  orphan  nephew 
with  whom  she  is  to  sail  immediately  for  Europe.  Mr.  Trevitt  explores  the  bungalow 
with  Mrs.  Carew  as  she  will  not  permit  him  to  go  there  without  her,  and  he  discovers 
a  trap  door  under  a  rug  which  leads  to  a  room  underground  and  finds  proof  of  Gwen- 
dolen's having  been  secreted  there.  He  discovers  a  woman's  footprints  which  he 
suspects  are  Mrs.  Carew's  but  on  interviewing  Mrs.  Ocumpaugh  she  breaks  down 
and  confesses  that  they  are  hers.  She  tells  him  that  Gwendolen  is  not  her  own 
child  but  has  been  procured  for  her  by  a  Dr.  Pool  who  has  aided  her  in  deceiving  her 
husband  as  to  her  real  identity.  Mr.  Ocumpaugh  being  in  Europe  at  the  time  of 
the  abduction  which  was  precipitated  by  the  threats  of  Dr.  Pool  who  would  force 
her  to  give  up  the  child,  she  had  finally  taken  Mrs.  Carew  into  her  confidence  and 
together  they  had  planned  for  Gwendolen's  disappearance.  Mrs.  Ocumpaugh 
herself  hid  her  in  the  bungalow  and  later  carried  her  to  Mrs.  Carew's  where  she 
was  dressed  as  a  boy,  with  her  hair  cut  and  darkened.  The  child  Mrs.  Carew  had 
brought  back  from  the  city  was  surreptitiously  carried  away  in  a  covered  wagon 
and  the  servants  were  dismissed  for  the  occasion. 

Mrs.  Ocumpaugh,  who  loves  her  husband  devotedly,  is  almost  crazed  at  the 
thought  of  his  learning  her  duplicity,  when  Dr.  Pool  suddenly  dies,  and  later  de- 
velopments show  that  Gwendolyn  is  Mrs.  Carew's  own  child  whom  poverty  has 
forced  her  to  part  with  at  her  birth. 

MILTON,  JOHN,  THE  LIFE  OF,  'Narrated  in  connection  with  the  Political, 
Ecclesiastical,  and  Literary  History  of  his  Time'  by  David  Masson  (7  vols., 
1858-94.  Revised  and  enlarged  edition  of  Vol.  i.,  1881).  A  thorough  and  minute 
'Life  of  Milton,'  with  a  new  political,  ecclesiastical,  and  literary  history  of  Milton's 
whole  time,  1608-74.  The  work  embraces  not  only  the  history  of  England,  but  the 
connections  of  England  with  Scotland  and  Ireland,  and  with  foreign  countries, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  565 

through  the  civil  wars,  the  Commonwealth,  the  Protectorates  of  Oliver  and  Richard 
Cromwell,  the  period  following  of  anarchy,  and  the  first  fourteen  years  of  the  Res- 
toration. It  claims  to  be,  and  unquestionably  is,  the  faithful  fulfillment  of  a  large 
design  to  make  a  history  of  England's  most  interesting  and  most  momentous  period, 
from  original  and  independent  studies;  not  a  mere  setting  for  the  biography  of 
Milton,  but  a  work  of  independent  search  and  method  from  first  to  last,  to  which 
the  inquirer  can  turn  for  accurate  information  in  regard  to  any  important  fact  of 
the  entire  Milton  period. 

The  Pilgrim  Fathers  took  refuge  in  Holland  the  very  year  of  Milton's  birth; 
the  age  was  the  age  of  Puritanism;  Milton  was  the  very  genius  of  Puritanism, 
and  largely  too  of  broad  Pilgrim  character  and  mind;  the  Westminster  Assembly, 
by  which  Scotch  Calvinism  was  made  dominant  in  England,  was  a  notable  fact, 
side  by  side  with  the  Long  Parliament  from  July  ist,  1643,  to  February  22d,  1649; 
Presbyterianism  found  advantage  from  this  Assembly  to  plant  its  organization  on 
English  soil;  the  less  vigorous  and  more  truly  English  system  of  independency, 
conspicuously  represented  by  the  Pilgrims  to  New  England,  won  a  place  in  the 
history;  and  over  all  rose  that  Commonwealth,  which  runs  in  the  name  of  Crom- 
well, and  to  the  governing  body  of  which — the  great  Council  of  State — Milton  was 
secretary  from  March  I5th,  1649,  to  December  26th,  1659.  To  all  these  large  and 
significant  matters  Professor  Masson  addressed  himself  with  masterly  research;  and 
in  due  connection  brings  upon  the  scene  all  the  great  figures  of  the  time.  He  uses 
the  utmost  pains  also  to  tell  the  story  of  Milton's  powerful  prose  writings,  his 
vigorous  and  independent  thinking  in  those  great  works  which  are  one  of  the  richest 
mines  of  interest  and  inspiration  in  the  whole  of  English  literature.  Not  only  has 
Professor  Masson  given  everything  knowable  about  Milton,  but  he  has  shown  the 
truest  appreciation  of  the  mind  and  character  of  the  great  poet,  and  of  the  varied 
aspects  of  the  great  age  in  which  he  played  so  conspicuous  a  part. 

MINISTER'S  WOOING,  THE,  by  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.  The  scene  of  this 
interesting  story  is  laid  in  New  England,  and  deals  with  the  habits  and  traditions 
of  the  past  century.  Mary  Scudder,  the  only  daughter  of  a  widowed  mother,  has 
been  reared  in  an  atmosphere  of  religion  and  piety.  Being  of  a  naturally  sensitive 
temperament,  she  lives  up  to  their  teachings  with  conscientious  fervor.  She  is  in 
love  with  her  cousin,  James  Marvyn,  but  does  not  listen  to  his  protestations,  be- 
cause he  has  no  religious  belief.  He  goes  to  sea,  is  shipwrecked,  and  supposed  to 
be  drowned;  and  Mary,  in  course  of  time  feels  it  to  be  her  duty  and  pleasure  to 
become  engaged  to  the  venerable  Dr.  Hopkins,  her  pastor  and  spiritual  adviser. 
The  wedding-day  is  set,  and  only  one  week  distant,  when  Mary  receives  a  letter 
from  James  Marvyn,  telling  of  his  miraculous  escape  from  death,  his  religious  con- 
viction, and  change  of  heart,  and  his  abiding  love  for  her.  He  follows  the  letter  in 
person,  and  presses  his  suit;  but  Mary,  in  spite  of  her  inclinations,  considers  it  her 
duty  to  abide  by  her  promise  to  the  Doctor.  However,  through  the  intervention 
of  Miss  Prissy  Diamond,  a  delightful  little  dressmaker,  who  acquaints  Dr.  Hop- 
kins with  the  facts  of  the  case,  this  sacrifice  is  prevented.  The  good  Doctor,  at 
the  cost  of  his  own  happiness,  relinquishes  Mary,  and  gives  her  to  James.  The 
central  purpose  in  this  story  is  to  show  the  sternness  and  inflexibility  of  the  New 
England  conscience,  which  holds  to  the  Calvinistic  doctrines  through  all  phases 
of  life.  The  struggle  that  goes  on  in  the  heart  of  Mrs.  Marvyn  and  of  Mary,  when 
James  is  supposed  to  be  drowned  unconverted,  is  a  graphic  delineation  of  the  moral 
point  of  view  at  that  time.  All  the  characters  in  the  book  are  well  drawn  and  have 


566  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

striking  individualities;  Madame  de  Frontignac,  Miss  Prissy,  and  Candace,  the 
colored  servant,  being  especially  worthy  of  note.  The  story  was  first  published  in 
serial  form  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  in  1859* 

MIRROR  FOR  MAGISTRATES,  THE.  This  once  popular  work,  the  first  part  of 
which  was  published  in  1555,  and  the  last  in  1620,  was  the  result  of  the  labors  of 
at  least  sixteen  persons,  the  youngest  of  whom  was  not  born  when  the  oldest  died. 
It  probably  owed  its  inception  to  George  Ferrers,  who  was  Master  of  the  King's 
Revels  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth;  and  he  associated  with  him- 
self William  Baldwin.  Richard  Niccols  is  responsible  for  the  book  in  its  final  state; 
and  in  the  interim,  it  was  contributed  to  by  Thomas  Newton,  John  Higgins,  Thomas 
Blennerhasset,  Thomas  Chaloner,  Thomas  Sackville,  Master  Cavyll,  Thomas  Phaer, 
John  Skelton,  John  Dolman,  Francis  Segar,  Francis  Wingley,  Thomas  Churchyard, 
and  Michael  Dray  ton.  It  is  a  "true  Chronicle  Historic  of  the  untimely  falles  of 
such  unfortunate  princes  and  men  of  note,  as  have  happened  since  the  first  entrance 
of  Brute  into  this  Hand,  until  this  our  latter  age."  It  was  patterned  after  Lydgate's 
'Fall  of  Princes, '  a  version  of  Boccaccio's  poems  on  the  calamities  of  illustrious  men, 
which  had  been  very  papular  in  England.  The  stories  are  told  in  rhyme,  each 
author  taking  upon  himself  the  character  of  the  "miserable  person "  represented,  and 
speaking  in  the  first  person.  The  first  one  told  by  Ferrers  is  that  of  Robert  Tre- 
silian,  Chief  Justice  of  England,  "and  of  other  which  suffered  with  him,  therby  to 
warne  all  of  his  autority  and  profession  to  take  heede  of  wrong  judgments,  and 
misconstruing  of  laws,  which  rightfully  brought  them  to  a  miserable  ende."  This 
book  is  of  little  value  to-day  except  to  collectors;  but  it  was  the  intention  of  its 
authors  to  make  of  it  a  great  national  epic,  the  work  of  many  hands. 

MISER,  THE,  see  L'AVARE. 

MISERABLES,  LES,  by  Victor  Hugo,  appeared  April  3d,  1862.  Before  publica- 
tion it  was  translated  into  nine  languages;  and  its  simultaneous  appearance  at 
Paris,  London,  Brussels,  New  York,  Madrid,  Berlin,  Saint  Petersburg,  and  Turin, 
was  a  literary  event.  It  has  since  been  translated  into  twelve  other  languages. 
Hugo's  first  novel,  since  his  great  mediaeval  romance  'Notre  Dame  de  Paris,'  pub- 
lished thirty-one  years  earlier,  'Les  Mise*rables, '  is  a  story  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
It  gives  a  comprehensive  view  of  Paris,  and  discloses  the  author's  conception  of 
the  present  time,  and  his  suggestions  for  the  future.  Though  a  novel  with  a  purpose, 
it  is  questionable  whether  the  poet's  feeling  for  the  ideal  and  picturesque  does  not 
exceed  the  reformer's  practical  sense  and  science.  'Les  Misgrables'  is  often  criti- 
cized for  lack  of  unity  and  careless  arrangement  of  its  abundant  matter;  but  its 
enormous  knowledge  of  life  and  history,  and  its  imaginative  power,  give  it  an  irre- 
sistible fascination.  The  central  figure  of  the  five  books  which  compose  the  story 
is  Jean  Valjean,  a  simple,  hard-working  peasant,  who,  stealing  a  loaf  of  bread  for  his 
sister's  starving  children,  is  arrested  and  condemned  to  the  galleys  for  five  years,  a 
punishment  lengthened  to  nineteen  years  by  his  attempts  to  escape.  Cruelty 
and  privation  render  him  inert  and  brutish;  and  on  his  release  the  convict  begs  in 

vain,  till  the  Bishop  of  D takes  him  in  and  gives  him  food  and  shelter.     The 

aged  Bishop  is  a  saint,  shaping  his  life  in  literal  obedience  to  the  divine  commands; 
but  in  return  for  his  kindness,  Valjean  steals  his  silver  and  escapes  in  the  night. 
When  the  police  bring  the  culprit  back,  the  Bishop  saves  him  by  declaring  that  the 
silver  had  been  a  free  gift  to  him.  Touched  to  the  heart,  Valjean  henceforth  be 
lieves  in  goodness  and  makes  it  his  law.  His  future  life  is  a  series  of  self-sacrifices, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  567 

resulting  in  moral  growth.  He  becomes  in  time  a  rich  manufacturer,  mayor  of  his 
town,  and  a  noted  philanthropist.  Among  other  good  deeds,  he  befriends  Fantine, 
a  grisette  abandoned  by  her  lover,  and  forced  into  a  life  of  degradation  to  support 
her  child.  Fantine  dies  just  as  Valjean  is  arrested  by  Javert,  an  implacable  detec- 
tive who  has  recognized  the  ex-convict.  Valjean  temporarily  evades  him,  but  wher- 
ever he  goes,  Javert  ferrets  him  out.  Finally  to  save  another  man  mistaken  for 
him,  Valjean  surrenders  himself  and  is  returned  to  the  galleys.  He  escapes,  and 
rescues  Fantine's  child,  little  Cosette,  from  the  cruel  The*nardiers,  sordid  inn-keepers 
to  whom  her  mother  had  intrusted  her.  She  grows  up  a  beautiful,  loving  girl,  the 
solace  of  his  life,  and  for  her  sake  he  accomplishes  his  supreme  sacrifice.  Marius, 
a  worthy  young  man,  falls  in  love  with  her.  Valjean  arranges  the  marriage,  conceals 
her  ignoble  birth,  and  provides  for  her  future.  But  Marius  misjudges  him,  and 
believes  him  guilty  of  unworthy  conduct;  and  for  Cosette's  sake,  the  old  man 
leaves  her.  But  he  cannot  live  without  her;  and  when  Marius  learns  his  mistake, 
discovers  that  he  owes  his  life  to  Valjean,  and  hurries  to  him  with  Cosette,  the 
patient  hero  is  dying.  In  this  complicated  history,  which  involves  many  characters, 
chiefly  types  of  the  poor,  the  unfortunate,  and  the  vicious  of  Paris,  certain  passages 
stand  out  with  dramatic  intensity;  among  them  being  the  famous  chapter  of  the 
battle  of  Waterloo;  the  description  of  the  Paris  sewers,  through  the  intricacies  of 
which  Jean  Valjean  flees  with  wounded  Marius;  and  of  the  defense  of  the  barri- 
cade, where  Gavroche,  the  best  existing  study  of  a  Paris  gamin,  gathers  bullets  and 
sings  defiantly  as  he  meets  death.  The  place  of  'Les  Mise"rables'  is  in  the  front 
rank  of  successful  romantic  fiction. 

MISS  BROWN,  by  Violet  Paget  ("Veraon  Lee")  (1884).  The  object  of  this 
satirical  novel  is  to  expose  the  falseness  of  the  aesthetic  ideal  and  its  tendency  to 
debase  all  who  follow  it;  and  it  aroused  the  indignation  of  all  the  "aesthetes." 

Miss  Brown  herself  is  a  girl  endowed  with  great  beauty,  who  is  discovered  by 
Mr.  Hamlin,  an  artist  and  poet  of  high  reputation.  At  the  time  when  he  finds 
her,  she  is  a  nursemaid  in  the  family  of  another  artist  in  Italy,  belonging  to  the 
same  school.  Mr.  Hamlin  determines  to  save  her  from  the  commonplace  career 
before  her.  He  therefore  settles  on  her  a  fourth  of  his  income,  leaving  her  free 
to  marry  him  or  not  after  she  has  been  educated.  She  goes  to  a  school  in  Germany, 
where  she  receives  instruction  in  the  usual  learning  and  accomplishments.  Mr. 
Hamlin  himself  instructs  her  in  his  school  of  poetry,  and  writes  to  her  long  letters 
filled  with  his  theories  on  art  and  life.  Work  as  hard  as  she  can,  out  of  her  love  and 
gratitude  for  Mr.  Hamlin,  she  cannot  become  the  aesthete  that  he  desires.  After 
she  discovers  the  true  character  of  Hamlin,  the  thought  of  marrying  him  is  revolting 
to  her.  She  turns  for  interest  to  her  cousin  Robert,  a  radical,  interested  in  the  wel- 
fare of  the  lower  classes.  She  now  studies  political  economy  with  greater  fervor 
than  ever  went  to  the  art  and  poetry  of  Burne- Jones  and  Rossetti.  She  sees,  with 
delight,  Hamlin 's  growing  attachment  to  another  girl;  but  his  failure  to  win  her 
results  in  his  utter  debasement.  Miss  Brown  then,  in  a  spirit  of  self-sacrifice, 
claims  Hamlin's  promise  to  marry  her,  and  allows  him  to  think  that  she  loves  him. 
The  character  of  Miss  Brown,  always  a  noble-minded  and  simple  woman,  is  a 
strong  and  forcible  creation,  standing  out  vividly  in  the  midst  of  her  weak  and 
emotion-loving  companions. 

MISS  JULIA;  *A  Naturalistic  Tragedy/  by  August  Strindberg  (1888).  The 
romantic,  headstrong  daughter  of  a  count,  in  the  abandon  of  the  Midsummer  Eve 


§68  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

festivities,  flirts  and  dances  with  her  father's  gentlemanly  valet,  and  gives  herself 
to  him  when  they  have  fled  to  his  room  to  avoid  being  seen  together  in  the  kitchen. 
Jean,  the  valet,  despises  his  neurotic  young  mistress  for  his  easy  conquest,  and  she 
hates  herself  and  him.  The  excuse  she  oilers  for  her  rash  conduct  is  false  education 
and  home  training.  Her  mother,  with  ideas  of  woman's  independence,  has  brought 
her  up  to  learn  everything  that  a  boy  is  taught,  in  order  to  prove  that  a  woman  is 
as  good  as  a  man.  Her  father  insisted  on  being  master  in  his  own  house.  His  wife 
took  her  revenge  by  setting  fire  to  the  house  and  stable  the  day  after  the  insurance 
expires,  and  contrived  to  have  her  husband  borrow  money  from  her  lover  to  repair 
the  damage.  Julia  learned  from  her  mother  suspicion  and  hatred  of  men,  and  from 
her  father  contempt  for  her  own  sex.  She  is  the  modern  type  of  "man-hating,  half- 
man,  half- woman."  She  has  just  broken  her  engagement  with  a  lover  who  refused 
to  act  her  slave  and  jump  over  her  whip  like  a  dog.  Jean  is  the  type  of  self-made 
man,  whose  son  may  yet  be  a  count  as  he  boasts.  He  is  the  polished  gentleman 
in  imitation  of  his  master.  If  he  can  shed  the  valet's  livery  and  become  a  hotel 
keeper,  he  realizes  that,  in  a  different  social  environment,  he  could  care  for  Julia, 
but  in  the  count's  house  in  the  presence  of  the  count's  boots  to  be  cleaned,  he  is  the 
slavish  servant,  unable  to  surmount  the  social  barrier  to  answer  her  appeal  for  a 
word  of  love.  Julia  must  get  the  money  to  run  away  and  start  the  hotel  in  Switzer- 
land. She  is  unwilling  to  leave  her  pet  bird  behind,  so  the  brutal  Jean  chops  its 
head  off  before  her  eyes.  As  they  are  about  to  leave,  the  count  returns  and  rings 
for  his  boots,  and  at  the  sound  of  the  bell  Jean  is  a  menial  again.  He  gives  Julia  a 
razor  and,  hypnotized  by  the  suggestion,  Julia  goes  out  to  end  her  life,  since  the 
aristocrat  cannot  live  without  honor. 

MISS  RAVENEL'S  CONVERSION  JFKOM  SECESSION  TO  LOYALTY,  by  J.  W.  De 
Forest  (1867).  Dr.  Ravenel,  a  Sojthern  Secessionist,  comes  North  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  War,  with  his  daughter  Lillie;  her  Secessionism  being  more  a  result  of 
local  pride  and  social  prejudice  than  of  any  deep-seated  principle  due  to  thought 
and  experience.  Her  conversion  is  due,  in  part,  to  the  influence  of  her  lovers,  John 
Carter  and  Edward  Colburne,  each  in  turn  her  husband, — the  War  making  her  a 
widow  after  a  short  period.  With  the  inexperience  of  youth,  carried  away  by  the 
appearance  rather  than  the  reality  of  perfection,  she  makes  a  wrong  choice  in  her 
life  companion;  but  death  steps  in  before  her  mistake  is  fully  comprehended,  The 
character  of  John  Carter,  who  dies  a  Brigadier-General,  is  strongly  drawn;  his 
excesses  of  sensuality,  his  infidelities  to  his  wife,  his  betrayal  of  the  trust  assigned 
him  by  his  government  for  personal  aggrandizement,  all  cloaked  by  the  personal 
magnetism  which  blinds  those  near  him,  and  makes  him  a  popular  commander  and 
his  death  a  national  loss.  In  contrast  to  this  is  the  equally  strong  picture  of  Edward 
Colburne,  a  dutiful  son,  a  brave  soldier,  a  faithful  lover  and  friend;  meeting  his 
enemies  in  open  warfare  with  the  same  courage  that  he  displays  on  the  less  famous 
battle-ground  of  inner  conflict,  where  he  struggles  against  his  disappointment  in 
love,  his  loss  of  deserved  promotion  and  distressing  conditions  after  the  war,  light- 
ened only  by  the  tardy  love  of  the  woman  to  whom  he  has  remained  faithful.  The 
love  episodes  are  the  least  interesting  of  the  narrative.  There  are  graphic  descrip- 
tions of  battles,  those  of  Fort  Winthrop  and  Cane  River  being  the  most  noteworthy; 
cynical  annotations  of  the  red-tapeism  and  blunders  of  the  War  Department;  and 
humorous  sketches  of  the  social  life  in  New  Orleans  during  the  Northern  occupation, 
with  race  dashings  of  aristocracy,  Creoles,  invaders,  and  freed  negroes,  besides  many 
amusing  anecdotes  and  details  of  army  life— all  in  De  Forest's  sharp  black  and  white. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  569 

MISSISSIPPI,  see  LIFE  ON  THE. 

MR.  BUTTLING  SEES  IT  THROUGH,  by  H.  G.  Wells  (1916).    This  novel  is 

an  account  of  the  mind  of  England  during  the  first  two  years  of  the  war,  in  terms  of 
the  actual  life  of  Mr.  Britling  and  his  pleasant  f amily.  Air.  Britling  is  a  distinguished 
man  of  letters  living  at  Hatching's  Easy,  an  English  country  place  in  Essex.  He  is 
a  very  real  person,  thinking  and  writing,  entangled  in  his  eighth  love  affair,  ab- 
sorbed in  learning  to  drive  a  motor  car,  and  devoted  to  his  Sunday  game  of  hockey. 
In  a  soliloquy  he  likens  his  mental  processes  to  a  "piece  of  orchestral  music  wherein 
the  organ  deplored  the  melancholy  destinies  of  the  race,  while  the  piccolo  lamented 
the  secret  trouble  of  Airs.  Harrowdean;  the  big  drum  thundered  at  the  Irish  poli- 
ticians, and  all  the  violins  bewailed  the  intellectual  laxity  of  the  university  system. 
Meanwhile  the  trumpets  prophesied  wars  and  disasters,  the  cymbals  ever  and  again 
inserted  a  clashing  jar  about  the  fatal  delay  in  the  automobile  insurance,  while 
the  triangle  broke  into  a  plangent  solo  on  the  topic  of  a  certain  rotten  gate-post  he 
always  forgot  in  the  daytime,  and  how  in  consequence  the  cows  from  the  glebe 
farm  got  into  the  garden  and  ate  Mrs.  Britling 's  carnations.1'  War  comes  with 
its  shock,  grief  and  disillusion.  At  first  Mr.  Britling  conceives  the  idea  that  the 
war  was  brought  about  and  carried  on  by  a  Prussian  war  party,  then  he  speculates 
as  to  the  end  of  the  war  and  a  Supreme  Court  of  nations,  and  finally  he  begins  to 
realize  what  the  war  is.  The  horror  of  war  is  brought  home  to  him.  His  old  Aunt 
Wilshire,  staying  at  a  small  watering-place,  is  the  victim  of  an  air  raid,  blown  to 
pieces  by  a  Zeppelin  bomb  over  her  game  of  patience.  His  best  loved  son,  Hugh,  is 
killed  in  the  trenches.  In  conclusion  he  writes  and  rewrites  a  letter  to  the  parents 
of  the  lovable  absurd  German  boy,  who  has  been  tutor  in  his  family  until  called 
to  the  front  to  be  shot  in  Russia;  in  this  letter  Air.  Britling  comes  to  impersonal 
feeling  beyond  the  borders  of  nationalism  to  find  a  meaning  which  will  justify  the 
sacrifice  and  a  God  who  is  not  responsible  for  all  the  ills  of  humanity,  of  a  God  who 
is  real  and  close. 

MR.  CREWE'S  CAREER,  by  Winston  Churchill  (1908).  Mr.  Crewe's  ardent 
and  unsuccessful  pursuit  of  political  office  is  involved  in  a  story  of  state  politics 
controlled  by  a  railroad.  The  real  hero  is  Austen  Vane,  the  only  son  of  Judge 
Hilary  Vane.  The  father,  who  is  chief  counsel  for  the  railroad  and  boss  of  the 
political  machine,  is  proud  of  the  public  service  of  the  railroad  and  regards  his  own 
service  as  the  part  of  high  patriotism.  The  son  stands  unflinchingly  for  clean  poli- 
tics, and  becomes  the  leader  of  the  Opposition.  He  does  justice  to  his  father's 
personal  integrity  and  point  of  view.  He  says  to  the  New  England  farmers  who 
appeal  to  him:  "Conditions  as  they  exist  are  the  result  of  an  evolution.  The  rail- 
roads, before  they  consolidated,  found  the  political  boss  in  power,  and  had  to  pay 
him  for  favors.  .  .  .  We  mustn't  blame  the  railroads  too  severely,  when  they  grow 
strong  enough,  for  substituting  their  own  political  army  to  avoid  being  blackmailed." 
Austen  falls  in  love  with  Victoria,  the  charming  daughter  of  the  railroad  president. 
Like  her  lover,  she  is  forced  to  find  her  father's  methods  wrong  in  spite  of  her  affec- 
tion for  Mm,  The  central  incident  is  the  campaign  for  governor.  Mr.  Crewe, 
the  bachelor  millionaire,  thickly  encased  in  the  armor  of  self-conceit,  pushes  him- 
self for  the  nomination,  as  a  champion  of  the  people  against  the  railroad.  Austen 
refuses  to  accept  the  nomination,  out  of  respect  for  his  father,  and  the  railroad  can- 
didate wins  an  empty  victory,  since  the  handwriting  on  the  wall  is  visible  that  the 
day  of  domination  of  the  North  Eastern  railroads  is  past. 


570  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

MR.  DOOLEY,  IN  PEACE  AND  IN  WAR,  by  F.  P.  Dunne  (1898).  This  is 
a  collection  of  papers  containing  the  observations  and  reflections  of  Mr.  Dooley, 
who  is  a  character  who  will  live  for  a  long  time  in  the  memories  of  those  who 
read  his  words  of  wisdom.  Mr.  Dooley  is  a  Chicago  Irishman  past  middle 
age,  who  lives  in  Archey  Road,  where  he  presides  over  a  small  saloon.  Having 
left  Ireland  in  his  youth,  he  has  witnessed,  from  his  point  of  vantage,  the  events 
of  the  world's  history,  regarding  which  he  has  meditated  deeply,  and  having  done 
so  is  always  ready  to  impart  his  impressions  to  his  sympathetic  friend  and  comrade, 
Mr.  Hennessy,  or  to  answer  the  searching  questions  of  his  neighbor,  Mr.  McKenna. 
Mr.  Dooley  has  all  of  an  Irishman's  shrewdness,  combativeness,  independence,  and 
appreciation  of  courage  and  loyalty,  and  his  keen  wit  and  picturesque  phraseology 
make  his  reflections  very  entertaining  reading.  Mr.  Dooley  }s  national  reputation 
was  made  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish- American  War,  when  his  humorous  comments 
with  the  underlying  truth  and  common-sense  which  they  contained  were  eagerly 
quoted  over  the  whole  country.  Besides  presenting  his  impressions  of  the  war,  Mr. 
Dooley  deals  with  the  various  topics  of  the  day,  and  draws  amusing  pictures  of  mani- 
fold celebrities  from  the  "new  woman  "  to  the  expert  lawyer  and  modern  child.  His 
philosophy,  full  of  wit  and  humor  and  yet  often  possessed  of  an  undercurrent  of 
pathos,  covers  a  wide  field,  and  in  reading  it  one  cannot  fail  to  be  impressed  by  its 
clear-sighted  reasonableness  and  indomitable  common-sense.  The  author  of  'Mr. 
Dooley'  has  taken  his  rank  among  the  noted  humorists  and  has  made  a  genuine 
contribution  to  permanent  literature. 

MR.  ISAACS:  'a  Tale  of  Modern  India'  (1882),  Marion  Crawford's  first,  and 
in  some  respects  his  greatest  novel,  is  a  study  of  the  development  of  a  man's 
higher  nature  through  a  woman.  Air.  Isaacs,  an  exquisite  instrument  for  another 
soul  to  play  upon,  is  a  high-bred  Persian  whose  real  name  is  Abdul-Hafiz-ben-Isdk. 
He  is  of  a  dreamy,  spiritual  nature,  of  a  disposition  lacking  but  one  of  the  patents 
to  nobility  —  reverence  for  women.  As  a  professed  Mussulman  he  is  married  to 
three  wives,  whom  he  regards  with  kindly  contemptuous  tolerance.  The  first 
person  to  suggest  to  him  that  women  may  have  souls  is  Paul  Griggs,  the  man  who 
tells  the  story.  He  meets  the  beautiful  Persian  in  Simla,  India,  becomes  in  a  day 
his  friend  and  confidant  by  virtue  of  some  mysterious  spiritual  attraction.  The 
lesson  inculcated  by  Griggs  is  soon  to  be  learned  by  Isaacs.  He  meets  and  loves 
a  beautiful,  noble  Englishwoman,  a  Miss  Westonhaugh.  Each  day  draws  him 
nearer  to  her;  each  day  reveals  to  him  the  infinite  as  expressed  in  her  fair  soul.  She 
returns  the  love  of  the  mystical,  beautiful  Persian.  The  last  test  of  the  spirituality 
of  his  passion  is  her  death.  From  her  death-bed  he  goes  forth  with  his  face  to  the 
stars.  "Think  of  me,"  he  says,  "not  as  mourning  the  departed  day,  but  as  watch- 
ing longingly  for  the  first  faint  dawn  of  the  day  eternal.  Above  all,  think  of  me 
not  as  alone,  but  as  wedded  for  all  ages  to  her  who  has  gone  before'  me." 

MR.  MIDSHIPMAN  EASY,  by  Captain  James  Marryat  (1836),  is  one  of  the 
many  rollicking  tales  by  this  author,  who  so  well  knows  the  ocean,  and  the  seaports 
with  their  eccentric  characters,  and  is  only  at  home  in  dealing  with  low  life  and 
the  lower  middle-class.  In  this  case  we  have  the  adventures  of  a  spoiled  lad  Jack, 
the  son  of  a  so-called  philosopher,  who  cruises  about  the  world,  falls  in  love,  has 
misfortunes,  and  at  last  good  luck  and  a  happy  life.  The  incidents  themselves 
are  nothing,  but  the  book  is  entertaining  for  its  "character"  talk,  and  because  the 
author  has  the  gift  of  spinning  a  yarn. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  571 

MRS.  CAUDLE'S  CURTAIN  LECTURES,  by  Douglas  Jerrold,  appeared  first 
as  a  series  of  papers  in  Punch;  and  were  published  in  book  form  in  1846.  They 
gained  at  once  an  enormous  popularity,  being  translated  into  nearly  all  European 
languages.  The  secret  of  this  popularity  is  not  difficult  to  discover.  The  book  is 
a  dramatic  embodiment  of  a  world-old  matrimonial  joke  —  the  la}-  sermons  deliv- 
ered at  night-time  by  a  self-martyrized  wife.  Mrs.  Caudle  had  little  in  this  world 
to  call  her  own  but  her  husband's  ears.  They  were  her  entire  property.  When 
Mrs.  Caudle  died,  after  thirty  years  of  spouseship,  the  bereaved  Job  Caudle  resolved 
every  night  to  commit  to  paper  one  curtain  lecture  of  his  late  wife.  When  he  him- 
self died,  a  small  packet  of  papers  was  found,  inscribed  as  follows: 

"Curtain  lectures  delivered  in  the  course  of  thirty  years  by  Mrs.  Margaret 
Caudle,  and  suffered  by  Job,  her  husband." 

A  single  paragraph  will  suffice  to  show  how  Job  suffered: 

"Well,  Mr.  Caudle,  I  hope  you're  in  a  little  better  temper  than  you  were  this 
morning!  There  —  you  needn't  begin  to  whistle.  People  don't  come  to  bed  to 
whistle.  But  it's  like  you.  I  can't  speak  that  you  don't  try  to  insult  me.  Once  I 
used  to  say  you  were  the  best  creature  living;  now  you  get  quite  a  fiend.  Do  let 
you  rest:  No,  I  won't  let  you  rest.  It's  the  only  time  I  have  to  talk  to  you,  and  you 
shall  hear  me.  I'm  put  upon  all  day  long;  it's  very  hard  if  I  can't  speak  a  word  at 
night:  besides,  it  isn't  often  I  open  my  mouth,  goodness  knows!" 

MRS.  MARTIN'S  MAN,  by  St.  John  Ervine  (1915).  Sixteen  years  before  the 
story  begins,  James  Martin  deserted  his  wife,  Martha,  and  his  two  children,  and 
left  for  parts  unknown.  In  time  Mrs.  Martin  comes  to  regard  herself  as  a  widow. 
She  buys  a  hardware  shop,  which  prospers  so  exceedingly  that  when  Martin  comes 
home  after  a  prolonged  debauch  of  sixteen  years,  he  finds  his  wife  with  a  flourishing 
business  and  a  much  more  comfortable  home  than  he  had  ever  made  for  her.  He 
comes  back  filthy,  ragged,  and  sodden.  Mrs.  Martin  greets  him  without  any  display 
of  emotion.  She  makes  it  plain  to  him  that  if  he  wants  to  bide  in  her  house,  he 
must  stop  drinking,  keep  himself  clean,  not  swear  before  the  children  as  he  did  before 
he  went  away,  and  save  her  the  wages  of  a  boy  by  doing  small  jobs  in  the  shop. 
She  gives  him  a  little  money  to  keep  him  from  f eeling  wholly  a  pauper.  Her  drastic 
method  is  pretty  nearly  successful.  James  Martin  becomes  the  devoted  slave  of 
his  daughter  Aggie,  a  pretty  girl  of  seventeen,  and  rather  than  have  her  know  his 
past,  he  keeps  straight.  Meanwhile  Airs.  Martin  has  trouble  with  her  sister,  Esther. 
Before  James  went  away,  there  had  been  a  love  a,ffair  between  ner  and  James. 
Discovery  is  what  Esther  fears  most.  She  is  thoroughly  devoted  to  Jamesey,  Mrs. 
Martin's  son,  and  when  Jamesey  comes  to  know  that  his  aunt  Esther  had  been  his 
father's  "fancy  woman,"  the  boy  becomes  desperately  ill.  Finally  Mrs.  Martin 
brings  him  to  see  that  he  must  forgive  his  aunt,  unless  he  wants  to  kill  her.  Then 
as  neither  Esther  nor  Jamesey  can  remain  at  home  with  James  Martin  there,  Airs. 
Martin  buys  Esther  a  shop  in  Belfast,  and  arranges  for  Jamesey  to  lodge  with  his 
aunt  back  of  the  shop.  All  this  done,  Mrs.  Martin  settles  down  to  life  with  James 
and  Aggie.  Though  she  has  made  life  happier  for  four  people,  she  has  lost  her  own 
illusions.  Her  stoic  philosophy  is  "things  happen  and  they  cannot  be  changed." 

MRS.  WIGGS  OF  THE  CABBAGE  PATCH,  by  Alice  Caldwell  Hegan  (1901). 
This  is  the  story  of  an  optimistic  woman  who  in  spite  of  her  many  adversities  is 
always  able  to  look  on  the  bright  side  of  things.  Mrs.  Wiggs  is  a  widow  with  a 
family  of  five  children  to  support ;  her  husband  has  died  as  the  result  of  intemperance! 


5/2  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

but  instead  of  dwelling  upon  Mr.  Wiggs's  shortcomings,  the  widow  always  lays 
stress  upon  the  "fine  hand  he  wrote. ' '  The  " Cabbage  Patch  "  is  not  a  real  cabbage 
patch  but  a  collection  of  remarkable  cottages  set  down  at  random  close  to  the  rail- 
road tracks.  The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid  in  Kentucky  and  a  true  southern  atmos- 
phere pervades  it.  Mrs.  Wiggs,  whose  originality  displays  itself  in  various  ways, 
has  chosen  "geographical"  names  for  her  three  daughters  and  they  are  called  re- 
spectively "Asia,"  " Australia, "and  uEuropena."  Her  oldest  child  is  a  boy  named 
Jimmy  who  at  the  age  of  fifteen  has  worked  so  hard  in  his  efforts  to  be  a  bread-winner 
for  the  family  that  he  is  completely  worn  out  and  dies  soon  after  the  story  opens. 
His  mother,  whose  courage  has  carried  her  through  her  other  misfortunes  is  over- 
whelmed by  this  trouble  but  struggles  bravely  on.  She  is  assisted  at  this  sad  time 
by  Miss  Lucy  Olcott,  a  pretty  and  philanthropic  young  lady,  who  gets  up  a  purse 
for  the  family  and  provides  them  also  with  food  and  clothing.  She  continues  to 
be  ''their  good  angel"  and  in  return  they  are  instrumental  in  bringing  about  her 
reconciliation  with  her  lover  Robert  Redding,  as  she  and  he  meet  accidentally  in 
the  Wiggs's  cottage  and  settle  a  grievance  which  has  parted  them.  The  story  is 
full  of  amusing  incidents  and  Mrs.  Wiggs's  humorous  and  philosophical  remarks  are 
a  great  source  of  entertainment.  Her  cheerfulness  under  adversity,  her  unselfish- 
ness and  sympathy  for  others  in  trouble,  make  her  an  example  and  an  inspiration 
to  all  with  whom  she  comes  in  contact.  An  especially  amusing  description  is  that 
of  the  ''Annexation  of  Cuba,"  which  tells  how  Airs.  Wiggs  and  her  son  Billy  restore 
to  life  a  half  dead  horse  and  after  nursing  him,  make  him  a  valued  member  of  the 
family.  The  visit  of  Mrs.  Wiggs  and  the  children  to  the  theatre  through  the  kind- 
ness of  "Mr.  Bob,"  who  provides  them  with  tickets,  is  a  great  event  in  their  lives 
and  is  set  forth  in  a  most  entertaining  manner. 

MITHR3DATE,  by  Racine.  This  powerful  and  affecting  tragedy  was  produced 
on  the  1 3th  of  January,  1673,  tne  day  after  the  author's  reception  into  the  Academy. 
It  seems  to  have  been  written  in  reply  to  those  critics  who  asserted  that  the  only 
character  he  was  successful  in  painting  was  that  of  a  wToman.  The  scene  is  laid  in 
Pontus,  and  the  hero  is  the  cruel  and  heroic  king  who  was  the  irreconcilable  enemy 
of  Roir.e.  MithriJates  has  disappeared,  and  is  believed  to  be  dead.  His  two  sons, 
the  treacherous  Pharnaces  and  the  chivalrous  Xiphares,  prepare  to  seize  this  crown 
and  dispute  the  possession  of  his  betrothed  Monima.  The  old  king  returns,  discovers 
by  a  stratagem  that  Xiphares  has  won  the  love  of  Monima,  and  swears  to  be  avenged. 
Meanwhile  he  plans  a  formidable  attack  on  Rome:  he  will  ascend  the  Danube  and 
burst  upon  the  Romans  from  the  north.  Xiphares  favors  the  project,  but  Pharnace? 
opposes  it,  and  the  soldiers  refuse  to  follow  their  king.  The  Romans  unite  with 
the  rebels;  and  in  the  battle  that  follows,  Mithridates  falls  mortally  wounded. 
Before  dying,  he  joins  the  two  lovers  Xiphares  and  Monima.  In  his  portraiture 
of  Mithridates,  Racine  sometimes  rises  to  the  sublimity  of  Corneille.  He  has 
scarcely  ever  written  anything  grander  than  the  speech  in  which  the  hero  explains 
his  policy  to  his  two  sons.  The  manner  in  which  the  complexity  of  Mithridates 's 
character,  his  greatness  and  weakness,  his  heroism  and  duplicity,  are  laid  bare, 
shows  wonderful  psychological  delicacy  and  skill;  and  all  this  is  finely  contrasted 
with  the  simplicity  and  unity  of  the  nature  of  Monima  in  its  high  moral  beauty 
and  unvarying  dignity. 

MOBY-DICK,  by  Herman  Melville  (1851),  is  the  name  by  which  a  certain  huge 
and  particularly  ferocious  whale  was  known.  This  whale  has  been  attacked  many 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  575 

plays  is  extremely  high.  Moliere  he  regards  as  the  best  representative  of  the  French 
mind,  the  greatest  figure  in  French  literature,  the  founder  of  modern  high  comedy, 
and  the  rival  of  Shakespeare.  As  a  background  to  Moliere's  life  and  work  the 
author  has  drawn  an  interesting  picture  of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.,  keeping  it  in  due 
subordination  and  relation  to  the  central  theme.  The  book  is  not  only  a  valuable 
source  of  information  to  those  unable  to  consult  the  French  authorities,  but  an 
aid  to  all  serious  students  of  Moliere. 

MOLINOS  THE  QUIETIST,  by  John  Bigelow  (1882),  is  a  little  volume,  nar- 
rating in  the  tone  appropriate  to  the  subject  the  eventless  history  of  Michel  de 
Molinos,  a  priest  of  Spanish  descent,  who  was  the  originator  of  one  of  the  most 
formidable  schisms  that  ever  rent  the  Latin  Church.  'II  Guida  Spirituale/  the 
book  containing  the  obnoxious  doctrine  of  quietism,  appeared  at  Rome  in  Italian 
in  1675;  and  in  six  years  went  through  twenty  editions  in  different  languages,  an 
English  translation  appearing  in  1699.  The  main  points  of  the  doctrine  are  thus 
described:  The  human  soul  is  the  temple  and  abode  of  God;  we  ought  therefore  to 
keep  it  unspoiled  by  worldliness  and  sin.  The  true  end  of  life  is  the  attainment  of 
perfection,  in  reaching  which  two  stages  exist,  meditation  and  contemplation- 
In  the  first,  reason  is  the  faculty  employed;  in  the  second,  reason  no  longer  acts, 
the  soul  merely  contemplates  the  truth  in  silence  and  repose,  passively  receives  the 
celestial  light,  desiring  nothing,  not  even  its  own  salvation,  fearing  nothing,  not 
even  hell,  and  indifferent  to  the  sacraments  and  all  practices  of  external  devotion, 
having  transcended  the  sphere  of  their  efficacy.  Sixty-eight  of  the  propositions 
in  this  work  were  condemned  as  heretical  at  Rome  in  1687;  and  its  author  was 
imprisoned  for  life,  dying  in  confinement  in  1697. 

MONASTERIES  OF  THE  LEVANT,  by  Robert  Curzon,  see  VISITS  TO  THE. 
MONDAY-CHATS,  see  CAUSERIES  DU  LUNDL 
MONEY,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

MONK,  THE,  by  Matthew  Gregory  Lewis,  was  published  in  1795,  when  the 
author  was  twenty  years  old.  The  book  is  one  of  the  "dime  novels"  of  English 
literature;  a  fantastic  medley  of  ghosis,  gore,  villains,  cheap  mysteries,  and  all  the 
stage  machinery  of  flagrant  melc drama.  Like  Airs.  Radcliffe's  novels,  it  belongs  to 
the  class  of  the  pseudoterrific.  At  the  time  of  its  publication,  however,  its  exaggera- 
tions were  not  so  apparent.  Horace  Walpole's  'Castle  of  Otranto'  and  Mrs.  Rad- 
cliffe's 'Mysteries  of  Udolpho'  had  popularized  the  mock-heroic.  The  air  was  full 
of  horrors.  '  The  Monk '  seemed  to  contemporary  readers  one  of  the  great  books  of 
the  day.  That  it  was  not  without  merit  was  proved  by  the  verdict  of  no  less  an 
authority  than  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  styled  it  "no  ordinary  exertion  of  genius." 
So  great  was  its  fame,  that  the  author  to  the  day  of  his  death  was  called  "Monk" 
Lewis.  The  hero,  Ambrosio,  is  the  abbot  of  the  Capuchins  at  Madrid,  surnamed 
"The  Man  of  Holiness."  His  pride  of  righteousness  opens  him  at  length  to  spiritual 
disaster.  An  infernal  spirit  assuming  the  shape  of  a  woman  tempts  him,  and  he 
falls.  One  sin  succeeds  another  until  he  is  utterly  ruined.  Upon  the  fabric  of  the 
monk's  progression  in  evil  the  author  builds  wild  incidents  of  every  degree  of  horror. 

MONNA  VANNA,  by  Maurice  Maeterlinck  (1902).  At  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  when  the  play  opens,  Pisa  is  besieged  by  the  Florentine  armies  led  by 


576  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Prinzivalle,  a  hired  mercenary.  Guido,  the  governor,  has  sent  his  aged  father  to 
the  enemy's  camp  to  ask  the  terms  of  capitulation.  Marco,  the  father,  returns 
with  the  message  that  Prinzivalle,  already  betrayed  by  the  Florentines,  is  in  turn, 
ready  to  betra}~  his  masters,  and  to  send  ammunition,  wagons  of  provisions,  and  herds 
of  cattle  to  the  starving  Pisans  on  one  condition.  The  condition  is  that  the  beau- 
tiful Monna  Vanna,  wife  of  the  governor,  shall  come  for  one  night  to  his  tent,  alone, 
clad  only  in  her  mantle.  Monna  Vanna,  to  save  the  doomed  city,  accepts  the 
condition,  in  spite  of  her  husband's  prohibition  of  the  sacrifice.  Prinzivalle,  un- 
known to  Monna  Vanna,  had  known  and  loved  her  years  before,  and  when  she  comes 
to  his  tent,  he  reveals  himself  to  her  and  proves  the  nobility  of  his  love  by  his  respect 
for  her.  Their  conversation  is  interrupted  by  the  news  of  the  arrival  of  the  Flo- 
rentines who  will  proclaim  Prinzivalle  a  traitor.  She  urges  him  to  return  with 
her  and  take  refuge  in  Pisa.  Within  the  rejoicing  city  —  now  furnished  by  Prinzi- 
valle with  arms  and  provisions  —  her  father  and  husband  receive  them.  Guido 
repulses  her  and  refuses  to  believe  that  she  is  not  dishonored.  He  insists  that  she 
has  lured  Prinzivalle  to  Pisa  to  revenge  herself  upon  him.  Recognizing  the  lack 
of  faith  in  her  husband  and  the  perfect  trust  of  her  lover,  she  tells  the  lie  her  hus- 
band wishes  to  believe  to  save  Prinzivalle  from  death.  As  Prinzivalle  is  led  away 
to  the  dungeon  of  which  Vanna  alone  shall  hold  the  key  for  her  revenge,  we  know 
that  she  loves  the  greater  man  and  will  free  him  and  escape  from  her  husband  to 
share  his  exile.  The  conventional  honor  of  the  husband,  his  false  pride  and  selfish- 
ness are  contrasted  with  Monna  Vanna's  heroism  in  giving  herself  for  her  country  and 
her  truth  in  protecting  even  by  untruth  the  man  whose  surety  she  has  made  herself. 

MONSIEUR  BEAUCAIRE,  by  Booth  Tarkington  (1900).  In  this  sparkling  and 
graceful  story  the  author  presents  a  supposed  episode  in  the  life  of  Louis  Philippe 
de  Valois,  cousin  of  Louis  XV.  of  France,  who  is  masquerading  as  Monsieur 
Beaucaire.  This  accomplished  prince,  bent  upon  adventure  and  desirous  of 
having  perfect  freedom  in  the  choice  of  a  bride,  goes  to  England  in  the  suite 
of  the  Marquis  de  Mirepoix  disguised  as  a  barber.  Arrived  at  Bath  he  assumes 
the  role  of  gamester  and,  while  amusing  himself,  falls  in  love  with  the  beautiful 
Lady  Mary  Carlisle.  The  Duke  of  Winterset,  who  is  paying  his  addresses  to  this 
lady,  is  trapped  by  Beaucaire  while  cheating  at  cards,  and  fearful  of  exposure  con- 
sents to  introduce  the  supposed  barber  as  his  friend,  the  Duke  de  Chateaurien,  at 
Lady  Malbourne's  ball,  where  he  charms  all  by  his  grace  and  elegance,  and  is  favored 
by  a  rose  from  Lady  Mary.  His  social  success  is  assured  from  that  time  and  his 
suit  for  the  hand  of  the  fair  Mary  prospers  until  he  is  suddenly  set  upon  by  the 
jealous  Duke  of  Winterset  and  his  confederates.  Brutally  attacked  by  them  in 
the  presence  of  his  lady  love,  who  has  but  just  assented  to  his  proposal,  Beaucaire 
is  accused  of  being  a  low-born  lackey.  After  displaying  his  skilled  swordsmanship 
against  overwhelming  odds,  he  is  borne  off  by  his  servants  wounded  and  too  faint 
to  justify  himself  in  the  eyes  of  Lady  Mary,  who  now  turns  coldly  from  him.  The 
climax  of  the  tale  is  reached  one  week  later  in  the  Assembly  Room,  where  a  brilliant 
throng  gathers  to  greet  the  ambassador  of  Louis  XV.  and  other  French  nobles.  Here, 
Beaucaire,  hailed  as  the  Duke  of  Orleans  by  his  respectful  countrymen,  confronts 
those  who  have  scorned  and  derided  him  and  tells  his  story  in  the  presence  of  the 
humiliated  beauty  and  the  disgraced  Duke  of  Winterset.  Then,  after  announcing 
his  intention  of  wedding,  his  sweet  cousin  in  France,  whose  devotion  he  has  previ- 
ously failed  to  appreciate,  Beaucaire  takes  leave  of  the  chagrined  Lady  Mary,  who 
regrets  her  lamentable  mistake. 


THE   READER'S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS  577 

MONSIEUR  BERGERET  A  PARIS,  see  L'HISTOIRE  CONTEMPORAINE. 

MONTCALM  AND  WOLFE,  see  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND  IN  NORTH 
AMERICA. 

MONUMENTS  OF  NINEVEH,  see  NINEVEH  AND  ITS  REMAINS. 

MONTCALM,  LE  MARQUIS  DE,  a  biography  by  Thomas  Chapais  (1911). 
The  author  admits  in  the  preface  that  the  subject  has  been  often  treated  before, 
particularly  by  Francis  Parkman  and  the  Abbe  Casgrain.  But  he  believes 
that  his  access  to  fresh  historical  evidence  justifies  him  in  an  attempt  at  rein- 
terpreting the  achievements  and  personality  of  the  great  French  chieftain.  The 
result  of  an  unprejudiced  study  of  the  documents  has  been,  he  maintains,  to  rank 
Montcalm  even  higher  than  previous  historians  have  placed  him  and  in  particular 
to  prove  him  superior  to  the  Governor-General,  Vaudreuil.  After  a  chapter  on 
Montcalm  Js  earlier  career  and  another  on  the  relations  between  England  and  France 
from  1748  to  1756,  the  book  is  devoted  to  Montcalm  Js  exploits  as  commander  of 
the  French  army  in  Canada  from  the  outbreak  of  the  Seven  Years'  War  to  his  defeat 
and  death  at  Quebec  in  1759.  The  various  battles  are  carefully  discussed  and 
graphically  portrayed;  the  greatness  of  Montcalm 's  achievement  is  fittingly  praised; 
and  his  noble  and  courageous  acceptance  of  defeat  receives  its  due  tribute.  The 
book  reflects  the  French-Canadian  reverence  for  the  memory  of  -Montcalm  whom 
the  writer  characterizes  as  "un  honnete  homme,  un  chretien  sincere,  et  un  grand 
Francais."  There  is  also  generous  appreciation  of  the  bravery  and  chivalry  of 
Wolfe. 

MOON  HOAX,  THE,  by  Richard  Adams  Locke  (1859).  This  pretends  to  an- 
nounce the  discovery  of  a  vast  human  population  in  the  moon.  Its  contents  ap- 
peared originally  in  1835,  in  the  New  York  Sun,  under  the  title,  '  Great  Astronomical 
Discoveries  lately  made  by  Sir  John  Herschel,'  increasing  the  circulation  of  that 
paper,  it  was  said,  fivefold.  The  skit  was  soon  afterward  published  in  pamphlet 
form,  the  edition  of  60,000  being  sold  in  less  than  a  month.  This  account  pre- 
tended to  be  taken  from  the  supplement  to  the  Edinburgh  Journal  of  Science,  and 
was  most  circumstantial  and  exact.  The  discovery  was  asserted  to  have  been 
made  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  by  means  of  a  new  and  vastly  improved  telescope 
invented  by  the  younger  Herschel.  The  article  described  beaches  of  gleaming 
sand;  lunar  forests;  fields  covered  with  vivid  rose-poppies;  basaltic  columns  like 
those  of  Staffa;  rocks  of  green  marble;  obelisks  of  wine-colored  amethyst;  herds 
of  miniature  bisons,  with  a  curious  fold  or  hairy  veil  across  the  forehead  to  shield 
the  eyes  from  the  intolerable  glare  of  light;  troops  of  unicorns,  beautiful  and  grace- 
ful as  the  antelope;  and  groups  of  some  amphibious  creatures,  spherical  in  form, 
which  rolled  with  great  velocity  across  the  sands.  Moreover,  the  telescope  dis- 
closes the  biped  beaver,  which  constructs  huts  like  the  human  savage,  and  makes 
use  of  fire;  a  semi-human  creature  with  wings;  and  a  race  about  four  feet  high,  and 
very  unpleasant  in  appearance,  which  certainly  has  the  gift  of  speech.  After  ob- 
servations which  fill  many  pages,  the  account  goes  on  to  explain  that  an  unfortunate 
fire  has  destroyed  the  telescope,  and  that  the  expedition  could  not  make  the  dis- 
coveries certainly  at  that  time  imminent.  The  sensation  produced  by  this  nonsense 
was  widespread  and  profound.  The  press  took  sides  for  and  against  its  authenticity, 
and  for  some  time  a  large  public  credited  the  statements  made.  Of  course  the 

37 


578  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

absurdity  of  the  tale  soon  revealed  itself,  and  then  the  whole  matter  became  known 
as  the  "Moon  Hoax."  But  the  whole  invention  was  set  forth  with  the  most  admir- 
able air  of  conviction,  and  the  book  takes  its  place  among  the  best  of  Munchausenish 
tales. 

MOONSTONE,  THE,  by  Wilkie  Collins  (1868),  is  one  of  the  best  examples  of 
the  author's  general  purpose  to  mystify  the  reader.  At  the  storming  of  Seringa- 
patam,  a  holy  city  of  India,  by  the  British  in  1799,  a  certain  John  Herncastle  pos- 
sessed himself,  by  the  massacre  of  its  keepers,  of  a  large  and  peculiar  diamond 
known  as  the  moonstone.  With  his  dying  breath,  one  of  the  Brahmins  cursed  the 
Englishman,  declaring  that  the  diamond  would  bring  disaster  and  misfortune  to 
its  unlawful  possessors.  The  story  treats  of  the  mysterious  disappearance  of  the 
stone,  bequeathed  by  Herncastle  to  his  niece,  Miss  Verinder,  and  of  the  tragedy 
that  ensued  before  the  guilty  persons  could  be  with  certainty  apprehended.  The 
closing  lines  of  the  story  find  the  moonstone  once  again  in  India,  fixed  as  formerly 
in  the  forehead  of  an  idol. 

MORAL  TALES,  by  Miss  Edgeworth  (1801),  have  been  translated  into  many 
languages,  and  have  retained  their  popularity  in  England  and  abroad.  As  the  title 
denotes,  these  stories  have  a  didactic  purpose,  and  although  intended  to  amuse 
young  people,  would  insinuate  a  sugar-coated  moral.  The  character-drawing  is 
capable  and  shrewd;  and  the  fluent,  animated  style  makes  them  easy  reading.  The 
seven  stories  comprising  the  volume  have  a  sensible,  matter-of-fact,  thoroughly 
eighteenth-century  quality.  Miss  Edgeworth  inculcates  nobility,  generosity,  and 
sincerity;  but  above  everything  else,  she  inculcates  good  sense.  It  is  not  enough 
for  young  Forester  to  be  brave  and  talented.  He  is  held  up  to  ridicule  for  his  un- 
couth ways  and  disdain  of  conventions,  until  he  learns  the  wisdom  of  conforming 
to  social  usage.  Evelina  is  a  feminine  Forester,  and  learns  the  same  lesson.  Tact 
is  a  favorite  virtue  with  Miss  Edgeworth.  It  is  by  carefully  consulting  the  indi- 
vidual tastes  of  her  pupils  that  "The  Good  French  Governess"  reforms  Mrs.  Har- 
court's  family.  Tact  is  the  secret  of  the  "Good  Aunt's"  success  in  her  educational 
experiment.  Miss  Edgeworth  teaches  boys  and  girls  to  despise  self-indulgence 
and  uncontrolled  emotion;  and  to  mistrust  appearances.  Her  model  hero  is  young 
Air.  Mounteagle,  the  matrimonial  prize  in  'Mademoiselle  Panache,'  who,  momen- 
tarily attracted  by  the  beauty  of  Lady  Augusta,  has  the  sense  to  perceive  her  infe- 
riority to  the  sensible,  domestic,  and  amiable  Helen  Temple. 

MORALS,  THE,  OF  EPICTETUS  (c.  A.  D.  60),  consisting  of  his  'Manual'  and 
'Discourses,*  are  the  sole  writings  preserved  to  our  aq^e,  through  the  assiduity  of 
his  pupil  Arrian.  Published  in  the  early  second  century,  they  afford  our  only  record 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  greatest  of  the  Stoics.  The  'Manual, '  still  a  favorite  with 
all  thoughtful  readers,  is  a  guide  to  right  living.  Its  tone  is  that  of  a  half-sad  se- 
renity that  would  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  soul  with  right  living  in  this  world,  since 
we  can  have  no  certain  knowledge  of  the  truth  of  any  other.  "Is  there  anything 
you  highly  value  or  tenderly  love?  estimate  at  the  same  time  its  true  nature.  Is 
it  some  possession?  remember  that  it  may  be  destroyed.  Is  it  wife  or  child?  re- 
member that  they  may  die."  "We  do  not  choose  out  our  own  parts  in  life,  and 
have  nothing  to  do  with  those  parts;  our  simple  duty  is  to  play  them  well."  The 
'Discourses/  also,  display  a  simple,  direct  eloquence;  but  they  introduce  frequent 
anecdotes  to  enliven  an  appeal  or  illustrate  a  principle.  Both  disclose  the  Phrygian 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  579 

freedman,  as  a  singularly  noble  soul,  unaffected,  pure,  self-centred,  supremely  gentle, 
and  winning. 

MORALS  OF  LUCIUS  ANN^EUS  SENECA,  THE  (Philosophica  c.  4  B.C.-65  A.D.). 

is  the  general  title  given  to  twelve  essays  on  ethical  subjects  attributed  to  the  great 
Roman  Stoic.  They  are  the  most  interesting  and  valuable  of  his  numerous  works. 
Representing  the  thought  of  his  whole  life,  the  most  famous  are  the  essays  on  *  Con- 
solation, '  addressed  to  his  mother,  when  he  was  in  exile  at  Corsica;  on  '  Providence, ' 
"a  golden  book,"  as  it  is  called  by  Lipsius,  the  German  critic;  and  on  'The  Happy 
Life. '  The  Stoic  doctrines  of  calmness,  forbearance,  and  strict  virtue  and  justice, 
receive  here  their  loftiest  statement.  The  popularity  of  these  'Morals'  with  both 
pagan  and  Christian  readers  led  to  their  preservation  in  almost  a  perfect  condition. 
To  the  student  of  Christianity  in  its  relations  with  paganism,  no  other  classic  writer 
yields  in  interest  to  this  "divine  pagan,"  as  Lactantius,  the  early  church  father  and 
poet,  calls  him.  The  most  striking  parallels  to  the  formularies  of  the  Christian 
writers,  notably  St.  Paul,  are  to  be  found  in  his  later  works,  especially  those  on 
'The  Happy  Life'  and  on  'The  Conferring  of  Benefits.1 

MORE,  SIR  THOMAS,  see  HOUSEHOLD  OF. 

MORGESONS,  THE,  Elizabeth  Barstow  Stoddard's  first  novel  (1862).  The 
plot  is  concerned  with  the  fortunes  of  the  Morgeson  family,  long  resident  in  a  sea- 
coast  town  in  New  England.  Two  members  of  it,  Cassandra,  by  whom  the  story 
is  told,  and  her  sister  Veronica,  are  girls  of  strange,  unconventional  nature,  wholly 
undisciplined,  who  live  out  their  restless  lives  against  the  background  of  a  narrow 
New  England  household,  composed  of  a  gentle,  fading  mother,  a  father  wholly  ab- 
sorbed in  business  and  affairs,  and  a  dominant  female  servant,  Temperance.  When 
Cassandra  returns  home  from  boarding-school,  she  finds  Veronica  grown  into  a  pale, 
reticent  girl,  with  unearthly  little  ways.  Veronica *s  own  love-story  begins  when 
she  meets  Ben  Somers,  a  friend  of  her  sister.  Both  girls  are  born  to  tragedy,  through 
their  passionate,  irreconcilable  temperament;  and  the  story  follows  their  lives  with 
a  strange,  detached  impartiality,  which  holds  the  interest  of  the  reader  more  closely 
than  any  visible  advocacy  of  the  cause  of  either  heroine  could  do.  'The  Morge- 
sons '  is  rich  in  delineation  of  unusual  aspects  of  character,  in  a  grim  New  England 
humor,  in  those  pictures  of  the  sea  that  are  never  absent  from  Mrs.  Stoddard's 
novels.  Suffusing  the  book  is  a  bleak  atmosphere  of  what  might  be  called  passionate 
mentality,  bracing,  but  calling  for  a  sober  power  of  resistance  in  the  reader. 

MORMON,  THE  BOOK  OF,  Translated  by  Joseph  Smith,  Jr.  Division  into 
chapters  and  verses,  with  references,  by  Orson  Pratt,  Sr.  Salt  Lake  City  Edition 
of  1888:  copyright  by  Joseph  F.  Smith,  1879. 

The  title-page  bears  also  a  particular  statement  of  the  character  and  origin  of 
the  'Book,1  a  part  of  which  runs  as  follows: 

"An  account  written  by  the  hand  of  Mormon,  upon  plates  taken  from  the  Plates 
of  Nephi.  Wherefore  it  is  an  abridgment  of  the  record  of  the  people  of  Nephi, 
and  also  of  the  Lamanites;  written  to  the  Lamanites  who  are  a  remnant  of  the  house 
of  Israel;  and  also  to  Jew  and  Gentile:  written  by  way  of  commandment,  and  also 
by  the  spirit  of  prophecy  and  of  revelation.  .  .  . 

"An  abridgment  taken  from  the  Book  of  Esther  also;  which  is  a  record  of  the 
people  of  Jared:  who  were  scattered  at  the  time  the  Lord  confounded  the  language 


580  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

of  the  people  when  they  were  building  a  tower  to  get  to  heaven;  which  is  to  show 
.  .  .  that  JESUS  is  the  CHRIST,  the  ETERNAL  GOD,  manifesting  himself  unto  all 
nations." 

The  scheme  of  the  book  is  that  of  the  visions  and  dreams  and  prophesyings  of 
Lehi,  who  dwelt  at  Jerusalem  all  the  days  of  the  reign  of  Zedekiah;  and  of  the  life 
and  doings  of  Xephi,  son  of  Lehi;  and  of  the  preaching  of  Jacob,  a  brother  of  Nephi; 
and  of  the  events  under  Mosiah,  king  over  the  Xephites,  and  in  whose  days  Alma 
founded  their  church;  and  of  an  account  by  Alma's  son  Alma,  of  a  period  of  rule 
by  judges;  and  of  a  record  by  Helaman,  grandson  of  the  last  Alma,  and  by  his  sons, 
of  wars  and  prophecies  and  changes  down  to  the  coming  of  Christ;  and  of  a  book 
by  a  son  of  Helaman,  Xephi,  covering  the  life  of  Jesus;  and  of  still  another  book  of 
Xephi,  continuing  the  story  after  Christ  for  about  three  hundred  years;  and  finally 
of  a  book  by  Mormon  himself,  giving,  at  the  end  of  a  thousand  years  from  Lehi 
under  Zedekiah,  the  final  story  of  the  Xephi  records  and  traditions.  These  succes- 
sive books  fill  570  of  the  632  pages  of  the  Book,  and  tell  a  story  of  events  from  597 
B.C.  to  the  days  of  Mormon,  about  350-400  A.D.  The  work  concludes  with  a 
book  of  ancient  history  by  Moroni,  son  of  Mormon,  and  finally  with  a  book  of  last 
words  by  the  same  Moroni.  In  the  scheme  thus  outlined,  use  is  made  of  some  of 
Isaiah's  prophecies,  freely  quoted,  and  of  a  good  deal  of  the  life  of  Jesus  in  the  Gos- 
pels, with  changes  freely  made.  Two  formal  attestations  are  given,  in  one  of  which 
three  persons  testify  that  they  had  seen  metal  plates  containing  the  originals  of  the 
entire  work,  and  knew  them  to  have  been  translated  by  the  gift  and  power  of  God 
(out  of  "the  reformed  Egyptian");  and  in  the  second  of  which  eight  persons  bear 
witness  that  they  had  "seen  and  hefted"  the  plates,  "and  know  of  a  surety  that 
the  said  Smith  has  got  the  plates  of  which  we  have  spoken."  A  characteristic  word  of 
the  spiritual  higher  teaching  of  the  book,  on  its  final  page,  reads  as  follows:  "Come 
unto  Christ  and  be  perfected  in  him,  and  deny  yourselves  of  all  ungodliness,  and 
love  God  with  all  your  might,  mind,  and  strength."  Certain  features  of  the  system 
later  developed  are  unknown  to  the  Book. 

MOROCCO,  ITS  PEOPLE  AND  PLACE,  by  Edmondo  de  Amicis  (1875),  a. 
book  of  travel  and  description.  As  a  member  of  the  Italian  ambassador's  suite, 
the  author  enjoyed  unusual  facilities  for  observing  the  manners  and  customs  of 
Morocco,  while  he  received  constant  courtesies  at  the  hands  of  the  natives.  Many 
unfamiliar  phases  of  life  and  character  are  treated;  the  countryside,  as  well  as  all 
the  large  centres  of  population,  receiving  attention.  The  narrative  is  full  of  inci- 
dent and  worldly  philosophy;  and  without  pretending  to  be  formally  historic,  vividly 
portrays  the  religious  life  and  racial  problems  of  this  Moorish  land. 

MORTAL  ANTIPATHY,  A,  the  third  and  last  of  Oliver  Wendel  Holmes's  novels, 
was  published  in  1885,  when  he  was  in  his  seventy-sixth  year.  Like  the  two  pre- 
ceding works  of  fiction  (to  which  it  is  inferior),  it  is  concerned  with  a  curious  prob- 
lem of  a  psychological  nature.  Maurice  Kirkwood,  a  young  man  of  good  family, 
suffers  from  a  singular  malady,  brought  on  by  a  fall  when  a  child.  When  very  small[ 
he  was  dropped  from  the  arms  of  a  girl  cousin.  Ever  after  that,  the  presence  of  a 
beautiful  woman  caused  him  to  faint  away.  A  love  story  is  interwoven  with  the 
story  of  his  cure. 

MORTE  D'ARTHTJR,  a  prose  compendium  of  the  Arthurian  romances,  made  by 
Sir  Thomas  Malory,  knight,  who  completed  it  in  1470,  the  year  before  his  death/" 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  581 

It  was  published  by  Caxton  in  1485.  The  prose  romance  of  Merlin  by  Robert  de 
Baron,  the  English  metrical  romances  'La  Morte  Arthure,'  and  'Le  Morte  Arthur,1 
the  French  romances  of  Lancelot  and  Tristan  formed  the  basis  of  the  work.  Start- 
ing from  the  obscure  figure  of  a  British  chieftain,  a  dux  bclloum,  against  the  Saxons, 
King  Arthur  had  developed  into  a  world-monarch,  the  centre  of  an  intricate  cycle 
of  stories.  To  the  marvelous  tales  of  his  birth,  marriage,  Round  Table,  conquests, 
and  death,  had  been  added  the  loves  and  adventures  of  his  knights,  Gawain,  Lancelot, 
Tristan;  and  the  mystical  Christian  legend  of  the  Holy  Grail;  and  all  these  stories 
had  been  told  again  and  again  in  many  languages  and  in  ever- varying  forms.  From 
this  confused  exuberance  of  material,  Malory,  by  selection  and  alteration,  produced 
in  reasonable  compass  a  unified  and  fairly  complete  version  of  the  whole  cycle.  The 
convenience  of  this  version  and  its  transparent,  picturesque,  and  expressive  style 
have  made  it  popular  ever  since,  and  it  has  been  the  source  of  practically  all  sub- 
sequent literary  redactions  of  the  Arthurian  legend.  The  general  scope  of  the 
narrative  may  be  indicated  under  the  following  heads:  i.  THE  BIRTH  AND  EARLY 
EXPLOITS  OF  ARTHUR.  The  magician  Merlin  plays  an  important  part  in  this  divi- 
sion of  the  story.  It  is  Merlin  who  makes  possible  the  clandestine  union  between 
King  Uther  Pendragon  and  Igrayne,  Duchess  of  Cornwall,  of  whom  Arthur  is  born. 
Merlin  too  provides  for  the  boy's  education  and  through  his  arrangements  Arthur 
afterward  becomes  king.  Through  Merlin  he  obtains  the  sword  Excalibur  from 
the  Lady  of  the  Lake.  Merlin  is  his  constant  mentor,  and  the  chief  prop  of  his 
throne.  Arthur's  marriage  to  Guinevere,  daughter  of  King  Leodegran,  and  his 
various  struggles  with  discontented  subjects,  invading  kings,  giants,  and  the  Roman 
Emperor  Lucius,  who  sends  to  Britain  to  demand  tribute,  make  up  the  principal 
exploits  of  this  period.  2.  THE  PASSION  OF  LANCELOT  AND  GUINEVERE.  Lancelot 
du  Lake  occupies  in  Malory  and  in  the  later  French  romances  the  position  of  leading 
knight  at  Arthur's  court,  earlier  held  by  Arthur's  nephew  Gawain.  In  Malory, 
Gawain  is  represented  as  cruel,  fickle,  and  a  light-of-love  —  traits  which  Tennyson 
has  retained.  Lancelot,  on  the  other  hand,  is  "the  gentlest  knight  that  ever  ate  in 
hall  among  ladies,  the  sternest  to  his  mortal  foe  that  ever  put  spear  in  rest."  Yet 
he  continues  for  years,  without  Arthur's  knowledge,  an  intrigue  with  Guinevere. 
This  is  finally  revealed  to  the  king  by  the  traitor  Mordred.  Lancelot  escapes, 
afterwards  rescues  Guinevere  from  execution  by  burning,  and  retires  with  her  to 
his  castle  of  Joyous  Gard;  but  at  the  order  of  the  Pope  he  yields  Guinevere  to  Arthur. 
After  the  death  of  the  king,  both  Lancelot  and  Guinevere  take  monastic  vows  and 
retire  from  the  world.  3.  THE  PASSION  OF  TRISTRAM  AND  ISOULDE.  This  famous 
love  story  is  less  brilliantly  told  by  Malory  than  by  the  Norman  Thomas  or  the 
German  Gottfried,  its  interest  being  subordinated  to  that  of  Lancelot  and  Guinevere. 
Tristram  of  Lyonesse  by  a  combat  with  Sir  Mor61t  of  Ireland,  frees  his  uncle, 
King  Mark  of  Cornwall,  from  paying  tribute  to  the  Irish  king.  Wounded  by  his 
opponent's  poisoned  spear,  he  goes  to  Ireland,  where  he  is  healed  by  Isoulde,  daughter 
of  the  Irish  king.  Afterwards  he  goes  to  woo  her  for  his  uncle,  King  Mark;  but  as 
he  is  conducting  her  to  Cornwall,  they  drink  a  potion,  which  makes  them  lovers 
till  death.  Their  clandestine  meetings  after  her  marriage  to  Mark  are  at  length 
discovered.  Tristram  is  exiled  to  Brittany,  where  he  marries  the  king's  daughter, 
Isoulde  of  the  White  Hands.  But  the  tragic  ending  of  the  story  is  not  given  by 
Malory,  who,  though  he  conducts  Tristram  through  many  other  adventures,  does 
not  mention  his  death.  4.  THE  QUEST  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL.  Arthur's  knights 
set  out  to  find  the  Holy  Grail,  the  cup  in  which  the  Lord's  Supper  was  instituted, 
and  which  had  been  brought  to  England  by  Joseph  of  Arimathsea.  The  quest  is 


582  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

achieved  by  Sir  Galahad,  the  maiden  knight,  a  son  of  Sir  Lancelot.  Accompanied 
by  Sir  Perceval  and  Sir  Bors  he  crosses  the  sea  to  the  holy  city  of  Sarras,  where,  after 
receiving  the  Sacrament  from  the  Grail,  he  dies  and  the  Grail  is  caught  away  to 
Heaven.  5.  THE  PASSING  OF  ARTHUR.  When  Arthur  is  making  war  upon  Lancelot, 
his  natural  son,  Mordred,  made  regent  in  his  absence,  raises  a  rebellion  in  the  hope 
of  seizing  the  crown.  After  a  bloody  battle,  Mordred  mortally  wounds  Arthur  and 
is  himself  stair*  by  him.  Arthur  then  departs  in  a  barge  to  the  Valley  of  Avilion  to 
be  healed  of  his  wound.  Malory's  narrative  is  characterized  by  a  love  of  chivalric 
and  aristocratic  ideals,  and  an  English  preoccupation  with  questions  of  morality. 

MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE  is  the  title  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  second 
collection  of  tales  and  sketches  (1854).  The  Old  Manse,  Hawthorne's  Concord 
home,  is  described  in  the  opening  chapter  of  the  book.  The  remaining  contents 
include  many  of  Hawthorne's  most  famous  short  sketches,  such  as  'The  Birth- 
Mark,'  'Roger  Malvin's  Burial,'  and  'The  Artist  of  the  Beautiful.'  These  stories 
bear  witness  to  his  love  of  the  mysterious  and  the  unusual;  and  their  action  passes 
in  a  world  of  unreality,  which  the  genius  of  the  author  makes  more  visible  than  the 
world  of  sense. 

MOTHER,  by  Kathleen  Norris  (1911).  This  is  the  story  of  the  Paget  family, 
who  live  in  a  small  town  called  Weston,  a  few  hours  out  of  New  York.  Mrs.  Paget, 
the  central  ^igure  of  the  story  and  from  whom  the  book  derives  its  title,  is  a  woman 
of  great  character,  devoted  to  her  family  and  untiring  in  her  services  to  them.  Her 
husband  and  her  seven  children  are  her  world,  and  with  very  limited  resources  she 
makes  for  them  a  cheerful  and  happy  home.  Margaret,  the  eldest  daughter,  is 
possessed  of  great  beauty  and  charm  but  is  forced  to  teach  school  to  eke  out  the 
family  income.  She  chafes  under  the  drudgery  of  her  daily  life  and  is  longing  for 
a  change  of  environment  when  the  opportunity  suddenly  comes  to  her.  Mrs. 
Carr-Boldt,  a  rich  society  woman  of  New  York,  is  passing  through  Weston  in  her 
motor-car  when  one  of  the  school  children  suddenly  dashes  in  front  if  it  and  is  run 
over.  Excitement  prevails  until  Margaret  appears  upon  the  scene  and  displaying 
much  presence  of  mind,  disperses  the  crowd  and  quiets  the  child  who  is  but  slightly 
injured.  Mrs.  Carr-Boldt  is  immediately  attracted  by  her  beauty  and  capability 
and  before  leaving  the  town  asks  her  to  become  her  private  secretary.  Margaret 
goes  to  New  York  and  lives  with  her  benefactress  in  her  luxurious  home,  the  magni- 
ficence of  which  is  in  great  contrast  to  the  simple  one  she  has  left  behind.  She 
goes  abroad  with  Mrs.  Carr-Boldt  and  while  there  meets  Dr.  John  Tenison,  a  young 
American  professor,  rich,  handsome,  and  talented.  He  and  Margaret  are  mutu- 
ally attracted  to  each  other  but  are  obliged  to  part  hastily  and  do  not  meet  again 
till  they  do  so  in  Margaret's  own  home  to  which  she  has  returned  for  a  short  visit. 
She  fears  the  impression  he  will  get  from  seeing  the  shabby  and  meager  appointments 
of  her  home  and  of  being  in  the  confusing  atmosphere  of  a  large  family,  but  on  the 
contrary  he  is  struck  with  the  wonderful  qualities  of  her  mother.  He  proposes  to 
Margaret  and  before  leaving  tells  her  that  having  seen  her  mother  he  now  realizes 
where  she  has  derived  the  traits  which  have  won  his  love.  Margaret,  who  has 
always  loved  her  mother  devotedly,  now  realizes  how  much  happier  she  is  in  her 
life  of  loving  service  than  is  Mrs.  Carr-Boldt  with  all  her  riches. 

MOTHER,  by  Maxim  Gorky  (1906).  An  intimate  picture  of  the  lives  and  work 
of  a  group  of  socialists  in  Russia,  who  face  danger  and  death  for  the  sake  of  their 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  583 

ideal,  the  liberation  of  the  working  people  from  "the  narrow  dark  cage"  of  ignorance 
and  oppression.  Until  the  death  of  her  brutal  husband,  the  mother  lives  in  fear, 
"in  anxious  expectation  of  blows."  She  is  described  as  a  dazed  cowed  creature, 
beaten  into  a  dumb  acceptance  of  her  lot.  Her  son  Pavel  begins  to  drink  like  his 
father  and  the  other  factory  workers,  but  by  some  hidden  way  the  "forbidden" 
socialist  books  get  to  him,  and  change  his  life.  When  he  tells  his  mother  his  pur- 
pose to  "study  and  then  teach  others,"  to  help  his  fellow- workers  to  understand 
why  life  is  so  hard  for  them  and  to  fight  with  them  against  its  injustice,  she  is  at 
first  terrified  for  his  safety.  Gradually  her  mind  stirs  in  response  to  his,  and  she 
grows  in  courage  and  understanding.  Her  son  is  sent  to  prison  for  leading  a  First 
of  May  parade,  and  she  goes  on  with  his  work,  distributing  the  forbidden  literature 
in  the  factory.  She  becomes  the  heart  of  the  group  of  which  he  is  the  intellect. 
There  are  arrests,  escapes,  speeches,  encounters  with  spies,  and  finally  the  Mother, 
who  is  watched  as  a  suspicious  character,  is  arrested  with  the  papers  she  is  carrying. 
A  gendarme  beats  her  and  chokes  her  to  death  as  she  tries  to  say  a  last  word  for  the 
Cause.  The  son  is  sentenced  to  exile  in  Siberia. 

MOTHER  GOOSE'S  MELODIES.  Few  books  in  the  English  language  have 
had  so  wide-spread  a  circulation  as  the  collection  of  nursery  rhymes  known  as 
'Mother  Goose's  Melodies.'  Indeed  the  child  whose  earliest  remembrance  does 
not  embrace  pictures  of  'Little  Boy  Blue, '  'The  House  that  Jack  Built, '  'Who  Killed 
Cock  Robin/  'Baa,  Baa,  Black  Sheep,'  and  'Patty  Cake,  Patty  Cake,  Baker's  Man,' 
has  sustained  a  loss  of  no  small  magnitude.  In  1860  a  story  was  started  to  the 
effect  that  "Mother  Goose"  was  a  Boston  woman;  and  she  was  identified  as 
Elizabeth  Goose,  widow  of  Isaac  Vergoose,  or  Goose,  and  mother-in-law  of  Thomas 
Fleet,  a  well-known  Boston  printer,  said  to  have  issued  a  collection  of  the  'Melodies' 
in  1719.  There  is  an  entire  lack  of  evidence,  however,  to  support  fhis  assumption; 
although  Boston  has  a  true  claim  upon  the  fame  of  "Mother  Goose,"  because  two 
Boston  publishers  issued  the  book  in  1824.  But  it  is  now  conceded  that  "Mother 
Goose"  belongs  to  French  folklore  and  not  to  English  tradition;  and  some  writers 
even  connect  her  with  Queen  Goosefoot,  said  to  be  the  mother  of  Charlemagne. 
Charles  Perrault,  born  in  Paris  in  1628,  was  the  first  person  to  collect,  reduce  to 
writing,  and  publish  the  'Contes  de  ma  Mere  1'Oye, '  or  'Tales  of  Mother  Goose'; 
and  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  "Mother  Goose"  was  a  term  ever  used  in  Eng- 
lish literature  until  it  was  translated  from  the  French  equivalent,  "Mere  1'Oye." 
It  is  probable  that  her  fame  first  reached  England  in  1729,  when  *  Mother  Goose's 
Fairy  Tales'  were  translated  by  Robert  Samber.  The  original  'Mother  Goose's 
Melodies'  was  not  issued  until  1760,  when  it  was  brought  out  by  John  Newbery 
of  London.  While  "Mother  Goose"  herself  is  of  French  origin,  many  of  the  'Melo- 
dies' are  purely  of  English  extraction,  some  of  them  dating  back  to  Shakespeare's 
time  and  earlier. 

Famous  writers  of  fiction  "may  flourish  and  may  fade,"  great  poets  pass  into 
distant  perspective;  but  until  time  has  ceased  to  be,  it  is  certain  that  'Mother 
Goose '  will  reign  in  the  hearts  and  murmur  in  the  ears,  of  each  succeeding  generation. 

MOTHS,  by  Louise  De  la  Rame"e  (' '  Ouida  ")  ( 1 880) .  This  novel  depicts  the  corrup- 
tion (springing  from  idleness  and  luxury)  of  modern  European  society,  especially  of 
the  women  of  rank,  who  are  compared  to  moths  "fretting  a  garment."  The  first 
chapter  presents  such  a  woman,  Lady  Dolly,  a  lashionable  butterfly  with  an  ignoble 
nature.  Her  daughter  by  a  first  marriage,  Vera,  joins  her  at  Trouville.  The  girl  has 


584  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

been  brought  up  by  a  worth}'  English  duchess,  who  has  instilled  into  her  mind  the 
noblest  traditions  of  aristocracy,  and  has  developed  a  character  unworldly,  high- 
spirited,  and  idealistic.  The  plot  turns  on  her  tragic  conflict  with  a  false  and  base 
social  order.  Like  Ouida's  other  novels  of  high  life,  it  unites  realism  with  romance, 
or  with  a  kind  of  sumptuous  exaggeration  of  the  qualities  and  attributes  of  aristo- 
cracy, which,  to  the  average  reader,  is  full  of  fascination. 

MOUNTAINEERING  IN  THE  SIERRA  NEVADA,  by  Clarence  King  (1872).  Mr. 
King  is  so  well  known  a  scientist  that  the  government  very  properly  long  ago  annexed 
his  services.  It  is  therefore  to  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  geology  and  geography 
of  this  volume  are  above  suspicion.  But  what  delights  the  unlearned  reader  is  not 
its  scientific  accuracy,  but  its  nice  observation,  its  vivid  power  of  description,  its 
unfailing  humor,  its  beautiful  literary  art.  The  official  mountaineer  in  pursuit  of 
his  duty  ascends  Mount  Shasta  and  Mount  Tyndall,  Mount  Whitney  and  the  peaks 
of  the  Yosemite,  and  gathers  all  the  data  for  which  a  distant  administration  is  pining. 
But  on  his  own  account,  and  to  the  unspeakable  satisfaction  of  his  audience,  he 
"interviews"  the  Pike  County  immigrant,  the  Digger,  the  man  from  Nowhere,  and 
the  Caiifomian;  and  the  reader  is  privileged  to  "assist "  with  unspeakable  satisfaction 
on  all  these  social  occasions,  and  to  sigh  that  there  are  not  more.  A  joy  forever  is 
that  painter  of  the  Sierras  whom  the  geologist  encountered,  painting  on  a  large  canvas, 
who  accosted  him  with  " Dern'd  if  you  ain't  just  naturally  ketched  me  at  it!  Git  off 
and  set  down.  You  ain't  goin'  for  no  doctor,  I  know";  and  who  confesses  that  his 
aim  is  to  be  "the  Pacific  Slope  Bonheur."  His  criticisms  on  his  fellow  artists  are 
more  incisive  than  Taine's.  "Old  Eastman  Johnson's  barns  and  everlasting  girl 
with  the  ears  of  com  ain't  life,  it  ain't  got  the  real  git-up."  Bierstadt's  mountains 
would  "  blow  over  in  one  of  our  fall  winds.  He  hasn't  got  what  old  Ruskin  calls  for. " 
The  concluding  chapter  is  given  to  California  as  furnishing  a  study  of  character. 
Forced  to  admit  the  conditions  on  which  she  has  been  condemned  as  vulgar  and 
brutal,  he  yet  perceives  that  being  is  far  less  significant  than  becoming,  and  that  her 
future  is  to  be  not  less  magnificent  than  her  hopes. 

MOTTNTAINS  OF  CALIFORNIA,  THE,  by  John  Muir,  a  work  describing  the  geo- 
logy, the  flora,  and  the  fauna  of  the  California  mountains,  was  published  in  1894, 
and  in  an  enlarged  edition  in  1911.  In  the  opening  chapter  the  topography  of  the 
state  and  the  relation  of  its  two  mountain  systems,  the  Sierra  Nevada  and  the  Coast 
Range,  are  graphically  set  forth,  and  a  broad  picture  of  these  two  parallel  ranges  and 
the  intervening  Central  Valley  is  indelibly  impressed  on  the  reader's  mind.  At  the 
same  time  a  number  of  skilfully  chosen  details  add  such  life  and  color  as  to  inspire  a 
longing  to  see  the  reality.  Then  follow  a  chapter  on  the  Glaciers,  illustrated  by 
records  of  personal  explorations;  chapters  on  the  Snow,  on  the  High  Sierra,  on  the 
Passes,  on  the  Glacier  Lakes,  and  on  the  Glacier  Mountains.  All  are  the  work  of  a 
geologist,  who  not  only  knows  the  mountains  scientifically,  but  loves  them  and  can 
describe  them  poetically.  A  long  chapter  on  the  Forests  gives  individual  attention 
to  the  various  types  of  trees,  giant  and  otherwise.  The  chapters  on  the  Douglas 
Squirrel,  the  Water  Ouzel,  which  swims  under  water,  the  Wild  Sheep,  which  jump 
down  precipices  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high  and  escape  unhurt,  and  on  the  Bee 
Pastures,  or  meadows  full  of  marvelous  wild  flowers,  show  the  keenest  appreciation 
for  animal  and  plant  life  as  well  as  for  scenery.  "The  River  Flood"  exhibits  the 
Calif ornian  mountains  in  their  wilder  moods.  The  book  is  the  work  of  an  enthusiastic 
nature-lover,  but  without  rhapsodizing  or  sentimentality,  and  checked  by  sober 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  585 

scientific  observation.  As  a  word-painter  and  as  a  revealer  of  the  rich  treasures  oi 
beauty  in  the  wonderful  mountain- world  of  California,  he  merits  the  highest  praise. 

MOURNING  BRIDE,  THE,  by  William  Congreve.  This,  the  only  serious  play 
written  by  Congreve,  was  produced  in  1697,  and  was  most  successful.  Lugubrious  is 
a  cheerful  term  by  which  to  characterize  it.  Almeria,  the  daughter  of  Manuel,  King 
of  Granada,  while  in  captivity  marries  Alphonso,  the  son  of  Anselmo,  King  of  Valen- 
cia. In  a  battle  with  Manuel,  Anselmo  is  captured,  Alphonso  drowned,  and  Almeria 
returned  to  her  father.  He  insists  upon  her  marriage  with  Garcia,  the  son  of  Gonzalez, 
his  favorite.  Manuel  captures  Zara,  an  African  princess,  and  with  her  two  Moors, 
Osmyn  and  Heli.  Almeria  finds  that  Osmyn  is  Alphonso;  and  Zara,  overhearing 
them,  is  led  by  her  jealousy  to  induce  the  King  to  allow  her  mutes  to  strangle  him, 
and  to  give  orders  that  none  but  her  mutes  shall  have  access  to  him.  Gonzalez,  to 
secure  a  mute's  dress,  kills  one,  and  finds  on  him  a  letter  from  Zara  to  Alphonso, 
telling  him  she  has  repented  and  will  help  him  to  escape.  Manuel  orders  Alphonso  to 
be  executed  at  once;  and  to  prove  Zara's  treachery,  places  himself  in  chains  in  Al- 
phonso 's  place  to  await  her  coming.  Gonzalez,  to  make  sure  of  Alphonso 's  death, 
steals  down  and  kills  him.  Meeting  Garcia,  he  learns  that  Alphonso  has  escaped,  and 
that  he  has  killed  the  King  instead  of  Alphonso.  The  King's  head  is  cut  off  and  hid, 
so  that  his  death  may  not  be  known.  Zara,  thinking  that  it  is  the  body  of  Alphonso, 
poisons  herself ;  and  Alphonso,  storming  the  palace,  reaches  Almeria  in  time  to  prevent 
her  from  taking  the  remainder  of  the  poison.  Two  quotations  from  this  play  have 
become  almost  household  words:  the  first,  "Music  hath  charms  to  soothe  a  savage 
breast";  and  the  second,  "Heaven  has  no  rage  like  love  to  hatred  turned;  nor  hell  a 
fury,  like  a  woman  scorned." 

MUCH  ADO  ABOUT  NOTHING,  by  Shakespeare,  was  first  published  in  1600.  The 
mere  skeleton  of  the  serious  portions  of  the  drama  he  took  from  Bandello,  through 
Belief orest's  translation;  the  comic  scenes  are  all  his  own.  In  the  portrayal  of  Bea- 
trice, Benedick,  and  Dogberry,  he  lavishes  all  his  skill.  The  constable  Dogberry  is 
hit  off  to  the  life,  with  his  irresistibly  funny  malapropisms.  He  is  a  lovable  old  heart- 
of-gold,  who  is  always  taking  off  his  hat  to  himself  and  his  office,  and  absurdly  pardons 
every  crime  except  the  calling  of  himself  an  ass.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Messina.  Bene- 
dick is  just  home  from  the  wars.  He  and  Beatrice  have  had  some  sparring  matches 
before,  and  thick  and  fast  now  fly  the  tart  and  merry  witticisms  between  them,  — 
she  "the  sauciest,  most  piquant  madcap  girl  that  Shakespeare  ever  drew,'*  yet 
genuinely  sympathetic;  he  a  genial  wit  who  tempts  fate  by  his  oaths  that  he  will 
never  marry.  From  the  wars  comes  too,  Claudio,  brave,  but  a  light-weight  fop, 
selfish,  and  touchy  about  his  honor.  He  loves  Hero,  daughter  of  Leonato.  Beatrice 
is  the  latter's  niece,  and  in  his  house  and  orchard  the  action  mostly  takes  place.  The 
gentlemen  lay  a  merry  plot  to  ensnare  Beatrice  and  Benedick.  The  latter  is  reading 
in  the  orchard,  and  overhears  their  talk  about  the  violent  love  of  Beatrice  for  him, 
and  how  (Hero  has  said)  she  would  rather  die  than  confess  it.  The  bait  is  eagerly 
swallowed.  Next  Beatrice,  hearing  that  Hero  and  Ursula  are  talking  about  her  in  the 
garden,  runs,  stooping  like  a  lapwing,  and  hides  her  in  the  honeysuckle  arbor.  With  a 
strange  fire  in  her  ears  she  overhears  how  desperately  in  love  with  her  is  Benedick. 
The  bird  is  limed;  she  swears  to  herself  to  requite  his  devotion.  Hero's  wedding-day 
is  fixed:  Claudio  is  the  lucky  man.  But  the  villain  Don  John  concocts  a  plot  which 
has  most  painful  results  —  for  twenty-four  hours  at  least.  He  takes  Claudio  and  his 
friend  Don  Pedro  to  the  orchard,  and  shows  them,  as  it  seemed,  Hero  bidding  John's 


5&6  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

follower  Borachio  a  thousand  good -nights:  it  is  really  her  maid  Margaret  in  her 
garments.  Claudio  in  a  rage  allows  her  to  go  to  church,  but  before  the  altar  scorn- 
fully rejects  her.  Her  father  is  in  despair,  Beatrice  nobly  indignant  and  incredulous. 
Hero  swoons,  and  the  officiating  friar  advises  the  giving  out  that  she  is  dead  from  the 
shock.  Claudio  believes  it,  and  hangs  verses  on  her  tomb.  Meantime  Dogberry's 
famous  night-watch  have  overheard  Borachio  confess  the  villainous  practice  of  John 
and  himself.  Then  Hero's  joyful  friends  plan  a  little  surprise  for  Claudio.  Leonato 
makes  him  promise,  in  reparation,  to  marry  a  cousin  of  Hero's,  who  turns  out  to  be 
Hero  herself  come  to  life.  A  double  wedding  follows,  for  Benedick  willingly  suffers 
himself  to  be  chaffed  for  eating  his  words  and  becoming  "the  married  man,"  Yet 
both  he  and  Beatrice  vow  they  take  each  other  only  out  of  pity. 

MUNCEAUSEN,  BARON,  see  TRAVELS  AND  ADVENTURES  OF. 

MURRAY,  JOHN,  MEMOIR  AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF.  With  an  Account 
of  the  Origin  and  Progress  of  the  House,  1768-1843.  By  Samuel  Smiles.  (2  vols., 
1891).  The  history  of  as  great  a  publisher  as  literature  has  ever  known,  and  a  most 
notable  example  of  devotion  to  the  production  of  books  of  character  and  value, 
irrespective  of  mere  mercenary  considerations.  The  foundation  of  the  great  London 
house  of  Murray  was  laid  in  1768,  by  a  John  Murray,  who  retired  from  service  as  a 
lieutenant  of  marines,  and  bought  out  a  bookselling  business  at  No.  32  Fleet  Street. 
The  second  and  the  great  Murray  was  a  boy  of  fifteen  at  his  father's  death  in  1793, 
but  two  years  later  he  began  his  publishing  career,  at  first  with  his  father's  shop  man 
as  a  partner;  but  "a  drone  of  a  partner"  was  not  to  his  mind,  and  from  March  23d, 
1803,  he  was  alone.  His  first  attempt  to  deal  with  an  author  gave  the  keynote  to  a 
career  of  unexampled  distinction,  when  he  wrote:  "I  am  honestly  ambitious  that 
my  first  appearance  should  at  once  stamp  my  character  and  respectability;  .  .  . 
and  *  I  am  not  covetous  of  gold."1  The  tradition  thus  started,  of  weighing  the 
character  of  a  work  and  the  credit  of  publishing  it,  and  letting  the  chance  of  making 
money  by  the  publication  pass  as  of  secondary  importance,  was  for  forty  years  the 
glory  of  the  name  of  Murray.  "The  business  of  a  publishing  bookseller, "  he  said, 
"is  not  in  his  shop,  or  even  in  his  connections,  but  in  his  brains."  A  man  of  fine 
taste  and  broad  culture,  possessing  moreover  innate  generosity  and  magnanimity,  his 
dealings  with  authors  were  frequently  munificent;  and  in  notable  instances  he  counted 
the  honor  before  the  profit.  He  started  the  Quarterly  Review,  in  February,  1809,  as 
a  Tory  organ,  and  carried  it  at  a  loss  for  two  or  three  years.  Nothing  characterized 
him  more  than  his  steady  confidence  in  the  success  of  the  best  literature;  and  in 
proportion  as  a  publication  was  of  high  character,  he  was  determined  and  lavish  in 
pushing  it  to  success.  Nor  was  he  for  this  any  the  less  a  consummate  man  of  business, 
achieving  extraordinary  success  as  a  merchant  prince  at  the  head  of  the  London  book 
trade.  To  a  large  extent  he  depended  on  his  own  judgment  in  accepting  books  for 
publication.  His  most  famous  engagements  were  with  Scott,  Southey,  Byron, 
Moore,  Lockhart,  and  the  Disraelis.  To  the  younger  Disraeli,  then  only  twenty,  he 
owed  the  one  wholly  damaging  venture  of  his  career,  —  an  attempt  in  daily  journal- 
ism which  ignominiously  failed  at  the  end  of  six  months,  with  a  loss  to  Murray  of 
£26,000. 

MUSIC  AND  MUSICIANS,  DICTIONARY  OF,  by  Sir  George  Grove.  (5  vols. 
1904-10),  edited  by  J.  A.  Fuller  Maitland.  Sir  George  Grove's  Dictionary,  the 
first  instalment  of  which  appeared  in  1878,  was  intended  as  much  for  the  general 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  5&7 

reader  as  the  trained  musician,  and  indeed  to  a  great  extent  owed  its  success  to  this 
very  fact.  The  new  edition,  edited  by  Mr.  Fuller  Maitland,  has  endeavored  to 
adhere  to  the  same  principle,  as  far  as  the  limits  of  space  have  allowed.  The  monu- 
mental articles  on  Beethoven,  Mendelssohn  and  Schubert  of  the  original  edition, 
which  are  Sir  George  Grove's  chief  contributions  to  musical  literature,  are  retained, 
with  only  such  additions  and  corrections  as  met  with  the  writer's  own  wishes.  In  its 
revised  form  the  work,  not  only  explains  the  meaning  of  musical  terms,  but  of  words, 
like  acoustics,  for  example,  which  have  come  into  use  in  the  more  penetrating  and 
scientific  study  of  music.  It  now  includes  not  only  modem  and  medieval,  but  an- 
cient music.  In  a  work  of  such  scope,  limits  of  space  have  made  it  impossible  to 
include  the  name  of  every  musician  who  might  be  held  to  deserve  mention.  Whether 
executants  or  composers,  only  those  have  been  admitted  who  have  attained  to  real 
eminence,  and  whose  reputation  extends  beyond  the  country  of  their  birth  or  adop- 
tion. In  the  case  of  all  composers  of  real  importance,  their  works  have  been  cata- 
logued systematically  under  their  opus-numbers,  if  such  exist,  and  so  much  criticism, 
even  of  living  people,  has  been  admitted  into  the  text  as  will  explain  the  general 
characteristics  of  the  musicians  under  discussion.  It  is  sufficient  to  add  that  the 
widest  and  most  impartial  catholicity  has  been  shown  in  the  choice  of  contributors 
and  that  the  work  is  now  everywhere  recognized  as  a  classic. 

MUSIC,  THE  HISTORY  OF,  by  W.  S.  Pratt  (1907).  This  work,  as  the  author 
explains  in  the  preface  is  rather  a  book  of  reference  for  students  than  a  critical  survey 
of  a  few  salient  aspects  of  the  subject,  or  a  specialist's  report  of  original  research. 
The  leading  tendencies  or  movements  of  musical  advance  are  thrown  into  relief, 
reference  being  made  to  particular  styles  and  composers  as  illustrations.  The  need 
of  such  a  study  arises  from  the  fact  that  amid  the  general  progress  of  historical  inves- 
tigation the  history  of  music  has  been  almost  neglected,  partly  because  of  the  lack 
until  recently  of  adequate  text-books  and  partly  because  of  the  insufficient  recogni- 
tion of  the  fine  arts  as  essential  parts  of  anything  that  deserves  the  name  of  culture. 
This  neglect  is  all  the  more  remarkable  because  however  far  back  investigation  into 
the  history  of  even  the  most  primitive  races  has  gone,  there  appears  to  have  existed 
"the  spontaneous  use  by  all  races  of  song,  dance,  and  instrument  as  a  means  of 
expression,  amusement,  and  even  discipline."  The  division  of  subject  is  into  primi- 
tive or  savage  music,  Greek  and  Roman;  mediaeval,  including  the  rise  of  Christian 
music  and  covering  the  period  to  the  fifteenth  century;  the  Venetian  and  Roman 
Schools  and  the  Church  and  secular  music  of  the  sixteenth  century:  the  early  musical 
drama  and  the  rise  of  dramatic  music  in  the  seventeenth  century;  the  early  Italian 
opera  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  was  also  to  produce  the  masterpieces  of  Haydn, 
Gluck,  and  Mozart;  the  early  and  middle  nineteenth  century  with  the  names  of 
Beethoven,  Schumann,  Mendelssohn,  Wagner:  the  later  nineteenth  century  of  which 
perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  figure  was  Richard  Strauss.  The  work  is  not  a  history 
of  instruments,  but  it  contains  no  illustrations  of  selected  specimens  from  the 
Metropolitan  Museum  in  New  York  and  the  University  of  Michigan  at  Ann  Arbor. 
These  are  of  the  most  varied  interest  and  value  and  range  from  the  stone  flute  of 
Alaska,  the  Hindu  sarangi,  the  ancient  Irish  harp,  to  the  elaborate  sarussophones 
of  the  present  day. 

MUSIC,  THE  OXFORD  HISTORY  OF,  see  OXFORD, 

MUTABLE  MANY,  THE,  by  Robert  Barr  (1896).  This  is  one  of  the  many 
accounts  of  the  struggle  between  labor  and  capital.  The  scene  is  London,  at  the 


588  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

present  day.  The  men  in  Monkton  and  Hope's  factory  strike.  Sartwell,  their 
manager,  refuses  to  compromise  with  them,  but  discusses  the  situation  with  Marsten, 
one  of  their  number,  who  clings  to  his  own  order,  at  the  same  time  that  he  avows  his 
love  for  Sartwell's  daughter  Edna.  Sartwell  forbids  him  to  speak  to  her.  The  strike 
is  crashed,  Marsten  is  dismissed,  and  becomes  secretary  to  the  Labor  Union.  He 
sees  Edna  several  times,  she  becomes  interested  in  him,  and  her  father  sends  her  away 
to  school.  Marsten  visits  her  in  the  guise  of  a  gardener,  offers  her  his  love,  and  is 
refused.  Barney  Hope,  son  of  her  father's  employer,  a  dilettante  artist  of  lavishly 
generous  impulses,  also  offers  himself  to  her  and  is  refused.  Later,  he  founds  a  new 
school  of  art,  becomes  famous,  and  marries  Lady  Mary  Fanshawe.  Marsten  brings 
about  another  strike,  which  is  on  the  eve  of  success,  and  Sartwell  is  about  to  resign  his 
post.  Edna,  seeing  her  father's  despair,  visits  Marsten  at  the  Union  and  proposes  to 
marry  him  if  he  will  end  the  strike  and  allow  her  father  to  triumph.  He  declines  to 
sell  his  honor  even  at  such  a  price.  The  members  of  the  Union,  seeing  her,  accuse 
Marsten  of  treachery,  depose  him  from  office,  and  so  maltreat  him  that  he  is  taken  to 
the  hospital.  His  successor  in  office  is  no  match  for  Sartwell,  who  wins  the  day. 
Edna  goes  to  Marsten,  and  owns  at  last  that  she  loves  him. 

MUTINEERS  OF  THE  BOUNTY,  THE,  by  Lady  Belcher  (1870).  This  latest 
published  account  of  a  long  unsolved  ocean  mystery  and  of  a  unique  settlement  on  a 
South  Sea  island,  written  in  the  prosaic  style  of  an  official  document,  amply  substan- 
tiates the  old  adage,  "Truth  is  stranger  than  fiction. "  The  most  vivid  imagination 
would  fail  to  conceive  the  plot  of  a  tale  more  varied  and  more  exciting  in  its  details. 

In  1789  H.  M.  S.  Bounty,  Lieutenant  Bligh  commanding,  while  sailing  in  the 
South  Seas  was  captured  by  mutineers,  and  the  commander  with  eighteen  of  the 
crew  were  set  adrift  in  the  cutter.  The  ship  sailed  to  Tahiti.  There  dissensions  arose 
among  the  mutineers.  Half  of  them,  accompanied  by  a  score  of  native  men  and 
women,  sailed  away,  and  all  trace  of  them  was  lost  for  many  years. 

Lieutenant  Bligh  reached  England,  returned  to  Tahiti,  captured  the  mutineers 
who  were  on  that  island,  and  after  many  disasters  and  shipwreck  conveyed  them  to 
England.  A  sensational  trial  ensued.  Two  of  the  mutineers  were  pardoned.  The 
others  suffered  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law.  Then  a  reaction  in  public  sentiment 
set  in,  and  it  was  generally  conceded,  even  in  official  circles,  that  the  insolent  and 
overbearing  conduct  of  the  commander  warranted  the  course  of  the  mutineers. 

Some  twenty  years  later,  a  British  vessel  happened  accidentally  to  stop  at  Pit- 
cairn's  Island.  The  officers  were  amazed  to  meet  young  men  who  spoke  excellent 
English,  and  to  find  a  prosperous  and  happy  Christian  community,  largely  descend- 
ants of  the  mutineers. 

They  learned  that  the  Bounty  sailed  directly  from  Tahiti  to  Pitcairn's  Island, 
where  the  mutineers  made  a  settlement.  Four  years  later,  on  account  of  a  quarrel 
over  a  woman,  the  natives  murdered  all  but  four  of  them.  Then  two  of  them  con- 
tracted such  beastly  habits  of  intoxication  that  one  died  in  delirium  tremens  and  the 
other  was  put  to  death  as  a  measure  of  public  safety. 

One  of  the  survivors,  John  Adams,  remembering  his  early  Christian  training, 
established  the  principles  of  the  Christian  religion  so  firmly  in  this  peculiar  community 
that  the  almost  unknown  island  in  the  South  Seas  became  a  conspicuous  example  of 
an  earthly  paradise. 

This  community,  maintaining  its  essential  characteristics,  still  occupies  Pitcairn 
and  Xorfolk  Islands.  Its  members  carry  on  a  constant  correspondence  with  relatives 
and  friends  in  England.  Many  photographs  of  the  islanders,  reproduced  in  this  book, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  589 

represent  a  people  prepossessing  in  appearance  and  apparently  comfortable  and 
prosperous. 

MY  ARCTIC  JOURNAL,  by  Josephine  Diebitsch-Peary.  In  'My  Arctic  Journal/ 
M-rs.  Peary  describes  her  experiences  as  a  member  of  an  exploring  expedition  sent  out 
by  the  Philadelphia  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences.  Besides  her  husband  (the 
commander),  Lieutenant  Robert  E.  Peary,  U.  S.  N.,  there  were  five  other  men  in  the 
party.  These  were  Dr.  F.  A.  Cook,  Messrs.  Langdon  Gibson,  Eivind  Astrup,  John 
T.  Verhoef,  and  Michael  Matthew  Henson,  Mr.  Peary's  colored  attendant.  The 
steam  whaler  Kite,  in  which  they  sailed,  left  New  York  June  6th,  1891,  and  returning, 
reached  Philadelphia  September  24th,  1892. 

In  her  journal,  which  covers  the  whole  of  this  period,  Mrs.  Peary  not  only  records 
the  ordinary  events  of  each  day,  but  gives  many  valuable  accounts  of  the  scenery  of 
Greenland  and  of  the  habit  of  the  Eskimos  whom  they  met.  She  gathered  eider- 
down; shot  wild  ducks;  cooked  the  meals  for  the  party;  cut  out  new  garments,  and 
showed  the  native  women  how  to  sew  them;  took  care  of  her  husband's  broken  leg, 
and  nursed  others  when  ill;  and  patiently  bore  whatever  discomfort  came  to  her. 
The  expedition  accomplished  several  of  the  objects  which  it  had  in  view,  —  proving, 
for  example,  that  Greenland  is  an  island,  discovering  the  ice-free  land  masses  to  the 
north  of  Greenland,  and  delineating  the  northward  extension  of  the  great  Greenland 
ice-cape.  After  twelve  months  on  the  shores  of  McCorrnick  Bay,  the  party  set  out 
on  the  return  in  company  with  the  relief  expedition  led  by  Professor  Heilprin,  in  good 
health  and  spirits.  Mrs.  Peary  was  as  cheerful  as  the  others,  and  the  one  cloud  on  the 
homeward  journey  was  the  mysterious  disappearance  of  Verhoef. 

Mrs.  Peary's  'Journal'  is  written  in  pleasant  style,  and  in  two  ways  has  a  definite 
value.  First,  it  shows  that  the  terrors  of  an  Arctic  winter,  even  in  the  neighborhood 
of  latitude  78°,  have  been  greatly  magnified;  and  second,  it  adds  much  important 
information  to  our  stock  of  ethnological  knowledge. 

To  her  published  journal  Airs.  Peary  has  added  a  chapter  giving  her  impressions 
of  Greenland  when  she  revisited  it  in  the  summer  of  1893. 

MY  CHILDHOOD,  by  Maxim  Gorky  (1915).  This  autobiography  begins  with  the 
boy's  first  memories,  his  father's  death  and  the  birth  of  a  brother,  and  ends  with  his 
seventeenth  year.  He  defends  the  unflinching  realism  of  his  story,  saying,  "  I  am 
writing  not  about  myself  but  about  that  narrow,  stifling  environment  of  unpleasant 
impressions  in  which  lived  —  aye,  and  to  this  day  lives  —  the  average  Russian 
of  this  class."  He  asks  himself  near  the  end  of  the  book  whether  it  is  worth  while 
to  describe  "these  oppressive  horrors  of  our  wild  Russian  life"  and  answers  in  the 
affirmative,  because  "the  Russian  is  still  so  healthy  and  young  in  heart  that  he 
can  and  does  rise  above  them."  He  writes  impersonally  about  his  own  life  as  a 
spectator  of  the  "cruelty  of  the  drab  existence  of  an  unwelcome  relation"  in  his 
grandfather's  house  at  Nijni  Novgorod.  His  grandfather,  tugging  barges  along 
the  Volga,  has  come  to  own  barges  in  his  old  age,  and  is  in  fairly  comfortable  cir- 
cumstances, but  his  miserly  character  and  tyranny  make  his  entire  household 
wretched.  The  child,  Alexei,  learns  pity  for  all  suffering  from  the  floggings  he  re- 
ceives from  this  inhuman  grandfather.  His  two  uncles  are  cruel  and  wicked,  keeping 
the  household  in  continual  brawl  with  their  violent  quarrels.  He  hears  how  they  had 
tried  to  kill  his  father  one  time  by  pushing  him  into  a  hole  in  the  ice,  and  stamping 
on  his  fingers  when  he  attempted  to  save  himself.  He  watches  his  grandfather  beat 
his  grandmother.  The  boy  tries  to  stab  his  stepfather  when  that  unpleasant  youth 


590.  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

kicks  his  mother.  The  only  attractive  character  is  his  gentle  old  grandmother.  He 
says  "her  disinterested  love  for  all  creation  enriched  me  and  built  up  the  strength 
needful  for  a  hard  life."  Her  memory  was  stored  with  rhymed  folk-tales  and  fairy 
tales,  which  she  would  recite  to  the  boy.  Deeply  religious,  her  prayers  were  a  poetic 
adoration  of  beautiful  phrases  and  metaphors  to  which  he  loved  to  listen.  She  saw 
angels,  and  at  times,  when  she  was  drunk,  most  entertaining  fiends.  His  mother 
stays  away  from  the  intolerable  home,  and  Alexei  gradually  comes  to  understand  her 
passionate  erring  nature.  One  of  the  houses  they  live  in  is  packed  full  of  lodgers,  and 
has  a  tavern  on  the  ground  floor.  Alexei  watches  the  drunken  men  "crawling  out  of 
the  taven  and  staggering  up  the  road,  shouting  and  tumbling  about."  Another 
home  is  next  a  slaughter  yard  with  its  noise  of  bellowing  cattle,  and  the  smell  of  blood 
so  strong  it  seemed  to  Alexei  that  it  "hovered  in  the  air  in  the  shape  of  a  transparent 
purple  net."  When  he  is  not  in  school  he  earns  money  by  collecting  bones,  rags, 
paper,  and  nails  in  the  street.  After  his  mother's  funeral,  his  grandfather  says  to  him, 
"  Now,  Lexei  —  you  must  not  hang  around  my  neck.  There  is  no  room  for  you  here. 
You  will  have  to  go  out  into  the  world."  So  Alexei  went  out  into  the  world.  A 
year  after  'My  Childhood'  Gorky  published  IN  THE  WORLD  (1917)  which  continues 
the  experiences  of  his  early  life  up  to  his  fifteenth  year,  and  is  a  series  of  pictures  of 
the  every  day  life  of  Russian  working  people,  artisans,  small  shopkeepers,  sailors,  and 
soldiers.  He  is  first  doorboy  in  a  shoe  shop,  then  drudge  in  the  house  of  a  draughts- 
man where  he  expected  to  be  taught  a  trade,  but  instead  was  employed  as  a  scullery 
boy  by  the  quarrelling  women.  He  ran  away  and  became  a  dishwasher  on  a  Volga 
steamer.  His  experience  is  always  coarse  and  brutal,  but  he  is  saved  from  it  by  his 
own  "fastidious  dislike,"  by  the  teaching  of  his  old  grandmother,  and  above  all  by 
his  escape  into  the  world  of  books.  Books  were  literally  the  boy's  salvation  from  the 
senseless  cruelty  and  viciousness  of  the  life  about  him,  which  he  recognized  as  the 
result  of  dreariness,  boredom  and  ignorance.  A  cook  on  the  Volga  steamer  lent  him 
books,  Balzac,  Scott,  and  Turgenieff.  From  that  time  he  begs,  buys,  and  borrows  all 
the  books  he  can  get  hold  of,  and  thinks  of  the  "great  world, "  of  "foreign  countries 
where  people  lived  in  a  different  manner."  He  says,  "Writers  of  other  countries 
depicted  life  as  cleaner,  more  attractive,  less  burdensome  than  that  life  which  seethed 
sluggishly  and  monotonously  around  me.  This  thought  calmed  my  disturbed  spirit 
and  aroused  visions  of  the  possibility  of  a  different  life  for  me."  "The  more  I  read, 
the  harder  it  was  for  me  to  go  on  living  the  empty,  unnecessary  life  that  most  people 
live. "  He  works  in  an  icon-maker's  shop.  Again  and  again  he  returns  to  his  old 
grandmother  "more  consciously  charmed  by  her  personality"  but  realizing  as  he 
grows  older  "that  that  beautiful  soul,  blinded  by  fanciful  tales,  was  not  capable  of 
seeing,  could  not  understand  a  revelation  of  the  bitter  reality  of  life,"  and  cannot 
help  him  in  his  restlessness  and  perplexity.  At  last  he  thinks,  "I  must  do  something 
for  myself,  or  I  shall  be  ruined."  The  narrative  closes  as  he  goes  to  Kazan  in  the 
secret  hope  of  rinding  some  means  of  studying  at  the  academy. 

MY  NOVEL;  or,  VARIETIES  IN  ENGLISH  LIFE,  by  Sir  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton  (1853). 
This  novel  presents  an  intimate  and  faithful  picture  of  the  English  life  of  Bulwer's 
day.  The  scenes  are  kid  partly  in  the  village  of  Hazeldean,  where  a  number  of  the 
characters  are  first  introduced,  and  partly  in  London.  Among  the  types  of  English- 
men and  foreigners  presented  are  Squire  Hazeldean;  Parson  Dale,  a  simple  Church  • 
of  England  clergyman;  Audley  Egerton,  a  politician  of  fame;  Baron  Levy,  a  money- 
lender; Harley,  Lord  L'Estrange,  who  is  perhaps  the  hero  of  the  book;  Leonard 
Fairfield,  a  poet;  and  Dr.  Riccabocca,  a  political  exile,  who  is  really  an  Italian  Duke. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  591 

As  a  picture  of  English  life  in  the  first  half  of  the  century,  '  My  Novel '  is  remarkable 
for  its  realism.  It  is  perhaps  the  strongest  of  Bulwer's  novels  in  its  breadth  of  view, 
and  in  its  delineation  of  many  varieties  of  character. 

MY  OFFICIAL  WIFE,  by  Colonel  Richard  Henry  Savage  (1891).  This  clever  skit  is 
permeated  by  a  Russian  atmosphere,  in  which  visions  of  the  secret  police,  the  Nihi- 
lists, and  social  life  in  St.  Petersburg, 'are  blended  like  the  vague  fancies  of  a  troubled 
dream. 

Colonel  Arthur  Lenox,  with  passports  made  out  for  himself  and  wife,  meets  at 
the  Russian  frontier  a  strikingly  beautiful  woman  whom  he  is  induced  to  pass  over 
the  border  as  his  own  wife,  who  has  remained  in  Paris. 

At  St.  Petersburg,  Helene,  the  "official  wife,11  receives  mail  addressed  to  Mrs. 
Lenox,  shares  the  Colonel's  apartments,  and  is  introduced  everywhere  as  his  wife. 
But  he  has  learned  that  she  is  a  prominent  and  dangerous  Nihilist,  and  is  in  daily 
fear  of  discovery  and  punishment. 

Lenox  frustrates  her  design  to  assassinate  the  Emperor;  after  which  He*lene 
escapes  by  the  aid  of  a  Russian  officer  whom  she  has  beguiled.  Meantime  the  real 
wife  has  come  on  from  Paris,  and  endless  complications  with  the  police  ensue.  The 
Colonel  secures  his  wife's  release  by  threatening  the  chief  of  police  that  otherwise  he 
will  inform  the  Tsar  of  the  inefficiency  of  the  police  department,  in  not  unearthing 
the  scheme  for  his  assassination. 

MY  SCHOOLS  AND  SCHOOLMASTERS,  by  Hugh  Miner  (1854),  is  one  of  the 
most  delightful  of  autobiographies  as  far  as  it  goes.  (It  stops  with  Miller's  assump- 
tion of  the  editorship  of  the  Edinburgh  Witness  in  1840  —  after  which  he  was  teacher 
rather  than  pupil.)  The  author  desired  it  to  be  regarded  as  "a  sort  of  educational 
treatise,  thrown  into  the  narrative  form,  and  addressed  more  especially  to  working- 
men";  but  men  and  women  of  all  classes  find  it  good  reading.  For  seventeen  years 
covered  by  this  volume,  he  worked  at  the  trade  of  stone-mason,  —  though  he  had 
been  carefully  educated  by  his  two  uncles,  and  possessed  an  extensive  knowledge  of 
English  language,  history,  and  literature,  —  spending  his  spare  time  in  geological 
research  and  in  reading.  His  remarkable  powers  of  observation  he  must  have  de- 
veloped early:  he  speaks  of  remembering  in  later  life  things  that  only  a  sharp  eye 
would  have  noted,  as  far  back  as  the  end  of  his  third  year.  Having  disposed  of  his 
parents'  biography  in  the  first  chapter,  the  work  narrates  his  earliest  recollections  of 
his  own  life,  his  school  days,  his  youthful  adventures,  the  awakening  of  his  taste  by 
one  of  his  uncles  for  the  study  of  nature,  his  first  attempts  at  authorship,  visits  to  the 
Highlands,  choice  of  a  trade,  moving  to  Edinburgh,  religious  views,  illness,  receiving 
an  accountantship  in  a  branch  bank  at  Cromarty,  marriage,  the  death  of  his  infant 
daughter,  etc.  It  abounds  in  stories,  interesting  experiences,  keen  observation  of 
natural  objects,  and  anecdotes  of  prominent  men,  —  all  in  an  admirable  style. 

MY  STUDIO  NEIGHBORS,  a  volume  of  sketches,  by  William  Hamilton  Gibson. 
Illustrated  by  the  author  ( 1 898) .  The  titles  of  these  sketches  are : '  A  Familiar  Guest, ' 
'The  Cuckoos  and  the  Outwitted  Cow-bird,'  'Door-Step  Neighbors,'  'A  Queer  Little 
Family  on  the  Bittersweet/  'The  Welcomes  of  the  Flowers,'  'A  Honey-Dew  Picnic/ 
'A  Few  Native  Orchids  and  their  Insect  Sponsors,1  'The  Milkweed.'  Nobody  since 
Thoreau  has  brought  a  more  exact  and  dear  observation  to  the  study  of  familiar 
animal  and  plant  life  than  the  author  of  these  sketches,  and  even  Thoreau  did  not 
always  see  objects  with  the  revealing  eye  of  the  artist.  Mr.  Gibson  has  the  "sharp 


592  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

eye"  and  "fine  ear  "  of  the  prince  in  the  fairy  tale;  and  his  word  pictures  are  as  vivid 
as  the  beautiful  work  of  his  pencil.  To  read  him  is  to  meet  the  creatures  he  describes, 
on  terms  of  friendship. 

MY  STUDY  WINDOWS,  by  James  Russell  Lowell  (1874)  contains  a  series  of  bio- 
graphical, critical,  and  poetical  essays,  in  whose  kaleidoscopic  variety  of  theme 
continual  brilliancy  illuminates  an  almost  perfect  symmetry  of  literary  form.  The 
charming  initial  essay,  '  My  Garden  Acquaintance/  treats  of  the  familiar  visits  of  the 
birds  at  Elmwood.  This  is  followed  by  a  similar  essay  entitled  'A  Good  Word  for 
Winter.'  'On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners'  is  the  third;  and  a  review  of 
the  'Life  of  Josiah  Quincy'  follows.  Then  come  critical  essays  upon  the  lives  and 
works  of  Carlyle,  Abraham  Lincoln,  James  Gates  Percival,  Thoreau,  Swinburne, 
Chaucer,  Emerson,  Pope,  and  the  early  English  authors,  or  rather  upon  some  of 
their  critics  and  editors.  Characterizations  like  these  abound:  'I  have  sometimes 
wondered  that  the  peep-shows,  which  Nature  provides  in  such  endless  variety  for  her 
children,  and  to  which  we  are  admitted  on  the  one  condition  of  having  eyes,  should  be 
so  generally  neglected."  "  He  (Winter)  is  a  better  poet  than  Autumn  when  he  has  a 
mind;  but  like  a  truly  great  one,  as  he  is,  he  brings  you  down  to  your  bare  manhood, 
and  bids  you  understand  him  out  of  that,  with  no  adventitious  helps  of  association, 
or  he  will  none  of  you."  "All  the  batteries  of  noise  are  spiked!"  "The  earth  is 
clothed  with  innocence  as  with  a  garment;  every  wound  of  the  landscape  is  healed. 
.  .  .  What  was  unsightly  before  has  been  covered  gently  with  a  soft  splendor;  as 
if,  Cowley  would  have  said,  Nature  had  cleverly  let  fall  her  handkerchief  to  hide  it." 
The  essay  upon  Chaucer  was  always  a  favorite  with  that  admirable  critic,  Prof.  P.  J. 
Child ;  and  to  him  Lowell  dedicated  the  volume. 

MYCENAEAN  AGE,  THE,  'a  Study  of  the  Monuments  and  Culture  of  Pre-Homeric 
Greece,'  by  Dr.  Chrestos  Tsountas  and  J.  Irving  Manatt.  With  an  introduction  by 
Dr.  Dorpf  eld .  ( 1 897.  7 th  edition,  1 899) .  A  most  valuable  summary  of  the  discoveries 
of  twenty  years,  from  Schliemann's  first  great  "find"  at  Mycenas  to  1896.  Dr. 
Tsountas  was  commissioned  in  1886,  by  the  Greek  government,  to  continue  Schlie- 
mann's work;  and  after  seven  years  of  explorations,  he  brought  out  a  volume  on 
'Mycenae  and  the  Mycenaean  Civilization,1  in  which  he  undertook  a  systematic 
handling  of  the  whole  subject  of  prehistoric  Greek  culture  in  the  light  of  the  monu- 
ments. This  was  written  in  Greek  and  published  at  Athens.  Dr.  Manatt,  of  the 
Greek  chair  at  Brown  University,  undertook,  on  his  return  from  a  four-years'  resi- 
dence in  Greece,  to  prepare  an  English  version  of  Tsountas's  work;  but  later,  in  view 
of  three  years'  rapid  progress  of  explorations,  and  with  the  aid  of  new  materials 
furnished  by  Tsountas,  he  made  a  largely  new  work,  bringing  the  Mycenaean  story 
up  to  date.  This  story  is  "a  great  chapter  of  veritable  history  newly  added  to  the 
record  of  the  Greek  race."  It  "covers  the  period  approximately  from  the  sixteenth 
to  the  twelfth  century  B.C. "  It  had  been  taken  for  granted  that  the  time  of  Homer 
represented  the  earliest  known  stage  of  Greek  civilization,  the  childhood  of  the  race. 
But  Homer  lived  in  Ionia  of  Asia  Minor,  as  late  at  least  as  the  ninth  century  B.  C.; 
and  the  new  discoveries  show  the  Mycenaean  civilization  widely  spread  in  Attica  and 
central  Greece,  and  Crete  even,  seven  hundred  years  before  Homer.  Of  the  life  and 
culture  of  this  pre-Homeric  Greece,  the  story  told  by  Drs.  Tsountas  and  Manatt 
gives  a  full,  exact,  and  richly  illustrated  view. 

MYSTERIES  OF  UDOLPHO,  THE,  by  Mrs.  Anne  Radcliffe  (1795).  Like  the 
famous  'Castle  of  Otranto'  of  Horace  Walpole,  this  story  belongs  to  the  school  of 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  593 

limelight  fiction.  Udolpho  is  a  mediaeval  castle  in  the  Apennines,  where,  during  the 
seventeenth  century,  all  sorts  of  dark  dealings  with  the  powers  of  evil  are  supposed 
to  be  carried  on.  The  love-lorn  lady  who  is  more  or  less  the  victim  of  these  super- 
natural interferences  is  an  English  girl,  Emily  St.  Aubyn;  and  her  noble  and  courage- 
ous lover,  who  finally  lays  the  spell,  is  the  Chevalier  Velancourt.  The  plot,  such  as  it 
is,  is  quite  indescribable;  and  the  interest  of  the  book  lies  in  the  horrors  which  accumu- 
late on  horror's  head.  Modern  taste  finds  the  romance  almost  unreadable,  yet 
Sheridan  and  Fox  praised  it  highly;  the  grave  critic  and  poet-laureate  "VTarton  sat  up 
all  night  to  read  it;  and  Walter  Scott  thought  that,  even  setting  aside  its  breathless 
interest  as  a  story,  "its  magnificence  of  landscape,  and  dignity  of  conception  of 
character,  secure  it  the  palm";  while  the  author  of  'The  Pursuits  of  Literature,'  a 
distinguished  scholar,  who  knew  more  of  Italian  letters  than  any  other  man  in  Eng- 
land, discourses  on  "the  mighty  magician  of  'The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho/  bred  and 
nourished  by  the  Florentine  Muses  in  their  sacred  solitary  caverns,  amid  the  paler 
shrines  of  Gothic  supersitition  and  in  all  the  dreariness  of  enchantment:  a  poetess 
whom  Ariosto  would  with  rapture  have  acknowledged." 

NABOB,  THE,  by  Alphonse  Daudet  (1877).  This  romance  is  one  of  the  most  highly 
finished  of  the  author's  works.  Jansoulet,  the  Nabob,  has  emigrated  to  Tunis  with 
but  half  a  louis  in  his  pocket.  He  returns  with  much  more  than  twenty-five  millions; 
and  becomes  at  once  the  prey  of  a  horde  of  penniless  adventurers,  whose  greed  even 
his  extravagant  generosity  cannot  satisfy.  His  dining-room  in  the  Place  Vend6me  is 
the  rendezvous  of  projectors  and  schemers  from  every  part  of  the  world,  and  re- 
sembles the  Tower  of  Babel.  Dr.  Jenkins,  the  inventor  of  an  infallible  pill,  persuades 
him  to  endow  his  famous  Asile  de  Bethleem,  hinting  to  him  that  the  Cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor  will  reward  his  benevolence;  but  it  is  the  doctor,  and  not  the  poor 
Nabob,  who  is  decorated.  Montpavon,  an  old  beau,  saves  a  bank,  in  which  he  is  a 
partner,  from  insolvency  with  the  money  of  the  multi-millionaire;  the  journalist 
Moessard  receives  a  liberal  donation  for  a  eulogistic  newspaper  article:  in  short, 
Jansoulet  becomes  the  easy  dupe  of  all  who  approach  him.  *  The  Nabob '  is  a  romance 
of  manners  and  observation ;  and  it  blends  successfully  many  of  the  qualities  of  both 
the  naturalist  and  the  romantic  schools.  It  exhibits  a  singular  faculty  for  seizing 
on  the  picturesque  side  of  things,  and  a  wonderful  gift  of  expression.  Although  several 
models  among  the  French  commercial  classes  must  have  sat  for  Jansoulet,  most  of 
the  other  characters  are  prominent  figures  in  Parisian  life,  very  thinly  veiled. 

NANA,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

NAPOLEON  I.,  THE  LIFE  OF,  'Including  new  material  from  the  British  Official 
Records,'  by  J.  Holland  Rose,  was  published  in  1902.  This  is  one  of  the  first  English 
books  in  which  Napoleon  is  treated  with  due  appreciation  and  at  the  same  time 
judicially.  Napoleon's  military  genius  and  his  great  achievements  as  a  statesman 
receive  adequate  recognition  though  without  hero-worship.  A  study  of  the  docu- 
ments in  the  British  War,  Admiralty  and  Foreign  Offices  has  enabled  the  author  to 
contribute  materially  to  our  knowledge  of  Napoleon's  policy  and  of  British  diplo- 
macy. In  particular  he  reveals  the  complicity  of  the  British  government  in  a  plot 
against  Napoleon's  life  in  1803-1804.  The  work  is  a  singularly  well-proportioned 
presentation  of  the  essential  facts  of  Napoleon's  career,  embodying  and  clearly 
expressing  the  results  of  many  minute  and  particular  investigations.  The  military 
campaigns  are  clearly  set  forth,  the  political  events  skilfully  untangled,  and  the  signi- 


594  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ficance  of  Napoleon's  character  and  career  keenly  estimated.  The  author  has 
achieved  historical  impartiality  in  a  field  particularly  difficult  for  an  Englishman, 
even  a  century  after  Napoleon's  defeat. 

KAPOLEON  BONAPARTE,  THE  LIFE  OF,  by  William  MilHgan  Sloane,  professor 
of  history  in  the  University  of  Columbia,  appeared  serially  in  the  Century  Magazine 
in  1894-96,  and  in  four  volumes  in  1897.  While  the  author  began  his  task  with  the 
consciousness  that  "  Napoleon's  career  was  a  historic  force,  and  not  a  meteoric  flash 
in  the  darkness  of  revolution, "  he  has  not  attempted  to  enter  into  the  labyrinth  of  a 
general  history  of  the  times,  except  as  a  necessary  background  for  his  portraiture. 
He  carries  the  reader  in  narrative  over  the  now  well-trodden  path  from  Corsica  to 
St.  Helena,  with  a  scholar's  precision  as  well  as  a  lively  interest,  and  in  a  way  to 
dissolve  the  illusions  and  establish  the  facts  of  the  Napoleonic  period.  In  accomplish- 
ing this  purpose,  Professor  Sloane  has  had  the  great  advantage  of  adding  to  his 
abilities  as  a  historian  the  invaluable  factor  of  an  impartial  mind.  He  has  drawn  the 
most  prominent  figure  of  the  French  revolutionary  times  with  an  American  perspec- 
tive, entirely  free  from  the  prejudices  and  passions  that  still  survive  in  Europe. 
The  most  original  portion  of  this  monumental  work  is  the  study  of  Napoleon  in  his 
Corsican  home,  and  the  demonstration  that  the  man  was  already  prefigured  in  the 
unruly  boy.  This  careful  study  of  the  youth  of  this  military  genius  does  more  to 
illuminate  his  subsequent  career  than  any  other  investigation  that  has  been  made. 
The  boy  was  literally  the  father  of  the  man.  The  author  gives  a  striking  summary  of 
his  character  as  he  was  at  the  age  of  twenty-three:  "Finally  there  was  a  citizen  of 
the  world,  a  man  without  a  country:  his  birthright  was  gone,  for  Corsica  repelled 
him;  France  he  hated,  for  she  had  never  adopted  him.  He  was  almost  without  a 
profession,  for  he  had  neglected  that  of  a  soldier,  and  had  failed  both  as  an  author 
and  as  a  politician.  He  was  apparently,  too,  without  a  single  guiding  principle;  the 
world  had  been  a  harsh  stepmother,  at  whose  knee  he  had  neither  learned  the  truth 
nor  experienced  kindness.  He  appears  consistent  in  nothing  but  in  making  the  best 
of  events  as  they  occurred.  ...  He  was  quite  as  unscrupulous  as  those  about  him, 
but  he  was  far  greater  than  they  in  perspicacity,  adroitness,  adaptability,  and 
persistence. " 

KAPOLEON  BONAPARTE,  MEMOIRS  OF,  by  Louis  Antoine  Fauvelet  de  Bourri- 
enne.  (1829-31 ;  New  York,  4  vols.,  1889).  An  exceptionally  entertaining  narrative 
of  the  career  of  Napoleon,  from  his  boyhood  and  school  days  in  Corsica  to  his  final 
overthrow  in  1815;  the  work  of  a  schoolfellow  of  the  young  Bonaparte,  who  became 
in  April,  1797,  the  intimate  companion  and  private  secretary  of  the  then  successful 
general  in  Italy,  and  continued  in  this  close  and  confidential  position  until  October, 
1802,  but  then  suffered  dismissal  under  circumstances  of  a  bitterly  alienating  charac- 
ter, and  finally  wrote  this  history  of  his  old  friend  under  the  pressure  of  very  mixed 
motives,  —  pride  in  accurate  knowledge  of  many  things  in  the  earlier  story,  and  in 
his  early  companionship  with  Napoleon;  desire,  perhaps,  to  come  much  nearer  to 
true  history  than  the  two  extremes  of  unqualified  admiration  and  excessive  detesta- 
tion had  yet  done;  and  no  small  measure  of  rankling  bitterness  towards  the  old  com- 
rade who  never  relented  from  that  dismissal  with  discredit  in  1802,  nor  ever  again 
permitted  a  recurrence  of  personal  intercourse. 

Mettemich  said  at  the  time  of  their  publication  that  Bourrienne's  'Memoirs/ 
though  not  brilliant,  were  both  interesting  and  amusing,  and  were  the  only  authentic 
memoirs  which  had  yet  appeared.  Lucien  Bonaparte  pronounced  them  good  enough 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  595 

as  the  story  of  the  young  officer  of  artillery,  the  great  general,  and  the  First  Consul, 
but  not  as  good  for  the  career  of  the  emperor.  The  extreme  Bonapartists  attacked 
the  work  as  a  product  of  malignity  and  mendacity,  and  a  suspicion  in  this  direction 
naturally  clings  to  it.  But  whether  Bourrienne  did  or  did  not  inject  convenient 
and  consoling  lies  into  the  story  of  his  long-time  friend  and  comrade,  whose  final 
greatness  he  was  excluded  from  all  share  in,  and  whether  he  did  or  did  not  himself 
execute  the  '  Memoirs '  from  abundance  of  genuine  materials,  the  book  given  to  the 
world  in  his  name  made  a  great  sensation,  and  counts,  both  with  readers  and  with 
scholars,  as  a  notable  source  of  Napoleon  interest  and  information.  "Venal,  light- 
headed, and  often  untruthful,"  as  Professor  Sloane  pronounces  him,  Bourrienne 
nevertheless  remains  one  of  the  persons,  and  the  earliest  in  time,  who  was  in  the 
closest  intimacy  with  Napoleon;  and  his  history  might  have  given  us  even  less  of 
truth  if  he  had  kept  his  place  to  the  end. 

NARRATIVE  AND  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  AMERICA,  THE,  edited  by  Justin 
Winsor.  This  history  was  prepared  upon  a  co-operative  plan  (which  the  editor  had 
previously  adopted  for  his  'Memorial  History  of  Boston'),  of  dividing  historical 
work  into  topical  sections,  and  assigning  these  divisions  to  different  writers,  each 
eminent  in  his  own  department,  all  of  whom  worked  synchronously,  thus  bringing  the 
whole  work  to  rapid  and  accurate  completion.  Each  chapter  has  two  parts:  first 
a  Historical  Narrative  which  groups  the  salient  points  of  the  story,  and  embodies 
the  result  of  the  latest  researches;  second,  a  Critical  Essay  by  the  editor,  which,  with 
the  appended  notes  on  specific  points,  is  a  new  procedure  in  historical  methods.  In 
these  critical  essays  are  set  forth  the  original  sources  of  the  preceding  narrative,  — 
manuscripts,  monuments,  archaeological  remains,  —  with  full  accounts  of  their 
various  histories  and  locations;  the  lives  of  those  who  have  made  use  of  them;  the 
writers  who  are  authorities  upon  the  several  subjects;  societies  interested  in  them; 
and  critical  statements  of  existing  knowledge  and  the  conditions  bearing  upon  future 
study.  The  work  is  chiefly  designed  for,  and  chiefly  useful  to,  writers  rather  than 
readers  of  history :  to  each  of  the  former  it  may  save  months  or  perhaps  years  of 
search  for  materials,  and  the  constant  duplication  of  such  researches  already  made. 
It  is  in  fact  a  co-operative  bureau  of  first-hand  sources.  It  begins  with  the  earliest 
facts  known  about  the  whole  continent  and  its  aboriginal  inhabitants,  including  a 
discussion  of  the  pre-Columbian  voyages;  describes  the  different  discoveries  and 
settlements  by  European  nations,  —  Spanish,  English,  French,  and  Dutch;  and  the 
rise  and  history  of  the  United  States,  down  to  the  close  of  the  Mexican  war  and  the 
end  of  the  year  1850.  For  the  rest  of  the  continent  the  history  is  continued  down  to 
about  1867.  The  authors  engaged  in  this  work  are  distinguished  each  in  his  own 
field  of  study,  and  much  valuable  material  of  an  archaeological  and  genealogical 
character  was  furnished  to  them  by  the  leading  learned  and  historical  societies. 
In  bibliography  there  is,  along  with  other  important  matter,  a  careful  collation  of 
the  famous  "Jesuit  Relations  ";  and  in  cartography  —  a  subject  of  which  Mr.  Winsor 
had  long  made  a  special  study  —  the  work  is  noticeably  strong.  The  publication 
extended  over  the  years  1884-89. 

NASKS,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

NATHAN  BURKE,  by  Mary  S.  Watts  (1910).  The  nominal  autobiography  of 
Nathan  Burke,  "hero  of  Chapultepec"  in  the  Mexican  war,  written  for  his  grand- 
children, is  the  life  of  an  American  youth  in  Ohio  in  the  forties.  Nat,  with  his  only 
property,  his  father's  old  musket,  walks  fifteen  miles  from  the  backwoods  to  begin 


596  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

hi.<  career  as  chore-boy  for  Mr.  Ducey,  m  Columbus,  the  capital  city.  He  is  promoted 
to  clerk  in  the  grocery  store,  studies  law  evenings,  and  is  admitted  to  the  bar.  He 
volunteers  for  service  in  the  Mexican  war,  distinguishes  himself,  and  returns  to  marry 
Francie,  the  niece  of  his  first  employer,  and  become  a  prominent  citizen.  It  is  an  old- 
fashioned  leisurely  tale  of  a  bygone  day,  presenting  a  great  variety  of  interesting 
characters,  the  homespun  Lincoln-like  hero,  Mrs.  Ducey,  the  transplanted  southerner, 
v.*ho  treats  her  self-respecting  "help  "  like  slaves,  and  is  blindly  devoted  to  her  vicious 
son,  George,  who  deserts  the  army  and  owes  his  good-for-nothing  life  to  Nathan's 
intercession,  old  George  March,  Mrs.  Ducey's  uncle  and  rough  cross-grained  bene- 
factor, and  Xance,  the  beautiful  backwoods  girl  who  is  forced  into  the  streets  because 
Mrs.  Ducey  cannot  recognize  truth  and  loyalty  outside  her  own  class. 

NATHAN  THE  WISE,  by  Gotthold  Ephraim  Lessing.  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  highest  place  in  the  Divine  favor.  The  play  is  called  'A  Dramatic  Poem  in 
Five  Acts.1  The  scene  is  in  Jerusalem.  The  plot  turns  upon  the  fortunes  of  a 
certain  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  gratitude  assents 
to  the  knight's  suit;  knowing,  as  the  knight  does  not  know,  that  his  ward  is  a  bap- 
tized Christian  child.  The  Patriarch,  learning  of  the  Jew's  concealment  of  Recha  * 
Christian  origin,  and  of  her  attachment  to  Nathan  and  his  faith,  is  ready  to  have  this 
Jew  committed  to  the  flames  for  this  crime  against  religion.  The  matter  is  brought 
before  the  Sultan  Saladin  for  adjustment;  and  the  moral  of  the  drama  is  focused  iix 
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  son.  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  imita- 
tion 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. 
Seeing  that  the  rings  only  breed  hatred  instead  of  love,  he  suggests  that  the  father 
may  have  destroyed  the  true  one  and  given  them  all  only  imitations;  but  if  this  be 
not  so,  let  each  one  of  the  brothers  vindicate  the  father's  honor  by  showing  that  the 
ring  he  owns  has  truly  the  power  of  attracting  not  the  hatred  but  the  love  of  others. 
The  magnanimity  and  justice  of  the  Sultan  suggest  that  he  is  the  judge  prefigured 
in  the  legend;  but  the  moral  of  the  play  points  to  the  one  Divine  Arbiter,  who  alone 
can  read  the  motives  and  know  the  true  deserts  of  men  and  declare  who  is  the 
possessor  of  the  father's  ring. 

The  play  was  performed  in  Berlin  two  years  after  the  author's  death,  and  was 
coolly  received;  but  it  was  brought  out  with  success  by  Goethe  and  Schiller  in  Wei- 
mar in  i So i, and  has  long  since  taken  its  place  among  the  classics  of  German  literature. 

NATURAL  HISTORY,  by  Georges  Louis  le  Clerc  de  Buffon.  The  Jardin  des  Plantes 
in  Paris  will  ever  be  associated  with  the  name  of  Count  Buffon.  In  what  was  then 
called  the  King's  Garden,  the  greatest  naturalist  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  super- 


READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  597 

intendent  under  appointmei  t  by  Louis  XV.,  accomplished  the  two  colossal  under- 
takings of  his  life,  —  the  re-creation  of  the  'garden  itself,  and  the  production  of  *L* 
Histoire  Naturelle.'  The  latter  work,  published  between  1749  and  1804,  in  forty- 
four  volumes,  ranges  over  the  entire  field  of  natural  history,  from  minerals  to  man. 
Although  borrowing  largely  from  the  studies  of  Aristotle,  Descartes,  Leibnitz,  and 
others,  Buffon  introduced  an  entirely  new  conception  in  the  treatment  of  his  subject. 
He  cast  aside  the  conjecture  and  mysticism  that  had  been  so  long  a  barrier  in  the 
path  of  pure  science,  and  resorted  to  observation,  reason,  and  experiment.  To  him 
belongs  the  honor  of  being  the  first  to  treat  nature  historically,  to  make  a  critical 
study  of  each  separate  object,  and  to  classify  these  objects  into  species.  But  at  this 
point  Buffon's  researches  came  to  a  stop.  He  was  too  much  of  an  analyst  and  not 
enough  of  a  philosopher  to  catch  the  grander  idea  of  later  scientists,  —  the  relation  of 
species  to  each  other  and  the  unity  of  all  nature.  Some  of  the  best  results  of  his  work 
are  contained  in  the  enumeration  of  quadruped  animals  known  in  his  time,  and  the 
classification  of  quadrupeds,  birds,  fishes,  insects,  plants,  of  the  American  continent, 
all  unknown  in  the  Old  World.  One  of  his  most  valuable  contributions  to  science 
is  his  history  of  man  as  a  species.  Man  had  been  studied  as  an  individual,  but  to 
Buffon  belongs  the  credit  of  having  discovered  the  unity  of  mankind.  The  author  of 
this  great  collection  of  data,  which  served  as  a  foundation  for  the  comparative 
sciences  of  the  nineteenth  century,  has  been  called  "the  painter  of  nature, "  because 
of  the  magnificence  of  his  style,  —  a  style  so  attractive  as  to  set  the  fashion  in  his 
day  for  the  love  of  nature,  and  to  inspire  all  classes  with  a  passion  for  natural  history. 

NATURAL  HISTORY  AND  ANTIQUITIES  OF  SELBORNE,  THE,  by  Gilbert 
White,  was  published  in  1789.  It  is  a  leisurely  account,  by  an  old-fashioned  natur- 
alist, of  the  general  topography,  physiography,  meteorology,  fauna,  and  flora  of  a 
single  parish,  Selborne,  which  '''lies  in  the  extreme  eastern  corner  of  the  county  of 
Hampshire,  bordering  on  the  county  of  Sussex,  and  not  far  from  the  county  of  Surrey; 
is  about  fifty  miles  southwest  of  London,  in  latitude  51,  and  near  midway  between 
the  towns  of  Alton  and  Petersfield."  White  was  an  Oxford  fellow  and  an  ordained 
clergyman,  who  after  some  years  of  residence  in  college  and  clerical  work,  removed  to 
Selborne,  his  native  place,  in  1755,  inherited  the  family  property  there  in  1763,  and 
remained  in  the  village  the  rest  of  his  fife,  without  any  regular  ecclesiastical  duties 
and  devoting  his  time  to  reading,  writing,  and  scientific  observation.  His  love  of  birds, 
of  plants,  and  of  the  sights  and  sounds  of  field  and  wood  suggested  to  his  mind  the 
writing  of  a  history  of  the  locality  which  should  deal,  not  with  its  annals  or  antiqui- 
ties but  with  its  natural  features.  In  an  age  when  the  chief  interest  of  the  country 
gentleman  was  in  his  dogs  and  gun  and  of  the  scholar  in  his  books  this  was  an  inno- 
vation. White  kept  a  careful  record  of  the  weather,  the  first  appearance  of  various 
species  of  birds,  the  behavior  of  different  animals,  and  many  other  details  of  interest 
to  the  lover  of  nature.  These  notes  he  arranged  in  a  series  of  discursive  letters, 
addressed  to  his  friends,  Thomas  Pennant,  and  the  Honorable  Daines  Barrington. 
The  letters  were  completed  in  1787  and  published  two  years  later  as  'The  Natural 
History  of  Selborne.'  They  are  brief,  entertaining,  and  written  in  an  easy  graphic 
style  which  breathes  the  quiet  refinement  of  an  eighteenth-century  scholar  and 
gentleman  who  can  quote  Virgil  or  Milton  to  illustrate  his  statements.  Though  the 
method  is  conversational  and  desultory,  the  different  letters  have  each  a  unity  of 
topic  and  the  careful  records  of  birds  and  animals,  some  now  extinct  in  England,  are 
of  scientific  worth  even  to-day.  The  book  is  also  valuable  as  a  stimulus  to  nature- 
as  a  means  of  cultivation  and  enjoyment. 


598  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  PLINY,  an  encyclopaedia  of '  mathematical,  geographical, 
anthropological,  zoological,  botanical,  and  mineralogica  knowledge,  with  concluding 
sections  on  sculpture,  painting,  and  other  fine  arts.  It  ,vas  completed  and  dedicated 
to  Titus,  heir  of  Vespasian,  in  77  A.D.  There  is  a  quaint  English  translation  by 
Philemon  Holland,  published  in  1601.  For  bibliography  of  later  translations  and 
for  a  synopsis  of  the  contents  of  the  book,  see  the  LIBRARY  under  'Pliny  the  Elder.' 

NATURAL  SELECTION,  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  THE  THEORY  OF,  by  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace  (1870).  A  volume  of  essays,  ten  in  number,  which  were  first  pub- 
lished in  1855,  1858,  1864,  1867,  1868,  and  1869.  The  first  and  second  of  these,  'On 
the  Law  which  has  Regulated  the  Introduction  of  New  Species,1  and  'On  the  Ten- 
dency of  Varieties  to  Depart  Indefinitely  from  the  Original  Type,'  give  an  outline 
theory  of  the  origin  of  species  as  conceived  by  Wallace  before  he  had  any  notion 
whatever  of  the  scope  and  nature  of  Darwin's  labors.  One  or  two  other  persons  had 
propounded,  as  Darwin  admits,  the  principle  of  natural  selection,  but  had  failed  to 
see  its  wide  and  immensely  important  applications.  Wallace's  essays  show  that  he 
had  not  only  noted  the  principle,  but  had  fully  grasped  its  importance.  To  some 
extent  Wallace's  essays,  published  before  Darwin's  work  on  'The  Descent  of  Man/ 
showed  a  marked  divergence  from  Darwinian  views.  In  a  later  reprint,  1891,  of  his 
'Contributions/  Wallace  made  alterations  and  considerable  additions.  In  his  'Dar- 
winism/ 1889,  Wallace  gave  an  admirably  clear  and  effective  exposition  of  Darwin's 
views,  with  much  confirmation  from  his  own  researches. 

NATURE  AND  ELEMENTS  OF  POETRY,  THE,  by  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman. 
The  lectures  contained  in  this  volume,  published  in  1892,  were  delivered  by  the 
author  during  the  previous  year  at  Johns  Hopkins  University,  inaugurating  the 
annual  lectureship  founded  by  Mrs.  Turnbull  of  Baltimore.  Mr.  Stedman  treats  "of 
the  quality  and  attributes  of  poetry  itself,  of  its  source  and  efficacy,  and  of  the  endur- 
ing laws  to  which  its  true  examples  ever  are  conformed."  Chapter  i.  treats  of 
theories  of  poetry  from  Aristotle  to  the  present  day;  Chapter  iL  seeks  to  determine 
what  poetry  is;  and  Chapters  iii.  and  iv.  discuss,  respectively,  creation  and  self- 
expression  under  the  title  of  'Melancholia/  These  two  chapters  together  "afford  all 
the  scope  permitted  in  this  scheme  for  a  swift  glance  at  the  world's  masterpieces/' 
Having  effected  a  synthetic  relation  between  the  subjective  and  the  objective  in 
poetry,  the  way  becomes  clear  for  an  examination  of  the  pure  attributes  of  this  art, 
which  form  the  themes  of  the  next  four  chapters.  Mr.  Stedman  avoids  much  dis- 
cussion of  schools  and  fashions.  ' '  There  have  been  schools  in  all  ages  and  centres, ' '  he 
says,  "but  these  figure  most  laboriously  at  intervals  when  the  creative  faculty  seems 
inactive."  This  book  constitutes  a  fitting  complement  to  Mr.  Stedman's  two 
masterly  criticisms  on  the  'Victorian  Poets'  and  the  'Poets  of  America.' 

NEIGHBOR  JACKWOOD,  by  J.  T.  Trowbridge,  an  anti-slavery  novel,  was  pub- 
lished in  1856,  when  its  author  had  been  turned  into  an  "anti-slavery  fanatic,"  as 
he  called  himself,  through  seeing  the  fugitive  slave  Anthony  Burns  marched  from  the 
Boston  court-house  to  a  revenue  cutter  in  waiting  for  him  by  the  President's  orders 
at  Long  Wharf,  and  thus  returned  by  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  to  his 
Virginia  bondage.  "The  story  finished,  I  had, "  says  Mr.  Trowbridge,  "great  trouble 
in  naming  it.  I  suppose  a  score  of  titles  were  considered,  only  to  be  rejected.  At 
last  I  settled  down  upon  '  Jackwood/  but  felt  the  need  of  joining  to  that  name  some 
characteristic  phrase  or  epithet.  Thus  I  was  led  to  think  of  this  Scriptural  motto 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  599 

for  the  title-page:  "A  certain  woman  went  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  and 
fell  among  thieves";  which  suggested  the  question,  "Who  was  neighbor  unto  this 
woman?  and  the  answer,  'Neighbor  Jackwood.1  And  I  had  my  title."  Like  his 
juvenile  stories,  this  novel  for  grown  folks  is  crowded  with  incident  and  dialogue,  — 
homely  and  true  to  life  in  part,  and  in  part  melodramatic.  The  heroine,  Camille,  — 
a  fugitive  "white"  slave  under  the  alias  " Charlotte  Woods, "  —  is  sheltered  by  the 
Jackwoods  in  their  Green  Mountain  farmhouse,  and  meets  thereabouts  the  hero, 
Hector  Dunbury.  Their  mutual  love,  darkened  by  the  dangers  and  distresses  which 
multiply  about  the  path  of  the  fugitive,  and  almost  thwarted  by  a  passionate  and 
unscrupulous  rival  for  the  girl's  hand,  who  knows  her  secret,  is  happily  crowned  at 
last  by  marriage,  though  the  husband  has  to  purchase  his  wife  from  her  Southern 
master.  The  story  was  dramatized  and  played  in  Northern  theatres  with  some 
success;  sympathy  for  the  maiden  overcoming  the  prejudice  against  its  abolitionist 
bearing,  and  the  mesalliance  of  Hector  and  Camille. 

NEIGHBORS,  THE,  by  Fredrika  Bremer  (1837).  The  scene  of  this  every-day 
romance  is  laid  in  Sweden,  and  the  descriptions  give  a  delightful  glimpse  into  the 
domestic  life  of  that  country,  Franziska  "Werner  tells  the  story  by  a  series  of  letters 
to  a  distant  friend.  She  has  lately  married  "Bear, "  a  country  doctor;  and  the  first 
letters  describe  her  impressions  of  her  new  home,  her  neighbors,  and  her  stepmother- 
in-law.  "  Ma  chere  mere, "  as  she  is  called,  is  an  eccentric  woman  possessed  of  great 
ability  and  an  iron  will.  Years  before  she  and  her  own  son  Bruno  had  quarreled,  his 
fiery  temper  had  clashed  with  hers,  and  he  ran  from  home  with  his  mother's  curse 
ringing  in  his  ears.  After  fifteen  years  of  dissipation,  he  returns  under  an  assumed 
name  and  settles  at  Ramm,  as  a  new  neighbor,  hoping  to  win  his  mother's  forgive- 
ness. He  is  discovered  by  Franziska  and  her  husband;  and  at  their  house  he  renews 
his  love  for  Serena,  his  childhood's  friend.  She  is  pure  and  good,  and  his  passionate, 
stormy  nature  is  quieted  by  the  strength  and  beauty  of  her  spiritual  one.  She  loves 
him,  but  feels  that  her  duty  lies  with  her  aged  grandparents;  and  despite  his  violent 
love-making,  remains  firm  in  refusing  him.  At  the  risk  of  his  life,  Bruno  saves  his 
mother  by  stopping  her  runaway  horses,  and  a  reconciliation  is  brought  about  at 
last.  Bruno  next  saves  Serena's  life,  and  they  become  engaged.  Hagar,  a  Hebrew 
woman,  who  loves  Bruno  and  has  followed  him  to  Ramm,  is  jealous  of  Serena  and 
attempts  to  kill  her.  Failing  in  this  she  tries  to  take  her  own  life,  and  dies  confessing 
her  sin  and  clearing  Bruno's  character.  Serena  and  Bruno  marry,  and  the  letters 
again  continue  in  a  pleasant  domestic  vein.  There  are  many  interesting  situations 
in  the  book,  much  poetry  of  thought  and  feeling,  besides  an  atmosphere  of  country 
life  that  is  most  refreshing.  Miss  Bremer  has  been  called  the  Jane  Austen  of  Sweden. 

NELSON,  THE  LIFE  OF,  by  Captain  A.  T.  Mahan.  This  monumental  biography 
is  a  sort  of  supplement  to  the  author's  '  Influence  of  Sea-Power. f  He  considers  Lord 
Nelson  as  "the  one  man  who  in  himself  summed  up  and  embodied  the  greatness  of 
the  possibilities  which  Sea  Power  comprehends,  —  the  man  for  whom  genius  and 
opportunity  worked  together,  to  make  the  personification  of  the  navy  of  Great 
Britain  the  dominant  factor  in  the  periods  hitherto  treated. "  Earl  Nelson  arose, 
and  in  htm  "all  the  promises  of  the  past  found  their  finished  realization,  their  perfect 
fulfillment. ' '  Making  use  of  the  materials  of  the  many  who  have  written  biographies 
of  this  fascinating  personality,  and  even  richer  materials  that  came  into  his  possession, 
it  was  Captain  Mahan's  object  "to  disengage  the  figure  of  the  hero  from  the  glory 
that  cloaks  it."  His  method  is  to  make  Nelson  "describe  himself,  tell  the  story  of 


600  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

his  own  inner  life  as  well  as  of  his  external  actions. "  He  therefore  extracts  from  the 
voluminous  correspondence  extant  passages  that  enable  him  "to  detect  the  leading 
features  of  temperament,  traits  of  thought  and  motives  of  action,  and  thence  to 
conceive  within  himself,  by  gradual  familiarity  even  more  than  by  formal  effort,  the 
character  therein  revealed."  In  the  same  way  as  he  thus  reproduces  his  individual- 
ity, so  he  treats  of  his  military  actions;  showing  not  merely  what  he  did,  but  also  the 
principles  that  dominated  him  throughout  his  life.  The  author's  logical  faculty 
stood  him  in  good  stead  in  thus  concentrating  documentary  evidence  to  bear  on 
mooted  points,  and  he  most  skillfully  unravels  tangled  threads.  At  the  same  time 
his  vivid  and  richly  embroidered  style,  combined  with  just  the  right  degree  of  dignity, 
makes  his  presentation  of  mingled  biography  and  history  as  interesting  as  a  romance 
and  as  satisfying  as  history-  The  two  stately  volumes  are  adorned  with  numerous 
portraits  and  engravings,  and  with  maps  and  plans  explanatory  of  the  battles  and 
engagements  described. 

NELSON,  THE  LIFE  OF,  by  Robert  Southey  (1813).  The  life  of  Nelson,  written 
to  provide  young  seamen  with  a  clear  concise  account  of  the  exploits  of  England's 
greatest  hero,  is  a  model  among  short  biographies,  and  a  classic  in  English  literature. 
It  is  considered  the  author's  masterpiece.  "The  best  eulogy  of  Nelson"  Southey 
writes,  ''is  the  faithful  history  of  his  actions;  the  best  history  that  which  shall  relate 
them  most  perspicuously.'1  A  special  edition  was  published  by  the  American 
government  and  a  copy  issued  to  every  seaman  and  every  officer  in  the  American 
navy.  Nelson's  splendid  career  is  the  very  stuff  of  biography.  The  story  begins 
with  anecdotes  of  his  boyhood  which  give  proof  of  his  courage  and  indomitable  will. 
He  was  twelve  years  old  when  he  first  went  to  sea  with  his  uncle  Captain  Suckling. 
His  life  was  an  uninterrupted  effort  to  be  the  best  man  at  his  work,  and  his  promotion 
was  rapid.  He  was  a  captain  when  he  was  twenty-one,  and  an  admiral  before  he  was 
thirty.  Nelson  never  had  good  health  and  on  a  voyage  to  India  he  was  so  affected 
by  the  climate  that  he  was  obliged  to  return  home.  On  this  return  voyage  one  day 
after  a  long  and  gloomy  reverie,  he  experienced  a  sudden  glow  of  patriotism  and 
exclaimed,  "I  will  be  a  hero!  and  confiding  in  Providence  brave  every  danger." 
The  incidents  of  his  life  reveal  his  fascinating  personality,  his  devotion  to  his  country 
and  to  his  men,  and  his  heroism  and  leadership  in  battle.  The  three  greatest  naval 
successes,  the  battle  of  the  Nile,  the  victory  of  Copenhagen,  and  of  Trafalgar,  when 
Nelson  received  his  death  wound,  are  fully  and  interestingly  described.  Napoleon  - 
had  transported  the  best  French  army  to  Egypt  for  Eastern  conquest,  depending  on 
his  fleet  for  his  means  of  communication.  Nelson  destroyed  thirteen  out  of  trie 
seventeen  French  ships,  rendering  the  army  in  Egypt  useless.  The  victory  or 
Copenhagen  shattered  the  Northern  coalition  and  freed  England  from  pressing  dan 
ger.  The  incident  of  Nelson  clapping  his  telescope  to  his  blind  eye  in  order  not  to 
see  the  signal  to  cease  firing  is  a  story  of  the  Copenhagen  attack.  Trafalgar  was  the 
battle  which  rendered  an  invasion  of  England  by  Napoleon  impossible  and  made 
England  mistress  of  the  seas.  It  was  at  Trafalgar  that  he  made  his  famous  signal 
before  going  into  action,  "England  expects  that  every  man  will  do  his  duty,"  the 
signal  which  Southey  says  so  truly  "will  be  remembered  as  long  as  the  language,  or 
even  the  memory  of  England  shall  endure. "  The  story  of  his  personal  life  is  his 
marriage  and  his  romantic  attachment  to  the  beautiful  Lady  Hamilton  for  whose 
sake  he  separated  from  his  wife.  Nelson  died  in  the  hour  of  victory.  With  charac- 
teristic self-forgetfulness,  he  insisted  that  the  surgeon  should  leave  him  and  attend 
to  those  to  whom  he  might  be  useful,  for  he  said,  "you  can  do  nothing  for  me. "  His 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  60 1 

last  words  were,  "Thank  God,  I  have  done  my  duty."  "So  perfectly,  indeed,  had 
he  performed  his  part,  that  the  maritime  war,  after  the  battle  of  Trafalgar,  'the  most 
signal  victory  that  ever  was  achieved  upon  the  seas,'  was  considered  at  an  end:  the 
fleets  of  the  enemy  were  not  merely  defeated,  but  destroyed,"  and  by  the  destruction 
of  this  mighty  fleet,  "all  the  maritime  schemes  of  France  were  totally  frustrated." 
It  is  a  clear  and  charmingly  written  narrative,  perhaps  never  surpassed  for  the 
perfection  of  its  prose  style. 

NEMESIS  OF  FAITH,  THE,  by  James  Anthony  Froude.  A  small  book  published 
in  1849,  but  purporting  to  review  the  experience  at  Oxford  in  1843  of  a  student  of 
that  time,  in  whose  mind  doubts  arose  which  led  him  to  give  up  the  ministry  of 
religion  in  the  Church  of  England.  It  in  fact  reflects  Mr.  Froude's  own  experience, 
so  far  as  relates  to  the  departure  of  the  hero  of  the  story  from  orthodoxy  of  belief,  and 
his  relinquishment  of  the  clerical  profession.  The  thread  of  story  in  the  book  is  only 
just  enough  to  enable  Mr.  Froude  to  make  an  imaginary  character  speak  for  him; 
first  in  a  series  of  letters,  and  then  in  an  essay  entitled  'Confessions  of  a  Sceptic. 
The  free-thinking  is  that  of  a  mind  wishful  to  live  by  the  ideal  truths  of  the  Bible 
and  the  spirit  of  Christ;  but  unable  to  believe  the  book  any  more  divine  than  Plato 
or  the  Koran,  or  Christ  any  other  than  a  human  teacher  and  example.  Both  Roman- 
ist and  English  Church  teachings  are  keenly  criticized,  with  special  reference  to  John 
Henry  Newman;  who  was  at  first  a  singularly  eloquent  preacher  in  the  university 
pulpit,  and  later  a  convert  to  Romanism.  "That  voice  so  keen,  so  preternaturally 
sweet,  whose  every  whisper  used  to  thrill  through  crowded  churches,  when  every 
breath  was  held  to  hear;  that  calm,  gray  eye;  those  features,  so  stern  and  yet  so 
gentle, "  —  these  words  picture  Newman  as  he  preached  at  St.  Mary's,  the  principal 
university  pulpit. 

NERO,  by  Ernst  Eckstein  (1888).  Translated  by  Clara  Bell  and  Mary  J.  Safford, 
This  historical  romance  calls  up  the  Rome  of  ancient  days,  when  the  imperial  city 
was  at  its  greatest  in  power,  magnificence,  and  brutality.  The  principal  characters 
in  the  story  are  the  well-known  Emperor;  his  wife  Octavia,  the  chaste  and  beautiful; 
the  gentle,  infatuated  Acte;  the  base  and  scheming  Agrippina,  mother  of  Nero; 
Poppaea,  the  shameless,  cruel,  intriguing  mistress;  Nicodemus,  the  fanatic;  and  the 
grasping  pagan,  Tigellinus. 

These  characters  are  woven  into  a  complicated  but  fascinating  plot,  in  which  vice 
and  virtue,  honor  and  crime,  Christianity  and  heathenism,  are  in  perpetual  conflict. 

The  author,  while  allowing  himself  the  usual  license  of  the  novelist  for  scope  and 
imagination,  is  generally  faithful  to  the  history  of  the  period.  And  while  he  has 
drawn  many  graphic  pictures  descriptive  of  that  terrible  age,  —  such  as  the  popu- 
larly conceived  brutal  character  of  the  Emperor,  the  burning  of  Rome,  and  the 
illumination  by  human  torches  of  Nero's  gardens,  —  his  real  purpose  has  been  more 
to  indicate  the  stages  that  lead  up  to  these  fatal  tragedies,  than  to  portray  the 
tragedies  themselves. 

NET,  THE,  by  RexBeach  (1912).  This  story  opens  in  Sicily  where  a  young  American 
named  Norvin  Blake  had  gone  to  attend  the  wedding  of  his  friend  Martel  Savigno. 
The  two  men  had  met  in  Paris  and  had  become  such  warm  friends  that  Blake  had 
taken  this  long  journey  in  order  to  be  Mart  el's  best  man.  Upon  meeting  his  friend's 
fiance'e,  Countess  Margherita  Ginini,  Blake  is  impressed  by  her  great  beauty  and 
charm,  and  a  feeling  is  aroused  within  him  which  no  other  woman  had  ever  evoked. 
As  the  days  go  by  he  finds  himself  deeply  in  love  with  his  friend's  fiance'e,  but  en- 


602  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

deavors  to  smother  his  traitorous  feelings.  On  the  eve  of  the  wedding  while  Blake, 
Martel,  and  his  steward  are  returning  home,  they  are  attacked  in  a  lonely  place  by 
members  of  the  Mafia  Society,  whom  Martel  has  offended,  and  he  and  his  steward 
are  killed.  Blake  escapes,  but  blames  himself  for  cowardice  in  not  having  been  able 
to  help  his  friend.  The  Countess  Margherita  is  heart-broken  at  the  loss  of  her  lover 
and  declares  that  she  will  find  the  murderers  and  avenge  Mart  el's  death.  Blake 
is  recalled  to  America  by  the  illness  and  death  of  his  mother  and  when  he  returns 
to  Sicily  eight  months  later,  finds  Margherita  gone,  having  left  no  clue  to  her  where- 
abouts. Blake  starts  an  unsuccessful  search,  but  finding  she  has  sailed  for  America 
he  returns  to  his  own  country.  After  four  years  of  unavailing  search  Blake  is  found 
living  in  Xew  Orleans,  rich  and  much  sought  after  socially.  He  becomes  interested 
in  a  young  and  fascinating  girl  named  Myra  Bell  Warren  and  enters  into  a  semi- 
serious  engagement  pact  with  her.  Meantime  he  is  engaged  in  the  hunt  for  Martel's 
murderers  and  discovers  that  they  are  in  Xew  Orleans  carrying  on  their  deadly  work. 
He  receives  anonymous  letters  which  put  him  on  track  of  the  villains  and  finally  they 
are  hunted  down  and  lynched  by  the  angered  populace.  Blake  discovers  Margherita 
disguised  as  a  nurse  and  under  an  assumed  name  living  in  New  Orleans.  He  learns 
that  she  has  written  the  anonymous  letters  warning  him  of  danger  and  he  declares 
has  love  for  her.  On  account  of  Myra  Bell,  Margherita  refuses  Blake's  advances  but 
when  the  former  elopes  with  another  man,  she  surrenders,  and  acknowledges  her 
love  for  him. 

NEW  ENGLAND,  A  COMPENDIOUS  HISTORY  OF,  by  the  Rev.  John  Gorham 
Palfrey,  D.D.  This  history  is  the  chief  and  monumental  work  of  its  author,  a 
distinguished  scholar  and  divine.  It  embraces  the  time  from  the  first  discovery 
of  Xew  England  by  Europeans  down  to  the  first  general  Congress  of  the  Anglo- 
American  colonies  in  1765.  But  a  supplementary  chapter  has  been  added,  giving  a 
summary  of  the  events  of  the  last  ten  years  of  colonial  dependence  down  to  the 
battles  of  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill.  The  four  volumes  were  originally  issued  at 
intervals  from  1865  to  1873.  A  revised  and  final  edition  was  issued  in  1883,  after  the 
author's  death.  Dr.  Palfrey  divides  Xew  England  history  into  three  cycles  of  eighty- 
six  years  each.  The  first,  dating  from  the  Stuart  accession  to  the  throne  of  England 
in  the  spring  of  1603,  ends  on  April  1 9th,  1689  when  the  colonists,  betrayed  by  Joseph 
Dudley,  imprisoned  the  royal  governor  Andros,  thus  marking  the  First  Revolution. 
The  Second  Revolution  was  inaugurated  April  I9th,  1775, when,  betrayed  by  Governor 
Hutchinson,  the  people  rose  and  fought  the  battle  of  Lexington  and  Concord.  The 
Third  began  on  April  igth,  1861,  when  the  first  blood  in  the  revolution  against  the 
domination  of  the  slave  power  was  shed  in  the  streets  of  Baltimore.  Palfrey's 
history  embraces  the  first  two  of  these  periods,  and  covers  the  physical,  social,  and 
political  conditions  which  have  determined  the  growth  and  progress  of  the  New  Eng- 
land people.  The  author  has  treated  this  subject  with  wider  scope  and  greater  detail 
than  any  other  writer.  He  has  handled  it  with  a  force  and  vivacity  of  style,  and  with 
a  careful  minuteness  of  investigation  combined  with  a  discriminating  spirit  of  inquiry, 
which  have  elicited  the  admiration  of  every  scholar  who  has  entered  the  same  field. 
Some  of  Dr.  Palfrey's  judgments  have  been  disputed,  but  his  great  work  as  a  whole 
remains  unchallenged  as  a  valuable  contribution  to  American  history. 

NEW  ENGLAND  PRIMER,  THE.  This  famous  work,  the  earliest  edition  of  which 
known  to  exist  was  published  in  Boston  in  1727,  has  passed  through  various  changes 
of  form  and  text. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  603 

An  eighteenth-century  edition  contains  the  alphabet  and  syllabarium,  followed  by 
several  columns  of  simple  words.     Next  appears 

"THE  DUTIFUL  CHILD'S  PROMISE. 
I  will  fear  God,  honor  the  King, 
I  will  honor  my  Father  and  Mother, 
I  will  obey  my  superiors." 

The  alphabet  rhymes,  illustrated  by  crude  wood-cuts,  follow.  Among  the  most 
atrocious  of  these  is  the  picture  of  the  man  of  patience,  spotted  with  sores,  accompanied 
by  this  rhyme: — 

"Job  feels  the  rod, 
Yet  blesses  God." 

There  is  said  to  have  been  a  picture  of  the  Crucifixion  in  an  earlier  edition,  with 
appropriate  rhyme;  which  our  rigid  Puritan  ancestors  discarded  in  favor  of  Job, 
claiming  that  it  smacked  of  papacy. 

Among  other  curious  rhymes  may  be  quoted: — 

"  Proud  Korah's  troop 
Was  swallowed  up." 

"Peter  denies 
His  Lord,  and  cries." 

"Whales  in  the  sea 
God's  voice  obey." 

"Time  cuts  down  all, 
Both  great  and  small." 

The  last  rhyme  is  illustrated  by  a  picture  of  the  Grim  Destroyer  mowing  a  broad 
swath  with  an  old-fashioned  scythe. 

After  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  creed  is  an  illustration  of  John  Rogers  surrounded 
by  blazing  fagots,  guarded  by  the  sheriff,  with  his  wife  and  "nine  small  children  and 
one  at  the  breast "  gazing  upon  his  martyrdom.  There  is  an  account  of  John  Rogers, 
and  a  copy  of  his  rhymed  address  to  his  children. 

AN  ALPHABET  OF  LESSONS  next  appears,  beginning  with 

"A  wise  son  maketh  a  glad  father,  but  a  foolish  son  is  the  heaviness  of  his  mother"; 

and  closing  with 

"Zeal  hath  consumed  me  because  my  enemies  have  forgotten  the  word  of  God." 

THE  SHORTER  CATECHISM  (Westminster),  with  a  few  hymns,  occupies  the  re- 
maining half  of  this  little  book  of  64  pages,  having  only  3^  by  2^  inches  of  printed 
matter  on  each  page. 

In  1897  Mr.  Paul  Leicester  Ford  prepared  a  complete  history  of  the  New  England 
Primer,  fully  presenting  the  subject  historically  and  bibliographically  in  an  illustrated 
duodecimo  volume  of  354  pages. 

NEW  ESSAYS:  OBSERVATIONS,  DIVINE  AND  MORAL,  collected  out  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  Ancient  and  Modern  Writers,  both  Divine  and  Human ;  as  also 
out  of  the  Great  Volume  of  Men's  Manners;  tending  to  the  furtherance  of  Knowledge 
and  Virtue.  By  John  Robinson  (1624).  A  volume  of  sixty-two  essays,  on  the  plan 
of  Bacon's,  but  at  greater  length,  and  in  ethical,  religious,  and  human  interest  more 
like  Emerson's  'Essays'  in  our  own  time:  the  work  of  an  English  clergyman  and 


604  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

scholar,  in  exile  at  Leyden  in  Holland,  under  whose  ministry  and  through  whose 
counsel  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  developed  religious  liberalism  and  executed  the  earliest 
planting  of  New  England.  He  was  the  Joshua  of  the  religious  exodus  from  England. 

Montaigne's  use  of  the  word  had  suggested  to  Bacon  the  use  of  the  term  "essays" 
to  designate  "certain  brief  notes,  set  down  rather  significantly  than  curiously."  The 
earliest  'Bacon's  Essays, '  published  in  1597,  ^"as  a  little  book  of  ten  short  essays,  in 
barely  twelve  pages  (of  a  recent  standard  edition).  The  second  enlarged  edition,  in 
1612,  was  only  thirty-eight  essays  in  sixty-four  pages.  The  final  edition,  1625,  had 
fifty- two  essays  in  two  hundred  pages.  As  pastor  Robinson  died  in  March,  1624,  he 
cannot  have  seen  any  but  the  second  edition.  To  note  his  relation  to  Bacon's  work 
he  called  his  book  '  New  Essays. '  He  doubtless  thereby  indicated  also  his  conscious- 
ness that  his  \iews  were  of  new  departure.  He  was  in  fact  an  initiator  of  new  liberty 
and  liberality  in  religion,  new  breadth  and  charity  and  freedom  in  church  matters, 
and  new  democracy  in  political  and  social  order,  on  grounds  of  reason  and  humanity. 

In  the  preface  to  his  '  New  Essays, '  pastor  Robinson  says  that  he  has  had  first 
and  most  regard  to  the  Holy  Scriptures;  next,  to  the  memorable  sayings  of  wise  and 
learned  men;  and  lastly,  "to  the  great  Volume  of  Men's  Manners  which  I  have  dili^ 
gently  observed,  and  from  them  gathered  no  small  part  thereof."  He  adds  that 
"this  land  of  meditation  and  study  hath  been  unto  me  full  sweet  and  delightful,  and 
that  wherein  I  have  often  refreshed  my  soul  and  spirit  amidst  many  sad  and  sorrowful 
thoughts  unto  which  God  hath  called  me."  The  study  of  human  nature,  the  sweet- 
ness of  spirit,  and  the  scholarly  eye  to  the  world's  best  literature,  mark  a  rare  mind,  a 
prophet  of  culture  in  church  and  commonwealth. 

NEW  FREEDOM,  THE,  'A  Call  for  the  Emancipation  of  the  Generous  Energies  of  a 
People, '  is  a  collection  of  political  essays  put  together  by  William  Bayard  Hale  from 
speeches  delivered  by  Woodrow  Wilson  during  his  campaign  for  the  Presidency  in 
1912  and  shortly  after  his  election.  In  a  clear,  direct  style  with  homely  and  concrete 
illustrations  they  present  certain  principles  of  democratic  government  as  evolved 
by  the  author  during  his  experience  with  trusts  and  professional  politicians  when 
governor  of  New  Jersey.  These  principles  he  applies  to  the  issues  of  the  1912  cam- 
paign, representing  the  Republicans  and  the  Progressives  as  supporters  of  monopoly, 
special  privilege,  and  government  by  trusteeship  and  the  Democrats  as  the  defenders 
of  individual  opportunity,  fair  competition,  and  direct  popular  government.  The 
trust,  the  tariff,  and  the  political  boss  are  the  three  institutions  which  are  subjected 
in  this  volume  to  a  trenchant  and  vigorous  attack.  While  praising  the  legitimate 
co-ordination  of  business  enterprises  in  the  interests  of  economy  and  efficiency  Mr. 
Wilson  denounces  those  combinations  which  aim  simply  at  the  increase  of  private 
gain  through  the  suppression  of  competition  and  actually  weaken  efficiency  by  re- 
fusing to  adopt  new  inventions  lest  they  involve  the  alteration  of  existing  machinery. 
He  maintains  that  such  trusts  must  be  made  impossible  by  public  investigation  and 
control.  As  to  the  protective  tariff,  he  denounces  not  its  principle  but  its  abuse  for 
the  benefit  of  trust  and  monopoly.  Tariff  taxes  enable  manufacturers  to  escape 
foreign  competition;  as  a  result  they  are  unchecked  in  the  formation  of  illegal  com- 
binations and  are  enabled  to  raise  the  prices  to  the  consumer  and  to  reduce  wages 
to  the  laborer.  All  tariff  schedules  should  be  revised  with  a  view  to  withdrawing 
protection  from  such  industries  but  not  to  destroying  the  principle  of  protection  itself. 
Finally  the  bosses  and  the  political  machines  which  they  have  created  so  operate  as  to 
take  the  control  of  affairs  away  from  the  parties  and  from  the  people,  and  to  lodge 
it  with  a  small  group  of  corrupt  interests.  For  this  abuse  Mr.  Wilson's  remedies 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  605 

are  the  initiative,  the  referendum,  and  the  recall.  These  enable  the  people  on  the 
petition  of  a  reasonable  number  to  intervene  when  legislatures  and  officials  have 
become  tools  of  the  bosses,  to  introduce  or  to  veto  legislation,  and  to  remove  persons 
who  have  been  unfaithful  to  their  trust.  These  rights,  however,  he  thinks  need  not 
be  often  invoked,  and  need  not  extend  to  the  judiciary.  In  attacking  these  abuses 
just  outlined  the  author  is  especially  aiming  at  the  tendency  of  all  business  and  all 
politics  to  fall  under  the  control  of  a  small  group  of  wealthy  men,  who  "have  constituted 
themselves  trustees  for  the  people  and  desire  to  organize  and  direct  their  economic, 
social,  and  legislative  activities.  Against  this  tendency  Mr.  Wilson  sets  the  old 
American  principle  of  freedom  and  individual  opportunity,  showing,  however,  that 
in^this  new  age  new  conditions  of  business  have  arisen  which  make  necessary  a  revi- 
sion of  the  laws  and  legislation  by  which  freedom  and  opportunity  are  secured.  "  The 
new  freedom"  is  to  be  won  by  "taking  common  counsel,"  i.  e.,  by  open  democratic 
discussion,  by  the  revival  of  a  sturdy  spirit  of  independence  and  self-reliance,  and 
by  adequate  policing  and  publicity  on  the  part  of  the  government  against  those 
who  would  bring  the  American  people  under  their  tutelage. 

NEW  GRUB  STREET,  a  novel  by  George  Gissing  (1891).  The  author  paints 
on  a  broad  and  diversified  canvas  the  struggle  for  existence  in  the  English  literary 
world  of  his  day.  The  general  conception  is  that  in  the  modern  Grub  Street  success 
is  assured  only  by  adopting  the  most  frankly  utilitarian  and  mercenary  ideals.  The 
author  must  write  what  the  public  wants  and  is  willing  to  pay  for,  without  consulting 
his  artistic  conscience;  and  he  must  employ  every  art  of  self-advertisement  and  of 
acquiring  influential  friends  in  order  to  gain  that  apparent  prosperity  which  alone 
can  win  him  a  fair  hearing.  The  encumbrance  of  marriage  to  a  woman  of  no  fortune 
is  not  to  be  thought  of.  Poverty,  in  fact,  is  regarded  in  this  book  as  an  unmitigated 
evil,  a  hindrance  to  physical  cleanliness  and  health,  domestic  happiness,  personal 
amenity,  and  the  development  of  a  fine  character  and  creative  artistic  work.  The 
dramatis  persona  include  representatives  of  various  types  who  labor  under  the  dome 
of  the  British  Museum,  in  cheerless  garrets  and  narrow  middle-class,  lodgings,  — 
novelists,  reviewers,  literary  hacks,  writers  of  books  about  books,  literary  advisers 
unable  to  write  successfully  themselves — all  with  the  self-conscious  introspection 
common  to  literary  men  and  many  with  their  bitter  enmities.  The  two  most  promi- 
nent characters  are  Jasper  Milvain,  a  clever  reviewer  and  essayist,  who  frankly 
accepts  the  materialistic  standards  of  the  New  Grub  Street  and  wins  social  and  literary 
success;  and  Edwin  Reardon,  a  highly  "temperamental"  and  conscientious  novelist, 
who  refuses  to  sacrifice  his  artistic  ideals  to  the  popular  taste,  writes  two  fine  but 
unappreciated  books,  and  then  through  financial  worry  and  his  wife's  lack  of  sym- 
pathy with  his  resolute  stand  against  cheapening  his  art,  falls  into  a  condition  of 
nervous  depression  which  not  only  makes  work  impossible  but  leads  to  the  separation 
of  husband  and  wife  and  his  death  from  privation  and  despair.  A  legacy  which  comes 
to  his  wife  and  an  ensuing  reconciliation  with  her  come  too  late  to  restore  him  to 
health.  Jasper  is  an  admirer  of  Mrs.  Reardon's  cousin,  Marian  Yule,  daughter  of 
Alfred  Yule,  a  literary  editor  and  reviewer  of  the  old  stamp,  immensely  learned  and 
industrious  but  pedantic  and  without  brilliancy,  and  embittered  by  his  lack  of 
recognition,  which  is  due  in  part  to  his  having  married  beneath  him.  Marian  has  been 
brought  up  to  assist  her  father  and  spends  her  time  working  in  the  British  Museum. 
She  loves  Jasper,  and  a  sum  of  £5000  to  which  she  falls  heir  makes  it  seem  possible  to 
him  to  propose  to  her  without  injury  to  his  literary  career.  The  legacy,  however, 
•proves  to  have  been  in  large  part  exhausted  by  bad  investments;  and  her  father. 


606  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

becoming  blind,  needs  to  be  assisted  with  what  remains.  Jasper,  therefore,  having 
first  unsuccessfully  made  advances  to  an  heiress  without  the  knowledge  of  his  fiancee, 
withdraws  from  the  engagement  and  at  length  marries  Amy  Reardon,  widow  of  his 
friend  the  unsuccessful  novelist.  From  the  same  source  as  Marian  she  has  inherited 
£10,000  which  remain  intact,  and  the  couple  enter  on  a  social  career  which  bids  fair 
to  end  in  high  literary  distinction.  Interesting  minor  characters  are  Milvain's  two 
sisters,  Maud  and  Dora,  who  come  to  London  to  support  themselves  by  writing 
children's  books.  They  make  marriages,  the  first  to  a  man  of  some  wealth  and  the 
second  to  Whelpdale,  a  literary  adventurer  whose  experiences  as  a  writer  for  American 
newspapers  are  borrowed  from  those  of  Gissing  himself.  Another  character,  Harold 
Biffen,  a  penniless  scholar,  lives  in  destitution  and  supports  himself  by  tutoring  poor 
clerks  for  civil-service  examinations.  He  is  a  man  of  fine,  generous  temperament, 
keen  literary  sensibilities,  and  excellent  classical  scholarship,  and  he  loves  life  in  all 
its  manifestations.  He  is  at  work  on  a  novel  entitled  *  Mr.  Bailey,  Grocer, '  which  is 
without  plot  or  embellishment,  but  sets  forth  "absolute  realism  in  the  sphere  of  the 
ignobly  decent."  The  formula  might  well  stand  for  much  that  is  characteristic  of 
Gissing's  own  work.  After  long  months  of  hunger  and  privation  the  book  is  finished, 
rescued  by  Biffen  from  a  fire,  and  submitted  to  the  publishers,  one  of  whom  pays  a 
small  sum  for  it.  With  the  public  it  is  a  failure.  Biffen  is  a  faithful  companion  of 
Reardon  in  his  miseries  and  is  present  at  his  death,  which  occurs  at  Brighton  just 
after  the  reconciliation  with  his  wife.  Later,  Biffen,  overcome  by  the  beauty  of  Amy 
Reardon  and  her  sympathy  for  him,  falls  hopelessly  in  love  with  her,  and  feeling 
himself  alone  in  the  world  and  without  object  in  life,  takes  poison  and  dies  on  Putney 
Heath.  The  book  is  somewhat  ill-constructed  as  regards  temporal  sequence  and  the 
shifting  of  point  of  view  from  one  group  of  characters  to  another.  Nor  will  it  appeal 
to  those  who  enjoy  a  cheerful  atmosphere  and  a  happy  ending.  But  it  is  a  powerful 
picture  of  a  phase  of  life,  which  it  treats  with  sober  and  convincing  realism;  and  it 
contains  some  exceedingly  human  personages,  a  number  of  absorbing  events,  and 
many  thorough  analyses  of  character  and  temperament. 

NEW  MACHIAVELLI,  THE,  by  H.  G.  Wells  (1910).  This  is  the  autobiography  of 
a  rnan  named  Richard  Remington,  who  at  the  age  of  forty-three  reviews  his  past 
experiences  in  a  most  detailed  manner.  Born  in  Kent,  England,  the  son  of  an  uncon- 
ventional father,  and  a  narrow  and  strait-laced  mother,  the  boy  grows  up  amid 
conflicting  influences  an  introspective  and  studiously  inclined  youth.  Orphaned 
at  the  age  of  sixteen,  he  works  out  his  later  career  with  little  interference  from  outside 
sources;  he  goes  to  college,  and  develops  a  taste  for  writing,  and  early  becomes  a 
successful  author.  He  marries  a  rich  and  attractive  girl  named  Margaret  Seddon, 
who  is  deeply  in  love  with  him,  and  who  willingly  overlooks  his  past  affairs  with 
women  which  he  confesses  when  he  proposes  to  her.  Margaret  is  a  sweet  and  high- 
minded  woman  with  ambition  to  aid  her  husband  in  his  career.  Assisted  by  her 
money  and  influence,  Remington  secures  a  seat  in  Parliament  as  a  Liberal.  Mar- 
garet is  deeply  interested  in  this  party  and  is  greatly  disappointed  when  later  her 
husband  swings  over  to  the  Conservative  side.  This  causes  a  widening  of  the  breach 
which  has  been  growing  up  between  them,  as  Remington's  love  for  his  wife  has  been 
gradually  lessening  in  spite  of  her  devotion  to  him.  A  new  interest  has  come  into  his 
life  through  his  friendship  with  Isabel  Rivers,  a  brilliant  and  independent  girl,  whom 
he  had  known  in  her  school-girl  days  and  had  seen  blossom  into  womanhood.  Isabel's 
advanced  thought  and  strong  and  impulsive  nature  appeal  strongly  to  Remington, 
who  soon  finds  himself  passionately  in  love  with  her,  and  she  reciprocates  his  feelings. 


THE   READER'S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKS  607 

They  succeed  in  keeping  their  secret  for  some  time,  but  finally  it  becomes  a  public 
scandal  and  they  realize  that  their  relations  must  cease  if  Remington  is  to  continue  his 
public  career.  They  decide  not  to  meet  again,  and  Isabel  is  on  the  point  of  marrying 
another  man,  when  their  infatuation  reasserts  itself  and  they  are  unable  to  resist  it. 
They  elope,  and  fly  to  a  foreign  land,  and  by  so  doing,  Remington  sacrifices  his 
political  career  which  had  promised  to  bring  him  honor  and  glory,  and  while  he  can 
but  look  back  with  regret  to  the  busy  world  that  he  has  relinquished  he  contents 
himself  with  his  overmastering  passion  for  Isabel. 

NEW  REPUBLIC,  THE,  by  William  H.  Mallock.  This  satirical  work  (published  in 
England  in  1876)  attracted  much  attention  for  a  time.  Its  sub-title,  'Culture,  Faith, 
and  Philosophy  in  a  Country  House, '  gives  an  idea  of  its  scope.  The  author,  a 
nephew  of  the  historian  Froude,  introduced  to  his  readers  the  principal  literary 
characters  of  the  day  under  very  transparent  masks.  The  scene  is  laid  in  an  English 
villa;  and  the  chapters  are  made  up  of  conversations  between  the  guests,  who  are 
spending  a  quiet  Sunday  with  their  host,  Mr.  Laurence.  While  arranging  the  menu 
cards,  it  occurs  to  him  to  lay  out  a  series  of  topics  to  be  discussed  at  his  table;  for, 
said  he,  "It  seems  absurd  to  me  to  be  so  careful  about  what  we  put  into  our  mouths, 
and  to  leave  to  chance  to  arrange  what  comes  out  of  them."  More  things  in  heaven 
and  earth  than  are  usually  discussed  at  such  times  are  thus  brought  forward  by  the 
author,  whose  skill  in  parody  is  manifest.  It  was  soon  an  open  secret  that  "Luke" 
was  Matthew  Arnold;  "Rose,"  Walter  Pater;  "Lord  Allen,"  Lord  Rosebery;  "Her- 
bert," Ruskin;  "Storks,"  Huxley;  "Stockton,"  Tyndall;  "JenVinson,"  Professor 
Jowett;  "Saunders,"  Professor  Clifford;  "Mrs.  Sinclair,"  Airs.  Singleton  ("Violet 
Fane,"  to  whom  the  book  is  inscribed);  "Lady  Grace,"  Mrs.  Mark  Pattison;  and 
"Miss  Merton,"  Miss  Froude.  The  personal  flavor  of  Mr.  Mallock's  satire  caused 
the  book  to  leap  into  instant  popularity.  The  foibles  and  hobbies  of  his  models  were 
cleverly  set  off;  and  though  the  fun  was  sometimes  bitter,  it  was  rarely  ill-natured. 
The  central  figure  of  the  group  was  Mr.  Herbert,  in  whose  poetical  imagery  the  great 
word-painter  was  not  unfairly  represented.  Matthew  Arnold  was  ridiculed  un- 
sparingly. One  sentence,  descriptive  of  Laurence  has  been  widely  quoted:  "He 
was  in  many  ways  a  remarkable  man,  but  unhappily  one  of  those  who  are  remarkable 
because  they  do  not  become  famous  —  not  because  they  do." 

NEW  WAY  TO  PAY  OLD  DEBTS,  A,  by  Philip  Massinger  (1625).  Massinger's  style, 
in  the  opinion  of  Charles  Lamb,  "was  the  purest  and  most  free  from  violent  metaphors 
and  harsh  constructions  of  any  of  the  dramatists  who  were  his  contemporaries." 
As  to  sustained  excellence  and  general  competence,  Professor  Saintsbury  declares  that 
"unless  we  are  to  count  by  mere  flashes,  he  must  rank  after  Shakspere,  Fletcher 
and  Jonson  among  his  fellows.  The  present  play,  his  masterpiece,  which  was  pro- 
bably first  produced  in  1625,  was  revived  by  Garrick  in  1748  and  long  kept  its  place 
on  the  English  stage.  The  chief  character,  Sir  Giles  Overreach,  Massinger's  best 
creation,  is  an  unscrupulous,  relentless  usurer  who  compasses  his  own  nephew's 
ruin  by  encouraging  his  spendthrift  habits  and  then  screwing  bonds  and  mortgages 
out  of  him.  He  tries  to  lure  his  neighbours  into  law  that  he  may  ruin  them  and  get 
possession  of  their  lands.  He  employs  someone  to  tempt  his  nephew  whom  he  has 
ruined  to  Commit  the  gravest  crimes.  The  goal  of  all  his  ambition,  he  says  is 

"to  have  my  daughter 

Right  honourable;  and  it  is  a  powerful  charm 
Makes  me  insensible  of  remorse,  or  pity, 
Or  the  least  sting  of  conscience." 


So8  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  nephew  invents  "a  new  way  to  pay  old  debts"  by  inducing  Lady  Allworth,  a 
flrealthy  widow,  to  ask  him  to  dinner  and  pay  attentions  to  him  in  the  presence  of 
Marrall,  a  tool  of  the  usurer's.  Marrall  then  tells  Overreach  that  she  is  about  to 
marry  his  nephew.  Tom  Allworth,  son  of  the  widow,  and  page  to  Lord  Lovell,  is  in 
Love  with  Overreach's  daughter  Margaret,  whom  her  father  desires  to  marry  Lord 
Lovell.  The  latter  pretends  to  make  love  to  her  in  order  that  Tom  Allworth,  as  his 
page,  may  gain  admission  to  Margaret.  Marrall  tricks  his  master  out  of  his  bond, 
Lord  Lovell  and  Lady  Allworth  marry  each  other,  Margaret  is  united  to  her  lover, 
and  Overreach  goes  mad  when  he  finds  his  deep  laid  schemes  are  overthrown. 

NEW  WORLDS  FOR  OLD,  by  H.  G.  Wells  (1908),  is  a  popular  exposition  of 
socialism  for  the  general  reader.  The  author  is  a  moderate  socialist,  believing  in  ths 
gradual  introduction  of  socialism  though  government  control  of  industry  not  with 
Marx  in  an  immediate  economic  revolution.  He  advocates  the  taking  over  by  the 
government  of  all  public  utilities,  the  heavy  taxation  of  large  fortunes,  the  establish- 
ment of  a  minimum  wage,  and  the  assumption  by  the  state  of  full  responsibility  for 
the  care  of  children,  including  education,  and  vocational  training,  for  the  support  of 
expectant  mothers,  and  aged  persons,  for  attendance  upon  the  sick.  Yet  he  would 
not  do  away  with  the  family  or  with  private  property,  and  he  believes  that  the  ad- 
vantages of  both  these  institutions  would  be  much  more  widely  and  equally  distributed 
under  the  system  that  he  proposes  than  at  present,  when  such  a  large  proportion  of 
families  live  in  filth,  penury,  and  demoralizing  conditions  and  when  the  majority  of 
people  are  constantly  haunted  by  the  fear  of  poverty.  The  various  stock  objections 
to  socialism,  as  for  example  its  opposition  to  the  biological  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  and  to  the  acquisitive  instincts  of  human  nature,  are  effectively  answered; 
and  an  excellent  case  is  made  out  for  the  progressive  administrative  socialism  in  which 
the  author  firmly  believes.  The  positions  taken  are  supported  by  many  interesting 
citations  from  sociological  investigations  among  the  poor  and  other  data  of  a  statistic 
kind.  The  fluent,  informal,  conversational  style  and  the  ready  illustration  of 
principles  by  instances  and  topics  of  homely,  every-day  occurrence  make  the  book 
eminently  readable.  It  is  inspired  by  a  real  enthusiasm  and  by  faith  in  the  power  of 
science  to  solve  sociological  problems,  and  it  gives  a  very  good  idea  of  the  essence  of 
socialism. 

NEWCOMES,  THE,  by  W.  M.  Thackeray  (1854),  one  of  the  few  immortal  novels, 
has  many  claims  to  greatness.  It  not  only  presents  a  most  lifelike  and  convincing 
picture  of  English  society  in  the  first  half  of  the  century,  but  it  excels  in  the  drawing 
of  individual  types.  Colonel  Newcome,  perhaps  the  most  perfect  type  of  a  gentle- 
nan  to  be  found  in  the  whole  range  of  fiction,  sheds  undying  lustre  upon  the  novel. 
Ethel  Newcome  is  one  of  the  rare  women  of  fiction  who  really  live  as  much  in  the 
reader's  consciousness  as  in  the  conception  of  the  author.  Clive  Newcome  is  also 
possessed  of  abundant  life.  His  strong  and  faulty  humanity  is  the  proof  of  his 
genuineness. 

All  the  world  knows  his  story,  beginning  with  the  bravery  of  boyhood  just  released 
rom  the  dim  cloisters  of  Grey  Friars.  His  father,  Colonel  Newcome,  has  come  from 
jidia  to  rejoice  in  him  as  in  a  precious  possession,  and  to  renew  his  old  associations 
n  London  for  the  sake  of  his  son.  Clive's  career,  on  which  so  many  hopes  are  built, 
s  marred  with  failures.  He  loves  his  cousin  Ethel  Newcome,  but  she  is  hedged  from 
lim  by  the  ambitions  of  her  family.  He  himself  makes  a  wretched  marriage.  His 
Ireams  of  success  as  an  artist  fade  away.  The  Colonel  loses  his  fortune,  and  in  his 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  609 

old  age  becomes  a  pensioner  of  Grey  Friars.  The  quiet  pathos  of  his  death-bed  scene 
is  unique,  even  in  Thackeray.  With  the  word  "Adsum"  upon  his  lips,  the  word 
with  which  he  used  to  answer  the  roll-call  as  a  boy  at  school,  he  passes  into  peace. 
Clive  and  Ethel,  each  free  to  begin  the  world  again,  meet  at  his  death-bed.  The 
novel  closes  upon  their  chastened  happiness.  No  words  of  praise  or  criticism,  no 
detailed  description,  can  convey  the  sense  of  the  light  and  sweetness  of  "The  New- 
comes/  As  a  novel  of  English  upper  and  middle  class  life,  it  remains  without  a  rival. 

NEWPORT,  by  George  Parsons  Lathrop  (1884).  '  Newport '  is  a  story  of  society, — 
the  intrigues,  adventures,  and  superficialities  of  one  summer  affording  the  author 
opportunity  for  many  epigrammatic  remarks,  vivid  descriptions  of  the  principal 
places  of  local  interest,  and  photographs  of  men  and  women  of  the  leisure  class.  The 
love  affair  of  a  charming  widow,  Airs.  Gifford,  and  a  widower,  Eugene  Oliphant, 
incidently  engages  the  reader's  attention;  a  love  affair  which,  after  a  slight  estrange- 
ment and  separation,  is  ended  by  a  sudden  and  incredible  catastrophe,  an  unexpected 
finale  strangely  out  of  harmony  with  the  preface  of  elopements,  Casino  dances,  polo 
games,  flirtations  of  titled  heiress-hunters,  and  other  trivialities  of  social  existence. 
The  characters  are  well  chosen  and  very  well  managed,  the  individual  being  never 
sacrificed  to  the  type,  though  the  reader  is  made  to  feel  that  the  figures  are  really 
typical.  In  no  other  piece  of  fiction  has  the  flamboyant  and  aggressive  life  of  New- 
port —  that  life  wherein  amusement  is  a  business,  and  frivolity  an  occupation  — 
been  more  vividly  painted. 

NIBELUNGENLIED,  THE,  an  epic  poem  in  Middle  High  German,  composed 
by  an  unknown  poet  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  or  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  Earlier  ballads  or  lays  furnished  the  basis  of  the  story,  which  is  now  re- 
garded, however,  as  the  unified  production  of  a  single  author  not  a  conglomeration 
of  individual  poems.  The  theme,  which  originated  in  the  primitive  folk-lore  of  the 
Teutonic  peoples  and  the  internecine  warfare  of  the  Period  of  the  Migrations,  was 
known  by  all  the  Germanic  nations,  and  received  literary  treatment  in  the  Scandi- 
navian eddas  and  sagas  as  well  as  in  the  Nibelungenlied.  Siegfried,  a  warrior  en- 
dowed with  surpassing  bravery  and  magic  powers  is  treacherously  slain  by  Hagen  at 
the  instigation  of  Brunhild  in  vengeance  for  the  deception  by  which  Siegfried  had 
obtained  her  as  wife  for  King  Gunther  of  Burgundy.  Siegfried's  widow,  Kriemhild, 
sister  of  Gunther  and  Hagen,  marries  Etel  (Attila),  "King  of  the  Huns,  invites  her 
brothers  and  their  train  to  the  court  of  Attila,  and  there  has  them  massacred,  falling 
herself  in  the  m£le"e.  The  poem  consists  of  nearly  2400  four-line  strophes,  the  first 
Cine  rhyming  with  the  second  and  the  third  with  the  fourth.  The  lines  are  divided 
by  a  caesura  into  two  halves,  each  half  containing  three  accented  syllables,  with  the 
exception  of  the  last  half  of  the  fourth  line,  which  contains  four  accented  syllables. 
The  language  of  the  Nibelungenlied  differs  from  Modern  High  German  about  as  that 
of  Chaucer  does  from  Modern  English.  The  best  translations  into  Modern  High 
German  are  those  by  Simrock  and  Bartsch.  Some  English  versions  are  W.  N- 
Lettsom's  (1850,  new  ed.,  1903),  Foster-Barham's  (1887),  Alice  Horton's  (1888), 
Birch's  (1895),  G.  H.  Needler's  (1905  —  reproducing  exactly  the  original  metre),  D.  B, 
Shumway's  (1909 — in  archaic  prose),  and  A.  S.  Way's  (1911 — in  Morris's  long 
couplets  without  strophes). 

NICK  OF  THE  WOODS;  or,  THE  JIBBENAINOSAY,  by  Robert  Montgomery 
Bird,  M.D.  (1837).  This  is  a  tale  of  Kentucky  during  the  "dark  and  bloody"  days. 

39 


6  io  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  was  especially  popular  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  A  play, 
founded  upon  this  narrative,  was  received  with  boundless  applause,  held  the  stage 
(a  certain  grade  of  stage)  for  many  years,  and  was  a  forerunner  of  the  dime  novel  in 
stimulating  an  unhealthy  desire  among  boys  to  run  away  from  home  and  go  West  to 
kill  Indians. 

From  that  fateful  day  in  his  boyhood,  when  he  saw  his  home  destroyed  and  his 
relatives  and  friends  brutally  butchered  by  red  fiends,  Nick  devotes  his  life  to  revenge. 
Eventually  he  kills  every  member  of  the  band  of  Indians  that  desolated  his  home,  while 
hundreds  of  other  savages  also  fall  by  his  hand.  He  marks  each  victim  by  a  rude 
cross  cut  upon  the  breast.  The  red  men  look  upon  him  as  the  Jibbenainosay,  an 
Indian  devil;  believing  that  such  wholesale  slaughter,  by  an  unseen  and  undetected 
foe,  must  be  the  work  of  supernatural  powers. 

The  author  has  been  taken  to  task  by  critics  who  complain  that  he  pictures  the 
red  man  upon  a  plane  far  below  that  of  the  noble  savage  described  by  Cooper  and 
others.  Bird  replies  that  he  describes  the  cruel,  treacherous,  and  vindictive  Indian 
as  he  exists,  and  not  the  ideal  creation  of  a  novelist.  Experienced  frontiersmen,  with 
practical  unanimity,  indorse  the  estimate  of  Indian  character  presented  in  this  book ; 
but  it  must  be  said  that  neither  portrait  of  the  North-American  Indian  does  him 
justice.  Perhaps  some  educated  Red  Man  will  one  day  draw  the  picture  of  the 
"frontiersman." 

NINETEENTH  CENTURY  IN  ENGLAND,  by  John  Ashton,  see  DAWN  OF  THE. 

NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LITERATURE,  by  Georg  Brandes,  see  MAIN  CUR- 
RENTS IN. 

NINETY-THREE  ('Quatre-vingt-Treize'),  by  Victor  Hugo,  bears  the  sub-title: 
'Premier  Recit.  La  Guerre  Civile/  and  was  intended  to  form  the  first  part  of  a 
trilogy.  It  was  published  in  1874.  The  edition  of  1882  contains  several  remarkable 
designs  signed  by  the  author.  The  story  deals  with  an  episode  of  the  Vendean  and 
Breton  insurrection;  the  scene  opening  in  a  wood  in  Bretagne  where  a  woman,  driven 
distracted  by  the  war  raging  around  herself  and  her  three  children,  encounters  a 
body  of  republican  soldiers.  During  this  time,  a  band  of  emigre's  are  preparing  to  land 
under  the  command  of  a  Breton  nobleman,  the  Marquis  de  Lantenac.  The  English 
government,  though  it  has  furnished  them  with  a  ship,  informs  the  French  authorities 
of  their  design,  and  a  flotilla  bars  their  passage.  The  &nigre"s,  after  securing  the  escape 
of  Lantenac,  who  is  commissioned  to  raise  Bretagne,  blow  up  the  vessel.  After  landing 
he  learns  that  a  price  is  set  on  his  head.  A  number  of  men  come  towards  him  and  he 
believes  he  is  lost,  but  bravely  tells  his  name.  They  are  Bretons,  and  recognize  him  as 
their  leader.  Then  ensues  a  conflict  in  which  the  marquis  is  victorious,  and  in  which 
no  quarter  is  given  except  to  the  three  children,  whom  the  Bretons  carry  to  La  Tourgue 
as  hostages.  La  Tourgue  is  besieged  by  the  republican  troops  under  Gauvain,  the 
marquis's  nephew,  assisted  by  the  ex-priest  Cimourdain,  a  rigid  and  inflexible  re- 
publican who  has  trained  Gauvain  in  his  own  opinions.  The  besieged  are  determined 
to  blow  up  the  tower  and  all  it  contains,  if  they  are  conquered.  When  their  case  is 
desperate  and  the  tower  is  already  on  fire,  an  underground  passage  is  discovered,  and 
they  can  escape.  Lantenac  is  in  safety,  but  he  hears  the  agonizing  shrieks  of  the 
mother,  who  sees  her  three  children  in  the  midst  of  the  flames.  Moved  with  pity,  he 
returns,  saves  them,  and  becomes  a  prisoner.  When  he  is  about  to  be  executed, 
Gauvain  covers  him  with  his  ^wn  cloak,  tells  him  to  depart,  and  remains  in  his  place. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  611 

A  council  of  war  condemns  Gauvain;  and  at  the  moment  he' mounts  the  scaffold, 
Cimourdain,  who  was  one  of  his  judges,  kills  himself.  Hugo 'incarnates  in  his  three 
principal  characters  the  three  ages  of  human  society.  Lantenac  the  monarchic  chief 
personifies  the  past;  Cimourdain,  the  citizen  priest,  the  present;  and  Gauvain,  the 
ideal  of  mercy,  the  future.  Although  the  descriptions  and  disquisitions  are  sometimes 
wordy  and  tedious  and  there  are  many  improbabilities  in  the  romance,  the  picture 
of  the  three  little  children  tossed  about  in  the  revolutionary  hurricane  will  always  be 
considered  one  of  the  loftiest  achievements  of  Hugo's  genius.  The  account  of  the 
convention  of  1793,  and  the  conversations  of  Marat,  Danton,  and  Robespierre,  also 
show  the  hand  of  a  master. 

NINEVEH  AND  ITS  REMAINS  (1849).  MONUMENTS  OF  NINEVEH  (1853). 
By  Austen  Henry  Layard.  A  highly  interesting  narrative  of  the  earliest  of  the  dis- 
coveries which  had  laid  open  to  historical  knowledge  the  civilization,  empire,  and 
culture  of  Babylonia  (and  Assyria),  back  to  about  4000  B.  C.,  and  which  already 
promise  to  make  known  history  beginning  as  early  as  7000  B.  C.  Layard,  in  traveling 
overland  from  London  to  Ceylon,  passed  ruins  on  the  banks  ot  the  Tigris  which  tradi- 
tion pointed  out  as  marking  the  site  of  Nineveh;  and  the  desire  which  he  then  felt 
to  make  explorations  led  him  to  return  to  the  region.  He  made  some  secret  diggings 
in  1845,  and  *&  l846  and  l847  pushed  his  excavations  to  the  first  great  success,  that 
of  the  discovery  of  the  ruins  of  four  distinct  palaces,  one  of  which,  supposed  to  have 
been  built  by  Sardanapalus,  yielded  the  remarkable  monuments  which  are  still  a 
chief  attraction  of  the  British  Museum.  Beside  the  bas-reliefs  and  inscriptions  which 
had  covered  the  walls  of  a  palace,  there  were  the  gigantic  winged  human-headed 
bulls  and  lions,  and  eagle-headed  deities,  which  are  among  the  objects  of  Assyrian 
religious  art.  As  an  opening  of  a  story  of  discovery  hardly  surpassed  in  the  annals  of 
modern  research,  the  work  reported  in  Layard's  books  is  of  the  greatest  interest. 

NIPPUR;  or,  EXPLORATIONS  AND  ADVENTURES  ON  THE  EUPHRATES.  'The 
Narrative  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  Expedition  to  Babylonia,  in  the 
Years  1888-90.'  By  John  Punnett  Peters.  Vol.  i.:  First  Campaign.  Vol.  ii.: 
Second  Campaign  (1897).  The  latest  and  most  remarkable  story  of  Babylonian 
exploration  and  discovery,  carrying  back  to  a  most  unexpectedly  early  date  the  dis- 
tinct records  of  human  history  and  of  developed  culture.  In  the  lower  valley  of  the 
rivers  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  both  civilization  and  religion,  literature  and  science,  had 
four  conspicuous  seats  in  cities  which  flourished  not  less  than  eight  thousand  years 
ago.  They  were  Eridu,  the  most  southerly  and  westerl}',  the  seat  of  the  worship  of 
Ea,  a  god  of  Beneficence,  and  of  Merodaeh  his  son,  especially  known  as  a  god  of 
Mercy;  Ur,  the  seat  of  the  worship  of  the  moon-god,  Sin,  one  of  whose  seats  was 
Sinai,  and  especially  a  god  of  goodness,  the  moon-deity  being  regarded  as  the  Father- 
God,  to  whom  the  sun  is  a  son  and  the  evening  star  a  daughter;  Erech,  farther  north, 
the  seat  of  the  worship  of  Ishtar,  the  evening  and  the  morning  star,  conceived  as  the 
equal  of  her  brother,  the  sun,  and  the  magnificent  ideal  of  female  character  at  the 
highest  level  of  divinity;  and  Nippur,  the  most  northerly  and  easterly,  and  the  seat 
of  the  worship  of  Bel,  or  the  sun,  —  conceived,  not  as  son  to  the  moon-god,  but  as  a 
supreme  god,  represented  by  the  setting  sun,  and  most  especially  revealed  in  the 
flaming  redness  of  his  setting  in  times  of  excessive  heat  and  drought ;  the  Angry  En- 
Lil,  or  "Lord  of  the  Storm,"  who  caused  all  the  weather  troubles  of  mankind, — 
desolating  winds,  violent  storms,  floods,  drought,  and  all  injuries.  It  was  by  him  that 
the  Deluge  was  brought,  and  for  it  the  good  Ea,  and  kindly  Sin,  and  Merodach  the 


6i2  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Merciful,  charged  him  with  cruel  injustice;  and  the  Babylonian  Noah,  making  a 
sacrifice  after  the  flood,  invited  all  the  gods  except  En-Lil,  As  god  of  the  red  sunset 
the  nether-world  was  his,  ruled  by  a  son  who  was  of  like  cruel  temper  with  his  father. 
Nippur  is  thus  the  original  seat  of  the  conception  of  a  god  of  anger  and  a  religion 
of  fear.  It  was  a  great  and  flourishing  city  as  long  before  Abraham  as  Abraham  is 
before  our  day.  Its  temple,  commonly  known  as  the  House  of  En-Lil,  Dr.  Peter 
says  (just  as  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  was  called  the  House  of  Yahweh)  had  stood 
about  five  thousand  years,  when  it  fell  into  ruins  about  or  before  150  B.  C.  Dr. 
Peters  speaks  of  "the  close  connection  existing  between  Babylonian  and  Hebrew 
civilization,  legends,  myths,  and  religion."  He  states  also  that  "the  new  vistas  of 
ancient  history  opened  by  the  work  recently  done  in  Babylonia  have  shown  us  men  in 
a  high  state  of  civilization,  building  cities,  conducting  conquest,  and  trafficking  with 
remote  lands,  two  thousand  years  before  the  period  assigned  by  Archbishop  Ussher's 
chronology  for  the  creation  of  the  world."  The  culture  was  Babylonian,  and  Nippur 
was  its  darkest  development. 

NOEMI,  by  S.  Baring-Gould  (1895),  is  a  tale  of  Aquitaine,  during  the  English  occupa- 
tion, in  the  early  fifteenth  century.  The  country  was  in  a  state  of  civil  war;  and  free 
companies,  nominally  fighting  for  French  or  English,  but  in  reality  for  their  own 
pockets,  mere  plunderers  and  bandits,  flourished  mightily.  The  most  dreaded  free- 
booter in  the  valley  of  the  Dordogne  was  Le  Gros  Guillem,  who  from  his  stronghold 
at  Domme  sweeps  down  upon  the  farms  and  hamlets  below;  till  at  length  the  timid 
peasants,  finding  a  leader  in  Ogier  del'  Peyra,  a  petty  sieur  of  the  neighborhood,  rise 
up  against  their  scourge,  destroy  his  rocky  fastness,  and  put  his  men  to  death  or  flight. 
Guillem's  daughter,  Noemi,  a  madcap  beauty,  joins  her  father's  band  of  ruffians;  but 
soon  sickens  of  their  deeds,  and  risks  her  life  to  save  Ogier  from  the  oubliette,  because 
she  loves  his  son.  The  book  is  filled  with  thrilling  and  bloody  incident,  culminating 
in  the  storming  of  L'Eglise  Guillem,  as  the  freebooter's  den  is  ironically  called,  and 
the  strange  death  of  the  robber  chieftain.  The  descriptions  of  the  wild  valley  of  the 
Dordogne,  and  the  life  of  the  outlaws,  are  striking;  and  the  pretty  love  story,  set 
against  this  background,  very  attractive.  As  a  picture  of  a  fierce  and  horrible 
period,  it  is  hardly  less  vivid  than  the  'White  Company*  of  Conan  Doyle. 

NORTH  AMERICAN  ARCHEOLOGY,  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  STUDY  OF, 

jy  Cyrus  Thomas  (1898).  This  resume*  of  the  progress  made  to  the  date  of  publica- 
tion in  the  investigation  of  North  American  archeeology  is  an  introduction  to  the 
study  of  the  people  and  monuments  of  the  prehistoric  period.  The  writer  does  not 
believe  that  the  existence  of  glacial  or  palaeolithic  man  has  been  scientifically  estab- 
lished for  North  America.  Moreover,  the  difference  between  the  monumental  re- 
mains of  the  Old  World  and  the  New,  in  his  opinion,  demands  a  different  method  of 
study  and  a  different  classification  of  periods.  For  the  purposes  of  his  volume  he 
divides  the  North  Atlantic  Continent  into  three  sections,  the  Arctic,  the  Atlantic,  and 
the  Pacific  divisions,  and  discusses  the  implements,  ornaments,  dwellings  (caves, 
cliffs,  huts,  or  houses),  and  the  mounds  of  each.  He  is  of  opinion,  largely  from  the 
evidence  of  burial  and  other  mounds,  that  there  is  nothing  to  support  the  view  that 
any  race  other  than  the  Indians  ever  occupied  the  North  American  continent  until  its 
discovery  by  Europeans. 

NORTH  POLE,  THE,  a  narrative  of  adventure  and  discovery  by  Robert  E.  Peary, 
published  in  1910,  with  a  laudatory  introduction  by  Theodore  Roosevelt,  and  a 
Foreword,  briefly  tracing  the  history  of  arctic  explorations  in  search  of  the  North  Pole, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  613 

by  Gilbert  H.  Grosvernor,  of  the  National  Geographical  Society.  The  volume  is 
splendidly  illustrated  by  photographs  made  during  the  expedition,  many  of  them  at  the 
Pole,  and  by  an  excellent  map,  clearly  indicating  the  route  followed  and  its  relation 
to  those  of  other  explorers.  The  author  describes  in  a  full  and  interesting  manner  his 
final  and  successful  expedition  to  the  North  Pole,  beginning  with  his  departure  from 
New  York  on  July  8th,  1908,  narrating  his  arrival  via  Sydney,  and  Etah,  at  Cape 
Sheridan  on  September  5th,  his  setting  out  by  sledge  from  Cape  Columbia,  March  ist, 
1909,  to  cross  the  Polar  Ocean  for  the  Pole,  his  arrival  at  the  Pole  on  April  6th,  and 
his  return  to  Cape  Columbia  on  April  23d.  The  elaborate  preparations,  perfected 
through  the  experience  of  previous  voyages,  the  curious  customs  of  the  Esquimaux, 
whose  co-operation  made  success  possible,  the  excitement  of  musk-ox  and  walrus- 
hunting,  the  occupations  of  the  long  arctic  night,  the  difficulties  and  perils  of  dog- 
sledging  across  the  rough  and  broken  ice  of  the  arctic  sea,  the  tension  of  the  last 
stages,  and  the  exultation  at  the  discovery  of  the  Pole  are  all  graphically  portrayed. 
A  tragic  incident  is  the  death  of  Professor  Ross  G.  Marvin,  the  meteorologist  and  tidal 
observer  of  the  expedition,  who  was  drowned  by  breaking  through  young  ice  which 
had  formed  over  "lead"  or  stretch  of  open  water,  on  April  loth,  1909.  The  state- 
ments of  the  route  followed  and  of  the  goal  attained  are  validated  by  facsimiles  of  the 
original  records  made  during  the  sledge  journey  to  the  Pole,  by  Peary,  Marvin,  and 
Captain  Bartlett,  commander  of  Peary's  steamer,  the  "Roosevelt." 

NORTH-WEST  PASSAGE,  THE,  "Being  the  record  of  a  voyage  of  exploration  of 
the  ship  Gjoa,  1903-1907,  by  Roald  Amundsen"  was  published  in  1908.  In  two 
handsome  volumes  replete  with  maps  and  illustrations  the  explorer  narrates  his 
journey  in  a  47-ton  yacht,  the  Gjoa,  with  the  double  purpose  of  locating  the 
North  Magnetic  Pole  and  of  accomplishing  the  North- West  Passage.  He  left 
Christiania  on  June  i6th,  1903,  established  headquarters  on  the  south-east  coast 
of  King  William  Land,  September  i2th,  and  spent  nearly  two  years  there,  making 
many  excursions  and  observations.  He  was  able  to  locate  the  Magnetic  Pole,  but 
proved  that  it  has  no  constant  position,  meanwhile.  One  of  his  lieutenants,  Hansen, 
charted  the  east  coast  of  Victoria  Land.  On  August  13 th,  1905,  Amundsen  set  sail 
in  the  Gjoa  to  make  the  North- West  Passage,  which  he  accomplished  by  traversing 
Simpson  Strait  and  the  channel  under  various  names  which  divides  Victoria  Land 
from  the  mainland.  He  reached  King  Point  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mackenzie  River 
early  in  September,  and  here  he  wintered,  making  a  trip  inland  to  the  Yukon. 
Next  summer  on  July  23d  the  Gjoa  again  set  sail  and  reached  Nome,  Alaska,  on 
August  3oth,  1906,  completing  the  North- West  Passage.  The  book  gives  a  most 
entertaining  account  of  the  incidents  of  the  voyage  and  land  expeditions.  There 
are  many  interesting  illustrations  and  anecdotes  of  the  Esquimaux,  and  the  writer's 
sense  of  humor  enlivens  the  narrative.  THE  SOUTH  POLE  (1913)  records  Amund- 
sen's success  only  a  short  time  before  the  ill-fated  Scott  expedition  reached  the  same 
goal.  Having  projected  another  northern  enterprise  and  failed  to  obtain  suf- 
ficient funds  he  nevertheless  sailed  from  Norway  in  Nansen's  ship,  the«Fram, 
August  9th,  1910,  and  announced  to  his  party  his  resolution  to  attempt  the  South 
Pole.  They  landed  at  the  Bay  of  Whales  on  the  Antarctic  Continent  on  January 
I4th,  1911,  established  a  camp  for  the  antarctic  winter  on  the  great  ice  barrier,  and 
then  traversed  the  plateau  of  the  continent,  discovering  many  mountain  ranges  as 
high  as  16,000  feet.  On  December  i6th,  1911,  he  and  four  comrades  attained  the 
South  Pole.  The  volumes  are  profusely  illustrated  and  there  is  a  long  appendix  of 
scientific  records  and  observations. 


614  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

NOSTROMO;  A  TALE  OF  THE  SEABOARD,  by  Joseph  Conrad.  The  scene  of 
this  tale  of  silver  mine,  buried  treasure,  and  revolutions  is  a  South  American  republic. 
The  silver  mine  was  a  government  concession  forced  upon  an  English  family  living  in 
Costaguana.  Charles  Gould,  the  last  of  the  family,  brings  foreign  capital,  builds 
a  railroad,  takes  the  state  politicians  on  his  unofficial  pay-roll,  and  makes  the 
family  white  elephant  a  valuable  property.  The  political  party  out  of  power  dislike 
the  reign  of  law  and  order,  which  follows,  and  start  a  revolution  in  a  desperate  attempt 
to  gain  possession  of  the  mine,  now  the  "treasure  house  of  the  world."  Silver 
enough  to  buy  a  kingdom  is  waiting  shipment  at  the  wharf,  and  to  prevent  it  becom- 
ing spoils  to  the  invader,  Charles  Gould  decides  to  hide  the  ingots  on  one  of  the 
islands  at  the  entrance  of  the  harbor.  The  man  chosen  for  this  enterprise  is  Nostromo, 
an  Italian  sailor,  foreman  of  the  wharf.  Nostromo  has  come  to  Costaguana  to  make 
his  fortune,  and  thus  far  his  fortune  is  his  good  reputation.  His  pride  and  joy  is  to 
be  "well  spoken  of."  He  is  the  hero  of  the  populace  of  Italians  and  natives  and  has 
the  confidence  and  esteem  of  the  English  and  Spanish  residents  and  officials.  To  his 
romantic  imagination  this  will  be  the  most  famous  and  desperate  affair  of  his  life, 
which  will  be  talked  about  "from  one  end  of  America  to  the  other."  His  boat  is 
nearly  run  down  in  the  night  by  the  steamer  bringing  the  attacking  soldiers,  but  he 
succeeds  in  getting  to  the  island  and  burying  the  treasure.  When  he  returns  the 
rebels  are  in  possession  and  he  finds  himself  a  political  fugitive  and  penniless.  It  is 
assumed  by  the  Goulds  that  the  silver  has  been  lost  at  sea,  and  Nostromo  realizes  that 
the  buried  treasure  is  his  secret.  Charles  Gould  saves  the  Gould  concession,  the 
development  of  which  has  become  the  ruling  passion  of  his  life,  by  presenting  the 
winning  argument  of  tons  of  dynamite  ready  to  blow  up  the  silver  mountain  in  case 
of  attack.  Nostromo  is  entrusted  with  the  dangerous  mission  of  getting  help  from  the 
government  troops.  He  makes  a  spectacular  dash  from  the  town  on  an  engine  up 
the  mountain,  over  the  mountains  on  horseback  to  the  capital,  and  returns  with  the 
soldiers  by  sea  in  time  to  save  the  day.  Nostromo  visits  his  treasure  island  at  night, 
and  carries  away  the  silver  ingots,  which  he  disposes  of  in  distant  ports.  A  lighthouse 
is  built  on  the  island,  but  Nostromo  arranges  that  his  old  friend,  Viola,  shall  be  the 
keeper.  Nostromo  loves  Giselle,  Viola's  younger  daughter,  but  is  betrothed  to  the 
older  daughter,  Linda.  As  soon  as  he  has  removed  a  fortune  from  the  buried  treasure, 
he  expects  to  run  away  with  Giselle.  He  cannot  resist  coming  to  the  lighthouse  at 
night  to  see  his  sweetheart,  and  is  shot  by  Viola  who  mistakes  him  for  a  night  prowler. 
The  once  "incorruptible"  Nostromo  dies  a  thief,  and  the  inevitable  curse  of  buried 
treasure  is  thus  fulfilled. 

Such  in  brief  is  the  main  plot  of  the  novel,  but  it  is  not  merely  the  story  of  Nos- 
tromo and  his  life  but  it  rather  includes  the  stories  of  all  concerned  with  the  silver 
mine,  Conrad's  power  of  realizing  the  intricacies  and  entanglements  of  both  charac- 
ter and  incident  is  nowhere  better  displayed  than  here  in  this  amazing  creation  of 
a  South  American  State. 

NOTRE-DAME  OF  PARIS,  by  Victor  Hugo  (1830),  relates  a  romance  growing 
up  in  and  around  the  cathedral  of  that  name.  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  cathedral  of 
the  Middle  Ages  was  the  book  of  the  people;  and  that  since  the  dawn  of  printing, 


THE  READERS  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  6ry 

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  doorway 
of  Notre-Dame. 

To  the  reader  who  loses  himself  in  the  atmosphere  thus  created,  the  world  is 
Prance,  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  comer  of 
the  church;  then  lovingly,  faithfully,  scrupulously  through  the  squares  or  cross- 
roads of  the  old  city,  along  crooked  streets  that  have  vanished,  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  a  fifteenth-century  guide-book  of  the  town, 
answering  all  the  purposes  of  a  Baedeker;  not  only  giving  the  general  topography 
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  devotion 
and  superstitious  awe.  Its  arch-deacon  alone  had  pity  on  him  when  he  lay,  a  miser- 
able 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  skulking  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  r61e  of  importance,  everywhere  accompanying  the  heroine,  Esmeralda,  a  beau- 
tiful, 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  re- 
duced 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  arch- 
deacon of  the  cathedral,  Claude  Frollo.  The  avowed  motive  of  the  story  is  the 
workings  of  fate,  in  whose  toils  nearly  all  the  chief  characters  are  inextricably  caught. 
The  keynote  is  given  in  the  word  andgke,  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, f  and  Theodore  de  Banville's  exquisite  play  of  Gringoire, '  ' Notre-Dame' 
contains  a  searching  study  of  the  treacherous  but  able  monarch,  Louis  XL,  and 
his  barber  Olivier-le-Daim. 

NOUVEAUX  LUNDIS,  a  continuation  of  the  'Causeries  de  Lundi'  by  Sainte- 
Beuve.  These  were  literary  reviews  of  moderate  compass  (usually  between  six  and 
eight  thousand  words)  appearing  every  Monday  (with  some  interruptions)  between 
1849  and  1857  in  a  Parisian  newspaper  ('Le  Constitutionnel '  up  to  1852,  then  *Le 
Moniteur').  The  second  series,  entitled  'Nouveaux  Lundis,'  was  published  regu- 
larly in  '  Le  Constitutionnel'  from  1 86 1  until  Sainte-Beuve's  death  in  1869.  The 
former  series  was  collected  in  fifteen  and  the  latter  in  thirteen  volumes.  A  man 
of  voluminous  reading,  receptive  disposition,  delicate  insight,  and  personal  experi- 
ence in  creative  work,  Sainte-Beuve  was  admirably  prepared  to  interpret  literature. 


616  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

He  does  not,  like  the  critics  of  the  classical  period,  bring  all  works  to  the  test  of  some 
previously  arranged  standard  and  condemn  them  if  they  depart  from  it.  Instead 
he  attempts  to  determine  what  the  author  intended  to  do  when  he  composed  the 
work  and  whether  he  succeeded  in  his  aim.  This  method  necessitates  an  impartial 
study  of  the  author  and  everything  that  influenced  him;  the  result  is  that  Sainte- 
Beuve's  'Causeries'  present  us  with  a  series  of  vivid  and  truthful  portraits  of  great 
writers  and  an  explanation  of  their  work  as  determined  by  their  personality  and 
environment.  Mingled  with  the  biography,  gossip,  and  analysis  with  which  the 
essays  are  necessarily  filled  there  flash  out  here  and  there  many  discriminating 
judgments,  all  the  truer  because  they  are  founded  on  the  sympathetic  and  minute 
portrayal  of  the  author.  The  subjects  of  the  'Lundis'  not  only  range  over  French 
literature,  classic  and  contemporary,  but  include  many  figures  from  England,  Ger- 
many, Italy,  and  the  ancient  classics. 

NOVTJM  ORGANUM,  THE,  by  Francis  Bacon.  The  'Novum  Organum,'  or 
'New  Method, '  forms  the  second  part  of  Lord  Bacon's  great  philosophical  work 
entitled  'Instauratio  Magna,'  'The  Great  Restoration'  of  Science.  The  first  part, 
entitled  'De  Augmentis  Scientiarum, '  is  an  extension  of  the  previous  work  on  the 
Advancement  of  Learning.  The  third  part  is  the  'Historia  Naturalis.'  The  'No- 
vum  Organum'  contains  the  outlines  of  the  scientific  and  inductive  method;  viz.r 
that  of  proceeding  from  facts  to  general  laws,  instead  of  inferring  facts  from  assumed 
general  principles  which  have  never  been  proved.  This  latter,  the  philosophical 
and  metaphysical  method,  was  repudiated  by  Bacon,  and  together  with  the  "super- 
stitions "  of  theology,  was  declared  to  have  no  place  in  the  new  learning.  The  '  New 
Method, '  therefore,  is  an  attempt  at  an  interpretation  of  nature  from  direct  obser- 
vation. "Nature,"  says  Bacon,  "we  behold  by  a  direct  ray;  God  by  a  refracted 
ray;  man  by  a  reflected  ray."  At  the  beginning  of  the  'Novum  Organum'  we  read 
this  first  of  the  series  of  180  Aphorisms  of  which  its  two  books  consist:  "Man,  the 
minister  and  interpreter  of  Nature,  can  do  and  understand  only  so  much  as  he 
has  observed  in  her:  more  he  can  neither  know  nor  do."  As  obstacles  to  correct 
observation  and  inference  from  nature,  he  mentions  the  four  kinds  of  "Idola," 
or  preconceptions  which  prejudice  the  mind  at  the  outset  and  which  must,  there- 
fore, be  removed:  the  Idola  Tribus,  or  the  misconceptions  growing  out  of  our  nature 
as  mart;  the  Idola  Specus,  those  growing  out  of  our  individual  or  peculiar  nature 
or  surroundings;  the  Idola  Fori,  misconceptions  imbibed  through  common  speech 
and  opinions  leading  to  much  idle  controversy;  and  finally  the  Idola  Theatri,  or 
fables  and  fictions  of  tradition  that  continue  to  be  sources  of  error.  He  refers  con- 
temptuously to  the  Greek  Sophists,  and  quotes  the  prophecy  of  the  Egyptian  priest 
concerning  the  Greeks:  "They  are  always  boys:  they  have  neither  the  age  of  science 
nor  the  science  of  age/' 

The  second  part  begins  with  the  Aphorism,  "It  is  the  work  and  intention  of 
human  power  to  generate  and  superinduce  a  new  nature  or  new  natures  upon  a  body 
already  given:  but  of  a  nature  already  given  to  discover  a  form  or  a  true  difference, 
or  a  nature  originating  another  nature  (naturam  naturantem)  or  a  source  of  emana- 
tion, this  is  the  work  and  intention  of  human  learning."  The  study  of  forms  is 
therefore  the  object  of  the  new  method;  and  the  remainder  of  the  work  is  devoted 
to  illustrating,  particularly  by  observations  of  the  action  of  heat,  the  true  mode  ol 
making  and  comparing  observations  of  natural  occurrences.  In  conclusion  the 
author  refers  to  man's  fall  from  a  primitive  state  of  innocence  and  his  loss  of  his 
dominion  over  nature.  This  is  however  capable  of  restoration  first  by  religion  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  617 

faith  and  then  by  the  arts  and  sciences.  For  labor  is  not  always  to  be  a  curse,  but 
man  shall  "eat  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow,"  not  indeed  in  vain  disputations 
and  idle  ceremonies  of  magic,  but  in  subduing  nature  to  the  uses  of  human  life. 

NUMA  ROUMESTAN,  by  Alphonse  Daudet  (1880).  The  author  at  first  intended 
to  call  his  romance  '  North  and  South ' ;  a  title  indicative  of  his  true  purpose,  which 
is  to  contrast  these  two  sections  of  France,  not  at  all  to  the  advantage  of  the  one 
in  which  he  was  born.  Numa  Roumestan  is  a  genuine  Provencal;  a  braggart,  a 
politician,  a  great  man,  and  a  good  fellow  to  boot.  He  appears  in  the  opening 
pages  at  a  festival  at  Apt,  where  he  is  the  choice  of  his  adoring  fellow-countrymen 
for  deputy.  Congratulations,  embraces,  hand-shaking,  and  requests  for  offices, 
are  the  order  of  the  day.  He  promises  everything  to  every  one, — crosses,  tobacco, 
monopolies,  whatever  any  one  asks, — and  if  Valmajour,  the  tambourine  player, 
come  to  Paris,  he  will  make  his  fortune.  A  friend  remonstrates  with  him.  "Bah! " 
he  answers,  "they  are  of  the  South,  like  myself:  they  know  these  promises  are  of  no 
consequence;  talking  about  them  will  amuse  them."  But  some  persons  take  him 
at  his  word.  The  story  is  intensely  amusing,  and  there  is  not  a  chapter  which 
does  not  contain  some  laughable  incident.  The  mixture  of  irony  and  sensibility 
which  pervades  it  is  Daudet's  distinguishing  characteristic,  and  reminds  the  reader 
of  Heine.  There  are  some  scenes  of  real  pathos,  such  as  the  death  of  little  Hor- 
tense.  Daudet  describes  the  early  career  of  Gambetta  in  the  chief  character. 
Gambetta  was  his  friend,  but  Daudet  never  shrank  from  turning  his  friends  into 
"copy." 

OBADIAH  OLDBTTCK,  ADVENTURES  OF  MIL,  by  Rodolphe  Topffer.  This 
series  of  184  comic  drawings,  illustrating  the  wonderful  exploits  of  Obadiah  Old- 
buck  in  search  of  a  sweetheart,  with  text  explaining  each  sketch,  first  appeared 
in  French  in  1839,  under  the  title  of  'M.  Vieuxbois,'  and  is  the  first  of  a  series  of 
like  sketches  illustrating  other  stories.  The  work  won  for  its  author  high  praise, 
and  was  originally  drawn  for  the  amusement  of  his  young  pupils.  Obadiah,  in  de- 
spair at  not  having  received  an  answer  from  his  sweetheart,  determines  on  suicide; 
but  the  sword  luckily  passes  under  his  arm.  For  forty-eight  hours  he  believes  him- 
self dead,  but  returns  to  life  exhausted  by  hunger.  He  tries  to  hang  himself,  but 
the  rope  is  too  long.  He  fights  with  a  rival,  and  after  vanquishing  him  is  accepted 
by  his  sweetheart.  He  is  arrested  for  hilarity,  and  the  match  is  off.  He  drinks 
hemlock,  but  is  restored  to  life.  He  becomes  a  monk,  but  escapes;  and  finding  a 
favorable  letter  from  his  sweetheart,  elopes  with  her.  He  is  recaptured  by  the 
monks,  and  throws  himself  from  a  window;  but  his  life  is  saved  by  the  index  of  a 
sun-dial.  He  escapes,  and  is  to  be  married,  but  is  late  and  finds  neither  parents 
nor  bride;  throws  himself  into  a  canal,  but  is  fished  out  for  his  wedding  clothes. 
He  is  buried,  and  dug  up  by  birds  of  prey,  and  frightens  his  heirs,  who  have  him 
arrested,  and  he  is  sentenced  to  a  year's  imprisonment.  He  escapes,  and,  finding 
himself  on  a  roof,  lets  his  dog  down  a  chimney  to  sound  it.  The  dog  lands  in  the 
fireplace  of  his  sweetheart's  house,  and  she  embraces  the  dog.  Obadiah  pulls  and 
hauls  up  his  sweetheart  and  her  father  and  mother.  Just  as  they  reach  the  top  of 
the  chimney,  the  rope  breaks  and  Obadiah  falls,  but  is  saved  by  falling  into  a  street 
lamp.  After  many  other  ludicrous  adventures  he  is  married  to  his  lady-love. 

OBLOMOF,  by  Ivan  Gonchar<5f  (1857).  A  study  of  a  curious  state  of  inertia, 
difficult  for  the  western  mind  to  understand,  but  recognized  and  given  a  -name  in 


6i8  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Russia.  Oblomof,  the  hero,  is  intellectual,  and  has  a  generous  heart,  but  is  incap- 
able of  decision  or  action.  He  dreams  away  his  life,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  his 
friends  to  rouse  him.  Olga,  the  girl  he  loves  and  who  loves  him,  almost  succeeds 
in  awakening  him,  but  he  sinks  back  to  apathy  and  his  dressing-gown  and  slippers. 
One  of  his  day  dreams  is  the  vivid  remembrance  of  his  happy  childhood  in  the  coun- 
try, a  picture  of  the  idle  life  on  a  large  Russian  country  estate.  His  energetic  friend 
Schtoltz  who  marries  Olga,  manages  his  affairs,  and  tries  to  induce  him  to  live  in 
his  manor  in  the  country,  but  Oblomof  is  unable  to  change  his  passive  life.  His 
landlady  marries  him  and  takes  care  of  him  until  his  prolonged  inertia,  the  sluggish 
gliding  from  day  to  day,  ends  quietly  in  death.  The  portrait  of  a  failure,  the  story 
however  leaves  a  sense  of  the  essential  worth  of  human  nature.  The  Obl6mof 
family  are  comic  but  lovable  in  spite  of  their  bovine  content  and  stupidity.  See  the 
LIBRARY. 

OBSERVATIONS  ON  POPULAR  ANTIQUITIES.  By  John  Brand.  An  en- 
tirely new  and  revised  edition,  with  the  additions  of  Sir  Henry  Ellis  (1887).  A 
work  devoted  to  popular  explanation  of  the  customs,  ceremonies,  superstitions, 
etc.,  of  the  common  people.  It  is  at  once  instructive  and  very  entertaining. 

OCEANA;  or,  ENGLAND  ANB  HER  COLONIES,  by  James  Anthony  Froude  (1886). 
This  is  the  record  of  a  journey  made  by  the  author  via  Cape  Town  to  Australia 
and  Xew  Zealand,  and  home  by  way  of  Samoa,  the  Sandwich  Islands,  San 
Francisco,  Salt  Lake,  Chicago,  and  Xew  York  in  1884-85.  Of  the  places  visited 
he  gives  historical  sketches,  his  own  observations,  personal  experiences,  and  specu- 
lations as  to  the  future,  describes  the  sights,  etc. ;  all  his  records  being  interesting, 
and  most  of  them  valuable.  He  makes  his  visit  to  Cape  Town  the  occasion  of  a 
resume  of  not  only  its  history  and  condition,  but  of  his  own  connection  with  South- 
African  aSairs  in  1874.  In  Australia  he  is  struck  by  the  general  imitation  of  Eng- 
land, and  asks,  "What  is  the  meaning  of  uniting  the  colonies  more  closely  to 
ourselves?  They  are  closely  united:  they  are  ourselves;  and  can  separate  only 
in  the  sense  that  parents  and  children  separate,  or  brothers  and  sisters."  Here  too 
he  sees  that  the  fact  that  he  can  take  a  ticket  through  to  London  across  the  Ameri- 
can continent,  to  proceed  direct  or  to  stop  en  route  at  will,  means  an  astonishing 
concordance  and  reciprocity  between  nations.  In  the  Sandwich  Islands  he  finds 
"a  varnish  of  Yankee  civilization  which  has  destroyed  the  natural  vitality  without 
as  yet  producing  anything  better  or  as  good."  He  pronounces  the  Northern  men 
of  the  United  States  equal  in  manhood  to  any  on  earth;  has  no  expectation  of  Cana- 
dian annexation;  thinks  the  Brooklyn  Bridge  more  wonderful  than  Niagara,  New 
York  almost  as  genial  as  San  Francisco,  and  New  York  society  equal  to  that  of 
Australia,  though  both  lack  the  aristocratic  element  of  the  English.  In  conclusion 
he  states  his  feeling  that  as  it  was  Parliament  that  lost  England  the  United  States, 
if  her  present  colonies  sever  the  connection,  it  will  be  through  the  same  agency; 
but  that,  so  long  as  the  mother  country  is  true  to  herself,  her  colonies  will  be  true 
to  her.  Mr.  Froude,  as  is  well  known,  is  no  believer  in  the  permanence  of  a 
democracy,  and  on  several  occasions  in  this  work  expresses  his  opinion  of  its 
provisional  character  as  a  form  of  political  life. 

OCTOPUS,  THE,  'a  Story  of  California/  by  Frank  Norris  (1901).  This  book 
has  for  its  central  motive  Wheat,  the  great  source  of  American  power  and 
prosperity,  and  also  the  literal  staff  of  life.  The  volume  deals  with  the  production 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  621 

unfilial  son  Polynices,  and  his  sublime  dramatic  apotheosis.  But  the  beauty  of 
the  tragedy  consists  especially  in  the  ideal  representation  of  the  noblest  sentiments: 
the  majesty  of  the  aged  hero,  now  reduced  to  beg  for  bread;  the  gentle  piety  of 
Antigone;  the  artlessness  of  the  rustic  chorus,  at  first  appalled  by  the  mere  name  of 
the  stranger,  but  soon,  at  the  request  of  Theseus,  to  give  him  a  most  gracious  and  hos- 
pitable reception;  finally,  the  luminous  background  where  Athens  appears  to  the 
patriotic  eyes  of  her  poet  in  all  her  dazzling  splendor.  GEdipus,  the  victim  of  his 
sons'  ingratitude,  has  sometimes  been  compared  to  Shakespeare's  King  Lear.  But 
while  the  two  characters  are  almost  equal  in  tragic  grandeur,  there  is  always  a  re- 
serve, a  self-restraint,  in  the  stormiest  scenes  of  the  Greek  dramatist  which  is  absent 
from  the  English  play. 

(EDEPUS  THE  KING,  by  Sophocles.  Aristotle,  whose  rules  for  the  conduct  of  the 
tragic  poem  are  mainly  based  on  the  '  QEdipus, '  regarded  it  as  the  masterpiece 
of  the  Greek  theatre.  It  is  certainly,  if  not  the  finest,  the  most  dramatic  of  the 
author's  works.  The  opening  scene  has  an  imposing  grandeur.  The  Theban  people 
are  prostrate  before  their  altars,  calling  on  their  gods  and  on  their  king  to  save  them 
from  the  terrible  plague  that  is  desolating  their  city.  Creon  returns  from  Delphi 
with  the  answer  of  the  oracle:  —  The  plague  will  continue  its  ravages  as  long  as  the 
murderer  of  Laius,  their  former  ruler,  remains  unpunished.  CEdipus  utters  the  most 
terrible  imprecations  against  the  assassin,  declaring  he  will  not  rest  until  he  has 
penetrated  the  darkness  that  enshrouds  the  crime.  He  thus  becomes  the  uncon- 
scious instrument  of  his  own  destruction;  for  he  himself  is  the  involuntary  skyer 
of  his  own  father,  the  unwitting  husband  of  his  own  mother.  The  spectator  is 
hurried  on  from  incident  to  incident,  from  situation  to  situation,  until  at  last  the 
sombre  mystery  through  which  the  hapless  king  has  been  blindly  groping  is  lit  up 
by  one  revealing  flash,  and  CEdipus  rushes  into  the  palace,  exclaiming,  "0  light  of 
day,  I  behold  thee  for  the  last  time  I "  There  is  no  character  in  ancient  tragedy  that 
excites  so  much  human  interest  as  CEdipus, — an  interest  made  up  of  anguish  and 
compassion;  for  unlike  the  heroes  of  JSschylus,  he  is  neither  Titanic  nor  gigantic. 
He  is  an  ideal  man,  but  not  so  ideal  as  to  be  entirely  exempt  from  weakness  and  error; 
and  when  he  suffers,  he  gives  vent  to  his  agony  in  very  human  cries  and  tears.  The 
other  persons  in  the  drama — the  skeptical  and  thoughtless  locasta;  the  choleric 
soothsayer  Tiresias;  Creon,  who  appears  to  more  advantage  here  than  in  the  'Anti- 
gone* and  'CEdipus  at  Colonus';  even  the  slave  of  Laius — are  all  portrayed  with 
the  most  consummate  art  and  distinction  of  style.  The  choral  hymns  and  dialogues 
have  an  ineffable  tenderness  and  sublimity.  The  'CEdipus'  has  been  imitated  by 
Seneca  in  Latin,  Dryden  and  Lee  in  English,  Nicolini  in  Italian,  Coraeille,  Voltaire, 
and  several  others  in  French;  but  none  of  these  imitations  has  even  a  faint  reflection 
of  the  genius  of  the  original. 

(EUVRE,  L',  see  ROUGON-MACQUA&T. 

OFF  THE  SKELLIGS,  by  Jean  Ingelow.  This  story  was  published  in  1872,  and 
has  been  much  praised,  though  its  rambling  and  disconnected  style  makes  it  very 
different  from  the  intense  and  analytic  novel  of  to-day.  There  are  bright  dialogues 
and  good  descriptions,  the  scenes  at  sea  and  in  Chartres  Cathedral  being  especially 
well  done. 

Dorothea  Graham  loses  her  mother  in  early  childhood,  and  comes  into  the  care 
of  an  eccentric  old  uncle,  who  keeps  her  in  school  for  nine  years,  and  then  takes  her 


622  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

on  board  the  yacht  that  is  his  home.  While  cruising  off  the  Skelligs,  they  rescue 
a  raft-load  of  perishing  people  who  have  escaped  from  a  burning  vessel.  Dorothea 
nurses  one  man  whom  she  considers  a  sailor,  but  who  proves  to  be  Mr.  Giles  Brandon. 
On  his  recovery  he  invites  Dorothea  and  her  brother  to  his  home,  where  she  meets 
Valentine,  Mr.  Brandon's  volatile  young  stepbrother.  He  is  very  friendly  to  Doro- 
thea, and  makes  love  to  her  in  jest,  which  finally  becomes  earnest,  though  he  makes 
no  pretense  at  passion.  As  his  health  is  delicate,  he  is  going  to  settle  in  New  Zea- 
land, and  begs  Dorothea  to  many  him  and  accompany  him.  Being  abandoned  by 
her  uncle  and  brother,  and  having  no  friends,  the  girl  consents,  but  on  the  wedding 
day  Valentine  does  not  appear.  He  has  fallen  in  love  with  another  girl,  and  wishes 
to  break  the  engagement  with  Dorothea,  who  is  naturally  shocked,  though  fortu- 
nately her  heart  is  not  deeply  involved.  Mr.  Brandon  shows  her  all  sympathy, 
and  soon  explains  that  he  has  loved  her  from  the  beginning,  but  has  supposed  that 
she  cared  for  Valentine.  She  can  hardly  accept  him  at  once  when  she  has  just  been 
ready  to  marry  another,  but  as  her  feelings  subside  she  grows  really  to  care  for  him, 
and  they  are  married  in  the  end. 

OGIER  THE  DANE.  This  story  of  the  paladin  of  Charlemagne  has  appeared 
in  many  different  forms;  but  the  earliest  manuscript  is  a  chanson  de  geste>  or  epic 
poem,  written  by  Raimbert  de  Paris  in  the  twelfth  century.  The  subject  is  still 
older,  and  Raimbert  is  thought  to  have  collected  songs  which  had  been  sung  in 
battle  years  before.  The  first  part  is  entitled  'The  Anger  of  Ogier,'  and  is  descrip- 
tive of  the  feudal  life  of  the  barons  of  Charlemagne.  In  a  quarrel  over  a  game  of 
chess,  Chariot,  the  son  of  Charlemagne,  kills  Beaudoin,  the  son  of  Ogier.  Ogier 
demands  the  death  of  Chariot,  but  is  exiled  by  Charlemagne,  whom  Ogier  would 
have  killed  but  for  the  protection  afforded  by  the  barons.  Ogier  flies  to  Italy,  and 
Charlemagne  declares  war  against  his  harborer.  Ogier  shuts  himself  up  in  Castel- 
fort,  and  withstands  a  siege  of  seven  years;  at  the  end  of  which  time,  all  his  followers 
having  died,  he  makes  his  way  to  the  camp  of  Charlemagne  and  enters  the  tent  of 
Chariot.  Throwing  his  spear  at  the  bed  where  he  supposes  Chariot  to  be  asleep, 
he  escapes  into  the  darkness,  crying  defiance  to  Charlemagne.  Afterwards  he  is 
captured  while  sleeping,  but  by  the  entreaties  of  Chariot  the  sentence  of  death  is 
changed  to  that  of  imprisonment.  The  country  is  invaded  by  Brahier,  a  Saracen 
giant,  seventeen  feet  tall  and  of  great  strength.  Ogier  is  the  only  man  fit  to  cope 
with  him,  and  he  refuses  to  leave  his  prison  unless  Chariot  is  delivered  up  to  his 
vengeance.  Charlemagne  accedes,  but  Chariot's  life  is  saved  by  the  miraculous 
interposition  of  Saint  Michael.  The  poem  ends  with  Ogier's  combat  with  the  giant, 
who  is  conquered  and  put  to  death.  Among  the  tales  in  which  Ogier  figures  there 
is  a  romance  called  'Roger  le  Danois,'  the  'Orlando  Furioso'  of  Ariosto,  and  the 
'Earthly  Paradise'  of  William  Morris. 

OLD  GREEK  EDUCATION,  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy  (1881),  considers  a  subject  which 
is  not  often  presented  systematically.  The  author  traces  the  development  of  Greek 
youth  from  the  cradle  to  the  university;  thus  leaving  off  where  most  writers  on  Greek 
life  and  customs  begin.  In  this  obscure  field,  his  scholarship  presents  much  that  is 
unfamiliar  to  the  general  reader.  The  successive  chapters  treat  of  the  infancy  and 
earlier  childhood  of  Grecian  boys,  of  their  school-days,  of  the  subjects  and  methods 
of  education,  of  military  training,  of  the  higher  education,  of  theories  of  education, 
and  of  university  life.  These  subjects  are  considered  in  a  familiar,  popular  manner, 
designed  to  bring  the  reader  closer  to  the  ancient  civilization,  to  enable  him  to  appre- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  623 

ciate  it  upon  its  every-day  side.  The  work  is  valuable  as  a  preparation  for  a  wider 
study  of  Greek  customs,  manners,  and  institutions.  It  is  written  with  a  -nimble 
pen,  and  its  entertainingness  is  not  eclipsed  even  by  its  scholarship. 

OLD  HOUSE,  THE,  by  Feodor  Sologub  (1915).  The  story  of  'The  Old  House* 
tells  about  a  young  student,  Boris,  led  into  revolutionary  activities  by  a  spy,  betrayed 
and  hanged.  His  grandmother,  mother,  and  sister  left  alone  in  the  "Old  House" 
refuse  to  believe  that  he  is  dead,  and  keep  up  a  pretense  of  awaiting  his  return,  re- 
fusing to  remember  his  tragic  fate.  All  the  other  stories  are  uncanny  and  mysteri- 
ous, either  about  the  supernatural,  or  obsessions  which  lead  to  happiness  in  madness. 
In  one  story  a  ragged  old  man  watches  a  little  boy  playing  with  a  hoop.  He  finds 
the  hoop  of  an  old  barrel  and  takes  it  to  the  woods,  where  unseen  he  imitates  the 
boy,  and  plays  at  being  a  child  again,  "small,  beloved,  and  happy."  The  story  of 
1  Lights  and  Shadows '  tells  of  an  imaginative  child  who  plays  at  making  shadows  on 
the  wall  with  his  fingers  until  he  loses  interest  in  everything  else.  His  mother 
plays  with  the  shadows  with  him  in  the  evenings  to  induce  him  to  study  his  lessons 
later,  and  she  also  becomes  the  prey  of  the  "persistent,  importunate  shadows." 
'  The  White  Mother '  in  the  story  with  this  title  is  the  dead  sweetheart  of  a  bachelor, 
to  whom  she  appears  in  dreams.  He  adopts  a  little  boy  who  resembles  her  and 
finds  happiness  again. 

OLD  REGIME  IN  CANADA,  THE,  see  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND  IN  NORTH 
AMERICA. 

OLD  ST.  PAUL'S,  by  William  Harrison  Ainsworth.  This  historical  story,  deal- 
ing with  the  horrors  of  the  plague  which  depopulated  London  in  1665,  was  published 
in  1841.  The  old  cathedral  of  St.  Paul's  is  made  the  scene  of  various  adventures. 
The  plot  recounts  the  many  attempts  of  the  profligate  Earl  of  Rochester  to  obtain 
possession  of  Amabel  Bloundel,  the  beautiful  daughter  of  a  London  grocer.  The 
hero  is  Leonard  Holt,  an  apprentice  of  the  grocer,  who  is  in  love  with  Amabel  but 
is  rejected.  The  Earl  is  finally  successful  and  carries  off  Amabel,  to  whom  he  is 
married.  She,  like  many  of  the  other  characters,  dies  of  the  plague. 

Leonard  Holt  frustrates  the  Earl's  attempts  until  he  is  himself  stricken  with  the 
plague;  but  he  recovers  from  it  and  lives  to  save  the  life  of  King  Charles  during  the 
great  fire  of  London,  of  which  historical  event  a  graphic  description  closes  the  story. 
Leonard,  in  return  for  his  services  to  the  King,  is  created  Baron  Argentine;  and 
marries  a  lady  of  title,  who  at  the  opening  of  the  story  is  supposed  to  be  the  daughter 
of  a  blind  piper,  and  has  loved  him  patiently  all  through  the  six  volumes. 

OLD  SIR  DOUGLAS,  by  the  Hon.  IMrs.  Norton  (1871).  The  thread  of  plot  which 
this  story  follows  is  this:  By  the  death  of  his  father,  a  Scotch  gentleman,  Douglas 
Ross  comes  into  possession  of  a  large  estate;  and  by  the  death  of  his  only  brother 
immediately  afterwards,  is  made  the  guardian  of  a  nephew,  Kenneth,  legitimatized 
on  that  brother's  death-bed.  The  boy  inherits  his  father's  profligate  tendencies, 
and  as  he  grows  to  manhood  becomes  a  daily  anxiety  to  his  uncle.  It  is  in  Italy, 
where  he  has  been  called  by  Kenneth's  bad  conduct,  that  Sir  Douglas  meets  and 
marries  Gertrude  Skifton,  who  has  already  refused  Kenneth,  and  is  made  most 
unhappy  by  his  unkindness.  The  scene  changes  to  Glenrossie,  the  Scottish  home 
where  the  conditions  are  not  improved,  but  made  harder  by  the  presence  of  a  malig- 
nant stepsister.  Good  deeds,  however,  bear  fruit  as  surely  as  evil  ones.  From  this 


624  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

point  the  complications  multiply,  and  many  calamities  threaten ;  but  the  blameless 
lives  of  Sir  Douglas  and  his  gentle  wife  do  not  close  in  darkness.  The  story  is  one 
of  the  battle  of  life  waged  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the  world:  interesting  because  it 
is  typical;  realistic  almost  to  the  point  of  offense,  were  it  not  that  its  realism  is  not 
willful  but  subserves  an  end. 

OLD  STONE  AGE,  THE,  by  H.  F.  Osborne,  see  MEN  OF  THE. 

OLD  STORY  OF  MY  FARMING  DAYS  ('lit  Mine  Stromtid'),  by  Fritz  Reuter, 
appeared  in  Olle  Kamellen  (1860-64).  The  'Stromtid* — the  best  known  novel 
of  the  noted  Platt-Deutsch  humorist  —  is  considered  by  competent  critics  to  equal 
the  best  productions  of  our  great  English  humorists,  Sterne  and  Dickens,  and  is 
thoroughly  fresh,  sound,  and  hearty  in  tone.  Its  characters  are  masterpieces  of 
delineation,  and  have  become  familiar  to  readers  of  many  tongues.  The  delicious 
creation  of  the  inspector  emeritus,  Uncle  Zacharias  Brasig,  is  one  of  the  triumphs 
of  modern  humor;  and  it  is  not  only  in  the  Low  German  speech  that  quotations 
are  made  from  "de  lutte  Mann  mit  den  rotlich  Gesicht  und  de  staatsche  rode  nas" 
(the  little  man  with  the  reddish  face  and  the  stately  red  nose).  One  of  the  best 
portions  of  the  book  is  his  speech  before  the  Rahnstadt  Reform  Club,  on  the  subject, 
"Whence  arises  the  great  poverty  in  our  city?" 

Almost  equally  popular  characters  are  Hawermann,  "un  sin  lutt  Dirning"  (his 
little  maid),  and  Triddelfitz.  The  quaint  oddity  of  the  Platt-Deutsch  lends  itself 
peculiarly  well  to  the  quality  of  Reuter's  humor,  and  the  material  of  his  story  shows 
by  its  vivid  reality  that  it  was  drawn  from  the  personal  experience  and  observation 
of  the  author.  The  'Stromtid'  was  the  last  and  best  of  Reuter's  novels  founded  on 
life  in  the  Low  German  countries. 

OLD  TOWN  FOLKS,  by  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.  This  work  was  published 
in  1869.  The  scene  is  Old  Town;  the  time,  a  period  just  succeeding  the  Revolution. 
A  description  of  Natick,  the  old  Indian  Mission  town,  and  its  famous  Parson  Lo- 
throp, — whose  stately  bearing,  whose  sermons  in  Addisonian  English,  and  whose 
scholarly  temperament,  marked  him  as  a  social  and  intellectual  leader, — introduces 
the  story. 

"Lady"  Lothrop,  the  parson's  wife,  at  the  time  of  her  marriage  stipulated  that 
she  should  be  permitted  to  attend  Episcopal  services  on  Christmas,  Easter,  and 
other  great  days  of  the  church.  Horace  Holyoke,  nominally  author  of  the  book,  is 
left  an  orphan  when  a  mere  boy.  He  tells  how  the  views  of  Calvinists  and  Armini- 
ans,  and  great  questions  of  freedom  and  slavery,  were  freely  discussed  at  the  village 
gatherings. 

Henry  and  Tina  Percival,  English  orphans,  were  consigned  respectively  to  old 
Crab  Smith  and  to  Miss  Asphyxia  Smith,  illustrations  of  the  malign  influence  of  a 
misplaced  adherence  to  the  old  theology.  The  children  are  ill-treated  and  run  away, 
taking  refuge  in  the  deserted  Dench  house  (the  estate  of  Sir  Charles  Henry  Frank- 
land),  where  they  are  found  and  returned  to  the  village  by  Horace's  uncle  and  Sam 
Lawson,  the  village  do-nothing,  a  quaint  character  whose  droll  actions  and  sayings 
enliven  the  whole  book. 

Tina  is  then  adopted  by  Miss  Mehitable  Rossiter,  daughter  of  the  former  clergy- 
man of  the  parish,  while  Harry  is  under  the  patronage  of  Lady  Lothrop. 

On  Easter  Sunday,  the  children,  with  Horace,  are  taken  in  her  great  coach,  by 
Lady  Lothrop,  to  Boston,  where  they  attend  service  at  King's  Chapel,  and  meet 


THE   READER  S   DIGEST    OF   BOOKS  O2/ 

ON  HEROES,  see  HEROES  AND  HERO  WORSHIP. 
ON  LIBERTY,  by  J.  S.  Mill,  see  LIBERTY. 

ON  THE  EVE,  by  Ivan  Tuigeneff  (1589).  In  this  tale  which  is  devoid  of  plot, 
but  full  of  Turgeneff  s  charm  of  style  and  delicate  character-drawing,  he  seeks 
to  show  the  contrast  between  the  dilettante  trifling  or  learned  pedantry  of  young 
Russia,  and  the  intense  vitality  of  conviction  in  the  youth  of  other  nations.  He 
first  introduces  two  young  Russians,  Andre  Bersieneff,  a  doctor  of  philosophy  from 
the  Moscow  University,  and  Paul  Schubin,  a  gay  and  pleasure-loving  artist,  who  has 
been  modeling  the  bust  of  a  beautiful  girl,  Elena  Strashof ,  whose  charms  he  dwells 
upon.  She  is  the  daughter  of  a  dissipated  noble;  and  her  mother,  a  faded  society 
belle,  has  left  her  to  the  care  of  a  sentimental  governess.  The  ardent  girl,  filled  with 
high  aspirations,  rebels  at  the  prosaic  routine  of  her  life,  and  longs  for  intercourse 
with  nobler  natures.  Both  the  young  men  are  in  love  with  her,  but  she  despises 
Shubin  as  a  trifler;  and  just  as  she  is  beginning  to  be  interested  in  the  young  philo- 
sopher Bersieneff,  the  real  hero  appears  on  the  scene.  This  is  Dmetri  Insarof,  a 
young  Bulgarian  patriot,  whose  life  is  devoted  to  freeing  his  country  from  the  yoke 
of  Turkey.  His  mother  has  fallen  a  victim  to  the  brutality  of  a  Turkish  aga,  while 
his  father  was  shot  in  trying  to  avenge  her;  and  he  is  now  looked  upon  by  his  com- 
patriots as  their  destined  leader  in  the  approaching  revolt.  His  tragic  story  and 
his  high  aims  appeal  to  Elena's  idealism;  but  Insarof,  finding  that  "on  the  eve" 
of  the  great  conflict,  he  is  distracted  from  his  mission  by  love  for  Elena,  has  resolved 
to  leave  her  forever  without  a  farewell.  She,  however,  seeks  him  out,  and  avows 
her  devotion  to  him,  and  her  willingness  to  abandon  home  and  country  for  his  sake. 
In  his  struggle  between  his  passion  for  her  and  his  dread  of  involving  her  in  perils 
and  hardships,  he  falls  dangerously  ill.  His  comrade  and  former  rival  Bersieneff 
nurses  him  with  disinterested  friendship  until  he  is  partially  restored  to  health,  when 
he  and  Elena  are  married  secretly,  owing  to  the  opposition  of  her  family  to  the 
foreign  adventurer.  They  start  together  for  Bulgaria  to  take  part  in  the  struggle 
for  his  fatherland,  but  have  only  reached  Venice  when  Insarof  dies  in  his  young 
wife's  arms.  Elena,  in  a  heart-broken  letter,  bids  her  parents  a  last  farewell  before 
joining  the  Sisters  of  Mercy  in  the  Bulgarian  army,  as  she  has  now  no  country  but 
his.  Thus  ends  the  life  story  of  the  noblest  and  most  ideal  pair  of  lovers  the  great 
Russian  novelist  has  ever  drawn. 

ON  THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL,  by  Jonathan  Edwards,  see  FREEDOM. 

ON  THE  HEIGHTS  ('Auf  der  H6he'),  by  Berthold  Auerbach  (1865),  is  consid- 
ered the  author's  finest  work.  The  charm  of  the  story  is  not  conveyed  in  a  synopsis 
of  the  plot.  Countess  Irma  von  Wildenort  has  been  placed  by  her  father,  Count 
Eberhard,  a  recluse,  at  a  German  court.  Her  beauty  and  intellectual  vivacity 
attract  the  King,  somewhat  wearied  by  his  Queen's  lofty  and  pious  sentiments  and 
her  distaste  for  court  festivities.  Early  in  the  story  the  Queen  gives  birth  to  the 
Crown  Prince,  for  whom  a  wet-nurse  is  found  in  the  person  of  Walpurga,  an  upright, 
shrewd  peasant  woman,  who,  for  the  sake  of  her  child's  future  benefit,  reluctantly 
accepts  the  position.  She  is  full  of  quaint  sayings,  and  her  pious  nature  finds  favor 
with  the  Queen.  Her  naive  descriptions  of  court  life  are  very  entertaining.  From 
the  same  mountain  district  as  Irma,  Walpurga  acquires  some  influence  with  her, 
and  she  quickly  detects  the  unspoken  love  of  the  King  for  her;  but  Irma  disregards 


628  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

her  friendly  warnings.  The  Queen  is  apparently  unaware  of  their  increasing  in- 
fatuation. Irma,  becoming  restless  and  unsettled,  visits  her  father,  who  solemnly 
warns  her  against  the  temptations  of  court  life.  She  is  drawn  back  irresistibly  to 
court,  and  the  King  reveals  his  passion  for  her  by  kissing  the  statue  of  which  she  is 
the  model.  Irma,  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy,  submits  for  a  moment  to  his  caresses. 
For  a  time  she  lives  as  though  in  the  clouds.  The  Queen's  friendship  for  her  increases, 
and  her  Majesty  resolutely  banishes  her  occasional  suspicions  of  evil. 

Walpurga  returns  home  laden  with  gifts  and  money,  and  she  and  her  husband, 
Hansei,  buy  a  farm  on  the  mountain.  Irma's  father  meanwhile  receives  anonymous 
letters,  wrongfully  representing  her  as  the  Kong's  mistress.  The  shock  of  the  accu- 
sation mortally  prostrates  him,  and  Irma  is  summoned  in  haste  to  his  death-bed. 
Unable  to  speak,  he  traces  one  word  on  her  forehead  and  expires.  She  falls  uncon- 
scious. Letters  of  condolence  arrive  from  their  Majesties;  the  King's  inclosure  one 
of  passionate  longing;  the  Queen's  so  full  of  affection  and  confidence  that  remorse 
seizes  Irma.  She  writes  her  guilt  to  the  Queen,  and  resolves  to  drown  herself.  In 
her  wanderings  she  comes  unexpectedly  on  Walpurga  and  her  family,  on  the  way 
to  take  possession  of  their  new  home.  She  implores  protection  from  herself;  and 
in  the  care  of  Walpurga  and  the  grandmother,  she  lives  for  a  year  "on  the  heights," 
writing  a  journal  of  philosophical  and  religious  rhapsody. 

Tormented  by  remorse,  she  grows  weaker  in  body,  while  her  soul  becomes  puri- 
fied of  its  earthly  passion.  Gunther,  her  father's  friend,  absolves  her  from  his  curse; 
and,  her  spirit  freed,  she  passes  away  in  the  presence  of  the  King  and  Queen,  now 
happily  reconciled. 

ON  THE  REPLY  OF  THE  HARUSPICES,  by  Cicero,  see  HARUSPICES. 

ONE  OF  CLEOPATRA'S  NIGHTS  ('Une  Nuit  de  Cteopatre'),  by  Theophile  Gautier. 
In  this  charming  short  story,  published  in  1867,  in  a  collection  of  'Nouvelles,1  the 
author  shows  the  exhaustive  study  which  he  had  made  of  Egypt  and  its  ancient 
customs.  He  introduces  Cleopatra  to  his  readers  as  she  is  being  rowed  down  the 
Nile  to  her  summer  palace.  In  describing  the  cause  of  her  ennui  to  Charmian, 
Cleopatra  graphically  pictured  the  belittling,  crushing  effect  of  the  gigantic  monu- 
ments of  her  country.  She  bewails  the  fate  of  a  Queen  who  can  never  know  if  she 
is  loved  for  herself  alone,  and  longs  for  some  strange  adventure.  She  has  been  fol- 
lowed down  the  Nile  by  Meiamoun,  a  young  man  who  is  violently  infatuated  with 
the  Queen,  but  whom  she  has  never  noticed.  That  night  she  is  startled  by  an  arrow 
which  enters  her  window  bearing  a  roll  of  papyrus  on  which  is  written,  "I  love  you." 
She  looks  from  the  window  and  sees  a  man  shimming  across  the  Nile,  but  her  ser- 
vants are  unable  to  find  him.  Soon  after,  Meiamoun  dives  down  into  the  subter- 
ranean passage  which  conducts  the  waters  of  the  Nile  to  Cleopatra's  bath;  and  the 
next  morning,  as  she  is  enjoying  her  bath,  she  finds  him  gazing  at  her.  She  con- 
demns him  to  death,  and  then  pardons  him.  He  begs  for  death,  and  she  yields, 
but  tells  him  he  shall  first  find  his  most  extravagant  dream  realized:  he  shall  be 
the  lover  of  Cleopatra.  "I  take  thee  from  nothingness;  I  make  thee  the  equal  of  a 
god,  and  I  replunge  thee  into  nothingness."  "It  was  necessary  to  make  of  the  life 
of  Meiamoun  a  powerful  elixir  which  he  could  drain  from  a  single  cup."  Then 
follows  the  description  of  the  feast.  After  a  night  of  magnificent  splendor,  a  cup  of 
poison  is  handed  to  him.  Touched  by  his  beauty  and  bravery,  Cleopatra  is  about 
to  order  him  not  to  drink,  when  the  heralds  announce  the  arrival  of  Mark  Antony. 
He  asks;  "What  means  this  corpse  upon  the  floor?"  "Oh!  nothing,"  she  answers; 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  629 

—  "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?" 

ONE  SUMMER,  by  Blanche  Willis  Howard  (1875).  This  light  but  refreshingly 
humorous  little  romance  opens  with  the  quasi-pathetic  picture  of  Miss  Laura  Leigh 
Doane,  a  city  girl,  imprisoned  by  the  rain  in  a  New  England  farm-house,  and  suffer- 
ing from  loneliness  and  ennui.  "I  would  like  to  be  a  man,"  she  cries,  "just  long 
enough  to  run  down  to  Pratt 's  for  that  book;  but  no  longer,  oh  no,  not  a  moment 
longer!"  Unable  to  bear  the  dullness,  she  finally  ventures  alone  on  this  errand; 
and  in  the  dark,  while  charging  against  the  wind  around  a  corner,  runs  into  Philip 
Ogden,  and  thrusts  the  ferule  of  her  umbrella  stick  into  his  eye.  She  leads  him 
home;  and  he  (assuming  that  she  is  a  girl  of  humble  station)  hands  her  two  dollars. 
Chagrined,  she  demurely  takes  this  punishment,  having  learned  that  he  is  an  old 
chum  of  her  brother's,  also  spending  his  vacation  here  —  but  she  resolves  never  to 
forgive  him.  Many  scenes  of  pleasant  comedy  ensue,  both  before  and  after  the 
arrival  of  her  brother  Tom,  with  his  wife  and  the  baby;  the  romantic  Bessie,  at  what 
she  regards  as  critical  moments,  tragically  warns  her  droll  but  marplot  husband 
against  spoiling  it  all.  A  charming  description  of  a  yachting  trip  to  Mt.  Desert  is 
introduced;  the  "log"  of  which  is  said  to  have  been  furnished  by  another  hand. 
The  finale  is  in  exact  accordance  with  poetic  justice:  Miss  Laura  and  Philip  become 
engaged.  The  story,  after  a  time,  attained  wide  popularity  in  consequence  of  its 
breezy  situations,  sparkling  conversations,  and  bright  descriptions,  and  has  been 
republished  with  illustrations. 

ONE  WOMAN'S  LIFE,  by  Robert  Herrick  (1913).  The  heroine  of  this  story 
is  a  selfish  woman  who  accomplishes  her  own  ends  regardless  of  the  consequences  to 
her  friends.  Milly  Ridge  is  but  a  girl  of  sixteen  when  the  story  opens  in  Chicago, 
•«vhere,  with  her  father  and  grandmother,  she  is  about  to  move  into  a  new  home. 
The  family  have  come  from  another  western  city,  and  Milly,  who  has  social  ambitions, 
\s  much  disappointed  to  find  that  her  father  has  chosen  an  unattractive  house  in 
an  unfashionable  quarter.  Mr.  Ridge  is  a  man  without  culture  or  polish,  who  has 
never  been  successful  financially,  and  is  dominated  by  his  pretty  and  self-willed  daugh- 
ter; the  latter,  overcoming  her  disappointment  as  best  she  can,  sets  about  gaining 
an  entrance  into  society,  and  through  connecting  herself  with  a  certain  church, 
makes  influential  friends,  who  aid  her  social  career.  She  becomes  engaged  to  a  rich 
man,  for  whom  she  does  not  care,  but  throws  him,  over,  and  later  marries  Jack  Brag- 
don,  a  poor  young  artist,  for  love.  This  marriage  is  regarded  as  most  quixotic  by 
her  friends,  who  know  her  extravagant  tastes  and  love  of  society.  A  legacy  of  $3,000 
left  by  her  grandmother,  coming  shortly  after  her  marriage,  enables  Alilly  and  her 
artist  husband  to  go  to  Paris,  where  the  latter  desires  to  study.  Here,  a  daughter 
Is  born  to  them,  and  although  Milly  had  not  cared  to  have  a  child,  she  becomes  a 
devoted  mother.  Bragdon,  whose  affection  for  Milly  had  been  absolute  up  to  this 
time,  becomes  entangled  with  a  Russian  baroness,  whose  portrait  he  is  painting; 
and  from  this  time  Milly's  faith  and  love  are  shattered.  They  return  to  New  York, 
where  Milly  plunges  into  society  and  incurs  expenses  far  beyond  their  means.  Brag- 
don works  hard  to  keep  the  "pot  boiling,"  and  then  dies  leaving  his  wife  nothing 
but  debts.  With  the  help  of  friends  Milly  keeps  along  for  a  while  and  then  becomes 
housekeeper  and  companion  for  a  business  woman,  named  Ernestine  Geyer,  who  is 
charmed  by  her  winning  personality.  Miss  Geyer  makes  a  good  living  out  of  run- 
ning a  laundry  and  has  kid  up  $10,000,  which,  later,  Milly  persuades  her  to  invest 


630  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

in  starting  a  cake-shop  with,  herself.  This  proves  a  financial  failure,  and  at  this 
crisis  Milly  marries  an  old-time  admirer,  a  rich  ranchman,  and  leaves  without  a 
scruple  the  friend  who  has  lavished  both  money  and  B.3.  ection  upon  her. 

ONESIMUS:  MEMOIRS  OF  A  DISCIPLE  OF  ST.  PAUL,  by  the  author  of  'Philo- 
christus:  Memoirs  of  a  Disciple  of  the  Lord,'  appeared  in  America  in  1882.  The 
story  is  told  in  the  language  used  in  the  English  version  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
and  is  placed  in  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era. 

Onesimus,  who  himself  tells  the  story  in  the  first  person,  is  one  of  the  twin  sons 
of  a  noble  Greek.  Stolen  from  his  parents  in  childhood,  he  is  sold  as  a  slave,  and 
becomes  one  of  the  household  of  Philemon,  who  is  represented  as  a  wealthy  citizen 
of  Colossse.  Falsely  accused  of  theft,  Onesimus  runs  away.  It  is  then  that  he  meets 
"Paulus"  (the  Apostle  St.  Paul),  and  becoming  a  convert  to  the  Christian  faith, 
is  sent  back  to  Philemon,  his  master,  with  the  letter  which  figures  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  'The  Epistle  to  Philemon. f  Onesimus  becomes  a  minister,  at  length,  and 
suffers  martyrdom  for  his  faith. 

A  prominent  character  in  the  narrative  is  St.  Paul,  into  some  passages  of  whose 
life  the  author  enters  with  picturesque  minuteness,  dwelling  upon  his  final  ministry 
and  martyrdom  at  Rome.  Thus  is  attempted  a  faithful  and  realistic  view  of  the 
early  Christian  faith  and  apostolic  times,  introducing  Nero  and  several  other  histori- 
cal characters.  The  entire  narrative  is  founded  upon  statements  of  the  Scripture 
records,  but  some  liberties  are  taken  as  to  both  characters  and  scenes.  However, 
the  author  has  gathered  much  of  his  material  from  such  sources  as  are  generally 
recognized  as  authentic,  even  embodying  the  substance  of  passages  from  these 
"authorities"  in  the  descriptions  and  conversations.  The  whole  difficult  subject 
is  handled  in  a  striking  manner;  the  tone  is  reverent;  and  the  treatment  is  eminently 
artistic,  and  quite  winning  in  its  simple,  dignified  beauty. 

ONLY  A  GIRL,  by  Wilhelmine  von  Hillern  (1865).  This  book  is  the  romance  of 
a  soul;  the  agonies,  the  sickness  unto  death,  and  the  recovery,  of  a  noble  mind. 
Ernestine  von  Hartwich,  embittered  by  the  fact  that  she  is  "only  a  girl,"  a  short- 
coming which  has  caused  her  father's  hate  and  mother's  death,  determines  to  equal 
a  man  in  achievement,  —  in  scientific  attainments  and  in  mental  usefulness,  —  that 
her  sex  shall  no  longer  be  made  to  her  a  reproach  and  even  a  crime.  This  desire  is 
taken  advantage  of  by  an  unscrupulous  uncle  who  will  profit  by  her  death.  Seclud- 
ing her  from  the  world,  he  attempts  to  undermine  her  health  by  feeding  her  feverish 
ambitions.  Her  mind  is  developed  at  the  expense  of  very  human  feeling,  every 
womanly  instinct,  and  every  religious  emotion.  She  is  shunned  by  women,  envied 
and  humiliated  by  men,  regarded  by  her  servants  and  the  neighboring  peasantry  as 
a  witch.  It  is  through  the  door  of  love,  opened  for  her  by  Johannes  Mollner,  that 
she  finally  leaves  the  wilderness  of  false  aims,  unnatural  ambitions,  and  unsatisfactory 
results,  to  enjoy  for  the  first  time  the  charm  of  womanhood,  human  companionship, 
and  belief  in  God.  The  story  is  overloaded  with  didacticism;  its  logic  fails,  inas- 
much as  the  poor  girl  is  an  involuntary  martyr;  and  its  exaggeration  and  sentimen- 
tality do  not  appeal  to  the  English  reader.  But  the  book  was  a  great  favorite  in 
Germany,  where  it  has  been  considered  a  powerful  argument  against  what  is  called 
the  higher  education  of  women. 

OPUS  MA  JUS,  of  Roger  Bacon  (A.D.  1267).  Newly  edited  and  published,  with 
introduction  and  full  English  analysis  of  the  Latin  text,  by  J.  H.  Bridges.  (2  vols., 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  631 

1897).  An  adequate  publication,  after  630  years,  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
productions  of  the  human  mind. 

The  work  is  an  exhortation  addressed  to  Pope  Clement,  urging  him  to  initiate 
a  reform  of  Christian  education,  in  order  to  establish  the  ascendency  of  the  Catholic 
Church  over  all  nations  and  religions  of  the  world.  Its  author  wished  to  see  recogni- 
tion of  "all  the  sciences,"  since  all  are  parts  of  one  and  the  same  complete  wisdom. 
He  first  gave  experiment  the  distinct  and  supreme  place  which  was  later  revived  by 
Descartes,  and  carried  out  in  modern  science.  He  formed  a  clear  conception  of 
chemistry,  in  his  day  not  yet  separated  from  alchemy;  and  of  a  science  of  living 
things,  as  resulting  with  chemistry  from  physics.  "The  generation  of  men,  and  of 
brutes,  and  of  plants, "  he  said,  "is  from  elemental  and  liquid  substances,  and  is  of 
like  manner  with  the  generation  of  inanimate  things." 

The  central  theme  of  his  work  was  the  consolidation  of  the  Catholic  faith  as  the 
supreme  agency  for  the  civilization  and  ennoblement  of  mankind.  For  this  end  a 
complete  renovation  and  reorganization  of  man's  intellectual  forces  was  needed. 
The  four  principal  impediments  to  wisdom  were  authority,  habit,  prejudice,  and 
false  conceit  of  knowledge.  The  last  of  these,  ignorance  under  the  cloak  of  wisdom, 
was  pronounced  the  worst  and  most  fatal.  A  striking  feature  of  this  scheme  of 
instruction  was  its  estimate  of  Greek  culture  as  providentially  ordained  not  less  than 
Hebrew,  and  to  be  studied  the  same  as  Hebrew.  In  view  of  the  corruption  of  his 
own  times,  Roger  Bacon  said:  "The  ancient  philosophers  have  spoken  so  wonder- 
fully on  virtue  and  vice,  that  a  Christian  man  may  well  be  astounded  at  those  who 
were  unbelievers  thus  attaining  the  summits  of  morality.  On  the  Christian  virtues 
of  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  we  can  speak  things  of  which  they  knew  nothing.  But 
in  the  virtues  needed  for  integrity  of  life,  and  for  human  fellowship,  we  are  not 
their  equals  either  in  word  or  deed."  A  section  of  his  moral  philosophy  Roger 
Bacon  devotes  to  the  first  attempt  ever  made  at  the  comparative  study  of  the  reli- 
gions of  the  world. 

His  protests  against  the  intellectual  prejudices  of  the  time,  his  forecasts  of  an 
age  of  industry  and  invention,  the  prominence  given  to  experiment,  alike  as  the  test 
of  received  opinion  and  the  guide  to  new  fields  of  discovery,  render  comparison  with 
Francis  Bacon  unavoidable.  In  wealth  of  words,  in  brilliancy  of  imagination,  Francis 
Bacon  was  immeasurably  his  superior.  But  Roger  Bacon  had  the  sounder  estimate 
and  the  firmer  grasp  of  that  combination  of  deductive  with  inductive  method  which 
marks  the  scientific  discoverer. 

The  competent  editor,  whose  judgments  we  give,  has  furnished  analyses  of 
Bacon's  Latin  text  which  enable  the  English  reader  to  gather  easily  his  leading  ideas. 

OREGON  TRAIL,  THE,  'Sketches  of  the  Prairie  and  Rocky-Mountain  Life,1  by 
Francis  Parkman,  was  first  published  in  1847,  in  the  Knickerbocker  Magazine, 
then  in  book  form  in  1849  under  the  title  'The  California  and  Oregon  Trail';  in 
later  editions  the  book  reverted  to  its  old  title.  It  is  a  graphic  and  highly  enter- 
taining account  of  a  journey  undertaken  by  Parkman  and  his  friend  Quincy  Adams 
Shaw,  both  fresh  from  college,  in  the  summer  of  1846.  Already  dedicated  to  the 
task  of  writing  the  history  of  England  and  France  in  the  New  World,  Parkman 
wanted  experience  at  first  hand  of  the  unsettled  wilderness  and  its  aboriginal  inhab- 
itants. The  friends  decided  to  journey  from  the  Missouri  to  the  foot-hills  of  the 
Rockies,  following  the  settlers'  route  to  Oregon,  which  then  included  the  whole 
territory  west  of  the  Rockies  from  Mexico  to  the  fiftieth  parallel.  Leaving  St.  Louis 
on  April  28th  they  proceeded  by  steamer  to  a  point  near  Kansas  City.  From  here 


632  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

they  set  out  with  a  guide,  a  muleteer,  five  horses,  and  three  mules.  Traveling  with 
a  party  of  Englishmen  for  company  and  for  part  of  the  way  with  a  small  troop  of 
emigrants,  they  traversed  what  is  now  the  state  of  Kansas  and  then  followed  the  val- 
ley of  the  Platte.  The  way  was  enlivened  by  heavy  windstorms,  by  the  appearance 
of  Indians,  and  by  an  exciting  buffalo  hunt.  Leaving  their  companions  at  the  forks 
of  the  Platte  they  followed  the  North  Fork,  entered  what  is  now  the  state  of  Wyom- 
ing, and  reached  Fort  Laramie,  then  a  trading-post.  Here  they  remained  for  several 
days,  fraternizing  with  a  village  of  Sioux  Indians  encamped  near-by.  Though 
weakened  by  serious  illness.  Parkman  determined  to  join  one  of  the  bands  of  Sioux 
who  were  planning  to  take  the  war-path  against  the  Snake  Indians.  By  a  series 
of  misunderstandings,  they  missed  the  party  which  they  were  seeking,  but  Parkman 
would  not  agree  to  turn  back,  and  taking  another  guide  pushed  on  alone  in  pursuit, 
promising  to  meet  Shaw  and  the  rest  of  the  party  at  Fort  Laramie  on  the  first  of 
August.  A  ride  through  a  wild  and  mountainous  part  of  Wyoming,  infested  by 
hostile  Indians,  brought  Parkman  to  the  band  of  Sioux,  whom  he  was  seeking.  They 
were  none  too  trustworthy,  and  it  is  probable  that  only  an  iron  resolution  and  the 
suppression  of  all  signs  of  weakness  due  to  a  severe  illness,  preserved  Parkman  from 
a  treacherous  assault.  He  feasted  the  Indians,  was  feasted  by  them  in  return, 
smoked  the  peace-pipe  with  them,  made  them  a  set  speech,  and  gave  them  presents. 
Though  he  did  not  see  any  battles  he  took  part  in  several  buffalo  hunts,  witnessed 
a  serious  quarrel  which  almost  came  to  bloodshed,  collected  some  Indian  folk-lore, 
and  of  course  lived  intimately  with  the  tribe,  sharing  their  lodges  and  buffalo  robes, 
and  getting  a  valuable  insight  into  their  character.  He  rejoined  his  party  at  Fort 
Laramie  shortly  after  August  ist,  and  the  return  journey  was  made  without  inci- 
dent. Although  this  journey  played  its  part  in  undermining  his  health,  it  was  of 
inestimable  value  to  Parkman  as  an  historian,  and  was  the  occasion  for  one  of  the 
most  delightful  books  of  travel  in  the  language.  The  picture  of  the  American 
prairies  in  the  old  savage  days  before  the  advent  of  the  railroad  and  the  barbed- 
wire  fence,  is  historically  priceless;  and  the  author's  adventurous  enthusiasm  and 
indomitable  resolution  give  the  autobiography  intense  interest. 

ORIENTAL  RELIGIONS:  IXDIA,  CHINA,  PERSIA,  by  Samuel  Johnson.  Mr. 
Johnson's  labors  in  producing  this  trilogy  extended  over  many  years.  The  first 
volume,  India,  appeared  in  1872,  the  second,  China,  in  1877;  an<*  ^e  last,  Persia, 
in  1885,  after  the  author's  death.  The  volumes,  although  separate,  really  constitute 
one  work,  the  underlying  idea  of  which  is  that  there  is  a  Universal  Religion,  "a 
religion  behind  all  religions";  that  not  Buddhism,  not  Brahminism,  not  Mahome- 
tanism,  nor  even  Christianity,  is  the  true  religion;  but  that  these  are  only  phases  of 
the  one  great  religion  that  is  back  of  them  all  and  expresses  itself,  or  various  phases 
of  itself,  through  them  all.  And  he  maintains  that  the  "Universal  Religion"  is 
revealed  and  illustrated  in  the  Oriental  religions.  This  thesis  pervades  the  whole 
work  and  is  present  in  every  chapter.  It  presides  over  the  search  for  facts  and  the 
selection  and  combination  of  facts,  and  is  defended  with  skill  and  enthusiasm.  The 
work  is  therefore  not  really  a  history,  or  a  compendium  of  Oriental  philosophy,  but 
the  exposition  of  this  theory  to  which  the  author  had  devoted  the  study  of  a  lifetime. 
Air.  Johnson  was  a  sound  scholar,  a  deep  thinker,  a  patient  investigator,  and  an  earnest 
and  eloquent  writer.  It  is  not  necessary  to  accept  his  estimate  of  the  relative  values 
of  Christianity  and  the  religions  of  ancient  life  in  Asia;  but  this  whole  work  taken 
together,  certainly  forms  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  elucidation  of  the  thought 
expressed  by  Chevalier  Bunsen  in  the  title  to  one  of  his  works,  'God  in  History.' 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  633 

ORIGIN  AND  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  INQUISITION,  see  INQUISITION  OF 
THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

ORIGIN  OF  CIVILIZATION  AND  PRIMITIVE  CONDITION  OF  MAN,  ON 
THE,  by  Baron  Avebury  (John  Lubbock)  (1870).  The  aim  of  this  volume  is  to 
provide  a  description  based  on  the  evidence  of  a  large  variety  of  travelers  and  ob- 
servers, of  the  social  and  mental  conditions  of  undeveloped  races,  their  religions, 
arts,  and  laws;  their  ideas  of  morals,  and  their  systems  of  marriage  and  relationship. 
The  careful  study  of  these  aspects  of  primitive  life  will  eventually  help  to  solve  many 
complex  problems  of  ethnology,  but  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  reliable  evidence  is 
uery  great,  owing  to  the  unwillingness  or  incapacity  of  primitive  peoples  to  make  them- 
selves understood  by  travelers  or  missionaries,  and  the  absence  in  their  languages 
of  words  to  express  abstract  ideas  or  large  numbers.  Primitive  religion  is  an  fl.ffa.ir 
of  this  world,  and  not  of  another  and  higher  existence;  it  has  little  or  no  connec- 
tion with  morality;  its  deities  are  mortal,  a  part  not  the  author  of  nature,  and  can 
be  forced  into  compliance  with  the  will  of  man.  Nevertheless  the  scientist  can 
trace  in  the  various  forms  of  primitive  religious  belief  a  gradual  rise  from  lower  to 
higher  conceptions  of  God,  man,  and  the  world.  The  earliest  traces  of  art  as  yet 
discovered  belong  to  the  Stone  Age,  and  sometimes  take  the  form  of  sculpture  and 
sometimes  of  drawings  or  etchings  made  on  bone  or  horn  with  the  point  of  a  flint. 
The  strongest  proof,  however,  that  the  race  has  evolved  from  lower  to  higher  types 
is  the  history  of  the  ideas  of  marriage,  at  first  a  purely  physical  and  temporary 
relation,  devoid  of  any  notion  of  morality,  affection,  or  companionship.  Lord 
Avebury  is  of  opinion  that  the  varied  evidence  which  he  has  brought  together  in  his 
book  strongly  supports  the  doctrine  of  development.  He  therefore  concludes  that 
existing  primitive  peoples  are  not,  as  used  sometimes  to  be  asserted,  the  descendants 
of  civilized  ancestors;  that  the  primitive  condition  of  man  was  one  of  utter 
barbarism,  and  that  from  this  condition  various  races  have  independently  raised 
themselves. 

ORIGIN   OF   SPECIES  BY  MEANS    OF   NATURAL  SELECTION,  ON  THE, 

or  'The  Preservation  of  Favored  Races  in  the  Struggle  for  Life, '  by  Charles  Darwin, 
was  published  in  1859.  Though  without  exception  the  most  influential  book  of 
the  nineteenth  century  it  is  indebted  to  Lamarck  and  Lyall  for  the  conception  of  the 
evolution  of  species,  and  its  special  hypotheses  of  natural  selection  and  survival  of 
the  fittest  were  formulated  simultaneously  by  Alfred  Russell  Wallace.  But  the 
patience  and  thoroughness  with  which  they  were  worked  out  by  Darwin,  the  mass 
and  skilful  arrangement  of  his  evidence,  the  clearness  and  persuasiveness  of  his 
argument,  and  the  quiet  beauty  and  power  of  his  style  gave  the  theory  general  cur- 
rency and  made  the  book  a  classic.  The  fundamental  position  of  the  book  is  that 
the  various  species  of  organic  beings  are  the  result  not  of  special  creation,  but  of  a 
gradual  process  of  evolution,  one  species  insensibly  developing  from  another.  This 
process  he  describes  as  a  result  of  natural  selection,  which  includes  the  infinite  variation 
of  the  individuals  of  a  species,  the  struggle  for  existence  —  that  is,  the  competition  be- 
tween these  individuals  for  the  limited  opportunity  of  survival,  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
that  is  of  those  best  adapted  to  their  environment,  and  the  transmission  of  their 
distinctive  qualities  to  their  descendants.  In  this  way  new  species  gradually  arise 
out  of  the  old.  Or,  as  Darwin  puts  it  in  his  concluding  paragraph,  all  the  elaborately 
constructed  organic  forms  that  we  see  about  us  have  been  produced  by  laws.  * '  These 
laws,  taken  in  the  largest  sense,  being  Growth  with  Reproduction;  Inheritance, 


634  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

which  is  almost  implied  by  Reproduction;  Variability,  from  the  indirect  and  direct 
action  of  the  conditions  of  life,  and  from  use  and  disuse;  a  Ratio  of  Increase  so  high 
as  to  lead  to  a  Struggle  for  Life,  and  as  a  consequence  to  Natural  Selection,  entailing 
Divergence  of  Character  and  the  Extinction  of  less-improved  forms.  Thus  from 
the  war  of  nature,  from  famine  and  death,  the  most  exalted  object  which  we  are 
capable  of  conceiving,  namely,  the  production  of  the  higher  animals,  directly  follows." 
The  facts  and  experiments  upon  which  this  theory  is  based,  are  recorded  in  the 
main  body  of  the  book.  They  include  his  observations,  made  during  a  tour  of  the 
world  as  naturalist  on  H.  M.  S.  Beagle  and  a  series  of  investigations  into  the  breed- 
ing of  domestic  animals  made  at  his  home  in  Kent.  Further  evidence  was  adduced 
in  later  works,  and  the  implications  of  the  doctrine  as  applied  to  the  origin  of  man 
were  stated  in  'The  Descent  of  Alan  and  Selection  in  Relation  to  Sex'  (1871).  Al- 
though the  book  was  bitterly  attacked  by  the  supporters  of  traditional  theology 
and  by  those  who  feared  it  would  promote  materialism,  and  although  recent  scientists 
have  questioned  the  details  of  its  hypothesis,  particularly  as  regards  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  and  the  transmission  of  acquired  characteristics,  yet  its  main  position 
has  won  practically  universal  acceptance,  and  has  influenced  every  field  of  thought, 
including  religion,  sociology,  philosophy,  history,  and  literary  criticism. 

ORIGINS  OF  CONTEMPORARY  FRANCE,  see  ANCIENT  REGIME:  MOD- 
ERN REGIME:  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 

ORISSA,  see  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

ORLANDO  FURIOSO,  by  Ludovico  Ariosto,  a  romantic  epic  of  Charlemagne  and 
his  peers,  published  in  forty  cantos  in  1512,  revised  and  enlarged  to  forty-six  cantos 
in  1532.  The  poem  is  a  continuation  of  the  'Orlando  Innamorato '  of  Matteo  Maria 
Boiardo  (1434-1494),  a  great  feudal  noble  of  the  court  of  Ferrara,  where  the  French 
romances  of  chivalry  were  as  much  in  fashion  as  the  newer  classical  studies.  His 
epic,  left  unfinished  in  1494,  published  in  1506,  recounts  the  wars  of  Charlemagne 
and  the  Saracens  with  emphasis,  not  on  the  religious  and  heroic  motives  of  the  early 
French  epic,  but  on  the  love-affairs  of  the  warriors,  who  have  become  as  polished  and 
as  susceptible  as  the  knights  in  the  Arthurian  romances.  Ariosto  carries  on  the 
story  with  greater  finish  and  maturity  but  less  spontaneity.  The  background  of 
his  narrative  is  the  driving  out  of  France  of  the  army  of  Saracens,  which  at  the 
beginning  is  besieging  Paris  under  Agramante,  King  of  Africa,  aided  by  Marsilio, 
King  of  Spain,  and  two  formidable  champions,  Rodomonte  and  Manricardo.  But 
the  ambuscades,  stratagems,  single  combats,  and  pitched  battles,  necessary  to  drive 
them  out,  are  less  emphasized  than  the  love  of  warriors  on  each  side  for  ladies  on 
the  other.  The  central  theme  is  the  love  of  Ruggiero,  a  youth  of  Christian  descent, 
brought  up  among  the  Saracens,  and  one  of  their  champions,  for  a  maiden  warrior, 
Bradamante,  sister  of  Rinaldo,  one  of  the  Paladins  of  Charlemagne.  As  a  compli- 
ment to  his  patrons,  Ariosto  represents  this  hero  and  heroine  as  ancestors  of  the 
House  of  Este,  the  ducal  family  of  Ferrara.  The  numerous  vicissitudes  of  this  love- 
story  are  due  to  the  opposing  nationality  of  the  lovers  and  to  the  schemes  of  a  magi- 
cian, Atlante,  who  wishes  to  remove  his  pupil,  Ruggiero,  from  the  dangers  of  war. 
At  the  opening  of  the  story,  for  instance,  Ruggiero  is  released  by  Bradamante  from 
a  tower  in  which  Atlante  has  confined  him;  but  immediately  afterwards  he  has  the 
imprudence  to  mount  his  tutor's  hippogriff,  and  is  carried  by  this  creature  to  the 
Island  of  the  sorceress,  Alcina.  Fascinated  by  her  beauty  and  enchantments,  he 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  635 

remains  here  as  her  paramour  until  released  by  the  seer,  Melissa,  who  annuls  Alcina's 
spells  and  exposes  her  in  her  true  ugliness.  After  a  visit  to  the  abode  of  Logistilla, 
or  wisdom,  Ruggiero  departs  on  his  hippogriff,  intending  to  return  to  Bradamante. 
But  in  passing  a  small  island,  he  sees  a  beautiful  woman,  exposed  to  a  sea-monster 
and  rescues  her,  by  means  of  the  dazzling  rays  of  a  magic  shield.  The  woman  is 
the  beautiful  Angelica,  beloved  of  Orlando,  and  almost  all  the  Paladins  and  their 
opponents  but  obdurate  to  all.  Even  Ruggiero  forgets  his  plighted  troth  and  begin' 
to  make  love  to  her.  But  by  means  of  an  enchanted  ring  she  becomes  invisible  and 
escapes  him.  *_  'uer  other  obstacles  have  been  placed  in  his  way  by  Atlante,  Ruggiero 
again  meets  Bradamante,  who  forgives  his  infidelities  but  insists  on  his  baptism 
before  she  will  accept  him.  Ruggiero  gives  his  promise,  but  is  delayed  in  its  execu- 
tion by  the  feeling  that  he  should  not  desert  Agramante,  his  leader,  while  the  war  is 
going  badly  for  him.  Further  complication  is  introduced  by  Marfisa,  a  female 
warrior  on  the  Moorish  side,  who  becomes  attached  to  Ruggiero  and  is  an  active 
rival  of  Bradamante,  until  it  is  discovered  that  Ruggiero  and  Marfisa  are  brother 
and  sister.  Again  Ruggiero  is  required  to  meet  Rinaldo,  brother  to  Bradamante, 
in  single  combat;  but  the  outcome  is  a  close  friendship.  Finally  the  objections  of 
the  lady's  father  are  met  by  the  chivalrous  withdrawal  of  the  Emperor  Leo,  his 
choice  for  his  daughter's  hand;  and  Ruggiero ?s  slaying  of  Rodomonte,  who  rebukes 
him  for  his  apostasy,  is  followed  by  the  marriage  of  the  lovers. 

Though  the  madness  of  Orlando  gives  the  poem  its  name,  this  is  in  reality  a  brilli- 
ant episode.  Orlando  and  Rinaldo  have  been  prominent  among  numerous  rivals 
for  the  hand  of  Angelica,  daughter  of  Galafron,  King  of  Cathay,  have  followed  her 
to  her  own  country  and  return  to  France  just  when  Paris  is  besieged.  Through  the 
operation  of  two  magic  springs  in  the  forest  of  Arden,  Angelica  now  hates  Rinaldo, 
and  he  passionately  loves  her,  though  previously,  and  by  operation  of  the  same 
springs  Rinaldo  hated  her  and  she  loved  him.  Orlando  (the  Roland  of  the  French 
epic)  has  loved  her  from  the  first,  unrequited.  In  the  first  cantos  of  Ariosto,  An- 
gelica is  successively  pursued  by  various  suitors  and  at  length  carried  off  by  sailors 
to  be  exposed,  as  already  explained,  to  a  sea-monster.  Rescued  from  this  fate  by 
Ruggiero  -and  from  Ruggiero  by  her  magic  ring  she  returns  to  Paris,  where,  amonp 
the  Saracen  wounded,  she  finds  a  beautiful  youth,  Medoro,  whom  she  nurses  back 
to  health  in  a  herdsman's  cottage.  She  has  fallen  in  love  with  him,  and  on  his 
recovery  they  are  married.  After  a  month  of  idyllic  happiness  they  set  out  for  the 
coast  of  Spain  to  embark  for  Cathay.  Meanwhile  Orlando  in  his  search  for  Angelica 
comes  to  the  grove  where  Angelica  and  Medoro  used  to  meet  and  notices  their  names 
carved  on  the  trees  and  stones.  The  cottager  confirms  his  worst  fears.  He  rushes 
again  into  the  woods  where  long  brooding  gives  way  to  violent  madness.  He  tears 
up  the  trees,  breaks  the  rocks  with  his  sword,  chokes  the  stream,  and  having  thus 
devastated  the  whole  scene,  tears  off  his  clothes  and  lives  a  wild  man,  feeding  on 
roots  and  raw  flesh  and  offering  violence  to  all  who  approach  him.  A  dramatic 
incident  is  his  meeting  with  Angelica  and  Medoro  on  the  coast  of  Spain,  as  they  are 
about  to  sail  for  Cathay.  He  does  not  recognize  Angelica,  but  he  pursues  her  and 
is  foiled  only  by  her  swiftness.  She  and  Medoro  thus  escape  and  sail  for  her  king- 
dom, while  Orlando  crosses  into  Africa.  Here  he  later  meets  and  attacks  some  of 
the  Paladins,  one  of  whom,  Astolfo,  has  a  cure  for  his  malady.  Having  got  posses- 
sion of  Ruggiero Js  hippogriff,  Astolfo,  among  other  strange  adventures,  has  soared  to 
a  mountain-top  which  proved  to  be  the  Earthy  Paradise  and  there  met  the  Evan- 
gelist Saint  John,  by  whose  aid  he  ascended  in  Elijah's  fiery  chariot,  to  the  moon, 
Here  in  a  valley  containing  everything  lost  on  earth,  he  found  the  wits  of  Orlando 


636  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

enclosed  in  a  great  jar.  This  jar  he  now  has  in  this  tent  and  a  direct  application  of 
it  to  Orlando's  nostrils  restores  the  madman  to  his  senses.  His  love  is  forgotten, 
and  in  a  great  final  combat  he  does  Charlemagne  a  great  service,  by  skying  Agra- 
mante,  the  African  king.  Rinaldo  too  is  cured  of  his  infatuation  for  Angelica  by 
a  second  drink  ot  the  spring  which  causes  hatred. 

Infinite  variety  of  incident,  unwearied  zest  for  life,  rich  sensuous  color,  as  in  the 
canvases  of  Rubens  and  Veronese,  ease  and  copiousness  of  diction,  are  the  leading 
qualities  of  'Orlando  Furioso.'  More  worldly  and  satirical  than  Spenser,  Ariosto 
lacks  his  spirituality  and  seriousness  and  is  much  less  allegorical;  but  the  general 
effect  of  the  two  poems  is  not  unlike. 

ORLOFF  AND  HIS  WIFE;  tales  of  the  Barefoot  Brigade,  by  Maxim  Gorky 
(1901).  Realistic  sketches  of  the  under-world  of  Russia,  of  tramps  and  outcasts, 
the  degraded,  hopeless,  and  vicious.  Orloff,  the  cobbler,  loves  his  wife,  but  beats 
her  in  sheer  boredom  from  the  dull  life  of  continual  tedious  work  in  their  cellar. 
When  she  reproaches  him,  he  blames  fate  and  his  character.  "What  can  you  say 
to  a  man  if  life  has  made  a  devil  of  him? "  or,  "Am  I  to  blame  if  I  have  that  sort  of 
character?"  Orloff  and  his  wife  become  acquainted  with  a  medical  student  inspec- 
tor and  are  hired  to  help  fight  the  cholera  epidemic  in  the  hospital.  Orloff  is  happy 
at  first  in  the  new  environment.  He  wonders  why  so  much  trouble  and  expense  is 
permitted  for  men  who  are  to  die.  "  Couldn't  that  same  money  be  used  for  improving 
life?"  he  asks.  Praise  of  his  industry  transforms  him.  He  longs  to  be  a  hero,  to 
attract  attention  to  himself  by  brave  and  generous  deeds.  A  quarrel  with  his  wife 
starts  him  on  a  drunken  spree  and  he  returns  to  his  old  ways  of  life,  but  she  escapes 
and  is  helped  by  her  friends  in  the  hospital  to  teach  her  cobbler's  trade  in  a  trade 
school.  The  wretched  daily  and  nightly  toil  in  a  bakery  is  the  scene  of  '  Konova"  loff. ' 
Konovaloff  is  the  only  character  in  the  book  who  does  not  throw  the  responsibility 
of  his  bad  luck  on  Fate  or  other  people.  In  arguments  with  his  fellow  workman 
he  persists  in  his  own  guilt  toward  himself  and  life.  "Every  man  is  the  master  of 
himself"  and  "none  is  to  blame  if  I  am  a  scoundrel,"  he  says.  These  self -question- 
ings of  Gorky's  characters  and  their  curiosity  about  the  meaning  of  life  never  leads 
to  regeneration,  but  serve  as  excuses  for  vice.  "Men  with  Pasts "  are  outcasts  who 
live  at  the  night  lodging  house.  Their  hatred  of  life  is  born  of  failure.  What  power 
they  have  is  always  evil,  working  toward  their  own  undoing.  Those  men,  who 
through  idleness  or  cowardice,  have  fallen  from  a  higher  class,  are  more  debased 
than  nature's  true  vagabonds,  whose  instinct  for  liberty  makes  them  the  outcasts 
from  society.  The  novel,  '  Varenka  Olessova, '  which  concludes  the  book,  recounts 
the  interminable  conversations  of  a  conceited  pedant,  with  Varenka,  a  fresh,  natural 
young  girl,  while  he  is  making  a  visit  in  the  country.  He  is  attracted  by  her,  but 
cannot  make  up  his  mind  whether  he  is  in  love  with  her  or  not,  and  the  end  of  the 
story  leaves  him  still  in  a  state  of  indecision. 

ORME  DU  MAIL,  L',  see  L'HISTOIRE  CONTEMPORAINE. 

ORPHEUS  C.  KERR  PAPERS,  THE,  by  Robert  Henry  Newell  (1862-68).  The 
'Letters*  composing  this  book  appeared  originally  in  the  daily  press  during  the 
Civil  War.  Xarrating  the  history  of  a  fictitious  and  comic  "Mackerel  Brigade" 
[Mackerel  =  "Little  Mac,"  McClellan's  well-known  popular  nickname],  they 
purported  to  be  written  from  the  scene  of  action;  were  devoted  to  the  humors 
of  the  conflict;  and  were  widely  read  at  the  time  throughout  the  North.  In  a 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  637 

sense  they  are  historic.  Their  gibes  and  bitterly  humorous  shafts  were  directed 
chiefly  against  the  dishonest  element  of  society  that  the  upheaval  of  the  war  had 
brought  to  the  surface,  —  the  cheating  contractors,  the  makers  of  shoddy  clothing, 
imperfect  arms,  scant-weight  ammunition,  and  bad  supplies  for  the  army  in  the  field, 
as  well  as  towards  the  selfish  and  incompetent  general  officers  and  office-seekers. 
Much  of  the  fun  of  the  letters  is  to-day  unintelligible,  some  of  the  satire  seems  coarse; 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  author  did  immense  sen-ice  in  creating  a  better  senti- 
ment as  to  the  offenses  that  he  scored,  and  to  open  the  way,  among  other  benefits, 
for  the  improvement  which  was  to  be  known  as  "civil-service  reform." 

ORTHODOXY,  a  series  of  essays  by  Gilbert  K.  Chesterton  (1908).  The  book 
presents  the  positive  side  of  the  thought,  advanced  in  'Heretics,'  namely  that 
definite  convictions  and  a  serious  theory  of  the  universe  are  an  essential  to  sane 
and  happy  life.  In  'Orthodoxy'  Chesterton,  in  response  to  a  challenge,  states  his 
own  philosophy,  showing  the  stages  by  which  he  has  been  led  to  an  acceptance  of 
orthodox  Christianity.  After  brilliantly  ridiculing  the  determinists,  the  sceptics, 
the  pragmatists,  the  worshippers  of  will,  the  Tolstoyans,  and  other  modern  think- 
ers because  they  deprive  life  of  a  solid,  intelligible  purpose  and  sacrifice  wholesome 
sanity  to  logic,  Chesterton  outlines  the  development  of  his  own  belief.  In  'The 
Ethics  of  Elfland, '  he  derives  from  the  fairy-tales  learned  in  childhood  the  conviction, 
first,  that  scientific  laws  do  not  establish  inevitable  connection  between  phenomena 
and  that  miracles  are  conceivable;  and,  secondly,  that  incomprehensible  happiness 
might  depend  on  an  incomprehensible  condition,  e.  g.,  some  apparently  irrational 
taboo  or  formula;  in  other  words,  that  there  is  in  the  universe  a  personal  will  in 
distinction  to  an  impersonal  law.  In  'The  Flag  of  the  World*  the  contradictory 
tendencies  of  optimism  and  pessimism  are  shown  to  be  reconciled  by  Christianity, 
which,  while  aflSrming  the  existence  of  God  and  the  wickedness  of  suicide,  also 
affirms  the  separation  of  the  world  from  God  and  the  glory  of  martyrdom.  The 
author's  desire  to  love  the  world  without  trusting  it  was  met  by  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  the  Fall;  and  this  once  grasped  every  other  detail  seemed  to  fall  into 
place.  'The  Paradoxes  of  Christianity'  adduces  other  examples  of  conflicting 
tendencies  allowed  a  certain  amount  of  free  play  by  Christianity;  for  example  losing 
one's  life  and  saving  it,  dignity  and  humility,  mercy  and  anger,  valor  and  non- 
resistance,  asceticism  and  marriage;  and  in  this  skillful  combination  the  author  finds 
a  proof  of  its  truth.  In  'The  Eternal  Revolution'  Chesterton  points  out  how  the 
desire  for  progress  towards  a  fixed  ideal  is  met  by  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  of  Man 
and  the  scheme  of  salvation.  'The  Romance  of  Orthodoxy*  is  an  attack  on  the 
modernist  doctrines  of  the  impossibility  of  miracles  (which  is  a  denial  of  God's 
freedom),  the  divine  immanence  (which  practically  means  pantheism),  unitarianism 
(which  means  an  Oriental  and  tyrannical  idea  of  God),  universalism  (which  makes 
moral  effort  less  urgent  and  the  struggle  of  life  less  critical),  the  regarding  of  sin  as 
disease  (which  destroys  free-will),  and  the  denial  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  (which 
derogates  from  the  dignity  of  suffering).  In  'Authority  and  the  Adventurer'  Ches- 
terton meets  the  objection  that  the  moral  effects  of  Christian  belief  do  not  prove 
its  objective  truth  by  a  brief  confutation  of  modern  sceptical  views  and  a  statement 
of  the  arguments  for  the  positive  truth  of  Christianity.  The  negative  arguments 
are  that  men  are  a  superior  variety  of  beasts,  that  religion  arose  from  fear,  and  that 
it  promotes  gloom;  that  Christianity  inculcates  weakness,  is  a  product  of  the  dark 
ages,  and  promotes  suspicion  and  unprogressiveness.  After  vigorously  confuting 
these  arguments,  Chesterton  gives  as  the  positive  arguments  which  appeal  to  him 


638  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

that  by  reliable  human  testimony  miracles  do  happen,  that  Christian  dogma 
satisfies  the  instincts  of  our  nature,  and  that  however  dissatisfied  we  may  be  with 
the  imperfections  of  life,  Christianity  teaches  us  to  enjoy  life  as  a  whole.  The 
book  irritates  many  readers  by  its  constant  striving  after  paradox  and  epigram, 
but  its  defense  of  orthodoxy  and  conservatism  is  a  strong  and  apparently  a 
sincere  one. 

OTHELLO,  THE  MOOR  OF  VENICE  (written  about  1604),  ranks  with  'Ham- 
let,' 'Lear,'  and  'Macbeth,'  as  one  of  Shakespeare's  four  great  masterpieces  of 
tragedy.  The  bare  outline  of  the  story  came  to  him  from  Cinthio's  'II  Moro  di 
Venezia. '  It  is  the  story  of  "one  who  loved  not  wisely,  but  too  well;  of  one  not 
easily  jealous,  but  being  wrought,  perplexed  in  the  extreme."  Othello  has  a  rich 
exotic  nature,  a  heroic  tenderness,  quick  sense  of  honor,  child-like  trust,  yet  fiercest 
passion  when  wronged  in  his  soul.  In  lago  we  have  a  villain  to  whom  goodness 
is  sheer  silliness  and  cruel  craft  a  fine  prudence.  The  Moor  has  wedded  Desdemona, 
and  from  Venice  sailed  to  Cyprus,  followed  by  Roderigo,  who  is  in  love  with  her  and 
is  a  tool  of  lago.  lago  hates  Othello  for  appointing  Cassio  his  lieutenant,  leaving 
him  to  be  his  humble  standard-bearer.  He  also  suspects  him  of  having  cuckolded 
him,  and  for  mere  suspicion  in  that  land  will  diet  his  revenge  by  trying  to  pay  him 
off  wife  for  wife,  or  failing  that,  to  poison  his  happiness  forever  by  jealousy.  And 
he  wants  Cassio 's  place.  He  persuades  Roderigo  that  Cassio  and  Desdemona  are 
in  love,  and  that  if  he  is  to  prosper,  Cassio  must  be  degraded  from  office  or  killed. 
The  loyal  Cassio  has  a  poor  brain  for  drink,  lago  gets  him  tipsy  and  involved  in  a 
fray,  and  then  has  the  garrison  alarmed  by  the  bell.  Othello  dismisses  Cassio  from 
office.  The  poor  man,  smitten  with  deep  shame  and  despair,  is  advised  by  "honest " 
lago  to  seek  the  mediation  of  the  divine  Desdemona,  and  out  of  this  he  will  work 
his  ruin;  for  he  craftily  instills  into  the  mind  of  Othello  that  his  wife  intercedes  for 
Cassio  as  for  a  paramour,  and  brings  him  where  he  sees  Cassio  making  his  suit  to  her, 
but  retiring  when  he  perceives  Othello  in  the  distance.  "Ha!  I  like  not  that," 
says  lago.  And  then,  forced  to  disclose  his  thought,  he  reminds  the  Moor  that 
Desdemona  deceived  her  father  by  her  secret  marriage,  and  may  deceive  him ;  also 
tells  a  diabolically  false  tale  of  his  sleeping  with  Cassio,  and  how  he  talked  in  his 
sleep  about  his  amour  with  Desdemona.  Othello  had  given  his  wife  a  talismanic 
embroidered  handkerchief,  sewed  by  a  sibyl  in  her  prophetic  fury.  lago  had  often 
urged  his  wife  Emilia  to  steal  this  "napkin,"  and  when  he  gets  it  he  drops  it  in  Cassio's 
chamber.  The  Moor  sees  it  in  his  lieutenant's  hands,  and  further  sees  him  laughing 
and  gesturing  about  Bianca,  a  common  strumpet,  and  is  told  by  lago  that  Desde- 
mona and  his  adventures  with  her  were  Cassio's  theme.  When,  finally,  the  ' '  honest, ' ' 
"trusty"  lago  tells  him  that  Cassio  had  confessed  all  to  him,  the  tortured  man 
throws  his  last  doubt  to  the  winds,  and  resolves  on  the  death  of  Cassio  and  Desde- 
mona both.  Cassio  is  only  wounded;  but  the  gentle  Desdemona,  who,  all  heart- 
broken, and  foreboding,  has  retired,  is  awaked  by  Othello's  last  kisses  (for  his  love 
is  not  wholly  quenched),  and  after  a  terrible  talk,  is  smothered  by  him  where  she 
lies,  —  reviving  for  a  moment,  after  the  entrance  of  Emilia,  to  assert  that  Othello 
is  innocent  and  that  she  killed  herself.  The  Moor  avows  the  deed,  however,  both 
to  Emilia  and  to  two  Venetian  officials,  who  have  just  arrived  on  State  business.  In 
the  conversation  lago's  villainy  comes  to  light  through  Emilia's  telling  the  truth 
about  the  handkerchief;  she  is  stabbed  to  death  by  lago,  while  Othello  in  bitter 
remorse  stabs  himself,  and  as  he  dies  imprints  a  convulsive  kiss  on  the  cold  lips  of 
Desdemona.  lago  is  led  away  to  torture  and  death. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  639 

OUR  DAILY  BREAD  (Das  taglische  Brod),  by  Clara  Viebig-Cohn  (1900).  A  real- 
istic picture  of  lower  class  life  in  Berlin  in  the  experiences  of  a  servant-girl,  whose 
life  is  one  long  struggle  against  poverty  and  circumstance.  Her  sturdy  character 
saves  her  from  tragedy  and  the  story  from  unrelieved  gloom.  Mina  comes  from  the 
country  to  her  uncle  in  Berlin  with  great  expectations  that  her  relatives  will  help 
her  to  get  a  good  situation.  Her  uncle  keeps  a  small  green-grocer's  shop,  and  her 
aunt  a  registry  office  in  which  the  servant  girls  of  the  neighborhood  gather  in  their 
free  time  to  gossip  and  to  flirt  with  Arthur,  the  son.  Her  aunt  makes  her  do  the 
rough  work  of  the  house  while  she  waits  for  a  situation,  and  charges  her  board  and 
lodging  fee.  She  gets  a  situation  and  toils  from  morning  until  night,  overworked, 
underpaid,  and  underfed.  In  her  loneliness  she  turns  to  Arthur  who  is  glad  to  go 
to  the  park  with  her  on  Sundays  as  she  has  her  wages  to  spend  for  his  entertainment. 
She  soon  expects  to  be  the  mother  of  his  child.  Arthur  is  weak  but  not  vicious,  and 
so  incapable  that  he  is  always  out  of  work.  Mina  first  tries  to  board  her  baby,  and 
finally  goes  home  to  her  parents  for  help,  but  is  turned  away  in  disgrace.  She  tries 
to  abandon  the  little  girl  in  the  public  park,  but  her  courage  fails  and  she  goes  back 
to  her.  Resolved  that  the  only  course  for  her  is  to  make  Arthur  acknowledge  the 
child  and  marry  her  she  goes  to  him  and  insists  on  her  rights,  in  the  face  of  his  mother's 
abuse.  She  is  no  longer  an  inexperienced  girl  to  be  frightened  and  driven  away. 
She  is  a  mother,  with  legal  redress,  fighting  for  her  child.  After  their  marriage  the 
struggle  with  poverty  goes  on,  as  Arthur  cannot  keep  at  work.  She  lives  under  the 
shop  in  the  cellar  with  his  family,  and  her  work  by  the  day  is  the  sole  support  of  six 
people.  Through  the  kindness  of  her  old  employers  a  post  as  porter  is  found  for 
Arthur,  their  daily  bread  seems  assured,  and  the  book  ends  with  a  more  hopeful 
outlook. 

OUR  MUTUAL  FRIEND,  by  Charles  Dickens.  "In  these  times  of  ours,"  are 
the  opening  words  of  this  book,  which  was  published  in  England  in  1864-65. 
The  scene  is  laid  in  London  and  its  immediate  neighborhood.  All  the  elaborate 
machinery  dear  to  Dickens's  heart  is  here  introduced.  There  is  the  central  story  of  Our 
Mutual  Friend,  himself  the  young  heir  to  the  vast  Harmon  estate,  who  buries  his 
identity  and  assumes  the  name  of  John  Rokesmith,  that  he  may  form  his  own  judg- 
ment of  the  young  woman  whom  he  must  marry  in  order  to  claim  his  fortune;  there 
is  the  other  story  of  the  poor  bargeman's  daughter,  and  her  love  for  reckless 
Eugene  Wrayburn,  the  idol  of  society;  and  uniting  these  two  threads  is  the  history 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Boffin,  the  ignorant,  kind-hearted  couple,  whose  innocent  ambi- 
tions, and  benevolent  use  of  the  money  intrusted  to  their  care,  afford  the  author 
opportunity  for  the  humor  and  pathos  of  which  he  was  a  master. 

Among  the  characters  which  this  story  has  made  famous  are  Miss  Jenny  Wren, 
the  doll's  dressmaker,  a  little,  crippled  creature  whose  love  for  Lizzie  Hexam  trans- 
forms her  miserable  life;  Bradley  Headstone,  the  schoolmaster,  suffering  torments 
because  of  his  jealousy  of  Eugene  Wrayburn,  and  helpless  under  the  careless  con- 
tempt of  that  trained  adversary— -dying  at  last  in  an  agony  of  defeat  at  his  failure 
to  kill  Eugene;  and  the  triumph  of  Lizzie's  love  over  the  social  difference  between 
her  and  her  lover;  Bella  Wilfer,  "the  boofer  lady,"  cured  of  her  longing  for  riches 
and  made  John  Harmon's  happy  wife  by  the  plots  and  plans  of  the  Golden  Dustman, 
Mr.  Boffin;  and  Silas  Wegg,  an  impudent  scoundrel  employed  by  Mr.  BofEn, 
who  is,  at  first,  delighted  with  the  services  of  "a  literary  man  with  a  wooden  leg," 
but  who  gradually  recognizes  the  cheat  and  impostor,  and  unmasks  him  in  dramatic 
fashion. 


640  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

As  usual,  Dickens  finds  occasion  to  incite  his  readers  to  practical  benevolence. 
In  this  book  he  has  a  protest  against  the  poor-laws  in  the  person  of  old  Betty  Hig- 
den,  whose  dread  of  the  almshouse  haunts  her  dying  hours.  By  many,  this  volume, 
published  among  his  later  works,  is  counted  as  among  the  most  important. 

OUR  NEW  ALASKA.;  or,  THE  SEWARD  PURCHASE  VINDICATED,  by  Charles  Hallock 
(1886).  In  the  preface,  the  author  explains  that  the  special  object  of  the  book  is  "  to 
point  out  the  visible  resources  of  that  far-off  territory,  and  to  assist  their  laggard 
development;  to  indicate  to  those  insufficiently  informed  the  economic  value  of  im- 
portant industries  hitherto  almost  neglected,  which  are  at  once  available  for  im- 
mediate profit."  In  thus  considering'  the  industrial  and  commercial  aspects  of 
Alaska,  the  author  does  not  neglect  its  natural  beauties,  nor  the  peculiarities  of  the 
inhabitants  and  their  customs.  Because  of  the  variety  of  his  observation,  the  work 
is  never  lacldng  in  interest,  and  the  reader  is  made  to  share  the  pleasure  of  the 
traveler  in  his  voyage  of  discovery. 

OUR  OLD  HOME,  a  series  of  English  sketches  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  This 
volume  of  charming  sketches  was  published  in  1863,  and  (in  the  words  of  the  author) 
presents  "a  few  of  the  external  aspects  of  English  scenery  and  life,  especially  those 
that  are  touched  with  the  antique  charm  to  which  our  countrymen  are  more  suscepti- 
ble than  are  the  people  among  whom  it  is  of  native  growth. "  The  opening  sketch  on 
'Consular  Experiences'  gives  interesting  glimpses  of  Hawthorne's  own  life  as  consul 
at  Liverpool;  and  among  other  entertaining  chapters  are  those  designated  *  About 
Warwick,'  'Pilgrimage  to  Old  Boston,'  'Some  of  the  Haunts  of  Burns,'  'Up  the 
Thames/  and  'Outside  Glimpses  of  English  Poverty.'  In  that  entitled  'Recollec- 
tions of  a  Gifted  Woman/  he  recounts  his  acquaintance  with  Miss  Delia  Bacon,  who 
was  then  deep  in  her  'Philosophy  of  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare';  an  absurd  book,  for 
which  Hawthorne  wrote  a  humorous  preface.  These,  and  other  English  sketches 
included  in  Hawthorne's  note-books,  were  at  first  intended  by  him  to  be  used  as  a 
background  for  a  work  of  fiction  which  he  had  partially  planned;  but  what  he  calls 
"the  Present,  the  Immediate,  the  Actual, "  proved  too  potent  for  him,  and  the  project 
was  given  up  and  only  the  sketches  were  published.  This  volume  holds  its  popularity 
not  simply  because  of  the  incomparable  charm  of  the  manner  in  which  it  is  written, 
but  because  of  its  faithful  delineation  of  nature,  life,  and  manners  in  England. 
There  are  clues  to  English  character  to  be  gathered  from  'Our  Old  Home,'  which 
could  not  otherwise  be  obtained  save  by  protracted  association  with  the  English 
people  at  home. 

OUR  VILLAGE,  by  Alary  Russell  Mitford,  was  one  of  the  first  books  written  which 
show  the  poetry  of  every-day  life  in  the  country;  and  Miss  Mitford  may  fairly  be 
called  the  founder  of  the  school  of  village  literature.  There  is  no  connected  story, 
but  the  book  contains  a  series  of  charming  sketches  of  country  scenes  and  country 
people.  The  chronicler  wanders  through  the  lanes  and  meadows  with  her  white 
greyhound  Mayflower,  gossips  about  the  trees,  the  flowers,  and  the  sunsets,  and 
describes  the  beauty  of  English  scenery.  The  chapters  on  The  First  Primrose, 
Violeting,  The  Copse,  The  Wood,  The  Dell,  and  The  Cowslip  Ball,  seem  to  breathe 
the  very  atmosphere  of  spring;  while  others  tell  interesting  stories  about  the  people 
and  village  life.  In  her  walks,  the  saunterer  is  accompanied  by  Lizzy,  the  carpenter's 
daughter,  a  fascinating  baby  of  three,  who  trudges  by  her  side,  and  is  a  very  enter- 
taining companion.  Descriptions  of  the  country  are  dwelt  on  more  frequently  than 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  641 

descriptions  of  the  people,  but  there  is  a  capital  sketch  of  Hannah  Bint,  —  who 
showed  great  judgment  in  setting  up  as  a  dairy- woman  when  only  twelve  years  old,  — 
besides  various  short  discourses  on  schoolboys,  fanners,  and  the  trades-people  of  the 
town.  The  scenes  are  laid  in  "  shady  yet  sunny  Berkshire,  where  the  scenery,  without 
rising  into  grandeur  or  breaking  into  wildness,  is  so  peaceful,  so  cheerful,  so  varied, 
and  so  thoroughly  English. "  The  first  series  of  sketches  in  '  Our  Village '  appeared  in 
1824. 

OXFORD  HISTORY  OF  MUSIC,  THE,  edited  by  W.  H.  Hadow  (6  voK,  1901-05). 
The  motif  of  the  above  volumes  and  the  justification  of  their  existence  are  well  ex- 
plained in  the  editor's  preface.  "The  history  of  an  art, "  he  says,  "like  the  history 
of  a  nation,  is  something  more  than  a  record  of  personal  prowess  and  renown.  The 
great  artist  has  commonly  inherited  a  wealth  of  past  tradition  and  effort  which  it  is 
at  once  his  glory  and  his  privilege  to  administer. M  Moreover  of  all  the  arts  music  has 
exhibited  the  most  continuous  evolution.  Therefore  there  is  every  justification  for 
a  treatise,  which  deals  with  the  art  rather  than  the  artist,  which  shall  follow  its 
progress  through  the  interchanges  of  success  and  failure,  of  aspiration  and  attainment, 
which  shall  endeavor  to  illustrate  from  its  peculiar  conditions  the  truth  of  Emerson's 
profound  saying,  "that  the  greatest  genius  is  the  most  indebted  man."  Of  the  six 
volumes  the  first  two  deal  with  the  music  of  the  Mediaeval  Church,  from  the  rise  of 
dlscant  or  measured  music  to  the  work  of  Palaestrina  (d.  1594),  the  composer  to  the 
Papal  Choir  at  Rome,  and  his  successors.  The  third  traces  the  evolution  of  music  in 
the  seventeenth  century  from  Josquin  and  Arcadelt  to  Purcell;  the  fourth  devotes 
special  treatment  to  the  works  of  Bach  and  Handel  and  the  harmonic  counterpoint 
characteristic  of  their  time;  the  fifth  has  as  its  theme  the  rise  and  progress  of  the 
Viennese  School,  and  the  development  of  the  great  instrumental  forms  from  Haydn 
to  Schubert;  the  sixth  and  last  discusses  the  formative  influences  which  inspired 
Weber  in  the  theatre,  Schumann  and  Chopin  in  the  concert  room.  To  a  later  genera- 
tion is  left  the  task  of  assigning  their  due  places  in  the  history  of  music  to  Brahms 
and  Wagner,  Tschaikovsky  and  Dvorak  and  Richard  Strauss  and  the  still  more 
difficult  task  of  explaining  and  appraising  the  tendencies  which  supply  the  sole  key 
to  the  interpretation  of  these  composers.  This  work  admittedly  belongs  to  the 
same  category  as  Grove's  Dictionary,  and  like  it  should  find  a  place  in  every 
well-chosen  library. 

OXFORD  REFORMERS  OF  1498,  THE:  JOHN  COLET,  ERASMUS,  AND  THOMAS 
MORE:  A  history  of  their  Fellow- Work,  by  Frederic  Seebohm  (1867,  1887).  A  work 
not  designed  to  offer  biographies  of  the  persons  named,  but  to  study  carefully  their 
joint  work  at  Oxford.  John  Colet,  a  son  of  Sir  Henry  Colet,  a  wealthy  merchant  who 
had  been  more  than  once  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  and  was  in  favor  at  the  court  of 
Henry  VII.,  had  come  home  from  study  in  Italy  to  Oxford  in  1496;  and,  although  he 
was  not  a  Doctor,  nor  even  a  deacon  preparing  for  full  clerical  dignity,  he  startled  the 
conservatism  of  the  church  and  the  university  by  announcing  a  course  of  public  free 
lectures  on  the  epistles  of  Paul.  It  was  a  strikingly  new  departure,  not  only  in  the 
boldness  of  a  layman  giving  lectures  on  religion,  but  in  new  views  to  be  brought  out. 
What  was  called  the  New  Learning,  starting  from  study  of  Greek,  or  the  world's 
best  literature,  was  taking  root  at  Oxford.  Two  men  of  note,  Grocyn  and  Linacre, 
who  had  learned  Greek,  were  working  hard  to  awaken  at  Oxford  interest  in  the  study 
of  Greek.  And  among  the  young  students  Colet  found  one,  not  yet  of  age,  who 
showed  the  finest  type  of  English  genius.  He  was  called  "Young  Master  More." 
41 


642  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  fine  quality  of  his  intelligence  was  even  surpassed  by  the  sweetness  of  his  spirit 
and  the  charm  of  his  character.  He  was  destined  to  be  known  as  Sir  Thomas  More, 
one  of  the  great  historic  examples  of  what  Swift,  and  after  him  Matthew  Arnold, 
called  "sweetness  and  light."  Colet  was  thirteen  years  older  than  More,  but  the 
two  held  close  converse  in  matters  of  learning  and  humanity.  They  were  Humanists, 
as  the  men  of  interest  in  all  things  human  were  called.  Colet  and  More  had  been 
together  at  Oxford  a  year  when  a  third  Humanist  appeared  upon  the  scene  in  1497, 
the  year  in  which  John  Cabot  discovered  North  America.  This  was  Erasmus,  who 
was  already  a  scholar,  after  the  manner  of  the  time,  in  Latin.  He  came  to  Oxford 
to  become  a  scholar  in  Greek.  He  was  scarcely  turned  thirty,  —  just  Colet's  age,  — 
and  had  not  yet  begun  to  make  a  great  name.  The  story  of  the  three  men  runs  on  to 
I5I9»  m<to  the  early  dawn  of  the  Lutheran  Reformation.  Colet  becomes  a  Doctor 
and  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  in  London  (1499),  and  on  his  father's  death 
(1510),  uses  his  inherited  fortune  to  found  St.  Paul's  School,  in  which  153  boys  of  any 
nation  or  country  should  be  instructed  in  the  world's  best  literature,  Greek  as  well  as 
Latin;  and  not  monkish  church  Latin,  but  ancient  classical  Latin.  Colet  declared 
that  the  "corrupt  Latin  which  the  later  blind  world  brought  in,  and  which  may  be 
called  Blotterature  rather  than  Literature,"  should  be  "utterly  banished  and  ex- 
cluded." Erasmus  wrote  a  work 'On  the  Liberal  Education  of  Boys.'  It  was  in  line 
with  the  new  learning,  that  Erasmus  edited,  and  secured  the  printing  of,  the  New 
Testament  in  Greek,  hoping  it  would  lead,  as  it  later  did,  to  an  English  version.  He 
said  of  "the  sacred  Scriptures:  I  wish  these  were  translated  into  all  languages,  so 
that  they  might  be  read  and  understood.  I  long  that  the  husbandman  should  sing 
portions  of  them  to  himself  as  he  follows  the  plow,  that  the  weaver  should  hum  them 
to  the  tune  of  his  shuttle,  that  the  traveler  should  beguile  with  their  stories  the  tedium 
of  his  journey."  It  was  in  the  same  humanist  spirit  that  More  wrote  his  'Utopia,' 
published  in  1516,  and  embodying  the  visions  of  hope  and  progress  floating  before 
the  eyes  of  the  three  "  Oxford  Reformers."  More  was  about  entering  into  the  service 
of  Henry  VIII.;  and  he  wrote  the  introduction  or  prefatory  book  of  the  'Utopia,'  for 
the  express  purpose  of  speaking  out  boldly  on  the  social  condition  of  the  country  and 
on  the  policy  of  the  King. 

PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  ROME,  by  Rudolfo  Lanciani  (1893).  A  most  richly 
illustrated  account  of  the  changes  at  Rome,  by  which  it  was  gradually  transformed 
from  a  pagan  to  a  Christian  city.  Discoveries  recently  made  show  that  Christian 
teaching  reached  the  higher  classes  at  a  very  early  date,  and  even  penetrated  to  the 
palace  of  the  Caesars.  Long  before  the  time  at  which  Rome  is  supposed  to  have 
favored  Christianity,  there  had  been  built  churches  side  by  side  with  the  temples  of 
the  old  faith.  Tombs  also  bear  the  same  testimony  to  gains  made  by  Christianity  in 
important  quarters.  Great  names  in  the  annals  of  the  empire  are  found  to  be  those 
of  members  of  the  Christian  body.  The  change  in  fact  which  was  brought  to  matur- 
ity under  Constantine  was  not  a  sudden  and  unexpected  event.  It  was  not  a  revolu- 
tion. It  had  been  a  foregone  conclusion  for  several  generations,  the  natural  result  of 
progress  during  nearly  three  centuries.  It  had  come  to  be  understood  before  the 
official  recognition  of  it  by  Constantine.  A  great  deal  that  was  a  continuance  of 
things  pagan  in  appearance  had  in  fact  received  Christian  recognition  and  been 
turned  to  Christian  use.  Institutions  and  customs  which  still  exist  originated  under 
the  old  faith,  and  were  brought  into  the  sen-ice  of  the  new.  Far  more  than  has  beer 
supposed,  the  change  was  due  to  tolerance  between  pagans  and  Christians.  By 
comparing  pagan  shrines  and  temples  with  Christian  churches,  imperial  tombs  with 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  643 

papal  tombs,  and  pagan  cemeteries  with  Christian,  Lanciani  at  once  discloses  the 
wealth  of  art  created  in  Rome,  and  proves  that  pagan  and  Christian  were  allied  in  its 
creation. 

PAGE  D'AMOUR,  UNE,  see  ROUGON-MACQTJART. 
PAHLAVI  TEXTS,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 
PAINTERS,  see  LIVES  OF  THE  PAINTERS,  by  John  Ruskin. 
PAINTING,  by  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  see  TREATISE  ON. 

PAINTING,  HISTORY  OF,  by  Dr.  Alfred  Woltmann  and  Dr.  Karl  Woermann 
(English  translation,  with  preface  by  Sidney  Colvin.  2  vols.,  1880).  This  monu- 
mental work  of  two  great  German  savants  is  a  fine  example  of  German  Grundlichkeit. 
The  first  volume,  the  work  of  Dr.  Woltmann,  deals  exhaustively  with  the  history  of 
ancient,  early  Christian,  and  mediaeval  painting.  The  earliest  works  of  known  date  in 
ancient  Egypt;  the  tile-paintings  of  Assyria  and  Babylon;  the  vase-paintings,  mosaics, 
miniatures,  mural  paintings,  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome;  the  beginnings  of  Christian 
art  in  the  catacombs;  the  illuminated  manuscripts  of  early  mediaeval  Ireland;  the 
miniatures,  panel  paintings  and  paintings  on  glass  of  the  central  mediaeval  period 
(950-1250);  the  transformation  in  the  thirteenth  century  from  Romanesque  to 
Gothic  influences;  the  predominance  of  Italy  in  the  fourteenth  century  —  all  these 
are  treated  with  fullness  of  detail,  clarity,  and  an  abundance  of  apt  illustrations  from 
originals.  The  second  volume,  by  Dr.  Woermann,  is  devoted  to  the  Renascence,  not 
in  the  sense  merely  of  a  Revival  of  Antiquity,  but  in  the  deeper  signification  of  "a  new 
birth  of  Nature;  a  resuscitation  and  restoration  of  Nature  to  the  human  soul, "  by 
which  Nature  was  no  longer  regarded  as  sinful  and  reprobate,  and  Art  gained  the 
power  of  seeing  things  as  they  are.  The  glory  of  Flemish  painting  in  the  fifteenth 
century  and  of  the  Flemish  and  Dutch  schools  of  the  early  sixteenth ;  Durer,  Cranach, 
and  Holbein  in  the  sixteenth  century  in  Germany;  the  flowering  of  Italian  art  in  the 
Renascence  period  and  the  exuberance  of  its  golden  age,  the  days  of  Leonardo, 
Michael  Angelo,  and  Raphael,  —  such  are  the  themes  of  the  second  volume,  which  is 
even  more  richly  illustrated  than  the  first. 

PALACE  OF  PLEASURE,  THE,  by  William  Painter.  This  famous  collection  of  tales 
was  first  published  in  1566;  and  its  great  popularity  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  six 
editions  were  issued  within  twenty  years  after  its  first  appearance.  'The  Palace  of 
Pleasure '  was  the  first  English  story-book  that  had  for  its  object  purely  the'amusement 
of  readers,  and  it  aroused  to  life  imaginations  which  had  been  starved  on  theological 
discussions.  The  stories  are  translated,  some  from  Livy's  Latin  or  Plutarch's  Greek, 
others  from  French  translations  of  the  original  tongues ;  still  others  from  the  Italian 
collections  of  Boccaccio,  Bandello,  and  Marguerite  of  Valois.  They  are  admirably 
selected  to  represent  the  higher  class  of  stories  current  at  the  time  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance.  They  are  simply  told,  without  much  of  the  morbidness  of  the  Italian 
originals,  and  with  all  their  beauty.  There  is  no  attempt  at  the  conciseness  which  is 
now  considered  essential  in  a  short  story,  but  rather  a  tendency  to  dwell  on  details,  — 
to  make  the  sweetness  long  drawn  out.  The  style  has  a  delicate  prettktess  which 
does  not  take  away  from  it  sincerity  and  clearness. 

Despite  the  great  charm  of  the  tales  in  themselves,  the  chief  interest  in  them  lies 
in  the  fact  that  the  collection  was  used  as  a  storehouse  of  plots  by  the  Elizabethan 


650  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

volunteer  fireman,  shows  him  the  inner  workings  of  the  free  American  Press,  initi- 
ates him  into  the  bitter  knowledge  of  what  it  is  to  be  a  candidate  for  office.  And 
the  whole  is  told  with  the  would-be  grumbling  tone  of  an  old  fellow  who  wants  to 
believe  in  the  superiority  of  his  adored  country  in  every  particular  over  this  "land  of 
savages." 

But  alas  when  the  sorcery  is  undone,  and  the  Parisian  reawakes  in  fair  Paris, 
with  an  unmistakable  French  family  about  him,  he  would  fain  have  remained  under 
the  enchantment.  His  son  is  no  longer  self-reliant;  his  daughter  blushes  and  is 
shocked  to  tears  at  his  suggestion  that  she  shall  many  the  man  of  her  heart;  and  his 
wife  is  indignant  that  he  should  suppose  his  daughter  so  ill-bred  as  to  have  a  choice. 
There  is  a  keen  reproach  for  France  in  the  mockery  of  the  finale,  which  pictures  the 
doctor  in  an  asylum,  where  in  the  estimation  of  his  countrymen,  his  strange  ideas 
fit  him  to  be  an  inmate. 

PARLIAMENTARY  NOVELS,  by  Anthony  Trollope.  These  are:  'Phineas  Finn/ 
1  Phineas  Redux, ' '  The  Prime  Minister, '  and  '  The  Duke's  Children. '  Trollope  tells  us 
in  his  autobiography  that  in  '  Phineas  Finn '  he  began  a  series  of  semi-political  tales, 
because,  being  debarred  from  expressing  his  opinions  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he 
could  thus  declare  his  convictions.  He  says :  "I  was  conscious  that  I  could  not  make 
a  tale  pleasing  chiefly  by  politics.  If  I  wrote  politics  for  my  own  sake,  I  must  put  in 
love,  sport,  and  intrigue,  for  the  benefit  of  my  readers.  In  writing  'Phineas  Finn' 
I  had  constantly  before  me  the  need  of  progression  in  character,  —  of  marking  the 
changes  naturally  produced  by  the  lapse  of  years.  I  got  around  me  a  circle  of  persons 
as  to  whom  I  knew  not  only  their  present  characters,  but  how  they  would  be  affected 
by  time  and  circumstance."  'Phineas  Finn'  was  completed  in  May,  1867,  and  its 
sequel,  'Phineas  Redux,'  not  until  1873.  The  former  traces  the  career  of  an  Irish- 
man, young  and  attractive,  who  goes  to  London  to  enter  Parliament,  leaving  behind 
his  boyish  sweetheart,  Mary  Flood- Jones.  He  is  admired  by  many,  especially  by 
Lady  Laura  Standish,  who  is  succeeded  by  another  love,  Violet  Effingham,  and  she 
by  a  charming  widow,  Marie  Max-Goesler.  In  time  he  gives  up  politics,  goes  home, 
and  becomes  Inspector  of  Poor-Houses  in  County  Cork.  Trollope  says:  "I  was 
wrong  to  many  him  to  a  girl  who  could  only  be  an  incumbrance  on  his  return  to  the 
world,  and  I  had  no  alternative  but  to  kill  her. "  Phineas  Redux  goes  back  to  Par- 
liament, has  more  sentimental  experiences,  and  makes  a  still  higher  reputation.  A 
political  enemy  of  Phineas  is  murdered,  and  he  is  accused  of  the  crime,  but  is  ac- 
quitted, largely  through  the  efforts  of  Marie  Max-Goesler.  'The  Prime  Minister' 
is  chiefly  devoted  to  the  unhappy  marriage  of  Emily  Wharton  and  Ferdinand  Lopez, 
a  Portuguese  adventurer,  and  to  the  affairs  of  the  prime  minister  and  his  wife.  The 
latter  couple  are  known  to  readers  of  Trollope's  earlier  novels  as  Planty  Paul  and 
Lady  Glencora,  now  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Omnium.  The  duke  is  sensitive,  proud, 
and  shy,  and  feels  the  burden  of  his  responsibility,  while  his  wife  is  forever  working 
for  his  advancement.  He  goes  gladly  out  of  office  at  last.  We  hear  little  of  Phineas 
Finn,  save  that  his  second  marriage  is  happy,  and  that  he  is  made  Secretary  for 
Ireland  and  then  Lord  of  the  Admiralty.  Trollope  tells  us  that  the  personages  of 
these  books  are  more  or  less  portraits,  not  of  living  men,  but  of  living  political  charac- 
ters. 'The  Prime  Minister'  is  his  ideal  statesman.  He  says:  "If  my  name  be  still 
known  in  the  next  century,  my  success  will  probably  rest  on  the  characters  of  Plan- 
tagenet  Palliser  and  Lady  Glencora."  This  volume  was  published  in  1876,  and  the 
series  was  finished  in  1880  with  '  The  Duke's  Children.'  This  opens  with  the  death  of 
the  duchess,  and  relates  the  further  history  of  her  children.  The  duke's  sons  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  .  651 

daughter  are  a  deep  disappointment  to  him.  His  heir,  Lord  Silverbridge,  is  dismissed 
from  college,  and  enters  Parliament  as  a  Conservative,  whereas  the  family  has 
always  been  Liberal.  His  daughter  insists  upon  marrying  a  poor  commoner,  and  his 
heir  upon  marrying  an  American  girl,  while  his  }-ounger  son  is  idle  and  extravagant. 
In  the  end,  however,  he  accepts  the  choice  of  his  children,  and  the  book  closes  with 
his  return  to  politics.  Phineas  Finn  and  his  wife  reappear  in  these  pages,  he  still 
devoted  to  politics,  and  she  the  faithful  friend  of  the  duke  and  his  daughter. 

PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM,  a  volume  of  essays,  by  Walter  Bagehot,  appeared 
in  1884.  Its  most  striking  and  valuable  feature  as  permanent  literature  is  the  his- 
torical review  of  the  function  of  "rotten  boroughs, "  from  the  accession  of  the  Hano- 
verian dynasty  to  their  abolition  by  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832.  He  does  not  share  the 
popular  disgust  for  them,  though  he  admits  that  by  1832  they  had  survived  their 
usefulness.  He  shows  that  the  system  amounted  simply  to  giving  the  great  Whig 
families  a  preponderating  power  in  Parliament,  which  for  many  years  was  the  chief 
bulwark  against  a  restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  the  small  squires  and  the  Church  being 
so  uneasy  at  casting  off  the  old  house  that  there  was  always  danger  of  their  taking 
it  back.  See  also  'English  Constitution,'  by  Walter  Bagehot. 

PAST  AND  PRESENT,  by  Thomas  Carlyle.  This  treatise  was  published  in  England 
in  April,  1843;  in  May  it  was  published  in  America,  prefaced  by  an  appealing  notice 
to  publishers,  written  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  to  the  effect  that  the  book  was 
printed  from  a  manuscript  copy  sent  by  the  author  to  his  friends,  and  was  published 
for  the  benefit  of  the  author.  Mr.  Emerson  somewhat  optimistically  hoped  that  this 
fact  would  "incline  publishers  to  respect  Mr.  Carlyle *s  property  in  his  own  book." 

'  Past  and  Present '  was  written  in  seven  weeks,  as  a  respite  from  the  harassing 
labor  of  writing  'Cromwell.'  In  1842,  the  Camden  Society  had  published  the 
'Chronicles  of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Edmund's  Bury,1  written  by  Joceline  de  Brakelonde, 
at  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century.  This  account  of  a  mediaeval  monastery  had 
taken  Carlyle's  fancy;  and  in  'Past  and  Present'  he  contrasted  the  England  of  his 
own  day  with  the  England  of  Joceline  de  Brakelonde.  Englishmen  of  his  own  day 
he  divided  into  three  classes:  the  laborers,  the  devotees  of  Mammon,  and  the  dis- 
ciples of  dilettanteism.  Between  these  three  classes,  he  said,  there  was  no  tie  of 
human  brotherhood.  In  the  old  da}^  the  noble  was  the  man  who  fought  for  the 
safety  of  society.  For  the  dilettantes  and  the  Mammonites  he  preached  the  "  Gospel 
of  Work. "  For  the  uplifting  of  the  class  of  laborers,  for  the  strengthening  of  the  tie 
of  human  brotherhood,  he  proposed  what  seemed  chimerical  schemes  in  1843;  but 
before  his  death  some  of  his  schemes  had  been  realized.  He  attacked  the  "laissez 
faire"  principle  most  fiercely;  he  advocated  legislative  interference  in  labor,  sanitary 
and  educational  legislation,  an  organized  emigration  service,  some  system  of  profit- 
sharing,  and  the  organization  of  labor. 

In  1843,  'Past  and  Present'  was  regarded  as  forceful,  rousing,  but  not  practical. 
It  had,  however,  a  great  effect  on  the  young  and  enthusiastic;  and  is  now  looked  on  as 
one  of  the  best  of  Carlyle's  books,  and  as  the  expression  of  a  political  philosophy 
which,  however  violently  expressed,  was  at  bottom  sensible  and  practical. 

PASTON  LETTERS.  This  is  a  most  interesting  and  valuable  collection  of  letters, 
written  in  the  reigns  of  Henry  VI.,  Edward  IV.,  Richard  III.,  and  Henry  VII.  They 
were  handed  down  in  the  Paston  family,  till  the  male  line  became  extinct  in  1732, 
and  eventually  came  into  the  hands  of  Sir  John  Ferris,  who  first  published  them. 


652  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

He  brought  out  two  quarto  volumes  in  1787,  two  in  1789,  and  left  material  for  a 
fifth,  which  appeared  in  1823.  He  gave  the  letters  in  two  forms,  one  an  exact  copy, 
retaining  the  old  and  variable  spelling,  the  other  with  the  spelling  modernized,  and 
obsolete  or  obscure  words  explained.  He  also  prefixed  to  the  separate  letters  valu- 
able historical  notices,  and  subjoined  facsimiles  of  the  seals  and  signatures.  These 
quartos  were,  however,  very  expensive;  so  in  1840,  Ramsay  brought  out  a  popular 
edition  with  some  corrections  and  condensations :  more  recently  other  editions  have 
appeared. 

The  letters  themselves  present  very  clearly  the  manner  of  life  and  thought  of 
the  middle  classes  during  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  They  incidentally  throw  light  on 
historical  personages  and  events;  but  their  chief  concern  is  with  the  everyday  affairs 
of  the  Paston  family  of  Norfolk.  They  show  how  exclusively  the  wars  involved  the 
nobility  and  their  retainers,  and  how  the  commoners  carried  on  their  affairs  undis- 
turbed by  bloody  battles  and  subsequent  beheadings.  We  learn  from  the  letters  of 
the  dress,  food,  and  social  customs  of  the  day,  and  some  things  appear  strange  to  us, 
—  as  the  great  formality  of  address,  and  the  humble  deference  shown  to  parents  by 
their  children  and  to  husbands  by  their  wives;  but  we  are  chiefly  impressed  by  the 
fundamental  fact  that  human  nature  was  then  very  much  what  it  is  now. 

PASTOR  FIDO,  IL,  by  Giovanni  Battista  Guarini.  This  pastoral  drama,  which 
was  first  produced  in  1585,  is  the  masterpiece  of  the  author,  and  its  influence  can  be 
seen  in  all  subsequent  literature  of  this  class.  It  is  a  most  highly  finished  work, 
after  the  style  of  Tasso  *s  *  Aminta, '  but  lacks  its  simplicity  and  charm.  It  ran  through 
forty  editions  during  the  author's  life,  and  was  translated  into  almost  all  modern 
languages.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Arcadia,  where  a  young  maiden  is  sacrificed  annually 
to  the  goddess  Diana.  The  people  can  be  freed  from  this  tribute  only  when  two 
mortals,  descendants  of  the  gods,  are  united  by  love,  and  the  great  virtue  of  a  faith- 
ful shepherd  shall  atone  for  the  sins  of  an  unfaithful  woman.  To  fulfill  this  condition, 
Amarilli,  who  is  descended  from  the  god  Pan,  is  betrothed  to  Silvio,  the  son  of  Mon- 
tano,  the  priest  of  Diana,  and  a  descendant  of  Hercules.  Silvio's  only  passion  is  for 
hunting;  and  he  flees  from  Amarilli,  who  is  beloved  by  Mirtillo,  the  supposed  son  of 
Carino,  who  for  a  long  time  has  lived  away  from  Arcadia.  Amarilli  reciprocates  the 
love  of  Mirtillo,  but  fears  to  acknowledge  it,  as  falseness  to  her  vow  to  Silvio  would 
entail  death.  Corisca,  also  in  love  with  Mirtillo,  learns  of  it,  and  by  a  trick  brings 
them  together  and  denounces  them.  Amarilli  is  condemned  to  death;  and  Mirtillo, 
availing  himself  of  a  custom  allowed,  is  to  be  sacrificed  in  her  place,  when  Carino 
arrives,  and  Mirtillo  is  found  to  be  the  son  of  Montano.  In  his  infancy  he  was  carried 
away  in  his  cradle  by  a  flood,  and  had  been  adopted  by  Carino.  As  his  name  is  also 
Silvio,  it  is  decided  that  Amarilli  in  marrying  him  will  not  break  the  vow  which  she 
had  made  to  Silvio,  and  by  this  marriage  the  decree  of  the  oracle  will  be  fulfilled. 

PATHFINDER,  THE,  see  LEATHERSTOCKTNG  TALES. 
PATIENCE,  see  PEARL. 

PATRINS,  by  Louise  Imogen  Guiney  (1897),  is  a  collection  of  twenty  short  essays 
on  things  of  the  day,  with  one  disquisition  on  King  Charles  IL  The  little  papers  are 
called  '  Patrins, r  from  the  Romany  word  signifying  the  handfuls  of  scattered  leaves 
by  which  the  gipsies  mark  the  waj-  they  have  passed;  Miss  Guiney's  road  through 
the  thought-country  being  marked  by  these  printed  leaves.  The  essays  are  distinctly 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  653 

literary  in  form  and  feeling;  the  style  is  grace  itself;  the  matter  airy  yet  subtle, 
whimsical  and  quite  out  of  the  common.  'On  the  Delights  of  an  Incognito,'  'On 
Dying  as  a  Dramatic  Situation/  'An  Open  Letter  to  the  Moon,'  'A  Bitter  Complaint 
of  an  Ungentle  Reader, '  are  some  of  the  fantastic  and  alluring  titles.  'An  Inquirendo 
into  the  Wit  and  Other  Good  Parts  of  his  Late  Majesty  King  Charles  the  Second7 
attempts  for  the  Merry  Monarch  what  Froude  attempted  for  Henry  VIII.  The  piece 
is  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between  a  holder  of  the  generally  accepted  view  of  the 
Second  Charles's  character,  and  a  devoted  admirer  of  that  sovereign,  who  wears  a 
sprig  of  green  in  his  hat  on  the  anniversary  of  the  Restoration,  and  feeds  the  swans  in 
St.  James's  Park,  because  his  Majesty  once  loved  to  do  so.  This  apologist  considers 
Charles  II.  as  the  last  sovereign  with  a  mind;  and  for  that  merit,  he  can  find  it  in  his 
heart  to  forgive  much  to  that  cynical  and  humorous  gentleman. 

PATRIOT,  THE  ('Piccolo  mondo  antico')  by  Antonio  Fogazzaro  (1896)  is  the  first 
of  a  trilogy  introducing  the  Maironi  family,  Franco  and  Luisa,  the  father  and  mother 
of  Piero  Maironi,  who  is  the  "Sinner"  in  'Piccolo  mondo  moderno, '  and  becomes  the 
' '  Saint "  in  '  II  Santo. '  The  scene  of  '  The  Patriot '  is  Valsolda  on  the  beautiful  Lake 
Lugano,  during  the  years  of  Austrian  oppression  preceding  United  Italy.  The 
story  is  the  conflict  between  the  religious  nature  of  Franco  and  the  scepticism  of  his 
wife,  Luisa,  which  later  accounts  for  the  warring  elements  in  the  temperament  of  their 
son.  Franco  is  cast  out  by  his  wicked  old  grandmother,  the  Marchesa  Maironi, 
because  he  will  marry  the  lovely  Luisa,  who,  as  the  daughter  of  a  teacher,  is  not  his 
equal  in  rank  or  fortune.  His  strength  is  blind  faith  in  the  religion  and  practice  of 
the  Catholic  Church.  On  the  eve  of  his  departure  to  Piedmont  to  join  the  patriots, 
Luisa  confesses  to  him  her  rationalist  beliefs.  Their  devoted  love  for  each  other  does 
not  fail  but  they  are  separated  in  spirit  by  their  different  views  of  life.  They  have 
one  child,  Maria,  whom  they  adore.  The  child  is  drowned,  and  Luisa's  grief  almost 
destroys  her  reason.  Franco  returns  too  late  to  see  his  child,  and  is  nearly  captured 
by  Austrian  spies.  As  the  war  for  freedom  begins,  Luisa  is  persuaded  to  leave  the 
grave  of  her  child  to  say  goodbye  to  her  husband.  The  vision  of  war  and  death  to 
come  brings  her  to  herself,  and  the  child  is  conceived  who  is  to  fight  the  battle  of 
the  modern  world. 

THE  SINNER  ('Piccolo  mondo  moderno')  (1901)  begins  when  this  child,  Piero,  is 
a  man.  He  is  bound  to  an  insane  wife,  but  loves  a  beautiful  married  woman,  Jeanne 
Dessalle,  who  is  separated  from  her  vicious  husband.  His  conscience  forbids  this 
intrigue  while  his  reason  claims  his  right  to  happiness.  In  Piero,  the  profound  faith 
of  his  father  strives  against  the  intellectual  unbelief  of  his  mother.  Even  while  he 
resolves  to  "travel  the  path  of  an  apostate  in  the  cause  of  social  justice,"  he  has 
mystic  premonitions  of  some  high  spiritual  destiny.  He  considers  giving  up  the 
world  for  the  ascetic  life,  but  has  chosen  Jeanne  instead  when  he  is  summoned  from 
her  to  his  wife's  death-bed.  Elisa,  his  young  wife,  recovers  her  reason  in  this  last 
hour,  and  he  is  overwhelmed  with  love  and  conviction  of  sin.  In  a  night  vigil  in  the 
chapel,  adjoining  the  asylum,  he  has  a  prophetic  vision  of  his  future  life  as  a  servant 
of  God.  He  gives  away  his  property  and  disappears  from  the  world  and  Jeanne. 
The  nobility  of  the  provincial  town  with  their  shabby  liveries  and  petty  household 
economies,  the  smart  set  who  attend  the  reception  at  the  Villa  Dessalle  and  the 
household  dependents  are  interesting  types  of  modern  Italian  society. 

THE  SAINT  ('II  Santo1)  (1901).  After  three  years,  Jeanne's  husband  is  dead, 
and  she  searches  for  her  lost  lover.  She  finds  him  as  Benedetto,  a  humble  lay  brother 
at  a  Benedictine  monastery.  He  has  served  his  apprenticeship  of  penance  and 


654  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

fasting,  and  spends  nights  on  the  mountain  in  prayer,  already  the  " Saint"  who  is  to 
reform  the  Catholic  church.  His  unorthodox  views  drive  him  from  the  monastery 
to  the  hills  of  Jenne,  where  he  becomes  known  as  the  "Saint  of  Jenne"  for  his  good 
deeds  and  holy  life.  The  superstitious  peasants  hail  him  as  a  miracle  worker;  pil- 
grimages are  made  to  his  hermitage;  and  his  notoriety  rouses  the  jealousy  of  the 
priests  who  drive  him  forth  again.  In  Rome  he  finds  disciples  and  friends  among  the 
liberal  Christian  democrats.  Of  this  group,  Don  Clemente,  his  beloved  confessor  of 
the  monastery  is  a  leading  spirit,  and  Selva,  a  writer  on  Catholic  theology  the  leading 
intellect.  He  preaches  mediaeval  faith  with  the  accepted  truths  of  science,  and 
emphasis  on  the  essential  and  eternal  in  religion,  right  living  as  more  important  even 
than  right  belief,  or  practice  of  devotion.  He  has  a  dramatic  interview  with  the 
Pope,  in  which  he  denounces  the  four  spirits  of  evil  in  the  church,  the  spirits  of  false- 
hood, of  clericalism,  of  avarice,  and  of  immobility,  and  tries  to  persuade  the  Pope  to 
leave  the  Vatican.  The  Pope  is  sympathetic  and  friendly,  but  points  out  that  he  has 
few  saints  in  his  church  but  many  Scribes  and  Pharisees  to  reckon  with,  and  is 
powerless  to  help  him.  The  clericals  of  the  Vatican  are  disturbed,  and  make  terms 
with  the  government  in  the  matter  of  an  episcopal  nomination,  on  condition  the 
government  will  get  the  troublesome  Maironi  out  of  Rome.  Pressure  is  brought  to 
bear  on  those  who  give  him  shelter.  Jeanne,  sternly  forbidden  his  presence,  protects 
him  through  her  friends.  Broken  in  health  by  the  severity  of  his  mortifications  of  the 
flesh,  he  escapes  persecution  only  in  death,  at  the  house  of  a  friend,  Professor  Mayda, 
an  agnostic.  On  his  death-bed  he  sends  for  Jeanne  and  holds  out  to  her  his  crucifix, 
which  she  accepts  as  a  sign  of  her  adoption  of  his  faith.  The  novel  attracted 
great  attention  as  a  conscientious  and  devoted  endeavor  to  present  in  fiction  the 
attempt  to  reconcile  Roman  Catholicism  with  modern  science  and  to  reform 
the  Church. 

LEILA  (1910).  Leila,  a  high-spirited  girl,  is  the  adopted  daughter  and  heiress  of 
Signor  Marcello,  to  whose  son  she  had  been  betrothed.  He  had  wished  to  have  her 
constantly  with  him  in  memory  of  his  dead  son,  and  had  bought  her  from  her  sordid 
disreputable  father.  Leila  was  glad  to  escape  from  the  home  of  her  father,  ruled 
over  by  a  vulgar  housekeeper,  though  it  was  a  severe  trial  to  her  pride  to  enter  her 
new  home  "as  a  thing  bought  and  paid  for. "  As  the  story  opens  Signor  Marcello  is 
expecting  a  guest,  Massimo  Alberti,  a  young  Milanese  doctor,  his  son's  intimate 
friend.  After  he  sees  the  young  ma.n  he  forms  the  opinion  that  Massimo  would  be 
a  desirable  and  suitable  husband  for  Leila,  whom  he  dreads  to  leave  to  the  mercies  of 
her  parents  in  the  event  of  his  own  death,  which  he  believes  to  be  close  at  hand. 
Massimo  falls  in  love  with  Leila,  but  is  scorned  by  her  as  a  fortune  hunter  brought  by 
Signor  Marcello  to  woo  the  heiress.  She  considers  herself  the  victim  of  a  plot  and 
will  have  none  of  him,  refusing  to  own  to  herself  that  she  loves  him.  Signor  Marcello 
dies  suddenly  and  as  Leila  is  a  minor  her  obnoxious  father  arrives  to  take  possession. 
The  priests  scheme  to  induce  Leila  to  retire  to  a  convent  and  thus  divert  her  money 
to  the  Church.  Donna  Fedele,  the  friend  of  the  family,  and  of  Massimo,  succeeds 
in  convincing  the  proud  wayward  Leila  of  her  mistaken  judgment  of  Massimo. 
Overcome  with  remorse  for  her  treatment  of  her  lover,  Leila  runs  away  to  join  him 
at  Valsolda,  and  offers  herself  to  him.  Donna  Fedele  gives  up  the  surgical  operation 
which  would  prolong  her  life  to  follow  her  and  chaperone  her  protege's  until  the 
marriage  can  take  place.  As  in  other  works  by  this  author,  there  is  a  vivid  religious 
background,  in  which  the  doubts  and  beliefs  of  each  character  are  set  forth.  Massimo 
was  a  favorite  disciple  of  Benedetto,  "the  Saint,"  but  like  Leila  nearly  loses  his  faith 
in  the  Church  because  of  the  unworthiness  of  some  of  its  members.  The  last  chapter 


THE  READER'S  DIGETST  OF  BOOKS  655 

is  the  burial  of  Benedetto  beside  Hs  parents  at  Valsolda.  Jeanne  Desalle  attends  the 
funeral  service. 

PATRONAGE,  by  Maria  Edgeworth  (1814).  This  novel  was  written  for  a  purpose; 
and  the  moral  is  apparent  throughout,  and  amply  illustrated  in  almost  every  charac- 
ter in  the  book. 

Mr.  Percy,  a  sensible  English  gentleman  of  the  present  time,  brings  up  his  sons 
and  daughters  to  depend  upon  themselves  for  success  in  life,  and  not  upon  the 
patronage  of  influential  persons.  The  result  is  most  gratifying:  the  sons  all  succeed 
in  their  different  professions  by  their  own  efforts,  and  the  daughters  marry  well 
through  no  efforts  of  their  own,  but  according  to  their  merits.  Mr.  Falconer,  Mr. 
Percy's  ambitious  cousin,  also  has  a  large  family;  but  he  seeks  the  patronage  of  Lord 
Oldborough  to  further  the  advancement  of  his  sons,  and  uses  various  diplomatic 
means  to  establish  his  daughters  well  in  the  social  world.  In  spite  of  the  unceasing 
efforts  of  Mr.  Falconer,  and  the  decidedly  questionable  proceedings  of  his  wife,  none 
of  their  children  do  them  credit;  and  patronage  without  earnestness  of  purpose  and 
high  ideals  proves  a  failure. 

PATTY,  by  Katherine  S.  Macquoid  (1871),  is  a  story  of  English  middle-class  con- 
temporary life.  Patty  Westropp,  the  pretty  and  ambitious  daughter  of  a  gardener 
inherits  a  fortune,  changes  her  name,  attends  a  fashionable  French  school,  and  pre- 
sently emerges  from  her  chrysalis  state  a  fine  lady.  Her  beauty  and  her  money 
enable  her  to  marry  an  English  gentleman  of  good  family;  and  the  chief  interest  of 
the  story  lies  in  the  complications  which  spring  from  the  contact  of  a  nature  ruled  by 
crass  selfishness  and  vulgar  ambition,  with  nobler  and  more  sensitive  spirits.  The 
character  study  is  always  good,  and  the  novel  entertaining. 

PAUL  AND  VIRGINIA,  a  novel  by  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  was  published  in  1788. 
The  scene  is  Port  Saint  Louis  in  Isle  de  France,  now  Mauritius,  and  the  story  is 
narrated  to  a  visitor  by  one  of  the  colonists,  a  friend  of  the  persons  concerned.  In  a 
beautiful  wooded  valley  lived  two  women,  each  with  her  child  and  servant,  and  each 
in  her  own  cottage,  but  cultivating  the  land  jointly  and  living  on  terms  of  the -closest 
intimacy.  One  of  these  women  was  Madame  de  la  Tour,  a  widow  disowned  by  her 
noble  family  in  France  for  marrying  beneath  her.  She  had  a  daughter,  Virginia,  born 
after  the  death  of  her  husband,  and  a  negro  slave-woman,  Marie,  married  to  the 
negro,  Domingo,  the  farm  laborer  of  the  two  properties  and  the  slave  of  Marguerite, 
the  owner  of  the  other  cottage.  Marguerite  is  a  Breton  peasant  girl  betrayed  by  her 
lover,  and  has  sought  refuge  from  slander  in  this  distant  colony.  Her  child,  Paul, 
completes  this  little  circle,  which  lives  in  idyllic  peace  and  content.  Strongly  in- 
fluenced by  Rousseau's  'Emile,'  the  author  paints  an  existence  of  ideal  simplicity, 
in  which  the  elders  support  themselves  by  wholesome  labor  and  the  children  grow  up 
in  innocent,  healthy  activity,  ignorant  of  books,  but  skilled  in  useful  arts,  in  knowledge 
of  the  external  world,  in  admiration  for  the  gorgeous  scenery  of  the  island,  and  in  an 
atmosphere  of  natural  piety  and  affection.  The  domestic  scenes,  and  the  episode 
of  the  children's  wandering  through  the  forest  on  a  humanitarian  errand  and  losing 
their  way,  are  prettily  narrated.  Rousseau's '  Nouvelle  Heloise '  furnishes  the  sugges- 
tion for  the  scenes  of  passion  and  renunciation  which  follow  and  for  the  emotional 
and  pictorial  descriptions  of  nature  with  which  they  are  surrounded.  As  the  children 
grow  up  they  begin  to  feel  an  affection  for  one  another  different  from  the  brotherly 
and  sisterly  feeling  of  their  earlier  years.  The  mothers  notice  this  and  discuss  their 


656  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF 

marriage,  which  Madame  de  la  Tour  would  defer  until  the  children  are  older. 
now  comes  from  France  that  Madame  de  la  Tour's  aunt,  to  whom  she  had  formerly 
applied  in  vain  for  assistance,  is  willing  to  forgive  her  and  to  make  Virginia  her  heir. 
At  the  urgent  advice  of  the  governor  of  the  island  M.  de  la  Bourdonnais  and  of  her 
confessor  Mme,  -de  la  Tour  accepts  the  offer,  and  after  declaring  her  love  for  Paul 
and  promising  to  be  his  wife,  Virginia  sails  for  France.  In  a  year  and  a  half  she  writes 
that  her  aunt  has  sent  her  to  a  convent  to  be  educated  and  keeps  her  under  severe 
restrictions.  More  than  two  years  later  a  French  ship  is  sighted  and  a  message  comes 
in  the  pilot's  boat  from  Virginia  that  she  has  been  disinherited  by  her  aunt  for  refusing 
a  marriage  arranged  for  her  and  is  now  on  board  the  ship  and  immediately  to  return 
to  her  mother  and  Paul.  But  a  hurricane  wrecks  the  ship  before  it  can  land,  and 
Virginia,  refusing  to  remove  her  clothes  or  accept  the  aid  of  a  naked  sailor  who  offers 
to  take  her  to  shore,  is  washed  overboard  and  drowned.  In  attempting  to  swim  out 
'to  her,  Paul  is  hurled  back  upon  the  beach,  wounded  and  senseless.  He  recovers,  but 
all  efforts  to  comfort  him  are  vain;  and  two  months  after  the  death  of  Virginia  he 
himself  dies  of  grief,  soon  followed  by  his  mother,  and  by  Virginia's.  The  death  of 
the  old  negro  couple  leaves  only  the  aged  settler,  who  tells  the  story  and  who  was  the 
intimate  friend  of  both  families,  to  keep  alive  their  memory.  For  the  modern  reader 
the  book  is  spoiled  by  a  tendency  to  sentimentality,  an  absence  of  realism,  a  reliance 
on  theatrical  effects,  an  excessive  penchant  for  moralizing,  and  the  prudery  of  the 
motive  responsible  for  Virginia's  death.  There  is  nevertheless  a  simple  attractive- 
ness about  the  youthful  figures,  set  off  by  the  romantic  beauty  of  the  tropical  scenery 
and  the  passionate  intensity  of  their  love. 

PATH/  CLIFFORD,  by  Bulwer-Lytton  (1830).  Lord  Lytton's  object  in  'Paul  Clif- 
ford '  was  to  appeal  for  an  amelioration  of  the  British  penal  legislation,  by  illustrating 
to  what  criminal  extremes  the  ungraded  severity  of  the  laws  was  driving  men  who 
by  nature  were  upright  and  honest.  To  quote  from  Clifford's  well-known  defense 
when  before  the  judges:  "Your  laws  are  of  but  two  classes:  the  one  makes  criminals, 
the  other  punishes  them.  I  have  suffered  by  the  one  —  I  am  about  to  perish  by  the 
other.  .  .  .  Your  legislation  made  me  what  I  am  I  and  it  now  destroys  me,  as  it  has 
destroyed  thousands,  for  being  what  it  made  me. "  The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid  in 
London  and  the  adjoining  country,  at  a  period  shortly  preceding  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. Paul,  a  child  of  unknown  parentage,  is  brought  up  by  an  old  innkeeper  among 
companions  of  very  doubtful  character.  Arrested  for  a  theft  of  which  he  is  innocent, 
he  is  sentenced  to  confinement  among  all  sorts  of  hardened  criminals.  He  escapes, 
and  quickly  becomes  the  chief  of  a  band  of  highwaymen.  In  the  midst  of  a  career 
of  lawlessness,  he  takes  residence  at  Bath  under  the  -name  of  Captain  Clifford  and 
falls  desperately  in  love  with  a  young  heiress,  Lucy  Brandon,  who  returns  his  affec- 
tion; but  realizing  the  gulf  which  lies  between  them,  he  resolutely  takes  leave  of  her 
after  confessing  vaguely  who  and  what  he  is.  Shortly  after  this  he  robs,  partly 
through  revenge,  Lord  Mauleverer,  a  suitor  for  the  hand  of  Lucy,  and  intimate 
friend  of  her  uncle  and  guardian,  Sir  William  Brandon,  a  lawyer  of  great  note,  re- 
cently elevated  to  the  peerage  and  soon  to  be  preferred  to  the  ministry.  Brandon  has 
had,  by  a  wife  now  long  since  lost  and  dead,  a  child  which  was  stolen  from  him  in  its 
infancy.  His  secret  lifework  has  been  to  find  and  rehabilitate  that  child,  and  so 
preserve  the  family  name  of  Brandon.  As  a  result  of  the  robbery,  two  of  Paul's 
associates  are  captured.  He  succeeds  in  liberating  them  by  means  of  a  daring  attack, 
but  is  himself  wounded  and  taken  prisoner.  Judge  Brandon  presides  at  the  trial. 
At  the  moment  when  he  is  to  pronounce  the  death  sentence,  a  scrap  of  paper  is 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  657 

passed  him  revealing  the  fact  that  the  condemned  is  his  own  son.  Appalled  at  the 
disgrace  which  will  tarnish  his  brilliant  reputation,  he  pronounces  the  death  sentence, 
but  a  few  minutes  afterward  is  found  dead  in  his  carriage.  The  paper  on  his  person 
reveals  the  story,  and  Clifford  is  transported  for  life.  He  effects  his  escape,  however, 
and  together  with  Lucy,  flees  to  America,  where  his  latter  days  are  passed  in  probity 
and  unceasing  philanthropic  labors. 

PEARL,  a  poem  of  the  fourteenth  century,  a  link  between  the  'Canterbury  Tales' 
and  the  work  of  the  early  Saxon  poets,  Caedmon  and  Cynewulf,  was  written  by  a 
contemporary  of  Chaucer,  whose  name  is  unknown.  Hidden  from  the  world  of 
letters  for  many  centuries,  this  jewel  of  old-English  verse  appeared  in  modern  setting 
in  1891.  The  edition  is  the  work  of  Israel  Gollancz  of  Christ's  College,  Cambridge. 
Prefixed  to  it  is  the  following  quatrain  by  Tennyson:  — 

**We  lost  you  —  for  how  long  a  time — 
True  pearl  of  our  poetic  prime! 
We  found  you,  and  you  gleam  reset 
In  Britain's  lyric  coronet." 

A  manuscript  of  the  Cottonian  collection  at  Oxford  contains  'Pearl,1  with  three 
other  poems,  —  'Gawain,'  'Cleanness/  and  'Patience,'  —  each  a  gateway  into  the 
visionary  or  romantic  world  of  the  fourteenth  century.  In  the  opinion  of  the  editor, 
all  four  poems  are  by  the  same  unknown  author,  and  antedate  Chaucer's  work.  The 
intervening  centuries  have  swept  away  every  evidence  of  this  author's  name  and 
place;  but  his  works  reflect  a  vivid  personality,  making  himself  seen  even  through 
the  abstractions  of  mediaeval  allegory.  The  editor  endeavors  to  trace  the  outlines 
of  this  personality,  guided,  as  he  says,  by  "mere  conjecture  and  inference."  There 
is  no  decisive  evidence  whether  'Gawain'  or  'Pearl'  was  the  first  written  of  the  four 
poems;  the  editor  believes,  however,  that  'Gawain'  was  first.  Its  date  is  approxi- 
mately determined  by  the  connection  the  editor  traces  between  the  Gawain  romances, 
so  popular  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  the  origin  of  the  Order  of  the  Garter.  In 
the  poem  'Gawain,'  a  fair  young  knight  of  Arthur's  Round  Table  is  protected  in  a 
combat  with  the  Green  Knight  by  a  mystic  girdle,  the  gift  of  his  hostess,  the  wife  of 
the  Green  Knight.  In  the  three  days  preceding  the  combat,  she  had  tempted  him 
three  times,  and  three  times  he  had  resisted  the  temptation.  To  reward  him  for  his 
chastity,  the  Green  Knight  permits  him  to  keep  the  mystic  circlet,  and  to  wear  it  as 
an  honorable  badge,  as  well  as  a  protection  from  injury.  In  the  editor's  opinion,  these 
incidents  of  the  poem  refer  directly  to  the  adventure  of  King  Edward  III.  with  the 
Countess  of  Salisbury,  and  to  the  subsequent  founding  of  the  Order  of  the  Garter. 
The  contemporary  poets  thus  sought  to  honor  the  King  by  comparing  him  with 
Gawain,  the  very  flower  of  courtesy  and  purity;  the  conception  of  Gawain  as  a  false 
knight  "light  in  life"  belonging  to  a  later  day. 

To  pass  from  'Gawain'  to  'Pearl'  is  to  pass  from  earthly  to  heavenly  romance. 
' Gawain'  reflects  the  gay  chivalry  of  the  fourteenth  century, '  Pearl '  its  disposition  to 
see  visions  and  to  dream  dreams.  Before  Chaucer,  the  Muse  of  English  verse  had 
dosed  eyelids.  A  brilliant  example  of  the  mediaeval  dream-poem  is  found  in  '  Pearl/ 
It  is  an  ancient  'In  Memoriam,'  a  lyric  of  grief  for  the  poet's  dead  child  Margaret; 
and  it  finds  its  truest  counterpart  in  the  "delicate  miniatures  of  mediaeval  missals, 
steeped  in  richest  colors  and  bright  with  gold."  The  poem  consists  partly  of  a 
Lament  over  the  loss  of  a  gem  too  fair  to  be  hidden  in  earth,  and  partly  of  a  Vision 
*£  the  child's  bliss  with  God.  Throughout,  the  symbol  of  the  Pearl  is  used  the  type 
42 


658  THE   READER'S  DIGEST  OF   BOOKS 

of  Margaret,  the  type  also  of  perfect  holiness.  The  'Vision'  is  rich  in  gorgeous 
imagery,  as  if  the  poet  had  drawn  his  inspiration  from  the  Apocalypse.  He  is  carried 
in  spirit  to  a  land  of  unearthly  beauty,  where  he  beholds  his  daughter  clothed  in 
shining  garments  sown  with  pearls.  She  tells  him  of  her  happiness,  reveals  to  him  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  so  comforts  him  that  he  becomes  resigned  to  his  loss. 
Recent  critics  have  raised  the  question  whether  the  poem  treats  of  a  real  child  or  is 
entirely  allegorical. 

The  poems  '  Cleanness '  and  '  Patience '  are,  in  the  opinion  of  the  editor,  pendants 
to  'Pearl.'  'Cleanness*  relates  in  epic  style  the  Scriptural  stories  of  the  Marriage 
Feast,  the  Fall  of  the  Angels  from  Heaven,  the  Flood,  the  Visit  of  the  Angels  to 
Abraham,  Belshazzar's  Feast,  and  Nebuchadnezzar's  Fall.  The  poem  'Patience' 
relates  episodes  in  the  life  of  Jonah.  A  vivid,  childlike  description  is  given  of  Jonah's 
entrance  into  the  whale's  belly  and  his  abode  there.  The  artistic  form  of  these  poems 
represents  a  compromise  between  two  schools:  the  East  Midland  school  which 
produced  Chaucer  and  looked  to  French  literature  for  inspiration,  and  the  Saxon 
school  of  the  West-Midland  poets,  "whose  literary  ancestors  were  Caedmon  and 
Cynewulf, "  It  would  seem  "that  there  arose  a  third  class  of  poets  during  this  period 
of  formation,  whose  avowed  endeavor  was  to  harmonize  these  diverse  elements  of 
Old  and  New,  to  blend  the  archaic  alliterative  rhythm  with  the  measures  of  Romance 
song.  'Pearl1  is  a  singularly  successful  instance  of  the  reconciliation  of  these  two 
widely  diverse  forms  of  poetry. 

PEARL  OF  ORR'S  ISLAND,  THE,  by  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.  This  story  gives  a 
truthful  and  interesting  picture  of  the  people  in  a  Maine  fishing  hamlet.  Mara 
Lincoln,  the  "Pearl,"  a  beautiful  girl,  has  been  brought  up  by  her  grandparents, 
Captain  and  Mrs.  Pennel;  her  father  having  been  drowned  and  her  mother  having 
died  at  her  birth.  Moses,  the  hero  of  the  book,  shipwrecked  and  washed  ashore  upon 
the  island  when  very  young,  is  brought  up  and  cared  for  by  the  Pennels;  and  bears 
their  name.  The  result  of  this  is  the  mutual  attachment  of  the  young  people,  which 
is  at  first  more  strongly  felt  by  Mara.  Moses  accepts  Mara's  devotion  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  does  not  awaken  to  the  fact  that  he  is  in  love  with  her  until  piqued  by  the 
attentions  bestowed  upon  her  by  Mr.  Adams  of  Boston.  Then,  prompted  by  jealousy, 
he  pays  marked  attention  to  Sally  Zittridge,  a  bright  and  attractive  girl,  Mara's 
dearest  friend;  but  Sally,  always  loyal  to  Mara,  makes  Moses  realize  the  true  state 
of  his  feelings. 

The  descriptions  of  the  picturesque  scenery  of  the  island  are  graphic  and  accurate; 
and  the  Pennel  house,  now  known  as  the  "Pearl  house,"  and  the  "grotto,"  where 
Moses  and  Sally  are  shut  in  by  the  tide,  are  objects  of  interest  to  visitors.  The  spicy 
sea-yarns  of  Captain  Kittridge,  and  the  quaint  sayings  of  Miss  Roxy  and  Miss  Ruey 
Toothacre  are  entertaining  features  of  the  book.  'The  Pearl  of  Orr's  Island'  was 
not  published  until  1862,  although  it  was  begun  ten  years  before  that  time. 

PEAU  DE  CHAGRIN,  LA  ('The  Wild  Ass's  Skin'),  by  Honors'  de  Balzac  (1831). 
This  forms  one  of  the  'Philosophic  Studies'  of  the  great  Frenchman.  In  1829  a 
young  man,  in  despair  because  of  failure  to  succeed  in  his  chosen  career,  tries  the 
gaming  table.  He  meets  an  old  man,  who  revives  his  interest  in  life  by  showing  him 
a  piece  of  skin,  bearing  in  Arabic  an  inscription  promising  to  the  owner  the  gratifica- 
tion of  every  wish.  But  with  each  request  granted  the  skin  becomes  smaller.  The 
life  of  the  possessor  is  lessened  as  the  enchanted  skin  diminishes.  The  unknown 
young  man  seizes  the  skirt,  crying  "A  short  life  but  a  merry  one! >?  Scenes  in  Paris 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  659 

pass  before  us,  taken  from  lives  of  artists,  journalists,  politicians.  We  meet  again 
Canalis,  a  chief  character  in  ' Modest  Mignon.'  One  chapter  is  entitled  'The  Heart- 
less Woman.'  Raphael  by  virtue  of  the  talismanic  skin  becomes  rich.  Pauline  loves 
him.  Life  smiles  on  them.  Yet  the  fatal  skin  is  brought  to  his  eyes,  casting  a  gloom 
over  everything  —  scientific  work,  salons  of  painting  and  sculpture,  the  theatre  — 
embittering  all.  He  brings  the  skin  to  Lavrille,  a  savant,  for  examination.  "It  is 
the  skin  of  an  ass, "  is  the  decision.  Raphael  was  looking  for  some  means  to  stretch 
the  skin,  and  thus  prolong  his  life.  He  tries  mechanical  force,  chemistry;  but  the 
skin  becomes  less  and  still  less  —  till  he  dies.  Through  all  we  feel  the  author's  tone  of 
irony  toward  the  weakness  and  sins  of  society.  Some  twenty  principal  personages  are 
introduced. 

PEDAGOGICS  OF  THE  KINDERGARTEN  ('Die  Padagogik  des  Kindergartens'), 
a  collection  of  essays  on  the  education  of  young  children,  written  by  Friedrich  Froebel, 
collected  and  published  in  1861.  Proceeding  from  a  sympathetic  consideration  of 
the  child's  physical  and  mental  impulses  Froebel  shows  how  its  play  may  be  so 
directed  from  the  earliest  stages  onward  as  to  develop  harmoniously  the  various 
conceptions,  and  reasoning  processes  incident  to  education.  For  instance,  the  ball 
satisfies  the  child's  desire  to  grasp  at  things  and  by  playing  with  it  he  gets  the  con- 
ception of  unity,  while  the  cube  with  its  various  faces  and  corners  teaches  him  the 
conception  of  variety  in  unity.  Touching  these  things  suggests  to  him  that  they  are 
not  himself  and  thus  inculcates  the  distinction  between  subject  and  object.  When  the 
cube  is  cut  up  into  eight  small  cubes  he  learns  the  difference  between  the  part  and 
the  whole,  outer  and  inner.  Arithmetical  processes  are  also  suggested  by  putting 
together  these  small  cubes.  Various  games  with  the  ball  attached  to  a  string  teach 
the  ideas  of  movement,  space,  and  time.  Then  the  imagination  is  stimulated  by 
making  believe  that  the  ball  and  cube  are  living  things.  Thus  the  child's  mental 
powers  are  naturally  unfolded  in  accordance  with  his  normal  instincts;  and  education 
becomes  a  co-operation  with  nature.  The  book  ends  with  a  concrete  illustration  — 
the  teaching  of  a  little  girl  to  read  and  write  by  the  observing  of  the  sounds  and  the 
simultaneous  forming  of  the  symbol.  The  universality  of  the  kindergarten  at  the 
present  day  is  the  best  comment  on  the  influence  of  this  book. 

PEER  GYTTT,  by  Henrik  Ibsen  (i 867) .  Peer  Gynt  is  the  victim  of  an  overmastering 
imagination.  He  brags  of  wonderful  deeds  true  only  in  his  childish  dreams.  At  a 
wedding  he  steals  the  bride  to  prove  himself  a  daredevil  to  the  guests  who  ridicule 
his  lying  tales.  His  ideal  of  himself  as  self -sufficient  is  only  self-indulgence  and  self- 
seeking.  After  a  series  of  adventures  in  the  mountains,  a  meeting  with  "The  Boyg " 
the  spirit  of  compromise,  for  whom  he  turns  aside,  typical  of  the  obstacles  he  goes 
around  and  never  surmounts,  and  an  amour  with  the  foul  daughter  of  the  troll- 
king,  typical  of  his  sensuality,  he  leaves  Solveig,  the  young  girl  who  has  followed  him 
to  the  mountain  and  goes  to  seek  his  fortune  in  America.  Trade  in  slaves,  idols, 
Bibles,  and  rum  makes  him  wealthy.  Some  companions  maroon  him  on  a  desert 
shore  in  Africa.  He  finds  the  Sultan's  white  horse  and  robes,  and  is  acclaimed  a 
prophet  by  the  Arabs,  until  he  loses  all  through  infatuation  for  a  dancing  girl.  His 
answer  to  the  riddle  of  the  sphinx  is  his  solution  of  life,  egotism.  He  is  crowned 
emperor  of  himself  by  the  inmates  of  a  madhouse.  Returning  to  Norway,  he  is 
shipwrecked  but  escapes  death  by  pushing  another  man  from  the  boat.  However, 
Death  is  waiting  for  him  at  the  cross  roads  in  the  guise  of  the  Button  Molder  who 
will  melt  him  back  to  nothing.  Hell  will  not  receive  him  since  "it  needs  strength  and 


66o  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

earnestness  to  sin. "  Solveig  has  waited  for  him  all  the  years.  In  her  memory  he  has 
lived  in  faith  and  hope  and  love,  "as  in  God's  thought. "  The  lesson  is  as  in  Brand 
self-realization  through  self-surrender. 

PEG  WOFFINGTON,  Charles  Reade's  first  novel,  was  published  in  1852,  when  he 
was  thirty-eight.  This  charming  story  of  eighteenth-century  manners  has  been 
dramatized  under  the  title  'Masks  and  Faces.'  It  opens  in  the  green-room  of  Covent 
Garden,  where  the  Irish  actress,  Margaret  TVoffington,  in  the  hey-day  of  her  fame 
and  beauty,  tricks  the  entire  dramatic  company,  including  Colley  Gibber  the  famous 
playwright  and  comedian,  by  personating  the  great  tragic  actress  Mrs.  Bracegirdle. 
At  the  same  time  she  achieves  the  conquest  of  a  wealthy  and  accomplished  Shropshire 
gentleman,  Ernest  Vane,  who  is  presented  to  her  by  a  London  fop,  Sir  Charles 
Pomander.  Vane  besieges  her  with  flowers  and  verses  until  he  arouses  the  jealousy 
of  Sir  Charles,  who  is  also  her  admirer.  In  the  midst  of  a  banquet  which  Mr.  Vane 
is  giving  in  honor  of  the  actress,  his  lovely  country  bride  appears  unexpectedly  upon 
the  scene.  Peg  WofBngton,  who  had  believed  Vane  to  be  a  single  man  and  her  loyal 
suitor,  hides  her  grief  and  resentment  under  a  guise  of  mockery ;  but  the  innocent  young 
wife  faints  away  on  finding  out  how  she  has  been  betrayed.  Peg  Woffington  next 
appears  in  the  garret  of  a  poor  scrub  author  and  scene-painter,  James  Triplet,  whom 
she  has  befriended  by  sitting  to  him  for  her  portrait.  Here,  after  fooling  a  party  of 
her  theatrical  comrades  and  would-be  art  critics,  who  have  come  to  abuse  the  picture, 
by  the  ingenious  device  of  cutting  out  the  painted  face  and  inserting  her  own  in  the 
aperture,  she  practices  the  same  trick  upon  Mabel  Vane,  Ernest's  wife,  who  has  sought 
refuge  with  Triplet  from  the  persecutions  of  Sir  Charles  Pomander.  Mabel,  seeing 
the  image  of  her  rival,  pours  forth  to  it  a  pathetic  appeal  that  Peg  will  not  rob  her 
of  her  only  treasure,  her  husband's  heart;  when  to  her  dismay,  she  perceives  a  tear 
upon  the  portrait's  face,  which  reveals  the  real  woman:  and  a  touching  interview 
follows,  in  which  the  courted  actress  begs  the  simple  young  wife  to  be  her  friend. 
Then  comes  on  the  scene  Sir  Charles  Pomander,  in  amorous  pursuit  of  Mabel;  closely 
followed  by  her  husband,  whom  Triplet  has  summoned  to  the  rescue.  A  reconcilia- 
tion between  the  married  pair  results,  and  Sir  Charles  retires  discomfited.  Woffington 
takes  an  affectionate  leave  of  the  Vanes,  who  soon  return  to  their  Shropshire  home 
and  domestic  bliss;  while  the  noble-hearted  Peg,  after  a  few  years  more  of  stage 
triumphs,  retires  before  her  bloom  has  faded,  to  a  life  in  the  country,  and  there  ends 
her  days,  "the  Bible  in  her  hand,  the  Cross  in  her  heart;  quiet;  amidst  grass  and 
flowers,  and  charitable  deeds." 

PELHAM,  by  E.  Bulwer-Lytton  (1828),  appeared  anonymously;  and  it  had  reached 
its  second  edition  in  1829.  It  belongs  to  the  writer's  initiatory  period,  being  the  first 
novel  that  gave  promise  of  his  ability. 

Henry  Pelham,  having  taken  his  university  degrees  and  enjoyed  a  run  to  Paris, 
returns  to  his  native  England,  and  takes  an  active  part  in  the  political  events  of  his 
time.  In  accordance  with  the  sub-title  of  the  book,  'The  Adventures  of  a  Gentle- 
man,' the  hero  endeavors  to  realize  Etherege's  ideal  of  "a  complete  gentleman;  who, 
according  to  Sir  Fopling,  ought  to  dress  well,  dance  well,  fence  well,  have  a  genius  for 
love  letters,  and  an  agreeable  voice  for  a  chamber. " 

Pelham  becomes  especially  useful  to  his  party;  but  on  account  of  jealousies  and 
intrigues  his  merits  are  not  properly  acknowledged. 

Meantime  he  has  yielded  to  the  charms  of  the  wealthy  and  accomplished  sister 
of  his  old  schoolmate  and  life-long  friend,  Sir  Reginald  Glanville.  Glanville  is  sus- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  661 

pected  of  the  murder  of  Sir  John  Tirrell,  whom  he  had  threatened  because  the  latter 
had  been  guilty  of  atrocious  conduct  toward  a  lady  who  was  under  Glanville's  protec- 
tion. A  terrible  network  of  circumstantial  evidence  causes  Pelham  to  feel  certain  of 
his  friend's  guilt.  Glanville  tells  the  whole  story  to  Pelham,  and  protests  his  inno- 
cence. By  the  aid  of  Job  Johnson,  a  London  flash  man  whom  Pelham  recognizes  as  a 
tool  fitted  to  accomplish  the  results  he  desires,  a  boozing  ken  of  the  most  desperate 
ruffians  in  the  city  is  visited;  and  Dawson,  the  confederate  of  Tom  Thornton  who 
had  committed  the  murder,  is  released.  Dawson's  testimony  convicts  the  real 
murderer,  and  of  course  exonerates  Glanville. 

Political  honors  are  now  thrust  upon  Pelham,  who  disdains  them ;  while  his  happy 
marriage  with  the  lovely  Ellen  Glanville  is  the  natural  sequence  to  the  tale. 

PELLE  THE  CONQUEROR,  by  Martin  Andersen  Nex<j>  (1913-16).  The  life  story  of 
Pelle  challenges  comparison  with  Jean  Christophe.  Pelle  represents  the  will-to- 
power  in  the  labor  movement.  He  is  a  peasant  boy  on  a  bleak  Danish  island,  work- 
ing his  way  by  helping  his  delightful  old  father  the  cow-herd,  Lasse.  He  escapes  the 
squalor  of  the  farm  life  to  become  apprentice  to  a  shoemaker  in  the  provincial  town. 
He  discovers  that  he  cannot  make  his  way  by  energy  and  good  will  because  labor  is 
exploited.  With  high-hearted  youth  he  seeks  his  fortune  in  the  capital.  His  history 
is  that  of  the  labor  party,  first  the  sweat  shop,  then  the  labor  union.  He  finally 
becomes  the  leader  of  the  shoemakers.  He  dreams  of  federation  of  all  trades,  and 
leads  a  strike  of  all  the  workers  to  victory.  The  "Great  Struggle"  has  been  long 
and  his  wife,  Ellen,  his  children  and  his  old  father  have  been  sacrificed  to  the  Cause. 
At  the  moment  of  his  triumph  he  discovers  that  Ellen  has  sold  herself  to  buy  bread 
for  her  children.  As  leader  of  the  Union  he  is  a  marked  man  and  on  a  plausible 
criminal  charge  is  sent  to  prison  for  a  term  of  years.  When  he  is  free  again  the  age  of 
machinery  has  come  with  its  changes.  There  are  new  leaders  and  new  ideas.  Ellen 
is  unchanged  and  in  mutual  forgiveness  they  are  happily  reunited.  He  has  gained 
broader  vision  and  works  out  a  plan  of  co-operative  organization  of  industry  in  new 
service  to  his  fellows.  His  final  program  is  a  co-operative  workmen's  village. 

PENDENNIS,  by  W.  M.  Thackeray  (1850),  is  more  simple  in  plot  and  construction 
than  his  other  novels.  It  is  a  masterly  study  of  the  character  and  development  of  one 
Arthur  Pendennis,  a  hero  lifelike  and  convincing  because  of  his  very  unheroic  quali- 
ties and  faulty  human  nature.  He  begins  his  career  as  a  spoiled,  somewhat  brilliant 
boy,  adored  by  a  foolish  mother,  and  waited  upon  by  his  adopted  sister  Laura.  From 
this  atmosphere  of  adulation  and  solicitude,  Pendennis  goes  to  the  university;  but 
not  before  he  has  fallen  in  love  with  an  actress  ten  years  older  than  himself.  He  owes 
his  escape  from  his  toils  to  the  intervention  of  a  worldly-minded  uncle,  Major  Pen- 
dennis, a  capitally  drawn  type  of  the  old  man-about-town.  At  the  university  he 
blossoms  into  a  young  gentleman  of  fashion,  with  the  humiliating  result  of  being 
"plucked"  in  his  degree  examination,  and  having  his  debts  paid  off  by  Laura.  His 
manliness  reawakens,  and  he  goes  back  to  have  it  out  with  the  university,  returning 
this  time  a  victor.  Then  follows  a  London  career  as  a  writer  and  man  of  the  world. 
The  boy  just  misses  being  the  man  by  a  certain  childish  love  of  the  pomp  and  show 
of  life.  Yet  he  is  never  dishonorable,  only  weak.  The  test  of  his  honor  is  his  conduct 
towards  Fanny  Bolton.  a  pretty  girl  of  the  lower  class,  who  loves  him  innocently  and 
whole-heartedly.  Pen  loves  her  and  leaves  her  as  innocent  as  he  found  her,  but  un- 
happy. His  punishment  comes  in  the  shape  of  Blanche  Amory,  a  flirt  with  a  fortune. 
The  double  bait  proves  too  much  for  the  boy 's  vanity.  Only  after  she  has  jilted  him  are 


662  THE    READER'S   DIGEST   OF  BOOKS 

his  eyes  opened  to  the  true  value  of  the  gauds  he  is  staking  so  much  upon.    The  whole- 
some lesson  being  learned,  he  marries  Laura  and  enters  upon  a  life  of  new  manliness. 
His  character  throughout  is  drawn  with  admirable  consistency.    He  is  perhaps  the 
most  commonplace,  and  the  most  thoroughly  human,  of  Thackeray's  men. 

PENGUIN  ISLAND  (' lie  des  Pengouins'),  by  Anatole  France  (1909).  This  ironical 
satire  is  an  allegorical  history  of  France.  A  zealous  Christian  missionary,  St.  Mael, 
mistakes  an  island  of  Penguins  for  primitive  heathen  people,  and  as  the  birds  listen 
attentively  to  his  preaching,  he  baptizes  them  all  in  three  days  and  three  nights. 
An  assembly  of  learned  doctors  in  heaven  consider  the  consequences  of  this  unfor- 
tunate error  of  age  and  blindness,  and  it  is  decided  that  the  untoward  baptism  is 
valid,  and  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  give  the  Penguins  human  souls.  St.  Alael  tows 
the  island  to  the  coast  of  Europe  and  the  Penguins  begin  their  human  history.  Along 
with  souls  they  acquire  clothes,  with  the  lamentable  consciousness  of  feminine  charm 
and  masculine  license  (see  chapter  quoted  in  LIBRARY)  and  all  the  drawbacks  of 
civilization  one  after  another.  They  create  law  by  biting  and  cudgelling  one  another. 
They  lay  the  foundations  of  property  by  appropriating  the  earth  with  violence,  the 
strong  trampling  upon  the  weak,  and  the  strongest  Penguin  of  them  all  founding  a 
noble  house.  Taxation  follows  its  historical  course,  the  burden  falling  on  the  poor; 
the  rich  and  noble  declare  themselves  exempt.  The  chapter  on  the  Middle  Ages  and 
the  Renaissance  satirizes  superstition  in  religion,  the  religious  wars  and  massacres. 
The  art  critics  who  laud  primitive  painting  to  the  skies  receive  attention.  Modern 
times  relate  the  glories  of  Trinco  (Napoleon)  who  conquers  half  the  world,  annexes  it 
and  loses  it,  the  Pyrot  (Dreyfus)  affair,  under  the  title  "  The  eighty  thousand  bales  of 
hay"  and  the  industrial  wars  in  distant  parts  of  the  planet,  cotton,  coal,  and  iron 
wars,  in  which  thousands  are  killed  to  secure  orders  for  umbrellas  and  rubbers.  The 
Penguins  have  trusts,  and  sky-scrapers,  and  perfect  the  manufacture  of  explosives 
so  that  finally  a  small  revolutionary  minority  is  able  to  destroy  wealth  by  blowing 
up  the  world,  and  grass  grows  again  on  the  site  of  Paris.  In  the  last  chapter  the 
author  prophesies  history  without  end  for  the  Penguins,  a  succession  of  cycles  of 
civilization,  war,  and  destruction. 

PENROD,  by  Booth  Tarkington  (1914).  The  chapters  are  a  series  of  adventures 
and  misadventures  which  occur  in  the  life  of  Penrod,  aged  twelve.  No  one  really 
understands  Penrod  except  perhaps  his  great  aunt  Sarah,  who  asked  him  to  return 
to  his  father  the  sling  shot  she  had  taken  from  that  dignified  gentleman  thirty-five 
years  before.  Penrod's  father  accepted  the  gift  thoughtfully  and  for  once  Penrod 
escaped  deserved  punishment.  Certainly  the  author  and  manager  of  '  The  Children's 
Pageant  of  the  Table  Round '  did  not  know  the  real  Penrod  when  she  selected  him 
to  appear  as  the  "Child  Sir  Lancelot,'*  in  the  pageant  to  recite  lines  unworthy  of  a 
man's  dignity.  Penrod  is  the  author  of  a  blood-curdling  work  of  fiction  entitled 
*  Harold  Ramorez,  the  Road  Agent;  or,  'Wild  Life  among  the  Rocky  Mountains.1 
His  riotous  imagination  is  always  getting  him  into  mischief.  He  is  always  found  out, 
and  invited  to  the  woodshed  by  an  irate  father.  It  is  not  safe  to  call  him  "little 
gentleman"  while  there  is  a  cauldron  of  tar  in  the  neighborhood.  The  chapter  "A 
Boy  and  his  Dog"  is  quoted  in  the  LIBRARY. 

'PEXROD  AND  SAM'  (1916)  continues  the  story  of  Penrod's  adventurous  career, 
opening  with  his  experiences  as  a  militarist,  and  closing  with  a  children's  party.  He 
is  ably  assisted  in  his  exploits  by  his  friend  Sam  Williams,  and  by  the  faithful  Herman 
and  Vennan. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  663 

PENSEES  PHILOSOPHIQUES  (' Philosophical  Thoughts'),  by  Denis  Diderot 
(1746),  which  are  said  to  have  been  put  on  paper  in  the  space  of  three  days,  and  at 
the  bidding  of  one  of  the  philosopher's  feminine  friends,  have  been  compared  with 
Pascal's  *  Thoughts'  in  point  of  force  and  eloquence.  But  though  the  comparison 
may  be  made  of  the  manner,  it  does  not  hold  of  the  matter;  for  Diderot  expended 
all  this  ammunition  of  wit  and  intellect  in  demolishing  the  foundations  of  all  religious 
faith,  and  the  monuments  built  to  it  in  the  shape  of  sacred  books.  His  statements 
are  made  with  such  entire  confidence,  that  it  is  easy  to  believe  the  work  to  have  im- 
pressed its  readers  with  faith  in  the  infallibility  of  its  author.  It  was  very  widely- 
read  and  exceedingly  popular  among  the  fashionable  world  at  the  time  of  its 
appearance. 

PENSEES  SUR  LA  RELIGION  et  Quelques.  '  Thoughts  on  Religion  and  on  Certain 
other  subjects  by  M.  Pascal;  being  writings  found  among  his  papers  after  his  death, ' 
is  a  collection  of  meditations,  the  preliminary  stages  of  an  'Apology  for  the  Christian 
Religion, '  which  Pascal  did  not  live  to  complete.  On  his  death  in  1662  they  came 
into  the  hands  of  his  colleagues,  the  Jansenists  of  the  Abbey  of  Port  Royal,  who 
published  them  in  1670  with  some  alterations.  The  exact  text  was  not  printed  until 
the  nineteenth  century.  As  left  by  Pascal  the  manuscript  consisted  of  disconnected 
meditations,  some  of  them  only  half -completed,  others  much  corrected,  interspersed 
with  notes  of  the  general  plan  of  the  work.  Most  of  the  editors  have  grouped  the 
various  thoughts  into  a  logical  sequence  in  accordance  with  this  plan.  Pascal's 
aim  was  to  establish  the  truth  of  Christianity  in  face  of  the  scepticism  and  religious 
indifference  which  were  the  fruits  of  the  Renaissance.  He  begins  by  emphasizing 
man's  restlessness  without  God,  his  constant  search  for  new  pleasures,  new  sensa- 
tions, new  occupations,  without  attaining  peace.  Man  wishes  for  diversion  in  order 
to  avoid  thinking  about  himself,  because  when  he  looks  within  he  finds  a  want  which 
nothing  earthly  can  satisfy.  Alan  is  a  chaos,  an  enigma,  a  being  placed  midway 
between  the  infinitely  great  and  the  infinitely  little,  and  unable  to  understand  either, 
with  a  reason  which  raises  him  above  the  inanimate  universe  around  him  but  which 
cannot  explain  its  inner  meaning,  with  aspirations  for  good  and  for  truth  which  he 
cannot  realize.  So  far  Pascal  agrees  with  the  sceptical  analysis  of  Montaigne;  but 
where  the  latter  tolerantly  accepts  these  conditions,  Pascal  seeks  relief  from  them 
in  a  force  beyond  nature.  In  Christianity  he  finds  a  revelation  which  accounts  for 
man's  discontent  by  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  and  brings  happiness  through  the  sub- 
mission of  the  will  and  conscience  to  God  as  revealed  in  Christ.  That  this  religion 
is  contrary  to  reason  is  an  argument  in  favour  of  its  truth  since  it  claims  supernatural 
origin  and  might  therefore  be  expected  to  clash  with  the  natural  and  normal  view. 
Christianity,  it  is  true,  as  Pascal  conceived  it,  demanded  the  absolute  submission  to 
God  of  man's  will  of  his  independent  judgment,  and  his  love  of  worldly  pleasure. 
But  he  believed  that  the  absolute  expediency  of  such  a  course  could  be  mathematically 
demonstrated.  In  accepting  Christianity  we  sacrifice  a  finite  good  on  the  chance  of 
gaining  infinite  happiness.  Should  Christianity  be  true  our  gain  is  infinite;  should  it 
be  untrue  our  loss  is  nothing;  for  finite  goods  give  only  a  fleeting  pleasure.  This  is 
Pascal's  celebrated  "wager,"  which  he  enforces  by  urging  the  power  of  habit  to 
reconcile  us  to  the  sacrifice.  Finally  he  considers  the  evidence  of  Christianity  from 
the  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  the  records  of  Christ's  life,  the  remarkable  spread  of 
the  Church,  and  the  beauty  of  the  Christian  type  of  character. 

The  work  abounds  in  penetrating  and  incisive  observations  on  man  as  an  in- 
dividual and.  in  society  (for  example,  the  reduction  of  all  wars  to  the   quarreling  of 


664  THE   HEADER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

two  children  for  a  "place  in  the  sun")-  Its  combination  of  mathematical  precision 
philosophic  grasp,  epigrammatic  skill,  and  the  deepest  religious  insight  and  feelinj 
is  unique.  Pascal's  clear,  idiomatic,  nervous  style  with  its  absolute  command  o 
close  reasoning,  irony,  sarcasm,  apt  illustration,  and  telling  simplicity  absolute!] 
set  the  standard  for  the  French  prose  of  the  great  writers  of  the  later  Seventeentl 
Century  and  has  never  become  obsolete. 

PENSEES  SUR  ^INTERPRETATION  DE  LA  NATURE  ('Thoughts  Concerninj 
the  Interpretation  of  Nature'),  by  Denis  Diderot,  afterward  printed  under  the  titl< 
'Etrenne  aus  Esprits  forts,'  was  written  in  1754,  and  forms  a  prelude  to  Diderot'; 
*Systeme  de  la  Nature.'  It  is  a  rather  fantastic  attempt  to  "interpret "  nature,  anc 
contains  a  mingling  of  profound  and  shallow  observations,  the  whole  rendered  obscur< 
by  a  mass  of  verbiage.  As  one  critic  says:  "The  reader  must  be  patient  who  win: 
an  occasional  glimpse  of  illumining  beauty  or  interest.  To  very  few  would  the  worl 
prove  a  real  interpretation  of  nature." 

PEOPLE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  A  HISTORY  OF  THE,  by  John  Bach  McMaster 
An  important  work  in  eight  volumes  (1883-1913).  It  is,  as  the  title  declares,  i 
history  of  the  people.  It  describes  the  dress,  amusements,  customs,  and  literan 
canons,  of  every  period  of  United  States  history,  from  the  close  of  the  Revolutioi 
to  the  Civil  War.  Politics  and  institutions  are  considered  only  as  they  affecta 
the  daily  life  of  the  people.  The  great  developments  in  industrial  affairs,  the  change 
in  manners  and  morals,  the  rise  and  progress  of  mechanical  inventions,  the  gradua 
growth  of  a  more  humane  spirit,  especially  in  the  treatment  of  criminals  and  of  th 
insane,  are  all  treated  at  length.  It  is  a  social  history:  it  aims  to  give  a  picture  of  th 
life  of  the  American  people  as  it  would  seem  to  an  intelligent  traveler  at  the  time 
and  to  trace  the  growth  of  the  influences  which  built  up  out  of  the  narrow  fring' 
of  coast  settlements  the  great  nation  of  the  Civil  War. 

The  book  is  always  entertaining,  and  is  a  perfect  mine  of  interesting  facts  collectec 
in  no  other  history;  but  the  author  shows  too  much  love  of  antithesis,  and  no  doub 
will  reconsider  some  of  his  conclusions. 

PEPACTON,  by  John  Burroughs.  This  book  was  published  in  1881,  and  is  one  o 
the  most  pleasing  of  the  many  delightful  collections  of  papers  on  outdoor  subject 
that  Mr.  Burroughs  has  given  us.  It  takes  its  title  from  the  Indian  name  of  one  o 
the  branches  of  the  Delaware;  and  the  first  paper  gives  an  account  of  a  holiday  tri] 
down  this  stream  in  a  boat  of  the  writer's  own  manufacture.  In  the  next  he  tells  u 
many  interesting  facts  about  springs,  and  their  significance  in  the  development  o 
civilization.  Indeed,  in  all  the  papers  he  shows  himself  not  only  the  close  scientifi< 
observer,  but  the  poet  who  sees  the  hidden  meanings  of  things.  Perhaps  he  is  mos 
interesting  when  he  combines  literature  with  nature,  as  in  the  essay  on  'Birds  anc 
the  Poets, '  in  which  he  shows  that  most  of  the  American  poets  have  been  inaccurat< 
in  their  descriptions  of  nature.  As  he  says,  the  poet  deals  chiefly  with  generalities 
but  when  he  descends  to  the  particular  he  should  be  accurate.  Longfellow  has  errec 
most  in  this  respect,  while  Bryant,  Emerson,  and  above  all  Whitman,  have  been  mor< 
careful.  The  rhyme  for  "woodpecker"  seems  to  trouble  the  poets;  as  Mr.  Burroughi 
puts  it: 

"  Emerson  rhymes  it  with  bear, 
Lowell  rhymes  it  with  hear; 
One  makes  it  woodpeckair. 
The  other  woodpeckear." 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  665 

In  another  paper  he  demonstrates  Shakespeare's  surprisingly  accurate  knowledge 
and  use  of  natural  facts,  and  that  the  close  observer  and  analyst  of  the  human  heart 
had  an  equally  keen  sense  for  the  doings  of  birds  and  flowers.  There  is  also  an 
attractive  study  of  our  fragrant  flowers,  and  of  the  origin  and  propensities  of  weeds. 
The  Idyl  of  the  Honey-Bee '  almost  sends  one  to  the  woods  bee-hunting,  in  general 
the  writer's  enthusiasm  for  outdoor  things  is  contagious.  For  this  reason  the  essays 
are  more  than  a  charmingly  written  record  of  the  author's  own  observations,  — 
they  are  an  inspiration  to  search  out  the  secrets  of  nature  at  first  hand. 

PEPITA  JIMENEZ,  by  Juan  Valera  (1874).  The  scene  of  this  vivid  story  is  in 
Andalusia.  Pepita  Jimenez,  when  sixteen  years  old,  is  married  to  her  rich  uncle, 
Don  Gumersindo,  then  eighty  years  old.  At  the  end  of  three  years,  she  finds  herself 
a  widow,  with  many  suitors  for  her  hand,  among  them,  Don  Pedro  de  Vargas.  At  this 
time  his  son  Luis  comes  to  pay  him  a  visit  before  taking  his  last  vows  as  a  priest. 
Having  lived  always  with  his  uncle,  he  is  learned  in  theology  and  casuistry,  but  little 
versed  in  worldly  affairs.  The  acquaintance  with  Pepita  arouses  sentiments  which 
he  had  never  known;  and  he  soon  recognizes  that  he  loves  her,  and  that  she  returns 
his  affection.  Horrified  at  his  position,  both  in  regard  to  his  profession  and  to  his 
father,  he  resolves  never  to  see  Pepita.  Visiting  the  club,  he  meets  Count  de  Genaza- 
har,  a  rejected  suitor  of  Pepita,  who  speaks  slightingly  of  her.  He  expostulates  with 
him  on  the  sin  of  slander,  but  is  only  derided.  The  expected  departure  of  Luis  has 
so  affected  Pepita  that  she  is  ill;  and  her  nurse,  Antonona,  goes  to  Luis  and  obliges 
him  to  come  to  bid  farewell  to  her  mistress.  He  goes  at  ten  o'clock  at  night,  and  is 
left  alone  with  Pepita.  She  tries  to  convince  him  that  he  is  ill  adapted  for  a  priest. 
If  he  has  allowed  himself  to  be  charmed  by  a  plain  country  girl,  how  much  more  are  to 
be  feared  the  beautiful,  accomplished  women  he  will  meet  in  future  life.  Her  self- 
condemnation  causes  him  to  praise  her;  and  when  he  leaves  her,  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  he  is  obliged  to  confess  his  own  unworthiness.  He  learns  that  Genazahar 
owes  Pepita  a  large  sum  of  money;  and  goes  to  the  club,  where  he  finds  him  gambling. 
He  enters  the  game  and  finds  a  chance  to  insult  him.  In  a  duel  they  are  both  wounded, 
the  Count,  dangerously.  When  Luis  recovers  he  marries  Pepita. 
The  novel  is  regarded  in  Spain  as  a  modern  classic. 

PEPYS'S  DIARY,  a  private  journal  in  short-hand  kept  from  January  1st,  1660,  to 
May  3ist,  1669,  by  Samuel  Pepys,  clerk  of  the  Navy  Board.  The  manuscript  was 
left  with  the  rest  of  his  library  to  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge,  where  it  was 
deciphered  by  the  Reverend  John  Smith  between  1819  and  1822.  The  first  edition, 
edited  by  Lord  Braybrooke,  appeared  in  1825;  fuller  editions  were  published  in  1828, 
1848-1849,  1854,  and  1875-9;  tne  standard  edition  by  H.  B.  Wheatley  in  1893-1899. 
Pepys  was  the  son  of  a  London  tailor,  and  a  student  of  St.  Paul's  School  and  Magda- 
lene College,  Cambridge.  He  was  married  early  to  the  daughter  of  a  Huguenot 
refugee.  Through  his  cousin,  Edward  Montagu,  afterwards  Earl  of  Sandwich,  he 
was  a  passenger  on  the  ship  that  brought  Charles  II.  home  from  exile,  obtained  his 
clerkship  in  the  Navy  Office  and  gained  access  to  the  Restoration  court.  During 
the  nine  years  in  which  he  kept  his  diary  he  was  a  busy  and  valued  public  servant 
steadily  increasing  in  wealth  and  prosperity.  His  diary  is  an  intimate  record  of  his 
daily  business,  recreations,  personal  likes  and  dislikes,  and  domestic  affairs.  Its 
accounts  of  the  various  political  and  social  changes  of  the  Restoration,  of  the  intrigues 
and  corruption  of  the  English  Navy  in  the  days  of  the  Dutch  war,  of  the  great  plague 
and  fire  of  London,  and  of  the  social  habits  and  customs  of  the  people,  especially 


666  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  middle  and  upper  classes  are  of  the  highest  value  to  historians.  Pepys  was  one  of 
those  sociable  people  who  are  never  weary  of  attending  functions  of  all  kinds,  and 
whose  zest  for  life  renders  nothing  human  uninteresting  to  them.  Thus  the  mere 
record  of  a  family  dinner  party,  a  visit  to  a  country  village,  or  a  walk  on  London  bridge 
is  full  of  a  gusto  which  makes  the  language  forceful  and  the  details  interesting. 
Again,  he  was  writing  for  no  eye  but  his  own  and  consequently  set  down  with  absolute 
frankness  instances  of  his  own  foolishness,  selfishness,  cruelty,  and  sensuality,  which 
most  men  would  carefully  conceal  even  from  themselves.  Pepys  was,  however,  no 
villain.  He  was  a  respectable  London  householder,  an  able  official,  respected  by  his 
colleagues,  a  lover  of  music  and  an  antiquarian,  a  collector  of  old  ballads;  but  there 
was  a  streak  of  coarseness  in  him,  though  no  more  than  we  should  expect  in  an 
"homme  moyen  sensuel "  of  the  Restoration  period.  He  took  bribes,  ate  and  drank 
too  much,  admired  the  dissolute  ladies  at  the  court,  flirted  with  pretty  girls,  was  cruel 
to  his  servants,  and  jealous  of  his  wife,  though  unfaithful  to  her,  and  did  not  observe 
consistency  between  his  religious  moods  and  his  practice.  The  frankness,  nawete, 
and  unconscious  humour  with  which  he  sets  down  these  sins  and  peccadilloes  has 
a  strange  fascination  for  the  reader.  Of  course  part  of  the  piquancy  of  the  book 
comes  from  the  fact  that  the  reader  is  overhearing  something  which  the  writer  never 
intended  him  to  know.  The  diary  was  kept  up  for  nine  years,  when  the  weakness  of 
Pepys *s  eyes  forced  him  to  relinquish  it.  Had  it  never  been  discovered  he  would  still 
have  been  remembered  as  an  antiquarian  and  historian  of  the  Navy,  but  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  spontaneous  revelations  of  a  personality  in  all  literature  would 
have  been  lost. 

PERE  GORIOT,  by  Honore  de  Balzac  (1834).  This  story  is  one  of  the  most  painful 
that  the  master  of  French  fiction  ever  forced  upon  a  fascinated  but  reluctant  reader. 
It  is  the  history  of  a  modern  Lear.  Pere  Goriot,  a  retired  manufacturer  of  vermicelli, 
having  married  his  daughters,  Anastasie  to  the  Count  de  Restaud,  and  Delphine  to 
che  Baron  de  Nucingen,  is  abandoned  by  them  after  he  has  settled  on  them  his  whole 
fortune.  Even  to  see  them  he  is  reduced  to  the  extremity  of  watching  on  the  street  to 
get  a  glimpse  of  their  beloved  faces  as  they  drive  by.  In  the  wretched  pension  where 
he  lives  he  meets  Eugene  de  Rastinac,  whose  distant  relationship  to  the  Viscountess 
de  Beause"ant  enables  him  to  frequent  the  select  society  of  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Germain.  He  there  makes  the  acquaintance  of  Pere  Goriot's  daughters,  and  becomes 
the  cavalier  of  Delphine.  The  daughters,  mere  devotees  of  fashion,  treat  the  poor 
old  man  with  increasing  barbarity,  until,  knowing  that  he  is  on  his  death-bed,  they 
both  attend  a  ball,  though  he  beseeches  them  to  come  to  him.  He  is  buried  by 
charitable  acquaintances;  and  as  the  body  is  brought  from  the  church,  the  empty 
coaches  of  the  daughters  fall  in  behind  and  follow  it  to  the  grave.  Crowded  with 
incidents,  and  made  profoundly  interesting  by  its  merciless  fidelity  of  characteriza- 
tion *  Pere  Goriot1  compels  attention;  while  in  style  it  is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of 
Balzac's  long  succession  of  novels. 

PERICLES,  PRINCE  OF  TYRE,  a  play  published  in  1608,  written  in  part  by  Shakes- 
peare. His  part  in  it  begins  with  the  magnificent  storm  scene  in  Act  iii.,  —  "Thou 
god  of  this  great  vast,  rebuke  these  surges, "  —  "The  seaman's  whistle  is  as  a  whisper 
in  the  ears  of  death,  unheard, "  etc.  The  play  was  very  popular  with  the  masses 
for  a  hundred  years.  Indeed  the  romantic  plot  is  enough  to  make  it  perennially 
interesting  and  pathetic;  the  deepest  springs  of  emotion  and  of  tears  are  touched  by 
the  scenes  in  which  Pericles  recovers  his  lost  wife  and  his  daughter.  —  After  certain 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  699 

in  the  professor's  arms.  Having  awakened  him  to  realization  of  his  love  for  her,  she 
is  ashamed  of  her  duplicity  and  refuses  to  marry  him.  An  old  love  letter  found  in 
the  mailbox  restores  Miss  Goodwillie's  faith  in  her  dead  lover  and  changes  her 
attitude  toward  the  lovers.  She  brings  Lucy  and  her  brother  together  again. 

PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY,  by  Henry  George.  Single  taxers  hold  this,  the  chief 
work  of  the  author,  to  be  the  Bible  of  the  new  cult.  It  was  written  in  the  years  1877- 
79,  and  the  MS.  was  hawked  about  the  country  and  refused  by  all  publishers  till  the 
author,  a  practical  printer,  had  the  plates  made,  doing  a  large  part  of  the  composition 
himself.  It  was  then  brought  out  by  Appletons  in  1879.  He  seeks,  in  the  work,  *£> 
solve  a  problem  and  prescribe  a  remedy.  The  problem  is:  "  Why,  in  the  midst  of  a 
marvelous  progress,  is  grinding  poverty  on  the  increase?  "  In  the  solution  he  begins 
with  the  beginning  of  political  economy,  takes  issue  with  accepted  authority,  and 
claims  that  the  basis  law  is  not  the  selfishness  of  mankind,  but  that  "man  seeks  to 
gratify  his  desires  with  the  least  exertion. "  Using  this  law  as  physicists  do  the  law  of 
gravitation,  he  proceeds  to  define  anew,  capital,  rent,  interest,  wealth,  labor,  and 
land.  All  that  is  not  labor,  or  the  result  of  labor,  is  land.  Wealth  is  the  product  of 
labor  applied  to  land.  Interest  is  that  part  of  the  result  of  labor  which  is  paid  to 
capital  for  its  use  for  a  time;  capital  is  the  fruit  of  labor,  not  its  employer;  rent  is  the 
tax  taken  by  the  landholder  from  labor  and  capital,  which  must  be  paid  before 
capital  and  labor  can  divide.  The  problem  is  solved,  he  declares,  when  it  is  found 
that  the  constantly  increasing  rent  serves  so  to  restrict  the  rewards  of  capital  and 
labor  that  wage,  the  laborer's  share  of  the  joint  product,  becomes  the  least  sum  upon 
which  he  can  subsist  and  propagate.  The  laborer  would  refuse  such  a  wage;  but  as 
it  is  the  best  he  can  do,  he  must  accept.  Were  the  land  public  property  he  could 
refuse,  and  transfer  his  labor  to  open  land  and  produce  for  himself.  As  he  cannot 
do  this,  he  must  compete  with  thousands  as  badly  off  as  is  he,  hence  poverty,  crime, 
unrest,  and  all  social  and  moral  evils. 

The  remedy  is  to  nationalize  the  land,  —  make  it  public  property;  leaving  that 
already  in  use  in  the  possession  of  those  holding  it,  but  confiscating  the  rent  and 
abolishing  all  other  forms  of  taxation.  He  declares  taxation  upon  anything  but  land 
to  be  a  penalty  upon  production;  so  he  would  tax  that  which  cannot  be  produced  or 
increased  or  diminished,  —  i.  e.t  land.  This,  he  claims,  would  abolish  all  speculation 
in  land,  would  throw  it  open  to  whomever  would  use  it.  Labor,  having  an  oppor- 
tunity to  employ  itself,  would  do  so,  or  to  a  large  enough  extent  to  increase  produc- 
tion; and  as  man  is  a  never-satisfied  animal,  increased  production  would  bring 
increased  exchange;  hence  prosperity,  health,  wealth,  and  happiness. 

PROMETHEUS  BOUND,  a  drama  by  ^Eschylus  (B.  C.  525-456),  the  most  sublime 
of  Greek  tragedians,  presents  the  contest  between  Zeus  and  the  Titan,  Prometheus, 
whose  counsels  had  set  Zeus  upon  his  throne,  but  who  had  incurred  that  deity's 
displeasure  through  giving  the  use  of  fire  to  man.  At  the  beginning  of  the  play  he  is 
nailed  to  a  mountain-peak  by  Hephaestus  at  the  order  of  Zeus  as  a  punishment  for  his 
presumption.  Here  he  is  visited  by  the  daughters  of  Oceanus,  who  sympathize  with 
him,  and  by  their  father,  who  counsels  submission  to  Zeus  but  in  vain.  Another 
victim  of  Zeus  now  enters  in  the  person  of  lo,  who  has  been  transformed  by  the  god 
into  the  form  of  a  heifer  and  is  being  driven  from  land  to  land  by  the  jealousy  of  Hera, 
and  the  persecutions  of  Argus,  who  is  tormenting  her  in  the  shape  of  a  gad-fly. 
Prometheus  tells  her  that  she  shall  be  restored  to  her  own  shape  and  bear  a  son,  the 
father  of  a  royal  race,  one  of  whom,  Hercules,  shall  free  the  Titan  from  his  bonds. 


7OO  THE   READER'S   DIGEST   OF  BOOKS 

Moreover  he  prophesies  that  Zeus  shall  make  a  marriage,  the  son  of  which  shall 
dispossess  his  father.  Zeus  now  sends  Hermes  to  demand  particulars  of  this  coming 
danger.  Prometheus  defiantly  refuses  to  reveal  what  he  knows;  and  in  punishment 
Zeus  cleaves  the  rocks  with  his  thunderbolts  and  sinks  his  enemy  beneath  the  earth. 

In  the  lost  'Prometheus  Unbound,'  which  was  perhaps  the  third  member  of  a 
trilogy,  it  is  conjectured  that  a  reconciliation  was  brought  about  by  the  intervention 
of  Hercules.  Prometheus  was  released  and  revealed  his  secret  that  Zeus  must  refrain 
from  marriage  with  Thetis.  Thus  the  theme  of  the  entire  work  was  not  rebellion, 
but  justification  of  the  ways  of  God  to  man. 

The  grandeur  of  the  scenario  and  the  superhuman  magnitude  of  the  characters  — 
all  of  whom  but  lo  are  deities  —  illustrate  the  Titanic  quality  of  this  dramatist's 
imagination. 

PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND,  a  lyrical  drama  by  Shelley,  written  at  Rome  in  1819, 
is  an  independent  treatment  of  the  theme  of  ^schylus  (see  the  synopsis  of  his  'Pro- 
metheus Bound')  by  a  revolutionary  poet  who  could  not  accept  the  possibility  of  a 
reconciliation  between  the  rebel,  Prometheus,  and  his  tormenter,  Zeus.  The  scenario, 
however,  and  the  conception  of  the  defiance  of  Prometheus,  owe  much  to  the  Greek 
play.  When  Shelley's  drama  opens  Prometheus  has  been  for  ages  chained  to  the  rock, 
attended  and  comforted  by  the  Oceanids,  Panthea  and  lone.  With  the  passing  years 
his  hostility  to  Zeus  has  become  less  bitter  though  still  determined,  and  he  cannot 
recollect  the  curse  which  he  pronounced  upon  the  tyrant  until  it  is  repeated  to  him 
by  a  phantasm  of  Zeus  himself,  raised  by  Earth,  the  mother  of  Prometheus,  at  his 
earnest  request.  Prometheus  says  he  would  gladly  recall  this  curse  but  he  knows 
nevertheless  that  Zeus  must  fall.  In  a  last  effort  to  learn  the  secret  Zeus  sends  down 
Hermes  and  the  Furies,  threatening  the  Titan  with  further  tortures  if  he  will  not  tell 
what  he  knows.  On  his  refusal  the  Furies  subject  Prometheus  to  the  moral  torture 
of  hearing  the  woes  that  man  has  suffered  and  then  leave  him.  After  comforting 
Prometheus  Panthea  and  lone  depart  to  reassure  their  sister,  Asia,  Prometheus's 
love,  in  her  retreat  in  the  Indian  Caucasus.  Meanwhile  the  day  of  Prometheus's 
deliverance  has  arrived,  and  voices  summon  Asia  down  to  the  abode  of  Demogorgon, 
a  personification  of  that  ultimate  Power  which  the  Greeks  thought  of  as  behind  and 
above  the  gods,  and  which  typifies  for  Shelley  the  all-pervading  soul  of  all  things. 
She  there  learns  of  the  resistless  force  of  this  Power  and  of  the  imminent  freedom  of 
Prometheus  and  then  ascends  in  one  of  the  chariots  of  the  Hours  to  witness  his 
deliverance.  Zeus  has  just  wedded  Thetis,  Demogorgon  ascends  to  Olympus, 
becomes  incarnate  in  the  child  that  is  born,  and  casts  Zeus  from  the  battlements  of 
Heaven.  Prometheus  is  freed  from  the  rock  by  Hercules,  is  reunited  to  Asia,  and 
retires  with  her  to  a  grotto,  which  they  make  their  home.  Earth,  Heaven,  Air,  and 
all  the  powers  of  the  universe  break  out  into  paeans  of  joy  and  praise  to  salute  the 
new  reign  of  peace  and  fraternity,  and  in  this  burst  of  lyric  rejoicing  the  poem  closes. 
The  'Prometheus'  is  imbued  with  Shelley's  pantheistic  and  anarchistic  views,  his 
belief  in  the  essential  goodness  of  human  nature,  his  hatred  of  dogmas  and  tyrannous 
government,  and  his  noble  humanitarian  enthusiasm.  Perhaps  none  of  his  poems  so 
well  illustrate  his  exquisite  and  melodious  lyric  gifts,  his  marvelous  power  of  painting 
mountain  scenery  and  atmospheric  effects,  and  his  lack  of  appreciation  of  ordinary 
earthly  scenes  and  human  characters. 

PROMISE  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE,  THE,  'a  treatise  on  social  and  political  science' 
by  Herbert  Croly  (1909).  He  begins  by  analyzing  the  conception  of  America  as 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  701 

the  land  of  promise  and  distinguishing  between  the  uncritical  anticipation  of  con- 
tinued prosperity  and  the  responsible  effort  to  ensure  the  fulfilment  of  this  hope 
by  the  attempt  to  realize  an  ideal.  Many  Americans  do  not  make  this  distinction; 
and  those  who  make  it  do  not  all  recognize  that  a  change  of  conditions  has  made 
necessary  a  revision  of  the  American  ideal.  The  original  ideal  was  one  of  political 
and  economic  freedom  and  independence,  rinding  expression  in  universal  competition; 
and  its  effects  were  good  since  it  was  a  stimulus  to  activity  and  exploitation  of  the 
sources  of  wealth;  but  with  the  increase  of  population  and  the  seizure  of  natural 
resources  into  a  few  hands  has  come  a  "morally  and  unsociably  undesirable  distribu- 
tion of  wealth. "  This  must  be  regulated  by  the  state,  if  the  "promise  of  American 
life  "  is  to  remain  valid  for  the  masses;  and  thus  the  old  untrammeled  individual  free- 
dom must  give  way  to  social  control.  These  opinions  are  enforced  by  a  review  of 
American  political  and  economic  history,  outlining  the  struggles  of  Federalists  and 
Republicans,  Whigs  and  Democrats,  Slavery  men  and  Abolitionists,  and  after  1870, 
the  growth  of  specialized  scientific  political,  commercial,  and  business  interests, 
which  destroyed  the  homogeneity  of  American  life  and  brought  about  the  need  of  a 
renewed  solidarity.  Four  typical  reformers,  Bryan,  Jerome,  Hearst,  and  Roosevelt, 
are  then  subjected  to  analysis  and  criticism.  The  author  now  gives  his  own  proposals 
for  reform.  Democracy  must  be  interpreted  not  merely  as  the  securing  of  equal 
rights  for  all  but  as  the  insuring  of  well-being  and  social  improvement  to  the  various 
types  of  individuals  who  constitute  the  state.  The  capitalists  and  the  masses  must 
be  so  regulated  as  to  insure  the  economic  and  social  improvement  of  all,  without 
doing  violence  to  the  principle  of  private  property  or  of  nationality.  Particular 
problems  of  international  policy  and  administrative  and  industrial  reform  are  then 
considered,  and  the  book  closes  with  a  discussion  of  what  the  individual  can  do  to 
insure  the  success  of  the  public  measures  proposed.  The  book  is  a  carefully  reasoned 
presentation  of  the  altered  political  and  social  theories  made  necessary  by  the  advent 
of  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  America. 

PROMISED  LAND,  THE,  by  Mary  Antin  (1912).  This  is  an  autobiographical 
study  of  the  immigrant,  of  what  he  brings  to  America,  and  what  he  finds  here,  and 
in  it  the  author  presents  the  case  of  the  Russian  Jew's  American  citizenship  in  a  new 
and  vivid  light.  The  book  opens  with  the  child's  early  life  in  Polotzk,  where  the 
Jews  are  enduring  many  persecutions  and  where  they  are  forced  to  live  within  the 
"Pale"  set  apart  for  them.  Thus  shut  out  from  the  national  existence  they  had 
retained  many  quaint  and  mediaeval  customs  and  curious  religious  ceremonies  de- 
scribed by  the  little  Jewish  girl,  who  at  an  early  age  began  to  pen  this  story  of  her  life. 
When  the  writer  was  but  ten  years  old  her  father  emigrated  to  America,  later  sending 
for  his  family  to  join  him  in  the  new  world.  The  writer  gives  a  touching  description 
of  the  uncomfortable  exodus  from  the  old  world  and  their  adventures  on  the  way  to 
their  new  home  in  the  north  end  of  Boston.  Here  the  advantages  of  the  "Promised 
Land"  awaken  wonder  and  delight  and  the  child  begins  at  once  to  profit  by  the  free 
education  which  may  be  enjoyed  by  all.  Her  story  contains  many  pictures  of  the 
problems  and  perplexities  faced  by  this  Jewish  family  in  their  endeavors  to  assimilate 
themselves  with  the  life  of  their  adopted  country.  While  seeing  life  from  the  slums 
of  the  city  the  writer  sets  forth  her  gradual  advance  towards  taking  possession  of  all 
the  heritage  offered  in  this  new  land.  Passing  with  honors  through  the  public-schools, 
aided  by  sympathetic  teachers,  and  by  the  clubs  and  settlement-homes  open  to  her, 
the  young  girl  develops  into  the  thoughtful  and  cultured  woman,  who  shows  in  this 
story  of  her  own  development  the  possibilities  open  to  all  the  aliens  who  come  with 


jo2  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  earnest  intention  of  profiting  by  the  advantages  which  all  may  share  alike  in  this 
land  of  the  free.  Having  traced  the  story  of  the  child  through  her  school-days  and 
watched  her  gradually  expand  under  the  influence  of  teachers,  friends,  free  libraries 
and  lecture  halls  the  reader  takes  leave  of  her  as  she  is  about  to  enter  the  college  gates 
which  have  just  opened  to  admit  this  pilgrim  who  has  learned  to  grasp  all  the  best 
treasures  offered  in  the  "Promised  Land. " 

PROOF  OF  THE  PUDDING,  THE;  a  novel,  by  Meredith  Nicholson  (1916),  is  a 
study  of  the  development  of  the  character  of  Nan  Farley,  and  the  scene  is  laid  in  a 
town  in  Indiana.  An  orphaned  child  of  humble  lineage,  Nan  at  an  early  age  is 
adopted  by  Timothy  Farley  and  his  wife  who  lavish  upon  her  wealth  and  affection. 
Being  selfish  and  pleasure-loving,  Nan,  upon  reaching  young  ladyhood  falls  in  with  a 
fast  set,  and  against  her  father's  wishes  joins  in  their  frivolities.  She  accepts  the 
attentions  of  Billy  Copeland,  who  has  divorced  his  wife,  Fanny,  a  charming  and 
capable  woman,  in  order  to  gain  Nan's  affections,  but  Nan's  father,  who  is  in  failing 
health,  tells  her  he  will  disinherit  her  if  she  marries  him.  Nan  has  a  warm  friend  and 
admirer  in  Jem-  Amidon,  a  clever  young  business  man,  straightforward  and  honest, 
who  knew  her  before  her  adoption.  Copeland 's  passionate  wooing  strongly  influences 
Nan,  and  though  she  does  not  really  love  him  she  is  on  the  point  of  eloping  with  him 
when  his  appearance  in  an  intoxicated  condition  saves  her  from  this  folly.  Mr, 
Farley  dies  suddenly,  and  after  the  funeral  Copeland  urges  Nan  to  destroy  her  father's 
will,  in  which  case  she  will  be  sole  heir  to  his  property,  as  Mrs.  Farley  has  died  pre- 
viously. Nan  has  a  night  of  temptation,  but  finally  her  better  self  triumphs,  and  she 
realizes  her  past  short-comings  and  decides  in  future  to  lead  a  better  and  more  un- 
selfish life.  The  next  day  she  confides  her  experience  to  Cecil  Eaton,  a  family  friend 
and  adviser,  and  tells  him  she  has  decided  not  to  accept  a  cent  of  the  Farley  money  as 
she  feels  she  is  unworthy  of  it.  Wishing  to  be  self-supporting,  she  joins  Fanny 
Copeland,  who  bears  no  ill-will  against  her,  in  the  management  of  her  dairy  farm. 
Copeland  meanwhile  has  been  indulging  in  dissipation  and  become  financially  em- 
barrassed, but  is  extricated  from  the  latter  position  by  the  united  efforts  of  Eaton 
and  Fanny,  who  still  loves  him.  Nan  marries  Jerry  Amidon,  and  the  Copelands 
become  reunited,  after  Billy's  reformation,  which  is  brought  about  by  Eaton,  who 
has  always  unselfishly  loved  Fanny.  Mr.  Farley's  will  is  proved  invalid,  and  the 
bulk  of  the  property  goes  to  Nan,  who  expresses  the  desire  to  use  it  wholly  for  charit- 
able purposes. 

PROVERBIAL  PHILOSOPHY,  by  Martin  Farquhar  Tupper.  Tupper's  '  Proverbial 
Philosophy T  is  a  book  of  essays,  or  poems  in  blank  verse,'  dealing  with  almost  even- 
emotion  and  condition  of  life.  The  author  begins  thus:  "Few  and  precious  are  the 
words  which  the  lips  of  wisdom  utter";  and  he  proceeds  to  compile  a  work  filling  415 
pages. 

The  poems  or  meditations  were  published  between  1838  and  1867;  and  are  in  two 
series,  dealing  with  over  sixty  subjects.  The  book  contains  many  wise  sayings,  but 
it  is  mostly  padded  commonplace.  For  many  years  it  was  in  great  demand,  but 
lately  it  has  been  subjected  to  ridicule. 

PRUE  AND  I,  by  George  William  Curtis.  These  charming  papers  were  published 
in  1856;  and  have  been  popular  ever  since,  as  the  subject  is  of  perennial  interest,  while 
the  treatment  is  in  the  author's  happiest  vein.  They  are  a  series  of  sketches  or  medi- 
tations showing  the  enjoyment  to  be  derived  from  even  the  most  commonplace 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  703 

existence.  The  spires  and  pinnacles  of  the  sunset  sky  belong  to  every  man;  and  in 
the  fair  realm  of  Fantasie  all  may  wander  at  will.  The  papers  are  supposed  to  be 
written  by  an  old  bookkeeper,  who  strolls  down  the  street  at  dinner-time,  and  without 
envy  watches  the  diners-out.  His  fancy  enables  him  to  dine  without  embarrassment 
at  the  most  select  tables,  and  to  enjoy  the  charming  conversation  of  the  beautiful 
Aurelia.  He  owns  many  castles  in  Spain,  where  he  can  summon  a  goodly  company, 
Jephthah's  daughter  and  the  Chevalier  Bayard,  fair  Rosamond  and  Dean  Swift,  — 
the  whole  train  of  dear  and  familiar  spirits.  He  goes  for  a  voyage  on  the  Flying 
Dutchman,  and  finds  on  board  all  who  have  spent  their  lives  on  useless  quests,  — 
Ponce  de  Leon,  and  the  old  Alchemist.  He  gives  us  the  pleasant  dreams  and  memo- 
ries roused  by  the  sea  in  those  who  love  it,  and  tells  the  simple,  pathetic  history  of 
'Our  Cousin  the  Curate.'  He  also  lets  his  deputy  bookkeeper  Titbottom  tell  the 
story  of  the  strange  spectacles,  which  show  a  rna-n  as  he  is  in  his  nature,  —  a  wisp  of 
straw,  a  dollar  bill,  a  calm  lake.  Once  the  owner  was  in  love,  and,  looking  through  his 
spectacles  at  the  girl  he  adored,  he  beheld  —  himself.  But  whatever  the  suggestive 
and  genial  old  bookkeeper  is  thinking  or  relating,  his  heart  is  full  of  his  Prue;  from 
beginning  to  end  it  is  always  "  Prue  and  I. " 

PSYCHOLOGY,  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF,  a  scientific  treatise  by  William  James,  was 
published  in  its  complete  form  ('Advanced  Course ')  in  1890  and  in  an  abridged  form 
('  Briefer  Course ')  in  1 892 .  The  work  is  introduced  by  a  chapter  entitled  '  The  Scope 
of  Psychology '  followed  by  two  chapters  on  the  structure  and  functions  of  the  brain. 
Then  follows  a  series  of  somewhat  loosely  connected  chapters  (some  of  them  originally 
published  in  learned  reviews)  dealing  with  the  methods  of  psychological  investiga- 
tion, rival  theories  of  the  mind,  and  such  indispensable  topics  as  habit,  the  stream  of 
consciousness,  attention,  association,  memory,  imagination,  the  perception  of  space 
and  time,  instinct,  the  emotions,  and  the  will.  James  employs  both  introspection  and 
experiment  as  instruments  of  psychological  research.  He  refuses  to  trench  on  the 
province  of  metaphysics  by  discussing  anything  but  thoughts,  feelings,  volitions,  and 
their  relation  to  the  brain,  yet  he  is  no  materialist.  His  clearness  of  statement  and  pic- 
turesqueness  of  illustration  make  this  the  most  attractive  of  psychological  text-books. 

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERYDAY  LIFE  ('  Psychopathologie  des  Alltags- 
lebensT)  a  psychological  treatise  by  Sigmund  Freud,  published  in  1904  and  in  an 
English  translation  by  A.  A.  Brill  in  1914.  The  general  thesis  is  that  the  pscho- 
pathologic  effects  which  appear  in  neurotic  conditions  may  also  be  observed,  though 
in  a  lesser  degree,  in  normal  persons.  For  example,  the  common  occurrence  of  for- 
getting a  well-known  name  with  or  without  substituting  some  other  for  it  is  due  to  its 
direct  or  indirect  suggestion  of  some  idea  which  is  disturbing  to  the  mind  and  which  is 
being  unconsciously  repressed.  The  connection  may  be  discovered  by  analyzing  the 
ideas  passing  through  the  subject's  mind,  some  of  which  by  their  associations  will 
probably  point  to  the  name  required.  A  similar  explanation  is  offered  for  our  appar- 
ently unmotivated  slips  of  the  tongue  or  pen,  absentminded  actions  and  omissions  to 
act,  misplacing  or  loss  of  objects,  abstracted  or  mechanical  movements,  and  errors  or 
blunders.  All  are  accounted  for  by  some  unconscious  but  strong  impulse  to  avoid 
something  disagreeable  or  to  indulge  some  hidden  desire  —  an  impulse  which  in  our 
conscious  life  is  forgotten  or  repressed.  There  is  no  room  for  chance  in  these  appar- 
ently trivial  actions;  all  are  determined  by  our  psychic  life  and  may  yield  the  richest 
information  to  the  psycho-analyst.  On  the  other  hand  the  coincidences  of  foreboding 
and  disaster,  of  omen  and  fulfilment  are  not,  on  present  evidence,  to  be  attributed  to 


704  THE   READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

supernatural  origin  but  to  some  unrecognized  association  of  ideas.  The  book  is  an 
exceedingl}T  stimulating  and  helpful  analysis  of  a  widespread  group  of  phenomena  of 
high  interest,  and  its  conclusions  are  based  on  strong  evidence.  One  feels  however, 
that  some  of  the  associations  are  forced,  and  that  there  is  too  great  readiness  to  find 
evidence  of  the  "sexual  complex." 

PUBLIC  FINANCE,  by  C.  F.  Bastable  (1892).  Every  governing  body  or  "State" 
requires  for  the  due  discharge  of  its  functions  repeated  supplies  of  commodities  and 
personal  sen-ices,  which  it  has  to  apply  to  the  accomplishment  of  whatever  ends  it 
may  regard  as  desirable.  For  all  States,  whether  rude  or  highly  developed,  some 
provisions  of  the  kind  are  necessary,  and  therefore  the  supply  and  application  of  State 
resources  constitute  the  subject-matter  of  a  study  which  is  best  entitled  in  English, 
'Public  Finance.'  The  author  discusses  the  general  features  of  State  economy,  the 
cost  of  defense,  the  expenditure  involved  in  the  maintenance  of  justice  and  security, 
the  relations  of  the  State  to  religion,  education,  industry,  commerce.  The  second 
part  is  devoted  to  public  revenues,  their  forms  and  classification,  whether  agricultural, 
industrial,  or  capitalist;  the  third  and  fourth  to  the  principles  of  taxation,  and  the 
different  kinds  of  taxes;  the  fifth  to  the  relation  between  expenditure  and  receipts; 
the  sixth  to  the  preparation,  collection,  control,  and  audit  of  trie  budget.  "Prudent 
expenditure,"  says  Professor  Bastable  in  conclusion,  "productive  and  equitable 
taxation,  and  due  equilibrium  between  income  and  outlay  will  only  be  found  where 
responsibility  is  enforced  by  the  public  opinion  of  an  active  and  enlightened  com- 
munity." 

PUCK  OF  POOK'S  HILL,  by  Rudyard  Kipling  (1906).  This  volume  comprises 
a  set  of  fantastic  tales,  juvenile  in  character.  Two  children  Dan  and  Una  amuse 
themselves  by  enacting  portions  of  'A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream'  which  they  do 
on  Midsummer  Eve,  in  the  middle  of  a  Fairy  Ring,  on  Pook's  Hill  in  old  England. 
Suddenly  Puck  appears  beside  them  and  after  instructing  them  in  fairy  lore  joins 
them  in  a  series  of  adventures.  In  the  successive  chapters  which  are  pervaded  by 
historic  personages  as  well  by  the  influences  of  the  fairies  and  People  of  the  Hills,  the 
reader  is  introduced  to  the  most  important  epochs  in  the  development  of  England's 
history;  the  children  are  instructed  by  Puck  regarding  the  heroes  of  Asgard  and 
various  other  traditional  happenings  and  in  their  sylvan  exploits  in  his  company  they 
constantly  encounter  the  famous  personages  under  discussion.  They  learn  of  the 
adventures  of  King  Philip's  fleet  as  they  tramp  through  the  pastures  through  which 
the  great  guns  were  once  carried  to  the  sea-coast.  As  they  fish  in  the  brook,  they  are 
instructed  regarding  the  "Domesday  Book"  and  the  ownership  of  the  land  where 
they  rest  under  the  trees.  The  woods  speak  to  them  of  the  doings  of  the  Saxons  and 
with  nimble  Puck  at  their  side  they  follow  the  footsteps  of  those  early  warriors;  they 
note  where  the  Northmen  fled,  and  where  Alfred's  ships  came  by.  King  John  and  his 
Magna  Charta  is  introduced  to  them  and  Roman  Legions  appear  before  them,  under 
the  guidance  of  Caesar.  King  Arthur  and  his  Knights  of  the  Round  Table  flit  before 
their  curious  gaze  and  when  in  the  final  chapter  Una  and  Dan  take  leave  of  Puck, 
they  have  learned  from  their  fantastic  guide  the  substance  of  all  the  vital  events 
which  have  played  the  principal  part  in  their  country's  development  and  have  been 
impressed  with  the  spirit  of  true  patriotism.  Each  chapter  is  prefaced  by  a  song, 
lyric,  or  ballad,  in  keeping  with  the  character  of  the  text  which  is  to  follow,  as  for 
example  'The  Runes  on  "Weland 's  Sword,'  'A  British-Roman  Song/  'A  Pict 
Song, '  'A  Smuggler's  Song/  and  others  of  varying  theme. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  705 

PURCHAS  HIS  PILGRIMES.  This  remarkable  and  rare  book  was  published  in 
1619.  It  is  a  compilation  by  Samuel  Purchas,  a  London  divine,  of  the  letters  and 
histories  of  travel  of  more  than  thirteen  hundred  travelers.  It  consists  of  a  descrip- 
tion of  travel  in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  America;  and  the  later  editions  of  1625  and 
1626  contain  maps,  which  are  more  diverting  than  instructive.  In  this  work  the 
author  allows  the  travelers  to  speak  for  themselves;  but  in  'Purchas  his  Pilgrimage/ 
published  in  1613,  he  himself  gives  the  "Relation  of  the  TTorld  and  the  Religions 
observed  in  all  ages  and  places  discovered,  from  the  Creation  unto  this  Present. " 

More  accurate  and  extensive  knowledge  has  to-day  supplanted  these  books,  and 
they  are  rarely  consulted  except  by  those  curious  to  know  the  ideas  in  regard  to  the 
rest  of  the  world,  which  then  obtained  in  England.  The  world,  however,  is  the  authors 
debtor  for  his  four-years'  labors;  and  it  is  sad  to  think  that  the  publication  of  these 
books  was  the  cause  of  his  death,  if  not  in  a  debtor's  prison,  at  least  in  want. 

PURITAN  IN  HOLLAND,  ENGLAND,  AND  AMERICA,  THE,  by  Douglas  Camp- 
bell (1892).  This  historical  survey  of  Puritanism  in  its  ethical,  social,  and  political 
aspects  is  strikingly  original,  since  it  seeks  to  demonstrate,  with  much  strength  and 
clearness,  that  the  debt  of  the  American  nation  for  its  most  radical  customs  and 
institutions  is  not  to  the  English  at  all,  but  to  the  Dutch.  It  endeavors  to  prove  that 
the  very  essence  of  Puritanism  came  originally  from  Holland,  leavened  the  English 
nation,  and  through  the  English  nation,  the  embryonic  American  nation.  Some  of 
the  most  common  of  American  institutions,  —  "common  lands  and  common  schools, 
the  written  ballot,  municipalities,  religious  tolerance,  a  federal  union  of  States,  the 
play  of  national  and  local  government,  the  supremacy  of  the  judiciary, "  —  all  these 
came  directly  from  Holland. 

Air.  Campbell's  work  is  most  valuable  as  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  American 
history,  or  in  itself  considered  as  a  scholar^  though  not  always  impartial  monograph. 

PURPLE  ISLAND,  THE  (called  also  the  Isle  of  Man),  by  Phineas  Fletcher.  This 
poem,  in  twelve  cantos,  published  in  1633,  describes  the  human  body  as  an  island. 
The  bones  are  the  foundation;  the  veins  and  arteries,  rivers;  the  heart,  liver,  stomach, 
etc.,  goodly  cities;  the  mouth,  a  cave;  the  teeth  are  "twice  sixteen  porters,  receivers 
of  the  customary  rent";  the  tongue,  "a  groom  who  delivers  all  unto  neare  officers. " 
The  liver  is  the  arch-city,  where  two  purple  streams  (two  great  rivers  of  blood) 
"raise  their  boil-heads. "  The  eyes  are  watch-towers;  the  sight,  the  warder.  Taste 
and  the  tongue  are  man  and  wife.  The  island's  prince  is  the  intellect;  the  five  senses 
are  his  counselors.  Disease  and  vice  are  his  mortal  foes,  with  whom  he  wages  war. 
The  virtues  are  his  allies.  All  is  described  in  the  minutest  detail,  with  a  rare  knowledge 
of  anatomy,  and  there  is  a  profusion  of  literary  and  classical  allusion. 

PUSS  IN  BOOTS,  see  FAIRY  TALES. 

PUT  YOURSELF  IN  HIS  PLACE,  by  Charles  Reade  (1870)  is  a  dramatic  novel  with 
a  purpose.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Hillsborough,  an  English  manufacturing  city;  and 
the  story  relates  the  struggles  of  Henry  Little,  workman  and  inventor,  against  the 
jealousy  and  prejudice  of  the  trades-unions.  Because  he  is  a  Londoner,  because  he  is 
better  trained  and  consequently  better  paid  than  the  Hillsborough  men,  because  he 
invents  quicker  processes  and  labor-saving  devices,  he  is  subjected  to  a  series  of 
persecutions  worthy  of  the  Dark  Ages,  and  is  ground  between  the  two  millstones  of 
Capital  and  Labor;  —  for  if  the  workmen  are  ferocious  and  relentless,  they  have 
45 


706  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

learned  their  villainy  from  the  masters  and  bettered  the  instruction.  This  stern 
study  of  social  problems,  however,  is  nowhere  a  tract,  but  always  the  story  of  Henry 
Little,  who  is  as  devoted  a  lover  as  he  is  honest  a  workman,  as  thorough  a  social 
reformer  as  a  clear,  practical  thinker,  and  the  hero  of  as  bitter  a  fight  against  pre- 
judice, worldly  ambition,  and  unscrupulous  rivalry  outside  the  mills,  as  that  which  he 
wages  against  "The  Trades."  Among  the  notable  figures  in  the  book  are  Squire 
Raby,  Henry's  uncle,  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school;  Jael  Dence,  the  country  girl, 
simple,  honest,  and  strong;  Grotait,  the  gentlemanly  president  of  the  Saw-Grinders' 
Union,  with  his  suave  manners  and  his  nickname  of  "  Old  Smitem  " ;  and  Dr.  Amboyne 
philanthropist  and  peacemaker,  who  maintains  thai*  to  get  on  with  anybody  you  must 
understand  him,  and  when  you  understand  him  you  will  get  on  with  him.  His 
favorite  motto  is  the  title  of  the  book.  Like  all  of  Charles  Reade's  stories,  'Put 
Yourself  in  His  Place*  has  a  wealth  of  dramatic  incident,  and  moves  with  dash  and 
vigor. 

QUABBHT:  'The  Story  of  a  Small  Town,  —  with  Outlooks  upon  Puritan  Life,'  by 
Francis  H.  Underwood  (1893).  It  is  the  biography  of  a  New  England  town,  and  is 
dedicated  "to  those,  wherever  they  are,  who  have  inherited  the  blood  and  shared  the 
progress  of  the  descendants  of  Pilgrims  and  Puritans. "  No  detail  of  village  and  farm 
life  has  been  left  out  as  too  homely;  and  familiar  scenes,  outdoors  and  in,  are  de- 
scribed in  'Quabbin'  with  that  care  which  writers  often  reserve  for  the  novel  aspects 
of  some  foreign  land.  This  quality  lends  the  book  its  interest.  The  social  characteris- 
tics of  a  New  England  town  are  graphically  noted;  the  minister's  revered  chief  place; 
"general-training  day";  the  temperance  movement,  started  at  a  time  when  drunken- 
ness from  the  rum  served  at  ministerial  "installations"  was  not  infrequent,  and 
ending  in  the  total-abstinence  societies,  and  in  rigid  no-license  laws  for  the  town. 
With  the  railroad  came  "improvements,"  including  comforts  that  were  unknown 
luxuries  before;  and  to-day,  "with  morning  newspapers,  the  telegraph,  and  three 
daily  mails,  Quabbin  belongs  to  the  great  world." 

QUEECHY,  by  "Elizabeth  Wetherell"  (Susan  Warner).  'Queechy'  was  written  in 
1852,  and  sold  by  the  thousand  in  both  England  and  America;  being  translated  into 
German,  French,  and  Swedish.  Airs.  Browning  admired  it,  and  wrote  of  it  to  a 
friend:  "I  think  it  very  clever  and  characteristic.  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe  scarcely 
exceeds  it,  after  all  her  trumpets. "  The  story  takes  place  chiefly  in  Queechy,  Ver- 
mont. Fleda  Ringgan,  an  orphan,  on  the  death  of  her  grandfather,  goes  to  her  aunt 
Mrs.  Rossiter,  in  Paris,  under  the  care  of  Mrs.  Carleton  and  her  son,  rich  English 
people.  Every  man  who  sees  Fleda,  from  the  time  she  is  eleven,  falls  in  love  with 
her;  but  she  loves  only  Carleton,  whom  she  converts  to  Christianity.  The  Rossiters 
lose  their  money,  and  return  to  Queechy,  where  Fleda  farms,  cooks  and  makes  maple- 
sugar,  to  support  her  family.  Carleton  revisits  America,  and  is  always  at  hand  to  aid 
Fleda  in  every  emergency;  although  he  never  speaks  of  love  until  they  are  snowed  up 
on  a  railway  journey.  He  saves  her  from  the  persecutions  of  Thorn,  a  rival  lover. 
His  mother  takes  her  to  England.  They  are  married,  and  do  good  for  many  years. 

QUEED,  by  Henry  Sydnor  Harrison  (1911).  This  is  the  story  of  the  evolution  of 
Mr.  Queed  from  a  dried  up  and  eccentric  little  person,  who  is  all  intellect,  to  a  normal 
human  being,  who  develop  es  his  muscles  and  falls  in  love  with  a  charming  girl  named 
Sharlee  Wayland.  At  the  opening  of  the  story  Mr.  Queed  has  a  humiliating  en- 
counter with  Miss  Wayland's  big  dog  who  knocks  him  down  on  a  crowded  thorough- 
fare and  kindles  his  indignation.  Later  he  encounters  Miss  Wayland  at  her  aunt's 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  707 

boarding-house  where  he  is  living  and  toiling  day  and  night  over  a  monumental  work 
on  Sociology.  Miss  Wayland  becomes  gradually  interested  in  Mr.  Queed  as  an 
intellectual  curiosity,  who  is  sadly  in  need  of  humanizing  influences  as  well  as  re- 
munerative labor;  she  secures  him  a  position  on  a  daily  paper  where  he  exercises  his 
intellectual  powers  effectively  but  where  he  discovers  that  he  is  physically  a  weakling, 
when  he  is  attacked  by  an  irate  proof-reader.  From  this  time  Mr.  Queed  sets  out  to 
develop  his  muscles  and  consorts  with  a  pugilistic  friend  named  Klinker,  who  intro- 
duces him  to  athletic  circles.  By  degrees  the  life  around  him  begins  more  and  more 
to  reach  him,  first  at  one  point  and  then  at  another,  until  in  the  course  of  turn*  he 
develops  a  normal  and  rounded  manhood.  The  mystery  which  has  surrounded  his 
birth  is  in  the  end  cleared  up,  and  he  discovers  that  he  is  the  son  and  heir  of  Henry  G. 
Surface,  whom  he  had  known  under  the  name  of  Professor  Xiclovius.  The  chance 
discovery  of  a  letter  bearing  the  name  of  Surface  reveals  the  Professor's  identity,  and 
the  young  man  confronts  him  with  the  fact  and  he  confesses  that  he  is  the  hated  and 
despised  being  who  has  won  a  dishonorable  notoriety  in  \-ears  past,  and  who  has 
betrayed  the  friendship  of  Miss  Wayland  ?s  father  and  looted  her  own  fortune  so  that 
she  is  forced  to  earn  her  living.  Not  until  after  the  death  of  the  supposed  Professor 
does  Queed  learn  that  he  is  in  reality  Henry  G.  Surface,  Jr.  This  discovery  causes 
him  to  at  once  set  about  righting  the  wrong  done  by  his  father.  He  turns  over  his 
estate  to  Miss  Wayland  who  promptly  refuses  it,  though  she  shows  her  partiality  for 
its  owner.  In  the  end  a  compromise  is  arranged  and  she  accepts  the  money  with  the 
understanding  that  she  shall  use  it  to  endow  a  Reformatory  which  she  calls  the  Henry 
G.  Surface,  Junior  Home.  The  young  people  are  united  and  Mr.  Queed  becomes 
editor-in-chief  of  an  important  paper. 

QUENTIN  DURWARD,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  (1823).  The  scene  of  this  exciting 
story  is  France  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XL,  and  its  main  outline  is  this:  Quentin 
Durward,  a  brave  young  Scot,  having  a  relative  in  the  Scottish  Guards  of  the  French 
king,  comes  to  France  to  seek  his  fortune.  The  crafty  and  superstitious  Louis  is 
pleased  with  the  youth,  and  sends  him  on  a  strange  errand.  Under  the  royal  protec- 
tion are  two  vassals  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  the  lovely  Isabelle  of  Croye  and  her 
scheming  aunt.  Charles  of  Burgundy  is  too  formidable  an  enemy,  and  Louis  decides 
to  make  Isabelle  the  wife  of  William  de  la  Marck,  a  notorious  brigand,  who  is  quite 
able  to  defend  his  bride.  The  unsuspecting  Quentin  is  sent  to  conduct  the  ladies  to 
the  Bishop  of  Liege,  the  plan  being  that  William  shall  attack  the  party  and  cany  off 
his  prize.  Quentin,  discovering  the  king's  treachery,  succeeds  in  delivering  his 
charge  to  the  bishop;  but  even  here  she  is  not  safe.  William  attacks  the  castle  of 
Liege  and  murders  the  bishop,  while  Quentin  and  Isabelle  escape.  She  returns  to 
Burgundy,  preferring  her  old  persecutor  to  the  perfidious  king.  But  that  wily 
monarch  has  already  joined  forces  with  the  bold  duke,  to  avenge  the  bishop's  death 
and  to  besiege  De  la  Marck.  Charles  offers  the  hand  of  Isabelle  as  a  prize  to  the 
conqueror  of  William,  and  Quentin  bears  off  in  triumph  a  not  unwilling  bride. 

Among  the  chief  characters  introduced  are  the  Burgundian  herald,  the  Count  of 
Crevecceur,  and  Le  Balafre*  of  the  Scottish  Guard,  Quentin's  uncle.  The  figure  of 
Louis  is  well  drawn  in  his  superstitions,  his  idolatry  of  the  leaden  images  that  gar- 
nished his  hat-band,  in  his  political  intriguing,  and  in  his  faithlessness  and  lack  of 
honor.  The  book  made  a  sensation  in  France,  and  its  first  success  was  on  foreign 
shores.  It  was  written  at  the  flood-tide  of  Scott's  popularity  at  home;  the  ebb  began 
with  'St.  Ronan's  Well,*  published  six  months  later.  The  principal  anachronisms 
are  noted  in  the  later  editions. 


708  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

QUICK  OR  THE  DEAD?,  THE,  a  novelette  by  Amelie  Rives,  was  first  published  in 
1883  in  Lippincott's  Magazine.  It  attained  at  once  great  notoriety  in  this  country 
and  in  England,  because  of  the  peculiar  treatment  of  the  subject,  the  strangeness  of 
its  style,  and  the  flashiness  of  the  title,  which  has  become  one  of  the  best  known  in 
fiction.  Its  hysteria,  its  abundant  and  bizarre  use  of  adjectives,  and  its  innocent 
treatment  of  passion,  betrayed  the  youth  and  inexperience  of  the  author;  yet  it  is  not 
without  traces  of  genius.  The  heroine,  Barbara  Pomfret,  is  a  young  widow,  whose 
husband,  Valentine,  has  been  dead  two  years  when  the  story  opens.  In  the  first 
chapter  she  is  returning  to  the  old  Virginia  homestead,  where  she  has  passed  the  few 
months  of  an  absolutely  happy  married  life.  There  everything  reminds  her  of  her 
lost  love,  awakening  the  pain  that  she  had  sought  to  lull  to  sleep.  She  has  not  been 
long  among  the  familiar  scenes,  when  Valentine's  cousin,  John  Dering,  who  has  come 
to  the  neighborhood,  calls  to  see  her.  His  remarkable  resemblance  to  Barbara's 
dead  husband,  in  appearance  and  speech  and  manner,  is  at  first  a  source  of  suffering 
to  her.  After  a  time,  however,  this  resemblance  becomes  a  consolation.  Yet  she 
rebels  against  her  new  feeling  as  disloyal  to  Valentine.  She  struggles  to  keep  the 
identity  of  the  two  men  distinct.  She  hates  herself  because  she  cares  for  her  cousin. 
Yet  her  love  for  him  grows  stronger,  as  his  passion  for  her  becomes  more  imperious. 
She  strives  to  resist  it,  to  be  true  to  the  dead.  Finally  she  gives  herself  up  to  her 
love  for  the  living,  but  her  abandonment  to  her  overmastering  passion  is  of  short 
duration.  She  believes  that  she  is  more  bound  to  the  dead  than  to  the  living,  and 
sends  John  away  at  the  last,  that  she  may  be  faithful  to  her  first  love.  '  The  Quick 
or  the  Dead?'  is  morbid  and  immature  to  a  high  degree;  yet  as  a  psychological  study 
of  a  sensitive  woman's  conflicting  emotions  it  is  not  without  interest  and  significance. 
The  s'tyle  is  impressionistic.  "In  the  glimpsing  lightning  she  saw  scurrying  trees 
against  the  suave  autumn  sky,  like  etchings  on  bluish  paper. "  "A  rich  purple-blue 
dusk  had  sunk  down  over  the  land,  and  the  gleam  of  the  frozen  ice-pond  in  the  far 
field  shone  desolately  forth  from  tangled  patches  of  orange-colored  wild  grass." 
"She  threw  herself  into  a  drift  of  crimson  pillows  .  .  .  brooding  upon  the  broken 
fire,  whose  lilac  flames  palpitated  over  a  bed  of  gold- veined  coals. " 

QUINCY  ADAMS  SAWYER,  by  Charles  Felton  Pidgin  (1900).  This  novel 
recounts  the  experiences  of  Quincy  Adams  Sawyer  of  Boston,  the  son  of  a  million- 
aire and  a  graduate  of  Harvard  College,  who  spends  two  years  in  the  country 
town  known  as  Mason's  Corner,  where  he  finds  many  quaint  country  personages. 
Sawyer,  while  recuperating  his  health,  enters  into  the  life  of  the  place  and  attends 
the  singing-school,  husking-bees,  and  surprise-parties  with  various  village  belles, 
finally  falling  in  love  with  Miss  Alice  Pettengill,  who  develops  into  a  talented  poet 
and  author.  The  book  breathes  the  atmosphere  of  familiar  country  scenes  and  quaint 
characters,  among  whom  may  be  mentioned  Obadiah  Strout,  the  singing-master  of 
the  town,  who  has  composed  a  new  national  air  which  he  prophesies  will  be  sung 
when  the  'Star-Spangled  Banner'  and  'Hail  Columbia'  "are  laid  upon  the  shelf 
and  all  covered  with  dust."  Hiram  Maxwell,  another  original  character,  blessed 
with  a  great  appetite,  remarks,  "I've  got  only  one  way  of  tellin'  when  I've  got  enough, 
—  I  allus  eats  till  it  hurts  me,  then  I  stop  while  the  pain  lasts. " 

Sawyer  marries  Miss  Alice  Pettengill,  who  for  a  time  becomes  blind,  but 
whose  sight  is  in  the  end  restored.  The  object  of  Mr.  Pidgin  in  the  production  of 
this  story  is  twofold  —  to  give  a  realistic  picture  of  New  England  life  of  twenty- 
five  years  ago  and  at  the  same  time  to  paint  the  portrait  of  a  true  American 
gentleman. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  709 

QUINTUS  CLAUDIUS,  by  Ernst  Eckstein.  (Translated  from  the  German  by 
Clara  Bell.)  This  story,  which  appeared  originally  in  1881,  is  'A  Romance  of  Im- 
perial Rome1  during  the  first  century.  The  work  was  first  suggested  to  the  author's 
mind  as  he  stood  amid  the  shadows  of  the  Colosseum  and  the  earlier  scenes  are 
largely  laid  in  the  palaces  and  temples  that  lie  in  ruins  near  by  this  spot.  The  central 
motive  of  the  book  is  the  gradual  conversion  to  Christianity  of  Quintus  Claudius, 
son  of  Titus  Claudius,  priest  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus;  his  avowal  of  the  same,  and  the 
consequences  that  flow  from  it  to  himself,  his  family,  and  his  promised  wife,  Cornelia* 
The  time  of  the  story  is  95  A.  D.  at  the  close  of  the  gloomy  reign  of  Domitian;  and 
the  book  ends  with  that  Emperor's  assassination  and  the  installation  of  Nerva  and 
Trajan.  The  story  enjoyed  a  wide  popularity  in  its  day. 

QUO  VADIS  (1895)  perhaps  the  most  popular  novel  of  the  Polish  master  in  fiction, 
Henryk  Sienkiewicz,  is,  like  the  "trilogy, "  historical;  it  deals,  however,  not  with  the 
history  of  Poland,  but  with  that  of  Rome  in  the  time  of  Nero.  The  magnificent 
spectacular  environment  of  the  decaying  Roman  empire,  the  dramatic  qualities  of 
the  Christian  religion,  then  assuming  a  world-wide  significance,  offer  rich  material 
for  the  genius  of  Sienkiewicz.  He  presents  the  background  of  his  narrative  with 
marvelous  vividness.  Against  it  he  draws  great  figures :  Petronius,  the  lordly  Roman 
noble  the  very  flower  of  paganism;  Eunice  and  Lygia,  diverse  products  of  the  same 
opulent  world;  Nero,  the  beast-emperor;  the  Christians  seeking  an  unseen  kingdom 
in  a  city  overwhelmed  by  the  symbols  of  earthly  imperialism;  and  many  others 
typical  of  dying  Rome,  or  of  that  new  Rome  to  be  established  on  the  ruined  throne 
of  the  Caesars.  The  novel  as  a  whole  is  intensely  dramatic,  sometimes  melodramatic. 
Its  curious  title  has  reference  to  an  ancient  legend,  which  relates  that  St.  Peter, 
fleeing  from  Rome  and  from  crucifixion,  meets  his  Lord  Christ  on  the  Appian  Way. 
"Lord,  whither  goest  thou?"  (Domine,  quo  vadis?)  cries  Peter.  "To  Rome,  to  be 
crucified  again, "  is  the  reply.  The  apostle  thereupon  turns  back  to  his  martyrdom. 
While  '  Quo  Vadis '  cannot  rank  with  the  "trilogy, "  it  is  in  many  respects  a  remark- 
able novel. 

QUR'AN,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OP  THE  EAST. 

RAB  AND  HIS  FRIENDS,  by  Dr.  John  Brown  (1855),  a  short  story  by  a  well- 
beloved  Edinburgh  physician,  is  in  its  way  a  classic.  Rab  is  a  sturdy  mastiff  — 
"old,  gray,  brindled,  as  big  as  a  little  Highland  bull"  —  with  "Shakespearean 
dewlaps  shaking  as  he  goes."  His  friends  are  his  master  and  mistress,  James  Noble, 
the  Howgate  carrier,  "a  keen,  thin,  impatient,  black-a- vised  little  man";  and  the 
exquisite  old  Scotchman,  his  wife  Ailie,  with  her  "unforgettable  face,  pale,  serious, 
lonely ,  delicate,  sweet,"  with  dark  gray  eyes  "full  of  suffering,  full  also  of  the  over- 
coming of  it."  Ailie  is  enduring  a  terrible  malady;  and  her  husband  wraps  her  care- 
fully in  his  plaid  and  brings  her  in  his  cart  to  the  _hospital,  where  her  dignified  patient 
lovableness  through  a  dangerous  operation  moves  even  the  thoughtless  medical 
students  to  tears.  She  is  nursed  by  her  husband.  "Handy,  and  clever,  and  swift, 
and  patient  as  any  woman,  was  that  horny-handed,  snell,  peremptory  little  man"; 
while  Rab,  quiet  and  obedient,  but  saddened  and  disquieted  by  the  uncomprehended 
trouble,  jealously  guards  the  two.  Perhaps  no  truer,  more  convincing  dog  character 
exists  in  literature  than  that  of  ugly  faithful  Rab. 

RAIDERS,  THE,  by  Samuel  R.  Crockett  (1894),  the  best  story  by  this  author,  is  an 
old-time  romance,  dealing  with  the  struggles  with  the  outlaws  and  smugglers  in  Gallo- 


7io  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

way  early  in  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  a  thrilling  tale  of  border  warfare  and  wild 
gipsy  life,  and  it  embodies  many  old  traditions  of  that  time  and  place.  The  hero, 
Patrick  Heron,  is  laird  of  the  Isle  of  Rathan,  —  "an  auld  name,  though  noo-a-days  wi' 
but  little  to  the  tail  o't."  He  is  in  love  with  May  Maxwell,  called  May  Mischief  — -  is 
a  sister  of  the  Maxwells  of  Craigdarrock,  who  are  by  far  the  strongest  of  all  the 
smuggling  families. 

Hector  Faa,  the  chief  of  the  Raiders,  sees  May  Mischief,  and  he  too  loves  her 
in  his  wild  way.  The  Raiders  are,  for  the  most  part,  the  remnants  of  broken  clans, 
who  have  been  outlawed  even  from  the  border  countries,  and  are  made  up  of  tribes 
of  Marshalls,  Macatericks,  Millers,  and  Faas.  Most  conspicuous  among  them  are 
the  last-named,  calling  themselves,  "Lords  and  Earls  of  Little  Egypt."  By  reason 
of  his  position  and  power,  Hector  Faa  dares  to  send  word  to  the_  Maxwells  that  their 
sister  must  be  his  bride. 

"The  curse  that  Richard  Maxwell  sent  back  is  remembered  yet  in  the  Hill  Coun- 
try, and  his  descendants  mention  it  with  a  kind  of  pride.  It  was  considered  as  fine 
a  thing  as  the  old  man  ever  did  since  he  dropped  profane  swearing  and  took  to  ana- 
themas from  the  psalms,  —  which  did  just  as  well." 

The  outlaws  then  proceed  to  attack  the  Maxwells  and  carry  off  May  Mischief . 
Patrick  Heron  joins  the  Maxwells  in  the  long  search  for  their  sister.  After  many 
bloody  battles  and  hair-breadth  escapes,  he  is  finally  successful  in  rescuing  her  from 
the  Murder  Hole.  This  he  accomplishes  by  the  aid  of  Silver  Sand,  the  Still  Hunter,  a 
mysterious  person  who  "has  the  freedom  of  the  hill  fastness  of  the  gipsies."  He  has 
proved  himself  the  faithful  friend  of  Patrick  Heron.  He  turns  out  to  be  John  Faa, 
King  of  the  Gipsies. 

RALPH  ROISTER  DOISTER,  by  Nicholas  Udall,  was  the  first  English  comedy, 
although  not  printed  until  1556,  and  probably  written  about  1541.  At  this  time 
Nicholas  Udall,  its  author,  was  headmaster  of  Eton  school;  and  the  comedy  was 
written  for  the  schoolboys,  whose  custom  it  was  to  act  a  Latin  play  at  the  Christmas 
season.  An  English  play  was  an  innovation,  but  *  Ralph  Roister  Doister '  was  very 
successful;  and  though  Nicholas  Udall  rose  in  the  Church,  reaching  the  dignity  of 
canon  of  Windsor,  he  is  chiefly  remembered  as  the  author  of  this  comedy. 

Roisterer  is  an  old  word  for  swaggerer  or  boaster;  and  the  hero  of  this  little  five- 
act  comedy  is  a  good-natured  fellow,  fond  of  boasting  of  his  achievements,  especially 
what  he  has  accomplished  or  might  accomplish  in  love.  The  play  concerns  itself 
with  his  rather  impertinent  suit  to  Dame  Christian  Custance,  "a  widow  with  a 
thousand  pound, "  who  is  already  the  betrothed  of  Gavin  Goodluck.  But  as  Gavin, 
a  thrifty  merchant,  is  away  at  sea,  Ralph  Roister  Doister  sees  no  reason  why  he 
should  not  try  his  luck.  His  confidant  is  Matthew  Merrygreek,  a  needy  humorist, 
who  undertakes  to  be  a  go-between  and  gain  the  widow's  good-will  for  Ralph.  He 
tries  to  get  some  influence  over  the  servants  of  Custance;  and  there  is  a  witty  scene 
with  the  three  maids,  —  Madge  Mumblecrust,  Tibet  Talkapace,  and  Annot  Allface. 
The  sen-ants  of  Ralph  —  Harpax  and  Dobinet  Doughty  —  have  a  considerable 
part  in  the  play,  and  the  latter  complains  rather  bitterly  that  he  has  to  run  about  so 
much  in  the  interest  of  his  master's  flirtations. 

Dame  Custance,  though  surprised  at  the  presumption  of  Ralph  and  his  friend, 
at  length  consents  to  read  a  letter  which  he  has  sent  her,  or  rather  to  have  it  read  to 
her  by  Matthew  Merrygreek.  The  latter,  by  mischievously  altering  the  punctua- 
tion, makes  the  letter  seem  the  reverse  of  what  had  been  intended.  Ralph  is  ready  to 
kill  the  scrivener  who  had  indited  the  letter  for  him,  until  the  poor  man,  by  reading  it 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  711 

aloud  himself,  proves  his  integrity.  While  Dame  distance  has  no  intention  of 
accepting  Ralph,  his  suit  makes  trouble  between  her  and  Gavin  Goodluck,  whose 
friend,  Sim  Suresby,  reports  that  the  widow  is  listening  to  other  suitors.  There  is 
much  amusing  repartee,  several  funny  scenes,  and  all  ends  well. 

RAMBLES  AND  STUDIES  IN  GREECE,  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy  (1876,  ;th  ed.,  1913). 
A  record  of  what  was  seen,  felt,  and  thought  in  two  journeys  to  Greece,  by  a  man 
trained  in  classic  knowledge  and  feeling.  By  many  critics  it  has  been  preferred  to  the 
author's  'Social  Life  in  Greece.'  The  titles  of  some  of  the  chapters,  'First  Impres- 
sions of  the  Coast,'  'Athens  and  Attica,'  'Excursions  in  Attica,'  'From  Athens  to 
Thebes/  'Chaeronea/  'Delphi,'  'Olympia  and  its  Games,'  'Arcadia,'  'Corinth,' 
'Mycenae,'  'Greek  Music  and  Painting/  etc.,  show  something  of  the  scope  of  the 
volume.  From  his  study  of  the  ancient  Greek  literature,  Professor  Mahaffy  had 
reached  the  conclusion  that  it  greatly  idealized  the  old  Greeks.  In  his  'Social 
Life  in  Greece/  1874,  he  described  them  as  he  thought  they  actually  were;  and  this 
description  very  nearly  agrees,  he  says,  with  what  he  found  in  modern  Greece.  He 
judges  that  the  modern  Greeks  —  like  the  ancients  as  he  sees  them  —  are  not  a 
passionate  race,  and  have  great  reasonableness,  needing  but  the  opportunity  to  out- 
strip many  of  their  contemporaries  in  politics  and  science.  The  volume  reveals  the 
acute  observer  whose  reasoning  is  based  on  special  knowledge. 

RAMONA,  by  Helen  Jackson  (1885).  This  story  is  a  picturesque,  sympathetic, 
and  faithful  picture  of  Spanish  and  Indian  life  in  California.  The  scene  opens  upon 
an  old  Mexican  estate  in  Southern  California,  where  the  Senora  Moreno  lives,  with  her 
son  Felipe,  and  her  adopted  daughter  Ramona,  a  beautiful  half-breed,  Scotch  and 
Indian.  Ramona  betroths  herself  to  Alessandro,  a  young  Indian  of  noble  character. 
Senora  Moreno  forbidding  the  marriage,  they  elope,  to  face  a  series  of  cruel  mis- 
fortunes. The  Indians  of  Alessandro fs  village  are  deprived,  of  their  land  by  the  greed 
of  the  American  settlers;  and  wherever  they  settle,  the  covetousness  of  the  superior 
race  drives  them,  sooner  or  later,  to  remoter  shelters.  The  proud  and  passionate 
Alessandro  is  driven  mad  by  his  wrongs,  and  his  story  ends  in  tragedy,  though  a  sunset 
light  of  peace  falls  at  last  on  Ramona.  So  rich  is  the  story  in  local  color,  —  the  frolic 
and  toil  of  the  sheep-shearing,  the  calm  opulence  of  the  sun-steeped  vineyards,  the 
busy  ranch,  the  Indian  villages;  so  strong  is  it  in  character,  —  the  bigoted  just  chate- 
laine, the  tender  Ramona,  the  good  old  priest,  —  that  its  effect  of  reality  is  unescap- 
able;  and  Calif ornians  still  point  out  with  pleased  pride  the  low-spreading  hacienda 
where  Ramona  lived,  the  old  chapel  where  she  worshipped,  the  stream  where  she  saw 
her  lovely  face  reflected,  though  none  of  these  existed  save  in  the,  imagination  of  the 
author. 

RAVENSHOE,  by  Henry  Kingsley  (1862).  The  "House of  Ravenshoe"  in  Stoning- 
ton,  Ireland,  is  the  scene  of  this  novel;  and  the  principal  actors  are  the  members  of 
the  noble  family  of  Ravenshoe.  The  plot,  remarkable  for  its  complexity,  has  three 
stages.  Denzel  Ravenshoe,  a  Catholic,  marries  a  Protestant  wife.  They  have  two 
sons,  Cuthbert  and  Charles,  Cuthbert  is  brought  up  as  a  Catholic  and  Charles  as  a 
Protestant.  This  is  the  cause  of  enmity  on  the  part  of  Father  Mackworth,  a  dark, 
sullen  man,  the  priest  of  the  family,  who  has  friendly  relations  with  Cuthbert  alone. 
James  Norton,  Denzel's  groom,  is  on  intimate  terms  with  his  master.  He  marries 
Norah,  the  maid  of  Lady  Ravenshoe.  Charles  becomes  a  sunny,  lovable  man, 
Cuthbert  a  reticent  bookworm.  They  have  for  playmates  William  and  Ellen, 


712  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  children  of  Norah.  Two  women  play  an  important  part  in  the  life  of  the  hero, 
Charles,  —  Adelaide,  very  beautiful  in  form  and  figure,  with  little  depth,  and  lovely 
Mary  Corby,  who,  cast  up  by  shipwreck,  is  adopted  by  Norah.  Charles  becomes 
engaged  to  Adelaide.  The  plot  deepens.  Father  Mackworth  proves  that  Charles  is 
the  true  son  of  Norah  and  James  Norton,  the  illegitimate  brother  of  Denzel;  and 
William,  the  groom  foster-brother,  is  real  heir  of  Ravenshoe.  To  add  to  the  grief  of 
Charles,  Adelaide  elopes  with  his  cousin  Lord  Welter.  Charles  flees  to  London,  tries 
grooming,  and  then  joins  the  Hussars.  Finally  he  is  found  in  London  by  a  college 
friend,  Marston,  with  a  raving  fever  upon  him.  After  recovery,  Charles  returns  to 
Ravenshoe.  Father  Mackworth  again  produces  evidence  that  not  James  Norton, 
but  Denzel  is  the  illegitimate  son,  and  Charles,  after  all,  is  true  heir  to  Ravenshoe. 
The  union  of  Charles  and  Mary  then  takes  pkce. 

REAL  FOLKS,  by  Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney  (1871).  Mrs.  Whitney  explains  the  real 
folks  she  means  in  the  saying  of  one  of  her  characters:  "Real  folks,  the  true  livers, 
the  genuine  neahburs  —  nighdwellers ;  they  who  abide  alongside  in  spirit."  It  is  a 
domestic  story  dealing  with  two  generations.  The  sisters  Frank  and  Laura  Old- 
ways,  left  orphans,  are  adopted  into  different  households:  Laura,  into  that  of  her 
wealthy  aunt,  where  she  is  surrounded  by  the  enervating  influences  of  wealth  and 
social  ambitions;  Frank,  into  a  simply  country  home,  where  her  lovable  character 
develops  in  its  proper  environment.  They  marry,  become  mothers,  and  reaching 
middle  age  come,  at  the  wish  of  their  rich  bachelor  uncle  Titus  Oldways,  to  live  near 
him  in  Boston.  The  episodes  in  the  two  households,  the  Ripwinkleys  and  Ledwiths, 
so  widely  divergent  in  character,  complete  the  story;  which,  while  never  rising  above 
the  ordinary  and  familiar,  yet,  like  the  pictures  of  the  old  Dutch  interiors,  charms 
with  its  atmosphere  of  repose.  It  is  a  work  for  mothers  and  daughters  alike.  It 
exhibits  the  worth  of  the  domestic  virtues  and  the  vanity  of  all  worldly  things;  but 
it  never  becomes  preachy.  Its  New  England  atmosphere  is  genuine,  and  the  sayings 
of  the  characters  are  often  racy  of  the  soil;  while  the  author's  sense  of  humor  carries 
her  safely  over  some  obstacles  of  emotion  which  might  easily  become  sentimentality. 

REAL  WORLD,  THE,  by  Robert  Herrick  (1901),  In  this  story,  the  author  presents 
an  interesting  study  of  American  social  conditions,  as  viewed  through  the  eyes  of  his 
hero,  Jack  Pemberton,  three  phases  of  whose  life  are  depicted,  "  childhood, "  "youth," 
and  "manhood."  Pemberton's  early  days  are  darkened  by  poverty  and  family  dis- 
sensions and,  amid  discordant  surroundings,  he  begins  to  realize  that  most  individuals 
create  for  themselves  an  unreal  environment  in  which  they  live,  mistaking  their  own 
shadowy  creations  for  reality;  he  determines  to  find  for  himself  the  "real  world," 
and  the  author  traces  his  gradual  awakening  to  ambition  for  success  in  the  social  and 
material  universe,  and  his  final  recognition  that  the  "reality"  tie  seeks  must  be  upon 
a  higher  plane.  While  acting  as  clerk  at  a  summer  hotel,  Pemberton  makes  the 
acquaintance  of  Elsie  Mason,  a  brilliant,  impulsive,  and  ambitious  girl  who  becomes 
his  youthful  idol  and  who  shares  with  him  her  worldly  wisdom.  She  fires  him  with 
aspirations  for  the  world  she  seeks  to  conquer,  and  his  love  for  her  forms  the  ruling 
motive  of  his  early  career.  She  continues  to  influence  Tifm  strongly,  even  after  her 
mercenary  marriage  with  a  rich  man,  until  he  awakens  to  a  realization  of  the  utter 
frivolity  of  her  character  and  discovers  that  she,  too,  is  a  phantom.  In  the  end  he 
wins  the  love  of  the  sweet  and  conservative  Isabelle  Mather,  who  has  passed  through 
an  unfortunate  engagement  with  Elsie  Mason's  dissipated  brother,  and  who  helps 
him  to  attain  his  "real  world."  The  author  follows  Pemberton's  career  as  a  poor 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  713 

boy,  a  hotel  clerk,  a  student  at  Harvard  College,  and  takes  leave  of  him  as  a  successful 
lawyer,  who  has  passed  through  many  trials  and  struggles  which  have  developed  in 
him  a  strong,  upright  character. 

REBECCA  OF  SUNNYBROOK  FARM,  by  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin  (1903).  This 
is  the  story  of  a  quaint  and  original  little  girl,  whose  trite  sayings  are  a  constant  source 
of  amusement  to  the  reader.  Rebecca  Randall  is  one  of  seven  children  and  their 
mother  being  a  widow  with  nothing  but  a  mortgaged  farm  for  their  support,  they 
have  known  little  besides  work  and  privation.  Nevertheless,  Rebecca,  blest  with 
an  optimistic  spirit,  sees  the  silver  lining  in  the  clouds  and  makes  the  best  of  her 
surroundings.  At  the  age  of  ten  she  leaves  home  to  go  to  live  with  her  mother's 
two  unmarried  sisters,  Miranda  and  Jane,  who  are  to  take  charge  of  her  and  send 
her  to  school,  Rebecca  makes  the  journey  to  Riverboro'  alone  by  stage  and  in  so 
doing  wins  the  heart  of  the  stage-driver,  Mr.  Cobb,  who  becomes  her  staunch 
friend.  Her  life  in  her  new  home  is  full  of  trials  as  her  aunt  Miranda  is  severe 
and  unreasonable,  but  Rebecca  by  her  winning  ways  practically  softens  her  hard 
nature.  At  school  Rebecca  finds  a  friend  and  congenial  spirit  in  Emma  Jane 
Perkins  and  their  intimacy  continues  throughout  the  story.  Rebecca's  aptness  at 
her  lessons  and  her  originality  of  thought  and  expression  arouse  the  interest  of  her 
teacher  who  does  all  she  can  to  aid  her  progress.  In  Mr.  Adam  Ladd,  a  kind  and 
generous  young  man,  Rebecca  finds  the  prince  of  her  fairy  tales  and  she  calls  him 
1 '  Mr.  Aladdin, ' '  after  that  hero  of  romance.  Mr.  Ladd  does  much  to  add  to  Rebecca's 
happiness  and  his  interest  in  her  becomes  so  deep  that  at  the  close  of  the  story  it  is 
plainly  seen  that  his  feelings  have  turned  to  something  more  serious.  The  reader 
takes  leave  of  Rebecca  after  her  graduation  from  the  seminary,  on  which  occasion 
she  is  class  poet  and  carries  off  many  honors.  Aunt  Miranda,  after  a  long  and  tedious 
illness,  dies,  leaving  her  house  and  land  to  Rebecca,  who  is  made  happy  by  the  thought 
that  it  is  in  her  power  to  bring  comfort  and  happiness  to  her  mother  and  brothers  and 
sisters. 

RECENT  RESEARCH  IN  BIBLE  LANDS,  by  H.  V.  Hilprecht,  see  BIBLE 
LANDS,  etc, 

RECHERCHE  DE  L'ABSOLTJ,  see  ALKAHEST. 

RECORDS  OF  A  GIRLHOOD,  by  Frances  Anne  Kemble  (1879).  This  work  gives 
the  history  of  the  life  of  a  great  actress,  member  of  a  family  of  genius,  from  her  birth 
up  to  the  time  of  her  marriage  (1809-34).  Her  incorrigible  childhood,  her  school- 
days in  France,  her  first  visit  to  the  theatre,  her  early  efforts  at  authorship,  her 
distaste  for  the  stage,  her  first  appearance  on  it,  her  successes  there,  the  books  she 
has  been  reading,  her  first  visit  to  America,  her  comments  on  American  life,  which,  to 
her,  is  so  primitive  as  to  seem  barbarous,  —  all  this  is  duly  set  forth.  Among  those 
of  whom  she  relates  memorable  recollections  or  anecdotes  are  Lord  Melbourne,  Rossini, 
Weber,  Fanny  Elssler,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Talma,  Miss  Mitford,  Theodore  Hook, 
Arthur  Hallam,  John  Sterling,  Malibran,  Queen  Victoria,  George  Stephenson,  Lord 
John  Russell,  Edmund  Kean,  Chancellor  Kent,  Edward  Everett,  Charles  Sumner, 
and  a  hundred  other  personages  of  equal  fame.  She  knew  everybody  who  was 
worth  knowing,  was  petted  and  spoiled  by  the  highest  society,  and  reigned  as  an 
uncrowned  queen  in  whatever  circle  she  delighted  by  her  presence.  She  declares  it 
to  be  her  belief  that  her  natural  vocation  was  for  opera-dancing;  and  says  that  she 


714  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ought  to  have  been  handsome,  and  would  have  been  so,  had  she  not  been  disfigured 
by  an  attack  of  small-pox  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  whose  effects  never  wholly 
disappeared. 

The  book  is  brightly  written,  is  full  of  well-bred  gossip,  and  always  entertaining. 

RECORDS  OF  LATER  LIFE,  by  Frances  Anne  Kemble  (1882).  This  volume 
resumes  its  author's  history  at  the  point  where  '  Records  of  a  Girlhood  '  leaves  it  — 
namely,  at  her  marriage  with  Mr.  Pierce  Butler  in  1834;  and  ends  with  her  return  to 
America  in  1848,  and  her  success  in  earning  by  public  readings  a  home  at  Lenox, 
Massachusetts.  "With  the  exception  of  two  visits  to  Europe,  the  first  two-thirds  of 
the  book  are  given  to  her  life  in  America;  the  last  third,  to  her  stay  in  Europe  (1845- 
48).  The  record  begins  by  describing  some  of  the  points  at  which  her  English  ideas 
disagree  with  American  ones.  It  is  full  of  amusing  comments  on  our  life,  —  its 
crudeness,  unhealthiness,  lack  of  leisure,  and  extravagance,  and  the  discomforts  of 
travel.  She  speaks  with  evident  pleasure  of  her  American  friends,  sets  down  many 
observations  and  plans  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  as  she  studies  it  on  her  husband's 
plantation  in  Georgia,  and  makes,  in  short,  a  vivid  picture  of  American  social  life  in 
the  first  half  of  the  century.  She  gives  specific  studies  of  Philadelphia,  Niagara 
Falls,  Rockaway  Beach,  Newport,  Boston,  Lenox,  Baltimore,  and  Charleston. 
Though  she  has  faith  in  American  institutions,  she  is  not  without  intelligent  misgivings : 
"The  predominance  of  spirit  over  matter  indicates  itself  strikingly  across  the  At- 
lantic, where,  in  the  lowest  strata  of  society,  the  native  American  rowdy,  with  a  face 
as  pure  in  outline  as  an  ancient  Greek  coin,  and  hands  and  feet  as  fine  as  those  of  a 
Norman  noble,  strikes  one  dumb  with  the  aspect  of  a  countenance  whose  vile,  ignoble 
hardness  can  triumph  over  such  refinement  of  line  and  delicacy  of  proportion.  A 
human  soul  has  a  wonderful  supremacy  over  the  matter  which  it  informs.  The 
American  is  a  whole  nation,  with  well-made,  regular  noses ;  from  which  circumstance 
(and  a  few  others),  I  believe  in  their  future  superiority  over  all  other  nations.  But 
the  lowness  their  faces  are  capable  of  'flogs  Europe.'  "  Her  strictures  on  the  English 
aristocracy,  and  middle  and  lower  classes,  are  equally  severe.  In  the  last  third  of  the 
book  are  described  her  return  to  the  stage  and  her  appearance  as  a  public  reader  in 
England,  in  1847.  In  1841  she  was  on  the  Continent,  and  in  1846  in  Italy.  Most  of 
this  history  is  told  in  the  form  of  letters  written  at  the  time,  wherein  her  literary 
opinions  and  speculations  on  life  and  philosophy  are  freely  expressed.  Her  anecdotes 
of  Dr.  Charming,  Grisi,  Lord  and  Lady  Landsdowne,  Sydney  Smith,  Lady  Holland, 
Rogers,  Wordsworth,  Mrs.  Somerville,  Pollen,  Taglioni,  Liszt,  Mendelssohn,  Fanny 
Elssler,  Mrs.  Grote,  Jenny  Lind,  Moore,  Macaulay,  Dickens,  Dr.  Arnold,  Bunsen, 
Thackeray,  etc.,  are  always  entertaining  and  often  most  illuminating. 

RED  AS  A  ROSE  IS  SHE,  by  Rhoda*  Broughton  (1870).  This  commonplace  love- 
story  is  very  simply  told.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Wales,  The  heroine,  Esther  Craven, 
promises  to  marry  Robert  Brandon,  "to  keep  him  quiet, "  though  caring  much  less 
for  him  than  for  her  only  brother.  But  on  a  visit  she  meets  the  heaven-appointed 
lover,  and  notwithstanding  her  engagement  the  two  at  once  fall  in  love.  Interested 
friends,  who  do  not  approve  of  the  affair,  plot  and  bear  false  witness  to  break  it  off. 
Esther  confesses  to  Brandon  her  change  of  feeling,  and  he  is  man  enough  to  release 
her.  Then  ensues  a  period  of  loneliness,  misunderstanding,  and  hardship  for  the 
heroine,  whose  character  is  ripened  by  adversity.  When  happiness  once  more 
stands  waiting  for  her,  she  has  learned  how  to  use  its  gifts.  The  story  moves  quickly, 
and  is  entertaining. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  715 

RED  BADGE  OF  COURAGE,  THE,  by  Stephen  Crane,  was  published  in  1895. 
It  attracted  a  great  deal  of  attention  both  in  England  and  America,  by  reason  of  the 
nature  of  the  subject,  and  of  the  author's  extreme  youth.  It  is  a  study  of  a  man's 
feeling  in  battle,  written  by  one  who  was  never  in  a  battle,  but  who  seeks  to  give  color 
to  his  story  by  lurid  language.  Henry  Fleming,  an  unsophisticated  country  boy, 
enthusiastic  to  serve  his  country,  enlists  at  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War.  Young, 
raw,  intense,  he  longs  to  show  his  patriotism,  to  prove  himself  a  hero.  When  the 
book  opens  he  is  fretting  for  an  opportunity,  his  regiment  apparently  being  nowhere 
near  a  scene  of  action.  His  mental  states  are  described  as  he  waits  and  chafes;  the 
calculations  as  to  what  it  would  all  be  like  when  it  did  come,  the  swagger  to  keep  up 
the  spirits,  the  resentments  of  the  possible  superiority  of  his  companions,  the  hot 
frenzy  to  be  in  the  thick  of  it  with  the  intolerable  delays  over,  and  sore  doubts  of 
courage.  Suddenly,  pell-mell,  the  boy  is  thrown  into  battle,  gets  frightened  to 
death  in  the  thick  of  it,  and  runs;  after  the  fun  is  over,  crawls  back  to  his  regiment 
fairly  vicious  with  unbearable  shame.  The  heroic  visions  fade;  but  the  boy  makes 
one  step  towards  manhood  through  his  wholesome  lesson.  In  his  next  battle  courage 
links  itself  to  him  like  a  brother-in-arms.  He  tests  and  is  tested,  goes  into  the  thick 
of  the  fight  like  a  howling  demon,  goes  indeed  to  hell,  and  comes  back  again,  steadied 
and  quiet.  The  book  closes  on  his  new  and  manly  serenity. 

"He  had  rid  himself  of  the  red  sickness  of  battle.  The  sultry  nightmare  was  in 
the  past.  He  had  been  an  animal,  blistered  and  sweating  in  the  heat  and  pain  of 
war.  He  now  turned  with  a  lover's  thirst  to  images  of  tranquil  skies." 

RED  COCKADE,  THE,  by  Stanley  J.  Weyman  (1896).  This  is  a  romance  filled 
with  exciting  incidents  of  the  stormy  times  of  the  French  Revolution.  The  hero, 
the  Vicomte  de  Saux,  is  one  of  the  French  nobility.  His  sympathy  with  the  troubles 
of  the  French  peasants  leads  him  to  adopt  the  Red  Cockade,  notwithstanding  his 
ties  of  blood  and  his  engagement  to  marry  a  young  woman  of  a  prominent  Royalist 
family.  He  is  constantly  torn  between  loyalty  to  his  convictions  and  to  the  woman 
that  he  loves,  and  is  often  placed  in  situations  where  he  is  obliged  to  save  Mademoiselle 
de  St.  Alais  from  the  rage  of  the  mob. 

As  the  Vicomte  de  Saux  refuses  to  join  the  Aristocrats,  the  mother  and  one 
brother  of  Mademoiselle  de  St.  Alais  denounce  him  utterly.  But  De'nise  herself, 
after  having  been  saved  by  him  from  her  burning  chateau,  loves  him  intensely  and 
is  true  to  him,  though  her  relatives  have  betrothed  her  to  the  leader  of  the  Royalists. 
The  other  brother  Louis,  from  his  old  friendship  for  the  Vicomte,  upholds  his  sister. 
The  book  closes  with  a  scene  in  the  room  where  Madame  de  St.  Alais  lies  dying  from 
wounds  received  at  the  hands  of  the  mob.  Her  elder  son  has  been  killed  by  the  revolu- 
tionists. With  the  mother  are  Denise  and  Louis,  and  also  the  Vicomte  de  Saux. 
In  her  last  moments  she  gives  De"nise  to  her  lover.  After  their  marriage  the  Vicomte 
and  his  bride  retire  to  their  country  place  at  Saux.  The  man  to  whom  De'nise  was 
betrothed  out  of  vengeance  to  her  lover,  disappears  after  the  overthrow  of  his  party. 

RED  LAUGH,  THE,  fragments  of  a  discovered  manuscript,  by  Leonidas  Andreief 
(1904).  A  soldier's  diary  during  a  disastrous  campaign  in  Manchuria  at  the  time  of 
the  Russo-Japanese  war.  It  is  an  indictment  of  war,  and  a  study  in  morbid  psycho- 
logy- "  Horror  and  madness, ' '  the  two  opening  words  of  the  book  express  the  theme. 
The  "red  laugh"  is  the  symbol  which  to  him  expresses  the  wounded,  torn,  mutilated 
bodies.  "  It  was  in  the  sky,  it  was  in  the  sun,  and  soon  it  was  going  to  overspread 
the  whole  earth  —  that  red  laugh."  The  common  soldiers  go  mad  from  the  horror 


7i6  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

of  the  battlefield,  and  the  terrible  fatigue  of  incessant  marching.  The  doctors  go 
mad  at  sight  of  suffering  they  are  unable  to  relieve.  Students  detailed  to  help  bring 
in  the  wounded  lose  their  reason  and  commit  suicide.  At  home  a  mother  receives 
letters  from  her  son  for  a  month  after  the  telegram  has  announced  his  death,  and  when 
the  letters  stop  coming  she  goes  mad.  The  dead  write  to  the  dead.  In  the  confusion 
two  regiments  mistake  each  other  for  the  enemy,  and  the  v/riter  of  the  diary  loses  both 
legs.  He  goes  back  to  his  family  glad  to  be  alive  but  looks  sadly  at  his  bicycle.  A 
journalist,  he  tries  to  write  the  story  of  the  war,  and  becomes  insane  over  it.  His 
brother  tries  to  complete  the  narrative  from  the  notes,  and  he  also  sees  the  ' '  red  laugh, ' ' 
"something  enormous  red  and  bloody"  "laughing  a  toothless  laugh/'  The  physical 
horror  becomes  mental  to  him  also,  and  ends  in  the  inevitable  madness. 

RED  LILY,  THE  CLe  Lys  rouge'),  by  Anatole  France  (1894).  Tlie  story  of  an 
emotional  Frenchwoman's  liaisons  with  two  men.  Madame  Therese  Martin-Belleme 
was  married  by  her  father  to  an  elderly  count,  a  government  minister.  After  two 
years  of  this  marriage  of  convenience  she  and  her  husband  are  strangers  in  the  same 
house.  The  beautiful  young  countess  is  loved  devotedly  by  Robert  Le  Menil,  and 
she  accepts  his  love,  the  first  she  has  known,  not  because  she  loves  him,  but  because 
she  is  carried  away  by  his  love  for  her.  Three  years  later,  she  leaves  the  lover  she 
likes  for  a  lover  she  loves,  Dechartre,  a  sculptor.  She  tells  him  truly  that  she  has 
never  loved  another.  Le  Menil  refuses  to  accept  his  dismissal  by  letter  and  comes  to 
Florence  where  she  is  visiting.  Dechartre  hears  of  his  presence  and  suspects  their 
former  intimacy,  but  she  denies  all.  Later,  in  Paris,  he  hears  her  name  coupled  with 
that  of  Le  Menil,  and  is  tortured  with  jealousy.  She  is  possessed  by  the  one  idea  that 
she  must  not  lose  him,  the  man  she  loves  with  all  her  heart,  and  tells  him  again  that 
he  is  her  one  lover.  Le  Menil  had  gone  away  to  forget  her  in  vain.  He  returns  and 
follows  her  to  the  theatre  with  reproaches  and  entreaties  which  Dechartre  overhears. 
She  is  obliged  to  tell  her  lover  the  truth.  Dechartre  refuses  to  understand  that  she 
is  not  a  light  woman,  or  believe  her  avowals  that  she  has  loved  him  alone,  and  in  a 
pathetic  last  interview  she  realizes  that  her  happiness  is  at  an  end.  The  pictures  of 
Florence  and  Paris  add  charm  and  the  minor  characters  are  of  interest  as  personal 
sketches  of  the  author  himself  and  his  contemporaries.  Choulette,  the  anarchist  and 
mystic,  an  old  vagabond  full  of  delightful  enthusiasms,  is  probably  a  portrait  of  Ver- 
laine.  Miss  Bell,  the  English  poetess,  has  been  identified  with  Miss  Mary  Robinson 
(now  Madame  Duclaux) ;  De  Chartre  is  supposed  to  represent  the  passionate  side 
of  Anatole  France's  nature,  Paul  Vence,  the  artistic  and  intellectual  side;  Schmoll  is  the 
Jewish  scholar,  Oppert. 

RED  ROBE,  THE  ('La  Robe  rouge')  by  Eugene  Brieux  (1900).  This  is  a  scathing 
satire  on  the  law  and  lawyers,  the  clumsy  and  inefficient  machinery  of  justice,  especi- 
all}-  the  French  judiciary  which  makes  advancement  depend  upon  success  in  winning 
convictions.  In  the  hope  of  winning  the  red  robe  of  a  judge,  the  ' ' j  uge  destruction, ' ' 
Mouzon,  and  the  prosecuting  attorney,  Vagret,  both  try  to  convict  a  man  of  murder, 
whose  guilt  is  extremely  doubtful.  Lesser  men  who  have  influential  friends  and 
relatives  have  been  promoted  over  Vagret  and  this  notorious  case  is  his  great  chance 
to  distinguish  himself.  In  time  to  save  the  accused  peasant,  Etchepars,  he  realizes 
that  his  desire  to  win  has  been  stronger  than  his  zeal  for  truth  and  sacrifices  his 
chance  of  advancement.  Promotion  comes  to  the  unscrupulous  Mouzon,  who  'has 
bent  all  his  energies  to  weaving  a  net  of  circumstancial  evidence  around  Etchepars, 
regardless  of  truth.  In  order  to  discredit  Yanetta,  the  wife  of  the  accused,  as  a 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  717 

witness,  he  ferrets  Out  a  scandal  of  her  girlhood  in  Paris,  which  is  unknown  to  her 
husband.  In  the  trial,  her  character  as  an  honest  woman  is  taken  from  her;  her 
husband  repudiates  her  and  takes  away  her  children.  In  revenge  she  stabs  and  kills 
Mouzon,  the  lawyer  who  has  brought  about  her  misery.  This  last  dramatic  scene  is 
quoted  in  the  LIBRARY. 

RED  ROCK,  by  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  was  published  in  1899.  It  is  entitled  'A 
Chronicle  of  the  Reconstruction,'  and  is  a  faithful  portrayal  of  the  political  and 
social  conditions  which  existed  during  that  era.  The  scene  is  laid  "partly  in  one  of 
the  old  Southern  States  and  partly  in  the  land  of  memory"  and  opens  just  before 
the  war.  Red  Rock  is  the  name  of  a  plantation  which  has  been  owned  and  occupied 
by  the  Gray  family  for  many  generations,  and  which  takes  its  name  from  a  rock  with 
a  huge  red  stain  upon  it,  which  was  believed  to  be  the  blood  of  the  Indian  chief  who 
had  slain  the  wife  of  the  first  Jacquelin  Gray.  The  present  Jacquelin,  the  central 
figure  of  the  story,  is  a  young  lad  at  the  time  of  the  breaking  out  of  the  war,  and, 
after  the  death  of  his  father  in  battle,  he  enlists,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  to  fight  for  the 
South.  After  many  trying  experiences,  in  which  he  shows  great  nobleness  and  cour- 
age, he  returns  home  at  the  close  of  the  war  seriously  wounded.  He  finds  desolation 
and  ruin  all  about  him  and  is  forced  to  witness  his  mother's  death  and  her  burial  in 
alien  soil,  as  their  home  and  patrimony  have  been  wrested  from  them  by  dishonest 
means.  Jacquelin  has  always  loved  Blair  Gary,  the  companion  of  his  childhood 
days,  but  he  holds  aloof  from  her,  thinking  that  she  is  in  love  with  his  dashing  cousin, 
Steve  Allen,  and  his  suit  does  not  prosper.  After  many  thrilling  episodes  with 
"Carpet-baggers,"  Ku  Klux  raids,  and  law-suits,  Jacquelin  at  last  comes  into  his 
own,  winning  back  the  estate  of  his  father  and  the  hand  of  the  girl  he  loves.  Steve 
Allen,  the  hero  of  many  exciting  adventurers,  marries  Ruth  Welch,  a  charming 
Northern  girl  who  has  come  to  make  her  home  in  the  South.  Dr.  Gary,  who  figures 
prominently  in  the  story,  is  a  noble  character  and  spends  his  last  strength  in  visiting 
the  bedside  of  his  enemy  Leech,  the  villainous  overseer,  who  has  everywhere  worked 
havoc  and  desolation. 

RED  ROVER,  THE,  by  James  Fenimore  Cooper  (1827).  This  story  relates  to  the 
days  before  the  Revolutionary  War;  and  is  one  of  Cooper's  most  exciting  sea  tales. 
Henry  Ark,  a  lieutenant  on  his  Majesty's  ship  Dart,  is  desirous  of  distinguishing  him- 
self by  aiding  in  the  capture  of  the  notorious  pirate,  the  Red  Rover.  With  this  in 
view  he  goes  to  Newport,  disguised  as  a  common  sailor  under  the  name  of  Wilder, 
and  joins  the  Rover's  ship,  the  Dolphin,  which  is  anchored  there  awaiting  the  de- 
departure  of  a  merchantman,  the  Caroline.  The  Captain  of  the  Caroline  meets  with 
an  accident  and  Wilder  is  sent  by  the  Rover  to  take  his  place;  shortly  after  he  puts  to 
sea  followed  by  the  Dolphin.  A  storm  arises,  and  the  Caroline  is  lost;  the  only 
survivors  being  Wilder,  Miss  Gertrude  Grayson,  a  passenger,  and  Mrs.  Wyllys,  her 
governess,  who  are  rescued  by  the  Dolphin.  Not  long  after,  a  royal  cruiser  is  sighted. 
This  proves  to  be  the  Dart;  and  the  Rover,  going  on  board  of  her  in  the  guise  of  an 
officer  in  the  royal  navy,  learns  by  accident  of  Wilder's  duplicity.  He  returns  to 
the  Dolphin,  and  summoning  his  first  mate  accuses  him  of  treachery;  Wilder  confesses 
the  truth  of  the  charge,  and  the  Rover,  in  a  moment  of  generosity,  sends  him  back  to 
his  ship  unharmed,  together  with  the  two  ladies,  without  whom  Wilder 'refuses  to 
stir.  The  Rover  then  attacks  the  Dart,  and  takes  it  after  a  hard  fight.  He  is  about 
to  have  Wilder  hanged,  when  it  appears  that  he  is  a  son  of  Mrs.  Wyllys  whom  she 
has  supposed  drowned  in  infancy;  and  the  Rover,  unable  to  separate  the  new-found 


718  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

son  from  his  mother,  sets  them  all  off  in  a  pinnace,  in  which  they  reach  shore  safely. 
After  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War  a  man  is  brought  to  the  old  inn  at  Newport 
in  a  dying  condition:  he  proves  to  be  the  Red  Rover,  who,  having  reformed,  has 
served  through  the  war  with  credit  and  distinction. 

The  book  holds  the  interest  of  the  reader  throughout;  and  the  descriptions  of  the 
storm  and  battle  are  very  vivid. 

REDGAITNTLET,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott.  Sir  Alberick  Redgauntlet,  ardently  espous- 
ing the  cause  of  the  Young  Pretender  in  1745,  pays  for  his  enthusiasm  with  his  life. 
The  guardianship  of  his  infant  son  and  daughter  is  left  to  his  brother,  outlawed  for 
violent  adherence  to  the  House  of  Stuart;  but  the  widow,  ascribing  her  bereavement 
to  the  politics  of  the  Redgauntlets,  desires  to  rear  her  children  in  allegiance  to  the 
reigning  dynasty.  The  little  girl  having  been  kidnapped  by  her  guardian,  the  mother 
flees  with  her  boy;  who,  ignorant  of  his  lineage,  is  brought  up  in  obscurity  under  the 
name  of  Darsie  Latimer.  Warned  by  his  mother's  agents  to  shun  England,  the 
young  man  ventures  for  sport  into  the  forbidden  territory,  and  is  seized  by  Redgaunt- 
let. Detained  as  a  prisoner,  Darsie  at  length  learns  his  true  name  and  rank,  and  meets 
his  sister,  now  grown  up  to  charming  womanhood.  Redgauntlet,  a  desperate  parti- 
san, endeavors  by  persuasion  and  threats  to  involve  his  nephew  in  a  new  plot  to  en- 
throne the  Chevalier,  and  conveys  the  youth  by  force  to  the  rendezvous  of  the 
conspirators.  Meanwhile,  Darsie's  disappearance  has  alarmed  his  devoted  friend, 
Alan  Fairford,  a  young  Scotch  solicitor;  who,  in  spite  of  great  danger,  traces  him  to 
the  gathering-place  of  the  conspiring  Jacobites.  The  plot,  predestined  to  failure 
through  Charles  Edward's  obstinate  rejection  of  conditions,  is  betrayed  by  Red- 
gauntlet's  servant,  and  the  conspirators  quickly  dispersed,  their  position  rendered 
absurd  by  the  good-natured  clemency  of  George  III.  Redgauntlet,  chagrined  at  the 
fiasco,  accompanies  the  Chevalier  to  France,  and  ends  his  adventurous  career  in  a 
monastery.  Darsie,  now  Sir  Arthur  Redgauntlet,  remains  loyal  to  the  House  of 
Hanover,  and  bestows  his  sister's  hand  upon  Alan  Fairford  (in  whom,  according  to 
Lockhart,  Scott  drew  his  own  portrait). 

Sixteenth  in  the  Waverley  series,  'Redgauntlet'  was  issued  in  1824,  two  years 
before  the  crash  that  left  Scott  penniless.  Though  showing  haste,  the  tale  does  not 
flag  in  interest,  and  even  the  minor  characters  —  notably  Peter  Peebles  the  crazy 
litigant,  Wandering  Willie  the  vagabond  fiddler,  and  Nanty  Ewart,  the  smuggler  — 
are  living  and  individual. 

REDS  OF  THE  MIDI,  THE  ('Les  Rouges  du  Midi'),  by  Felix  Gras,  translated  into 
English  by  Mrs.  Thomas  A.  Janvier,  is  a  strong  story  of  the  French  Revolution, 
published  in  1896.  One  Pascal  La  Patine,  in  his  old  age,  night  after  night,  in  the 
shoemakers  shop,  tells  the  story  of  his  youth.  His  father  was  killed  by  the  game- 
keeper of  the  Marquis;  he  himself  was  forced  to  fly  for  his  life.  Longing  to  be 
revenged  upon  the  aristocrats,  he  joins  the  "Reds  of  the  Midi"  (the  insurgents  of 
Southern  France),  goes  to  Paris,  sees  all  the  horrors  of  the  Revolution,  rescues  the 
daughter  of  the  Marquis  from  the  guillotine,  loves  her  in  silence,  enlists  in  Napoleon's 
army,  and  after  fighting  in  Spain,  Egypt,  and  Russia,  returns  to  his  native  village 
of  Malemort  to  end  his  days,  firm  in  the  faith  that  Napoleon  has  never  died.  It 
was  in  Malemort  that  Gras  was  born:  the  Prologue  is  pure  autobiography,  and 
many  of  the  characters  are  drawn  from  life.  There  is  a  vivid  picture  of  the 
famous  Marseilles  Battalion,  "who  knew  how  to  die,"  and  a  passing  glimpse  of 
Napoleon. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  719 

REEF,  THE,  a  novel  by  Edith  Wharton  (1912).  An  American  diplomat  in  London, 
George  Darrow,  meets  his  first  love,  Anna  Leath,  who  had  married  abroad,  and  is 
recently  a  widow.  Darrow  is  on  his  way  to  her  in  France,  when  he  receives  a  telegram 
asking  him  to  postpone  his  visit.  Chilled  and  disappointed,  and  uncertain  how  to 
spend  his  holiday,  he  chances  to  meet  Sophie  Viner,  a  young  American  acquaintance, 
companion  to  a  Mrs.  Murrett  in  London,  who  has  turned  her  adrift  almost  penniless. 
She  is  on  her  way  to  friends  in  Paris,  and  her  courage  and  gay  youth  appeal  to  him. 
When  they  discover  her  friends  have  left  Paris,  he  follows  his  impulse  to  give  her  a 
little  of  the  pleasure  she  has  missed,  and  they  drift  into  a  temporary  and  irregular 
connection.  This  episode  becomes  the  "reef, "  which  wrecks  their  later  lives.  Dar- 
row visits  France  as  Anna's  fiance,  several  months  later,  and  finds  Sophie  Viner 
installed  in  the  household  as  governess  to  Anna's  daughter,  and  engaged  to  be  married 
to  Owen,  her  stepson.  The  secret  of  their  former  acquaintance  is  discovered.  Sophie 
loyally  throws  up  her  prospects  and  goes  back  to  the  service  of  Mrs..  Murrett,  to  keep 
the  memory  of  Darrow,  whom  she  loves.  Anna  comes  to  understand  and  forgive 
Sophie  and  Darrow,  but  jealousy  of  their  past  intimacy  makes  it  impossible  for  her 
to  marry  him.  The  author's  well-known  powers  of  psychological  analysis  have  full 
scope  in  the  distinction  of  the  characters  and  the  delicate  situations  which  result. 

REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN,  by  Robert  Grant.  These  entertaining 
"reflections"  chronicle  in  a  humorous  manner  the  various  experiences,  perplexities, 
and  amusing  episodes,  which  occur  in  the  daily  life  of  a  married  couple  at  the  present 
day.  The  husband  reflects  that  at  the  age  of  thirty-five,  being  happily  married,  his 
entire  point  of  view  has  changed  since  the  days  of  his  bachelorhood.  Instead  of 
speculating  on  the  soulful  subjects  which  agitated  his  mental  faculties  at  that  time, 
he  finds  himself  hopelessly  entangled  with  the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  candlestick- 
maker,  the  school-teacher,  and  the  clergyman,  and  is  particularly  interested  in  the 
size  of  his  quarterly  bill  for  boots  and  shoes.  The  experiences  of  the  couple  when 
they  are  first  married  and  go  to  housekeeping  are  described  in  an  amusing  way,  and 
the  trials  caused  by  Mary  Ann  and  the  cook  are  most  realistic.  A  clever  point 
in  the  story  is  where  a  second  wedding  journey  is  undertaken,  but  under  decidedly 
different  conditions,  as  there  are  now  four  vigorous  children  to  be  left  behind.  The 
husband  and  wife  anticipate  the  freedom  from  care  which  their  outing  will  afford 
them ;  but  while  deriving  enjoyment  from  the  trip,  they  both  acknowledge  that  they 
are  counting  the  days  until  their  return  home.  The  reflections  close  with  the  hope 
expressed  by  the  head  of  the  family  that  the  children  may  be  as  happy  as  he  and  his 
wife  Josephine  have  been,  despite  the  fact  that  their  careers  have  been  so  much  more 
commonplace  and  prosaic  than  they  had  anticipated  in  their  youthful  days.  The 
'Reflections'  were  published  in  1892,  and  followed  by  'The  Recollections  of  a 
Philosopher, '  which  continue  the  family  chronicles. 

REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE,  a  political  essay  in  epistolary 
form,  originally  intended  simply  as  a  private  letter  to  a  young  friend  in  France  but 
expanded  during  composition  into  a  treatise  and  published  in  1790.  Although  an 
ardent  champion  of  liberty  in  the  cases  of  America,  Ireland,  and  India,  Burke  was 
vehemently  opposed  to  the  Revolutionists  in  France.  He  had  always  advocated  a 
"manly,  moral,  regulated  liberty";  they  favored  the  wholesale  abolition  of  old 
institutions.  The  English  Revolution  of  1688  involved  no  break  with  the  past  but 
was  rather  a  return  to  the  sound  constitutional  principles  of  an  earlier  time,  the 
interdependence  of  king,  lords,  and  commons  in  one  nicely-poised  scheme.  The 


720-  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

French  Revolution  of  1789  was  based  on  the  right  of  the  people  to  cut  loose  from  ati! 
established  institutions  and  to  introduce  an  entirely  new  philosophy  and  method  of 
government.  The  result  was  a  loosening  of  the  bonds  that  make  society  possible — 
of  chivalry,  of  loyalty,  of  decency,  of  self-restraint,  of  subordination,  of  reverence,  of 
discipline.  This  Burke  illustrates  by  reference  to  the  abolition  of  the  nobility,  the 
confiscation  of  the  Church,  the  disorganization  of  the  army,  and,  in  a  passage  famous 
for  its  eloquence,  by  a  description  of  the  insults  heaped  upon  the  King  and  Queeni 
when  they  were  brought  forcibly  from  Versailles  to  Paris.  He  also  makes  the  re- 
markable prophecy  that  the  revolution  will  end  in  a  military  dictatorship.  The 
depth  and  power  of  Burke's  ideas  on  political  philosophy  and  his  ability  to  apply 
them  to  a  great  contemporary  crisis  and  to  comprehend  its  underlying  tendencies  are 
superbly  illustrated  in  this  profoundly  thoughtful  and  passionately  eloquent  polemic. 

REFORMATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND,  History  of  the,  by  Bishop 
Burnet  (3  vols.,  1679,  1681,  1714);  and  'History  of  his  Own  Time'  (2  vols.,  1723, 
i/34)j  are  English  standard  books  of  high  character  and  value.  The  second  of  these 
works  is  of  great  intrinsic  worth,  because  without  it  our  knowledge  of  the  times  would 
be  exceedingly  imperfect.  For  the  first  the  author  was  voted  the  thanks  of  both 
houses  of  Parliament.  Burnet  was  bishop  of  Salisbury,  1689-1715;  and  in  1699  he 
brought  out  an  *  Exposition  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles '  which  became  a  church  classic 
in  spite  of  high-church  objection  to  his  broad  and  liberal  views.  He  was  from  early 
life  a  consistent  representative  of  broad-church  principles,  both  in  politics  and 
divinity.  His  tastes  were  more  secular  than  scholastic.  Of  bishops  he  alone  in  that 
age  left  a  record  of  able  and  conscientious  administration,  and  of  lasting  work  of 
great  importance.  Although  bitterly  attacked  from  more  than  one  quarter  on  account 
of  the  *  History  of  His  Own  Time, '  the  best  judgment  to-day  upon  this  work  is  that 
nothing  could  be  more  admirable  than  his  general  candor,  his  accuracy  as  to  facts, 
the  fullness  of  his  information,  and  the  justice  of  his  judgments  both  of  those  whom  he 
vehemently  opposed  and  of  those  whom  he  greatly  admired.  The  value  of  the  work, 
says  a  recent  authority,  "as  a  candid  narrative  and  an  invaluable  work  of  reference, 
has  continually  risen  as  investigations  into  original  materials  have  proceeded."  The 
best  edition  of  both  the  Histories  is  that  of  the  Clarendon  Press  (1823-33;  1865). 

REIGN  OF  FERDINAND  AND  ISABELLA,  History  of  the,  by  William  Hickling 
Prescott  (1837).  This  is  the  earliest  of  the  books  of  Prescott.  Circumstances  had 
enabled  the  author  to  command  materials  far  beyond  those  of  any  previous  writer, 
and  he  had  fine  talents  for  the  task.  The  main  story  told  by  him  was  preceded  by 
a  view  of  the  Castilian  monarchy  before  A.  D.  1400,  and  of  the  constitution  of  Aragon 
to  about  A.  D.  1450.  The  work  then  proceeded  through  twenty  chapters,  to  near 
the  middle  of  the  second  volume,  with '  The  Age  of  Domestic  Development,  1406-92,  * 
and  on  to  the  end  of  the  third  volume, twenty-six  chapters,  with  'The  Age  of  Discovery 
and  Conquest,  1493-1517.'  To  near  the  middle  of  the  third  volume,  "a  principal 
object"  of  the  history  had  been  "the  illustration  of  the  personal  character  and  public 
administration"  of  Isabella,  whom  Air.  Prescott  pronounced  "certainly  one  of  the 
most  interesting  personages  in  history";  and  into  the  second  half  of  the  work  came 
the  story  of  Columbus.  No  writer  of  judicious  history  has  left  Columbus  on  a  more 
lofty  pinnacle  of  moral  greatness,  as  well  as  fame,  or  more  carefully  held  a  screen  of 
admiration,  and  almost  of  awe,  before  actions  and  aspects  of  character  which  were  of 
the  age  and  of  Spain  and  not  of  the  ideals  of  man  at  his  best.  The  Portuguese  pursuit 
of  disco  very  for  a  hundred  years  from  1418,  which  reached  out  a  thousand  miles  into 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  721 

the  Atlantic  and  carried  the  Lisbon  ships  round  the  south  point  of  Africa  to  the 
real  India  and  which  in  1502  made  an  independent  discovery  of  the  south  continent, 
Mr.  Prescott  took  hardly  any  note  of.  But  within  the  limits  of  his  picture  he  wrought 
most  admirably,  to  interest,  to  instruct,  and  to  leave  in  literature  a  monument  of  the 
Catholic  Queen  and  of  Columbus. 

REJECTED  ADDRESSES,  by  James  Smith  and  Horace  Smith.  This  volume 
of  poetical  parodies  was  issued  anonymously  in  1812,  and  met  with  great  success, 
both  the  critics  and  the  public  being  delighted  with  the  clever  imitations;  though, 
strange  to  say,  the  authors  had  much  difficulty  in  finding  a  publisher  for  the  book. 
The  'Rejected  Addresses'  were  the  joint  work  of  the  brothers  James  and  Horace 
Smith,  who  wrote  them  as  a  burlesque  upon  the  many  prominent  and  unsuccessful 
competitors  for  the  reward  offered  by  the  management  of  the  Drury  Lane  for  an 
address  to  be  delivered  at  the  opening  of  the  new  theatre.  The  '  Rejected  Addresses ' 
were  begun  at  this  time,  and  were  completed  in  a  few  weeks.  Among  the  imitations 
set  forth  in  the  volume,  the  following  are  the  work  of  James  Smith:  'The  Baby's 
D£but'  (Wordsworth),  'The  Hampshire  Farmer's  Address'  (Cobbett),  'The Rebuild- 
ing' (Southey),  'Play-House  Musings'  (Coleridge),  'The  Theatre'  (Crabbe),  the 
first  stanza  of  '  Cui  Bono '  (Lord  Byron) ;  the  song  entitled  '  Drury  Lane  Hustings' ; 
and  'The  Theatrical  Alarm-Bell, '  an  imitation  of  the  Morning  Post;  also  travesties 
on  'Macbeth,1  'George  Bam  well/  and  'The  Stranger.'  The  rest  of  the  imitations 
are  by  Horace  Smith.  The  '  Rejected  Addresses '  were  widely  commended  in  their 
day,  and  still  hold  a  high  place  among  the  best  imitations  ever  made.  Their  extent 
and  variety  exhibited  the  versatility  of  the  authors.  Although  James  wrote  the 
greater  number  of  successful  imitations,  the  one  by  Horace,  of  Scott,  is  perhaps  the 
best  of  the  parodies;  and  its  amusing  picture  of  the  burning  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre  is 
an  absurd  imitation  of  the  battle  in  '  Marmion ' :  — 

"The  firemen  terrified  are  slow 
To  bid  the  pumping  torrent  flow, 

For  fear  the  roof  would  fall. 
Back,  Robins,  back;  Crump  stand  aloof! 

Whitford,  keep  near  the  walls  I 
Huggins,  regard  your  own  behoof, 
For,  lo!  the  blazing  rocking  roof 

Down,  down  in  thunder  falls!" 

RELIGION,  ANALOGY  OF,  by  Joseph  Butler,  see  ANALOGY. 

RELIGION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  EGYPTIANS,  by  Alfred  Wiedemann  (1897).  A 
work  designed  to  set  before  the  reader  the  principal  deities,  myths,  religious  ideas  and 
doctrines,  as  they  are  found  in  Egyptian  writings,  and  with  special  reference  to  such 
facts  as  have  important  bearings  on  the  history  of  religion.  It  is  based  throughout 
on  original  texts,  of  which  the  most  significant  parts  are  given  in  a  rendering  as  literal 
as  possible,  in  order  that  the  reader  may  judge  for  himself  of  their  meaning.  Dr. 
Wiedemann  expresses  the  opinion  that  the -essays  of  Maspero,  in  his  'Etudes  de 
Mythologieet  de  Religion'  (Paris,  1893),  are  far  weightier  for  knowledge.of  the  subject 
than  any  previous  writings  devoted  to  it.  Maspero  especially  condemns  the  point 
of  view  of  Brugsch,  who  attempts  to  prove  that  Egyptian  religion  was  a  coherent 
system  of  belief,  corresponding  somewhat  to  that  ima'gined  by*  Plutarch  in  his  in- 
teresting work  on  Isis  and  Osiris.  •  • 

We  may  speak  of  the  religious  ideas  of  the  Egyptians;  he  says,  but  not  of  an  Egyp- 
46 


722  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

tian  religion:  there  never  came  into  existence  any  consistent  system.  Of  various 
religious  ideas,  found  more  or  less  clearly  represented,  it  cannot  be  proved  historically 
which  are  the  earlier  and  which  are  the  later.  They  are  all  extant  side  by  side  in  the 
oldest  of  the  longer  religious  texts  which  have  come  down  to  us,  —  the  Pyamid 
inscriptions  of  the  Fifth  and  Sixth  dynasties.  Research  has  determined  nothing 
indisputable  as  to  the  origins  of  the  national  religion  of  the  Egyptians,  their  form  of 
government,  their  writing,  or  their  racial  descent.  The  more  thoroughly  the  accessi- 
ble material,  constantly  increasing  in  amount,  is  studied,  the  more  obscure  do  the 
questions  of  origin  become. 

Ancient  Egypt  was  formed  by  the  union  of  small  States,  or  districts,  which  the 
Greeks  called  Nomes:  twenty-two  in  Upper  Egypt,  and  twenty  in  Lower  Egypt. 
Each  nome  consisted  of  (i)  The  capital  with  its  ruler  and  its  god;  (2)  the  regularly 
tilled  arable  land;  (3)  the  marshes,  mostly  used  as  pasture,  and  for  the  cultivation  of 
water  plants;  and  (4)  the  canals  with  their  special  officials.  Not  only  did  each  nome 
have  its  god  and  its  own  religion  regardless  of  neighboring  faiths,  but  the  god  of  a 
nome  was  within  it  held  to  be  Ruler  of  the  gods,  Creator  of  the  world,  Giver  of  all  good 
things,  irrespective  of  the  fact  that  adjacent  nomes  similarly  made  each  its  own  god 
the  One  and  Only  Supreme. 

There  were  thus  many  varieties  and  endless  rivalries  and  conflicts  of  faiths,  and 
even  distinct  characters  attached  to  the  same  name;  as  Horus  at  Edfu,  a  keen-sighted 
god  of  the  bright  sun,  and  Horus  at  Letopolis,  a  blind  god  of  the  sun  in  eclipse.  If  a 
ruler  rose  to  royal  supremacy,  he  carried  up  the  worship  of  his  god.  From  the  Hyksos 
period  of  about  six  hundred  years,  the  origin  of  all  forms  of  religion  was  sought  in  sun 
worship.  Dr.  Wiedemann  devotes  chapters  to  *  Sun  Worship, '  *  Solar  Myths, '  and 
*  The  Passage  of  the  Sun  through  the  Underworld, '  tracing  the  general  development  of 
sun  worship  and  the  hope  of  immortality  connected  with  it.  Then  he  sketches  'The 
Chief  Deities';  *The  Foreign  Deities';  and  'The  Worship  of  Animals,'  which  was 
due  to  the  thoroughly  Egyptian  idea  of  an  animal  incarnation  of  deity.  He  then 
reviews  the  story  of  'Osiris  and  his  Cycle,'  and  the  development  of  'The  Osirian 
Doctrine  of  Immortality,1  —  "a  doctrine  of  immortality  which  in  precision  and 
extent  surpasses  almost  any  other  that  has  been  devised."  This  doctrine,  Dr.  Wiede- 
mann says,  is  of  scientific  importance  first  from  its  extreme  antiquity,  and  also  from 
its  many  points  of  affinity  to  Jewish  and  Christian  dogma.  The  whole  cult  or  worship 
of  Osiris,  of  Isis,  and  of  Horus,  with  some  other  related  names,  forms  a  study  of  great 
interest.  Dr.  Wiedemann  concludes  his  work  with  chapters  on  '  Magic  and  Sorcery, ' 
and  'Amulets, '  features  in  all  ancient  religion  of  the  practical  faith  of  the  masses. 

REMARKABLE  PROVIDENCES,  by  Increase  Mather.  In  1681,  when  the  agita- 
tion in  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony  over  the  questions  respecting  the  imperiled 
colonial  charter  was  rapidly  approaching  a  climax,  and  the  public  mind  was  already 
feverishly  excited,  the  ministers  sent  out  a  paper  of  proposals  for  collecting  facts 
concerning  witchcraft.  This  resulted  three  years  later  (1684)  in  the  production  of  a 
work  by  President  Increase  Mather  of  Harvard  College,  which  was  originally  entitled 
'An  Essay  for  the  Recording  of  Illustrious  Providences/  Into  this  book  President 
Mather  had  gathered  up  all  that  was  known  or  could  be  collected  concerning  the  per- 
formances of  persons  supposed  to  be  leagued  with  the  Devil.  It  is  rather  remarkable 
to  learn  from  this  work  that  modern  spiritualistic  performances  —  rappings,  tippings, 
trances,  second  sight,  and  the  like  —  were  well  known  to  the  grave  fathers  of  New 
England,  although  they  unfortunately  looked  upon  them  as  far  more  serious  matters 
than  do  their  descendants  to-day.  The  book  also  contains  a  remarkable  collection 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  723 

of  wonderful  sea-deliverances,  accidents,  apparitions,  and  unaccountable  phenomena 
in  general;  in  addition  to  the  things  more  strictly  pertaining  to  witchcraft.  Palfrey 
the  historian  believes  that  this  book  had  an  unfortunate  effect  upon  the  mind  and 
imagination  of  President  Mather's  son,  the  Reverend  Cotton  Mather;  and  that  it 
led  him  into  investigations  and  publications  supposed  to  have  had  an  important 
effect  in  producing  the  disastrous  delusion  which  followed  three  years  later,  in  which 
Cotton  Mather  was  so  lamentably  conspicuous. 

RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY,  THE  (1875-86),  the  most  comprehensive  work  of  John 
Addington  Symonds,  was  published  in  five  volumes,  each  dealing  with  a  different 
phase  of  the  great  era  of  New  Life  in  Italy.  Vol.  i.,  'The  Age  of  the  Despots,' 
presents  the  social  conditions  of  the  time,  especially  as  they  were  embodied  and  ex- 
pressed in  the  cultured  despots  of  the  free  cities.  In  Vol.  ii.,  'The  Revival  of  Learn- 
ing,' the  brilliant  mundane  scholarship  of  the  era  is  exhaustively  considered.  Vols  iii. 
and  iv.  are  devoted  to  Literature  and  the  Fine  Arts  as  reflecting  the  spirit  of  the 
times.  Vol.  v.  treats  of  the  Catholic  reaction,  the  revulsion  of  feeling,  the  reversal 
of  judgment,  which  followed  when  the  magnificent  materialism  of  the  Renaissance 
overdid  itself.  The  work  as  a  whole  is  a  wonderfully  sympathetic  and  scholarly 
record  of  one  of  the  most  fascinating  periods  of  Italian  development.  It  is  adapted 
at  once  to  the  uses  of  the  scholar  and  to  the  general  reader. 

RENE,  by  Francois  Auguste  Chateaubriand,  published  separately  in  1807.  'Rene"' 
and  'Atala'  are  the  fruits  of  Chateaubriand's  American  travels,  and  they  abound  in 
the  exquisite  description  of  natural  scenery  for  which  he  is  noted. 

'Ren£, '  an  episode  of  the  prose  epic  'Les  Natchez, '  is  in  effect  a  monologue  of 
the  young  European  of  that  name,  who  has  fled  to  the  New  World  and  its  solitudes; 
and  who  relates  to  his  adopted  father  Chactas,  and  the  French  missionary  Father 
Souel,  his  previous  life  and  the  causes  of  his  self -exile.  Seated  under  a  great  tree  in 
the  haunts  of  the  Natchez  Indians,  of  whose  tribe  Chactas  is  a  chief,  the  young  man 
tells  his  listeners  the  story  of  his  boyhood,  and  his  restless  wanderings  from  land  to 
land  in  search  of  mental  peace.  He  has  passed  through  ancient  countries  and  modern, 
has  studied  humanity  in  its  earliest  monuments  and  in  the  life  of  his  own  day,  and 
finding  no  satisfaction  in  any  phase  of  life,  has  remained  long  in  forest  solitudes,  — 
only  to  meet  there  thoughts  of  death. 

He  tells  further  how  he  was  rescued  from  this  temptation  by  the  love  of  his  sister 
Am61ie,  who  came  to  him  and  led  his  mind  back  to  life,  then  disappeared  from  his 
sight  forever  in  the  living  death  of  a  convent,  where  she  hid  a  heart  oppressed  by  a 
feeling  for  Rene*  too  strong  for  her  peace.  The  tragedy  of  his  sister's  confession  has 
driven  Rene"  to  these  wildernesses. 

The  episodes  of  Rene"  and  Atala  are  beautiful  in  melody  and  description,  but 
inevitably  unreal  in  their  suggestions  of  Indian  life  and  character. 

REPRESENTATIVE  GOVERNMENT,  Considerations  on,  by  J.  S.  Mill  (1860). 
This  work,  though  written  in  1860,  is  still  the  best  statement  in  English  of  the  case 
for  representative  government.  The  author,  being  of  opinion  at  the  time  the  book 
was  composed  that  both  Conservatives  and  Liberals  had  lost  confidence  in  the  creeds 
which  they  nominally  professed  without  having  made  any  progress  towards  providing 
themselves  with  a  better,  attempts  to  state  a  doctrine  which  is  "not  a  mere  com- 
promise, by  splitting  the  difference  between  the  two,  but  something  wider  than  either, 
which  in  virtue  of  its  superior  comprehensiveness,  might  be  adopted  by  either  Liberal 


724  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

or  Conservative  without  renouncing  anything  which  he  really  feels  to  be  valuable  in 
his  own  creed."  The  keynote  of  the  book  is  that  political  institutions  are  the  work 
of  men  and  owe  their  origin  and  their  whole  existence  to  human  will.  Similarly  as 
they  were  first  made  by  men,  so  they  have  to  be  worked  by  men  and  even  by  ordinary 
men.  It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  they  can  be  altered  or  removed  by  human  will,  but 
whatever  alteration  or  change  is  made  must  be  of  such  a  character  as  to  suit  existing 
conditions.  "The  most  important  point  of  excellence,"  he  says,  "which  any  form 
of  government  can  possess  is  to  promote  the  virtue  and  intelligence  of  the  people 
themselves.  The  first  question  in  respect  to  any  political  institution  is.  how  far  they 
tend  to  foster  in  the  members  of  the  community  the  various  desirable  qualities, 
moral  or  intellectual."  The  ideally  best  form  of  government,  whereby  Mill  means 
the  one  which  is  practical  and  eligible  under  the  circumstances,  is  the  representative 
because  "the  rights  and  interests  of  every  and  any  person  are  only  secure  from  being 
disregarded,  when  the  person  interested  is  himself  able,  and  habitually  disposed  to 
stand  up  for  them"  and  because  "the  general  prosperity  attains  a  greater  height, 
and  is  more  widely  diffused,  in  proportion  to  the  amount  and  variety  of  the  personal 
energies  enlisted  in  promoting  it." 

REPUBLIC,  THE,  of  Plato  (c.  398-360  B.  C.),  translated  by  Benjamin  Jowett 
(1891-92).  The  'Republic*  of  Plato  is  the  first  and  perhaps  the  greatest  treatise 
on  education.  He  is  the  first  writer  who  has  a  distinct  grasp  of  the  thought  that 
education  should  comprehend  the  whole  of  life  and  be  preparatory  to  another  in  which 
education  is  to  begin  again.  True  knowledge  is  not  something  which  is  to  be  imposed 
from  without  but  elicited  from  within,  and  education  will  implant  a  principle  of  intelli- 
gence which  is  better  than  ten  thousand  eyes.  The  Platonic  conception  of  education 
is  not  as  it  were  to  fill  an  empty  vessel,  but  to  turn  the  eye  of  the  soul  towards  the  light. 
The  child  is  first  to  be  taught  the  simple  religious  truths,  which  are  only  two  in 
number,  that  God  is  true  and  that  he  is  good.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  children 
should  not  be  taught  the  old  mythology,  which  largely  consists  of  descriptions  of  the 
treacherous  and  scandalous  conduct  of  the  gods.  After  these  religious  truths  come 
moral  truths  and  unconsciously  the  child  will  learn  what  are  the  most  important  things 
next  to  religion,  good  manners,  and  good  taste.  The  work  of  education  is  to  be 
carried  on  not  only  in  an  atmosphere  of  desire  for  truth,  but  of  repose.  Children, 
therefore,  should  not  be  taken  to  dramatic  entertainments,  which  are  exciting  for 
young  people.  Education  should  be  a  harmonious  growth,  in  which  are  learnt  the 
lessons  of  temperance  and  endurance,  and  the  body  and  mind  develop  simultaneously 
in  equal  proportions.  The  great  principle  to  be  recognized  in  all  art  and  nature,  and 
the  principle  which  must  dominate  education  also,  is  simplicity. 

The  next  stage  of  education  is  gymnastic,  which,  however,  is  not  primarily  a 
training  of  the  body,  but  of  the  mind.  Its  aim  should  be  to  discipline  the  passionate 
element  in  human  nature,  as  the  purpose  of  music,  which  should  follow  gymnastic,  is 
to  restrain  the  acquisitive  and  draw  out  the  rational  within  us.  After  music  and 
gymnastic,  which  should  make  the  training  of  the  mind  their  chief  aim,  education 
should  begin  again  from  a  new  point  of  view.  "True  knowledge"  (says  Jowett) 
"according  to  Plato  is  of  abstractions,  and  has  to  do,  not  with  particulars  or  individu- 
als, but  with  universals  only;  not  with  the  beauties  of  poetry,  but  with  the  ideas 
of  philosophy,  and  the  great  aim  of  education  is  the  cultivation  of  the  habit  of  abstrac- 
tion. This  is  to  be  acquired  through  the  study  of  the  mathematical  sciences.  They 
alone  are  capable  of  giving  ideas  of  relation,  and  of  arousing  the  dormant  energies 
of  thought."  See  also  'Dialogues'  of  Plato. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  725 

RESEARCH  MAGNIFICENT,  THE,  by  H.  G.  Wells  (1915).  William  Benham 
at  an  early  age  realizes  that  there  are  certain  bounds  to  the  attainment  of  what  he 
calls  "aristocratic  living."  The  First  of  these  is  Fear.  It  comes  to  him  when  as  a 
little  boy  he  is  shut  in  a  field  with  an  angry  bull ;  and  when  he  is  * '  dared  "  to  deny  God 
in  a  thunderstorm.  As  he  grows  older,  Benham  takes  heroic  methods  to  overcome 
fear,  both  physical  and  mental.  Knowledge  of  the  Second  Limit,  Indulgence,  comes 
to  him  as  a  grown  man.  He  realizes  it  indirectly  through  his  friend  Prothero's 
struggles  against  temptations  and  through  a  knowledge  of  his  mother's  past.  The 
experience  comes  to  him  directly  through  his  entanglement  with  a  fascinating  widow, 
Mrs.  Skelmersdale.  Weary  of  her  blandishments,  he  goes  on  a  walking  tour.  In  a 
particularly  lovely  part  of  England,  he  meets,  wooes,  and  marries  Amanda  Morris. 
With  her  he  continues  his  search  for  the  best  in  life.  Amanda  is  occasionally  bored. 
It  is  evident  that  she  would  have  preferred  a  rational  honeymoon  to  dangerous  jaunts 
in  Arabia  and  Asia  Minor,  probing  into  the  hearts  of  men.  Before  long  she  inveigles 
her  husband  back  to  London  and  tries  to  break  him  into  fashionable  life.  Benham 
refuses  to  quit  his  research  and  goes  abroad  again,  this  time  with  his  friend,  Billy 
Prothero.  While  the  young  men  are  studying  Russia  in  revolution,  word  comes 
to  Benham  that  his  wife  has  been  untrue  to  him.  A  hasty  trip  to  England  confirms 
the  rumor.  It  is  at  this  juncture  in  his  career  that  Benham  discovers  the  Third 
Barrier — Jealousy.  After  a  hard  fight  he  conquers  his  mad  rage,  settles  a  comfort- 
able sum  on  Amanda,  offers  her  a  divorce,  and  leaves  England,  this  time  for  good.  In 
the  course  of  his  wanderings  over  the  globe,  Benham  formulates  a  Fourth  Limit  to 
the  "aristocracy"  he  wants  to  achieve — Prejudice:  prejudice  against  a  man  because 
he  is  of  a  different  color,  or  of  a  different  degree  of  intelligence.  He  dies  in  Johannes- 
burg in  an  attempt  to  obliterate  this  barrier:  seeing  a  troop  of  English  soldiers  firing 
on  insurgent  natives,  he  puts  himself  in  the  way  and  dies  in  the  arms  of  his  friend, 
White,  to  whom  he  entrusts  the  formulating  of  the  ideal  for  which  he  was  striven. 

RESEARCHES  INTO  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND,  by  E.  B.  Tylor, 
see  EARLY  HISTORY,  ETC. 

RESURJRECTION,  by  Count  Lyov  N.  Tolstoy,  published  in  1900,  presents  in  the 
author's  usual  powerful  vein  the  absorbing  theme  of  the  development  of  a  great 
character,  besides  offering  a  picture  of  Russian  society,  from  the  wealthy  office- 
holding  circle,  to  the  peasants  and  common  soldiers,  jailers,  and  criminal  classes. 
Nekhludoff,  a  well-to-do  Russian  noble,  who  enjoys  his  money  and  his  superficial 
society  existence  and  takes  his  views  of  life  without  questioning,  from  the  atmosphere 
around  him  is  one  day  called  on  for  jury  duty.  One  of  the  cases  he  has  to  try  is  that 
of  a  woman  who  is  accused  of  poisoning  a  merchant  for  his  money.  Nekhludoff,  to  his 
horror,  recognizes  in  the  prisoner  a  girl  from  his  aunt's  estate  with  whom  he  had 
fallen  in  love  as  a  young  man  and  seduced.  He  is  overcome  by  the  realization  of  his 
personal  responsibility  for  the  crime  in  question,  a  responsibility  which  he  is  con- 
scious of  holding  first  towards  the  girl  and  second  towards  the  community  at  large. 
Through  the  technical  ignorance  of  the  jury  Katusha  is  condemned  to  penal  servitude 
in  Siberia,  and  Nekhludoff  makes  up  his  mind  to  follow  her,  win  her  back  to  a  true 
life,  and  many  her.  The  story  is  a  study  of  his  gradual  winning  of  a  higher  life  for 
himself  by  coming  in  contact  with  the  peasants  and  exiles  with  whom  he  must  needs 
associate  in  his  endeavor  to  do  right  by  Katusha.  Thus  in  his  effort  to  right  the 
wrong  he  has  done  to  another,  he  unconsciously  rights  the  wrong  done  in  himself  by 
the  false  social  outlook  and  inadequate  education  which  had  made  him  what  he  was, 


7^6  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  he  constructs  for  himself  a  new  and  broadly  human  creed  of  living.  In  this  story 
Tolstoy  reveals  his  wonderful  power  of  handling  innumerable  details  and  of  present- 
ing a  supremely  realistic  picture  of  Russian  life. 

RETURN  OF  SHERLOCK  HOLMES,  see  SHERLOCK  HOLMES. 

RETURN  OF  THE  NATIVE,  THE,  by  Thomas  Hardy,  was  published  in  1878,  being 
his  sixth  novel.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Southern  England,  in  the  author's  "Wessex 
country, "  the  district  of  which  he  has  made  an  ideal  map  for  the  latest  edition  of 
his  works.  The  hero  of  the  book,  the  "native,"  is  Clym  Yeobright,  formerly  a 
jeweler  in  Paris,  but  now  returned  to  the  village  of  his  birth,  on  Egdon  Heath.  The 
giving  up  of  his  trade  is  due  to  his  desire  to  lead  a  broader,  more  unselfish  life.  He 
plans  to  open  a  school  in  the  village,  and  to  educate  and  uplift  the  rustics  about  him. 
His  Quixotic  schemes  of  helpfulness  are  upset,  however,  by  his  falling  in  love  with 
Eustacia  Vye,  a  beautiful,  passionate,  discontented  woman,  "the  raw  material  of  a 
divinity."  His  marriage  with  her  is  the  beginning  of  a  troubled  life,  severed  far 
enough  from  his  ideals.  Her  self-sought  death  by  drowning  leaves  him  free  to  begin 
again  his  cherished  career  of  usefulness.  As  an  open-air  preacher  he  seeks  an  outlet 
for  his  philanthropic  spirit.  The  story  of  Yeobright  and  Eustacia  is  not  the  exclusive 
interest  of  the  book.  Many  rustic  characters,  drawn  as  only  Hardy  can  draw  them, 
lend  to  it  a  delightful  rural  flavor  which  relieves  the  gloom  of  its  tragic  incidents. 

REVE,  LE,  see  ROUGON-MAC QUART. 

REVENGE  OF  JOSEPH  NOIREL,  THE  ('La  Revanche  de  Joseph  Noirel'),  by  Victor 
Cherbuliez  (1870).      A  lively  and  skillful  character  sketch  by  this  master  of  literary 
portraiture;  who  here,  as  in    'Jean  Teterol's  Idea,'  takes  for  his  theme  the  moral 
unrest  caused  by  social  class  distinctions,  but  carries  the  development  of  his  theme  to 
a  tragic  extreme.    The  scene  is  laid  at  Mon  Plaisir,  near  Geneva,  the  villa-home  of 
tLe  well-to-do  bourgeois  manufacturer,  M.  Merion,  whose  wife  has  social  ambitions 
of  which  the  daughter  Mademoiselle  Marguerite  is  made  the  innocent  victim. 
Given  in  a  mariage  de  convenance  to  M.  le  Conte  d'Orins,  she  finds  the  unhappi- 
ness  of  a  union  without  love  intensified  into  horror  and  dread  by  the  suspicion 
that  her  husband  has  been  guilty  of  a  hidden  crime.    Meanwhile  the  hero  of  the 
story,  Joseph  Noirel,  is  the  trusted  overseer  in  the  works  of  M.  Merion;  having 
been  gradually  promoted  to  this  position  of  responsibility  and  esteem  from  that  of 
the  starving  child  of  disgraced  parents,  whom  the  village  crier  had  rescued  and  intro- 
duced as  an  apprentice  in  the  factory.    On  Mademoiselle  Marguerite's  returning 
from  her  years  of  training  in  the  convent  for  the  aristocratic  life  to  which  her 
mother  had  destined  her,  Joseph  is  captivated  by  her  beauty;  and  after  being  thrown 
together  by  the  accident  of  a  storm,  he  becomes  the  hopeless  victim  of  a  devouring  but 
unrequited  love  for  her.    The  marriage  with  the  count  having  taken  place,  Joseph 
becomes  aware  of  the  crime  of  which  the  husband  is  guilty,  and  informs  Marguerite, 
who  flees  for  refuge  to  Mon  Plaisir.    The  count  meanwhile  creates  the  suspicion 
that  it  is  a  guilty  attachment  on  the  part  of  Marguerite  for  Joseph  which  has  brought 
her  there,  and  her  parents  indignantly  reject  her  plea  for  their  protection.    A  word 
from  her  would  reveal  her  husband's  crime  and  would  cost  his  life.    Meanwhile 
Joseph  has  already  resolved  to  end  his  hopeless  misery  by  taking  his  own  life.     Mar- 
guerite maintains  her  silence,  obeys  her  husband,  and  leaves  her  father's  house.     She 
asks  Joseph  to  become  the  instrument  of  her  death  before  taking  his  own  life,  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  727 

under  circumstances  that  would  imply  guilt,  while  yet  she  remains  innocent,  and 
the  savior  of  her  husband's  life  and  honor.  The  narration  of  this  climax  of  the 
story's  action  is  in  the  highest  plane  of  dramatic  writing,  and  is  a  remarkable  ex- 
hibition of  the  author's  power  of  reserve,  and  of  his  ability  to  suggest  the  hidden 
reality  beneath  expressed  unreality. 

REVERIES  OF  A  BACHELOR:  OR,  A  BOOK  OF  THE  HEART,  by  "Ik  Marvel," 
pseudonym  of  Donald  Grant  Mitchell.  The  Bachelor's  first  Reverie  was  published 
in  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger  in  1849,  and  was  reprinted  the  following  year  in 
Harper's  New  Monthly  Magazine.  It  represents  the  sentimental  Bachelor  before  a 
fire  of  oak  and  hickory  in  a  country  farmhouse.  He  broods  through  an  evening 
of  "sober  and  thoughtful  quietude."  His  thoughts  are  of  matrimony,  suggested  by 
the  smoke  —  signifying  doubt;  blaze  —  signifying  cheer;  ashes  —  signifying  desola- 
tion. Why  should  he  let  himself  love,  with  the  chance  of  losing?  The  second 
Reverie  is  by  a  city  grate,  where  the  tossing  sea-coal  flame  is  like  a  flirt,  —  "so 
lively  yet  uncertain,  so  bright  yet  flickering, "  —  and  its  confiscations  like  the  leap- 
ings  of  his  own  youthful  heart;  and  just  here  the  maid  comes  in  and  throws  upon  the 
fire  a  pan  of  anthracite,  and  its  character  soon  changes  to  a  pleasant  glow,  the  simili- 
tude of  a  true  woman's  love,  which  the  Bachelor  enlarges  much  upon  in  his  dream- 
thoughts.  The  third  Reverie  is  over  his  cigar,  as  lighted  by  a  coal,  a  wisp  of  paper,  or 
a  match,  —  each  bearing  its  suggestion  of  some  heart-experience.  The  fourth  is 
divided  into  three  parts,  also :  morning,  which  is  the  past,  —  a  dreaming  retrospect  of 
younger  days;  noon,  which  is  the  Bachelor's  unsatisfied  present;  evening,  which 
is  the  future,  with  its  vision  of  Caroline,  the  road  of  love  which  runs  not  smooth  at 
first,  and  then  their  marriage,  foreign  travel,  full  of  warm  and  lively  European  scenes, 
and  the  return  home  with  an  ideal  family  conclusion.  These  papers,  full  of  senti- 
ment, enioyed  a  wide  popularity. 

REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE,  by  Edmund  Burke,  see  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE. 

REYNARD  THE  FOX.  This  is  one  of  the  cycle  of  animal-legends  which  are  generally 
supposed  by  scholars  to  be  of  Oriental  origin,  and  which  have  been  adopted  into  most 
of  the  Germanic  languages.  The  group  of  stories  clustering  about  the  fox  as  hero, 
and  illustrating  his  superiority  over  his  fellows,  as  cunning  is  superior  to  strength, 
first  appeared  in  Germany  as  Latin  productions  of  the  monks  in  cloisters  along  the 
banks  of  the  Mosel  and  Maas.  This  was  as  early  as  the  tenth  century,  and  France 
knew  them  by  the  end  of  the  twelfth  under  the  name  of  'Le  Roman  du  Renard.' 

In  1 170  the  material  took  definite  shape  among  the  secular  poems  of  Germany  in 
the  hands  of  Heinrich  der  Glichesare,  who  composed  an  epic  of  twelve  "adventures" 
in  Middle  High  German,  on  the  theme.  In  all  the  old  versions  there  is  a  tendency 
toward  satirical  allusions  to  the  ecclesiastical  body,  and  toward  pointing  a  moral  for 
society  through  the  mouths  or  the  behavior  of  the  animals.  After  traveling  into  the 
Flemish  tongue,  the  adventures  of  the  fox  came  back  into  German  speech;  this  time 
to  appear  in  Low  German  as  the  famous  'Reinke  de  Vos, '  printed  in  Lubeck  in  1498. 

Nearly  three  hundred  years  later,  1793,  Goethe  turned  his  attention  to  the  long- 
popular  subject,  and  gave  the  animal  epic  its  most  perfect  form  in  his  'Reinecke 
Fuchs/  In  the  twelve  cantos  of  the  'Reinecke  Fuchs,'  which  is  written  in  hexam- 
eters, Goethe  gives  an  amusing  allegory  of  human  life  and  passions,  telling  the 
story  of  the  fox  and  his  tricks  in  a  more  refined  tone  than  his  early  predecessors,  but 
losing  something  of  their  charm  of  naive  simplicity. 


728  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  drawings  of  the  noted  German  artist,  Wilhelm  Kaulbach,  which  illustrated 
an  edition  de  luxe  of  recent  years,  have  renewed  the  interest  of  the  reading  public  in 
Goethe's  poem.  Perhaps  the  most  familiar  trick  of  Reynard  is  the  story  of  how  he 
induced  the  bear  to  put  his  head  in  the  crotch  of  a  tree  in  search  of  honey,  and  then 
removed  the  wedge  which  held  the  crotch  open,  leaving  the  bear  a  prisoner,  caught  by 
the  neck. 

KICHARD  IE.,  by  Shakespeare  (printed  1597).  This  drama  (based  on  Holinshed's 
'Chronicle')  tells  the  story  of  the  supplanting,  on  the  throne  of  England,  of  the 
handsome  and  sweet-natured,  but  weak- willed  Richard  II.,  by  the  politic  Bolingbroke 
(Henry  IV.).  The  land  is  impoverished  by  Richard's  extravagances.  He  is  sur- 
rounded by  flatterers  and  boon  companions  (Bushy,  Bagot,  and  Green),  and  has  lost 
the  good- will  of  his  people.  The  central  idea  of  '  Richard  II. '  is  that  the  kingly  office 
cannot  be  maintained  without  strength  of  brain  and  hand.  Old  John  of  Gaunt  (or 
Ghent)  is  loyal  to  Richard;  but  on  his  death-bed  sermons  him  severely,  and  dying, 
prophesies  of  England,  —  "this  seat  of  Mars, " 

"This  fortress  built  by  Nature  for  herself 
Against  infection  and  the  hand  of  war, 
This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world." 

Richard  lets  him  talk;  but  no  sooner  is  the  breath  out  of  his  body  than  he  seizes 
all  his  movable  or  personal  wealth  and  that  of  his  banished  son  Bolingbroke,  to  get 
money  for  his  Irish  wars.  This  step  costs  Richard  his  throne.  While  absent  in 
Ireland,  Bolingbroke  lands  with  a  French  force,  to  regain  his  property  and  legal  rights 
as  a  nobleman  and  open  the  purple  testament  of  bleeding  war.  The  country  rises  to 
welcome  him.  Even  a  force  in  Wales,  tired  of  waiting  for  Richard,  who  was  detained 
by  contrary  winds,  disperses  just  a  day  before  he  landed.  Entirely  destitute  of 
troops,  he  humbly  submits,  and  in  London  a  little  later  gives  up  his  crown  to  Henry 
IV.  Richard  is  imprisoned  at  Pomf ret  Castle.  Here,  one  day,  he  is  visited  by  a  man 
who  was  formerly  a  poor  groom  of  his  stable,  and  who  tells  him  how  it  irked  him  to 
see  his  roan  Barbary  with  Bolingbroke  on  his  back  on  coronation  day,  stepping  along 
as  if  proud  of  his  new  master.  Just  then  one  Exton  appears,  in  obedience  to  a  hint 
from  Henry  IV.,  with  men  armed  to  kill.  Richard  at  last  (but  too  late)  shows  a 
manly  spirit;  and  snatching  a  weapon  from  one  of  the  assassins,  kills  him  and  then 
another,  but  is  at  once  struck  dead  by  Exton.  Henry  IV.  lamented  this  bloody  deed 
to  the  day  of  his  death,  and  it  cost  him  dear  in  the  censures  of  his  people. 

RICHARD  ffl.,  by  Shakespeare  (printed  1597),  the  last  of  a  closely  linked  group  of* 
historical  tragedies.  (See  'Henry  VI.1)  Still  a  popular  play  on  the  boards;  Edwin 
Booth  as  Richard  will  long  be  remembered.  As  the  drama  opens,  Clarence  the 
brother  of  Richard  (or  Gloster  as  he  is  called)  is  being  led  away  to  the  Tower,  where, 
through  Gloster's  intrigues,  he  is  soon  murdered  on  a  royal  warrant.  The  dream  of 
Clarence  is  a  famous  passage,  —  how  he  thought  Richard  drowned  him  at  sea;  and 
in  hell  the  shade  of  Prince  Edward,  whom  he  himself  had  helped  to  assassinate  at 
Tewkesbury,  wandered  by,  its  bright  hair  dabbled  in  blood,  and  crying:  — 

"Clarence  is  come;  false,  fleeting,  perjured  Clarence." 

Gloster  also  imprisons  the  son  of  Clarence,  and  meanly  matches  Clarence's 
daughter.  The  Prince  Edward  mentioned  was  son  of  the  gentle  Henry  VI.,  whom 
Richard  stabbed  in  the  Tower.  This  hunch-backed  devil  next  had  the  effrontery 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  729 

to  woo  to  wife  Anne,  widow  of  the  Edward  he  had  slain.  She  had  not  a  moment's 
happiness  with  him,  and  deserved  none.  He  soon  killed  her,  and  announced  his 
intention  of  seeking  the  hand  of  Elizabeth,  his  niece,  after  having  hired  one  Tyrrel 
to  murder  her  brothers,  the  tender  young  princes,  sons  of  Edward  IV.,  in  the  Tower. 
Tyrrel  employed  two  hardened  villains  to  smother  these  pretty  boys;  and  even  the 
murderers  wept  as  they  told  how  they  lay  asleep,  "girdling  one  another  within  their 
innocent  alabaster  arms, "  a  prayer  book  on  their  pillow,  and  their  red  lips  almost 
touching.  The  savage  boar  also  stained  himself  with  the  blood  of  Lord  Hastings, 
of  the  brother  and  son  of  Edward  IV.'s  widow,  and  of  Buckingham,  who,  almost  as 
remorseless  as  himself,  had  helped  him  to  the  crown,  but  fell  from  him  when  he  asked 
him  to  murder  the  young  princes.  At  length  at  Bosworth  Field  the  monster  met  his 
match  in  the  person  of  Richmond,  afterward  Henry  VII.  On  the  night  before  the 
battle,  the  poet  represents  each  leader  as  visited  by  dreams,  —  Richmond  seeing 
pass  before  him  the  ghosts  of  all  whom  Richard  has  murdered,  who  encourage  him 
and  bid  him  be  conqueror  on  the  morrow;  and  Richard  seeing  the  same  ghosts  pass 
menacingly  by  him,  bidding  him  despair  and  promising  to  sit  heavy  on  his  soul  on  the 
day  of  battle.  He  awakes,  cold  drops  of  sweat  standing  on  his  brow;  the  lights  burn 
blue  in  his  tent:  "Is  there  a  murderer  here?  No.  Yes,  I  am:  then  fly.  What, 
from  myself?"  Day  breaks;  the  battle  is  joined;  Richard  fights  with  fury,  and  his 
horse  is  killed  under  him:  "A  horse!  a  horse!  my  kingdom  for  a  horse! "  But  soon 
brave  Richmond  has  him  down,  crying,  "The  day  is  ours:  the  bloody  dog  is  dead." 

RICHARD  CABLE,  by  S.  Baring-Gould  (1888).  Richard  Cable  is  the  keeper  of  a 
light-ship  on  the  coast  of  Essex,  England.  He  is  a  widower,  and  father  of  a  family  of 
seven  children,  all  girls.  During  a  storm  Josephine  Cornellis,  a  young  lady  of  the 
neighborhood,  whose  home  is  not  particularly  happy,  is  blown  out  to  the  light-ship 
in  a  small  boat,  and  rescued  by  Cable. 

Richard,  being  a  moralist,  gives  advice  to  Josephine,  who  loses  her  heart  to  him. 
Events  so  shape  themselves  that  she  places  herself  under  his  guidance,  and  the  two 
are  married;  but  almost  immediately  Richard  finds  himself  in  a  false  position  owing 
to  the  fact  that  he  is  not  accustomed  to  the  usages  of  society,  and  Josephine  too  feels 
mortified  by  her  husband's  mistakes.  A  separation  takes  place,  Richard  sailing  round 
the  coast  to  Cornwall,  and  taking  his  mother,  the  children,  and  all  his  belongings. 
Josephine  repents;  and  as  she  cannot  raise  him  to  her  sphere,  decides  to  adapt  herself 
to  his.  She  goes  into  service  as  a  lady's-maid.  More  complications  ensue,  and 
Richard,  who  has  become  a  prosperous  cattle-dealer,  appears  opportunely  and  takes 
her  away  from  her  situation.  While  he  still  hates  her,  he  desires  to  provide  for  her. 
This  she  will  not  allow;  but  is  anxious  to  regain  his  love,  and  continues  to  earn  her 
living  and  endeavor  to  retrieve  her  great  mistake.  Eventually,  at  his  own  request, 
they  are  re-married. 

There  are  several  other  interesting  characters  necessary  to  the  working  out  of  a 
plot  somewhat  complicated  in  minor  details,  but  the  burden  of  the  story  is  concerning 
ill-assorted  marriages  and  ensuing  complications,  — hardness  of  heart,  pride,  malice, 
and  all  uncharitableness. 

RICHARD  CARVEL,  by  Winston  Churchill  ( r  900) .  The  characterization  of  this  hero 
of  the  Revolutionary  period  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  best  of  its  type  in  recent  fiction. 
Richard  Carvel  spends  his  early  life  in  Maryland,  where  he  is  brought  up  by  his 
grandfather,  an  ardent  supporter  of  King  George.  Here  begins  his  varied  and 
rorri  antic  career,  as  does  his  devotion  for  the  lovely  Dorothy  Manners,  who  is  shortly 


73O  TEE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

removed  to  London,  where  it  is  hoped  she  will  contract  a  brilliant  marriage.  Through 
the  instrumentality  of  a  rascally  uncle,  Carvel  is  kidnapped  by  pirates  and  is  later 
captured  by  Paul  Jones,  with  whom  he  casts  in  his  fortunes;  they  become  fast  friends 
and  together  experience  many  vicissitudes.  In  London,  the  hero  undergoes  trials  and 
privations  and  suffers  the  humiliation  of  being  detained  in  the  debtor's  prison,  from 
which  he  is  rescued  by  Dorothy  Manners.  His  subsequent  career  in  London  is 
distinguished  by  steadily  increasing  success  and  he  enjoys  the  friendship  of  Horace 
Walpole,  George  Pox,  and  other  prominent  men.  Carvel  frustrates  the  plan  of  Mr. 
Manners  to  make  a  match  between  his  daughter  and  the  miserable  Duke  of  Charter- 
sea,  and  soon  after  learning  of  the  death  of  his  grandfather  and  of  the  fact  that  he  has 
been  defrauded  of  his  rightful  inheritance,  returns  to  America.  Here  he  finds  an 
occupation  in  taking  charge  of  the  lands  of  a  worthy  lawyer  and  patriot,  until  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Revolution,  when  he  enlists  and  serves  with  Paul  Jones.  The 
great  climax  of  the  story  is  reached  in  the  brilliant  description  of  the  victory  of  the 
Bon  Homme  Richard  over  the  Serapis,  in  which  battle  Carvel  is  severely  wounded; 
he  is  taken  to  England  where  he  is  nursed  by  Dorothy,  who  at  last  consents  to  become 
his  wife,  and  returns  with  him  to  America,  where  his  heritage  is  finally  restored  to 
him. 

RICHARD  XEA  AND  NAY,  see  LIFE  AND  DEATH  OF. 

RIDDLE  OF  THE  UNIVERSE,  THE  ('  Die  Weltrasel '),  a  metaphysical  and  scientific 
treatise  by  Ernst  Haeckel,  was  published  in  German  in  1899  and  in  an  English  trans- 
lation by  Joseph  McCabe  in  1901.  An  eminent  and  prolific  scientific  investigator, 
a  passionate  admirer  of  Darwin,  and  uniting  power  of  minute  research  with  bold 
metaphysical  speculation,  Haeckel  put  forth  this  book  at  the  close  of  a  long  career  of 
biological  discovery,  in  defense  of  the  extremest  form  of  materialistic  monism.  From 
the  chemical  law  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  the  physical  law  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy  he  formulates  the  law  of  substance  or  "law  of  the  persistence 
of  matter  and  force";  and  he  strives  to  prove  that  this  law  is  sufficient  in  itself  to 
account  for  all  known  phenomena,  material,  mental,  and  spiritual.  He  holds  with 
Spinoza  that  matter  and  energy  "are  but  two  inseparable  attributes  of  the  one 
underlying  substance."  The  dualistic  idea  of  a  personal  God  above  or  outside  of 
Nature,  of  an  immortal  soul  distinct  from  the  body,  and  of  the  freedom  of  the  will 
undetermined  by  causality,  he  regards  as  delusions,  due  to  a  false  conception  of  the 
central  importance  of  man  in  the  cosmos.  An  eternal  process  of  evolution  and 
devolution  is  constantly  producing  and  then  destroying  the  various  planetary  systems; 
on  one  of  these  planets,  the  earth,  and  possibly  on  all  the  others,  life  has  arisen  and 
developed,  the  lower  species  gradually  evolving  into  higher — all  under  the  impulse  of 
purely  mechanical  and  material  forces.  Consciousness  is  a  vital  property  of  every 
living  organism  and  is  a  purely  natural  phenomenon.  Man's  body  and  soul  have 
arisen  by  a  process  of  natural  evolution  from  the  lowest  forms  of  existence.  Ethical 
principles  have  evolved  from  the  social  necessities  of  man  in  association  with  his 
fellow  men.  Dogmatic  religion  is  a  hindrance  to  man's  progress,  a  cause  of  unhappi- 
ness  and  misery,  and  above  all  a  delusion.  There  can  be  no  compromise  between 
Christianity  and  modern  science;  the  former  is  based  on  a  mistaken  dualistic  view  of 
the  universe  and  is  essentially  hostile  to  worldly  learning,  happiness,  and  progress. 
Idealistic  philosophy  and  all  dualistic  systems  are  equally  untenable. 

Haeckel  is  the  ablest  defender  of  the  materialistic  attitude  since  Darwin,  Hu-Jey, 
and  Tyndall,  and  goes  beyond  them  in  the  sweeping  and  positive  nature  of  his  opinions. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  699 

in  the  professor's  arms.  Having  awakened  him  to  realization  of  his  love  for  her,  she 
is  ashamed  of  her  duplicity  and  refuses  to  marry  him.  An  old  love  letter  found  in 
the  mailbox  restores  Miss  Goodwillie's  faith  in  her  dead  lover  and  changes  her 
attitude  toward  the  lovers.  She  brings  Lucy  and  her  brother  together  again. 

PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY,  by  Henry  George.  Single  taxers  hold  this,  the  chief 
work  of  the  author,  to  be  the  Bible  of  the  new  cult.  It  was  written  in  the  years  1877- 
79,  and  the  MS.  was  hawked  about  the  country  and  refused  by  all  publishers  till  the 
author,  a  practical  printer,  had  the  plates  made,  doing  a  large  part  of  the  composition 
himself.  It  was  then  brought  out  by  Appletons  in  1879.  He  seeks,  in  the  work,  */o 
solve  a  problem  and  prescribe  a  remedy.  The  problem  is:  "Why,  in  the  midst  of  a 
marvelous  progress,  is  grinding  poverty  on  the  increase?  "  In  the  solution  he  begins  - 
with  the  beginning  of  political  economy,  takes  issue  with  accepted  authority,  and 
claims  that  the  basis  law  is  not  the  selfishness  of  mankind,  but  that  "man  seeks  to 
gratify  his  desires  with  the  least  exertion. ' '  Using  this  law  as  physicists  do  the  law  of 
gravitation,  he  proceeds  to  define  anew,  capital,  rent,  interest,  wealth,  labor,  and 
land.  All  that  is  not  labor,  or  the  result  of  labor,  is  land.  Wealth  is  the  product  of 
labor  applied  to  land.  Interest  is  that  part  of  the  result  of  labor  which  is  paid  to 
capital  for  its  use  for  a  time;  capital  is  the  fruit  of  labor,  not  its  employer;  rent  is  the 
tax  taken  by  the  landholder  from  labor  and  capital,  which  must  be  paid  before 
capital  and  labor  can  divide.  The  problem  is  solved,  he  declares,  when  it  is  found 
that  the  constantly  increasing  rent  serves  so  to  restrict  the  rewards  of  capital  and 
labor  that  wage,  the  laborer's  share  of  the  joint  product,  becomes  the  least  sum  upon 
which  he  can  subsist  and  propagate.  The  laborer  would  refuse  such  a  wage;  but  as 
it  is  the  best  he  can  do,  he  must  accept.  Were  the  land  public  property  he  could 
refuse,  and  transfer  his  labor  to  open  land  and  produce  for  himself.  As  he  cannot 
do  this,  he  must  compete  with  thousands  as  badly  off  as  is  he,  hence  poverty,  crime, 
unrest,  and  all  social  and  moral  evils. 

The  remedy  is  to  nationalize  the  land,  —  make  it  public  property;  leaving  that 
already  in  use  in  the  possession  of  those  holding  it,  but  confiscating  the  rent  and 
abolishing  all  other  forms  of  taxation.  He  declares  taxation  upon  anything  but  land 
to  be  a  penalty  upon  production;  so  he  would  tax  that  which  cannot  be  produced  or 
increased  or  diminished,  —  i.  e.%  land.  This,  he  claims,  would  abolish  all  speculation 
in  land,  would  throw  it  open  to  whomever  would  use  it.  Labor,  having  an  oppor- 
tunity to  employ  itself,  would  do  so,  or  to  a  large  enough  extent  to  increase  produc- 
tion; and  as  man  is  a  never-satisfied  animal,  increased  production  would  bring 
increased  exchange;  hence  prosperity,  health,  wealth,  and  happiness. 

PROMETHEUS  BOUND,  a  drama  by  ^Eschylus  (B.  C.  525-456),  the  most  sublime 
of  Greek  tragedians,  presents  the  contest  between  Zeus  and  the  Titan,  Prometheus, 
whose  counsels  had  set  Zeus  upon  his  throne,  but  who  had  incurred  that  deity's 
displeasure  through  giving  the  use  of  fire  to  man.  At  the  beginning  of  the  play  he  is 
nailed  to  a  mountain-peak  by  Hephaestus  at  the  order  of  Zeus  as  a  punishment  for  bis 
presumption.  Here  he  is  visited  by  the  daughters  of  Oceanus,  who  sympathize  with 
him,  and  by  their  father,  who  counsels  submission  to  Zeus  but  in  vain.  Another 
victim  of  Zeus  now  enters  in  the  person  of  lo,  who  has  been  transformed  by  the  god 
into  the  form  of  a  heifer  and  is  being  driven  from  land  to  land  by  the  jealousy  of  Hera, 
and  the  persecutions  of  Argus,  who  is  tormenting  her  in  the  shape  of  a  gad-fly. 
Prometheus  tells  her  that  she  shall  be  restored  to  her  own  shape  and  bear  a  son,  the 
father  of  a  royal  race,  one  ci  whom,  Hercules,  shall  free  the  Titan  from  his  bonds^ 


yoo  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Moreover  he  prophesies  that  Zeus  shall  make  a  marriage,  the  son  of  which  shall 
dispossess  his  father.  Zeus  now  sends  Hermes  to  demand  particulars  of  this  coming 
danger.  Prometheus  defiantly  refuses  to  reveal  what  he  knows;  and  in  punishment 
Zeus  cleaves  the  rocks  with  his  thunderbolts  and  sinks  his  enemy  beneath  the  earth. 

In  the  lost  'Prometheus  Unbound,'  which  was  perhaps  the  third  member  of  a 
trilogy,  it  is  conjectured  that  a  reconciliation  was  brought  about  by  the  intervention 
of  Hercules.  Prometheus  was  released  and  revealed  his  secret  that  Zeus  must  refrain 
from  marriage  with  Thetis.  Thus  the  theme  of  the  entire  work  was  not  rebellion, 
but  justification  of  the  ways  of  God  to  man. 

The  grandeur  of  the  scenario  and  the  superhuman  magnitude  of  the  characters  — 
all  of  whom  but  lo  are  deities  —  illustrate  the  Titanic  quality  of  this  dramatist's 
imagination. 

PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND,  a  lyrical  drama  by  Shelley,  written  at  Rome  in  1819, 
is  an  independent  treatment  of  the  theme  of  ^Eschylus  (see  the  synopsis  of  his  'Pro- 
metheus Bound')  by  a  revolutionary  poet  who  could  not  accept  the  possibility  of  a 
reconciliation  between  the  rebel,  Prometheus,  and  his  tormenter,  Zeus.  The  scenario, 
however,  and  the  conception  of  the  defiance  of  Prometheus,  owe  much  to  the  Greek 
play.  When  Shelley's  drama  opens  Prometheus  has  been  for  ages  chained  to  the  rock, 
attended  and  comforted  by  the  Oceanids,  Panthea  and  lone.  With  the  passing  years 
his  hostility  to  Zeus  has  become  less  bitter  though  still  determined,  and  he  cannot 
recollect  the  curse  which  he  pronounced  upon  the  tyrant  until  it  is  repeated  to  him 
by  a  phantasm  of  Zeus  himself,  raised  by  Earth,  the  mother  of  Prometheus,  at  his 
earnest  request.  Prometheus  says  he  would  gladly  recall  this  curse  but  he  knows 
nevertheless  that  Zeus  must  fall.  In  a  last  effort  to  learn  the  secret  Zeus  sends  down 
Hermes  and  the  Furies,  threatening  the  Titan  with  further  tortures  if  he  will  not  tell 
what  he  knows.  On  his  refusal  the  Furies  subject  Prometheus  to  the  moral  torture 
of  hearing  the  woes  that  man  has  suffered  and  then  leave  him.  After  comforting 
Prometheus  Panthea  and  lone  depart  to  reassure  their  sister,  Asia,  Prometheus's 
love,  in  her  retreat  in  the  Indian  Caucasus.  Meanwhile  the  day  of  Prometheus's 
deliverance  has  arrived,  and  voices  summon  Asia  down  to  the  abode  of  Demogorgon, 
a  personification  of  that  ultimate  Power  which  the  Greeks  thought  of  as  behind  and 
above  the  gods,  and  which  typifies  for  Shelley  the  all-pervading  soul  of  all  things. 
She  there  learns  of  the  resistless  force  of  this  Power  and  of  the  imminent  freedom  of 
Prometheus  and  then  ascends  in  one  of  the  chariots  of  the  Hours  to  witness  his 
deliverance.  Zeus  has  just  wedded  Thetis,  Demogorgon  ascends  to  Olympus, 
becomes  incarnate  in  the  child  that  is  born,  and  casts  Zeus  from  the  battlements  of 
Heaven.  Prometheus  is  freed  from  the  rock  by  Hercules,  is  reunited  to  Asia,  and 
retires  with  her  to  a  grotto,  which  they  make  their  home.  Earth,  Heaven,  Air,  and 
all  the  powers  of  the  universe  break  out  into  paeans  of  joy  and  praise  to  salute  the 
new  reign  of  peace  and  fraternity,  and  in  this  burst  of  lyric  rejoicing  the  poem  closes. 
The  'Prometheus'  is  imbued  with  Shelley's  pantheistic  and  anarchistic  views,  his 
belief  in  the  essential  goodness  of  human  nature,  his  hatred  of  dogmas  and  tyrannous 
government,  and  his  noble  humanitarian  enthusiasm.  Perhaps  none  of  his  poems  so 
well  illustrate  his  exquisite  and  melodious  lyric  gifts,  his  marvelous  power  of  painting 
mountain  scenery  and  atmospheric  effects,  and  his  lack  of  appreciation  of  ordinary 
earthly  scenes  and  human  characters. 

PROMISE  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE,  THE,  'a  treatise  on  social  and  political  science' 
by  Herbert  Croly  (1909).  He  begins  by  analyzing  the  conception  of  America  as 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  701 

the  land  of  promise  and  distinguishing  between  the  uncritical  anticipation  of  con- 
tinued prosperity  and  the  responsible  effort  to  ensure  the  fulfilment  of  this  hope 
by  the  attempt  to  realize  an  ideal.  Many  Americans  do  not  make  this  distinction ; 
and  those  who  make  it  do  not  all  recognize  that  a  change  of  conditions  has  made 
necessary  a  revision  of  the  American  ideal.  The  original  ideal  was  one  of  political 
and  economic  freedom  and  independence,  finding  expression  in  universal  competition; 
and  its  effects  were  good  since  it  was  a  stimulus  to  activity  and  exploitation  of  the 
sources  of  wealth;  but  with  the  increase  of  population  and  the  seizure  of  natural 
resources  into  a  few  hands  has  come  a  "morally  and  unsociably  undesirable  distribu- 
tion of  wealth."  This  must  be  regulated  by  the  state,  if  the  "promise  of  American 
life"  is  to  remain  valid  for  the  masses;  and  thus  the  old  untrammeled  individual  free- 
dom must  give  way  to  social  control.  These  opinions  are  enforced  by  a  review  of 
American  political  and  economic  history,  outlining  the  struggles  of  Federalists  and 
Republicans,  Whigs  and  Democrats,  Slavery  men  and  Abolitionists,  and  after  1870, 
the  growth  of  specialized  scientific  political,  commercial,  and  business  interests, 
which  destroyed  the  homogeneity  of  American  life  and  brought  about  the  need  of  a 
renewed  solidarity.  Four  typical  reformers,  Bryan,  Jerome,  Hearst,  and  Roosevelt, 
are  then  subjected  to  analysis  and  criticism.  The  author  now  gives  his  own  proposals 
for  reform.  Democracy  must  be  interpreted  not  merely  as  the  securing  of  equal 
rights  for  all  but  as  the  insuring  of  well-being  and  social  improvement  to  the  various 
types  of  individuals  who  constitute  the  state.  The  capitalists  and  the  masses  must 
be  so  regulated  as  to  insure  the  economic  and  social  improvement  of  all,  without 
doing  violence  to  the  principle  of  private  property  or  of  nationality.  Particular 
problems  of  international  policy  and  administrative  and  industrial  reform  are  then 
considered,  and  the  book  closes  with  a  discussion  of  what  the  individual  can  do  to 
insure  the  success  of  the  public  measures  proposed.  The  book  is  a  carefully  reasoned 
presentation  of  the  altered  political  and  social  theories  made  necessary  by  the  advent 
of  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  America. 

PROMISED  LAND,  THE,  by  Mary  Antin  (1912).  This  is  an  autobiographical 
study  of  the  immigrant,  of  what  he  brings  to  America,  and  what  he  finds  here,  and 
in  it  the  author  presents  the  case  of  the  Russian  Jew's  American  citizenship  in  a  new 
and  vivid  light.  The  book  opens  with  the  child's  early  life  in  Polotzk,  where  the 
Jews  are  enduring  many  persecutions  and  where  they  are  forced  to  live  within  the 
"Pale"  set  apart  for  them.  Thus  shut  out  from  the  national  existence  they  had 
retained  many  quaint  and  mediaeval  customs  and  curious  religious  ceremonies  de- 
scribed by  the  little  Jewish  girl,  who  at  an  early  age  began  to  pen  this  story  of  her  life. 
When  the  writer  was  but  ten  years  old  her  father  emigrated  to  America,  later  sending 
for  his  family  to  join  him  in  the  new  world.  The  writer  gives  a  touching  description 
of  the  uncomfortable  exodus  from  the  old  world  and  their  adventures  on  the  way  to 
their  new  home  in  the  north  end  of  Boston.  Here  the  advantages  of  the  "Promised 
Land"  awaken  wonder  and  delight  and  the  child  begins  at  once  to  profit  by  the  free 
education  which  may  be  enjoyed  by  all.  Her  story  contains  many  pictures  of  the 
problems  and  perplexities  faced  by  this  Jewish  family  in  their  endeavors  to  assimilate 
themselves  with  the  life  of  their  adopted  country.  While  seeing  life  from  the  slums 
of  the  city  the  writer  sets  forth  her  gradual  advance  towards  taking  possession  of  all 
the  heritage  offered  in  this  new  land.  Passing  with  honors  through  the  public-schools, 
aided  by  sympathetic  teachers,  and  by  the  clubs  and  settlement-homes  open  to  her, 
the  young  girl  develops  into  the  thoughtful  and  cultured  woman,  who  shows  in  this 
story  of  her  own  development  the  possibilities  open  to  all  the  aliens  who  come  with 


702  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  earnest  intention  of  profiting  by  the  advantages  which  all  may  share  alike  in  this 
land  of  the  free.  Having  traced  the  story  of  the  child  through  her  school-days  and 
watched  her  gradually  expand  under  the  influence  of  teachers,  friends,  free  libraries 
and  lecture  halls  the  reader  takes  leave  of  her  as  she  is  about  to  enter  the  college  gates 
which  have  just  opened  to  admit  this  pilgrim  who  has  learned  to  grasp  all  the  best 
treasures  offered  in  the  "Promised  Land. " 

PROOF  OF  THE  PUDDING,  THE;  a  novel,  by  Meredith  Nicholson  (1916),  is  a 
study  of  the  development  of  the  character  of  Nan  Farley,  and  the  scene  is  laid  in  a 
town  in  Indiana.  An  orphaned  child  of  humble  lineage,  Nan  at  an  early  age  is 
adopted  by  Timothy  Farley  and  his  wife  who  lavish  upon  her  wealth  and  affection. 
Being  selfish  and  pleasure-loving,  Nan,  upon  reaching  young  ladyhood  falls  in  with  a 
fast  set,  and  against  her  father's  wishes  joins  in  their  frivolities.  She  accepts  the 
attentions  of  Billy  Copeland,  who  has  divorced  his  wife,  Fanny,  a  charming  and 
capable  woman,  in  order  to  gain  Nan's  affections,  but  Nan's  father,  who  is  in  failing 
health,  tells  her  he  will  disinherit  her  if  she  marries  him.  Nan  has  a  warm  friend  and 
admirer  in  Jerry  Amidon,  a  clever  young  business  man,  straightforward  and  honest, 
who  knew  her  before  her  adoption.  Copeland's  passionate  wooing  strongly  influences 
Nan,  and  though  she  does  not  really  love  him  she  is  on  the  point  of  eloping  with  him 
when  his  appearance  in  an  intoxicated  condition  saves  her  from  this  folly.  Mr. 
Farley  dies  suddenly,  and  after  the  funeral  Copeland  urges  Nan  to  destroy  her  father's 
will,  in  which  case  she  will  be  sole  heir  to  his  property,  as  Mrs.  Farley  has  died  pre- 
viously. Nan  has  a  night  of  temptation,  but  finally  her  better  self  triumphs,  and  she 
realizes  her  past  short-comings  and  decides  in  future  to  lead  a  better  and  more  un- 
selfish life.  The  next  day  she  confides  her  experience  to  Cecil  Eaton,  a  family  friend 
and  adviser,  and  tells  him  she  has  decided  not  to  accept  a  cent  of  the  Farley  money  as 
she  feels  she  is  unworthy  of  it.  Wishing  to  be  self-supporting,  she  joins  Fanny 
Copeland,  who  bears  no  ill-will  against  her,  in  the  management  of  her  dairy  farm. 
Copeland  meanwhile  has  been  indulging  in  dissipation  and  become  financially  em- 
barrassed, but  is  extricated  from  the  latter  position  by  the  united  efforts  of  Eaton 
and  Fanny,  who  still  loves  him.  Nan  marries  Jerry  Amidon,  and  the  Copelands 
become  reunited,  after  Billy's  reformation,  which  is  brought  about  by  Eaton,  who 
has  always  unselfishly  loved  Fanny.  Mr.  Farley's  will  is  proved  invalid,  and  the 
bulk  of  the  property  goes  to  Nan,  who  expresses  the  desire  to  use  it  wholly  for  charit- 
able purposes. 

PROVERBIAL  PHILOSOPHY,  by  Martin  Farquhar  Tupper.  Tupper's  '  Proverbial 
Philosophy '  is  a  book  of  essays,  or  poems  in  blank  verse,  dealing  with  almost  every 
emotion  and  condition  of  life.  The  author  begins  thus:  "Few  and  precious  are  the 
words  which  the  lips  of  wisdom  utter";  and  he  proceeds  to  compile  a  work  filling  415 
pages. 

The  poems  or  meditations  were  published  between  1838  and  1867;  and  are  in  two 
series,  dealing  with  over  sixty  subjects.  The  book  contains  many  wise  sayings,  but 
it  is  mostly  padded  commonplace.  For  many  years  it  was  in  great  demand,  but 
lately  it  has  been  subjected  to  ridicule. 

PRUE  AND  I,  by  George  William  Curtis.  These  charming  papers  were  published 
in  1856;  and  have  been  popular  ever  since,  as  the  subject  is  of  perennial  interest,  while 
the  treatment  is  in  the  author's  happiest  vein.  They  are  a  series  of  sketches  or  medi- 
tations showing  the  enjoyment  to  be  derived  from  even  the  most  commonplace 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  7°3 

existence.  The  spires  and  pinnacles  of  the  sunset  sky  belong  to  every  man;  and  in 
the  fair  realm  of  Fantasie  all  may  wander  at  will.  The  papers  are  supposed  to  be 
written  by  an  old  bookkeeper,  who  strolls  down  the  street  at  dinner-time,  and  without 
envy  watches  the  diners-out.  His  fancy  enables  him  to  dine  without  embarrassment 
at  the  most  select  tables,  and  to  enjoy  the  charming  conversation  of  the  beautiful 
Aurelia.  He  owns  many  castles  in  Spain,  where  he  can  summon  a  goodly  company, 
Jephthah's  daughter  and  the  Chevalier  Bayard,  fair  Rosamond  and  Dean  Swift,  — 
the  whole  train  of  dear  and  familiar  spirits.  He  goes  for  a  voyage  on  the  Flying 
Dutchman,  and  finds  on  board  all  who  have  spent  their  lives  on  useless  quests,  — 
Ponce  de  Leon,  and  the  old  Alchemist.  He  gives  us  the  pleasant  dreams  and  memo- 
ries roused  by  the  sea  in  those  who  love  it,  and  tells  the  simple,  pathetic  history  of 
'Our  Cousin  the  Curate.'  He  also  lets  his  deputy  bookkeeper  Titbottom  tell  the 
story  of  the  strange  spectacles,  which  show  a  man  as  he  is  in  his  nature,  —  a  wisp  of 
straw,  a  dollar  bill,  a  calm  lake.  Once  the  owner  was  in  love,  and,  looking  through  his 
spectacles  at  the  girl  he  adored,  he  beheld  —  himself.  But  whatever  the  suggestive 
and  genial  old  bookkeeper  is  thinking  or  relating,  his  heart  is  full  of  his  Prue;  from 
beginning  to  end  it  is  always  "  Prue  and  I. " 

PSYCHOLOGY,  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF,  a  scientific  treatise  by  William  James,  was 
published  in  its  complete  form  ('Advanced  Course')  in  1890  and  in  an  abridged  form 
('  Briefer  Course ')  in  1 892.  The  work  is  introduced  by  a  chapter  entitled  '  The  Scope 
of  Psychology '  followed  by  two  chapters  on  the  structure  and  functions  of  the  brain. 
Then  follows  a  series  of  somewhat  loosely  connected  chapters  (some  of  them  originally 
published  in  learned  reviews)  dealing  with  the  methods  of  psychological  investiga- 
tion, rival  theories  of  the  mind,  and  such  indispensable  topics  as  habit,  the  stream  of 
consciousness,  attention,  association,  memory,  imagination,  the  perception  of  space 
and  time,  instinct,  the  emotions,  and  the  will.  James  employs  both  introspection  and 
experiment  as  instruments  of  psychological  research.  He  refuses  to  trench  on  the 
province  of  metaphysics  by  discussing  anything  but  thoughts,  feelings,  volitions,  and 
their  relation  to  the  brain,  yet  he  is  no  materialist.  His  clearness  of  statement  and  pic- 
turesqueness  of  illustration  make  this  the  most  attractive  of  psychological  text-books. 

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERYDAY  LIFE  ('  Psychopathologie  des  Alltags- 
lebens')  a  psychological  treatise  by  Sigmund  Freud,  published  in  1904  and  in  an 
English  translation  by  A.  A,  Brill  in  1914.  The  general  thesis  is  that  the  pscho- 
pathologic  effects  which  appear  in  neurotic  conditions  may  also  be  observed,  though 
in  a  lesser  degree,  in  normal  persons.  For  example,  the  common  occurrence  of  for- 
getting a  well-known  name  with  or  without  substituting  some  other  for  it  is  due  to  its 
direct  or  indirect  suggestion  of  some  idea  which  is  disturbing  to  the  mind  and  which  is 
being  unconsciously  repressed.  The  connection  may  be  discovered  by  analyzing  the 
ideas  passing  through  the  subject's  mind,  some  of  which  by  their  associations  will 
probably  point  to  the  name  required.  A  similar  explanation  is  offered  for  our  appar- 
ently unmotivated  slips  of  the  tongue  or  pen,  absentminded  actions  and  omissions  to 
act,  misplacing  or  loss  of  objects,  abstracted  or  mechanical  movements,  and  errors  or 
blunders.  All  are  accounted  for  by  some  unconscious  but  strong  impulse  to  avoid 
something  disagreeable  or  to  indulge  some  hidden  desire  —  an  impulse  which  in  our 
conscious  life  is  forgotten  or  repressed.  There  is  no  room  for  chance  in  these  appar- 
ently trivial  actions;  all  are  determined  by  our  psychic  life  and  may  yield  the  richest 
information  to  the  psycho-analyst.  On  the  other  hand  the  coincidences  of  foreboding 
and  disaster,  of  omen  and  fulfilment  are  not,  on  present  evidence,  to  be  attributed  to 


704  THE   READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

supernatural  origin  but  to  some  unrecognized  association  of  ideas.  The  book  is  an 
exceedingly  stimulating  and  helpful  analysis  of  a  widespread  group  of  phenomena  of 
high  interest,  and  its  conclusions  are  based  on  strong  evidence.  One  feels  however, 
that  some  of  the  associations  are  forced,  and  that  there  is  too  great  readiness  to  find 
evidence  of  the  "sexual  complex." 

PUBLIC  FINANCE,  by  C.  F.  Bastable  (1892).  Every  governing  body  or  "State" 
requires  for  the  due  discharge  of  its  functions  repeated  supplies  of  commodities  and 
personal  services,  which  it  has  to  apply  to  the  accomplishment  of  whatever  ends  it 
may  regard  as  desirable.  For  all  States,  whether  rude  or  highly  developed,  some 
provisions  of  the  kind  are  necessary,  and  therefore  the  supply  and  application  of  State 
resources  constitute  the  subject-matter  of  a  study  which  is  best  entitled  in  English, 
'Public  Finance.'  The  author  discusses  the  general  features  of  State  economy,  the 
cost  of  defense,  the  expenditure  involved  in  the  maintenance  of  justice  and  security, 
the  relations  of  the  State  to  religion,  education,  industry,  commerce.  The  second 
part  is  devoted  to  public  revenues,  their  forms  and  classification,  whether  agricultural, 
industrial,  or  capitalist ;  the  third  and  fourth  to  the  principles  of  taxation,  and  the 
different  kinds  of  taxes;  the  fifth  to  the  relation  between  expenditure  and  receipts; 
the  sixth  to  the  preparation,  collection,  control,  and  audit  of  the  budget.  "Prudent 
expenditure,"  says  Professor  Bastable  in  conclusion,  "productive  and  equitable 
taxation,  and  due  equilibrium  between  income  and  outlay  will  only  be  found  where 
responsibility  is  enforced  by  the  public  opinion  of  an  active  and  enlightened  com- 
munity." 

PUCK  OF  POOK'S  HILL,  by  Rudyard  Kipling  (1906).  This  volume  comprises 
a  set  of  fantastic  tales,  juvenile  in  character.  Two  children  Dan  and  Una  amuse 
themselves  by  enacting  portions  of  'A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream'  which  they  do 
on  Midsummer  Eve,  in  the  middle  of  a  Fairy  Ring,  on  Pook's  Hill  in  old  England. 
Suddenly  Puck  appears  beside  them  and  after  instructing  them  in  fairy  lore  joins 
them  in  a  series  of  adventures.  In  the  successive  chapters  which  are  pervaded  by 
historic  personages  as  well  by  the  influences  of  the  fairies  and  People  of  the  Hills,  the 
reader  is  introduced  to  the  most  important  epochs  in  the  development  of  England's 
history;  the  children  are  instructed  by  Puck  regarding  the  heroes  of  Asgard  and 
various  other  traditional  happenings  and  in  their  sylvan  exploits  in  his  company  they 
constantly  encounter  the  famous  personages  under  discussion.  They  learn  of  the 
adventures  of  King  Philip's  fleet  as  they  tramp  through  the  pastures  through  which 
the  great  guns  were  once  carried  to  the  sea-coast.  As  they  fish  in  the  brook,  they  are 
instructed  regarding  the  "Domesday  Book"  and  the  ownership  of  the  land  where 
they  rest  under  the  trees.  The  woods  speak  to  them  of  the  doings  of  the  Saxons  and 
with  nimble  Puck  at  their  side  they  follow  the  footsteps  of  those  early  warriors;  they 
note  where  the  Northmen  fled,  and  where  Alfred's  ships  came  by.  King  John  and  his 
Magna  Charta  is  introduced  to  them  and  Roman  Legions  appear  before  them,  under 
the  guidance  of  Caesar.  King  Arthur  and  his  Knights  of  the  Round  Table  flit  before 
their  curious  gaze  and  when  in  the  final  chapter  Una  and  Dan  take  leave  of  Puck, 
they  have  learned  from  their  fantastic  guide  the  substance  of  all  the  vital  events 
which  have  played  the  principal  part  in  their  country's  development  and  have  been 
impressed  with  the  spirit  of  true  patriotism.  Each  chapter  is  prefaced  by  a  song, 
lyric,  or  ballad,  in  keeping  with  the  character  of  the  text  which  is  to  follow,  as  for 
example  'The  Runes  on  Weland's  Sword,'  'A  British-Roman  Song/  'A  Pict 
Song, '  'A  Smuggler's  Song, '  and  others  of  varying  theme. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  705 

PURCHAS  HIS  PILGRIMES.  This  remarkable  and  rare  book  was  published  in 
1619.  It  is  a  compilation  by  Samuel  Purchas,  a  London  divine,  of  the  letters  and 
histories  of  travel  of  more  than  thirteen  hundred  travelers.  It  consists  of  a  descrip- 
tion of  travel  in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  America;  and  the  later  editions  of  1625  and 
1626  contain  maps,  which  are  more  diverting  than  instructive.  In  this  work  the 
author  allows  the  travelers  to  speak  for  themselves;  but  in  'Purchas  his  Pilgrimage,' 
published  in  1613,  he  himself  gives  the  "Relation  of  the  World  and  the  Religions 
observed  in  all  ages  and  places  discovered,  from  the  Creation  unto  this  Present. " 

More  accurate  and  extensive  knowledge  has  to-day  supplanted  these  books,  and 
they  are  rarely  consulted  except  by  those  curious  to  know  the  ideas  in  regard  to  the 
rest  of  the  world,  which  then  obtained  in  England.  The  world,  however,  is  the  authors 
debtor  for  his  four-years'  labors;  and  it  is  sad  to  think  that  the  publication  of  these 
books  was  the  cause  of  his  death,  if  not  in  a  debtor's  prison,  at  least  in  want. 

PURITAN  IN  HOLLAND,  ENGLAND,  AND  AMERICA,  THE,  by  Douglas  Camp- 
bell (1892).  This  historical  survey  of  Puritanism  in  its  ethical,  social,  and  political 
aspects  is  strikingly  original,  since  it  seeks  to  demonstrate,  with  much  strength  and 
clearness,  that  the  debt  of  the  American  nation  for  its  most  radical  customs  and 
institutions  is  not  to  the  English  at  all,  but  to  the  Dutch.  It  endeavors  to  prove  that 
the  very  essence  of  Puritanism  came  originally  from  Holland,  leavened  the  English 
nation,  and  through  the  English  nation,  the  embryonic  American  nation.  Some  of 
the  most  common  of  American  institutions,  —  "common  lands  and  common  schools, 
the  written  ballot,  municipalities,  religious  tolerance,  a  federal  union  of  States,  the 
play  of  national  and  local  government,  the  supremacy  of  the  judiciary,"  —  all  these 
came  directly  from  Holland. 

Mr.  Campbell's  work  is  most  valuable  as  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  American 
history,  or  in  itself  considered  as  a  scholarly  though  not  always  impartial  monograph. 

PURPLE  ISLAND,  THE  (called  also  the  Isle  of  Man),  by  Phineas  Fletcher.  This 
poem,  in  twelve  cantos,  published  in  1633,  describes  the  human  body  as  an  island. 
The  bones  are  the  foundation;  the  veins  and  arteries,  rivers;  the  heart,  liver,  stomach, 
etc.,  goodly  cities;  the  mouth,  a  cave;  the  teeth  are  "twice  sixteen  porters,  receivers 
of  the  customary  rent";  the  tongue,  "a  groom  who  delivers  all  unto  neare  officers. " 
The  liver  is  the  arch-city,  where  two  purple  streams  (two  great  rivers  of  blood) 
"raise  their  boil-heads. "  The  eyes  are  watch-towers;  the  sight,  the  warder.  Taste 
and  the  tongue  are  man  and  wife.  The  island's  prince  is  the  intellect;  the  five  senses 
are  his  counselors.  Disease  and  vice  are  his  mortal  foes,  with  whom  he  wages  war. 
The  virtues  are  his  allies.  All  is  described  in  the  minutest  detail,  with  a  rare  knowledge 
of  anatomy,  and  there  is  a  profusion  of  literary  and  classical  allusion. 

PUSS  IN  BOOTS,  see  FAIRY  TALES. 

PUT  YOURSELF  IN  HIS  PLACE,  by  Charles  Reade  (1870)  is  a  dramatic  novel  with 
a  purpose.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Hillsborough,  an  English  manufacturing  city;  and 
the  story  relates  the  struggles  of  Henry  Little,  workman  and  inventor,  against  the 
jealousy  and  prejudice  of  the  trades-unions.  Because  he  is  a  Londoner,  because  he  is 
better  trained  and  consequently  better  paid  than  the  Hillsborough  men,  because  he 
invents  quicker  processes  and  labor-saving  devices,  he  is  subjected  to  a  series  of 
persecutions  worthy  of  the  Dark  Ages,  and  is  ground  between  the  two  millstones  of 
Capital  and  Labor;  —  for  if  the  workmen  are  ferocious  and  relentless,  they  have 
45 


706  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

learned  their  villainy  from  the  masters  and  bettered  the  instruction.  This  stem 
study  of  social  problems,  however,  is  nowhere  a  tract,  but  always  the  story  of  Henry 
Little,  who  is  as  devoted  a  lover  as  he  is  honest  a  workman,  as  thorough  a  social 
reformer  as  a  clear,  practical  thinker,  and  the  hero  of  as  bitter  a  fight  against  pre- 
judice, worldly  ambition,  and  unscrupulous  rivalry  outside  the  mills,  as  that  which  he 
wages  against  "The  Trades."  Among  the  notable  figures  in  the  book  are  Squire 
Raby,  Henry's  uncle,  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school;  Jael  Dence,  the  country  girl, 
simple,  honest,  and  strong;  Grotait,  the  gentlemanly  president  of  the  Saw-Grinders' 
Union,  with  his  suave  manners  and  his  nickname  of  "Old  Smitem  " ;  and  Dr.  Amboyne 
philanthropist  and  peacemaker,  who  maintains  thai*  to  get  on  with  anybody  you  must 
understand  him,  and  when  you  understand  him  you  will  get  on  with  him.  His 
favorite  motto  is  the  title  of  the  book.  Like  all  of  Charles  Reade's  stories,  'Put 
Yourself  in  His  Place '  has  a  wealth  of  dramatic  incident,  and  moves  with  dash  and 
vigor. 

QUABBIN:  "The  Story  of  a  Small  Town,  —  with  Outlooks  upon  Puritan  Life,'  by 
Francis  H.  Underwood  (1893).  It  is  the  biography  of  a  New  England  town,  and  is 
dedicated  "to  those,  wherever  they  are,  who  have  inherited  the  blood  and  shared  the 
progress  of  the  descendants  of  Pilgrims  and  Puritans. "  No  detail  of  village  and  farm 
life  has  been  left  out  as  too  homely;  and  familiar  scenes,  outdoors  and  in,  are  de- 
scribed in  '  Quabbin '  with  that  care  which  writers  often  reserve  for  the  novel  aspects 
of  some  foreign  land.  This  quality  lends  the  book  its  interest.  The  social  characteris- 
tics of  a  New  England  town  are  graphically  noted;  the  minister's  revered  chief  place; 
"general-training  day";  the  temperance  movement,  started  at  a  time  when  drunken- 
ness from  the  rum  served  at  ministerial  "installations"  was  not  infrequent,  and 
ending  in  the  total-abstinence  societies,  and  in  rigid  no-license  laws  for  the  town. 
With  the  railroad  came  "improvements,"  including  comforts  that  were  unknown 
luxuries  before;  and  to-day,  "with  morning  newspapers,  the  telegraph,  and  three 
daily  mails,  Quabbin  belongs  to  the  great  world." 

QUEECHY,  by  "Elizabeth  Wetherell"  (Susan  Warner).  'Queechy'  was  written  in 
1852,  and  sold  by  the  thousand  in  both  England  and  America;  being  translated  into 
German,  French,  and  Swedish.  Mrs.  Browning  admired  it,  and  wrote  of  it  to  a 
friend:  "I  think  it  very  clever  and  characteristic.  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe  scarcely 
exceeds  it,  after  all  her  trumpets. "  The  story  takes  place  chiefly  in  Queechy,  Ver- 
mont. Fleda  Ringgan,  an  orphan,  on  the  death  of  her  grandfather,  goes  to  her  aunt 
Mrs.  Rossiter,  in  Paris,  under  the  care  of  Mrs.  Carleton  and  her  son,  rich  English 
people.  Every  man  who  sees  Fleda,  from  the  time  she  is  eleven,  falls  in  love  with 
her;  but  she  loves  only  Carleton,  whom  she  converts  to  Christianity.  The  Rossiters 
lose  their  money,  and  return  to  Queechy,  where  Fleda  farms,  cooks  and  makes  maple- 
sugar,  to  support  her  family.  Carleton  revisits  America,  and  is  always  at  hand  to  aid 
Fleda  in  every  emergency;  although  he  never  speaks  of  love  until  they  are  snowed  up 
on  a  railway  journey.  He  saves  her  from  the  persecutions  of  Thorn,  a  rival  lover. 
His  mother  takes  her  to  England.  They  are  married,  and  do  good  for  many  years. 

QUEED,  by  Henry  Sydnor  Harrison  (1911).  This  is  the  story  of  the  evolution  of 
Mr.  Queed  from  a  dried  up  and  eccentric  little  person,  who  is  all  intellect,  to  a  normal 
human  being,  who  develop es  his  muscles  and  falls  in  love  with  a  charming  girl  named 
Sharlee  Wayland.  At  the  opening  of  the  story  Mr.  Queed  has  a  humiliating  en- 
counter with  Miss  Wayland 's  big  dog  who  knocks  him  down  on  a  crowded  thorough- 
fare and  kindles  his  indignation.  Later  he  encounters  Miss  Wayland  at  her  aunt's 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  707 

boarding-house  where  he  is  living  and  toiling  day  and  night  over  a  monumental  work 
on  Sociology.  Miss  Wayland  becomes  gradually  interested  in  Mr.  Queed  as  an 
intellectual  curiosity,  who  is  sadly  in  need  of  humanizing  influences  as  well  as  re- 
munerative labor ;  she  secures  him  a  position  on  a  daily  paper  where  he  exercises  his 
intellectual  powers  effectively  but  where  he  discovers  that  he  is  physically  a  weakling, 
when  he  is  attacked  by  an  irate  proof-reader.  From  this  time  Mr.  Queed  sets  out  to 
develop  his  muscles  and  consorts  with  a  pugilistic  friend  named  Klinker,  who  intro- 
duces him  to  athletic  circles.  By  degrees  the  life  around  him  begins  more  and  more 
to  reach  him,  first  at  one  point  and  then  at  another,  until  in  the  course  of  time  he 
develops  a  normal  and  rounded  manhood.  The  mystery  which  has  surrounded  his 
birth  is  in  the  end  cleared  up,  and  he  discovers  that  he  is  the  son  and  heir  of  Henry  G. 
Surface,  whom  he  had  known  under  the  name  of  Professor  Niclovius.  The  chance 
discovery  of  a  letter  bearing  the  name  of  Surface  reveals  the  Professor's  identity,  and 
the  young  man  confronts  him  with  the  fact  and  he  confesses  that  he  is  the  hated  and 
despised  being  who  has  won  a  dishonorable  notoriety  in  years  past,  and  who  has 
betrayed  the  friendship  of  Miss  Way  land's  father  and  looted  her  own  fortune  so  that 
she  is  forced  to  earn  her  living.  Not  until  after  the  death  of  the  supposed  Professor 
does  Queed  learn  that  he  is  in  reality  Henry  G.  Surface,  Jr.  This  discovery  causes 
him  to  at  once  set  about  righting  the  wrong  done  by  his  father.  He  turns  over  his 
estate  to  Miss  Wayland  who  promptly  refuses  it,  though  she  shows  her  partiality  for 
its  owner.  In  the  end  a  compromise  is  arranged  and  she  accepts  the  money  with  the 
understanding  that  she  shall  use  it  to  endow  a  Reformatory  which  she  calls  the  Henry 
G.  Surface,  Junior  Home.  The  young  people  are  united  and  Mr.  Queed  becomes 
editor-in-chief  of  an  important  paper. 

QUENTIN  DURWARD,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  (1823).  The  scene  of  this  exciting 
story  is  France  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XL,  and  its  main  outline  is  this:  Quentin 
Durward,  a  brave  young  Scot,  having  a  relative  in  the  Scottish  Guards  of  the  French 
king,  comes  to  France  to  seek  his  fortune.  The  crafty  and  superstitious  Louis  is 
pleased  with  the  youth,  and  sends  him  on  a  strange  errand.  Under  the  royal  protec- 
tion are  two  vassals  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  the  lovely  Isabelle  of  Croye  and  her 
scheming  aunt.  Charles  of  Burgundy  is  too  formidable  an  enemy,  and  Louis  decides 
to  make  Isabelle  the  wife  of  William  de  la  Marck,  a  notorious  brigand,  who  is  quite 
able  to  defend  his  bride.  The  unsuspecting  Quentin  is  sent  to  conduct  the  ladies  to 
the  Bishop  of  Liege,  the  plan  being  that  William  shall  attack  the  party  and  carry  off 
his  prize.  Quentin,  discovering  the  king's  treachery,  succeeds  in  delivering  his 
charge  to  the  bishop;  but  even  here  she  is  not  safe.  William  attacks  the  castle  of 
Liege  and  murders  the  bishop,  while  Quentin  and  Isabelle  escape.  She  returns  to 
Burgundy,  preferring  her  old  persecutor  to  the  perfidious  king.  But  that  wily 
monarch  has  already  joined  forces  with  the  bold  duke,  to  avenge  the  bishop's  death 
and  to  besiege  De  la  Marck.  Charles  offers  the  hand  of  Isabelle  as  a  prize  .to  the 
conqueror  of  William,  and  Quentin  bears  off  in  triumph  a  not  unwilling  bride. 

Among  the  chief  characters  introduced  are  the  Burgundian  herald,  the  Count  of 
Crevecceur,  and  Le  Balafr£  of  the  Scottish  Guard,  Quentin's  uncle.  The  figure  of 
Louis  is  well  drawn  in  his  superstitions,  his  idolatry  of  the  leaden  images  that  gar- 
nished his  hat-band,  in  his  political  intriguing,  and  in  his  faithlessness  and  lack  of 
honor.  The  book  made  a  sensation  in  France,  and  its  first  success  was  on  foreign 
shores.  It  was  written  at  the  flood-tide  of  Scott's  popularity  at  home;  the  ebb  began 
with ''St.  Ronan's  Well,'  published  six  months  later.  The  principal  anachronisms 
are  noted  in  the  later  editions. 


70S  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

QUICK  OR  THE  DEAD?,  THE,  a  novelette  by  Amelie  Rives,  was  first  published  in 
1883  in  Lippincott's  Magazine.  It  attained  at  once  great  notoriety  in  this  country 
and  in  England,  because  of  the  peculiar  treatment  of  the  subject,  the  strangeness  of 
its  style,  and  the  flashiness  of  the  title,  which  has  become  one  of  the  best  known  in 
fiction.  Its  hysteria,  its  abundant  and  bizarre  use  of  adjectives,  and  its  innocent 
treatment  of  passion,  betrayed  the  youth  and  inexperience  of  the  author;  yet  it  is  not 
without  traces  of  genius.  The  heroine,  Barbara  Pomfret,  is  a  young  widow,  whose 
husband,  Valentine,  has  been  dead  two  years  when  the  story  opens.  In  the  first 
chapter  she  is  returning  to  the  old  Virginia  homestead,  where  she  has  passed  the  few 
months  of  an  absolutely  happy  married  life.  There  everything  reminds  her  of  her 
lost  love,  awakening  the  pain  that  she  had  sought  to  lull  to  sleep.  She  has  not  been 
long  among  the  familiar  scenes,  when  Valentine's  cousin,  John  Dering,  who  has  come 
to  the  neighborhood,  calls  to  see  her.  His  remarkable  resemblance  to  Barbara's 
dead  husband,  in  appearance  and  speech  and  manner,  is  at  first  a  source  of  suffering 
to  her.  After  a  time,  however,  this  resemblance  becomes  a  consolation.  Yet  she 
rebels  against  her  new  feeling  as  disloyal  to  Valentine.  She  struggles  to  keep  the 
identity  of  the  two  men  distinct.  She  hates  herself  because  she  cares  for  her  cousin. 
Yet  her  love  for  him  grows  stronger,  as  his  passion  for  her  becomes  more  imperious. 
She  strives  to  resist  it,  to  be  true  to  the  dead.  Finally  she  gives  herself  up  to  her 
love  for  the  living,  but  her  abandonment  to  her  overmastering  passion  is  of  short 
duration.  She  believes  that  she  is  more  bound  to  the  dead  than  to  the  living,  and 
sends  John  away  at  the  last,  that  she  may  be  faithful  to  her  first  love.  'The  Quick 
or  the  Dead?'  is  morbid  and  immature  to  a  high  degree;  yet  as  a  psychological  study 
of  a  sensitive  woman's  conflicting  emotions  it  is  not  without  interest  and  significance. 
The  style  is  impressionistic.  "In  the  glimpsing  lightning  she  saw  scurrying  trees 
against  the  suave  autumn  sky,  like  etchings  on  bluish  paper. "  "A  rich  purple-blue 
dusk  had  sunk  down  over  the  land,  and  the  gleam  of  the  frozen  ice-pond  in  the  far 
field  shone  desolately  forth  from  tangled  patches  of  orange-colored  wild  grass." 
"She  threw  herself  into  a  drift  of  crimson  pillows  .  .  .  brooding  upon  the  broken 
fire,  whose  lilac  flames  palpitated  over  a  bed  of  gold- veined  coals. " 

QUINCY  ADAMS  SAWYER,  by  Charles  Felton  Pidgin  (1900).  This  novel 
recounts  the  experiences  of  Quincy  Adams  Sawyer  of  Boston,  the  son  of  a  million- 
aire and  a  graduate  of  Harvard  College,  who  spends  two  years  in  the  country 
town  known  as  Mason's  Corner,  where  he  finds  many  quaint  country  personages. 
Sawyer,  while  recuperating  his  health,  enters  into  the  life  of  the  place  and  attends 
the  singing-school,  husking-bees,  and  surprise-parties  with  various  village  belles, 
finally  falling  in  love  with  Miss  Alice  Pettengill,  who  develops  into  a  talented  poet 
and  author.  The  book  breathes  the  atmosphere  of  familiar  country  scenes  and  quaint 
characters,  among  whom  may  be  mentioned  Obadiah  Strout,  the  singing-master  of 
the  town,  who  has  composed  a  new  national  air  which  he  prophesies  will  be  sung 
when  the  'Star-Spangled  Banner'  and  'Hail  Columbia1  "are  laid  upon  the  shelf 
and  all  covered  with  dust."  Hiram  Maxwell,  another  original  character,  blessed 
with  a  great  appetite,  remarks,  "I've  got  only  one  way  of  tellin'  when  I've  got  enough, 
—  I  allus  eats  till  it  hurts  me,  then  I  stop  while  the  pain  lasts. ' ' 

Sawyer  marries  Miss  Alice  Pettengill,  who  for  a  time  becomes  blind,  but 
whose  sight  is  in  the  end  restored.  The  object  of  Mr.  Pidgin  in  the  production  of 
this  story  is  twofold  —  to  give  a  realistic  picture  of  New  England  life  of  twenty- 
five  years  ago  and  at  the  same  time  to  paint  the  portrait  of  a  true  American 
gentleman. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  709 

QUINTUS  CLAUDIUS,  by  Ernst  Eckstein.  (Translated  from  the  German  by 
Clara  Bell.)  This  story,  which  appeared  originally  in  1881,  is  'A  Romance  of  Im- 
perial Rome'  during  the  first  century.  The  work  was  first  suggested  to  the  author's 
mind  as  he  stood  amid  the  shadows  of  the  Colosseum  and  the  earlier  scenes  are 
largely  laid  in  the  palaces  and  temples  that  lie  in  ruins  near  by  this  spot.  The  central 
motive  of  the  book  is  the  gradual  conversion  to  Christianity  of  Quintus  Claudius, 
son  of  Titus  Claudius,  priest  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus;  his  avowal  of  the  same,  and  the 
consequences  that  flow  from  it  to  himself,  his  family,  and  his  promised  wife,  Cornelia. 
The  time  of  the  story  is  95  A.  D.  at  the  close  of  the  gloomy  reign  of  Domitian;  and 
the  book  ends  with  that  Emperor's  assassination  and  the  installation  of  Nerva  and 
Trajan.  The  story  enjoyed  a  wide  popularity  in  its  day. 

QUO  VADIS  (1895)  perhaps  the  most  popular  novel  of  the  Polish  master  in  fiction, 
Henryk  Sienkiewicz,  is,  like  the  "trilogy, "  historical;  it  deals,  however,  not  with  the 
history  of  Poland,  but  with  that  of  Rome  in  the  time  of  Nero.  The  magnificent 
spectacular  environment  of  the  decaying  Roman  empire,  the  dramatic  qualities  of 
the  Christian  religion,  then  assuming  a  world-wide  significance,  offer  rich  material 
for  the  genius  of  Sienkiewicz.  He  presents  the  background  of  his  narrative  with 
marvelous  vividness.  Against  it  he  draws  great  figures:  Petronius,  the  lordly  Roman 
noble  the  very  flower  of  paganism;  Eunice  and  Lygia,  diverse  products  of  the  same 
opulent  world;  Nero,  the  beast-emperor;  the  Christians  seeking  an  unseen  kingdom 
in  a  city  overwhelmed  by  the  symbols  of  earthly  imperialism;  and  many  others 
typical  of  dying  Rome,  or  of  that  new  Rome  to  be  established  on  the  ruined  throne 
of  the  Caesars.  The  novel  as  a  whole  is  intensely  dramatic,  sometimes  melodramatic. 
Its  curious  title  has  reference  to  an  ancient  legend,  which  relates  that  St.  Peter, 
fleeing  from  Rome  and  from  crucifixion,  meets  his  Lord  Christ  on  the  Appian  Way. 
"Lord,  whither  goest  thou?"  (Domine,  quo  vadis?)  cries  Peter.  "To  Rome,  to  be 
crucified  again",  "  is  the  reply.  The  apostle  thereupon  turns  back  to  his  martyrdom. 
While  'Quo  Vadis '  cannot  rank  with  the  "trilogy, "  it  is  in  many  respects  a  remark- 
able novel. 

QUR'AN,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

RAB  AND  HIS  FRIENDS,  by  Dr.  John  Brown  (1855),  a  short  story  by  a  well- 
beloved  Edinburgh  physician,  is  in  its  way  a  classic.  Rab  is  a  sturdy  mastiff  — 
"old,  gray,  brindled,  as  big  as  a  little  Highland  bull"  —  with  "Shakespearean 
dewlaps  shaking  as  he  goes."  His  friends  are  his  master  and  mistress,  James  Noble, 
the  Howgate  carrier,  "a  keen,  thin,  impatient,  black-a- vised  little  man";  and  the 
exquisite  old  Scotchman,  his  wife  Ailie,  with  her  "unforgettable  face,  pale,  serious, 
lonely,  delicate,  sweet,"  with  dark  gray  eyes  "full  of  suffering,  full  also  of  the  over- 
coming of  it."  Ailie  is  enduring  a  terrible  malady;  and  her  husband  wraps  her  care- 
fully in  his  plaid  and  brings  her  in  his  cart  to  the  ^hospital,  where  her  dignified  patient 
lovableness  through  a  dangerous  operation  moves  even  the  thoughtless  medical 
students  to  tears.  She  is  nursed  by  her  husband.  "Handy,  and  clever,  and  swift, 
and  patient  as  any  woman,  was  that  horny-handed,  snell,  peremptory  little  man"; 
while  Rab,  quiet  and  obedient,  but  saddened  and  disquieted  by  the  uncomprehended 
trouble,  jealously  guards  the  two.  Perhaps  no  truer,  more  convincing  dog  character 
exists  in  literature  than  that  of  ugly  faithful  Rab. 

RAIDERS,  THE,  by  Samuel  R.  Crockett  (1894),  the  best  story  by  this  author,  is  an 
old-time  romance,  dealing  with  the  struggles  with  the  outlaws  and  smugglers  in  Gallo- 


710  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

way  early  in  the  eighteenth,  century.  It  is  a  thrilling  tale  of  border  warfare  and  wild 
gipsy  life,  and  it  embodies  many  old  traditions  of  that  time  and  place.  The  hero, 
Patrick  Heron,  is  laird  of  the  Isle  of  Rathan,  — -  "  an  auld  name,  though  noo-a-days  wi' 
but  little  to  the  tail  o't."  He  is  in  love  with  May  Maxwell,  called  May  Mischief  —  is 
a  sister  of  the  Maxwells  of  Craigdarrock,  who  are  by  far  the  strongest  of  all  the 
smuggling  families. 

Hector  Faa,  the  chief  of  the  Raiders,  sees  May  Mischief,  and  he  too  loves  her 
in  his  wild  way.  The  Raiders  are,  for  the  most  part,  the  remnants  of  broken  clans, 
who  have  been  outlawed  even  from  the  border  countries,  and  are  made  up  of  tribes 
of  Marshalls,  Macatericks,  Millers,  and  Faas.  Most  conspicuous  among  them  are 
the  last-named,  calling  themselves,  "Lords  and  Earls  of  Little  Egypt."  By  reason 
of  his  position  and  power,  Hector  Faa  dares  to  send  word  to  the_  Maxwells  that  their 
sister  must  be  his  bride. 

"The  curse  that  Richard  Maxwell  sent  back  is  remembered  yet  in  the  Hill  Coun- 
try, and  his  descendants  mention  it  with  a  kind  of  pride.  It  was  considered  as  fine 
a  thing  as  the  old  man  ever  did  since  he  dropped  profane  swearing  and  took  to  ana- 
themas from  the  psalms,  —  which  did  just  as  well." 

The  outlaws  then  proceed  to  attack  the  Maxwells  and  carry  off  May  Mischief. 
Patrick  Heron  joins  the  Maxwells  in  the  long  search  for  their  sister.  After  many 
bloody  battles  and  hair-breadth  escapes,  he  is  finally  successful  in  rescuing  her  from 
the  Murder  Hole.  This  he  accomplishes  by  the  aid  of  Silver  Sand,  the  Still  Hunter,  a 
mysterious  person  who  "has  the  freedom  of  the  hill  fastness  of  the  gipsies."  He  has 
proved  himself  the  faithful  friend  of  Patrick  Heron.  He  turns  out  to  be  John  Faa, 
King  of  the  Gipsies. 

RALPH  ROISTER  DOISTER,  by  Nicholas  Udall,  was  the  first  English  comedy, 
although  not  printed  until  1556,  and  probably  written  about  1541.  At  this  time 
Nicholas  Udall,  its  author,  was  headmaster  of  Eton  school;  and  the  comedy  was 
written  for  the  schoolboys,  whose  custom  it  was  to  act  a  Latin  play  at  the  Christmas 
season.  An  English  play  was  an  innovation,  but '  Ralph  Roister  Doister '  was  very 
successful;  and  though  Nicholas  Udall  rose  in  the  Church,  reaching  the  dignity  of 
canon  of  Windsor,  he  is  chiefly  remembered  as  the  author  of  this  comedy. 

Roisterer  is  an  old  word  for  swaggerer  or  boaster;  and  the  hero  of  this  little  five- 
act  comedy  is  a  good-natured  fellow,  fond  of  boasting  of  his  achievements,  especially 
what  he  has  accomplished  or  might  accomplish  in  love.  The  play  concerns  itself 
with  his  rather  impertinent  suit  to  Dame  Christian  Custance,  "a  widow  with  a 
thousand  pound, "  who  is  already  the  betrothed  of  Gavin  Goodluck.  But  as  Gavin, 
a  thrifty  merchant,  is  away  at  sea,  Ralph  Roister  Doister  sees  no  reason  why  he 
should  not  try  his  luck.  His  confidant  is  Matthew  Merrygreek,  a  needy  humorist, 
who  undertakes  to  be  a  go-between  and  gain  the  widow's  good-will  for  Ralph.  He 
tries  to  get  some  influence  over  the  servants  of  Custance;  and  there  is  a  witty  scene 
with  the  three  maids,  —  Madge  Mumblecrust,  Tibet  Talkapace,  and  Annot  Allface. 
The  servants  of  Ralph  —  Harpax  and  Dobinet  Doughty  —  have  a  considerable 
part  in  the  play,  and  the  latter  complains  rather  bitterly  that  he  has  to  run  about  so 
much  in  the  interest  of  his  master's  flirtations. 

Dame  Custance,  though  surprised  at  the  presumption  of  Ralph  and  his  friend, 
at  length  consents  to  read  a  letter  which  he  has  sent  her,  or  rather  to  have  it  read  to 
her  by  Matthew  Merrygreek.  The  latter,  by  mischievously  altering  the  punctua- 
tion, makes  the  letter  seem  the  reverse  of  what  had  been  intended.  Ralph  is  ready  to 
kill  the  scrivener  who  had  indited  the  letter  for  him,  until  the  poor  man,  by  reading  it 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  711 

aloud  himself,  proves  his  integrity.  While  Dame  Custance  has  no  intention  of 
accepting  Ralph,  his  suit  makes  trouble  between  her  and  Gavin  Goodluck,  whose 
friend,  Sim  Suresby,  reports  that  the  widow  is  listening  to  other  suitors.  There  is 
much  amusing  repartee,  several  funny  scenes,  and  all  ends  well. 

RAMBLES  AND  STUDIES  IN  GREECE,  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy  (1876,  yth  ed.,  1913). 
A  record  of  what  was  seen,  felt,  and  thought  in  two  journeys  to  Greece,  by  a  man 
trained  in  classic  knowledge  and  feeling.  By  many  critics  it  has  been  preferred  to  the 
author's  'Social  Life  in  Greece.'  The  titles  of  some  of  the  chapters,  'First  Impres- 
sions of  the  Coast,'  'Athens  and  Attica,'  'Excursions  in  Attica,'  'From  Athens  to 
Thebes,1  'Chaeronea, '  'Delphi,'  'Olympia  and  its  Games,'  'Arcadia/  'Corinth,' 
'Mycenae,'  'Greek  Music  and  Painting,'  etc.,  show  something  of  the  scope  of  the 
volume.  From  his  study  of  the  ancient  Greek  literature,  Professor  Mahaffy  had 
reached  the  conclusion  that  it  greatly  idealized  the  old  Greeks.  In  his  'Social 
Life  in  Greece,'  1874,  ne  described  them  as  he  thought  they  actually  were;  and  this 
description  very  nearly  agrees,  he  says,  with  what  he  found  in  modern  Greece.  He 
judges  that  the  modern  Greeks  —  like  the  anciente  as  he  sees  them  —  are  not  a 
passionate  race,  and  have  great  reasonableness,  needing  but  the  opportunity  to  out- 
strip many  of  their  contemporaries  in  politics  and  science.  The  volume  reveals  the 
acute  observer  whose  reasoning  is  based  on  special  knowledge. 

RAMONA,  by  Helen  Jackson  (1885).  This  story  is  a  picturesque,  sympathetic, 
and  faithful  picture  of  Spanish  and  Indian  life  in  California.  The  scene  opens  upon 
an  old  Mexican  estate  in  Southern  California,  where  the  Senora  Moreno  lives,  with  her 
son  Felipe,  and  her  adopted  daughter  Ramona,  a  beautiful  half-breed,  Scotch  and 
Indian.  Ramona  betroths  herself  to  Alessandro,  a  young  Indian  of  noble  character. 
Senora  Moreno  forbidding  the  marriage,  they  elope,  to  face  a  series  of  cruel  mis- 
fortunes. The  Indians  of  Alessandro 's  village  are  deprived  of  their  land  by  the  greed 
of  the  American  settlers;  and  wherever  they  settle,  the  covetousness  of  the  superior 
race  drives  them,  sooner  or  later,  to  remoter  shelters.  The  proud  and  passionate 
Alessandro  is  driven  mad  by  his  wrongs,  and  his  story  ends  in  tragedy,  though  a  sunset 
light  of  peace  falls  at  last  on  Ramona.  So  rich  is  the  story  in  local  color,  —  the  frolic 
and  toil  of  the  sheep-shearing,  the  calm  opulence  of  the  sun-steeped  vineyards,  the 
busy  ranch,  the  Indian  villages;  so  strong  is  it  in  character,  —  the  bigoted  just  chate- 
laine, the  tender  Ramona,  the  good  old  priest,  —  that  its  effect  of  reality  is  unescap- 
able;  and  Calif ornians  still  point  out  with  pleased  pride  the  low-spreading  hacienda 
where  Ramona  lived,  the  old  chapel  where  she  worshipped,  the  stream  where  she  saw 
her  lovely  face  reflected,  though  none  of  these  existed  save  in  the  imagination  of  the 
author. 

RAVENSHOE,  by  Henry  Kingsley  (1862).  The  "House  of  Ravenshoe"  in  Stoning- 
ton,  Ireland,  is  the  scene  of  this  novel;  and  the  principal  actors  are  the  members  of 
the  noble  family  of  Ravenshoe.  The  plot,  remarkable  for  its  complexity,  has  three 
stages.  Denzel  Ravenshoe,  a  Catholic,  marries  a  Protestant  wife.  They  have  two 
sons,  Cuthbert  and  Charles.  Cuthbert  is  brought  up  as  a  Catholic  and  Charles  as  a 
Protestant.  This  is  the  cause  of  enmity  on  the  part  of  Father  Mackworth,  a  dark, 
sullen  man,  the  priest  of  the  family,  who  has  friendly  relations  with  Cuthbert  alone. 
James  Norton,  Denzel's  groom,  is  on  intimate  terms  with  his  master.  He  marries 
Norah,  the  maid  of  Lady  Ravenshoe.  Charles  becomes  a  sunny,  lovable  man, 
Cuthbert  a  reticent  bookworm.  They  have  for  playmates  William  and  Ellen, 


712  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  children  of  Norah.  Two  women  play  an  important  part  in  the  life  of  the  hero, 
Charles,  —  Adelaide,  very  beautiful  in  form  and  figure,  with  little  depth,  and  lovely 
Mary  Corby,  who,  cast  up  by  shipwreck,  is  adopted  by  Norah.  Charles  becomes 
engaged  to  Adelaide.  The  plot  deepens.  Father  Mackworth  proves  that  Charles  is 
the  true  son  of  Norah  and  James  Norton,  the  illegitimate  brother  of  Denzel;  and 
William,  the  groom  foster-brother,  is  real  heir  of  Ravenshoe.  To  add  to  the  grief  of 
Charles,  Adelaide  elopes  with  his  cousin  Lord  Welter.  Charles  flees  to  London,  tries 
grooming,  and  then  joins  the  Hussars.  Finally  he  is  found  in  London  by  a  college 
friend,  Marston,  with  a  raving  fever  upon  him.  After  recovery,  Charles  returns  to 
Ravenshoe.  Father  Mackworth  again  produces  evidence  that  not  James  Norton, 
but  Denzel  is  the  illegitimate  son,  and  Charles,  after  all,  is  true  heir  to  Ravenshoe. 
The  union  of  Charles  and  Mary  then  takes  place. 

REAL  FOLKS,  by  Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney  (1871).  Mrs.  Whitney  explains  the  real 
folks  she  means  in  the  saying  of  one  of  her  characters:  "Real  folks,  the  true  livers, 
the  genuine  neahburs  —  nighdwellers;  they  who  abide  alongside  in  spirit."  It  is  a 
domestic  story  dealing  with  two  generations.  The  sisters  Frank  and  Laura  Old- 
ways,  left  orphans,  are  adopted  into  different  households:  Laura,  into  that  of  her 
wealthy  aunt,  where  she  is  surrounded  by  the  enervating  influences  of  wealth  and 
social  ambitions;  Frank,  into  a  simply  country  home,  where  her  lovable  character 
develops  in  its  proper  environment.  They  marry,  become  mothers,  and  reaching 
middle  age  come,  at  the  wish  of  their  rich  bachelor  uncle  Titus  Old  ways,  to  live  near 
him  in  Boston.  The  episodes  in  the  two  households,  the  Ripwinldeys  and  Ledwiths, 
so  widely  divergent  in  character,  complete  the  story;  which,  while  never  rising  above 
the  ordinary  and  familiar,  yet,  like  the  pictures  of  the  old  Dutch  interiors,  charms 
with  its  atmosphere  of  repose.  It  is  a  work  for  mothers  and  daughters  alike.  It 
exhibits  the  worth  of  the  domestic  virtues  and  the  vanity  of  all  worldly  things;  but 
it  never  becomes  preachy.  Its  New  England  atmosphere  is  genuine,  and  the  sayings 
of  the  characters  are  often  racy  of  the  soil;  while  the  author's  sense  of  humor  carries 
her  safely  over  some  obstacles  of  emotion  which  might  easily  become  sentimentality. 

REAL  WORLD,  THE,  by  Robert  Herrick  (1901).  In  this  story,  the  author  presents 
an  interesting  study  of  American  social  conditions,  as  viewed  through  the  eyes  of  his 
hero,  Jack  Pemberton,  three  phases  of  whose  life  are  depicted,  "  childhood, "  "youth, ' ' 
and  "manhood."  Pemberton's  early  days  are  darkened  by  poverty  and  family  dis- 
sensions and,  amid  discordant  surroundings,  he  begins  to  realize  that  most  individuals 
create  for  themselves  an  unreal  environment  in  which  they  live,  mistaking  their  own 
shadowy  creations  for  reality;  he  determines  to  find  for  himself  the  "real  world," 
and  the  author  traces  his  gradual  awakening  to  ambition  for  success  in  the  social  and 
material  universe,  and  his  final  recognition  that  the  "reality"  he  seeks  must  be  upon 
a  higher  plane.  While  acting  as  clerk  at  a  summer  hotel,  Pemberton  makes  the 
acquaintance  of  Elsie  Alason,  a  brilliant,  impulsive,  and  ambitious  girl  who  becomes 
his  youthful  idol  and  who  shares  with  him  her  worldly  wisdom.  She  fires  him  with 
aspirations  for  the  world  she  seeks  to  conquer,  and  his  love  for  her  forms  the  ruling 
motive  of  his  early  career.  She  continues  to  influence  him  strongly,  even  after  her 
mercenary  marriage  with  a  rich  man,  until  he  awakens  to  a  realization  of  the  utter 
frivolity  of  her  character  and  discovers  that  she,  too,  is  a  phantom.  In  the  end  he 
wins  the  love  of  the  sweet  and  conservative  Isabelle  Mather,  who  has  passed  through 
an  unfortunate  engagement  with  Elsie  Mason's  dissipated  brother,  and  who  helps 
him  to  attain  his  "real  world."  The  author  follows  Pemberton Ts  career  as  a*poor 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  713 

boy,  a  hotel  clerk,  a  student  at  Harvard  College,  and  takes  leave  of  him  as  a  successful 
lawyer,  who  has  passed  through  many  trials  and  struggles  which  have  developed  in 
him  a  strong,  upright  character. 

REBECCA  OF  SUNNYBROOK  FARM,  by  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin  (1903).  This 
is  the  story  of  a  quaint  and  original  little  girl,  whose  trite  sayings  are  a  constant  source 
of  amusement  to  the  reader.  Rebecca  Randall  is  one  of  seven  children  and  their 
mother  being  a  widow  with  nothing  but  a  mortgaged  farm  for  their  support,  they 
have  known  little  besides  work  and  privation.  Nevertheless,  Rebecca,  blest  with 
an  optimistic  spirit,  sees  the  silver  lining  in  the  clouds  and  makes  the  best  of  her 
surroundings.  At  the  age  of  ten  she  leaves  home  to  go  to  live  with  her  mother's 
two  unmarried  sisters,  Miranda  and  Jane,  who  are  to  take  charge  of  her  and  send 
her  to  school.  Rebecca  makes  the  journey  to  Riverboro'  alone  by  stage  and  in  so 
doing  wins  the  heart  of  the  stage-driver,  Mr.  Cobb,  who  becomes  her  staunch 
friend.  Her  life  in  her  new  home  is  full  of  trials  as  her  aunt  Miranda  is  severe 
and  unreasonable,  but  Rebecca  by  her  winning  ways  practically  softens  her  hard 
nature.  At  school  Rebecca  finds  a  friend  and  congenial  spirit  in  Emma  Jane 
Perkins  and  their  intimacy  continues  throughout  the  story.  Rebecca's  aptness  at 
her  lessons  and  her  originality  of  thought  and  expression  arouse  the  interest  of  her 
teacher  who  does  all  she  can  to  aid  her  progress.  In  Mr.  Adam  Ladd,  a  kind  and 
generous  young  man,  Rebecca  finds  the  prince  of  her  fairy  tales  and  she  calls  him 
"  Mr.  Aladdin, ' '  after  that  hero  of  romance.  Mr.  Ladd  does  much  to  add  to  Rebecca's 
happiness  and  his  interest  in  her  becomes  so  deep  that  at  the  close  of  the  story  it  is 
plainly  seen  that  his  feelings  have  turned  to  something  more  serious.  The  reader 
takes  leave  of  Rebecca  after  her  graduation  from  the  seminary,  on  which  occasion 
she  is  class  poet  and  carries  off  many  honors.  Aunt  Miranda,  after  a  long  and  tedious 
illness,  dies,  leaving  her  house  and  land  to  Rebecca,  who  is  made  happy  by  the  thought 
that  it  is  in  her  power  to  bring  comfort  and  happiness  to  her  mother  and  brothers  and 
sisters. 

RECENT  RESEARCH  IN  BIBLE  LANDS,  by  H.  V.  Hilprecht,  see  BIBLE 
LANDS,  etc. 

RECHERCHE  DE  L'ABSOLU,  see  ALKAHEST. 

RECORDS  OF  A  GIRLHOOD,  by  Frances  Anne  Kemble  (1879).  This  work  gives 
the  history  of  the  life  of  a  great  actress,  member  of  a  family  of  genius,  from  her  birth 
up  to  the  time  of  her  marriage  (1809-34).  Her  incorrigible  childhood,  her  school- 
days in  France,  her  first  visit  to  the  theatre,  her  early  efforts  at  authorship,  her 
distaste  for  the  stage,  her  first  appearance  on  it,  her  successes  there,  the  books  she 
has  been  reading,  her  first  visit  to  America,  her  comments  on  American  life,  which,  to 
her,  is  so  primitive  as  to  seem  barbarous,  —  all  this  is  duly  set  forth.  Among  those 
of  whom  she  relates  memorable  recollections  or  anecdotes  are  Lord  Melbourne,  Rossini, 
Weber,  Fanny  Elssler,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Talma,  Miss  Mitford,  Theodore  Hook, 
Arthur  Hallam,  John  Sterling,  Malibran,  Queen  Victoria,  George  Stephenson,  Lord 
John  Russell,  Edmund  Kean,  Chancellor  Kent,  Edward  Everett,  Charles  Sumner, 
and  a  hundred  other  personages  of  equal  fame.  She  knew  everybody  who  was 
worth  knowing,  was  petted  and  spoiled  by  the  highest  society,  and  reigned  as  an 
uncrowned  queen  in  whatever  circle  she  delighted  by  her  presence.  She  declares  it 
to  be  her  belief  that  her  natural  vocation  was  for  opera-dancing;  and  says  that  she 


714  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ought  to  have  been  handsome,  and  would  have  been  so,  had  she  not  been  disfigured 
by  an  attack  of  small-pox  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  whose  effects  never  wholly 
disappeared. 

The  book  is  brightly  written,  is  full  of  well-bred  gossip,  and  always  entertaining. 

RECORDS  OF  LATER  LIFE,  by  Frances  Anne  Kemble  (1882).  This  volume 
resumes  its  author's  history  at  the  point  where  'Records  of  a  Girlhood '  leaves  it  — 
namely,  at  her  marriage  with  Mr.  Pierce  Butler  in  1834;  and  ends  with  her  return  to 
America  in  1848,  and  her  success  in  earning  by  public  readings  a  home  at  Lenox, 
Massachusetts.  With  the  exception  of  two  visits  to  Europe,  the  first  two-thirds  of 
the  book  are  given  to  her  life  in  America;  the  last  third,  to  her  stay  in  Europe  (1845- 
48).  The  record  begins  by  describing  some  of  the  points  at  which  her  English  ideas 
disagree  with  American  ones.  It  is  full  of  amusing  comments  on  our  life,  —  its 
crudeness,  unhealthiness,  lack  of  leisure,  and  extravagance,  and  the  discomforts  of 
travel.  She  speaks  with  evident  pleasure  of  her  American  friends,  sets  down  many 
observations  and  plans  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  as  she  studies  it  on  her  husband's 
plantation  in  Georgia,  and  makes,  in  short,  a  vivid  picture  of  American  social  life  in 
the  first  half  of  the  century.  She  gives  specific  studies  of  Philadelphia,  Niagara 
Falls,  Rockaway  Beach,  Newport,  Boston,  Lenox,  Baltimore,  and  Charleston. 
Though  she  has  faith  in  American  institutions,  she  is  not  without  intelligent  misgivings : 
"The  predominance  of  spirit  over  matter  indicates  itself  strikingly  across  the  At- 
lantic, where,  in  the  lowest  strata  of  society,  the  native  American  rowdy,  with  a  face 
as  pure  in  outline  as  an  ancient  Greek  coin,  and  hands  and  feet  as  fine  as  those  of  a 
Norman  noble,  strikes  one  dumb  with  the  aspect  of  a  countenance  whose  vile,  ignoble 
hardness  can  triumph  over  such  refinement  of  line  and  delicacy  of  proportion.  A 
human  soul  has  a  wonderful  supremacy  over  the  matter  which  it  informs.  The 
American  is  a  whole  nation,  with  well-made,  regular  noses;  from  which  circumstance 
(and  a  few  others),  I  believe  in  their  future  superiority  over  all  other  nations.  But 
the  lowness  their  faces  are  capable  of  'flogs  Europe/  "  Her  strictures  on  the  English 
aristocracy,  and  middle  and  lower  classes,  are  equally  severe.  In  the  last  third  of  the 
book  are  described  her  return  to  the  stage  and  her  appearance  as  a  public  reader  in 
England,  in  1847.  In  1841  she  was  on  the  Continent,  and  in  1846  in  Italy.  Most  of 
this  history  is  told  in  the  form  of  letters  written  at  the  time,  wherein  her  literary 
opinions  and  speculations  on  life  and  philosophy  are  freely  expressed.  Her  anecdotes 
of  Dr.  Charming,  Grisi,  Lord  and  Lady  Landsdowne,  Sydney  Smith,  Lady  Holland, 
Rogers,  Wordsworth,  Mrs.  Somerville,  Pollen,  Taglioni,  Liszt,  Mendelssohn,  Fanny 
Elssler,  Mrs.  Grote,  Jenny  Lind,  Moore,  Macaulay,  Dickens,  Dr.  Arnold,  Bunsen, 
Thackeray,  etc.,  are  always  entertaining  and  often  most  illuminating. 

RED  AS  A  ROSE  IS  SHE,  by  Rhoda  Broughton  (1870).  This  commonplace  love- 
story  is  very  simply  told.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Wales.  The  heroine,  Esther  Craven, 
promises  to  many  Robert  Brandon,  "to  keep  him  quiet,"  though  caring  much  less 
for  him  than  for  her  only  brother.  But  on  a  visit  she  meets  the  heaven-appointed 
lover,  and  notwithstanding  her  engagement  the  two  at  once  fall  in  love.  Interested 
friends,  who  do  not  approve  of  the  affair,  plot  and  bear  false  witness  to  break  it  off. 
Esther  confesses  to  Brandon  her  change  of  feeling,  and  he  is  man  enough  to  release 
her.  Then  ensues  a  period  of  loneliness,  misunderstanding,  and  hardship  for  the 
heroine,  whose  character  is  ripened  by  adversity.  When  happiness  once  more 
stands  waiting  for  her,  she  has  learned  how  to  use  its  gifts.  The  story  moves  quickly, 
and  is  entertaining. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  715 

RED  BADGE  OF  COURAGE,  THE,  by  Stephen  Crane,  was  published  in  1895. 
It  attracted  a  great  deal  of  attention  both  in  England  and  America,  by  reason  of  the 
nature  of  the  subject,  and  of  the  author's  extreme  youth.  It  is  a  study  of  a  man's 
feeling  in  battle,  written  by  one  who  was  never  in  a  battle,  but  who  seeks  to  give  color 
to  his  story  by  lurid  language.  Henry  Fleming,  an  unsophisticated  country  boy, 
enthusiastic  to  serve  his  country,  enlists  at  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War.  Young, 
raw,  intense,  he  longs  to  show  his  patriotism,  to  prove  himself  a  hero.  When  the 
book  opens  he  is  fretting  for  an  opportunity,  his  regiment  apparently  being  nowhere 
near  a  scene  of  action.  His  mental  states  are  described  as  he  waits  and  chafes;  the 
calculations  as  to  what  it  would  all  be  like  when  it  did  come,  the  swagger  to  keep  up 
the  spirits,  the  resentments  of  the  possible  superiority  of  his  companions,  the  hot 
frenzy  to  be  in  the  thick  of  it  with  the  intolerable  delays  over,  and  sore  doubts  of 
courage.  Suddenly,  pell-mell,  the  boy  is  thrown  into  battle,  gets  frightened  to 
death  in  the  thick  of  it,  and  runs;  after  the  fun  is  over,  crawls  back  to  his  regiment 
fairly  vicious  with  unbearable  shame.  The  heroic  visions  fade;  but  the  boy  makes 
one  step  towards  manhood  through  his  wholesome  lesson.  In  his  next  battle  courage 
links  itself  to  him  like  a  brother-in-arms.  He  tests  and  is  tested,  goes  into  the  thick 
of  the  fight  like  a  howling  demon,  goes  indeed  to  hell,  and  comes  back  again,  steadied 
and  quiet.  The  book  closes  on  his  new  and  manly  serenity. 

"He  had  rid  himself  of  the  red  sickness  of  battle.  The  sultry  nightmare  was  in 
the  past.  He  had  been  an  animal,  blistered  and  sweating  in  the  heat  and  pain  of 
war.  He  now  turned  with  a  lover's  thirst  to  images  of  tranquil  skies." 

RED  COCKADE,  THE,  by  Stanley  J.  Weyman  (1896).  This  is  a  romance  filled 
with  exciting  incidents  of  the  stormy  times  of  the  French  Revolution.  The  hero, 
the  Vicomte  de  Saux,  is  one  of  the  French  nobility.  His  sympathy  with  the  troubles 
of  the  French  peasants  leads  him  to  adopt  the  Red  Cockade,  notwithstanding  his 
ties  of  blood  and  his  engagement  to  marry  a  young  woman  of  a  prominent  Royalist 
family.  He  is  constantly  torn  between  loyalty  to  his  convictions  and  to  the  woman 
that  he  loves,  and  is  often  placed  in  situations  where  he  is  obliged  to  save  Mademoiselle 
de  St.  Alais  from  the  rage  of  the  mob. 

As  the  Vicomte  de  Saux  refuses  to  join  the  Aristocrats,  the  mother  and  one 
brother  of  Mademoiselle  de  St.  Alais  denounce  him  utterly.  But  De*nise  herself, 
after  having  been  saved  by  him  from  her  burning  chateau,  loves  him  intensely  and 
is  true  to  him,  though  her  relatives  have  betrothed  her  to  the  leader  of  the  Royalists. 
The  other  brother  Louis,  from  his  old  friendship  for  the  Vicomte,  upholds  his  sister. 
The  book  closes  with  a  scene  in  the  room  where  Madame  de  St.  Alais  lies  dying  from 
wounds  received  at  the  hands  of  the  mojb.  Her  elder  son  has  been  killed  by  the  revolu- 
tionists. With  the  mother  are  De*nise  and  Louis,  and  also  the  Vicomte  de  Saux. 
In  her  last  moments  she  gives  De*nise  to  her  lover.  After  their  marriage  the  Vicomte 
and  his  bride  retire  to  their  country  place  at  Saux.  The  man  to  whom  De*nise  was 
betrothed  out  of  vengeance  to  her  lover,  disappears  after  the  overthrow  of  his  party. 

RED  LAUGH,  THE,  fragments  of  a  discovered  manuscript,  by  Leonidas  Andreief 
(1904).  A  soldier's  diary  during  a  disastrous  campaign  in  Manchuria  at  the  time  of 
the  Russo-Japanese  war.  It  is  an  indictment  of  war,  and  a  study  in  morbid  psycho- 
logy. "  Horror  and  madness, "  the  two  opening  words  of  the  book  express  the  theme. 
The  "red  laugh"  is  the  symbol  which  to  him  expresses  the  wounded,  torn,  mutilated 
bodies.  "It  was  in  the  sky,  it  was  in  the  sun,  and  soon  it  was  going  to  overspread 
the  whole  earth  —  that  red  laugh."  The  common  soldiers  go  mad  from  the  horror 


716  THE  HEADER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

of  the  battlefield,  and  the  terrible  fatigue  of  incessant  marching.  The  doctors  go 
mad  at  sight  of  suffering  they  are  unable  to  relieve.  Students  detailed  to  help  bring 
in  the  wounded  lose  their  reason  and  commit  suicide.  At  home  a  mother  receives 
letters  from  her  son  for  a  month  after  the  telegram  has  announced  his  death,  and  when 
the  letters  stop  coming  she  goes  mad.  The  dead  write  to  the  dead.  In  the  confusion 
two  regiments  mistake  each  other  for  the  enemy,  and  the  writer  of  the  diary  loses  both 
legs.  He  goes  back  to  his  family  glad  to  be  alive  but  looks  sadly  at  his  bicycle.  A 
journalist,  he  tries  to  write  the  story  of  the  war,  and  becomes  insane  over  it.  His 
brother  tries  to  complete  the  narrative  from  the  notes,  and  he  also  sees  the  ' '  red  laugh, " 
" something  enormous  red  and  bloody  "  "laughing  a  toothless  laugh."  The  physical 
horror  becomes  mental  to  him  also,  and  ends  in  the  inevitable  madness. 

RED  LILY,  THE  ('Le  Lys  rouge'),  by  Anatole  France  (1894).  The  story  of  an 
emotional  Frenchwoman's  liaisons  with  two  men.  Madame  Therese  Martin-Belleme 
was  married  by  her  father  to  an  elderly  count,  a  government  minister.  After  two 
years  of  this  marriage  of  convenience  she  and  her  husband  are  strangers  in  the  same 
house.  The  beautiful  young  countess  is  loved  devotedly  by  Robert  Le  Menil,  and 
she  accepts  his  love,  the  first  she  has  known,  not  because  she  loves  him,  but  because 
she  is  carried  away  by  his  love  for  her.  Three  years  later,  she  leaves  the  lover  she 
likes  for  a  lover  she  loves,  Dechartre,  a  sculptor.  She  tells  him  truly  that  she  has 
never  loved  another.  Le  Menil  ref  uses  to  accept  his  dismissal  by  letter  and  comes  to 
Florence  where  she  is  visiting.  Dechartre  hears  of  his  presence  and  suspects  their 
former  intimacy,  but  she  denies  all.  Later,  in  Paris,  he  hears  her  name  coupled  with 
that  of  Le  Menil,  and  is  tortured  with  jealousy.  She  is  possessed  by  the  one  idea  that 
she  must  not  lose  him,  the  man  she  loves  with  all  her  heart,  and  tells  him  again  that 
he  is  her  one  lover.  Le  Menil  had  gone  away  to  forget  her  in  vain.  He  returns  and 
follows  her  to  the  theatre  with  reproaches  and  entreaties  which  Dechartre  overhears. 
She  is  obliged  to  tell  her  lover  the  truth.  Dechartre  refuses  to  understand  that  she 
is  not  a  light  woman,  or  believe  her  avowals  that  she  has  loved  him  alone,  and  in  a 
pathetic  last  interview  she  realizes  that  her  happiness  is  at  an  end.  The  pictures  of 
Florence  and  Paris  add  charm  and  the  minor  characters  are  of  interest  as  personal 
sketches  of  the  author  himself  and  his  contemporaries.  Choulette,  the  anarchist  and 
mystic,  an  old  vagabond  full  of  delightful  enthusiasms,  is  probably  a  portrait  of  Ver- 
laine.  Miss  Bell,  the  English  poetess,  has  been  identified  with  Miss  Mary  Robinson 
(now  Madame  Duclaux) ;  De  Chartre  is  supposed  to  represent  the  passionate  side 
of  Anatole  France's  nature,  Paul  Vence,  the  artistic  and  intellectual  side;  Schmoll  is  the 
Jewish  scholar,  Oppert. 

RED  ROBE,  THE  ('La  Robe  rouge')  by  Eugene  Brieux  (1900).  This  is  a  scathing 
satire  on  the  lawr  and  lawyers,  the  clumsy  and  inefficient  machinery  of  justice,  especi- 
ally the  French  judiciary  which  makes  advancement  depend  upon  success  in  winning 
convictions.  In  the  hope  of  winning  the  red  robe  of  a  judge,  the  "juge  d'instruction," 
Mouzon,  and  the  prosecuting  attorney,  Vagret,  both  try  to  convict  a  man  of  murder, 
whose  guilt  is  extremely  doubtful.  Lesser  men  who  have  influential  friends  and 
relatives  have  been  promoted  over  Vagret  and  this  notorious  case  is  his  great  chance 
to  distinguish  himself.  In  time  to  save  the  accused  peasant,  Etchepars,  he  realizes 
that  his  desire  to  win  has  been  stronger  than  his  zeal  for  truth  and  sacrifices  his 
chance  of  advancement.  Promotion  comes  to  the  unscrupulous  Mouzon,  who  'has 
bent  all  his  energies  to  weaving  a  net  of  circumstancial  evidence  around  Etchepars, 
regardless  of  truth.  In  order  to  discredit  Yanetta,  the  wife  of  the  accused,  as  a 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  717 

witness,  he  ferrets  out  a  scandal  of  her  girlhood  in  Paris,  which  is  unknown  to  her 
husband.  In  the  trial,  her  character  as  an  honest  woman  is  taken  from  her;  her 
husband  repudiates  her  and  takes  away  her  children.  In  revenge  she  stabs  and  kills 
Mouzon,  the  lawyer  who  has  brought  about  her  misery.  This  last  dramatic  scene  is 
quoted  in  the  LIBRARY. 

RED  ROCK,  by  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  was  published  in  1899.  It  is  entitled  'A 
Chronicle  of  the  Reconstruction/  and  is  a  faithful  portrayal  of  the  political  and 
social  conditions  which  existed  during  that  era.  The  scene  is  laid  "partly  in  one  of 
the  old  Southern  States  and  partly  in  the  land  of  memory"  and  opens  just  before 
the  war.  Red  Rock  is  the  name  of  a  plantation  which  has  been  owned  and  occupied 
by  the  Gray  family  for  many  generations,  and  which  takes  its  name  from  a  rock  with 
a  huge  red  stain  upon  it,  which  was  believed  to  be  the  blood  of  the  Indian  chief  who 
had  slain  the  wife  of  the  first  Jacquelin  Gray.  The  present  Jacquelin,  the  central 
figure  of  the  story,  is  a  young  lad  at  the  time  of  the  breaking  out  of  the  war,  and, 
after  the  death  of  his  father  in  battle,  he  enlists,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  to  fight  for  the 
South.  After  many  trying  experiences,  in  which  he  shows  great  nobleness  and  cour- 
age, he  returns  home  at  the  close  of  the  war  seriously  wounded.  He  finds  desolation 
and  ruin  all  about  him  and  is  forced  to  witness  his  mother's  death  and  her  burial  in 
alien  soil,  as  their  home  and  patrimony  have  been  wrested  from  them  by  dishonest 
means.  Jacquelin  has  always  loved  Blair  Gary,  the  companion  of  his  childhood 
days,  but  he  holds  aloof  from  her,  thinking  that  she  is  in  love  with  his  dashing  cousin, 
Steve  Allen,  and  his  suit  does  not  prosper.  After  many  thrilling  episodes  with 
"Carpet-baggers,"  Ku  Klux  raids,  and  law-suits,  Jacquelin  at  last  comes  into  his 
own,  winning  back  the  estate  of  his  father  and  the  hand  of  the  girl  he  loves.  Steve 
Allen,  the  hero  of  many  exciting  adventurers,  marries  Ruth  Welch,  a  charming 
Northern  girl  who  has  come  to  make  her  home  in  the  South.  Dr.  Gary,  who  figures 
prominently  in  the  story,  is  a  noble  character  and  spends  his  last  strength  in  visiting 
the  bedside  of  his  enemy  Leech,  the  villainous  overseer,  who  has  everywhere  worked 
havoc  and  desolation. 

RED  ROVER,  THE,  by  James  Fenimore  Cooper  (1827).  This  story  relates  to  the 
days  before  the  Revolutionary  War;  and  is  one  of  Cooper's  most  exciting  sea  tales. 
Henry  Ark,  a  lieutenant  on  his  Majesty's  ship  Dart,  is  desirous  of  distinguishing  him- 
self by  aiding  in  the  capture  of  the  notorious  pirate,  the  Red  Rover.  With  this  in 
view  he  goes  to  Newport,  disguised  as  a  common  sailor  under  the  name  of  Wilder, 
and  joins  the  Rover's  ship,  the  Dolphin,  which  is  anchored  there  awaiting  the  de- 
departure  of  a  merchantman,  the  Caroline.  The  Captain  of  the  Caroline  meets  with 
an  accident  and  Wilder  is  sent  by  the  Rover  to  take  his  place;  shortly  after  he  puts  to 
sea  followed  by  the  Dolphin.  A  storm  arises,  and  the  Caroline  is  lost;  the  only 
survivors  being  Wilder,  Miss  Gertrude  Grayson,  a  passenger,  and  Mrs.  Wyllys,  her 
governess,  who  are  rescued  by  the  Dolphin.  Not  long  after,  a  royal  cruiser  is  sighted. 
This  proves  to  be  the  Dart;  and  the  Rover,  going  on  board  of  her  in  the  guise  of  an 
officer  in  the  royal  navy,  learns  by  accident  of  Wilder's  duplicity.  He  returns  to 
the  Dolphin,  and  summoning  his  first  mate  accuses  him  of  treachery ;  Wilder  confesses 
the  truth  of  the  charge,  and  the  Rover,  in  a  moment  of  generosity,  sends  him  back  to 
his  ship  unharmed,  together  with  the  two  ladies,  without  whom  Wilder  refuses  to 
stir.  The  Rover  then  attacks  the  Dart,  and  takes  it  after  a  hard  fight.  He  is  about 
to  have  Wilder  hanged,  when  it  appears  that  he  is  a  son  of  Mrs.  Wyllys  whom  she 
has  supposed  drowned  in  infancy;  and  the  Rover,  unable  to  separate  the  new-found 


718  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

son  from  his  mother,  sets  them  all  off  in  a  pinnace,  in  which  they  reach  shore  safely. 
After  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War  a  man  is  brought  to  the  old  inn  at  Newport 
in  a  dying  condition:  he  proves  to  be  the  Red  Rover,  who,  having  reformed,  has 
served  through  the  war  with  credit  and  distinction. 

The  book  holds  the  interest  of  the  reader  throughout;  and  the  descriptions  of  the 
storm  and  battle  are  very  vivid. 

REDGAUNTLET,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott.  Sir  Alberick  Redgauntlet,  ardently  espous- 
ing the  cause  of  the  Young  Pretender  in  1745,  pays  for  his  enthusiasm  with  his  life. 
The  guardianship  of  his  infant  son  and  daughter  is  left  to  his  brother,  outlawed  for 
violent  adherence  to  the  House  of  Stuart;  but  the  widow,  ascribing  her  bereavement 
to  the  politics  of  the  Redgauntlets,  desires  to  rear  her  children  in  allegiance  to  the 
reigning  dynasty.  The  little  girl  having  been  kidnapped  by  her  guardian,  the  mother 
flees  with  her  boy;  who,  ignorant  of  his  lineage,  is  brought  up  in  obscurity  under  the 
name  of  Darsie  Latimer.  Warned  by  his  mother's  agents  to  shun  England,  the 
young  man  ventures  for  sport  into  the  forbidden  territory,  and  is  seized  by  Redgaunt- 
let. Detained  as  a  prisoner,  Darsie  at  length  learns  his  true  name  and  rank,  and  meets 
his  sister,  now  grown  up  to  charming  womanhood,  Redgauntlet,  a  desperate  parti- 
san, endeavors  by  persuasion  and  threats  to  involve  his  nephew  in  a  new  plot  to  en- 
throne the  Chevalier,  and  conveys  the  youth  by  force  to  the  rendezvous  of  the 
conspirators.  Meanwhile,  Darsie's  disappearance  has  alarmed  his  devoted  friend, 
Alan  Fairford,  a  young  Scotch  solicitor;  who,  in  spite  of  great  danger,  traces  him  to 
the  gathering-place  of  the  conspiring  Jacobites.  The  plot,  predestined  to  failure 
through  Charles  Edward's  obstinate  rejection  of  conditions,  is  betrayed  by  Red- 
gauntlet's  servant,  and  the  conspirators  quickly  dispersed,  their  position  rendered 
absurd  by  the  good-natured  clemency  of  George  III.  Redgauntlet,  chagrined  at  the 
fiasco,  accompanies  the  Chevalier  to  France,  and  ends  his  adventurous  career  in  a 
monastery.  Darsie,  now  Sir  Arthur  Redgauntlet,  remains  loyal  to  the  House  of 
Hanover,  and  bestows  his  sister's  hand  upon  Alan  Fairford  (in  whom,  according  to 
Lockhart,  Scott  drew  his  own  portrait). 

Sixteenth  in  the  Waverley  series,  Redgauntlet1  was  issued  in  1824,  two  years 
before  the  crash  that  left  Scott  penniless.  Though  showing  haste,  the  tale  does  not 
flag  in  interest,  and  even  the  minor  characters  —  notably  Peter  Peebles  the  crazy 
litigant,  Wandering  Willie  the  vagabond  fiddler,  and  Nanty  Ewart,  the  smuggler  — 
are  living  and  individual. 

REDS  OF  THE  MIDI,  THE  ('Les  Rouges  du  Midi'),  by  Felix  Gras,  translated  into 
English  by  Mrs.  Thomas  A.  Janvier,  is  a  strong  story  of  the  French  Revolution, 
published  in  1896.  One  Pascal  La  Patine,  in  his  old  age,  night  after  night,  in  the 
shoemakers  shop,  tells  the  story  of  his  youth.  His  father  was  killed  by  the  game- 
keeper of  the  Marquis;  he  himself  was  forced  to  fly  for  his  life.  Longing  to  be 
revenged  upon  the  aristocrats,  he  joins  the  "Reds  of  the  Midi"  (the  insurgents  of 
Southern  France),  goes  to  Paris,  sees  all  the  horrors  of  the  Revolution,  rescues  the 
daughter  of  the  Marquis  from  the  guillotine,  loves  her  in  silence,  enlists  in  Napoleon's 
army,  and  after  fighting  in  Spain,  Egypt,  and  Russia,  returns  to  his  native  village 
of  Malemort  to  end  his  days,  firm  in  the  faith  that  Napoleon  has  never  died.  It 
was  in  Malemort  that  Gras  was  born:  the  Prologue  is  pure  autobiography,  and 
many  of  the  characters  are  drawn  from  life.  There  is  a  vivid  picture  of  the 
famous  Marseilles  Battalion,  "who  knew  how  to  die,"  and  a  passing  glimpse  of 
Napoleon. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  -         719 

REEF,  THE,  a  novel  by  Edith  Wharton  (1912).  An  American  diplomat  in  London, 
George  Darrow,  meets  his  first  love,  Anna  Leath,  who  had  married  abroad,  and  is 
recently  a  widow.  Darrow  is  on  his  way  to  her  in  France,  when  he  receives  a  telegram 
asking  him  to  postpone  his  visit.  Chilled  and  disappointed,  and  uncertain  how  to 
spend  his  holiday,  he  chances  to  meet  Sophie  Viner,  a  young  American  acquaintance, 
companion  to  a  Mrs.  Murrett  in  London,  who  has  turned  her  adrift  almost  penniless. 
She  is  on  her  way  to  friends  in  Paris,  and  her  courage  and  gay  youth  appeal  to  him. 
When  they  discover  her  friends  have  left  Paris,  he  follows  his  impulse  to  give  her  a 
little  of  the  pleasure  she  has  missed,  and  they  drift  into  a  temporary  and  irregular 
connection.  This  episode  becomes  the  "reef, "  which  wrecks  their  later  lives.  Dar- 
row visits  France  as  Anna's  fiance",  several  months  later,  and  finds  Sophie  Viner 
installed  in  the  household  as  governess  to  Anna's  daughter,  and  engaged  to  be  married 
to  Owen,  her  stepson.  The  secret  of  their  former  acquaintance  is  discovered.  Sophie 
loyally  throws  up  her  prospects  and  goes  back  to  the  service  of  Mrs.  Murrett,  to  keep 
the  memory  of  Darrow,  whom  she  loves.  Anna  comes  to  understand  and  forgive 
Sophie  and  Darrow,  but  jealousy  of  their  past  intimacy  makes  it  impossible  for  her 
to  marry  him.  The  author's  well-known  powers  of  psychological  analysis  have  full 
scope  in  the  distinction  of  the  characters  and  the  delicate  situations  which  result. 

REFLECTIONS  OF  A  MARRIED  MAN,  by  Robert  Grant.  These  entertaining 
"reflections"  chronicle  in  a  humorous  manner  the  various  experiences,  perplexities, 
and  amusing  episodes,  which  occur  in  the  daily  life  of  a  married  couple  at  the  present 
day.  The  husband  reflects  that  at  the  age  of  thirty-five,  being  happily  married,  his 
entire  point  of  view  has  changed  since  the  days  of  his  bachelorhood.  Instead  of 
speculating  on  the  soulful  subjects  which  agitated  his  mental  faculties  at  that  time, 
he  finds  himself  hopelessly  entangled  with  the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  candlestick- 
maker,  the  school-teacher,  and  the  clergyman,  and  is  particularly  interested  in  the 
size  of  his  quarterly  bill  for  boots  and  shoes.  The  experiences  of  the  couple  when 
they  are  first  married  and  go  to  housekeeping  are  described  in  an  amusing  way,  and 
the  trials  caused  by  Mary  Ann  and  the  cook  are  most  realistic.  A  clever  point 
in  the  story  is  where  a  second  wedding  journey  is  undertaken,  but  under  decidedly 
different  conditions,  as  there  are  now  four  vigorous  children  to  be  left  behind.  The 
husband  and  wife  anticipate  the  freedom  from  care  which  their  outing  will  afford 
them ;  but  while  deriving  enjoyment  from  the  trip,  they  both  acknowledge  that  they 
are  counting  the  days  until  their  return  home.  The  reflections  close  with  the  hope 
expressed  by  the  head  of  the  family  that  the  children  may  be  as  happy  as  he  and  his 
wife  Josephine  have  been,  despite  the  fact  that  their  careers  have  been  so  much  more 
commonplace  and  prosaic  than  they  had  anticipated  in  their  youthful  days.  The 
'Reflections'  were  published  in  1892,  and  followed  by  'The  Recollections  of  a 
Philosopher, '  which  continue  the  family  chronicles. 

REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE,  a  political  essay  in  epistolary 
form,  originally  intended  simply  as  a  private  letter  to  a  young  friend  in  France  but 
expanded  during  composition  into  a  treatise  and  published  in  1790.  Although  an 
ardent  champion  of  liberty  in  the  cases  of  America,  Ireland,  and  India,  Burke  was 
vehemently  opposed  to  the  Revolutionists  in  France,  He  had  always  advocated  a 
"manly,  moral,  regulated  liberty";  they  favored  the  wholesale  abolition  of  old 
institutions.  The  English  Revolution  of  1688  involved  no  break  with  the  past  but 
was  rather  a  return  to  the  sound  constitutional  principles  of  an  earlier  time,  the 
interdependence  of  king,  lords,  and  commons  in  one  nicely-poised  scheme.  The 


720  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

French  Revolution  of  1789  was  based  on  the  right  of  the  people  to  cut  loose  from  all 
established  institutions  and  to  introduce  an  entirely  new  philosophy  and  method  of 
government.  The  result  was  a  loosening  of  the  bonds  that  make  society  possible — 
of  chivalry,  of  loyalty,  of  decency,  of  self-restraint,  of  subordination,  of  reverence,  of 
discipline.  This  Burke  illustrates  by  reference  to  the  abolition  of  the  nobility,  the1, 
confiscation  of  the  Church,  the  disorganization  of  the  army,  and,  in  a  passage  famous; 
for  its  eloquence,  by  a  description  of  the  insults  heaped  upon  the  King  and  Queeni 
when  they  were  brought  forcibly  from  Versailles  to  Paris.  He  also  makes  the  re- 
markable prophecy  that  the  revolution  will  end  in  a  military  dictatorship.  The 
depth  and  power  of  Burke's  ideas  on  political  philosophy  and  his  ability  to  apply 
them  to  a  great  contemporary  crisis  and  to  comprehend  its  underlying  tendencies  are 
superbly  illustrated  in  this  profoundly  thoughtful  and  passionately  eloquent  polemic. 

REFORMATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND,  History  of  the,  by  Bishop 
Burnet  (3  vols.,  1679,  l68l»  17*4);  an<l  'History  of  his  Own  Time*  (2  vols.,  1723, 
I734)>  are  English  standard  books  of  high  character  and  value.  The  second  of  these 
works  is  of  great  intrinsic  worth,  because  without  it  our  knowledge  of  the  times  would 
be  exceedingly  imperfect.  For  the  first  the  author  was  voted  the  thanks  of  both 
houses  of  Parliament.  Burnet  was  bishop  of  Salisbury,  1689-1715;  and  in  1699  he 
brought  out  an  'Exposition  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles '  which  became  a  church  classic 
in  spite  of  high-church  objection  to  his  broad  and  liberal  views.  He  was  from  early 
life  a  consistent  representative  of  broad-church  principles,  both  in  politics  and 
divinity.  His  tastes  were  more  secular  than  scholastic.  Of  bishops  he  alone  in  that 
age  left  a  record  of  able  and  conscientious  administration,  and  of  lasting  work  of 
great  importance.  Although  bitterly  attacked  from  more  than  one  quarter  on  account 
of  the  'History  of  His  Own  Time, '  the  best  judgment  to-day  upon  this  work  is  that 
nothing  could  be  more  admirable  than  his  general  candor,  his  accuracy  as  to  facts, 
the  fullness  of  his  information,  and  the  justice  of  his  judgments  both  of  those  whom  he 
vehemently  opposed  and  of  those  whom  he  greatly  admired.  The  value  of  the  work,, 
says  a  recent  authority,  "as  a  candid  narrative  and  an  invaluable  work  of  reference,, 
has  continually  risen  as  investigations  into  original  materials  have  proceeded."  The 
best  edition  of  both  the  Histories  is  that  of  the  Clarendon  Press  (1823-33;  1865). 

REIGN  OF  FERDINAND  AND  ISABELLA,  History  of  the,  by  William  Hickling. 
Prescott  (1837),  This  is  the  earliest  of  the  books  of  Prescott.  Circumstances  had1 
enabled  the  author  to  command  materials  far  beyond  those  of  any  previous  writer,, 
and  he  had  fine  talents  for  the  task.  The  main  story  told  by  him  was  preceded  by 
a  view  of  the  Castilian  monarchy  before  A.  D.  1400,  and  of  the  constitution  of  Aragon 
to  about  A.  D.  1450.  The  work  then  proceeded  through  twenty  chapters,  to  near 
the  middle  of  the  second  volume,  with  'The  Age  of  Domestic  Development,  1406-92, '' 
and  on  to  the  end  of  the  third  volume,  twenty-six  chapters,  with '  The  Age  of  Discovery 
and  Conquest,  1493-1517.'  To  near  the  middle  of  the  third  volume,  "a  principal 
object "  of  the  history  had  been  "the  illustration  of  the  personal  character  and  public 
administration"  of  Isabella,  whom  Mr.  Prescott  pronounced  "certainly  one  of  the 
most  interesting  personages  in  history";  and  into  the  second  half  of  the  work  came 
the  story  of  Columbus.  No  writer  of  judicious  history  has  left  Columbus  on  a  more 
lofty  pinnacle  of  moral  greatness,  as  well  as  fame,  or  more  carefully  held  a  screen  of 
admiration,  and  almost  of  awe,  before  actions  and  aspects  of  character  which  were  of 
the  age  and  of  Spain  and  not  of  the  ideals  of  man  at  his  best.  The  Portuguese  pursuit 
of  discovery  for  a  hundred  years  from  1418,  which  reached  out  a  thousand  miles  into 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  721 

the  Atlantic  and  carried  the  Lisbon  ships  round  the  south  point  of  Africa  to  the 
real  India  and  which  in  1502  made  an  independent  discovery  of  the  south  continent, 
Mr.  Prescott  took  hardly  any  note  of.  But  within  the  limits  of  his  picture  he  wrought 
most  admirably,  to  interest,  to  instruct,  and  to  leave  in  literature  a  monument  of  the 
Catholic  Queen  and  of  Columbus. 

REJECTED  ADDRESSES,  by  James  Smith  and  Horace  Smith.  This  volume 
of  poetical  parodies  was  issued  anonymously  in  1812,  and  met  with  great  success, 
both  the  critics  and  the  public  being  delighted  with  the  clever  imitations;  though, 
strange  to  say,  the  authors  had  much  difficulty  in  finding  a  publisher  for  the  book. 
The  'Rejected  Addresses'  were  the  joint  work  of  the  brothers  James  and  Horace 
Smith,  who  wrote  them  as  a  burlesque  upon  the  many  prominent  and  unsuccessful 
competitors  for  the  reward  offered  by  the  management  of  the  Drury  Lane  for  an 
address  to  be  delivered  at  the  opening  of  the  new  theatre.  The  '  Rejected  Addresses ' 
were  begun  at  this  time,  and  were  completed  in  a  few  weeks.  Among  the  imitations 
set  forth  in  the  volume,  the  following  are  the  work  of  James  Smith:  'The  Baby's 
D6but'  (Wordsworth),  ' The  Hampshire  Farmer's  Address '  (Cobbett),  'The  Rebuild- 
ing' (Southey),  'Play-House  Musings'  (Coleridge),  'The  Theatre'  (Crabbe),  the 
first  stanza  of  'Cui  Bono'  (Lord  Byron);  the  song  entitled  'Drury  Lane  Hustings'; 
and  'The  Theatrical  Alarm-Bell, '  an  imitation  of  the  Morning  Post;  also  travesties 
on  'Macbeth,'  'George  Barn  well/  and  'The  Stranger.'  The  rest  of  the  imitations 
are  by  Horace  Smith.  The  'Rejected  Addresses'  were  widely  commended  in  their 
day,  and  still  hold  a  high  place  among  the  best  imitations  ever  made.  Their  extent 
and  variety  exhibited  the  versatility  of  the  authors.  Although  James  wrote  the 
greater  number  of  successful  imitations,  the  one  by  Horace,  of  Scott,  is  perhaps  the 
best  of  the  parodies;  and  its  amusing  picture  of  the  burning  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre  is 
an  absurd  imitation  of  the  battle  in  '  Marmion ' :  — 

"The  firemen  terrified  are  slow- 
To  bid  the  pumping  torrent  flow, 

For  fear  the  roof  would  fall. 
Back,  Robins,  back;  Crump  stand  aloof  I 

Whitford,  keep  near  the  walls! 
Huggins,  regard  your  own  behoof, 
For,  lo!  the  blazing  rocking  roof 

Down,  down  in  thunder  falls!" 

RELIGION,  ANALOGY  OF,  by  Joseph  Butler,  see  ANALOGY. 

RELIGION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  EGYPTIANS,  by  Alfred  Wiedemann  (1897).  A 
work  designed  to  set  before  the  reader  the  principal  deities,  myths,  religious  ideas  and 
doctrines,  as  they  are  found  in  Egyptian  writings,  and  with  special  reference  to  such 
facts  as  have  important  bearings  on  the  history  of  religion.  It  is  based  throughout 
on  original  texts,  of  which  the  most  significant  parts  are  given  in  a  rendering  as  literal 
as  possible,  in  order  that  the  reader  may  judge  for  himself  of  their  meaning.  Dr. 
Wiedemann  expresses  the  opinion  that  the  essays  of  Maspero,  in  his  'Etudes  de 
Mythologieet  de  Religion'  (Paris,  1893),  are  far  weightier  for  knowledge  of  the  subject 
than  any  previous  writings  devoted  to  it.  Maspero  especially  condemns  the  point 
of  view  of  Brugsch,  who  attempts  to  prove  that  Egyptian  religion  was  a  coherent 
system  of  belief,  corresponding  somewhat  to  that  imagined  by  Plutarch  in  his  in- 
teresting work  on  Isis  and  Osiris. 

We  may  speak  of  the  religious  ideas  of  the  Egyptians,  he  says,  but  not  of  an  Egyp- 


722  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

tian  religion:  there  never  came  into  existence  any  consistent  system.  Of  various 
religious  ideas,  found  more  or  less  clearly  represented,  it  cannot  be  proved  historically 
which  are  the  earlier  and  which  are  the  later.  They  are  all  extant  side  by  side  in  the 
oldest  of  the  longer  religious  texts  which  have  come  down  to  us,  —  the  Pyamid 
inscriptions  of  the  Fifth  and  Sixth  dynasties.  Research  has  determined  nothing 
indisputable  as  to  the  origins  of  the  national  religion  of  the  Egyptians,  their  form  of 
government,  their  writing,  or  their  racial  descent.  The  more  thoroughly  the  accessi- 
ble material,  constantly  increasing  in  amount,  is  studied,  the  more  obscure  do  the 
questions  of  origin  become. 

Ancient  Egypt  was  formed  by  the  union  of  small  States,  or  districts,  which  the 
Greeks  called  Nomes:  twenty-two  in  Upper  Egypt,  and  twenty  in  Lower  Egypt. 
Each  nome  consisted  of  (i)  The  capital  with  its  ruler  and  its  god;  (2)  the  regularly 
tilled  arable  land;  (3)  the  marshes,  mostly  used  as  pasture,  and  for  the  cultivation  of 
water  plants;  and  (4)  the  canals  with  their  special  officials.  Not  only  did  each  nome 
have  its  god  and  its  own  religion  regardless  of  neighboring  faiths,  but  the  god  of  a 
nome  was  within  it  held  to  be  Ruler  of  the  gods,  Creator  of  the  world,  Giver  of  all  good 
things,  irrespective  of  the  fact  that  adjacent  nomes  similarly  made  each  its  own  god 
the  One  and  Only  Supreme. 

There  were  thus  many  varieties  and  endless  rivalries  and  conflicts  of  faiths,  and 
even  distinct  characters  attached  to  the  same  name;  as  Horus  at  Edfu,  a  keen-sighted 
god  of  the  bright  sun,  and  Horus  at  Letopolis,  a  blind  god  of  the  sun  in  eclipse.  If  a 
ruler  rose  to  royal  supremacy,  he  carried  up  the  worship  of  his  god.  From  the  Hyksos 
period  of  about  six  hundred  years,  the  origin  of  all  forms  of  religion  was  sought  in  sun 
worship.  Dr.  Wiedemann  devotes  chapters  to  '  Sun  Worship, ' '  Solar  Myths, '  and 
'The  Passage  of  the  Sun  through  the  Underworld, '  tracing  the  general  development  of 
sun  worship  and  the  hope  of  immortality  connected  with  it.  Then  he  sketches  'The 
Chief  Deities';  'The  Foreign  Deities';  and  'The  Worship  of  Animals,'  which  was 
due  to  the  thoroughly  Egyptian  idea  of  an  animal  incarnation  of  deity.  He  then 
reviews  the  story  of  'Osiris  and  his  Cycle/  and  the  development  of  'The  Osirian 
Doctrine  of  Immortality,'  —  "a  doctrine  of  immortality  which  in  precision  and 
extent  surpasses  almost  any  other  that  has  been  devised."  This  doctrine,  Dr.  Wiede- 
mann says,  is  of  scientific  importance  first  from  its  extreme  antiquity,  and  also  from 
its  many  points  of  affinity  to  Jewish  and  Christian  dogma.  The  whole  cult  or  worship 
of  Osiris,  of  Isis,  and  of  Horus,  with  some  other  related  names,  forms  a  study  of  great 
interest.  Dr.  Wiedemann  concludes  his  work  with  chapters  on  '  Magic  and  Sorcery, ' 
and  'Amulets, '  features  in  all  ancient  religion  of  the  practical  faith  of  the  masses. 

REMARKABLE  PROVIDENCES,  by  Increase  Mather.  In  1681,  when  the  agita- 
tion in  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony  over  the  questions  respecting  the  imperiled 
colonial  charter  was  rapidly  approaching  a  climax,  and  the  public  mind  was  already 
feverishly  excited,  the  ministers  sent  out  a  paper  of  proposals  for  collecting  facts 
concerning  witchcraft.  This  resulted  three  years  later  (1684)  in  the  production  of  a 
work  by  President  Increase  Mather  of  Harvard  College,  which  was  originally  entitled 
'An  Essay  for  the  Recording  of  Illustrious  Providences/  Into  this  book  President 
Mather  had  gathered  up  all  that  was  known  or  could  be  collected  concerning  the  per- 
formances of  persons  supposed  to  be  leagued  with  the  Devil.  It  is  rather  remarkable 
to  learn  from  this  work  that  modern  spiritualistic  performances  —  rappings,  tippings, 
trances,  second  sight,  and  the  like  —  were  well  known  to  the  grave  fathers  of  New 
England,  although  they  unfortunately  looked  upon  them  as  far  more  serious  matters 
than  do  their  descendants  to-day.  The  book  also  contains  a  remarkable  collection 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  723 

of  wonderful  sea-deliverances,  accidents,  apparitions,  and  unaccountable  phenomena 
in  general ;  in  addition  to  the  things  more  strictly  pertaining  to  witchcraft.  Palfrey 
the  historian  believes  that  this  book  had  an  unfortunate  effect  upon  the  mind  and 
imagination  of  President  Mather's  son,  the  Reverend  Cotton  Mather;  and  that  it 
led  him  into  investigations  and  publications  supposed  to  have  had  an  important 
effect  in  producing  the  disastrous  delusion  which  followed  three  years  later,  in  which 
Cotton  Mather  was  so  lamentably  conspicuous. 

RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY,  THE  (1875-86),  the  most  comprehensive  work  of  John 
Addington  Symonds,  was  published  in  five  volumes,  each  dealing  with  a  different 
phase  of  the  great  era  of  New  Life  in  Italy.  Vol.  i.,  'The  Age  of  the  Despots/ 
presents  the  social  conditions  of  the  time,  especially  as  they  were  embodied  and  ex- 
pressed in  the  cultured  despots  of  the  free  cities.  In  Vol.  ii.,  'The  Revival  of  Learn- 
ing,' the  brilliant  mundane  scholarship  of  the  era  is  exhaustively  considered.  Vols  iii. 
and  iv.  are  devoted  to  Literature  and  the  Fine  Arts  as  reflecting  the  spirit  of  the 
times.  Vol.  v.  treats  of  the  Catholic  reaction,  the  revulsion  of  feeling,  the  reversal 
of  judgment,  which  followed  when  the  magnificent  materialism  of  the  Renaissance 
overdid  itself.  The  work  as  a  whole  is  a  wonderfully  sympathetic  and  scholarly 
record  of  one  of  the  most  fascinating  periods  of  Italian  development.  It  is  adapted 
at  once  to  the  uses  of  the  scholar  and  to  the  general  reader. 

RENE,  by  Francois  Auguste  Chateaubriand,  published  separately  in  1807.  'Rene" 
and  'Atala'  are  the  fruits  of  Chateaubriand's  American  travels,  and  they  abound  in 
the  exquisite  description  of  natural  scenery  for  which  he  is  noted. 

'Ren£, '  an  episode  of  the  prose  epic  'Les  Natchez, '  is  in  effect  a  monologue  of 
the  young  European  of  that  name,  who  has  fled  to  the  New  World  and  its  solitudes; 
and  who  relates  to  his  adopted  father  Chactas,  and  the  French  missionary  Father 
Souel,  his  previous  life  and  the  causes  of  his  self -exile.  Seated  under  a  great  tree  in 
the  haunts  of  the  Natchez  Indians,  of  whose  tribe  Chactas  is  a  chief,  the  young  man 
tells  his  listeners  the  story  of  his  boyhood,  and  his  restless  wanderings  from  land  to 
land  in  search  of  mental  peace.  He  has  passed  through  ancient  countries  and  modern, 
has  studied  humanity  in  its  earliest  monuments  and  in  the  life  of  his  own  day,  and 
finding  no  satisfaction  in  any  phase  of  life,  has  remained  long  in  forest  solitudes,  — 
only  to  meet  there  thoughts  of  death. 

He  tells  further  how  he  was  rescued  from  this  temptation  by  the  love  of  his  sister 
Amelie,  who  came  to  him  and  led  his  mind  back  to  life,  then  disappeared  from  his 
sight  forever  in  the  living  death  of  a  convent,  where  she  hid  a  heart  oppressed  by  a 
feeling  for  Rene"  too  strong  for  her  peace.  The  tragedy  of  his  sister's  confession  has 
driven  Rene*  to  these  wildernesses. 

The  episodes  of  Ren6  and  Atala  are  beautiful  in  melody  'and  description,  but 
inevitably  unreal  in  their  suggestions  of  Indian  life  and  character. 

REPRESENTATIVE  GOVERNMENT,  Considerations  on,  by  J.  S.  Mill  (1860). 
This  work,  though  written  in  1860,  is  still  the  best  statement  in  English  of  the  case 
for  representative  government.  The  author,  being  of  opinion  at  the  time  the  book 
was  composed  that  both  Conservatives  and  Liberals  had  lost  confidence  in  the  creeds 
which  they  nominally  professed  without  having  made  any  progress  towards  providing 
themselves  with  a  better,  attempts  to  state  a  doctrine  which  is  "not  a  mere  com- 
promise, by  splitting  the  difference  between  the  two,  but  something  wider  than  either, 
which  in  virtue  of  its  superior  comprehensiveness,  might  be  adopted  by  either  Liberal 


724  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

or  Conservative  without  renouncing  anything  which  he  really  feels  to  be  valuable  in 
his  own  creed."  The  keynote  of  the  book  is  that  political  institutions  are  the  work 
of  men  and  owe  their  origin  and  their  whole  existence  to  human  will.  Similarly  as 
they  were  first  made  by  men,  so  they  have  to  be  worked  by  men  and  even  by  ordinary 
men.  It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  they  can  be  altered  or  removed  by  human  will,  but 
whatever  alteration  or  change  is  made  must  be  of  such  a  character  as  to  suit  existing 
conditions.  "The  most  important  point  of  excellence,"  he  says,  "which  any  form 
of  government  can  possess  is  to  promote  the  virtue  and  intelligence  of  the  people 
themselves.  The  first  question  in  respect  to  any  political  institution  is,  how  far  they 
tend  to  foster  in  the  members  of  the  community  the  various  desirable  qualities, 
moral  or  intellectual."  The  ideally  best  form  of  government,  whereby  Mill  means 
the  one  which  is  practical  and  eligible  under  the  circumstances,  is  the  representative 
because  "the  rights  and  interests  of  every  and  any  person  are  only  secure  from  being 
disregarded,  when  the  person  interested  is  himself  able,  and  habitually  disposed  to 
stand  up  for  them"  and  because  "the  general  prosperity  attains  a  greater  height, 
and  is  more  widely  diffused,  in  proportion  to  the  amount  and  variety  of  the  personal 
energies  enlisted  in  promoting  it." 

REPUBLIC,  THE,  of  Plato  (c.  398-360  B.  C.),  translated  by  Benjamin  Jowett 
(1891-92).  The  'Republic'  of  Plato  is  the  first  and  perhaps  the  greatest  treatise 
on  education.  He  is  the  first  writer  who  has  a  distinct  grasp  of  the  thought  that 
education  should  comprehend  the  whole  of  life  and  be  preparatory  to  another  in  which 
education  is  to  begin  again.  True  knowledge  is  not  something  which  is  to  be  imposed 
from  without  but  elicited  from  within,  and  education  will  implant  a  principle  of  intelli- 
gence which  is  better  than  ten  thousand  eyes.  The  Platonic  conception  of  education 
is  not  as  it  were  to  fill  an  empty  vessel,  but  to  turn  the  eye  of  the  soul  towards  the  light. 
The  child  is  first  to  be  taught  the  simple  religious  truths,  which  are  only  two  in 
number,  that  God  is  true  and  that  he  is  good.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  children 
should  not  be  taught  the  old  mythology,  which  largely  consists  of  descriptions  of  the 
treacherous  and  scandalous  conduct  of  the  gods.  After  these  religious  truths  come 
moral  truths  and  unconsciously  the  child  will  learn  what  are  the  most  important  things 
next  to  religion,  good  manners,  and  good  taste.  The  work  of  education  is  to  be 
carried  on  not  only  in  an  atmosphere  of  desire  for  truth,  but  of  repose.  Children, 
therefore,  should  not  be  taken  to  dramatic  entertainments,  which  are  exciting  for 
young  people.  Education  should  be  a  harmonious  growth,  in  which  are  learnt  the 
lessons  of  temperance  and  endurance,  and  the  body  and  mind  develop  simultaneously 
in  equal  proportions.  The  great  principle  to  be  recognized  in  all  art  and  nature,  and 
the  principle  which  must  dominate  education  also,  is  simplicity. 

The  next  stage  of  education  is  gymnastic,  which,  however,  is  not  primarily  a 
training  of  the  body,  but  of  the  mind.  Its  aim  should  be  to  discipline  the  passionate 
element  in  human  nature,  as  the  purpose  of  music,  which  should  follow  gymnastic,  is 
to  restrain  the  acquisitive  and  draw  out  the  rational  within  us.  After  music  and 
gymnastic,  which  should  make  the  training  of  the  mind  their  chief  aim,  education 
should  begin  again  from  a  new  point  of  view.  "True  knowledge"  (says  Jowett) 
"according  to  Plato  is  of  abstractions,  and  has  to  do,  not  with  particulars  or  individu- 
als, but  with  universals  only;  not  with  the  beauties  of  poetry,  but  with  the  ideas 
of  philosophy,  and  the  great  aim  of  education  is  the  cultivation  of  the  habit  of  abstrac- 
tion. This  is  to  be  acquired  through  the  study  of  the  mathematical  sciences.  They 
alone  are  capable  of  giving  ideas  of  relation,  and  of  arousing  the  dormant  energies 
of  thought/'  See  also  'Dialogues'  of  Plato. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  725 

RESEARCH  MAGNIFICENT,  THE,  by  H.  G.  Wells  (1915).  William  Benham 
at  an  early  age  realizes  that  there  are  certain  bounds  to  the  attainment  of  what  he 
calls  "aristocratic  living."  The  First  of  these  is  Fear.  It  comes  to  him  when  as  a 
little  boy  he  is  shut  in  a  field  with  an  angry  bull;  and  when  he  is  "dared  "  to  deny  God 
in  a  thunderstorm.  As  he  grows  older,  Benham  takes  heroic  methods  to  overcome 
fear,  both  physical  and  mental.  Knowledge  of  the  Second  Limit,  Indulgence,  comes 
to  him  as  a  grown  man.  He  realises  it  indirectly  through  his  friend  Prothero's 
struggles  against  temptations  and  through  a  knowledge  of  his  mother's  past.  The 
experience  comes  to  him  directly  through  his  entanglement  with  a  fascinating  widow, 
Mrs.  Skelmersdale.  Weary  of  her  blandishments,  he  goes  on  a  walking  tour.  In  a 
particularly  lovely  part  of  England,  he  meets,  wooes,  and  marries  Amanda  Morris. 
With  her  he  continues  his  search  for  the  best  in  life.  Amanda  is  occasionally  bored. 
It  is  evident  that  she  would  have  preferred  a  rational  honeymoon  to  dangerous  jaunts 
in  Arabia  and  Asia  Minor,  probing  into  the  hearts  of  men.  Before  long  she  inveigles 
her  husband  back  to  London  and  tries  to  break  him  into  fashionable  life.  Benham 
refuses  to  quit  his  research  and  goes  abroad  again,  this  time  with  his  friend,  Billy 
Prothero.  While  the  young  men  are  studying  Russia  in  revolution,  word  comes 
to  Benham  that  his  wife  has  been  untrue  to  him.  A  hasty  trip  to  England  confirms 
the  rumor.  It  is  at  this  juncture  in  his  career  that  Benham  discovers  the  Third 
Barrier — Jealousy.  After  a  hard  fight  he  conquers  his  mad  rage,  settles  a  comfort- 
able sum  on  Amanda,  offers  her  a  divorce,  and  leaves  England,  this  time  for  good.  In 
the  course  of  his  wanderings  over  the  globe,  Benham  formulates  a  Fourth  Limit  to 
the  "aristocracy"  he  wants  to  achieve — Prejudice:  prejudice  against  a  man  because 
he  is  of  a  different  color,  or  of  a  different  degree  of  intelligence.  He  dies  in  Johannes- 
burg in  an  attempt  to  obliterate  this  barrier:  seeing  a  troop  of  English  soldiers  firing 
on  insurgent  natives,  he  puts  himself  in  the  way  and  dies  in  the  arms  of  his  friend, 
White,  to  whom  he  entrusts  the  formulating  of  the  ideal  for  which  he  was  striven. 

RESEARCHES  INTO  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND,  by  E.  B.  Tylor, 
see  EARLY  HISTORY,  ETC. 

RESURRECTION,  by  Count  Lyov  N.  Tolstoy,  published  in  1900,  presents  in  the 
author's  usual  powerful  vein  the  absorbing  theme  of  the  development  of  a  great 
character,  besides  offering  a  picture  of  Russian  society,  from  the  wealthy  office- 
holding  circle,  to  the  peasants  and  common  soldiers,  jailers,  and  criminal  classes. 
Nekhludoff,  a  well-to-do  Russian  noble,  who  enjoys  his  money  and  his  superficial 
society  existence  and  takes  his  views  of  life  without  questioning,  from  the  atmosphere 
around  him  is  one  day  called  on  for  jury  duty.  One  of  the  cases  he  has  to  try  is  that 
of  a  woman  who  is  accused  of  poisoning  a  merchant  for  his  money.  Nekhludoff,  to  his 
horror,  recognizes  in  the  prisoner  a  girl  from  his  aunt's  estate  with  whom  he  had 
fallen  in  love  as  a  young  man  and  seduced.  He  is  overcome  by  the  realization  of  his 
personal  responsibility  for  the  crime  in  question,  a  responsibility  which  he  is  con- 
scious of  holding  first  towards  the  girl  and  second  towards  the  community  at  large. 
Through  the  technical  ignorance  of  the  jury  Katusha  is  condemned  to  penal  servitude 
in  Siberia,  and  Nekhludoff  makes  up  his  mind  to  follow  her,  win  her  back  to  a  true 
life,  and  marry  her.  The  story  is  a  study  of  his  gradual  winning  of  a  higher  life  for 
himself  by  coming  in  contact  with  the  peasants  and  exiles  with  whom  he  must  needs 
associate  in  his  endeavor  to  do  right  by  Katusha.  Thus  in  his  effort  to  right  the 
wrong  he  has  done  to  another,  he  unconsciously  rights  the  wrong  done  in  himself  by 
the  false  social  outlook  and  inadequate  education  which  had  made  him  what  he  was, 


726  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  he  constructs  for  himself  a  new  and  broadly  human  creed  of  living.  In  this  story 
Tolstoy  reveals  his  wonderful  power  of  handling  innumerable  details  and  of  present- 
ing a  supremely  realistic  picture  of  Russian  life. 

RETURN  OF  SHERLOCK  HOLMES,  see  SHERLOCK  HOLMES. 

RETURN  OF  THE  NATIVE,  THE,  by  Thomas  Hardy,  was  published  in  1878,  being 
his  sixth  novel.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Southern  England,  in  the  author's  "Wessex 
country, "  the  district  of  which  he  has  made  an  ideal  map  for  the  latest  edition  of 
his  works.  The  hero  of  the  book,  the  "native,"  is  Clym  Yeobright,  formerly  a 
jeweler  in  Paris,  but  now  returned  to  the  village  of  his  birth,  on  Egdon  Heath.  The 
giving  up  of  his  trade  is  due  to  his  desire  to  lead  a  broader,  more  unselfish  life.  He 
plans  to  open  a  school  in  the  village,  and  to  educate  and  uplif  t  the  rustics  about  him. 
His  Quixotic  schemes  of  helpfulness  are  upset,  however,  by  his  falling  in  love  with 
Eustacia  Vye,  a  beautiful,  passionate,  discontented  woman,  "the  raw  material  of  a 
divinity."  His  marriage  with  her  is  the  beginning  of  a  troubled  life,  severed  far 
enough  from  his  ideals.  Her  self -sought  death  by  drowning  leaves  him  free  to  begin 
again  his  cherished  career  of  usefulness.  As  an  open-air  preacher  he  seeks  an  outlet 
for  his  philanthropic  spirit.  The  story  of  Yeobright  and  Eustacia  is  not  the  exclusive 
interest  of  the  book.  Many  rustic  characters,  drawn  as  only  Hardy  can  draw  them, 
lend  to  it  a  delightful  rural  flavor  which  relieves  the  gloom  of  its  tragic  incidents. 

REVE,  LE,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

REVENGE  OF  JOSEPH  NOIREL,  THE  ('La  Revanche  de  Joseph  Noirel'),  by  Victor 
Cherbuliez  (1870).  A  lively  and  skillful  character  sketch  by  this  master  of  literary 
portraiture;  who  here,  as  in  'Jean  Teterol's  Idea,'  takes  for  his  theme  the  moral 
unrest  caused  by  social  class  distinctions,  but  carries  the  development  of  his  theme  to 
ft  tragic  extreme.  The  scene  is  laid  at  Mon  Plaisir,  near  Geneva,  the  villa-home  of 
tLe  well-to-do  bourgeois  manufacturer,  M.  Merion,  whose  wife  has  social  ambitions 
of  which  the  daughter  Mademoiselle  Marguerite  is  made  the  innocent  victim. 
Given  in  a  mariage  de  convenance  to  M.  le  Conte  d'Orins,  she  finds  the  unhappi- 
ness  of  a  union  without  love  intensified  into  horror  and  dread  by  the  suspicion 
that  her  husband  has  been  guilty  of  a  hidden  crime.  Meanwhile  the  hero  of  the 
story,  Joseph  Noirel,  is  the  trusted  overseer  in  the  works  of  M.  Merion;  having 
been  gradually  promoted  to  this  position  of  responsibility  and  esteem  from  that  of 
the  starving  child  of  disgraced  parents,  whom  the  village  crier  had  rescued  and  intro- 
duced as  an  apprentice  in  the  factory.  On  Mademoiselle  Marguerite's  returning 
from  her  years  of  training  in  the  convent  for  the  aristocratic  life  to  which  her  • 
mother  had  destined  her,  Joseph  is  captivated  by  her  beauty;  and  after  being  thrown 
together  by  the  accident  of  a  storm,  he  becomes  the  hopeless  victim  of  a  devouring  but 
unrequited  love  for  her.  The  marriage  with  the  count  having  taken  place,  Joseph 
becomes  aware  of  the  crime  of  which  the  husband  is  guilty,  and  informs  Marguerite, 
who  flees  for  refuge  to  Mon  Plaisir.  The  count  meanwhile  creates  the  suspicion 
that  it  is  a  guilty  attachment  on  the  part  of  Marguerite  for  Joseph  which  has  brought 
her  there,  and  her  parents  indignantly  reject  her  plea  for  their  protection.  A  word 
from  her  would  reveal  her  husband's  crime  and  would  cost  his  life.  Meanwhile 
Joseph  has  already  resolved  to  end  his  hopeless  misery  by  taking  his  own  life.  Mar- 
guerite maintains  her  silence,  obeys  her  husband,  and  leaves  her  father's  house.  She 
asks  Joseph  to  become  the  instrument  of  her  death  before  taking  his  own  life,  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  727 

under  circumstances  that  would  imply  guilt,  while  yet  she  remains  innocent,  and 
the  savior  of  her  husband's  life  and  honor.  The  narration  of  this  climax  of  the 
story's  action  is  in  the  highest  plane  of  dramatic  writing,  and  is  a  remarkable  ex- 
hibition of  the  author's  power  of  reserve,  and  of  his  ability  to  suggest  the  hidden 
reality  beneath  expressed  unreality. 

REVERIES  OF  A  BACHELOR:  OR,  A  BOOK  OF  THE  HEART,  by  "Ik  Marvel," 
pseudonym  of  Donald  Grant  Mitchell.  The  Bachelor's  first  Reverie  was  published 
in  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger  in  1849,  and  was  reprinted  the  following  year  in 
Harper's  New  Monthly  Magazine.  It  represents  the  sentimental  Bachelor  before  a 
fire  of  oak  and  hickory  in  a  country  farmhouse.  He  broods  through  an  evening 
of  "sober  and  thoughtful  quietude."  His  thoughts  are  of  matrimony,  suggested  by 
the  smoke  —  signifying  doubt;  blaze  —  signifying  cheer;  ashes  —  signifying  desola- 
tion. Why  should  he  let  himself  love,  with  the  chance  of  losing?  The  second 
Reverie  is  by  a  city  grate,  where  the  tossing  sea-coal  flame  is  like  a  flirt,  —  "so 
lively  yet  uncertain,  so  bright  yet  flickering, "  —  and  its  confiscations  like  the  leap- 
ings  of  his  own  youthful  heart;  and  just  here  the  maid  comes  in  and  throws  upon  the 
fire  a  pan  of  anthracite,  and  its  character  soon  changes  to  a  pleasant  glow,  the  simili- 
tude of  a  true  woman's  love,  which  the  Bachelor  enlarges  much  upon  in  his  dream- 
thoughts.  The  third  Reverie  is  over  his  cigar,  as  lighted  by  a  coal,  a  wisp  of  paper,  or 
a  match,  —  each  bearing  its  suggestion  of  some  heart-experience.  The  fourth  is 
divided  into  three  parts,  also :  morning,  which  is  the  past,  —  a  dreaming  retrospect  of 
younger  days;  noon,  which  is  the  Bachelor's  unsatisfied  present;  evening,  which 
is  the  future,  with  its  vision  of  Caroline,  the  road  of  love  which  runs  not  smooth  at 
first,  and  then  their  marriage,  foreign  travel,  full  of  warm  and  lively  European  scenes, 
and  the  return  home  with  an  ideal  family  conclusion.  These  papers,  full  of  senti- 
ment, enioyed  a  wide  popularity. 

REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE,  by  Edmund  Burke,  see  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE. 

REYNARD  THE  FOX.  This  is  one  of  the  cycle  of  animal-legends  which  are  generally 
supposed  by  scholars  to  be  of  Oriental  origin,  and  which  have  been  adopted  into  most 
of  the  Germanic  languages.  The  group  of  stories  clustering  about  the  fox  as  hero, 
and  illustrating  his  superiority  over  his  fellows,  as  cunning  is  superior  to  strength, 
first  appeared  in  Germany  as  Latin  productions  of  the  monks  in  cloisters  along  the 
banks  of  the  Mosel  and  Maas.  This  was  as  early  as  the  tenth  century,  and  France 
knew  them  by  the  end  of  the  twelfth  under  the  name  of  *  Le  Roman  du  Renard.' 

In  1 170  the  material  took  definite  shape  among  the  secular  poems  of  Germany  in 
the  hands  of  Heinrich  der  Glichesare,  who  composed  an  epic  of  twelve  "adventures" 
in  Middle  High  German,  on  the  theme.  In  all  the  old  versions  there  is  a  tendency 
toward  satirical  allusions  to  the  ecclesiastical  body,  and  toward  pointing  a  moral  for 
society  through  the  mouths  or  the  behavior  of  the  animals.  After  traveling  into  the 
Flemish  tongue,  the  adventures  of  the  fox  came  back  into  German  speech;  this  time 
to  appear  in  Low  German  as  the  famous  'Reinke  de  Vos, '  printed  in  Lubeck  in  1498. 

Nearly  three  hundred  years  later,  1793,  Goethe  turned  his  attention  to  the  long- 
popular  subject,  and  gave  the  animal  epic  its  most  perfect  form  in  his  'Reinecke 
Fuchs.'  In  the  twelve  cantos  of  the  'Reinecke  Fuchs,'  which  is  written  in  hexam- 
eters, Goethe  gives  an  amusing  allegory  of  human  life  and  passions,  telling  the 
story  of  the  fox  and  his  tricks  in  a  more  refined  tone  than  his  early  predecessors,  but 
losing  something  of  their  charm  of  naive  simplicity. 


728  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  drawings  of  the  noted  German  artist,  Wilhelm  Kaulbach,  which  illustrated 
an  edition  de  luxe  of  recent  years,  have  renewed  the  interest  of  the  reading  public  in 
Goethe's  poem.  Perhaps  the  most  familiar  trick  of  Reynard  is  the  story  of  how  he 
induced  the  bear  to  put  his  head  in  the  crotch  of  a  tree  in  search  of  honey,  and  then 
removed  the  wedge  which  held  the  crotch  open,  leaving  the  bear  a  prisoner,  caught  by 
the  neck. 

RICHARD  n.,  by  Shakespeare  (printed  1597).  This  drama  (based  on  Holinshed's 
'Chronicle')  tells  the  story  of  the  supplanting,  on  the  throne  of  England,  of  the 
handsome  and  sweet-natured,  but  weak-willed  Richard  II.,  by  the  politic  Bolingbroke 
(Henry  IV.).  The  land  is  impoverished  by  Richard's  extravagances.  He  is  sur- 
rounded by  flatterers  and  boon  companions  (Bushy,  Bagot,  and  Green),  and  has  lost 
the  good- will  of  his  people.  The  central  idea  of  '  Richard  II. '  is  that  the  kingly  office 
cannot  be  maintained  without  strength  of  brain  and  hand.  Old  John  of  Gaunt  (or 
Ghent)  is  loyal  to  Richard;  but  on  his  death-bed  sermons  him  severely,  and  dying, 
prophesies  of  England,  —  "this  seat  of  Mars, " 

"This  fortress  built  by  Nature  for  herself 
Against  infection  and  the  hand  of  war, 
This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world." 

Richard  lets  him  talk;  but  no  sooner  is  the  breath  out  of  his  body  than  he  seizes 
all  his  movable  or  personal  wealth  and  that  of  his  banished  son  Bolingbroke,  to  get 
money  for  his  Irish  wars.  This  step  costs  Richard  his  throne.  While  absent  in 
Ireland,  Bolingbroke  lands  with  a  French  force,  to  regain  his  property  and  legal  rights 
as  a  nobleman  and  open  the  purple  testament  of  bleeding  war.  The  country  rises  to 
welcome  him.  Even  a  force  in  Wales,  tired  of  waiting  for  Richard,  who  was  detained 
by  contrary  winds,  disperses  just  a  day  before  he  landed.  Entirely  destitute  of 
troops,  he  humbly  submits,  and  in  London  a  little  later  gives  up  his  crown  to  Henry 
IV.  Richard  is  imprisoned  at  Pomf ret  Castle.  Here,  one  day,  he  is  visited  by  a  man 
who  was  formerly  a  poor  groom  of  his  stable,  and  who  tells  him  how  it  irked  him  to 
see  his  roan  Barbary  with  Bolingbroke  on  his  back  on  coronation  day,  stepping  along 
as  if  proud  of  his  new  master.  Just  then  one  Exton  appears,  in  obedience  to  a  hint 
from  Henry  IV.,  with  men  armed  to  kill.  Richard  at  last  (but  too  late)  shows  a 
manly  spirit;  and  snatching  a  weapon  from  one  of  the  assassins,  kills  him  and  then 
another,  but  is  at  once  struck  dead  by  Exton.  Henry  IV.  lamented  this  bloody  deed 
to  the  day  of  his  death,  and  it  cost  him  dear  in  the  censures  of  his  people. 

RICHARD  HE.,  by  Shakespeare  (printed  1597),  the  last  of  a  closely  linked  group  of 
historical  tragedies.  (See  'Henry  VI.')  Still  a  popular  play  on  the  boards;  Edwin 
Booth  as  Richard  will  long  be  remembered.  As  the  drama  opens,  Clarence  the 
brother  of  Richard  (or  Gloster  as  he  is  called)  is  being  led  away  to  the  Tower,  where, 
through  Gloster's  intrigues,  he  is  soon  murdered  on  a  royal  warrant.  The  dream  of 
Clarence  is  a  famous  passage,  —  how  he  thought  Richard  drowned  him  at  sea;  and 
in  hell  the  shade  of  Prince  Edward,  whom  he  himself  had  helped  to  assassinate  at 
Tewkesbury,  wandered  by,  its  bright  hair  dabbled  in  blood,  and  crying:  — 

"Clarence  is  come;  false,  fleeting,  perjured  Clarence." 

Gloster  also  imprisons  the  son  of  Clarence,  and  meanly  matches  Clarence's 
daughter.  The  Prince  Edward  mentioned  was  son  of  the  gentle  Henry  VI.,  whom 
Richard  stabbed  in  the  Tower.  This  hunch-backed  devil  next  had  the  effrontery 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  729 

to  woo  to  wife  Anne,  widow  of  the  Edward  he  had  slain.  She  had  not  a  moment's 
happiness  with  him,  and  deserved  none.  He  soon  killed  her,  and  announced  his 
intention  of  seeking  the  hand  of  Elizabeth,  his  niece,  after  having  hired  one  Tyrrel 
to  murder  her  brothers,  the  tender  young  princes,  sons  of  Edward  IV.,  in  the  Tower. 
Tyrrel  employed  two  hardened  villains  to  smother  these  pretty  boys;  and  even  the 
murderers  wept  as  they  told  how  they  lay  asleep,  "girdling  one  another  within  their 
innocent  alabaster  arms,"  a  prayer  book  on  their  pillow,  and  their  red  lips  almost 
touching.  The  savage  boar  also  stained  himself  with  the  blood  of  Lord  Hastings, 
of  the  brother  and  son  of  Edward  IV.'s  widow,  and  of  Buckingham,  who,  almost  as 
remorseless  as  himself,  had  helped  him  to  the  crown,  but  fell  from  him  when  he  asked 
him  to  murder  the  young  princes.  At  length  at  Bosworth  Field  the  monster  met  his 
match  in  the  person  of  Richmond,  afterward  Henry  VII.  On  the  night  before  the 
battle,  the  poet  represents  each  leader  as  visited  by  dreams,  —  Richmond  seeing 
pass  before  him  the  ghosts  of  all  whom  Richard  has  murdered,  who  encourage  him 
and  bid  him  be  conqueror  on  the  morrow;  and  Richard  seeing  the  same  ghosts  pass 
menacingly  by  him,  bidding  him  despair  and  promising  to  sit  heavy  on  his  soul  on  the 
day  of  battle.  He  awakes,  cold'drops  of  sweat  standing  on  his  brow;  the  lights  burn 
blue  in  his  tent:  "Is  there  a  murderer  here?  No.  Yes,  I  am:  then  fly.  What, 
from  myself?  "  Day  breaks;  the  battle  is  joined;  Richard  fights  with  fury,  and  his 
horse  is  killed  under  him:  "A  horse!  a  horse!  my  kingdom  for  a  horse! "  But  soon 
brave  Richmond  has  him  down,  crying,  "The  day  is  ours:  the  bloody  dog  is  dead." 

RICHARD  CABLE,  by  S.  Baring-Gould  (1888).  Richard  Cable  is  the  keeper  of  a 
light-ship  on  the  coast  of  Essex,  England.  He  is  a  widower,  and  father  of  a  family  of 
seven  children,  all  girls.  During  a  storm  Josephine  Cornellis,  a  young  lady  of  the 
neighborhood,  whose  home  is  not  particularly  happy,  is  blown  out  to  the  light-ship 
in  a  small  boat,  and  rescued  by  Cable. 

Richard,  being  a  moralist,  gives  advice  to  Josephine,  who  loses  her  heart  to  him. 
Events  so  shape  themselves  that  she  places  herself  under  his  guidance,  and  the  two 
are  married ;  but  almost  immediately  Richard  finds  himself  in  a  false  position  owing 
to  the  fact  that  he  is  not  accustomed  to  the  usages  of  society,  and  Josephine  too  feels 
mortified  by  her  husband's  mistakes.  A  separation  takes  place,  Richard  sailing  round 
the  coast  to  Cornwall,  and  taking  his  mother,  the  children,  and  all  his  belongings. 
Josephine  repents ;  and  as  she  cannot  raise  him  to  her  sphere,  decides  to  adapt  herself 
to  his.  She  goes  into  service  as  a  lady's-maid.  More  complications  ensue,  and 
Richard,  who  has  become  a  prosperous  cattle-dealer,  appears  opportunely  and  takes 
her  away  from  her  situation.  While  he  still  hates  her,  he  desires  to  provide  for  her. 
This  she  will  not  allow;  but  is  anxious  to  regain  his  love,  and  continues  to  earn  her 
living  and  endeavor  to  retrieve  her  great  mistake.  Eventually,  at  his  own  request, 
they  are  re-married. 

There  are  several  other  interesting  characters  necessary  to  the  working  out  of  a 
plot  somewhat  complicated  in  minor  details,  but  the  burden  of  the  story  is  concerning 
ill-assorted  marriages  and  ensuing  complications,  — hardness  of  heart,  pride,  malice, 
and  all  uncharitableness. 

RICHARD  CARVEL,  by  Winston  Churchill  ( 1 900) .  The  characterization  of  this  hero 
of  the  Revolutionary  period  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  best  of  its  type  in  recent  fiction. 
Richard  Carvel  spends  his  early  life  in  Maryland,  where  he  is  brought  up  by  his 
grandfather,  an  ardent  supporter  of  King  George.  Here  begins  his  varied  and 
romaptic  career,  as  does  his  devotion  for  the  lovely  Dorothy  Manners,  who  is  shortly 


730  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

removed  to  London,  where  it  is  hoped  she  will  contract  a  brilliant  marriage.  Through 
the  instrumentality  of  a  rascally  uncle,  Carvel  is  kidnapped  by  pirates  and  is  later 
captured  by  Paul  Jones,  with  whom  he  casts  in  his  fortunes;  they  become  fast  friends 
and  together  experience  many  vicissitudes.  In  London,  the  hero  undergoes  trials  and 
privations  and  suffers  the  humiliation  of  being  detained  in  the  debtor's  prison,  from 
which  he  is  rescued  by  Dorothy  Manners.  His  subsequent  career  in  London  is 
distinguished  by  steadily  increasing  success  and  he  enjoys  the  friendship  of  Horace 
Walpole,  George  Fox,  and  other  prominent  men.  Carvel  frustrates  the  plan  of  Mr. 
Manners  to  make  a  match  between  his  daughter  and  the  miserable  Duke  of  Charter- 
sea,  and  soon  after  learning  of  the  death  of  his  grandfather  and  of  the  fact  that  he  has 
been  defrauded  of  his  rightful  inheritance,  returns  to  America.  Here  he  finds  an 
occupation  in  taking  charge  of  the  lands  of  a  worthy  lawyer  and  patriot,  until  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Revolution,  when  he  enlists  and  serves  with  Paul  Jones.  The 
great  climax  of  the  story  is  reached  in  the  brilliant  description  of  the  victory  of  the 
Bon  Homme  Richard  over  the  Serapis,  in  which  battle  Carvel  is  severely  wounded ; 
he  is  taken  to  England  where  he  is  nursed  by  Dorothy,  who  at  last  consents  to  become 
his  wife,  and  returns  with  him  to  America,  where  his  heritage  is  finally  restored  to 
him. 

RICHARD  YEA  AND  NAY,  see  LIFE  AND  DEATH  OF. 

RIDDLE  OF  THE  UNIVERSE,  THE  ('  Die  Weltrasel '),  a  metaphysical  and  scientific 
treatise  by  Ernst  Haeckel,  was  published  in  German  in  1899  and  in  an  English  trans- 
lation by  Joseph  McCabe  in  1901.  An  eminent  and  prolific  scientific  investigator, 
a  passionate  admirer  of  Darwin,  and  uniting  power  of  minute  research  with  bold 
metaphysical  speculation,  Haeckel  put  forth  this  book  at  the  close  of  a  long  career  of 
biological  discovery,  in  defense  of  the  extremest  form  of  materialistic  monism.  From 
the  chemical  law  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  the  physical  law  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy  he  formulates  the  law  of  substance  or  "law  of  the  persistence 
of  matter  and  force";  and  he  strives  to  prove  that  this  law  is  sufficient  in  itself  to 
account  for  all  known  phenomena,  material,  mental,  and  spiritual.  He  holds  with 
Spinoza  that  matter  and  energy  "are  but  two  inseparable  attributes  of  the  one 
underlying  substance."  The  dualistic  idea  of  a  personal  God  above  or  outside  of 
Nature,  of  an  immortal  soul  distinct  from  the  body,  and  of  the  freedom  of  the  will 
undetermined  by  causality,  he  regards  as  delusions,  due  to  a  false  conception  of  the 
central  importance  of  man  in  the  cosmos.  An  eternal  process  of  evolution  and 
devolution  is  constantly  producing  and  then  destroying  the  various  planetary  systems; 
on  one  of  these  planets,  the  earth,  and  possibly  on  all  the  others,  life  has  arisen  and 
developed,  the  lower  species  gradually  evolving  into  higher — all  under  the  impulse  of 
purely  mechanical  and  material  forces.  Consciousness  is  a  vital  property  of  every 
living  organism  and  is  a  purely  natural  phenomenon.  Man's  body  and  soul  have 
arisen  by  a  process  of  natural  evolution  from  the  lowest  forms  of  existence.  Ethical 
principles  have  evolved  from  the  social  necessities  of  man  in  association  with  his 
fellow  men.  Dogmatic  religion  is  a  hindrance  to  man's  progress,  a  cause  of  unhappi- 
ness  and  misery,  and  above  all  a  delusion.  There  can  be  no  compromise  between 
Christianity  and  modern  science;  the  former  is  based  on  a  mistaken  dualistic  view  of 
the  universe  and  is  essentially  hostile  to  worldly  learning,  happiness,  and  progress. 
Idealistic  philosophy  and  all  dualistic  systems  are  equally  untenable. 

Haeckel  is  the  ablest  defender  of  the  materialistic  attitude  since  Darwin,  Hu*  J.ey, 
and  Tyndall,  and  goes  beyond  them  in  the  sweeping  and  positive  nature  of  his  opinions. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  731 

He  has  a  patience  of  investigation  and  a  wealth  of  detailed  information  equal  to  that 
of  Darwin  and  a  greater  metaphysical  tendency  than  his  English  masters.  His 
great  defect  is  a  dogmatism  and  intolerance  quite  as  marked  as  that  which  he  attacks. 
His  book  has  too  much  the  air  of  having  completely  solved  the  whole  riddle  of  the 
universe.  One  cannot  fail  to  be  impressed,  however,  with  his  statement  of  what 
materialistic  science  has  accomplished  and  with  the  range  and  grasp  of  thought  with 
which  he  marshals  it  all  into  a  philosophic  system.  As  a  writer  of  polemic  he 
is  quite  the  equal  of  Huxley  and  has  widely  and  profoundly  influenced  German 
thought. 

RIDERS  TO  THE  SEA,  by  J.  M.  Synge  (1904).  In  a  cabin  in  an  island  off  the  west 
of  Ireland,  Cathleen,  a  girl  of  about  twenty,  finishes  kneading  cake  and  sits  down 
to  the  spinning  wheel.  Nora,  a  young  sister,  puts  her  head  in  at  the  door,  and  takes 
from  under  her  shawl  a  bundle  given  her  by  the  young  priest.  In  it  are  a  shirt  and 
stocking  "got  off  a  drowned  man  in  Donegal."  The  priest  has  given  them  to  her  to 
find  out  if  they  belong  to  her  brother  Michael,  who  has  been  missing.  Her  father 
and  four  other  brothers  have  all  been  drowned  fishing.  Maurya,  the  mother,  tries 
to  dissuade  her  last  surviving  son,  Hartley,  from  putting  to  sea  when  a  storm  is 
threatening.  "It's  hard  set  we'll  be  surely  the  day  you're  drowned  with  the  rest. 
What  way  will  I  live  and  the  girls  with  me, and  I  an  old  woman  looking  for  the  grave?  " 
Bartley  insists  on  going  and  when  he  is  gone,  Maurya,  who  had  gone  down  to  the  well, 
tells  her  daughters  that  she  had  seen  Bartley  riding  past,  followed  by  his  brother 
Michael.  The  girls  tell  her  that  Michael's  body  has  been  found  in  "the  Far  North" 
and  while  they  are  keening  for  him,  through  the  open  door  voices  are  heard.  "  They're 
carrying  a  thing  among  them  and  there's  water  dripping  out  of  it  and  leaving  a 
track  by  the  big  stones, "  says  Nora.  It  is  the  body  of  Bartley,  whom  his  gray  pony 
has  knocked  into  the  sea.  "They're  all  gone  now,  and  there  isn't  anything  more  the 
sea  can  do  to  me.  .  .  .  They're  all  together  this  time,  and  the  end  is  come.  .  .  .  No 
man  at  all  can  be  living  forever,  and  we  must  be  satisfied,"  are  Maurya 's  concluding 
words. 

RTENZI,  THE  LAST  OF  THE  ROMAN  TRIBUNES,  by  Sir  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton 
(1848),  is  one  of  the  author's  most  famous  historical  romances.  It  is  founded  on  the 
career  of  Cola  di  Rienzi,  who,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  inspired  by  visions  of  restor- 
ing the  ancient  greatness  of  Rome,  made  himself  for  seven  months  master  of  that 
imperial  city,  and  after  nearly  seven  years  of  exile  and  excommunication,  during  part 
of  which  he  was  a  prisoner,  repeated  the  triumph,  finally  dying  at  the  people's  hands 
in  1354.  Bulwer  was  so  impressed  with  the  heroism  and  force  of  character  of  his 
hero,  that  at  first  he  meditated  writing  his  biography,  instead  of  a  romance  founded 
on  his  life.  The  story  adheres  very  closely  to  the  historical  facts.  To  secure  accu- 
racy and  vividness  of  setting,  the  novelist  went  to  Rome  to  live  while  writing  it. 
Rienzi 's  contradictory  character,  and  above  all,  his  consummate  ability,  and  the 
ambitious  and  unprincipled  yet  heroic  nature  of  his  rival,  Walter  de  Montreal,  are 
skillfully  drawn.  Among  the  lesser  personages,  Irene,  Rienzi's  gentle  sister,  and 
Nina,  his  regal  wife,  with  her  love  of  the  poetry  of  wealth  and  power;  Irene's  lover, 
Adrian  di  Castello,  the  enlightened  noble;  Cecco  del  Vecchio,  the  sturdy  smith;  and 
the  ill-fated  Angelo  Villani,  are  prominent.  Many  of  the  situations  and  scenes  are 
very  strong.  The  treatment  is  epic  rather  than  dramatic;  and  the  splendid  yet 
comfortless  civilization  of  the  Middle  Ages,  so  picturesque  and  so  squalid,  so  ecstatic 
and  so  base,  is  vividly  delineated. 


732  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

RIGHT  OF  WAY,  THE,  by  Sir  Gilbert  Parker  (1901).  In  this  powerful  story  the 
author  has  set  forth  with  a  master's  touch  the  study  of  a  man's  soul.  "Beauty 
Steele, "  the  brilliant  barrister,  who  is  thought  to  have  been  wiped  out  of  existence  in 
a  drunken  brawl,  awakens  in  absolutely  new  surroundings  and  as  Charles  Mallard 
begins  a  new  life,  which,  though  unhampered  by  previous  ties  and  associations,  is 
ever  menaced  by  old  tendencies  to  vice.  The  metamorphose  from  the  drunken  fop  to 
the  well-loved  tailor  is  attained  through  a  sequence  of  natural  events,  none  of  them 
beyond  the  pale  of  possibility,  and  the  working  out  of  the  story  to  its  unexpected 
conclusion  is  natural,  just  what  might  have  happened  under  the  same  circumstances 
in  real  life.  The  atmosphere  of  a  quaint  little  Canadian  village,  with  its  simple  folk 
and  simple  ways,  is  a  pleasing  background  for  the  story  of  this  man's  duplex  life, 
filled  as  it  is  with  its  tragic  problems  of  love  and  sorrow.  The  character  of  Rosalie 
Evanturel,  the  lovely  daughter  of  the  village  postmaster,  is  delightfully  fresh  and 
original.  In  her,  Charles  Mallard  finds  his  real  affinity,  and  his  love  for  her  becomes 
the  ruling  motive  in  his  second  existence.  The  story,  while  psychological,  is  full  of 
dramatic  interest  and  yet  carries  to  the  end  a  perfect  sense  of  proportion  and  a 
wonderful  resemblance  to  nature.  Mr.  Parker  handles  his  problem  of  presenting 
this  double  existence  with  the  greatest  skill,  and,  with  a  true  artistic  touch,  does  not, 
even  at  the  end,  lift  the  curtain  which  separates  the  new  life  from  the  old.  Kathleen, 
once  the  wife  of  "  Beauty  Steele, "  whose  arrival  on  the  scene  gives  her  an  opportunity 
to  enter  the  chamber  of  death  and  recognize  the  erstwhile  brilliant  barrister,  goes 
away  unenlightened  as  to  his  prolonged  existence,  leaving  Rosalie  Evanturel  kneeling 
by  his  bier. 

RIGHT  STUFF,  THE,  by  Ian  Hay  (1910).  The  scene  of  this  story  is  laid  in  Great 
Britain  and  shifts  from  Scotland  to  England.  The  hero  of  the  tale  is  a  young  Scots- 
man named  Robert  Fordyce,  familiarly  called  Robin.  When  first  introduced  to 
the  reader  he  is  on  his  way  to  Edinburgh  to  try  for  a  scholarship  which  will  enable 
him  to  attend  the  University.  Born  and  bred  on  a  farm  and  reared  by  sober  and  God- 
fearing parents,  Robin  has  the  big  physique  and  honest  nature  which  usually  results 
from  such  environment.  Successful  in  his  efforts  he  passes  his  examinations  and  wins 
the  highest  honors,  goes  through  the  University  and  prepares  to  study  for  the  minis- 
try, when  his  brother's  failing  health  causes  him  to  abandon  his  career  in  order  to  help 
support  the  family.  He  takes  up  journalism  and  labors  at  it  faithfully  for  three 
years  but  relinquishes  it  gladly  to  become  private  secretary  to  Adrian  Inglethwaite, 
M.  P.  While  occupying  this  position  Robin  lives  in  his  employer's  family  and  is 
thrown  in  daily  contact  with  Airs.  Inglethwaite Js  pretty  twin  sisters  named  respec- 
tively Dolly  and  Dilly.  These  two  fascinating  damsels  are  so  exactly  alike  that  they 
puzzle  even  their  own  family  and  they  amuse  themselves  by  mixing  up  their  various 
admirers.  To  their  great  surprise  Robin  discovers  a  slight  difference  in  them  upon 
their  first  meeting  and  never  thereafter  mistakes  one  for  the  other.  Dilly  marries 
Richard  Lever  and  on  the  night  of  her  wedding  Robin  tells  Dolly  of  his  love  for  her 
but  says  he  shall  not  propose  to  her  until  he  has  become  worthy  of  her.  This  original 
method  of  love-making  is  new  to  Dolly  and  at  first  she  does  not  know  just  how  to 
take  it.  Time  goes  on,  however,  and  just  as  a  critical  election  is  in  progress  the 
Inglethwaite's  little  girl  Phyllis  is  taken  seriously  ill.  This  crisis  brings  the  love 
affair  to  a  climax  and  though  the  election  is  lost,  Phyllis  recovers,  and  Dolly  ac- 
loiowledges  her  love  for  Robin  before  he  has  reached  the  point  of  claiming  her.  The 
reader  takes  leave  of  them  fifteen  years  later  when  Robin  has  become  the  Right 
Honorable  Sir  Robert  Fordyce,  Privy  Councillor  and  Secretary  of  State. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  733 

RIGHTS  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE,  by  Grotius,  'De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacis.'  With 
Translation  and  Notes,  by  Dr.  William  Whewell.  (3  vols.,  1853.  Translation 
alone,  i  vol.)  —  One  of  the  most  interesting,  most  significant,  and  most  permanently 
important  of  books.  Its  importance,  to  the  present  day  as  in  the  past,  is  that  of  the 
earliest  and  greatest  work  designed  to  apply  the  principles  of  humanity,  not  only  to 
the  conduct  of  war  but  to  the  whole  conduct  of  nations,  on  the  plan  of  finding  these 
principles  in  human  nature  and  human  social  action.  The  works  of  Albericus 
Gentilis  (1588),  and  Ayala  (1597),  had  already  dealt  with  the  laws  of  war.  To  Gro- 
tius belongs  the  honor  of  founder  of  the  law  of  nature  and  of  nations.  The  significance 
of  the  original  work,  published  at  Frankfort  in  1625,  when  the  Thirty  Years'  War  was 
making  a  carnival  of  blood  and  terror  in  Europe,  is  the  application  of  Christian  hu- 
manity to  the  conduct  of  war,  and  to  the  intercourse  of  nations,  which  Grotius  pro- 
posed. The  work  is  one  of  immense  learning,  in  Roman  law  especially;  and  although 
executed  in  one  year,  with  his  brother's  aid  in  the  large  number  of  quotations,  it  in 
fact  represented  the  studies  of  twenty  years,  and  filled  out  an  outline  first  written 
in  1604.  The  whole  history  of  the  author  is  of  exceptional  interest.  A  most 
versatile  scholar  at  an  early  age,  a  translator  of  Greek  poetry  into  Latin  verse  of  high 
poetic  quality,  a  Dutch  historian  in  a  Latin  style  worthy  of  Tacitus,  and  a  Christian 
commentator  and  apologist  of  broadly  humanist  enlightenment,  superior  even  to 
Erasmus,  he  was  also  one  of  the  most  attractive  characters  of  his  time. 

RIGHTS  OF  WOMEN,  by  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  see  VINDICATION  OF  THE 
RIGHTS  OF. 

RHS,  JACOB  A.,  see  MAKING  OF  AN  AMERICAN. 

RIME  OF  THE  ANCIENT  MARINER,  THE,  by  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  first 
appeared  in  '  Lyrical  Ballads '  (1798).  It  is  one  of  the  most  fantastic  and  original 
poems  in  the  English  language.  An  attempt  at  analysis  is  difficult ;  for,  as  has  been 
happily  said:  "The  very  music  of  its  words  is  like  the  melancholy,  mysterious 
breath  of  something  sung  to  the  sleeping  ear;  its  images  have  the  beauty,  the  gran- 
deur, the  incoherence,  of  some  mighty  vision.  The  loveliness  and  the  terror  glide  before 
us  in  turns,  with,  at  one  moment,  the  awful  shadowy  dimness,  at  another  the  yet 
more  awful  distinctness,  of  a  majestic  dream."  A  wedding  guest  is  on  his  way  to  the 
bridal  festivities.  He  hears  the  merry  minstrelsy,  and  sees  the  lights  in  the  distance. 
An  old  gray-bearped  man  —  the  Ancient  Mariner  —  stops  him  to  tell  him  a  story,  and 
although  the  wedding  guest  refuses  to  listen,  he  is  held  by  the  fixed  glance  of  the 
mysterious  stranger.  The  Ancient  Mariner  describes  his  voyage,  how  his  ship  was 
locked  in  the  ice,  and  how  he  shot  with  his  crossbow  the  tame  Albatross,  the  bird  of 
good  omen  which  perched  upon  the  vessel.  The  entire  universe  seemed  stunned  by 
this  wanton  act  of  cruelty:  the  sea  and  sky  sicken,  the  sun  becomes  withered  and 
bloody,  no  winds  move  the  ship,  "idle  as  a  painted  ship  upon  a  painted  ocean  ";  slimy 
things  creep  upon  the  slimy  sea,  death- fires  dance  about  the  vessel;  and  the  Albatross 
hangs  around  the  neck  of  the  Ancient  Mariner.  A  spectre  ship  appears,  and  the  crew 
die,  leaving  the  graybeard  alone.  After  a  time  he  is  moved  to  prayer,  whereupon 
the  evil  spell  is  removed.  The  Albatross  sinks  into  the  sea,  and  the  Mariner's  heart 
is  once  again  a  part  of  the  universal  spirit  of  love.  After  hearing  this  story,  the 
wedding  guest  "turns  from  the  bridegroom's  door,"  and 

"A  sadder  and  a  wiser  man 
He  rose  the  morrow  morn." 


734  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  weird  ballad  is  capable  of  many  interpretations;  for  the  Ancient  Mariner  is 
nameless,  there  is  no  name  for  the  ship,  and  her  destination  is  vague.  In  its  small 
compass  it  contains  a  tragedy  of  remorse,  and  of  redemption  through  repentance. 
The  imagery  is  wonderful,  and  the  poem  is  pervaded  by  a  noble  mystery.  Words- 
worth, Coleridge  affirms,  wrote  the  last  two  lines  of  the  first  stanza  of  Part  iv. 

RING  AND  THE  BOOK,  THE,  by  Robert  Browning.  This  dramatic  monologue, 
the  longest  and  best  sustained  of  Browning's  poems,  was  published  in  four  volumes 
in  1868-69,  and  is  his  greatest  constructive  achievement.  This  poem  of  twenty-one 
thousand  lines  contains  ten  versions  of  the  same  occurrence,  besides  the  poet's  prelude. 
It  presents  from  these  diverse  points  of  view  the  history  of  a  tragedy  which  took  place 
in  Rome  one  hundred  and  seventy  years  before.  Browning,  one  day  in  Florence, 
bought  for  eightpence  an  old  book  which  contained  the  records  of  a  murder  that 
of  the  olden  time  in  Rome,  with  the  pleadings  and  counter-pleadings,  and  the  state- 
ments of  the  defendants  and  the  witnesses;  this  Browning  used  as  the  raw  material 
for  'The  Ring  and  the  Book, '  which  appeared  four  years  later.  The  story  follows 
the  fate  of  the  unfortunate  heroine,  Pompilia,  who  has  been  sold  by  her  supposed 
mother  to  the  elderly  Count  Guido,  whose  cruelty  and  violence  cause  her  eventually 
to  fly  from  him.  This  she  does  under  the  protection  of  a  young  priest  named  Giuseppe 
Caponsacchi,  whom  she  prevails  upon  to  convey  her  safely  to  her  old  home.  She 
is  pursued  by  the  Count,  who  overtakes  her  and  procures  the  arrest  of  the  two  fugi- 
tives, accusing  her  and  Caponsacchi  of  having  eloped.  They  are  tried;  and  the 
court  banishes  Caponsacchi  for  three  years,  while  Pompilia  is  relegated  to  a  convent. 
Having  at  a  later  period  been  removed  from  there  to  her  former  home,  she  is  sud- 
denly attacked  by  the  Count  and  several  hired  assassins,  who  brutally  murder  her 
and  her  two  parents;  then  follows  the  Count's  trial  and  condemnation  for  the  murders, 
and  (even  in  Italy)  his  final  execution.  The  events  of  the  tragedy  are  enumerated 
by  the  Count,  Pompilia,  Caponsacchi,  the  Pope,  and  others,  each  from  his  or  her 
peculiar  point  of  view;  and  two  opposing  aspects  of  the  case  as  seen  from  outside  are 
offered  by  "Half  Rome"  and  "The  Other  Half."  Browning  in  conclusion  touches 
upon  the  intended  lesson,  and  explains  why  he  has  chosen  to  present  it  in  this  artistic 
form.  The  lesson  has  been  already  learned  from  the  Pope's  sad  thought:  — 

"  —  Our  human  speech  is  naught, 
Our  testimony  human  false,  our  fame 
And  human  estimation  words  and  wind." 

The  Pope's  soliloquy  is  a  remarkable  piece  of  work,  and  the  chapters  which 
contain  the  statements  of  Pompilia  and  Caponsacchi  are  filled  with  tragic  beauty 
and  emotion.  The  thought,  the  imagery,  and  the  wisdom  embodied  in  this  story, 
make  it  a  triumph  of  poetic  and  philosophic  creation. 

RISE  OF  ROSCOE  PAINE,  THE,  by  Joseph  C.  Lincoln  (1912).  This  is  the  story 
of  a  young  man  named  Roscoe  Paine  who  on  account  of  his  invalid  mother  is 
spending  years  of  enforced  idleness  in  a  little  town  on  Cape  Cod.  Six  years  pre- 
viously Mrs.  Paine  had  been  stricken  with  a  severe  illness  which  had  made  her  helpless, 
and  dependent  upon  the  companionship  of  her  only  son,  who  had  given  up  a  position 
in  the  banking-house  in  the  city,  which  he  had  held  since  leaving  college,  and  had 
settled  down  in  the  town  of  Denboro,  to  lead  the  life  of  a  recluse  and  an  idler.  The 
son  of  an  embezzler  who  had  ruined  his  family,  and  deserted  them,  and  committed 
suicide  when  exposure  threatened,  Roscoe  felt  that  his  father's  disgrace  had  cast  a 
blot  upon  his  life  which  could  never  be  erased.  Accordingly  he  and  his  mother  had 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  735 

hidden  themselves  from  the  world  and  under  an  assumed  name  were  trying  to  live 
down  their  affliction.  The  arrival  in  Denboro  of  a  rich  New  York  financier  named 
Colton,  who  builds  himself  a  palatial  residence  causes  a  stir  in  local  circles.  Mr. 
Colton  has  an  only  daughter  named  Mabel  who  is  a  most  attractive  girl.  She  has 
an  accidental  meeting  with  Roscoe  whom  she  takes  for  a  "native"  and  treats  as  such. 
Later  on,  Roscoe  several  times  comes  to  her  rescue  and  saves  her  from  disasters  of 
various  kinds,  and  she  begins  to  appreciate  his  strength  and  character.  Mr.  Colton 
desires  to  buy  a  strip  of  land  belonging  to  Roscoe  and  offers  a  fabulous  sum  for  it, 
but  he  refuses  to  sell,  wishing  to  retain  the  land  as  a  convenient  thoroughfare  for  his 
neighbors.  Finally,  however,  he  is  obliged  to  relinquish  it  in  order  to  procure  money 
to  save  a  friend  from  disgrace.  Mr.  Colton  is  taken  suddenly  ill  and  while  un- 
conscious a  crisis  arises  in  his  affairs  which  is  successfully  met  by  Roscoe.  Before  his 
illness  Mr.  Colton  had  offered  Roscoe  a  position  in  his  business  but  the  latter  had 
declined  not  wishing  to  reveal  his  identity.  Mr.  Colton  becomes  convalescent  and 
renews  his  offer  so  urgently  that  Roscoe  decides  to  tell  him  everything.  When  Mr. 
Colton  learns  that  he  is  the  son  of  Carleton  Bennet  whom  he  had  known  before  his 
downfall,  he  becomes  even  more  interested  in  Roscoe  and  gives  his  daughter  to  him 
in  marriage  though  the  latter  had  felt  that  in  his  position  he  had  no  right  to  aspire 
to  her  hand. 

RISE  OF  THE  DUTCH  REPUBLIC,  THE:  '  A  History, '  by  John  Lothrop  Motley. 
First  printed  in  1856,  at  the  author's  expense,  —  because  the  great  publishers,  Mr. 
Murray  included,  would  not  risk  such  an  enterprise  for  the  unknown  historian,  —  it 
proved  an  immediate  popular  success;  and  was  followed  by  a  French  translation 
(supervised  with  an  introduction  by  Guizot)  in  1859,  and  soon  after  by  Dutch,  Ger- 
man, and  Russian  translations.  James  Anthony  Froude,  in  the  Westminster  Re- 
view, characterized  the  new  work  as  "a  history  as  complete  as  industry  and  genius 
can  make  it  ...  of  the  first  twenty  years  of  the  Revolt  of  the  United  Provinces;  of 
the  period  in  which  those  provinces  finally  conquered  their  independence  and  estab- 
lished the  Republic  of  Holland."  Of  the  ten  years'  preparation,  half  were  spent 
by  the  author  with  his  family  abroad,  studying  in  the  libraries  and  State  archives  of 
Europe.  Writing  from  Brussels  to  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  he  says:  "I  haunt  this 
place  because  it  is  my  scene,  —  my  theatre  .  .  .  for  representing  scenes  which  have 
long  since  vanished,  and  which  no  more  enter  the  minds  of  the  men  and  women  who 
are  actually  moving  across  its  pavement  than  if  they  had  occurred  in  the  moon. 
...  I  am  at  home  in  any  cemetery.  With  the  fellows  of  the  sixteenth  century  I 
am  on  the  most  familiar  terms.  ...  I  go,  day  after  day,  to  the  archives  here  (as  I 
went  all  summer  at  The  Hague)  studying  the  old  letters  and  documents.  ...  It  is, 
however,  not  without  its  amusement,  in  a  moldy  sort  of  way,  this  reading  of  dead 
letters.  It  is  something  to  read  the  real,  bona-fide  signs-manual  of  such  fellows  as 
William  of  Orange,  Count  Egmont,  Alexander  Farnese,  Philip  II.,  Cardinal  Granvelle, 
and  the  rest  of  them.  It  gives  a  'realizing  sense, '  as  the  Americans  have  it."  This 
"realizing  sense  "  is  what  Motley  put  into  his  published  record  of  the  struggles  of  the 
Protestant  "beggars  of  Holland"  with  the  grandees  of  Spain,  throwing  off  the  yoke 
of  their  bigoted  ruler,  Philip,  in  spite  of  the  utmost  cruelties  of  mediaeval  warfare  and 
the  Church's  Inquisition  practiced  by  Philip's  favorite  general,  the  notorious  Duke  of 
Alva. 

RISING  OF  THE  MOON,  THE,  by  Lady  Gregory  (1907).  A  one-act  comedy 
dealing  with  the  relations  existing  between  the  peasants  and  the  police  at  the  time 


736  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

of  the  Fenian  period  in  Irish  history.  There  are  four  characters,  a  police  sergeant, 
two  policemen,  and  a  political  prisoner  who  has  broken  gaol.  At  the  opening  of  the 
play,  the  sergeant  and  his  two  assistants  are  pasting  up  placards  describing  the 
fugitive,  offering  a  reward  of  one  hundred  pounds  for  his  capture.  The  sergeant 
decides  to  watch  the  quay  himself,  in  case  the  escaped  prisoner  should  come  there  to 
meet  a  boat.  As  he  walks  in  the  moonlight  meditating  on  the  "spending"  there 
must  be  in  a  hundred  pounds,  the  prisoner  comes  along  in  the  guise  of  a  ballad  singer. 
At  first  he  is  an  object  of  suspicion,  but  he  ingratiates  himself  with  the  sergeant  by 
telling  him  he  knows  the  man  he  is  looking  for,  would  recognize  him  a  mile  off.  He 
offers  to  share  the  watch,  and  asks  nothing  of  the  reward,  for  a  poor  man  like  him 
"going  on  the  roads  and  singing  in  fairs"  could  not  afford  "to  have  the  name  on 
him,  that  he  took  a  reward."  He  dilates  on  the  ferocity  of  the  missing  man  until  the 
sergeant  is  glad  of  his  company,  and  they  sit  back  to  back  on  a  barrel,  on  which  one 
of  the  notices  is  pasted,  the  better  to  watch  in  two  directions.  The  supposed  ballad 
singer  sings  some  of  the  old  songs  awakening  tender  memories  of  the  sergeant's 
unofficial  youth.  They  become  involved  in  speculation  as  to  the  accidents  of  life 
that  make  the  sergeant  a  constable  instead  of  a  Fenian  patriot.  A  boat  approaches 
and  the  signal,  verses  of  the  rebel  song  "The  Rising  of  the  Moon, "  is  answered  by 
the  rowers,  and  the  sergeant  recognizes  he  has  been  duped.  The  prisoner  appeals 
to  the  sergeant  not  to  betray  him,  and  hides  as  the  policemen  return.  The  sergeant 
resists  the  temptation  of  the  reward  and  lets  him  escape.  Left  alone  he  thinks  of  the 
one  hundred  pounds  and  wonders  if  he  is  as  great  a  fool  as  he  thinks  he  is. 

RIVALS,  THE,  by  R.  B.  Sheridan  (1775).  'The  Rivals'  Sheridan's  first  dramatic 
effort  which  met  with  instant  success  and  has  remained  a  favorite  on  the  stage 
ever  since,  was  written  when  he  was  but  twenty-four.  It  contains  a  whole  gallery  of 
characters  which  have  become  household  words.  Sir  Anthony  Absolute  is  a  variant 
of  the  hackneyed  character,  the  angry  father.  Sir  Lucius  0 'Trigger  hits  off  the  duel- 
ing habits  of  his  fellow-countrymen  of  that  time.  Bob  Acres  is  perhaps  the  best 
known  blockhead  on  the  comic  stage.  Mrs.  Malaprop's  "derangement  of  epithets  " 
is  a  never-failing  source  of  amusement.  Lydia  Languish,  that  extraordinary  com- 
pound of  extravagance  and  simplicity,  who  wanted  a  husband  but  thought  it  would  be 
tame  to  have  one  without  an  elopement  is  the  most  attractive  of  maidens.  Faulkland 
is  the  personification  of  perversity,  who  always  has  a  grievance  and  never  loses  an 
opportunity  of  making  himself  and  other  people  miserable.  The  interest  in  the  plot 
of  the  play  never  flags,  and  the  wit  and  brilliance  of  the  dialogue  are  sustained 
throughout.  The  characters  bear  strong  resemblances  to  figures  in  plays  bv  earlier 
authors,  but  to  use  the  words  of  Hazlitt  it  "appears  to  have  been  the  peculiar  forte 
and  the  great  praise  of  our  author's  genius,  that  he  could  imitate  with  the  spirit  of  an 
inventor." 

ROBBER  COUNT,  THE  ('Der  Raubgraf '),  by  Julius  Wolff  (1890).  The  scene  of 
this  romantic  German  story,  which  has  enjoyed  immense  success,  is  laid  in  the  Hartz 
Mountains,  in  the  fourteenth  century.  From  the  heights  of  his  mountain  strong- 
hold, Count  Albrecht  of  Regenstein,  the  robber  count,  overlooks  the  whole  surround- 
ing country,  including  the  castle  of  the  bishop  of  Halberstadt,  his  sworn  enemy,  and 
the  town  and  convent  of  Quedlinburg,  of  which  he  is  champion  and  protector.  The 
abbess  of  this  convent,  which  shelters  only  the  daughters  of  royal  and  noble  houses, 
and  is  subject  to  no  rules  of  any  order,  is  the  beautiful  and  brilliant  Jutta  von  Kran- 
ichfeld.  This  woman  loves  Count  Albrecht  with  all  the  force  of  her  imperious 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  741 

ROMAN  EMPIRE,  DECLINE  AND  FALL,  see  DECLINE,  ETC. 

ROMAN  LITERATURE,  A  HISTORY  OF,  by  A.  C.  T.  Cruttwell  (1878).  This 
study  of  classic  literature  is  founded  on  the  monumental  work  of  Teuffel;  and  in  its 
smaller  space,  treats  its  subject  with  equal  accuracy  and  discrimination,  and  with 
more  charm.  Its  abstracts  are  more  interesting,  and  its  characterizations  are  often 
done  not  only  with  exactness,  but  with  a  picturesque  touch  that  gives  the  subject  a 
contemporary  interest,  and  makes  Horace  or  Virgil  or  Cicero  a  personal  acquaintance. 
The  literary  criticism  is  excellent  of  its  kind,  and  the  book  is  as  valuable  a  companion 
to  the  reader  for  pleasure,  as  to  the  student  with  a  purpose. 

ROMAN  POETS,  THE,  by  W.  Y.  Sellar.  Vol.  i.,  The  Poets  of  the  Republic ;  Vol.  ii., 
Virgil;  Vol.  iii.,  Horace  and  the  Elegiac  Poets  (1863-97).  The  entire  work  forms  one 
of  the  most  scholarly,  complete,  and  interesting  contributions  to  the  history  of 
literature  ever  written.  The  author  is  not  only  a  classical  critic  of  the  first  order,  of 
ripe  scholarship  and  fine  literary  taste,  but  his  appreciation  of  Roman  culture, 
profound  and  exact,  and  his  exceptional  power  of  lucid  exposition,  have  enabled  him 
to  give  Roman  intellectual  culture  of  the  finer  sort  its  due,  in  comparison  with  Greek, 
to  an  extent  not  elsewhere  done.  Largely  as  Roman  genius  in  Latin  literature  was 
fed  from  Greek  sources,  it  was  yet  more  original  and  independent  than  has  been 
commonly  supposed.  The  whole  level  of  Latin  culture  is  at  once  lifted  and  illu- 
minated in  Dr.  Sellar's  wonderfully  rich  and  glowing  pages.  The  volume  devoted 
to  Virgil  is  unsurpassed  in  any  language  as  a  masterpiece  of  interpretation  and  of 
delightful  critical  praise.  The  writer's  outlook  is  not  that  of  a  Latin  chair  alone:  it  is 
that  of  humanity  and  of  universal  culture;  that  of  Greek  and  English  and  European 
history;  to  bring  Roman  mind  into  comparison  with  all  the  great  types  of  mind  in  all 
lands  and  of  all  ages.  To  know  what  the  deeper  spiritual  developments  of  the  Roman 
world  were  when  Christ  came,  what  were  the  rays  of  light  and  the  clouds  of  darkness 
at  the  dawn  of  the  new  faith,  readers  can  hardly  find  a  better  guide  than  this  study 
of  the  Roman  poets. 

ROMAN  SCENES  OF  THE  TIME  OF  AUGUSTUS,  see  GALLUS;  OR,  ROMAN 
SCENES. 

ROMAN  SINGER,  A,  by  Francis  Marion  Crawford  (1884).  Nino  Cardegna,  the 
Roman  singer,  is  the  adopted  son  of  Cornelio  Grandi,  who  tells  the  story.  Cornelio 
is  the  last  of  the  Conti  Grandi,  and  has  been  forced  to  sell  his  estate  at  Serveti  and 
pursue  a  professor's  life  at  Rome.  Nino  has  the  audacity  to  fall  in  love  at  first  sight 
with  Hedwig,  daughter  of  Count  von  Lira.  Won  by  the  beautiful  tenor  voice, 
Hedwig  fully  returns  his  love.  They  arouse  the  suspicions  of  the  father,  a  "cold, 
hard,  narrow  man, "  who  secretly  carries  his  daughter  to  an  obscure  castle  in  the 
Abruzzi. 

Nino  searches  Paris  and  London  in  vain  for  a  trace  of  Hedwig.  Meanwhile  his 
father  gets  a  hint  of  the  probable  whereabouts  of  the  Liras,  and  immediately  starts 
on  a  search  for  them.  Careful  inquiries  extract  the  desired  information.  He  takes 
up  his  abode  near  the  castle,  and  at  last,  by  enormous  bribes  to  a  servant,  secures  an 
interview  with  Hedwig.  From  her  he  learns  of  her  great  unhappiness;  of  her  father's 
'  purpose  to  keep  her  a  prisoner  until  she  consents  to  marry  Benoni,  a  rich  Jew;  and 
of  her  own  determination  never  to  yield. 

When  Nino  arrives  he  seeks  the  count,  and  asks  for  his  daughter's  hand.    He  is 


742  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

refused,  and  thereupon  determines  to  take  her  away  without  her  father's  consent,  if 
it  is  her  own  wish.  Hedwig  succeeds  in  escaping  to  Nino  by  an  unused  stair  and  door. 
On  mules  that  are  in  readiness  they  climb  the  Abruzzi  to  points  that  horses  cannot 
reach.  After  being  married  at  a  little  village  in  the  mountains,  they  return  to  Rome, 
where  there  are  interesting  scenes  with  the  old  count,  who  refuses  to  be  reconciled, 
and  with  Benoni,  who  turns  out  to  be  insane. 

The  story  ends  with  the  prospective  return  of  Grandi  to  his  old  estate  at  Serveti. 
The  charm  of  this  book  is  in  its  good,  healthy  romance,  its  honest,  straightforward 
love-making  without  mawkish  sentimentalism.  With  its  strong  Italian  atmosphere, 
and  its  ingenious  situations  following  one  another  in  quick  succession,  it  carries  us 
quite  out  of  ourselves.  The  characters  are  strongly  and  consistently  drawn. 

ROMANCE  OF  A  MUMMY,  THE,  by  Theophile  Gautier.  In  this  remarkable 
novel,  first  published  in  1856,  is  contained  almost  all  then  known  of  the  life  and 
customs  of  the  ancient  Egyptians.  It  will  probably  never  be  popular  with  the  general 
reader,  because  of  its  too  local  color;  and  few  can  appreciate  the  amount  of  study 
necessary  to  write  such  a  book.  There  is  an  exuberance  of  minute  details  about  the 
architecture  and  inside  decorations  and  furnishings  of  the  palaces,  founded  on  accurate 
studies.  The  author  has  chosen  for  the  date  of  his  story  the  time  when,  according  to 
the  Bible,  Moses  led  the  Israelites  out  of  bondage;  and  from  the  same  source  and 
without  any  help  from  Egyptian  records,  he  gives  an  account  of  the  events  that  lead 
to  the  drowning  of  the  host  of  Pharaoh  in  the  Red  Sea.  The  story  treats  of  the  love 
of  Tahoser,  daughter  of  the  Theban  High  Priest,  for  Poeri,  a  young  Jew  who  is 
steward  of  Pharaoh.  He  is  in  love  with  Ra'hel,  and  escapes  across  the  Nile  every 
night  to  meet  his  beloved,  who  lives  in  one  of  the  mud  huts  where  the  Jews,  reduced 
to  slavery,  are  baking  bricks  in  the  sun  for  the  building  of  the  Great  Pyramids. 
Tahoser  disguises  herself  as  a  servant,  and  enters  the  service  of  Poeri.  She  swims  the 
Nile  one  night,  following  him,  and  finds  him  with  Ra'hel.  Falling  ill  with  a  fever, 
she  is  cared  for  by  Ra'hel,  and  upon  her  recovery  is  to  be  married  to  Poeri;  but 
Pharaoh  learns  of  her  hiding-place  and  takes  her  to  his  palace.  After  his  death  she 
reigns,  and  is  buried  in  his  tomb.  The  papyrus,  which  the  novelist  says  was  found 
with  her  body,  discloses  the  story  of  her  life. 

ROMANCE  OF  A  POOR  YOUNG  MAN,  THE,  by  Octave  Feuillet.  This  very 
popular  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  melodramatic.  Maxime  Odiot,  Marquis  de 
Champcey,  by  the  rash  speculation  of  his  father,  is  left  without  fortune.  Through 
the  intercession  of  his  old  notary,  he  becomes  steward  of  the  Chateau  des  Laroque. 
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  Porhoel  Goel,  an  octogenarian. 
Marguerite,  the  daughter  of  Laroque,  treats  him  with  the  greatest  consideration; 
but  he  professes  the  greatest  indifference  for  her.  Finally,  through  the  machinations 
of  Madame  Aubry  and  Mademoiselle  Helonin,  suspicions  are  raised  as  to  the  loyalty 
of  Maxima's  intentions.  Marguerite  is  made  to  believe  that  Maxime  seeks  to  make 
himself  the  heir  of  Mademoiselle  Porhoel  Go£l,  and  is  warned  that  he  may  so  com- 
promise her  as  to  oblige  her  to  marry  him.  Entering  the  tower  of  an  old  ruin  one 
evening,  she  there  finds  Maxime.  After  conversing  with  him,  she  seeks  to  go,  and 
finds  the  door  locked.  She  believes  that  Maxime  hopes  to  compromise  her  by  oblig- 
ing her  to  remain  with  him  all  night  in  the  tower,  and  accuses  him  of  treachery.  He 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  743 

acknowledges  his  love  for  her;  but  to  save  her  honor,  leaps  from  the  tower,  in  spite  of 
her  attempts  to  detain  him.  It  is  found  that  Marguerite's  grandfather  had  formerly 
been  the  steward  of  Maxime's  family,  and  had  enriched  himself  from  the  estate 
during  the  Revolutionary  period.  Madame  Laroque  restores  the  fortune  to  Maxime, 
and  he  marries  Marguerite. 

ROMANCE  OF  DOLLARD,  THE,  by  Mary  Hartwell  Catherwood,  appeared  in  1888. 
It  is  a  romance  of  New  France  in  1660,  and  breaks  new  historic  ground  for  romantic 
treatment.  Louis  XIV.  of  France  has  sent  out  a  shipload  of  stolid  peasant  girls,  as 
wives  for  the  settlers  in  New  France.  In  the  same  ship  goes  Mademoiselle  Claire  de 
Laval-Montmorency,  young  and  very  beautiful.  When  she  reaches  Quebec,  she  is 
unable  to  explain  her  purpose  in  coming  out  to  that  wild  new  country  quite  to  the 
satisfaction  of  her  uncle,  the  Bishop  of  New  France.  Pending  further  examination 
by  the  bishop,  she  goes  to  the  marriage  market,  where  the  shipload  of  girls  is  to  be 
disposed  of,  to  see  the  strange  sight,  and  to  encourage  her  own  maid,  who  is  to  choose 
a  husband.  There  she  finds  the  Sieur  des  Ormeaux,  Adam  Dollard,  —  the  command- 
ant of  Montreal.  Dollard  has  loved  her  in  old  France;  and,  at  this  unexpected 
meeting,  pursues  his  wooing  to  such  good  advantage  that  they  are  married  at  once, 
before  news  of  the  strange  proceeding  can  reach  the  ears  of  the  stern  bishop.  Accom- 
panied by  Claire's  maid,  Louise,  and  Bollard's  servant,  Jacques,  who  had  chosen  each 
other  in  the  marriage  market,  Claire  and  Dollard  go  by  canoe  to  Montreal. 

The  Iroquois,  the  dreaded  Six  Nations,  are  moving  on  the  settlements:  there  are 
two  bands  of  them;  and  if  these  can  be  prevented  from  joining  forces,  New  France 
may  still  be  saved.  Adam  Dollard,  with  sixteen  others,  has  sworn  to  go  out  and 
check  them,  giving  and  taking  no  quarter.  Dollard,  heartbroken  at  the  pain  he 
must  cause  Claire,  and  filled  with  remorse  at  having  so  selfishly  married  her  and 
marred  her  peace  when  he  knew  the  fate  in  store  for  him,  starts  off  without  telling 
her.  Then,  ashamed  of  this  cowardice,  he  returns.  She  bears  the  news  bravely, 
as  becomes  a  daughter  of  the  house  of  Montmorency,  and  begs  to  go  with  him.  He 
cannot  grant  her  prayer;  and  leaves  her  with  the  nuns  of  the  H6tel-Dieu  in  Montreal. 
Claire  steals  out  from  the  convent  in  the  night,  with  Massawippa,  an  Indian  girl, 
whose  father,  a  Huron,  had  joined  Dollard's  expedition.  With  wonderful  courage, 
they  fight  their  way  through  the  wilderness  to  the  little  fort  which  Dollard  is  defend- 
ing. Dollard  and  his  men  hold  the  fort  eight  days  against  the  horde  of  the  Iroquois; 
then  the  fort  is  taken,  and  all  perish.  This  is  a  story  of  heroism,  simply  told;  the 
truth  of  the  main  incidents  is  vouched  for  in  a  preface  by  no  less  a  historian  than 
Francis  Parkman. 

ROMANCE  OF  THE  ROSE,  THE  ('Roman  de  la  Rose7).  This  allegorical  poem  is 
one  of  the  earliest  works  in  the  French  language.  It  is  in  two  parts:  the  first,  con- 
sisting of  four  thousand  verses,  was  written  some  time  during  the  thirteenth  century, 
by  Guillaume  de  Lorris;  while  the  second,  containing  about  nineteen  thousand  verses, 
was  written  by  Jean  de  Meun,  who  lived  somewhere  about  1320.  The  introductory 
lines  of  the  first  part  tell  us  that  in  this  'Romance'  is  inclosed  all  the  art  of  love. 
L'Amant  dreams  that  he  finds  an  immense  garden,  surrounded  by  a  wall,  on  which  are 
painted  pictures  of  Hate,  Felony,  Covetousness,  Avarice,  etc.  Inside,  he  finds  Cupid, 
Beauty,  Riches,  Courtesy,  and  other  graces.  He  chooses  an  opening  rosebud,  but 
finds  it  surrounded  by  a  thick  hedge  of  thorns.  "  Kind  Welcome  "  allows  him  to  kiss 
the  rose,  but  "Evil  Mouth"  gossips  so  much  about  it  that  Jealousy  confines  the  Rose 
in  a  tower,  guarded  by  Danger,  Fear,  and  Shame.  L'Amant,  separated  from  his 


744  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Rose,  abandons  himself  to  despair.  At  this  point  the  romance  of  Lorris  ends.  By 
the  aid  of  Cupid,  Venus,  Nature,  and  her  confessor  Genius,  the  tower  of  Jealousy  is 
forced  to  capitulate,  and  L'Amant  is  at  last  permitted  to  gather  the  Rose.  The 
first  part  is  a  eulogy  of  women  and  chivalrous  love,  while  the  second  seems  to  be 
almost  a  satire  on  the  first;  for  Mean  reduces  love  to  the  pleasure  of  the  senses,  and 
respects  nothing  that  the  Middle  Ages  were  accustomed  to  venerate.  Meun  is  less  of 
a  poet  than  Lorris,  but  the  former  is  the  more  erudite,  and  the  second  part  is  en- 
cyclopaedic in  its  references,  ranging  from  Latin  quotations  to  the  Philosopher's 
Stone,  and  the  complaints  of  the  lower  classes.  This  work  has  excited  almost  as 
much  adverse  criticism  as  praise,  the  priests  at  one  time  thinking  there  was  something 
in  the  allegory  derogatory  to  dogma.  It  enjoyed  great  popularity  when  allegory  was 
esteemed,  and  had  considerable  influence  upon  the  work  of  Chaucer,  who  translated 
part  of  it. 

ROMANCES  OF  THE  EAST  ('Nouvelles  Asiatiques'),  by  Count  Joseph  Arthur 
de  Gobineau  (1876).  In  both  style  and  matter,  these  stories  are  among  the  gems  of 
the  world's  literature:  their  penetrating  insight,  their  creative  portrayal  of  character, 
their  calm  irony,  their  exquisite  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  '  Nouvelles '  he  had  a  theory  to  uphold,  —  that  of  the 
essential  diversity  of  human  nature,  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  instead  of  embodying  his  views  of  Oriental  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  Shamakha';  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  follows  '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  grim- 
mest of  all  is  'The  War  against  the  Turkomans ';  the  same  theme  continued,  but  with 
special  reference  to  the  utter  corruption  of  the  governmental  fabric,  based  wholly  on 
personal  influence,  with  neither  public  spirit  nor  even  ordinary  forecasting  common- 
sense.  Both  these  shed  a  flood  of  light  on  Persian  social  life;  a  significant  feature,  as 
also  in  the  next,  is  the  supreme  power  of  the  women  in  it,  exercised  with  as  little 
conscience  as  the  men  exercise  their  public  functions  —  naturally.  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 
Magician '  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  contempla- 
tion by  the  soul  can  attain  to  those  primal  secrets,  and  its  willingness  to  pay  that 
price  for  knowledge.  The  final  story,  of  great  tragic  force  but  sweet  and  uplifting,  is 
of  Afghan  life,  —  'The  Lovers  of  Kandahar/ 

ROMANS,  CONSIDERATIONS  ON  THE  GREATNESS  AND  DECAY  OF  THE, 
see  GREATNESS,  ETC. 

ROMANY  RYE,  see  LAVENGRO. 

ROME,  A  GENERAL  HISTORY  OF,  from  the  foundation  of  the  city  to  the  fall  of 
Augustus,  753  B.  C.-476  A.  D.,  by  Charles  Merivale  (1875).    A  work  specially 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  745 

designed  for  the  general  reader  seeking  to  be  informed  of  the  most  noted  incidents, 
the  most  remarkable  characters,  and  the  main  course  of  events,  together  with  their 
causes  and  consequences.  The  three  principal  stages  separately  noted  are  that  of  the 
antiquities;  that  of  the  marvelously  rich  " dramatic"  period,  crowded  with  the  great 
figures  of  the  best  age  of  Rome;  and  that  of  the  dissolution  of  ancient  society  and  the 
changes  wrought  by  the  influence  of  Christianity.  It  is  this  third  stage  which  Dr. 
Merivale  considers  of  most  vital  interest,  and  his  treatment  of  which  gives  to  his 
work  an  exceptional  value. 

In  his  earlier  and  larger  work,  'A  History  of  the  Romans  under  the  Empire1 
(8  vols.,  1865),  Dr.  Merivale  exactly  filled,  with  a  work  of  the  highest  authority  and 
value,  the  gap  between  Mommsen  and  Gibbon,  60  B.  C.-i8o  A.  D. 

ROME,  GREATNESS  AND  DECLINE  OF,  by  Guglielmo  Ferrero,  see  GREATNESS, 

etc. 

ROME,  HISTORY  OF,  by  Victor  Duruy.  This  'History  des  Remains,'  first  pub- 
lished in  1879  in  Paris,  is  the  most  elaborate  and  complete  of  the  works  of  Victor 
Duruy.  It  is  the  result  very  largely  of  original  research.  The  edition  of  Mahaffy, 
published  in  1883,  has  no  superior,  and  perhaps  no  equal,  as  a  popular  history  of 
Rome.  The  modern  edition,  as  published  in  1894,  is  very  attractive;  having  over 
three  thousand  well-selected  engravings,  one  hundred  maps  and  plans,  besides 
numerous  other  chromo-lithographs. 

This  work  covers  the  whole  subject  of  Roman  history,  and  is  the  best  work  of 
reference;  having,  unlike  the  works  of  Merivale  and  Gibbon,  a  general  index,  which 
enables  the  ordinary  reader  to  find  any  fact  required.  Unlike  Mommsen,  Duruy 
sifts  tradition  and  tries  to  infer  from  it  the  real  value  of  Roman  history.  In  regard 
to  the  illustrations,  Duruy 's  book  stands  alone;  giving  the  reader  all  kinds  of  illustra- 
tion and  local  color,  so  as  to  let  him  read  the  history  of  Rome  with  all  the  lights  which 
archaeological  research  can  afford. 

Beginning  with  a  speculative  description  of  the  geographical,  political,  and  reli- 
gious conditions  of  Italy  before  the  establishment  of  Roman  power,  the  history  of 
Rome  is  traced  in  eight  volumes,  each  of  which  has  two  sections,  from  its  founding, 
753  B.  C.,  to  its  division  and  fall  in  359  A.  D.  The  history  has  fourteen  main  periods; 
the  first  being  'Rome  under  the  Bangs,'  753-510  B.  C.,  and  the  'Formation  of  the 
Roman  People ' ;  and  the  last, '  The  Christian  Empire  from  Constantine  to  Theodosius ' 
(306-395  A.  D.). 

ROME,  PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN,  by  Rodolfo  Lanciani,  see  PAGAN,  etc. 

ROMEO  AND  JULIET,  by  Shakespeare,  was  first  published  in  1597.  The  plot  was 
taken  from  a  poem  by  Arthur  Brooke,  and  from  the  prose  story  in  Paynter's  'Palace 
of  Pleasure/  The  comical  underplot  of  the  servants  of  Capulet  vs.  those  of  Mon- 
tagu; the  fatal  duels,  the  deaths  of  Mercutio  and  Tybalt;  the  ball  where  Romeo,  a 
Montagu,  falls  in  love  with  Juliet;  the  impassioned  love-scenes  in  the  orchard,  the 
encounter  of  the  Nurse  and  Peter  with  the  mocking  gallants;  the  meetings  at  Friar 
Laurence's  cell,  and  the  marriage  of  Juliet  there;  Romeo's  banishment;  the  attempt 
to  force  Juliet  to  marry  the  County  Paris;  the  Friar's  device  of  the  sleeping-potion; 
the  night  scene  at  the  tomb,  Romeo  first  unwillingly  killing  Paris  and  then  taking 
poison;  the  waking  of  Juliet,  who  stabs  herself  by  her  husband's  body;  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  the  rival  families,  —  such  are  the  incidents  in  this  old  Italian  story,  which  has 


746  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

touched  the  hearts  of  men  now  for  six  hundred  years.  It  is  the  drama  of  youth,  "the 
first  bewildered  stammering  interview  of  the  heart, "  with  the  delicious  passion,  pure 
as  dew,  of  first  love,  but  love  thwarted  by  fate  and  death.  Sampson  bites  his  thumb 
at  a  Montagu;  Tybalt  and  Mercutio  fall.  Friar  John  is  delayed;  Romeo  and  Juliet 
die.  Such  is  the  irony  of  destiny.  The  mediasval  manners  at  once  fierce  and 
polished,  —  Benvenuto  limns  them.  We  are  in  the  warm  south:  the  dense  gray 
dew  on  leaf  and  grass  at  morn,  the  cicada's  song,  the  nightingale,  the  half -closed 
flower-cups,  the  drifting  perfume  of  the  orange  blossom,  stars  burning  dilated  in  the 
blue  vault.  Then  the  deep  melancholy  of  the  story.  And  yet  there  is  a  kind  of 
triumph  in  the  death  of  the  lovers:  for  in  four  or  five  days  they  had  lived  an  eternity; 
death  made  them  immortal.  On  fire,  both,  with  impatience,  in  vain  the  Friar  warns 
them  that  violent  delights  have  violent  ends.  Blinded  by  love,  they  only  half  note 
the  prescience  of  their  own  souls.  'Twas  written  in  the  stars  that  Romeo  was  to  be 
unlucky:  at  the  supper  he  makes  a  mortal  enemy;  his  interference  in  a  duel  gets 
Mercutio  killed;  his  overhaste  to  poison  himself  leads  on  to  Juliet's  death.  As  for  the 
garrulous  old  Nurse,  foul-mouthed  and  tantalizing,  she  is  too  close  to  nature  not  to 
be  a  portrait  from  life;  her  advice  to  "marry  Paris"  reveals  the  full  depth  of  her 
banality.  Old  Capulet  is  an  Italian  Squire  Western,  a  chough  of  lands  and  houses, 
who  treats  this  exquisite  daughter  just  as  the  Squire  treats  Sophia.  Mercutio  is 
everybody's  favorite:  the  gallant  loyal  gentleman,  of  infinite  teeming  fancy,  in  all  his 
raillery  not  an  unkind  word,  brave  as  a  lion,  tender-hearted  as  a  girl,  his  quips  and 
sparkles  of  wit  ceasing  not  even  when  his  eyes  are  glazing  in  death. 

ROM  OLA,  by  George  Eliot  (1864).  The  scene  of  this  one  historic  romance  of  the 
author  is  laid  in  Florence  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  its  great  historic 
figure  is  Savonarola.  The  civic  struggle  between  the  Medici  and  the  French  domina- 
tion, the  religious  struggle  between  the  dying  paganism  and  the  New  Christianity, 
crowd  its  pages  with  action.  The  story  proper  follows  the  fortunes  of  Tito  Melema, 
—  a  Greek,  charming,  brilliant,  false,  —  his  fascination  of  Romola,  his  marriage,  his 
moral  degradation  and  death.  The  incidents  are  many,  the  local  color  is  rich,  but 
the  emphasis  of  the  book  is  laid  on  the  character  of  Tito. 

The  working  out  of  this  is  a  subtle  showing  of  the  truth,  that  the  depression  of 
the  moral  tone  by  long  indulgence  in  selfish  sin  is  certain  to  culminate  in  some  over- 
shadowing act  of  baseness.  "Tito  was  experiencing  that  inexorable  law  of  human 
souls,  that  we  prepare  ourselves  for  sudden  deeds  by  the  reiterated  choice  of  good  or 
evil  that  gradually  determines  character."  This  is  the  key  to  the  book,  which  is 
strongly  ethical;  but  which  is  not  the  less  profoundly  interesting  as  a  story.  In 
Florence  as  in  Loamshire,  the  lower  classes  are  to  the  novelist  unceasingly  picturesque; 
and  the  talk  of  the  crowd,  in  the  squares  and  streets,  full  of  humor  and  reality.  In 
1  Romola7  appears  her  one  attempt  (in  the  case  of  Savonarola)  to  show  a  conscience 
taking  upon  itself  great  and  novel  responsibilities.  Always  studies  of  conscience, 
her  other  books  depict  only  its  pangs  under  the  sting  of  the  memory  of  slighted 
familiar  obligations.  Her  own  saying  that  "our  deeds  determine  us  as  much  as  we 
determine  our  deeds, "  is  the  moral  lesson  of  Romola. 

RORY  O'MORE,  by  Samuel  Lover  (1836).  In  1797,  De  Lacy,  an  officer  of  the 
French  army,  volunteered  in  the  interest  of  universal  liberty  to  investigate  the  pre- 
valence of  revolutionary  tendencies  in  England  and  Ireland.  Falling  sick  in  the 
house  of  a  well-to-do  Irish  peasant,  Rory  O'More,  he  found  his  host  the  soul  of  wit, 
honor,  and  hospitality.  Rory,  undertaking  the  delicate  mission  of  forwarding  De 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  747 

Lacy's  dispatches,  fell  in  with  a  band  of  insurgents,  who,  though  calling  themselves 
United  Irishmen,  desired  the  reign  of  license  rather  than  the  freedom  of  Ireland. 
One  of  their  number,  Shan  Regan,  was  Rory's  sworn  enemy,  having  been  rejected  by 
his  sister;  and  through  this  feud  the  hero  met  with  unpleasant  adventures,  in  which 
his  quickness  of  resource  served  him  well.  At  last,  however,  chivalrously  defending 
an  unpopular  collector  from  Shan's  ruffians,  Rory  was  secretly  shipped  to  France 
with  the  man  whom  he  had  befriended.  Rumor  spread  that  he  had  killed  the 
collector,  and  absconded;  and  on  his  return  a  year  later,  Rory  was  confronted  with 
the  charge  of  murder.  The  opportune  reappearance  of  his  supposed  victim  on  the 
very  day  of  O'More's  trial  alone  saved  him  from  the  halter.  Meanwhile,  a  rebellion 
in  Ireland  had  been  crushed;  and  the  unhappy  people,  disappointed  in  expected  aid 
from  France,  lost  hope  of  independence.  Rory  with  his  impoverished  household, 
and  the  disheartened  enthusiast  De  Lacy,  hopefully  turned  their  faces  towards 
America.  In  spite  of  its  stilted  style  and  improbable  incidents,  this  story  is  valuable 
in  its  delineation  of  Irish  character,  and  in  its  picture  of  the  Irish  uprisings  at  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

ROSARY,  THE,  by  Florence  L.  Barclay  (1910).  The  scene  of  this  story  is  laid  in 
England  and  opens  during  the  progress  of  a  house-party  at  the  beautiful  estate  of 
the  Duchess  of  Meldrum.  Among  the  guests  are  her  niece  Jane  Champion  and 
Garth  Dalmain,  the  latter  a  talented  young  artist,  rich,  handsome,  and  well-born. 
Jane  is  a  woman  of  thirty,  of  large  physique  and  with  very  plain  features  of  which 
she  is  painfully  aware.  She  has  a  fine  nature  and  is  generally  popular,  being  con- 
sidered in  the  light  of  a  good  comrade  by  most  of  her  men  friends.  Having  an 
independent  fortune  she  has  not  lacked  matrimonial  opportunities  but  has  never 
been  really  loved.  Jane  has  a  great  musical  ability  and  a  wonderful  voice  which 
owing  to  her  modesty  has  not  been  heard  by  her  friends.  The  Duchess  who  knows  of 
her  niece's  talent  asks  her  to  fill  the  place  of  a  prima-donna  who  was  to  have  sung 
1 '  The  Rosary  "  at  a  large  musical  she  has  planned  for  her  guests.  Jane  sings  the  song, 
and  not  only  electrifies  her  audience  but  wins  the  heart  of  Garth  Dalmain,  who 
realizes  she  is  the  one  woman  in  the  world  for  him.  He  proposes  to  Jane  who 
reciprocates  his  love,  but  feeling  sure  that  his  artistic  taste  will  tire  of  her  plain  looks, 
she  refuses  him  on  the  score  of  his  youth,  as  he  is  three  years  her  junior.  Garth  is 
heartbroken  but  devotes  himself  to  his  art,  and  although  greatly  sought  after,  re- 
mains true  to  Jane,  who  spends  three  years  in  travel  and  philanthropic  work.  At  the 
end  of  this  time,  while  sojourning  in  Egypt,  she  hears  that  Garth  has  been  accident- 
ally shot  and  has  become  blind.  She  hastens  to  him  at  once  and  nurses  him  back  to 
health  pretending  that  she  is  a  stranger  to  him.  He  is  struck  by  the  similarity  of  his 
nurse's  voice  to  Jane's,  but  she  keeps  up  the  illusion  explaining  that  this  fact  had 
been  frequently  noted  by  others.  After  some  weeks,  when  Jane  feels  convinced 
that  his  love  for  her  is  unshaken  she  again  sings  "The  Rosary"  and  he  at  once 
recognizes  her  and  realizes  that  his  faithful  nurse  and  his  beloved  Jane  are  one  and 
the  same.  They  are  immediately  married  and  enter  into  their  happiness  which  had 
been  achieved  through  so  much  suffering. 

ROSE  AND  THE  RING,  THE,  by  W.  M.  Thackeray  (1854).  In  the  prelude  to 
'The  Rose  and  the  Ring'  the  author,  "M.  A.  Titmarsh,"  welcomes  young  and  old 
to  what  he  calls  a  "Fireside  Pantomime. "  The  story  grew  out  of  a  set  of  Twelfth 
Night  pictures  that  the  author  was  requested  to  make  for  the  amusement  of  some 
young  English  people  in  a  "foreign  city, "  supposed  to  be  Rome. 


748  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  story  is  a  delightful  fairy-tale,  with  a  very  quiet  satire.  It  is  essentially  a 
* 'funny  book, "  not  a  philosophy  in  humorous  guise. 

The  Rose  is  a  magic  rose  belonging  to  Prince  Bulbo,  of  Crim  Tartary,  and  makes 
its  possessor  appear  always  lovable.  The  Ring  is  a  fairy  ring  given  to  Prince  Giglio 
of  Paflagonia  by  his  mama.  It  also  has  the  property  of  making  the  wearer  seem 
beautiful  to  all  and  beloved  by  all. 

Prince  Giglio  and  the  Princess  Rosalba,  of  Crim  Tartary,  are  deprived  of  their 
rightful  thrones  by  their  guardian  uncles,  who  wish  to  place  in  power  their  own 
children,  Angelica  and  Bulbo.  Rosalba  is  an  outcast  from  her  own  kingdom,  and 
reaches  the  capital  of  Paflagonia,  where  she  becomes  maid  to  the  lazy  Angelica, 
cousin  of  Giglio. 

Giglio  and  Rosalba  are  the  favorites  of  the  Fairy  Black  Stick;  although  at  their 
christenings  she  has  given  to  each,  as  her  best  gift,  a  little  misfortune.  This  fairy  is 
all-powerful,  as  is  shown  by  the  terrible  fate  of  old  Gruff-a-Nuff,  who,  when  he 
refused  to  admit  the  fairy  to  Angelica's  christening,  was  turned  into  a  brass  knocker 
on  the  hall  door.  She  never  forgets  Giglio  and  Rosalba,  nor  deserts  them  in  their 
troubles;  but  finally  brings  a  happy  issue  out  of  their  misfortunes.  This  most  de- 
lightful of  books  of  its  kind  was  illustrated  by  the  author's  own  drawings,  which 
interpret  the  story  and  are  an  essential  part  of  it. 

ROSE  GARDEN,  see  GULISTAN. 

ROSE  OF  THE  WORLD,  THE,  by  Agnes  and  Egerton  Castle  (1904).  The  first 
scene  of  this  story  is  laid  in  India  where  Lady  Rosamond  Gerardine  is  living  in 
splendor  with  her  second  husband  Sir  Arthur  Gerardine,  who  is  Lieutenant-Governor. 
She  receives  a  visit  from  Major  Raymond  Bethune,  comrade  of  her  former  husband, 
Harry  English,  who  tells  her  that  he  wishes  to  write  a  biography  of  his  dead  friend 
and  asks  her  to  allow  him  to  look  over  his  papers.  She  peremptorily  refuses  and 
Bethune,  who  does  not  know  what  to  make  of  her  behavior,  appeals  to  her  niece 
Aspasia  and  to  Sir  Arthur,  to  aid  him  in  getting  her  to  alter  her  decision.  The  latter 
accedes  to  Bethune's  desire  and  tells  his  wife  he  wishes  her  to  assist  him  in  his 
work.  Lady  Rosamond  becomes  much  overwrought  and  so  ill  that  her  husband 
sends  her  back  to  England  in  the  company  of  her  niece  and  Bethune.  She  goes  to 
the  home  of  her  dead  husband  and  there  opens  the  box  of  letters  which  she  has  nevei 
touched  until  now.  She  had  avoided  reading  these  letters  to  save  herself  the  pain 
which  they  might  cause  her,  but  now  upon  perusing  them  a  deeper  love  for  English  is 
awakened  than  she  had  ever  felt  for  him  in  his  lifetime.  This  feeling  becomes  so 
intense  that  she  takes  an  utter  dislike  to  Sir  Arthur  and  everything  connected  with 
him ;  she  dresses  herself  in  weeds,  mourns  unceasingly,  and  calls  herself  Harry  Eng- 
lish's  widow.  Sir  Arthur  returns  from  India  and  thinking  his  wife  is  becoming  insane 
is  on  the  point  of  consulting  a  brain  specialist  when  his  Hindoo  secretary  throws  off  his 
disguise  and  proclaims  himself  the  man  so  long  mourned  as  dead.  After  having  been 
severely  wounded  in  battle  he  had  been  held  a  prisoner  for  five  years  and  upon  finally 
making  his  escape  had  returned  to  find  his  wife  married  to  another  man.  He  had 
entered  their  household  in  disguise  in  order  to  find  out  whether  or  not  she  was  happy 
in  her  present  condition.  Rosamond  is  so  completely  overcome  by  the  shock  of 
English's  return  that  a  long  and  alarming  illness  ensues  during  which  her  hair  turns 
snow  white.  She  eventually  recovers  and  English  is  rewarded  by  her  love  after  his 
long  period  of  waiting.  Bethune  marries  Aspasia  and  Sir  Arthur  withdraws  from 
the  field. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  749 

ROSMERSHOLM,  by  Henrik  Ibsen  (1886).  Beata,  the  sickly,  commonplace  wife 
of  the  master  of  Rosmer,  has  committed  suicide  by  drowning  herself  in  the  mill 
stream.  Since  her  death,  Rebecca  West,  a  clever,  interesting  young  woman,  has 
been  mistress  of  the  manor  and  friend  and  companion  of  Rosmer,  the  husband. 
Rosmer  is  a  conservative  aristocrat,  a  retired  clergyman,  but  inspired  by  Rebecca's 
ideas,  he  has  become  a  freethinker  in  religion  and  radical  in  politics.  As  soon  as  he 
announces  his  change  of  views,  he  is  attacked  by  his  former  friends,  not  by  a  challenge 
of  his  beliefs,  but  by  scandalous  insinuations  in  regard  to  the  position  of  Rebecca  in 
his  household.  His  eyes  are  opened  to  his  love  for  Rebecca  and  he  asks  her  to  marry 
him,  though  he  now  is  overwhelmed  by  the  suspicion  that  his  unhappy  wife  had 
seen  his  interest  in  Rebecca,  and  he  is  thus  responsible  for  her  death.  To  "give 
back  his  innocence, "  Rebecca  confesses  her  guilt.  She  had  known  that  Beata  stood 
in  the  way  of  his  intellectual  freedom  and  her  own  ambition  to  make  him  a  man  of 
action  and  leader  of  men.  She  had  influenced  Beata  to  dwell  on  her  childlessness. 
Finally,  the  hint  that  Rebecca  is  Rosmer 's  mistress  drives  the  deluded  woman  to 
believe  it  her  duty  to  remove  herself  to  save  the  ancient  family  name  from  disgrace. 
Rosmer 's  faith  in  himself  and  his  borrowed  ideals  is  destroyed  with  his  discovery  of 
Rebecca  as  a  designing  adventuress.  Rebecca  has  been  ennobled  by  her  association 
with  Rosmer,  and  on  the  eve  of  her  departure  she  reveals  to  him  her  unselfish  devoted 
love,  changed  from  the  sensual  passion  which  had  not  stopped  at  crime.  With  the 
lust  for  expiation  and  sacrifice  of  his  former  priestly  ideals,  he  asks  her  to  prove  her 
love  and  restore  his  faith  in  her  by  doing  what  his  wife  did  for  him.  Although  resent- 
ing the  superstition  that  claims  him  and  kills  the  possibility  of  happiness,  she  con- 
sents, and  together  they  leap  into  the  mill-stream. 

ROUGES  DU  MIDI,  see  REDS  OF  THE  MIDI. 

ROUGHING  IT,  by  Samuel  L.  Clemens  (1872).  Mark  Twain's  droll  humor  is 
constantly  flashing  out  as  he  describes  a  long  and  eventful  journey  from  St.  Louis 
across  the  plains,  in  the  early  "sixties, "  to  visit  the  mining  camps  of  Nevada.  He 
notes  the  incident  of  a  barkeeper  who  was  shot  by  an  enemy,  adding,  "And  the  next 
moment  he  was  one  of  the  deadest  men  that  ever  lived."  Interesting  incidents  of 
Mormon  life  and  customs  are  given.  Brigham  Young's  sage  advice  to  an  Eastern 
visitor  was:  "Don't  incumber  yourself  with  a  large  family;  .  .  .  take  my  word, 
friend,  ten  or  eleven  wives  are  all  you  need  —  never  go  over  it. "  Mark  Twain  failed 
to  meet  the  Indian  as  "viewed  through  the  mellow  moonshine  of  romance.  .  .  . 
It  was  curious  to  see  how  quickly  the  paint  and  tinsel  fell  away  from  him  and  left 
him  treacherous,  filthy,  and  repulsive."  Describing  an  absurd  adventure  that 
happened  to  his  party,  the  author  says:  "We  actually  went  into  camp  in  a  snow-drift 
in  a  desert,  at  midnight,  in  a  storm,  forlorn  and  helpless,  within  fifteen  yards  of  a 
comfortable  inn. " 

He  tells  interesting  stories  of  life  in  the  mining  camps,  of  the  frenzied  excitement, 
of  great  fortunes  made  and  lost,  of  dire  poverty,  and  of  reckless  extravagance ;  in- 
stancing a  case  when  he  refused  to  cross  the  street  to  receive  a  present  of  a  block  of 
stock,  fearing  he  would  be  late  to  dinner.  And  that  stock  rose  in  value  from  a  nominal 
sum  to  $70  per  share  within  a  week. 

Going  to  San  Francisco,  the  author  witnesses  the  great  earthquake,  of  which  he 
relates  amusing  incidents.  He  then  goes  as  a  reporter  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  the 
land  of  cannibals,  missionaries,  and  ship  captains.  He  does  not  enjoy  the  native 
food.  poi.  which  too  frequently  used  is  said  to  produce  acrid  humors;  "a  fact, "  says 


750  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Twain,  "that  accounts  for  the  humorous  character  of  the  Kanakas.'*  Obtaining  a 
large  stock  of  rich  material  for  stories,  the  author  returns  to  San  Francisco,  and 
acquires  notoriety  and  wealth  in  the  lecture  field.  "Thus, "  said  he,  "after  eleven 
years  of  vicissitudes,  ended  a  pleasure  trip  to  the  silver  mines  of  Nevada,  which  I  had 
originally  intended  to  occupy  only  three  months.  However,  I  usually  miss  my  calcu- 
lations further  than  that. "  The  volume  is  a  mine  of  the  frontier  slang,  such  as  the 
author  utilizes  in  'Buck  Fanshawe's  Funeral.' 

ROUGON-MACQTTART,  LES,  by  Emile  Zola.  There  is  perhaps  no  literary  work 
of  the  last  part  of  the  century  that  has  caused  so  much  comment  as  this  series  of 
twenty  novels,  relating  the  natural  and  social  history  of  a  family  under  the  Second 
Empire.  It  is  a  phenomenon  that  cannot  be  ignored  in  a  history  of  literature,  not 
only  because  of  the  variety  of  subjects  treated,  but  from  the  fact  that  the  author, 
being  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  so-called  school  of  naturalism,  has  carried  his 
theories  farther  than  any  of  his  disciples.  In  1869  he  began  his  task,  —  a  study  in 
hereditary  influence,  with  a  complete  genealogical  tree,  and  a  plan  for  twenty  novels, 
—  from  which  very  little  variation  is  seen  when  the  series  is  completed  twenty-two 
years  after.  Beginning  with  the  Coup  d'Etat  in  1852,  he  ends  his  series  with  the 
downfall  of  Napoleon  III.,  adding  'Doctor  Pascal,'  which  is  a  resume  of  the  series. 
With  the  ancestors  whom  the  author  chooses  for  his  characters  we  should  perhaps 
expect  that  animal  passion  would  be  the  motive  of  most  of  these  novels ;  but  one  must 
charge  M.  Zola  with  poor  judgment  or  a  departure  from  the  scientific  spirit,  when  he 
places  a  character,  which  by  his  own  deductions  seems  to  show  no  trace  of  the  family 
"lesion,"  in  'La  Terre/  the  coarsest  one  of  the  series  —  for  Macquart  is  the  most 
decent  of  the  entire  community.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  author's  intention, 
the  general  public  does  not  read  his  books  as  a  study  in  heredity.  Each  one  is  com- 
plete in  itself;  and  while  in  1896  the  first  novel  of  the  series  had  reached  a  sale  of  only 
31,000  copies,  there  had  been  sold  113,000  copies  of  'La  Terre,'  176,000  of  'Nana,' 
and  187,000  of  'La  Debacle.'  The  first  to  appear  was  'La  Fortune  des  Rougons' 
(The  Rougon  Family:  1871).  Adelaide  Fouque",  whose  father  was  insane,  was 
married  in  1786  to  Rougon,  a  dull,  easy-going  gardener.  After  her  husband's  death 
she  had  two  illegitimate  children,  Antoine  and  Ursule,  by  Macquart,  a  drunkard  and 
a  smuggler.  The  offspring  of  the  marriage  was  Pierre  Rougon.  By  chicanery, 
Rougon  obtains  possession  of  the  property,  sells  it,  and  through  marriage  with  a 
daughter  of  a  merchant,  enters  into  an  old  business  firm.  Ursule  is  married  to  an 
honest  workman  named  Mouret;  and  Antoine,  who  inherits  his  father's  appetite  for 
drink,  marries  a  market-woman,  also  intemperate. 

'La  Cure*e'  (Rush  for  the  Spoil:  1872)  is  a  study  of  the  financial  world  of  Paris  at 
the  time  Haussmann  laid  out  the  boulevards.  Aristide,  son  of  Pierre,  who  has 
changed  his  name  to  Saccard,  becomes  immensely  wealthy  by  political  intrigue,  — 
acting  as  straw-man  for  the  government  in  the  purchase  of  the  property  needed  to 
lay  out  the  new  boulevards.  He  is  helped  by  his  elder  brother  Eugene,  who  has 
entered  political  life. 

'La  Conque"te  de  Plassans'  (The  Conquest  of  Plassans:  1874).  The  struggle  for 
the  control  of  a  village  in  which  the  Abb6  Faujas  obtains  complete  ascendency  over 
Marthe  Rougon,  who  is  married  to  FranQois  Mouret.  The  latter,  accused  of  in- 
sanity, is  placed  in  an  asylum,  and  finally  becomes  insane.  Escaping,  he  sets  fire  to 
his  house,  destroying  himself  and  the  abb6  therein. 

'Le  Ventre  de  Paris'  (The  Markets  of  Paris;  or,  Fat  and  Thin:  1875).  Lisa 
Macquart  is  the  member  of  the  family  who,  as  a  market-woman,  furnishes  opportunity 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  751 

for  a  detailed  study  of  the  markets.  Zola  looks  upon  this  work  as  a  sort  of  modern 
Iliad,  the  song  of  the  eternal  battle  between  the  lean  of  this  world  and  the  fat.  Of 
this  book  a  prominent  critic  said  that  he  had  been  able  to  read  it  only  by  holding  his 
nose. 

'La  Faute  de  1'Abbe  Alouret '  (The  Abb<§  Mouret's  Trangression:  1875).  A  study 
of  the  clergy,  religious  life,  and  mysticism,  in  which  Serge  Mouret  is  the  leading 
character.  It  is  almost  needless  to  say  that  the  abbe*  does  not  resist  temptation;  but 
by  repentance  he  is  able  later  to  perform,  with  little  perturbation,  the  burial  service 
over  the  woman  he  had  loved. 

'Son  Excellence  Eugene  Rougon'  (His  Excellency  Eugene  Rougon:  1876).  A 
story  of  political  life,  in  which  are  realistic  descriptions  of  the  Imperial  Court,  of  the 
functions  of  Prime  Minister  (Rougon)  and  his  cabinet,  and  a  careful  pen  picture  of 
Napoleon  III.,  his  manners  and  customs. 

1  L'Assommoir '  (The  Dram  Shop:  1877).  A  story  of  life  among  the  workmen  of 
Paris,  and  of  the  killing  effect  which  the  cheap  drinking-shop  has  on  them.  Gervaise 
the  daughter  of  Antoine,  is  the  character  around  whom  the  scenes  revolve.  It  was  this 
work  which  brought  Zola  his  reputation  and  fortune.  The  chief  figure,  Gervaise,  a 
daughter  of  this  family  driven  from  home  when  fourteen,  and  already  a  mother, 
goes  with  her  lover  to  Paris.  There  he  deserts  her  and  her  two  children.  She  after- 
wards marries  a  tinsmith,  Coupeau.  The  beginning  of  their  wedded  life  is  prosperous ; 
but  as  the  years  go  on,  vice  and  poverty  disintegrate  what  might  have  been  a  family 
into  mere  units  of  misery,  wretchedness,  and  corruption.  Zola  traces  their  downfall 
in  the  pitiless  and  intimate  fashion  characteristic  of  him,  and  not  difficult  with 
characters  created  to  be  analyzed.  The  book  is  a  series  of  repulsive  pictures  un- 
relieved by  one  gleam  of  a  nobler  humanity,  but  only  "realistic"  as  scraps:  the  life 
as  a  possible  whole  is  as  purely  imaginative  as  if  it  were  lovely  instead  of  loathsome. 

'Une  Page  d' Amour'  (A  Love  Episode:  1878).  A  physical  and  psychological 
study  of  the  various  phases  of  a  woman's  passion.  The  struggle  is  between  her  love 
for  her  child  and  her  passion  for  a  doctor  who  has  saved  the  child's  life.  The  night 
on  which  she  cedes  herself  to  the  doctor,  the  child,  looking  from  an  open  window  for 
her  return,  contracts  a  sickness  from  which  it  dies.  Helene,  the  daughter  of  Ursule 
is  the  family  representative.  There  are  fine  descriptions  of  Paris  seen  from  a  height, 
varying  with  the  spiritual  phases  of  the  characters. 

'Nana'  (1880).  A  study  of  the  life  of  a  courtesan  and  actress.  Nana  is  the 
daughter  of  Gervaise  and  the  drunkard  Coupeau.  She  grows  up  in  the  streets  and 
disreputable  haunts  until  she  comes  under  the  notice  of  a  theatre  manager.  Her  great 
physical  beauty  attracts  men  of  all  classes,  and  none  resist  her.  The  grandest  names 
are  soiled;  and  those  who  do  not  leave  with  her  their  fortunes,  leave  their  honor  or  their 
life.  The  greatest  fortunes  are  dissipated  by  her,  and  yet  at  her  door  is  heard  the 
continual  ring  of  the  creditor.  She  contracts  the  black  smallpox,  and  dies  deserted 
and  wretched.  The  description  of  her  appearance  after  death  is  a  shocking  contrast 
to  the  pictures  of  voluptuousness  in  the  other  scenes. 

'Pot-Bouille' (Piping  Hot:  1882).  A  study  of  the  life  of  the  bourgeoisie.  Octave, 
the  son  of  Francois  Mouret,  comes  to  Paris  determined  to  make  his  fortune  through 
women's  love  for  him.  A  study  of  life  in  the  tenement  flats,  where  the  skeletons  of 
the  different  family  closets  are  made  to  dance  for  our  amusement,  to  the  music  of 
the  servants'  quarrels  ascending  from  the  kitchens. 

'Au  Bonheur  des  Dames'  (The  Ladies'  Paradise:  1883).  A  study  of  the  mam- 
moth department  stores.  Octave,  by  his  marriage  with  the  widow  Hedouin,  and 
her  subsequent  death,  becomes  proprietor  of  the  shop.  A  description  is  given  of  the 


752  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

growth  of  the  business,  of  the  struggle  for  existence  by  the  smaller  stores  and  of  their 
being  swallowed  up  by  the  giant,  and  of  the  entire  routine  of  a  great  store. 

'La  Joie  de  Vivre1  (How  Jolly  Life  Is:  1884).  Pauline  Quenu,  the  daughter  of 
Lisa,  is  a  foil  to  the  character  of  Nana:  a  woman  of  well-balanced  mind,  giving  up  her 
lover  to  her  friend,  and  upon  their  separation,  taking  their  child  and  becoming 
its  true  mother.  Always  triumphant  and  smiling,  she  is  ever  sacrificing  herself  to 
the  selfish  whining  egoism  of  those  who  surround  her. 

'Germinal'  (Master  and  Man:  1885).  A  study  of  life  in  the  mines.  The  ille- 
gitimate son  of  Gervaise,  Etienne  Lanier,  a  socialist,  is  forced  to  work  in  the  mines. 
Low  wages  and  fines  cause  a  strike,  of  which  Lanier  is  one  of  the  leaders.  He  counsels 
moderation;  but  hunger  drives  the  miners  to  desperation,  and  force  is  met  by  force. 
Several  are  killed,  Lanier  is  deported,  and  the  miners  fall  back  into  their  old  slavery. 
This  work  is  generally  considered  to  be  the  author's  best. 

'L'  CEuvre'  (Work:  1886).  A  study  of  artist  life.  Claude  Lanier,  illegitimate 
son  of  Gervaise,  a  painter  with  a  vivid  power  of  conception,  lacking  the  power  of 
execution;  and,  in  despair  of  attaining  his  ideal,  hangs  himself  before  an  unfinished 
picture. 

'La  Terre'  (The  Soil:  1888).  A  study  of  peasant  life  and  the  greed  for  land;  a 
greed  which  causes  hatred  between  sisters,  neglect  of  parents,  and  ends  in  the  murder 
of  Jean  Macquart's  wife  by  her  sister.  This  story  abounds  in  vulgarity,  and  the 
brutish  instincts  of  the  peasants  make  them  lower  than  the  beasts  that  surround  them. 
It  has  aroused  more  opposition  than  any  other  of  his  works. 

'Le  R6ve'  (The  Dream:  1888).  This  has  been  likened  to  a  fairy  story;  and  it  is 
said  Zola  wrote  it  in  deference  to  the  sentiment  against  his  admission  to  the  Academy, 
to  show  that  his  strength  did  not  wholly  lie  in  "realism. "  Angelique,  the  illegitimate 
daughter  of  Sidonie  Rougon,  is  placed  in  a  foundling  asylum,  and  adopted  by  a 
family  whose  occupation  is  the  making  of  church  vestments.  She  dreams  of  her 
prince,  who  soon  presents  himself  in  the  person  of  a  painter  of  church  windows,  who  is 
really  the  son  of  a  bishop  who  took  orders  after  his  wife's  death.  He  opposes  his  son's 
marriage  to  a  woman  of  the  lower  classes;  but  consents  when  called  to  administer 
the  last  sacrament  to  Angelique,  and  she  dies  in  her  husband's  arms. 

'La  Bdte  Humaine'  (Human  Brutes:  1890).  A  study  of  railway  life,  in  which 
Jacques  Lanier,  a  locomotive  engineer,  inherits  the  family  "lesion"  in  the  form  of  a 
maniacal  desire  to  murder  women.  There  is  a  stirring  description  of  a  struggle  on  a 
moving  locomotive  between  Lanier  and  his  drunken  fireman,  in  which  both  are 
precipitated  under  the  wheels  and  the  express  train  is  left  to  drive  along  without 
check. 

'L'Argent'  (Money:  1891).  A  study  of  stock  speculation  and  "wild-cat"  com- 
panies. Aristide  Saccard,  having  lost  his  wealth,  starts  the  "Banque  Universelle  " 
for  the  exploitation  of  different  schemes  in  the  Orient.  A  description  is  given  of  the 
unscrupulous  methods  employed  to  float  great  schemes.  Saccard's  bank  becomes  the 
leading  institution  of  the  stock  exchange.  Subscriptions  pour  in  by  the  million,  — 
widows,  orphans,  and  millionaires  fighting  to  get  the  shares ;  and  Saccard  is  the  finan- 
cial ruler,  rolling  in  wealth  and  luxury.  Then  comes  the  struggle  with  the  "bears" 
the  final  defeat,  and  the  ruin  of  the  investors. 

'La  Debacle'  (The  Downfall:  1892).  A  powerful  novel  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
war,  and  the  siege  of  Paris.  It  portrays  with  strength  and  boldness,  on  a  remarkable 
breadth  of  canvas,  the  incidents  of  that  great  campaign.  Intermingled  with  the 
passions  of  war  are  the  passions  of  love;  the  whole  forms  a  pageant  rarely  surpassed  in 
fiction.  The  principal  characters  are  Jean  Macquart,  a  corporal  in  the  French  army, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  753 

who  had  fought  at  Solferino;  Maurice  Levasseur,a  young  lawyer  enlisted  as  a  private 
in  Macquart's  command;  Delaherche,  chief  cloth  manufacturer  of  Sedan;  Henriette 
Weiss,  sister  of  Maurice,  and  wife  of  an  accountant;  Honore  Fouchard,  quarter- 
master-sergeant; and  Silvine,  Honoris  betrothed,  who  has  been  betrayed  by  one 
Goliah,  on  whom  she  later  takes  terrible  vengeance.  The  story  is  concerned  chiefly 
with  the  friendship  of  Macquart  and  Levasseur,  and  the  love  of  Macquart  and  Hen- 
riette, who  is  left  a  widow  during  the  siege  of  Sedan.  This  terrible  siege  forms  the 
dramatic  centre  of  the  story.  The  book  ends  tragically  with  the  death  of  Maurice 
Levasseur  by  the  hand  of  Macquart,  who  had  bayoneted  him  not  knowing  that  it  was 
his  friend.  With  this  shadow  between  them,  Jean  and  Henriette  feel  that  they  must 
part.  "Jean,  bearing  his  heavy  burden  of  affliction  with  humble  resignation,  went 
his  way,  his  face  set  resolutely  toward  the  future,  toward  the  glorious  and  arduous 
task  that  lay  before  him  and  his  countrymen,  —  to  create  a  new  France." 

'Le  Docteur  Pascal'  (1892).  Pascal  Rougon,  son  of  Pierre,  has  collected  all  the 
data  relating  to  his  family,  and  sums  up  their  history.  Adelaide  Fouque*  is  insane; 
Eugene,  a  deputy  to  Congress;  Seccard,  an  editor;  Octave,  a  successful  merchant; 
Jean  Macquart,  married  again  and  father  of  a  healthy  family.  Doctor  Pascal 
diagnoses  his  own  mortal  disease,  hour  by  hour;  and  as  he  feels  the  last  moment 
approaching,  jumps  from  his  bed, adds  the  date  and  cause  of  his  death  to  the  genealogi- 
cal tree,  as  well  as  the  birth  of  his  illegitimate  child  by  his  niece,  in  the  words,  "Un- 
known child  to  be  born  in  1894.  What  will  it  be?  " 

ROUNDABOUT  PAPERS,  THE,  by  William  Makepeace  Thackeray.  Thackeray 
undertook  the  editorship  of  the  Cornhill  Magazine;  in  the  year  1859.  'The  Round- 
about Papers '  were  sketches  for  the  magazine,  coming  out  simultaneously,  between 
1859  and  1863,  with  'Lovel  the  Widower'  and  'The  Adventures  of  Philip.'  They 
represent  Thackeray's  best  qualities  as  an  essayist,  and  cover  a  wide  range  of  subjects. 
Some  of  the  titles  are:  'On  Two  Children  in  Black,'  'On  Screens  in  Dining-Rooms,' 
On  Some  Late  Great  Victories,'  'On  a  Hundred  Years  Hence,'  and  'A  Mississippi 
Bubble.'  One  of  the  papers,  'The  Notch  on  the  Axe,'  displays  the  author's  peculiar 
genius  for  burlesque  story-telling.  It  is  a  dream  of  the  guillotine,  occasioned  by  his 
grandmother's  snuff-box  and  a  sensational  novel.  The  essay  'On  a  Joke  I  Once 
Heard  from  the  Late  Thomas  Hood '  is  a  cordial  tribute  to  that  poet's  memory,  and 
in  it  the  joke  is  not  repeated.  One  of  the  most  noteworthy  of  the  papers  is  called  '  On 
Thorns  in  the  Cushion/  The  task  of  editing  a  magazine  was  irksome  to  Thackeray's 
kindly  and  sensitive  nature.  "What,  then, "  he  writes,  "is  the  main  grief  you  spoke 
of  as  annoying  you,  —  the  toothache  in  the  Lord  Mayor's  jaw,  the  thorn  in  the 
cushion  of  the  editorial  chair?  It  is  there.  Ah!  it  stings  me  now  as  I  write.  It 
conies  with  almost  every  morning's  post.  .  .  .  They  don't  sting  quite  so  sharply  as 
they  did,  but  a  skin  is  a  skin,  and  they  bite,  after  all,  most  wickedly.  .  .  .  Ah  me! 
we  wound  where  we  never  intended  to  strike;  we  create  anger  where  we  never  meant 
harm,  and  these  thoughts  are  the  thorns  in  our  cushion."  Thackeray,  in  fact,  re- 
signed the  position  of  editor  in  1862,  though  he  continued  to  write  for  the  magazine 
as  long  as  he  lived. 

RUBAIYAT  OF  OMAR  KHAYYAM,  THE,  a  sequence  of  quatrains,  rhyming  aaba, 
selected  and  freely  translated  by  Edward  Fitzgerald  from  the  'Rub&i'yaV  or  de- 
tached quatrains  of  the  Persian  scholar  and  poet,  Omar  Khayydm,  who  was  born  at 
Nashaiptir  in  Khorassan,  became  astronomer-royal  to  the  Sultan  at  Merv,  and  died  at 
Nashaipur,  probably  in  1123  A.  D.  He  was  a  distinguished  astronomer  and  mathe- 


754  THE  READER'S  DICIEST  OF  BOOKS 

matician,  an  enemy  of  bigotry  and  fanaticism,  a  free-thinker  in  matters  of  religion, 
and,  it  is  said,  a  lover  of  pleasure.  Some  think  that  his  praises  of  love  and  the  wine- 
cup  have  a  religio-symbolical  meaning  as  in  the  writings  of  the  Sufis  and  in  the 
orthodox  interpretation  of  the  Song  of  Solomon;  but  the  weight  of  opinion  inclines 
to  the  theory  that  he  really  sought  in  these  delights  to  forget  the  injustices  and  per- 
plexities of  existence.  His  Rubai'y,  or  quatrains,  of  which  over  1000  are  extant,  are 
separate  poems  each  of  a  single  stanza  and  deal  with  various  topics.  In  making  them 
known  to  the  Western  world  Fitzgerald  selected  or  adapted  seventy-five  of  these 
stanzas  on  related  themes  and  wove  them  into  a  single  connected  poem,  preserving 
the  metre,  the  thought,  and  the  atmosphere  of  the  original.  This  translation  was 
published  in  1859,  a  second  edition,  enlarged  to  one  hundred  and  ten  stanzas,  appear- 
ing in  1868.  The  evanescence  of  beauty  and  worldly  glory,  the  impotence  of  learn- 
ing to  solve  the  mystery  of  life,  the  domination  of  man's  will  by  forces  outside  of 
himself,  the  injustice  of  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment,  and  the  wisdom  of  a 
sceptical  attitude  towards  the  unseen  and  an  epicurean  acceptance  of  the  joys  of 
love  and  wine  are  the  principal  thoughts  of  the  poem.  Their  affinity  with  the 
pessimism,  agnosticism,  religious  revolt,  and  indifferentism  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  combined  with  the  exquisite  oriental  imagery  of  the  poem,  its 
felicitous  metre  and  diction,  and  its  arresting  phraseology,  have  given  the  Rub£iy£  fc 
an  extraordinary  vogue.  Few  poems  in  English  literature  are  more  widely  quoted 
and  parried  or  have  entered  so  deeply  into  the  public  consciousness. 

RUDDER  GRANGE,  a  humorous  story  by  Frank  R.  Stockton,  appeared  serially  in 
1879.  It  was  the  first  of  the  author's  books  to  establish  for  him  a  wide  reputation. 
A  slight  thread  of  story  suffices  to  connect  a  series  of  humorous  episodes  which  result 
from  the  efforts  of  a  young  couple  —  Euphemia,  and  her  husband  who  tells  the  story 
in  the  first  person  —  to  establish  themselves  in  a  summer  home  at  once  desirable  and 
inexpensive.  The}7  hit  upon  the  plan  of  securing  an  old  canal-boat,  which  they  fit 
up  and  name  Rudder  Grange.  The  droll  sayings  and  original  doings  of  Pomona,  the 
servant;  the  courting  of  Jonas,  her  lover;  the  unique  experiences  of  the  boarder;  the 
distresses  of  Euphemia  and  her  husband,  are  told  in  a  manner  which  is  irresistibly 
funny.  The  same  characters  reappear  in  several  of  Mr.  Stockton's  later  stories,  the 
longest  of  which  is  'Pomona's  Travels.' 

RUIN'S,  by  Constantin  Frangois  Volney.  These  meditations  upon  the  revolutions  of 
empires  were  published  in  Paris  in  1791,  and  have  for  their  theme  the  thought  that 
all  the  ills  of  man  are  traceable  to  his  abandonment  of  Natural  Religion.  The  author, 
who  was  an  extensive  traveler,  represents  himself  as  sitting  on  the  ruins  of  Palmyra, 
dreaming  of  the  past,  and  wondering  why  the  curse  of  God  rests  on  this  land.  He 
hears  a  voice  (the  Genius  of  the  Tombs),  complaining  of  the  injustice  of  men,  in 
attributing  to  God's  vengeance  that  which  is  due  to  their  own  folly.  Love  of  self, 
desire  of  well-being,  and  aversion  to  pain,  are  the  primordial  laws  of  nature.  By 
these  laws  men  were  driven  to  associate.  Ignorance  and  cupidity  raised  the  strong 
against  the  weak.  The  feeble  joined  forces,  obliging  the  strong  to  do  likewise.  To 
prevent  strife,  equitable  laws  were  passed.  Paternal  despotism  was  the  foundation 
of  that  of  the  State.  Tiring  of  the  abuses  of  many  petty  rulers,  the  nation  gave  itself 
one  head.  Cupidity  engendered  tyranny,  and  all  the  revenues  of  the  nation  were 
used  for  the  private  expenses  of  the  monarch.  Under  pretext  of  religion,  millions  of 
men  were  employed  in  useless  works.  Luxury  became  a  source  of  corruption. 
Excessive  taxation  obliged  the  small  landholder  to  abandon  his  field,  and  the  riches 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  755 

and  lands  were  concentrated  in  few  hands.  The  ignorant  and  poor  attributed  their 
calamities  to  some  superior  power,  while  the  priests  attributed  them  to  wicked  gods. 
To  appease  them,  man  sacrificed  his  pleasures.  Mistaking  his  pleasures  for  crimes, 
and  suffering  for  expiation,  he  abjured  love  of  self  and  detested  life;  but  as  nature 
has  endowed  the  heart  of  man  with  hope,  he  formed,  in  his  imagination,  another 
country.  For  chimerical  hopes  he  neglected  the  reality.  Life  was  but  a  fatiguing 
voyage,  a  painful  dream,  the  body  a  prison.  Then  a  sacred  laziness  established  itself 
in  the  world.  The  fields  were  deserted,  empires  depopulated,  monuments  neglected; 
and  ignorance,  superstition,  and  fanaticism,  joining  their  forces,  multiplied  the  de- 
vastation and  ruins.  The  Genius  shows  him  a  revolution,  where  Liberty,  Justice, 
and  Equality  are  recognized  as  the  foundation  of  society.  Before  accepting  a  religion, 
all  are  invited  to  present  their  claims  for  recognition.  The  result  is  not  only  dissen- 
sions among  the  different  religions,  but  between  the  different  branches  of  the  same 
religion,  each  one  claiming  that  his  is  the  only  revealed  religion  and  that  all  the  others 
are  impositions. 

RUINS  AND  EXCAVATIONS  OF  ANCIENT  ROME,  see  ANCIENT  ROME. 

RURAL  RIDES,  by  William  Cobbett  (1830).  '  Rural  Rides '  consists  of  the  accounts 
of  a  series  of  political  tours  on  horseback  which  Cobbett  took  through  many  English 
counties  for  some  years  before  1830.  His  impressions  were  published  regularly  in  his 
paper  the  "Political  Register,"  which  enjoyed  a  huge  circulation  and  exercised 
immense  influence.  Published  in  collected  form  under  the  present  title,  they  form 
an  extraordinarily  vivid  picture  of  the  social  and  domestic  life  in  the  agricultural 
England  of  Cobbett's  day.  The  modern  student  is  not  so  much  concerned  with  the 
fact  that  Cobbett  was  the  foremost  journalist  in  the  struggle  for  parliamentary 
reform,  as  with  his  shrewdness,  his  homely  eloquence,  his  independence  of  thought, 
with  which  was  combined  a  perfectly  sincere  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  poor, 
especially  of  the  agricultural  laborer,  whose  condition  at  that  time  and  indeed  for 
generations  afterwards  was  a  scandal  to  England.  The  book  is  not  only  remarkable 
as  a  vivid  picture  of  the  life  of  certain  strata  of  society  at  a  particular  epoch,  but  from 
the  literary  point  of  view,  its  descriptions  of  rural  scenery  are  in  many  ways  unsur- 
passed, and  it  is  one  of  the  best  examples  of  the  use  of  terse,  vigorous,  direct,  and 
unadorned  Anglo-Saxon  which  the  language  has  to  show.  In  this  case  the  style  is, 
indeed,  the  man,  fearless,  pugnacious,  homely,  in  every  line  breathing  the  love  of  his 
fellow-men  and  a  consuming  hatred  of  oppression. 

RUSH  FOR  THE  SPOIL,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 
RUSSIA,  see  UNDERGROUND  RUSSIA,  by  Stepniak. 

SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART,  by  Mrs.  Jameson  (1848).  This,  perhaps  the 
best-known  and  most  valuable  of  Mrs.  Jameson's  numerous  volumes  is  not  only  a 
mine  of  interesting  and  often  out-of-the-way  information  brought  together  by  accu- 
rate research,  but  it  is  also  marked  by  a  genuine  feeling  of  artistic  sympathy  with  the 
subject.  The  authoress  modestly  says  in  the  preface  that  the  book  * '  has  been  written 
for  those  who  are,  like  myself,  unlearned. "  Nevertheless  its  width  and  sureness  of 
reading  is  as  remarkable  as  the  skill  and  gracefulness  of  the  arrangement.  The 
legends  of  the  angelic  hierarchies,  cherubim,  seraphim,  and  choirs;  of  ^angels,  whether 
as  ministers  of  wrath  or  of  grace;  of  the  archangels,  seven  or  four  or  three,  are  here 


756  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

recalled,  in  so  far  as  they  have  been  represented  in  art.  The  four  evangelists,  the 
twelve  apostles,  the  doctors  of  the  Church,  the  patron  saints  of  Christendom,  the 
martyrs  whether  of  Greece  and  Rome,  or  of  Lombardy,  Spain,  and  France;  the  early 
bishops,  and  the  saints  whether  hermits  or  warriors,  who  have  inspired  the  great 
masters  of  art,  all  have  their  appropriate  place  in  a  unique  catalogue. 

SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST,  THE.  TRANSLATION  BY  VARIOUS  ORIENTAL 
SCHOLARS,  AND  EDITED  BY  MAX  MULLER.  (First  Series,  24  vols.,  1879-85.  Second 
Series,  25  vols.,  1886-95.) 

An  attempt  to  provide,  by  means  of  a  library  of  selected  works,  a  complete, 
trustworthy,  and  readable  English  translation  of  the  principal  Sacred  Books  of  the 
Eastern  Religions,  — the  two  religions  of  India,  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism;  the 
religion  of  Persia,  the  Parsee  or  Zoroastrianism;  the  two  religions  of  China,  Confucian- 
ism and  Taoism;  and  the  religion  of  Arabia,  Mohammedanism.  Of  these  six  Oriental 
book-religions,  Brahmanism  was  started  by  Brahman  or  priestly  use  of  a  body  of 
Sanskrit  poetry.  The  other  five  started  from  the  work  of  personal  founders :  Buddha, 
Zoroaster,  Confucius,  Lao-tze,  and  Mohammed.  In  Buddha's  case,  the  book  of  his 
religion  came  from  his  disciples.  Zoroaster  produced  a  small  part  only  of  the  Parsee 
books.  Confucius  produced  the  sacred  books  of  his  religion ;  but  mainly  by  compiling, 
to  get  the  best  of  the  existing  literature.  Lao-tze  produced  one  very  small  book. 
The  Koran  or  Qur'an  was  wholly  spoken  by  Mohammed,  not  written,  —  in  the 
manner  of  trance-speaking;  and  preserved  as  his  disciples  either  remembered  his 
words,  or  wrote  them  down. 

The  oldest  writings  brought  into  use  as  scriptures  of  religion  were  the  Babylonian, 
dating  from  about  4000  B.  C.  The  Egyptians  also  had  sacred  writings,  such  as  the 
'Book  of  the  Dead,'  which  may  have  had  nearly  as  early  an  origin.  India  comes 
next  to  Egypt  and  Babylonia  in  the  antiquity  (perhaps  2000-1500  B.  C.)  of  the 
poems  or  hymns  made  into  sacred  books  and  called  the  Veda.  Persia  follows  in  order 
of  time,  perhaps  1400  B.  C.  To  the  Greeks,  from  about  900  B.  C.,  the  Homeric 
poems  were  sacred  scriptures  for  many  centuries,  very  much  as  in  India  Sanskrit 
poems  became  sacred.  The  Chinese  scriptures  date  not  far  from  600  B.  C.,  and  the 
Buddhist  about  a  hundred  years  later.  The  Hebrews  first  got  the  idea  at  the  last 
end  of  their  history,  when  in  exile  in  Babylon;  and  they  not  only  borrowed  the  idea, 
but  borrowed  stories  and  beliefs  and  religious  feelings.  Under  the  direction  of  Ezra, 
a  governor  sent  from  Babylon,  they  publicly  recognized  writings  got  together  by  the 
priestly  scribes  as  their  sacred  scriptures.  The  exact  date  was  444  B.  C.  The  idea 
of  scriptures  of  religion  is  a  universal  ancient  idea,  similar  to  the  idea  of  literature  in 
modern  times.  It  in  some  cases  grew  very  largely  out  of  belief  that  the  trance 
inspiration,  which  was  very  common,  was  of  divine  origin.  The  Koran,  or  Qur'an, 
which  came  very  late,  622  A.  D.,  was  wholly  the  product  of  the  trance  experiences  of 
Mohammed;  and  as  such  it  was  thought  to  be  direct  from  God.  The  trances  in 
which  Mohammed  spoke  its  chapters  were  believed  to  be  miraculous.  He  did  not 
know  how  to  write;  and  while  he  made  no  other  divine  claim,  he  pointed  to  the  trance- 
uttered  suras  or  chapters  of  the  Koran  as  manifestly  miraculous. 

The  sacred  books  of  the  East  do  not  come  to  us  full  of  pure  religion,  sound  morality, 
and  wise  feeling.  They  rather  show  the  dawn  of  the  religious  consciousness  of  man, 
rays  of  light  and  clouds  of  darkness,  a  strange  confusion  of  sublime  truth  with  sense- 
less untruth.  Their  highest  points  seem  to  rise  nearer  to  heaven  than  anything  we 
can  read  elsewhere,  but  their  lowest  are  dark  abysses  of  superstition.  What  may 
seem,  however,  on  first  reading,  fantastic  phraseology,  may  prove  upon  sufficient 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  757 

study  a  symbol  of  deep  truth.  But  it  is  chiefly  as  materials  of  history,  records  of 
the  mind  of  man  in  many  lands  and  distant  ages,  and  illustrations  of  the  forms  taken 
by  human  search  for  good,  aspiration  for  truth,  and  hope  of  eternal  life  that  all  the 
many  books  of  old  religions  and  strange  faiths  are  full  of  interest  to-day. 

In  the  list  of  separate  works  which  follows,  the  books  of  the  different  religions  are 
brought  together.  The  figures  in  Roman  are  the  numbers  under  which  the  volumes 
have  been  published.  The  Oxford  University  Press  is  about  to  bring  out  a  greatly 
cheapened  popular  edition  of  the  entire  double  series. 

BRAHMANICAL 

1  Vedic  Hymns.1  Part  i. :  Hymns  to  the  Maruts,  Rudra,  Vayu,  and  Vata.  Trans- 
lated by  F.  Max  Muller.  Part  ii.:  Hymns  to  Agni.  Translated  by  Hermann 
Oldenberg.  (2  vols.  xxxii.,  xlvi.) 

The  hymns  of  Rig- Veda  are  something  over  a  thousand  in  number,  divided  into 
ten  Mandalas,  or  books.  Rig- Veda  means  Praise- Veda.  The  other  three  Vedas, 
placed  side  by  side  with  the  Rig- Veda,  on  the  top  shelf  of  Veda  Literature,  are  the 
Sama-Veda,  the  Yajur-Veda,  and  the  Atharva-Veda.  But  they  are  not  collections 
of  hymns.  The  Sama-Veda  is  a  liturgy,  to  be  used  in  connection  with  a  kind  of 
sacrament,  in  which  a  liquor  prepared  from  the  Soma  plant  and  used  in  aid  of  in- 
spiration was  employed.  It  was  made  up  mostly  by  quotations  from  the  Rig- Veda. 
The  Yajur-Veda  was  another  liturgy,  to  be  used  in  connection  with  sacrifices  and 
made  up  partly  by  quotations  from  the  Rig- Veda,  and  partly  by  prose  directions 
(yajus)  for  the  sacrifices.  There  was  thus  a  first  Veda  of  the  poets,  and  a  second  and 
third  of  the  priests.  To  some  extent  at  least  the  poets  had  been  priests  also,  in  the 
simple  days  before  the  age  of  priests  or  Brahmans.  The  fourth  Veda  was  like  the 
first  in  being  a  literary  collection,  but  hardly  at  all  another  book  of  hymns.  It  had 
some  poetry,  but  more  prose,  and  was  more  a  book  of  thoughts  than  of  song.  But  it 
made  the  fourth  of  the  original  Vedas.  Its  hymns  are  given  in  Vol.  xlii.,  'Hymns  of 
the  Atharva-Veda. '  The  reader  will  easily  see  that  these  Atharva-Veda  hymns 
represent  a  different  and  much  later  stage  of  culture  from  that  seen  in  the  Rig- Veda. 

The  word  Veda  means  knowledge;  and  it  was  carried  on  to  cover  several  stages 
of  development  or  successive  classes  of  productions,  such  as  the  Brahmanas,  the 
Upanishads,  the  Sutras,  the  Laws,  and  many  more.  Not  only  the  four  Vedas,  but 
the  Brahmanas  and  the  Upanishads,  are  included  under  Sruti,  —  something  heard, 
absolutely  divine;  while  later  productions  are  classed  as  Smriti,  something  handed 
down,  tradition  of  human  origin. 

The  Maruts  were  the  Storm-gods,  the  wild  forces  of  nature,  and  to  these  the  first 
volume  is  almost  wholly  devoted.  To  give,  however,  at  the  opening,  an  example  of 
the  very  best,  Max  Muller  places  at  the  head  of  his  collection  a  hymn  containing  the 
most  sublime  conception  of  a  supreme  Deity.  The  second  volume  contains  the 
greater  part  of  the  Agni  hymns  of  the  Rig- Veda.  The  two  volumes  make  a  very 
valuable  study  in  translation  of  selected  parts  of  the  earliest,  most  original,  and  most 
difficult  of  Vedic  books,  the  Rig- Veda. 

The  volume  of  hymns  from  the  Atharva-Veda,  translated  by  Maurice  Bloomfield, 
includes  very  extended  extracts  from  the  Ritual  books  and  the  Commentaries; 
making,  with  the  translator's  notes  and  an  elaborate  introduction,  a  complete 
apparatus  of  explanations.  Most  of  the  hymns  are  for  magical  use,  —  charms, 
imprecations,  etc.,  with  a  few  theosophic  and  cosmogonic  hymns  of  exceptional 
interest. 


758  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

'The  Satapatha-Brahmana,'  according  to  the  Text  of  the  Madhyana  School. 
Translated  by  Julius  Eggeling.  (5  vols.  xii.,  xxvi.,  xli.,  xliii.,  xliv.) 

An  example  of  the  ancient  theological  writings  appended  to  the  original  four 
Vedas  by  the  Brahmans,  or  priests,  for  the  purpose  of  very  greatly  magnifying  their 
own  office  as  a  caste  intrusted  with  the  conduct  of  sacrifices  of  every  kind.  There 
are  some  thirteen  of  them,  with  attachments  to  different  parts  of  the  original  four 
Vedas.  The  title  given  above  is  that  of  the  most  important  and  valuable.  It  is 
called  Satapatha,  or  "of  the  hundred  paths,"  because  it  consists  of  one  hundred 
lectures.  It  has  a  very  minute  and  full  account  of  sacrificial  ceremonies  in  Vedic 
times,  and  many  legends  and  historical  allusions.  Nothing  could  be  more  weari- 
some reading;  yet  the  information  which  can  be  gleaned  in  regard  to  sacrifices,  the 
priestly  caste,  and  many  features  of  the  social  and  mental  development  of  India,  is 
very  valuable.  A  devout  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  invocation  and  sacrifice  appears 
in  the  Vedic  hymns.  This  was  taken  advantage  of  by  the  Brahmans  to  arrange  a 
regular  use  of  these  hymns  in  the  two  liturgical  Vedas,  and  to  establish  a  proper 
offering  of  sacrifices  conducted  by  themselves.  The  Brahmanas  are  their  endlessly 
repeated  explanations  and  dictions  about  sacrifice  and  prayer. 

The  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  books  of  the  great  work  presented  in  these  five  volumes 
deal  very  particularly  with  the  Soma-sacrifice,  the  most  sacred  of  all  the  Vedic 
sacrificial  rites.  It  concerns  the  nature  and  use  of  "a  spirituous  liquor  extracted 
from  a  certain  plant,  described  as  growing  on  the  mountains."  "The  potent  juice 
of  the  Soma  plant,  which  endowed  the  feeble  mortal  with  godlike  powers  and  for  a 
time  freed  him  from  earthly  cares  and  troubles,  seemed  a  veritable  God,  —  bestower 
of  health,  long  life,  and  even  immortality. "  The  Moon  was  regarded  as  the  celestial 
Soma,  and  source  of  the  virtue  of  the  plant. 

Another  branch  of  the  story  of  sacrifices  relates  to  the  worship  of  Agni,  the  Fire. 
It  fills  five  out  of  fourteen  books,  and  the  ideas  reflected  in  it  are  very  important  for 
knowledge  of  Brahman  theosophy  and  cosmogony.  The  ritual  of  the  Fire-altar  was 
brought  into  close  connection  with  that  of  the  Soma  "fiery"  liquor. 

'The  Upanishads.'     Translated  by  F.  Max  Muller.     (2  vols.  i.,  xv.) 

Philosophical  treatises  of  the  third  stage  of  the  Veda  literature,  designed  to  teach 
the  spiritual  elements,  the  deepest  thoughts,  and  the  purest  wisdom  of  Vedic  religion. 
The  first  stage  was  the  Veda,  or  the  four  Vedas,  in  the  limited  sense.  The  second 
was  the  Brahmanas  or  priestly  commentaries  on  the  four  Vedas.  The  third  stage 
was  the  Upanishads  looking  in  a  very  different  direction  from  that  of  the  priests  and 
the  pious  offerers  of  sacrifice ;  works  for  thinkers.  They  were  produced,  to  the  number 
of  150  to  200,  in  the  long  course  of  time;  but  of  the  most  ancient,  older  probably  than 
600  B.  C.,  the  list  is  short.  They  mostly  grew  up  in  close  connection  with  Brah- 
manas, in  a  sort  of  appendix  to  them  called  the  Aranyakas  (forest-books). 

In  Max  Muller's  two  volumes,  twelve  representative  ones  are  given.  As  early 
as  the  reign  of  Akbar  at  Delhi  in  India  (1556-86),  translations  of  fifty  Upanishads 
were  made;  and  in  1657  Dara\  Shukoh,  a  grandson  of  Akbar,  and  Shah  Jehan's  eldest 
son,  brought  out  a  translation  into  Persian,  a  language  then  universally  read  in  the 
East,  and  known  also  to  many  European  scholars.  This  act  of  religious  liberalism, 
like  that  of  the  great  Akbar,  was  made  a  pretext  in  1659,  by  Aurangzib,  the  son  of 
Shah  Jehan,  who  had  succeeded  to  the  empire,  for  putting  to  death  the  scholar  brother 
« who  wished  to  bring  Mohammedans  and  Hindus  into  one  broad  faith.  In  1775  one 
of  the  manuscript  copies  of  this  Persian  translation  came  into  the  hands  of  An- 
quetil  Duperron,  a  French  scholar  famous  also  for  his  discovery  of 'the  Zend-Avesta, 
or  Zoroastrian  scriptures  of  ancient  Persia;  and  he  brought  out  a  translation  into 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  759 

Latin,  one  volume  in  1801  and  a  second  in  1802.  Although  the  Latin  was  very  hard 
to  understand,  and  this  was  a  specimen  of  the  utterly  unknown  Sanskrit  literature, 
done  first  into  Persian  in  1657,  Schopenhauer,  since  known  as  one  of  the  most  eminent 
of  German  philosophers,  said:  "  I  anticipate  that  the  influence  of  Sanskrit  literature 
will  not  be  less  profound  than  the  revival  of  Greek  in  the  fourteenth  century. "  He 
also  said  of  the  Upanishads  as  he  read  them:  "From  every  sentence,  deep,  original, 
and  sublime  thoughts  arise,  and  the  whole  is  pervaded  by  a  high  and  holy  and  earnest 
spirit.  And  how  thoroughly  is  the  mind  here  washed  clean  of  all  early  engrafted 
Jewish  superstitions,  and  of  all  philosophy  that  cringes  before  those  superstitions. 
In  the  whole  world  there  is  no  study  so  beneficial  and  so  elevating.  It  has  been  the 
solace  of  my  life,  and  will  be  the  solace  of  my  death. " 

The  two  volumes  here  given  contain  eleven  of  the  Upanishads,  which  Max 
Muller  calls  "the  classical  or  fundamental  Upanishads  of  the  Vedanta  philosophy," 
and  which  the  foremost  native  authorities  have  recognized  as  the  old  and  genuine 
works  of  this  class. 

-'The  Vedanta-Sutras,1  with  the  Commentary  by  5airkarafcarya.  Translated  by 
G.  Thibaut.  (2  vols.  xxxiv.,  xxxviii.)  Sutras  are  short  aphorisms,  a  collection  of 
which  contains  a  complete  body  of  teaching.  One  class  of  sutras  contains  concise 
explanations  of  sacrificial  matters,  designed  to  give  in  brief  what  the  Brahmanas 
give  at  interminable  length.  Another  class  are  designed  to 'give  in  the  same  way 
concise,  clear  explanations  of  the  philosophy  taught  in  the  Upanishads.  They  deal 
with  such  topics  as  the  nature  of  Brahman  or  the  Divine,  the  relation  to  it  of  the 
.  human  soul,  the  origin  of  the  physical  universe,  and  the  like.  Sutra  writings  form 
the  fourth  stage  of  Veda. 

'The  Grihya-Sutras,'  Rules  of  Vedic  Domestic  Ceremonies.  Translated  by  Her- 
mann Oldenberg.  (2  vols.  xxix.,  xxx.)  These  treatises  giving  rules  of  domestic 
ceremonies  reflect  in  a  very  interesting  way  the  home  life  of  the  ancient  Aryas.  In 
completeness  and  accuracy,  nothing  like  the  picture  which  they  give  can  be  found 
in  any  other  literature.  They  are  a  secondary  class  of  Sutras;  based,  in  the  case  of 
those  here  given,  on  the  Rig- Veda,  and  on  one  of  the  Brahmanas.  They  presuppose 
the  existence  of  "  Srauta-sutras, "  dealing  with  such  more  important  matters  as  the 
great  sacrifices.  Their  object  was  to  deal  with  the  small  sacrifices  of  domestic  life. 

LAW-BOOKS   OF    INDIA 

'The  Sacred  Laws  of  the  Aryas,1  as  taught  in  the  schools  of  Apastamba,  Gautama, 
Vasisltffca,  and  Baudhayana.  Translated  by  Georg  Buhler.  (2  vols.  ii.:  xiv.) 
The  original  treatises  showing  the  earliest  Aryan  laws  on  which  the  great  code  of 
Manu,  and  other  great  codes  of  law  by  other  lawgivers,  were  founded.  As  a  revela- 
tion of  the  origins  of  law  and  usage  in  the  early  Aryan  times,  these  treatises  are 
of  great  interest.  They  overthrow  the  Brahmanical  legend  of  the  ancient  origin  of 
caste,  and  carry  sacred  law  in  India  back  to  its  source  in  the  teaching  of  the  schools  of 
Vedic  study;  proving  that  the  great  law  codes  which  came  later,  and  claimed  to  be 
revealed,  were  a  literary  working-over  of  older  w'orks  which  made  no  claim  to  be 
revelation.  The  laws  that  are  brought  to  view  are  of  the  nature  of  Sutra  teaching  in 
regard  to  the  sacrifices  and  the  duties  of  the  twice-born. 

'The  Institutes  of  Vishnu/  Translated  by  Julius  Jolly,  (vii.)  A  collection  of 
legal  aphorisms,  closely  connected  with  one  of  the  oldest  Vedic  schools,  the  Ka/Aas, 
but  considerably  added  to  in  later  time.  The  great  work  of  Manu  is  an  improved 
metrical  version  of  a  similar  work,  the  law-book  of  the  Manavas.  Both  the  Manavas 


760  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

and  the  K&thas  were  early  schools  studying  the  Yajur-Veda  in  what  was  known  as  its 
Black  form;  Black  meaning  the  more  ancient  and  obscure;  and  White,  the  corrected 
and  clear.  The  'Institutes,'  in  one  hundred  chapters,  were  put  under  the  name  of 
Vishnu  by  a  comparatively  late  editor. 

'Manu.'  Translated,  with  extracts  from  seven  Commentaries,  by  Georg  Buhler. 
The  celebrated  code  of  Manu,  the  greatest  of  the  great  lawgivers  of  India.  The 
translation  is  founded  on  that  of  Sir  William  Jones,  carefully  revised  and  corrected 
with  the  help  of  seven  native  commentaries.  The  quotations  from  Manu,  which 
are  found  in  the  law-books  now  in  use  in  India,  in  the  government  law  courts,  are  all 
given  in  an  appendix;  and  also  many  synopses  of  parallel  passages  found  in  other 
branches  of  the  immense  literature  of  India.  Manu  is  the  Moses  of  India.  His 
laws  begin  with  relating  how  creation  took  place;  and  chapters  i.-vii.  have  a  re- 
ligious, ceremonial,  and  moral  bearing.  The  next  two  chapters  deal  with  civil  and 
criminal  law.  Then  three  chapters  relate  again  to  matters  chiefly  moral,  religious, 
or  ceremonial. 

'The  Minor  Law-Books.'  Part  i.  Na\rada:  Brihaspati.  Translated  by  Julius 
Jolly,  (xxxiii.)  A  volume  of  law-books  of  India  which  come  after  Manu.  The  first 
is  an  independent  and  specially  valuable  exposition  of  the  whole  system  of  civil  and 
criminal  law,  as  taught  in  the  law-schools  of  the  period;  and  it  is  the  only  work, 
completely  preserved  in  manuscript,  which  deals  with  law  only,  without  any  reference 
to  ceremonial  and  religious  matters.  The  date  of  Manu  being  supposed  to  be  some- 
where in  the  period  200  B.  C.  to  A.  D.,  Nirada  is  supposed  to  have  compiled  his 
work  in  the  fourth  or  fifth  centuries  A.  D.  The  second  part  of  the  volume  contains 
the  Fragments  of  Bnhaspati.  They  are  of  great  intrinsic  value  and  interest,  as 
containing  a  very  full  exposition  of  the  whole  range  of  the  law  of  India;  and  they  are 
also  important  for  their  close  connection  with  the  code  of  Manu. 

ZOROASTRIAN 

'The  Zend-Avesta.1  Parti.:  TheVendidad.  Partii.:  The  Sfr6zahs,  Yasts,  and 
Ny&yis.  Translated  by  James  Darmesteter.  Part  iii.:  The  Yasna,  Visparad, 
Afrinagan,  Gahs,  and  Miscellaneous  Fragments.  Translated  by  L.  H.  Mills,  (iv., 
xxiii.,  xxxi.)  The  Parsee  or  Zoroastrian  scriptures.  The  three  volumes  contain 
all  that  is  left  of  Zoroaster's  religion,  the  religion  of  Persia  under  Cyrus,  Darius,  and 
Xerxes;  which  might  have  become,  if  the  Greeks  had  not  defeated  the  Persian  army 
at  Marathon,  the  religion  of  all  Europe.  The  Mohammedans  almost  blotted  it  out 
in  Persia  when  the  second  successor  of  Mohammed  overthrew  the  Sassanian  dynasty, 
642  A.  D.  To-day  the  chief  body  of  Parsees  (about  150,000  in  number)  are  at  Bom- 
bay in  India,  where  their  ancestors  found  refuge.  Though  so  few  in  number,  they 
have  wealth  and  culture  along  with  their  very  peculiar  customs  and  ideas.  Only  a 
portion  of  their  sacred  writings  is  now  extant,  and  but  a  small  part  of  this  represents 
the  actual  teaching  of  Zoroaster.  The'  Parsees  are  the  ruins  of  a  people,  and  their 
sacred  books  are  the  ruins  of  a  religion;  but  they  are  of  great  interest  as  the  reflex 
of  ideas  which,  during  the  five  centuries  before  and  the  seven  centuries  after  Christ, 
greatly  influenced  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Mohammedanism. 

1  Pahlavi  Texts/  Translated  by  E.  W.  West.  (3  vols.,  v.,  xviii.,  xxiv.,  xxxvii.) 
A  reproduction  of  works,  nine  in  number,  constituting  the  theological  literature  of  a 
revival  of  Zoroaster's  religion,  beginning  with  the  Sassanian  dynasty.  Their  chief 
interest  is  that  of  a  comparison  of  ideas  found  in  them  with  ideas  adopted  by  Gnostics 
in  connection  with  Christianity.  They  form  the  second  stage  of  the  literature  of 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  761 

Zoroastrianisrn.  The  date  of  origin  of  the  Sassanian  dynasty,  under  which  the 
Pahlavi  texts  were  produced,  is  226  A.  D.  The  fall  of  the  dynasty  came  in  636-651 
A.  D. 

'The  Contents  of  the  Nasks,'  as  stated  in  the  8th  and  9th  books  of  the  Dinkard. 
Translated  by  E.  W.  West.  (2  vols.  xxxvii.,  xlvii.)  The  Nasks  were  treatises, 
twenty-one  in  number,  containing  the  entire  Zoroastrian  literature  of  the  Sassanian 
period.  The  object  of  the  present  work  is  to  give  all  that  is  known  regarding  the 
contents  of  these  Nasks,  and  thus  complete  the  earlier  story  of  the  Zoroastrian 
religion. 

1  The  Bhagavadgtta,  with  the  Sanatsugatiya,  and  the  Anuglta.'  Translated  by 
Kashinath  Trimbak  Telang.  (viii.)  The  earliest  philosophical  and  religious  poem  of 
India.  It  is  paraphrased  in  Arnold's  'Song  Celestial.'  Its  name  means  the  Divine 
Lay  or  the  Song  sung  by  the  Deity.  The  work  represents  an  activity  of  thought 
departing  from  Brahmanism,  and  tending  to  emancipation  from  the  Veda,  not  -unlike 
that  represented  in  Buddha  and  his  career. 

BUDDHIST 

'Buddhist  Suttas.'  Translated  from  Pali  by  T.  W.  Rhys-Davids,  (xi.)  A 
collection  of  the  most  important  religious,  moral,  and  philosophical  discourses  taken 
from  the  sacred  canon  of  the  Buddhists.  It  gives  the  most  essential,  most  original, 
and  most  attractive  part  of  the  teaching  of  Buddha,  the  Sutta  of  the  Foundation  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Righteousness,  and  six  others  of  no  less  historical  value,  treating  of 
other  sides  of  the  Buddhist  story  and  system.  The  translator  gives  as  the  dates 
of  Buddha's  life  of  eighty  years  about  500-420  B.  C. 

1  Vinaya  Texts.'  Translated  from  the  Pali  by  T.  W.  Rhys- Davids  and  Hermann 
Oldenberg.  (3  vols.,  xiii.,  xvii.,  xx.)  A  translation  of  three  Buddhist  works  which 
represent  the  moral  teaching  of  Buddhism  as  it  was  definitively  settled  in  the  third 
century  B.  C.  They  belong  to  that  part  of  the  sacred  literature  of  the  Buddhists 
which  contains  the  regulations  for  the  manner  of  life  of  the  members  of  the  Buddhist 
Fraternity  of  monks,  nearly  the  oldest  and  probably  the  most  influential  that  ever 
existed. 

'The  Dhammapada.'  A  collection  of  verses;  being  one  of  the  canonical  books 
of  the  Buddhists.  Translated  from  Pali  by  F.  Max  Muller.  And '  The  Sutta-Nipata. ' 
Translated  from  Pali  by  V.  Fausboll.  (x.)  Two  canonical  books  of  Buddhism. 
The  first  contains  the  essential  moral  teaching  of  Buddhism,  and  the  second  an 
authentic  account  of  the  teaching  of  Buddha  himself,  on  some  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  religion. 

'The  Saddharma-pundarika;  or,  The  Lotus  of  the  True  Law.'  Translated  by 
H.  Kern,  (xxi.)  A  canonical  book  of  the  Northern  Buddhists,  translated  from  the 
Sanskrit.  There  is  a  Chinese  version  of  this  book  which  was  made  as  early  as  the 
year  286  A.  D.  It  represents  Buddha  himself  making  a  series  of  speeches  to  set 
forth  his  all-surpassing  wisdom.  It  is  one  of  the  standard  works  of  the  Mahayana 
system.  Its  teaching  amounts  to  this,  that  every  one  should  try  to  become  a  Buddha. 
Higher  than  piety  and  higher  than  knowledge  is  devoting  oneself  to  the  spiritual 
weal  of  others. 

'Gaina-Sutras.'  Translated  from  Prakrit  by  Hermann  Jacobi.  (2  vols.  xxii., 
xlv.)  The  religion  represented  by  these  books  was  founded  by  a  contemporary  of 
Buddha;  and  although  in  India  proper  no  Buddhists  are  now  found,  there  are  a  good 
many  Gainas,  or  Jains,  holding  a  faith  somewhat  like  the  original  Buddhist  departure 
from  B rahmanism.  The  work  here  translated  is  their  bible. 


762  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

'The  Questions  of  King  Milinda.'  Translated  from  the  Pali  by  T.  W. 
Davids.  (2  vots.  xxxv.,  xxxvi.)  A  work  written  in  northern  India,  but  entirely  lost 
in  its  original  form.  It  was  translated  into  Pali  for  the  Buddhists  of  Ceylon,  and  is 
held  in  great  esteem  by  them.  It  is  of  such  a  literary  character  as  to  be  pronounced 
the  only  prose  work  composed  in  ancient  India  which  would  be  considered,  from  the 
modern  point  of  view,  a  successful  work  of  art.  It  consists  of  discussions  on  points 
of  doctrine  between  King  Milinda  and  an  Elder.  There  is  a  carefully  constructed 
story  into  which  the  dialogues  are  set. 

'Buddhist  Mahayana  Texts.'  Translated  by  E.  B.  Cowell,  F.  Max  Muller,  and 
J.  Takakusu.  (xlix.)  Several  works  of  importance  for  the  history  of  Buddhism. 
The  first  is  a  poem  on  the  legendary  history  of  Buddha.  The  second  is  a  group  of 
Japanese  Buddhist  works,  such  as  'The  Diamond  Cutter,'  one  of  their  most  famous 
Mahayana  treatises;  'The  Land  of  Bliss,'  which  more  than  ten  million  Buddhists  — 
one  of  the  largest  Buddhist  sects  —  use  as  their  sacred  book;  and  'The  Ancient  Palm 
Leaves, '  containing  fac-similes  of  the  oldest  Sanskrit  manuscripts  at  present  known. 
The  third  is  another  Japanese  work,  in  the  form  of  a  '  Meditation '  by  Buddha  himself. 
Japan  received  Buddhism  from  China  by  way  of  Corea  in  552  A.  D.  The  present 
volume  gives  all  the  sacred  books  in  use  by  the  Japanese  Buddhists. 

'The  Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king:  A  Life  of  Buddha,'  by  Asvaghosha  Bodhisattva, 
translated  from  Sanskrit  into  Chinese  by  Dharmaraksha,  420  A.  D.,  and  from 
Chinese  into  English  by  Samuel  Beal.  (xix.)  A  Life  of  Buddha  rendered  into 
Chinese  for  Buddhists  in  China.  It  contains  many  mere  legends,  similar  to  those 
which  appeared  in  apocryphal  accounts  of  the  life  of  Jesus. 

CHINESE 

'The  Sacred  Books  of  China.  The  Texts  of  Confucianism.'  Part  i.  The  Shu 
King,  the  Religious  Portions  of  the  Shih  King,  and  the  Hsiao  King.  Part  ii.:  The 
Yi  King.  Parts  iii.  and  iv.:  The  Li  Kt,  or  Collection  of  Treatises  on  the  Rules  of 
Propriety,  or  Ceremonial  Usages.  Translated  by  James  Legge.  (4  vols.  iii.,  xvi., 
xxvii.,  xxviii.)  The  productions  of  Confucius;  not  original  compositions,  but  a 
variety  of  compilations,  designed  to  present  the  best  practical  wisdom  as  of  authority, 
because  it  was  old  as  well  as  because  it  was  good.  Not  only  was  Confucius  not  the 
founder  of  a  new  religion,  but  his  aim  was  to  make  a  system  of  good  conduct  and 
proper  manners  which  would  leave  out  the  low  religion  of  spiritism  and  magic  and 
priestcraft,  as  the  mass  of  the  Chinese  knew  it,  and  in  fact  still  know  it.  The  volumes 
named  above  are  a  complete  library  of  the  teaching  of  Confucius. 

'The  Shuh'  is  a  book  of  historical  documents  covering  the  period  from  the  reign 
of  Yao  in  the  twenty-fourth  century  B.  C.,  to  that  of  King  Hsiang,  651-619  B.  C. 
As  early  as  in  the  twenty-second  century  B.  C.,  the  narratives  given  by  Confucius 
were  contemporaneous  with  the  events  described. 

'The  Shih'  is  a  Book  of  Poetry,  containing  305  pieces,  five  of  which  belong  to 
the  period  1766-1123  B,  C.  The  others  belong  to  the  period  1123-586.  The 
greater  number  describe  manners,  customs,  and  events,  but  the  last  of  the  Four  Parts 
is  called  'Odes  of  the  Temple  and  the  Altar';  and  many  other  pieces  have  something 
of  a  religious  character.  The  Hsiao  is  a  work  on  Filial  Piety,  and  one  of  great  interest, 

'The  Yt, '  called  the  Book  of  Changes,  was  originally  a  work  connected  with  the 
practice  of  divination.  It  is  obscure  and  enigmatical,  yet  contains  many  fragmentary 
physical,  metaphysical,  moral,  and  religious  utterances  very  suggestive  of  thought, 
and  in  that  way  peculiarly  fascinating.  It  was  highly  prized  by  Confucius  as  fitted 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  763 

to  correct  and  perfect  the  character  of  the  reader.  The  Sung  dynasty,  beginnxig 
960  A.  D.,  based  on  it  what  has  been  called  their  "  Atheo-political "  system.  An 
outline  of  this  is  given  in  an  appendix  to  the  translation  of  the  Yi. 

'The LI  Ki*  is  the  Record  of  Rights, in  46  books, filling  two  large  volumes  in  trans- 
lation. They  belong  to  the  period  of  the  Kau  dynasty,  about  1275  tc>  586  B-  c-'» 
and  so  far  as  they  reflect  the  mind  of  Confucius,  it  is  at  second-hand  through  the 
scholars,  who  gathered  them  up  centuries  after  his  death,  in  the  time  of  the  Han 
dynasty. 

'The  Sacred  Books  of  China.  The  Texts  of  Taoism.'  Translated  by  James 
Legge.  (2  vols.,  xxxix.,  xl.)  The  scriptures  of  the  second  of  the  two  practical 
philosophic  religions  which  originated  in  China  about  the  same  time,  that  of  Con- 
fucius and  that  of  Lao-tze.  The  latter  philosopher  was  the  more  transcendental  of 
the  two,  and  in  its  pure  form  his  teaching  was  a  system  of  lofty  thought.  But 
Taoism  long  since  underwent  extreme  corruption  into  a  very  low  system  of  spiritism 
and  sorcery.  What  the  real  thoughts  of  the  great  master  were,  these  volumes  show. 
They  first  give  the  only  work  by  the  master  himself,  the  Tao  Teh  .King,  by  Ldo-tze. 
Next  follow  the  writings  of  -STwang-tze,  of  the  second  half  of  the  fourth  century 
B.  C.  There  is  given  also  a  treatise  on  'Actions  and  their  Retributions,'  dating  from 
the  eleventh  century  of  our  era,  about  which  time  the  system  changed  from  a  phi- 
losophy to  a  religion.  Other  writings  are  added  in  elucidation  of  the  Taoist  system, 
and  its  degradation  to  a  very  low  type  of  superstition. 

MOHAMMEDAN 

'  The  Qur'an.'  Translated  by  E.  H.  Palmer.  (2  vols.  vi.f  ix.)  A  translation  of 
the  utterances  of  Mohammed,  which  were  brought  together  into  a  volume  after  his 
death,  and  thereby  made  the  sacred  book  of  Mohammedanism.  There  is  no  formal 
and  consistent  code  either  of  morals,  laws,  or  ceremonies.  Given,  as  it  was,  a  frag- 
ment at  a  time,  and  often  in  view  of  some  particular  matter,  there  is  no  large  unity 
either  of  subject  or  treatment.  The  one  powerful  conception  everywhere  present  is 
that  of  God,  his  unity,  his  sovereignty,  his  terrible  might,  and  yet  his  compassion. 
There  is  also  an  impressive  unity  of  style,  a  style  of  free  and  forcible  eloquence, 
which  no  other  Arabic  writer  has  ever  equalled.  The  earlier  utterances  especially, 
made  at  Mecca,  are  in  matter  and  spirit  the  mighty  words  of  a  most  earnest  prophet, 
whose  one  and  steady  purpose  was  to  so  proclaim  God  as  to  reach  and  sway  the  hearts 
of  his  hearers.  In  his  later  Medinah  period,  the  prophet  had  his  peculiar  gift  more 
under  control.  He  would  calmly  dictate  more  extended  utterances,  to  be  written 
down  by  his  hearers.  At  his  death  no  collection  of  the  scattered  utterances  of  the 
master  had  been  made.  Zaid,  who  had  been  his  amanuensis,  was  employed  to  collect 
and  arrange  the  whole.  This  he  did,  from  "palm-leaves,  skins,  blade-bones,  and 
the  hearts  of  man. "  Some  twenty  years  later  the  Caliph  Othman  had  an  authorized 
version  made,  and  all  other  copies  destroyed.  This  was  660  A.  D.,  about  50  years 
after  the  first  attack  of  convulsive  ecstasy  came  upon  Mohammed. 

SADDHARMA-PUNDARIKA,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 
SAINT,  THE,  by  Antonio  Fogazzaro,  see  THE  PATRIOT. 

SAINT-SIMON,  MEMOIRS  OF  THE  DUKE  OF,  a  voluminous  autobiographic 
history  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  from  1691  to  his  death  in  1715,  and  of  the  Regency 
to  1723.  The  author,  Louis  de  Rouvroy,  Vidame  de  Chartres  and,  after  1693,  Duke 


764  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

of  Saint-Simon,  a  noble  of  ancient  family  and  high  rank,  was  in  constant  attendance 
at  Versailles  from  1702  to  1721,  during  which  time  his  powers  of  observation  procured 
him  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  ceremonies  and  intrigues  of  the  court  and  the 
character  of  its  frequenters.  Retiring  in  1723  on  the  death  of  the  Regent,  he  resided 
on  his  country  estates  and  completed  his  memoirs.  On  his  death  in  1755  the  manu- 
scripts were  seized  by  his  creditors.  In  1760,  through  the  intercession  of  his  family, 
they  were  confiscated  by  the  government  to  save  them  from  dispersion ;  but  permission 
to  examine  them  was  sparingly  granted.  An  incomplete  edition  was  published  in 
1789;  but  the  entire  work  was  not  released  for  publication  until  1829,  when  it  ap- 
peared in  forty  volumes.  The  definitive  text  was  published  from  1856  to  1858. 
A  noble  of  the  old  regime  intensely  occupied  with  questions  of  privilege  and  precedence 
and  with  a  keen  eye  for  the  outer  and  inner  traits  of  men  and  women,  Saint-Simon 
left  the  world  a  priceless  record  of  the  most  brilliant  and  powerful  court  of  Europe 
It  is  true  that  his  personal  experience  of  that  court  did  not  include  its  most  glorious 
days  but  covered  only  the  period  when  it  was  overshadowed  by  a  reactionary  religious 
policy  and  by  the  steadily  diminishing  prestige  of  French  arms  during  the  war  with 
William  III.  and  the  ensuing  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession.  Nevertheless  Saint- 
Simon's  daily  association  with  the  nobles,  gentlemen,  great  ecclesiastics,  and  brilliant 
men  of  letters  who  thronged  the  palace  yields  a  series  of  historical  portraits,  groups, 
and  scenes  of  the  most  representative  character.  The  portraits  of  the  king,  of 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  of  the  princes  and  princesses  of  the  royal  family,  of  the  nobles 
and  attendants,  of  the  typical  activities  of  the  court,  and  of  the  characters  and  events 
which  influenced  the  development  of  public  policy  are  of  the  highest  value  to  the 
historian,  to  the  writer  of  historical  fiction,  and  to  the  lover  of  entertaining  gossip 
about  old-world  society.  The  unsparing  revelations  of  the  seamy  side  of  life  in  the 
days  of  the  Grand  Monarque,  the  photographic  realism  of  the  portraiture,  and  the 
revelation  of  the  author's  aristocratic  prejudices,  cool  assurance,  and  piercing  insight 
are  particularly  admired.  The  style  has  not  the  classic  finish  of  the  great  prose 
masters  of  the  age  but  belongs  to  an  earlier,  less  disciplined  period.  It  can  be  forceful 
but  is  often  loose  in  construction.  The  memoirs  are  tedious  in  certain  passages,  and 
these  are  omitted  in  the  convenient  English  translation  by  Francis  Arkwright  (1915). 

SALAMMBO,  by  Gustave  Flaubert  (1864).  This  historical  romance  was  the  fruit 
of  Flaubert's  visit  to  the  ruins  of  old  Carthage,  and  is  a  kind  of  revivification  of  the 
ancient  capital  and  its  people.  The  scenes  testify  to  the  great  erudition  of  the 
author,  but  critics  complain  that  the  picture  has  too  little  perspective.  All  is  painted 
with  equal  brilliance  — matter  essential  and  unessential. 

The  sacred  garment  of  Tanit  is  made  the  object  around  which  the  action  revolves; 
and  the  fate  of  Carthage  is  bound  up  in  the  preservation  of  this  vestment  within  her 
walls.  The  central  point  of  the  story  is  the  boundless  passion  of  Matho,  a  common 
soldier  among  the  mercenaries,  for  Salammb6,  the  beautiful  daughter  of  the  great 
Hamilcar;  and  the  fate  of  the  vestment  of  Tanit  continually  overshadows  the  fate 
of  his  love.  By  a  mad  act  of  daring,  he  gets  possession  of  the  carefully  guarded 
treasure,  and  through  its  influence  on  the  popular  mind,  heads  a  rising  of  the  troops, 
who  proceed  against  Carthage.  Urged  on  by  the  High  Priest,  Salammb6  is  persuaded 
that  it  is  her  sacred  duty  to  recover  the  stolen  vestment,  and  so  bring  back  the  pro- 
tection of  the  goddess  to  the  arms  of  Carthage.  Under  his  instruction,  she  is  led 
secretly  by  night  to  the  tent  of  Matho  to  obtain  the  vestment.  Obedient  to  the 
pontiff,  she  endures  the  soldier's  wild  transports  of  joy,  and  succeeds  in  carrying  away 
ttie  vestment,  which,  in  his  self -forgetting  adoration  he  has  wrapped  about  her- 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  765 

Fortune  returns  to  the  Carthaginians,  the  rebellious  leader  is  taken,  and  Salammb6's 
wedding  to  the  man  of  her  father's  choice  is  made  the  scene  of  Matho's  martyrdom. 
Looking  down  at  the  torn  and  dying  man,  whose  eyes  alone  retain  the  semblance  of 
humanity,  Salammb6  suddenly  recalls  the  tender  babble  of  those  agonized  lips,  the 
adoration  of  those  eyes  on  that  night  in  his  tent.  She  realizes  what  this  man  has 
suffered  for  love  of  her,  and  her  heart  breaks.  In  the  act  of  drinking  the  wine  her 
bridegroom  offers,  she  sinks  back  dead.  And  thus  the  two  beings  whose  touch  has 
profaned  the  garment  of  Tanit  pass  from  the  earth.  The  most  brilliant  of  romances 
dealing  with  the  classic  world,  this  story  holds  its  place  through  all  variations  of 
popular  taste,  among  the  masterpieces  of  fiction. 

SALVATION  NELL,  by  Edward  Sheldon  (1908).  The  scene  of  this  realistic  play  of 
the  slums  is  the  Cherry  Hill  district  on  the  upper  West  Side  of  New  York  City.  Act  I. 
takes  place  in  a  bar-room  where  Nell  Sanders,  the  heroine,  is  a  scrubwoman.  She  is 
Jim  Platt's  "girl"  whom  he  has  lately  neglected,  beyond  pocketing  her  earnings,  for 
some  woman  in  a  house  across  the  street,  which  is  presently  raided.  Another  loafer 
tries  to  embrace  Nell,  and  Jim  nearly  kills  him  in  a  fight,  and  is  sent  to  prison  for  a 
term  of  eight  years  as  a  result.  The  showily  dressed  Myrtle  Odell,  who  has  escaped 
arrest  in  the  raid,  urges  Nell  to  follow  in  her  footsteps.  She  describes  graphically  the 
life  in  the  sweat  shop  from  which  she  has  escaped,  the  endless  sewing  on  of  buttons 
and  the  hundreds  of  pairs  of  pants  to  be  stitched,  "those  eternal  pants."  Nell 
hesitates,  but  rejects  the  affluence  of  vice  to  follow  "Hallelujah"  Lieutenant  Maggie 
0 'Sullivan  of  the  Salvation  Army.  In  the  second  act,  eight  years  later,  Nell  has 
risen  to  be  a  captain  in  the  Salvation  Army.  The  brutal  Jim  gets  out  of  prison,  and 
after  a  long  search  finds  her  living  alone  with  her  child  in  the  tenement.  He  is  ready 
to  resume  their  old  relations,  but  Nell,  though  she  discovers  that  she  still  loves  him, 
has  changed.  He  wants  her  to  go  West  with  him  after  he  has  made  a  successful  theft 
of  diamonds.  She  warns  him  that  she  will  inform  the  police  about  the  diamond 
robbery.  She  tries  to  save  him  from  a  criminal  life  and  apparently  fails.  The  last 
act  shows  a  street  scene  in  Cherry  Hill.  Jim  hangs  around  on  the  outskirts  to  hear 
Nell  make  a  Salvation  Army  speech,  and  is  converted  by  her  eloquence.  He  begs  her 
to  help  him  see  things  as  she  does.  There  is  a  large  cast  of  well-known  types,  the 
saloonkeeper,  policeman,  delicatessen  dealers,  hokey-pokey  men  with  their  wares, 
street  Arabs,  gangs  of  "bad  men, "  loafers,  and  the  Salvation  Army  girls,  reproducing 
faithfully  the  environment  of  squalor,  vice,  and  crime. 

SAMUEL  BROHL  AND  COMPANY,  a  novel,  by  Victor  Cherbuliez  (1879).  One 
of  the  most  entertaining  productions  of  a  writer  who  excels  in  delicate  comedy,  and 
has  given  readers  an  agreeable  change  from  the  typical  "French  novel";  though  it 
has  little  substance  or  thought.  The  action  occurs  during  the  year  1875,  in  Switzer- 
land and  France.  Samuel  Brohl,  a  youth  of  lowest  origin,  is  bought  by  Princess 
Gulof,  who  educates  him,  and  then  makes  him  nominally  her  secretary.  He  tires 
of  her  jealous  tyranny  and  runs  away,  assuming  the  name  and  history  of  Count 
Larinski.  Antoinette  Moriaz,  an  heiress  of  romantic  notions,  who  undervalues  the 
love  of  honest  Camille  Langis  because  "there  is  no  mystery  about  him, "  supposing 
Samuel  to  be  the  Polish  hero  he  impersonates,  thinks  she  has  found  the  man  she 
wants  at  last.  .Madame  de  Lorcy,  her  godmother  and  Camille's  aunt,  suspects 
"Count  Larinski"  of  being  an  adventurer;  and  is  finally  helped  to  prove  it  by  the 
Princess,  Samuel's  former  mistress,  who  recounts  to  Antoinette  how  she  bought  him 
of  his  father  for  a  bracelet,  which  bracelet  Samuel  has  given  the  girl  as  a  betrothal 


766  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

gift.  Disillusionized,  she  breaks  with  Samuel,  saying  pathetically,  "The  man  I 
loved  was  he  whose  history  you  related  to  me  "  (i.  e.,  Count  Larinski).  Camille  visits 
Samuel  to  get  back  Antoinette's  letters  and  gifts,  contemptuously  refuses  a  challenge, 
and  buys  the  keepsakes  for  25,000  francs.  The  bargain  concluded,  Samuel  theatrically 
thrusts  the  bank-notes  into  a  candle  flame,  and  repeats  his  challenge.  In  the  resulting 
duel,  Camille  is  left  for  dead  by  Samuel,  that  picturesque  scamp  fleeing  to  America. 
Camille  recovers,  and  eventually  his  devotion  to  Antoinette  meets  its  due  reward. 

SAND,  GEORGE,  L'HISTOIRE  DE  MA  VIE.  This  work  was  begun  in  1847,  and 
completed  in  1855.  It  was  published  in  Paris  at  the  latter  date,  and  republished, 
essentially  unchanged,  in  1876. 

The  four  volumes  of  autobiography,  comprising  over  1800  pages,  deal  with  the 
first  forty  years  of  the  author's  life,  and  close  twenty-one  years  before  her  death. 
The  first  and  second  may  be  styled  the  introduction  to  the  story;  being  devoted  mainly 
to  the  antecedents  of  the  writer,  her  lineage,  her  father's  letters,  and  to  a  running 
commentary  on  the  times.  The  autobiography  proper  begins  in  the  third  volume. 
Here  the  extremely  sensitive  nature,  and  \  ivid,  often  wild,  imagination  of  a  girl,  may 
be  seen  unfolding  itself  in  continuous  romance,  sufficient  in  quantity  and  quality 
to  foreshadow,  if  not  to  reveal,  one  of  the  most  prolific  novelists  in  French 
literature. 

In  these  pages,  the  writer  portrays  a  genius  in  embryo  fretting  over  its  ideals,  — 
in  the  passion  for  study  and  observation;  in  the  convent  experience  of  transition 
from  realism  to  mysticism;  in  domestic  hopes  and  their  rapid  disillusioning.  In  the 
last  volume  appear  the  beginnings  of  the  George  Sand  of  our  literature,  —  the  mystic 
transforming  into  the  humanitarian  and  the  reformer;  the  dreamer  subdued  by  many 
sorrows;  the  new  novelist  happy  or  defiant  amidst  her  friends  and  foes. 

As  a  work  of  art  and  as  an  autobiography,  'L'Histoire  de  Ma  Vie'  is  defective  in 
the  lack  of  proportion  involved  by  overcrowding  the  story  at  the  beginning  with 
extraneous  matter  and  childhood  experiences,  to  the  exclusion  of  important  episodes 
of  maturer  years,  and  the  abrupt  ending  of  the  narrative  where  the  author  has  just 
entered  upon  her  literary  career. 

But  taken  as  a  whole,  the  autobiography  is  an  invaluable  contribution  to  the 
French  literature  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Outside  of  contemporary 
interests,  we  have,  with  a  few  reservations,  the  frank,  vivid  portraiture  of  a  child 
both  of  kings  and  toilers;  a  woman  of  the  convent  and  of  bohemia;  a  genius  in  litera- 
ture striving  for  the  welfare  of  her  kind. 

SANDFORD  AND  MERTON,  by  Thomas  Day.  The  history  of  Sandford  and 
Merton  has  afforded  entertainment  and  instruction  to  many  generations  of  boys 
since  its  first  publication  about  1780.  Portraying  the  social  ideas  of  the  English  of 
more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  it  can  hardly  be  regarded,  in  the  present  day,  as 
exerting  a  wholesome  influence,  —  in  fact,  it  is  chiefly  remarkable  for  its  tone  of 
unutterable  priggishness. 

Master  Tommy  Merton  in  this  story  is  the  son  (aged  six)  of  a  wealthy  gentleman 
who  dwells  chiefly  in  the  island  of  Jamaica.  Tommy's  short  life  has  been  spent  in 
luxury,  with  the  result  that  he  has  become  an  unmitigated  nuisance.  Harry  Sand- 
ford,  on  the  contrary,  though  the  son  of  a  poor  farmer,  was  even  at  an  early  age 
replete  with  every  virtue;  and  when  the  two  boys  are  placed  under  the  instruction  of 
a  Mr.  Barlow,  an  exceptionally  wise  and  good  clergyman,  he  is  continually  used  as  an 
example  to  the  reprehensible  Tommy.  Morals  are  tediously  drawn  from  every 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  767 

incident  of  their  daily  lives,  and  from  the  stories  which  they  read  in  their  lesson 
books.  'The  Gentleman  and  the  Basket-Maker';  'Androcles  and  the  Lion';  'His- 
'-ory  of  a  Surprising  Cure  of  the  Gout,1  and  other  stories  of  a  like  nature,  form  the 
food  on  which  these  young  intellects  are  nourished. 

Not  the  least  remarkable  feature  of  the  book  is  the  polished  language  used  by 
these  children  of  six  years  of  age;  and  this  juvenile  can  now  only  be  regarded  as  an 
excellent  example  of  the  literature  with  which  our  grandfathers  and  great-grand- 
fathers were  regaled  in  their  youth. 

SANDRA  BELLONI,  by  George  Meredith.  This  novel  was  first  published  in  1864, 
under  the  name  of  '  Emilia  in  England.'  The  Greek  Pericles,  ever  in  search  of  hidden 
musical  genius,  finds  it  in  the  voice  of  Emilia  Sandra  Belloni,  while  visiting  Mr.  Pole. 
Pole  has  squandered  the  money  held  in  trust  for  Mrs.  Chump,  a  vulgar  but  kind- 
hearted  widow,  and  is  therefore  forced,  with  his  children,  to  submit  to  her  attentions. 
Wilfred  Pole,  his  son,  loves  Emilia,  but  means  to  marry  Lady  Charlotte.  Discover- 
ing this,  Emilia  wanders  away,  loses  her  voice,  and  is  rescued  from  starvation  by 
Merthyr  Powys,  who  has  long  loved  her.  He  goes  to  fight  for  Italy.  The  Poles  are 
brought  to  the  verge  of  ruin  by  Pericles.  Emilia's  voice  returns.  Pericles  saves  the 
Poles,  on  her  signing  an  agreement  to  study  in  Italy  for  three  years  and  sing  in  public. 
Wilfred  hears  her  sing,  casts  off  Lady  Charlotte  who  favors  the  Austrians,  and  throws 
himself  at  Emilia's  feet.  She  now  realizes  his  inconstancy  and  Merthyr's  nobility, 
writes  to  the  latter  that  she  loves  him,  and  will  be  his  wife  at  the  end  of  the  three 
years  for  which  she  is  pledged.  The  story  contains  all  of  Meredith's  marked  manner- 
isms; but  also  flashes  with  wit,  and  is  full  of  life  and  vivacity. 

SANDY,  by  Alice  Hegan  Rice  (1905).  This  is  the  story  of  a  young  Irish  boy  named 
Sandy  Kilday,  who  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  being  without  home  or  relatives,  decides  to 
try  his  luck  in  the  new  country  across  the  sea.  Accordingly  he  slips  aboard  one  of  the 
big  ocean  liners  as  a  stowaway,  but  is  discovered  before  the  voyage  is  half  over  and  in 
spite  of  his  entreaties  is  told  he  must  be  returned  by  the  next  steamer.  Sandy, 
however,  who  has  a  winning  way  and  sunny  smile,  arouses  the  interest  of  the  ship's 
doctor,  who  pays  his  passage  and  gives  him  some  money  with  which  to  start  his  new 
life.  On  the  voyage  Sandy  has  made  friends  with  a  lad  in  the  steerage  named  Ricks 
Wilson,  who  earns  his  living  by  peddling,  and  he  decides  to  join  him  in  this  career. 
Sandy  has  also  been  deeply  impressed  by  the  face  of  a  lovely  young  girl  who  is  one  of 
the  cabin  passengers  and  when  he  discovers  that  she  is  Miss  Ruth  Nelson  of  Kentucky 
he  decides  to  make  that  state  his  destination.  He  and  Ricks  remain  companions  for 
sometime  although  Sandy's  strong  sense  of  honor  causes  disagreements  as  to  the 
methods  of  their  dealings.  Sandy  finally  becomes  disgusted  with  this  life  and  after 
catching  a  glimpse  of  Ruth  at  a  circus,  where  he  is  dispensing  his  wares  in  a  humorous 
manner,  he  decides  to  abandon  it  altogether. 

He  parts  from  Ricks  and  falling  ill  by  the  roadside  is  picked  up  by  a  colored  woman 
called  Aunt  Melvy,  who  is  in  the  employ  of  Judge  Hollis.  The  latter  takes  Sandy 
to  his  home  and  his  wife  nurses  him  through  a  long  fever  and  then,  as  they  are  child- 
less, they  adopt  him  into  their  household.  The  Judge  gives  Sandy  a  good  education, 
sends  him  to  college,  and  he  becomes  a  successful  lawyer.  All  this  time  his  love  for 
Ruth  has  been  unswerving  though  she  has  not  responded  to  his  advances.  Judge 
Hollis  is  shot  by  an  unknown  assassin  and  Sandy,  who  discovers  the  assailant  to  be 
Ruth's  dissipated  brother  Carter,  refuses  to  give  evidence  against  him.  Sandy  is 
kept  in  jail  until  freed  by  Ruth's  intervention,  Carter  having  confessed  his  crime  to 


768  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

his  sister  before  his  death.  The  Judge  recovers  from  his  wound  and  Sandy  and 
Ruth  are  happily  married  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  concerned. 

SANTO,  H,  see  THE  PATRIOT. 

SARAGOSSA,  by  Benito  Perez  Gald6s  (1879).  This  novel  gives  a  dramatic  picture 
of  the  valor  of  the  Spaniards  defending  their  national  existence  against  Napoleon's 
generals.  The  brave  citizen,  Don  Jos6  de  Montorio,  gives  his  services,  his  wealth, 
and  his  sons  to  his  country,  Candiola,  the  miser,  rouses  Don  Jose*'s  anger  by  his 
refusal  to  give  his  stores  of  flour  to  maintain  the  army.  The  wretched  Candiola  has  a 
beautiful  daughter,  Mariquilla,  who  loves  Augustine  de  Montorio,  not  knowing  he  is 
the  son  of  the  man  who  has  denounced  her  father.  A  Spanish  Juliet,  she  brings  food 
to  her  Romeo  and  binds  his  wounds.  Another  brave  woman,  Manuela,  the  "Maid 
of  Saragossa, "  encourages  the  men  with  brave  words  and  herself  fires  a  cannon  all 
day  in  the  trenches  until  she  falls  wounded.  It  is  discovered  that  Candiola  has 
revealed  to  the  enemy  a  secret  passage  into  the  city,  and  he  is  condemned  to  be  shot. 
Augustine  is  the  gaoler  of  his  sweetheart's  father.  Mariquilla,  beside  herself  with 
grief  and  terror,  implores  him  to  let  her  father  escape.  Augustine  cannot  make  her 
understand  that  she  is  asking  the  impossible.  Finally  the  city,  a  mere  heap  of  dust 
and  ashes  and  dead,  agrees  to  an  honorable  capitulation.  Augustine  finds  Mariquilla 
dead,  and  goes  from  her  grave  to  a  monastery. 

SARTOR  RESARTITS,  by  Thomas  Carlyle,  first  appeared  in  Eraser's  Magazine, 
in  1833-34,  and  later  in  book  form.  It  is  divided  into  three  parts,  —  introductory, 
biographical,  and  philosophical.  The  first  part  describes  an  imaginary  book  on 
'Clothes:  Their  Origin  and  Influence*  by  Diogenes  Teufelsdrockh,  Professor  of 
Things  in  General  at  Weissnichtwo  in  Germany.  The  book,  the  editor  complains,  is 
uneven  in  style  and  matter,  and  extraordinarily  difficult  to  comprehend,  but  of  such 
vigor  in  places  that  he  is  impelled  to  translate  parts  of  it.  The  book  begins  with  a 
history  of  clothes:  they  are  co-existent  with  civilization,  and  are  the  source  of  all 
social  and  political  distinction.  Aprons,  for  example,  are  of  all  sorts,  from  the 
smith's  iron  sheet  to  the  bishop's  useless  drapery.  The  future  church  is  shown  in  the 
paper  aprons  of  the  Paris  cooks;  future  historians  will  talk,  not  of  church,  but  of 
journalism,  and  of  editors  instead  of  statesmen.  Man  is  apt  to  forget  that  he  is  not  a 
mere  clothed  animal,  —  that  to  the  eye  of  pure  reason  he  is  a  soul.  StiU  Teufels- 
drockh does  not  counsel  a  return  to  the  natural  state,  for  he  recognizes  the  utility  of 
clothes  as  the  foundation  of  society.  Wonder,  at  himself  or  at  nature,  every  man 
must  feel  in  order  to  worship.  Everything  material  is  but  an  emblem  of  something 
spiritual;  clothes  are  such  emblems,  and  are  thus  worthy  of  examination. 

The  autobiographic  details  sent  to  the  editor  which  fill  Book  ii.  came  to  him  on 
loose  scraps  of  paper  in  sealed  paper  bags,  with  no  attempt  at  arrangement  anywhere. 
A  mysterious  stranger  left  Teufelsdrockh,  when  he  was  a  helpless  infant,  at  the  house 
of  Andreas  Futteral,  a  veteran  and  farmer.  Andreas  and  his  wife  Gretchen  brought 
the  boy  up  honestly  and  carefully.  As  a  child  he  roamed  out-doors,  listened  to  the 
talk  of  old  men,  and  watched  the  sunset  light  play  over  the  valley.  At  school  he 
learned  little,  and  at  the  gymnasiums  less.  At  the  university  he  received  no  instruc- 
tion, but  happened  to  prefer  reading  to  rioting,  and  so  gained  a  great  deal  of  informa- 
tion. Then  he  was  thrust  into  the  world  to  find  out  what  his  capability  was  by  him- 
self. He  withdrew  from  the  law,  in  which  he  had  begun,  and  tried  to  start  out  for 
bimseJf .  The  woman  whom  he  loved  married  another,  and  he  was  plunged  into  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  769 

depths  of  despair.  Doubt,  which  he  had  felt  in  the  university,  became  unbelief  in 
God  and  even  the  Devil,  —  in  everything  but  duty,  could  he  have  known  what  duty 
was.  He  was  a  victim  to  a  curious  fear,  until  one  day  his  whole  spirit  rose,  and 
uttering  the  protest  of  the  "everlasting  yea, "  asserted  its  own  freedom.  Life  came 
to  mean  freedom  to  him ,  he  felt  impelled  to  "look  through  the  shows  of  things  to  the 
things  themselves, "  —  to  find  the  Ideal  in  the  midst  of  the  Actual. 

The  third  book,  which  deals  with  the  philosophy  itself,  is  much  less  continuous 
and  clear.  In  the  first  chapter,  he  praises  George  Fox's  suit  of  leather  as  the  most 
remarkable  suit  of  its  century,  since  it  was  a  symbol  of  the  equality  of  man  and  of  the 
freedom  of  thought.  Religion  is  the  basis  of  society:  every  society  may  be  described 
as  a  church  which  is  audibly  preaching  or  prophesying,  or  which  is  not  yet  articulate, 
or  which  is  dumb  with  old  age.  Religion  has  entirely  abandoned  the  clothes  pro- 
vided for  her  by  modern  society,  and  sits  apart  making  herself  new  ones.  All  symbols 
are  valuable  as  keeping  something  silent,  and,  at  the  same  time,  as  revealing  some- 
thing of  the  Infinite.  Society  now  has  no  proper  symbols,  owing  to  over-utilitarian- 
ism and  over- independence.  Still  a  new  society  is  forming  itself  to  rise,  Phcenix-like, 
from  the  ashes  of  the  old.  Mankind,  like  nature,  is  one,  not  an  aggregate  of  units. 
The  future  church  for  the  worship  of  these  mysteries  will  be  literature,  as  already 
suggested  by  the  prophet  Goethe.  Custom  makes  nature,  time,  and  space,  which 
are  really  miracles,  seem  natural,  but  we  must  feel  wonder  and  reverence  at  them. 
Our  life  is  through  mystery  to  mystery,  from  God  to  God.  The  chief  points,  in 
concluding,  to  be  remembered  are :  All  life  is  based  on  wonder ;  all  clothes,  or  symbols, 
are  forms  or  manifestations  of  the  spiritual  or  infinite ;  cant  and  hypocrisy  everywhere 
should  be  replaced  by  clear  truth. 

The  book  is  written  in  Carlyle's  most  characteristic  style  and  contains  remarkable 
passages  of  romantic  autobiography. 

SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA,  THE,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

SATIROMASTIX,  by  Thomas  Dekker  (1602).  As  late  as  1599  Dekker  and  Ben 
Jonson  had  collaborated  in  two  plays,  but  they  quarrelled  before  Jonson  (in  1600) 
had  brought  out  'Everyman  out  of  his  Humor'  and  'Cynthia's  Revels'  both  of 
which  contain  satirical  allusions  to  Dekker.  In  1601  Jonson  made  a  merciless 
onslaught  on  Dekker  and  Marston  in  the  'Poetaster,'  to  which  Dekker  made  a 
vigorous, but  good-humored  reply  in  'Satiromastix,'  or  the  Untrussing  of  the  Humor- 
ous Poet.'  Horace  (Ben  Jonson)  is  commissioned  to  write  a  nuptial  song  in  honor 
of  the  marriage  of  Sir  Walter  Terill  and  Caelestine.  Horace  first  appears  "sitting 
in  a  study  behind  a  curtain,  a  candle  by  him  burning,  books  lying  confusedly:  there- 
after follows  a  labored  address  to  himself  by  Horace,  which  is  meant  to  suggest  that 
Jonson 's  style  is  slow  and  heavy  in  workmanship.  Not  only  Jonson 's  vanity,  irri- 
tability, spleen,  and  perversity  are  ridiculed,  but  also  his  old  clothes  and  other 
personal  peculiarities.  The  names  Horace,  Crispinus  (Marston),  and  Demetrius 
Fannius  (Dekker)  are  borrowed  from  Jonson 's  'Poetaster/  The  best  character  in 
'  Poetaster '  is  a  certain  Captain  Tucca,  and  critics  are  divided  as  to  the  success  of 
Dekker's  artifice  in  borrowing  Tucca  and  employing  him  in  his  own  play  to  pour 
out  brutal  and  foul-mouthed  epithets  upon  the  head  of  Horace. 

SCARLET  LETTER,  THE,  the  novel  which  established  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's 
fame,  and  which  he  wrote  in  the  ancient  environment  of  Salem,  was  published  in 
1850,  when  he  was  forty-six  years  old.  Its  simple  plot  of  Puritan  times  in  New 

49 


77O  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

England  is  surrounded  with  an  air  of  mystery  and  of  weird  imaginings.  The  scene 
is  in  Boston,  two  hundred  years  ago:  the  chief  characters  are  Hester  Prynne;  her 
lover,  Arthur  Dimmesdale,  ths  young  but  revered  minister  of  the  town;  their  child, 
Pearl;  and  her  husband  Roger  Chillingworth,  an  aged  scholar,  a  former  resident  of 
Amsterdam,  who,  resolving  to  remove  to  the  New  World,  had,  two  years  previously, 
sent  his  young  wife  Hester  on  before  him.  When  the  book  opens,  he  arrives  in  Boston, 
to  find  her  upon  the  pillory,  her  babe  in  her  arms;  upon  her  breast  the  Scarlet  Letter 
'  A  "  ("  Adulteress  ") ,  which  she  has  been  condemned  to  wear  for  life.  She  refuses  to 
reveal  the  name  of  her  partner  in  guilt,  and  takes  up  her  lonely  abode  on  the  edge  of 
the  wilderness.  Here  Pearl  grows  up  a  wild  elf-like  child;  here  Hester  makes  atone- 
ment by  devoting  her  life  to  deeds  of  mercy.  Her  husband,  whose  identity  she  has 
sworn  to  conceal,  remains  in  the  town,  and  in  the  guise  of  a  physician,  pries  into  and 
tortures  the  minister's  remorse-haunted  soul.  Hester,  knowing  this,  forgetting  aught 
but  love,  proposes  flight  with  him.  He  wills  to  remain,  to  reveal  his  guilt  publicly. 
Confessing  all,  after  a  sermon  of  great  power,  he  dies  in  Hester's  arms,  upon  the 
platform  where  she  once  stood  condemned.  A  wonderful  atmosphere  of  the  Puritan 
society  bathes  this  book,  its  moral  intensity,  its  sensitiveness  to  the  unseen  powers; 
while  forever  pressing  in  upon  the  seething  little  community  is  the  mystery  of  the 
new-world  wilderness,  the  counterpart  of  the  spiritual  wilderness  in  which  Hester 
and  Arthur  wander.  This  great  creation  is  one  of  the  few  "classics"  that  the  nine- 
teenth century  has  added  to  literature. 

SCHILLER,  FRIEDRICH,  LIFE  AND  WORKS  OF,  by  Calvin  Thomas  (1901). 
The  aim  of  this,  one  of  the  latest  and  ablest  of  Schiller  biographies  is  to  interpret  the 
works  of  the  poet  "as  the  expression  of  an  interesting  individuality  and  an  interesting 
epoch, "  to  see  the  man  as  he  was  and  to  understand  the  national  temperament  to 
which  he  endeared  himself.  At  Ludwigsburg  in  Wurtemberg  Schiller  "got  his  first 
childish  impressions  of  the  great '.world :  of  sovereignty  exercised  that  a  few  might  strut 
in  gay  plumage  while  the  many  toiled  to  keep  them  in  funds;  of  state  policies  deter- 
mined by  wretched  court  intrigues ;  of  natural  rights  trampled  upon  at  the  caprice  of 
a  prince  or  a  prince's  favorite. "  Partly  educated  at  the  Karlschule  at  Ludwigsburg, 
—  an  institution  founded  to  gratify  a  fad  of  Duke  Karl,  and  intended  to  serve  as  a 
training-ground  for  future  servants  of  the  state  —  for  at  least  part  of  his  time  at 
school  he  got  the  reputation  of  a  dullard.  But  his  poetic  powers  were  ripening,  and 
first  took  shape  in  an  important  work  in  'The  Robbers'  (1780)  which  was  read 
secretly  to  a  knot  of  admiring  school-mates.  The  success  of  this  play,  one  of  the  most 
significant  of  the  eighteenth  century,  led  Schiller  on  to  other  and  still  more  successful 
efforts  in  drama — 'Fiesco'  and  'Cabal  and  Love/  The  most  prolific  period  of  his 
literary  life  was  the  time  of  his  close  association  with  Goethe  at  Weimar  from  1794 
until  Schiller's  death  in  1805.  The  verdict  of  this  biographer  is  that  while  Schiller 
lacked  the  supreme  qualities  of  a  great  world-poet,  he  was  great  as  a  man,  and  his 
life  of  passionate  striving  for  the  ideal  is  a  splendid  model  for  all  intellectual  work. 

SCHOLAR  AND  THE  STATE,  THE,  and  other  Orations  and  Addresses;  by  Henry 
Codman  Potter  (1897).  A  volume  of  thoughtful  papers,  of  which  the  first,  giving 
the  volume  its  title,  was  delivered  as  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Oration  at  Harvard  in 
1890,  and  the  second,  on  'Character  in  Statesmanship,'  was  the  address  of  April  30th, 
1889,  at  St.  Paul's  Church  in  New  York,  which  carried  off  the  chief  honor  of  the 
celebration  of  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  first  inauguration  of  Washington 
as  President  of  the  United  States.  There  are  seventeen  papers  altogether,  and  they 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  771 

constitute  a  conspicuous  illustration  of  the  best  type  of  churchman:  a  bishop  of  New 
York,  who  was  in  every  secular  respect  an  eminent  citizen,  and  an  author  of  wise 
counsel  in  matters  of  political  and  social  interest. 

SCHONBERG-COTTA  FAMILY,  see  CHRONICLES  OF  THE. 

SCHOOL  FOR  SCANDAL,  THE,  by  R.  B.  Sheridan  (1777).  Sheridan's  dramatic 
masterpiece  'The  School  for  Scandal'  narrowly  escaped  suppression  as  a  license  to 
perform  it  was  refused,  and  it  was  only  through  the  author's  personal  influence  with 
the  Lord  Chamberlain,  Lord  Hertford,  that  the  license  was  granted  on  the  very  day 
fixed  for  its  performance.  "It  is,"  says  Hazlitt,  "if  not  the  most  original,  perhaps  the 
most  finished  and  faultless  comedy  which  we  have. "  It  is  also  the  wittiest  and  most 
deadly  attack  that  has  ever  been  made  in  English  on  the  organized  hypocrisy  of 
society.  Joseph  and  Charles  Surface  present  the  contrast  between  shameless  hy- 
pocrisy and  reckless  good-nature.  Sir  Peter  Teazle,  the  most  miserable  dog  ever  since 
six  months  previously  Lady  Teazle  made  him  the  happiest  of  men,  and  his  perpetual 
squabbles  with  his  young  wife:  the  scandal  scene  in  which  Sir  Benjamin  Backbite, 
Lady  Sneerwell,  and  Mrs.  Candour  strike  "a  character  dead  at  every  word";  the 
scene  in  which  Charles  sells  all  the  family  pictures  but  those  of  his  uncle  who  is  the 
purchaser  in  disguise;  and  the  discovery  that  it  is  Lady  Teazle  and  not  a  little  French 
milliner  who  is  behind  the  screen  are  so  familiar  as  to  have  become  household  words; 
and  the  play  is  as  popular  on  the  stage  as  ever.  It  is  said  that  'The  Rivals'  was 
prepared  in  great  haste  in  response  to  stimulus  from  the  company  who  were  to  play  it, 
and  that  when  it  was  completed  the  author  wrote  on  the  last  page:  "Finished  at  last, 
Thank  God!  R.  B.  Sheridan."  To  which  one  anxious  official  added:  "Amen!  W. 
Hopkins  the  Prompter!" 

SCHOOL  FOR  WIVES,  see  L'ECOLE  DES  FEMMES. 

SCIENCE  OF  ENGLISH  VERSE,  THE,  see  ENGLISH  NOVEL,  by  Sidney  Lanier. 

SCIENCE  OF  THOUGHT,  THE,  by  F.  Max  Muller  (1887).  This  is  a  work  which 
may  be  read  as  the  intellectual  or  philosophical  autobiography  of  the  great  scholar, 
wise  thinker,  and  delightful  writer,  whose  name  it  bears.  The  author  says  that  he 
has  written  it  for  himself  and  a  few  near  friends;  that  some  of  the  views  which  he 
presents  date  from  the  days  when  he  heard  lectures  at  Leipzig  and  Berlin,  and  dis- 
cussed Veda  and  Vedanta  with  Schopenhauer,  and  Eckhart  and  Tauler  with  Bunsen; 
and  that  he  has  worked  up  the  accumulated  materials  of  more  than  thirty  years. 
The  views  put  forth,  he  says,  are  the  result  of  a  long  life  devoted  to  solitary  reflection 
and  to  the  study  of  the  foremost  thinkers  of  all  nations.  They  consist  in  theories 
formed  by  the  combined  sciences  of  language  and  thought;  or,  he  says,  in  the  one 
theory  that  reason,  intellect,  understanding,  mind,  are  only  different  aspects  of 
language.  The  book  sets  forth  the  lessons  of  a  science  of  thought  founded  upon  the 
science  of  language.  It  deals  with  thought  as  only  one  of  the  three  sides  of  human 
nature,  the  other  two  being  the  ethical  and  the  aesthetical. 

SCOTT,  SIR  WALTER,  LIFE  OF,  by  J.  G.  Lockhart  (1838).  Lockhart's  'Life  of 
Sir  Walter  Scott*  is  by  many  placed  second,  as  BoswelFs  'Johnson'  first,  in  the  list  of 
great  biographies.  His  intimate  relation  to  Sir  Walter,  his  sympathy  with  the  subject, 
his  extensive  acquaintance  with  the  persons  and  events  associated  with  Sir  Walter1? 


772  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

name,  lastly,  his  own  literary  bent  combined  to  make  Lockhart  an  ideal  biographer, 
Scott's  activities  as  advocate,  clerk  of  session,  and  sheriff;  his  success  as  the  author 
of  the  'Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel'  and  'Marmion';  his  work  as  reviewer  and  editor; 
the  instantaneous  popularity  of  '  Waverley '  and  a  long  and  rapid  succession  of  novels ; 
best  of  all  his  extraordinary  charm  as  host  and  conversationalist,  are  described  by  the 
most  faithful,  sympathetic,  and  discerning  of  chroniclers.  It  must  have  been  most 
difficult  to  deal  justly  with  Scott's  unfortunate  business  connections  with  the  pub- 
lishing firm  of  Ballantyne,  which  left  him  liable  for  a  debt  of  £130,000.  Scott's  noble 
refusal  to  take  advantage  of  the  bankruptcy  laws  and  to  accept  the  many  offers  of 
private  assistance  which  he  received, — this,  with  his  gallant  attempt,  which  finally 
broke  even  his  vigorous  constitution,  to  clear  off  the  mountain  of  debt  that  had  been 
accumulated  through  no  fault  of  his,  makes  the  story  of  his  life  both  heroic  and  pa- 
thetic. Lockhart 's  intense  devotion  to  Scott  has  led  him  into  no  blind  idolatry, 
and  it  is  now  commonly  agreed  that  in  these  pages  he  has  done  substantial  justice 
not  only  to  the  poet  and  novelist,  but  to  the  Ballantynes. 

SCOTTISH  CHIEFS,  THE,  by  Jane  Porter.  This  spirited  historical  romance  was 
first  published  in  1809,  and  has  enjoyed  unceasing  popularity.  It  gives  many 
pictures  of  the  true  knightly  chivalry  dear  to  boyish  hearts,  and  is  historically  correct 
in  all  important  points.  The  narrative  opens  in  1296  with  the  murder  of  Wallace's 
wife  by  the  English  soldiery,  and  shows  how,  fired  by  this  outrage,  he  tried  to  rouse 
his  country  against  the  tyrant  Edward.  He  gathers  about  him  commons  and  nobles, 
and  gains  especial  favor  with  venerable  Lord  Mar.  Lady  Mar  is  impressed  by  his 
beauty;  and  when  he  scorns  her  dishonorable  passion,  she  proves  his  worst  enemy, 
and  incites  the  nobles  to  treason.  He  also  wins  the  heart  of  the  lovely  Helen  Mar, 
who  respects  his  devotion  to  his  dead  wife,  and  does  not  aspire  to  be  more  than  his 
sister.  Wallace  effects  the  capture  of  the  castles  of  Dumbarton,  Berwick,  and  Stirling, 
and  fights  the  bloody  battles  of  Stanmore  and  Falkirk.  But  as  soon  as  he  becomes 
prominent,  petty  jealousies  spring  up  among  the  nobles;  and  when  in  spite  of  his 
inferior  birth  he  is  appointed  regent,  their  rage  knows  no  bounds.  He  has  continually 
to  guard  against  treachery  within  as  well  as  foes  without,  but  his  intrepid  spirit  never 
fails.  He  goes  in  the  disguise  of  a  harper  to  the  court  of  Edward,  and  rouses  young 
Bruce  to  escape  and  embrace  his  country's  cause.  Bruce  and  Wallace  go  to  France 
to  rescue  the  abducted  Helen  Mar,  and  while  there  meet  Baliol,  whom  Edward  had 
once  adjudged  king  of  Scotland.  On  returning  to  his  own  country  Wallace  finds  the 
English  in  possession  of  much  of  the  territory  he  had  wrested  from  them,  and  by  a 
series  of  vigorous  movements  regains  the  mastery.  But  internal  feuds  and  jealousies 
are  too  strong  for  him,  and  on  Edward's  second  invasion  Wallace  is  abandoned  by 
his  supporters.  He  flees  and  long  eludes  his  pursuers,  but  is  finally  betrayed,  taken 
to  London,  and  brutally  hanged  and  quartered.  But  the  fire  that  he  had  kindled 
did  not  altogether  die  out,  and  Edward  was  obliged  to  treat  Scotland  with  respect 
even  after  he  had  murdered  her  hero. 

SCOTT'S  LAST  EXPEDITION,  an  account  of  the  attainment  of  the  South  Pole  by 
Robert  Falcon  Scott  and  of  his  death  from  cold  and  starvation,  with  a  record  of  the 
scientific  achievements  of  the  enterprise,  edited  by  Leonard  Huxley  and  published 
in  1910.  The  first  volume  includes  the  journals  of  Captain  Scott  and  the  second  the 
scientific  records  by  Dr.  E.  A.  Wilson  and  other  members  of  the  expedition.  There 
are  fine  portraits,  reproductions  in  color  from  Dr.  Wilson's  drawings,  and  many 
ohotographs  and  maps,  and  the  chronology  is  carefully  indicated.  Scott's  expedition 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  773 

established  a  base  at  McMurdoo  Sound  on  the  Antarctic  Continent,  from  which 
various  important  voyages  of  discovery  were  undertaken,  and  much  valuable  material 
obtained.  The  journey  for  the  South  Pole  was  begun  in  1911  and  the  goal  was 
reached  on  January  i8th,  1912.  Amundsen  had  been  there  five  weeks  before,  and 
had  left  a  flag,  a  tent,  and  other  objects.  Thus  although  Scott  did  not  win  the  race 
his  journey  was  valuable  as  a  corroboration  of  Amundsen's  discovery.  On  the  return 
journey,  severe  weather,  an  insufficient  supply  of  food,  and  an  accident  to  Lieutenant 
Evans  greatly  delayed  the  party.  Evans  finally  died,  another  member,  Oates, 
weakened  by  exposure  wandered  off  into  the  snow  and  perished  rather  than  be  a 
hindrance  to  his  comrades,  and  the  remaining  members  of  the  party,  Scott,  Wilson, 
and  Bowers,  were  caught  by  a  blizzard  on  March  2ist,  only  eleven  miles  from  the 
next  supply-depot,  and  being  insufficiently  provided  with  food  and  fuel,  were  frozen  to 
death,  March  29th,  1912.  The  journal,  recovered  when  the  bodies  were  found  eight 
months  later,  is  the  record  of  a  courageous  English  gentleman  who  from  the  first 
faced  the  prospect  of  death  and  who  from  his  entries  in  this  journal  seems  to  have 
felt  it  closing  in  upon  him,  but  who  to  the  last  retains  his  quiet  self-control  and 
unswerving  devotion  to  duty.  His  last  written  words  were  a  tribute  to  his  comrades 
and  a  plea  for  adequate  provision  by  the  nation  for  their  families  and  his  own. 

SCOURING  OF  THE  WHITE  HORSE,  THE,  by  Thomas  Hughes  (1859).  The 
colossal  image  of  a  white  horse,  hewn  upon  the  chalk  f^iff  of  a  Berkshire  hill,  is  a 
lasting  monument  of  the  battle  of  Ashdown.  It  was  constructed  in  the  year  871,  by 
King  Alfred  the  Great,  marking  the  site  of  the  turning-point  of  the  battle,  and  is  the 
pride  of  the  county. 

The  "pastime"  of  the  scouring  of  the  white  horse  was  inaugurated  in  1736,  and 
has  been  held  at  intervals  of  from  ten  to  twenty  years  ever  since.  The  whole  coun- 
tryside makes  of  it  the  grand  holiday  of  Berkshire.  The  farmers  for  miles  around, 
with  pick  and  shovel,  remove  the  accumulations  of  soil  from  the  image,  so  that  it 
stands  out  in  bold  relief,  clear  and  distinct  as  when  first  completed. 

After  this  is  accomplished,  the  two  succeeding  days  are  devoted  to  athletic  sports, 
—  horse  and  foot  races,  climbing  the  greased  pole,  wrestling  matches,  and  backsword 
play.  The  hill  is  covered  with  booths  of  showmen  and  publicans,  and  rich  and  poor 
alike  join  in  the  festivities  of  the  occasion. 

The  particular  "pastime"  recounted  in  this  book  occurred  in  1857;  and  the 
experiences  of  a  prosperous  Berkshire  farmer  and  his  guest,  a  former  schoolmate, 
lend  a  personal  flavor  and  interest  to  the  story. 

The  book  is  made  for  boys,  and  no  writer  excels  Hughes  in  the  vivid  description 
of  manly  sports:  like  his  exciting  accounts  of  the  cricket  match  and  the  boat-race  in 
his  famous  'Tom  Brown'  stories,  and  'The  Scouring  of  the  White  Horse.' 

SEA  POWER,  THE  INFLUENCE  OF,  UPON  HISTORY,  by  A.  T.  Mahan,  see 
INFLUENCE  etc. 

SEA  POWER,  THE  INTEREST  OF  AMERICA  IN,  by  A.  T.  Mahan,  see  INTEREST 
etc. 

SEA  WOLF,  THE,  by  Jack  London  (1904).  This  is  a  sea-story  and  depicts  life 
under  most  brutal  and  revolting  conditions.  The  hero  and  narrator  of  this  tale  is 
Humphrey  Van  Weyden,  a  literary  critic  and  a  man  of  leisure,  who  is  wrecked  in  a 
fog  while  crossing  San  Francisco  Bay  in  a  ferry  boat.  He  is  carried  out  to  sea  and  is 


774  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

picked  up  by  a  sealing-schooner  named  the  "Ghost,"  which  is  outward  bound. 
The  captain,  "  Wolf  Larsen, "  so  called  on  account  of  his  fiendish  cruelty  and  furious 
outbursts  of  temper,  refuses  to  put  Humphrey  ashore  and  forces  upon  him  the  duties 
of  cabin-boy.  Van  Weyden  is  robbed  and  abused  by  Mugridge,  the  cook,  but  ob- 
tains no  satisfaction  from  the  captain,  who  is  a  curious  mixture  of  brutality  and  self- 
culture,  and  amuses  himself  by  discussing  life  and  literature  with  Humphrey  when 
he  is  not  tormenting  him  physically.  On  various  occasions  the  crew,  driven  to  des- 
peration by  the  brutal  treatment  they  have  received  from  the  Sea- Wolf ,  endeavor  to 
take  his  life,  but  each  time  are  foiled  by  his  indomitable  strength  with  dire  results  to 
the  leading  conspirators.  A  beautiful  girl  named  Maude  Brewster  who  has  been 
wrecked  at  sea  is  rescued  by  the  "Ghost"  and  both  Humphrey  and  the  Sea- Wolf  are 
captivated  by  her.  This  is  a  dangerous  complication,  and  leads  to  many  trying 
situations  in  which  Humphrey  finds  himself  in  danger  of  the  Sea- Wolf 's  vengeance. 
Finally  the  "Ghost"  is  wrecked  and  Humphrey  and  Maud  get  away  in  a  small  boat 
and  reach  a  desert  island  where  they  manage  to  exist  for  some  time.  The  hulk  of 
the  ship  is  washed  ashore,  its  only  occupant  being  the  Sea- Wolf,  who  has  become  blind 
and  helpless  and  has  been  deserted  by  all  his  men.  Humphrey  and  Maud  endeavor 
to  make  repairs  on  the  damaged  vessel  in  the  hopes  of  thereby  getting  away  from  the 
island,  but  Larsen  whose  ugly  nature  is  unchanged  tries  in  every  way  to  frustrate 
their  efforts.  He  tries  to  kill  Humphrey  but  does  not  succeed  and  soon  becomes 
paralyzed  as  well  as  blind.  His  companions  tend  him  until  the  hour  of  his  death, 
which  finds  him  unsoftened.  The  lovers  who  have  endured  such  terrible  hardships 
are  finally  rescued  by  a  revenue  cutter  and  their  sufferings  are  over. 

SEABOARD  SLAVE  STATES,  A  JOURNEY  IN  THE,  by  P.  L.  Olmsted,  see 
JOURNEY  etc. 

SEATS  OF  THE  MIGHTY,  THE,  by  Gilbert  Parker  (1896),  is  a  historical  romance, 
of  which  the  scene  is  laid  in  Quebec  at  the  critical  period  of  the  war  between  the 
French  and  English.  It  is  a  rapid  succession  of  exciting  adventures  wherein  figures 
prominent  in  history  play  their  part  with  the  creations  of  the  author. 

Captain  Robert  Moray,  of  Lord  Amherst's  regiment,  is  a  hostage  on  parole  in 
Quebec.  On  a  false  charge  of  being  a  spy  he  is  imprisoned.  His  death,  however,  is 
prevented  by  Doltaire,  an  instrument  of  La  Pompadour,  who  has  brought  Moray 
into  these  straits  for  purposes  of  his  own:  by  keeping  him  alive,  that  is,  Doltaire  hopes 
to  obtain  papers  in  Moray 's  possession  that  are  of  great  importance  to  La  Pompadour. 
Moreover,  he  suspects  Moray  of  affection  for  Alixe  Duvarney,  whom  he  himself  loves, 
and  would  torture  his  rival  with  the  knowledge  of  his  own  success. 

The  monotony  of  the  imprisonment  is  varied  by  interviews  with  Gabord  the 
jailer,  "who  never  exceeds  his  orders  in  harshness";  and  by  occasional  visits  from  the 
brilliant  Doltaire,  or  from  Vauban  the  barber,  who  is  the  connecting  link  with  Alixe 
and  her  world. 

Of  two  attempts  to  escape,  the  first  is  frustrated  by  Doltaire;  the  second,  a  year 
later,  meets  with  better  success.  Gabord  has  been  induced  to  bring  Alixe  to  her 
lover,  and  a  marriage  ceremony  is  performed  by  an  English  clergyman  who  has  been 
smuggled  into  the  quarters.  That  night  Moray  and  five  other  prisoners  make  their 
escape,  and  in  a  few  days  succeed  in  reaching  the  English  lines. 

Moray's  information  as  to  the  condition  of  the  city,  and  the  pass  by  which  the 
Heights  of  Abraham  may  be  reached,  is  invaluable. 

After  the  battle  and  the  capture  of  the  city,  Moray  begins  the  search  for  Alixe, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  775 

Accidentally  he  learns  of  the  death  of  Doltaire.  He  finds  Alixe  at  last  in  the  moun- 
tains above  the  city,  where  she  had  taken  refuge  from  the  persecutions  of  Doltaire. 
Here  she  tends  her  wounded  father,  and  has  for  her  companion  Mathilde,  the  poor, 
demented  sweetheart  of  Vauban.  The  characters  are  well  drawn. 

SECOND  BLOOMING,  THE,  by  W.  L.  George  (1914).  The  theme  might  be  "No, 
people  are  not  happy  ever  after"  or,  the  futility  of  the  lives  of  leisure-class  women 
without  responsibility  of  children  or  household  cares.  Three  married  sisters  take 
different  paths  to  solve  the  unrest  of  their  thirties.  Grace  is  the  wife  of  a  facetious 
barrister,  who  still  calls  her  " Gracie-Bracie "  and  "girlie11  after  years  of  married  life. 
Her  two  children  do  not  need  her  since  they  are  cared  for  by  efficient  servants.  Art 
and  isms  do  not  fill  her  life;  interest  in  dress  is  an  absorbing  phase  of  her  development, 
and  a  very  amusing  clever  bit  of  psychology  on  the  part  of  the  author.  She  finds  her 
great  adventure  in  the  passion  and  danger  of  a  secret  love  affair.  Clara,  the  elder, 
who  is  married  to  a  Tory  baronet,  blooms  again  in  a  feverish  activity  in  politics  and 
philanthropy,  Mary,  the  youngest,  begs  the  question,  by  having  an  unfashionably 
large  family,  which  leaves  her  no  surplus  energy  to  expend  outside  her  home.  In 
the  last  chapter  the  sisters  compare  notes  on  their  views  of  life.  Clara,  recovering 
from  a  nervous  breakdown,  enjoys  the  memory  of  her  past  triumphs.  Grace,  beauti- 
ful and  unrepentant,  clings  to  the  store  of  memories  of  her  lover,  and  asserts  that  "to 
want  things,  to  have  them,  and  to  pay  for  them  is  to  become  bigger  and  finer. "  Mary, 
the  model  mother  of  eight,  thinks  "all  you  can  do  in  life  is  to  suffer  what  you've  got  to 
and  to  enjoy  what  you  can"  and  that  "there's  hope  for  everybody,  even  for  wives." 

SECOND  MRS.  TANQUERAY,  THE,  by  Sir  A.  W.  Pinero  (1893).  Pinero  and 
Wilde  were  the  earliest  of  the  later  nineteenth-century  dramatists  who  attempted 
to  do  for  England  what  Ibsen  had  done.  Boldness  in  treating  actual  problems  of 
every-day  life  went  with  an  equally  bold  use  of  modern  stagecraft.  Aubrey  Tan- 
queray,  a  well-preserved  and  handsome  widower  of  forty-two  informs  his  old  friends 
Misquith  and  Jayne,  both  men  of  the  world  and  older  than  himself,  that  he  is  about 
to  marry  again,  but  refrains  from  telling  them  the  lady's  name.  Paula  (the  second 
Mrs.  Tanqueray),  a  beautiful,  fresh,  innocent-looking  young  woman  of  twenty-seven 
(who  nevertheless  has  had  a  past),  is  cold-shouldered  by  some  of  Aubrey's  former 
society  lady  friends.  He  married  her  in  the  honest  belief  that  if  he  were  kind  to  her 
(as  her  former  male  acquaintances  had  not  been)  she  would  be  a  reclaimed  woman. 
She  speedily  finds  her  position  unbearable,  because  she  is  ignored  by  local  society, 
and  also  because  she  is  unable  to  win  the  affection  or  confidence  of  Ellean,  a  young 
girl  of  nineteen,  a  daughter  of  Aubrey's  by  his  first  marriage.  He  himself  is  unwilling 
that  the  second  Mrs.  Tanqueray  should  be  the  mentor  of  his  daughter,  and  gives  his 
consent  to  Ellean's  going  to  Paris  with  Mrs.  Cortelyou.  In  Paris  Ellean  meets  and 
becomes  engaged  to  Captain  Ardale,  who  had  formerly  been  intimate  with  Paula. 
Paula  feels  it  to  be  her  duty  to  inform  Aubrey  of  their  relationship.  He  forbids 
Ellean  to  see  Captain  Ardale  again.  Ellean  now  admits  that  from  the  first  meeting 
she  had  guessed  what  sort  of  woman  Paula  was.  Paula  in  wild  despair,  though  Aubrey 
offered  to  go  away  and  start  a  new  life  with  her  elsewhere,  killed  herself.  "Killed 
herself?  Yes.  Yes.  So  everybody  will  say.  But  I  know  —  I  helped  to  kUl  her.  If 
I'd  only  been  merciful! "  says  Ellean  in  the  concluding  words  of  the  play. 

SECRET  WOMAN,  THE,  by  Eden  Philpotts  (1905).  A  tragedy  of  Dartmoor 
country  folk  with  the  background  of  the  landscape  of  the  moor  in  wonderful  contrasts 


776  THE   READER'S  DIGEST   OF   BOOKS 

of  season.  Handsome,  affectionate  Anthony  Redvers  turns  from  his  stern  cold  wife, 
A -nti,  the  mother  of  his  two  grown  sons,  in  passionate  desire  to  Salome  Westaway,  a 
young  girl  with  whom  his  elder  son,  Jesse,  is  innocently  in  love.  Ann  discovers  her 
husband's  intrigue  with  an  unknown  woman.  In  a  passion  of  anger  and  jealousy  she 
strikes  him,  pushing  him  into  the  well  to  his  death.  Jesse  urges  her  to  confess  her 
guilt,  as  she  longs  to  do  to  expiate  her  sin,  but  Michael,  the  younger  son,  who  worships 
his  mother  and  condemns  his  father,  threatens  to  take  his  own  life  unless  she  keeps 
the  secret  that  Anthony's  death  was  not  an  accident.  Salome,  heartbroken  at  the 
loss  of  Anthony,  cares  nothing  for  Jesse,  but  becomes  engaged  to  him  in  order  to  have 
his  help  for  her  father,  whose  easy-going  ways  have  mortgaged  the  farm.  The  cheerful 
Mr.  Westaway,  with  his  love-your-neighbors-as-yourself  philosophy,  and  Nat  Tapps's 
hell-fire  religion,  relieve  the  gloom  of  the  story.  Jesse  tells  Salome  of  his  mother's 
deed,  and  she  at  once  reveals  herself  to  the  widow  to  denounce  her  cruelty.  Salome's 
passion  gives  way  before  Ann's  remorse,  and  forgiveness  is  mutual.  Jesse  throws 
himself  over  the  quarry  when  he  learns  that  Salome  was  his  father's  ''secret  woman. " 
Arm  gives  herself  up  to  justice,  and  Michael,  with  beautiful  devotion,  waits  for  his 
mother  to  serve  her  prison  term. 

SELBORNE,  see  NATURAL  HISTORY  AND  ANTIQUITIES  OF. 

SELF-HELP,  by  Samuel  Smiles.  This  book,  first  published  in  1859,  has  held  its 
popularity  down  to  the  present.  It  was  the  second  of  a  series  of  similar  works. 

'Self-Help*  is  a  stimulating  book  for  young  people,  written  in  an  interesting 
manner;  and  while  full  of  religious  feeling,  is  free  from  cant.  The  tenor  of  the  work 
may  be  judged  by  a  quotation  from  the  opening  chapter:  "The  spirit  of  self-help  is 
the  root  of  all  genuine  growth  in  the  individual;  and,  exhibited  in  the  lives  of  many,  it 
constitutes  the  true  source  of  national  vigor  and  strength.  Help  from  without  is 
often  enfeebling  in  its  effects,  but  help  from  within  invariably  invigorates."  The 
book  abounds  in  anecdotes  of  celebrated  men,  —  inventors,  scientists,  artists,  sol- 
diers, clergymen,  and  statesmen:  Minton  and  Wedgewood  the  potters;  Arkwright 
Watts,  and  Peel;  Davy,  Faraday,  Herschel,  and  many  others,  among  scientists; 
Reynolds,  Michael  Angelo,  Haydn,  Bach,  Beethoven,  and  others  in  the  arts;  Napo- 
leon, Wellington,  Napier,  Livingstone,  as  examples  of  energy  and  courage.  The 
various  chapters  dwell  upon  National  and  Individual  Self-Help;  Application  and 
Perseverance;  Helps  and  Opportunities;  Industry,  Energy,  and  Courage;  Business 
Qualities;  Money,  its  Use  and  Abuse;  Self -Culture;  and  Character. 

SERAPH,  by  Count  Leopold  Sacher-Masoch.  This  delightful  story  by  the  great 
German  novelist,  who  has  been  called  the  Galician  Turgeneff,  was  translated  into 
English  in  1893.  As  a  frame  for  a  charming  tale,  the  author  gives  a  vivid  description 
of  Hungarian  life  and  customs.  We  are  introduced  to  Seraph  Temkin,  as  he  is  about 
to  shoot  at  a  card  held  in  his  mother's  hand.  She  tells  him  she  has  educated  him  with 
one  object  in  view,  the  revenge  of  a  wrong  done  her  by  a  man  whose  name  she  now 
gives  —  Emilian  Theodorowitsch.  Seraph  journeys  to  the  Castle  Honoriec,  and 
gives  his  name  and  his  mother's  to  Emilian.  To  his  surprise,  Emilian  says  he  has  never 
heard  of  Madame  Temkin,  but  insists  on  Seraph  accepting  his  hospitality.  He 
remains,  and  learns  from  everybody  of  the  tenderness,  generosity,  and  nobility  of  his 
host.  Emilian  tells  Seraph  the  story  of  his  life.  He  had  married  a  woman  accus- 
tomed to  command  and  be  obeyed.  An  estrangement  sprang  up  between  them,  and 
when  a  son  was  bom,  a  handsome  nurse  came  into  the  house.  His  wife  became  jealous 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  777 

but  persisted  in  keeping  the  nurse.  One  night  the  nurse  began  to  coquet  with  Emi- 
lian.  He  upbraided  her,  whereupon  she  fell  at  his  feet  and  began  to  weep.  He  raised 
her  up,  and  his  wife,  entering,  found  the  nurse  in  his  arms.  Taking  the  child,  she 
escaped,  and  he  had  never  been  able  to  find  a  trace  of  her.  Another  charm  of  the 
castle  for  Seraph  is  Magdalina,  Emilian's  adopted  daughter,  with  whom  Seraph  is  in 
love.  Running  after  her  one  day,  she  flees  into  the  chapel.  He  finds  her  hiding  in  the 
confessional,  and  kneeling  down  at  the  wicket,  he  tells  her  of  his  love.  He  is  inter- 
rupted by  his  mother  in  disguise,  who  upbraids  him  for  his  delay;  and  when  he  asks 
her  what  relationship  existed  between  her  and  Emilian,  she  answers  "none/1  and 
escapes.  Magdalina  tells  him  this  woman  reminds  her  of  a  portrait  in  an  abandoned 
part  of  the  castle.  She  leads  him  there,  and  he  is  struck  with  the  familiarity  of  the 
scenes.  He  rushes  to  a  clock,  pulls  a  string,  and  hears  an  old  familiar  tune;  and  in 
the  next  room  finds  his  mother's  portrait.  He  thinks  of  but  one  way  in  which  his 
mother  could  have  been  wronged,  in  spite  of  Emilian's  very  suggestive  story;  and 
going  down  stairs  he  insults  Emilian  and  challenges  him  to  a  duel,  in  which  Seraph  is 
shot.  When  he  recovers  from  his  swoon,  he  finds  "himself  again  at  the  castle  with 
Magdalina  watching  over  him.  He  sends  for  Emilian,  and  tells  him  of  the  portrait; 
and  the  father  clasps  his  long-lost  son  in  his  arms.  The  reconciliation  of  the  husband 
and  wife  ends  the  story. 

SERPENT  SYMBOLS,  see  CENTRAL  AMERICA,  NOTES  ON,  by  E.  G.  Squier. 

SERVANT  IN  THE  HOUSE,  THE,  by  Charles  Kennedy  (1907).  The  theme  of  this 
symbolic  drama  is  the  brotherhood  of  man.  The  vicar  has  appealed  for  funds  to 
rebuild  his  crumbling  church.  His  brother,  the  Bishop  of  Benares,  whom  he  has  not 
seen  for  many  years,  has  promised  to  help  him.  His  wife  has  succeeded  in  interesting 
her  worldly  brother  the  Bishop  of  London  in  the  plan,  because  he  believes  that  the 
name  of  the  Bishop  of  Benares,  who  is  famous  for  his  piety  and  good  works,  will  bring 
in  millions,  which  the  ambitious  prelate  wishes  to  divert  to  his  chief  interest  in  life, 
the  Society  for  the  Promotion  and  Preservation  of  Emoluments  for  the  Higher  Clergy. 
Both  bishops  are  expected  on  the  same  morning.  The  vicar  has  another  brother, 
Robert,  who  is  a  drunkard,  disowned  by  the  family.  The  childless  vicar  and  his  wife 
have  adopted  Robert's  daughter  Mary,  who  has  never  known  her  father.  The  vicar's 
conscience  tells  him  that  he  is  a  hypocrite  to  preach  the  spirit  of  brotherhood  in  his 
pulpit  and  refuse  to  help  his  own  disreputable  brother,  who  has  become  a  scavenger. 
His  worldly  wife  feels  that  Robert  has  only  his  deserts  and  opposes  her  husband's 
wish  to  gain  peace  of  mind  by  receiving  Robert  at  the  vicarage.  Into  this  troubled 
household  comes  the  Bishop  of  Benares,  disguised  as  Manson,  the  new  butler.  When 
Robert,  rough,  uncouth,  cursing  at  the  injustice  of  the  world,  comes  to  claim  his 
daughter,  Manson  quiets  him,  so  that  he  hides  his  identity  from  Mary  to  save  her 
dream  of  a  father,  brave  and  beautiful  and  good.  The  Bishop  of  London  arrives,  and 
with  physical  and  spiritual  blindness  and  deafness  combined,  mistakes  Robert  for  the 
vicar,  and  reveals  his  own  hypocrisy  to  Manson.  Through  Manson's  influence,  Mary 
is  led  to  think  about  her  father  and  ask  the  vicar  about  him,  and  in  spite  of  his  wife 
he  tells  her  the  truth.  Robert,  whose  business  is  drains,  has  gone  under  the  founda- 
tions of  the  church  to  find  the  source  of  corruption,  a  vault  under  the  very  pulpit, 
symbolizing  the  dead  body  of  tradition  and  convention  which  poisons  those  who 
would  worship  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  He  sets  about  the  work  of  cleaning  it  out 
in  such  brave  spirit  that  his  daughter  recognizes  him  as  her  dream  came  true,  and  his 
brother  throws  off  his  clerical  coat  to  work  with  him.  Manson  orders  the  pompous 


778  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Bishop  of  London,  the  servant  of  Mammon,  out  of  the  house,  and  reveals  himself  to 
his  brothers.  The  character  of  Manson  is  a  replica  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  suggested 
that  he  may  be  the  Messiah.  His  presence  brings  truth  and  harmony  into  the  tangled 
lives  of  the  vicar's  household. 

SEVEN  CHAMPIONS  OF  CHRISTENDOM,  THE,  by  Richard  Johnson.  This  is  a 
romance  of  chivalry,  which  was  one  of  the  best  known  and  most  popular  books  of  its 
time.  The  oldest  known  edition  is  dated  1597.  In  it  are  recounted  the  exploits  of 
St.  George  of  England,  St.  Denis  of  France,  St.  James  of  Spain,  St.  Anthony  of  Italy, 
St.  Andrew  of  Scotland,  St.  Patrick  of  Ireland,  and  St.  David  of  Wales.  St.  George 
kills  the  dragon,  and  after  seven  years'  imprisonment  escapes,  marries  Sabra,  and 
takes  her  to  England.  He  draws  the  sword  of  the  necromancer  Ormandine  from  the 
enchanted  rock,  rescues  David,  who  had  been  unable  to  draw  the  sword  and  kills 
Ormandine.  St.  Denis,  after  an  enchantment  of  seven  years  in  the  shape  of  a  hart, 
rescues  Eglantine  from  the  trunk  of  the  mulberry-tree.  St.  James,  by  knightly 
prowess,  wins  the  love  of  Celestine.  St.  Anthony  kills  the  giant  Blanderon  and 
rescues  Rosalinde;  but  her  six  sisters  remain  enchanted,  in  the  forms  of  swans.  St. 
Andrew  forces  the  father  of  Rosalinde  to  become  a  Christian;  and  God,  in  recom- 
pense, restores  the  daughters  to  their  former  shapes.  St.  Patrick  rescues  the  six 
sisters  from  the  hands  of  satyrs.  The  Seven  Champions  collect  immense  armies 
from  their  native  countries  to  attack  the  Saracens;  but  St.  George  is  called  to  England 
to  defend  Sabra,  who  has  killed  the  Earl  of  Coventry  in  defense  of  her  honor.  He 
defeats  the  champion  of  Coventry  and  returns  to  Egypt  with  Sabra,  where  she  is 
crowned  queen.  Going  to  Persia,  he  finds  the  other  champions  under  the  spell  of  the 
necromancer  Osmond,  devoting  themselves  to  the  love  of  evil  spirits,  who  are  in  the 
form  of  beautiful  women.  He  breaks  the  spell,  and  the  armies  of  the  champions  defeat 
those  of  the  Saracens.  The  second  part  relates  the  achievements  of  St.  George's 
three  sons,  and  the  rest  of  the  noble  adventures  of  the  Seven  Champions;  also  the 
manner  and  place  of  their  honorable  deaths,  and  how  they  came  to  be  called  the 
Seven  Saints  of  Christendom. 

SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE.  The  'Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture'  by 
John  Ruskin  appeared  in  1847.  In  this  book  architecture  is  regarded  as  the  re- 
vealing medium,  or  lamp,  through  which  flame  a  people's  passions,  and  which  em- 
bodies their  life,  history,  and  religious  faith,  in  temple,  palace,  and  home. 

The  first  Lamp  is  "Sacrifice,"  or  the  offering  of  precious  things  because  they  are 
precious,  rather  than  because  they  are  useful  or  necessary.  Such  a  spirit  picks 
out  the  most  costly  marble  or  the  most  elaborate  ornamentation  simply  because 
it  is  most  costly  or  most  elaborate,  and  is  directly  opposed  to  the  prevalent  feeling  of 
modern  times  which  desires  to  produce  the  largest  result  at  the  least  cost. 

Next  comes  the  "  Lamp  of  Truth, "  or  the  spirit  of  reality  and  sincerity  character- 
istic of  all  noble  schools  of  architecture.  Ruskin  here  condemns  all  falsity  of 
assertion  in  architectual  construction,  in  material,  in  quantity  of  labor,  and  in  the 
substitution  of  effect  for  veracity,  and  traces  the  downfall  of  art  in  Europe  to  the 
substitution  of  line  for  mass,  and  of  mere  expression  in  place  of  the  general  princi- 
ples of  truth. 

The  third  and  fourth  Lamps  are  those  of  "Power"  and  "Beauty, "  or  the  expres- 
sion in  architecture  of  the  sublime  and  the  delightful;  the  sublime,  indicating  man's 
power  to  govern;  the  delightful,  man's  power  to  gather.  The  former  ability  shows 
itself  in  form,  situation,  and  line,  and  the  latter  in  ornamentation. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  779 

Then  follows  the  "Lamp  of  Life,"  which  is  the  spirit  of  originality  that  seizes 
upon  substances,  alike  in  use  and  outward  form,  and  endows  them  with  its  own 
energy,  passion,  and  nobility,  until  rough  stones  come  to  life.  This  spirit  of  Life  is 
distinguished  from  the  spirit  of  death  by  its  power  to  animate.  The  spirit  of  death 
may  act  and  imitate,  but  it  is  powerless  to  inspire. 

The  last  two  Lamps  are  those  of  "Memory"  and  "Obedience";  the  one  ever 
burning  brightly  and  steadily  among  those  peoples  who  reverence  the  past,  and 
flaming  forth  in  buildings  erected  to  commemorate  national  achievements;  while 
the  other,  the  "Lamp  of  Obedience,"  reveals  strict  conformity  in  architecture  to  its 
laws,  which  should  be  no  more  disregarded  than  the  laws  which  govern  religion, 
politics,  or  social  relations. 

Ruskin  affirms  that  "the  architecture  of  a  nation  is  great  only  when  it  is  as  uni- 
versal and  established  as  its  language,  and  when  provincial  differences  in  style  are 
nothing  more  than  so  many  dialects." 

SEVEN  WHO  WERE  HANGED,  THE,  by  Leonid  Andreyev  (1908).  The  fear  of 
death,  the  horror  and  iniquity  of  capital  punishment,  is  the  theme  of  this  powerful 
study  of  the  character,  thoughts,  and  feelings  of  men  and  women  condemned  to  die. 
Five  of  the  prisoners  are  revolutionists  who  have  attempted  to  assassinate  a  high 
official  in  Russia,  two  are  common  peasant  murderers.  They  wait  in  solitary  con- 
finement for  seventeen  days  after  the  judgment,  and  are  finally  summoned  to  ride 
in  the  dark  to  midnight  execution.  The  young  soldier,  Sergey,  fights  successfully 
the  fear  of  death  that  takes  possession  of  his  sound  strong  body,  but  he  is  tortured 
with  dread  of  the  farewell  visit  from  his  stricken  father  and  mother.  The  strong 
characters,  Werner,  the  leader  of  the  terrorists,  and  the  young  girl,  Musya,  are  able 
to  bear  the  thought  of  inevitable  death,  he  with  enlightened  mind,  and  she  by  her 
innocent  purity  and  conception  of  immortal  life.  Musya  goes  to  the  scaffold  sup- 
porting the  ignorant  terrified  murderer  with  her  beautiful  courage  and  humanity. 
The  author  aims  through  his  art  to  destroy  the  "barriers  which  separate  one  soul 
from  another,"  and  helps  us  to  realize  sympathetically  the  humanity  of  even  the 
lowest  criminal. 

SEVENTEEN,  by  Booth  Tarkington  (1916),  is  a  humorous  and  entertaining  de- 
scription of  a  boy  of  seventeen  named  William  Sylvanus  Baxter.  Called  "Willie" 
by  his  family  and  "Silly  Bill "  by  his  schoolmates,  he  appears  before  the  reader  in  the 
various  moods  and  situations  to  which  a  youth  of  that  age  is  heir.  Though  pre- 
tending to  be  indifferent  to  feminine  charms  he  falls  an  easy  victim  to  the  fascinations 
of  Miss  Lola  Pratt,  a  pretty,  insipid  young  girl  who  is  visiting  her  friend  May  Par- 
qher.  Lola  has  for  a  constant  companion  a  little  lap-dog  named  Flopit  to  which  pet 
she  talks  an  endearing  species  of  baby- talk;  she  uses  the  same  style  of  language  when 
conversing  with  her  friends,  a  method  which  proves  very  fascinating  to  the  callow 
youths  by  whom  she  is  surrounded.  Willie,  who  endeavors  to  appear  at  his  best 
before  his  charmer,  borrows  his  father's  dress  suit,  and  all  goes  well  until  the  fact  is 
discovered  by  his  mother,  who  is  aided  in  her  efforts  by  Willie's  sister  Jane.  The 
latter,  a  sagacious  and  knowing  child  of  ten,  is  a  constant  thorn  in  the  flesh  to  her 
brother,  as  she  finds  out  all  his  secrets,  and  through  her  intervention  most  of  his  plans 
are  frustrated.  Many  incidents  are  amusingly  described  which  are  of  serious  moment 
to  the  hero  of  the  tale.  The  disappearance  and  enlargement  of  his  father's  dress-suit 
which  causes  the  cessation  of  his  evening  visits  to  Miss  Pratt;  his  non-appearance  at 
a  tea  given  by  his  mother  for  the  charming  Lola,  and  his  inability  to  get  a  dance  with 


780  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

her  at  the  kst  party  of  the  season,  prove  most  entertaining  reading.  The  misery  of 
Mr.  Parcher  whose  roof  is  sheltering  the  lovely  visitor,  and  who  has  neither  peace  nor 
happiness  in  his  own  home  owing  to  the  continual  presence  of  the  youths  who  swarm 
about  Miss  Pratt  until  the  "wee  sma'  hours, "  is  most  graphically  described,  and  when 
her^departure  finally  takes  place,  his  happiness  is  complete.  William,  on  the  contrary, 
witnesses  her  going  with  the  deepest  sorrow  and  regret,  and  expresses  his  sentiments 
in  a  poem  which  he  encloses  with  his  picture  in  a  box  of  candy  as  a  parting  token  of 
his  affection. 

SEVIGNE',  MADAME  DE,  see  LETTERS  OF. 

SEWALL,  SAMUEL,  AND  THE  WORLD  HE  LIVED  IN,  by  N.  H.  Chamberlain 
(1897),  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  nonconformists, 
who  came  to  this  country  when  he  was  a  boy  of  nine.  He  grew  up  to  be  a  councilor 
and  judge,  highly  esteemed  among  his  contemporaries;  but  his  fame  to-day  rests 
not  on  his  achievements  in  his  profession,  but  on  the  remarkable  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  social  life.  As  a  man  of  position,  connected  with 
the  government,  he  made  many  journeys,  not  only  about  the  colony  but  over  seas 
to  court.  As  a  judge,  he  knew  all  the  legal  proceedings  of  the  country,  being  con- 
cerned, for  example,  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  personages,  —  their  dress  and  their  dinners, 
their  funerals  and  weddings,  their  town  meetings,  their  piety,  their  quarrels,  and 
the  innumerable  ^fles  which  together  make  up  life.  Mr.  Chamberlain  finds  this 
diary  a  match  for  Evelyn's  and  Pepys's,  and  unique  as  far  as  America  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  quotations  delightfully  quaint  and 
characteristic;  and  the  passages  of  original  narrative  nowhere  obscure  these  invaluable 
"documents." 

SHADOW  OF  DANTE,  A,  by  M.  P.  Rossetti,  see  DANTE. 

SHAKESPEARE,  WILLIAM,  A  LIFE  OF,  by  Sidney  Lee  (1898).  The  motto  of  this 
book  would  appear  to  be  that  which  was  said  (by  one  of  them)  to  have  animated  the 
contributors  to  the  English  Dictionary  of  National  Biography:  "no  flowers,  by  re- 
quest." The  purpose  of  the  writer  has  been  to  provide  a  book  which  "shall  supply 
within  a  brief  compass  an  exhaustive  and  well-arranged  statement  of  the  facts  of 
Shakespeare's  career,  achievement,  and  reputation,  that  shall  reduce  conjecture  to 
the  smallest  dimensions  consistent  with  coherence,  and  shall  give  verifiable  references 
to  all  the  original  sources  of  information."  By  common  consent  he  has  abundantly 
succeeded  in  this  aim.  He  traces  the  parentage,  childhood  and  education  of  the  poet ; 
his  early  days  at  Stratford  and  first  appearances  as  an  actor  on  the  London  stage;  the 
first  dramatic  efforts  which,  notwithstanding  the  poet's  unique  originality  and  fertility 
of  invention,  took  the  form  of  adapting  familiar  Ovidian  fables  for  English  readers; 
his  amazing  fluency  of  composition,  which  made  Ben  Jonson  say  of  him  that  "what- 
soever he  penned  he  never  blotted  out  a  line,"  The  whole  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

work  was  probably  begtm  and  ended  between  his  twenty-seventh  and  forty-seventh 
year.  The  student  of  human  nature  will  also  notice  that  his  noblest  literary  efforts 
during  the  latter  portion  of  these  years  coincide  with  certain  shrewd  business  transac- 
tions which  re-established  him  as  a  man  of  property  in  his  native  Stratford,  where 
he  spent  his  concluding  days.  An  extraordinary  variety  of  information  is  conveyed 
not  only  in  the  chapters  which  deal  with  Shakespeare's  life  and  works,  but  in  the 
sections  which  deal  with  autographs,  portraits  and  memorials,  bibliography,  and  the 
poet's  posthumous  reputation.  As  a  perfect  example  of  the  terse,  restrained,  and 
judicial  criticism  of  the  true  scholar,  students  should  note  the  chapter  (only  two  pages 
in  length)  in  which  Sir  Sidney  Lee  attempts  a  general  estimate  of  the  poet,  and  which 
thus  begins  and  ends.  "In  knowledge  of  human  character,  in  wealth  of  humour,  in 
depth  of  passion,  in  fertility  of  fancy,  and  in  soundness  of  judgment,  he  has  no  rival. 
...  To  Shakespeare  the  intellect  of  the  world,  speaking  in  divers  accents,  applies 
with  one  accord  his  own  words:  'How  noble  in  reason!  how  infinite  in  faculty!  in 
apprehension  how  like  a  god!'"  The  new  edition  of  1911  contains  a  great  deal  of 
additional  matter,  based  largely  on  recent  researches  into  the  history  of  the  theatre 
and  theatrical  companies  of  Shakespeare's  time. 

SHALLOW  SOIL,  by  Knut  Hamsun  (1893).  A  satirical  picture  of  a  group  of 
mediocre  young  writers  and  artists,  whose  pretensions  are  taken  seriously  by  an 
admiring  community.  Contrasted  with  them  are  two  sterling  young  merchants, 
Henriksen  and  Tidemand,  who  are  despised  by  the  clique  as  "peddlers, "  and  "huck- 
sters, "  and  tolerated  for  the  sake  of  the  money,  wine,  and  suppers  they  are  willing 
to  provide  for  impecunious  artists.  Tidemand's  wife,  Hanka,  has  an  intrigue  with 
Irgens,  the  shallow,  selfish  poet,  who  takes  her  money  and  devotion  until  he  tires  of 
her.  The  two  friends,  Tidemand  and  Henriksen,  talk  over  their  affairs  in  the  office 
at  the  back  of  Henriksen's  great  warehouse,  in  the  fragrant  atmosphere  of  spices, 
coffee,  and  wines.  Tidemand  has  a  pathetic  faith  that  sooner  or  later  he  and  his  wife 
will  be  happy  together  again.  Henriksen  confides  to  Tideman  his  love  for  his  be- 
trothed, Aagot,  a  beautiful  young  girl  from  the  country.  The  unsophisticated  Aagot 
is  Irgens 's  next  victim.  He  gradually  wins  her  from  her  fiance" e  and  under  his  cor- 
rupting influence  she  loses  her  innocence  and  purity.  An  interesting  character  is 
Coldevin,  Aagot's  tutor,  who  worships  her  and  tries  to  show  her  the  sham  of  the  worth- 
less poet  and  his  circle.  Hanka's  eyes  are  opened  to  her  husband's  noble  character; 
convinced  of  her  love,  he  forgives  her,  and  takes  her  back.  Henriksen  commits 
suicide,  unable  to  endure  Aagot's  downfall. 

SHE,  by  Sir  Rider  Haggard  (1887).  This  is  a  stirring  and  exciting  tale.  Mr.  Hag- 
gard has  pictured  his  hero  as  going  to  Africa  to  avenge  the  death  of  an  Egyptian  an- 
cestor, whose  strange  history  has  been  handed  down  to  him  in  an  old  manuscript 
which  he  discovers.  His  ancestor,  a  priest  of  Isis,  had  been  slain  by  an  immortal 
white  sorceress,  somewhere  in  Africa;  and  in  the  ancient  record  his  descendants  are 
exhorted  to  revenge  his  death.  The  sorceress,  no  other  than  "She,"  is  discovered 
in  a  remarkable  country  peopled  by  marvelous  beings,  who,  as  true  servants  of  the 
sorceress,  present  an  exaggerated  picture  of  the  barbaric  rites  and  cruelties  of  Africa. 
To  this  strange  land  comes  the  handsome  and  passionate  Englishman,  with  two  com- 
panions who  share  his  many  thrilling  experiences.  A  mysterious  bond  exists  between 
the  young  Englishman  and  the  sorceress:  the  memory  of  the  ancient  crime  and  the 
expectation  of  its  atonement.  The  climax  of  the  story  is  reached  when  the  travelers 
and  the  sorceress  together  visit  the  place  where  the  mysterious  fire  burns  which  gives 


782  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

thousands  of  years  of  life,  loveliness,  strength,  and  wisdom,  or  else  swift  death. 
"She"  for  the  second  time  dares  to  pass  into  the  awful  flame,  and  so  meet  her  doom, 
being  instantly  consumed.  The  weird  tale  does  not  lack  a  fitting  background  for 
its  scenes  of  adventure,  the  author  choosing  an  extinct  volcano  for  the  scene  of  the 
tragedy;  so  vast  is  its  crater  that  it  contains  a  great  city,  while  its  walls  are  full  of 
caves  containing  the  marvelously  preserved  dead  of  a  prehistoric  people.  Haggard's 
practical  knowledge  and  experience  of  savage  life  and  wild  lands,  his  sense  of  the  charm 
of  ruined  civilization,  his  appreciation  of  sport,  and  his  faculty  of  imparting  an  aspect 
of  truth  to  impossible  adventures,  find  ample  expression  in  this  entertaining  and 
wholly  impossible  tale. 

SHE  STOOPS  TO  CONQUER,  by  Oliver  Goldsmith  (1773).  Sheridan  and  Gold- 
-  smith  were  the  only  dramatists  of  their  century  whose  plays  are  acted  to-day. 
'She  Stoops  to  Conquer/  though  the  manager  had  to  be  won  over  to  make  the 
attempt  to  produce  it,  was  a  huge  success  on  the  first  night.  It  attained,  to  use  the 
words  of  Dr.  Johnson,  "the  great  end  of  comedy,  making  an  audience  merry,"  and 
it  has  been  making  audiences  merry  ever  since.  Hardcastle  who  loves  "everything 
that's  old:  old  friends,  old  times,  old  manners,  old  books,  old  wine"  (but  whose  wife 
objects  to  being  put  in  the  category  of  old  things  which  her  husband  loves) ;  Mrs. 
Hardcastle,  who  spoils  their  son,  Tony,  a  constant  frequenter  of  "The  Three  Jolly 
Pigeons";  and  Miss  Hardcastle,  whom  her  father  wishes  to  marry  to  young  Mario w, 
"one  of  the  most  bashful  and  reserved  young  fellows  in  all  the  world, "  have  all  taken 
their  places  among  the  best  beloved  characters  on  the  comic  stage.  The  idle  yet 
mischievous,  cunning  yet  stupid  Tony  Lumpkin,  with  his  associates  at  "The  Three 
Pigeons"  one  of  whom  is  a  showman  who  declares  that  his  bear  dances  to  none  but 
the  genteelest  of  tunes,  is  another  unforgettable  character.  One  of  the  most  ably- 
conceived  figures  in  the  book  is  young  Marlow,  whose  bashfulness  in  the  presence 
of  Miss  Hardcastle  and  freedom  when  in  the  company  of  the  supposed  maid-servant 
who  was  really  Miss  Hardcastle  in  disguise,  combine  to  make  up  a  remarkable  piece 
of  character-drawing. 

SHELBURNE  ESSAYS,  by  Paul  Elmer  More,  a  collection  of  literary  essays  in  seven 
volumes,  the  first  series  published  in  1904,  the  second  and  third  in  1905,  the  fourth  in 
1906,  the  fifth  in  1908,  the  sixth  in  1909,  and  the  seventh  in  1910.  Most  of  them  had 
previously  appeared  in  briefer  form  in  the  New  York  Evening  Post  and  other  jour- 
nals and  periodicals.  The  title,  as  the  first  essay  explains,  is  derived  from  the  village 
of  Shelburne  in  the  valley  of  the  Androscoggin  in  Maine,  where  the  author  spent  two 
years  of  retirement  and  became  convinced  of  his  vocation  as  a  critic.  The  essays 
cover  a  wide  range  of  literature  from  the  Bhagavad  Glta  to  Tolstoy.  The  greater 
number,  however,  are  concerned  with  the  writers  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  a 
goodly  proportion  deal  with  the  great  writers  of  America.  One  volume,  the  sixth, 
is  devoted  to  great  religious  thinkers — among  them — Saint  Augustine,  Pascal, 
Bunyan,  and  Plato  —  who  are  grouped  under  the  sub-title,  'Studies  of  Religious 
Dualism.'  The  author  is  a  stimulating  and  suggestive  critic,  who  emphasizes  par- 
ticularly the  necessity  of  a  revival  of  classicism  in  an  age  of  romantic  disintegration. 

SHENANDOAH,  by  Bronson  Howard  (1888).  A  military  drama  of  the  Civil  War. 
The  first  scene  is  a  Southern  home  in  Charleston  in  the  early  morning  hours  after  a 
ball.  Lieutenant  Kerchival  West,  a  Northern  officer,  is  making  a  declaration  of  love 
to  Gertrude  Ellingham,  a  Southern  girl.  As  he  awaits  her  answer  the  first  shot  is 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  783 

fired  by  the  Confederates  upon  Fort  Sumter  in  Charleston  harbor,  beginning  the 
war  which  makes  the  North  and  South  enemies,  and  he  accepts  his  dismissal.  The 
second  and  third  acts  take  place  at  the  Ellingham  homestead  in  the  Shenandoah 
valley.  Gertrude  Ellingham  is  captured  and  brought  a  prisoner  before  Lieutenant 
West  just  after  she  has  succeeded  in  carrying  dispatches  to  Thornton  in  the  Confed- 
erate lines.  Thornton,  the  villain  of  the  piece,  is  also  captured  later.  Lieutenant 
West  had  fought  a  duel  with  him  for  insulting  his  colonel's  wife,  Mrs.  Haverhill,  with 
his  attentions.  Thornton  springs  at  Lieutenant  West,  wounding  him  seriously.  He 
accuses  the  unconscious  man  to  Colonel  Haverhill  of  being  Mrs.  HaverhilTs  lover, 
Gertrude,  forgetting  her  devotion  to  the  South,  kneels  beside  West,  confessing  her 
love.  Colonel  HaverhilFs  son,  Frank,  has  led  a  wild  life,  and  has  been  disowned  by 
his  father.  He  joins  the  army  under  an  assumed  name,  and  accepts  from  his  father, 
as  commander,  the  dangerous  mission  of  going  through  the  enemy's  lines  to  get  the 
signal  code  of  the  Confederates.  He  captures  the  code,  but  is  mortally  wounded. 
His  father  attends  the  funeral,  doing  honor  to  his  bravery,  not  knowing  the  young 
officer  was  his  own  son.  There  is  a  thrilling  scene  when  the  Union  army  is  in  retreat, 
and  General  Sheridan  rides  to  the  rescue  turning  the  retreat  to  victory.  The  last 
act  is  in  Washington  after  Lee's  surrender.  A  long  delayed  letter  written  by  his 
dead  son  explains  to  Colonel  Haverhill  how  the  miniature  of  his  wife  had  come  into 
Lieutenant  West's  possession.  All  the  various  lovers  are  reunited. 

SHERLOCK  HOLMES,  ADVENTURES  OF,  by  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle  (1892),  con- 
sists of  twelve  sketches,  purporting  to  have  been  recorded  by  Dr.  Watson,  a  friend 
and  coadjutor  of  Sherlock  Holmes.  In  each  narrative  Holmes  figures  as  a  scientific 
amateur  detective  of  remarkable  skill,  unraveling  the  most  intricate  criminal  snarls. 
Enslaved  to  cocaine,  eccentric,  brusque,  he  nevertheless  is  a  patient  and  untiring 
student,  having  developed  his  penetrative  faculties  to  an  amazing  degree.  His  forte 
is  a  posteriori  reasoning,  which  enables  him  so  to  group  apparently  unimportant 
effects  as  to  uncover  the  most  remote  and  disconnected  causes.  As  an  analytical 
chemist  he  classifies  many  varieties  of  cigar  ashes,  mud,  dust,  and  the  like;  collates 
endless  data,  and  constructs  chains  of  evidence  with  a  swift  accuracy  which  results 
in  the  apprehension  and  conviction  of  criminals  only  less  gifted  than  himself.  The 
sketches  are:  'A  Study  in  Scarlet';  'A  Scandal  in  Bohemia';  'The  Red-Headed 
League'  (given  in  this  LIBRARY);  'A  Case  of  Identity';  'The  Boscome  Valley  Mys- 
tery'; 'The  Five  Orange  Pips';  'The  Man  with  the  Twisted  Lip';  'The  Blue  Car- 
buncle'; 'The  Speckled  Band';  'The  Engineer's  Thumb';  'The  Noble  Bachelor'; 
'The  Beryl  Coronet';  and  'The  Copper  Beeches.1  All  are  full  of  bizarre  and  often 
of  grewsome  details,  and  all  are  unrivaled  as  specimens  of  constructive  reasoning 
applied  to  every-day  life.  Sir  Conan  Doyle  was  still  writing  the  adventures  of  Sher- 
lock Holmes  in  1917.  Later  books  are  'Memoirs  of  Sherlock  Holmes'  (1893)  and 
'Return  of  Sherlock  Holmes1  (1905),  'His  Last  Bow*  (1917). 

SHERMAN  MEMOIRS  OF  GENERAL  W.  T.,  written  by  himself  (4th  ed.,  1891).  In 
this  autobiography  General  Sherman  tells  the  story  of  his  life  up  to  the  time  of  his 
being  placed  on  the  retired  list  in  1884;  a  final  chapter  by  another  hand  completes 
the  story,  and  describes  his  last  illness,  death,  and  funeral.  Beginning  with  a  genea- 
logical account  of  his  family,  the  work  describes  his  boyhood,  his  appointment  to  and 
course  at  West  Point,  his  assignment  to  a  second  lieutenancy  in  the  Third  Artillery, 
stationed  in  Florida,  his  experiences  in  California  in  1846-50,  his  marriage  in  Washing- 
ton to  a  daughter  of  Secretary  of  the  Interior  Ewing,  in  1850,  his  resignation  from  the 


784  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

army  in  1853,  and  engaging  in  business,  law,  and  teaching;  then  comes  the  account. 
in  his  own  words  of  the  part  he  played  in  the  Civil  War,  which  all  the  world  knows. 
The  tour  in  Europe  and  the  East  is  dismissed  in  three  short  paragraphs.  The  whole 
is  told  simply,  frankly,  and  in  a  matter-of-fact  way,  in  English  that  is  plain,  direct, 
and  forcible,  if  not  always  elegant.  The  famous  "march  to  the  sea"  he  describes 
in  a  businesslike  style,  that,  when  supported  by  accomplished  facts,  is  beyond  elo- 
quence. Sherman  himself  regarded  it  as  of  much  less  importance  than  the  march 
from  Savannah  northward.  The  chapter  on  "Military  Lessons  of  the  War  "  is  inter- 
esting, especially  to  military  men.  Some  of  his  conclusions  in  it  are  that  volunteer 
officers  should  be  appointed  directly  or  indirectly  by  the  President  (subject  to  con- 
firmation by  the  Senate),  and  not  elected  by  the  soldiers,  since  "an  army  is  not  a 
popular  organization,  but  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  Executive  for  enforcing 
the  law  ";  that  the  country  can,  in  case  of  war  in  the  future,  rely  to  supplement  the 
regular  army  officers  on  the  great  number  of  its  young  men  of  education  and  force  of 
character.  At  the  close  of  our  Civil  War,  some  of  our  best  corps  and  division  gener- 
als, as  well  as  staff-officers,  were  from  civil  life,  though  "I  cannot  recall  any  of  the 
most  successful  who  did  not  express  a  regret  that  he  had  not  received  in  early  life 
instruction  in  the  elementary  principles  of  the  art  of  war";  that  the  volunteers  were 
better  than  the  conscripts,  and  far  better  than  the  bought  substitutes ;  that  the  greatest 
mistake  of  the  War  was  the  mode  of  recruitment  and  promotion;  that  a  commander 
can  command  properly  only  at  the  front,  where  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  him  to 
be  seen,  and  for  his  influence  to  be  felt;  that  the  presence  of  newspaper  correspondents, 
with  armies  is  mischievous.  He  closes  his  book  in  the  justified  assurance  that  he 
"can  travel  this  broad  country  of  ours,  and  be  each  night  a  welcome  guest  in  palace, 
or  cabin." 

SHERWOOD,  MRS.  MARY  ELIZABETH  WILSON,  see  EPISTLE  TO  POS- 
TERITY. 

SHIPS  THAT  PASS  IN  THE  NIGHT,  by  Beatrice  Karraden.  This  sad  little 
story  achieved  notoriety  when  it  was  published  in  1894,  largely  on  account  of  its, 
taking  title.  The  scene  is  laid  in  a  Swiss  winter-resort  for  consumptives.  Ber- 
nardine,  a  pathetic  worn-out  school-teacher,  of  the  new-woman  type,  who  has  had 
hitherto  little  human  interest,  finds  herself  one  of  the  250  guests  of  the  crowded 
Kurhaus  at  Petershof.  Her  neighbor  at  table  is  Robert  Allitsen,  a  man  whom  long 
illness  and  pain  have  rendered  so  brusque  and  selfish,  that  he  goes  by  the  name  of 
the  "Disagreeable  Man."  He  declares  that  he  has  no  further  duties  towards  man- 
kind, having  made  the  one  great  sacrifice,  which  is  the  prolonging,  for  his  mother's, 
sake,  of  a  wearisome  and  hopeless  existence.  These  two  people  strike  up  a  close  com- 
radeship, and  Bernardine  discovers  unsuspected  depths  of  kindness  and  tenderness 
under  the  gruff  exterior  of  the  Disagreeable  Man.  Her  own  nature  is  insensibly 
softened  and  enriched  by  the  sight  of  the  suffering  around  her.  At  the  end  of  the 
winter  Bernardine's  health  is  re-established,  and  she  returns  to  the  old  second-hand 
book-shop  where  she  lives  with  her  uncle.  Robert  Allitsen  parts  from  her  with 
scarcely  a  word;  but  when  she  has  gone,  he  pours  out  in  a  beautiful  letter  all  the 
love  he  feels  for  her,  and  has  fought  so  hard  against.  The  letter  is  never  sent. 
Bernardine  confides  to  her  old  uncle  her  love  for  this  man.  In  the  meantime  Mrs. 
Allitsen,  his  mother,  has  died;  and  shortly  after,  Robert  Allitsen  appears  in  the 
old  book-shop.  Bernardine  requires  him  to  continue  the  sacrifice  now  for  her  sake. 
That  same  day  she  is  killed  by  an  omnibus ;  and  the  "Disagreeable  Man "  goes  back 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  785 

to  Petershof  to  live  out  his  lonely  life.  A  sad  picture  is  given  of  the  thoughtlessness 
of  the  caretakers  who  accompany  the  invalids. 

SHIRLEY,  Charlotte  Bronte's  third  novel,  was  published  in  1849.  The  scene  is 
laid  in  the  Yorkshire  country  with  which  she  had  been  acquainted  from  childhood- 
The  heroine,  Shirley,  was  drawn  from  her  own  sister  Emily.  The  other  characters 
include  three  raw  curates,  —  Mr.  Malone,  Mr.  Sweeting,  and  Mr.  Donne,  through 
whom  Charlotte  Bronte  probably  satirized  the  curates  of  her  own  acquaintance; 
Robert  Moore,  a  mill-owner;  his  distant  cousin,  Caroline  Helstone,  whom  he  eventu- 
ally marries;  his  brother,  Louis  Moore,  who  marries  Shirley  Keeldar,  the  heroine,  and 
a  number  of  others,  including  workingmen  and  the  neighboring  gentry.  The  story, 
while  concerned  mainly  with  no  one  character,  follows,  to  some  extent,  the  fortunes 
of  Robert  Moore,  who,  in  his  effort  to  introduce  new  machinery  into  his  cloth  mill, 
has  to  encounter  much  opposition  from  his  employes.  In  her  childhood  while  at 
school  at  Roe  Head,  Charlotte  Bronte*  had  heard  much  of  the  Luddite  Riots  which 
were  taking  place  in  the  neighborhood,  and  which  furnished  her  later  for  the  descrip- 
tions of  the  riots  in  Shirley. 

The  book  faithfully  reproduces  the  lives  of  country  gentlefolk,  and  is  richer  in 
portrayal  of  character  than  in  striking  incident.  Wholesome  and  genial  in  tone,  it 
remains  one  of  Charlotte  Bronte* 's  most  attractive  novels. 

SHOEMAKER'S  HOLIDAY,  THE,  or,  THE  GENTLE  CRAFT,  by  Thomas  Dekker 
(1600).  This,  the  most  frolicsome  picture  of  life  in  London  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth, 
is  from  the  pen  of  a  playwright  who  was  born  in  the  metropolis  of  unknown  parentage, 
who  was  frequently  in  prison  for  debt,  and  whose  very  varied  and  vigorous  literary 
activity  seems  rarely  to  have  supplied  him  with  the  means  of  a  decent  living.  Not- 
withstanding his  struggle  with  fortune,  he  was,  at  his  best,  on  a  level  with  the  best 
that  the  Elizabethan  drama  has  to  show.  One  of  his  earliest,  and,  perhaps  his  best 
play,  is  the  present  comedy,  which  depicts  the  manners  and  customs  of  "the  gentle 
craft"  of  shoemaking.  The  prologue  of  this  "merrie  conceited  Comedie"  informs 
us  that  "nothing  is  purposed  but  mirth, "  and  the  argument  is  thus  stated  by  Dekker 
himself.  "Sir  Hugh  Lacy,  Earl  of  Lincoln,  had  a  young  gentleman  of  his  own  name, 
his  near  kinsman,  that  loved  the  Lord  Mayor's  daughter  of  London ;  to  prevent  and 
cross  which  love,  the  Earl  caused  his  kinsman  to  be  sent  Colonel  of  a  company  into 
France;  who  resigned  his  place  to  another  gentleman  his  friend,  and  came  disguised 
like  a  Dutch  shoemaker  to  the  house  of  Simon  Eyre  in  Tower  St.  who  served  the 
Mayor  and  his  household  with  shoes.  The  merriments  that  passed  in  Eyre's  house, 
his  coming  to  be  Mayor  of  London,  Lacy's  getting  his  love,  and  other  accidents." 
Simon  Eyre  with  the  unceasing  flow  of  staccato  phrases  which  he  pours  out  upon  all 
and  sundry  from  the  King  to  his  wife  Margery,  the  "wench  with  the  mealy  mouth 
that  will  never  tire"  is  Dekker 's  best  creation  and  one  of  the  most  irresistibly  comic 
characters  in  English  literature.  Acted  in  1599  as  'The  Gentle  Craft, '  published  in 
1600  under  this  title. 

SHORT  HISTORY  OF  FRENCH  LITERATURE,  A,  by  George  Saintsbury,  see 
FRENCH,  ETC. 

SHORT  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE,  A,  by  John  Richard  Green 
(i  874) ,  is  perhaps  the  most  popular  history  of  England  ever  written.  The  author  had 
consulted  a  vast  number  of  sources,  and  collected  his  material  at  first  hand.  The 


786  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

process  of  fusing  it  into  a  highly  vitalized  continuous  narrative  he  performed  with 
wonderful  skill,  sympathy,  and  acumen.  The  period  covered  in  the  first  edition 
is  from  the  earliest  times  to  the  ministry  of  Disraeli  in  1874.  The  distinction  of  this 
great  work  is  that  it  is  really  a  history  of  a  people,  and  of  their  evolution  into  a 
nation.  It  is  not  primarily  a  record  of  wars  and  of  the  intrigues  of  courts,  but  of  the 
development  of  the  important  middle  class,  the  rank  and  file  of  the  nation.  The 
'History  of  the  English  People,'  in  four  volumes  (1877-80),  is  an  amplification  of 
the  earlier  work,  and  both  have  undergone  revisions  and  additions. 

SHORT  STUDIES  IN  LITERATURE,  see  ESSAYS  OF  HAMILTON  WRIGHT 
MABIE. 

SHORT  STUDIES  ON  GREAT  SUBJECTS,  by  James  Anthony  Froude  (2  vols., 
1877-82).  The  peculiar  charm  of  Froude  as  an  essayist  and  historian  lies  in  his 
picturesque  and  almost  romantic  manner,  making  past  events  and  persons  live  once 
more  and  move  across  his  pages.  The  graphic  scenes  in  these  'Short  Studies'  are 
highly  effective,  though  preserving  no  logical  sequence  or  relation  to  one  another. 
The  first  volume  begins  with  a  treatise  on  'The  Science  of  History1;  and  the  fourth 
ends  with  the  social  allegory  called  '  On  a  Siding  at  a  Railway  Station, '  where  the 
luggage  of  a  heterogeneous  group  of  passengers  is  supposed  to  be  examined,  and  to 
contain  not  clothing  and  gewgaws,  but  specimens  of  the  life-work  of  each  passenger 
or  possibly  nothing  at  all,  —  by  which  he  then  is  judged.  The  very  discursiveness 
of  these  studies  enables  one  to  find  here  something  for  various  moods,  —  whether 
classic,  moral,  or  aesthetic;  whether  the  thought  of  war  be  uppermost  in  the  reader's 
mind,  or  of  travel,  or  science,  or  some  special  phase  of  the  conduct  of  life. 

SHUTTLE,  THE,  by  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett  (1907).  This  is  the  story  of  an 
American  girl  who  sells  herself  for  a  title  and  finds  her  experience  dearly  bought. 
Rosalie  Vanderpool,  a  pretty  butterfly,  indulged  from  infancy  by  her  wealthy  parents 
and  surrounded  by  every  luxury  that  money  can  provide,  marries  Sir  Nigel  Anstruth- 
ers,  a  dissipated,  degenerate  Englishman,  who  visits  New  York  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  an  heiress  to  restore  his  shattered  fortunes.  Before  the  waning  of  the  honey- 
moon Rosalie  has  discovered  her  terrible  mistake  and  when  her  husband  takes  her 
home  to  his  dilapidated  estates  and  she  is  confronted  by  his  mother,  who  equals  him 
in  coarseness  and  brutality,  she  realizes  the  horror  of  hei  position.  Sir  Nigel  refuses 
to  allow  his  wife  any  communication  with  her  family  and  they,  thinking  she  has  lost 
her  affection  for  them,  consider  her  as  lost  to  them.  Twelve  years  elapse,  and  then 
Rosalie's  younger  sister  Betty,  who  has  reached  the  age  of  twenty  years,  and  is 
a  beautiful  girl  of  great  force  of  character,  decides  to  visit  her  sister  and  find  out 
what  has  caused  the  separation.  She  arrives  unexpectedly  at  Stornham  Court  and 
is  confronted  by  a  haggard  and  shabby  woman  and  a  hunch-backed  boy,  who  prove 
to  be  Rosalie  and  her  eleven  year-old-son,  Ughtred.  Betty  learns  with  horror  of  her 
sister's  terrible  experiences,  and  hears  of  the  brutal  blow  which  caused  her  child's 
deformity  and  also  of  the  making  over  of 'her  money  to  her  husband  who  has  used  it 
all  for  his  own  purposes.  Sir  Nigel  being  absent  for  a  stay  of  several  months  Betty 
at  once  sets  to  work  to  improve  matters.  She  repairs  the  house  and  grounds,  buys 
new  clothes  for  her  sister  and  restores  to  her  as  much  as  possible  her  lost  youth  and 
happiness.  Betty  becomes  deeply  interested  in  Lord  Mount  Dunstan,  a  neighbor, 
who  is  living  on  his  impoverished  ancestral  estates.  Dunstan  is  a  man  of  strong 
character  and  loves  Betty  but  will  not  declare  himself  while  he  is  poor  and  she  is  rich. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  787 

Sir  Nigel  returns  from  his  holiday  and  fixes  his  degenerate  eye  on  his  attractive 
sister-in-law,  who,  when  in  a  most  critical  position,  is  rescued  from  his  clutches  by 
Mount  Dunstan.  The  latter  horsewhips  the  brutal  coward,  as  he  deserves,  and  tells 
Betty  of  his  love,  to  her  great  happiness.  Sir  Nigel  dies  of  a  paralytic  shock  and 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Vanderpool  at  last  visit  the  home  of  their  long-lost  daughter. 

SIBERIA,  see  TENT  LIFE  IN,  by  George  Kennan. 

SICILIAN  VESPERS,  THE,  by  Cassimir  Delavigne.  This  tragedy  in  five  acts,  first 
performed  in  Paris  in  1 8 19,  is  only  memorable  from  its  subject,  the  "  Sicilian  Vespers, " 
that  being  the  name  given  to  the  massacre  of  the  French  in  Sicily,  in  1282,  the  signal 
for  which  was  to  be  the  first  stroke  of  the  vesper-bell.  John  of  Procida  returns  from 
a  visit  to  secure  the  aid  of  Pedro  of  Aragon  in  liberating  Sicily  from  the  French.  His 
son  Loredan  has  become  the  fast  friend  of  Montfort,  the  representative  of  Charles 
of  Anjou.  Montfort  asks  Loredan  to  intercede  for  him  with  Princess  Amelia,  heir 
to  the  throne  of  Sicily,  unaware  that  she  is  his  betrothed.  Procida  orders  his  son  to 
slay  his  friend,  who  is  also  his  country's  foe.  Amelia  warns  Montfort,  whom  she 
loves  despite  her  betrothal.  Montfort,  learning  Loredan 's  claims  upon  her,  upbraids 
him  and  banishes  him ;  but  his  nobler  impulses  triumph,  and  he  pardons  him.  Night 
falls;  the  massacre  breaks  out.  Under  cover  of  darkness,  Loredan  stabs  his  friend, 
who  forgives  him  with  his  last  breath.  Loredan  cries,  "Thou  shalt  be  avenged," 
and  kills  himself.  His  father  exclaims,  "0  my  country,  I  have  restored  thy  honor, 
but  have  lost  my  son.  Forgive  these  tears."  Then,  turning  to  his  fellow-conspira- 
tors, "Be  ready  to  fight  at  dawn  of  day."  And  so  the  play  ends. 

SIERRA  NEVADA,  MOUNTAINEERING  IN  THE,  see  MOUNTAINEERING,  ETC. 

SIGNOR  IO,  IL,  by  Salvatore  Farina  (1880).  This  story  of  the  egoism  of  Marco 
Antonio  Abate",  professor  of  philosophy  in  Milan,  is  charmingly  told.  In  the  first 
three  chapters,  the  Professor,  in  the  most  naive  manner,  tells  of  his  detestation  of 
egoism,  and  how  he  has  sacrificed  himself  by  allowing  his  dead  wife,  and  living 
daughter  Serafina,  to  make  themselves  happy  by  waiting  on  him.  Iginio  Curti, 
an  opera  singer,  is  the  wolf  who  breaks  up  his  happy  home  by  marrying  Serafina. 
Many  letters  from  his  daughter  he  returns  unopened  to  Curti.  Tiring  of  his  solitary 
life,  he  advertises  for  a  wife.  In  one  of  the  answers,  signed  Marina,  the  writer  says 
she  is  a  young  widow.  He  recognizes  the  handwriting  of  his  daughter  and  writes  for 
her  to  come  home.  She  does  so;  and  he  finds  Curti  has  told  her  nothing  about  the 
return  of  the  letters,  but  has  given  her  many  presents,  which,  he  said,  Tame  from  her 
father,  in  place  of  letters. 

Thinking  Serafina  ill,  her  father  obliges  her  to  go  to  bed;  and  ht  goes  to  bring 
the  granddaughter,  whom  Serafina  had  left  at  home.  His  surprise  is  great  when 
he  finds  Curti  alive  and  healthy,  and  that  Marina  is  an  opera  singer  for  whom  Sera- 
fina had  written  the  letter.  When  he  discovers  that  Curti  not  only  deceived  his 
daughter  as  to  her  father's  selfishness,  but  that  his  little  granddaughter  believes  him 
to  have  sent  her  many  presents,  he  says  that  hereafter  he  will  teach  his  pupils  that 
above  all  the  treatises  on  philosophy,  there  is  one  that  must  be  studied  early  and  to 
the  last  day  of  our  lives,  self  —  II  Signer  lo. 

SIGNS  AND  SEASONS,  by  John  Burroughs.  This  pleasing  book  of  nature-studies 
was  first  published  in  1886,  and  consists  of  thirteen  essays.  The  first,  entitled  'A 
Sharp  Lookout, '  treats  of  the  signs  of  the  weather  and  many  other  curious  di  coveries 


788  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

which  the  keen  observations  of  the  author  have  brought  to  light.  He  says:  "Oni 
must  always  cross-question  Nature  if  he  would  get  at  the  truth,  and  he  will  not  get 
at  it  thec  unless  he  questions  with  skill.  Most  persons  are  unreliable  observers 
because  they  put  only  leading  questions,  or  vague  questions.  .  .  .  Nature  will  not 
be  cornered,  yet  she  does  many  things  in  a  corner  and  surreptitiously.  She  is  all 
things  to  all  men;  she  has  whole  truths,  half  truths,  and  quarter  truths,  if  not  still 
smaller  fractions.  One  secret  of  success  in  observing  Nature  is  capacity  to  take 
a  hint.  It  is  not  so  much  what  we  see  as  what  the  thing  seen  suggests.  We  all  see 
about  the  same:  to  one  it  means  much,  to  another  little."  The  author  is  not  one  of 
those  who  preaches  what  he  does  not  practice,  and  he  gives  the  reader  the  result  of 
his  studies:  the  signs  of  the  weather,  the  shape  and  position  of  plants  and  flowers, 
the  habits  of  animals,  birds,  and  bees,  with  apt  quotations  from  other  authors  showing 
their  opinions  on  the  same  subjects.  One  cannot  read  this  book  without  wondering 
how  he  could  possibly  have  passed  so  many  things  without  noticing  them ;  and  the 
next  walk  in  the  woods  will  be  taken  with  greater  pleasure,  because  of  the  curiosity 
awakened  by  the  author's  observations.  The  other  essays  are  entitled:  'A  Spray 
of  Pine,'  'Hard  Fare,'  'The  Tragedies  of  the  Nests,'  'A  Taste  of  Maine  Birch/ 
'Winter  Neighbors/  'A  Salt  Breeze/  'A  Spring  Relish/  'A  River  View/  'Bird 
Enemies/  'Phases  of  Farm  Life/  and  'Roof -Tree/ 

SILAS  MARNER,  by  George  Eliot  (1861).  This  story  of  a  poor,  dull-witted  Metho- 
dist cloth-weaver  is  ranked  by  many  critics  as  the  best  of  its  author's  books.  The 
plot  is  simple  and  the  field  of  the  action  narrow,  the  strength  of  the  book  lying  in  its 
delineations  of  character  among  the  common  people;  for  George  Eliot  has  been 
truly  called  as  much  the  "faultless  painter"  of  bourgeois  manners  as  Thackeray  of 
drawing-room  society.  Silas  Marner  is  a  handloom  weaver,  a  good  man,  whose  life 
has  been  wrecked  by  a  false  accusation  of  theft,  which  cannot  be  disproved.  For 
years  he  lives  a  lonely  life,  with  the  sole  companionship  of  his  loom ;  and  he  is  saved 
from  his  own  despair  by  the  chance  finding  of  a  little  child.  On  this  baby  girl  he 
lavishes  the  whole  passion  of  his  thwarted  nature,  and  her  filial  affection  makes  him  a 
kindly  man  again.  After  sixteen  years  the  real  thief  is  discovered,  and  Silas's  good 
name  is  restored.  On  this  slight  framework  are  hung  the  richest  pictures  of  middle 
and  low  class  life  that  George  Eliot  has  painted.  The  foolish,  garrulous  rustics  who 
meet  regularly  at  the  Rainbow  Inn  to  guzzle  beer  and  gossip  are  as  much  alive  as 
Shakespeare's  clowns;  from  the  red-faced  village  farrier  to  little  Mr.  Macey,  the  tailor 
and  parish-cleik,  who  feels  himself  a  Socrates  for  wisdom.  But  perhaps  the  best 
character  in  the  book  is  Dolly  Winthrop,  the  wheelwright's  wife,  who  looks  in  every 
day  to  comfort  Silas,  — a  mild  soul  "whose  nature  it  was  to  seek  out  all  the  sadder 
and  more  serious  elements  of  life  and  pasture  her  mind  on  them";  and  who  utters 
a  very  widely  accepted  notion  of  religion  when  she  says,  after  recommending  Silas 
to  go  frequently  to  church,  as  she  herself  does,  "When  a  bit  o'  trouble  comes,  I  feel 
as  I  can  put  up  wi'  it,  for  I've  looked  for  help  i'  the  right  quarter,  and  give  myself 
up  to  Them  as  we  must  all  give  ourselves  up  to  at  the  last ;  and  if  we've  done  our 
part,  it  isn't  to  be  believed  as  Them  as  are  above  us  'ud  be  worse  nor  we  are,  and  come 
short  o'  Theira."  "The  plural  pronoun,"  adds  the  author,  "was  no  heresy  of 
Dolly's  but  only  her  way  of  avoiding  a  presumptuous  familiarity.'1 

SILENCE  OF  DEAN  MAITLAND,  THE,  by  "Maxwell  Grey"  (Miss  Mary  G. 
Tuttiett)  (1886).  Cyril  Maitland,  a  young  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England, 
accidentally  kills  the  father  of  a  village  girl  whom  he  has  led  astray.  The  man's 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  789 

body  is  found,  and  circumstantial  evidence  points  to  Henry  Everard,  Cyril's  lifelong 
friend  and  the  lover  of  his  twin  sister.  Cyril  is  silent ;  allows  his  friend  to  be  sentenced 
to  penal  labor  for  twenty  years.  His  sensitive  soul  suffers  torture,  but  he  cannot 
bear  to  lose  the  approval  of  man,  which  is  very  life  to  him.  His  little  sister  gives  un- 
consciously the  keynote  of  his  character:  "I  think,  papa,  that  Cyril  is  not  so  de- 
voted to  loving  as  to  being  loved." 

Endowed  with  a  magnetic  personality  that  fascinates  all,  with  a  rare  voice,  and 
with  wonderful  eloquence,  Cyril  Maitland  who  becomes  almost  an  ascetic  in  his 
penances  and  self-torture,  gains  great  honor  in  the  church,  becomes  dean,  and  is 
about  to  be  appointed  bishop.  Life  has  proved  hard  to  him.  His  wife  and  all  his 
children,  save  one  daughter  and  a  blind  son,  have  died,  and  the  thought  of  his  hidden 
sin  has  never  left  him. 

On  the  day  before  that  in  which  he  is  to  preach  the  sermon  that  will  put  him 
in  possession  of  the  highest  place  in  the  church,  he  receives  a  letter  from  Everard 
who  is  out  of  prison  after  eighteen  years  of  suffering,  telling  Cyril  that  he  knows  all, 
but  forgives  freely.  This  breaks  the  dean's  heart.  The  next  day  he  rises  before  the 
great  audience  of  the  cathedral  and  confesses  all,  —  lays  his  secret  soul  bare  before 
them.  In  the  awful  pause  that  follows  the  benediction,  they  approach  Cyril,  who 
has  fallen  into  a  chair,  and  find  him  dead. 

The  book  falls  just  short  of  being  great:  it  reminds  one  of  'The  Scarlet  Letter, ' 
though  it  lacks  the  touch  of  the  master  hand. 

SILENT  WOMAN,  THE,  see  EPICENE. 

SIMPLE  LIFE,  THE,  by  Charles  Wagner  (1902).  This  book  was  translated 
from  the  French  by  Mary  Louise  Hendee,  and  opens  with  an  introduction  and  bio- 
graphical sketch  of  the  author  by  Grace  King.  The  title,  'The  Simple  Life,'  gives 
at  once  the  keynote  to  the  contents  of  the  volume.  The  author,  who  is  deeply 
impressed  with  the  increasing  complexity  of  living,  and  the  shams  and  worldliness  of 
the  present  day,  sets  forth  in  a  forcible  manner  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from 
plain  living  and  high  thinking.  He  dwells  upon  the  useless  expenditure  of  time, 
strength,  and  money,  upon  those  unnecessary  things  which  instead  of  adding  to  one's 
happiness,  increase  one's  cares  and  responsibilities.  In  describing  the  Complex 
life,  which  most  people  are  striving  to  attain,  Mr.  Wagner  shows  how  much  valuable 
energy  is  wasted  on  the  unimportant  details  of  daily  living,  and  how  much  better 
and  happier  people  would  be  if  they  would  only  content  themselves  with  simpler 
methods.  After  considering  simplicity  in  a  general  way  the  author  shows  how  it 
may  be  applied  to  -'thought, "  "speech, "  "needs,  "  and  "pleasures."  The  mercenary 
spirit  of  the  day  and  its  attendant  evils,  pride  and  the  love  of  notoriety,  are  dwelt  upon 
and  strongly  denounced  by  the  apostle  of  simple  living.  He  recommends  doing 
away  with  all  that  is  artificial,  and  quenching  the  desire  for  wealth  and  power. 
He  dwells  upon  the  importance  of  the  life  in  the  home,  and  shows  how  necessary  it  is 
that  the  right  thought  and  influence  should  prevail  there.  The  home  life,  Mr. 
Wagner  claims,  is  the  germ  of  the  whole  social  organism,  and  if  the  atmosphere  can 
be  kept  free  from  worldliness  the  result  will  be  felt  in  all  social  institutions.  With 
regard  to  describing  simplicity  in  any  worthy  manner  the  author  declares  his  inability 
to  do  so,  for  he  claims  that  all  the  strength,  beauty,  and  joy  of  life  come  from  that 
source. 

SIMPLE  STORY,  A,  by  Mrs*  Inchbald.  'A  Simple  Story'  was  written,  as  the  pre- 
face to  the  first  edition  tells  us,  under  the  impulse  of  necessity  in  1791.  It  is  divided 


790  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  ROOKS 

into  two  parts,  and  relates  the  love  affairs  of  a  mother  and  her  daughter.  In  the 
first  part,  Miss  Milner  is  left  by  her  father  under  the  guardianship  of  Mr.  Dorriforth, 
a  Catholic  priest.  To  his  displeasure,  she  leads  a  life  of  great  gayety,  surrounded  by 
numerous  suitors,  among  whom  is  prominent  one  Sir  Frederick  Lawnley.  At  the 
instigation  of  another  priest,  Sandford,  who  is  irritated  by  Miss  Milner's  lack  of 
stable  virtue,  Dorriforth  removes  with  his  ward  to  the  country.  There  he  urges  her 
to  declare  her  true  feelings  toward  Lawnley.  In  the  presence  of  Sandford  she  denies 
all  interest  in  the  young  man;  but  the  next  day,  on  hearing  that  Dorriforth  had,  in  a 
moment  of  anger,  struck  Lawnley  for  presuming  to  pursue  her,  and  had  thus  exposed 
himself  to  the  necessity  of  a  duel,  she  decides  that  her  profession  of  indifference  was 
false.  Still  she  refuses  absolutely  to  continue  her  acquaintance  with  Lawnley.  To 
Miss  Woodley,  her  friend,  she  furnishes  a  key  to  her  contradictions  by  declaring 
that  she  really  loves  Dorriforth.  Miss  Woodley,  shocked  at  such  a  passion  for 
a  priest,  insists  on  her  departure  to  visit  some  friends.  During  this  visit,  Dorriforth 
becomes  Lord  Elmwood,  and  obtains  dispensation  from  his  priestly  vows.  On 
hearing,  through  Miss  "Woodley,  of  the  true  state  of  his  ward's  feelings,  he  declares 
himself  her  lover;  but  her  frivolity  and  disregard  of  his  wishes  make  him  break  the 
engagement.  Her  sorrow  at  his  departure  for  Italy,  however,  is  so  great  that  Sand- 
ford,  convinced  of  their  mutual  love,  marries  them,  and  dismisses  the  carriage  which 
was  to  take  him  away. 

During  the  interval  between  the  first  and  second  parts  of  the  story,  Lady  Elmwood, 
led  astray  by  Sir  Frederick,  has  been  banished  with  her  daughter  from  her  husband's 
presence,  and  his  nephew  Rushbrook  is  adopted  as  his  heir.  At  the  death  of  his  wife, 
Elmwood  consents  that  his  daughter  Matilda  and  the  faithful  Woodley  may  live  in 
his  country  house,  provided  that  he  never  see  his  daughter  or  hear  her  name.  Rush- 
brook  falls  in  love  with  Matilda,  and  almost  incurs  his  uncle's  extreme  displeasure 
by  his  hesitation  to  confess  the  object  of  his  love.  At  last  Matilda,  meets  her  father 
quite  by  accident  on  the  stairs,  and  is  banish ed  to  a  farm  near  by.  Here  she  is  consoled 
by  frequent  visits  from  Sandford,  who  intercedes  with  her  father  for  her  as  far  as  he 
dares.  At  length  Lord  Margrave,  a  neighboring  peer,  attracted  by  her  beauty, 
carries  her  to  his  house  by  force.  News  is  brought  to  Lord  Elmwood,  who  pursues, 
rescues,  and  restores  his  daughter  to  her  rightful  position.  Out  of  gratitude  for  his 
compassion  when  she  was  unfortunate,  she  accepts  Rushbrook's  love  with  the  happiest 
results. 

The  characters  are  often  inconsistent;  they  are  cruel  or  kind,  they  weep,  faint, 
curse,  without  any  apparent  motive.  At  the  end,  the  author  declares  that  the 
object  of  the  tale  is  to  show  the  value  of  "a  proper  education." 

SIN  OF  JOOST  AVELESTGH,  THE,  by  "Maarten  Maartens"  (1890).  This  writer's 
real  name  is  J.  M.  W.  Van  der  Poorten  Schwartz.  Although  he  is  a  Dutchman, 
his  stories  are  all  written  in  English,  and  afterwards  translated  into  Dutch  for  home 
use.  The  scene  of  this  is  Holland.  Joost  is  an  orphan,  shy,  morbid,  and  misunder- 
stood. His  uncle,  with  whom  he  lives,  forces  him  to  study  medicine,  which  he  hates, 
and  forbids  him  to  marry  Agatha  van  Hessel.  As  Joost  is  driving  him  to  the  notary 
to  change  his  will,  he  dies  of  apoplexy.  Joost  inherits  his  money  and  marries  Agatha. 
Ten  years  later,  Arthur  van  Aeveld,  the  next  heir,  meets  the  servant  who  sat  behind 
the  carriage  on  the  night  of  the  Baron's  death,  and  persuades  him  to  swear  that 
Joost  murdered  his  uncle.  At  the  last  moment,  he  confesses  his  perjury.  Joost 
is  acquitted,  and  made  a  member  of  the  States  General.  He  declares  that  though 
not  actually  a  murderer,  he  is  guilty,  in  that  he  hated  his  uncle,  did  nothing  to  help 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  791 

him  in  his  extremity,  and  drove  straight  on  in  spite  of  the  old  man's  appeal  to  him 
to  stop.  With  his  wife's  concurrence,  he  gives  up  his  money  and  political  position, 
becomes  clerk  to  a  notary,  and  is  happy  on  a  small  salary. 

SINGULAR  LIFE,  A,  by  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps  (1896).  This  is  the  story  of 
Emanuel  Bayard,  a  young  man  of  noble  character,  and  deeply  religious  nature,  who 
having  been  brought  up  among  luxurious  surroundings,  chooses  to  give  up  all  for  the 
cause  of  Christ.  Being  an  orphan,  he  has  lived  from  childhood  with  his  rich  uncle, 
Mr.  Hermon  Worcester,  who  intends  to  make  him  his  heir.  Bayard  goes  to  the 
Theological  Seminary  at  Cesarea  where  he  cannot  sincerely  subscribe  to  some  of  the 
doctrines  and  is  accordingly  judged  "unsound,  "  and  thereby  wins  the  disapproval 
of  the  faculty  and  also  of  his  uncle,  who  is  one  of  the  trustees  of  the  seminary.  He 
accepts  a  call  to  a  small  parish  in  Windover,  a  seaport  town,  where  he  ministers 
with  great  patience  and  self-sacrifice  to  a  congregation  made  up  from  the  roughest 
and  lowest  elements  of  society.  While  in  Cesarea,  Bayard  had  gained  the  friendship 
of  Helen  Carruth,  the  daughter  of  the  professor  of  Theology,  a  handsome  and  brilliant 
girl,  whom  later  he  passionately  loves;  he  undergoes  many  struggles  before  he  can 
convince  himself  that  it  is  right  for  him  to  marry,  or  to  ask  Helen  to  share  his  poverty, 
but  finally  his  great  love,  which  she  reciprocates,  conquers  all  obstacles.  Bayard's 
uncle  dies  and  leaves  him  a  small  legacy,  which  is  however  sufficient  to  make  him 
independent,  and  he  and  Helen  are  married.  They  return  from  their  wedding  trip 
for  the  dedication  of  Bayard's  new  chapel  for  which  he  has  labored  untiringly  and 
which  is  called  the  Church  of  "Christlove."  As  they  are  leaving  the  chapel  after 
the  service,  Bayard  is  struck  by  a  missile  from  the  hands  of  a  miserable  wretch 
named  Ben  Trawl.  The  blow  proves  fatal  and  after  a  week  of  suffering,  borne  with 
fortitude  and  courage  and  tended  by  his  heartbroken  wife,  Bayard  dies,  leaving  behind 
him  the  legacy  of  an  unselfish  and  noble  life. 

SINISTER  STREET,  by  Compton  Mackenzie  (2  vols.,  1913-1914).  The  first 
volume  was  published  in  the  United  States  under  the  title  'Youth's  Encounter,' 
and  is  the  story  of  a  boy's  encounter  with  life  from  his  childhood  to  his  eighteenth 
year.  The  sympathetic  analysis  of  his  thoughts  and  feelings  and  the  detailed 
account  of  the  most  trivial  incidents  of  his  days  give  this  study  of  the  mind  of  child- 
hood and  youth  reality  and  absorbing  interest.  From  his  own  childish  point  of 
view,  and  with  immature  defective  reasoning1  about  his  surroundings,  he  tells  how 
his  adored  mother  is  almost  always  abroad,  and  he  and  his  baby  sister,  Stella,  are 
left  to  the  indifferent  care  of  a  succession  of  incompetent  and  drunken  servants. 
His  lonely  dreary  childhood  ends  with  the  arrival  of  a  governess,  who  is  hereafter 
always  a  friend  and  protecting  influence  in  his  life.  The  chief  incidents  of  the  de- 
velopment of  Michael's  adolescence  are  his  interest  in  religion  and  his  amorous  ad- 
ventures. The  mystery  of  his  mother's  long  absences  from  home  is  now  explained. 
Lord  Saxby  is  killed  in  the  South  African  war  and  Mrs.  Fane  tells  Michael  and 
Stella  that  he  was  their  father.  His  wife  had  refused  to  give  him  a  divorce,  so  that 
he  can  only  leave  his  fortune  to  Michael,  who  is  illegitimate,  and  cannot  inherit  the 
title. 

In  the  second  volume  Michael  begins  life  all  over  again  in  the  undergraduate 
world  of  Oxford.  The  first  part  of  this  volume,  '  Dreaming  Spires,'  the  minutely 
detailed  picture  of  these  Oxford  years  is  a  complete  novel  in  itself.  The  second 
part,  'Romantic  Education/  is  Michael's  experiences  in  "Sinister  Street/'  the 
underworld  of  London,  in  quixotic  search  of  his  boyhood  sweetheart,  Lily,  whom  he 


792  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

undertakes  to  rescue  and  redeem.  He  learns  the  underworld  very  thoroughly 
before  he  finds  Lily,  and  gains  knowledge  of  many  types  of  women,  the  lodging- 
house  keeper,  the  lodger  in  the  basement  den,  Miss  Poppy  Grace,  who  is  insulted 
because  he  offers  her  a  present  of  money  but  declines  the  favors  she  is  willing  to 
give  in  exchange,  and  Daisy  Smith,  with  whom  he  succeeds  in  establishing  friendly 
relations.  The  beautiful,  languid  Lily  at  last  reappears,  but  slips  back  to  her  old 
ways  before  he  can  marry  her.  Michael  takes  his  broken  heart  to  Rome,  and  there 
is  a  hint  that  he  may  find  a  purpose  in  life  in  the  Catholic  church.  The  author 
says,  "  My  intention  was  not  to  write  a  life,  but  the  prologue  of  a  life.  The  theme 
of  'Sinister  Street '  is  the  youth  of  a  man  who  presumably  will  be  a  priest." 

SINNER,  THE,  by  Antonio  Fogazzaro,  see  THE  PATRIOT. 
SIR  CHARLES  DANVERS,  see  THE  DANVERS  JEWELS. 

SIR  CHARLES  GRANDISON,  Samuel  Richardson's  third  and  last  novel,  was 
published  in  1754,  when  the  author  was  sixty-five  years  of  age.  In  it  he  essayed 
to  draw  the  portrait  of  what  he  conceived  to  be  an  ideal  gentleman  of  the  period,  — 
the  eighteenth  century.  The  result  was  that  he  presented  the  world,  not  at  all  with 
the  admirable  figure  he  had  intended,  but  with  an  insufferable  prig  surrounded  by  a 
bevy  of  worshiping  ladies.  The  novel,  both  in  character-drawing  and  story- 
interest,  is  much  below  his  earlier  work.  '  Sir  Charles  Grandison '  shows  his  genius 
in  its  decline,  after  the  brilliant  earlier  successes.  The  plot  is  neither  intricate  nor 
interesting.  It  centres  in  the  very  proper  wooing  of  Harriet  Byron  by  the  hero; 
who  wins  her,  as  the  reader  has  no  doubt  he  will,  and  who  in  the  course  of  his  wooing 
exhibits  towards  her  and  her  sex  an  unexampled  chivalry  which  strikes  one  as  un- 
natural. Grandison  has  everything  in  his  favor,  —  money,  birth,  good  looks,  high 
principle,  and  universal  success;  and  one  cannot  help  wishing  this  impossible  paragon 
to  come  down  off  his  high  horse,  and  be  natural,  even  at  the  expense  of  being  naughty. 
The  novelist  overreached  himself  in  this  fiction,  which  added  nothing  to  the  fame 
of  the  creator  of  'Pamela*  and  'Clarissa.'  Richardson  had  sympathy  for  and  in- 
sight into  the  heart  feminine,  but  for  the  most  part  failed  egregiously  with  men,  — 
though  Lovelace  in  'Clarissa  Harlowe'  is  an  exception.  Like  all  his  novels,  'Sir 
Charles  Grandison  *  is  written  in  epistolary  form. 

SIR  GEORGE  TRESSADY,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  is  in  some  sense  a  sequel 
to  'Marcella,'  since  that  heroine's  life  after  marriage  is  traced  in  it,  and  she  is  the 
central  character  of  the  story.  It  was  published  in  1896,  two  years  after  the  earlier 
book.  Its  hero,  however,  is  Tressady,  a  young  baronet  and  owner  of  an  iron  mine. 
He  becomes  engaged  to  a  pretty,  light  chit  of  a  girl,  and  marries  her,  without  any 
deep  feeling  of  love  or  serious  consideration  of  the  bond.  He  then  falls  under  the 
influence  of  Marcella,  now  Lady  Raeburn,  who  likes  him  and  hopes  to  win  his  political 
support  for  her  husband,  Aldous  Raeburn,  a  prominent  statesman.  The  feeling 
deepens  to  love  on  Tressady 's  side;  but  he  is  saved  from  himself  by  the  nobility  of 
Marcella,  who  gently  rebukes  her  lover  and  is  steadily  loyal  to  Aldous.  Through  her 
mediation  a  better  relation  is  established  between  Tressady  and  his  wife,  who  is 
soon  to  become  a  mother.  But  Tressady's  career  is  brought  to  an  untimely  and 
tragic  close.  During  the  labor  troubles  in  his  mines,  he  descends  a  shaft  and  is 
killed  in  an  explosion.  Burning  questions  of  politics  and  political  economy  are  ably 
handled  in  the  story,  which  also,  as  a  chief  motive,  deals  with  woman's  relation  to 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  793 

politics  and  public  place.  On  the  whole,  it  is  of  a  more  sombre  cast  than  'Marcella'; 
but  it  is  interesting,  for  its  presentation  of  modern  problems. 

SIR  NIGEL,  by  A.  Conan  Doyle  (1906).  This  is  a  historical  romance  and  tale  of 
adventure,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid  in  England  in  the  fourteenth  century*  In 
prefacing  the  story,  the  author  asserts  that  he  has  taken  great  pains  to  make  the  local 
coloring  correct  and  has  studied  many  authorities  in  order  to  make  the  book  an 
authentic  historic  reproduction.  The  hero  of  the  tale  is  Nigel  Loring,  the  descendant 
of  a  noble  family  and  the  last  of  his  race.  In  the  opening  chapters  he  is  living  alone 
with  his  aged  grandmother,  Lady  Ermyntrude  Loring,  upon  a  small  remnant  of  their 
great  estate  which  has  been  devastated  by  pestilence  and  wrested  from  them  by  law. 
Even  this  small  holding  is  in  danger  of  passing  out  of  their  hands,  as  for  years  a  feud 
has  existed  between  the  monks  of  Waverley  and  the  house  of  Loring,  and  the  former 
are  endeavoring  to  make  the  impoverishment  of  the  Lorings  complete.  King  Edward 
and  his  suite  pay  a  visit  to  Tilford  Manor  House,  the  Loring  home,  and  in  order  to 
provide  for  his  entertainment  Lady  Ermyntrude  sells  a  jewelled  goblet,  a  bracelet, 
and  a  golden  salver  that  are  her  choicest  possessions.  The  King  is  pleased  with 
young  Nigel,  and  when  the  latter  sues  to  be  taken  into  his  service,  he  makes  him 
squire  to  Sir  John  Chandos,  one  of  his  principal  knights.  The  financial  embarrass- 
ment of  the  Lorings  is  relieved  by  the  King  and  he  settles  the  difficulties  that  over- 
shadow their  estate.  Nigel  fits  himself  with  armor  and  goes  to  join  the  King  after 
having  taken  leave  of  his  sweetheart  Mary  Buttesthorn,  daughter  of  Sir  John  Buttes- 
thorn,  a  neighbor  and  friend.  Nigel's  military  experiences  are  both  varied  and 
eventful.  He  is  involved  in  adventures  of  all  kinds  but  his  courage  and  intrepidity 
bring  him  safely  through  his  many  perils.  The  climax  of  Nigel's  military  career  is 
reached  when  he  is  fighting  against  the  French  under  the  Black  Prince  with  his 
beloved  master  Chandos  and  plays  a  prominent  part  at  the  time  of  the  surrender  of 
King  John.  For  his  valor  on  this  occasion  he  is  knighted  by  the  Black  Prince  and 
returns  home  as  Sir  Nigel  loring  to  wed  his  faithful  lady-love.  The  experiences 
recounted  in  this  volume  are  prior  to  those  related  in  'The  White  Company ,'  a 
previous  publication. 

SIR  RICHARD  CALMADY,  THE  HISTORY  OF,  by  Lucas  Malet  (1901).  This 
powerful  story  opens  with  a  picture  of  the  ancestral  home  of  the  Calmadys,  in  which 
the  hero's  father  seems  destined  to  enjoy,  with  his  young  wife,  complete  and  lasting 
happiness.  Then  follows  an  accident  in  the  hunting  field  and  Sir  Richard  is  brought 
home  mangled;  he  dies  despite  the  efforts  of  the'surgeons  to  save  him  by  amputating 
his  injured  legs.  A  few  months  later  the  hero  of  the  book  is  born,  a  beautiful  healthy 
child  in  all  respects  save  one  —  the  lower  part  of  each  leg  is  missing,  the  feet  being 
attached  at  the  point  where  the  knees  should  be.  As  child  and  young  man,  Sir 
Richard  Calmady  behaves  in  the  most  exemplary  manner,  despite  his  misfortune 
and  the  constant  reminders  of  it,  from  which  his  wealth  and  position  cannot  shield 
him.  Lady  Calmady's  life  is  devoted  to  her  son,  and  some  of  the  scenes  between  the 
two  are  the  best  in  the  book.  The  young  man  wishing  to  marry,  selects  a  sweet  but 
stupid  little  scion  of  the  nobility,  who  at  the  eleventh  hour  begs  to  be  released  in  order 
to  marry  another.  Sir  Richard  now  undergoes  a  moral  revolution  and  gives  himself 
up  to  dissipation.  He  succumbs  to  the  wiles  of  a  fair  and  wayward  cousin,  only  to 
be  afterward  insulted  and  maltreated  at  the  hands  of  one  of  her  cast-off  lovers. 
Nursed  back  from  the  resulting  fever  by  his  neglected  mother,  who  hastens  to  his  bed- 
side in  Naples,  he  at  last  returns  home,  a  confirmed  misanthrope  and  misogynist , 


794  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Becoming  convinced,  however,  of  the  wrongfulness  of  this  attitude  of  mind,  he  turns 
his  attention  to  charity  and  founds  a  home  for  cripples,  and  as  a  reward  wins  the 
heart  and  hand  of  a  handsome  and  admirable  woman,  with  whom  his  acquaintance 
has  hitherto  been  a  superficial  one.  The  book  abounds  in  epigram,  allusion,  and 
vivid  character-painting,  but  its  unshrinking  realism  is  sometimes  repellent. 

SLEEPING  BEAUTY,  see  FAIRY  TALES. 

SMOKE  BELLEW,  by  Jack  London  (1912).  This  is  a  tale  of  wild  adventures  in 
the  Klondike,  in  which  Christopher  Bellew,  nicknamed  "Smoke"  proves  himself  the 
hero  of  countless  marvelous  exploits.  Bellew,  who  has  drifted  into  journalism  in 
San  Francisco,  is  invited  by  his  uncle  to  take  a  short  trip  to  the  gold-region,  the  elder 
man  deploring  the  "softness  "  of  his  dilettante  nephew,  who  seems  to  have  degenerated 
from  the  hardihood  and  physical  prowess  of  his  race.  At  the  first  taste  of  the  wild 
life,  however,  the  young  man's  inheritance  asserts  itself  and  he  decides  to  remain  in 
the  Klondike  instead  of  returning  with  his  uncle.  He  immediately  plunges  into  the 
strenuous  activities  of  the  North  and  in  a  short  space  of  time  trains  himself  to  battle 
successfully  with  the  elements  and  to  endure  the  terrible  hardships  of  the  country. 
At  the  outset  he  is  spurred  on  by  an  encounter  with  a  spirited  girl  named  Joy  Gastell, 
whose  father  is  an  "Old-timer"  and  who  from  childhood  has  been  accustomed  to 
cast  her  lot  in  with  the  hardy  explorers.  From  time  to  time  Bellew  encounters  this 
daring  beauty,  who  aids  him  at  several  critical  junctures  and  to  whom  he  is  able  to 
render  important  services  in  return.  In  company  with  his  special  chum  "Shorty," 
Bellew  works  his  way  up  to  Dawson  and  subsists  for  some  time  by  hunting  and  trading 
in  moose-meat.  The  friends  join  an  exciting  stampede  to  Squam  Creek  to  take  out 
claims,  but  are  outwitted  by  Joy  Gastell,  who,  in  the  interest  of  her  father  leads 
them  on  to  a  wrong  trail.  Later  she  makes  amends  for  this  trick  by  offering  Bellew 
a  chance  to  secure  another  claim  to  acquire  which  he  has  a  neck-and-neck  race  with  a 
formidable  rival  "Big  Olaf ";  the  result  is  a  tie  which  causes  the  two  to  divide  the 
claim.  Bellew  has  a  thrilling  escape  from  death  on  a  glacier  where  in  order  to  save 
his  companion  he  cuts  loose  from  the  rope  which  is  attached  to  the  other;  he  outwits  a 
coterie  of  gamblers  at  Dawson  and  thereby  amasses  a  large  sum  of  money  and  after 
many  experiences  he  is  captured  by  a  tribe  of  Indians  and  forced  to  remain  in  their 
isolated  settlement.  He'finally  makes  his  escape  in  company  with  the  daughter  of 
the  chief,  who  is  a  white  man;  the  girl  has  fallen  in  love  with  him,  and  heroically  aids 
him  in  his  return  to  freedom,  herself  perishing  from  starvation  just  as  the  goal  is 
reached;  here  Bellew  once  more  meets  the  faithful  "Shorty"  with  whom  he  hastens 
back  to  join  Joy  Gastell  whom  he  has  long  loved  and  who  is  impatiently  awaiting  his 
return. 

SNOW-BOUND,  'a  Winter  Idyll/  by  John  Greenleaf  Whittier,  was  published  in 
1866.  It  is  described  by  him  as  "a  picture  of  an  old-fashioned  farmer's  fireside  in 
winter."  The  metre  resembles  that  of  Scott's  'Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel';  iambic 
tetrameter  couplets  predominate,  but  occasionally,  alternating  or  interlacing  rhymes 
are  introduced  to  vary  the  movement.  In  depicting  a  New-England  family  gathering 
on  a  snowy  winter  evening  Whittier  is  describing  his  own  home  circle  as  it  was  in  his 
boyhood  at  East  Haverhill,  Massachusetts,  After  an  account  of  the  farm-house 
shut  off  from  the  world  by  a  roaring  blizzard  —  an  account  made  particularly  vivid 
by  a  wealth  of  homely  and  expressive  detail  — Whittier  shows  the  group  about  the 
blazing  oak  fire.  The  father  tells  of  his  wanderings  in  Canadian  forests  and  lumber 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  795 

camps  and  his  labors  on  the  marshes  and  fishing-grounds  of  the  New  Engknd  coast. 
The  mother  describes  Indian  raids  and  massacres  during  the  French  wars  in  New 
Hampshire  or  reads  from  old  Quaker  books  of  martyrology  and  religious  experience. 
The  uncle  delights  the  children  with  his  rich  lore  of  hunting  and  fishing,  and  the  aunt 
describes  the  huskings  and  apple-bees  of  her  girlhood.  The  village  schoolmaster 
speaks  of  "classic  Dartmouth's  college  halls,"  plays  the  fiddle,  and  tells  of  his  ex- 
periences at  parties  in  country  settlements.  There  is  present  a  guest,  Harriet  Liver- 
more,  a  religious  enthusiast,  a  traveler,  and  a  woman  of  the  world.  Her  complex  and 
unstable  temperament  and  her  charm  of  personality  are  brilliantly  portrayed  by  the 
poet.  Fraternal  tributes  are  also  paid  to  Whittier's  brother  and  two  sisters.  The 
storm  keeps  the  party  snow-bound  for  a  week,  during  which  the  various  occupations 
and  amusements  of  the  farm  are  described  with  the  poet's  usual  fidelity.  'Snow- 
bound '  is  a  characteristic  product  of  rural  New  England  —  its  scenery,  types  of 
character,  mode  of  life,  and  ideals  are  thoroughly  representative  of  the  soil.  The 
absolute  truth  and  sincerity  of  the  poem,  its  pictorial  power,  and  its  family  loyalty 
and  affection  are  its  outstanding  merits. 

SOCIAL  CONTRACT,  THE  ('Contrat  social');  or,  PRINCIPLES  OF  POLITICAL  RIGHT, 
by  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau.  In  French  this  is  a  masterpiece  of  style.  The  principle 
that  "Will,  not  force,  is  the  basis  of  the  State"  has  never  been  more  effectively 
proclaimed.  'The  Social  Contract'  was  published  in  1762,  and  was  regarded  as  the 
catechism  of  the  French  Revolution.  Its  influence  on  European  life  and  thought  was 
enormous.  Rousseau's  aim  was  to  guarantee  individual  rights  and  social  liberty  by 
transforming  existent  States;  and  in  explaining  this  he  dwelt  upon  the  rightful  author- 
ity of  the  general  will.  '  The  Social  Contract '  has  little  or  no  claim  to  originality,  but 
the  borrowed  doctrines  are  strikingly  presented.  The  work  is  divided  into  four  books, 
treating  respectively  of  —  (i)  The  origin  of  civil  society  in  a  contract;  (2)  the  theory 
of  sovereignty  and  the  general  will;  (3)  the  constitution  of  a  government;  and  (4) 
civil  religion.  It  overthrows  the  old  conception  that  property  and  birth  should  alone 
give  a  title  to  political  power,  and  upholds  the  claim  of  the  toilers  to  share  in  the 
government  of  the  State  which  they  sustain  by  their  productive  labor. 

SOCIAL  EQUALITY:  'A  Short  Study  in  a  Missing  Science,'  by  William  Hurrell 
Mallock  (1882).  This  original  and  acute  work  asserts  the  need  of  a  new  science, 
applicable  to  that  field  after  considering  which  modern  democracy  declares  social 
equality  to  be  the  only  hope  of  mankind.  This  science  is  the  "science  of  human 
character";  and  Mr.  Mallock  aims  to  point  out  its  limits,  and  the  order  of  facts  of 
which  it  will  take  cognizance,  reviewing  the  most  important  of  these  and  stating  the 
chief  general  conclusion  that  will  result  from  them.  His  main  points  are  as  follows: 
That  human  character  naturally  desires,  as  soon  as  seen,  inequality  in  external  cir- 
cumstances, or  social  inequality  (a  condition  which  not  only  produces  this  desire, 
but  in  turn  is  produced  by  it) .  All  labor  is  caused  by  motive,  lacking  which  man  is 
not  a  laboring  animal;  and  motive  is  the  resultant  of  character  and  external  circum- 
stances, i.  e.,ofa.  desire  for  social  inequality,  and  of  a  social  inequality  answering  the 
desire,  —  respectively  the  subjective  and  the  objective  side  of  the  same  thing.  In- 
equality supplies  the  motive,  not  indeed  of  all  human  activity,  but  of  all  productive 
labor,  except  the  lowest.  Social  inequality,  then,  Mallock  asserts,  has  been,  is,  and 
so  far  as  we  have  any  opportunity  of  knowing,  ever  will  be,  the  divinely  appointed 
means  of  human  progress  —  whether  impersonal  as  expressed  in  enterprises,  dis- 
coveries, and  inventions,  or  personal  as  expressed  in  the  social  conditions  under  which 


796  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  enterprises,  discoveries,  and  inventions  have  been  made  and  utilized.  Social 
equality  he  regards  as  a  hindrance  to  progress,  and  a  cause  of  retrogression.  He  thus 
joins  issue  squarely  with  the  socialists,  strives  to  confute  them  even  out  of  their  own 
mouths,  and  asserts  that  facts,  reason,  and  science,  lie  not  with  them  but  with  the 
present  order  of  society.  The  book  is  written  with  great  clearness  and  directness, 
and  an  abundance  of  illustrative  instances.  It  is  the  work  of  a  scholar,  and  of  a  keen 
and  vigoious  thinker;  and  is  an  admirable  text-book  for  conservatives. 

SOCIAL  LIFE  IN  GREECE  FROM  HOMER  TO  MENANDER,  by  John  Pentland 
Mahaffy  (1874.  3^  ed-i  l877)»  is  a  delightful  and  instructive  book  which  aims  at 
presenting  to  us  not  so  much  petty  details  as  the  large  and  enduring  features  of  the 
life  of  the  Greeks,  —  enough,  certainly,  about  their  food,  their  dress,  and  their 
houses,  but  especially  "how  they  reasoned,  and  felt,  and  loved;  why  they  laughed 
and  why  they  wept;  how  they  taught  and  what  they  learned."  The  picture,  of 
course,  is  mostly  Athenian,  since  only  Athenian  colors  exist  for  the  painting.  The 
result  is  not  only  of  literary  and  antiquarian,  but  also  of  practical  value,  as  showing 
how  high  a  civilization  was  attained  by  a  people  that  had  to  contend  with  a  worthless 
theology,  with  slavery,  and  with  ignorance  of  the  art  of  printing.  Professor  Mahaffy 
writes  in  no  mere  archaeological  spirit,  but  with  his  eye  always  on  the  present  and  the 
future,  —  as  where  he  refers  to  the  present  French  republic,  the  theory  of  "might 
being  right, ' '  and  the  cause  of  the  Irish.  The  topics  treated  are :  x  The  Greeks  of  the 
Homeric  Age ' ; '  The  Greeks  of  the  Lyric  Age ' ;  '  The  Greeks  of  the  Attic  Age ' ; '  Attic 
Culture';  *  Trades  and  Prof  esoions ' ;  'Entertainments  and  Conversation';  'The 
Social  Position  of  Boys  in  Attic  Life';  'Religious  Feeling';  and  'Business  Habits/ 

SOCIAL  LIFE  IN  OLD  VIRGINIA  BEFORE  THE  WAR,  by  Thomas  Nelson  Page 
(1896).  This  little  volume,  which  in  a  way  recalls  Washington  Irving 's  'Sketch 
Book,1  is  a  sympathetic  sketch  of  Southern  ante-bellum  plantation  life,  portraying  a 
state  of  society  incredible  to  those  who  had  no  experience  of  it,  and  probably  to-day 
all  but  incredible  to  those  who  once  knew  it  best.  Beginning  with  the  "great  house," 
its  grounds,  gardens,  and  outbuildings,  the  personality  and  life  of  the  mistress,  of 
the  master,  and  of  their  daughters  and  sons,  first  pass  before  us.  Then  come  por- 
traits of  those  august  functionaries:  the  "carriage  driver, "  the  butler,  and  "mammy  " 
the  nurse;  even  the  gardeners,  the  "boys  about  the  house, "  the  young  ladies'  "own 
maids, "  and  the  very  furniture,  are  not  forgotten.  The  description  embraces  both 
great  house  and  cabins.  The  mysteries  of  "spending  a  month  or  two, "  of  "spending 
the  day"  (i.e.,  dining),  and  of  Sunday  hospitalities,  are  dissolved;  the  varying  seasons, 
the  fox  hunt,  Christmas  festivities,  the  ladies'  "patterns"  and  the  gentlemen's 
politics,  —  all  sides  of  that  complex  existence  appear.  And  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter  is,  that  while  the  social  life  of  the  Old  South  had  its  faults,  "its  graces 
were  never  equaled. >f 

SOCIAL  LIFE  OF  THE  CHINESE,  'With  Some  Account  of  their  Religions,  Govern- 
mental, Educational,  and  Business  Customs  and  Opinions,'  by  Justus  Doolittle 
(2  vols.,  illustrated.  1865).  The  author  of  this  valuable  work  was  for  fourteen 
years  a  member  of  the  Foochow  mission  of  the  American  Board,  during  which  time 
he  had  abundant  opportunity  of  studying  the  Chinese.  The  work  is  somewhat 
loosely  written,  most  of  it  being  in  the  form  in  which  it  was  originally  published  as  a 
series  of  letters  in  the  China  Mail  of  Hong  Kong;  but  it  is  one  of  the  best  of  the  few 
authorities  on  "the  inner  life  of  the  most  ancient  and  populous,  but  least  understood 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  797 

and  appreciated,  of  nations. "  Though  it  has  special  reference  to  Foochow  and  its 
vicinity,  the  description  of  many  of  the  social  and  superstitious  customs  is  applicable 
to  other  parts  of  the  empire,  though  sometimes  customs  vary  greatly  in  the  different 
Chinese  provinces.  It  treats  of  agriculture  and  domestic  matters,  betrothal  and 
marriage,  married  life  and  children,  treatment  of  disease,  death,  mourning  and  burial, 
ancestral  tablets  and  ancestral  halls,  priests,  popular  gods  and  goddesses,  mandarins 
and  their  subordinates,  competitive  literary  examinations,  established  annual  cus- 
toms and  festivals,  superstitions,  charitable  practices,  social  customs,  charms  and 
omens,  fortune-telling,  opium-smoking,  etc.  Altogether  it  is  a  treasury  of  informa- 
tion about  Chinese  life,  and  may  be  considered  trustworthy  in  its  statements. 

SOCIAL  PROBLEM,  THE;  'a  Constructive  Analysis,'  by  C.  A.  Ellwood  (1915)- 
A  rapid  change  of  opinion  has  taken  place  during  the  last  generation  in  the 
way  of  approach  to  social  problems.  Dr.  Ellwood's  volume,  which  is  chosen  because 
it  is  a  fair  sample  out  of  a  large  number  dominated  by  the  same  social  philosophy,  is 
dedicated  "to  the  far-thinking  men  and  women  of  the  twentieth  century,  who  must 
solve  the  social  problem. "  Its  aim  is  to  present  not  only  a  brief  analysis  of  the  many- 
headed  social  problem  as  we  see  it  in  Western  States,  but  an  outline  sketch  of  a  social 
philosophy  which  shall  serve  as  a  basis  for  well-ordered  progress.  The  social  problem 
is  considered  in  its  historic,  physical,  biological,  economic,  and  spiritual  aspects,  for 
it;  contains  factors  which  belong  to  each  of  the  categories  mentioned,  and  no  analysis 
which  fails  to  take  account  not  only  of  each  of  them,  but  of  their  relation  to  one 
another  can  be  considered  adequate.  "The  solution  of  the  social  problem,"  says  Dr. 
Ellwood,  "requires  neither  superhuman  intelligence  nor  superhuman  character." 
Nor  will  it  come  about  by  concentration  on  mere  externals,  or  mere  machinery,  nor 
yet  by  sudden  catastrophic  change,  or  methods  of  violence.  Social  evils  will  gradu- 
ally disappear  before  better  education,  better  environment,  and  the  development  of  a 
well-balanced  program  of  social  progress.  This  well-balanced  program  will  be  based 
upon  certain  broad  principles,  which  are  more  and  more  coming  to  be  accepted,  as  for 
example,  "Business  is  for  social  service,  and  not  for  private  profit. "  The  policy  of 
industrial  insurance  and  legislative  protection  must  be  developed  and  extended. 
Dr.  Ellwood,  moreover,  strongly  maintains  that  "scientific  reform  of  taxation  is 
probably  the  most  important  administrative  method  by  which  the  injustices  and 
inequalities  of  our  present  economic  system  can  be  overcome. " 

SOCIAL  SILHOUETTES,  by  Edgar  Fawcett  (1885),  is  a  series  of  gracefully  ironic 
sketches  upon  New  York  society.  Mr.  Mark  Manhattan,  born  among  the  elect, 
related  to  most  of  the  Knickerbocker  families,  and  blessed  with  an  adequate  income, 
amuses  his  leisure  by  a  study  of  social  types.  He  introduces  us  to  the  charmed  circle 
of  Rivingtons,  Riversides,  Croton-Nyacks,  Schenectadys,  and  others,  all  opulent,  all 
sublimely  sure  of  their  own  superiority  to  the  rest  of  humanity.  With  a  serene  pity 
born  of  intimate  knowledge  of  society's  prizes,  he  watches  the  rich  parvenu,  Mrs. 
Ridgeway  Bridgeway,  push  her  way  to  recognition.  There  is  the  young  lady  who 
fails  because  her  evident  anxiety  to  please  repels  with  a  sense  of  strain  all  who  ap- 
proach her.  There  is  the  young  man  who  succeeds  because  he  makes  no  effort,  and 
although  able  to  express  "nothing  except  manner  and  pronunciation, "  has  name  and 
dollars.  Mr.  Bradford  Putnam  is  another  type,  an  egotistic  nonentity  without  a 
thought  in  his  mind  or  a  generous  sentiment  in  his  heart,  who  arrogantly  enjoys  what 
the  gods  have  provided.  Mr.  Mark  Manhattan  does  not  think  that  "the  brave  little 
Mayflower  steered  its  pale,  half -starved  inmates  through  bleak  storm  of  angry  seas 


798  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

to  help  them  found  an  ancestry  for  such  idle  dalliers. "  He  is  a  kindly  cynic  with 
sympathy  for  those  who  suffer  in  intricate  social  meshes,  and  with  contempt  for  all 
false  standards  and  hypocrisy.  He  is  not  a  reformer,  but  an  indolent  spectator  with 
a  sense  of  humor,  who,  after  all,  enjoys  the  society  which  he  wittily  berates. 

SOCIALISM,  'a  Critical  Analysis,'  by  0.  D.  Skelton  (1911).  This  analysis  of 
Socialism  is  distinguished  by  wide  knowledge  of  the  multifarious  literature  of  the 
subject,  by  thorough  grasp  of  political  science  in  general,  and  by  a  willingness  to  see 
what  is  good  in  Socialists  and  Socialist  programs.  This  can  be  said  of  few  books 
written  by  way  of  examination  of  the  proposals  of  the  Socialists  who  have  usually, 
during  the  last  generation,  had  by  far  the  best  of  the  argument.  Professor  Skelton 's 
work  is  one  of  the  ablest  works  on  the  anti-Socialist  side  which  have  appeared  in 
English.  He  states  and  criticizes  the  Socialist  indictment  of  society,  and  subjects 
to  a  patient  and  thorough  analysis  the  theory  of  Karl  Marx  that  the  economic  factor 
in  history  has  been  the  most  important,  that  a  class  struggle  between  capitalist  and 
proletarian  has  arisen  out  of  economic  conditions,  and  that  capitalist  development, 
based  on  the  exploitation  of  surplus  value,  leads  inevitably  to  the  breakdown  of 
capitalism  and  the  establishment  of  socialism.  The  last  two  chapters  discuss  the 
modern  socialist  ideal  and  the  modern  socialist  movement,  as  exemplified  in  Germany, 
France,  the  United  Kingdom,  and  the  United  States.  There  is  a  valuable  bibliog- 
raphy of  books  and  current  periodical  literature. 

SOCIALISM,  FABIAN  SOCIETY  ESSAYS  IN  (1889).  The  Fabian  Society  is  an 
organization  of  intellectual  Socialists,  having  their  headquarters  in  London  with 
affiliated  but  independent  branches  in  other  parts  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  It 
includes  a  large  number  of  extremely  thoughtful,  well-informed,  and  energetic  mem- 
bers, whose  influence  on  the  thought  and  life  of  the  country  has  been  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  their  numbers.  The  present  volume  consists  of  eight  essays.  Sidney 
Webb  discusses  the  historic,  William  Clarke  the  industrial,  Sydney  Olivier,  the  moral, 
and  G.  B.  Shaw,  the  economic  basis  of  socialism.  Graham  Wallas  has  a  paper  on 
property,  and  Mrs.  Annie  Besant  one  on  industry  under  socialism,  while  G.  B.  Shaw 
outlines  the  "Transition  to  Social  Democracy"  and  Hubert  Bland  estimates  the 
outlook  for  Socialism.  Each  of  the  seven  writers  here  mentioned,  though  little 
known  at  the  time  of  the  publication  of  these  essays,  has  since  made  a  mark  either 
in  the  field  of  sociology,  political  science,  administration,  or  journalism,  and  the  essays, 
of  which  scores  of  thousands  of  copies  have  been  sold,  have  had  an  extraordinary 
influence  in  the  shaping  of  political  thought  and  development  during  the  last  genera- 
tion. 

SCEURS  VATAKD,  LES,  see  EN  ROUTE. 

SOHRAB  AND  RUSTUM,  a  narrative  poem  by  Matthew  Arnold,  first  appeared  in  a 
volume  of  his  poems  published  in  1853.  In  the  sub-title  he  calls  it  'An  Episode,' 
evidently  intending  it  as  an  imagined  extract  from  a  long  epic  poem  in  the  Homeric 
manner.  Its  rapidity,  simplicity,  vividness,  and  nobility  are  all  in  accordance  with 
his  views  of  Homer's  style,  and  the  epic  similes,  proper  names,  and  descriptive 
details  are  so  selected  as  to  suggest  by  their  local  color  the  Asiatic  background.  The 
story  —  that  of  a  combat  between  a  father  and  a  son  who  do  not  know  one  another  — 
is  a  well-known  theme  of  heroic  poetry,  occurring  in  the  Old  High  German  '  Hilde- 
brandslied'  and  in  the  Persian  poet  Firdausi's  epic,  'Shah  Namah,'  the  ultimate 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  799 

source  of  Arnold's  poem.  Rustum,  the  mightiest  chieftain  of  the  Persians,  in  the 
course  of  his  wanderings,  marries  the  daughter  of  the  king  of  Ader-baijan,  but  leaves 
her  in  order  to  continue  his  military  exploits.  She  bears  him  a  son  named  Sohrab, 
but  fearing  that  the  father  will  take  him  away  to  be  a  warrior  sends  Rustum  word  that 
the  child  is  a  girl.  Sohrab,  grown  to  young  manhood  and  longing  to  find  his  father, 
takes  service  with  the  Tartar  king,  Afrasiab,  hoping  to  draw  the  attention  of  Rustum 
by  his  feats  of  arms.  As  a  means  of  quicker  fame  he  takes  occasion  of  an  impending 
battle  between  the  Tartars  and  the  Persians  to  challenge  the  bravest  Persian  cham- 
pion to  single  fight.  Rustum,  who  is  with  the  Persian  army,  though  retired  like 
Achilles  on  account  of  the  Persian  king's  neglect,  yields  to  the  entreaties  of  his  fellow- 
chieftains  and  accepts  the  challenge,  but  in  plain  armor  and  without  announcing  his 
name.  When  Sohrab  first  sees  his  antagonist  he  has  an  intuition  that  it  is  Rustum 
and  eagerly  inquires  if  this  is  not  so.  But  Rustum,  ignorant  of  his  motive  and 
suspecting  him  of  seeking  some  pretext  not  to  fight,  refuses  to  reveal  his  identity  and 
dares  Sohrab  to  come  on.  In  their  first  encounter,  after  an  exchange  of  spears, 
Sohrab  cleverly  evades  his  opponent's  club,  by  the  weight  of  which  Rustum  loses  his 
balance  and  falls;  but  Sohrab  courteously  refrains  from  this  advantage  and  offers 
truce.  Rustum,  however,  is  enraged  at  his  downfall  and  renews  the  struggle  with 
fury.  The  fight  is  long  and  close  and  made  more  dreadful  by  a  sand-storm  which 
envelops  the  combatants.  At  length  Rustum,  hard-pressed,  shouts  his  own  name 
with  the  effect  that  Sohrab,  in  bewilderment,  ceases  to  fight  and  is  pierced  by  his 
father's  spear.  Dying  on  the  sand  he  declares  that  Rustum,  his  father,  will  avenge 
his  death;  and  in  the  affecting  scene  which  follows,  the  truth  at  last  comes  out 
by  means  of  a  seal  pricked  on  Sohrab 's  arm  by  his  mother.  At  the  close  of  the 
poem  the  father  is  left  mourning  over  his  son  by  the  banks  of  the  Oxus;  and 
the  poet's  description  of  the  river's  northward  course  under  the  stars  and 
moonlight  to  the  Aral  Sea  affords  a  welcome  relief  from  the  emotional  tension  of 
the  story. 

SOIL,  THE,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

SOLDIERS  OF  FORTUNE,  by  Richard  Harding  Davis  (1897),  is  a  spirited  novel  of 
adventure.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Olancho,  the  capital  of  a  little  seething  South- 
American  republic,  on  the  eve  of  one  of  its  innumerable  revolutions.  The  hero  is 
Robert  Clay,  a  self-made  man,  an  engineer,  general  manager,  and  resident  director  of 
the  Valencia  Mining  Company  in  Olancho.  Although  the  novel  is  full  of  adventure, 
it  is  primarily  a  study  of  two  types  of  women,  two  sisters,  the  daughters  of  Mr. 
Langham,  president  of  the  company.  The  elder  is  a  New  York  society  girl  of  a  most 
finished  type,  —  self-possessed,  calmly  critical,  with  emotions  well  in  check,  noble, 
but  not  noble  to  the  point  of  bad  form.  Her  sister  Hope,  not  yet  out,  is  enthusiastic, 
generous,  sweet.  Robert  Clay  meets  the  elder,  Alice  Langham,  at  a  dinner  just 
before  he  sails  for  South  America.  He  has  long  known  of  her  through  portraits  in  the 
society  newspapers.  He  has  an  ideal  of  her  as  a  woman  unspoiled  by  wealth  and 
position.  He  half  confides  to  her  his  admiration  of  her.  Later  when  he  learns  that 
she  and  her  sister,  with  their  father,  are  coming  to  Olancho  to  visit  their  brother  and 
to  see  the  mines,  he  is  wild  with  delight.  But  he  is  doomed  to  disappointment  in  the 
character  of  Alice.  Appreciative  and  sensitive  as  she  seems,  she  has  herself  too  well 
under  control,  is  always  afraid  of  going  too  far,  is  never  quite  sure  of  Robert  Clay's 
desirability  as  a  husband.  Her  coldness  chills  and  alienates  Clay.  Hope,  on  the 
other  hand,  gives  expression  to  her  genuine  enthusiasm.  She  is  delighted  with  .the 


8oo  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

strangeness  of  the  life,  is  as  interested  in  the  mines  as  if  she  herself  were  a  director. 
In  the  dangers  and  excitements  of  the  revolution,  which  breaks  out  during  her  visit, 
she  displays  courage,  nerve,  and  womanliness.  The  nobility  in  Clay's  nature  draws 
her  to  him.  He  loves  her  and  claims  her  for  his  wife.  Alice  is  left  to  marry  a  con- 
ventional society  man  of  her  own  type.  '  Soldiers  of  Fortune '  is  well  written  and 
readable.  Full  of  excitement  as  it  is,  the  dramatic  incidents  in  it  are  yet  subordinated 
to  the  delineation  of  character. 

SOLL  UND  HABEN,  see  DEBIT  AND  CREDIT. 

SOMERVILLE,  MARY,  PERSONAL  RECOLLECTIONS  OF,  'With  Selections 
from  her  Correspondence, '  by  her  daughter,  Martha  Somerville  (1874). 

Never  has  the  simplicity  of  true  greatness  been  more  clearly  shown  than  in  the 
life  of  Mary  Somerville,  the  life  of  a  woman  entirely  devoted  to  family  duties  and 
scientific  pursuits;  whose  energy  and  perseverance  overcame  almost  insuperable 
obstacles  at  a  time  when  women  were  excluded  from  the  higher  branches  of  education 
by  prejudice  and  tradition;  whose  bravery  led  her  to  enter  upon  unknown  paths,  and 
to  make  known  to  others  what  she  acquired  by  so  courageous  an  undertaking.  After 
a  slight  introduction  concerning  her  family  and  birth,  which  took  place  December 
26th,  1780,  the  'Recollections'  begin  in  early  childhood  and  continue  to  the  day 
of  her  death.  She  lived  to  the  ripe  old  age  of  ninety-two,  preserving  her  clearness  of 
intellect  to  the  end;  holding  fast  her  faith  in  God,  which  no  censure  of  bigot,  smile  of 
skeptic,  or  theory  of  science  could  shake;  adding  to  the  world's  store  of  knowledge 
to  her  final  day,  — •  her  last  work  being  the  revision  and  completion  of  a  treatise  01? 
the  '  Theory  of  Differences ' ;  and  leaving  behind  for  the  benefit  of  the  new  generation 
annals  of  a  life  so  wonderful  in  its  completed  work,  so  harmonious  in  its  domestic 
relations,  so  unassuming  in  its  acceptance  of  worldly  distinctions,  that  the  mere  read- 
ing of  it  elevates  and  strengthens. 

There  are  charming  descriptions  of  childhood  days  in  the  Scottish  home  of 
Burntisland;  days  of  youth  when  she  arose  after  attending  a  ball  to  study  at  five  in 
the  morning;  a  delicate  reticence  concerning  the  first  short-lived  marriage  with  her 
cousin  Craig,  succeeded  by  the  truer  union  with  another  cousin,  the  "Somerville'' 
of  whom  she  speaks  with  much  tenderness;  domestic  gains  and  losses,  births  and 
deaths;  the  beginnings,  maturings,  and  successes  of  her  work;  trips  to  London  and  the 
Continent;  visits  to  and  from  the  great;  the  idyllic  life  in  Italy,  where  she  died  and  is 
buried:  loving  records  of  home  work  and  home  pleasures;  sorrows  bravely  met  and 
joys  glorified,  —  all  told  with  the  unaffectedness  which  was  the  keynote  to  her  amiable 
character.  Little  information  is  given  of  the  immense  labor  which  preceded  her 
famous  works.  The  woman  who,  as  Laplace  said,  was  the  only  woman  who  could 
understand  his  work,  who  was  honored  by  nearly  every  scientific  society  in  the  world, 
whose  mind  was  akin  to  every  famous  mind  of  the  age,  so  withdraws  her  individuality 
to  give  place  to  others,  that  the  reader  is  often  inclined  to  forget  that  the  modest 
writer  has  other  claims  to  notice  than  her  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  great. 
And  as  in  many  social  gatherings  she  was  overlooked  from  her  modesty  of  demeanor; 
so  in  these  '  Recollections, '  pages  of  eulogy  are  devoted  to  the  achievements  of  those 
whose  intellect  was  to  hers  as  "moonlight  is  to  sunlight, "  while  her  own  successes  are 
ignored,  except  in  the  inserted  letters  of  those  who  awarded  her  her  due  meed  of 
praise,  and  in  the  frequent  notes  of  her  faithful  compiler. 

BON  EXCELLENCE  EUGENE  ROTJGON,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  801 

SONG  OF  SONGS,  THE  ('Das  Hohe  Lied'),  bylHermarm-Sudermann  (1908).  This 
detailed  life  story  of  the  downfall  of  a  weak  and  unfortunate  woman  is  a  merciless 
analysis,  step  by  step,  of  gradual  degeneration  of  character  and  degradation.  Lily 
Czepanek,  left  without  protectors,  is  foredoomed  to  shipwreck  by  her  romantic, 
impulsive  disposition.  Her  father,  a  musician  and  composer,  deserts  his  family 
when  she  is  fourteen,  and  two  years  later  her  mother  is  placed  in  an  insane  asylum. 
Lily  has  to  give  up  school  and  go  to  work  in  a  circulating  library.  Her  teacher,  to 
whom  she  is  devoted,  warns  her  to  be  on  her  guard  against  qualities  which  may  be  her 
undoing.  He  tells  her  she  has  "three  kinds  of  love:  love  of  the  heart,  love  of  the 
senses,  and  love  springing  from  pity. "  He  says,  "Two  are  dangerous.  All  three  lead 
to  ruin."  She  longs  always  to  be  a  rescuing  angel  to  the  people  around  her.  In  the 
circulating  library  her  beauty  brings  her  to  the  notice  of  the  officers  of  the  regiment 
in  the  town.  The  Colonel,  an  aristocratic  libertine,  marries  her.  A  young  officer, 
member  of  the  household,  whom  she  tries  to  reform,  seduces  her,  and  she  is  divorced 
by  her  husband.  She  tries  to  earn  her  living  by  painting  china,  encouraged  by  a  man 
who  finally  allows  her  to  discover  that  he  is  her  only  buyer.  She  becomes  his  mistress. 
When  she  is  twenty-five  she  meets  a  young  man  whom  she  loves  and  who  loves  her 
and  wants  to  marry  her.  She  tries  to  write  him  a  letter  giving  a  true  account  of  her 
life.  The  letter  makes  her  appear  a  low-lived  adventuress.  She  tears  it  up  and 
writes  another  in  which  she  seems  a  noble  woman  deceived.  She  realizes  that  neither 
is  the  truth.  Her  associations  have  so  degraded  her  that  though  her  lover  is  willing 
to  condone  the  past,  this  last  chance  of  regeneration  proves  impossible.  She  tries  to 
commit  suicide,  but  has  not  the  courage,  and  returns  to  her  former  lover,  who  marries 
her  to  keep  her.  Her  self -analysis  in  dialogue  with  her  conscience,  her  fits  of  repen- 
tance, and  struggles  to  escape  from  her  weakness,  and  her  final  self-recognition  and 
submission  to  circumstance  make  an  interesting  though  repellent  psychological 
study. 

SONG  OF  THE  LARK,  THE,  by  Willa  Sibert  Gather  (1915),  is  the  story  of  a  poor 
young  girl  who  becomes  an  opera  star.  Thea  Kronborg  is  the  daughter  of  a  Swedish 
minister  in  Moonstone,  Arizona,  who  has  a  large  family  and  small  means.  At  an 
early  age  Thea  shows  a  talent  for  music  and  her  mother  contrives  that  it  shall  be 
cultivated.  When  she  is  sixteen  she  receives  a  legacy  of  six  hundred  dollars  and  with1 
this  money  she  goes  to  Chicago  to  continue  her  study  of  the  piano.  Here  she  is 
advised  to  take  up  voice-culture,  and  this  she  does  with  the  result  that  she  develops  a 
phenomenal  voice.  She  meets  a  wealthy  young  brewer  named  Fred  Ottenburg,  who 
becomes  much  interested  in  her  and  furthers  her  career  by  assisting  her  socially  and 
financially.  Ottenburg  has  been  unhappily  married,  and  is  separated,  but  not  di- 
vorced, from  his  wife.  Thea,  who  is  ignorant  of  his  past,  becomes  deeply  attached  to 
him  and  accepts  his  invitation  to  a  ranch  in  the  Arizona  mountains  owned  by  his 
father.  She  joins  him  there,  and  he  later  persuades  her  to  journey  with  him  to  New 
Mexico,  after  which  he  tells  her  that  he  is  not  free  to  marry  her,  much  as  he  desires  to 
do  so.  Thea  refuses  to  accept  any  more  aid  from  him,  and  as  soon  as  she  reaches 
New  York  sends  for  an  old  friend,  Dr.  Archie,  who  advances  her  the  funds  neces- 
sary to  enable  her  to  study  in  Germany.  There  she  spends  ten  years  perfect- 
ing her  art,  at  the  end  of  which  time  she  returns  to  New  York  a  successful  prima 
donna,  and  sings  the  leading  rdles  in  Wagnerian  opera.  Eventually  Thea  marries 
Ottenburg,  who  is  at  last  free.  The  story  presents  a  vivid  "picture  of  American 
life  and  is  a  searching  study  of  the  career  and  temperament  of  the  professional 
musician. 
Si 


802  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

SONIA,  by  Henri  GreVille  (1878).  This  is  a  powerful  and  impressive,  and  at  the 
same  time  charming  and  refined,  story  of  Russian  life.  Sonia  is  a  poor  little  slave 
girl,  who  is  knocked  about  and  abused  by  the  brutal  aristocrats,  bearing  the  name  of 
Goreline,  whom  she  serves.  The  cruel  treatment  continues  until  a  young  tutor, 
named  Boris  Grebof ,  comes  to  the  chateau  to  give  lessons  to  Eugene  and  Lydie,  the 
son  and  daughter  of  the  household.  He  pities  Sonia  and  is  kind  to  her;  and  she  in 
return  feels  for  him  the  deepest  affection.  Boris  falls  in  love  with  Lydie,  who  is  a 
very  pretty  girl,  and  wins  from  her  a  promise  of  marriage;  but  as  soon  as  Madame 
Goreline  discovers  the  attachment,  she  is  filled  with  rage  and  at  once  dismisses  the 
tutor.  He  takes  Sonia,  who  has  also  been  driven  from  the  house,  to  his  home,  where 
she  remains  in  the  employ  of  his  kindly  aged  mother  for  several  years.  Boris  continues 
to  cherish  his  affection  for  Lydie  all  this  time,  and  she  allows  him  to  consider  himself 
engaged  to  her;  although  she,  being  weak  and  fickle,  is  constantly  on  the  lookout  for  a 
chance  to  make  a  more  brilliant  match.  Eventually  she  casts  Boris  off;  and  he,  dis- 
covering the  falseness  of  her  nature,  is  consoled,  and  in  course  of  time  marries  his 
faithful  serving-maid,  Sonia,  who  has  become  a  handsome  and  capable  girl,  and  has 
acquired  under  his  tuition  considerable  education.  This  story  gives  a  distinct  picture 
of  home  fife  in  Russia,  where  Madame  GreVille  resided  for  many  years,  and  where  she 
was  enabled  to  master  all  phases  of  Russian  character. 

There  is  much  in  the  book  that  is  bright  and  noteworthy,  and  the  character  of 
Sonia  is  developed  with  much  delicacy  and  originality. 

SOUL  OF  THE  FAR  EAST,  THE,  by  Percival  Lowell  (1886).  The  Far  East  whose 
Soul  is  the  subject-matter  of  this  sympathetic  study  is  principally  Japan,  but  China 
and  Korea  are  considered  also.  Among  the  traits  of  character  and  the  peculiarities  of 
usages  distinguishing  all  Far  Eastern  peoples,  the  author  classes  the  far  less  pro- 
nounced individualism  of  those  races,  as  compared  with  Westerns:  Peoples,  he  says, 
grow  steadily  more  individual  as  we  go  westward.  In  the  Far  East  the  social  unit  is 
not  the  individual  but  the  family:  among  the  Easterns  a  normally  constituted  son 
knows  not  what  it  is  to  possess  a  spontaneity  of  his  own.  A  Chinese  son  cannot 
properly  be  said  to  own  anything.  This  state  of  things  is  curiously  reflected  in  the 
language  of  Japan,  which  has  no  personal  pronouns:  one  cannot  say  in  Japanese,  I, 
Thou,  He.  The  Japanese  are  born  artists:  to  call  a  Japanese  cook  an  artist  is  to 
state  a  simple  fact,  for  Japanese  food  is  beautiful,  though  it  may  not.  be  agreeable  to 
the  taste.  Half  of  the  teachings  of  the  Buddhist  religion  are  inculcations  of  charity  or 
fellow-feeling:  not  only  is  man  enjoined  to  show  kindliness  to  fellowmen,  but  to  all 
animals  as  well.  The  people  practice  what  their  Scriptures  teach;  and  the  effect 
indirectly  on  the  condition  of  the  brutes  is  almost  as  marked  as  its  more  direct  effect 
on  the  character  of  mankind. 

SPANISH  CONQUEST  IN  AMERICA,  THE,  by  Sir  Arthur  Helps,  was  published  in 
four  volumes,  in  England,  from  1855  to  1861.  Its  sub-title,  'Its  Relation  to  the 
History  of  Slavery  and  the  Government  of  Colonies,'  conveys  a  more  adequate  idea 
of  the  theme. 

While  Sir  Arthur  was  laboring  upon  his  compendious  work,  'Conquerors  of  the 
New  World*  (1848-52),  his  interest  in  Spanish- American  slavery  so  increased  that  he 
visited  Spain,  and  examined  in  Madrid  such  MSS.  as  pertained  to  the  subject.  As  a 
result  the  present  work  appeared.  The  author  had  spared  no  pains  to  render  his  work 
absolutely  trustworthy,  eschewing  the  picturesque  method  wherein  he  might  have 
excelled,  in  order  to  attain  to  absolute  accuracy,  —  a  rare  virtue  in  historians.  The 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  803 

result  was  that  the  work,  written  with  an  obtrusive  moral  purpose,  and  devoid  of 
literary  brilliancy,  was  not  a  success.  Frequently  the  author  suspends  the  onward 
movement  of  the  narrative  while  he  pauses  to  analyze  motive  and  investigate  charac- 
ter. Seeing  that  his  elaborate  work  lacked  popularity,  Sir  Arthur  broke  up  much  of 
the  biographical  substance  into  'Lives,'  which  appeared  later:  'Las  Casas,  the 
Apostle  of  the  Indians'  (1868);  'Columbus'  (1869);  'Pizarro'  (1869);  and  'Hernando 
Cortes'  (1871).  All  these  became  justly  popular;  and  while  the  parent  work  is 
valuable  chiefly  to  students  of  the  period,  its  progeny  still  delight  the  general  reader. 

SPANISH  LITERATURE,  THE  HISTORY  OF,  by  George  Ticknor  (1849).  This 
work  was  the  fruit  of  twenty  years  of  study  and  labor.  It  is  divided  into  three  parts : 
Part  i.,  beginning  with  'The  Cid'  and  the  chronicles,  and  ending  with  the  death  of 
Charles  V.;  Part  ii.,  treating  of  the  golden  age  of  the  drama,  the  lyric,  and  the  novel; 
and  Part  iii.,  making  a  study  of  the  conditions  of  the  literary  decadence.  The  trans- 
lations used  were  original;  and  the  book  remains  an  authority  and  a  classic.  Hallam 
declared  that  "It  supersedes  all  others,  and  will  never  be  superseded."  Translated 
into  many  tongues,  its  profound  learning,  its  modesty,  and  its  forcible  style,  make  it 
as  agreeable  as  it  is  valuable. 

SPANISH  VISTAS,  by  George  Parsons  Lathrop  (1883).  "Unless  he  be  extraordi- 
narily shrewd,"  says  the  author,  "a  foreigner  can  hardly  help  arriving  in  Spain  on 
some  kind  of  a  feast-day. "  Perhaps  it  is  that  all  days  in  that  land  of  romance  seem 
like  red-letter  days  to  one  who  has  come  from  the  workaday  world  and  the  unshaded 
vistas  of  reality.  Spain,  to  the  general  observer,  is  a  field  scarcely  more  known  than 
Italy  was  a  few  decades  ago ;  but  each  year  is  increasing  the  number  of  its  tourists, 
and  each  year  the  interesting  peculiarities  of  the  people  are  becoming  modified,  at 
length  to  entirely  disappear;  so  the  chapters  which  preserve  the  actual  appearance 
of  the  Spain  of  to-day  have  the  additional  value  of  a  probable  future  reference. 
There  is  no  attempt  to  review  political  events  in  the  work,  only  to  present  a  striking 
and  faithful  photograph  of  the  essential  characteristics  of  the  country,  and  catalogue 
particular  and  local  features.  If  one  were  forced  to  select  among  a  number  of 
delightful  pictures,  perhaps  the  chapter  on  'Andalusia  and  the  Alhambra'  would  be 
chosen;  but  to  that  on  'The  Lost  City'  the  eye  turns  again  and  again  with  ever 
renewed  interest.  The  last  pages  are  devoted  to  '  Hints  to  Travelers,'  and  are  useful 
in  supplying  certain  information  not  to  be  found  in  the  usual  guide-book,  and  con- 
densing this  in  a  very  convenient  form, 

SPEECH  ON  CONCILIATION  WITH  THE  COLONIES,  see  CONCILIATION 
etc. 

SPEED  THE  PLOUGH,  by  Thomas  Morton.  To  this  comedy,  first  produced  in 
1796,  we  owe  one  of  our  best-known  characters,  —  the  redoubtable  Mrs.  Grundy. 
Here  as  elsewhere  she  is  invisible;  and  it  is  what  she  may  say,  not  what  she  does  say, 
that  Dame  Ashfield  fears.  Farmer  Ashfield  has  brought  up  from  infancy  a  young 
man  named  Henry,  whose  parentage  is  unknown.  Sir  Philip  Blandford,  Ashfield's 
landlord,  is  about  to  return  after  many  years'  absence,  to  marry  his  daughter  Emma 
to  Bob  Handy,  who  "  can  do  everything  but  earn  his  bread. "  Sir  Abel,  Bob's  father, 
is  to  pay  all  Blandford's  debt.  In  a  plowing-match,  Henry  wins  the  prize,  and 
Emma  bestows  the  medal.  It  is  a  case  of  love  at  first  sight.  Sir  Philip  hates  Henry, 
and  orders  Ashfield  to  turn  him  from  his  doors,  but  he  refuses.  Sir  Philip  is  about  to 


804  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

force  Ashfield  to  discharge  a  debt,  when  a  man  named  Morrington  gives  Henry  the 
note  of  Sir  Philip  for  more  than  the  amount.  Henry  destroys  it,  when  Sir  Philip 
declares  that  Morrington,  whom  he  has  never  seen,  has  by  encouraging  Sir  Philip's 
vices  when  young,  possessed  himself  of  enough  notes  to  more  than  exhaust  Sir  Philip's 
fortune.  Sir  Philip  confides  his  secret  to  Bob.  He  was  to  marry  a  young  girl,  when 
he  found  her  about  to  elope  with  his  brother  Charles.  He  killed  Charles,  and  hid  the 
knife  and  a  bloody  cloth  in  a  part  of  the  castle  which  he  has  never  visited  since.  Sir 
Abel,  in  experimenting  with  a  substitute  for  gunpowder,  sets  the  castle  on  fire. 
Henry  saves  Emma  from  the  flames;  and  breaking  into  the  secret  room,  brings  forth 
the  knife  and  cloth.  Monington  appears,  and  proves  to  be  Sir  Philip's  brother  and 
Henry's  father.  To  atone  for  the  wrong  done  his  brother,  he  had  gathered  all  the 
notes  which  his  brother  had  given  to  usurers,  and  now  gives  them  to  him.  Bob  marries 
Susan,  Ashfield 's  daughter,  whom  he  was  about  to  desert  for  Emma;  and  the  latter 
is  married  to  Henry. 

SPIRIT  OF  LAWS,  THE  ('Esprit  des  Lois '),  by  Montesquieu  (1748).  The  work  of  a 
French  baron,  born  just  100  years  before  the  French  Revolution  of  1789,  has  the 
double  interest  of  a  singularly  impressive  manifestation  of  mind  and  character  in  the 
author,  and  a  very  able  study  of  the  conditions,  political  and  social,  in  France,  which 
were  destined  to  bring  the  overthrow  of  the  old  order.  In  1728,  after  an  election  to 
the  Academy,  Montesquieu  had  entered  upon  prolonged  European  travel,  to  gratify 
his  strong  interest  in  the  manners,  customs,  religion,  and  government  to  be  seen  in 
different  lands.  Meeting  with  Lord  Chesterfield,  he  went  with  him  to  England,  and 
spent  nearly  two  years  amid  experiences  which  made  him  an  ardent  admirer  of  the 
British  Constitution,  a  monarchy  without  despotism.  Returning  thence  to  his 
native  La  Brede,  near  Bordeaux,  he  gave  the  next  twenty  years  to  study,  the  chief 
fruit  of  which  was  to  be  the  'Esprit  des  Lois/  As  early  as  1734  he  gave  some  indica- 
tion of  what  he  had  in  view  by  his  'Considerations'  upon  Roman  greatness  and 
Roman  decline.  The  'Esprit  des  Lois'  appeared  in  1748,  to  become  in  critical  esti- 
mation the  most  important  literary  production  of  the  eighteenth  century,  before  the 
'Encyclopedic.'  Its  purpose  was  research  of  the  origin  of  laws,  the  principles  on 
which  laws  rest,  and  how  they  grow  out  of  these  principles.  It  was  designed  to  awaken 
desire  for  freedom,  condemnation  of  despotism,  and  hope  of  political  progress ;  and 
this  effect  it  had,  modifying  the  thought  of  the  century  very  materially,  and  raising 
up  a  school  of  statesmen  and  political  economists  at  once  intelligent  and  upright  in 
the  interest  of  the  governed. 

SPLENDID  SPUR,  THE,  by  Sir  A.  T.  Quiller-Couch  (1890).  The  scene  of  these 
thrilling  adventures  is  England,  in  the  days  of  Zing  Charles.  Jack  Marvel  overhears 
Tingcomb,  Sir  Deakin  Killigrew's  steward,  plotting  with  the  villainous  Settle  to 
destroy  his  master's  son,  Anthony,  and  seize  the  estate.  He  warns  him,  but  too  late; 
sees  him  die,  receives  from  him  the  King's  letter  to  General  Hopton,  is  himself 
pursued,  escapes,  rescues  Sir  Deakin  and  his  daughter  Delia.  Sir  Deakin  dies  from 
exposure,  and  Delia  sets  out  with  Marvel  to  deliver  the  King's  letter.  Adventures 
follow  thick  and  fast:  they  are  captured,  and  escape  again  and  again,  finally  reaching 
Cornwall,  Delia's  home.  She  falls  into  Settle's  clutches;  and  Marvel  is  wounded  and 
nursed  by  Joan,  a  wild  Cornish  girl,  who  conveys  the  King's  letter  to  Hopton.  Mar- 
vel recovers  Delia;  they  are  hard  pressed  by  the  foe,  but  Joan,  in  Marvel's  clothes, 
leads  them  astray,  receives  a  fatal  wound,  and  dies  for  Marvel's  sake.  Tingcomb,' 
*he  wicked  steward,  falls  headlong  from  a  precipice,  the  stolen  property  is  regained 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  805 

and  Delia  decides  to  seek  a  safer  shelter  in  France.  Marvel  remains  to  fight  for  King 
Charles.  Delia,  seeing  that  he  loves  her  not  less,  but  honor  more,  exclaims,  "Thou 
hast  found  it,  sweetheart,  thou  hast  found  the  Splendid  Spur." 

SPOILERS,  THE,  by  Rex  Beach  (1905) .  The  scene  of  this  story  is  kid  in  the  Klon- 
dike while  the  gold  fever  is  at  its  height.  The  central  figure  in  the  narrative  is  Roy 
Glenister,  a  man  of  powerful  nature,  whose  theory  of  life  is  that  force  can  accomplish 
anything.  He  and  his  partner  Bill  Dextry  are  returning  to  Klondike  after  an  en- 
forced absence  and  as  their  ship  is  about  to  sail  their  attention  is  drawn  to  a  beautiful 
young  girl  who  is  endeavoring  to  evade  the  quarantine  officers  and  board  their 
steamer.  Glenister  exerts  himself  in  her  behalf  and  succeeds  in  rescuing  her  from  her 
pursuers.  Her  name  is  Helen  Chester  and  her  rescuer  falls  in  love  with  her  on  the 
voyage  and  endeavors  to  force  her  to  reciprocate  his  affection.  Instead,  however, 
he  wins  her  scorn  by  kissing  her  against  her  will  and  she  vows  she  will  never  forgive 
him.  Upon  reaching  Klondike  Glenister  finds  that  there  is  litigation  over  his  claim, 
which  contains  a  valuable  gold  mine,  and  he  must  fight  to  keep  it  in  his  possession. 
His  principal  enemy  is  a  political  boss  named  McNamera  who  does  everything  in  his 
power  to  ruin  him.  Glenister 's  love  for  Helen  proves  a  deep  influence  in  his  life  and 
softens  and  refines  his  nature,  though  she  remains  obdurate  to  his  suit.  McNamera, 
who  is  also  a  rival  in  love,  succeeds  in  getting  Helen  to  look  favorably  upon  his 
proposal.  Helen  has  brought  with  her  to  Klondike  papers,  the  contents  of  which  she 
is  ignorant  of,  but  which  prove  to  be  the  instrument  by  which  Glenister's  claim  is  to 
be  proved  invalid.  They  are  held  by  an  unscrupulous  lawyer  who  bargains  to  reveal 
the  contents  to  Helen  in  return  for  her  love.  She  accedes  to  his  proposition  but  is 
rescued  from  his  clutches  by  a  notorious  gambler  called  Brancho  Kid,  who  proves  to 
be  her  wayward  brother  whom  she  has  not  seen  for  years.  Glenister  conquers  Mc- 
Namera in  a  fierce  weaponless  duel  and  the  latter  is  proved  to  be  a  scoundrel.  Helen 
gives  Glenister  the  papers  but  he  refuses  to  make  use  of  them  as  by  so  doing  he  would 
ruin  her  uncle  Judge  Stillman,  who  is  criminally  involved  with  McNamera.  This 
generous  action  which  culminates  a  series  of  sacrifices  made  by  Glenister  for  Helen 
causes  her  to  appreciate  his  true  character  and  she  confesses  her  love  to  him. 

STANDARD  OIL  COMPANY,  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE,  by  Ida  M.  TarbeU,  was 
published  in  1904,  having  previously  appeared  serially  in  McClure's  Magazine.  The 
author  had  made  a  thorough  study  of  all  documents  connected  with  the  subject 
including  testimony  before  legislative  and  judicial  investigating  bodies,  newspapers, 
pamphlets,  periodicals,  and  private  correspondence;  and  she  had  conversed  witr 
many  persons  involved  in  the  struggles  evoked  by  the  company,  including  many  01 
their  own  officials.  Her  book  is  thus  founded  on  a  critical  examination  of  a  greal 
mass  of  contemporary  evidence.  After  a  brief  introductory  chapter  on  the  earl} 
days  of  the  oil  industry  in  Pennsylvania  from  the  digging  of  the  first  oil-well  in  i85< 
to  the  rise  of  a  great  industrial  community,  Miss  Tarbell  narrates  the  first  busines; 
experiences  of  John  D.  Rockefeller,  his  entry  into  the  oil  business  in  1862,  and  hi 
founding  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  in  1870,  its  defeat  of  competitors  by  means  o 
obtaining  rebates  from  the  railroads,  the  overcoming  of  legislative  and  popula 
opposition,  the  gradual  absorption  of  rival  organizations,  and  the  development  of  ai 
organization  controlling  the  entire  oil  industry  of  the  country.  "To-day,  as  at  th 
start,  the  purpose  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  is  ...  the  regulation  of  the  pric 
of  crude  and  refined  oil  by  the  control  of  the  output;  and  the  chief  means  for  sustainin; 
this  purpose  is  still  that  of  the  original  scheme  —  a  control  of  oil  transportation 


8o6  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

giving  special  privileges  in  rates."  Though  remorselessly  exposing  its  evils,  Miss 
Tarbell  is  not  without  admiration  for  this  great  organization.  "If  it  has  played  its 
great  game  with  contemptuous  indifference  to  fair  play,  and  to  nice  legal  points  of 
view,  it  has  played  it  with  consummate  ability,  daring,  and  address.  The  silent, 
patient,  all-seeing  man  who  has  led  it  in  its  transportation  raids  has  led  it  no  less 
successfully  in  what  may  be  called  its  legitimate  work.  Nobody  has  appreciated  more 
fully  than  he  those  qualities  which  alone  make  for  permanent  stability  and  growth  in 
commercial  ventures.  "  Miss  Tarbell's  work  is  eminently  readable  and  is  a  valuable 
contemporary  historical  authority  on  the  most  striking  example  of  the  most  im- 
portant industrial  and  financial  movement  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

STANDISH  OF  STANDISH,  by  Jane  G.  Austin  (1890).  This  is  called  "a  story  of 
the  Pilgrims";  and  with  this  charming  and  authentic  narrative  the  author  begins  her 
series  of  tales  relating  to  the  Plymouth  Colony.  The  book  is  full  of  romantic  and 
dramatic  episodes,  all  of  which  are  founded  on  fact,  and  are  therefore  doubly  interest- 
ing. In  the  opening  chapters  the  Pilgrims  are  first  pictured  on  board  the  Mayflower, 
lying  at  anchor,  where  they  are  passing  the  dreary  weeks  until  the  pioneers  of  the 
colony  can  decide  on  a  suitable  place  for  a  settlement.  At  last  the  location  is  chosen ; 
and  the  few  log  cabins  which  serve  as  abiding  places  for  the  Pilgrims  prove  foundation 
stones  for  the  flourishing  town  of  Plymouth.  Throughout  the  story  Miles  Standish., 
who  can  rightfully  be  called  the  hero  of  this  tale  figures  prominently.  His  manliness 
and  courage  in  overcoming  obstacles  and  adversity,  his  tenderness  and  kindness  to 
the  sick  and  suffering,  and  his  deep  love  and  devotion  for  sweet  Rose  Standish,  form  a 
striking  picture.  Her  death,  which  occurs  soon  after  their  landing,  causes  him  the 
deepest  sorrow,  but  he  eventually  feels  it  his  duty  to  marry  again ;  and  John  Alden's 
interview  with  Priscilla  Molines  in  his  behalf  is  picturesquely  described.  His  subse- 
quent marriage  to  his  cousin  Barbara  Standish,  which  occurs  after  a  stormy  court- 
ship, ends  this  interesting  narrative.  Throughout  the  story  the  privations  and 
sufferings  of  the  Pilgrims,  which  they  bear  with  such  courage  and  fortitude,  are 
pictured  in  the  most  graphic  manner.  Governor  Carver  and  his  gentle  and  delicate 
wife;  John  Harland,  their  faithful  friend  and  helper;  and  Mary  Chilton,  who  has 
historic  interest  as  being  the  first  woman  to  step  on  shore,  are  also  charmingly  por- 
trayed. 

STEIN,  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF:  or,  GERMANY  AND  PRUSSIA  IN  THE  NAPOLEONIC 
AGE,  by  J.  R.  Seeley,  regius  professor  of  modern  history  in  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge (3  vols.,  octavo,  1878).  Professor  Seeley fs  object  in  writing  this  valuable  if 
rather  lengthy  biography  was  prim-arily,  as  he  states  in  his  preface,  to  describe  and 
explain  the  extraordinary  transition  period  of  Germany  and  Prussia,  which  occupied 
the  age  of  Napoleon  (1806-22),  —  and  which  has  usually  been  regarded  as  dependent 
upon  the  development  of  the  Napoleonic  policy,  —  and  to  give  it  its  true  place  in 
German  history.  Looking  for  some  one  person  who  might  be  regarded  as  the  central 
figure  around  whom  the  ideas  of  the  age  concentrated  themselves,  he  settled  on  Stein. 
Biographies  of  other  prominent  persons  —  as  Hardenberg,  Scharnhorst,  etc.  —  are 
interwoven  with  that  of  Stein.  The  work  is  divided  into  nine  parts:  (i)  Before  the 
Catastrophe  (i.e.,  the  Prussian  subjugation  by  Napoleon);  (2)  The  Catastrophe;  (3) 
Ministry  of  Stein,  First  Period;  (4)  Ministry  of  Stein,  Transition;  (5)  Ministry  of 
Stein,  Conclusion;  (6)  Stein  in  Exile;  (7)  Return  from  Exile;  (8)  At  the  Congress; 
(a.)  Old  Age.  It  is  clearly  and  picturesquely  written,  and  springs  from  a  statesman- 
like and  philosophical  grasp  of  its  material.  Stein's  great  services  to  Prussia,  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  807 

indeed  to  the  world  (the  emancipating  edict  of  1807,  his  influence  in  Russia,  at  the 
Congress  of  Vienna,  1814,  etc.),  have  never  elsewhere  been  so  convincingly  stated. 
The  author  indeed  confesses,  that  while  at  starting  he  had  no  true  conception  of  the 
greatness  of  the  man,  Stein's  importance  grew  on  him,  and  he  ended  by  considering 
the  part  which  the  chancellor  played  an  indispensable  one  in  the  development  of 
modern  Germany.  Many  extracts  are  given  from  Stein's  letters  and  official  docu- 
ments, which  make  his  personality  distinct  and  impressive.  The  politics  and  social 
conditions  of  Russia,  Austria,  and  France,  and  the  effect  which  these  produced  in 
Germany,  are  made  both  clear  and  interesting.  A  multitude  of  anecdotes  and  per- 
sonal reminiscences  adds  the  element  of  entertainment  which  so  serious  a  biography 
demands.  But  its  great  merit  is  that  nowhere  else  exists  a  more  judicial  and  philo- 
sophic estimate  of  Napoleon's  character  and  policy  than  in  the  chapters  devoted  to 
his  meteoric  career. 

STEVEN  LAWRENCE,  YEOMAN,  by  Mrs.  Annie  Edwards  (1867).  Katharine 
Fane,  rich,  beautiful,  good,  engaged  to  Lord  Petres;  and  Dora  Fane,  poor,  frivolous, 
and  heartless,  —  are  cousins.  Dora  sends  Katharine's  picture  to  Steven  Lawrence, 
in  Mexico,  as  her  own.  He  falls  in  love  with  it,  returns  to  England,  discovers  his 
mistake,  but  is  beguiled  by  Dora  into  marrying  her.  They  are  not  happy.  Dora 
persuades  him  to  take  her  to  Paris,  where  she  leads  a  life  of  frivolity.  Katharine,  who 
loves  Steven,  though  she  will  not  admit  it,  is  his  friend,  now  as  ever.  She  goes  to  his 
aid,  and  fancying  him  a  prey  to  evil  companions,  sends  him  to  England.  He  returns 
unexpectedly,  finds  his  wife  at  a  ball  in  a  costume  he  had  forbidden  her  wearing,  and 
casts  her  off;  she  elopes,  Katharine  follows  and  brings  her  back.  Steven  declines  to 
receive  her;  Katharine  takes  her  to  London,  where  she  dies,  frivolous  to  the  last.  A 
few  days  before  the  time  set  for  her  marriage  to  Lord  Petres,  Katharine  hears  that 
Steven  has  been  thrown  from  his  horse  and  is  dying.  She  hastens  to  his  bedside, 
breaks  her  engagement  —  and  he  recovers.  He  prepares  to  sell  out  and  go  back  to 
Mexico;  but  Katharine  stoops  to  conquer,  begs  him  not  to  leave  her,  and  wins  the 
happiness  of  her  life.  It  is  an  entertaining  story,  of  the  common  modern  English 
type. 

STICKIT  MINISTER,  THE,  by  S.  R,  Crockett  (1893).  The  short  stories,  by  S.  R. 
Crockett,  contained  in  the  collection  called  '  The  Stickit  Minister,  and  Some  Common 
Men, '  were  first  printed  in  a  newspaper. 

These  stories  of  "that  gray  Galloway  Land,"  as  the  author  calls  it,  are  told  in  a 
very  simple,  pathetic  way.  The  "stickit  minister"  is  a  young  divinity  student,  who 
learns  that  he  must  die  in  a  few  years  from  consumption.  He  and  his  younger  brother 
have  inherited  bat  a  small  property ;  so,  in  order  that  his  brother  may  study  to  become 
a  doctor,  he  leaves  college  and  goes  home  to  cultivate  the  farm.  It  is  generally  sup- 
posed that  he  has  failed  to  pass  his  examination,  whence  the  name  "stickit  stuck 
fast  minister";  and  even  his  brother  treats  him  with  coldness  and  ingratitude. 

The  second  story,  'Accepted  ot  the  Beasts,'  tells  of  a  pure-hearted,  noble  young 
clergyman,  who  is  turned  out  of  his  church  because  of  certain  unfounded  accusations 
brought  against  him  by  the  machination  of  an  evil-minded  woman.  Next  morning 
a  farmer  discovers  him  singing  "He  was  despised  and  rejected  of  men"  to  a  herd  of 
cattle,  which  press  about  him  to  listen.  A  few  hours  later  he  is  found  lying  dead. 

'A  Heathen  Lintie'  is  the  story  of  a  middle-aged  Scotch  woman,  who  has  secretly 
written  and  has  had  published  a  volume  of  poems.  She  watches  anxiously  for  the 
paper  which  is  to  contain  a  review  of  them.  At  last  it  comes ;  but  she  dies  before  she  is 


8o8  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

able  to  read  enough  of  it  to  discover  that  what  she  believes  is  praise  is  in  reality  cruel, 
scathing  criticism. 

Some  of  the  stories  — as  'A  Midsummer  Idyl/  'Three  Bridegrooms  and  One 
Bride/  and  f  A  Knight-Errant  of  the  Streets'  —  are  less  pathetic  and  more  humorous. 

STONE  AGE,  THE,  see  MEN  OF  THE  OLD  STONE  AGE,  by  H.  P.  Osborn. 

STONES  OF  VENICE,  by  John  Ruskin,  in  three  volumes,  appeared  in  the  years 
1851  and  1853-.  This  work  treats  of  the  archaeology  and  history  of  Venice,  and 
unfolds  the  causes  of  her  strength  and  glory,  her  downfall  and  decay.  The  author 
aims  to  show  that  the  Gothic  architecture  of  Venice  was  the  expression  of  a  state  of 
national  virtue  and  pure  domestic  faith,  while  its  Renaissance  architecture  had 
arisen  from  a  condition  of  concealed  national  infidelity  and  domestic  corruption. 

The  first  volume,  entitled  'The  Foundations/  presents  the  principles  of  all  noble 
building  and  describes  the  virtues  of  architecture  as  threefold:  first,  the  end  should  be 
accomplished  in  the  best  way;  second,  it  should  say  that  which  it  was  intended  to  say, 
in  the  best  words;  and  third,  it  should  always  give  pleasure  by  its  presence.  Ruskin 
next  considers  his  subject  in  its  two  great  divisions  of  Strength  and  Beauty,  or  as 
constructive  and  ornamental  architecture.  The  volume  is  prefaced  with  an  outline 
of  the  history  of  the  city  and  her  Doges,  and  concludes  with  a  brilliant  description  of 
the  drive  from  the  gates  of  Padua  to  Mestra,  and  thence  by  gondola  along  the  dark 
waters  to  Venice. 

The  second  volume,  entitled  'Sea  Stories/  is  devoted  to  a  study  of  the  buildings 
marking  the  Byzantine  and  Gothic  periods;  the  one  characteristic  of  the  earlier,  the 
other  of  the  crowning  era  of  Venetian  life. 

The  third  volume,  entitled  'The  Fall/  offers  an  analysis  of  Renaissance  architec- 
ture, or  that  of  Venetian  decline.  This  era  is  divided  into  three  periods,  distin- 
guished as  the  Early,  the  Roman,  and  the  Grotesque,  each  marking  a  distinct  phase 
of  degeneracy  in  Venetian  life.  In  the  last  two  volumes  of  this  work  Ruskin  shows 
how  Venetian  architecture  was  ever  subject  to  the  temper  of  the  State,  rising  and 
receding  with  the  growth  of  the  moral  or  the  immoral  dispositions  of  the  people. 
The  last  period  of  decline,  styled  by  Ruskin  "Grotesque  Renaissance, "  was  the  out- 
come of  an  unscrupulous  love  of  pleasure,  and  its  features  were  the  worst  and  basest 
of  all  preceding  styles;  with  it  closed  the  career  of  the  architecture  of  Europe.  In  the 
'Stones  of  Venice/  its  author  demonstrates  the  truth  that  a  nation's  history,  though 
unwritten  by  any  historian's  pen,  is  yet  inscribed  distinctly  and  lastingly  on  the 
blocks  of  stone  that  tell  of  her  home  life,  her  manufactures,  and  her  religion. 

STORY  OF  A  BAD  BOY,  THE,  by  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  (1870),  is  a  fresh,  humorous 
story,  that  has  long  been  popular  with  children  of  all  ages.  Its  opening  sentences 
tend  to  explain  the  dubious  title:  "This  is  the  story  of  a  bad  boy.  Well,  not  such  a 
very  bad,  but  a  pretty  bad  boy;  and  I  ought  to  know,  for  I  am,  or  was,  that  boy 
myself.  ...  I  call  my  story  the  story  of  a  bad  boy,  partly  to  distinguish  myself 
from  those  faultless  young  gentlemen  who  generally  figure  in  narratives  of  this  kind, 
and  partly  because  I  was  not  a  cherub.  ...  In  short,  I  was  a  real  human  boy,  such 
as  you  may  meet  anywhere  in  New  England ;  and  no  more  like  the  impossible  boy  in  a 
story-book  than  a  sound  orange  is  like  one  that  has  been  sucked  dry. "  The  story  is 
autobiographical  in  so  far  as  suited  the  author's  purpose.  Rivermouth,  where  the 
so-called  bad  boy  of  the  story  was  born  and  brought  up,  after  spending  a  few  of  his 
earliest  years  in  New  Orleans,  stands  for  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire:  just  as  his 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  809 

name,  Tom  Bailey,  stands  as  a  part,  not  even  disguised,  of  the  author's  own.  Tom 
Bailey's  temperament  and  appetites  were  wholesome;  his  boyish  pranks  were  never 
vicious  or  mean,  though  he  frankly  "didn't  want  to  be  an  angel, "  and  didn't  think 
the  missionary  tracts  presented  to  him  by  the  Rev.  Wibird  Hawkins  were  half  so 
nice  as  Robinson  Crusoe,  and  didn't  send  his  "little  pocket-money  to  the  natives  of 
the  Feejee  Islands,  but  spent  it  royally  in  peppermint  drops  and  taffy-candy. "  The 
author,  disgusted  with  the  goody-goody  little  hypocrite  of  an  earlier  moral  tale, 
created  this  boy  of  flesh  and  blood,  to  displace  the  moribund  hero  of  "Sandford  and 
Merton";  though,  as  Mr.  Aldrich  has  since  remarked,  "the  title  may  have  frightened 
off  a  few  careful  friends  who  would  have  found  nothing  serious  to  condemn  in  the 
book  itself. "  The  story  has  been  translated  into  French,  German,  Spanish,  Danish, 
Swedish,  and  Dutch. 

STORY  OF  A  COUNTRY  TOWN,  THE,  by  E.  W.  Howe  (1883),  is  a  tale  of  the  mo- 
notonous unlovely  life  of  a  small,  hard-working,  unimaginative  Western  village. 
The  story  is  told  in  the  first  person  by  a  boy  who  has  never  known  any  other  life,  and 
whose  farthest  goal  of  experience  is  the  neighboring  town.  It  is  a  masterpiece  of 
modern  ''realism, "  the  life  and  events  of  the  place  being  described  with  a  marvelous 
fidelity.  Yet  the  test  of  veracity  fails  in  the  unrelieved  gloom  of  the  story,  which  is 
bereft  of  all  sunshine  and  joyousness,  and  even  of  all  sense  of  relation  to  happier 
things.  The  town  of  Twin  Mounds  seems  as  isolated  and  strange  as  if  it  were  in 
another  world.  Even  nature  is  utterly  cheerless  and  human  life  apparently  without 
hope.  The  narrative  itself  is  loose  and  rambling,  centering  about  the  domestic 
troubles  of  Joe  Erring  and  his  wife,  and  culminating  in  dreary  tragedy.  The  book  has 
a  grim  fascination;  and  at  least  one  extraordinary  character,  Lyth  Biggs,  whose 
cynical  philosophizing  leaves  the  reader  fairly  benumbed  by  the  chill  of  its  candor. 

STORY  OF  AN  AFRICAN  FARM,  THE,  a  novel  published  in  1 883  under  the  pseudo- 
nym of  "Ralph  Iron,"  really  by  Olive  Schreiner.  On  a  realistic  background  of 
South  African  landscape  and  farm-life  the  author  depicts  the  aspirations  and  dis- 
illusionments  of  youth  in  an  age  of  disintegrating  faith  and  ideals.  Waldo  and  Lyn- 
dall,  the  central  personages  of  the  story,  are  brought  up  on  a  Boer  farm,  in  Cape 
Colony,  Waldo  being  the  son  of  the  German  overseer  and  Lyndall,  an  orphan  girl, 
cousin  of  Em,  who  is  stepdaughter  to  Tant'  Sannie  the  Boer  mistress  of  the  farm. 
The  two  girls  were  left  in  the  guardianship  of  Tant1  Sannie  at  the  death  of  Em's 
father,  an  Englishman,  the  Boer  woman's  second  husband.  Although  Tant'  Sannie 
is  ignorant  and  selfish  the  children  lead  a  life  of  happy  companionship  at  the  cabin  of 
the  overseer,  a  kindly,  simple-hearted  South  German  of  a  childlike  trust  and  piety. 
On  this  idyllic  scene  arrives  a  clever  scoundrel  named  Bonaparte  Blenkins  who  by 
the  grossest  flattery  gets  the  confidence  of  Tant1  Sannie,  induces  her  to  turn  away 
the  German  who  had  befriended  him,  and  on  his  death,  subjects  the  boy  Waldo  to  the 
most  malignant  persecution  and  finally  to  a  cruel  beating.  Shortly  afterwards, 
through  indiscreetly  making  love  to  another  Boer  woman,  Tant'  Sannie's  niece, 
Blenkins  is  driven  from  the  farm.  The  sufferings  that  Waldo  has  endured  and  the 
revelation  of  evil  which  the  experience  has  brought  have  utterly  destroyed  his  former 
childlike  faith  in  God.  Contact  with  modern  thought  in  the  books  that  he  procures 
deepens  his  confusion.  His  life  becomes  an  aspiration  for  a  knowledge  of  truth  which 
experience  will  not  give  him.  This  aspiration  becomes  defined  by  an  allegorical  tale 
related  to  him  by  a  stranger,  a  man  of  the  world,  who  happens  to  be  resting  at  the 
farm  and  is  interested  by  the  boy's  face  and  words.  Waldo  determines  to  seek  work 


8 io  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

in  the  cities,  to  read,  and  to  see  life.  While  he  seeks  knowledge,  Lyndall  yearns  for 
power.  Possessed  of  unusual  beauty  and  charm  and  great  force  of  personality  she 
succeeds  in  making  her  guardian  send  her  to  school  at  Cape  Town.  Disregarding  the 
conventional  studies  there,  she  reads  and  thinks  as  she  pleases,  and  in  four  years 
becomes  an  accomplished  woman,  the  writer  of  a  number  of  successful  novels  and 
plays,  and  an  ardent  upholder  of  woman's  independence.  Being  extremely  beautiful 
and  attractive,  she  has  many  admirers.  With  one  of  these  she  forms  a  connection 
which  she  will  not  permit  to  be  made  permanent  by  marriage,  because  she  feels  that 
the  man's  love  is  one  merely  of  possession  and  that  he  appeals  only  to  half  of  her 
nature.  Returning  home  she  finds  Tant'  Sannie  about  to  be  married  again,  thus 
leaving  the  farm  to  Em,  who  has  just  become  engaged  to  a  girlish  young  Englishman, 
Gregory  Rose,  lessee  of  half  the  farm.  Lyndall  and  Waldo  in  several  long  colloquies 
exchange  experiences  in  a  mood  of  absolute  comradeship,  not  as  woman  and  man  but 
as  spirit  and  spirit.  He  then  departs  for  the  cities  on  his  search  for  a  knowledge  of 
life.  Meanwhile,  though  Lyndall  scorns  Gregory's  femininity,  he  has  become  fas- 
cinated by  her;  and  when  released  by  Em,  who  sees  how  matters  stand,  declares  his 
love.  Lyndall,  who  expects  soon  to  become  a  mother,  scornfully  tells  him  he  may 
give  her  his  name;  but  her  lover  having  followed  her  to  the  farm  and  again  offered 
marriage,  she  clandestinely  departs  under  his  protection,  though  still  refusing  any 
legal  tie.  They  go  to  the  Transvaal,  where  they  soon  quarrel  and  separate.  Lyndall 
gives  birth  to  a  child,  which  dies  a  few  hours  afterwards.  She  is  cared  for  until  her 
death,  which  soon  follows,  by  her  rejected  suitor,  Gregory,  who  has  traced  her  to  the 
inn  at  which  she  is  staying,  and  who  attends  her  with  devotion  and  tenderness,  in  the 
disguise  of  a  nurse.  Meanwhile,  Waldo,  after  months  of  wandering,  varied  employ- 
ments, reading,  and  meditation,  returns  to  the  farm,  hoping  to  hear  something  of 
Lyndall.  The  news  of  her  death  deprives  him  of  any  further  instinct  for  existence. 
He  dies  peacefully,  sitting  in  the  sun  on  a  lovely  summer  afternoon.  The  marriage 
of  Gregory  and  Em  closes  the  story. 

STORY  OF  BESSIE  COSTRELL,  THE,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  (1895).     In  this 
story  Mrs.  Ward  has  depicted  life  among  the  working  classes  under  most  painful  and 
trying  conditions.    Bessie  Costrell  is  the  niece  of  John  Bolderfield,  an  old  man  who, 
by  dint  of  scrimping  and  saving  for  many  years,  has  accumulated  by  hard  labor 
enough  money  to  support  himself  for  the  remainder  of  his  life.    This  wealth,  the 
acquirement  of  which  has  been  the  one  ambition  of  his  life,  has  been  kept  hoarded  in 
an  old  trunk;  and  this  he  confides  to  the  care  of  his  niece,  before  leaving  his  native 
town  for  a  period  of  some  months.    Bessie  is  much  delighted  to  be  given  charge  of 
the  money,  and  at  first  only  regards  it  with  honest  feelings  of  pride;  but  eventually 
the  temptation  becomes  too  strong  for  her,  and  her  natural  extravagance  asserting 
itself,  she  opens  the  chest  and  spends  part  of  the  money  in  a  reckless  way,  drinking 
and  treating  her  friends.    At  length  her  free  use  of  money  begins  to  arouse  suspicion; 
and  she  takes  alarm  and  goes  to  the  chest  to  count  the  balance,  when  she  is  caught 
in  the  act  by  her  husband's  profligate  son,  who  assaults  her  and  robs  her  of  the  re- 
mainder.  Matters  have  reached  this  crisis  when  John  returns  home  and,  to  his  horror 
and  consternation,  finds  his  money  gone.    He  is  at  first  prostrated  by  the  terrible 
discovery;  but  on  recovering  consciousness,  he  accuses  Bessie  of  the  theft,  which  she 
strenuously  denies.    John  then  sends  for  the  constable,  who  succeeds  in  proving  her 
guilt.    Bessie's  husband,  Isaac  Costrell,  a  stern,  hard  man,  who  is  a  leader  in  the 
church,  is  overcome  with  horror  on  learning  of  his  wife's  dishonesty,  agrees  that  she 
will  have  to  go  to  prison,  and  tells  her  that  he  will  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  her. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  811 

The  wretched  woman,  overwhelmed  with  terror  and  grief,  drowns  herself  in  a  well, 
and  the  narrative  ends  leaving  the  husband  filled  with  remorse,  and  John  broken- 
hearted and  penniless.  The  story  is  told  in  a  realistic  manner;  and  although  many  of 
the  situations  are  unpleasant,  it  bears  the  mark  of  a  master  hand. 

STORY  OF  GOSTA  BERLING,  THE,  by  Selma  Lagerlof  (1894).  Translated  in 
1898,  by  Pauline  Bancroft  Flach.  This  work,  which  won  for  its  author  the  Nobel 
Prize  in  1909,  depicts  life  in  the  province  of  \rarmland,  in  Southern  Sweden,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century.  Miss  Lagerlof,  who  has  grown  up  in  the  midst  of  the 
wild  legends  of  her  country,  embodies  them  in  her  story,  which  abounds  with  inci- 
dents which  have  actually  occurred  among  these  primitive  and  superstitious  folk. 
Gosta  Berling  is  a  handsome  and  dashing  youth,  who  begins  his  life  as  a  preacher 
among  the  rude  mining  folk ;  he  is  endowed  with  a  magnetism  and  eloquence  which 
carry  all  before  them,  but  at  the  opening  of  the  story  he  has  fallen  from  grace  and  is 
to  be  dismissed  from  his  parish  for  drunkenness.  By  an  inspired  burst  of  eloquence 
he  forces  his  flock  to  reverse  their  verdict,  and  the  Bishop,  who  has  come  to  unfrock 
him,  departs  with  words  of  approbation.  His  moment  of  exaltation  is  swiftly  followed 
by  one  of  despair  and  self -accusation,  and  feeling  convinced  that  he  will  be  implicated 
in  a  wild  prank  played  upon  the  Bishop  by  a  dissolute  companion,  he  rushes  away  to 
resume  his  dissipated  career.  Having  reached  the  lowest  depths  of  degradation  he 
crawls  into  a  snow-drift  to  end  his  life,  when  he  is  forcibly  rescued  by  the  Major's 
wife  of  Ekeby,  a  power  in  the  land  and  a  mine-owner.  She  awakens  in  him  his  lost 
sense  of  honor,  and  he  goes  with  her  to  Ekeby  to  become  one  of  the  many  pensioners 
upon  her  bounty.  Gosta  Berling's  passionate  and  impulsive  nature  leads  him  into 
one  love  affair  after  another;  all  women  adore  him,  and  he  seems  to  bring  misfortune 
to  all  with  whom  he  comes  in  contact.  He  wins  the  affection  of  the  lovely  young 
countess  Ebba  Dohna,  who  dies  from  the  shock  of  learning  his  past  history.  He 
elopes  from  a  ball  with  the  beautiful  Anna  Stjarnhok,  but  they  are  pursued  by  wolves, 
and  being  convinced  that  the  powers  of  evil  are  following  them  he  drives  her  to  the 
family  of  her  betrothed  whom  she  was  about  to  forsake.  The  capricious  Marianne 
Sinclair  next  stirs  his  heart,  and  having  brought  down  her  father's  wrath  by  making 
love  to  her  at  a  ball  he  finds  her  shut  out  of  her  own  home  on  a  winter's  night.  He 
rescues  her  and  carries  her  to  Ekeby,  where  she  is  betrothed  to  him,  but  on  her  re- 
turning to  her  father's  house  without  leaving  him  a  message  Gosta  Berling  repudiates 
her  and  declares  his  love  dead.  He  is  befriended  by  the  young  countess  Elizabeth; 
wife  of  the  stupid  Henrik  Dohna,  and  becomes  her  abject  slave,  but  does  not  presume 
to  lift  his  eyes  to  her  whom  he  regards  as  an  angelic  being;  he  is  unjustly  accused  of 
making  love  to  her,  and  she  is  finally  driven  from  her  home  by  her  jealous  mother-in- 
law  and  enraged  husband.  After  much  suffering  she  and  Gosta  Berling  are  at  last 
united,  the  countess  having  previously  been  cast  off  by  her  husband  and  her  marriage 
with  him  annulled.  Having  left  behind  them  the  hollow  joys  of  wealth  and  luxury 
the  couple  begin  a  new  life  dedicated  to  the  welfare  of  their  fellow  beings.  The  book 
contains  many  vivid  character  studies  and  powerful  descriptions  of  the  mingling  of 
the  elements  with  the  passions  of  men. 

STORY  OF  MARGARET  KENT,  THE,  by  Ellen  Olney  Kirk.  This  book  was  pub- 
lished in  1886,  under  the  signature  of  Henry  Hayes.  The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid 
in  New  York,  where  Margaret  Kent,  an  able  and  fascinating  woman,  is  supporting 
herself  and  her  little  daughter  by  means  of  her  pen.  At  a  very  early  age  she  has 
married  a  man  who  has  proved  to  be  weak  and  a  spendthrift ;  and  who,  after  dissipat- 


8 12  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

ing  both  their  fortunes,  had  left  her,  six  years  before  the  story  opens,  to  go  to  South 
America.  From  the  time  when  Margaret  establishes  herself  in  the  city,  the  story 
concerns  itself  with  the  suitors  who  suppose  her  to  be  a  widow,  and  with  the  sudden 
complications  introduced  into  her  life  by  a  rumor  that  she  is  playing  a  false  part  and 
is  not  free. 

The  story  is  well  told,  and  full  of  grace  and  color.  The  character  of  Margaret  is 
distinctly  portrayed;  while  the  dry  speeches  of  Miss  Longs taff,  the  quaintness  of 
little  Gladys,  and  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Bell,  Margaret's  elderly  admirer,  afford  interest- 
ing passages. 

STORY  OF  THE  C.  W.  S.,  THE,  by  Percy  Redfern  (1913).  This  jubilee  history  of 
the  Co-operative  Wholesale  Society  (1863-1913)  is  a  fully  documented  record  of  an 
organization  which  has  grown  from  the  humblest  beginnings  till  it  has  become  a  huge 
trading  concern  with  an  annual  turn-over  (in  1912)  of  more  than  750  million  dollars. 
The  aim  of  the  English  co-operative  pioneers  was  to  establish  a  system  of  mutual 
shop-keeping  by  which  the  customers  estimate  their  own  demand,  provide  their  own 
store  from  which  to  supply  it,  and  retain  for  themselves  what  otherwise  would  be 
"profit, "  but  is  in  this  case  a  saving  upon  a  domestic  business  conducted  within  the 
consumers'  own  circle  or  club.  In  addition  the  Pioneers  hoped  that  eventually  the 
control  of  industry  would  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  working  class.  The  student  of 
political  development  in  democratic  countries  cannot  afford  to  neglect  the  growth  of 
working-class  organizations  like  the  British  co-operative  societies,  which  besides  their 
economic  effects  upon  the  life  of  the  nation,  have  been  a  training  in  affairs  and  in 
citizenship  for  large  numbers  of  the  population.  Moreover,  the  example  of  the  British 
co-operative  societies,  like  the  wholesale,  which  now  engage  not  only  in  many  forms 
of  production  but  in  banking  and  insurance,  is  being  copied  by  other  countries.  The 
book  is  clearly  and  candidly  written  and  abounds  in  photographic  illustrations  of  the 
prominent  activities  or  personalities  of  the  society. 

STORY  OP  THE  HEAVENS,  THE  (1894),  by  Sir  Robert  S.  Ball,  professor  of  astron- 
omy in  the  English  University  of  Cambridge. 

This  large  work,  revised  to  represent  recent  progress,  brings  within  a  single 
volume  all  the  principal  facts  of  the  magnificent  story  of  the  sun  and  moon,  the 
solar  system,  the  laws  which  rule  it,  the  planets  of  our  system,  their  satellites, 
the  minor  planets,  comets,  and  shooting  stars;  and  the  vast  depths  of  the  uni- 
verse filled  with  suns  which  we  see  as  stars.  The  special  questions  of  the  star- 
land  known  by  the  telescope  and  the  spectroscope  are  all  carefully  treated. 
Ball  wrote  many  other  works  on  astronomy  and  was  the  acknowledged  authority 
of  his  time. 

STOWE,  HARRIET  BEECHER,  LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF,  by  Annie  Fields,  ap- 
peared in  1897.  It  is  the  best  life  of  the  author:  Written  in  a  most  entertaining 
style,  with  just  enough  of  personal  reminiscence  and  anecdote  to  quicken  interest, 
it  is  a  discreet  and  satisfying  biography.  The  reader  comes  into  closer  acquaintance 
with  Mrs.  Stowe  in  the  perusal  of  her  letters,  of  which  Mrs.  Fields  has  made  wise 
and  varied  selection.  Living  through,  and  herself  so  potential  a  factor  in,  the  days 
of  the  anti-slavery  movement,  Airs.  Stowe  naturally  was  in  more  or  less  intimate 
correspondence  with  the  reformers,  agitators,  statesmen,  clergymen,  and  litterateurs 
of  her  own  stormy  era.  The  selections  made  from  this  correspondence  form  most 
interesting  reading,  and  add  greatly  to  the  value  of  the  biography. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  813 

STRANGE  STORY,  A,  a  novel  by  Bulwer-Lytton  (1862),  deals  with  that  order  of 
occult  phenomena  which  includes  mesmerism,  hypnotism,  clairvoyance,  and  ghost- 
seeing.  The  story  is  told  by  one  Dr.  Fenwick.  His  professional  rival  in  the  town  in 
which  he  settles  is  a  Dr.  Lloyd.  He  comes  into  direct  opposition  to  him  when  the 
latter  becomes  a  disciple  of  Mesmer,  and  seeks  to  heal  the  sick  by  mesmeric  influence. 
Fenwick  directs  a  vigorous  pamphlet  against  Lloyd's  pretensions,  treating  the  whole 
matter  as  child's-play,  beneath  the  notice  of  science.  On  his  death-bed  Lloyd  sends 
for  Fenwick,  accuses  him  of  having  ruined  him  by  his  attacks,  and  intimates  that  he 
will  be  forced  to  acknowledge  the  existence  of  supernatural  forces.  The  narrative 
that  follows  relates  the  fulfillment  of  Lloyd's  dying  threat.  Curious  occurrences 
force  Fenwick  into  the  consideration  of  occult  phenomena.  He  becomes  at  last  a 
believer  in  the  existence  and  power  of  unseen  forces.  'A  Strange  Story'  combines 
romance  with  science,  scholarship  with  mysticism.  It  is  one  of  the  most  fascinating 
embodiments  in  fiction  of  the  occult  philosophy. 

STRENUOUS  LIFE,  THE,  by  Theodore  Roosevelt  (1900).  This  is  a  collection 
of  thirteen  essays  and  addresses  on  various  subjects.  The  book  takes  its  title 
from  the  first  of  the  series,  which  is  an  exposition  of  that  ideal  of  character  and 
that  theory  of  life  of  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  himself  is  such  a  conspicuous  example. 
Two  of  the  papers  are  admiring  biographical  studies  of  Grant  and  Dewey  and  the 
others  are  along  ethical,  political,  and  civic  lines.  One  essay  on  'The  American  Boy' 
contains  much  in  the  way  of  valuable  suggestions  and  advice.  The  author  tells  the 
youth  that  if  he  would  turn  out  a  good  American,  he  must  not  be  a  coward  or  a  bally, 
a  shirk  or  a  prig.  He  must  work  hard  and  play  hard,  be  clean-minded  and  clean- 
lived,  and  able  to  hold  his  own  under  all  circumstances.  The  following  quotation 
perhaps  gives  the  key  to  the  sentiment  which  runs  through  the  book:  "I  wish, "  says 
the  author,  "to  preach  that  highest  form  of  success  which  comes,  not  to  the  man  who 
desires  mere  easy  peace,  but  to  the  man  who  does  not  shrink  from  danger,  from  hard- 
ship, or  from  bitter  toil,  and  who,  out  of  these,  wins  the  splendid  ultimate  triumph." 
Among  the  subjects  ably  treated  are  "Expansion  and  Peace,"  "Civic  Helpfulness," 
"Character  and  Success"  and  "Military  Preparedness  and  Unpreparedness. " 

STRIFE,  by  John  Galsworthy  (1909).  The  conflict  in  this  drama  is  between  capital 
and  labor.  A  strike  has  been  in  progress  at  the  Trengartha  Tin  Plate  Works  for 
months,  until  the  men  and  their  wives  and  children  are  starving,  and  the  corporation 
is  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy.  Both  sides  are  disheartened,  and  ready  for  compro- 
mise, but  the  strike  is  prolonged  by  fanatical  leaders  who  represent  the  extreme  types 
of  capital  and  labor.  David  Roberts,  leader  of  the  strikers,  has  a  grievance  against 
the  company  because  it  has  underpaid  him  for  a  valuable  invention,  but  he  is  fighting 
not  for  himself,  or  even  for  the  other  strikers,  but  for  the  future  against  the  master, 
Capital,  beating  the  life  out  of  Labor.  His  demands  are  excessive,  and  he  has  therefore 
lost  the  support  of  the  trade  union,  which  represents  the  spirit  of  compromise.  The 
directors  are  led  by  John  Anthony,  the  founder  of  the  company,  and  for  thirty-two 
years  its  president.  He  is  determined  to  fight  and  win,  as  he  has  so  often  fought  and 
always  won.  To  the  remonstrances  of  his  son  and  daughter,  who  sympathize  with 
the  men,  and  to  the  timid  expostulations  of  the  directors  who,  like  the  strikers,  are 
fighting  only  for  the  welfare  of  themselves  and  their  families,  he  replies  in  terms  of  the 
future.  Capital  and  Labor  are  at  war,  and  the  defeat  of  Capital  means  mob  govern- 
ment. Every  concession  will  be  but  the  prelude  to  more  extravagant  demands. 
The  second  act  reveals  in  one  scene  the  sufferings  of  the  women  and  in  another  scene 


8 14  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

tne  turbulent  disaffection  of  the  men.  Roberts,  in  a  fiery  speech,  has  won  the  strikers 
over  to  the  side  of  strife,  when  news  is  brought  to  him  that  his  wife  has  died  of  her 
enforced  privations.  The  meeting,  bereft  of  his  presence  at  the  crucial  moment,  votes 
for  conciliation.  The  last  act  shows  John  Anthony  voted  down  by  his  directors  and 
forced  to  resign  the  presidency  of  the  company.  The  secretary  of  the  corporation 
and  the  union  leader  discover  that  the  terms  of  settlement  are  identical  with  the  ones 
offered  at  the  beginning  of  the  fight  so  that  nothing  has  been  gained  by  either  side, 
through  all  the  months  of  strife  and  misery  and  economic  waste,  except  that  the  best 
man  of  each  side  has  been  broken  irretrievably.  The  author  conceives  the  leader  of 
capital  in  as  generous  a  spirit,  and  in  as  true  a  light  as  the  leader  of  labor,  great  figures, 
worthy  of  each  other's  steel,  akin  to  each  other,  towering  head  and  shoulders  above 
the  men  who  desert  and  betray  them. 

STRINGTOWN  ON  THE  PIKE,  by  John  Uri  Lloyd  (i  909) .  In  this  story  the  author 
describes  the  inhabitants  of  the  rolling  land  which  lies  between  the  Ohio  and  Kentucky 
rivers.  The  Stringtown  people  are  a  rugged,  narrow  folk,  suspicious  in  their  inter- 
course with  strangers,  yet  at  heart  loyal  and  sturdy.  The  story  opens  with  a  curious 
maze  of  negro-lore,  and  Cupe,  an  old  darky  living  with  his  wife  in  a  cabin  on  the  out- 
skirts of  Stringtown,  foretells  in  a  mysterious  way  the  events  which  are  to  follow. 
Cupe's  master,  the  Corn  Bug,  a  social  pariah,  ignorant  and  steeped  in  debauchery, 
comes  into  possession  of  certain  papers,  which  establish  his  claim  to  all  the  region 
about  Stringtown.  The  papers  are  submitted  to  Judge  Elford,  who  officially  ex- 
presses the  opinion  that  the  claim  if  pressed  would  be  almost  certain  of  success,  and 
that  the  land  would  revert  to  the  drunkard.  It  is  then  that  the  Corn  Bug,  rising  to  a 
fine  height,  burns  the  papers  and  goes  back  to  his  life  of  privation  and  hardship. 
The  romance  of  the  tale  centres  about  Susie  Manley  and  her  lover  Samuel  Drew,  who, 
after  an  absence  of  some  years,  returns  to  be  professor  of  chemistry  in  the  University 
on  the  Hill.  The  character  of  the  Red  Head  Boy  is  drawn  in  direct  contrast  to  that 
of  his  rival  and  foe,  Drew.  He  is  a  combination  of  generosity  and  maliciousness  and 
forms  the  dominating  influence  in  the  story.  Mr.  Nordman,  the  uncle  of  Red  Head, 
has  died  under  suspicious  circumstances,  and  his  nephew  is  charged  with  the  murder. 
Drew  accepts  the  invitation  to  testify  as  a  chemical  expert  in  the  case,  and  on  his 
evidence,  which  is  based  upon  an  error,  the  prisoner  is  sentenced  to  death  upon  the 
gallows.  He  is  not  however  allowed  to  be  unjustly  executed. 

STUDENT'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PARLIAMENT,  see  ENGLISH 
CONSTITUTION,  by  Walter  Bagehot. 

STUDIES  NEW  AND  OLD  IN  ETHICAL  AND  SOCIAL  SUBJECTS,  by  P.  P. 
Cobbe,  see  ETHICAL  etc. 

STUDIES  OF  THE  GREEK  POETS,  by  J.  A.  Symonds,  see  GREEK  etc. 

STUDIES  ON  HOMER  AND  THE  HOMERIC  AGE,  by  W.  E.  Gladstone,  see 
HOMER. 

SUBJECTION  OF  WOMEN,  THE,  by  John  Stuart  Mill  (1869).  An  able  essay 
designed  to  explain  the  grounds  of  the  early  and  strong  twofold  conviction:  (i),  that 
the  principle  of  woman's  legal  subordination  to  man  is  wrong  in  itself,  and  is  now  one 
of  the  chief  hindrances  to  human  improvement;  and  (2)  that  it  ought  to  be  replaced 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  815 

bv  a  principle  of  perfect  equality,  placing  no  disability  upon  woman,  and  giving  no 
exclusive  power  or  privilege  to  man.  After  reviewing  the  conditions  which  the  laws 
of  all  countries  annex  to  the  marriage  contract,  Mill  carefully  discusses  the  right  of 
woman  to  be  equal  with  man  in  the  family,  and  her  further  right  to  equal  admission 
with  him  to  all  the  functions  and  occupations  hitherto  reserved  to  men.  He  concludes 
with  a  strong  chapter  on  the  justice,  mercy,  and  general  beneficence,  of  a  social  order 
from  which  the  slavery  of  woman  shall  have  entirely  disappeared. 

SUNKEN  BELL,  THE,  by  Gerhart  Hauptmann  (1896).  A  romantic  fairy  drama 
staged  in  the  German  forest.  Heinrich,  the  artist,  has  cast  a  wonderful  bell.  The 
mischievous  wood  spirits  loosen  a  spoke  of  the  wheel  in  the  wagon  carrying  the  bell 
to  the  church,  and  the  bell  crashes  down  the  mountain  side  into  the  lake.  The 
master  bell-founder  pursues  his  bell,  and  Rautendelein,  the  nymph,  finds  him  lying 
half-dead  in  the  woods.  He  is  carried  home  in  delirium  by  the  villagers.  Rauten- 
delein has  fallen  in  love  with  him  and  for  her  sake  he  leaves  his  wife  and  children  to 
follow  her  up  the  mountain.  With  her  help  and  the  dwarfs  he  sets  to  work  making 
a  new  and  more  wonderful  bell.  The  pastor  climbs  the  mountain  to  rebuke  Heinrich 
and  persuade  him  to  return  to  his  home.  Heinrich  answers  him  with  his  vision  of  the 
perfect  bell,  not  designed  for  a  church  but  all  humanity,  and  his  worship  of  the  Sun 
as  the  symbol  of  Nature.  The  artist  reaches  his  ideal  on  the  height,  but  his  humanity 
forces  him  to  descend  to  the  plain.  His  forsaken  wife,  Magda,  throws  herself  into 
the  lake,  and  he  hears  the  bell  at  the  bottom  of  the  lake  rung  by  her  dead  hand.  His 
children  appear  to  him  carrying  an  urn  filled  with  their  mother's  tears.  He  curses 
the  lovely  Rautendelein  and  goes  back  to  the  world  of  men.  He  finds  no  peace,  and 
returns  to  the  mountain,  but  Rautendelein  in  her  despair  has  parted  with  her  human- 
ity and  become  the  sad  bride  of  the  frog  king.  She  rises  out  of  the  well  to  bring" her 
lost  lover  the  goblet  of  death,  which  Heinrich  demands. 

SUPERSTITION  AND  FORCE,  by  H.  C.  Lea  (1866).  A  volume  of  learned  and 
interesting  essays  on  certain  subjects  of  special  importance  in  the  history  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  They  are:  'The  Wager  of  Battle,'  'The  Wager  of  Law,'  'The  Ordeal,' 
and  'Torture.'  The  writer  treats  of  them  as  'Methods  of  Administering  Injustice.' 

SURGEON'S  STORIES,  THE,  by  Zakarias  Topelius  (1872-74).  Topelius  was  a 
Finn;  and  his  wonderful  series  of  historical  tales,  although  written  originally  in 
Swedish,  exploit  the  fortunes  of  a  Finnish  family  for  six  generations,  from  1631  to  the 
latter  part  of  the  last  century.  The  stories  are  ostensibly  related  by  Andreas  Back, 
a  quack  doctor,  whose  career  is  humorously  set  forth  in  the  introduction,  and  whose 
characteristics  are  portrayed  in  the  prelude  to  each  cycle  of  tales.  He  was  born  on 
the  same  day  as  Napoleon.  According  to  his  own  account  he  had  saved  the  Swedish 
fleet,  and  the  lives  of  Gustavus  III.  and  Arnfelt  (or  he  would  have  done  so  had  they 
listened  to  him) ;  he  had  been  granted  an  audience  with  Bonaparte,  and  had  pulled  a 
tooth  for  Suvorof ;  and  he  liked  to  relate  his  experiences  with  just  a  tinge  of  boastful- 
ness,  but  when  he  was  once  started  on  his  narrations  he  quite  forgot  himself,  and  was 
carried  away  by  the  exciting  events  of  the  past.  It  was  his  pleasure  to  gather  around 
him  in  his  dusty  attic  a  little  bank  of  listeners;  —  we  see  them  all,  the  postmaster 
and  the  old  grandmother  and  the  schoolmaster  and  the  rest.  "His  memory," 
says  his  chronicler,  "was  inexhaustible;  and  as  the  old  proverb  says  that  even  the 
wild  stream  does  not  let  its  waves  flow  by  all  at  once,  so  had  the  surgeon  also  a 
continually  new  stock  of  stories,  partly  from  his  own  time,  and  still  more  from 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

periods  that  had  long  since  passed.  He  had  not  a  wide  historical  knowledge;  his 
tales  were  desultory  character-sketches  rather  than  coherent  description:  .  .  .  what 
he  had  was  fidelity,  warm  feeling,  and  above  all,  a  power  of  vivid  delineation. " 
The  connection  between  the  fifteen  stories  that  make  up  the  six  volumes  is  main- 
tained by  a  copper  ring  with  runic  inscriptions,  which  is  first  seen  on  the  finger  of 
Gustavus  Adolphus,  and  is  popularly  supposed  to  protect  him  so  long  as  he  wears  it, 
from  iron  and  lead,  fire  and  water.  This  ring  he  had  received  from  a  Finnish  maiden  ; 
and  it  is  his  son  by  this  Finnish  maiden  who  founds  the  family  of  Bertelskjold,  in 
whose  possession  the  amulet  descends  with  many  adventures  through  generation 
after  generation.  The  titles  of  the  six  cycles  hint  at  the  chronological  development: 
Times  of  Gustavus  Adolphus;  Times  of  Battle  and  Rest  (1656-97) ;  Times  of  Charles 
XII. ;  Times  of  Frederick  I.;  Times  of  Linnseus;  Times  of  Alchemy.  These  stories, 
with  their  vivid  descriptions,  their  wonderful  pictures  of  battle  and  intrigue,  their 
rose-colored  touches  of  romance,  take  rank  among  the  ablest  works  of  historical 
fiction. 

SWISS  FAMILY  ROBINSON,  THE,  or  Adventures  in  a  Desert  Island,  by  J.  R. 
Wyss  (1813).  This  book  was  originally  written  in  German,  was  translated  into 
French,  and  afterwards  into  English.  It  is  an  entertaining  tale  written  for  young 
people,  after  the  style  of  '  Robinson  Crusoe, '  from  which  the  author  is  supposed  to 
have  derived  many  of  his  ideas.  It  deals  with  the  experiences  of  a  shipwrecked 
family,  a  Swiss  clergyman,  his  wife  and  four  sons,  who,  deserted  by  the  captain  and 
the  crew  of  the  vessel  on  which  they  are  passengers,  finally  reach  land  in  safety. 
They  exhibit  wonderful  ingenuity  in  the  use  they  make  of  everything  which  comes 
to  hand,  and  manage  to  subsist  on  what  articles  of  food  they  find  on  the  island, 
combined  with  the  edibles  which  they  are  able  to  rescue  from  the  ship.  They  have 
various  experiences  with  wild  beasts  and  reptiles,  but  emerge  from  all  encounters  in 
safety.  They  build  a  very  remarkable  habitation  in  a  large  tree,  which  is  reached 
by  means  of  a  hidden  staircase  in  the  trunk;  and  in  this  retreat  they  are  secure  from 
the  attacks  of  ferocious  animals.  They  continue  to  thrive  and  prosper  for  several 
years,  until  finally  a  ship  touches  at  the  island,  and  they  are  once  again  enabled  to 
communicate  with  the  mainland.  By  this  time,  however,  they  are  so  well  pleased 
with  their  primitive  life  that  they  refuse  to  leave  the  island  home.  The  story  was 
left  in  an  unfinished  condition  by  the  author,  but  several  sequels  to  it  have  been 
written,  all  of  which  vary  in  their  accounts  of  the  doings  of  this  interesting  family. 
The  book  has  long  enjoyed  a  well-deserved  popularity,  and  in  spite  of  various  ana- 
chronisms is  enjoyable  and  entertaining  reading. 

SYMBOLIST  MOVEMENT  IN  LITERATURE,  THE,  a  volume  of  critical  essays 
by  Arthur  Symons,  published  in  1899.  In  the  introduction,  symbolism  is  defined  as 
"a  form  of  expression,  at  the  best  but  approximate,  essentially  but  arbitrary,  until  it 
has  obtained  the  force  of  a  convention,  for  an  unseen  reality  apprehended  by  the 
consciousness";  or  in  the  words  of  another  writer,  "A  symbol  might  be  defined  as  a 
representation  which  does  not  aim  at  being  a  reproduction. "  The  author  then  goes 
on  to  explain  the  rise  of  the  conscious  symbolist  movement  at  the  close  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  as  a  reaction  from  the  realistic  school  —  Flaubert,  the  Goncourts, 
Zola,  Leconte  de  Lisle,  de  H&Sdia  —  who  aimed  at  the  exact  representation  of  the 
visible  world  in  impeccable  style.  Putting  aside  this  love  of  pictorial  description,  this 
rhetorical  finish,  this  materialistic  point  of  view,  the  symbolists  strive  by  means  of 
suggestion,  and  association  to  convey  a  sense  of  that  spiritual  presence  which 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  817 

apprehend  as  underlying  all  appearances.  The  first  thorough  symbolist,  though  ante- 
rior to  the  rise  of  the  school/was  Gerard  de  Nerval  (1808-1854).  An  erratic  and  bohe- 
mian  genius,  he  suffered  from  attacks  of  madness,  the  abnormal  mental  associations 
of  which  suggested  to  him  new  and  startling  combinations  of  ideas  and  quick- 
ened his  power  of  using  words  to  evoke  feelings  and  sentiments  impossible  to  com- 
municate directly.  His  sonnets  are  the  first  examples  of  symbolism.  Count  Villers 
de  Tlsle  Adam  (1838-1889),  noted  for  his  pride  of  race,  his  Catholicism,  his  admira- 
tion of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  his  hostility  to  modern  science,  was  an  early  symbolist, 
whose  brilliant  dramas,  novels,  and  satires  gathered  about  him  a  group  of  admiring 
younger  men.  Arthur  Rimbauld  (1854-1891),  vagabond,  adventurer,  successful 
Eastern  trader  and  explorer,  was  a  poet  at  seventeen.  His  poems  are  few  but  startling, 
full  of  the  wildest  combinations  of  imagery  and  the  most  unexpected  identifications 
of  incongruous  ideas.  A  curious  sonnet  in  which  he  assigns  a  color-value  and  a  set 
of  associations  to  each  of  the  vowels  illustrates  that  blending  of  different  sensations 
and  ideas  which  is  characteristic  of  the  symbolists  and  often  seems  akin  to  madness. 
There  is  a  fine  essay  on  Paul  Verlaine,  skilfully  interpreting  his  moral  instability, 
sensitiveness  to  beauty,  physical  and  spiritual,  alternation  between  sensuality  and 
religious  sentiment,  mystical  insight,  and  preference  of  the  suggestive  to  the  rhetorical. 
Jules  Laforgue  (i  860-1887)  is  the  satirist  of  the  group,  writing  with  a  half -sad,  half- 
amused  irony  in  a  precise  yet  colloquial  style.  Stephane  Mallarme',  whom  Symons 
knew  intimately,  left  an  interesting  account  of  his  poetic  procedure.  Having  in 
mind  a  certain  effect  of  mystery,  for  example  the  silence  of  the  forest,  he  would 
concentrate  on  this  effect  until  words  spontaneously  presented  themselves,  which  he 
would  afterwards  revise,  so  that  the  colors  and  the  notes  suggested  would  be  abso- 
lutely in  harmony  with  the  impression  to  be  produced;  but  logical  consistency  and 
coherence  were  neglected.  The  pictorial  symbolism  of  Huysmans,  a  master  of  gothic 
word-painting,  and  the  mystical  symbolism  of  Maeterlinck  are  then  illustrated.  In 
the  '  Conclusion '  the  author  contends  that  mysticism,  the  faith  of  the  symbolist,  is 
the  surest  remedy  for  the  despair  which  comes  with  a  sense  of  life's  transiency.  No 
better  interpreter  of  the  symbolists  could  be  found  than  Arthur  Symons,  who  had 
personal  friendship  with  many  of  them,  enthusiastic  appreciation  of  their  work, 
admirable  critical  discrimination,  and  an  eminently  readable  style. 

SYNNOVE  SOLBAKKEN,  by  Bjornstjerne  Bjornson.  This  story,  which  was  the 
first  to  reveal  to  the  world  at  large  the  genius  of  the  author,  was  brought  out  in  1857, 
in  a  Norwegian  newspaper,  and  was  not  translated  into  English  until  1870,  although 
it  had  previously  appeared  in  French,  German,  Spanish,  and  Russian.  The  scene 
of  the  narrative  is  laid  among  the  Norwegian  hills,  which  are  minutely  and  pictur- 
esquely described.  Synn6ve,  the  daughter  of  a  well-to-do  farmer,  is  a  pretty  and 
charming  girl,  idolized  by  her  parents  and  beloved  by  all  who  know  her.  She  loves  her 
early  friend  and  schoolmate  Thorb  jorn  Granliden,  who  is  generally  considered  a  rough 
and  vindictive  fellow.  He  is  the  son  of  worthy  parents,  but  his  father,  by  over-severity 
towards  him  in  his  childhood,  has  inculcated  in  him  the  very  traits  he  has  endeavored 
to  overcome,  and  Thoibjorn  grows  up  aggressive  and  reticent.  He  is  deeply  in  love 
with  Synnove",  but  does  not  dare  to  confess  his  feelings  to  her  family;  nor  does  she 
allow  him  to  visit  her,  on  account  of  the  reputation  in  which  he  is  held.  He  finally 
promises  her  he  will  mend  his  ways  and  become  more  respected,  when  he  uninten- 
tionally becomes  entangled  in  a  brawl,  and  is  stabbed  and  seriously  wounded.  This 
catastrophe  causes  a  change  in  him  for  the  better;  and  by  the  time  of  his  recovery  he 
is  much  softened  and  improved.  His  father  at  the  time  of  his  son's  illness  realize 
52 


8i8  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

how  deep  his  affection  is  for  him,  and  a  reconciliation  takes  place  between  them  which 
is  the  beginning  of  their  final  understanding  of  each  other.  After  his  return  to  health, 
his  father  goes  with  him  to  Solbakken  and  asks  for  the  hand  of  Synnovd  in  marriage, 
which  is  granted  by  her  parents.  The  story  has  been  called  one  of  Bjornson's  master- 
pieces; and  shows  his  fine  perception  of  human  nature,  and  his  skill  in  revealing  the 
traits  and  characteristics  of  the  peasantry  of  his  native  country.  The  development 
of  the  savage  beauty  of  Thorbjorn's  character,  and  the  strong  scene  at  the  church 
door,  where  he  becomes  reconciled  to  his  former  enemy,  show  the  marvelous  power 
of  the  author. 

TABLE  TALK,  or,  ORIGINAL  ESSAYS,  by  William  Hazlitt,  was  originally  published 
in  two  volumes,  the  first  in  1821  and  the  second  in  1822.  Among  its  thirty-three 
essays  may  be  mentioned  'On  the  Pleasures  of  Painting,'  which  sets  forth  with  the 
author's  usual  romantic  gusto  the  delights  of  the  artist  both  in  observation  and  in 
creation;  Hazlitt 's  personal  interest  in  art  also  appears  in  the  essays  on  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds 's  '  Discourses  on  Painting '  and  on  a  landscape  by  Nicholas  Poussin.  In 
1  The  Indian  Jugglers '  he  contrasts  the  marvelous  perfection  attained  by  these  enter- 
tainers, by  rope-dancers,  and  by  professional  sportsmen  like  Cavanagh,  a  fives- 
player  of  his  acquaintance,  with  the  relative  inadequacy  of  the  work  of  painters, 
essayists,  and  poets;  yet  he  concludes  that  the  latter,  having  set  themselves  the  harder 
task,  are  worthy  of  greater  honor.  'On  Going  a  Journey*  reveals  Hazlitt's  fondness 
for  solitary  walking  and  for  the  comforts  of  good  food  and  a  snug  inn.  It  records 
the  luxurious  sentiment  with  which  he  recalled  the  surroundings  and  details  of  some 
roadside  meal  with  a  favorite  book  in  his  youthful  days.  A  number  of  the  essays  are 
on  the  usual  general  topics,  e.  g.,  '  On  Genius  and  Common  Sense/  '  On  Vulgarity  and 
Affectation/  These  are  treated  in  Hazlitt's  characteristic  sinewy  style,  with  an 
abundance  of  apt  quotations,  particularly  from  Shakespeare,  Spenser,  and  the  early 
dramatists,  and  not  infrequently  a  line  from  Wordsworth  or  Coleridge.  Dramatic 
criticism  is  represented  in  'Whether  Actors  Ought  to  Sit  in  the  Boxes'  (at  intervals 
during  the  performance)  —  a  question  answered  in  the  negative  because  the  practice 
destroys  illusion;  and  literary  criticism  appears  in  the  essays  on  'Familiar  Style'  and 
'Milton's  Sonnets.'  On  the  whole,  this  volume  is  pretty  broadly  representative  of 
Hazlitt's  personality  and  genius. 

TALE  OF  A  TUB,  A,  a  prose  satire  by  Jonathan  Swift,  written  about  1696  and 
published  in  1 704.  A  fifth  edition  with  the  author's  apology  and  with  notes  appeared 
in  1710.  Though  the  chief  topics  for  ridicule  are  the  bigotry  of  warring  religious 
sects  and  the  pedantry  of  dishonest  critics  the  satire  is  broader  in  its  scope  and  extends 
to  the  whole  of  human  life.  The  book  was  issued  anonymously  and  is  provided  with 
an  elaborate  machinery  of  apology,  dedications,  preface,  introduction,  digressions, 
and  conclusion.  The  apology,  prefixed  to  the  fifth  edition,  explains  the  circumstan- 
ces of  composition  and  defends  the  author  from  the  charge  of  irreverence.  The 
dedication  to  Lord  Somers  and  the  epistle  dedicatory  to  His  Royal  Highness,  Prince 
Posterity,  are  extremely  brilliant  satires  on  the  love  of  fame.  In  the  preface  the 
treatise  is  represented  as  an  empty  tub  thrown  to  the  Leviathan  of  skepticism  to  toss 
and  play  with  until  a  scheme  might  be  devised  to  check  its  dangerous  activities. 
(The  title  also  means  "a  cock  and  bull  story. ")  This  preface  also  ridicules  the  pro- 
fessed modesty  of  authors.  The  main  purpose  of  the  introduction  is  to  satirize 
oratory  under  the  three  heads  of  the  pulpit,  the  ladder,  and  the  theatre.  The  first 
digression  contrasts  the  true  critic,  who  detects  faults  and  the  false  critic  who  points 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  819 

out  his  own  excellences.  In  the  second,  Swift  attacks  Bentley  and  Wotton  the 
opponents  of  his  patron,  Sir  William  Temple,  in  the  controversy  as  to  the  relative 
merits  of  ancient  and  modern  writers.  Brilliant  pieces  of  satiric  writing  are  the 
*  Digression  in  Praise  of  Digressions,'  the  'Digression  concerning  Madness  in  a 
Commonwealth ' ;  and  in  the  conclusion  Swift  shows  his  literary  virtuosity  by  writing 
upon  nothing,  "when  the  subject  is  utterly  exhausted  to  let  the  pen  still  move  on. " 
In  the  main  body  of  the  book,  which  these  chapters  enclose  and  set  off,  the  corruptions 
of  the  ancient  church  and  the  fanaticism  of  the  Puritans  are  graphically  represented 
by  the  story  of  three  brothers,  who  inherit  from  their  father  three  suits  ot  clothes  and  a 
will  which  gives  directions  for  the  care  of  them.  The  clothes  represent  the  Christian 
faith  and  the  will  the  Scriptures.  After  seven  years  have  passed  (representing  the 
first  seven  Christian  centuries),  the  brothers  desire  to  adorn  their  suits  in  the  latest 
fashion:  and  in  spite  of  the  prohibitions  of  their  father's  will  they  contrive  to  torture 
it  into  a  justification  of  disobedience.  Peter,  the  eldest  brother,  who  takes  the  lead 
in  this  equivocation,  stands  for  the  Church  of  Rome,  which  justifies  the  use  of  images 
and  ceremonies  on  the  ground  of  expediency  and  tradition.  Later  he  makes  himself 
heir  of  a  wealthy  man  (the  donation  of  Constantine),  insists  on  homage  from  his 
brothers  (papal  supremacy),  and  develops  other  tyrannical  practices  which  in  a 
manner  more  vigorous  than  reverent  typify  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory,  auricular 
confession,  the  sale  of  indulgences,  the  use  of  holy- water,  the  issuing  of  papal  bulls, 
the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  and  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation.  At  length  the  two 
younger  brothers  rebel  against  Peter,  get  copies  of  their  father's  will  (translation  of 
the  Scriptures),  and  resolve  to  reform  their  procedure  (the  Reformation).  One  of 
them,  Martin  (the  Lutheran  and  Anglican  churches),  removes  some  of  the  ornaments 
from  his  clothes,  but  will  not  tear  them  all  off  lest  he  destroy  the  clothes  too.  The 
other,  Jack  (the  Calvinists  and  kindred  Protestant  sects),  passionately  rips  off  every 
decoration  (iconoclasm),  tears  and  spoils  his  clothes,  and  makes  his  father's  will  a 
fetich,  refusing  to  use  an  expression  which  does  not  occur  in  it  or  to  do  anything  which 
it  does  not  sanction  (bibliolatry).  He  founds  the  sect  of  the  ^Eolists,  or  believers  in 
mystic  inspiration,  Swift's  account  of  whom  is  a  savage  and  coarse  attack  upon  the 
enthusiasts  of  the  extremer  Puritan  bodies.  An  appendix  entitled  'The  History  of 
Martin '  traces  the  history  of  the  Church  of  England  from  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 
to  that  of  Queen  Anne  under  the  continued  employment  of  the  characters  of  Peter, 
Martin,  and  Jack.  In  pungency  of  style  and  exuberant  satiric  power  the  book  is 
unsurpassed. 

TALE  OF  TWO  CITIES,  A,  by  Charles  Dickens  (1859),  differs  essentially  from  all 
his  other  novels  in  style  and  manner  of  treatment.  Forster,  in  his  '  Life  of  Dickens, ' 
writes  that  "there  is  no  instance,  in  his  novels  excepting  this,  of  a  deliberate  and 
planned  departure  from  the  method  of  treatment  which  had  been  pre-eminently 
the  source  of  his  popularity  as  a  novelist."  To  rely  less  upon  character  than  upon 
incident,  and  to  resolve  that  his  actors  should  be  expressed  by  the  story  more  than 
they  should  express  themselves  by  dialogue,  v\ras  for  him  a  hazardous,  and  can  hardly 
be  called  an  entirely  successful,  experiment.  With  singular  dramatic  vivacity, 
much  constructive  art,  and  with  descriptive  passages  of  a  high  order  everywhere, 
there  was  probably  never  a  book  by  a  great  humorist,  and  an  artist  so  prolific  in 
conception,  with  so  little  humor  and  so  few  remarkable  figures.  Its  merit  lies  else- 
where. The  two  cities  are  London  and  Paris.  The  time  is  just  before  and  during 
the  French  Revolution.  A  peculiar  chain  of  events  knits  and  interweaves  the  lives 
of  a  "few  simple,  private  people'*  with  the  outbreak  of  a  terrible  public  event.  Dr. 


820  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Manette  has  been  a  prisoner  in  the  Bastille  for  eighteen  years,  languishing  there, 
as  did  so  many  others,  on  some  vague  unfounded  charge.  His  release  when  the  story 
opens,  his  restoration  to  his  daughter  Lucie,  the  trial  and  acquittal  of  one  Charles 
Darnay,  nephew  of  a  French  marquis,  on  a  charge  of  treason,  the  marriage  of  Lucie 
Manette  to  Darnay,  —  these  incidents  form  the  introduction  to  the  drama  of  blood 
which  is  to  follow.  Two  friends  of  the  Manette  family  complete  the  circle  of  im- 
portant characters:  Mr.  Lorry,  a  solicitor  of  a  very  ancient  London  firm,  and 
Sydney  Carton,  the  most  complete  gentleman  to  be  found  in  Dickens.  Carton  has 
wasted  his  talents,  leading  a  wild,  bohemian  existence  in  London.  The  one  garden 
spot  in  his  life  is  his  love  for  Lucie  Manette.  To  this  love  he  clings  as  a  drowning  man 
to  a  spar.  For  this  love  he  lays  down  his  life.  At  the  breaking  out  of  the  French 
Revolution,  Darnay  hastens  to  Paris  to  aid  an  old  family  servant  who  is  in  danger  of 
losing  his  life.  His  wife  and  his  father-in-law  follow  him.  Gradually  the  entire 
circle  of  friends,  including  Mr.  Lorry  and  Sidney  Carton,  find  themselves  in  the 
horrible  environment  of  the  Paris  of  the  Terror.  Darnay  himself  is  imprisoned  and 
condemned  to  death,  by  the  agency  of  a  wine-seller,  Defarge,  and  his  wife,  a  female 
impersonation  of  blood  and  war.  To  save  the  husband  of  ihe  woman  he  loves, 
Carton  by  strategy  takes  his  place  in  prison.  The  novel  closes  with  the  magnificent 
scene  where  Carton  goes  to  his  death  on  the  scaffold,  redeeming  a  worthless  life  by 
one  supreme  act  of  devotion.  Only  the  little  sewing-girl  in  the  death-cart  with  him 
knows  his  secret.  As  he  mounts  the  guillotine  there  rises  before  him  the  vision  of  a 
redeemed  and  renewed  Paris,  of  a  great  and  glorious  nation.  There  rise  before 
him  many  memories  and  many  dead  hopes  of  his  own  past  life,  but  in  his  heart  there 
is  the  serenity  of  triumph:  "It  is  a  far,  far  better  thing  that  I  do  than  I  have  ever 
done;  it  is  a  far,  far  better  rest  that  I  go  to  than  I  have  ever  known." 

TALES  FROM  SHAKESPEARE,  by  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb  (1807).  This  modest 
volume,  which  was  to  prove  Charles  Lamb's  first  literary  success,  was  written  at  the 
desire  of  William  Godwin,  as  one  of  a  series  of  children's  books  published  by  him. 
It  consists  of  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  transposed  into  narrative  form  —  the  comedies 
by  Alary  Lamb,  and  the  tragedies  by  Charles,  and  preserving  as  far  as  possible  the 
original  language  of  the  poet's  blank  verse.  Prepared  for  children,  its  entire  sim- 
plicity proved  an  added  charm  for  readers,  young  and  old.  The  scholarship  and  liter- 
ary taste  of  its  authors,  meanwhile,  could  but  produce  not  a  mere  prose  version  of  the 
plays  for  juvenile  amusement,  but  a  critical  introduction  to  the  study  of  Shakespeare, 
in  the  finest  sense. 

TALES  OF  A  TRAVELLER,  by  Washington  Irving  (1824),  is  a  delightful  medley 
of  humorous  and  tragic  elements.  The  genial  humorist  himself  declares  them  to 
be  '  'moral  tales, "  with  the  moral  "disguised  as  much  as  possible  by  sweets  and  spices. " 
Sometimes  sportive,  abounding  in  mockery  which  although  keen  is  never  bitter, 
they  are  again  weirdly  grotesque  or  horrible,  like  the  work  of  Poe  or  Hoffmann. 
Always  they  have  the  individual  flavor  and  easy  grace  characteristic  of  Irving. 
The  volume  is  divided  into  four  parts. 

In  the  first,  a  nervous  gentleman  and  his  friends,  guests  of  a  jovial  fox-hunting 
baronet  in  his  "ancient  rook-haunted  mansion,"  become  reminiscent  of  family 
ghost-stories  and  vie  with  each  other  in  wild  romances,  the  actors  in  which  cannot 
rest,  but  frighten  would-be  sleepers  from  their  former  haunts. 

In  Part  ii.f  Buckthorne,  ex-poor-devil  author  and  actor,  become  a  comfortable 
country  squire,  narrates  the  ups  and  downs  of  his  varied  career. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  821 

Part  iii.  is  a  succession  of  adventures  with  Italian  banditti,  recounted  by  a  group 
of  travelers  gathered  in  an  inn  at  Tarracina.  Among  them  is  a  pretty  Venetian  bride 
who  shudders  to  hear  of  the  wild  horde  infesting  the  Apennines,  always  ready  to 
attack  and  rob  defenseless  parties,  and  carry  them  off  in  the  hope  of  extorting  ransom. 
Another  and  more  incredulous  listener  is  a  young  Englishman,  whom  the  bride  dis- 
likes for  his  insensibility.  The  next  day  he  is  taught  a  practical  lesson  in  the  existence 
of  brigands;  and  by  rescuing  the  fair  Venetian  from  their  hands,  reverses  her  opinion 
of  him. 

In  Part  iv.,  Irving  collects  the  romantic  legends  concerning  Captain  Kidd  and 
his  fellow  buccaneers,  and  the  treasure  they  are  supposed  to  have  secreted  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Hellgate.  There  are  other  legends  too,  involving  the  compact 
with  the  Devil,  which  tradition  has  made  an  inevitable  condition  of  the  securing  of 
illegal  gains.  All  these  varied  scenes  of  England,  Italy,  and  America,  Irving  pre- 
sents in  happy  incidental  touches  which  never  clog  the  action  with  description,  yet 
leave  a  vivid  picture  with  the  reader. 

TALKS  TO  TEACHERS  ON  PSYCHOLOGY,  by  William  James  (1899).  The  aim 
of  these  addresses  is  to  make  teachers  conceive,  and,  if  possible,  reproduce  sympatheti- 
cally in  their  imagination,  the  mental  life  of  their  pupil  as  the  sort  of  active  unity 
which  he  himself  feels  it  to  be.  "Psychology, "  says  James,  "is  a  science,  and  teach- 
ing is  an  art,  and  sciences  never  generate  arts  directly  out  of  themselves.  An  inter- 
mediary inventive  mind  must  make  the  application,  by  using  its  originality.  To 
advance  to  that  result,  we  must  have  an  additional  endowment  altogether,  a  happy 
tact  and  ingenuity  to  tell  us  what  definite  things  to  say  and  do  when  the  pupil  is  before 
us."  The  professional  task  of  the  teacher  consists  mainly  in  "training  the  pupil  to 
behaviour,"  in  the  sense  of  the  widest  possible  fit  reaction  to  the  circumstances  into 
which  the  vicissitudes  of  life  may  lead  him.  Education  is  "the  organization  of  ac- 
quired habits  of  conduct  and  tendencies  to  behaviour."  There  is  no  reception  in  the 
mind  of  the  child  without  reaction,  and  no  impression  without  a  corresponding 
expression.  There  is  only  one  way  of  insuring  a  pupil's  interest  and  that  is  that  the 
teacher  before  beginning  to  talk  should  make  sure  that  the  scholar  has  something 
in  his  mind  to  attend  with.  Once  started,  the  subject  must  be  made  to  suggest  new 
aspects  of  itself  and  to  prompt  new  questions.  "I  cannot  but  think,"  the  author 
says  in  conclusion,  "that  to  apperceive  your  pupil  as  a  little  sensitive,  impulsive, 
associative,  and  reactive  organism,  partly  fated  and  partly  free,  will  lead  to  a  better 
intelligence  of  all  his  ways.  Understand  him,  then,  as  such  a  subtle  little  piece  of 
machinery,  and  if,  in  addition,  you  can  also  see  him  sub  specie  bom,  and  love  him  as 
well,  you  will  be  in  the  best  possible  position  for  becoming  perfect  teachers." 

TALMUD,  BABYLONIAN,  New  Edition  of  the.  English  Translation;  Original  Text 
Edited,  Fomaulaetd,  and  Punctuated:  by  Michael  L.  Rodkinson.  Revised  and  Cor- 
rected by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Isaac  M.  Wise,  President  Hebrew  Union  College,  Cincinnati, 
Ohio.  20  vols.  in  10  (1896-1903).  An  edition  in  English  translation  of  the  whole 
Talmud  thoroughly  cleared  of  confusion  and  corruption,  and  brought  into  a  read- 
able and  intelligible  form,  in  which  it  can  be  understood  in  its  vast  range  of  interest, 
and  judged  upon  its  real  merits  as  the  great  Jewish  encyclopaedia  of  religion,  ethics, 
education,  law,  history,  geography,  medicine,  mathematics,  and  in  fact  knowledge 
and  opinion  on  every  branch  of  thought  and  action.  Dr.  Wise  speaks  of  the  work 
as  "Rodkinson's  reconstruction  of  the  original  text  of  the  Talmud";  which  is  con- 
fessed to  have  been  in  a  very  bad  state,  from  irrelevant  matter  thrust  in  by  later 


822  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

hands  and  even  by  hostile  hands,  and  from  corruptions  such  as  works  existing  for 
ages  in  manuscript,  and  successively  copied  by  scribes  sometimes  careless  of  accuracy 
and  often  free  with  changes  or  additions,  are  liable  to.  Dr.  Rodkinson's  perfect 
mastery  of  the  Hebrew,  and  his  comprehensive  knowledge  of  the  true  Talmudical 
facts,  with  his  admirable  grasp  of  high  ideals,  and  confidence  that  they  are  the  ideals 
of  his  race  and  of  the  Talmud,  have  enabled  him  to  reconstruct  the  original  text  and 
to  give  a  clear  and  readable  rendering  of  it  in  English,  by  which  for. the  first  time  the 
Talmud  is  made  as  accessible  to  Anglo-Saxon  readers  as  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. In  his  representation,  "the  Talmud  is  not  a  commentary  on  the  Bible." 
It  is  not  a  body  of  dogma  to  be  enforced,  but  of  opinions  to  be  considered;  "not  the 
decisions,  but  the  debates,  of  the  leaders  of  the  people";  "not  a  compilation  of  fixed 
regulations,"  but  a  book  of  "liberty,  both  mental  and  religious,"  knowing  "no 
authority  but  conscience  and  reason."  The  extreme  freedom  of  suggestion  and 
statement  used  by  those  who  speak  in  it,  the  special  reasons  for  many  of  its  laws,  such 
as  the  desire  to  break  from  the  neck  of  the  people  the  yoke  of  the  priests,  and  the  vein 
of  humor  running  through  much  that  seems  most  objectionable,  are  insisted  on  by 
Dr.  Rodkinson  as  showing  that  "nothing  could  be  more  unfair,  nothing  more  unfortu- 
nate, than  to  adopt  the  prevailing  false  notions  about  this  ancient  encyclopaedia." 

Dr.  Rodkinson's  work  is  thus  not  only  a  definitive  English-Hebrew  Talmud,  for 
popular  reading  as  well  as  for  study  of  Jewish  lore  of  every  kind,  but  it  is  an  inter- 
pretation to  the  modern  mind  of  a  vast  monument  of  Hebrew  life  and  thought, 
the  value  of  which  cannot  be  exaggerated.  Vols.  i.  and  ii.  give  'Tract  Sabbath, '  in 
390  pages.  Vol.  iii.  gives  '  Tract  Erubin, '  of  250  pages,  in  which  are  embodied  the 
famous  Rabbinical  devices  for  getting  round  the  prohibitions  of  'Tract  Sabbath.' 
Vol.  iv.  has  '  Tract  Shekalim, '  which  is  all  about  a  sacred  half -shekel  tax,  paid  by 
ever}7  Israelite  at  twenty  years  of  age;  and  'Tract  Rosh  Hashana'  (or  New  Year), 
232  pages.  There  are  twelve  of  these  '  Tracts, '  forming  the  first  section  of  the  entire 
work,  called  'Moed'  (Festivals).  The  whole  of  Dr.  Rodkinson's  colossal  task  includes 
a  new  Hebrew  text;  some  parts  of  which,  to  fill  gaps  in  the  commentary  sections,  he 
has  himself  composed  from  materials  given  in  the  Palestinian  Talmud  or  in  Maimoni- 
des.  The  entire  work  is  sufficiently  advanced  to  make  its  early  completion  secure. 
The  reader  of  Dr.  Rodkinson's  own  writings  easily  recognizes  in  his  mastery  of  English 
style,  and  his  high  mental  and  ethical  qualifications,  ample  assurance  of  his  ability  to 
make  his  Reconstructed  Talmud  an  adequate  text-book  of  the  learning  and  the 
liberal  spirit  of  modern  Reformed  Judaism.  To  Christian  scholars,  teachers,  and 
students  of  liberal  spirit,  his  work  must  be  most  welcome. 

It  may  be  briefly  added  here  that  there  are  two  forms  of  the  Talmud;  namely, 
the  Babylonian  and  the  Palestinian.  There  first  grew  up  a  body  of  explanations 
and  supplementary  ordinances  called  Mishna,  or  teaching,  designed  to  mark  the 
application  of  Mosaic  law  or  to  supplement  it.  The  impulse  to  this  Mishnic  develop- 
ment began  in  Babylon,  during  the  exile  there;  it  dominated  the  return  to  Jerusalem 
under  Ezra;  and  it  was  brought  to  a  final  result  by  Rabbi  Jehudah  Hannasi,  about 
1 60  A.  D,  After  the  conclusion  of  the  Mishna,  there  grew  up  two  bodies  of  further 
explanation,  called  Gemara,  one  at  Babylon  and  the  other  in  Palestine.  The  Mishna 
thus  came  to  exist  in  three  greatly  differing  forms:  Mishna  by  itself,  and  Mishna  as 
embodied  with  Gemara  in  the  Talmud  of  Babylon  or  that  of  Palestine.  Dr.  Rodkinson 
deals  with  the  Babylonian  form  of  Mishna  and  Gemara. 

TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW,  THE  (first  printed  in  1623),  partly  by  Shakespeare  and 
partly  by  an  unknown  hand,  is  a  witty  comedy  of  intrigue,  founded  on  an  old  play 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  823 

about  "the  taming  of  the  shrew"  and  on  Ariosto's  'I  Suppositi';  and  is  preceded  by 
another  briefer  bit  of  dramatic  fun  (the  "induction")  on  a  different  topic,  — i.  e., 
how  a  drunken  tinker,  picked  up  on  a  heath  before  an  alehouse  by  a  lord  and  his 
huntsmen,  is  carried  unconscious  to  the  castle,  and  put  to  bed,  and  waited  on  by 
obsequious  servants,  treated  to  sumptuous  fare,  and  music,  and  perfumes,  and  told 
that  for  many  years  he  has  been  out  of  his  head,  and  imagining  that  he  was  a  poor 
tinker.     "What!  am  I  not  Christopher  Sly,  old  Sly's  son  of  Burton  Heath?  .  .  . 
ask  Marian  Racket,  the  fat  ale-wife  of  Wincot,  if  she  know  me  not."    At  length  this 
Sancho  Panza,  who  still  retains  his  fondness  for  small  ale,  sits  down  to  see  the  laughter- 
moving  comedy  'The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,'  enacted  for  his  sole  benefit  by  some  stroll- 
ing players.     The  brainless  sot  found  its  delicious  humor  dull;  not  so  the  public. 
Baptista,  a  rich  old  gentleman  of  Padua,  has  two  daughters.     The  fair  Katharina 
has  a  bit  of  a  devil  in  her,  is  curst  with  a  shrewish  temper ;  but  this  is  partly  due  to 
envy  of  the  good  fortune  of  the  mincing  artificial  beauty,  Bianca,  her  sister,  whose 
demure,  gentle  ways  make  the  men  mad  over  her.     Yet  Kate,  when  "tamed, ' '  proves 
after  all  to  be  the  best  wife.     The  other  gallants  will  none  of  her;  but  the  whimsical 
Petruchio  of  Verona  has  come  "to  wive  it  wealthily  in  Padua,"  and  nothing  daunted, 
wooes  and  wives  the  young  shrew  in  astonishing  fashion.     The  law  of  the  time  made 
the  wife  the  chattel  of  her  husband,  otherwise  even  Petruchio  might  have  failed.     His 
method  was  to  conquer  her  will  "to  kill  her  in  her  own  humor."     He  comes  very 
late  to  the  wedding,  clothed  like  a  scarecrow,  an  old  rusty  sword  by  his  side,  and  rid- 
ing a  sunken-backed  spavined  horse  with  rotten  saddle  and  bridle.     His  waggish 
man  Grumio  is  similarly  accoutred.      At  the  altar  he  gives  the  priest  a  terrible  box 
on  the  ear,  refuses  to  stay  to  the  wedding  dinner,  and  on  the  way  to  his  country- 
house  acts  like  a  madman.    Arrived  home,  he  storms  at  and  beats  the  servants, 
allows  Kate  not  a  morsel  of  food  for  two  days,  preaches  continence  to  her,  throws 
the  pillows  around  the  chamber,  and  raises  Cain  a-nights  generally  so  that  she  can 
get  no  sleep,  denies  her  the  bonnet  and  dress  the  tailor  has  brought,  and  so  manages 
things  as  to  seem  to  do  all  out  of  love  to  her  and  regard  for  her  health,  and  without 
once  losing  his  good-humor.     In  short  he  subdues  her,  breaks  her  will,  and  makes  his 
supreme ;  so  that  at  the  end  she  makes  a  speech  to  the  other  wives  about  the  duty  of 
obedience,  that  would  make  the  "new  woman"  of  our  time  smile  in  scorn.    Of 
Bianca 's  three  suitors  the  youngest,   Lucentio,  gets  the  prize  by  a  series  of  smart 
tricks.      Disguised  as  a  tutor  of  languages  he  gets  her  love  as  they  study,  while  his 
rivals,  "like  a  gemini  of  baboons, "  blow  their  nails  out  in  the  cold  and  whistle.     Lu- 
centio at  the  very  start  gets  his  servant  Tranio  to  personate  himself,  and  an  old 
pedant  is  hired  to  stand  for  his  father;  and  while  Baptista,  the  father  of  Bianca, 
is  gone  to  arrange  for  the  dower  with  this  precious  pair  of  humbugs,  Lucentio  and  his 
sweetheart  run  off  to  church  and  get  married.     The  arrival  of  the  real  father  of 
Lucentio  makes  the  plot  crackle  with  life  and  sensation. 

XANTE,  by  Anne  Douglas  Sedgwick  (1911).  This  is  the  story  of  the  part  played 
by  Madame  Okraska,  a  great  pianist  and  musical  genius,  in  the  life  of  her  ward 
Karen  Woodruff  and  the  latter's  husband  Gregory  Jardine,  a  well-to-do  barrister. 
While  for  the  first  time  listening  to  the  celebrated  pianist,  Jardine 's  interest  is  awak- 
ened in  a  charming  young  girl  who  follows  every  movement  of  the  musician  with 
absorbed  attention,  and  who  proves  to  be  Madame  Okraska 's  ward.  He  subse- 
quently meets  her  at  the  home  of  a  mutual  friend,  where  Madame  Okraska  (called 
by  her  ward  "Tante")  is  receiving  a  throng  of  devotees,  and  where  Jardine  awakens 
the  antipathy  of  the  elder  woman  by  his  failure  to  accord  her  the  admiration  she 


824  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

exacts  from  all.  Tante  goes  on  a  tour  to  America  leaving  her  ward  to  vegetate  in  the 
country  with  Mrs.  Talcott,  an  elderly  retainer.  Here,  Jardine  wooes  and  wins  the 
unusual  girl  who  has  been  brought  up  in  an  unconventional  world  wholly  apart  from 
his  own  social  standards.  Although  loving  and  docile,  Karen  is  obdurate  at  any 
suggestion  that  is  not  in  harmony  with  her  guardian's  ideas,  and  withholds  her  pro- 
mise of  marriage  until  Tante  has  cabled  her  consent.  The  marriage  takes  place 
and  the  young  pair  enjoy  wedded  bliss  until  the  return  of  Tante  to  the  field.  Her 
jealous  nature  resents  Karen's  devotion  to  another,  and  Jardine's  antipathy  to  her, 
which  he  tries  to  conceal,  evokes  her  bitter  hatred.  She  does  everything  in  her 
power  to  build  up  a  barrier  between  husband  and  wife  and  finally  succeeds  in  work- 
ing sufficiently  upon  Karen's  overwrought  sympathies  to  cause  her  to  desert  Jardine 
and  fly  back  to  her  adored  guardian.  Her  flight  is  ill-timed,  as  she  arrives  at  a 
moment  to  interrupt  an  affair  which  Tante  is  carrying  on  with  a  young  poet,  named 
Drew.  Drew,  who  is  wearying  of  the  elder  woman,  begins  to  pay  attention  to  Karen 
and  is  discovered  by  Tante  when  protesting  his  passion  for  her  ward.  In  a  burst 
of  anger,  which  for  the  first  time  reveals  her  true  character  to  the  deluded  Karen,  she 
orders  the  girl  from  the  premises  after  overwhelming  her  with  abuse.  Karen  wan- 
ders away,  and  is  picked  up  ill  and  half-crazed  by  an  old  admirer,  whose  protec- 
tion is  misunderstood  by  the  deserted  husband.  Through  the  good  offices  of  Mrs. 
Talcott  the  misunderstanding  is  finally  explained,  and  Karen,  her  eyes  opened  to  the 
perfidy  of  her  once  adored  Tante,  is  restored  to  her  long-suffering  husband. 

TARAS  BULBA,  by  Nikolai  F.  Gogol  (1839).  This  is  a  gruesome  story  of  Cossack  life 
in  the  fifteenth  century.  Ostap  and  Andrii,  the  sons  of  Taras  Bulba,  a  Cossack 
leader,  return  from  school;  and  he  takes  them  at  once  to  the  Setch  (a  large  Cossack 
village)  to  present  them  to  his  brothers  in  arms.  There  they  drink,  carouse,  and 
quarrel,  until  a  new  ataman  is  elected  and  an  expedition  is  sent  against  Kief.  Andrii 
is  taken  into  the  city  by  the  maid  of  the  Voivoid's  beautiful  daughter,  his  sweetheart 
in  student  days.  The  city  is  given  over  to  famine;  he  feeds  his  love,  and  for  the  sake 
of  her  beauty  turns  traitor  and  joins  her  party.  The  Voivod  goes  out  to  attack  the 
Cossacks;  and  Taras  Bulba,  in  his  righteous  wrath,  slays  his  son.  His  other  son 
Ostap,  is  captured,  and  he  himself  is  wounded.  On  recovering,  he  bribes  a  Jew  to 
take  him  in  disguise  to  Warsaw,  where  he  sees  Ostap  tortured  to  death.  He  raises 
an  army,  fights,  and  spares  none,  shouting  as  he  burns  and  slays,  "This  is  a  mass 
for  the  soul  of  Ostap."  Finally  he  is  captured,  however,  thirty  men  falling  upon 
him  at  once.  He  is  bound  to  a  tree;  fagots  are  placed  at  the  foot  of  it  and  prepara- 
tions are  made  to  roast  him.  He  sees  that  his  Cossacks  are  lured  into  a  trap,  and 
shouts  a  warning;  they  fly  over  the  precipice  on  their  horses,  and  plunge  into  the 
river,  across  which  they  swim  and  escape.  Taras  perishes,  but  his  Cossacks  live  — 
to  talk  of  their  lost  leader. 

TARTARTW  OF  TARASCON,  by  Alphonse  Daudet  (1872).  Daudet's  exquisite 
portrayal  of  mock  adventures  of  the  boastful  Tartarin  is  a  delightfully  entertaining 
specimen  of  the  finest  quality  of  French  humorous  writing.  Tartarin  of  Tarascon, 
to  whom  the  adulation  of  his  fellow-townsmen  is  as  necessary  as  the  breath  of  life,  is 
animated  by  the  spirit  of  a  big-game  hunter  and  a  love  of  adventure.  On  Sundays, 
accompanied  by  his  fellow-sportsmen  of  Tarascon,  he  goes  just  outside  the  town,  and 
in  lieu  of  other  game,  long  since  fled,  tosses  his  cap  into  the  air  and  riddles  it  with 
shot.  At  this  noble  pastime  Tartarin  is  without  a  peer.  His  study  walls  are  thickly 
hung  with  such  trophies  of  his  skill.  He  has  long  been  the  absolute  king  of  Tarascon 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  825 

sportsmen.  To  assure  this  position  among  his  townsmen,  who  are  beginning  to 
doubt  his  prowess,  he  starts  for  Algiers  on  a  real  lion  hunt. 

With  innumerable  trunks  filled  with  arms,  ammunition,  medicine,  and  con- 
densed aliments,  arrayed  in  the  historic  garb  of  a  Turk,  Tartarin  arrives  at  Algiers. 
An  object  of  much  curiosity  and  speculation,  he  at  once  sets  out  for  lions,  but  returns 
daily,  disheartened  by  his  fruitless  quest.  He  is  himself  bagged  by  a  pretty  woman, 
Baya,  in  Moorish  dress.  One  day  he  meets  Barbasson,  a  native  of  Tarascon,  captain 
of  the  Zouave,  plying  from  Marseilles  to  Algiers.  Barbasson  tells  him  of  the  anxiety 
and  eagerness  for  news  of  him  at  Tarascon. 

At  this,  Tartarin  deserts  Baya,  and  starts  south  for  lions.  After  many  adventures 
in  the  desert,  he  finally  kills  the  only  lion  he  has  seen,  —  a  poor,  blind,  tame  old  lion, 
for  which  he  has  to  settle  to  the  amount  of  all  his  paraphernalia  and  money.  The 
lion's  skin  is  forwarded  to  Tarascon,  and  Tartarin  tramps  to  Algiers,  accepts  pas- 
sage from  Barbasson,  and  at  last  reaches  home,  where  he  is  greeted  with  frenzied 
applause.  His  position  has  been  made  secure  by  the  arrival  of  the  lion's  skin,  and 
he  again  assumes  his  place  in  Tarascon.  Evenings,  at  his  club,  amid  a  breathless 
throng,  Tartarin  begins:  "Once  upon  an  evening,  you  are  to  imagine  that,  out  in 
the  depths  of  the  Sahara  —  . " 

TARTUFFE,  by  Moliere  (Jean  Baptiste  Poquelin).  This  most  famous  comedy,  once 
performed  under  the  title  'The  Impostor,'  was  published  complete  in  1669.  The 
principal  characters  are:  Madame  Pernelle;  Orgon,  her  son;  his  wife  Elmire,  his  son 
and  daughter;  and  a  friend,  Tartuffe,  who  stands  forth  as  a  type  of  the  religious 
hypocrite.  The  old  lady  is  very  devout,  but  uses  plain  words  when  scolding  the 
grandchildren.  Orgon,  the  husband,  on  coming  home  hears  that  his  wife  is  ill;  but 
immediately  inquires  about  Tartuffe,  seeming  to  think  of  no  else.  This  honey- 
lipped  egoist  is  chosen  by  the  father  as  the  proper  person  to  whom  he  should  marry 
his  daughter. 

But  she  thinks  not  so.  Those  who  are  forced  to  marry  against  their  will  do 
not  make  virtuous  wives.  The  modesty  of  Tartuffe  is  easily  shocked;  yet  he  would 
examine  closely  the  material  of  the  dress  of  Elmire,  to  whom  he  pays  court,  telling 
her  that  to  sin  in  secret  is  not  to  sin  at  all.  Elmire  risks  her  reputation  a  little  to 
unmask  the  vile  deceiver  in  the  eyes  of  her  husband.  Through  fear  of  hell,  Tartuffe 
yet  rules  the  husband,  gets  his  property  by  scheming,  and  has  him  arrested  as  a 
traitor.  At  last  the  king  acts;  and  Tartuffe  is  led  off  to  prison.  This  is  a  striking 
presentation  of  the  manners  and  morals  of  the  people  and  times. 

TASK,  THE,  a  descriptive  and  reflective  poem  by  William  Cowper,  published  in  1785. 
It  was  begun  at  the  instance  of  the  poet's  friend,  Lady  Austen,  who  playfully  asked 
him  to  write  a  poem  in  blank-verse  about  a  sofa.  Accepting  the  challenge  Cowper 
traces  in  about  one  hundred  Miltonic  lines  the  evolution  of  the  sofa  from  the  stool. 
He  then  proceeds  discursively  to  enlarge  on  the  pleasures  of  country  walks,  the  de- 
lights of  gardening,  and  the  coziness  of  the  winter  fireside,  mingling  these  descriptive 
passages  with  autobiographic  records  of  religious  experience,  satirical  attacks  on  the 
luxury  of  cities,  the  corruption  of  politicians  and  the  worldliness  of  the  clergy,  pietistic 
denunciations  of  deism,  skepticism,  and  natural  science,  and  outbursts  of  humani- 
tarian sympathy  for  slaves,  dumb  animals,  and  all  who  are  oppressed.  These  and 
other  topics  occupy  six  books  entitled  respectively:  'The  Sofa,'  'The  Time-Piece' 
(i.e.,  the  omens  of  future  judgment),  'The  Garden,'  'The  Winter  Evening,'  'The 
Winter  Morning  Walk,1  'The  Winter  Walk  at  Noon/  'The  Task1  reflects  the 


826  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

enthusiasm  for  natural  scenery,  the  impulse  to  self -revelation,  and  the  eagerness  to 
relieve  suffering,  of  the  later  eighteenth  century.  The  author  is  a  refined,  sensitive 
Christian  gentleman  with  a  gift  of  easy,  graceful  expression,  and  a  nature  of  fine 
sensibility  and  quiet  humor.  The  morbid  strain  which  so  sadly  affected  his  peace 
and  happiness  left  no  trace  on  this  poem. 

TATLER,  THE,  a  collection  of  periodical  essays,  271  in  number,  which  originally 
appeared  in  the  form  of  a  penny  journal,  issued  three  times  a  week,  from  April  I2th, 
1 709,  to  January  2d,  1711,  and  were  reprinted  in  four  volumes,  1 710-1 711.  Richard 
Steele  was  the  originator  of  the  publication  and  the  writer  of  at  least  188  of  the 
papers;  Joseph  Addison  was  the  author  of  42,  and  collaborated  with  Steele  in  36; 
Swift  had  part  in  about  a  dozen  numbers,  and  there  were  a  few  minor  contributors. 
The  venture  was  originally  intended  as  a  magazine  of  general  news.  Each  number 
consisted  at  first  of  several  sections.  Accounts  of  gallantry,  pleasure,  and  enter- 
tainment were  dated  from  White's  Chocolate  House;  discussions  of  poetry,  from 
Will's  Coffee  House,  of  learning,  from  the  Grecian,  of  miscellaneous  topics  from  the 
editor's  apartment;  and  of  foreign  and  domestic  news,  from  St. James's  Coffee  House, 
The  latter  item  consisted  mainly  of  dispatches  and  comments  concerning  the  War  of 
the  Spanish  Succession,  then  raging,  and  was  a  result  of  Steele's  official  position  of 
Gazetteer,  which  gave  him  access  to  recent  information.  After  the  eightieth  number, 
however,  these  news-items  seldom  appear.  With  the  ninetieth,  instead  of  containing 
three  or  four  brief  essays,  each  number  includes  one  substantial  article,  on  the  model 
afterwards  continued  by  the  same  writers  in  'The  Spectator.'  Like  those  of  the 
latter  periodical,  the  articles  are  concerned  exclusively  with  the  criticism  of  manners 
and  the  promotion  of  culture  and  morality.  Discussions  of  public  behavior,  of 
costume,  of  sports  and  entertainments,  of  vices  and  frivolities,  of  duties  and  obliga- 
tions, of  drama,  poetry,  and  the  standard  of  taste,  make  up  the  bulk  of  the  contents. 
Gaming  and  duelling  are  denounced,  chivalry  upheld,  and  womanly  modesty  and 
seriousness  urged.  As  in  '  The  Spectator, '  a  number  of  fictitious  personages  add  life 
and  interest  to  the  essays  and  give  opportunity  for  interesting  character-sketches. 
The  writer  of  the  papers  is  supposed  to  be  Isaac  Bickerstaff,  an  old  philosopher  and 
astrologer  of  sixty-four.  He  is  borrowed  from  the  pamphlets  in  which  Swift  writing 
under  this  pseudonym  denounced  and  hoaxed  the  impostor,  Partridge  (1708-1709). 
Other  personages  are  Bickerstaff's  familiar  servant,  Pacolet,  his  half-sister,  Jenny 
Distaff,  her  husband,  Tanquillus,  and  their  three  boys.  The  members  of  his  club, 
the  Trumpet,  in  Fetter  Lane,  forestall  the  better  known  Spectator's  Club.  They  r*re 
Sir  Geoffrey  Notch,  a  decayed  gentleman,  Major  Matchlock,  a  veteran  of  the  Civil 
War,  Dick  Reptile  and  his  nephew,  and  a  Bencher  of  one  of  the  Inns  of  Court,  .'imong 
Adclison's  contributions  to  the  portrait-gallery  of  'The  Tatler'  are  Ned  Softly,  the 
poetaster,  and  Tom  Folio,  the  pedant.  As  the  Spectator  is  usually  credited  to  the 
genius  of  Addison  so  the  Tatler  may  be  regarded  as  chiefly  the  product  of  Steele. 
The  two  differ  as  exquisite  polish  and  logical  completeness  differ  from  careless  spon- 
taneity  and  incidental  meditation. 

TECHNIQUE  OF  THE  DRAMA,  an  analysis  of  dramatic  principles  by  Gusrav 
Freytag,  published  in  1863,  translated  by  Elias  J.  MacEwan  in  1895.  ThQ  author, 
himself  a  successful  dramatist,  seeks  to  determine  the  laws  according  to  which  great 
plays  are  composed,  supplementing  the  rules  of  Aristole's  '  Poetics  '  by  reference  to 
the  works  of  Shakespeare,  Lessing,  Goethe,  and  Schiller.  In  the  first  section  of  the 
book,  *  Dramatic  Action, '  Freytag  shows  how  the  central  idea  of  a  play  is  selected  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  827 

developed  from  the  raw  material  of  experience  or  reading,  defines  the  dramatic  as 
emotion  leading  to  action,  or  action  producing  emotion,  explains  dramatic  unity  as 
the  result  of  the  adequate  motivation  of  every  action,  emphasizes  the  need  of  pro- 
bability, magnitude,  and  progressive  interest  in  the  actions  chosen,  and  discusses 
the  nature  of  the  "katharsis ' '  or  emotional  renewal  effected  by  tragedy.  The  second 
part  'The  Construction  of  the  Drama'  represents  every  tragedy  as  made  up  of  a 
rising  and  a  falling  movement,  distinguishing  the  exposition,  the  initial  impulse,  the 
ascending  action,  the  climax,  the  entrance  of  a  tragic  force,  the  descending  action, 
the  final  reaction  or  possibility  of  a  happy  outcome,  and  tlie  catastrophe.  This 
helpful  formula  is  then  applied  to  the  Greek  and  the  Teutonic  drama  and  is  shown  to 
be  the  basis  of  the  division  of  plays  into  five  acts.  Effectiveness  in  the  structure  of 
scenes  whether  including  few  persons  or  large  masses  is  then  happily  illustrated  from 
Shakespeare  (Section  IV).  In  the  fourth  section,  'The  Characters, '  Freytag  empha- 
sizes the  need  of  unity,  consistency,  proper  relation  to  the  action,  and  consonance 
with  the  age  in  which  the  personages  are  supposed  to  live.  Questions  of  versification 
and  of  method  in  composition  occupy  the  short  fifth  and  sixth  sections.  The  book 
has  had  wide  currency  and  considerable  influence.  Its  scheme  of  dramatic  structure 
is  certainly  valuable  to  the  student  of  the  classic  plays,  ancient  and  modern. 

TELEMACHTJS  ('TELEMAQUE'),  ADVENTURES  OF,  by  Fenelon,  is  a  French  prose 
epic  in  twenty-four  books,  which  appeared  in  1699.  Having  been  shipwrecked  uporj 
the  island  of  the  goddess  Calypso,  Telemachus  relates  to  her  his  varied  and  stirring 
adventures  while  seeking  his  father  Ulysses,  who,  going  to  the  Trojan  war,  has  been 
absent  from  home  for  twenty  years.  In  his  search  the  youth  has  been  guarded 
and  guided  by  the  goddess  Minerva,  disguised  as  the  sage  Mentor.  This  recital 
occupies  the  first  six  books,  the  remaining  eighteen  containing  the  hero's  further 
remarkable  experiences,  until  at  last  he  returns  to  Ithaca,  where  he  finds  Ulysses 
already  arrived.  On  the  way  thither  occur  his  escape  from  the  island  of  Calypso, 
whose  love  for  Telemachus:  prompts  her  to  detain  him  on  her  fair  domain,  and  his 
visit  to  the  infernal  regions,  in  search  of  his  father,  whom  he  believes  to  be  dead.  This 
romance  of  education,  "designed  at  once  to  charm  the  imagination  and  to  inculcate 
truths  of  morals,  politics,  and  religion, "  has  always  been  regarded  as  a  French  classic. 
It  is  still  much  used  in  English-speaking  schools,  as  a  model  of  French  composition. 
The  author  has  borrowed  from,  and  imitated,  the  Greek  and  Latin  heroics  with  un- 
disguised freedom,  and  has  succeeded  in  imparting  to  his  work  their  antique  air  and 
flavor. 

TEMPEST,  THE,  one  of  Shakespeare's  very  latest  plays  (1611),  written  in  the 
mellow  maturity  of  his  genius,  is  probably  based  on  a  lost  Italian  novella  or  play, 
though  certain  incidents  are  borrowed  from  three  pamphlets  on  the  Bermudas  and 
Virginia  and  from  Florio's  Montaigne.  The  scene  is  said  to  be  laid  in  the  haunted 
island  of  Lampedusa  in  the  Mediterranean.  In  the  opening  lines  we  see  a  ship 
laboring  in  heavy  seas  near  the  shore  of  an  island,  whose  sole  inhabitants,  besides  the 
spirits  of  earth  and  air  typified  in  the  dainty  yet  powerful  sprite  Ariel,  are  Prospero 
and  his  lovely  daughter  Miranda,  and  their  slave,  the  deformed  boor  Caliban,  an 
aborigine  of  the  island.  The  grave  and  good  Prospero  is  a  luckier  castaway  than 
Robinson  Crusoe,  in  that  his  old  friend  Gonzalo  put  into  the  boat  with  him  not  only 
his  infant  daughter,  but  clothes,  and  some  books  of  magic,  by  the  aid  of  which  both 
men  and  spirits,  and  the  very  elements,  are  subject  to  the  beck  of  his  wand.  He  was 
the  rightful  Duke  of  Milan,  but  was  supplanted  by  his  brother  Antonio,  who  with  hi? 


828  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

confederate,  the  king  of  Naples,  and  the  latter's  son  Ferdinand  and  others,,  is  ca§t 
ashore  on  the  island.  The  shipwreck  occurs  full  in  the  sight  of  the  weeping  Miranda; 
but  all  hands  are  saved,  and  the  ship  too.  The  humorous  characters  are  the  butler 
Stephano,  and  the  court  jester  Trinculo,  both  semi-drunk,  their  speech  and  songs 
caught  from  the  sailors,  and  savoring  of  salt  and  tar.  Throughout  the  play  the 
three  groups  of  personages,  —  the  royal  retinue  with  the  irrepressible  and  malapropos 
old  Gonzalo,  the  drunken  fellows  and  Caliban,  and  Prospero  with  his  daughter  and 
Ferdinand,  —  move  leisurely  to  and  fro,  the  whole  action  taking  up  only  three 
hours.  The  three  boors,  fuddled  with  their  fine  liquor  and  bearing  the  bark  bottle, 
rove  about  the  enchanted  island,  fall  into  the  filthy-mantled  pool,  and  are  stoutly 
pinched  by  Prospero's  goblins  for  theft.  The  murderous  plot  of  Antonio  and  the 
courtier  Sebastian  is  exposed  at  the  phantom  banquet  of  the  harpies.  Spellbound 
in  the  linden  grove,  all  the  guilty  parties  come  forward  into  a  charmed  circle  and  take 
a  lecture  from  Prospero.  General  reconciliation.  Then  finally,  Miranda  and  Ferdi- 
nand are  discovered  playing  chess  before  Prospero's  cell,  and  learn  that  to-morrow 
they  set  sail  for  Naples  to  be  married. 

TEMPLE  HOUSE,  the  third  and  last  novel  of  Elizabeth  Barstow  Stoddard,  was 
published  in  1867.  The  scene  is  laid  in  a  forgotten,  decaying  seaport  town  of  New 
England.  The  plot  follows  the  fortunes  of  one  family,  the  inmates  of  Temple  House 
—  a  homestead  of  dignity  in  the  prosperous  days  of  the  town,  but  now  tarnished  and 
forlorn.  It  shelters  Argus  Gates,  a  retired  sea-captain,  a  lover  of  solitude;  his  sister- 
in-law  Roxalana,  an  ineffective,  dreamy,  silence-loving  soul;  and  her  child,  Tempe,  an 
elf  of  a  girl  who  marries  John  Drake,  a  neighbor,  almost  before  she  is  out  of  short 
dresses.  He  dies  soon  after,  the  young  widow  going  back  to  Temple  House.  By  a 
shipwreck  another  unusual  character,  Sebastian  Ford,  is  added  to  the  Temple  House 
circle.  The  Spanish  blood  in  his  veins  tinges  his  least  act  with  romance.  He  proves 
his  devotion  to  his  rescuer,  Argus  Gates,  by  defending  the  honor  of  the  woman  he 
loves,  Virginia  Brande,  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy  neighbor.  The  book  closes  upon 
the  happiness  of  Virginia  and  Argus,  a  kind  of  subdued  happiness  in  accordance 
with  the  autumnal  atmosphere  of  the  story.  The  slumberous  haze  lifts  only  to  reveal 
two  or  three  spirited  scenes  connected  with  Virginia's  love-story. 

TEN  THOUSAND  A  YEAR,  by  Samuel  C.  Warren  (1841).  This  story,  though 
regarded  by  critics  as  "ridiculously  exaggerated  and  liable  to  the  suspicion  of  being  a 
satire  on  the  middle  classes, "  has  held  a  certain  place  in  fiction  for  more  than  half  a 
century.  Tittlebat  Titmouse,  its  hero,  is  a  vulgar  and  conceited  young  clerk  in  the 
London  shop  of  Dowlas,  Tagrag,  Bobbin  £  Co.  Through  the  machinations  of  Messrs. 
Quirk,  Gammon,  and  Snap,  Solicitors,  who  have  discovered  a  flaw  in  the  title  of  an 
old  and  rich  family,  he  finds  himself  put  in  possession  of  an  estate  yielding  £10,000 
a  year.  Hitherto  abused  and  bullied  by  everybody,  he  is  now  flattered  and  invited 
by  his  former  master,  Tagrag,  by  Quirk  of  the  great  law  firm,  and  by  the  Earl  of 
Dredlington,  each  anxious  to  secure  him  as  a  son-in-law.  Titmoase  marries  Lady 
Cecilia,  and  takes  his  seat  in  Parliament  in  place  of  Charles  Aubrey,  dispossessed  of 
the  estate,  his  election  being  secured  by  scandalous  corruption  and  a  reckless  expendi- 
ture of  money.  The  Earl  of  Dredlington,  finding  a  deed  by  which  his  son-in-law 
settles  £2,000  a  year  on  Gammon,  learns  that  it  is  hush-money;  and  that  Titmouse, 
proving  to  be  an  illegitimate  child  of  the  great  house,  has  no  right  to  the  estate  he  en- 
joys. In  consequence  the  attorney-general  fixes  a  charge  of  conspiracy  upon  Quirk, 
Gammon,  and  Snap.  Quirk  and  Snao  are  imt>risoned,  while  Gammon  escapes  only 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  829 

by  suicide.  The  Aubreys'  rights  are  restored.  The  wretched  Titmouse  goes  through 
insolvency;  and  his  mind  having  become  unbalanced  by  his  overthrow,  he  passes 
the  remainder  of  his  miserable  life  in  a  lunatic  asylum.  The  story  has  no  literary 
standing,  and  is  verbose  and  overloaded  with  irrelevant  matter.  But  the  plot  is 
ingenious,  the  legal  complications  are  managed  in  a  way  that  won  the  admiration  of 
accomplished  lawyers,  and  the  story  with  all  its  faults  contrived  to  arouse  and  main- 
tain the  reader's  interest. 

TEN  YEARS'  DIGGING  IN  EGYPT,  1881-1851,  by  W.  M.  Flinders  Petrie,  published 
in  1892,  is  an  informal,  non-technical  account  of  the  labors  of  this  great  Egyptolo- 
gist, illustrated  by  numerous  wood-cuts  from  sketches  of  his  own.  He  begins  by 
telling  of  his  season  at  the  pyramids,  1881-1882,  which  he  carefully  measured,  making 
many  discoveries  as  to  their  departure  from  exact  symmetry  and  as  to  the  tools  and 
methods  of  their  construction.  In  the  next  expedition,  that  of  1884,  he  unearthed  at 
Tanis  an  interesting  portrait-statuette  and  a  collection  of  papjTi  with  a  key  to  the 
hieroglyphics.  In  1885  he  discovered  some  Greek  inscriptions,  coins,  and  vases  in  the 
Greek  colony  of  Naukratis.  Several  months  of  1 886  were  devoted  to  the  twin  Greek 
colony  of  Daphnse,  the  Biblical  Tahpanhes,  where  both  Egyptian  and  Greek  relics 
were  found;  near  by  was  a  place  called  Tell  Nebesheh,  where  the  explorer  unearthed  a 
statue  of  Rameses  II.  and  a  temple.  In  1887  Petrie  made  a  voyage  up  the  Nile  to 
Thebes,  Assuan,  and  Esneh,  where  he  copied  many  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  and  made 
ethnographic  studies  of  the  faces  on  the  monuments.  In  the  following  year  he  was 
at  work  on  the  pyramid  at  Hawara,  and  remained  in  that  district  for  three  years, 
making  examinations  of  many  pyramids  and  discovering  many  domestic  implements 
and  other  relics.  To  these  records  of  exploration  Petrie  adds  some  interesting  chap- 
ters on  general  topics.  In  Chapter  XI.  he  traces  the  history  of  art  and  civilization  in 
Egypt  from  the  earliest  times.  In  Chapter  XII.  he  explains  how  excavations  are 
made,  showing  the  need  of  imagination  in  choosing  a  site,  of  following  a  general  plan, 
of  training  workmen  to  be  careful  of  their  finds  and  to  report  on  where  they  found 
them,  of  rejecting  useless  objects,  and  of  safely  packing  the  objects  discovered. 
The  last  two  chapters  describe  respectively  the  character  of  the  Egyptian  fellah, 
and  the  necessities  of  the  traveler  who  would  live  cheaply  in  Egypt.  The  book  is 
entertainingly  written,  reflecting  the  enthusiasm  of  the  scholar  and  the  practical 
knowledge  of  the  experienced  traveler  and  man  of  the  world. 

TENNYSON,  ALFRED,  LORD,  A  MEMOIR,  by  his  son  Hallam  Tennyson  (1897). 
This  great  biography  is  exceedingly  full  and  circumstantial,  progressing  from  year 
to  year  of  Tennyson's  life,  letting  it  tell  itself  for  the  most  part  through  letters. 
A  great  number  of  these  were  given  to  the  world  for  the  first  time,  together  with 
many  poems  not  before  printed.  Appended  to  the  second  volume  are  a  number  of 
personal  recollections  of  the  poet,  by  men  distinguished  as  statesmen  and  men  of 
letters. 

TENT  LIFE  IN  SIBERIA,  by  George  Kennan  (1870).  The  author  of  this  book  of 
exploration  and  adventure  was  employed,  in  1865-67,  by  the  Western  Union  Telegraph 
Company,  in  its  audacious  scheme  of  building  an  overland  line  to  Europe  by  way  of 
Alaska,  Bering's  Strait,  and  Siberia,  —  a  futile  project,  soon  forgotten  in  the  success 
of  the  Atlantic  Cable.  He  tells  the  story  of  the  undertaking  from  the  side  of  the 
employees,  —  a  story  known  to  few  even  of  the  original  projectors.  It  is  a  record  of 
obstacles  well-nigh  insuperable  met  and  overcome  with  astonishing  patience  and 


830  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

courage;  of  nearly  six  thousand  miles  of  unbroken  wilderness  explored  in  two  years, 
from  Vancouver's  Island  to  Bering's  Straits,  and  from  Bering's  Straits  to  the  Chinese 
frontier;  of  camping  in  the  wildest  mountain  fastnesses  of  Kamtchatka,  in  the  gloomy 
forests  of  Alaska  and  British  Columbia,  and  on  the  desolate  plains  of  Northeastern 
Siberia;  of  the  rugged  mountain  passes  of  Northern  Asia  traversed  by  hardy  men 
mounted  on  reindeer;  of  the  great  rivers  of  the  North  navigated  in  skin  canoes;  of 
tents  pitched  on  northern  plains  in  temperatures  of  50  and  60  degrees  below  zero. 

Though  the  enterprise  failed  in  its  special  aim,  it  succeeded  in  contributing  to 
our  knowledge  of  a  hitherto  untraveled  and  unknown  region.  Its  surveys  and 
explorations  are  invaluable.  The  life  and  customs  of  the  natives  are  minutely 
described;  while  the  traveler's  sense  of  thevastness,  the  desolation,  and  the  appalling 
emptiness  of  this  northern  world  of  snow  and  ice  conveys  a  chill  almost  of  death  to  the 
sympathetic  reader.  The  book  is  written  in  the  simple,  business-like  style  that, 
when  used  by  men  of  action  to  tell  what  they  have  done,  adds  a  great  charm  of 
reality  to  the  tale. 

TERSE,  LA,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

TESS  OF  THE  D'TTRBERVILLES,  a  remarkable  novel  by  Thomas  Hardy  (1891),  is 
an  embodiment  in  fiction  of  the  Tragedy  of  the  Woman,  —  the  world-old  story  of 
her  fall,  and  of  her  battle  with  man  to  recover  her  virginity  of  soul.  Tess,  a  beautiful 
village  girl,  is  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  ancient  D'Urberville  family.  Her  far-off 
gentle  blood  shows  itself  in  her  passionate  sensitive  nature.  By  a  mere  accident 
she  becomes  the  prey  of  a  young  man  of  gross  instincts,  returning  to  her  home  soiled 
and  dismayed.  Her  child  is  born  and  dies.  "Her  physical  blight  becomes  her 
mental  harvest'*;  she  is  lifted  above  the  groping  mental  state  of  the  people  about  her. 
This  etherealization  has  fatal  results.  As  she  was  once  the  victim  of  man's  vices, 
she  is  destined  to  become  the  victim  of  his  conventional  virtues.  At  a  farm  far 
removed  from  the  scene  of  her  sufferings,  she  meets  Angel  Clare,  a  gentleman's  son. 
Their  mutual  love  ends  in  marriage.  On  their  wedding-day  Tess  tells  Clare  of  her 
past.  From  that  hour  she  ceases  to  be  for  him  "enskied  and  sainted, "  becoming 
a  mere  soiled  thing  which  had  drifted  in  its  perilous  beauty  across  his  path.  He 
leaves  her;  and  her  struggle  with  her  anguish  of  spirit,  with  her  poverty,  and  her 
despair,  has  a  fearful  ending:  "The  President  of  the  Immortals"  had  finished  his 
sport  with  her.  'Tess'  is  well-nigh  primeval  in  its  treatment.  A  novel  created 
apparently  by  inexorable  forces  of  nature,  it  is  joined  by  its  strength  and  pitilessness 
to  the  blind  powers  of  the  world.  Yet  it  is  not  without  sunny  spaces,  revelations 
of  warm  nooks  of  earth  hidden  from  the  blasts  of  the  tempest. 

THADDEUS  OF  WARSAW,  by  Jane  Porter  (1803),  is  an  "old-time"  romance. 
Thaddeus,  a  young  Polish  nobleman,  —  last  in  the  line  from  John  Sobieski,  the 
famous  king  of  Poland  and  conqueror  of  the  Turks, — leaves  home  with  his  grand- 
father, count  palatine,  to  serve  under  King  Stanislaus  in  repelling  an  invasion  by 
Russia  and  her  allies.  Defeated  after  gallant  fighting,  the  old  count  is  slain,  and 
Thaddeus  flies  to  the  defense  of  his  mother  in  their  castle.  She  expires  in  his  arms ; 
Thaddeus  is  driven  forth,  and  sees  Warsaw  and  the  Sobieski  castle  burned.  The 
renowned-  General  Kosciuszko,  the  king's  nephew  Prince  Poniatowski,  and  other 
historic  characters,  figure  prominently  in  the  tale.  After  the  partition  of  Poland  the 
exiled  Thaddeus  reaches  England,  where  a  cloud  on  his  birth  is  lifted,  showing  him  a 
scion  of  the  Somerset  family;  his  marriage  with  a  high-born  English  girl  makes  a 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  831 

happy  ending.  This  was  the  earliest  of  Miss  Porter's  historical  novels,  and  it  ap- 
peared some  years  before  Scott's '  Waverley. '  Having  seen  and  talked  with  many  poor 
and  proud,  but  noble,  Polish  refugees  in  London,  Miss  Porter  wrote  with  a  pen 
"dipped  in  their  tears,"  representing  a  pure  and  generous  ideal,  —  the  nobles  as 
mostly  noble,  and  the  serfs  like  Arcadian  shepherds. 

THAIS,  by  Anatole  France  (1890).  Thais  was  a  famous  courtesan  in  Alexandria 
about  the  fourth  century.  Paphnutius,  a  holy  man,  who  had  retired  to  the  desert 
to  live  the  monastic  life,  has  a  vision  of  the  beautiful  actress  and  is  inspired  to  convert 
her  and  save  her  from  sin.  He  returns  to  Alexandria,  the  scene  of  his  profane  youth, 
borrows  a  rich  embroidered  garment  from  his  former  school  friend,  Nicias,  and  pre- 
sents himself  at  the  house  of  Thais.  The  fear  of  death  and  age  had  lately  oppressed 
Thais,  and  she  listens  to  his  talk  of  eternal  life  and  of  spiritual  love,  which  appealed 
to  her  all  the  more,  because  as  a  child  she  had  been  baptized  by  a  Christian  slave. 
Paphnutius  persuades  Thais  to  renounce  her  profession,  to  make  a  bonfire  of  all  her 
riches,  costly  cups,  priceless  statues,  jewels  and  furniture  and  carpets,  and  to  follow 
him  to  a  nunnery  in  the  desert.  He  leaves  her  in  the  care  of  the  abbess,  and  returns 
to  his  cell  and  his  disciples,  but  he  is  unable  day  or  night  to  banish  from  his  mind 
the  lovely  image  of  Thais.  He  goes  forth  again  and  becomes  a  stylite,  living  on  the 
top  of  a  pillar,  to  separate  himself  from  the  world.  Finally  he  hears  that  Thais, 
the  penitent  and  saint,  is  dying.  He  regrets  that  even  at  the  price  of  damnation  he 
has  not  possessed  one  moment  of  her  love.  He  hastens  to  Thais,  whom  he  finds  at 
the  point  of  death,  and  in  a  frenzy  tries  to  win  her  from  the  vision  of  the  life  eternal. 
She  pays  no  attention  to  his  pleadings  and  to  his  earthly  passion,  and  dies  in  sanctity. 
The  face  of  Paphnutius  is  so  disfigured  by  his  sensual  desire  that  the  nuns  shrink 
from  him  as  from  a  vampire.  "He  had  become  so  hideous  that  as  ho  passed  his 
hand  over  his  face  he  felt  its  brutality." 

THEOLOGICAL  AND  LITERARY  ESSAYS,  by  Richard  Holt  Hutton  (1875), 
The  two  volumes  of  this  work  contain  nine  theological  and  nine  literary  papers. 
Among  the  first  are  'The  Moral  Significance  of  Atheism/  'The  Atheistic  Explanation 
of  Religion, '  'Science  and  Theism, '  'What  is  Revelation?'  'M.  Renan's  Christ, '  etc., 
etc.  Mr.  Hutton  is  a  theist,  owing  his  belief  in  theism  to  his  study  of  the  religious 
philosophy  of  F.  D.  Maurice.  After  he  has  spoken  of  skepticism  and  dogmatism 
as  but  different  forms  of  the  attempt  to  accommodate  infinite  living  claims  upon  us 
to  our  human  weakness,  he  says:  "It  seems  to  me  that  it  has  been  the  one  purpose 
of  all  the  divine  revelation  or  education  of  which  we  have  any  record,  to  waken  us 
up  out  of  this  perpetually  recurring  tendency  to  fall  back  into  ourselves,"  —  i.  e., 
to  self-forgetfulness,  and  self-surrender  to  a  Higher  than  ourselves.  Among  the 
names  and  subjects  considered  in  the  literary  essays  are  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Brown- 
ing, the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament,  Clough,  Arnold,  Tennyson,  and  Hawthorne. 
As  a  whole  these  are  marked  by  depth  of  insight,  breadth  of  view,  and  nicety  of  judg- 
ment. They  show  high  scholarship,  and  an  innate  gift  for  criticism  highly  trained; 
and  they  are  very  interesting  reading. 

THEORY  OF  THE  LEISURE  CLASS,  THE,  'An  Economic  Study  of  Institutions 
by  Thorstein  Veblen  (1899).      It  is  a  merciless  analysis,  from  the  strictly  economic 
point  of  view,  of  the  claims  of  the  leisure  class  to  be  a  valuable  factor  in  modern 
life.   He  finds  that  this  class  originated  in  the  stages  of  savagery,  when  the  men  of  the 
tribe  devoted  themselves  to  predatory  acquisition,  leaving  the  productive  work  to 


832  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

women  and  slaves.  In  the  barbaric  stage,  which  followed,  the  control  of  wealth  and 
freedom  from  labor  marked  the  nobility  and  work  was  regarded  as  a  badge  of  social 
inferiority.  This  feeling  continued  when  the  growth  of  industrial  activity  led  to  the 
modern  struggle  for  wealth ;  and  the  ruling  classes  who  emerged  from  this  struggle 
were  characterized  by  two  distinctive  features :  "conspicuous  leisure  and  conspicuous 
consumption."  By  the  first  term  the  author  means  the  tendency  of  the  upper  classes 
to  avoid  menial  labor  and  associations,  to  cultivate  manners  and  modes  of  speech 
which  suggest  a  life  of  elegant  refinement,  and  to  indulge  in  such  activities  as  govern- 
ment, war,  sports,  and  devout  observances  but  not  in  productive  labor;  by  "conspicu- 
ous consumption"  he  means  the  desire  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  poverty  and  to 
convey  an  impression  of  pecuniary  strength  by  spending  money  in  extravagant  and 
wasteful  ways.  The  author's  interpretation  of  the  term  "waste"  is  a  narrowly 
economic  one,  anything  which  contributes  merely  to  subjective  satisfaction  and  not 
to  definite  physical  needs  being  regarded  as  wasteful;  and  he  carries  his  theory  too 
far  in  attributing  practically  every  non-utilitarian  desire  of  the  leisure  class  to  the 
impulse  to  show  one's  financial  superiority.  But  he  is  a  keen  observer,  with  an 
incisive,  critical  mind,  who  sees  through  many  insincerities  and  veiled  predatory 
instincts,  and  few  of  the  leisure  classes  can  read  the  book  without  feeling  uncom- 
fortable. This  discomfort  is  not  lessened  by  his  occasional  rather  elaborate  protests 
that  of  course  he  is  speaking  purely  in  the  economic  sense  and  that  no  doubt  these 
activities  may  have  a  high  cultural  value,  but  that  he  is  concerned  with  very  practical 
realities.  Defenders  of  the  classics  are  particularly  irritated  by  his  treatment  of  this 
subject  as  a  mere  conventional  badge  of  the  leisure  classes  without  any  practical  use 
and  hence  an  admirable  example  of  "conspicuous  waste. "  Religion,  the  law,  business, 
and  sports,  fare  no  better.  But  he  has  done  the  leisure  classes  an  admirable  service 
in  allowing  them  to  see  themselves  as  the  industrial  classes  probably  view  them. 
The  style  is  unadorned,  unemotional,  detached,  and  coolly  remorseless. 


THESE  LYNNEKERS,  a  novel,  by  J.  D.  Beresford  (1916).  The  seven  Lynnekers 
are  the  rector,  his  ineffectual  wife,  and  their  five  children.  Strictly  speaking,  the 
story  is  concerned  with  Richard,  really  the  cleverest  of  the  sons.  When  Dick  fails 
in  the  classics  at  the  Oakstone  School,  the  Rector  feels  justified  in  putting  him  into 
the  Medboro'  Bank,  instead  of  sending  him  to  Oxford.  He  is  totally  unaware  that 
Dickie  is  a  mathematical  genius.  Dickie's  job  means  something  like  a  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  in  the  exchequer.  On  the  strength  of  the  saving,  everybody  spends 
more  money,  particularly  Airs.  Lynneker.  Meanwhile  Dickie  is  bound  to  the  bank 
for  five  years.  But  by  studying  evenings  he  works  out  an  education  for  himself; 
he  reads  mathematics,  history,  economics,  literature,  and  theology,  and  his  great 
desire  is  "to  get  at  the  bottom  of  things."  Meanwhile  Mrs.  Lynneker  draws  on  the 
funds  of  the  Coal  Club  for  family  expenses.  To  hide  her  defections,  she  borrows 
thirty  pounds  from  the  Medboro'  Loan  Company.  When  the  company  fleeces  her, 
rather  than  go  to  her  husband,  she  tells  Dickie,  who  succeeds  in  driving  the  Loan 
Company  out  of  town.  At  the  end  of  five  years,  Dickie  has  made  himself  so  indis- 
pensable that  he  is  offered  the  position  of  bank-manager.  But  he  prefers  "to  get 
into  the  game"  in  a  large  city.  Just  at  this  juncture,  Martyn  Lynneker,  a  distant 
cousin,  comes  down  to  see  the  family.  He  is  so  impressed  by  Dickie's  power  of  think- 
ing for  himself  that  he  offers  him  a  legal  education  and  a  possible  seat  in  Parliament. 
After  some  thought,  Dickie  refuses  the  offer  because  he  sees  in  it  a  barrier  to  his 
own  political  independence.  Instead  he  goes  into  the  business  office  of  a  financier. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  833 

The  family,  which  has  been  much  disappointed  in  Dickie's  treatment  of  Martyn, 
is  delighted  with  his  engagement  to  Sybil  Groome,  the  bishop's  niece.  But  even  in 
the  flush  of  his  first  love,  Dickie  has  to  yield  i  o  the  demands  of  his  family,  and  when 
the  rector  is  stricken  with  paralysis,  Dickie  sacrifices  everything  to  be  with  him.  In 
his  last  days,  the  rector  realizes  for  the  first  time  that  Dickie  is  the  tower  of  strength 
of  his  family.  The  others  all  fail  to  the  end  to  appreciate  the  solidity  of  his  character 
and  what  he  has  done  for  them. 

THOUGHTS,  see  PENSEES,  by  Denis  Diderot. 

THOUGHTS  CONCERNING  EDUCATION,  SOME,  by  John  Locke  (1693). 
Locke's  work,  which  has  its  place  among  the  classics  of  education,  originally  consisted 
of  letters  addressed  to  his  friend  Edward  Clark  about  the  care  of  his  son.  It  is  not, 
and  does  not  profess  to  be,  a  treatise  on  education  in  general,  but  only  the  advice 
of  one  friend  to  another  about  the  individual  education  of  a  gentleman's  son.  At 
school  and  university  he  had  strongly  disapproved  of  the  educational  methods  in 
vogue  in  his  time.  In  this  work  he  propounded  views  which  are  even  yet  the  aspira- 
tion rather  than  the  achievement  of  educational  reformers.  He  taught  that  a  sound 
basis  for  education  should  be  laid  by  training  the  child  in  healthful  habits  of  eating, 
sleep,  cleanliness,  and  exercise.  Children  should  be  hardened  by  exercise  in  the  open 
air,  and  by  robust  treatment  instead  of  being  enervated  by  luxuries  and  delicacies. 
On  the  other  hand  they  should  not  be  harshly  used  and  beating  should  be  reserved 
only  for  obstinacy  and  untruthfulness.  Upon  the  foundation  of  bodily  health 
should  be  built  up  a  training  in  character  and  intelligence, — "virtue,  wisdom, breeding, 
and  learning."  The  teacher  must  have  wisdom  rather  than  mere  learning.  "The 
great  business  of  all"  (for  both  teacher  and  pupil)  "is  virtue  and  wisdom.  Teach 
him  to  get  a  mastery  over  his  inclinations,  and  submit  his  appetite  to  reason.  This 
being  obtained,  and  by  constant  practice  settled  into  habit,  the  hardest  part  of  the 
task  is  over."  He  strongly  recommends  that  the  young  gentleman  "should  learn  a 
trade,  a  manual  trade;  nay  two  or  three,  but  one  more  particularly, "  that  in  after  life 
he  may  have  the  means  of  useful  diversion  in  leisure  hours.  Education  should 
be  a  natural  enjoyment,  not  an  unwelcome  task,  and  should  fit  the  pupil  for  a  life  of 
moral  usefulness. 

THREE  DAUGHTERS  OF  M.  DUPONT,  THE  ('Les  Trois  Filles  dc  M.  Dupont') 
by  Eugene  Brieux  (1897).  A  social  drama  dealing  with  the  theme  of  the  French 
marriage  of  convenience,  arranged  by  the  parents.  The  play  opens  as  Julie,  the 
youngest  daughter  of  M.  and  Mme.  Dupont,  is  about  to  be  betrothed  to  Antonin 
Mairaut.  The  discussion  of  the  proposal  of  marriage  is  given  in  the  LIBRARY. 
Julie's  father  allows  her  fifteen  minutes  to  make  up  her  mind  about  her  future  hus- 
band, and  reminds  her  of  her  older  sister  Caroline's  unhappy  life  in  the  household 
as  an  old  maid.  The  parents  on  either  side  deceive  each  other  about  the  dowry  and 
settlement,  and  the  marriage  is  arranged.  Julie  finds  her  husband  a  selfish  tyrant 
who  is  determined  to  make  her  the  slave  of  his  pleasure.  Antonin,  for  reasons  of 
expense,  refuses  to  allow  her  the  motherhood  she  had  looked  forward  to  for  her 
happiness  in  the  marriage.  They  quarrel  violently,  and  she  makes  up  her  mind  to 
leave  him.  The  oldest  sister,  Angele,  the  victim  of  seduction  in  her  youth,  is  a  dcmi- 
mondaine  in  Paris.  An  aunt  leaves  a  legacy  to  Caroline  and  Angelc,  and  Ang&lc 
comes  home  after  eighteen  years'  absence  for  the  legal  formalities.  Caroline  longs 
to  he  married  and  turns  over  a  part  of  her  inheritance  to  her  father's  clerk  to  win  him 


834  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

for  a  husband,  not  knowing  he  is  already  bound  to  another  woman.  The  two  older 
sisters  advise  Julie  from  their  bitter  experience  not  to  divorce  her  husband,  but  to  live 
on  with  him,  for  of  the  opportunities  open  to  the  average  girl  in  provincial  French 
society,  as  illustrated  in  the  lives  of  the  three  sisters,  the  loveless  marriage  is  the  least 
intolerable.  Julie  returns  to  her  husband,  resigned  to  the  inevitable,  saying, 
"I  had  romantic  ideas,  I  saw  marriage  as  it  is  not.  Now  I  understand  it.  In  life 
it  is  necessary  to  make  concessions."  She  determines  to  console  herself  with  a 
lover  like  the  rest.  The  play  is  a  plea  for  a  marriage  of  love,  reiterated  by  the 
dramatist,  in  another  play  'La  Francaise.' 

THREE  ENGLISH  STATESMEN,  by  Goldwin  Smith  (1867),  is  a  course  of  lectures 
delivered  during  his  professorship  of  history  at  Oxford  University,  on  Pym,  Crom- 
well, and  Pitt.  The  clear  and  brilliant  style  of  the  book,  vigorous  and  simple,  at 
once  enchains  the  attention  and  wins  from  the  reader  an  absorbed  interest  in  the 
author's  theories  of  politics  and  politicians.  He  has  the  rare  faculty  of  condensing 
whole  chapters  of  history  into  a  few  words,  and  of  presenting  in  one  vivid  picture  the 
complicated  state  of  nations.  In  his  essay  on  Pym,  he  is  able  in  a  few  pages  to  detail 
the  problems  and  grievances  that  had  beset  the  English  people,  and  indeed  the  Con- 
tinental nations,  ever  since  the  first  outbreaks  against  the  absolute  power  of  the 
Church.  He  recognizes  that  the  Reformation  in  England  was  by  no  means  accom- 
plished when  Henry  VIII.  chose  for  his  own  ends  to  defy  the  pope;  that  this  up- 
heaval was  precisely  the  old  struggle  of  the  people  against  tyranny  whether  of  the 
Church  or  State.  When,  after  eleven  years  of  royal  government  without  a  Parlia- 
ment, Charles  I.  was  forced  to  call  one,  Pym  became  its  leader.  It  was  he  who 
brought  to  book  the  great  Duke  of  Buckingham,  he  who  dared  to  impeach  Strafford 
and  Laud.  The  lampooners  spoke  a  true  word  in  jest  when  they  called  him  "King 
Pym."  Pym  died  early  in  the  great  fight;  and  the  soldier,  Cromwell,  came  to  the 
front  as  the  leader  of  republican  England.  Mr.  Smith  admires  Cromwell  as  a  genius 
and  a  high-minded  man ;  yet  he  deprecates  Carlyle's  essay  upon  him  as  crass,  undis- 
criminating  worship.  The  soberer  writer  sees  Cromwell's  faults  and  deplores  them. 
He  does  not  excuse  the  execution  of  the  King,  or  the  massacres  in  Ireland ;  but  he  holds 
that  Cromwell,  to  maintain  his  control  over  the  thousands  of  reckless  fanatics  who 
had  made  him  their  leader,  was  forced  to  deeds  of  iron.  As  Protector,  he  was  one  of 
the  strongest  and  wisest  rulers  England  ever  had.  The  last  and  longest  paper  is  that 
on  Pitt,  the  great  statesman  of  the  eighteenth  century,  who  was  prime  minister  at 
twenty-four,  and  the  champion  of  free  trade,  a  reformed  currency,  religious  tolera- 
tion, colonial  emancipation,  abolition  of  the  slave-trade  and  of  slavery.  Pitt's 
espousal  of  the  cause  of  the  colonies  in  Parliament  especially  commends  this  study 
of  him  to  American  readers. 

THREE  MUSKETEERS,  THE  ('Les  Trois  Mousquetaires'),  by  Alexandre  Dumas 
(1844).  'The  Three  Musketeers'  is  the  first  novel  of  Dumas's  famous  trilogy,  of 
which  the  others  are  *  Twenty  Years  After'  and  'The  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne.'  The 
three  stories  together  cover  a  space  of  time  from  1625  to  1665,  and  deal  with  the  life 
of  a  Gascon  adventurer  named  D'Artagnan,  from  his  arrival  in  Paris  on  a  raw- 
boned  yellow  pony  with  three  crowns  in  his  pocket,  to  his  death  as  Comte  D'Artag- 
nan, Commander  of  the  Musketeers  and  Marshal  of  France. 

On  his  first  day  in  Paris,  the  young  D'Artagnan,  who  desires  to  enter  the  famous 
corps  of  Louis  XIII.  's  Musketeers,  contrives  to  entangle  himself  in  three  duels,  with 
three  of  the  most  dreaded  members  of  that  body,  who  are  known  by  the  pseudonyms 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  835 

of  Athos,  Porthos,  and  Aramis.  By  his  pluck  and  spirit,  he  wins  all  three  for  friends ; 
and  the  four  of  them  from  that  tim  e  share  their  fortunes,  good  and  bad,  and  become 
the  heroes  of  many  stirring  events.  The  novel  throughout  is  highly  dramatic  and  of 
absorbing  interest. 

THREE  YEARS  OF  ARCTIC  SERVICE,  'An  Account  of  the  Lady  Franklin  Bay 
Expedition  of  1881-84,  and  the  attainment  of  the  Farthest  North,'  by  Adolphus  W. 
Greely  (1886).  A  popular  account,  drawn  from  personal  diaries  and  official  reports, 
of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  Arctic  expeditions,  and  one  with  scarcely  a 
parallel  in  the  terrible  sufferings  through  many  months  from  which  the  party  were 
at  last  rescued.  The  primary  object  of  the  expedition  was  a  scientific  one;  and 
the  utmost  care  was  given  to  physical  observations,  from  July  1st,  1881,  at  St.  John, 
Newfoundland,  to  June  2ist,  1884,  forty  hours  before  the  rescue  of  the  survivors. 
The  wealth  of  interest  thus  created,  with  that  of  the  remarkable  experiences  of  the 
party,  and  the  range  of  travel  achieved,  make  the  work  one  of  unique  and  lasting 
value. 

THROUGH  NIGHT  TO  LIGHT  ('Durch  Nacht  zum  Licht'),  by  Friedrich  Spiel- 
hagen  (3  vols.,  1861),  a  conclusion  of  the  romance  '  Problematische  Naturen'  (Prob- 
lematic Characters). 

The  promise  of  the  title  is  not  fulfilled  by  the  course  of  this  story  or  its  conclusion. 
Oswald  Stein,  the  hero  of  the  preceding  narrative,  is  to  be  brought  "through  night 
to  light"  in  this  work,  but  he  does  not  accomplish  this  transition.  The  same 
inconstancy,  the  same  facile  impressibility,  and  the  same  transitoriness  of  impression, 
are  brought  out  by  similar  sentimental  experiences  to  those  narrated  in  'Problematic 
Characters.'  Indeed,  the  hero  is  even  less  admirable  than  in  his  hot  youth,  since  his 
experiments  are  no  longer  entirely  innocent.  The  solution  offered  to  the  puzzle 
of  his  life  is  Oswald's  heroic  death  on  the  barricades  of  Paris;  but  this  suggestion  of 
"light "  is  inadequate  in  view  of  the  darkness  of  the  preceding  "night." 

The  story  is  usually  regarded  as  an  attempt  to  effect  a  compromise  between 
the  realistic  tendencies  of  the  late  nineteenth  century,  and  the  idealism  of  an  earlier 
school.  It  is  rich  in  single  episodes  of  interest  or  beauty;  and  its  various  heroines, 
Melitta,  Helene,  Cecile,  are  well  drawn.  As  a  whole,  however,  and  looked  at  from 
the  point  of  view  of  its  purpose,  'Through  Night  to  Light '  is  not  a  powerful  or  con- 
vincing statement  of  the  problem  which  the  novelist  has  propounded. 

THROUGH  THE  BARK  CONTINENT,  by  Henry  Morton  Stanley,  appeared  in 
1878.  It  is  a  graphic  narrative  of  his  dangers  and  remarkable  experiences  in  travers- 
ing the  African  continent,  from  the  eastern  shore  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Already 
distinguished  as  an  African  explorer,  he  had  told  the  story  of  his  earlier  trips  in  '  How 
I  Found  Livingstone';  and  the  latter 's  death  in  1874  made  him  anxious  to  continue 
his  unfinished  work.  The  London  Daily  Telegraph  and  the  New  York  Herald  com- 
bined to  organize  an  expedition  of  which  he  was  appointed  chief.  Its  objects  were  to 
solve  the  remaining  problems  of  Central  African  geography,  and  to  investigate  the 
haunts  of  slave-traders. 

Before  beginning  his  own  narrative,  Stanley  sums  up  all  that  was  previously 
known  about  the  Nile  and  great  central  lakes;  and  the  achievements  of  his  predeces- 
sors, Speke,  Burton,  and  Livingstone;  and  shows  that  the  western  half  of  the  continent 
was  still  practically  a  blank. 

He  reached  Zanzibar  Island  in  September,  1874,  where  he  engaged  Arab  and  Wang- 


836  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

wana  porters,  and  brought  supplies  of  cloth,  beads,  and  provisions.  Upon  November 
1 2th,  he  embarked  with  three  young  English  assistants  and  a  company  of  224  men 
for  the  mainland  in  six  Arab  dhows.  From  that  day  until  his  triumphal  return  to 
Zanzibar  in  a  British  steamer,  over  three  year  later,  with  the  survivors  of  his  company, 
he  describes  a  long  contention  with  famine,  disease,  insubordination  in  camps,  war 
with  hostile  natives,  and  other  dangers.  After  pushing  inland,  he  turned  northward 
to  Lake  Victoria,  which  he  circumnavigated  in  the  Lady  Alice,  a  barge  constructed 
so  as  to  be  portable  in  sections.  Upon  this  trip  he  met  Tsesa,  the  then  king  of 
Uganda,  whom  he  says  he  converted  to  Christianity,  and  in  whose  domains  he  was 
royally  entertained.  The  party  then  proceeded  to  Ujiji,  on  Lake  Tanganyika,  at 
which  point  Stanley  again  embarked  with  a  picked  crew,  and  sailed  around  the  lake. 
In  his  subsequent  march  across  country,  he  heard  rumors  of  Dwarfland,  which 
he  afterwards  visited,  and  had  dangerous  skirmishes  with  cannibals.  He  reached 
the  Luama  River,  and  followed  it  220  miles  until  it  united  with  the  Lualaba,  to 
form  a  broad  gray  river  which  he  knew  as  the  Livingstone,  or  Congo.  Along 
its  many  windings,  sometimes  delayed  by  almost  impassable  rapids,  through 
the  haunts  of  zebra  and  buffalo,  and  of  friendly  and  hostile  natives,  he  per- 
suaded his  weary  men,  until  they  reached  cultivated  fields  again,  and  a  party  of 
white  men  from  Bornu  came  to  greet  him.  Even  then  his  troubles  were  not  over, 
for  the  sudden  relaxation  from  hardships  caused  illness  among  his  men,  from  which 
several  died. 

According  to  his  promise,  he  took  his  company  all  the  way  back  to  their  homes 
in  Zanzibar;  and  saw  their  happy  meeting  with  the  friends  who  welcomed  them  as 
heroes. 

The  Anglo-American  Expedition  had  succeeded,  and  after  its  work  the  map 
of  Africa  was  far  less  of  a  blank. 

THROUGH  THE  LOOKING-GLASS,  see  ALICE'S  ADVENTURES  IN  WONDER- 
LAND. 

THUS  SPAKE  ZARATHUSTRA,  'A  Book  for  AH  and  None'  ('Also  Sprach  Zara- 
thustra'),  is  a  philosophic  treatise  by  Friedrich  Nietzsche,  published  in  1884.  An 
English  translation  appeared  in  1911.  It  consists  of  a  series  of  rhapsodic  discourses 
in  impassioned  and  poetic  prose,  supposed  to  be  addressed  by  a  Persian  sage,  Zarathus- 
tra,  to  his  disciples  and  to  the  people.  The  discourses,  which  are  divided  into  four 
books,  are  provided  with  striking  and  romantic  titles  of  a  mystical  suggestiveness, 
c.  g.,  'The  Three  Metamorphoses/  'The  Flies  in  the  Market-Place, '  'The  Thousand 
and  One  Goals,'  etc.  The  general  position  of  the  book  is  that  good  and  evil  are  purely 
relative  and  that  there  is  one  morality  for  the  strong,  vigorous,  efficient  man,  and 
another  for  the  weak,  average,  subordinate  man.  The  first  or  "master-morality"  is 
governed  by  the  "will  to  power"  and  justifies  the  strong  man  in  dominating  over  his 
inferiors  and  giving  free  scope  to  the  development  of  his  personality.  The  second,  or 
"slave-morality"  produces  pity,  submission,  humility  —  all  instincts  which  appeal 
to  the  weak  and  sickly  who  need  protection.  This  latter  passive  and  degenerate 
morality  is  the  basis  of  Christianity.  Thus  must  give  way  before  a  revival  of  the 
Pagan  code,  which  is  active,  creative,  and  which  leads  to  the  evolution  of  a  higher 
order  of  being,  the  Super-man.  A  natural  corollary  of  this  belief  is  a  hatred  of 
democracy  and  a  passionate  advocacy  of  aristocracy.  For  a  full  exposition  and 
estimate  of  Nietzschism  see  the  introductory  essay  and  the  selections  from  Nietzsche 
in  the  LIBRARY. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  837 

TICKNOR,  GEORGE,  LIFE,  LETTERS,  AND  JOURNALS  OF  (2  vols.,  1876). 
The  story  of  the  life  of  a  private  gentleman  is  here  delightfully  told  through  his  jour- 
nals and  letters  to  and  from  friends;  his  daughter,  with  excellent  taste,  having  joined 
the  history  which  these  documents  reveal,  by  the  slightest  thread  of  narrative.  The 
birth  of  George  Ticknor  in  Boston  in  1791,  his  education  in  private  school  and  college, 
his  deliberate  choice  of  the  life  of  a  man  of  letters  as  his  vocation,  his  four  years  of 
study  and  travel  abroad,  from  the  age  of  twenty-three  to  that  of  twenty-seven,  his 
work  at  Harvard  as  professor  of  French  and  Spanish,  his  labor  upon  his  'History 
of  Spanish  Literature, '  his  delightful  home  life,  a  second  journey  in  Europe  in  his 
ripe  middle  age  and  still  a  third,  full  of  profit  and  delight,  when  he  was  sixty-five, 
his  profound  interest  in  the  war  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Union,  and  finally  the 
peaceful  closing  of  his  days  at  the  age  of  seventy-nine,  —  these  arc  the  material  of 
the  book.  But  the  reader  sees  picture  after  picture  of  a  delightful  existence,  and  is 
brought  into  intimate  relations  with  the  most  cultivated  and  agreeable  people  of  the 
century.  George  Ticknor  had  the  happiness  to  be  well  born ;  that  is,  his  father  and 
mother  were  well  educated,  full  of  ideas  and  aspirations,  and  so  easy  in  circumstances 
that  the  best  advantages  awaited  the  boy.  With  his  inheritance  of  charming  man- 
ners, a  bright  intelligence,  a  kind  heart,  and  leisure  for  study,  he  was  certain  to 
establish  friendships  among  the  best.  The  simple,  delightful  society  of  the  Boston  of 
18,000  inhabitants,  where  his  boyhood  was  passed;  the  not  less  agreeable  but  more 
sophisticated  Boston  of  40,000  citizens  that  he  found  on  his  return  from  Europe,  a 
traveled  gentleman;  and  the  Boston  of  three  times  as  large  a  population,  where  still 
his  own  house  afforded  the  most  delightful  hospitality  and  social  life,  among  many 
famous  for  good  talk  and  good  manners,  —  this  old  town  is  made  to  seem  worthy  of 
its  son.  The  papers  recording  Mr.  Ticknor's  visits  abroad  are  crowded  with  the 
names  of  men  and  women  whom  the  world  honors,  and  who  were  delighted  to  know 
the  agreeable  American:  Byron,  Rogers,  Wordsworth,  Hunt,  Lady  Holland,  Lady 
Ashburnham,  Lord  Landsdowne,  Macaulay,  Sydney  Smith,  Jeffrey,  Lockhart, 
Chateaubriand,  Talleyrand,  Madame  de  Stael,  Goethe,  Herder,  Thorwaldscn, 
Manzoni,  Sismondi,  and  in  later  years,  every  man  of  note  in  Europe.  Of  all  of 
these,  most  interesting  friendly  glimpses  are  given  in  letters  and  journals.  Mr. 
Ticknor's  characterizations  of  these  persons  arc  admirable,  always  judicious  and 
faithful,  and  often  humorous.  With  his  strong  liking  for  foreign  men  and  things, 
he  was  one  of  the  best  Americans,  seeing  the  faults  of  his  country,  but  loving  her  in 
spite  of  them.  Happily  he  lived  to  see  a  reunited  Union,  and  to  cherish  the  loftiest 
hopes  for  its  future.  The  young  American  who  looks  for  fine  standards  of  intellectual, 
moral,  and  social  achievements  will  find  his  account  in  a  study  of  the  life  of  this 
modest,  accomplished,  genial,  hard-working,  distinguished  private  gentleman. 

TIDES  OF  BARNEGAT,  THE,  by  F.  Hopkinson  Smith  (1906).  The  scene  of  this 
story  is  laid  in  a  sea-faring  town  called  Barnegat,  where  Jane  Cobdcn  and  her  sister 
Lucy  have  been  born  and  bred.  They  are  the  last  of  their  race  and  are  looked  upon 
as  the  aristocrats  of  the  village.  Jane  is  a  beautiful  and  unselfish  character  and 
idolizes  her  sister  who  is  many  years  her  junior.  Lucy,  who  is  of  a  very  different 
nature,  is  vain,  selfish,  and  unprincipled  and  when  just  blossoming  into  womanhood 
allows  herself  to  be  led  astray  by  Barton  Holt,  the  son  of  Captain  Holt,  a  life-long 
friend  of  the  family.  The  secret  is  known  only  to  the  Captain  and  Jane,  and  he, 
horrified  at  the  discovery,  turns  his  son  out  of  his  house  and  disowns  him,  while  Jane 
grief  stricken,  hastens  with  Lucy  to  Paris,  where  they  are  lost  to  the  sight  of  their 
friends  for  several  years.  At  the  end  of  that  time  Jane  returns  to  her  home  accom- 


838  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

panied  by  a  small  boy  by  the  name  of  Archie,  whom  she  has  adopted.  The  child  is 
something  of  a  mystery  to  Jane's  friends  and  neighbors  but  she  does  not  satisfy  their 
curiosity  in  any  way.  Before  the  trouble  Jane  had  become  engaged  to  the  village 
doctor,  a  fine  man.  loved  and  esteemed  by  all  and  affectionately  designated  as  "Dr. 
John."  He  is  anxious  to  marry  Jane  but  in  order  to  keep  her  secret  she  refuses  to 
comply  with  his  desire.  Lucy  marries  a  Frenchman  and  after  years  returns  home  a 
widow  with  one  daughter.  She  is  as  frivolous  as  ever,  caring  only  for  admiration 
and  show,  and  contemplates  a  second  marriage  with  a  man  from  whom  she  is  most 
desirous  of  hiding  her  past.  Archie  grows  to  be  a  fine  and  muscular  young  man  and 
joins  the  life-saving  staff  under  the  direction  of  Captain  Holt.  Barton  Holt,  who  had 
been  considered  dead  for  years,  writes  his  father  he  is  alive  and  coming  back  to  visit 
him.  The  ship  on  which  he  is  a  passenger  is  wrecked  by  a  frightful  storm  when  they 
are  in  sight  of  land.  Archie  risks  his  life  with  others  of  the  life-saving  crew  and  is 
drowned  in  the  act  of  rescuing  the  father  who  is  unknown  to  him.  Barton  also 
perishes,  and  over  his  dead  body,  his  father  to  the  horror  of  Lucy  makes  public  the 
story.  Jane  is  at  last  free  to  marry  "  Dr.  John"  and  learns  he  has  all  the  time  been 
aware  of  the  truth. 

TILL  EULENSPIEGEL.  The  origin  of  this  book  of  the  adventures  of  Till  Eulen- 
spiegel  is  doubtful.  It  is  supposed  that  these  stories  were  collected  and  first  pub- 
lished in  Low  Dutch,  in  the  year  1483.  The  hero  of  them,  whose  first  name  was 
Till  or  Thyl,  was  a  traveling  buffoon,  who,  besides  presenting  farces  and  the  like, 
was  a  practical  joker.  The  name  of  Eulenspiegel  probably  comes  from  a  picture 
or  coat  of  arms  which  he  left  after  perpetrating  a  joke,  which  consisted  of  an  owl 
(Eule)  and  a  mirror  (Spiegel),  and  which  is  to-day  shown,  on  what  is  said  to  be  his 
gravestone,  in  Luneburg. 

The  motive  of  many  of  the  jokes  is  the  literal  interpretation  by  Till  of  what  he 
is  told  to  do ;  something  after  the  style  of  Handy  Andy,  except  that  Till's  misinter- 
pretations are  not  the  result  of  simplicity.  Many  of  them  are  very  filthy,  while 
others  would  to-day  be  considered  crimes  and  not  jokes.  It  is  difficult  to  understand 
how  this  book  could  have  had  a  popularity  which  has  caused  it  to  be  translated  into 
many  languages.  It  is  to-day  only  appreciated  as  a  curious  picture  of  the  taste 
and  customs  of  its  time.  It  differs  from  like  books  of  southern  Europe  in  that  none 
of  the  stories  are  founded  on  amorous  intrigues. 

TIMBUCTOO  THE  MYSTERIOUS,  by  Felix  Dubois.  Translated  from  the  French 
by  Diana  "White  (1896).  The  story  of  a  long  journey  inland  in  French  Africa:  from 
Dakar,  the  port  of  Senegal,  by  rail  above  170  miles  to  St.  Louis,  the  capital  of  Sene- 
gal; thence  by  river  steamer  on  the  Senegal  eight  days  to  Kayes,  the  capital  of  French 
Sudan;  then  by  rail  part  of  the  way,  and  by  caravan  the  remainder,  to  the  Niger  at 
Bammaku;  and,  last  of  all,  on  the  vast  sea-like  breadth  of  the  Niger  to  Timbuctoo. 
The  story  of  French  occupation;  of  improvements  recently  made;  of  the  great  river 
and  the  country  through  which  it  flows;  and  of  the  remarkable  city  once  a  great  seat 
of  Mussulman  culture,  and  in  French  hands  not  unlikely  to  become  a  centre  of  Euro- 
pean civilization  and  science  in  the  heart  of  Africa,  —  is  one  to  reward  the  reader, 
and  one  also  to  form  a  valuable  chapter  in  the  history  of  European  conversion  of  the 
Dark  Continent  into  a  land  of  light  and  of  progress.  A  special  interest  in  the  book 
is  the  discovery  in  Jenne  and  Timbuctoo  of  ancient  Egyptian  architecture,  leading 
to  the  belief  that  the  ancient  empire  of  Sangird  was  founded  by  emigrants  from  the 
Nile. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  839 

TIMON  OP  ATHENS  (first  printed  in  1623)  is  by  Shakespeare,  either  in  whole  or 
in  part.  It  is  a  bitter  satire  on  friendship  and  society,  written  in  the  stern  sarcastic 
vein  of  Juvenal.  The  sources  of  the  plot  seem  to  have  been  Paynter's  *  Palace  of 
Pleasure, '  Plutarch's  'Life  of  Antony, '  and  Lucian's  'Dialogue  on  Timon.'  Shakes- 
peare's "Timon"  is  unique  both  in  his  ostentations  and  indiscriminate  prodigality 
and  in  the  bitterness  of  his  misanthropy  after  his  wealth  was  gone.  Yet  he  was 
of  the  noblest  heart.  His  sublime  faith  that  his  friends  were  as  generous  as  he,  and 
that  they  were  all  brothers,  commanding  one  another's  fortunes,  was  a  practical  error, 
that  was  all.  Men  were  selfish  wolves;  he  thought  them  angels.  His  bounty  was 
measureless :  if  a  friend  praised  a  horse  'twas  his;  if  one  wanted  a  little  loan  of  £5,000 
or  so,  'twas  a  trifle;  he  portioned  his  servants  and  paid  his  friends'  debts;  his  vaults 
wept  with  drunken  spilth  of  wine,  and  every  room  blazed  with  lights  and  brayed  with 
minstrelsy;  at  parting  each  guest  received  some  jewel  as  a  keepsake.  When  all  was 
gone,  full  of  cheerful  faith  he  sent  out  to  his  friends  to  borrow,  and  they  all  with  one 
accord  began  to  make  excuse.  Not  a  penny  could  he  get.  Feast  won,  fast  lost. 
The  smiling,  smooth,  detested  parasites  left  him  to  his  clamorous  creditors  and  to 
ruin.  The  crushing  blow  to  his  ideals  maddened  him ;  his  blood  turned  to  gall  and 
vinegar.  Yet  he  determined  on  one  last  banquet.  The  surprised  sycophants 
thought  he  was  on  his  feet  again,  and  with  profuse  apologies  assembled  at  his  house. 
The  covered  dishes  are  brought  in.  "Uncover  dogs,  and  lap!"  cries  the  enraged 
Timon.  The  dishes  are  found  to  be  full  of  warm  water,  which  he  throws  in  their 
faces,  then  pelts  them  with  stones  and  drives  them  forth  with  execrations,  and  rushes 
away  to  the  woods  to  henceforth  live  in  a  cave  and  subsist  on  roots  and  berries  and 
curse  mankind.  In  digging  he  finds  gold.  His  old  acquaintances  visit  him  in  turn, 
— Alcibiades,  the  cynical  dog  Apemantus,  his  faithful  steward  Flavius,  a  poet,  a 
painter,  senators  of  Athens.  He  curses  them  all,  flings  gold  at  them,  telling  them  he 
gives  it  that  they  may  use  it  for  the  bale  of  man,  pronounces  his  weeping  steward  the 
only  honest  man  in  the  world,  builds  "his  everlasting  mansion  on  the  beached  verge 
of  the  salt  flood, "  where  "vast  Neptune  may  weep  for  aye  on  his  low  grave,  on  faults 
forgiven,"  writes  his  epitaph,  and  lies  down  in  the  tomb  and  dies. 

TITUS  ANDRONICUS  (1593)  —A  repulsive  drama  of  bloodshed  and  unnatural 
crimes,  now  believed  to  have  been  written  by  Shakespeare,  since  it  often  is  included 
in  the  original  Folio  Edition  of  1623.  No  one  who  has  once  supped  on  its  horrors 
will  care  to  read  it.  Here  is  a  specimen  of  them:  Titus  Andronicus,  a  Roman  noble, 
in  revenge  for  the  ravishing  of  his  daughter  Lavinia  and  the  cutting  of!  of  her  hands 
and  tongue,  cuts  the  throats  of  the  two  ravishers,  while  his  daughter  holds  between 
the  stumps  of  her  arms  a  basin  to  catch  the  blood.  The  father  then  makes  a  paste 
of  the  ground  bones  and  blood  of  the  slain  men,  and  in  that  paste  bakes  their  two 
heads,  and  serving  them  up  at  a  feast,  causes  their  mother  to  eat  of  the  dish, 
lago  seems  a  gentleman  beside  the  hellish  Moor,  Aaron,  of  this  blood-soaked 
tragedy. 

TO  HAVE  AND  TO  HOLD,  by  Mary  Johnston  (1900),  was  one  of  the  most  popular 
books  of  the  year.  It  is  a  historical  romance  and  deals  with  life  in  the  Virginia 
colonies  in  the  early  part  of  the  iyth  century.  Ralph  Percy,  the  hero  of  the  tale,  an 
Englishman  of  birth  and  breeding,  is  leading  a  life  of  adventure  in  Virginia,  when  a 
cast  of  the  dice  decides  him  to  choose  a  wife  from  among  the  shipload  of  maids  who 
have  just  arrived  from  England.  He  hastily  marries  a  proud  and  lovely  maid  who 
proves  to  be  none  other  than  Jocelyn  Leigh,  the  King's  ward,  who  had  fled  the  country 


840  THE   READER*  S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

disguised  as  a  serving-maid,  in  order  to  escape  marriage  with  Lord  Carnal,  the  King's 
favorite,  whom  she  despised.  Carnal  traces  her  and  follows  her  to  Virginia,  where  he 
does  everything  in  his  power  to  get  possession  of  her,  and  uses  every  foul  means  possi- 
ble to  rid  himself  of  her  husband.  Percy  and  Lord  Carnal,  who  are  bitter  enemies,  have 
various  encounters,  in  all  of  which  the  former  succeeds  in  getting  the  best  of  his  rival. 
News  comes  from  England  that  Jocelyn  and  her  husband  are  to  be  brought  back  there, 
by  order  of  the  King  and  the  latter  imprisoned,  while  the  former  is  forced  to  comply 
with  his  Majesty's  wishes.  Jocelyn  and  Percy  flee  in  the  night,  pursued  by  Lord 
Carnal,  and  set  sail  in  a  small  boat  accompanied  by  Jeremy  Sparrow,  the  minister 
who  married  them  and  who  has  been  their  staunch  friend,  Diccon,  a  servant,  and 
Carnal,  who  by  this  means  is  kept  in  their  power.  They  are  wrecked  and  cast  upon 
a  desert  island,  where  Percy  encounters  a  band  of  pirates  who  have  come  ashore 
to  bury  their  Captain.  He  conquers  them,  assumes  the  character  of  Kirby,  a  famous 
pirate,  and  becomes  their  commander.  Percy  and  his  companions  remain  upon  the 
pirate  ship  until  his  orders  against  attacking  an  English  merchantman  cause  rebellion, 
and  during  the  fracas  Sparrow  seizes  the  wheel  and  runs  the  ship  upon  the  rocks. 
After  their  rescue  Percy  is  sentenced  to  be  hung  as  a  pirate,  when  Jocelyn 's  pleading 
for  his  life  saves  him  and  reveals  how  much  she  has  grown  to  love  the  man  whom  she 
married  so  hastily.  The  ship  returns  to  Virginia  where,  after  long  separation  and 
many  thrilling  experinces,  Percy  and  Jocelyn  are  at  length  re-united  and  Carnal,  a 
physical  wreck,  takes  poison  and  thereby  ends  a  life  of  baseness  and  disappointed 
hopes. 

TOADS  AND  DIAMONDS,  see  FAIRY  TALES. 

TOGETHER,  by  Robert  Herrick  (1908).  The  theme  of  this  picture  of  American 
life  is  mismated  marriage.  The  brilliant  wedding  of  Isabelle  Price  and  John  Lane 
begins  a  frank  intimate  study  of  their  married  life  and  that  of  their  friends.  Isabelle 
and  her  husband  drift  apart  as  he  becomes  absorbed  in  business,  and  she  cultivates 
false  ideals  of  social  self-realization  and  freedom.  A  minor  character,  Dr.  Renault, 
states  the  cult  of  the  ego  of  the  American  woman.  He  tells  Isabelle  that  women  of  her 
class  pride  themselves  on  their  culture,  individuality,  cleverness,  development, 
leading  their  own  lives,  but,  call  it  what  they  will,  it  is  the  same,  "the  in  turning  of  the 
spirit  to  cherish  self."  Woman,  the  spender,  "sees  in  marriage  the  fulfilment  of  her 
heart's  desire  —  to  be  queen,  to  rule  and  not  work."  "So  long  as  she  may  but  please 
this  lord  of  hers,  so  long  as  she  may  hold  him  by  her  mind  or  her  body,  she  will  be 
queen.  She  has  found  something  softer  than  labor  with  her  hands,  easier  than  the 
pains  of  childbirth."  Only  one  of  the  couples,  Alice  and  Steve  Johnson  are  truly 
mated.  Their  wholesome  comradeship,  many  children  and  commonplace  poverty 
make  them  heroic  and  happy,  but  not  interesting  or  successful.  Robert  Falkner, 
married  to  the  frivolous  Bessie,  loves  sensitive  high-souled  Margaret  Pole,  who 
yields  to  one  idyllic  week-end  with  him  but  refuses  to  marry  him.  Margaret's 
marriage  with  the  weak  Larry,  is  "one  of  the  millions  of  mistakes  women  make  out  of 
the  girlish  guess, "  mistakes  growing  out  of  "blind  ignorance  of  self  and  life."  The 
ambitious  Conny  Woodward  sacrifices  her  husband  to  her  will  for  power.  The  story 
is  also  an  indictment  of  modern  business.  Isabelle's  husband  is  the  scapegoat  in  the 
courts  for  the  illegal  methods  of  the  railroad  of  which  he  is  vice-president.  There 
is  a  happy  ending  with  Isabelle  and  her  husband  beginning  a  new  partnership, 
living  together  in  mutual  confidence  and  affection,  but  the  picture  of  American  life 
and  womanhood  presented  is  far  from  flattering. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  841 

TOILERS  OF  THE  SEA  ('Les  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer')  (1866).  A  novel  by  Victor 
Hugo,'  which  possesses  double  interest:  first,  in  the  story;  secondly,  in  its  bold  de- 
scriptions of  the  colossal  and  secret  powers  of  the  elements.  In  time  it  followed  after 
the  still  more  famous  '  Les  Miserables.'  The  scene  is  laid  in  Germany;  and  the  book 
is  dedicated  to  the  "  Isle  of  Guernsey,  severe  yet  gentle,  my  present  asylum,  my  pro- 
bable tomb."  The  heroine,  Deruchette,  is  the  niece  of  Lethierry,  who  has  invented 
a  steamboat,  La  Durande,  which  plies  between  Guernsey  and  St.  Malo,  and  which  is 
the  wonder  of  the  Channel  Islands.  His  partner,  Rantaine,  disappears  with  a  large 
sum  of  money,  and  is  succeeded  as  captain  of  La  Durande  by  Clubin.  The  latter 
has  friends  among  the  smugglers,  and  with  their  assistance  finds  Rantaine,  who  has 
escaped  in  the  guise  of  a  Quaker.  Clubin  obtains  this  booty  and  determines  to 
keep  it.  He  plans  to  wreck  La  Durande  on  the  rocks  known  as  "Les  Hanois, "  and 
then  to  swim  ashore  and  escape.  From  this  point,  the  story  is  full  of  the  excitement 
and  terror  of  the  life  of  the  sailor.  The  descriptions  of  the  sea,  the  wind,  and  the 
mysteries  of  the  ocean-bed,  are  wonderful.  Among  the  most  striking  scenes  is  the 
encounter  of  Gilliatt,  the  real  hero  of  the  book,  with  an  octopus  which  lurks  in  a 
rocky  cavern  beneath  the  sea.  Penetrating  into  the  shadows  of  this  submarine 
crypt,  whose  arches  are  covered  with  seaweed  and  trailing  moss,  Gilliatt  soon 
finds  himself  in  the  embrace  of  the  gigantic  and  slimy  monster,  whose  gleaming 
eyes  are  fixed  upon  him.  Of  this  story  George  Henry  Lewes  said  that  it  had 
"a  certain  daring  inflation  about  it  which  cannot  be  met  elsewhere;  and  if 
the  splendor  is  barbaric  it  is  undeniably  splendid.  Page  after  page  and  chapter 
after  chapter  may  be  mere  fireworks  which  blaze  and  pass  away;  but  as  fire- 
works, the  prodigality  is  amazing."  He  also  says  that  the  author  has  given  "a 
poetical  vision  of  the  sea,  which  is  more  like  an  apocalypse  than  the  vision  of  a 
healthy  mind." 

TOM  BROWN'S  SCHOOL  DAYS,  the  finest  and  most  famous  example  of  stories 
depicting  English  public-school  life,  was  written  by  Thomas  Hughes,  and  published 
in  1857,  when  the  author  was  a  young  barrister  of  three-and- thirty.  It  leaped  at 
once  into  a  deserved  popularity  it  has  never  lost.  Tom  is  a  typical  middle-class  lad 
with  the  distinctive  British  virtues  of  pluck,  honesty,  and  the  love  of  fair  play.  The 
story  portrays  his  life  from  the  moment  he  enters  the  lowest  form  of  the  great  school, 
a  homesick,  timid  lad,  who  has  to  fag  for  the  older  boys  and  has  his  full  share  of  the 
rough  treatment  which  obtained  in  the  Rugby  of  his  day,  to  the  time  when  he  has 
developed  into  a  big,  brawny  fellow,  the  head  of  the  school,  a  football  hero,  and 
ready  to  pass  on  to  Oxford,  —  another  story  being  devoted  to  his  experiences  there. 
A  faithful,  lifelike,  and  most  entertaining  picture  of  the  Rugby  of  Dr.  Arnold  is  given; 
its  social  habits,  methods  of  teaching,  its  sports,  beliefs,  and  ideals.  The  wide 
influence  of  that  great  man  is  sketched  with  hearty  appreciation;  and  in  another 
figure  —  that  of  the  gentle,  high-charactered  lad  Arthur  —  one  may  recognize  Dean 
Stanley  in  his  student  days.  Individual  scenes,  like  the  bullying  of  Tom  when 
he  is  green  in  the  school,  the  football  match,  and  the  boat  race,  will  always  cling  in 
memory  for  their  graphic  lines  and  fullness  of  life.  An  honester,  manlier  story 
was  never  written,  for  the  author  had  been  through  it  all,  —  the  novel  is  "by 
an  old  boy,"  the  title-page  declares;  moreover,  it  teaches,  by  the  contagion  of 
example,  those  sterling  virile  virtues  which  have  made  the  English  one  of  the 
great  dominant  races  of  civilization.  To  read  'Tom  Brown'  is  to  have  an 
exhilarating  sense  of  the  vigorous  young  manhood  of  that  nation,  its  joy  in 
fruitful  activity. 


842  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

TOM  BURKE  OF  "  OURS,"  by  Charles  Lever  (1844).    This  is  one  of  Lever's 

characteristic  stories  of  an  exiled  Irish  patriot,  who  wins  glory  and  preferment  under 
the  banners  of  France.  Tom  Burke,  the  son  of  an  Irish  gentleman,  being  orphaned 
runs  away  from  home  to  escape  the  persecutions  of  his  father's  attorney.  He  falls  in 
with  Darby  the  "Blast,"  a  shrewd,  odd  character,  who  is  prominent  among  the 
United  Irishmen.  They  reach  Dublin,  where  Tom  meets  Charles  de  Meudon,  a 
young  French  officer,  who  gives  him  a  letter  to  the  Chef  of  the  Polytechnique  at 
Paris,  where  he  is  to  become  nn  eleve.  On  graduating  from  the  military  academy, 
Tom  becomes  an  officer  in  the  Eighth  Hussars;  but  from  an  accidental  acquaintance 
with  the  Marquis  de  Beauvis,  a  Bourbonist,  he  unconsciously  becomes  involved  in  a 
political  intrigue,  and  his  actions  are  closely  watched  by  the  police.  In  aiding  De 
Beauvis  to  escape,  Tom  is  himself  arrested  and  imprisoned  for  treason.  Through  the 
intervention  of  General  D'Auvergne  and  Mademoiselle  Marie  de  Meudon,  the  sister 
of  Charles,  with  whom  he  has  fallen  in  love,  Burke  is  set  free.  Troops  are  ordered 
to  the  front,  and  Napoleon  invades  Germany  and  Austria.  After  meritorious  service 
at  Austerlitz,  Tom  Burke,  whom  General  D'Auvergne  has  made  aid-de-camp,  is 
promoted  to  a  captaincy  and  takes  part  in  the  battle  of  Jena.  But,  disgusted  at 
having  constant  watch  over  his  actions,  he  throws  up  his  commission  and  quits  the 
service.  On  reaching  Dublin  Tom  is  arrested  on  old  scores;  but  is  acquitted  through 
the  testimony  of  Darby,  and  comes  into  his  inheritance,  an  estate  of  four  thousand 
pounds  a  year.  For  several  years  Burke  leads  a  lonely  life:  but  finally  returns  to 
France  and  again  enlists,  also  aiding  the  Napoleonic  cause  with  money.  On  the  field 
of  Montmirail,  Burke  is  reported  to  the  Emperor,  and  for  an  attack  on  the  Austrian 
rear-guard  at  Melun  he  is  made  colonel.  After  his  gallant  conduct  at  the  Bridge  of 
Montereau,  where  he  leads  the  assault,  Burke  is  given  the  Emperor's  own  cross  of 
the  Legion.  Napoleon's  doom  is  sealed,  and  he  is  exiled.  Tom,  refusing  to  serve 
under  the  Bourbons,  though  offered  the  grade  of  general,  throws  aside  all  thought  of 
military  ambition,  marries  Marie  de  Meudon,  and  retires  to  private  life. 

TOM  CRINGLE'S  LOG,  by  Michael  Scott.  This  work  was  originally  published  as  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  popularity,  not  only  among  English  speaking  people  but  on  the  con- 
tinent 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  Spanish 
Main,  gave  him  not  only  great  familiarity  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  faithfully  and  vividly  por- 
trayed. There  is  no  plot;  but  the  book  contains  a  series  of  adventures  with  pirates, 
mutineers,  privateersmen,  and  men-of-war,  storms,  wrecks,  and  waterspouts,  inter- 
spersed 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  adven- 
tures with  American  men-of-war  and  privateersmen,  during  the  War  of  1812,  —  the 
celebrated  frigate  Hornet  playing  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  on  shore,  during  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  843 

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 
l835>  before  the  publication  of  the  latter  work. 

TOM  GROGAN,  by  F.  Hopkinson  Smith  (1895),  is  a  spirited  and  most  entertaining 
and  ingenious  study  of  laboring  life  in  Staten  Island,  New  York. 

Tom  Grogan  was  a  stevedore,  who  died  from  the  effects  of  an  injury.  With  a 
family  to  support,  his  widow  conceals  the  fact  of  her  husband's  death,  saying  that 
he  is  sick  in  a  hospital,  that  she  may  assume  both  his  name  and  business. 

She  is  thenceforth  known  to  every  one  as  'Tom  Grogan.'  A  sturdy,  cheery, 
capable  Irishwoman,  she  carries  on  the  business  with  an  increasing  success,  which 
arouses  the  jealous  opposition  of  some  rival  stevedores  and  walking  delegates  of  the 
labor  union  she  has  refused  to  join. 

The  story  tells  how,  with  marvelous  pluck,  Tom  meets  all  the  contemptible 
means  which  her  enemies  employ  in  order  to  down  her,  they  resorting  even  to  the  law, 
blackmail,  arson,  and  attempted  murder.  In  all  her  mannish  employments  her 
mother-heart  beats  warm  and  true;  and  her  little  crippled  Patsy,  a  companion  to 
Dickens 's  Tiny  Tim,  and  Jenny  the  daughter  with  her  own  tender  love  affair,  are  the 
objects  of  Tom's  constant  solicitude. 

The  author  has  given  a  refreshing  view  of  a  soul  of  heroic  mold  beneath  an  uncouth 
exterior,  and  a  pure  life  where  men  are  wont  to  expect  degradation. 

TOM  JONES,  by  Henry  Fielding,  conceded  to  be  that  writer's  masterpiece,  and 
deemed  by  some  critics  the  greatest  English  novel,  was  published  in  1749,  ^hen  the 
author  was  forty-two.  He  had,  however,  been  long  at  work  upon  it.  The  story  is 
Fielding's  third  piece  of  fiction,  and  represents  the  zenith  of  his  literary  power; 
'Amelia,'  which  followed  two  years  later  and  was  his  last  novel,  having  less  exuber- 
ance and  happy  invention.  'The  History  of  Tom  Jones,  a  Foundling,'  is  the  full 
title  of  the  book;  Tom  is  the  foundling,  left  on  the  doorstep  of  a  charitable  gentleman, 
.  Mr,  Allworthy,  who  gives  him  a  home  and  rears  him  with  care,  but,  grieved  by  his 
wild  conduct  as  a  young  man,  repudiates  him  for  a  time.  Tom  is  a  high-spirited, 
handsome  fellow,  generous  and  honest,  but  perpetually  in  hot  water  because  of  his 
liking  for  adventure  and  his  gallantry  towards  women.  He  loves  Sophia  Western, 
whose  father,  Squire  Western,  an  irascible,  bluff,  three-bottle,  hunting  English 
country  magnate,  is  one  of  the  best  and  best-known  pieces  of  character-drawing  in 
the  whole  range  of  English  fiction.  The  match  is  opposed  strenuously  by  the  squire ; 
and  Tom  sets  out  on  his  travels  under  a  cloud,  hoping  to  win  his  girl  in  spite  of  all. 
He  is  accompanied  by  his  tutor,  the  schoolmaster  Partridge,  a  simple-minded,  learned 
man,  very  lovable,  a  capitally  drawn  and  amusing  figure.  Another  character  sym- 
pathetically sketched  is  that  of  Blifil,  the  contemptible  hypocrite  who  seeks  Sophia's 
hand  and  tries  to  further  his  cause  by  lying  about  Jones.  Tom  has  many  escapades, 
especially  of  the  amatory  sort;  and  his  experiences  are  narrated  with  great  liveliness, 
reality,  and  unction,  the  reader  being  carried  along  irresistibly  by  the  author's  high 
good  spirits.  No  other  eighteenth-century  story  gives  such  truthful,  varied,  and 
animated  scenes  of  contemporaneous  life  in  country  and  town.  Jones  finally  triumphs 
over  his  enemies,  is  reconciled  with  his  guardian,  the  blot  on  his  birth  is  removed,  and 
he  wins  his  Sophia.  He  is  throughout  a  likable  fellow,  though  his  ethics  are  not 
always  agreeable  to  modern  taste  or  conscience. 

TOMMY  AND  GRIZEL,  by  Sir  James  M.  Banie  (1900).     This  is  a  clever  and 
baffling  character-study  of  Thomas  Sandys  (whom  the  author  first  introduced  to  the 


844  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

public  under  the  guise  of  "Sentimental  Tommy"),  and  of  Grizel,  who  adores  him  and 
studies  his  every  act  and  motive.  Tommy  is  a  unique  and  original  creation  possessed 
of  a  genius  which  unfits  him  for  practical  Hfe.  He  is  a  creature  of  ever- varying  moods 
who  may  be  loved  but  never  understood  and  still  less  approved  of.  Grizel,  who  is  a 
paragon,  is  destined  to  have  her  career  blighted  by  her  love  for  this  erratic  genius, 
with  his  gift  at  writing  and  his  fatal  gift  of  making-believe.  She  realizes  that  Tommy 
does  not  love  her,  and  yet  she  loves  and  honors  him  for  his  effort  to  make  her  think 
he  does.  To  Tommy  "all  the  world's  a  stage"  and  he  is  cast  for  leading  lover.  He 
knows  by  instinct  how  to  make  direct  appeal  to  every  woman's  heart  and  he  cannot 
resist  the  constantly  recurring  temptation  to  exercise  his  power.  The  reader  follows 
his  brief  career  with  scorn  and  sympathy,  as  he  writes  matchless  love  scenes  and  then 
endeavors  to  materialize  them  by  flirting  with  the  London  ladies,  as  he  struggles  to 
return  Grizel's  ideal  love  in  kind,  and  having  primed  himself  with  high  resolves, 
immediately  makes  love  to  shameless  Lady  Pippinworth,  almost  breaking  poor 
Grizel's  heart.  The  author  paints  his  abject  misery  at  the  realization  of  the  harm  his 
selfishness  has  wrought,  his  hasty  marriage  with  the  distraught  Grizel,  and  his 
devoted  nursing  of  her  back  to  health  and  happiness,  and  finally  his  weak  indulgence 
of  his  former  passion  for  the  tantalizing  demon  embodied  in  Lady  Pippinworth,  who 
lures  him  to  follow  her  into  the  garden  and  is  the  cause  of  his  being  impaled  upon  the 
picket  fence,  where  he  meets  his  tragic  end. 

TONO-BUNGAY,  a  novel,  by  H.  G.  Wells  (1908).  This  romance  of  modern  adver- 
tising follows  the  fortunes  of  George  Ponderevo,  and  his  uncle,  Edward  Ponderevo,  a 
chemist,  inventor  of  a  quack  patent  medicine  "Tono-Bungay,"  which  brings  him  a 
colossal  fortune.  George  begins  his  autobiography  with  reminiscences  of  the  "  Great 
House, "  where  his  mother  was  housekeeper.  He  is  banished  in  disgrace  for  thrashing 
a  young  nobleman,  and  goes  to  live  in  the  neighboring  town  with  his  uncle,  the  chemist. 
The  money  that  his  mother  left  in  trust  for  his  education  is  lost  in  the  bankruptcy 
which  follows  his  uncle's  foolish  speculation,  but  George  wins  a  scholarship  in  the 
University  of  London.  Edward  Ponderevo,  now  a  druggist's  clerk,  launches  his 
patent  medicine  and  asks  his  nephew  to  join  him  to  "make  Tono-Bungay  hum." 
George  knows  that  the  concoction  is  a  swindle,  but  he  wants  money  to  get  married 
and  accepts  the  offer.  Their  success  is  due  to  his  business  ability  as  well  as  his 
uncle's  genius  for  advertising  Tono-Bungay,  which  its  creator  comes  to  believe  in  by 
the  mere  reiteration  of  his  own  brilliant  assertions;  he  builds  a  great  "  property  out  of 
human  hope  and  a  credit  for  bottles  and  rent  and  printing. "  George's  marriage  is  a 
failure,  and  after  divorce  from  Marion,  his  insipid  wife,  he  gives  his  time  and  interest 
to  inventing  airships,  neglecting  to  keep  the  business  humming.  There  are  digres- 
sions and  monologues  on  all  subjects  bearing  on  George's  intellectual  and  spiritual 
development.  He  meets  and  loves  his  old  playmate  of  the  "Great  House,"  Lady 
Beatrice,  too  late  to  win  her  from  a  clandestine  relation  with  another  man.  A 
mysterious  trip  to  Africa  in  search  of  a  radio-active  substance  fails  to  save  Tono- 
Bungay  from  bankruptcy.  George  rescues  his  dying  uncle  from  the  criminal  conse- 
quences of  his  imagination  by  flying  across  the  channel  with  him  in  his  airship.  As 
in  other  books  by  Mr.  Wells,  the  story  is  the  framework  for  the  author's  views  of  the 
springs  of  conduct  and  belief. 

TORY  LOVER,  THE,  by  Sarah  Orne  Jewett  (1901).  The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid 
in  Berwick,  Maine,  on  the  Piscataqua  River,  and  deals  with  the  period  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. Roger  Wallingford,  the  hero  of  the  tale,  is  a  fine  fellow  of  Tory  ancestry,  who, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  845 

through  his  love  for  Mary  Hamilton,  a  beautiful  girl,  joins  the  cause  of  the  Patriots. 
Mary,  whose  brother  Colonel  John  Hamilton  warmly  espouses  this  cause,  is  herself 
fired  with  enthusiasm  and  patriotic  fervor,  and  urges  her  childhood's  friend  to  iden- 
tify himself  with  those  seeking  independence.  Through  her  influence  over  Captain 
Paul  Jones,  who  is  her  brother's  guest,  and  who  is  enthralled  by  her  beauty,  a  com- 
mission is  obtained  for  Wallingford  and  he  ships  on  the  Ranger.  This  course,  Mary- 
hopes,  will  insure  the  safety  of  Roger's  mother,  Madam  Wallingford,  whose  loyalty 
to  the  King  places  her  in  a  perilous  position.  Such  a  step,  however,  fails  to  satisfy 
the  people  and  Madam  Wallingford  is  forced  to  leave  the  country.  At  this  time  bad 
news  concerning  Roger  has  been  received  and  he  has  been  accused  of  treachery  and 
desertion  and  no  trace  of  him  can  be  found.  Mary,  who  is  confident  of  Roger's 
integrity,  accompanies  his  mother  to  England,  determined  to  do  everything  in  her 
power  to  find  him  and  clear  his  name.  After  many  disheartening  disappointments, 
Mary's  efforts  are  at  last  crowned  with  success  and,  through  the  assistance  of  Paul 
Jones,  Roger  is  found  at  a  country  inn,  where  he,  as  an  escaped  prisoner  of  war,  has 
taken  refuge  disguised  in  the  costume  of  a  drover.  It  is  proved  that  Roger  has  been 
the  victim  of  a  conspiracy  and  the  mystery  is  cleared  up  by  the  confession  of  the 
villain  who  has  caused  it  and  who  meets  with  well-deserved  punishment.  The  lovers 
are  happily  united. 

TOTTEL'S  MISCELLANY,  a  collection  of  lyric  poems  published  by  Richard  Tottel 
in  1557  under  the  title  'Songs  and  Sonnets,  written  by  the  right  honourable  Lord 
Henry  Howard,  late  Earl  of  Surrey,  and  others.1  The  volume  preserves  the  best 
work  of  the  court  poets  of  the  early  English  Renaissance  including  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt 
(1503-1542),  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey  (1516-1547),  Nicholas  Grimald  (1519- 
1562),  and  Thomas,  Lord  Vaux  (1510-1556).  Wyatt,  the  pioneer  of  the  new  poetry, 
is  represented  by  about  thirty  sonnets  and  a  number  of  graceful  and  charming  lyrics. 
Like  his  master,  Petrarch,  he  sings  almost  entirely  of  the  beauty  and  cruelty  of  his 
mistress  and  of  the  joys  and  pains  of  love;  and  beneath  the  ingenious  and  varied 
metaphors  of  the  Petrarcklan  self -analysis  runs  a  strain  of  genuine  feeling.  Particu- 
larly original  are  the  lines  in  which  he  describes  his  lady's  former  kindness,  and  makes 
a  vigorous  renunciation  of  further  slavery.  In  the  sonnet,  which  Wyatt  introduced 
into  English  poetry,  he  adopted  the  Petrarchian  form  with  modifications,  changing 
the  sextette  into  a  quatrain  followed  by  a  couplet.  Owing  to  the  alterations  in  Eng- 
lish accentuation  and  infection  since  Chaucer's  time  he  had  difficulty  in  achieving 
metrical  smoothness;  and  some  of  his  lines  will  not  scan  properly;  but  with  practice 
he  attained  true  rhythm  and  thus  initiated  the  reform  of  English  versification  from 
the  chaos  of  a  century.  His  lyrics,  like  'Awake,  my  lute'  and  'And  wilt  thou  leave 
me  thus?  '  positively  sing  themselves;  and  in  his  epistle  to  Poins,  containing  the  fable 
of  'The  Town  Mouse  and  the  Country  Mouse'  he  shows  power  as  a  humorist,  a 
narrator,  and  a  satirist.  Surrey,  the  disciple  of  Wyatt,  but  placed  first  in  the  collec- 
tion because  of  his  rank,  is  represented  by  sonnets  and  songs  of  love,  with  a  few 
epigrams,  an  elegy  on  Wyatt,  and  some  descriptive  and  dramatic  pieces.  Though 
less  original  than  Wyatt  he  is  more  smooth  and  finished,  and,  owing  to  the  romance 
attaching  to  his  love  for  the  fair  Geraldine  and  to  his  tragic  death,  is  a  more  appealing 
personality.  His  sonnets  and  lyrics  are  of  the  same  general  character  as  those  of 
Wyatt,  and  he  is  an  equally  close  follower  of  Petrarch's  lyrical  method.  His  sonnets, 
however,  depart  from  the  Petrarchian  arrangement  of  octave  and  sextette,  and 
consist  of  three  quatrains,  each  with  its  own  alternate  rhymes,  and  a  concluding 
couplet.  This  form  of  the  sonnet  was  adopted  by  Shakespeare.  Surrey's  elegy  on 


846  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Wyatt,  his  epigram  on  the  Happy  Life,  and  his  dramatic  complaint  of  a  lady  whose 
husband  is  at  sea,  illustrate  other  sides  of  his  genius.  An  extensive  contributor  to  the 
Miscellany  is  Nicholas  Grimald.  His  poems,  and  those  of  the  anonymous  lyrists  who 
make  up  the  volume,  include  love-songs,  moral  reflections,  pastorals,  complaints,  and 
elegies.  They  prove  the  existence  at  the  court  of  Henry  VIII.  and  his  successors  of  a 
considerable  number  of  practised  writers,  who  had  mastered  a  number  of  lyric  forms. 
Of  these  one  of  the  most  typical,  now  archaic,  is  the  so-called  "poulter's  measure,"  an 
alternation  of  hexameter  and  heptameter  lines  often  with  a  hobbling  movement  very 
tedious  to  the  modern  reader.  One  of  the  minor  contributors,  Lord  Vaux,  is  remem- 
bered for  his  poem  '  The  Aged  Lover  Renounceth  Love, '  fragments  from  which 
are  sung  by  the  Grave-Digger  in  Shakespeare's  'Hamlet.'  The  popularity  of 
'Tottel's  Miscellany'  is  proved  by  the  numerous  editions  through  which  it  ran  (1559, 
1565,  1567,  1574,  1585,  1587),  by  contemporary  reference,  and  by  the  appearance  of 
other  miscellanies  of  similar  title  and  content:  'The  Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices' 
(1578);  'The  Gorgeous  Gallery  of  Gallant  Inventions'  (1578),  'A  Handful  of  Pleas- 
ant Delights'  (1584);  'The  Phoenix  Nest1  (1593);  'England's  Helicon'  (1600); 
*  England's  Parnassus'  (1600);  and  'Davison's  Poetical  Rhapsody'  (1602). 

TRACTATE  ON  EDUCATION,  by  John  Milton  (1644).  Milton's  famous  letter  on 
Education  was  addressed  to  Samuel  Hartlib,  a  Pole  by  birth,  who  settled  in  England 
and  devoted  himself  to  philanthropic  schemes  for  the  benefit  of  his  adopted  country.  It 
is  a  protest  on  behalf  of  the  youth  of  his  time  against  "the  asinine  feast  of  sow-thistles 
and  brambles  which  is  commonly  set  before  them  as  all  the  food  and  entertainment 
of  their  tenderest  and  most  docile  age."  His  definition  of  "a  complete  and  gener- 
ous education"  is  "that  which  fits  a  man  to  perform  justly,  skillfully,  and  magnani- 
mously all  the  offices,  both  private  and  public,  of  peace  and  war. "  A  knowledge  of 
things  was  to  be  substituted  for  the  mere  knowledge  of  words.  The  Greek,  Latin 
(and  even  Hebrew,  Syriac,  and  Chaldee)  authors  prescribed  were  chosen  not  for  their 
form  but  for  their  subject  matter.  The  pupil  was  to  acquire  (for  practical  and  utili- 
tarian purposes)  a  comprehensive  acquaintance  with  the  science  of  his  time  — 
"geography,  trigonometry,  fortification,  engineering,  navigation."  Later  would  come 
comedies  and  tragedies,  Greek,  Latin,  and  Italian,  and  the  study  of  law-givers  from 
Moses,  Lycurgus,  and  Justinian  to  the  common  or  statute  law  of  England.  In  their 
hours  of  exercise  the  youth  were  to  learn,  also  with  the  utilitarian  aim  in  view, 
fencing,  wrestling,  music,  riding,  sailing.  Fortunately  Milton  had  sufficient  sense  of 
humor  to  see  that  all  this  prodigious  curriculum  "is  not  a  bow  for  every  man  to 
shoot  in  that  counts  himself  a  teacher,  but  will  require  sinews  almost  equal  to  which 
Homer  gave  Ulysses."  Nevertheless  though  as  an  ideal  for  everyday  use  the 
precepts  of  the  book  are  impractical  of  accomplishment,  it  is  still  full  of  valuable 
suggestion. 

TRACTS  FOR  THE  TIMES.  These  papers,  published  at  Oxford  between  1 833  and 
1841,  have  become  part  of  English  history;  for  it  meant  much  to  the  English  people, 
who  held  that  their  liberties  were  concerned  with  the  limitation  or  extension  of  ecclesi- 
astical power.  The  Church,  in  its  reaction  against  Romanism,  became,  in  many 
instances,  negligent  in  ritual  and  meaningless  in  decoration.  There  were  no  pictures 
of  saints,  but  memorial  busts  of  sinners;  no  figures  of  martyrs,  but  lions  and  unicorns 
fighting  for  the  crown;  and  Tract  9,  on  'Shortening  the  Service,'  says  "the  Reforma- 
tion left  us  a  daily  service,  we  have  now  a  weekly  service;  and  they  are  in  a  fair  way 
to  become  monthly. "  The  impetus  to  the  Tractarian  movement  was  given  partly  by 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  847 

the  changes  contemplated  in  the  Irish  episcopate.  The  British  Parliament,  which 
was  all-sufficient  to  pass  the  Act  of  Uniformity  in  1662,  was,  in  the  minds  of  the 
Tractarians,  incompetent  to  modify  that  act  in  1832.  The  so-called  Tracts  varied 
from  brief  sketches,  dialogues,  etc.,  to  voluminous  treatises  like  those  on  Baptism 
•and  (No,  89)  "On  the  Mysticism  Attributed  to  the  Early  Fathers,"  which  make 
•about  a  volume  each.  The  fight  for  the  standard  occurred  around  Dr.  J.  H.  New- 
man's famous  No.  90,  "On  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  English  Church,"  which 
-aroused  the  English  public.  It  states  that  "The  English  Church  leaves  marriage 
to  the  judgment  of  the  clergy,  but  the  Church  has  the  right  to  order  them  not  to 
marry. "  The  strong  point  with  the  Tractarians  was  that  the  Prayer  Book  was  not  a 
Protestant  book,  but  was  framed  to  include  Catholics;  and  the  leaders  determined  to 
push  this  point.  Newman,  in  No.  90,  says,  with  pitiless  logic  and  clear  statement, 
that  "The  Protestant  confessions  were  drawn  up  to  include  Catholics,  and  Catholics 
will  not  be  excluded.  What  was  economy  with  the  first  Reformers  is  a  protection  to 
us.  What  would  have  been  perplexing  to  us  then  is  perplexing  to  them  now.  We 
icould  not  find  fault  with  their  words  then;  they  cannot  now  repudiate  their  meaning." 
As  an  example  of  skill  in  dialectics,  these  Tracts  are  worth  studying.  They  were  the 
utterances  of  master-minds  dead  in  earnest.  The  leaders  were  such  men  as  Keble, 
author  of  the  'Christian  Year';  Dr.  Pusey,  Regius  Professor  of  Hebrew;  Dr.  J.  H. 
Newman;  R.  H.  Proude;  Rev.  Isaac  Williams;  and  Rev.  Hugh  Rose,  of  Cambridge. 
The  Tracts  have  done  mud:  to  restore  artistic  symbolism  as  well  as  earnestness 
to  the  Church;  on  the  other  hand  they  have  alienated  the  bulk  of  Protestant  Dis- 
senters, who  are  willing  to  admit  the  claims  of  the  Tractarians  to  rule  the  Church  of 
England,  but  not  to  rule  them.  Fellowship  with  the  pope  was  earnestly  deprecated 
by  the  Tractarians,  who  have  done  good  work  in  the  Anglican  Church  since;  but 
Newman  and  some  others  found  their  way  to  the  Roman  communion,  and  gave  some 
color  to  Punch's  Puseyite  hymn:  — 

"And  nightly  pitch  my  moving  tent 
A  day's  march  nearer  Rome." 

TRADES  UNIONISM,  HISTORY  OF,  by  Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb  (1894). 
This  model  example  of  meticulous  investigation  in  a  field  almost  unexplored  until  its 
publication  is  the  result  of  seven  years'  unremitting  labor  among  original  records, 
fugitive  pamphlet  literature,  the  archives  of  trades  unions,  illumined  by  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  actual  working  of  existing  trade  unions.  "In  spite  of  all  the 
pleas  of  modern  historians  for  less  history  of  the  actions  of  governments,  and  more 
descriptions  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  governed,  it  remains  true  that  history, 
however  it  may  relieve  and  enliven  itself  with  descriptions  of  the  manners  and  morals 
of  the  people,  must,  if  it  is  to  be  history  at  all,  follow  the  course  of  continuous  or- 
ganizations. The  history  of  a  perfectly  democratic  State  would  be  at  once  the  history 
of  a  government  and  of  a  people.  The  history  of  trade  unionism  is  the  history  of  a 
State  within  our  State,  and  one  so  jealously  democratic  that  to  know  it  well  is  to  know 
the  English  working  man  as  no  reader  of  middle-class  histories  can  know  him. "  The 
origins  of  trade  unionism  and  the  struggle  for  existence  during  the  first  quarter  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  the  revolutionary  period  of  the  next  score  years,  the  gradual 
change  from  the  old  unionism  to  the  new,  which  might  be  assigned  to  the  years 
between  1875  &&&  1889,  are  traced  with  amazing  skill  This  work  is  not  only  the 
classic  history  of  British  trade  unionism,  but  it  is  a  model  to  all  social  investigators, 
combining  the  most  conscientious  and  painstaking  capacity  for  the  discovery  of 
facts  with  superb  skill  in  co-ordination  and  explanation. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

TRAFALGAR,  a  tale,  by  Benito  Perez  Galdos  (1879).  The  first  of  a  series  of  his- 
torical novels  dealing  with  the  Spanish  War  of  Independence.  Gabriel,  the  youth 
who  tells  the  story,  is  with  his  master  on  the  largest  man-of-war  of  the  Spanish  fleet, 
a  witness  to  the  battle.  The  vessel  surrenders  to  the  English  after  a  desperate  fight. 
English  and  Spanish  take  to  the  boats  to  escape  from  the  sinking  ship.  Gabriel 
notes  the  humanity  of  the  English  and  asks  himself,  "Why  are  there  wars?  Why 
cannot  these  men  be  friends  under  all  circumstances  of  life  as  they  are  in  danger?  Is 
not  such  a  scene  as  this  enough  to  prove  that  all  men  are  brothers?"  They  reach 
another  captured  Spanish  man-of-war,  also  "in  desperate  situation,  floating  at  the 
mercy  of  the  wind  and  waves  and  unable  to  make  any  course. "  They  find  on  board, 
Don  Rafael  Malespina,  the  lover  of  Gabriel's  young  mistress,  Rosita.  The  idea  of 
being  taken  into  Gibraltar  as  prisoners  was  intolerable  to  the  Spaniards.  They 
outnumber  the  English,  and  by  a  sudden  rush  disarm  their  conquerors  and  take 
command  of  the  ship.  They  suffer  shipwreck  in  a  tempest  which  forbids  help  from 
shore  but  are  rescued  by  another  vessel.  Don  Rafael  recovers  from  his  wound  and 
marries  Rosita,  and  Gabriel,  who  worships  her  from  afar,  runs  away  to  further 
adventures. 

TRAGIC  IDYLL,  A  ('Une  Idylle  Tragique'),  by  Paul  Bourget  (1896).  M.  Bourget 
declares  that  in  life  there  are  two  types  of  beings  corresponding  to  tragedy  and 
comedy,  to  one  of  which  great  departments  each  belongs,  generally  with  no  mixture. 
"For  one,  the  most  romantic  episodes  end  as  in  a  vaudeville.  For  the  other  the 
simplest  adventures  end  in  drama;  devoted  to  poignant  emotions,  cruel  complica- 
tions, all  their  idylls  are  tragic  idylls. "  With  this  idea  in  mind  the  author  pictures 
the  young  Provencal  Vicomte  de  Carancez,  a  true  D'Artagnan,  un  gourmand  de 
toutes  les  gourrnandises,  who  has  run  through  his  inheritance  of  600,000  francs; 
and  contrasts  him  with  his  friend  Pierre  Hautefeuille,  a  genuine,  sweet-tempered, 
chivalrous,  and  chaste  (at  least,  comparatively  chaste)  provincial  gentleman.  The 
light,  fickle,  astute,  and  clever  adventurer,  whose  very  title  is  in  question  in  searching 
for  means  to  recoup  his  fortunes  deliberately  falls  in  love  with  a  rich  widow,  the 
Venetian  Marchioness  Andriana  Bonaccorsi;  and  successfully  carries  his  romantic 
plan  into  execution,  cleverly  parrying  all  the  attempts  of  her  Anglomaniac  brother 
to  get  rid  of  him  by  sixteenth-century  methods  of  poison  and  assassination.  Pierre 
on  the  other  hand  falls  under  the  seduction  of  the  beautiful  and  passionate  mor- 
ganatic wife  of  an  Austrian  archduke;  and  though  their  liaison  reaches  the  last 
development,  its  guilty  fruit  is  utter  wretchedness  for  both,  —  not,  as  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  moralist  would  have  pictured  it,  from  the  breaking  of  any  moral  law,  but 
because  a  former  lover  of  the  Baroness  Ely  de  Sallach-Carlsberg  is  Pierre's  most 
intimate  friend;  their  passions  cross  each  other  and  clash,  and  ultimately  lead  to  the 
death  of  Olivier  du  Prat,  who  in  a  moment  of  exaltation  and  moral  despair  sacrifices 
himself  to  save  his  friend,  though  he  knows  that  this  friend  is  playing  him  false  and 
breaking  a  solemn  oath.  This  dead  friend  becomes  the  living  remorse  that  prevents 
the  two  passionate  lovers  from  ever  again  meeting. 

The  story  opens  at  Monte  Carlo,  the  heated  unwholesome  life  of  which  is  set 
forth  in  the  most  brilliant  colors.  It  is  like  a  historical  painting,  so  many  portraits 
are  introduced.  The  description  of  the  sea  trip  to  Genoa,  whither  the  beautiful 
yacht  of  the  American  millionaire  carries  most  of  the  personages  of  the  story,  is  also 
most  vividly  told,  and  the  episode  of  the  secret  marriage  is  Hke  a  canto  of  a  poem. 
Surely  no  ceremony  in  Genoa  had  ever  been  more  remarkable:  "This  great  Venetian 
lady  had  come  frcm  Cannes  on  an  American's  yacht  to  marry  a  ruined  gentleman  of 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  849 

dubious  title  from  Barbentane,  assisted  by  a  young  American  girl  and  an  Austrian 
lady,  a  morganatic  archduchess,  who  in  her  turn  is  accompanied  by  a  Frenchman 
of  the  simplest,  the  most  provincial  French  tradition. " 

The  poetry  of  the  idyll  is  not  to  be  gainsaid,  or  its  fascinating  interest,  or  its 
dramatic  power.  Its  tenuous  moral  is  thoroughly  French,  but  is  based  on  this 
epigrammatic  exclamation:  — 

"Ah!  demain!  ce  dangereux  et  mysterieux  demain,  1'inevitable  expiation  de  tous 
nos  coupables  aujourd'huis.  (Ah  to-morrow,  that  dangerous  and  mysterious  to- 
morrow, the  inevitable  punisher  of  all  our  guilty  to-days!)  " 

To  an  American  reader  an  element  of  comedy  is  introduced  in  the  author's 
amusing  portrayal  of  Marsh  the  American  railway  magnate.  More  realistic  is  his 
account  of  the  half-mad  scientific  Archduke,  who  hated  his  wife  and  yet  was  jealous 
of  her. 

TRAVELS  AND  ADVENTURES  OF  BARON  MUNCHHAUSEN,  THE,  by  R.  E. 

Raspe,  published  in  England  (1785),  was  founded  upon  the  outrageous  stories  of  a 
real  man,  one  Baron  Karl  Friedrich  Hieronymus  von  Munchhausen,  born  at  Boden- 
werder,  Hanover,  Germany,  1720;  died  there,  1797.  He  had  served  in  the  Russian 
army  against  the  Turks.  Later  his  sole  occupation  seemed  to  be  the  relation  of  his 
extraordinary  adventures  to  his  circle  of  friends.  Raspc  purported  to  have  pre- 
served these  tales,  as  they  came  hot  from  the  lips  of  the  inimitable  Baron.  They  are 
monuments  to  the  art  of  lying  as  an  entertainment.  On  one  occasion,  the  hero, 
being  out  of  ammunition,  loaded  his  gun  with  cherry-stones.  With  these  he  shot  at  a 
deer.  Coming  across  the  same  deer  some  time  afterwards,  he  sees  a  cherry-tree 
growing  out  of  his  head.  The  Baron's  other  adventures  are  on  a  par  with  this;  and 
his  name  has  become  a  synonym  for  magnificent,  bland  extravagance  of  statement. 

TRAVELS  IN  FRANCE,  by  Arthur  Young,  is  more  fully  entitled  'Travels  during 
the  years  1787,  1788,  1789,  and  1790,  undertaken  more  particularly  with  a  view  of 
ascertaining  the  Cultivation,  Wealth,  Resources,  and  National  Prosperity  of  the 
Kingdom  of  France.'  Young  was  an  English  country  gentleman  who  had  had 
considerable  experience  in  agriculture  and  had  written  books  which  were  looked  upon 
as  authoritative  on  the  agrarian  resources  of  England,  Wales,  and  Ireland.  With  a 
view  to  furnishing  similar  information  concerning  France  he  made  a  three  years' 
tour  of  that  country,  visiting  the  most  remote  districts  and  making  the  most  minute 
inquiries  into  the  agricultural  resources  and  organization  of  each  locality.  His 
experiences  and  conclusions  are  recorded  in  the  '  Travels '  in  the  form  of  a  journal. 
Not  only  does  he  describe  the  nature  of  the  soil  and  the  crops,  but  the  pay  of  the 
laborers,  the  relations  of  landlord  and  tenant,  and  the  social  customs  and  mental 
attitude  of  the  people,  and  he  enlivens  his  pages  with  the  incidents,  amusing,  curious, 
and  exciting  which  befell  him  on  the  road.  A  foreigner  traversing  France  in  the 
revolutionary  period  on  a  novel  mission  was  naturally  looked  upon  suspiciously;  but 
he  bravely  faced  the  dangers  and  came  through  them  without  mishap.  His  book  is  of 
high  value  for  the  historian,  as  a  record  of  the  economic  and  social  conditions  which 
led  to  the  French  Revolution  and  of  the  sentiments  of  the  French  people  at  the  time. 

TRAVELS  OF  MARCO  POLO.  The  record  of  the  adventures  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  Venice 
about  1254.  His  father,  a  man  of  noble  rank,  in  1275  had  taken  young  Marco  with 


850  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

hjm  on  a  trading  expedition  to  China  and  the  East.  The  youth  of  twenty  entered  the 
service  of  the  Emperor  of  China,  and  traveled  extensively  through  the  neighboring 
regions.  Returning  later  to  Venice,  he  was  captured  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  wanderings. 

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  was  made  under  his  direction.  Though 
his  narrative  made  a  great  sensation,  it  was  for  many  years  regarded  as  a  mass  of 
fabrications  and  exaggerations.  It  had  an  undoubted  effect,  however,  upon  explora- 
tion; and  later  researches  have  confirmed  the  truth  of  many  of  the  author's  descrip- 
tions. This  may  be  taken  as  a  sample  of  its  style:  — 

"Book  iit.,  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. 

TRAVELS  OF  SIR  JOHN  MANDEVILLE,  THE,  a  prose  narrative  of  eastern  travel 
written  in  French  about  1357  and  afterwards  translated  into  Latin,  into  English, 
and  into  other  modern  vernaculars  including  Italian,  Spanish,  German,  Dutch,  and 
Danish.  The  earliest  manuscript  of  the  French  version  is  dated  1371.  There  were 
five  independent  Latin  versions,  only  one  of  which,  extant  in  fifteenth-century  MSS., 
has  been  printed.  Of  the  three  English  versions,  all  in  fifteenth-century  manuscripts, 
one  made  from  a  defective  French  MS.  was  printed  in  1499  by  Wynkyn  de  Worde 
and  frequently  thereafter;  the  versions  represented  by  the  Cotton  MS.  (printed  by 
Halliwell,  1839,  and  modernized  by  A.  W.  Pollard,  1900)  and  by  the  Egerton  MS. 
published  by  the  Roxburghe  Club  in  1889,  are  fuller  and  more  accurate.  That  the 
French  and  not  the  Latin  or  the  English  is  the  original  version  is  clearly  proved  by 
internal  evidence  as  well  as  the  plain  statement  of  the  French  version  which  one  Eng- 
lish version  (the  Cotton)  mistranslates  and  distorts  so  as  to  state  that  the  Latin  is  the 
original.  In  the  opening  chapter  the  author  asserts  that  his  name  is  Jehan  de  Mande- 
ville,  that  he  was  born  and  brought  up  in  England,  that  he  left  that  country  at  Michael- 
mas, 1322,  that  he  made  extensive  journeys,  traversing  Turkey,  Armenia,  Tartary, 
Persia,  Syria,  Arabia,  Egypt,  Lybia,  Ethiopia,  Chaldea,  Amazonia,  and  India;  and 
that  he  gave  up  travel  owing  to  the  gout  and  wrote  this  account  of  his  adventures 
in  1356  or  1357.  None  of  these  statements  can  be  accepted.  The  travels  have  been 
proved  to  be  derived  from  various  earlier  books  of  travel.  The  first  part,  which 
describes  the  Holy  Land,  is  based  on  the  narrative  of  a  German  knight,  William  of 
Boldensele.  whose  book  was  written  in  1336.  This  information  is  supplemented  by 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  851 

many  details  from  earlier  writers  on  the  Crusades  and  on  the  Saracens.  The  descrip- 
tion of  Asia,  which  occupies  the  second  part  of  the  book,  is  taken  from  the  narrative 
of  Friar  Odoric  of  Pordenone,  who  visited  India,  China,  and  Tibet  about  1316-1318. 
This  is  filled  in  with  alleged  facts  from  mediaeval  encyclopaedias,  with  details  from  a 
history  of  the  Mongols,  and  with  extracts  from  the  spurious  Epistle  of  Alexander  to 
Aristotle  and  the  Epistle  of  Prester  John.  The  whole  book  is  a  mass  of  hearsay, 
fable,  and  prodigy,  drawn  from  every  literary  source  available  and  very  cleverly 
woven  into  an  apparently  personal  narrative.  The  author's  name  is  equally  sus- 
picious. There  is  no  evidence  in  the  book,  except  his  own  assertion  that  he  was  an 
Englishman.  There  is  no  record  of  a  Sir  John  Mandevillc.  It  is  true  that  a  chron- 
icler resident  in  Liege,  Jean  d'Outremeuse  (1338-1399)  asserts  in  his  'Myrur  des 
Histors'  that  the  author  of  the  'Travels'  had  lived  at  Liege  from  1343  to  1372  as  a 
philosopher  and  physician  under  the  name  of  "Jean  de  Bourgogne  dit  a  la  Barbe" 
and  that  on  his  death -bed  in  the  latter  year  he  revealed  himself  to  his  friend,  Jean 
d'Outrcmcuse,  as  "Jcande  Mandeville,  chevalier,  comte  de  Montfort  en  Angleterre  et 
seigneur  de  1'isle  de  Campedi  et  du  Chateau  Perouse. "  But  this  title  does  not  sound 
convincing.  Some  think  that  Jean  d'Outremeuse  invented  this  character  and  com- 
piled the  travels  himself.  Others  believe  that  he  did  know  a  Jean  dc  Bourgogne,  the 
writer  of  the  travels,  and  identified  him  with  a  certain  follower  of  Baron  Mowbray 
in  the  reign  of  Edward  II,  All  that  we  can  be  sure  about  is  that  the  'Travels'  are  a 
clever,  literary  compilation  by  a  man  who  was  probably  not  an  Englishman,  not 
named  Mandeville,  and  not  a  traveler. 

The  book  itself  is  one  of  the  most  entertaining  of  all  mediaeval  prose  works.  Its 
easy,  simple  style  and  the  naivete*  with  which  it  recounts  the  marvels  of  the  court  of 
Prester  John  and  of  the  Cham  of  Tartary,  of  the  earthly  paradise  and  the  hills  of  gold 
guarded  by  ants,  its  vegetable  lambs  and  generating  diamonds  are  balanced  by  a 
certain  artful  moderation  by  which  the  author  pretends  to  withhold  greater  marvels 
lest  he  be  called  a  liar,  and  occasionally  states  that  he  did  not  see  this  particular 
prodigy  but  had  heard  of  it  from  someone  who  had  been  there  and  had  narrated  all 
the  details  —  which  are  then  given  in  full.  The  book  was  valued  in  its  day  as  a 
treasury  of  information  on  eastern  travel,  and  is  now  esteemed  as  a  storehouse  of 
interesting  mediaeval  lore. 

TRAVELS  WITH  A  DONKEY  IN  THE  CEVENNES,  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  is 
one  of  the  author's  earliest  works,  published  in  1879  when  he  was  under  thirty.  It  is 
an  account  of  his  journeyings,  for  health's  sake,  in  the  mountains  of  southern  France 
with  a  diminutive  donkey,  Modestine  by  name.  It  is  full  of  charming  descriptions  of 
the  native  population  and  of  nature,  and  has  lively  fancy,  frequent  touches  of  poetry 
.and  sparkling  humor,  making  it  one  of  the  most  enjoyable  of  Stevenson's  auto- 
biographic writings.  The  sketch  of  the  seemingly  meek  but  really  stubborn  and 
aggravating  donkey,  whom  he  becomes  fond  of  in  spite  of  himself,  is  delicious. 

The  itinerary  is  described  under  the  headings:  'Velay/  'Upper  Ge"vaudan/  'Our 
Lady  of  the  Snow, '  and  '  The  Country  of  the  Camisard.'  Quotable  passages  abound : 
—  "Night  is  a  dead  monotonous  period  under  a  roof,  but  in  the  open  world  it  passes 
lightly,  with  its  skies  and  dews  and  perfumes,  and  the  hours  are  marked  by  changes 
in  the  face  of  nature.  What  seems  a  kind  of  temporal  death  to  people  choked  be- 
tween walls  and  curtains,  is  only  light  and  living  slumber  to  the  man  who  sleeps 
afield." 

After  camping  out  in  a  pine  wood  over  night:  "I  hastened  to  prepare  my  pack 
and  tackle  the  steep  ascent  before  me,  but  I  had  something  on  mv  mind.  It  was  only 


852  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

a  fancy;  yet  a  fancy  will  sometimes  be  importunate.  I  had  been  most  hospitably 
received  and  punctually  served  in  my  green  caravanserai.  The  room  was  airy,  the 
water  excellent,  and  the  dawn  had  called  me  to  a  moment.  I  say  nothing  of  the 
tapestries  or  the  inimitable  ceiling,  nor  yet  of  the  view  which  I  commanded  from  the 
windows;  but  I  felt  I  was  in  some  one's  debt  for  all  this  liberal  entertainment.  And 
so  it  pleased  me,  in  a  half -laughing  way,  to  leave  pieces  of  money  on  the  turf  as  I  went 
along,  until  I  had  left  enough  for  my  night's  lodging. '' 

At  the  end  of  his  trip  he  sold  Modestine:  "It  was  not  until  I  was  fairly  seated  by 
the  driver  .  .  .  that  I  became  aware  of  my  bereavement.  I  had  lost  Modestine. 
Up  to  that  moment  I  had  thought  I  hated  her,  but  now  she  was  gone.  .  .  .  For 
twelve  days  we  had  been  fast  companions;  we  had  traveled  upwards  of  120  miles, 
crossed  several  respectable  ridges,  and  jogged  along  with  our  six  legs  by  many  a 
rocky  and  many  a  boggy  by-road.  After  the  first  day,  although  sometimes  I  was 
hurt  and  distant  in  manner,  I  still  kept  my  patience;  and  as  for  her,  poor  soul!  she 
had  come  to  regard  me  as  a  god.  She  loved  to  eat  out  of  my  hand.  She  was  patient, 
elegant  in  form,  the  color  of  an  ideal  mouse,  and  inimitably  small.  Her  faults  were 
those  of  her  race  and  sex;  her  virtues  were  her  own.  Farewell,  and  if  forever  — . " 

TREASURE  OF  THE  HUMBLE,  THE  ('  Le  Tre*sor  des  Humbles '),  a  series  of  essays 
by  Maurice  Maeterlinck  (1896),  makes  its  appeal  to  the  God  which  is  in  man.  The 
writer  of  soul-dramas  here  presents  his  mystical,  twentieth -century  philosophy  in 
concrete  form.  This  mysticism  seems  the  direct  fruit  of  modern  science,  which  has 
so  completely  disproved  the  existence  of  the  soul  that  a  new  immortality  is  hence- 
forth insured  to  it.  But  the  converts  of  the  end  of  the  century,  among  whom  Maeter- 
linck may  be  numbered,  find  that  they  must  establish  the  claims  of  the  spirit  on  no 
superficial  or  acknowledged  grounds.  "We  do  not  judge  our  fellows  by  their  acts  — 
nay,  not  even  by  their  most  secret  thoughts;  for  these  are  not  always  undiscernible 
and  we  go  far  beyond  the  undiscernible.  A  man  shall  have  committed  crimes  reputed 
to  be  the  vilest  of  all,  and  yet  it  may  be  that  even  the  blackest  of  these  shall  not  have 
tarnished  for  one  single  moment  the  breath  of  fragrance  and  ethereal  purity  that 
surrounds  his  presence;  while  at  the  approach  of  a  philosopher  or  a  martyr,  our  soul 
may  be  steeped  in  unendurable  gloom."  These  essays  go,  indeed,  far  beyond  the 
undiscernible;  whether  the  author  write  of  'Mystic  Morality,'  of  'Women,'  of  'The 
Tragical  in  Daily  Life/  of  ' The  Invisible  Goodness,'  or  of  ' The  Inner  Beauty.'  Sorre 
spiritual  experience  is  needed  to  comprehend;  otherwise  they  will  seem  but  words 
full  of  sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing.  They  are  not  addressed  to  the  intellect 
primarily,  but  to  the  universal  soul  of  man.  "It  is  only  by  the  communications  we 
have  with  the  infinite  that  we  are  to  be  distinguished  from  each  other. "  "To  love 
one's  neighbor  in  the  immovable  depths  means  to  love  in  others  that  which  is  eternal; 
for  one's  neighbor  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  term  is  that  which  approaches  nearest  to 
God."  "Nothing  can  separate  two  souls  which  for  an  instant  have  been  good  to- 
gether. "  "I  know  not  whether  I  would  dare  to  love  the  man  who  had  made  no  one 
weep." 

TREATISE  ON  PAINTING  ('  Trattato  della  Pittura '),  by  Leonardo  Da  Vinci.  This 
famous  treatise  was  probably  written  before  the  year  1498.  It  has  survived  in  two 
editions,  of  which  the  first  is  in  an  abridged  form,  and  contains  only  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  chapters;  while  the  other  is  a  detailed  one,  and  is  comprised  in  nine 
hundred  and  twelve  chapters.  The  early  and  abridged  edition  was  issued  in  France 
in  1651,  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  after  Leonardo's  death,  and  an  English 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  853 

edition  appeared  the  same  year;  since  when,  it  has  been  published  in  most  of  the 
languages  of  Europe.  Knowledge  of  the  more  exhaustive  version  of  the  treatise  is 
owing  to  Manzi's  discovery  in  1817  of  a  transcript  of  the  original  in  the  Vatican 
library.  According  to  this  manuscript,  the  "Trattato  della  Pittura'  is  divided  into 
eight  books,  which  are  designated :  — 

1.  The  Nature  of  Painting,  Poetry,  Music,  and  Sculpture. 

2.  Precepts  for  a  Painter. 

3.  Of  Positions  and  Movements  of  the  Human  Frame. 

4.  Of  Drapery. 

5.  Light  and  Shade  and  Perspective. 

6.  Of  Trees  and  Foliage. 

7.  Of  Clouds. 

8.  Of  the  Horizon. 

'  This  '  Treatise '  may  be  termed  an  encyclopaedia  of  art :  it  is  clear  and  concise, 
and  is  to  this  day  of  great  value  to  those  studying  art,  although  there  is  a  lack  of 
coherence  between  its  sections.  Rubens  wrote  a  commentary  on  this  *  Treatise'; 
Annibale  Caracci  used  to  say  that  if  during  his  youth  he  had  read  the  golden  book  of 
Leonardo's  precepts,  he  would  have  been  spared  twenty  years  of  useless  labor;  while 
Algarotti  declared  that  he  should  not  desire  any  better  elementary  work  on  the  art  of 
painting.  Among  the  subjects  treated  in  the  abridged  edition  of  the  'Treatise'  are: 
'What  the  young  student  in  painting  ought  in  the  first  place  to  learn';  'How  to  dis- 
cern a  young  man's  disposition  for  painting ' ;  'That  a  painter  should  take  pleasure  in 
the  opinions  of  everybody';  'The  brilliancy  of  the  landscape';  'Painters  arc  not  to 
imitate  one  another/  There  are  many  pungent  epigrams  and  clever  philosophical 
sayings  scattered  throughout  the  'Treatise,'  which  are  frequently  quoted.  No  other 
old  master  left  behind  so  many  valuable  manuscripts  as  did  Leonardo;  but  owing  to 
the  difficulty  of  deciphering  his  handwriting,  very  little  is  yet  known  of  many  of  the 
most  important  ones. 

TRENCK,  BARON,  LIFE  OF  (1787),  is  the  autobiography  of  Baron  Fricdrichvon 
Trenck,  whose  life  was  a  succession  of  adventures  scarcely  less  marvelous  than  the 
romantic  and  highly  colored  account  he  gives  of  them.  He  entered  the  Prussian 
service  while  still  a  mere  boy,  and  stood  high  in  Frederick  the  Great's  favor,  until, 
through  his  love  affair  with  the  King's  sister,  he  incurred  the  royal  displeasure,  which 
caused  his  first  imprisonment,  the  beginning  of  no  end  of  misfortunes:  loss  of  prop- 
erty, numerous  imprisonments  and  attempts  at  escape,  dangerous  wounds,  and 
perils  of  all  kinds.  These  are  all  most  graphically  described  in  a  manner  that  re- 
minds one  of  Munchhausen's  marvelous  tales.  The  anecdotes  interspersed  give, 
whether  true  or  false,  a  vivid  picture  of  the  turbulent  condition  of  court  life  at  the 
time  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  Maria  Theresa,  under  whom  Baron  Trenck  later 
served.  His  restless  adventurous  temperament  led  him  to  Paris,  when  the  Revolu- 
tion was  in  full  swing;  he  was  there  accused  of  being  a  secret  emissary  of  foreign 
powers,  and  was  beheaded  by  Robespierre's  order  in  July,  1794. 

His  cousin,  Baron  Franz  von  Trenck,  an  equal  hero  and  swashbuckler,  has  also 
written  an  autobiography,  which  however  has  not  attained  the  celebrity  of  Baron 
Friedrich's  wonderful  mixture  of  fact  and  imagination. 

TRICK  TO  CATCH  THE  OLD  ONE,  A,  by  Thomas  Middleton  (1608).  Professor 
C.  H.  Herford  describes  this  sprightly  play  as  "the  strongest  of  Middleton's  comedies 
of  intrigue."  Witgood,  a  spendthrift  and  profligate,  is  ruined  by  his  uncle,  a  usurer 


854  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

named  Lucre:  Indeed  he  maintains  that  it  is  "a  principle  in  usury"  for  a  man's 
"nearest  kin"  to  fleece  him  in  preference  to  a  stranger.  Witgood  is  driven  to  live 
upon  his  wits  —  "Are  there  not  a  million  of  men  in  the  world  that  only  sojourn 
upon  their  brain,  and  make  their  wits  their  mercers, "  he  asks  himself.  He  pretends 
that  he  has  won  the  affections  of  a  rich  widow,  whom  he  induces  a  courtesan  of  his 
acquaintance  to  personate.  Lucre,  hoping  that  the  supposed  widow  as  well  as  his 
nephew,  will  fall  into  his  net,  immediately  makes  a  show  of  kindness  to  them.  Then 
another  usurer,  Hoard,  who  had  an  old  grudge  against  Lucre,  makes  up  his  mind  to 
have  revenge  of  his  old  enemy  by  seizing  this  new  prize.  Witgood  connives  at  this 
new  manoeuvre  with  the  result  that  in  the  end  he  is  freed  from  his  financial  obliga- 
tions to  his  uncle  and  Hoard  takes  the  pretended  widow  off  his  hands.  "Here  for 
ever, "  says  Witgood,  "I  disclaim  the  cause  of  youth's  undoing.  .  .  .  Lend  me  each 
honest  hand,  for  here  I  rise  a  reclaim'd  man,  loathing  the  general  vice. " 

TRILBY,  by  George  Du  Maurier  (1895),  is  a  story  of  English  and  Continental  art 
life  and  literary  life  of  a  generation  ago,  narrated  by  one  who  participated  in  the 
scenes  and  recalls  them  in  memory.  The  action  is  chiefly  in  Paris.  Trilby  is  a 
handsome  girl  whose  father  was  a  bohemian  Irish  gentleman  and  her  mother  a  Scotch 
barmaid.  Trilby  is  laundress  and  artist's  model  in  the  Latin  Quarter.  She  is  great 
friends  with  three  artists  who  are  chums:  Taffy,  a  big  Yorkshire  Englishman;  the 
Laird,  a  Scotchman;  and  Little  Billee,  an  English  fellow  who  has  genius  as  a  painter, 
and  whose  drawing  of  Trilby's  beautiful  foot  is  a  chef  d'ceuvre.  He  loves  her,  and 
she  returns  the  feeling,  but  Little  Billee's  very  respectable  family  oppose  the  match, 
and  Trilby,  after  saying  yes,  decides  it  to  be  her  duty  to  refuse,  which  drives  her  lover 
into  a  brain  fever.  Amongst  the  bohemians  who  frequent  the  studio  is  Svengali,  an 
Austrian  Jew,  who  is  of  repulsive  character  but  a  gifted  musician.  He.  is  attracted 
by  Trilby,  and  discovers  that  she  has  the  making  of  a  splendid  singer.  He  half  repels, 
half  fascinates  her;  and  by  the  use  of  hypnotic  power  forces  her  to  go  away  with  him. 
She  wins  fame  as  a  concert  artist,  always  singing  in  a  sort  of  hypnotic  trance  under 
his  influence.  The  three  artists,  visiting  Paris  after  a  five  years'  absence,  attend 
one  of  these  performances,  and  are  astounded  to  recognize  Trilby.  Svengali,  now 
rich  and  prosperous,  dies  suddenly  at  a  concert  while  Trilby  is  singing;  and  she, 
missing  his  hypnotic  influence,  loses  her  power  to  sing,  goes  into  a  decline,  and  dies 
surrounded  by  her  old  friends.  Little  Billee,  heart-broken,  also  dies,  though  not 
before  he  has  won  reputation  as  an  artist.  The  final  pages  form  a  sort  of  postscript 
twenty  years  after,  telling  of  the  fate  of  the  subsidiary  characters.  The  main  interest 
is  over  with  Trilby's  death. 

TRISTRAM  SHANDY,  by  Laurence  Sterne.  The  Life  and  Opinions  of  Tristram 
Shandy,  Gent.,  is  "a  heterogeneous  sort  of  whimsical  humorous  memoirs."  The 
first  volume  appeared  January  ist,  1760,  when  Sterne  was  forty-six.  Up  to  this 
time  he  had  lived  the  life  of  an  easy-going  fox-hunting  churchman,  utterly  obscure; 
but  this,  his  first  effort,  so  amused  the  public,  that  he  was  persuaded  to  compose 
further  in  the  same  strain;  and  he  published  in  all  nine  volumes,  the  last  in  January, 
1767.  The  work  is  full  of  domestic  comedy,  "characters  of  nature, "  "the  creations 
of  a  fine  fancy  working  in  an  ideal  element,  and  not  mere  copies  or  caricatures  of 
individualities  actually  observed, "  like  those  of  Dickens.  Here  live  old  Uncle  Toby, 
Corporal  Trim,  Dr.  Slop,  and  the  Widow  Wadman;  and  who  does  not  enjoy  their 
garrulous  gossip,  and  that  of  Sterne  himself  in  his  frequent  whimsical  digressions,  so 
full  of  keen  observation  and  gentle  ridicule?  Sterne  had  evidently  studied  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  855 

humorists  well:  'Tristram  Shandy'  reminds  us,  now  of  Cervantes,  now  of  Rabelais, 
now  of  Swift;  but  it  is  sui  generis  nevertheless.  Coleridge  praised  especially  Sterne's 
power  of  giving  significance  to  "the  most  evanescent  minutiae  in  thought,  feeling, 
look,  and  gesture/'  The  work  has  always  been  popular,  perhaps  never  more  so  than 
to-day,  when  the  development  of  realism  in  English  fiction  is  receiving  so  much 
attention. 

TRIUMPHANT  DEMOCRACY,  by  Andrew  Carnegie  (1886).  This  book  is  an 
"attempt  to  give  Americans  a  better  idea  of  the  great  work  their  country  has  done 
and  is  still  doing  in  the  world."  Mr.  Carnegie  says  that  "in  population,  in  wealth, 
in  annual  savings,  and  in  public  credit,  in  freedom  from  debt,  in  agriculture,  and  in 
manufactures,  America  already  leads  the  world";  and  this  statement  he  proceeds  to 
prove  by  an  overwhelming  array  of  statistics.  The  book  is  a  glorification  of  democ- 
racy; and  admitting  frankly  the  many  evils  and  corruptions  in  America,  asserts  that 
in  no  country  is  the  common  man  so  free,  so  able  to  make  his  way.  The  growth  of 
the  West  and  its  enormous  food-producing  capacity  are  treated  at  length.  Manu- 
factures, mining,  agriculture,  pauperism,  and  crime,  railways  and  waterways,  are  all 
considered  in  detail,  with  a  wealth  of  statistics  to  support  every  statement.  There 
is  a  tendency  to  make  the  American  eagle  scream  a  little  louder  than  is  usual  nowa- 
days; but  on  the  whole,  most  Americans  would  agree  heartily  with  Mr.  Carnegie's 
pride  in  American  institutions.  Mr.  Carnegie  is  so  optimistic  that  he  will  not 
admit  that  even  the  horde  of  immigrants  pouring  in  on  us  from  Europe  is  any- 
thing but  an  unmixed  blessing.  Two  chapters  are  devoted  to  literature  and 
art,  but  it  is  evident  that  the  material  prosperity  of  the  country  is  the  main  idea 
of  the  book. 

TROILUS  AND  CRISEYDE,  by  Geoffrey  Chaucer  (1380).  This  narrative  poem  is 
partly  translated  and  partly  adapted  from  the  'Filostrato'  of  Boccaccio.  'II  Filos- 
trato'  numbers  5700  lines,  'Troilus  and  Criseyde,'  8240.  It  is  the  first  great  love 
poem  in  the  English  language.  Troilus,  a  prince  of  the  royal  house  of  Troy,  scoffs 
at  love  and  lovers  until  one  day  he  sees  the  beautiful  Criseyde,  a  young  widow,  at  the 
Temple  of  the  Palladium,  and  falls  madly  in  love  with  her.  Pandanis,  her  uncle, 
and  Troilus 's  friend,  coaxes  his  secret  from  the  timid  youth  and  promises  to  help 
him  with  his  niece.  Pandarus  finds  Criseyde  sitting  with  her  women  "with-inne  a 
paved  parlor"  poring  over  tales  of  chivalry.  He  represents  Troilus  as  dying  of  love 
for  her.  After  he  leaves,  a  ballad  sung  by  Antigone  sets  her  dreaming  of  love.  At 
this  moment  of  destiny,  Troilus,  the  brave  young  warrior,  rides  by  her  window, 
returning  from  battle  with  the  Greeks,  amid  the  shouts  and  praises  of  the  people. 
On  the  next  day  Pandarus  returns  with  a  letter  which  Criseyde  at  first  refuses  to 
receive  but  at  last  consents  to  answer.  Pandarus  persuades  his  niece  to  go  to  the 
palace  on  a  plausible  pretext,  and  contrives  to  have  the  lovers  meet.  He  next  invites 
Criseyde  to  supper  at  his  house,  telling  her  that  Troilus  is  away,  and  cannot  be  there. 
A  thunderstorm  aids  his  plans.  Criseyde  is  induced  to  spend  the  night  at  her  uncle's 
house.  Pandarus  comes  to  her  room  with  the  news  of  Troilus's  unexpected  arrival, 
and  she  consents  to  see  him  and  yields  to  his  love.  Criseyde's  father  is  a  traitor  in  the 
Greok  camp.  He  sends  for  his  daughter  on  an  exchange  of  prisoners.  The  lovers  are 
heartbroken  at  the  parting,  but  Criseyde  with  vows  that  "shake  the  throned  gods" 
swears  to  return  in  ten  days.  She  soon  discovers  that  no  pretext  for  return  will 
avail| ,  because  ner  father,  the  priest,  has  foreknowledge  that  the  city  is  destined  to 
destruction.  Diomede,  a  young  Greek,  pays  court  to  her  and  wins  her,  though  she 


856  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

grieves  for  Troilus,  the  truest  lover  woman  ever  had,  and  laments  her  own  incon- 
stancy. Since  it  is  no  use  for  her  to  repent,  she  will  make  amends  by  being  true  to 
her  new  lover.  When  Troilus  can  no  longer  continue  to  believe  Criseyde  faithful,  he 
seeks  death  in  battle  and  is  slain  by  Achilles.  The  name,  Criseyde,  has  become  a  by- 
word for  faithlessness  in  love,  as  Troilus  stands  for  all  time  for  the  faithful  lover. 
Chaucer's  Criseyde  is  a  masterpiece  of  sympathetic  portrayal,  full  of  charm  in  spite 
of  her  fickleness,  in  marked  contrast  to  the  wanton  Cressida  of  Shakespeare.  Ten 
Brink  says  of  her,  "The  English  Criseyde  is  more  innocent,  less  experienced,  less 
sensual,  more  modest  than  her  Italian  prototype. "  He  speaks  of  the  trickery  and 
intrigue  which  was  necessary  to  bring  her  at  last  to  Troilus.  Pandarus  is  a  genial, 
humorous  character,  a  masterpiece  of  comic  art,  a  clever  manager  of  men,  where 
Boccaccio's  Pandaro  is  an  unprincipled  young  gallant  and  go-between  for  the  lovers, 
and  Shakespeare's  Pandarus  is  senile  and  repulsive, 

TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  (1609)  is  one  °^  tne  *ater  products  of  Shakespeare's 
pen.  Whether  he  got  his  facts  from  Chaucer,  or  from  mcdiocval  talcs  about  Troy,  is 
uncertain.  The  drama  is  his  wisest  play,  and  yet  the  least  pleasing  as  a  whole, 
owing  to  the  free  talk  of  the  detestable  Pandarus  and  the  licentiousness  of  the  false 
Cressida.  Some  have  thought  the  piece  to  be  an  ironical  and  satirical  burlesque  of 
Homer.  There  is  very  little  plot.  The  young  Trojan,  Troilus,  in  love  with  Cressida, 
is  brave  as  a  lion  in  battle  and  green  as  a  goose  in  knowledge  of  women.  (But  "to 
be  wise  and  love  exceeds  man's  might. ")  His  amour,  furthered  by  Cressida 's  uncle, 
Pandarus,  is  scarcely  begun  when  Cressida  is  exchanged  for  a  Trojan  prisoner  and 
led  off  by  Diomed  to  the  Greek  camp.  On  arriving,  she  allows  herself  to  be  kissed 
by  the  Greek  generals,  whom  she  sees  for  the  first  time;  as  Ulysses  says,  "  There's  lan- 
guage in  her  eye,  her  cheek,  her  lip. "  She  has  just  vowed  eternal  loyalty  to  Troilus 
too.  But  she  is  anybody's  Cressida;  and  with  anguish  unspeakable,  Troilus  later 
overhears  her  making  an  appointment  with  Diomed,  and  sees  her  give  him  his  own 
remembrance  pledge.  By  gross  flattery  of  the  beef-witted  Ajax,  the  wily  Greek 
leaders  get  him  to  fight  Hector.  But  Hector  and  he  are  related  by  blood,  and  after 
some  sparring  and  hewing  they  shake  hands.  Hector  is  then  feasted  in  the  Grecian 
tents.  The  big  conceited  bully  Achilles,  "having  his  ear  full  of  his  airy  fame, "  has 
grown  "dainty  of  his  worth";  and  finding  his  reputation  "shrewdly  gored"  by  his 
long  inactivity,  and  by  the  praise  Ajax  is  getting,  and  especially  spurred  on  by  the 
death  of  Patroclus,  at  length  comes  into  the  field,  but  plays  the  contemptible  coward's 
part  by  surprising  Hector  with  his  armor  off  and  having  his  Myrmidons  butcher  him. 
Thersites  is  a  scurvy,  foul-mouthed  fellow,  who  does  nothing  but  rail,  exhausting  the 
language  of  vile  epithets,  and  hitting  off  very  shrewdly  the  weak  points  of  his  betters, 
who  give  htm  frequent  fist-beatings  for  his  pains.  The  great  speeches  of  Ulysses, 
Agamemnon,  and  Nestor  all  breathe  the  selfsame  tone  of  profound  sagacity  atjul 
insight  into  human  nature.  They  have  the  mint-stamp  of  but  one  soul,  and  thlat 
Shakespeare's.  Homer's  sketches  of  the  Greek  leaders  arc  the  merest  FlaxmJ 
outlines;  but  Shakespeare  throws  the  Rontgen  rays  of  his  powerful  analysis  qujitc 
through  their  souls,  endowing  them  with  the  subtlest  thoughts,  and  through 
masks  utters  such  sentences  as  these:  — 

"  The  ample  proposition  that  hope  makes 
In  all  designs  begun  on  earth  below, 
Pails  in  the  promised  largeness." 

"One  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin,— 
That  all  with  one  consent  praise  new-born  gauds/" 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  857 

"Keep  then  the  path; 
For  emulation  hath  a  thousand  sons 
That  one  by  one  pursue:  if  you  give  way, 
Or  hedge  aside  from  the  direct  forthright, 
Like  to  an  entered  tide  they  all  rush  by 
And  leave  you  hindmost." 

There  are  no  other  scenes  in  Shakespeare  so  packed  with  sound  and  seasoned 
wisdom  as  the  third  of  Act  i.  and  the  third  of  Act  iii.  in  'Troilus  and  Cressida.' 

TROIS  FILLES  DE  M.  DUPONT,  LES,  see  THREE  DAUGHTERS  OF  M. 
DUPONT. 

TROPICAL  AFRICA,  by  Henry  Drummond,  was  published  shortly  after  the  author's 
return  from  his  African  explorations  in  1886;  several  of  the  chapters  having  appeared 
as  magazine  articles  before  their  publication  in  book  form.  There  is  considerable 
breadth  of  subject-matter;  but  the  man  of  science,  pervaded  by  a  robust,  religious 
spirit,  speaks  in  every  chapter. 

From  the  geographer's  view-point,  the  volume  possesses  greatest  value  as  out- 
lining the  water-route  to  the  heart  of  Africa,  by  way  of  the  rivers  Zambezi  and  Shire, 
and  as  describing  some  of  the  great  inland  lakes.  The  "geological  sketch"  and  the 
"meteorological  note"  are  admirable  in  their  way;  and  the  observations  upon  the 
white  ant,  and  the  mimicry  of  African  insects,  evince  the  gifts  of  the  painstaking  and 
ingenious  observer.  But  the  author  speaks  his  most  earnest  word  when  he  treats  the 
"Heart-Disease  of  Africa  [the  slave  trade],  and  its  Pathology  and  Cure."  Professor 
Drummond  severely  arraigns  the  "Powers"  for  tolerating  the  inhuman  enormities 
of  this  hideous  traffic.  The  language  of  the  volume  throughout  is  vivid  though  simple; 
and  the  quaint  humor,  now  and  again  appearing,  adds  zest  and  flavor  to  the  interest- 
ing narrative. 

TROUBADOURS  AND  TROUVERES,  by  Harriet  Waters  Preston  (1876),  is  an 
account  of  the  poetry  of  Provence,  old  and  new.  The  earlier  essays  describe  the  work 
of  the  two  best-known  of  the  "Felibres, "  as  the  school  of  modern  poets  of  the  South 
of  France  is  called:  men  who  write  in  the  old  "langue  d'oc, "  or  Provencal  dialect,  in 
opposition  to  the  "langue  d'oil, "  or  French  tongue,  which  they  do  not  acknowledge 
as  their  language.  Miss  Preston  makes  many  translations  of  their  verse,  which  give 
a  vivid  presentment  of  the  fire  and  color  and  naive  simplicity  of  the  originals.  Another 
poet  of  the  South  of  France,  neither  Provencal  nor  French,  was  Jacques  Jasmin,  who 
wrote  in  the  peculiar  Gascon  dialect,  with  all  the  wit  and  gaycty  of  his  race.  The 
forerunners  of  all  these  men  were  the  old  troubadours,  who  flourished  from  the  driving 
out  of  the  Saracens  to  the  end  of  the  crusades,  during  the  "age  of  chivalry,"  and  who 
spent  their  lives  making  love  songs  for  the  ladies  of  their  preference.  Their  chansons, 
or  songs,  so  simple  and  so  perfect,  were  invariably  on  the  one  theme  of  love;  occasion- 
ally they  wrote  longer  pieces,  called  "sirventes,"  which  were  narrative  or  satiric. 
Many  charming  translations  illustrate  their  manner.  The  book  closes  with  a  chapter 
on  the  Arthurian  legends,  showing  what  these  owe  to  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  to 
unknown  French  romances,  to  Sir  Thomas  Malory,  and  finally  to  Tennyson.  Miss 
Preston's  excellent  scholarship  and  rare  literary  gift  combine  to  make  a  most  enter- 
taining book. 

TROY  AND  ITS  REMAINS,  by  Dr.  Heinrich  Schliemann  (1875).  A  work  offered 
to  the  reader  as  'A  Narrative  of  Researches  and  Discoveries  made  on  the  Site  of 


858  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Ilium  and  in  the  Trojan  Plain.'  It  is  a  graphic  story  of  most  remarkable  discoveries 
on  the  spot  which  tradition,  from  the  earliest  historic  age  of  Greece,  has  marked  as  the 
site  of  Homer's  Ilium.  Through  ruins  piled  to  the  height  of  fifty  feet  Schliemann  dug 
down  to  the  fire-scattered  relics  of  Troy,  and  brought  to  light  thousands  of  objects 
illustrating  the  race,  language,  and  religion  of  her  inhabitants,  their  wealth  and  civili- 
zation, their  instruments  and  appliances  for  peaceful  life  and  for  war.  The  dis- 
coveries at  the  same  time  throw  a  new  light  upon  the  origins  of  the  famous  Greeks 
of  history,  and  open  somewhat  the  not  before  known  history  of  the  primitive  Greeks 
of  Asia.  The  wealth  of  detail  in  the  narrative,  with  the  map,  plans,  views,  and  illus- 
trative cuts,  representing  500  objects  discovered  on  the  site,  give  the  work  an 
extraordinarily  readable  character. 

TRUE  RELATION,  THE,  by  Captain  John  Smith.  This  famous  work  was  published 
in  London,  in  1608.  The  full  title  is,  'A  True  Relation  of  such  occurrences  and 
accidents  of  noate  as  has  hapned  in  Virginia  since  the  first  planting  of  that  Collony, 
which  is  now  resident  in  the  South  part  thereof,  till  the  last  returne  from  thence. 
Written  by  Captain  Smith,  Coronell  of  the  said  Collony,  to  a  worshipfull  friend  of  his 
in  England/  The  account  was  also  called  'Newes  from  Virginia.'  It  relates  the 
founding  of  Jamestown,  from  January  ist,  1607,  when  three  ships  sailed  from  Eng- 
land for  Virginia,  to  May  20th,  1608.  Dealings  with  the  Indians,  especially  with 
"the  great  emperour  Powhatan,"  occupy  the  greater  part  of  the  pamphlet.  The 
style  is  straightforward,  and  the  whole  tone  exceedingly  naive.  Captain  John  Smith 
has  always  been  one  of  the  few  picturesque  figures  in  early  colonial  history,  and  the 
writers  of  school  histories  have  always  made  the  most  of  him;  his  veracity  was  un- 
questioned, until  Mr.  Charles  Deane,  in  the  preface  to  an  edition  of  '  The  True  Rela- 
tion,1 published  in  1880,  pointed  out  that  the  story  of  the  rescue  of  Captain  Smith 
by  Pocahontas  makes  its  first  appearance  in  Smith's  'General  Historic/  published  in 
1624,  and  no  such  romantic  incident  is  hinted  at  in  'The  True  Relation.'  Mr.  Deane 
charges  Captain  Smith  with  having  magnified  his  own  share  in  the  doings  of  the 
colony;  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  all  through  'The  True  Relation,'  Captain  John 
Smith  is  the  central  figure.  But  making  all  reasonable  allowances  for  self-conceit 
and  self-glorification,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  settlers  would  have  starved  the  first 
winter,  if  John  Smith  had  not  had  his  own  energy  and  all  they  lacked  into  the  bargain. 

TRUTH,  THE,  by  Clyde  Fitch  (1906).  The  scene  opens  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Warder, 
a  young  married  woman,  who  is  given  to  systematic  lying,  and  who  has  been  carrying 
on  with  Fred  Lindon  a  flirtation  which  she  wishes  people  to  believe  is  merely  harmless 
and  amusing. 

Airs.  Lindon,  a  handsome,  but  nervous  and  overstrung  woman,  informs  Warder 
that  his  wife  meets  her  husband  every  day.  Warder  questions  his  wife,  who  involves 
herself  in  such  a  maze  of  lies  that  his  worst  suspicions  are  justified,  and  he  declares 
that  he  will  live  with  her  no  longer,  though  now,  in  penitence  and  sincerity  she  pro- 
tests her  love  for  him.  She  goes  to  stay  with  her  father  Roland,  an  impecunious  and 
shifty  person,  who  is  constantly  in  debt  to  his  kndlady,  and  who  has  frequently 
wheedled  money  out  of  her  husband  through  her.  She  upbraids  her  father  for  allow- 
ing her  to  grow  up  in  the  habit  of  telling  lies,  and  is  trying  to  break  off  the  habit  when 
he  concocts  a  telegram  to  her  husband  asking  him  to  come  at  once  to  her,  as  she  is 
dying.  Roland  tries  to  make  the  parlor  look  like  a  sick-room,  but  the  landlady  tells 
Warder  when  he  comes  that  his  wife  has  not  been  ill  at  all.  Mrs.  Warder  protests  to 
her  husband  that  now,  even  if  she  tells  lies,  she  has  learned  to  loathe  them  and  be 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  859 

afraid  of  them.  "We  don't  love  people,  because  they  are  perfect,  we  love  them 
because  they  are  themselves, "  he  says,  as  he  is  reconciled  to  her. 

TRUTH  AND  POETRY  FROM  MY  OWN  LIFE,  see  GOETHE'S  AUTO- 
BIOGRAPHY. 

TURKISH  SPY,  THE  ('L'Espion  Turc1).  'Letters  Written  by  one  Mahmut,  who 
lived  Five-and-Forty  Years  undiscovered  at  Paris.  Giving  an  Impartial  Account  to 
the  Divan  at  Constantinople  of  the  most  Remarkable  Transactions  of  Europe,  and 
covering  several  Intrigues  and  Secrets  of  the  Christian  Courts  (especially  that  of 
France)  from  the  year  1637  to  the  year  1683.  Written  originally  in  Arabic.  Trans- 
lated in  Italian  and  from  thence  into  English,  by  John  Paul  Marana.  In  8  vols. 
London:  1801.' 

The  contents  of  this  remarkable  work  are  quite  fully  described  by  the  above 
lengthy  inscription  on  the  title-page.  A  romance,  really  written  by  Giovanni  Paolo 
Marana,  but  pretending  to  be  the  confidential  communications  of  a  refugee  Turk,  to 
his  friends,  —  this  performance  is  an  ingenious  and  witty  comment  on  the  political 
and  social  conduct  of  Christian  Europe  during  the  seventeenth  century,  as  viewed  by 
a  pretended  outsider.  The  writer  himself  inclines  to  the  philosophy  of  Descartes; 
he  is  not  given  to  credulity,  but  in  no  case  yields  up  his  loyalty  to  the  faith  of  Islam. 
He  keeps  himself  in  hiding  from  the  detectives  of  Cardinal  Richelieu  in  Paris  from 
1641  to  1682;  and  employs  his  time  in  writing  lengthy  epistles  to  the  Sultan,  to 
friends  in  Vienna,  to  Mahomet,  a  eunuch  exiled  in  Egypt,  and  others.  Among  the 
personages  and  topics  commented  on  are  Charles  II.  of  England,  Philip  II.  of  Spain, 
the  Religious  War  in  Germany,  "Gustavus,  King  of  Swedeland, "  and  in  France  the 
course  of  affairs  during  the  reign  of  the  house  of  the  Medici.  His  resources  in  classical 
lore  are  extensive.  Alexander  the  Great  comes  under  his  review  with  sovereigns 
of  later  times.  To  his  friend  the  eunuch  in  Egypt  he  writes  in  friendly  confidence; 
towards  the  close  of  the  long  record  admitting  that  he  has  loved  a  woman  for  thirty 
years,  only  at  last  to  be  deceived  in  her  and  to  learn  the  folly  of  earthly  love. 
"Let  us  therefore,"  he  counsels  his  friend,  "reserve  our  love  for  the  daughters 
of  Paradise!" 

TURMOIL,  a  novel  by  Booth  Tarkington  (1915).  The  scene  of  this  novel  is  a  smoky 
industrial  city  of  the  Middle  West  whose  God  is  Big  Business,  and  old  Sheridan  of 
the  Sheridan  Trust  Company,  the  biggest  of  its  kind,  is  the  city  incarnate.  He  had 
come  from  the  country  crossroads  to  the  pleasant  little  town  and  done  more  than  one 
man's  share  to  make  it  big  and  smoky.  He  loved  the  smoke,  calling  it  prosperity. 
His  two  older  sons,  Jim  and  Roscoe,  are  young  business  men  after  his  own  heart. 
The  youngest  son,  Bibbs,  who  hopes  to  be  a  poet,  is  a  disappointment.  His  father's 
efforts  to  have  him  learn  the  business  from  the  ground  up  results  in  prolonged  nervous 
prostration.  Later  he  finds  out  that  it  is  possible  to  feed  zinc  to  a  chopping  machine 
crashing  sixty-eight  times  a  minute  quite  happily  if  one  has  a  friend  like  Mary 
Vertrees  to  think  about.  Jim  is  killed  by  the  collapse  of  a  building  of  his  own  faulty 
construction.  Roscoe's  wife's  unworthiness  leads  him  to  weakness  and  failure. 
Sheridan's  daughter  runs  away  with  a  fortune  hunter.  It  is  to  the  despised  Bibbs 
that  the  father  has  to  turn,  and  Bibbs  responds  honorably,  proving  himself  the  best 
of  the  family.  Mary  Vertrees  had  believed  it  her  duty  to  marry  Jim  for  the  sake  of 
her  family.  She  learns  to  love  Bibbs  in  failure  and  success,  and  together  they  will 
reduce  even  Big  Business  to  the  level  of  common  humanitv. 


860  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

TURN  OF  THE  SCREW,  THE,  by  Henry  James  (1898).  A  terrifying  ghost  story 
about  two  children,  haunted  by  the  evil  spirits  of  a  man  and  a  woman,  former  servants, 
who  are  determined  to  gain  possession  of  the  souls  of  the  little  boy  and  girl.  Then- 
young  governess  encounters  the  spectres,  and  gradually  discovers  the  mysterious 
power  which  they  exert  over  the  children,  who  try  to  conceal  their  intercourse  with 
their  sinister  companions.  The  efforts  of  the  loyal  governess  to  protect  her  charges, 
the  supreme  struggle  between  the  living  woman,  and  the  spectre  villains  is  a  thrilling 
drama,  which  ends  in  victory  for  the  governess,  though  Miles,  the  boy,  dies  in  her 
arms  in  the  act  of  turning  from  the  evil.  Flora,  the  beautiful  little  girl,  is  still  ob- 
sessed by  the  influence  of  the  dead  Miss  Jessel,  even  after  her  removal  from  the 
haunted  house.  The  mystery,  the  face  at  the  window,  the  vision  seen  across  the 
lake,  the  meeting  face  to  face  on  the  stairs  with  the  dreadful  spectre  of  Peter  Quint, 
conveys  an  eerie  atmosphere  which  constitutes  the  power  of  the  book. 

TURNSTILE,  THE,  by  A.  E.  W.  Mason  (1912).  This  is  a  story  of  English  political 
and  social  life  the  opening  chapters  of  which  are  laid  in  South  America.  It  is  here  that 
Cynthia  Daventry,  the  heroine  of  the  story,  is  first  introduced  to  the  reader.  She  is 
the  adopted  daughter  of  a  rich  and  childless  couple  who  had  left  their  native  home, 
England,  in  their  early  married  life  to  build  up  their  fortunes  in  a  new  country.  This 
they  succeeded  in  doing,  and  upon  reaching  middle  life  adopted  from  a  foundling 
asylum,  a  lovely  little  girl  of  three  years,  who  had  been  put  there  by  her  father, 
James  Challoner.  He  was  the  profligate  son  of  an  old  English  family,  whose  wife 
had  been  killed  by  an  earthquake.  Until  Cynthia's  seventeenth  birthday  she  is 
ignorant  of  her  parentage  and  then  her  bad  and  dissolute  father  appears  on  the  scene 
and  claims  her.  The  only  alternative  for  the  Daventrys,  who  love  Cynthia  as  their 
own,  is  to  flee  with  her,  and  the  next  day  they  sail  with  her  for  England.  Here  they 
settle  in  Warwickshire,  Daventry's  old  home,  and  after  three  years  the  elderly  couple 
die,  leaving  Cynthia  heiress  to  a  large  fortune.  She  is  beautiful  and  has  many  suitors 
but  none  touch  her  heart.  She  becomes  interested  in  Captain  Ha.tr}  Rames^  an 
Arctic  explorer,  who  has  given  up  the  Navy  and  gone  into  politics.  He  is  clever  and 
ambitious  and  realizes  he  must  marry  money  to  further  his  career.  He  is  attracted  to 
Cynthia  and  proposes  to  her  though  he  does  not  feel  a  deep  love  for  her.  Cynthia 
realizes  this  but  decides  to  marry  him  as  she  thinks  the  furthering  of  his  political 
career  will  be  an  interesting  experience  for  her.  Their  married  life  goes  on  for  some 
time  in  a  commonplace  fashion  and  then  Cynthia  realizes  that  she  is  in  love  with  her 
husband;  at  the  same  time  she  feels  there  is  some  shadow  between  them  and  fears 
she  has  a  rival.  This  however  proves  to  be  the  call  of  the  sea,  and  exploration,  which 
has  re-asserted  itself  in  Rames,  and  which  he  is  trying  to  hide  from  her.  When  the 
secret  is  out,  the  husband  and  wife  understand  each  other  at  last  and  acknowledge 
their  mutual  love,  and  Cynthia  consents  to  Rames's  conducting  an  expedition  which 
will  take  him  from  her  for  three  years,  though  the  parting  causes  her  deep  sorrow. 

TWELFTH  NIGHT,  or,  What  You  Will;  by  Shakespeare,  is  a  delightfully  humor- 
ous comedy.  An  item  in  the  manuscript  diary  of  John  Manningham  shows  that  it 
was  played  February  2d,  1601,  in  the  fine  old  hall  of  the  Middle  Temple,  London,  — 
a  hall  still  in  existence.  The  twelfth  night  after  Christmas  was  anciently  given  up  to 
sport  and  games;  hence  the  name.  The  fresh,  gay  feeling  of  a  whistling  plowboy  in 
June  was  the  mood  of  the  writer  of  'Twelfth  Night.'  Tipsy  Sir  Toby's  humor  is 
catching;  his  brain  is  like  a  bottle  of  champagne;  his  heels  are  as  light  as  his  head, 
and  one  feels  he  could  cut  a  pigeon- wing  with  capering  Sir  Andrew  "to  make  all 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  863 

claiming  credit  for  Congress  for  the  result,  and  asserts  that  "No  government  of 
modern  times  has  encountered  the  dangers  that  beset  the  United  States,  or  achieved 
the  triumphs  wherewith  the  nation  is  crowned." 

TWICE-TOLD  TALES,  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  (First  series,  1837 ;  second  scries, 
184  7) .  The  '  Twice-Told  Tales '  took  their  title  from  the  fact  of  their  previous  publi- 
cation in  various  annuals  and  magazines.  The  book  was  favorably  noticed,  although 
the  quality  of  the  author's  genius  was  not  then  widely  appreciated.  The  talcs  arc 
national  in  character,  and  the  themes  are  chosen  from  among  the  many  quaint  and 
interesting  traditions  of  New  England.  Told  with  a  felicity  and  repose  of  manner 
that  has  not  been  surpassed  in  our  literature,  they  reveal  a  power  of  imagination,  a 
knowledge  of  the  obscurer  motives  of  human  nature,  and  a  spiritual  insight,  which 
marked  a  distinct  epoch  in  American  literature.  The  second  series  of  'Twice-Told 
Tales'  begins  with  the  four  'Legends  of  the  Province  House, '  —  talcs  which,  es- 
pecially characteristic  of  the  author's  genius,  at  once  added  to  the  romantic  glamour 
which  surrounds  the  Boston  of  Revolutionary  days.  Throughout,  the  'Talcs'  are 
characterized  by  Hawthorne's  beauty  of  style,  —  smooth,  musical,  poetical.  He 
looks  upon  all  things  with  the  spirit  of  love  and  with  lively  sympathies;  for  to  him 
external  form  is  but  the  representation  of  internal  being,  all  things  having  life,  an  end, 
an  aim.  The  sketch  entitled  'A  Rill  from  the  Town  Pump'  is  perhaps  the  moat 
famous  in  the  collection,  which  contains  here  and  there  themes  and  suggestions  that 
Hawthorne  later  elaborated  in  his  longer  stories;  notably  the  picture  of  a  beautiful 
woman  wearing  an  embroidered  "A"  upon  her  breast,  who  afterwards  reappears  in 
' The  Scarlet  Letter.'  ' The  Great  Carbuncle '  was  especially  admired  by  Longfellow, 
who  commends  its  poetic  beauty.  The  'Tales'  have  often  a  sombre  tone,  a  fateful 
sense  of  gloom,  weird  and  sometimes  almost  uncanny;  but  they  possess  an  irresistible 
fascination.  Among  those  best  known  are  'The  Gray  Champion/  'The  Gentle 
Boy/  and  the  'Wedding  Knell/ 

TWO  CHIEFS  OF  DTTNBOY,  THE,  by  James  Anthony  Froude  (1889).  This  is  the 
only  novel  written  by  Froude,  whose  book  on  '  The  English  in  Ireland  in  the  Eigh- 
teenth Century '  had  already  established  him  as  an  authority  on  Irish  matters. 

The  scene  of  the  story  opens  on  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  near  Nantes,  France; 
where  one  Blake,  a  ship-owner  and  Irish  exile,  fits  out  a  vessel  as  a  pirate  to  prey 
upon  British  shipping,  and  persuades  Morty  Sullivan,  one  of  the  chiefs  of  Dunboy 
and  an  Irish  exile,  to  take  the  command.  The  chief  action  of  the  plot  takes  place  at 
or  near  the  village  of  Castleton  in  Bantry  Bay,  Ireland:  where  Colonel  Goring,  the 
other  chief  of  Dunboy,  an  Englishman,  has  established  a  Protestant  settlement  for 
the  purpose  of  working  the  copper  mines,  establishing  a  fishery,  and  protecting  the 
coast  from  smugglers.  The  time  is  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Goring  is  a 
magistrate,  and  is  feared  and  hated  by  the  Irish  peasantry.  He  is  fearless  in  the  dis- 
charge of  what  he  believes  to  be  his  duty,  in  which  he  receives  but  slight  support  from 
the  government.  He  is  eventually  killed  treacherously  by  Morty  Sullivan  and  some 
accomplices.  Sullivan,  who  has  visited  Ireland  for  the  purpose  of  estimating  the 
chances  of  success  in  case  the  French  should  land  troops,  is  killed  in  an  attempt  to 
escape  from  the  government  forces.  The  story  gives  opportunity  for  the  relation  of 
many  thrilling  adventures,  such  as  the  chase  of  the  privateer  by  a  British  frigate,  the 
drilling  of  Irish  rebels  by  moonlight,  and  the  prevention  by  the  coast-guard  of  the 
landing  of  ammunition.  The  questions  of  the  relation  of  landlord  and  tenant,  of 
church,  education,  industries,  and  government,  are  discussed  with  great  lucidity,  and 


864  THE  READER'S  "DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  national  characteristics  of  the  Irish  are  shown:  their  love  of  that  which  has  existed 
for  centuries,  their  opposition  to  improvements,  and  their  instability  and  lack  of 
cohesion.  That  incomprehensible  machine,  the  government,  is  shown  in  a  part  of 
the  story  of  which  Dublin  is  the  scene;  and  there  is  a  description  of  a  riot  which  is 
suppressed  by  the  dragoons. 

The  book  carries  that  interest  which  is  always  felt  in  a  well-told  historical  story, 
and  the  descriptions  of  Irish  scenery  are  vivid. 

TWO  GENTLEMEN  OF  VERONA  (first  printed  1623),  one  of  Shakespeare's  earliest 
and  least  attractive  comedies,  for  the  plot  of  which  he  was  slightly  indebted  to 
Bandello,  to  Sidney's  'Arcadia,'  and  to  Montemayor's  'Diana  Enamorada.'  The 
scene  is  laid  alternately  in  Verona  and  in  Milan.  The  noble  Valentine  of  Verona 
remarks  to  his  friend  Proteus  that  "home-keeping  youths  have  ever  homely  wits"; 
hence  he  will  travel  to  Milan,  with  his  servant  Speed.  Proteus,  a  mean-souled, 
treacherous,  fickle  young  sprig,  is  in  love  with  Julia,  or  thinks  he  is.  His  servant's 
name  is  Launce,  a  droll  fellow  who  is  as  rich  in  humor  as  Launcelot  Gobbo  of  the 
'Merchant  of  Venice.'  Julia  is  the  heroine  of  the  piece;  a  pretty,  faithful  girl. 
Proteus  soon  posts  after  Valentine  to  Milan,  and  at  once  forgets  Julia  and  falls  "over 
boots  in  love'*  with  Silvia.  Julia  also  goes  to  Milan,  disguised  as  a  boy,  and  takes 
service  with  Proteus.  The  latter  treacherously  betrayed  Valentine's  plan  of  elope- 
ment with  Silvia  to  the  duke  her  father,  who  met  Valentine,  pulled  the  rope  ladder 
from  under  his  cloak,  and  then  banished  him.  As  in  the  play  of  'As  You  Like  It,' 
all  the  parties  finally  meet  in  the  forest  where  Valentine  has  been  chosen  leader  by  a 
band  of  respectable  outlaws.  Julia  confesses  her  identity;  Valentine,  with  a  maudlin 
milk-sop  charity,  not  only  forgives  Proteus  (whom  he  has  just  overheard  avowing  to 
Silvia  that  he  will  outrage  her  if  he  cannot  get  her  love),  but,  on  Proteus  repenting, 
actually  offers  to  give  up  Silvia  to  him.  But  Julia  swoons,  and  Proteus's  love  for  her 
returns.  A  double  marriage  ends  this  huddled-up  finale.  Launce  affines  with  Touch- 
stone, Grumio,  Autolycus,  and  the  Dromios.  He  is  irresistibly  funny  in  the  enumera- 
tion of  his  milkmaid's  "points,"  and  in  the  scenes  with  his  dog  Crab.  This  cruel- 
hearted  cur,  when  all  at  home  were  weeping  over  Launce's  departure,  and  the  very- 
cat  was  wringing  her  hands,  shed  not  a  tear;  and  when,  in  Madam  Silvia's  dining- 
room,  he  stole  a  chicken-leg  from  the  trencher  and  misbehaved  in  an  unmentionable 
manner,  Launce  manfully  took  a  whipping  for  him.  Nay,  he  stood  on  the  pillory  for 
geese  Crab  had  killed,  and  stood  in  the  stocks  for  puddings  Crab  had  stolen.  Crab 
enjoys  the  honor  of  being  the  only  dog  that  sat  to  Shakespeare  for  his  portrait, 
although  others  are  mentioned  in  his  works. 

TWO  MEN,  Elizabeth  Stoddard's  second  novel,  was  published  in  1865.  As  in  her 
two  other  stories,  the  scene  is  laid  in  a  New  England  seaport  town;  the  characters 
being  the  members  of  one  family,  all  of  them  of  strongly  marked  individuality.  The 
head  of  the  house  is  Sarah  Auster,  whose  husband  Jason,  once  a  ship-carpenter,  is 
overshadowed  by  her  aggressive  nature,  and  by  the  great  wealth  which  is  hers  from 
her  grandfather,  and  which  she  hopes  will  descend  undivided  to  her  son  Parke,  — 
a  beautiful,  sweet-natured  boy,  untainted  by  his  mother's  strange  perverse  disposi- 
tion. There  is  another  heir,  however,  —  her  cousin  Osmond  Luce,  a  seaman.  After 
a  long  absence  he  suddenly  appears  with  his  little  daughter  Philippa.  He  resigns  his 
rights  in  his  child's  favor,  and  goes  to  sea  again.  Sarah  takes  unwilling  charge  of 
Philippa,  who  grows  into  a  strange,  silent  girl.  She  loves  her  cousin  Parke  with  a 
grave,  intense  love,  but  he  knows  nothing  of  it.  He  is  attracted  only  by  brilliant 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  865 

colors  of  character,  or  by  beauty  of  form.  He  entertains  a  wayward  love  for  a  beauti- 
ful girl,  Charlotte  Lang,  in  whose  veins  is  negro  blood.  The  shadow  of  their  relation 
crosses  at  last  the  threshold  of  Parke's  home.  His  mother  dies  of  her  grief.  Charlotte 
dies  at  the  birth  of  her  child.  Then  Parke  sails  away  from  the  scene  of  his  tragedy, 
leaving  Philippa  and  Jason  alone  in  the  old  homestead.  In  time  they  love  and  are 
married.  'Two  Men '  is  written  in  the  clear,  remote  style  of  Mrs.  Stoddard,  its  stern 
realism  being  relieved  by  passages  of  quaint  humor. 

TWO  NOBLE  KINSMEN.  A  most  noble  and  pathetic  drama,  founded  on  Chau- 
cer's 'Knighte's  Tale,1  and  first  printed  in  1634,  with  the  names  of  Shakespeare  and 
Fletcher  on  the  title-page  as  authors.  The  grand  passages  suggest  the  style  of  '  Corio- 
lanus'  and  of  'The  Tempest/  and  seem  beyond  Fletcher's  powers:  e,  g.,  the  magnifi- 
cent description  of  Arcite's  horse,  worthy  of  the  Panathenaic  frieze;  the  Meissonier 
portraits  of  the  champion  Knights'  assistants,  —  the  stern,  brown-faced  prince  with 
long,  black,  shining  hair  and  lion  mien,  the  massive-thewed  blond,  and  the  rest,  the 
portrait  of  Arcite  himself,  his  eye  "like  a  sharp  weapon  on  a  soft  sheath, "  "of  most 
fiery  sparkle  and  soft  sweetness";  or  of  Palamon's  brown  manly  face  and  thought- 
lined  brow.  And  how  Shakespearean  that  phrase  applied  to  old  men  nearing  death, 
—  "the  gray  approachers " !  And  who  but  Shakespeare  would  have  written  the  lines 
(so  admired  by  Tennyson)  on  Mars,  — 

"Who  dost  pluck 

With  hand  omnipotent  from  forth  blue  clouds 
The  mas  on' d  turrets"  ? 

The  under-plot  about  the  jailer's  daughter,  who  goes  mad  for  Palamon's  love,  is  a 
weak  and  repulsive  imitation  of  the  Ophelia  scenes  in  *  Hamlet.'  The  play  is  about 
the  tribulations  of  two  noble  youths  who  both  love  the  same  sweet  girl,  "fresher  than 
the  May,"  —  Emilia,  sister  of  Hippolyta,  wife  of  Theseus.  Their  love  separates 
them ;  they  were  a  miracle  of  friendship,  they  become  bitterest  foes.  By  Theseus's 
command  they  select  each  three  friends,  and  in  a  trial  by  combat  of  the  eight  cham- 
pions, Arcite  wins  Emilia,  but  is  at  once  killed  by  his  horse  falling  on  him,  and  Pala- 
mon  secures  the  prize  after  all. 

TWO  YEARS  BEFORE  THE  MAST,  by  Richard  Henry  Dana.  This  personal 
narrative  of  a  sailor's  life  is  probably  the  most  truthful  and  accurate  work  of  its 
character  ever  written.  Although  originally  published  in  1840,  the  production  of  a 
youth  just  out  of  college,  it  still  holds  its  charm  and  its  popularity  in  the  face  of  all 
rivals  and  successors.  The  author,  upon  graduating  from  Harvard  College  in  the 
year  1837,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  was  forced  to  suspend  his  studies  on  account 
of  an  affection  of  his  eyes.  Having  a  strong  passion  for  the  sea,  he  shipped  "before 
the  mast"  upon  the  brig  Pilgrim  for  a  voyage  around  Cape  Horn  on  a  trading  trip 
for  hides  to  California.  After  rounding  the  Horn  the  Pilgrim  touched  at  Juan  Fer- 
nandez; the  next  land  sighted  being  California,  then  inhabited  only  by  Indians  and  a 
few  Spaniards.  She  visited  Monterey,  Santa  Barbara,  San  Pedro,  and  finally  San 
Diego,  the  depot  of  the  business.  Here  Dana  remained  several  months  ashore,  han- 
dling and  curing  hides.  He  did  not  return  home  in  the  Pilgrim,  but  upon  the  arrival  of 
the  ship  Alert,  consigned  by  the  same  owners,  he  procured  an  exchange  to  her.  The 
voyage  home  in  this  vessel  is  graphically  described.  While  aboard  of  her  Dana 
touched  at  San  Francisco,  where,  except  the  Presidio,  there  then  existed  one  wooden 
shanty  only.  This  was  afterwards  rebuilt  as  a  one-story  adobe  house;  and  long 
remained  as  the  oldest  building  in  the  now  great  city, 
ss 


866  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

The  book  contains  a  straightforward  and  manly  account  of  the  life  of  a  fore- 
mast band  at  that  date;  and  it  gives  in  detail  the  adventures,  hardships,  and  too  often 
brutalities,  which  accompany  a  seaman's  life.  Mr.  Dana  sets  forth  from  his  own 
personal  experience  the  thoughts,  feelings,  enjoyments,  and  sufferings,  as  well  as  the 
real  life  and  character,  of  the  common  seaman.  In  reading  it  one  finds  more  than 
the  ordinary  record  of  a  sea  voyage;  for  there  runs  through  the  simple  and  lucid 
narrative  an  element  of  beauty  and  power  which  gives  it  the  charm  of  romance.  The 
book  was  immediately  successful,  passed  through  many  editions,  was  adopted  by  the 
British  Board  of  Admiralty  for  distribution  to  the  navy,  and  was  translated  into 
many  Continental  languages.  In  1869  the  author  added  a  supplementary  chapter 
giving  an  account  of  a  second  visit  to  California,  and  the  subsequent  history  of  many 
of  the  persons  and  vessels  mentioned  in  the  original  work.  William  Cullen  Bryant, 
who  procured  the  first  publication  of  the  book,  recommended  it  to  the  publishers  as 
"equal  to  Robinson  Crusoe";  and  the  event  has  justified  his  forecast,  with  the  addi- 
tional merit  that  the  story  is  absolutely  real  and  truthful. 

TYPEE  and  OMOO,  by  Herman  Melville  (1846,  1847).  The  first-named  work, 
'Typee,'  a  famous  book,  the  forerunner  of  all  South-Sea  romances,  the  most  charming 
of  all,  and  the  source  of  many  new  words  in  our  vocabulary,  like  taboo,  is  a  narrative 
of  the  author's  enforced  sojourn,  in  the  summer  of  1842,  among  the  cannibal  Typees 
on  one  of  the  Marquesas  Islands.  It  appeared  simultaneously  in  New  York  and 
London,  and  won  everywhere  the  highest  praise.  With  Toby,  another  young  sailor, 
Melville  deserted  from  the  steamship  Dolly,  in  Nukaheva  Bay,  intending  to  seek 
asylum  with  the  friendly  Happars;  but  they  missed  their  way  and  arrived  in  Typee 
Valley.  They  were  well  received  there,  however,  were  given  abundant  food  (eaten 
under  some  apprehensions  that  they  were  being  fattened),  and  except  that  their 
attempts  to  depart  were  frowned  on,  they  had  no  cause  to  complain.  After  about  a 
month  Toby  became  separated  from  his  comrade,  and  was  taken  off  the  island  in  a 
passing  ship.  For  four  months  Melville  lived  an  indolent,  luxurious  life  in  a  sort  of 
terrestrial  paradise,  with  nothing  to  do,  plenty  to  eat,  waited  on  by  a  body  servant 
Kory-Kory,  petted  by  a  score  of  beauteous  dusky  damsels,  and  especially  adored  by 
the  incomparable  Fayaway.  But  discontent  lurked  in  his  bosom ;  and  at  length,  to 
the  sorrow  and  even  against  the  will  of  his  hosts,  —  poor  Fayaway  was  quite  incon- 
solable, —  he  contrived  to  make  his  escape  on  a  Sydney  whaler  which  was  short  of 
men. 

'Ornoo'  (The  Rover)  continues  our  author's  adventures,  changing  the  scene  to 
Tahiti,  whither  the  steamer  Julia  proceeded.  While  in  Papeetee  harbor  Melville 
and  a  new  friend,  Dr.  "Long  Ghost, "  joined  some  malcontents  among  the  crew,  who 
had  a  grievance  against  the  captain,  and  were  put  ashore.  Wilson,  the  high-handed 
English  consul,  ordered  them  into  the  "calaboza, "  where,  with  not  too  much  to  eat 
they  stayed  several  weeks  under  the  benevolent  custody  of  Captain  Bob,  an  old 
native.  They  were  finally  helped  away  to  Imeeo,  a  neighboring  island,  by  two 
planters  who  wished  to  engage  them  as  farm  hands.  Digging  in  the  ground  with 
primitive  hoes  proved  not  to  their  tastes,  however;  and  they  soon  departed  for  Taloo, 
sphere  they  were  hospitably  treated  by  "Deacon"  Jeremiah  Po-Po,  a  native  convert. 
They  attended  church,  participated  in  a  feast,  visited  a  royal  palace  under  care  of  a 
pretty  little  maid  of  honor,  caught  a  glimpse  of  Queen  Pomaree,  and  otherwise  en- 
ioyed  themselves,  until,  a  Vineyard  whaler  appearing,  Melville  bade  farewell  to  Dr. 
1  Long  Ghosts  "  and  sailed  away.  In  these  two  books  the  author  has  succeeded  in  his 
stated  purpose  of  conveying  some  idea  of  novel  scenes  that  frequently  occur  among 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  867 

whaling  crews  in  the  South  Pacific,  and  in  giving  a  familiar  account  of  the  condition 
of  the  converted  Polynesians. 

UARDA,  by  Georg  Moritz  Ebers  (1876).  This  is  a  study  of  ancient  Egyptian  civiliza- 
tion in  the  city  of  Thebes,  in  the  fourteenth  century  before  Christ,  under  Ramescs  II. 
A  narrative  of  Herodotus,  combined  with  the  Epos  of  Pentaur,  forms  the  foundation 
of  the  story.  We  have  a  minute  description  of  the  dress,  the  food,  the  religious  cus- 
toms and  wars  of  the  ancient  Egyptians.  There  are  three  separate  love  stories:  that 
of  Bent-Anat,  daughter  of  Rameses,  who  loves  Pentaur,  the  poet-priest;  that  of 
Nefert,  wife  of  Mena,  the  king's  charioteer;  and  that  of  Uarda  herself,  who  has  many 
adorers,  for  only  one  of  whom  she  cares,  —  Rameri,  the  king's  son.  Pentaur  is  sent 
into  exile,  rescued  by  Uarda,  following  in  Bent-Anat's  train.  He  saves  the  king  in 
battle,  and  is  rewarded  with  the  princess's  hand.  Nefert  is  pursued  by  Paaker,  but  is 
true  to  her  husband.  Paaker  plots  to  betray  Rameses,  and  perishes  in  his  own  trap. 
It  then  becomes  known  that  he  is  the  son  of  a  gardener,  and  Pentaur  the  true  son  of 
the  noble,  they  having  been  exchanged  at  birth.  Uarda  (The  Rose)  proves  to  be 
grandchild  to  the  king  of  the  Danaids,  her  mother  having  been  taken  captive  many 
years  before.  She  marries  Rameri;  and  after  her  grandfather's  death,  they  rule  over 
many  islands  of  the  Mediterranean  and  found  a  famous  race. 

TJNCLASSED,  THE,  by  George  Gissing  (1896),  is  a  study  of  the  lower  London  life, 
written  with  moderation  and  sincere  sympathy  with  the  sinful  and  the  poor.  There 
is  no  shirking  of  unpleasant  details,  but  the  author  does  not  throw  any  glamour  over 
the  lowest  life  of  the  streets.  It  is  rather  a  study  of  conditions  than  of  character, 
although  the  personages  of  the  story  are  distinctly  drawn.  In  the  denouement  it 
appears  that  the  "unfortunates"  may  climb  back  to  a  decent  life  if  social  conditions 
favor. 

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 
Rabbit,  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  conversa- 
tion. Their  adventures  seem  directly  drawn  from  the  darkey's  vivid  and  droll  imag- 
ination; 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  Up- 
per Egypt.  But  in  his  preface  to  a  later  collection  of  'Uncle  Remus  Stories'  Mr. 
Harris  lightly  scoffs  at  such  learned  dissertations;  and  suggests  one's  pure  enjoyment, 
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  written,  in  the  Na- 
tional Era,  an  abolition  paper  published  at  Washington.  Brought  out  in  book  form 
when  completed  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  are  chiefly 
located  in  Ohio,  in  New  Orleans,  beside  Lake  Pontchartrain,  and  down  upon  the  Red 


868  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

River.  Their  chief  purpose  is  to  depict  slavery,  and  the  effects  of  it,  by  portraying  the 
experiences  of  Uncle  Tom,  and  of  those  with  whom  he  was  more  or  less  connected, 
through  the  space  of  some  five  years.  Their  chief  personages,  rather  in  the  order  of 
interest  than  of  introduction,  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;  Simon  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.  Claire  represents  the 
easy  and  good-humored  one;  Gassy,  once  Legree's  favorite,  now  a  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  Har- 
ris, 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  fugitives; 
Miss  Ophelia,  the  precise  New  England  spinster  cousin  in  St.  Clare's  home;  Topsy, 
the  ebony  "limb  of  mischief,"  who  never  was  born  but  just  "growed";  and  Aunt 
Chloe,  Uncle  Tom's  wife  back  there  in  "old  Kentuck, "  whose  earnings  were  to  assist 
in  his  return  to  her,  but  to  whom  he  never  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. 

UNDER  THE  TREES  AND  ELSEWHERE,  see  ESSAYS  OF  HAMILTON  WRIGHT 
MABIE. 

UNDER  THE  TRICOLOUR  ('Barnavaux  et  Quelques  Femmes')  by  Pierre  Mills 
(1915)-  Tales  of  military  life  in  the  African  possessions  of  France,  told  by  a  French 
Mulvaney,  named  Barnavaux,  a  soldier  in  a  regiment  of  territorial  infantry.  Most  of 
the  episodes  are  slight,  but  with  humor  and  pathos  vividly  reproduce  the  life  of  the 
French  soldier  on  foreign  service,  and  his  relations  to  the  natives.  Barnavaux  has  a 
dominant  pride  in  the  white  race,  loyalty  to  his  corps,  courage,  simplicity  of  heart,  and 
all  the  vices  of  a  strong  man.  He  reflects  on  European  law  as  dealing  with  native  cus- 
toms, and  raises  interesting  questions  of  justice  and  commonsense  in  startling  anec- 
dotes from  his  experience.  "Marie-Faite-en-Fer, "  theheroineof  the  first  story  is  the 
mistress  of  a  French  garrison.  She  survives  the  climate,  nurses  the  soldiers  through 
an  epidemic,  and  is  tender  mother  of  the  regiment,  possessing  all  the  virtues,  save  one. 
'The  Dead  Ship'  is  a  remarkable  description  of  the  horrors  of  the  deep  sea,  the  brief 
resurrection  during  a  storm  of  an  old  slave  ship,  with  its  chained  oarsmen.  'The 
Leper's  Island,'  called  "Felicite"  on  the  maps,  is  a  tale  of  horror,  of  the  cold  vengeance 
of  a  proud  native  girl  on  a  too  bold  white  man.  '  The  Man  Who  Saw  the  Sirens, '  has 
an  amazing  love  affair  with  a  mermaid.  The  joyous  humor  of  'Barnavaux  Victor- 
ious' describes  an  encounter  of  wits  between  a  zealous  policeman,  and  the  tipsy  ma* 
rines  whom  he  endeavors  to  entangle  in  the  meshes  of  civil  law  and  order. 

UNDER  THE  YOKE  ('Pod  Igoto'),  by  Ivan  Vazoff  (1893),  is  the  best-known  piece 
of  literature  Bulgaria  has  produced.    It  was  written  during  the  author's  unmerited 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  869 

exile  in  Russia;  and  the  sensation  it  created  brought  about  his  recall  to  Bulgaria.  As 
a  record  of  one  of  the  series  of  revolutions  that  completed  the  nation's  release,  in  1878, 
from  the  Turkish  yoke,  it  will  always  be  dear  to  his  countrymen.  As  a  tale  of  love 
and  war  in  equal  parts,  embroidered  upon  the  sombre  background  of  the  central  Bal- 
kan, it  passes  the  limits  of  local  interest,  appealing  to  all  lovers  of  liberty.  Humor- 
ous passages  and  delicate  touches  abound.  Vazoff  is  not  only  a  natural  story-teller, 
but  a  poet  of  a  high  order.  Like  Chaucer  and  Ronsard,  he  found  his  native  tongue  in 
a  state  of  transition  and  fermentation,  that,  on  the  whole,  rendered  the  opportunities 
greater  than  the  drawbacks.  He  was  first  in  a  rich  field;  and  in  this  novel  the  embar- 
rassment of  material  is  evident  from  the  beginning.  In  an  early  chapter  the  celebra- 
tion of  a  domestic  event  has  brought  together  the  descendants  and  connections  of  the 
conservative,  morose,  and  unpopular  Diamandieff.  He  has  an  irrepressible  married 
daughter,  whose  sallies  keep  her  husband  in  subjection  and  her  guests  in  fits  of  laugh- 
ter. Then  there  is  Diamancho  Grigoroff,  the  story-teller,  with  his  look  of  intense 
cunning,  whose  rambling  narratives  and  flagrant  exaggerations  command  the  utmost 
attention.  Monastic  restrictions  are  more  honored  in  the  breach  than  in  the  observ- 
ance, for  nuns  of  the  Greek  Church  are  not  wanting  to  the  feast.  There  arc  young 
men  dressed  in  the  fashions  of  Paris  and  belonging  to  the  jeunesse  dorbe  of  Bulgaria. 
Lalka,  the  host's  pretty  daughter,  pale  with  grief  at  the  arrest  of  a  young  physician 
of  revolutionary  tendencies,  and  Rada,  a  beautiful  orphan  in  black,  to  whom  no  one 
pays  the  slightest  attention  as  she  moves  about  with  the  after-dinner  coffee,  but  who 
.is  the  heroine  of  the  story,  complete  the  charm  of  a  scene  in  which  the  characters  are 
pointed  out  somewhat  after  the  orderly  methods  of  the  prologue.  Taciturnity  is  not 
.a  national  trait,  and  the  characters  have  plenty  to  say,  but  say  it  with  more  or  less 
reserve  according  to  their  proclivities;  one  or  two  of  them,  ripe  for  a  revolt  against 
Turkish  authority,  hardly  daring  to  commit  themselves.  The  outrages  attributed  to 
the  Turks,  although  grewsome  reading,  furnish  a  perfect  parallel  to  those  still  inflicted 
upon  Armenians.  The  book  would  therefore  be  useful  to  a  student  of  the  Armenian 
question. 

IHTOERGROTJND  RUSSIA,  by  Stepniak.  The  former  editor  of  Zcmlia  i  Volia 
(Land  and  Liberty),  who  for  many  years  hid  his  identity  under  the  pseudonym  of 
"Stepniak"  (freely  translated  "Son  of  the  Steppe"),  wrote  in  Italian  a  scries  of 
sketches  of  the  revolutionary  and  Nihilistic  movement  in  which  he  had  taken  such  an 
important  part.  The  introduction  gives  a  succinct  history  of  the  individualistic  pro- 
paganda which  resulted  in  Russia  in  a  certain  measure  of  freedom  for  women,  and 
which,  at  the  expense  of  much  suffering  and  many  young  lives  sacrificed,  spread  a 
leaven  of  liberalism  through  the  vast  empire  of  the  Tsars.  Stepniak  traces  the  suc- 
cessive changes  that  have  taken  place  in  the  attack  on  Autocracy  before  and  since 
187 1  -  He  defends  even  the  Terrorism  that  leveled  its  weapons  against  the  lives  of  the 
highest  in  power.  He  who  had  himself  been  delegated  to  "remove"  certain  of  the 
enemies  of  liberty,  could  not  help  arguing  in  favor  of  assassination  as  a  political  re- 
source.  Under  the  sub- title  of  'Revolutionary  Profiles,'  he  draws  pen-portraits  of 
some  of  his  acquaintances  among  the  Nihilists.  Stepanovich,  Dmitri  Clemens,  Val- 
erian Ossinsky,  Prince  Kropotkin,  Dmitri  Lisogub,  Jessy  Helfman,  Viera  Sassulitca, 
and  Sophia  Perovskaya.  The  last  half  of  the  volume  describes  various  attempts  at 
assassination,  and  of  escape  from  prisons  or  Siberia.  As  a  description  of  the  propa- 
ganda and  methods  of  the  revolutionists  in  attempting  to  free  their  country  from 
governmental  tyranny,  and  as  a  statement  of  their  aims  and  purpose,  this  little  work, 
of  one  of  their  number,  desultory  and  inartistic  as  it  is,  will  be  invaluable  to  the  future 


870  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

"historian.  It  will  at  least  show  the  desperate  earnestness  and  self-sacrificing  spirit  of 
some  of  Russia's  noblest  sons  and  daughters.  For  English  readers,  the  work  has  the 
disadvantage  of  spelling  Russian  names  in  an  unfamiliar  (that  is,  in  the  Italian) 
manner.  It  was  written  in  1881 ;  and  the  year  after  was  published  in  England,  with  a 

k  preface  by  Pavel  Lavrof. 

UNDINE,  by  De  La  Motte  Fouque  (1814).  This  is  a  fanciful  German  tale,  well 
known  for  its  beauty  of  conception  and  expression.  Sir  Huldbrand  of  Ringstetten  is 
obliged  to  explore  an  enchanted  forest  to  win  fair  Bertalda's  glove.  At  the  end  of  a 
day  full  of  mysterious  adventures  in  the  forest, 'he  rides  out  upon  a  lovely  promontory 
of  land,  where  an  old  fisherman  and  his  wife  give  him  shelter.  Years  before  they  had 
lost  their  own  child  'by  the  lake,  and  afterwards  a  beautiful  little  girl  had  come  to  them : 
it  was  the  water-spirit  Undine.  She  is  now  eighteen  years  old;  and  when  she  sees  the 
handsome  knight  she  falls  in  love  with  him,  and  causes  the  elements  to  detain  him 
days  at  their  cottage.  The  storms  send  a  priest  to  land,  and  he  marries  Undine  and 
Sir  Huldbrand.  Undine  had  been  a  lovely  but  irresponsible  creature  to  the  day  of 
her  wedding,  but  after  her  marriage  she  becomes  possessed  of  a  soul  through  their 
mutual  love.  The  waters  having  subsided,  Sir  Huldbrand  carries  his  bride  back  to 
the  city,  where  Bertalda  and  Undine  become  warm  friends.  The  water-spirit  Kuhle- 
born  warns  Undine  against  Bertalda;  but  when  it  is  discovered  that  Bertalda  is  the 
'fisherman's  daughter,  Undine  pities  her,  and  takes  her  home  to  the  castle  at  Ring- 
stetten. There  Bertalda  wins  Huldbrand's  heart  from  Undine,  and  she  is  very  un- 
happy. Undine  tries  to  save  her  husband  and  Bertalda,  but  the  water-spirits  become 
enraged  against  him;  and  when  they  are  all  in  a  boat  sailing  to  Vienna,  Undine  van- 
ishes under  the  water.  On  the  night  that  Huldbrand  marries  Bertalda,  Undine  arises 
from  the  fountain  in  the  court,  sweeps  into  his  room,  and  fulfills  the  laws  of  her  destiny 
by  a  fond  embrace  that  takes  his  life ;  and  he  dies  in  her  arms.  A  little  spring  ripples 
beside  the  grave  of  the  knight;  and  in  the  village  the  people  believe  it  is  poor  Undine, 
who  loved  too  faithfully  and  suffered  so  much.  'Undine '  is  considered  the  author's 
masterpiece. 

UNDISCOVERED  COUNTRY,  THE,  by  W.  D.  Howells  (1880),  is  a  favorite  with 
many  of  the  author's  lovers.  The  central  figure,  Dr.  Boynton,  an  enthusiastic  spirit- 
ualist,"is  an  admirable  study  of  a  self-deceiver,  an  honest  charlatan.  He  is  a  country 
doctor,  who  has  become  a  monomaniac  on  the  subject  of  spiritualistic  manifestations, 
and  has  brought  up  his  daughter,  a  delicate,  high-strung,  nervous  girl,  as  a  medium. 
•His  attempts  to  take  Boston  by  storm  end  in  disaster.  He  is  branded  as  a  cheat,  his 
daughter  is  believed  to  be  his  confederate,  and  he  and  Egeria  seek  refuge  in  a  com- 
munity of  Shakers,  whose  quaint  and  kindly  ways  are  portrayed  with  a  loving  pen. 
The  peaceful  monotony  of  the  daily  life,  its  plain  plenty,  its  orderliness,  its  thrift,  is 
constant  and  unoppressive  industry,  the  moral  uprightness  of  the  broad-brimmed  and 
straight-skirted  community,  the  strangeness  of  the  spiritual  culture  which  forbids  the 
sowing  of  any  seeds  of  sentiment,  the  excellence  of  character  which  is  so  perversely 
one-sided  and  ineffective — all  these  conditions  and  effects  are  so  vividly  reported  that 
the  reader  seems  to  behold  with  his  bodily  eyes  the  long  barns  bursting  with  harvests, 
the  bare  clean  rooms  of  the  houses,  and  the  homely  pleasantness  of  every-day  activ- 
ity. In  this  islanded  tranquillity  Egeria  blossoms  into  beautiful  womanhood,  and  her 
supernatural  powers  vanish  forever.  A  happy  life  opens  before  her;  but  the  eyes  of 
the  poor  visionary,  her  father,  cannot  turn  away  from  the  Undiscovered  Country. 
Unbalanced  trickster  that  he  is,  little  Dr.  Boynton  is  yet  a  lovable  and  pathetic  figure,' 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF -BOOKS  871 

honestly  a  martyr  to  his  cause.  The  story  is  told  with  an  unfailing  humor  and  sym- 
pathy, which  make  the  Shaker  settlement  seem  almost  a  place  of  pilgrimage. 

UNITED  NETHERLANDS,  HISTORY  OF  THE,  by  John  Lothrop  Motley.  This 
work  was  published  in  four  volumes  in  London  in  1860,  in  New  York  in  1868.  It 
covers  the  period  from  the  death  of  William  the  Silent  to  the  year  1609;  and  like 
'The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic, '  to  which  it  is  immediately  sequent,  it  has  become 
one  of  the  classics  of  English  historical  narrative.  There  are  later  works  on  the  same 
epoch  that  have  changed  received  opinion  on  some  minor  points  of  character  and 
event,  but  Motley,  in  his  volumes  of  Dutch  history,  has  no  rival  in  his  power  of  re- 
viving the  age  and  its  heroes  for  the  reader,  in  his  scholarly  analysis  of  remote  causes 
and  in  his  clear  and  convincing  style. 

UNITED  STATES,  HISTORY  OF  THE,  FROM  THE  COMPROMISE  OF  1850,  by 

James  Ford  Rhodes,  an  account  of  the  period  between  the  Missouri  Compromise  of 
1850  and  the  inauguration  of  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  to  the  Presidency  in  1877.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  first  volume  (1893)  the  historian  announced  his  intention  of  covering 
a  period  of  thirty-five  years,  extending  to  the  election  of  Grovcr  Cleveland  in  1885 
but  the  seventh  and  last  volume  (1906)  ends  with  the  return  of  the  Democrats  not 
to  national  power  but  to  control  of  the  Southern  states.  The  author's  own  summary 
of  the  period  is  as  convenient  as  any  that  could  be  made:  'the  compromise  on  slavery 
devised  by  great  statesmen,  its  upsetting  by  an  ambitious  Northern  senator,  the 
formation  of  the  Republican  party;  the  agitation  of  slavery;  Southern  arrogance  and 
aggression;  the  election  of  Lincoln;  the  refusal  of  the  South  to  abide  by  the  decision 
of  the  ballot-box,  the  Civil  War;  the  great  work  of  Lincoln,  the  abolition  of  slavery; 
the  defeat  of  the  South;  Reconstruction  based  upon  universal  negro  suffrage;  the 
oppression  of  the  South  by  the  North ;  the  final  triumph  of  Southern  intelligence  anO 
character  over  the  ignorance  and  corruption  that  so  long  had  thriven  tinder  Northern 
misconceptions. '  This  is  the  most  authoritative  history  of  the  period  with  which  it 
deals  and  is  characterized  by  fairness,  accuracy,  thoroughness,  and  narrative  interest. 
Its  treatment  of  the  politics  of  the  Reconstruction  period  is  unequalled  by  any  other 
history. 

UNITED  STATES,  A  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE,  by  J.  B.  McMaster, 
see  PEOPLE,  ETC. 

UNLEAVENED  BREAD,  by  Robert  Grant  (1900).  In  this  clever  story,  the  author 
paints  with  consummate  skill  the  portrait  of  one  special  type  of  American  woman. 
Selma  White,  bred  in  a  small  country  village  where  there  arc  no  class  distinctions, 
gradually  develops  the  most  intense  social  ambition  for  the  gratification  of  which  she 
is  ready  to  sacrifice  everything,  even  her  husband's  honor.  Sclma  is  endowed  with 
beauty,  an  active  brain,  and  a  pleasing  conviction  of  her  own  superiority  to  nearly 
everyone  with  whom  she  comes  in  contact,  yet  she  is  very  crude  and  excessively  ignor- 
ant. Her  first  realization  of  social  distinction  comes  after  her  marriage  with  a  "hus- 
tling" varnish  manufacturer  with  whom  she  makes  her  home  in  the  small  western 
city  of  Benham.  Here  as  Mrs.  Lewis  J.  Babcock  she  discovers  that  there  are  persons 
who  affect  a  social  superiority  over  her.  While  professing  to  denounce  such  a  thing 
upon  impersonal  and  democratic  grounds,  it  in  reality  becomes  her  special  grievance. 
Having  been  divorced  from  her  husband,  she  marries  a  professional  man  of  a  very 
different  type,  a  man  who  thinks  that  she  is  the  woman  to  share  his  ideals,  but  who 


872  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

awakens  to  disappointment,  which  is  shared  by  his  wife  who  finds  that  in  New  York 
she  is  unable  to  gratify  her  social  ambition.  At  this  point  Mr.  Grant  introduces 
Flossy  Williams  and  her  husband,  two  social  climbers,  whose  characters  are  delight- 
fully drawn.  Selma,  in  her  endeavors  to  carry  out  her  social  schemes,  hounds  her 
husband  unceasingly;  he  later  dies  an  overwrought  and  worn-out  man.  Selma 
then  marries  a  lawyer  and  rising  politician,  and  begins  again  to  climb  the  social  ladder; 
she  sets  her  heart  upon  becoming  the  wife  of  a  senator  and  determines  to  leave  no 
stone  unturned  towards  compassing  this  end.  Her  husband  is  finally  elected  Gov- 
ernor, as  the  result  of  a  private  transaction  with  a  representative  of  a  great  corpora- 
tion, and  when  one  of  the  state  senators  dies  the  way  is  opened  for  him  to  become 
senator.  He  has  given  his  promise  to  sign  a  certain  bill  in  order  to  secure  his  governor- 
ship and  he  now  realizes  that  his  chances  for  the  senatorship  hang  upon  his  failure  to 
keep  his  promise.  His  wife  comes  forward  and  convinces  him  that  he  is  under  no 
obligation  to  keep  his  word  and  that  in  the  interest  of  American  ideals  he  must  for- 
get his  obligations  and  secure  the  senatorship.  Together  they  play  the  hypocrite  and 
the  bill  is  vetoed  and  the  coveted  senatorship  won.  In  his  creation  of  this  persistent, 
unscrupulous  social  climber,  Dr.  Grant  scored  a  notable  success. 

UP  FROM  SLAVERY,  by  Booker  T.  Washington  (1901).  This  is  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  autobiographies  ever  written  and  reads  like  a  romance.  Its  author  was 
born  at  Hale's  Ford,  Virginia,  "  about "  1858,  was  a  slave  until  freed  by  the  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation,  and  never  knew  who  was  his  father.  As  a  child  he  was  buffeted 
about,  enduring  poverty  and  privations,  his  life  of  drudgery  in  the  "nigger  quarters  " 
of  the  Maiden  family,  whose  property  he  was,  being  a  trifle  more  comfortable  than  his 
existence  in  the  poorhouse  to  which  his  mother  took  him  in  West  Virginia.  As  a 
child  he  worked  in  the  salt  furnaces  and  then  in  the  mines,  during  which  time  he  had 
a  chance  to  get  a  few  months'  schooling  every  year.  Later  he  secured  employment 
with  a  New  England  woman,  and  was  enabled  to  attend  night  school,  and  then  at  odd 
times  he  worked  and  studied,  until  in  1 871  he  started  for  the  Hampton  school  of  which 
he  had  heard  so  much.  He  became  the  star  pupil  of  the  place  and  was  graduated  with 
honors,  although  he  was  obliged  to  work  his  way  through.  After  spending  some  time 
at  Hampton  as  a  teacher,  he  founded  the  now  famous  institution  at  Tuskegee,  Ala- 
bama, which  must  always  be  a  notable  monument  to  his  energy  and  enthusiasm  for 
the  work  of  uplifting  his  race.  The  college  was  started  in  1 88 1  in  a  shanty,  under  the 
most  inauspicious  circumstances  and  at  a  time  when  the  idea  of  a  higher  school  for 
the  "blacks"  was  treated  with  derision.  The  story  of  Booker  Washington's  career 
is  told  with  much  grace  and  simplicity  as  well  as  extreme  modesty.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  parallel  this  instance  of  a  man  born  a  slave  and  beginning  his  life  in  the 
most  miserable  and  desolate  surroundings,  who  became  within  forty  years  one  of  the 
world's  effective  workers,  commanding  the  attention  of  pulpit  and  press,  welcomed  in 
the  homes  of  greatness  and  having  won  for  himself  universal  respect. 

UPANISHADS,  THE,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

UTOPIA,  by  Sir  Thomas  More.  This  book,  which  was  written  in  Latin  in  1615,  is 
the  source  from  which  have  been  taken  many  of  the  socialistic  ideas  which  are  to-day 
interesting  modern  thinkers.  At  the  time  it  was  written,  the  author,  fearing  to  ac- 
knowledge these  ideas  as  his  own,  attributed  them  to  a  mythical  person,  Raphael 
Hythloday,  lately  returned  from  America,  whither  he  had  gone  with  Amerigo  Ves- 
pucci. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  875 

will  have  some  difficulty  in  believing  it  to  be  more  than  a  translation."  Vathek, 
ninth  Caliph  of  the  race  of  the  Abassides,  is  the  son  of  Motassem,  and  the  grandson 
of  Haroun  al  Raschid.  Though  a  Prince  Charming,  he  is  yet  a  capricious  ruler, 
indulging  his  desires  in  the  most  extravagant  manner  and  falling  into  illness  when 
his  will  is  crossed.  His  troubles  begin  when  he  meets  a  Giaour,  who  obtains  a 
strange  influence  over  him;  and  after  leading  him  into  shocking  enormities,  induces 
him  to  abjure  Mohammedanism  and  call  upon  the  Prince  of  the  powers  of  the  air. 
In  this  course  Vathek  is  encouraged  by  the  queen-mother,  Carathis,  whose  incanta- 
tions produce  the  most  appalling  results.  He  sets  out  to  meet  the  Giaour,  to  obtain 
from  him  the  treasures  of  the  pre-Adamiie  Sultans,  with  other  much-desired  gifts. 
But  on  his  way  he  meets  and  falls  in  love  with  the  beautiful  young  Nouronihar,  and 
spends  many  days  in  wooing  her.  At  last,  with  the  maiden,  he  proceeds  upon  the 
journey,  and  enters  the  awful  Hall  of  Eblis,  filled  with  ineffable  glories.  Here  he 
receives  indeed  all  that  is  promised  him,  but  deprived  of  any  wish  to  possess  it  or 
capacity  to  enjoy  it;  and  learns  that  his  self-seeking  and  heartless  service  of  his  own 
appetites  has  drawn  upon  him  the  punishment  of  eternal  torment  and  remorse; 
a  doom  whicti  includes  the  loss  of  "the  most  precious  of  the  gifts  of  heaven, — Hope." 

VEDANTA-SUTRAS,  THE,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 
VEDIC  HYMNS,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 
VENTRE  DE  PARIS,  LE,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

VERA  VORONTSOFF,  by  Sonya  Kovalevsky  (1896).  Sonya  Kovalevsky,  whose 
father  was  a  general  at  the  head  of  the  Russian  artillery,  adopted  the  Nihilistic  pro- 
cedure of  making  a  fictitious  marriage,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  her  intellectual 
freedom.  She  became  one  of  the  most  famous  mathematicians  of  Europe,  won  the 
Bordin  prize,  and  was  for  ten  years  professor  of  mathematics  in  Stockholm  Univer- 
sity. Her  marvelous  achievements  in  science  did  not  prevent  her  from  suffering 
on  the  womanly  side  of  her  complex  nature.  Undoubtedly  something  of  her  own 
life  history  is  to  be  read  between  the  lines  of  her  novel,  '  Vcra  Vorontsoff, '  which 
she  is  said  to  have  written  in  Swedish.  It  relates  simply  but  effectively  the  story 
of  the  youngest  daughter  of  a  Russian  count,  ruined  partly  by  his  own  extravagances 
and  partly  by  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs.  The  girl  grows  up  with  little  training 
until  Stepan  Mikhailovich  Vasiltsef,  a  professor  from  the  Polytechnic  Institute  of 
Petersburg,  removed  from  his  position  on  account  of  seditious  utterances,  comes  to 
reside  on  his  little  neighboring  estate  and  teaches  her.  They  end  by  falling  in  love; 
but  Vasiltsef,  who  inclines  to  take  the  side  of  the  peasants  in  their  differences  with 
their  former  masters,  is  ''interned"  at  Viatka,  and  dies  there  of  consumption.  Vcra 
sacrifices  herself  by  marrying  a  poor  Jewish  conspirator,  condemned  to  twenty  years' 
imprisonment,  and  thereby  commuting  his  punishment  to  exile  to  Siberia,  where 
she  joins  him.  The  character  of  Vera  is  carefully  drawn  in  the  genuine  Russian 
method;  she  is  the  type  of  the  self-sacrificing  maiden  of  gentle  birth,  of  which  the 
annals  of  Nihilism  are  full.  There  are  a  few  pretty  descriptions,  as  for  instance, 
that  of  the  approach  of  the  spring  on  the  steppes ;  but  the  force  of  the  story  lies  in 
its  pictures  of  life  at  the  time  of  the  liberation  of  the  serfs.  It  has  been  twice  trans- 
lated into  English. 

VERDANT  GREEN,  MR.,  AN  OXFORD  FRESHMAN,  THE  ADVENTURES 

>F,  by  "Cuthbert  Bede"  (Rev.  Edward  Bradley).     Since  its  publication  in  1853- 


876  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

57,  this  story  has  taken  a  certain  place  as  an  English  humorous  classic,  comparable 
in  some  sort  to  Kortum's  famous  'Jobsiad7  in  German  (though  one  is  in  prose,  the 
other  in  doggerel  verse),  but  on  the  whole  sui  generis.  It  narrates  the  university 
adventures  of  an  innocent  and  simple  young  Englishman  of  family  and  position, 
brought  up  in  the  bosom  of  an  adoring  family;  the  pranks  his  fellow  undergraduates 
play  on  him;  the  rather  severe  "course  of  training"  they  put  him  through,  in  order 
to  remove  his  "home-feathers,"  and  the  result  finally  achieved.  Humor  and  fun 
abound  in  it;  and  though  much  of  the  fun  is  mere  horse-play,  and  much  of  the 
humor  of  a  kind  which  a  later  literary  taste  finds  happily  out  of  fashion,  the  book 
still  gives  pleasure  to  the  whole  English  undergraduate  world,  and  to  a  smaller 
American  contingent. 

VIA  CRTJCIS,  a  romance  of  the  Second  Crusade,  by  F.  Marion  Crawford  (1900). 
The  story  is  placed  in  the  twelfth  century  and  deals  with  the  doings  of  the  Crusaders, 
a  particularly  effective  subject  for  a  romance.  The  scene  is  first  laid  in  England, 
then  shifts  to  the  French  Court,  and  from  thence  to  Rome,  then  back  again  to  France 
and  from  there  to  the  arid  sands  of  Syria.  The  hero,  Gilbert  Ward,  is  a  brave  English 
knight,  half  monk  and  half  barbarian.  His  father  is  treacherously  killed  by  Sir 
Arnold  de  Curboil,  who  marries  his  victim's  wife  within  a  month  after  her  husband's 
death.  Gilbert,  foully  wounded  by  Sir  Arnold  and  cheated  of  his  heritage,  is  forced 
out  into  the  world  as  an  adventurer.  Arriving  at  the  French  Court,  his  great  torso 
and  gentle  manner  win  him  the  love  of  the  beautiful  Queen  Eleanor,  who  is  the  cen- 
tral figure  of  the  story.  Her  passion  for  the  English  knight  is  so  strong  that  with 
her  bold  and  masterful  nature,  she  almost  causes  him  to  falter  in  his  loyalty  to 
Beatrix  de  Curboil,  his  step-sister,  whom  he  really  loves.  However,  the  efforts  of 
the  amorous  queen  finally  prove  fruitless  in  winning  him  from  his  allegiance  to  his 
early  love,  and  he  remains  steadfast  against  temptation.  Gilbert  leaves  the  Court 
and  wends  his  way  to  Rome,  where  in  the  struggle  for  possession  of  the  Holy  Sep- 
ulchre he  gains  distinction  and  renown.  The  disinherited  Norman  boy,  the  savior 
of  the  army  and  the  hero  of  the  day,  becomes  the  Guide  of  Aquitaine  and  marries 
the  faithful  Beatrix.  Freed  from  the  spell  which  the  Queen  had  in  the  past  woven 
around  him,  Gilbert  at  last  kneels  calmly  at  her  feet  uttering  the  words,  "I  cannot 
love  you,  but  in  so  far  as  I  may  be  faithful  to  another  I  give  you  my  whole  life." 
This  romance,  which  belongs  essentially  to  the  life  of  the  old  world,  is  well  con- 
structed and  well  told,  and  the  Queen's  generous  renunciation  of  her  love  for  Gilbert 
renders  her  figure  in  the  story  a  dramatic  one. 

VICAR  OF  WAKEFIELD,  THE,  Oliver  Goldsmith's  famous  story,  was  published 
in  1766.  Washington  Irving  said  of  it:  "The  irresistible  charm  this  novel  possesses, 
evinces  how  much  may  be  done  without  the  aid  of  extravagant  incident  to  excite  the 
imagination  and  interest  the  feelings.  Few  productions  of  the  kind  afford  greater 
amusement  in  the  perusal,  and  still  fewer  inculcate  more  impressive  lessons  of  moral- 
ity." The  character  of  the  Vicar,  Dr.  Primrose,  gives  the  chief  interest  to  the  tale. 
His  weaknesses  and  literary  vanity  are  attractive;  and  he  rises  to  heights  almost 
sublime  when  misfortune  overtakes  his  family.  ,  The  other  actors  in  the  simple 
drama  are  Mrs.  Primrose,  with  her  boasted  domestic  qualities  and  her  anxiety  to 
appear  genteel;  the  two  daughters,  Olivia  and  Sophia;  and  the  two  sons,  George, 
bred  at  Oxford,  and  Moses,  who  "received  a  sort  of  miscellaneous  education  at  home'7 
— all  of  whom  the  Vicar  says  were  "equally  generous,  credulous,  simple,  and  inoffen- 
sive." Squire  Thornhill  resides  near  the  family,  and  elopes  with  Olivia,  to  the  great 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  877 

distress  of  the  Vicar.  He  suspects  Mr.  Burchell,  who  turns  out  to  be  Sir  William 
Thornhill,  the  uncle  of  the  young  Squire.  Sir  William  asks  for  Sophia's  hand,  and 
sets  right  the  family  misfortunes.  Numerous  pathetic  and  humorous  incidents  arise 
out  of  the  story.  Among  the  latter  is  that  of  the  family  picture,  which,  when  fin- 
ished, was  too  large  for  the  house.  Mrs.  Primrose  was  painted  as  Venus,  the  Vicar 
in  bands  and  gown,  presenting  to  her  his  books  on  the  Whistonian  controversy; 
Olivia  was  an  "Amazon  sitting  upon  a  bank  of  flowers,  dressed  in  a  green  Joseph, 
richly  laced  with  gold,  and  a  whip  in  her  hand;  Sophia,  a  shepherdess;  Moses, 
dressed  out  with  a  hat  and  white  feather";  while  the  Squire  " insisted  on  being  put 
in  as  one  of  the  family  in  the  character  of  Alexander  the  Great,  at  Olivia's  feet." 
Austin  Dobson  says  that  the  'Vicar  of  Wakefield'  "remains  and  will  continue  to  be 
one  of  the  first  of  our  English  classics." 

VICOMTE  DE  BRAGELONTTE,  THE;  or,  TEN  YEARS  AFTER  (1848-50).  This, 
the  last  novel  of  Dumas'  'Three  Musketeers'  series,  is  the  longest  and  in  many  ways 
the  most  powerful  of  the  three.  Some  parts  of  it  have  been  published  as  separate 
novels.  Those  chapters  devoted  to  the  king's  love  for  Mademoiselle  de  la  Valliere 
have  been  issued  under  the  title  of  'Louise  de  la  Valliere';  while  the  ones  dealing 
with  the  substitution  of  Louis  XIV.'s  twin  brother  for  himself  have  appeared  as  'The 
Man  in  the  Iron  Mask. '  The  romance  in  full  presents  a  marvelously  vivid  picture 
of  the  court  of  Louis  XIV.,  from  a  time  shortly  before  his  marriage  to  Maria  Theresa 
to  the  downfall  of  Fouquet.  The  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne  is  the  son  of  the  famous 
Athos,  of  the  'Three  Musketeers';  the  best  type  of  young  nobleman,  high-minded, 
loyal,  and  steadfast,  who  cherishes  from  his  boyhood  an  unwavering  love  for  Made- 
moiselle de  la  Valliere,  which  ends  only  in  his  death  on  a  foreign  battlefield  after  she 
deserts  him  for  the  king.  The  four  old  comrades,  Athos,  Porthos,  Aramis,  and 
D'Artagnan^  all  reappear:  Athos  the  perfect  gentleman,  big  Porthos,  so  simple  and 
kind-hearted,  Aramis  a  bishop  and  schemer,  and  D'Artagnan  a  soldier  still,  quick- 
tempered and  outspoken  as  ever,  but  withal  so  full  of  loyalty  and  kindliness  that 
his  very  enemies  love  him.  The  chief  plot  of  the  book  relates  the  struggle  of  Colbert 
to  supplant  Fouquet  as  Superintendent  of  Finances;  and  the  struggle  of  Aramis, 
who  has  become  General  of  the  Jesuits,  to  keep  Fouquet  in  power. 

Aramis  discovers  the  existence  in  the  Bastille  of  the  twin  brother  of  Louis  XIV., 
exactly  like  him  in  person,  who  has  been  concealed  from  his  birth  for  reasons  of 
State.  Aramis  conceives  the  glorious  idea  of  carrying  off  Louis  XIV.,  and  setting 
up  a  king  who  will  owe  his  throne  to  him,  and  in-  return  make  him  cardinal,  prime 
minister,  and  master,  as  Richelieu  had  been.  This  plot  he  and  Porthos  (who  does 
not  understand  the  true  situation  in  the  least)  carry  out  with  the  utmost  success, 
deceiving  even  the  king's  own  mother;  but  the  affair  is  frustrated  by  the  fidelity  of 
Fouquet,  who,  on  learning  the  substitution,  rushes  to  free  the  real  king.  Aramis 
and  Porthos  fly  across  France  to  Belle-Isle  in  Brittany,  where  they  are  besieged  by 
the  king's  ships,  and  Porthos  meets  a  tragic  death.  Aramis  escapes  to  Spain,  and, 
being  too  powerful  a  Jesuit  to  be  touched,  lives  to  an  honored  old  age.  Louis  XIV. 
meantime  imprisons  his  brother  in  the  famous  iron  mask;  and  arrests  Fouquet, 
who  had  been  a  bad  minister,  but  at  the  same  time  such  a  gentleman  that  D'Axtagnan 
says  to  him:  "Ah,  Monsieur,  it  is  you  who  should  be  king  of  France."  Athos 
dies  heartbroken,  after  learning  of  the  death  of  his  son;  and  last  of  all,  D'Artagnan 
falls  in  the  thick  of  battle  in  the  musketeer's  uniform  he  had  worn  for  forty  years. 
Even  those  who  have  least  sentiment  over  the  personages  of  fiction  can  hardly  part 
with  these  familiar  and  charming  old  friends  without  a  pang. 


878  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

VICTORIAN  POETS,  THE,  by  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman  (1876),  A  book  of 
literary  and  biographical  criticism,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  historical  survey  of  the 
course  of  British  poetry  for  forty  years  (1835-75),  showing  the  authors  and  works 
best  worth  attention,  and  the  development  through  them  of  the  principles  and 
various  ideals  of  poetic  art  as  now  understood  and  followed.  It  forms  a  guide-book 
to  150  authors,  their  lives,  their  productions,  their  ideas  and  sympathies,  and  their 
poetic  methods.  The  author  had  contemplated  a  survey  of  American  poetry,  with 
a  critical  consideration  of  its  problems,  difficulties,  failures,  and  successes;  and  to 
prepare  himself  for  this,  and  make  sure  to  himself  correct  ideas  of  the  aim  and  pro- 
vince of  the  art  of  poetry,  that  he  might  more  certainly  use  wisdom  and  justice  in 
studying  the  American  field,  he  undertook  first  the  thorough  critical  examination  of 
the  English  field,  of  which  the  present  volume  was  the  result.  The  book,  therefore, 
may  be  viewed  as  the  earlier  half  of  a  large  work,  of  which  'The  Poets  of  America, ' 
published  in  1885,  is  the  later  half;  and  this  conception  by  Mr.  Stedman  of  the  unity 
in  historical  development  of  English  and  American  culture  attests,  as  the  entire 
execution  of  his  task  everywhere  does,  the  clearness  and  breadth  of  his  insight,  and 
the  value  of  his  guidance  to  the  student  of  poetry.  The  distinction,  in  fact,  of  Mr. 
Stedman,  shown  in  all  his  work,  and  marking  a  stage  in  the  larger  progress  of  Ameri- 
can culture,  is  his  rank  as  a  scholar  and  thinker  in  literature,  broadly  conscious  of 
all  high  ideals,  and  thereby  superior  to  the  provincial  narrowness  of  uninstructed 
Americanism.  He  thus  has  no  theory  of  poetry,  no  school,  to  uphold;  but  favors 
a  generous  eclecticism  or  universalism  in  art,  and  extends  sympathetic  appreciation 
to  whatever  is  excellent  of  its  kind. 

VICTORY,  by  Joseph  Conrad  (1915).  Axel  Heyst  is  committed  to  a  profound  mis- 
trust of  life  by  his  father,  an  expatriate  Swedish  nobleman  and  pessimistic  philo- 
sopher. He  deliberately  chooses  to  escape  life  by  drifting  through  the  world  as 
an  onlooker.  The  islands  of  the  South  Pacific,  he  finds  ideal  for  the  scene  of  his 
wanderings.  His  unfailing  courtesy,  however,  betrays  him  into  casual  acts  of  kind- 
ness, and  the  consequences  of  action  seem  always  to  be  more  action.  He  befriends 
an  English  trading  captain,  and  to  escape  his  gratitude  becomes  manager  of  a  bogus 
coal  company  which  fails  and  leaves  him  stranded  on  an  island  more  disgusted  with 
the  world  of  action  than  ever.  Unconsciously  he  has  incurred  the  dislike  of  a  ruffianly 
German  hotel-keeper,  named  Schomberg.  This  dislike  is  fanned  into  hatred  when 
in  a  moment  of  compassion  he  carries  off  a  forlorn  English  girl,  member  of  a  traveling 
orchestra,  to  his  island  hermitage  to  save  her  from  the  odious  advances  of  Schom- 
berg.  In  spite  of  this  decisive  act  he  remains  the  son  of  the  father  who  warned  that 
"he  who  forms  a  tie  is  lost"  and  "of  the  stratagems  of  life  the  most  cruel  is  the 
consolation  of  love,"  and  cannot  believe  in  his  happiness  with  Lena.  Schomberg, 
cheated  of  his  prey,  finds  instruments  of  revenge  in  two  most  dreadful  villains,  the 
truly  gentlemanly  Mr.  Jones,  and  his  follower  Ricardo.  He  wishes  to  rid  his  hotel 
of  these  gamblers,  and  stuffs  them  with  lying  tales  of  hidden  ill-gotten  treasure 
hoarded  by  Heyst  on  his  solitary  island.  This  piratical  adventure  appeals  to  plain 
Mr.  Jones, ' '  the  insolent  spectre  on  leave  from  Hades. ' '  Heyst  and  Lena  are  trapped 
and  the  tale  ends  in  a  welter  of  tragedy,  but  not  before  Lena  has  met  the  ordeal, 
bested  the  feral  Ricardo,  and  justified  love  and  life  to  Heyst. 

VIE  DE  JESUS,  LA,  by  Ernest  Renan,  see  JESUS. 

VILLAGE  COMMUNITIES,  see  ANCIENT  LAW,  by  H.  S.  Maine. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  879 

VILLAGE  COMMUNITY,  THE  ENGLISH,  by  F.  Seebohm,  see  ENGLISH,  etc. 

VILLAGE  LABOURER,  THE,  by  J.  L.  and  Barbara  Hammond.  "Many  histories," 
say  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hammond,  "  have  been  written  of  the  governing  class  that  ruled 
England  with  such  absolute  power  during  the  last  century  of  the  old  regime.  .  .  . 
One  history  has  only  been  sketched  in  outline;  it  is  the  history  of  the  way  in  which 
this  class  governed  England.  The  writers  of  this  book  have  here  attempted  to  de- 
scribe the  life  of  the  poor  during  this  period.  It  is  their  object  to  show  what  was  in 
fact  happening  to  the  working  classes  under  a  government  in  which  they  had  no 
share."  Besides  supplying  the  best  picture  which  recent  times  have  produced  of 
the  life  of  the  poor  in  England  at  this  epoch,  this  volume  discusses  fully  for  the  first 
time  the  actual  method  and  procedure  of  the  Parliamentary  Enclosure  of  common 
fields,  and  the  laborers'  rising  of  1830.  This  rising,  like  most  others,  was  due,  as 
is  here  proved,  to  the  existence  of  intolerable  grievances,  which  have  sown  the  seeds 
of  problems  unsettled  even  in  the  first  two  decades  of  the  twentieth  century.  The 
burden  of  its  message  appears  in  these  concluding  words :  "Amid  the  great  distress  that 
followed  Waterloo  and  peace,  it  was  a  commonplace  of  statesmen  like  Castlereagh 
and  Canning  that  England  was  the  only  happy  country  in  the  world,  and  that  so 
long  as  the  monopoly  of  their  little  class  was  left  untouched,  her  happiness  would 
survive.  That  class  has  left  bright  and  ample  records  of  its  life  in  literature,  in  art, 
in  political  traditions,  in  the  display  of  great  orations  and  debates,  in  memories  of 
brilliant  conversation  and  sparkling  wit;  it  has  left  dim  and  meager  records  of 
the  disinherited  peasants  that  are  the  shadow  of  its  wealth,  of  the  exiled  labour- 
ers that  are  the  shadow  of  its  pleasures,  of  the  villages  sinking  in  poverty  and 
crime  and  shame  that  are  the  shadow  of  its  power  and  its  pride," 

VTNAYA  TEXTS,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 
VINGT  ANS  APRES,  see  TWENTY  YEARS  AFTER. 

VIRGIN  SOIL,  by  Ivan  Turgeneff  (1876).  Turgeneff  gives  in  'Virgin  Soil'  a  graphic 
picture  of  the  various  moral  and  social  influences  at  work  in  the  modern  Nihilistic 
movement  in  Russia.  The  motive  of  the  story  is  deep  and  subtle,  and  is  developed 
with  masterly  skill  and  refinement.  The  hero  Neshdanoff,  a  young  university 
student  of  noble  but  illegitimate  descent  and  in  poor  worldly  circumstances,  has 
his  sympathies  roused  for  the  depressed  peasantry  of  Russia,  and  with  romantic 
ardor  enters  into  the  secret  conspiracy  for  their  relief.  In  the  house  of  a  government 
official  where  he  is  engaged  as  tutor,  he  meets  Marianne,  a  relation  of  the  family, 
who  is  also  secretly  an  enthusiast  in  the  Nihilistic  cause,  and,  irresistibly  drawn  to 
her,  he  elopes  with  her,  and  seeks  employment  with  a  machinist  and  manufacturer, 
Solomine.  The  effort  to  descend  to  the  level  of  the  peasants,  to  enter  into  their 
life,  and  to  rouse  them  to  a  united  movement  for  liberty,  is  met  with  a  stolid  apathy 
and  lack  of  intelligence  on  their  part,  that  dampens  his  ardor  and  makes  his  effort 
seem  to  him  like  the  merest  sentimentalism,  that  can  never  yield  any  real  result. 
This  loss  of  faith  in  himself  and  in  his  own  sincerity  impels  him  to  break  his  promise 
of  marriage  with  Marianne,  and,  commending  her  to  marry  Solomine,  the  machinist 
and  manufacturer,  to  take  his  own  life  in  despair  of  finding  a  sphere  in  the  world  for 
his  genius, — a  mixture  of  inherited  aristocracy  and  purely  romantic  democracy. 
In  Solomine  is  depicted  the  real  reformer,  the  man  without  *' ideals"  and  elegant 
phrases,  who,  in  his  honest  dealings  with  those  under  him  and  his  recognition  of  the 


88o  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

true  dignity  of  labor  and  of  neighborly  service,  is  exerting  the  redeeming  force  that 
can  gradually  introduce  a  new  manhood  into  the  laboring  classes,  and  so  enable 
them  to  appreciate  and  aspire  to  the  practical  and  the  heroic  elements  of  a  true 
freedom.  In  the  marriage  of  Solomine  and  Marianne  is  seen  the  union  of  reform, 
as  distinguished  from  the  ineffectual  idealism  of  an  aristocracy  that  lacks  the 
practical  knowledge  and  the  social  deviation  of  a  middle  class. 

VIRGINIA,  by  Ellen  Glasgow  (1913).  Virginia  is  the  perfect  flower  of  the  tradition 
of  womanhood  of  an  earlier  generation  in  the  South.  The  first  book  of  the  novel  is 
the  idyllic  picture  of  her  girlhood,  of  first  love  and  romantic  courtship.  Her  educa- 
tion is  "founded  on  the  simple  theory  that  the  less  a  girl  knew  about  life,  the  better 
prepared  she  would  be  to  contend  with  it."  She  feels  ardently  but  does  not  think 
or  read.  Reading  is  a  luxury  for  the  idle.  She  is  trained  to  ideals  of  gentleness  and 
self-sacrifice  as  the  crowning  virtues  for  woman.  The  standards  her  mother  passes 
on  to  Virginia  on  her  wedding  day  are  that  her  husband's  will  must  now  be  hers  and 
that  whenever  their  ideas  conflict,  it  is  the  woman's  duty  to  give  up.  Oliver,  her 
husband,  an  ambitious  young  playwright,  is  not  at  first  successful,  and  her  intel- 
lectual limitations  prevent  her  from  understanding  his  life-work.  At  forty,  he  is  a 
young  man  with  a  future,  while  she  has  flung  her  youth  and  beauty  into  past  service 
of  wifehood  and  motherhood.  Her  daughters  are  self-sufficient  in  an  age  of  self- 
assertive  feminism.  Her  husband  leaves  her  for  the  actress  who  shares  his  success. 
She  finds  herself  a  failure  in  the  changed  habitat  of  the  modern  world  with  demands 
on  women  beyond  self-forgetfulness  and  gentleness.  Her  one  consolation  is  the 
devoted  affection  of  her  brilliant  young  son. 

VIRGINIAN,  THE,  by  Owen  Wister  (1904).      This  is  a  story  of  the  West  and 
tells  of  ranch  life  and  cowboy  doings.    The  hero  of  the  tale  "the  Virginian, ' '  by  which 
title  alone  he  is  known  to  the  reader,  has  left  his  native  state  at  an  early  age  to  try 
his  fortunes  in  the  western  country.    After  roughing  it  in  various  places,  he  is  finally 
established  on  Judge  Henry's  cattle  ranch  in  Montana,  where  the  owner  regards  him 
as  his  right-hand  man.    He  is  twenty-seven  years  of  age  and  strikingly  handsome, 
and  though  unversed  in  the  ways  of  the  world  and  ignorant  as  to  book  learning,  he 
has  a  character  and  personality  which  inspire  respect  from  all  who  know  him.     His 
high  sense  of  honor,  his  dauntless  courage,  and  his  sympathy  for  the  weak,  are  con- 
stantly shown  in  the  various  episodes  which  occur  throughout  the  story.     In  Miss 
Molly  Wood,  a  Vermont  girl,  who  tries  school-teaching  in  the  West  in  order  to  get 
a  change  of  environment,  he  sees  his  ideal,  and  from  the  moment  of  his  first  meeting 
with  her,  makes  up  his  mind  to  win  her  for  his  wife.    He  wooes  her  faithfully  for 
three  years,  during  which  time  she  gives  him  books  to  read  and  helps  him  to  become 
"  better  acquainted  with  the  world  in  which  she  lives.    The  difference  in  their  posi- 
tions and  education  seems  an  unsurmountable  barrier  to  Molly  and  she  is  on  the 
point  of  returning  to  Vermont,  when  she  discovers  her  lover  in  the  woods  wounded 
and  unconscious,  with  no  succor  at  hand.    She  manages  to  revive  him  somewhat,' 
gets  him  on  his  horse,  and  supports  him  while  she  leads  the  animal  a  distance  of  five 
miles  to  her  home.    The  wound  proves  to  be  a  serious  one,  but  the  Virginian  is 
brought  through  by  Molly's  devoted  care  and  nursing  and  when  he  is  convalescing 
he  is  made  happy  by  her  confession  that  at  last  love  has  conquered.    They 
are  married  and  after  a  blissful  honeymoon  spent  camping  in  the  hills,  Molly 
takes  her  cowboy  to  visit  her  relatives,  an  ordeal  through  which  he  passes  most 
reditably. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  88 1 

VIRGINIANS,  THE,  by  William  Makepeace  Thackeray  (1859)  is  a  sequel  to  Henry 
Esmond,1  and  revives  a  past  society  with  the  same  brilliant  skill.  The  chivalric 
Colonel  Esmond,  dear  to  readers  of  the  earlier  novel,  goes  to  Virginia  after  his  mar- 
riage with  Lady  Castlewood,  and  there  builds  a  country-seat,  which  he  names  Castle- 
wood  in  remembrance  of  his  family's  ancestral  home  in  England.  In  the  American 
Castlewood  his  twin  grandsons  are  reared  by  their  widowed  mother,  Madame  Rachel 
Warrington,  that  sharp-tongued  colonial  dame  so  kind  and  generous  to  her  favorites, 
so  bitter  and  unjust  to  all  who  oppose  her.  She  is  a  loving  but  tyrannical  mother; 
and,  after  the  Colonel's  death,  exercises  autocratic  rule  over  the  Castlewood  domain. 
Among  her  frequent  visitors  is  young  Colonel  Washington,  a  brave,  attractive 
figure,  with  fame  yet  to  win. 

Virginian  life  in  pre-Revolutionary  days  is  made  very  real  to  the  reader;  and  is 
clearly  distinguished  from  the  English  life  upon  which  young  Harry  Warrington 
enters  after  his  brother's  supposed  death  in  a  disastrous  campaign  of  the  French 
and  Indian  War,  upon  which  he  has  accompanied  Colonel  Washington.  The  lavish 
and  generous  young  Virginian  is  at  first  repelled  by  the  cold  courtesy  and  selfish 
thrift  of  his  Old  World  cousins.  But  his  fortune  soon  wins  him  favor;  and,  too 
simple  to  detect  mercenary  motives,  he  plunges  into  social  dissipation  under  the 
direction  of  Baroness  Bernstein,  an  antiquated  egotist,  whom  his  grandfather  had 
loved  as  the  beautiful  and  coquettish  Beatrix  Esmond.  He  is  deep  in  debt,  and  has 
promised  to  marry  an  elderly  cousin,  when  he  is  rescued  from  his  folly  by  the  arrival 
of  his  shrewd  and  generous  brother  George.  George  resumes  his  heirship,  and 
Harry  is  no  longer  a  prey  for  cupidity.  In  the  story  of  their  subsequent  adventures, 
the  exposition  of  social  baseness  and  hypocrisy  would  be  gruesome  if  it  were  not  for 
the  kindly  humor  which  mollifies  the  satire. 

VISHNU,  INSTITUTES  OF,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

VISION  OF  PIERS  PLOWMAN,  THE,  an  English  poem  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, is  ascribed,  chiefly  on  the  ground  of  internal  evidence,  to  William  Langland, 
or  Longland,  a  monk  of  Malvern,  in  spirit  a  Thomas  Carlyle  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
crying  out  against  abuses,  insisting  upon  sincerity  as  the  first  of  virtues. 

This  poem  belongs  to  the  class  of  the  dream-poem,  a  characteristic  product  of 
his  century.  Dante  had  seen  all  heaven  and  hell  in  vision.  Gower  and  the  author 
of  'Pearl'  had  dreamed  dreams.  'The  Vision  of  Piers  Plowman'  is  a  curious  amal- 
gamation of  fantastic  allegory  and  clear-cut  fact,  of  nebulous  dreams  and  vivid 
pictures  of  the  England  of  the  day.  The  author  is  at  once  as  realistic  as  Chaucer 
and  as  mystical  as  Guillaume  de  Lorris,  the  observant  man  of  the  world  and  the 
brooding  anchorite;  his  poem  reflects  both  the  England  of  the  fourteenth  century 
and  the  visionary,  child-like  mediasval  mind. 

Internal  evidence  fixes  its  date  about  1362.  Forty  manuscript  copies  of  it,  belong- 
ing for  the  most  part  to  the  latter  end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  attest  its  popularity. 
Three  distinct  versions  are  extant,  known  as  Texts  A,  B,  and  C.  The  probable 
date  of  Text  A  is  1362-63;  of  Text  B,  1376-77;  of  Text  C,  1398-99.  The  variations 
in  these  texts  are  considerable.  An  imitation  of  the  poem  called  'Piers  Plow- 
man's Crede'  appeared  about  1393.  The  author  of  'Piers  Plowman'  represents 
himself  as  falling  asleep  on  Malvern  Hills,  on  a  beautiful  May  morning.  In  his 
dreams  he  beholds  a  vast  plain  "a  feir  feld  ful  of  folk,"  representing  indeed  the  whole 
of  humanity:  knights,  monks,  parsons,  workmen  singing  French  songs,  cooks  crying 
hot  pies!  uHote  pyes,  hotel"  pardoners,  pilgrims,  preachers,  beggars,  jongleurs, 
s<5 


882  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

who  will  not  work,  japers,  and  "mynstralles"  that  sell  "glee."  They  are,  or  nearly 
so,  the  same  beings  Chaucer  assembled  at  the  "Tabard"  inn,  on  the  eve  of  his  pil- 
grimage to  Canterbury.  This  crowd  has  likewise  a  pilgrimage  to  make.  .  .  .  "They 
journey  through  abstract  countries,  they  follow  mystic  roads  ...  in  search  of 
Truth  and  of  Supreme  Good." 

This  search  is  the  subject  of  an  elaborate  allegory,  in  the  course  of  which  the 
current  abuses  in  Church  and  State  are  vigorously  attacked.  The  poet  inveighs 
especially  against  the  greed  and  insincerity  of  his  age,  personifying  these  qualities 
in  Lady  Meed,  who  leads  men  astray,  and  tricks  them  into  sin.  The  poem  throws 
much  light  upon  social  and  religious  institutions  of  the  day.  These  revelations  must, 
however,  be  sought  for  among  the  strange  mist-shapes  of  allegory. 

The  poet's  vocabulary  is  similar  to  that  of  Chaucer.  Several  dialects  are  com- 
bined in  it,  the  Midland  dialect  dominating.  The  metre  is  alliterative,  long  lines, 
divided  into  half-lines  by  a  pause.  Each  line  contains  strong,  or  accented,  syllables 
in  fixed  number,  and  weak  or  unaccented  syllables  in  varying  number. 

About  'Piers  Plowman'  there  had  grown  up  a  considerable  body  of  editorial  com- 
mentary and  of  learned  discussion  in  which  Professor  Manly's  theory  of  divided 
authorship  holds  the  leading  place, 

VISITS  TO  THE  MONASTERIES  OF  THE  LEVANT,  by  Hon.  Robert  Curzon, 
(1851).  Beginning  in  1833,  the  author's  travels  covered  a  period  of  four  years,  in 
which  time  he  visited  many  curious  old  monasteries,  and  secured  a  number  of  rare 
and  valuable  manuscripts.  He  gives  his  impressions  of  the  countries  through  which 
he  wandered,  and  devotes  some  space  to  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  people 
in  each,  brightening  his  narrative  by  occasional  anecdotes  and  noteworthy  facts 
gleaned  by  the  way. 

The  volume  is  divided  into  four  parts.  Part  i.  deals  with  Egypt,  where  Mr. 
Curzon  visited  the  famous  Coptic  monasteries  near  the  Natron  Lakes.  These, 
he  tells  us,  were  founded  by  St.  Macarius  of  Alexandria,  one  of  the  earliest  of  Chris- 
tian ascetics.  The  members  of  the  Coptic  orders  still  dwell  in  the  old  houses,  situ- 
ated amid  fertile  gardens  on  the  crowns  of  almost  inaccessible  precipices.  The 
ruined  monastery  of  Thebes,  the  White  Monastery,  and  the  Island  of  Philae,  the 
burial-place  of  Osiris,  were  also  visited. 

Part  ii.  describes  the  visit  to  Jerusalem  and  the  Monastery  of  St.  Saba.  This 
house  was  named  for  the  founder  of  the  "Laura,"  the  monastic  rule  which  Charles 
Kingsley  uses  to  such  excellent  effect  in  the  opening  chapters  of  'Hypatia.'  The 
"Laura"  still  exists  where  the  rocky  clefts  and  desert  wastes  of  Asia  and  Africa 
offer  suitable  retreats  for  the  ascetic  monks. 

Mr.  Curzon  devotes  some  time  to  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem — enough  to  show  their 
prevailing  characteristics  and  he  also  notes  the  interesting  fact  of  his  rediscovery 
of  the  " Apple  of  Sodom,"  long  supposed  to  be  a  creation  of  fictitious  character.  It 
is,  he  says,  a  juicy-looking  plum-like  fruit,  which  proves  to  be  a  gall-nut  filled  with 
dry,  choking  dust. 

Part  iii.  opens  with  the  writer's  impressions  of  Corfu  and  his  visit  to  Albania, 
whence  he  leaves  for  Meteora,  a  grassy  plain  surrounded  by  tall  peaks  of  rock, 
where,  in  apertures  like  pigeon-holes,  the  monks  have  had  their  dwellings.  On  top 
of  the  rocks  are  left  some  of  the  buildings  of  St.  Barlaam.  To  reach  them  the 
traveler  was  forced  to  climb  some  rickety  ladders  over  a  tremendously  steep  de- 
clivity, because  he  disliked  the  other  mode  of  reaching  the  top — being  drawn  up 
230  feet  in  a  net  attached  to  a  mended,  weather-worn  rope.  Subsequently,  he 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  883 

visited  Hagios  Stephanos,  Agio  Triada,  Hagia  Roserea,  and  finally  the  great  monas- 
tery of  Meteora. 

Part  iv.  gives  the  trip  from  Constantinople  to  Mt.  Athos;  up  the  Sea  of  Marmora, 
through  the  Archipelago  to  Lemnos;  thence  to  Mt.  Athos  and  the  monastery  of 
St.  Laura,  full  of  rare  old  paintings.  The  other  monastic  houses  of  the  neighborhood, 
from  Vatopede  to  Caracalla,  were  also  visited;  and  Mr.  Curzon  returned  to  Con- 
stantinople, having  purchased  a  number  of  valuable  manuscripts,  including  an 
Evangelistarium  in  gold  letters,  on  white  vellum,  of  which  sort  there  is  but  one  other 
known  to  exist. 

VOLPONE;  or,  THE  Fox,  by  Ben  Jonson  (1605).  Volpone  which  had  been 
acted  at  the  Globe  Theatre  in  1605  or  1606  and  repeated  at  both  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge was  printed  in  1607  with  a  dedication  "To  the  most  Noble  and  most  Equal 
Sisters,  the  Two  Famous  Universities."  The  dedication  denounces  the  license  of 
protesters  and  sets  up  in  contrast  the  ideal  for  the  true  poet.  "If  men  will  impar- 
tially, and  not  asquint,  look  toward  the  offices  and  function  of  a  poet,  they  will  easily 
conclude  to  themselves  the  impossibility  of  any  man's  being  the  good  poet,  without 
first  being  a  good  man."  The  true  poet  is  "able  to  inform  young  men  to  all  good 
disciplines,  inflame  grown  men  to  all  great  virtues,  keep  old  men  in  their  best  and 
supreme  state,  or,  as  they  decline  to  childhood,  recover  them  to  their  first  strength": 
he  "comes  forth  the  interpreter  and  arbiter  of  nature,  a  teacher  of  things  divine  no 
less  than  human,  a  master  in  manners."  The  comedy,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid 
in  Venice,  is  a  picture  of  depravities  common  in  all  countries  at  that  age,  and  a 
vigorous  satire  upon  these  vices.  The  story  is  of  a  scoundrel  magnifico  of  Venice, 
who  in  order  to  attract  gifts  from  friends  and  followers  feigned  deadly  sickness.  He 
and  his  parasite  (Moscha  or  fly)  persuade  each  of  these  friends  Voltore  (vulture) 
Corbuccio  (crow),  and  Corvino  (raven),  that  he  is  to  be  the  heir  of  Volpone.  All  grovel 
and  fawn  upon  him  but  all  are  in  turn  deceived.  In  the  end  the  parasite  rounds 
upon  his  master,  and  justice  is  meted  out  to  all  the  party.  The  play  long  kept  its 
place  upon  the  stage,  but  the  depravity  of  the  life  depicted  makes  it  unpalatable  to 
modern  readers.  Coleridge,  while  acknowledging  its  "fertility  and  vigor  of  in- 
vention, character,  language,  and  sentiment"  declares  it  impossible  "to  keep  up 
any  pleasurable  interest  in  a  tale,  in  which  there  is  no  goodness  of  heart  in  any  of 
the  prominent  characters." 

VOYAGE  AROUND  MY  CHAMBER,  by  Comte  Xavier  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  surroundings  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  "fireside  travel,"  in  its  freedom  from  labor,  worry, 
and  expense;  and  then  he  shows  under  the  vast  significance  of  such  objects  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 
panorama  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 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

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  en- 
trancing thought,  the  hand  catches  up  heedlessly  the  hot  poker.  The  most  subtle 
of  these  interpretations  is  that  of  the  portrait  of  a  fair  lady  whose  eyes  follow  the 
gazer;  but  foolish  is  the  lover  who  thinks  them  bent  on  him  alone,  for  every  other 
finds  them  gazing  equally  at  him  even  at  the  same  moment. 

VOYAGES  OF  CAPTAIN  COOK  AROUND  THE  WORLD,  THE  THREE  FAM- 
OUS. The  accounts  of  Captain  Cook's  three  voyages  were  written  by  as  many 
hands:  the  first  by  Dr.  Hawkesworth  (1773);  the  second  by  Cook  himself  (1773); 
while  Lieutenant  King  prepared  the  third  from  Cook's  notes,  and  completed  the 
narrative  (1784). 

The  first  voyage  was  undertaken  in  1768,  to  observe  the  transit  of  Venus.  Hav- 
ing made  successful  observations  at  Otaheite  in  the  Society  Islands,  Cook  explored 
the  South  Sea,  and  determined  the  insularity  of  New  Zealand,  which  had  been 
considered  part  of  a  great  Antarctic  continent.  He  discovered  the  straits  named 
after  him,  and  amid  great  dangers  explored  the  eastern  coast  of  Australia,  hitherto 
unknown.  In  1772  he  started  on  a  second  voyage,  to  explore  the  hypothetical 
Antarctic  continent.  He  investigated  the  specified  latitudes,  and  sailed  farther 
south  than  any  previous  navigator.  Having  satisfied  himself  that  no  such  conti- 
nent existed,  he  turned  eastward  and  discovered  New  Caledonia,  Georgia,  and  other 
islands.  On  his  return  he  received  many  honors,  and  was  elected  to  the  Royal 
Society.  His  third  voyage  was  in  search  of  the  Northwest  Passage.  Sailing  about 
in  the  Pacific,  he  discovered  the  Sandwich  or  Hawaiian  Islands;  and  then,  having 
explored  the  unknown  coast  of  North  America,  he  passed  through  Bering's  Strait, 
and  surveyed  the  coast  on  both  sides.  Baffled  in  his  attempt  to  reach  the  Atlantic, 
he  returned  to  winter  near  Honolulu  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  where  he  was  treach- 
erously murdered  by  the  natives  in  1779. 

The  narrative  is  especially  important  because  Cook  was  animated  by  the  scientific 
spirit,  and  made  valuable  observations  in  many  departments  of  science.  Through- 
out the  book  appear  the  resources  and  courage  of  the  man,  and  his  humane  discre- 
tion in  dealing  both  with  his  sailors  and  with  the  savages;  while  its  publication  gave 
a  new  impetus  to  discovery  and  exploration. 

VINDICATION  OF  THE  RIGHTS  OF  WOMEN,  by  Mary  Wollstonecraft  (1792). 
The  object  of  the  book  was  to  overthrow  the  current  opinions  that  women  were 
created  simply  for  the  enjoyment  of  men,  that  a  woman's  supreme  object  in  life 
should  be  to  get  a  husband,  and  that  in  order  to  attain  this  end  she  should  affect  an 
indifference  to  it  while  secretly  pursuing  it.  The  author  attacks  the  idea  that  girls 
should  avoid  the  appearance  of  physical  robustness,  liveliness,  and  independence  and 
should  affect  delicacy  and  weakness.  Out-of-door  exercise  and  a  wholesome  honesty 
of  deportment  are  advocated  instead.  A  woman's  rights  involve  duties,  to  herself 
first  of  all,  then  to  her  husband,  to  her  children,  and  to  the  state.  These  duties 
cannot  be  fulfilled  without  the  development  of  the  mind  and  character,  which  con- 
temporary ideals  hindered.  Instead  of  being  confined  to  one  career,  namely  marriage, 
woman  should  be  admitted  to  such  others  as  she  is  fitted  for.  She  would  thus  be  a 
better  wife,  a  better  mother,  and  a  better  citizen.  For  the  avoidance  of  the  social  evil 
the  author  urges  the  application  of  one  standard  of  sexual  morality  to  men  and  women, 
the  education  of  girls  and  boys  in  the  same  schools,  and  the  determination  to  regard 
woman  as  the  comrade  and  not  the  plaything  of  man.  The  book  is  a  strong  and 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

vigorous  plea  for  a  cause  then  in  its  infancy.  It  anticipated  many  of  the  arguments 
and  appeals  of  later  reformers  and  in  its  ardent  revolutionary  zeal  exercised  consider- 
able influence  in  favor  of  woman's  rights.  The  author  showed  her  independence  in 
the  fact  that  though  a  disciple  of  Rousseau  she  mercilessly  criticized  his  principles 
and  practice  in  regard  to  woman's  privileges. 

WAGES  OF  SIN,  THE,  by  "  Lucas  Malet "  (1890),  is  a  study  of  character  rather  than 
a  novel  of  incident.  The  leading  personages  stand  in  high  relief  against  a  background 
of  commonplace  English  prosperity.  Mary  Crookenden,  the  heroine,  is  a  charming 
English  girl ;  beautiful,  spirited,  and  an  heiress.  Her  cousin,  Lance  Crookenden,  who 
is  a  few  years  older,  has  loved  her  from  childhood ;  but  she  accepts  his  devotion  as  an 
agreeable  matter-of-course,  and  in  spite  of  his  wealth  and  good  looks,  regards  him  with 
a  tinge  of  affectionate  contempt.  Mary  has  many  suitors;  among  them  a  young 
clergyman,  Cyprian  Oldham,  and  an  artist,  James  Colthurst.  She  engages  herself  to 
Oldham,  but  finds  him  too  conventional  to  be  sympathetic;  and  becomes  fascinated 
by  Colthurst,  the  most  gifted  and  most  earnest  man  she  knows,  who  loves  her  pas- 
sionately. But  a  sin  of  Colthurst 's  youth  lays  a  heavy  hand  upon  him,  pushing  away 
his  love,  interdicting  his  happiness,  and  laying  a  curse  upon  those  who  are  dearest  to 
him.  The  innocent  suffer  for  the  guilty,  and  the  wages  of  sin  is  death. 

WALDEN,  an  autobiographic  narrative  by  Henry  D.  Thorcau  (1854).  A  sturdy 
individualist,  and  lover  of  nature  Thoreau  retired  from  the  world  to  live  a  hermit-like 
existence  on  the  shores  of  Walden  Pond,  near  Concord,  Massachusetts.  For  two 
years,  from  1845  to  1847,  he  lived  in  a  cottage  built  by  himself  at  a  cost  of  $28.12^.  He 
subsisted  on  the  plainest  food,  mostly  corn  meal,  rice,  potatoes,  and  molasses,  tilled  his 
own  soil,  and  spent  his  leisure  hours  in  botanizing,  observing  animal  life,  enjoying 
the  scenery,  reading,  and  meditation.  The  book  is  a  discursive  record  of  his  ex- 
periences, under  such  headings  as  'Economy,'  'Where  I  Lived  and  What  I  Lived 
For,'  'Sounds,'  'Solitude,'  'The  Bean-Field,'  'The  Ponds,'  'Winter  Animals,'  'Spring.' 
Thoreau  was  a  keen  observer  of  birds,  fish,  animals,  and  flowers,  and  has  described 
them  with  truth  and  attractiveness.  He  loved  to  support  himself  by  hardy  out-door 
toil  in  a  country  civilized  enough  to  be  cleared  for  cultivation ;  he  did  not  enjoy  the 
wilderness,  but  preferred  the  proximity  of  man.  His  philosophy  is  a  combination  of 
stoicism  and  asceticism,  with  an  epicurean  fondness  for  the  beautiful  in  natural 
scenery  and  a  Yankee  shrewdness,  practicality,  and  humor.  His  style  has  the  purity 
and  simplicity  of  Emerson's  without  its  abruptness. 

WALLENSTEIN,  an  historical  drama  by  Friedrich  Schiller,  first  acted  in  1799  and 
published  in  1800.  There  are  three  divisions:  'Wallenstein's  Camp'  (a  brief  pro- 
logue in  one  scene) ;  'The  Piccolomini'  (in  five  acts) ;  and  'Wallenstein's  Death'  (in 
five  acts).  The  first  of  these  is  written  in  irregular  rhyming  verse  and  the  others  in 
iambic  pentameter.  The  play  is  based  on  Schiller's  own  'History  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War'  (1791-1793)  and  on  further  investigations.  The  events,  apart  from 
certain  alterations  for  dramatic  effect,  are  essentially  historical.  The  theme  is  the 
fall  and  death  in  1634  of  Count  Albrecht  Wenzel  Eusebius  von  Wallenstein,  Duke  of 
Friedland,  and  commander  of  the  military  forces  of  the  German  emperor,  Ferdinand 
II.  Desirous  of  strengthening  the  empire  by  centralizing  its  power  he  had  with  the 
emperor's  consent  raised  a  great  army,  crushed  the  Protestant  states,  and  repelled 
the  invasion  of  the  Swedes  under  Gustavus  Adolphus.  In  order  to  strengthen  himself 
against  intrigues  of  jealous  enemies  at  the  emperor's  court  he  now  opened  negotiations 


886  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

with  the  Swedes ;  and  when  the  emperor  discovered  them  he  deprived  Wallenstein  of 
his  command,  undermined  his  authority  over  his  army,  and  procured  his  assassina- 
tion at  Eger  in  Bohemia,  February  25, 1634.  '  Wallenstein's  Camp '  introduces  us  to 
the  army  of  the  Duke  of  Friedland  encamped  at  Pilsen  in  Bohemia  on  the  22  d  of 
February,  1634.  Various  types  of  soldiers  —  cuirassiers,  jagers  (or  mounted  rifle- 
men), dragoons,  sharpshooters,  uhlans,  arquebusiers,  artillerymen  —  from  all  parts 
of  the  empire  and  from  beyond  it  —  Croatia,  Tyrol,  Lombardy,  the  Netherlands, 
Scotland,  Ireland  —  are  mingled  with  camp  hangers-on  —  a  sutler- woman,  a  preach- 
ing friar,  a  peasant  with  loaded  dice.  The  variegated  movement  and  color  of  the 
scene  suggests  the  size  of  the  army  and  the  field  from  which  it  has  been  drawn  and 
for  which  it  is  fighting.  The  general's  growing  estrangement  from  the  court  is  re- 
flected in  the  talk  of  the  soldiers.  Wallenstein  has  been  requested  to  furnish  an 
escort  for  the  new  Spanish  regent  of  the  Netherlands  on  his  way  from  Italy  to  his 
new  government.  The  army  feel  that  the  execution  of  this  order  would  weaken  them 
and  that  their  best  interest  lies  in  remaining  with  Wallenstein,  upon  whose  power 
depends  their  hope  of  pay  and  plunder.  They  resolve  to  petition  him  through  one 
of  their  generals,  the  younger  Piccolomini,  not  to  send  any  of  them  to  the  Nether- 
lands. The  scene  ends  with  a  spirited  soldier's  chorus  praising  the  military  life  as 
the  only  free  and  noble  one. 

At  the  beginning  of  'The  Piccolomini'  Wallenstein's  fortunes  are  approaching  a 
crisis.  Count  Questenberg  has  come  from  the  emperor  with  a  commission  deposing 
Wallenstein  from  his  command  and  appointing  his  Lieutenant-General,  Octavio 
Piccolomini,  in  his  stead.  This  commission  he  makes  known  to  Piccolomini,  who, 
however,  conceals  it  until  Wallenstein's  opposition  to  the  emperor  shall  grow  more 
pronounced  so  that  his  officers  may  be  induced  to  abandon  him.  On  the  same  day 
Colonel  Max  Piccolomini  arrives  in  camp,  escorting  Wallenstein's  duchess  and  their 
daughter,  Thekla.  The  duchess's  sister,  Countess  Tertzky,  has  arranged  this  step, 
hoping  that  Max  will  fall  in  love  with  Thekla  and  thus  become  bound  to  the  fortunes 
of  Wallenstein.  Her  schemes  are  to  a  certain  point  successful.  Max  and  Thekla 
become  plighted  lovers;  but  deeply  as  Max  honors  and  reverences  her  father  he  is 
loyal  to  the  emperor  and  has  as  yet  no  thought  that  Wallenstein  entertains  any 
treasonable  intentions.  These  he  first  begins  to  suspect  at  a  banquet  held  that  evening 
by  Count  Tertzky,  when  the  officers  are  induced  by  Wallenstein's  confidant,  Illo,  to 
sign  a  pledge  of  devotion  to  their  general  from  which  a  proviso  safeguarding  their 
loyalty  to  the  emperor  has  been  clandestinely  removed.  The  rest,  flushed  with  wine 
and  stirred  by  Wallenstein's  defiance  of  the  emperor's  orders  earlier  in  the  day, 
willingly  sign.  Max,  who  has  just  come  from  his  interview  with  Thekla,  and  is 
therefore  distrait,  postpones  signing  until  a  remark  of  Illo's,  under  the  influence  of 
wine,  shows  him  that  a  deception  is  being  practiced.  This  gives  Octavio  Piccolomini, 
his  father,  who  has  himself  signed  for  form's  sake,  a  chance  to  reveal  to  Max  what  he 
knows  of  Wallenstein's  negotiations  with  the  Saxons  and  Swedes  and  of  the  emperor's 
intention  to  depose  him.  Max  indignantly  refuses  to  believe  in  Wallenstein's  treason 
unless  it  is  confirmed  by  his  own  lips.  Meanwhile  news  comes  to  Wallenstein  that 
the  man  who  carried  his  dispatches  to  the  Swedes  and  Saxons  has  fallen  into  the 
emperor's  hands.  At  the  urgent  insistence  of  Tertzky  and  Illo  and  against  his 
inclinations  —  he  determines  on  a  definite  act  of  rebellion.  He  arranges  with  Wrangel, 
the  Swedish  envoy,  to  yield  certain  territory  to  the  Swedes  in  return  for  their  support! 
To  this  final  step  he  is  at  length  brought  by  the  impassioned  eloquence  of  Countess 
Tertzky,  who  sees  in  submission  to  the  emperor  the  Duke's  speedy  ruin.  Max,  on 
the  other  hand,  does  all  he  can  to  make  Wallenstein  retract.  Yet  he  hesitates  to 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  887 

abandon  him  though  Octavio  Piccolomini  and  all  the  officers  who  signed  the  declara- 
tion of  loyalty  plan  to  do  so.  With  the  parting  of  father  and  son  this  division  of  the 
play  closes. 

In  the  opening  act  of  'Wallenstein's  Death'  the  Duke  of  Friedland  receives  the 
aews  of  the  defection  of  the  greater  part  of  his  army.  Colonel  Butler  remains  but  he, 
as  we  have  learned  in  a  previous  scene  of  'The  Piccolomini,'  has  been  led  by  Octavio 
to  believe  that  Wallenstein  hindered  his  promotion  and  insulted  him.  He  therefore 
stays  in  order  to  gain  revenge.  In  the  second  act  he  manages  to  precipitate  Wallen- 
stein's fall  by  announcing  to  a  deputation  of  a  regiment  which  has  not  yet  seceded 
and  which  the  Duke  is  attempting  by  exhortation  to  keep  faithful  that  Tertzky 's 
troops  have  torn  down  the  imperial  ensign.  The  soldiers  leave  at  once.  Max  now 
comes  in  to  bid  farewell  to  Thelda  before  leading  off  his  regiment  to  join  the  imperial 
troops.  Wallenstein  at  first  attempts  to  detain  him  by  force  and  then  by  persuasion. 
Max  is  tempted  to  go  over  to  his  side;  but  he  appeals  to  Thekla  whether  he  could 
retain  her  love  and  prove  false  to  his  inner  conviction  of  duty  to  the  emperor;  and 
she  says  that  he  could  not.  They  bid  each  other  farewell  and  Max  is  carried  off  by 
his  regiment,  which  has  in  fact  invaded  the  castle  in  search  of  him. 

The  Duke  gives  orders  that  his  remaining  troops  should  retire  to  Egcr.  Here  they 
learn  that  the  Swedes  have  defeated  the  imperial  forces  and  will  effect  a  junction  with 
Wallenstein  on  the  morrow.  Butler  determines  to  lose  no  time ;  and  in  spite  of  the 
protests  of  Colonel  Gordon,  the  commander  of  the  citadel,  he  resolves  to  kill  Tertzky, 
Illo,  and  Wallenstein  that  very  night,  and  suborns  a  number  of  officers  and  soldiers 
for  that  purpose.  Meanwhile  news  has  come  of  the  death  of  Max  Piccolomini  in  a 
fierce  battle  between  his  regiment  and  the  Swedes,  at  Neustadt.  Thekla,  who  faints 
at  the  first  shock,  bears  the  news  heroically,  and  learns  from  the  Swedish  messenger 
the  full  story  of  her  lover's  brave  death.  Then  she  hastens  to  die  at  his  tomb.  The 
same  evening  Tertzky  and  Illo  are  murdered  at  a  banquet.  Wallenstein,  ignorant  of 
their  fate  and  of  his  daughter's,  has  a  final  interview  with  Countess  Tertzky  and 
Gordon,  who  vainly  tries  to  induce  him  to  return  to  his  allegiance.  He  retires  to  his 
room,  and  is  there  murdered  by  Devereux  and  Macdonald,  Butler's  subordinates. 
Countess  Tertzky,  refusing  to  survive  the  downfall  of  her  family,  takes  poison;  and 
Octavio  Piccolomini  comes  in  at  the  close  to  regret  his  rival's  death  and  to  accept  the 
fruits  of  it. 

The  dramatic  skill  with  which  Schiller  has  moulded  an  unwieldy  mass  of  historical 
data  into  a  unified  structure  with  constantly  heightening  interest;  his  insight  into  the 
spirit  of  the  times  and  into  the  leading  characters  of  the  period;  his  ability  to  embody 
his  philosophical  ideas  as  to  freedom  and  necessity,  the  real  and  the  ideal,  in  concrete 
and  living  personages;  and  the  eloquent  and  melodious  poetic  diction  in  which  his 
thoughts  are  clothed  —  these  are  some  of  the  elements  of  greatness  in  Schiller's 
'Wallenstein.' 

WALKS  IN  ROME,  by  A.  J.  C.  Hare,  see  DAYS  NEAR  ROME. 
WALPOLE,  HORACE,  see  LETTERS  OF. 

WANDA,  a  romantic  novel  by  "Ouida"  (1883).  ,It  has  a  picturesque  and  extrava- 
gant plot  and  setting.  Wanda,  the  heroine,  a  beautiful  woman  of  high  rank  and 
wealth,  is  the  possessor  of  a  magnificent  ancestral  castle  in  the  mountains  of  Austria. 
There  the  nineteenth  century  meets  the  Middle  Ages.  Wanda  is-  herself  steeped  in 
old-world  traditions  of  honor  and  chivalry,  She.  will  uot  marry  until  she  loves  and 


888  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

she  does  not  love  readily.  One  stormy  night  a  stranger  is  rescued  from  drowning  in 
the  lake  beside  the  castle.  He  calls  himself  Rene,  Marquis  de  Sabran-Romaris,  but 
he  is  really  the  natural  son  of  a  great  Russian  noble  by  a  peasant  girl.  Yet  he  is  the 
son  of  the  father  rather  than  of  his  mother;  he  has  lived  so  long  in  the  atmosphere  of 
aristocracy  that  he  almost  believes  in  himself.  The  ancient  family  from  which  he 
stole  his  title  is  extinct.  The  world  accepts  him  as  its  last  representative.  By 
temperament  and  training  he  is  in  every  way  a  man  suited  to  Wanda  von  Szalras. 
She  loves  him  in  spite  of  herself.  He  on  his  part  loves  her  honestly  for  herself  alone; 
loves  her  so  much  that  he  cannot  tell  her  the  true  story  of  his  birth,  and  that  he  was 
once  Vassia  Kazan,  a  serf.  Only  one  person  lives  who  remembers  Vassia  Kazdn. 
This  is  Egon  Vas&rhely,  Wanda's  cousin,  who  cherishes  for  her  a  hopeless  love.  As  a 
boy  guest  in  the  house  of  Prince  Zabaroff,  Vassia 's  father,  he  had  quarreled  with 
Vassia,  and  had  wounded  him  with  a  knife. 

The  Marquis  of  Sabran  marries  Wanda;  children  are  born  to  them;  their  married 
life  is  wholly  happy.  After  several  years,  Egon  is  prevailed  upon  to  visit  them.  The 
beautiful  features  of  Wanda's  husband  awaken  strange  memories  of  a  boyish  quarrel. 
By  a  long  chain  of  circumstances,  Sabran  is  at  last  forced  to  tell  Wanda  of  his  decep- 
tion. She  sends  him  from  her,  and  for  three  years  lives  in  solitude  and  bitterness. 
She  forgives  him  only  when  he  saves  the  life  of  their  eldest  son.  But  he  has  given  his 
own  life  to  do  this,  living  only  eleven  days  after  the  rescue  of  the  child.  "In  the  heart 
of  his  wife  he  lives  forever,  and  with  him  lives  a  sleepless  and  eternal  remorse." 

WANDERING  JEW,  THE,  by  Moncure  D.  Conway  (1881),  traces  through  all  its 
forms  and  changes,  to  its  sources  as  far  as  can  be  perceived,  the  marvelous  legend 
which  won  such  general  belief  during  the  Middle  Ages.  The  first  appearance  of  the 
story  written  out  as  narrative  occurs  in  the  works  of  Matthew  Paris,  published  1259, 
wherein  is  described  the  visit  to  England,  thirty  years  before,  of  an  Armenian  bishop. 
The  prelate  was  asked  whether  he  knew  aught  of  the  Wandering  Jew.  He  replied 
that  he  had  had  him  to  dinner  in  Armenia  shortly  before;  that  he  was  a  Roman, 
named  Cartaphilus,  door-keeper  for  Pilate.  This  ruffianly  bigot  struck  Jesus  as  he 
came  from  the  hall  of  judgment,  saying,  "  Go  on  faster;  why  dost  thou  linger? " 
Jesus  answered:  "I  will  go;  but  thou  shalt  remain  waiting  till  I  come." 
Therefore  Cartaphilus  has  lived  on  ever  since;  never  smiling,  but  often  weeping 
and  longing  for  death,  which  will  not  come.  In  the  sixteenth  century  there  are 
accounts  of  the  appearance  of  the  Wandering  Jew  in  German  towns.  His  name  is  now 
Ahasuerus;  his  original  occupation  that  of  a  shoemaker.  In  the  seventeenth  century 
he  is  heard  of  again  and  again,  —  in  Prance,  Spain,  the  Low  Countries,  Italy,  and 
Germany.  Many  solemn  and  learned  treatises  were  written  in  Latin  on  the  subject 
of  this  man  and  his  miraculous  punishment.  The  various  stories  of  him  quoted  are  so 
graphically  related  that  it  is  a  surprise  to  follow  Mr.  Conway  into  his  next  chapter, 
in  which  he  sets  down  the  myth  of  the  Wandering  Jew  with  that  of  King  Arthur, 
who  sleeps  at  Avalon,  and  Barbarossa  of  Germany,  who  slumbers  under  the  Raven's 
Hill,  both  ready  to  awake  at  the  appointed  hour.  Every  country  has  myths  of 
sleepers  or  of  wanderers  who  never  grow  old.  The  Jews  had  more  than  one:  Cain, 
who  was  a  fugitive  and  a  vagabond  on  earth,  with  a  mark  fixed  on  him  that  none 
might  slay  him;  Esau,  whose  death  is  unchronicled ;  Elias  and  Enoch  who  never  died, 
in  the  ordinary  way.  Barbarossa,  Arthur,  Merlin,  Siegfried,  Tannhauser,  Lohengrin, 
—  the  Seven  Sleepers,  the  Flying  Dutchman,  —  all  these  are  variants  of  one  theme. 
Judas  has  had  the  same  fate  in  legend.  So  has  Pilate;  so  has  Malchus,  the  servant  of 
Caiaphas.  '  Mr.  Conway  presents  the  theory  that  all  these  tales  have  their  root  in  the 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  889 

primitive  myths  of  savage  peoples,  perhaps  in  sun-myths ;  but  he  does  not  pursue  this 
rather  futile  speculation,  devoting  himself  rather  to  the  story  in  its  special  form  of  the 
Wandering  Jew,  and  tracing  its  development,  and  its  expression  in  folk-lore,  poetry, 
and  fiction.  The  book  is  a  fascinating  study  of  the  curious  and  unusual,  scholarly  in 
substance  but  popular  in  treatment. 

WANDERING  JEW,  THE  (' Le  Juif  Errant '),  by  Eugene  Sue  (1845).  This  curious 
rambling  episodic  romance  is  written  from  an  extreme  Protestant  point  of  view,  and 
introduces  the  character  of  Ahasuerus,  who,  according  to  legend,  was  a  shoemaker  in 
Jerusalem.  The  Saviour,  bearing  his  cross  past  the  house  of  the  artisan,  asks  to  be 
allowed  to  rest  an  instant  on  the  stone  bench  at  his  door.  "  Go  on ! "  replies  Ahasuerus. 
11  Thou  shalt  go  on  till  the  end  of  time,"  answers  the  Saviour  —  and  so  the  Wandering 
Jew  may  never  find  home,  or  rest,  or  even  pause.  The  scene  of  this  romance  is  laid 
chiefly  in  Paris,  in  1832.  One  hundred  and  fifty  years  prior  to  this  date,  Count 
Rennepont,  a  descendant  of  the  sister  of  the  Wandering  Jew,  who  is  also  condemned 
to  wander,  professed  conversion  to  the  Catholic  faith  in  order  to  save  his  property 
from  confiscation.  His  ruse  was  discovered,  however,  and  the  whole  estate  given  to 
the  Jesuits.  But  Rennepont  succeeded  in  secreting  150,000  francs,  which  he  caused 
to  be  invested,  principal  and  interest  to  be  divided  among  such  of  his  heirs  as  should 
present  themselves  at  a  certain  rendezvous  in  Paris,  after  the  lapse  of  a  century  and  a 
half.  Then  comes  an  intensely  dramatic  description  of  the  espionage  to  which  the 
heirs  have  been  subjected,  and  the  successful  machinations  of  the  Jesuits  in  order  to 
obtain  this  money.  While  they  succeed  by  the  most  reckless  acts  of  persecution  and 
violence  in  preventing  six  of  the  seven  heirs  from  presenting  themselves  to  claim  the 
vastly  increased  inheritance,  they  produce  the  seventh  heir,  Gabriel  Rennepont  —  a 
virtuous  young  Jesuit  priest,  who  has  already  made  over  his  worldly  goods  to  his 
Order  —  to  claim  the  inheritance.  A  codicil  to  the  will,  found* in  a  mysterious  manner, 
postpones  the  day  for  delivering  over  the  funds,  and  temporarily  defeats  these  de- 
signs. But  now,  by  adopting  utterly  conscienceless  means,  the  heads  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus  l§ad  on  the  six  heirs  to  their  deaths  before  the  arrival  of  the  day  which  has 
been  finally  set  for  the  partition  of  the  millions.  In  the  end,  however,  by  an  unfore- 
seen catastrophe,  the  purposes  of  the  Order  are  foiled.  Rodin,  a  remarkable  charac- 
ter, a  little,  cadaverous  priest  of  marvelous  energy  and  shrewdness,  engineers  the 
cause  of  the  Jesuits;  and  by  his  diplomacy  not  alone  lures  the  heirs  to  their  ruin,  but 
himself  reaches  the  coveted  post  of  General  of  the  Order,  though  judgment  finally 
overtakes  him  also.  The  story  is  very  diffuse,  and  the  episodes  have  only  the  slightest 
relation  to  each  other.  It  is  melodramatic  in  the  extreme,  and  the  style  is  often 
bombastic,  while  the. personages  have  little  resemblance  to  human  beings  in  human 
conditions.  But  when  all  abatement  is  made,  'The  Wandering  Jew'  remains  one  of 
the  famous  books  of  the  world,  for  its  vigor,  its  illusion,  its  endless  interest  of  plot  and 
counterplot,  and  its  atmosphere  of  romance. 

WAR  AND  PEACE,  by  Count  Lyof  Tolstoy  (1864-69),  perhaps  the  greatest  of  his 
novels,  deals  with  the  stirring  conflict  between  Napoleon  and  Prance,  and  Koutou- 
zoff  and  Russia,  beginning  some  years  before  Austerlitz.  As  might  be  expected  of 
one  of  the  most  mystical  of  modem  writers,  war  is  treated  not  alone  as  a  dramatic 
spectacle,  but  as  a  symbol  of  great  social  forces  striving  for  expression.  The  novel  is  a 
combination  of  mysticism  and  realism.  Tolstoy  has  portrayed  the  terror  of  battle, 
the  emotions  of  armies  in  conflict,  with  surpassing  skill  and  power.  The  book  as  a 
whole  leaves  an  indelible  but  confused  impression  upon  the  mind  of  the  reader,  as 


890  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BQOKS 

if  he  had  himself  passed  through  the  din  and  smoke  of  a  battle,  of  which  he  retains 
great  dim  memories.  But  above  all  is  the  impression  of  fatality,  and  the  part  that 
accident  plays  in  all  campaigns. 

WARFARE  OF  SCIENCE  WITH  THEOLOGY  IN  CHRISTENDOM,  A  HISTORY 
OF  THE,  by  Andrew  Dickson  White  (1896.  New  ed.,  1913)-  The  work  grew  out  of 
a  lecture  on  'The  Battlefields  of  Science,'  delivered  by  the  author  in  reply  to  clerical 
and  orthodox  strictures  upon  the  non-sectarian  principles  of  Cornell  University,  of 
which  he  was  president.  Coming  to  believe  that  interference  with  science  in  the 
interests  of  dogmatic  theology  had  always  proved  harmful  not  only  to  science  but 
also  to  religion,  and  that  all  free  scientific  investigation  had  ultimately  benefited 
religion,  he  proceeded  to  illustrate  this  conviction  by  a  book  entitled  'The  Warfare 
of  Science'  (1876),  a  series  of  magazine  articles,  'New  Chapters  in  the  Warfare  of 
Science,'  and  at  length  by  the  present  work.  The  plan  of  the  book  is  to  take  up  in 
succession  various  scientific  theories  and  to  trace  their  progress  against  vehement 
theological  opposition  to  the  time  of  their  general  acceptance.  Among  these  theories 
are,  the  evolution  of  all  species,  including  man,  from  lower  forms;  the  sphericity  of 
the  earth;  the  heliocentric  theory  of  the  universe;  the  antiquity  of  the  earth  and  man 
as  demonstrated  by  fossils,  weapons,  implements,  and  skeletons,  and  other  geological 
and  anthropological  discoveries;  the  gradual  moral  evolution  of  man,  the  attribution 
of  witchcraft  and  insanity  to  psychic  abnormality  instead  of  diabolic  influence;  tho 
bacterial  origin  of  disease;  and  the  human  authorship  of  the  Scriptures.  In  each  case 
the  dogmatic  view  is  clearly  stated,  the  growing  opposition  to  it  accurately  traced, 
the  effect  of  the  struggle  estimated,  and  the  triumph  of  the  scientific  view  recorded. 
Full  references  are  given  in  support  of  all  statements  and  there  is  an  excellent  index, 
but  the  book  is  so  written  as  to  appeal  to  the  general  reader  as  well  as  the  scholar. 
It  is  an  impressive  piece  of  writing,  unified  by  a  great  conception. 

WAVERLEY,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  the  first  of  the  world-famous  series  of  romances 
to  which  it  gives  the  title,  was  published  in  1814.  The  author  withheld  his  name  at 
first,  from  doubt  as  to  the  success  of  the  venture.  The  continuance  of  the  conceal- 
ment with  subsequent  issues  followed  perhaps  naturally;  Scott  himself  could  give  no 
better  reason  afterwards  than  that  "such  was  his  humor. "  Although  the  authorship 
of  the  series  was  generally  credited  to  him,  it  was  never  formally  acknowledged  until 
the  avowal  was  extorted  by  his  business  complications  in  1826.  'Waverley'  is  a 
tale  of  the  rebellion  of  the  Chevalier  Prince  Charles  Edward,  in  Scotland  in  1745. 
Edward  Waverley,  an  English  captain  of  dragoons,  obtains  a  leave  of  absence  from 
his  regiment  for  the  purposes  of  rest  and  travel.  His  uncle,  Sir  Everard,  whose  heir 
he  is,  gives  him  letters  to  a  Scotch  friend,  Baron  Bradwardine  of  Tully-Veolan, 
Perthshire,  who  is  a  quaint  mixture  of  scholar  and  soldier,  and  a  strong  Jacobite. 
He  has  a  beautiful  and  blooming  daughter  Rose.  During  Waverley's  visit,  a  party 
of  Highlanders  drive  off  the  Baron's  cattle;  and  Waverley  offers  to  assist  in  their 
redemption  from  Fergus  Mac  Ivor, ' '  Vich  Ian  Vohr, "  the  chief  of  the  clan.  Waverley 
accompanies  Fergus's  messenger  first  to  the  island  cave  of  Donald  Bean  Lean,  the 
actual  robber,  and  thence  to  Fergus's  home,  where  he  meets  the  chief  himself  and  his 
brilliant  and  accomplished  sister  Flora.  Waverley  falls  in  love  and  offers  himself  to 
Flora,  who  discourages  his  addresses.  Joining  a  hunting  party,  he  is  wounded  by  a 
stag  and  detained  beyond  his  intended  time.  Meanwhile  the  rising  of  the  Chevalier 
takes  place;  and  Donald  Bean,  assuming  Waverley  to  be  a  sympathizer  and  desiring 
to  precipitate  his  action,  intercepts  Waverley's  letters  from  home,  and  uses  his  seal 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  891 

(stolen  from  him  at  the  cave)  to  foment  a  mutiny  in  Waverley's  troop.  This  and  his 
unfortunate  delay  have  the  double  effect  of  causing  Waverlcy  to  be  dishonorably 
discharged  from  his  regiment  for  desertion  and  treason,  and  of  inducing  him  in  return 
to  join  the  rebellion  in  his  indignation  at  this  unjust  treatment.  He  first,  however, 
attempts  to  return  home  to  justify  himself;  but  is  arrested  for  treason,  and  rescued 
by  the  Highlanders  when  on  his  way  to  the  dungeons  of  Stirling  Castle.  He  serves 
at  Preston  Pans,  where  he  saves  and  captures  Colonel  Talbot,  who  proves  to  be  a 
family  friend  who  had  come  north  to  help  him.  He  procures  Colonel  Talbot's  release 
and  sends  him  home;  after  which  events  march  rapidly.  The  Chevalier  is  defeated 
at  Clifton,  and  Fergus  is  captured.  Waverley  escapes,  conceals  himself  for  a  while, 
and  later  makes  his  way  to  London;  where  Colonel  Talbot  shelters  him,  clears  his 
name  from  the  false  charges,  and  obtains  his  pardon,  and  that  of  Baron  Bradwardine 
who  had  also  joined  the  rebellion.  Fergus  is  executed,  and  Flora  retires  to  the  Bene- 
dictine convent  at  Paris.  Waverley  wooes  and  marries  Rose  Bradwardine,  and 
rebuilds  Tully-Veolan,  which  had  been  destroyed  in  the  campaign. 

WAY  OF  ALL  FLESH,  THE,  by  Samuel  Butler  (1903).  A  brilliant  satirical  novel 
written  in  the  eighties,  attacking  the  institution  of  the  family,  especially  the  relations 
between  parents  and  children,  and  the  religion  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  in  the 
Anglican  church  and  its  clergy.  The  life  history  of  the  hero,  Ernest  Ponifcx,  begins 
with  his  great  grandfather,  the  carpenter.  This  attractive  old  man  and  Ernest's 
Aunt  Althea  are  his  only  agreeable  relatives.  His  father,  Theobald,  has  not  one 
redeeming  feature.  He  enters  the  church  without  vocation  because  of  family  pressure. 
He  marries  without  love,  and  has  children  whom  he  dislikes,  but  he  is  so  self-deceived 
that  he  regards  himself  as  a  model  husband  and  father.  Christina,  Ernest's  mother, 
believes  Theobald  everything  he  claims  to  be.  Her  satisfaction  in  herself  and  Theo- 
bald, and  the  dreams  of  greatness  she  indulges  in  for  such  deserving  people,  make  her 
the  most  entertaining  character  in  this  amazingly  entertaining  book.  Ernest  is  in 
complete  subjection  to  his  parents,  but  his  instinctive  knowledge  and  hatred  of  his 
father  is  the  saving  grace  which  keeps  him  from  becoming  a  like  prig  and  hypocrite, 
and  makes  Theobald  see  him  as  an  ungrateful  child  who  does  not  love  his  father  as  he 
ought.  Butler  attributes  the  unhappy  relations  which  exist  between  parents  and 
children  in  part  to  the  Church  Catechism  "written  too  exclusively  from  the  parental 
point  of  view"  and  quite  evidently  not  the  work  of  one  who  likes  children.  Ernest 
escapes  from  family  prayers  and  Sundays  and  beatings  to  school,  where  he  is  treated 
with  stupidity  and  brutality  by  teachers  who  like  teaching  because  it  is  tyranny 
made  easy.  He  goes  to  Cambridge  and  takes  deacon's  orders.  Ernest's  career  in  the 
Church  is  cut  short  by  six  months  in  jail  for  making  improper  advances  to  a  re- 
spectable young  lady.  It  is  a  profitable  time  of  reflection  and  mental  growth.  lie 
casts  off  Theobald  and  Christina  for  a  fresh  start  in  life,  and  marries  Ellen  who  had 
been  his  mother's  maid.  They  set  up  a  second-hand  clothing  shop  which  prospers 
until  Ellen  goes  back  to  drinking.  He  rejoices  to  find  himself  a  bachelor  again  when 
he  learns  that  she  has  another  husband.  The  fortune  his  Aunt  Althea  left  ham,  to  be 
made  known  to  him  when  he  is  twenty-eight,  gives  him  financial  independence,  and 
he  comes  through  his  varied  experiences  a  happy  and  dignified  human  being, 

WAY  OF  THE  WORLD,  THE,  by  William  Congreve  (1700).  Congreve,  said 
Voltaire,  "raised  the  glory  of  comedy  to  a  greater  height  than  any  English  writer 
before  or  since/'  and  Swinburne  called  'The  Way  of  the  World1  "the  unequalled  and 
nsapszoached  masterpiece  of  English  comedy. "  The  play  was  coolly  received  on  its 


THE    READER'S   DIGEST   OF   BOOKb 

first  production,  and  Congreve  told  the  audience  bluntly  that  they  could  save  them* 
selves  the  trouble  of  disapproving,  as  he  did  not  mean  to  write  any  more.  The  chief 
character  in  the  play  is  Millamant  an  accomplished  elegant  lady,  who  hopes  and 
fears  nothing  and  whose  law  of  life  is  her  own  caprice.  Her  conquests  have  ceased 
to  surprise  or  interest  her.  ' '  What  is  it  that  a  lover  can  give? ' '  she  asks,  ' '  Why  one 
makes  lovers  as  fast  as  one  pleases,  and  they  live  as  long  as  one  pleases,  and  they  die 
as  soon  as  one  pleases ;  and  then  if  one  pleases,  one  makes  more. "  One  of  Congreve's 
best  known  lyrics  is  Millamant's  song: 

"Love's  but  the  frailty  of  the  mind 
When  'tis  not  with  ambition  join'd. 
If  there's  delight  in  love  'tis  when  I  see 
That  heart,  which  others  bleed  for,  bleed  for  me." 

WEALTH  AGAINST  COMMONWEALTH,  by  Henry  D.   Lloyd   (1894).    This 
treatise  begins  with  an  epigram  and  ends  with  a  promise.     "Nature,"  says  Mr. 
Lloyd,  "is  rich;  but  everywhere  man,  the  heir  of  Nature,  is  poor. "    Why  is  this  so? 
Because  the  people  who  are  all  the  time  helping  Nature  to  produce  wealth  arc  the 
blind  agents  of  a  few  enlightened  but  selfish  schemers.    The  great  natural  monopolies 
which  ought  to  be  the  property  of  a  nation,  are  allowed  to  be  controlled  by  private 
individuals.    Coal  and  oil,  lumber  and  iron,  and  hundreds  of  indispensable  commodi- 
ties, are  produced  by  "trusts " ;  and  the  result  is  that  the  few  are  constantly  growing 
richer  and  the  many  are  rinding  the  battle  of  life  an  ever-increasing  defeat.    Mr. 
Lloyd  shows  with  unsparing  detail  and  with  unimpeachable  accuracy  the  working 
of  the  various  "trusts, "  and  the  tyranny  which  they  stand  for  in  a  so-called  land  of 
liberty.    He  believes  that  the  people,  who  after  all  are  the  fountain-head  of  power, 
have  the  right  to  regulate  all  these  immense  questions.     "Infinite,  "  he  says,  "is  the 
fountain  of  our  rights.    We  can  have  all  the  rights  we  will  create.    All  the  rights  we 
will  give  we  can  have.     The  American  people  will  save  the  liberties  they  have  in- 
herited by  winning  new  ones  to  bequeath.   With  this  will  come  fruits  of  a  new  faculty 
almost  beyond  calculation.    A  new  liberty  will  put  an  end  to  pauperism  and  million- 
airism,  and  the  crimes  and  death-rate  born  of  both  wretchednesses,  just  as  the  liberty 
of  politics  and  religion  put  an  end  to  martyrs  and  tyrants . ' '    With  a  view  of  educating 
the  people  to  a  knowledge  of  their  rights,  Mr.  Lloyd  marshals  his  appalling  array  of 
facts,  and  points  out  a  way  for  improvement  in  an  unparalleled'  condition  of  things. 
The  book  is  marked  by  the  serenity  of  optimism ;  for  the  author  sees  that  the  methods 
employed  by  "  trusts "  in  production  work  for  greater  economy  and  for  greater 
advantage  in  production:  but  he  believes  that  those  who  create  wealth  should  share 
in  the  wealth;  and  that  the  so-called  "fortunate  few,"  who  possess  without  having 
helped  to  create,  should  realize  their  selfishness  and  become  henceforth  the  servants 
of  those  whom  now  they  make  serve.    Mr.  Lloyd's  indictment  of  our  modern  civili- 
zation is  said  to  have  had  a  great  influence  on  the  altruistic  thought  of  the  day. 

WEALTH  OF  NATIONS,   AN  ENQUIRY  INTO  THE  NATURE  AND  CAUSES  OP  THE, 

by  Adam  Smith  (1776).  A  treatise  of  economic  research,  of  great  breadth;  but 
specially  designed  to  show  the  wisdom  and  justice  of  free  trade  among  nations.  In 
the  very  wide  range  of  subjects  dealt  with  are  found  social  history,  the  politics  of 
commerce,  rules  of  taxation,  and  educational  theories  now  generally  accepted;  but 
the  chief  burden  of  the  book  is  freedom  of  trade  among  all  nations.  Its  note  is  inter- 
national, never  considering  how  one  nation  may  promote  its  own  wealth  at  the 
expense  of  other  nations.  The  work  is  full  of  facts,  shows  wealth  of  varied  reading, 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  893 

and  remarkable  sagacity  in  the  use  of  very  imperfect  data.  The  style  of  the  work  is 
diffuse,  and  the  arrangement  of  materials  irregular  and  loose ;  more  in  the  manner  of  a 
great  study  than  of  a  perfectly  finished  work.  To  a  very  large  extent  it  drew  from  the 
work  already  done  in  France  by  the  economists  of  the  "Encyclopedic"  school;  first 
among  whom  stood  Turgot,  whose  '  Sur  la  Formation  et  la  Distribution  des  Richcsscs ' 
supplied  Smith  with  passages  of  his  first  book  very  closely  following  the  divisions  and 
arguments  of  Turgot.  Smith  had  visited  France  at  the  close  of  the  Seven  Years' 
War,  had  spent  a  year  in  Paris,  and  had  seen  much  of  the  economists  there.  He  had 
returned  home  in  October,  1766,  and  settled  in  retirement  at  Kirkcaldy,  where  he 
gave  ten  years  to  the  production  of  his  book.  Five  English  editions  of  the  work 
appeared  during  its  author's  life,  and  it  was  translated  into  many  modern  languages. 
It  is  at  once  a  great  English  classic  and  a  landmark  in  ccpnomical  science.  The 
earlier  life  of  the  author  had  been  that  of  a  professor  at  the  University  of  Glasgow, 
where  he  was  given  the  chair  of  logic  in  1751,  and  that  of  moral  philosophy  the  next 
year.  In  1759  he  published  'A  Theory  of  the  Moral  Sentiments,'  of  which  there  were 
six  editions  during  his  life.  It  was  his  custom  to  give  some  attention  to  political 
economy  in  his  Glasgow  lectures;  and  he  then  drew  those  inferences  on  behalf  of 
freedom  of  trade  which  he  afterwards  expanded  into  his  'Wealth  of  Nations.'  In 
1763  Smith  resigned  his  chair  to  take  charge  of  the  education  of  the  son  of  the  Duke  of 
Buccleugh ;  and  it  was  on  a  pension  of  £300  a  year,  given  him  by  the  duke,  that  he 
retired  to  Kirkcaldy.  It  is  said  that  Pitt  thought  well  of  Smith's  free-trade  views, 
and  might  in  happier  times  have  adopted  a  free-trade  policy;  but  it  was  reserved  for 
the  school  of  Cobden  to  induce  England  to  act  on  them. 

WEAVERS,  THE  ('Die  Weber')  by  Gcrhart  Hauptmann  (1893).  The  starving 
weavers,  cheated  and  underpaid,  are  shown  receiving  their  wages  from  a  bullying 
cowardly  manager.  He  calls  in  his  vulgar,  rich,  capitalist  master  who  makes  a 
speech  to  them  showing  how  much  they  are  to  be  envied  and  himself  pitied,  since  he 
has  all  the  anxiety  to  bear  and  all  the  capital  to  provide.  A  young  vSoldicr  returning 
from  the  army,  indignant  at  the  misery  he  sees,  stirs  the  weavers  to  revolt.  A  bright 
lively  scene  in  the  cheerful  public  house  is  interrupted  by  the  noise  of  the  crowd 
outside.  The  mob  of  strikers  go  to  the  house  of  the  capitalist  to  find  that  he  and  his 
family  have  been  warned  and  made  their  escape.  They  break  the  furniture  and 
destroy  the  pictures.  The  last  scene  begins  with  family  prayers  in  an  old  weaver's 
home.  As  there  is  no  food,  they  begin  the  day's  work  fasting.  News  is  brought  that 
the  house  of  the  capitalist  has  been  torn  down,  and  the  soldiers  called  to  stop  the 
uprising.  A  stray  shot  comes  through  the  window  and  kills  the  old  weaver  at  his 
loom,  the  only  man  who  has  kept  .out  of  the  strife.  It  is  a  gruesome  picture  of  terrible 
conditions,  one  of  the  first  modern  plays  that  deals  with  the  life  of  the  proletariat. 

WEBSTER,  DANIEL,  by  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  (1883).  This  forms  Vol.  viii.  of  the 
'American  Statesmen'  series.  Mr.  Lodge  disclaims  all  credit  for  original  research 
among  MS.  records  in  preparing  this  life  of  Webster;  and  is  content  to  follow  in  the 
footsteps  of  George  Ticknor  Curtis,  to  whose  "elaborate,  careful,  and  scholarly 
biography"  of  the  great  statesman  he  frankly  acknowledges  his  indebtedness  for  all 
the  material  facts  of  Webster's  life  and  labors.  But  on  these  facts  he  has  exercised 
an  independent  judgment;  and  this  biographical  material  he  has  worked  over  in  his 
own  way,  producing  an  essentially  original  study  of  the  life  of  Webster.  In  consider- 
ing the  crises  of  Webster's  life  as  lawyer,  orator,  senator,  statesman,  he  in  a  few  brief 
chapters  brings  the  man  before  us  with  striking  vividness.  To  portray  Webster  as  a 


894  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

lawyer,  his  part  in  the  Dartmouth  College  Case  is  recounted;  for  there  his  legal 
talents  are  seen  at  their  best.  The  chapter  on  this  case  is  a  model  of  clear  and  concise 
statement.  Webster  as  an  orator  is  the  subject  of  another  chapter,  dealing  with  his 
speeches  in  the  Massachusetts  Convention  of  1820,  and  his  Plymouth  oration,  and 
their  effects  upon  the  auditors.  His  part  in  the  tariff  debates  of  1828  in  Congress,  his 
reply  to  Hayne,andhis  struggle  with  Jackson,  occupy  two  chapters,  in  which  Webster's 
extraordinary  powers  of  reasoning  and  of  oratory  are  analyzed.  Mr.  Lodge  seems  to 
judge  without  partisanship  Webster's  Seventh  of  March  speech,  and  the  dissensions 
between  him  and  his  party.  He  recognizes  in  Webster,  above  all,  "the  pre-eminent 
champion  and  exponent  of  nationality." 

WEIR  OF  HERMISTON,  an  unfinished  romance  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  the 
last  novel  he  wrote,  was  published  in  1896.    A  fragment,  it  gave  promise  of  being  his 
best  work.    An  appended  editorial  note  by  Sidney  Colvin  tells  how  the  plot  was  to 
be  carried  out.    Nine  chapters  only  had  been  written,  the  last  on  the  very  day  of 
Stevenson's  death.    The  whole  action  passes  in  Edinburgh  and  the  lowlands  of 
Scotland;  the  time  is  the  early  nineteenth  century.    Weir  is  a  Lord  Justice  Clerk,  a 
stern,  silent,  masterful  man,  noteworthy  for  his  implacable  dealings  with  criminals; 
his  wife  is  a  soft,  timid,  pious  creature,  whose  death  is  told  in  the  first  chapter.    Their 
son  Archie  is  of  a  bookish  turn,  high-spirited,  sensitive,  idealistic,  growing  up  with 
little  attention  from  his  father.    But  gradually  Weir  comes  to  care  for  his  son,  who  is 
so  revolted  by  the  father's  relish  of  his  function  in  hanging  a  malefactor,  that  he 
cries  out  against  the  execution  while  it  is  taking  place.    This  incenses  the  judge,  who 
sends  him  to  his  moorland  country  estate  of  Hermiston  to  learn  to  be  a  laird.    There 
he  falls  in  with  Kirstie  Elliot  and  wins  her  love,  and  is  tended  by  her  aunt  Kirstic,  a 
dependent  of  the  Hermiston  house,  who  cares  for  Archie  (as  she  did  for  his  mother) 
with  almost  maternal  affection.    A  visit  from  Frank  Innes  —  an  Edinburgh  school- 
mate of  Archie's,  and  a  shallow,  vain,  but  handsome  fellow  —  makes  trouble;  for  he 
maligns  Archie  to  the  country  folk,  and  seeks  to  win  the  younger  Kirstic  away  from 
him.    Kirstie  the  elder  has  an  interview  with  Archie,  in  which  she  brings  him  to  a 
sense  of  his  wrong  in  making  love  to  a  girl  out  of  his  station,  and  he  has  a  stormy 
meeting  with  his  sweetheart  —  at  which  point  the  novel  breaks  off,  all  the  elements 
for  a  tragedy  having  been  introduced.    The  plot  as  planned  by  Stevenson  involved 
the  betrayal  of  the  young  Kirstie  by  Innes,  although  she  is  faithful  in  heart  to  Archie, 
who  kills  his  rival  and  is  condemned  to  death  by  his  own  father,  the  judge.    Kirstie's 
brothers,  known  as  the  "Four  Black  Brothers,"  seek  to  take  vengeance  on  Archie 
as  the  betrayer  of  their  sister;  but  on  learning  the  true  state  of  the  ease,  they  rescue 
him  from  prison,  and  the  lovers  flee  together  to  America.    Here  was  splendid  material 
for  dramatic  handling,  and  Stevenson  would  have  made  the  most  of  it.     The  novel  is 
written  in  the  finest  vein  of  romance;  and  the  drawing  of  such  characters  as  the  judge 
—  whose  historic  prototype  is  Lord  Braxfield  —  and  Kirstic  the  elder,  is  unsurpassed 
in  his  fiction.     The  Scotch  coloring  is  perfect. 

.  WESLEY'S  JOURNAL,  'An  Extract  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  John  Wesley's  Journal' 
was  published  at  intervals  by  Wesley  from  1738  to  1791,  as  a  kind  of  'Apologia '  of  his 
life  and  doctrine.  He  explains  in  the  preface  that  about  fifteen  years  before  he  began 
to  keep  a  daily  record  of  his  conduct  for  the  purposes  of  religious  self-examination; 
and  that  on  leaving  on  his  mission  to  Georgia  in  1735  he  had  broadened  its  scope  to 
include  the  description  of  interesting  events  in  his  experience,  persons  whom  he  had 
met,  and  meditations  on  various  topics  of  general  appeal.  After  an  introductory 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  895 

letter  written  in  his  Oxford  days  and  descriptive  of  the  religious  austerities  and  philan- 
thropies which  won  for  his  circle  the  name  of  Methodists  he  proceeds  with  the  Journal, 
the  first  book  of  which  describes  his  voyage  to  Savannah,  his  labors  among  the  Indians 
his  interest  in  the  doctrines  of  the  Moravians,  and  his  bickerings  with  the  colonists. 
In  the  second  book  he  records  his  conversion  from  reliance  on  the  diligent  perfor- 
mance of  religious  labor  and  self-denial  to  a  conviction  of  his  personal  salvation  and 
justification  through  faith  alone;  and  he  shows  the  influence  of  his  Moravian  friends 
in  bringing  him  into  this  frame  of  mind.  He  also  describes  the  founding  of  the  first 
Methodist  society  in  Fetter  Lane  for  the  exchange  of  counsel  and  advice  in  spiritual 
experience.  The  remaining  books  are  a  record  of  Wesley's  marvelous  activity,  his 
daily  preaching  and  journeying,  his  overcoming  of  fashionable  prejudice  and  brutal 
violence,  his  establishment  and  pastoral  care  of  a  multitude  of  societies,  and,  at  last 
his  founding  of  a  new  church.  The  entries  present  an  attractive  picture  of  Wesley's 
character  and  personality.  They  reveal  a  man  of  cultivation,  literary  taste,  human 
sympathy,  and  catholicity,  yet  with  a  supreme  all-pervading  missionary  purpose,  a 
deep  conviction,  and  a  clear  and  powerful  method  of  setting  it  forth.  Though  the 
religious  aim  predominates,  the  book  contains  many  observations  of  a  secular  charac- 
ter on  men  and  literature,  and  is  a  valuable  historical  commentary  on  the  eighteenth 
century. 

WHAT  SOCIAL  CLASSES  OWE  TO  EACH  OTHER,  by  William  Graham  Sumner. 
This  work,  published  in  1883,  was  written  by  the  professor  of  political  economy  in 
Yale  University,  and  was  intended  to  explode  the  fallacy  of  regarding  the  State  as 
something  more  than  the  people  of  which  it  is  composed.  Every  attempt  to  make  the 
State  cure  a  social  ill,  Mr.  Sumner  says,  is  an  attempt  to  make  some  people  take  care 
of  others.  It  is  not  at  all  the  function  of  the  State  to  make  men  happy;  to  say  that 
those  who  by  their  own  labor  and  industry  have  acquired  or  augmented  a  fortune 
shall  support  the  shiftless  and  negligent,  is  to  strike  at  the  liberty  of  the  industrious. 
Evils  due  to  the  folly  and  wickedness  of  mankind  bear  their  own  bitter  fruit;  State 
interference  in  such  cases  means  simply  making  the  sober,  industrious,  and  prudent 
pay  the  penalty  which  should  be  borne  by  the  offender.  The  type  and  formula  of 
most  philanthropic  schemes  is  this:  A  and  B  put  their  heads  together  to  decide  what 
C  shall  do  for  D.  Poor  C,  the  "forgotten  man, "  has  to  pay  for  the  scheme,  without 
having  any  voice  in  the  matter.  "  Class  distinctions  simply  result  from  the  different 
degrees  of  success  with  which  men  have  availed  themselves  of  the  chances  which 
were  presented  to  them.  In  the  prosecution  of  these  chances,  we  all  owe  to  each 
other  good-will,  mutual  respect,  and  mutual  guarantees  of  liberty  and  security. 
Beyond  this  nothing  can  be  affirmed  as  a  duty  of  one  group  to  another  in  a 
free  State." 

Professor  Sumncr's  book  is  a  useful  antidote  to  many  of  the  futile  and  dreamy 
socialistic  schemes  now  afloat.  A  process  warranted  to  regenerate  the  world  in  a  day 
always  has  its  attractions.  Professor  Sumner,  however,  is  a  more  thorough-going 
supporter  of  the  "laissez-faire"  doctrine  than  most  economists  of  the  present  day. 
Besides,  he  disregards  the  very  dishonest  means  by  which  wealth  is  often  attained. 
His  defense  of  the  capitalist  class  is  not  quite  reasonable:  not  all  capitalists,  we  know, 
arc  the  despicable  villains  described  by  the  extreme  socialists;  but  neither  could  all 
of  them  be  regarded  as  men  who  have  simply  made  legitimate  use  of  "the  chances 
presented  to  them."  However,  Professor  Sumner's  protest  against  the  insidious 
attacks  on  the  liberty  of  the  majority,  under  the  specious  guise  of  legislative  aid  for 
the  weak,  is  straightforward  and  convincing. 


896  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

WHEEL  OF  LIFE,  THE,  by  Ellen  Glasgow  (1906).  The  scene  of  this  story  is  laid 
in  New  York  and  it  deals  with  the  marital  difficulties  of  the  men  and  women  who 
people  its  pages.  The  principal  characters  are  Roger  Adams,  a  man  of  sterling 
qualities,  who  is  married  to  a  shallow  and  frivolous  wife;  Gerty  Bridewell,  whose 
rich  husband  causes  her  much  unhappiness  on  account  of  his  fondness  for  other 
women;  Arnold  Kemper,  a  man  of  the  world  who  is  divorced  from  his  wife,  and  Laura 
Wilde  who  is  attractive,  intellectual  and  unmarried.  Laura,  who  lives  in  an  old- 
fashioned  house  in  Gramercy  Park  with  her  aged  uncle  and  aunt,  is  a  warm  friend  of 
Gerty  whom  she  has  known  since  her  school-days.  The  two  women  are  a  great 
contrast  to  each  other,  as  Laura  is  of  a  thoughtful  nature,  with  high  ideals  which  find 
their  vent  in  poetry,  while  Gerty,  who  is  a  great  beauty,  is  frivolous  and  worldly. 
Laura  has  had  many  suitors  but  her  heart  has  remained  untouched  until  her  meeting 
with  Arnold  Kemper.  She  becomes  engaged  to  him,  but  breaks  off  the  match  on  the 
eve  of  her  marriage,  owing  to  an  affair  of  Kemper's  with  an  opera  singer  which  causes 
Laura's  disillusionment.  After  breaking  her  engagement  Laura  rushes  away  from 
the  house  in  an  agony  of  grief,  and  hides  herself  from  her  friends  among  strangers  in 
an  outlying  suburb.  In  her  trouble  she  turns  to  Roger  Adams  who  ha,s  been  her  warm 
friend  for  years  and  asks  him  to  come  to  her.  Roger,  in  the  meantime  has  buried  his 
wife,  Connie,  whose  life  of  frivolity  had  led  her  finally  to  drugs  and  disgrace.  Roger 
had  cared  for  her  tenderly  throughout  her  downward  career  but  in  spite  of  his  efforts 
was  unable  to  save  her  from  ruining  her  life.  Connie,  after  having  left  her  husband 
and  living  a  life  of  shame,  finally  returns  to  him  in  a  dying  condition  and  passes  away 
in  a  hospital  shielded  and  ministered  to  by  Roger  until  the  last.  Laura  gradually 
awakens  to  the  fact  that  her  feeling  for  Kemper  was  but  a  dream  and  finds  in  Roger 
the  ideal  she  had  sought. 

WHEN  KNIGHTHOOD  WAS  IN  FLOWER,  by  Edwin  Caskodcn  (189^).     This  is 
a  historical  romance  of  England  in  the  sixteenth  century,  which  describes  the  court- 
ship and  marriage  of  Mary  Tudor,  sister  of  Henry  VIII. ,  and  Charles  Brandon  who 
is  far  below  her  in  the  social  scale.    In  this  romantic  love-story  the  reader  is  intro- 
duced into  the  intrigues  and  follies  of  the  court  and  is  shown  how  a  willful  princess 
obtains  her  own  way.    Brandon's  strength,  comeliness,  and  courage  win  him  favor 
in  the  eyes  of  the  King  and  the  love  of  Mary  Tudor,  for  whom  he  cherishes  a  seemingly 
hopeless  passion  which  almost  works  his  ruin.    King  Henry  determined  to  use  his 
sister  for  purposes  of  political  advancement,  arranges  a  marriage  for  her  with  the  old 
French  king,  promising  that  after  his  death  she  shall  marry  whom  she  likes.    To 
this  promise  she  later  holds  him  when  she  confesses  her  marriage  to  Brandon.    Besides 
King  Henry,  there  are  various  historic  personages  introduced,  among  them  Cardinal 
Wolsey,  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  and  Jane  Bolingbrokc,  who  with  her  dove-like 
gentleness  is  a  contrast  to  the  brilliant,  flashing,  ever-changing  Mary  Tudor,  whoso 
picture  is  a  clever  piece  of  character  drawing.    The  scene  in  which  she  coaxes  the 
King  to  bestow  the  title  of  Duke  of  Suffolk  upon  her  lover  is  one  of  the  most  ofTeetive. 
The  quality  of  the  book  is  dramatic,  and  the  court  and  its  doings  are  described  in  the 
language  of  to-day,  except  for  occasional  extracts  from  an  old  family  chronicle  of 
the  narrator.    The  story  carries  the  reader  forward  rapidly  and  his  interest  in  the 
fortunes  of  the  beautiful  heroine  and  her  trio  of  friends  continues  without  a  break 
until  the  happy  conclusion,  when^the  Princess  attains  her  heart's  desire. 

WHEN  VALMOND  CAME  TO  PONTIAC,  a  novel  by  Gilbert  Parker  (1895),  has 
for  its  motive  the  Napoleonic  glamour  which  still  enchants  simple  folk  on  the  outlying 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  897 

borders  of  the  French  nation.  Into  the  little  French-Canadian  village  of  Pontiac 
comes  Valmond,  a  mysterious  stranger,  bearing  about  him  the  atmosphere  of  a  great, 
dead  world.  In  form  and  manner  he  recalls  Napoleon.  Though  but  a  youth  of 
some  twenty  summers,  he  seems  the  heir  of  magnificent  memories.  Little  by  little  he 
steals  into  the  hearts  of  the  simple  villagers.  Little  by  little  he  wins  them  to  the 
belief  that  he  is  the  son  of  Napoleon.  Even  Sergeant  Lagroin,  a  veteran  of  the  Old 
Guard,  coming  to  challenge  his  pretensions,  is  won  to  him  by  his  manner  of  authority, 
and  his  utterance  of  watchwords  thought  to  be  buried  forever  within  the  dead  lips  of 
the  great  General.  The  Sergeant's  complete  surrender  to  this  strange  young  Napoleon 
establishes  his  claim  with  the  village-folk.  Valmond  has  dreams  of  reconquering 
France.  He  forms  his  adherents  into  a  little  army.  The  movement  attracting  the 
attention  of  the  government,  soldiers  are  sent  to  demand  the  surrender  of  Valmond 
and  Lagroin.  The  latter  dies  under  the  fire  of  their  rifles,  refusing  to  the  last  to  wake 
from  his  beautiful  clrcam. 

"Valmond  stood  over  his  body,  and  drew  a  pistol. 

'"Surrender,  Monsieur!'  said  the  officer,  'or  we  fire!' 

11 '  Never!  A  Napoleon  knows  how  to  die!'  came  the  ringing  reply,  and  he  raised 
his  pistol  at  the  officer. 

"'Fire!'  came  the  sharp  command. 

"'Vive*  Napoldon!'  cried  the  doomed  man,  and  fell,  mortally  wounded." 

Valmond  also,  refusing  to  surrender,  is  shot.  Dying,  he  confesses  that  he  was  the 
child  of  Italian  peasants,  reared  as  a  page  in  the  house  of  Prince  Lucicn  Bonaparte. 
After  his  death,  however,  it  is  discovered  that  he  was  really  what  he  made  pretense 
of  being,  the  son  of  Napoleon,  born  at  vSt.  Helena. 

WHIP  AND  SPUR,  by  George  E.  Waring,  Jr.  This  series  of  interesting  personal 
experiences  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  was  first  published  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 
It  was  reprinted  in  book  form  in  1875.  Colonel  Waring  was  attached  to  the  4th 
Missouri  Cavalry,  and  the  scene  of  his  service  was  chiefly  in  Missouri,  Arkansas, 
Mississippi,  and  Tennessee.  While  there  is  very  little  fighting  recorded,  other  no  less 
interesting  features  of  the  War  arc  related  without  any  attempt  at  dramatic  effect. 
lie  tells  the  stories  and  paints  the  characters  of  various  horses  that  he  owned,  Vix, 
Ruby,  Wellstcin,  and  Max.  The  two  last  chapters  give  a  vivid  picture  of  fox-hunting 
in  England.  The  volume  shows  that  Colonel  Waring  is  as  clever  in  handling  the 
pen  as  in  managing  the  great  problem  of  cleaning  the  streets  of  a  great  city. 

WHIRLIGIGS,  by  "O.  Henry"  (1910)  arc  incidents  in  the  merry-go-round  of  life, 
presenting  the  dramatic  surprise  of  the  unexpected  in  men  and  affairs.  A  man  and 
woman,  outcasts  in  South  America,  believing  themselves  murderers,  arc  betrothed, 
and  count  the  world  well  lost  if  they  arc  together.  The  man  he  had  struck  down  in  a 
quarrel  arrives  on  the  boat  which  brings  the  woman  the  news  that  her  husband  is 
alive,  and  without  farewells  they  start  for  homo.  In  another  story  the  youngest  cub- 
rcportcr  deciphers  a  fable  dispatch  smuggled  past  the  censor  from  the  war  front  in 
Japan,  which  has  baffled  the  entire  editorial  staff,  and  gives  his  paper  the  biggest 
"beat"  of  the  war.  In  a  third  a  trader  on  a  trip  across  the  mountains  rescues  an 
opera  winger  who  has  been  kidnapped  by  the  Indians.  In  the  environment  of  the 
snow-capped  Andes,  the  woman  is  a  goddess  singing  tc  dcums  and  misereres.  As 
they  descend  to  the  tablelands  his.  divinity  becomes  more  an  earth  woman.  At  the 
sea  level  she  sits  on  the  table  singing  coon  songs,  and  the  mystery  of  romance  takes 
flight.  In  still  another  story  two  would-be  kidnappers  capture  a  "Tartar"  in  an 
57 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

active,  imaginative  small  boy,  whom  they  are  glad  to  return  to  his  parents  with  a 
bonus  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  These  little  ironies  of  life  are  told  with 
humor  and  pathos  in  0.  Henry's  picturesque  American  slang. 

WHITE  APRONS,  a  romance  of  Bacon's  Rebellion,  by  Mrs.  Maud  Wilder  Goodwin 
(1896)  is  a  story  of  the  struggle  in  Virginia  between  popular  rights  and  aristocratic 
privilege  a  hundred  years  before  the  Revolution.  The  hero,  Bryan  Fairfax,  is  sent 
by  Bacon  to  bring  to  his  camp  several  ladies,  adherents  of  his  opponent,  Governor 
Berkeley.  Among  them  is  Penelope  Payne,  with  whom  the  young  soldier  speedily 
falls  in  love.  Bacon  sends  Penelope  to  Jamestown  to  inform  Berkeley  that  if  he 
attacks  before  noon,  the  women  will  be  placed  in  front  of  Bacon's  uncompleted  works. 
Penelope  taunts  Bacon  with  cowardice,  and  tells  him  that  he  and  his  followers  shall  be 
known  as  White  Aprons.  The  tide  of  war  turns,  Bacon  dies,  and  Fairfax  is  taken 
prisoner  by  Berkeley,  who  becomes  an  unbearable  tyrant.  When  Fairfax  is  put  on 
trial  for  his  life,  Penelope,  to  the  surprise  of  all,  comes  forward  to  testify  in  his  favor, 
and  openly  confesses  her  love  for  him.  Berkeley  in  a  frenzy  of  rage  condemns  Fair- 
fax to  death,  but  consents  to  his  reprieve  for  three  months.  Penelope  straightway 
sets  out  for  England  to  seek  a  pardon  from  the  King.  She  goes  to  the  house  of  her 
uncle,  the  historic  Samuel  Pepys,  and  there  she  meets  Dry  den,  Buckingham,  and 
various  other  wits  and  beaux.  The  beauty  of  her  portrait,  painted  by  Kneller,  obtains 
her  an  audience  with  the  King;  who,  after  a  trial  of  her  constancy,  grants  her  the 
pardon,  with  which  she  makes  all  speed  home,  arriving  at  the  critical  moment  when 
Fairfax  is  on  the  scaffold.  The  story  ends  as  it  begins,  with  the  burden  of  an  old 
song:  "Love  will  find  out  the  way."  Though  slight  in  texture,  the  work  is  very 
daintily  executed,  and  the  spirit  of  colonial  Virginia  is  well  suggested. 

WHITE  COMPANY,  THE,  a  romantic  tale  of  the  fourteenth  century,  by  A.  Comm 
Doyle  (1891).  Alleyne  Edricson,  a  gentle,  noble-spirited  youth,  who  has  boon 
sheltered  and  educated  among  a  company  of  white-robed  Cistercians  in  England, 
leaves  the  abbey  to  make  his  way  in  the  world.  Together  with  two  sinewy  and 
gallant  comrades,  Hordie  John  and  Samkin  Aylward,  he  attaches  himself  to  the  per- 
son and  fortunes  of  Sir  Nigel  Loring,  a  doughty  knight,  the  mirror  of  chivalry,  over  in 
quest  of  a  passage-at-arms  for  the  honor  of  his  lady  and  his  own  advancement  in 
chivalry. 

In  vigorous  phrase  and  never-flagging  interest,  the  talc  rehearses  how  that  vSir 
Nigel  heads  the  "White  Company,"  a  band  of  sturdy  Saxon  bowmen,  froo  com- 
panions, and  leads  them  through  many  knightly  encounters  in  the  train  of  the  Black 
Prince,  in  France  and  Spain.  The  story  rings  with  the  clash  of  arms  in  tourney  lists, 
during  wayside  encounters  and  on  the  battle-field,  and  reflects  the  rude  but  ehivalrio 
spirit  of  the  century. 

Many  characters  known  to  history  are  set  in  lifelike  surroundings.  The  move- 
ment is  rapid,  stirring  episodes  follow  each  other  rapidly  and  withal  there  is  presented 
a  careful  picture  of  the  tumultuous  times  in  which  the  varied  scenes  are  laid. 

It  is  in  Spain  that  Sir  Nigel's  young  squire,  Alleyne,  wins  his  spurs  by  gallant 
conduct,  thrillingly  told  in  a  passage  which  will  rank  with  the  author's  ablest  efforts. 
Alleyne  lives  to  return,  with  a  few  comrades  of  the  decimated  White  Company,  and 
claims  the  hand  of  Lady  Maude,  Sir  Nigel's  daughter,  who  has  long  loved  the  young 
squire,  and  gladly  weds  him  as  a  knight. 

WHITE  DEVIL,  THE;   or,    VITTORIA    COROMBONA  by  John  Webster    (1612). 
"By  Shakespeare  alone  among  English  poets, "  says  Swinburne  speaking  of  this  play 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  899 

"have  the  finest  scenes  and  passages  of  this  tragedy  been  ever  surpassed  or  equalled 
in  the  crowning  qualities  of  tragic  or  dramatic  poetry  —  in  pathos  and  passion,  in 
subtlety  and  strength,  in  harmonious  variety  of  art  and  infallible  fidelity  to  nature." 
The  heroine  of  the  play,  Vittoria  Corombona,  wife  of  Camillo,  has  an  intrigue  with 
Duke  Brachiano  and  in  the  first  scene  in  which  she  appears  she  tells  the  Duke  of  a 
dream  which  is  to  incite  him  to  murder  her  husband  and  his  own  duchess.  Camillo  is 
murdered  and  his  body  so  laid  as  to  conceal  the  crime.  The  Duchess  is  slain  by 
poison,  the  portrait  of  her  husband,  which  she  used  to  kiss,  having  been  infected  by 
Doctor  Julio  with  poisoned  oil.  Vittoria  at  her  trial  for  the  murder  of  her  first  hus- 
band confronts  her  judges  and  accusers  with  cold  and  unmoved  scorn.  Flamnes, 
brother  of  Vittoria,  and  secretary  to  Brachiano,  murders  his  brother  Marcello, 
attendant  on  Francisco  de  Medicis,  Duke  of  Florence.  Over  his  bier  Cornelia,  mother 
of  Vittoria,  speaks  the  exquisitely  beautiful  dirge,  than  which  there  is  nothing  finer 
outside  Shakespeare: 

*'  Call  for  the  robin-redbreast  and  the  wren 
Since  over  shady  groves  they  hover. 
And  with  leaves  and  flowers  do  cover 
The  friendless  bodies  of  unburied  men." 

Brachiano  is  assassinated  at  the  instigation  of  Francisco.  Vittoria  bravely  fronts 
the  murderer's  knife,  yet  utters  the  hopeless  cry, 

"My  soul,  like  to  a  ship  in  a  black  storm 
Is  driven,  I  know  not  whither." 

WHITE  ROCKS,  THE  ('Lcs  Roches  blanches')  by  Edouard  Rod  (1895).  In  the 
Bois-Joli  belonging  to  the  Swiss  commune  of  Biclle  are  two  great  rocks,  called  Les 
Rochers  Blancs,  about  which  twines  a  romantic  legend.  A  noble  lord  who  had  loved  a 
woman  kept  from  him  by  some  unknown  barrier  had  entered  a  Trappist  monastery; 
the  woman  at  the  same  time  became  a  nun.  But  they  met  every  night  in  the  pine- 
trees  of  the  Bois-Joli.  They  were  faithful  and  loyal,  and  kept  their  vows;  and  just 
as  they  had  bidden  each  other  an  eternal  farewell,  they  were  stiffened  into  stone  side 
by  side.  History  repeats  itself  in  the  life  of  the  peasant  pastor  of  Bielle,  M.  Trem- 
bloz.  Among  his  parishioners  is  an  aristocratic  family,  consisting  of  M.  Massod  de 
Bussens  and  his  wife:  "Madame  do  Busscns  was  not  precisely  beautiful,  but  she 
had  a  wealth  of  thick  silky  hair,  which  set  off  a  forehead  of  exceeding  purity;  large 
sky-blue  eyes,  from  which  flashed  at  moments  a  repressed  inward  light ;  a  charming 
mouth  formed  for  smiling,  but  rarely  seen  to  smile";  young  in  appearance,  and 
slender  as  a  girl.  Her  husband  is  a  sanctimonious  tyrant  who  has  crushed  out 
whatever  love  she  may  once  have  felt  for  him.  M.  Trcmbloz  is  simple-hearted,  but 
gifted  with  marvelous  eloquence;  he  sees  that  she  suffers;  he  understands  her,  and  it 
is  only  a  question  of  a  few  meetings  when  they  find  themselves  deeply  in  love.  But 
like  the  mythical  lovers  of  the  White  Rocks,  they  resolve  to  meet  no  more.  Unfor- 
tunately, their  secret  is  discovered  and  reported  to  M.  dc  Bussens,  who  charges  her 
with  unfaithfulness.  vShc  confesses  that  she  loves  the  pastor.  Her  husband  is  im- 
placable, and  sends  her  away,  depriving  her  of  their  charming  son  Maurice,  who  loves 
her  and  is  desperately  afraid  of  his  father. 

M.  Rod  raises  the  eternal  question  of  what  shall  be  done  with  incompatible 
marriage,  but  makes  no  attempt  to  cut  the  Gordian  knot.  The  petty  society  of  a 
Swiss  provincial  town  is  graphically  depicted ;  but  perhaps  the  cleverest  portrait  in  the 
book  is  the  keen,  ambitious  Madame  Trcmbloz,  the  mother  of  the  pastor,  who  in  her 
way  is  as  much  of  a  tyrant  as  is  M.  de  Busscns  in  his.  The  episode  of  the  young  girl, 


900  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Rose  Charmot,  who  is  brought  before  the  directors  of  the  Orphan  Asylum  _  and 
charged  with  having  gone  astray,  brings  to  light  all  the  narrowness  of  the  self-right- 
eous and  Pharisaical  spirit  rampant  in  such  a  provincial  town,  and  forms  a  back- 
ground for  the  nobleness  of  the  pastor  and  Madame  de  Bussens,  who  alone  take  the 
girl's  part.  The  story  is  written  in  a  fascinating  style. 

WICKER-WORK  WOMAN,  THE,  see  L'HISTOIRE  CONTEMPORAINE. 

WIDE,  WIDE  WORLD,  THE,  by  "Elizabeth  WetherelT  (Susan  Warner:  1851). 
It  is  a  study  of  girl  life,  which  reached  a  sale  of  over  300,000  copies.  The  life  of  the 
heroine,  Ellen  Montgomery,  is  followed  from  early  childhood  to  her  marriage,  with  a 
fullness  of  particulars  which  leaves  nothing  to  the  reader's  imagination.  Her  parents 
going  to  Europe,  she  is  placed  in  the  care  of  Miss  Fortune  Emerson,  a  sharp-tempered 
relative  of  her  father's.  Amid  the  sordid  surroundings  of  her  new  home,  her  childish 
nature  would  have  been  entirely  dwarfed  and  blighted  had  it  not  been  for  the  good 
offices  of  Alice  Humphreys,  a  sweet  and  lovable  girl,  who  with  wise  and  tender 
patience  develops  the  germs  of  Ellen's  really  excellent  character. 

At  length  both  Mrs.  Montgomery  and  Alice  Humphreys  die ;  and  after  some  years, 
Ellen  comes  to  take  up  a  daughter's  duties  in  the  home  of  her  kind  friend.  The 
scenes  and  episodes  are  those  of  a  homely  e very-day  existence,  which  is  described 
with  a  close  fidelity  to  detail.  Ellen's  spiritual  life  is  minutely  unfolded,  and  the 
book  was  long  regarded  as  one  of  those  which  are  "good  for  the  young."  The  criti- 
cism of  a  later  generation,  however,  pronounces  it  mawkish  in  sentiment  and  unreal 
in  conduct.  It  stands  among  the  fading  fancies  of  an  earlier  and  less  exacting  literary 
taste. 

WIFE  OF  SIR  ISAAC  HARMAN,  THE,  a  novel  by  H.  G.  Wells  (1914)  is  the  history 
of  the  development  of  a  woman's  individuality.    Beautiful  and  still  very  much  of  a 
child  in  spite  of  her  twenty-four  years,  Lady  Harman  finds  herself  the  mother  of  four 
children  with  whose  bringing  up  she  is  not  permitted  to  interfere,  and  the  mistress 
of  an  uncomfortably  ornate  mansion  which  she  is  not  allowed  to  manage.    Tier  hus- 
band, the  fabulously  rich  Sir  Isaac  Harman,  owner  of  the  International  Bread  and 
Cake  Stores,  controls  her  as  absolutely  as  he  does  his  other  possessions.   Through  her 
seamstress,  Lady  Harman  hears  that  her  husband's  Stores  have  sent  smaller  dealers 
into  bankruptcy;  she  also  learns  that  his  waitresses  get  too  little  to  permit  them  to 
live  decently.    On  a  house-hunting  expedition,  she  meets  an  entirely  different  sort  of 
man,  Mr.  Brumley,  the  owner  of  Black  Strand,  a  pretty  country  place;  he  is  a  man  of 
letters  and  a  bit  of  a  sentimentalist,  and  on  business  connected  with  the.  sale  of  the 
house  to  Sir  Isaac,  he  calls  on  Lady  Harman.    Through  him  she  meets  a  number  of 
pleasant  women,  but  Sir  Isaac  disapproves  of  her  new  friends  and  orders  her  not  to 
receive  or  visit  them.   For  the  first  time  in  her  life,  Lady  Harman  is  defiant ;  she  steals 
out  of  the  house  to  keep  a  dinner  appointment  with  Lady  Beach-Mandarin.    Mad- 
dened by  her  disobedience,  Sir  Isaac  whisks  his  household  from  Putney  to  Black 
Strand,  shuts  his  wife  up,  and  gives  it  out  that  she  is  ill.   Goaded  past  endurance:  L'idy 
Harman  runs  away*    She  falls  in  with  a  band  of  militant  suffragettes,  and  breaks  a 
window  in  the  Jago  Street  Postoffice.    After  Sir  Isaac's  tyranny  she  finds  prison  a 
relief.  When  she  leaves  the  Holloway  Gaol,  she  finds  Sir  Isaac  very  ill  and  penitent. 
He  bestows  on  her  four  great  hostels  in  which  the  waitresses  from  the  Stores  are  to  he 
housed  at  a  moderate  rate.    But  as  time  goes  on,  he  manages  to  circumvent  Lady 
Harman's  desire  to  make  the  hostels  real  homes,  by  turning  them  into  institutions 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  901 

with  unfriendly  matrons,  stiff  rules  and  fines  for  misdemeanors.  As  his  illness  grows, 
he  becomes  more  disagreeable  and  suspicious  and  has  Lady  Harman  and  the  innocent 
Mr.  Brumely  followed  by  a  detective.  Finally  Lady  Harman  is  advised  to  take  her 
husband  to  Santa  Margherita.  While  they  are  there  Sir  Isaac  opens  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Brumley  to  his  wife.  From  that  letter  he  learns  of  the  admiration  and  affection 
Mr.  Brumley  has  for  her  and  he  berates  Lady  Harman  in  hideous  terms,  threatening 
to  disinherit  her.  He  works  himself  into  such  a  frenzy  that  he  suffers  a  stroke  and 
dies.  According  to  the  terms  of  an  old  will,  Lady  Harman  is  to  have  the  Hostels,  as 
long  as  she  remains  unmarried.  Returning  to  England,  she  finds  Mr.  Brumley  most 
desirous  of  wedding  her,  but  she  refuses.  The  story  ends,  however,  leaving  the 
reader  with  the  conviction  that  Lady  Harman  will  lose  the  Hostels  after  all. 

WILD  ASS'S  SKIN,  THE,  sec  PEAU  DE  CHAGRIN. 

WILD  DUCK,  THE,  by  Hcnrik  Ibsen  (1884).  The  characters  in  this  drama  are  the 
Ekdal  family  and  their  connections.  Many  years  before  the  play  opens  the  father 
was  ruined  by  Wcrlc,  his  wealthy  partner,  who  reaped  the  profits  of  a  fraudulent 
business  contract  for  which  Ekdal  was  sent  to  prison  for  a  term  of  years.  Werle 
provided  the  money  to  furnish  a  photographer's  shop  for  Hjalmar,  EkdaTs  son,  and 
encouraged  him  to  marry  Gina,  a  servant  who  had  been  Werle's  mistress.  Hjalmar 
is  a  lazy  poseur.  He  pretends  he  is  working  on  an  invention  which  will  restore  the 
family  name  and  honor,  and  leaves  all  the  work  of  the  photograph  shop  to  his  amiable 
devoted  wife,  and  the  gentle  loving  child,  Hedwig,  whom  he  believes  to  be  his  own 
daughter.  The  father,  the  disgraced  old  man,  with  some  discarded  Christmas  trees 
has  made  an  imitation  forest  out  of  the  attic,  where  he  plays  at  hunting  a  few  rabbits 
and  pigeons.  Hedwig  has  a  lame  wild  duck  which  is  the  pride  of  the  preserve.  They 
arc  a  happy  family  circle  in  spite  of  their  misfortunes,  until  Grcgers,  the  son  of  Werle, 
with  a  bigoted  zeal  for  truth,  decides  it  his  duty  to  thrust  the  unpleasant  facts  of 
Gina's  past  upon  his  former  friend,  Hjalmar,  and  thus,  as  he  thinks,  lay  the  foundation 
of  a  true  marriage.  The  worthless  Hjalmar  declaims  in  theatrical  fashion  about  his 
shattered  honor,  though  he  is  presently  willing  to  accept  a  money  allowance  for  his 
father  and  Hedwig  from  the  elder  Werle.  Grcgers  talks  to  the  sensitive,  wounded 
Hedwig  of  the  nobility  of  sacrifice,  and  suggests  that  she  give  up  her  most  cherished 
possession,  the  wild  duck,  to  prove  her  love  for  Hjalmar.  She  goes  to  the  attic,  but 
instead  of  killing  the  bird  shoots  herself.  Contrasted  with  Gregers  is  the  family 
friend,  Dr.  Rolling,  who  wishes  to  make  the  world  happy  by  fostering  illusions,  and 
who  tries  to  prevent  the  tragedy.  The  lame  wild  duck  with  its  clipped  wings  may 
represent  any  or  all  of  the  Ekdal  family,  except  Gina,  whose  practical  common  sense 
is  contrasted  with  the  frothy  idealism  of  the  rest  of  the  household,  and  of  Gregers 
Werle. 

WILD  IRISH  GIRL,  THE,  by  Lady  Morgan  (1801).  Sydney  Owenson,  afterwards 
Lady  Morgan,  was  born  at  Dublin  in  1783.  She  was  still  a  young  woman  when  she 
had  earned  her  rank  as  the  first  patriotic  Irish  romancer  of  modern  times.  She  was 
"quoted  with  respect  by  Byron."  'The  Wild  Irish  Girl,'  one  of  her  earliest  tales, 
instantly  became  a  favorite.  In  England  it  went  through  seven  editions  in  less  than 
two  years,  and  in  1807  it  had  reached  its  fourth  American  edition. 

The  story  recounts  the  adventures  of  the  son  of  an  English  nobleman,  banished 
for  a  season  to  his  father's  estate  in  Ireland,  in  order  that  he  may  give  up  his  frivolous 
dissipations  and  begin  a  more  studious  life.  Here  he  meets  the  Prince  of  Inismore, 


902  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

one  of  the  old  Irish  nobility,  and  his  daughter  Lady  Glorvina,  the  wild  Irish  girl. 
Her  wildness  seems  mild  to  the  reader  of  to-day.  She  was  clad  "in  a  robe  of  vestal 
white  enfolded  beneath  the  bosom  with  a  jeweled  girdle.  From  the  shoulder  fell  a 
mantle  of  scarlet  silk,  while  the  fine-turned  head  was  enveloped  in  a  veil  of  point 
lace."  The  Englishman  has  a  fall,  and  spends  some  days  of  convalescence  as  the 
Prince's  guest,  concealing  his  identity  and  the  fact  that  he  is  the  "hereditary  object 
of  hereditary  detestation."  Glorvina,  who  plays  delightfully  upon  the  harp,  exerts 
an  irresistible  fascination.  He  has  nearly  declared  himself  her  lover  when  he  learns 
that  he  has  a  rival  in  a  mysterious  stranger.  Events  prove  that  the  stranger  is  none 
other  than  the  hero's  father,  to  whom  Glorvina  feels  herself  bound  in  gratitude  if 
not  in  love.  The  magnanimous  parent,  however,  gives  up  his  claim  in  favor  of  his 
repentant  and  grateful  son. 

The  story  is  in  the  form  of  letters,  and  suffers  from  the  consequent  limitation;  but 
the  sketches  of  Irish  life  are  curious  and  picturesque. 

WILHELM  MEISTER'S  APPRENTICESHIP.    The  first  part  of  '  Wilhelm  Meistcr ' 
was  finished  in  1796,  after  having  occupied  Goethe's  attention  for  twenty  years. 
The  central  idea  of  this  great  novel  is  the  development  of  the  individual  by  means  of 
the  most  varied  experiences  of  life.    There  is  no  plot  proper,  but  in  a  series  of  brilliant 
episodes  the  different  stages  of  the  hero's  spiritual  growth  are  brought  before  the 
reader.    Wilhelm  Meister  is  a  young  man  with  many  admirable  qualities  of  char- 
acter, but  passionate  and '  emotional,  somewhat  unstable,  lacking  reflection  and 
proper  knowledge  of  the  world.    The  son  of  a  well-to-do  business  man  in  a  small 
German  town  is  traveling  for  his  father's  house  when  he  falls  in  with  a  troupe  of 
strolling  comedians.    From  earliest  boyhood  he  has  been  devoted  to  the  theatre,  a 
passion  which  has  been  nourished  by  puppet-plays  and  much  reading  of  dramatic 
literature  and  romances.    Disgusted  with  the  routine  of  business,  and  eager  for  new 
experiences,  he  joins  the  players,  determined  to  become  an  actor  himself.     His 
apprenticeship  to  life  falls  into  two  periods.      The  first  comprises  the  lessons  he 
learned  while  among  the  players.    Brought  up  in  comfort  in  a  respectable,  somewhat 
philistine  household,  he  enjoys  at  first  the  free  and  easy  life  of  his  new  companions, 
though  as  a  class  they  had  at  that  period  hardly  any  standing  in  society.    He  1  worn  es 
passionately  attached  to  Marianne,  a  charming  young  actress,  who  returns  his  love, 
but  whom  he  leaves  after  a  while,  because  of  ungrounded  jealousy.     For  a  time  he 
thinks  he  has  found  his  true  vocation  in  the  pursuit  of  the  actor's  art.      But  ill- 
success  on  the  stage,  and  closer  acquaintance  with  this  bohemian  life  of  shams  and 
gilded  misery,  disillusions  him,  and  reveals  the  insubstantiality  of  his  youthful 
ambitions.    Leaving  the  actors,  he  becomes  acquainted  with  some  landed  pro- 
prietors belonging  to  the  lesser  nobility  of  the  country.    And  here  the  second  period 
of  his  apprenticeship  begins.     Meeting  people  of  culture  and  position  in  society,  he 
comes  into  closer  touch  with  real  life,  and  is  initiated  into  the  ways  of  the  world. 
His  development  is  further  hastened  by  finding  his  son  Felix,  whom  he  has  never 
acknowledged.    What  women  and  society  are  still  unable  to  teach  him,  he  now 
learns  from  his  own  child.    The  awakening  sense  of  his  parental  responsil  >ilities  is  the 
final  touchstone  of  his  fully  developed  manhood.    Having  thus  completed  his  ap- 
prenticeship to  life  in  a  series  of  bitter  experiences,  he  now  marries  a  lady  of  rank, 
and  turns  landed  proprietor.    The  scheme  of  the  novel  gave  Goethe  opportunity 
to  bring  in  the  most  varied  phases  of  society,  especially  the  nobility  of  his  times  and 
the  actors.     He  also  discusses  different  aesthetic  principles,  especially  the  laws  of 
draznatic  art  as  exemplified  in  'Hamlet/    He  also  touches  on  questions  of  education 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  903 

and  religious  controversy,  and  satirizes  somewhat  the  secret  societies,  just  then  be- 
ginning to  spring  up  in  Germany.  '  Wilhelm  Meister, '  in  short,  gives  a  richly  colored 
picture  of  the  life  of  Goethe's  time. 

WILHELM  TELL,  a  historical  drama  by  Friedrich  Schiller,  first  acted  in  1804.  The 
theme  is  the  struggle  of  the  three  so-called  forest-cantons  (Waldstatte)  of  Switzerland 
—  Uri,  Schwyz,  and  Unterwalden  —  to  win  complete  autonomy  under  the  German 
emperor.  Their  confederacy  for  this  purpose  in  1291  was  the  nucleus  of  the  modern 
Swiss  republic;  and  their  independence  was  assured  by  their  victory  at  Morgarten 
over  the  Duke  of  Austria  who  had  invaded  their  country  in  1315.  About  these 
events  a  series  of  legends  gradually  accumulated  which  were  first  recorded  in  the 
fifteenth  century  and  were  incorporated  into  sober  history  by  the  sixteenth-century 
Swiss  chronicler,  -^gidius  Tschudi,  in  his  '  Chronicon  Helveticum, '  and  by  the  eigh- 
tccnth-ccntury  Swiss  historian,  Johannes  von  Muller  (1752-1807).  These  two  au- 
thorities were  the  main  sources  of  Schiller's  play..  According  to  them  the  Habsburg 
Emperor,  Albrccht,  placed  cruel  governors  over  the  forest  cantons  with  the  aim  of 
reducing  them  to  absolute  subjection.  These  governors  inflicted  various  cruelties 
upon  the  people,  as  a  result"  of  which  they  rose  in  rebellion,  drove  out  the  governors, 
and  destroyed  their  castles,  in  the  year  1308.  The  assassination  of  the  Emperor, 
in  the  same  year,  freed  the  Swiss  from  the  danger  of  reprisal.  A  leading  figure  in  the 
uprising  was  William  Tell,  a  hunter  living  at  Altdorf  in  the  canton  of  Uri.  Forced 
by  Gcsslcr,  the  crudest  of  the  governors,  to  shoot  an  apple  from  his  son's  head  and 
afterwards  imprisoned  for  admitting  his  intention  to  shoot  Gessler  in  case  of  failure, 
he  escaped,  shot  the  governor  from  an  ambush,  and  thus  gave  the  signal  for  general 
revolt.  The  absence  of  any  contemporary  reference  to  the  cruelties  of  the  governors, 
and  the  occurrence  of  the  apple-shooting  episode  in  ballads  and  folk-tales  all  over  the 
world,  throw  discredit  upon  the  hivStoricity  of  these  events;  but  from  the  sixteenth 
century  onwards  they  were  firmly  believed  in  by  the  Swiss  people.  Accepting  these 
data  as  true  for  purposes  of  poetic  creation,  Schiller  built  up  a  great  drama  on  the 
broad,  free  lines  of  a  Shakespearian  chronicle-history,  unified  by  the  conception 
of  the  bravery  and  solidarity  of  the  whole  community.  In  this  picture  of  a  whole 
society  striving  towards  one  aim,  no  touch  of  individual  or  class  characterization  and 
no  local  color  is  forgotten.  We  arc  shown  the  governors,  brutal  and  ruthless;  thq 
native  nobility,  inclining  towards  the  Emperor,  but  won  at  last  to  full  co-operation 
with  the  people,  the  burghers,  conscious  of  their  unbroken  past  of  freedom  under  the 
empire  and  determined  to  maintain  their  privileges;  the  humbler  peasants,  hunters, 
hordsnien,  and  fishermen,  bound  by  the  same  sacred  tics;  and  lastly  the  sturdy,  reso- 
lute Tell,  embodiment  of  the  individual  frankness,  integrity,  and  efficiency  without 
which  the  coalition  would  fall  to  pieces.  The  action  is  loosely  knit,  a  series  of  scenes 
rather  than  a  tissue  of  closely  related  events. 

WINDOW  IN  THRUMS,  A,  by  Sir  James  M.  Barrie  (1889),  is  a  continuation  of  the 
4  Aulcl  Lidit '  scries.  Its  scenes  arc  confined  mainly  to  the  interior  of  the  little  Scotch 
cot  in  "  Thrums  "  where  lived  Hendry  and  Jess  McQumpha,  and  their  daughter  Leeby, 
In  Mr.  Barrio's  later  work,  '  Margaret  Ogilvy, '  an  affectionate  and  artistic  picture  oi 
his  mother,  we  discern  that  in  Jess  and  Lccby  his  mother  and  sister  sat  for  the  por- 
traits. Jess  is  a  quaint  figure.  A  chronic  invalid,  yet  throbbing  with  interest  ir 
everybody  and  everything,  she  sits  at  the  window  of  her  cottage,  and  keeps  up  witt 
Leeby  a  running  fire  of  terse  and  often  cutting  comment  upon  village  happenings 
and  thus  holds  herself  in  touch  with  the  life  and  gossip  which  she  knows  only  through 


904  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  window.  Barrie's  sympathetic  ability  to  see  how  inseparable  arc  humor  and 
pathos  makes  his  characters  living  and  human.  Tammas  Haggart,  the  humorist, 
at  much  pains  to  understand  and  dispense  the  philosophy  of  his  own  humor;  the  little 
christening  robe  which  does  the  honors  for  the  whole  village,  and  which  is  so  tenderly 
revered  by  Jess  because  it  was  made  for  her  own  babe,  "twenty  years  dead,"  but 
still  living  for  her;  the  family  pride  in  Jamie,  the  son  who  has  gone  to  London,  in 
whom  we  may  see  "Gavin  Ogilvy"  (Barrie's  own  pseudonym);  and  finally,  Jamie's 
homecoming  to  find  Hendry,  Jess,  and  Leeby  gone  to  the  long  home,  are  absolutely 
real.  And  if  the  reader  laughs  at  the  whimsicalities  of  the  village  folk,  it  is  because 
he  loves  them. 

WINGS  OF  A  DOVE,  THE,  by  Henry  James  (1902).  The  heroine  of  this  novel, 
Kate  Croy,  has  before  her,  as  object  lesson,  an  impossible  father  and  a  complaining 
widowed  sister  who  warn  her  from  their  experience  that  poverty  is  the  worst  possible 
evil.  Her  wealthy  aunt,  Mrs.  Lowder,  has  taken  up  her  handsome  niece  with  the 
understanding  that  Kate  shall  reward  her  by  making  a  marriage  worthy  of  her  aunt's 
social  ambition  for  her.  The  man  selected  is  Lord  Mark.  Kate  is  secretly  engaged 
to  an  impecunious  young  journalist,  Merton  Densher,  and  she  hopes  time  will,  in  some 
.way,  make  it  possible  for  her  to  marry  the  man  she  loves.  An  American  heiress, 
Milly  Theale,  comes  to  London  with  a  chaperon  who  is  an  old  school  friend  of  Mrs. 
Lowder's,  and  the  two  girls  become  friends.  Milly  has  met  Densher  in  New  York 
and  fallen  in  love  with  him.  As  Milly  is  found  to  be  stricken  with  a  mysterious 
"  mortal  malady,  Kate  conceives  the  plan  that  Densher  shall  make  Milly  happy  by  his 
attentions  for  the  short  period  of  life  left  to  her,  even  to  the  point  of  marrying  her, 
in  order  to  inherit  her  wealth  for  himself  and  Kate.  Densher  has  left  their  affairs  to 
Kate,  recognizing  her  "talent  for  life, "  and  he  is  thus  committed  to  the  part  of  init- 
mate  devoted  friend  to  Milly  before  he  fully  realizes  Kate's  plan.  The  great  London 
doctor  recognizes  that  Densher  is  the  man  to  make  Milly  happy  and  prolong  her  life, 
and  the  deception  seems  to  become  the  path  of  kindness  and  duty.  Densher  follows 
her  to  Venice  and  with  growing  distaste  plays  his  rdle.  The  fact  of  Kate  and  Den- 
sher's  engagement  is  maliciously  betrayed  to  Milly  by  Lord  Mark,  who  discovers 
their  relations,  and  she  pathetically  gives  up  her  struggle  for  life.  She  dies  and 
leaves  her  millions  to  Densher.  He  asks  Kate  to  choose  between  the  money  which  he 
will  turn  over  to  her,  or  marriage  with  him  without  the  money,  which  he  refuses  to 
accept.  She  demands  from  him  an  assurance  that  he  is  not  in  love  with  Milly's 
memory,  and  he  declines  to  give  it,  offering  again  to  marry  her  at  once.  ''As  we  were?" 
asks  Kate.  "As  we  were,"  he  reiterates.  "But  she  turned  to  the  door,  and  her 
headshake  was  now  the  end.  We  shall  never  be  again  as  we  were! " 

WHTNING  OF  BARBARA  WORTH,  THE,  by  Harold  Bell  Wright  (1911).  The 
scene  of  this  story  is  laid  in  Rubio  City,  a  town  of  comparatively  recent  birth,  on 
the  banks  of  the  Colorado  River.  The  opening  chapters  describe  the  perilous  journey 
across  the  desert  of  a  party  of  travelers  who  encounter  a  terrible  sand-storm  and 
narrowly  escape  death.  The  principal  member  of  the  party  is  Jefferson  Worth, 
bank  president  and  leading  citizen  of  Rubio  City,  and  he  is  accompanied  by  a  clever 
young  engineer  called  the  "Seer,"  who  figures  quite  prominently  throughout  the 
story.  After  the  furious  sand-storm  has  abated,  traces  are  seen  of  lost  travelers  and 
soon  the  dead  body  of  a  woman  is  discovered  and  nearby  is  found  a  lovely  little  #irl 
of  less  than  four  years.  No  clues  to  the  child's  identity  are  to  be  found  and  she  is 
cared  for  by  the  rescuing  party  and  is  later  adopted  by  Worth  who  has  no  children  of 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  905 

his  own.  Barbara  Worth  becomes  a  beautiful  and  accomplished  woman  with  a 
strong  and  generous  nature  and  is  beloved  by  rich  and  poor  alike.  Her  influence 
over  her  stern  and  cold  father,  who  idolizes  her,  is  most  remarkable  and  at  her  bidding 
he  becomes  considerate  and  kind.  The  arrival  upon  the  scene  of  Willard  Holmes, 
a  young  engineer  from  New  York,  produces  a  distinct  impression  upon  Barbara,  who 
up  to  this  time  had  been  fancy  free.  Holmes  is  college  bred,  of  good  lineage  and 
character.  He  has  come  to  Rubio  City  to  represent  a  New  York  company's  interest 
in  the  irrigation  of  a  part  of  the  desert  called  "King's  Basin, "  which  is  the  very  place 
where  Barbara  was  found  and  in  which  she  feels  a  vital  interest.  In  course  of  time 
Holmes  and  Barbara  fall  in  love  with  each  other,  but  the  match  is  strongly  opposed 
by  the  former's  guardian,  James  Greenfield,  a  rich  and  aristocratic  bachelor,  who  loves 
Willard  as  his  own  son  and  objects  to  his  marriage  with  a  girl  of  unknown  origin. 
However,  during  the  work  upon  "King's  Basin,"  a  casket  is  found  containing  the 
proofs  of  Barbara's  identity  and  she  is  found  to  be  the  child  of  Greenfield's  own 
brother,  who  was  lost  on  the  desert  many  years  before  while  traveling  with  his 
young  wife  and  child.  Before  these  proofs  are  found,  however,  Holmes  has  declared 
himself  true  to  Barbara  though  his  marriage  to  her  means  the  loss  of  his  inheritance. 

WINNING  OF  THE  WEST,  THE,  by  Theodore  "Roosevelt  (1889-96).  Four  volumes 
each  complete  in  itself,  and  together  constituting  a  study  of  early  American  develop- 
ments; to  be  placed  by  the  side  of  Parkman's  'France  and  England  in  North  America.' 
It  treats  what  may  be  called  the  sequel  to  the  Revolution;  a  period  of  American  ad- 
vance, the  interest  and  significance  of  which  arc  very  little  understood.  Washington 
himself  prophesied,  and  almost  planned,  the  future  of  the  great  region  beyond  the 
Ohio.  When,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  there  was  no  money  to  pay  the  army  on  its 
disbandmcnt,  he  advised  his  soldiers  to  have  an  eye  to  the  lands  beyond  the  Ohio, 
which  would  belong  not  to  any  one  State  but  to  the  Union;  and  to  look  to  grants  of 
land  for  their  pay.  Out  of  this  came  the  New  England  scheme  for  settlement  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Ohio.  The  promoters  of  this  scheme  secured  the  passage  of  the 
Ordinance  of  1787,  which  made  the  Ohio  the  dividing  line  between  lands  in  which 
slaves  might  bo  held  to  labor,  and  those  in  which  there  should  be  no  slavery,  and 
which  broadly  planned  for  the  education  of  all  children  on  a  basis  of  equality  and 
free  schools.  To  an  extent  without  parallel  these  actions  of  a  moment  fixed  future 
destiny.  How  the  course  of  events  from  1769  brought  about  those  actions,  and  the 
progress  forward  for  twenty  years  from  that  moment,  is  the  subject  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
carefully  planned  and  admirably  executed  volumes.  The  mass  of  originaLmaterial  to 
which  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  had  access,  casts  a  flood  of  new  light  upon  the  field  over 
which  he  has  gone,  with  the  result  that  much  of  the  early  history  has  had  to  be  entirely 
rewritten.  It  is  in  many  ways  a  fascinating  narrative,  and  in  every  way  a  most 
instructive  history. 

WINTER'S  TALE,  A  (printed  in  1623),  one  of  the  last  dramatic  pieces  from  Shake- 
speare's pen,  has  the  serene  and  cheerful  wisdom  of  'Cymbeline'  and  'The  Tempest.' 
I L  is  based  on  Greene's  '  Pandosto '  (1588).  In  this  story,  as  in  Shakespeare,  Bohemia 
is  made  a  maritime  country  and  Dclphos  an  island.  The  name  'Winter's  Tale' 
derives  partly  from  the  fact  that  the  play  opens  in  winter,  and  partly  from  the 
resemblance  of  the  story  to  a  marvelous  talc  told  by  a  winter's  fire.  Like  '  Othello, ' 
it  depicts  the  tragic:  results  of  jealousy, — in  this  case  long  years  of  suffering  for  both 
husband  and  wife,  and  the  purification  of  the  soul  of  the  former  through  remorse,  and 
his  final  reconciliation  with  his  wronged  queen.  Leontes,  king  of  Sicily, 


906  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

Othello,  has  a  natural  bent  toward  jealousy;  he  suspects  without  good  cause,  and  is 
grossly  tyrannical  in  his  persecutions  of  the  innocent.  Hermionc,  in  her  sweet 
patience  and  sorrow,  is  the  most  divinely  compassionate  matron  Shakespeare  1ms 
delineated.  Polixenes,  king  of  Bohemia,  has  been  nine  months  a  guest  of  his  boy- 
hood's friend  Leontes,  and  is  warmly  urged  by  both  king  and  queen  to  stay  longer. 
Hennione's  warm  hospitality  and  her  lingering  hand  pressures  are  construed  by  the 
king  as  proof  of  criminality:  he  sees  himself  laughed  at  for  a  cuckold;  a  deep  fire  of 
rage  burns  in  his  heart;  he  wants  Camillo  to  poison  Polixenes;  but  this  good  man 
flies  with  him  to  Bohemia.  Leontes  puts  his  wife  in  prison,  where  she  is  delivered  of  a 
daughter.  He  compels  Antigonus  to  swear  to  expose  it  in  a  desert  place,  and  then 
proceeds  with  the  formal  trial  of  his  wife.  His  messengers  to  Delphi  report  her  guilt- 
less. She  swoons  away,  and  Paulina  gives  out  that  she  is  dead.  But  she  is  secretly 
conveyed  away,  after  the  funeral,  and  revived.  Her  little  son  dies  from  grief.  Six- 
teen years  now  elapse,  and  we  are  across  seas  in  Bohemia,  near  the  palace  of  Polixenes 
and  near  where  Hennione's  infant  daughter  was  exposed,  but  rescued  (with  a  bundle 
containing  rich  bearing  cloth,  gold,  jewels,  etc.)  by  an  old  shepherd.  Antigonus  and 
tiis  ship's  crew  were  all  lost,  so  no  trace  of  the  infant  could  be  found.  But  here  she  is, 
the  sweetest  girl  in  Bohemia  and  named  Perdita  ("the  lost  one  ").  A  sheep-shearing 
feast  at  the  old  shepherd's  cottage  is  in  progress.  His  son  has  gone  for  sugar  and  spices 
and  rice,  and  had  his  pocket  picked  by  that  rogue  of  rogues,  that  snappcr-up  of 
unconsidered  trifles,  Autolycus.  The  dainty  Perdita  moves  about  under  the  green 
trees  as  the  hostess  of  the  occasion,  giving  to  each  guest  a  bunch  of  sweet  flowers  and 
a  welcome.  Polixenes  and  Camillo  are  here  in  disguise,  to  look  after  Polixenes  *s 
son  Florizel.  After  dancing,  and  some  songs  from  peddler  Autolycus,  Florizd  and 
Perdita  are  about  to  be  betrothed  when  Polixenes  discovers  himself  and  threatens 
direst  punishment  to  the  rustics.  The  lovers  fly  -to  Sicily,  with  a  feigned  story  for  the 
ear  of  Leontes;  and  the  old  shepherd  and  his  son  get  aboard  FlorizcTs  ship  to  show 
the  bundle  and  "fairy  gold"  found  with  Perdita,  expecting  thus  to  save  their  lives  by 
proving  that  they  are  not  responsible  for  her  doings.  Polixenes  and  Camillo  follow 
the  fugitives,  and  at  Leontes's  court  is  great  rejoicing  at  the  discovery  of  the  king's 
daughter;  which  joy  is  increased  tenfold  by  Paulina,  who  restores  Hermionc  to  her 
repentant  husband's  arms.  Her  device  for  gradually  and  gently  possessing  him  of 
the  idea  of  Hennione's  being  alive,  is  curious  and  shrewd.  She  gives  out  that  she  has 
in  her  gallery  a  marvelous  statue  of  Hermione  by  Julio  Romano,  so  recently  finished 
that  the  red  paint  on  the  lips  is  yet  wet.  When  the  curtain  is  drawn  by  Paulina,  hus- 
band and  daughter  gaze  greedily  on  the  statue,  and  to  their  amazement  it  is  made  to 
step  down  from  its  pedestal  and  speak.  They  perceive  it  to  be  warm  with  life,  and 
to  be  indeed  Hermione  herself,  —  let  us  hope,  to  have  less  strain  on  her  charity 
thereafter. 

WITCHING  HOUR,  THE,  by  Augustus  M.  Thomas  (1907).  Jack  Brookficld,  a  pro- 
fessional gambler,  in  whose  rooms  the  play  opens,  is  believed  by  his  friends  to  1  >e  pos- 
sessed of  an  extraordinary  personal  magnetism.  It  is  said  that  this  gift  is  shared  by 
his  sister,  Mrs.  Campbell  and  her  daughter  Viola.  The  interior  decorations  of  Brook - 
field's  magnificent  house  have  been  planned  by  Clay  Whipplc,  who  is  in  love  with 
Viola.  On  seeing  that  a  rival  of  his  is  talking  earnestly  to  her  at  the  opera,  ho  proposes 
to  her  and  is  accepted.  He  kills  a  man  accidentally  at  the  house  of  Jack  Brook-Held, 
and  is  charged  with  murder  by  Frank  Hardmuth,  the  assistant  District  Attorney,' 
who  had  been  talking  to  Viola  at  the  opera,  and  who  now  asks  Jaek  Brookfiold  for 
support  in  his  love  suit.  Brookficld  declines  to  attempt  to  influence  his  niece.  In  a 


THE   READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  9<>7 

first  trial  Clay  is  convicted,  but  he  is  able  to  secure  a  second.  While  the  jury  are 
deliberating,  Brookfield  attempts  to  concentrate  the  psychic  force  of  the  community 
upon  them  with  the  object  of  securing  an  acquittal.  Before  the  trial,  which  resulted 
in  an  acquittal,  had  come  to  an  end,  Brookfield  had  caused  to  be  published  a  charge 
against  Hardmuth  of  having  planned  and  procured  the  assassination  of  the  governor 
of  Kentucky,  whose  place  he  is  now  anxious  to  secure.  Hardmuth  rushes  to  meet 
Brookfield  and  points  a  Derringer  at  him  but  by  hypnotic  influence  is  forced  to  drop 
it.  In  the  end  Brookfield,  as  he  feels  that  he  himself  has  often  been  acting  against 
the  law,  and  that  his  success  at  cards  has  been  merely  due  to  his  hypnotic  powers, 
decides  to  help  Hardmuth,  of  whom  the  police  are  in  search,  across  the  line. 

WITH  FIRE  AND  SWORD  (1890),  THE  DELUGE  (1891),  AND  PAN  MICHAEL 

(1893),  a  trilogy  of  magnificent  historical  novels,  by  Henryk  Sienkiewicz,  treats  of 
that  period  of  Polish  history  which  extends  from  1648  to  the  election  of  Sobieski  to 
the  throne  of  Poland  as  Yan  III.  It  thus  embraces  the  most  stirring  and  picturesque 
era  of  the  national  life.  The  first  of  the  trilogy  deals  with  the  deadly  conflict  between 
the  two  Slav  States,  Russia  and  Poland.  It  is  an  epic  of  war,  of  battle,  murder,  and 
sudden  death,  of  tyranny  and  patriotism,  of  glory  and  shame.  In  'The  Deluge,' 
two  great  events  of  Polish  history  form  the  dramatic  groundwork  of  the  novel: 
these  arc  Lhc  settlement  of  the  Teutonic  Knights  in  Prussia,  and  the  union  of  Poland 
with  Lithuania  and  Russia  through  the  marriage  of  the  Polish  Princess  Yadviga  with 
Yagyelto,  Grand  Prince  of  Lithuania.  The  war  between  Poland  and  Sweden  in  1665, 
brought  on  by  the  action  of  the  Teutonic  Knights,  is  described  in  this  novel.  Like 
its  predecessor,  it  treats  of  battles,  of  sieges,  of  warriors,  of  the  suffering  and  glory  of 
war.  A  knowledge  of  Polish  history  is  almost  essential  to  the  understanding  of  its 
intricate  and  long-drawn-out  plot.  In  Pan  Michael  the  story  of  Poland's  struggle  is 
continued  and  ended,  its  general  lines  being  the  same  as  those  of  the  first  two  novels. 

In  the  historical  fiction  of  this  century  nothing  approaches  the  trilogy  of  Sien- 
kiewiez  for  magnificent  breadth  of  canvas,  for  Titanic  action,  for  an  epical  quality 
well-nigh  Homeric.  The  author's  characters  arc  men  of  blood  and  iron,  heroes  of  a 
great  dead  ago,  warriors  that  might  have  risen  from  huge  stone  tombs  in  old  cathedrals 
to  greet  the  sun  again  with  eagle  eyes.  These  novels  as  history  can  be  best  appreci- 
ated by  vSienkicwicz's  own  countrymen,  since  they  appeal  to  glorious  memories,  since 
they  treat  of  the  ancestors  of  the  men  to  whom  they  are  primarily  addressed. 

But  the  novels  belong  to  the  world;  they  are  pre-eminent  in  the  creation  of  char- 
acters, of  humorous  fighters,  of  women  to  be  loved  like  the  heroines  of  Shakespeare, 
and  of  such  men  as  Zagloba,  a  creation  to  rank  with  Falstaff. 

WITH  THE  PROCESSION,  by  Henry  B.  Fuller  (1895),  *s  a  story  of  modern  Chicago 
life,  conceived  in  a  gayer  spirit  than  the  author's  painful  study  of  'The  Cliff-Dwellers/ 
This  tale  occupies  itself  with  the  social  rather  than  the  business  side  of  society,  and 
takes  upon  itself  the  function  of  the  old  French  comedy,  —  to  criticise  laughingly 
men  and  morals.  The  Marshalls  belong  to  a  family  as  old,  for  Chicago,  as  the  Knicker- 
bockers for  New  York  or  the  Howards  for  England.  They  have  had  money  for 
thirty  years,  and  can  count  themselves  as  belonging  to  the  ancien  noblesse  of  the 
city,  the  race  whose  founders  can  remember  the  early  settlers.  But  the  father  and 
mother  have  not  taken  advantage  of  their  opportunities.  They  are  old-fashioned 
people,  who  despise  modern  society  because  they  do  not  understand  it,  and  who  keep 
on  living  in  the  primitive  ways  of  forty  years  ago.  The  eldest  son  goes  into  business; 
the  eldest  daughter  marries,  on  the  social  level  of  green  rep  furniture  and  Brussels  car- 


908  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

pets  of  floral  design.  The  second  daughter,  Jane,  full  of  energy,  and  ambition, 
wreaks  herself  on  charities  or  clubs.  But  the  younger  son,  Truesdell,  is  educated 
abroad;  and  the  youngest  daughter,  Rosy,  goes  to  school  in  New  York.  ^  Truesdell 
returns  home  in  a  few  years  an  alien;  with  a  dilettante  knowledge  of  music,  art,  and 
literature,  and  a  set  of  ideas  and  ideals  wholly  Continental,  and  wholly  foreign  to 
anything  his  family  has  ever  heard  of.  At  the  same  time,  Miss  Rosamund  Marshall 
emerges  from  school,  a  willful,  shrewd,  self-sufficient  beauty,  who  is  irrevocably 
determined  to  win  a  proud  position  in  Chicago's  best  society.  A  new  day  dawns 
for  the  Marshall  family:  they  can  rusticate  no  longer  amid  the  city's  clangor;  they 
must  take  their  place ' '  with  the  procession."  Mrs.  Granger  Bates,  the  envied  society 
leader,  becomes  their  pilot,  and  they  are  fairly  launched  on  the  great  social  sea.  The 
author's  irony  is  pervasive  but  never  bitter,  though  sometimes  it  gives  us  a  sharp 
surprise.  There  is  so  much  of  tragedy  as  inheres  in  the  deliberate  choice  of  low  aims 
and  material  successes  over  noble  efforts  and  ends.  Rosy  makes  the  match  she 
hopes  for,  sacrificing  her  family  to  it.  Poor  Mr.  Marshall,  who  cannot  keep  up  with 
the  pace  of  the  crowd,  falls  under  their  heedless  and  merciless  feet.  The  character- 
drawing  is  admirable:  Mrs.  Granger  Bates,  the  multi-millionaire  who  lives  in  a  palace, 
keeps  up  all  her  accomplishments,  and  neither  forgets  nor  conceals  the  happy  days  of 
her  youth  when  she  washed  "Granger's"  shirts  and  cooked  his  frugal  dinners;  Jane 
Marshall,  the  embodied  common-sense  and  good  feeling  of  feminine  America;  the 
pushing  little  widow,  her  aunt,  determined  to  obtain  social  recognition;  the  cad, 
Truesdell;  the  pathetic,  ineffectual  "Pa";  the  glaringly  vulgar  Mrs.  Belrlen,  —  all 
these  and  a  dozen  more  are  as  typical  and  indisputable  as  they  are  national,  and  im- 
possible in  any  other  land.  The  story  is  extremely  entertaining,  and  carries  con- 
viction as  an  authentic  picture  of  a  certain  phase  of  our  chaotic  life. 

WITHOUT  DOGMA,  a  novel  of  modern  Polish  high  life,  by  Hcnryk  Sicnkiewiez 
(1891),  was  published  in  an  English 'translation  in  1893.  Unlike  his  historical  novels, 
this  book  has  few  characters.    It  is  the  history  of  a  spiritual  struggle,  of  "  the  battle  of 
a  man  for  his  own  soul."    Leon  Ploskowski,  the  hero,  young,  wealthy,  and  well-born, 
is  of  so  overwrought  a  temperament  that  he  is  depressed  by  the  very  act  of  living: 
"Here  is  a  nature  so  sensitive  that  it  photographs  every  impression,  an  artistic* 
•    temperament,  a  highly  endowed  organism ;  yet  it  produces  nothing.    The  secret  of 
this  unproductiveness  lies  perhaps  in  a  certain  tendency  to  philosophize  away  every 
strong  emotion  that  should  lead  to  action/'    Leon  tells  his  story  himself,  in  the  form 
of  a  journal.    His  relatives  wish  him  to  marry  a  beautiful  young  cousin,  Anida,  who 
loves  him  with  a  whole-souled  affection.    Being  sure  of  her  love,  he  is  disposed  to 
delay  his  marriage,  that  he  may  have  time  to  analyze  his  emotions  in  regard  to  her, 
While  absent  in  Rome,  he  drifts  into  an  unworthy  passion  for  a  married  woman,  a 
Mrs.  Davis;  yet,  so  peculiar  is  his  temperament,  the  thought  of  Anida  is  rardy 
absent  from  him.   In  the  sultry  air  of  passion,  he  longs  for  the  freshness  and  fragrance 
of  her  purity.    But  even  the  knowledge  that  she  is  soon  to  be  out  of  his  reach  does 
not  steady  his  nobler  purposes.    The  fortunes  of  her  family  being  now  at  a  low  ebb, 
Aniela  is  forced  into  marriage  with  a  rich  Austrian,  Kromitzki,  a  commonplace  man 
incapable  of  appreciating  her  fine  nature.    So  soon  as  she  is  thus  out  of  reach,  Leon, 
whose  moral  nature  goes  by  contraries,  becomes  passionately  in  love  with  her,  and 
tries  with  subtle  art  to  make  her  untrue  to  her  husband ;  but  dear  as  Leon  is  to  her 
Aniela  remains  faithful  to  her  marriage  vows.    Unlike  Leon,  she  is  not  "without 
dogma. "    She  clings  to  her  simple  belief  in  what  is  right  throughout  the  long  struggle. 
Her  delicate  organism  cannot  stand  the  strain  of  her  spiritual  sufferings.    The  death 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  909 

of  her  husband  is  soon  followed  by  her  own  death.  In  her  last  hours  she  tells  Leon, 
as  a  little  child  might  tell  him,  that  she  loves  him  "very,  very  much."  The  last 
entry  in  his  journal  implies  that  he  will  follow  her,  that  they  may  be  one  in  oblivion, 
or  in  another  life  to  come.  The  journal  of  Leon  Ploskowski  reveals  the  wonderful 
insight  of  Sienkiewicz  into  a  certain  type  of  modern  character.  The  psychological 
value  of  the  book  is  pre-eminent,  presenting  as  it  does  a  personality  essentially  the 
product  of  nineteenth-century  conditions,  —  a  personality  upon  which  hyper-culti- 
vation has  acted  as  a  subtle  poison. 

WIVES  AND  DAUGHTERS,  by  Mrs.  Gaskell  (1865).  This  is  a  delightful  story  of 
country  life  in  England.  It  follows  Molly  Gibson  through  all  the  various  experiences 
of  her  girlhood,  beginning  with  her  life  as  a  child  alone  with  her  father,  the  doctor, 
in  the  village;  describing  her  visits  and  friendships  in  the  neighborhood,  and  finally 
after  her  father  has  married  again,  her  new  life  with  the  second  Mrs.  Gibson  and  her 
daughter  Cynthia.  The  characters  are  unusually  interesting  and  well  drawn,  with 
humor  and  sympathetic  understanding.  There  is  the  old  Squire  of  the  town,  with 
his  two  sons:  Osborne,  the  pride  of  his  heart,  who  has  married  secretly  beneath  his 
social  standing  in  life;  and  Roger,  a  fine,  sturdy  fellow,  who  bears  the  burdens  of  the 
family,  and  upon  whom  every  one  relies.  There  is  the  great  family  at  the  Towers, 
the  members  of  which  patronize  the  villagers,  and  furnish  them  with  food  for  specula- 
tion and  gossip;  and  then,  besides  the  doctor  and  his  family,  there  is  Miss  Browning, 
Miss  Phcwbc,  and  the  other  funny  old  ladies  of  the  town.  Mrs.  Gibson's  character 
is  wonderfully  depicted.  She  is  one  of  those  delicate,  yielding  women,  with  an  iron 
will  carefully  concealed;  and  she  is  diplomatic  enough  to  feign  a  sweetness  of  dis 
position  she  does  not;  possess.1  She  has  little  heart  or  sense  of  duty;  and  her  child 
Cynthia,  though  fascinating  and  brilliant,  is  the  sort  of  girl  one  would  expect  from 
careless  bringing  tip  and  continued  neglect.  Molly's  untiring  patience  towards  Mrs. 
Gibson,  and  her  generous  devotion  to  Cynthia,  even  at  the  expense  of  her  own 
happiness,  endear  her  to  every  one;  and  though  Mrs.  Gaskell  died  before  the  comple- 
tion of  the  story,  we  are  told  that  she  intended  Roger  to  marry  Molly.  As  Molly 
has  long  loved  him,  we  may  suppose  that  her  troubles  at  length  end  happily. 

WOMAN  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY,  by  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli  (1844). 
A  book  of  t'.peeial  interest  from  the  remarkable  character  and  intellectual  ability  of  its 
author,  and  from  Hie  representative  position  which  it  holds  as  an  early  prophecy  of 
the  now  broadly  developed  recognition  of  women  as  aspirants  for  culture,  and  as  ap- 
plicants equally  with  men  for  positions  and  privileges  in  the  various  fields  of  human 
activity.  After  actively  participating  in  the  celebrated  Brook  Farm  experiment 
of  idealist  iiociaUsm,  whore  she  thoroughly  wrought  out  for  herself  new-departure 
convictions  in  religion,  and  having  served  a  literary  apprenticeship  of  note  as  a 
translator  from  the  German,  and  as  editor  for  two  years  of  The  Dial,  a  quarterly 
organ  of  Now  England  Transcendentalism,  she  brought  out  in  1844  her  *  Summer  on 
the  lUkes,  *  and  the  next  year  the  'Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century, '  —  a  consider- 
ably enlarged  reproduction  of  an  essay  by  her  in  The  Dial  of  October,  1843,  where 
sho  had  used  the  title,  'The  Great  Lawsuit;  or,  Man  as  Men,  Woman  as  Women.1 
By  adding  a  good  deal  to  the  article  during  a  seven  weeks'  stay  at  Fishkill  on  the 
Hudson  (to  November  17, 1844),  she  made  what  was  in  effect  a  large  pamphlet  rather 
than  a  book  adequately  dealing  with  her  subject,  or  at  all  representing  her  remarkable 
lK>wers  as  thoy  were  shown  in  her ' Papers  on  Literature  and  Art.'  To  do  her  justice, 


9io  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

the  book,  which,  was  her  prophecy  of  a  movement  which  the  century  is  fulfilling, 
should  be  taken  as  a  text,  and  her  later  thoughts  brought  together  under  it,  to  have 
as  nearly  as  possible  a  full  indication  of  what,  under  more  favorable  circumstances, 
her  genius  would  have  given  to  the  world. 

WOMAN  IN  WHITE,  THE,  an  early  and  notable  novel  by  Wilkie  Collins,  was  pub- 
lished in  1873.  Like  his  other  works  of  fiction,  it  is  remarkable  for  the  admirable 
manner  in  which  its  intricate  plot  is  worked  out.  The  narrative  is  told  by  the  different 
characters  of  the  story  in  succession.  The  first  narrator  is  Walter  Hartright,  a  draw- 
ing-master, who  has  been  employed  by  Air.  Frederick  Fairlie  of  Limmeridge  House,  in 
Cumberland,  England,  to  teach  drawing  to  his  niece,  Laura  Fairlie  and  her  half -sister 
Marian  Halcombe.  Laura  bears  a  strange  resemblance  to  a  woman  who  had  accosted 
him  on  a  lonely  road  near  London,  — a  woman  clothed  entirely  in  white;  who,  he 
afterwards  discovers,  is  an  Anne  Catherick,  supposed  to  be  half-witted,  and,  when 
he  met  her,  just  escaped  from  an  asylum.  In  her  childhood  Anne  had  been  befriended 
by  Laura's  mother,  Mrs.  Fairlie,  because  of  her  resemblance  to  Laura,  and  by  her 
had  been  dressed  in  white,  which  Anne  had  worn  ever  since  in  memory  of  her  bene- 
factress. Hartright  discovers  also  that  there  is  some  mystery  in  the  girl's  having 
been  placed  in  an  asylum  by  her  own  mother,  without  sufficient  justification  of  the 
act. 

Walter  Hartright  falls  in  love  with  Laura  Fairlie;  but  she  is  betrothed  to  Sir 
Percival  Glyde  of  Blackwater  Park,  Hampshire.  Sir  Percival  has  a  close  friend, 
Count  Fosco,  whose  wife,  a  relative  of  Laura's,  will  receive  ten  thousand  pounds  on 
her  death.  The  marriage  settlements  are  drawn  up  so  that  Sir  Percival  himself,  in  the 
same  event,  will  receive  the  whole  of  Laura's  fortune.  Laura  had  pledged  her  dead 
father  to  marry  Sir  Percival,  but  she  has  no  love  for  him.  Marian  Halcombe  goes 
with  her  to  Blackwater  Park.  There,  in  the  form  of  a  diary,  she  carries  on  the 
narrrative  where  Walter  Hartright  discontinued  it.  A  plot  is  hatched  by  Count 
Fosco,  who  is  a  strong  villain,  and  by  Sir  Percival,  who  is  a  weak  one,  to  get  Laura 
out  of  the  way  and  obtain  her  money,  by  taking  advantage  of  the  resemblance  be- 
tween her  and  Anne  Catherick,  who  at  the  time  is  very  ill.  By  a  series  of  devices 
Laura  is  brought  to  London,  and  put  into  an  asylum  as  Anne  Catherick;  while  the 
dying  Anne  Catherick  is  called  Lady  Glyde,  and  after  her  death  buried  as  Lady 
Glyde.  These  events  are  told  by  the  various  actors  in  the  drama.  By  the  efforts  of 
Marian,  who  does  not  believe  that  her  sister  is  dead,  she  is  rescued  from  the  asylum. 
Walter  Hartright,  seeking  to  expose  Sir  Percival's  villainy,  discovers  that  he  is 
sharing  a  secret  with  Anne  Catherick's  mother;  that  Anne  knew  the  secret,  and  had 
therefore  been  confined  in  an  asylum  by  the  pair:  the  secret  being  that  Sir  Percival 
had  no  right  to  his  title,  having  been  born  out  of  wedlock.  Before  Hartright  can 
expose  this  fraud,  Sir  Percival  himself  is  burned  to  death,  while  tampering  with 
the  register  of  the  church  for  his  own  interest.  In  the  general  clearing-up  of  affairs, 
it  becomes  known  that  the  Woman  in  White  was  the  half-sister  of  Laura,  being  the 
natural  child  of  her  father  Philip  Fairlie. 

The  story  ends  with  the  happy  marriage  of  Laura  to  Hartright,  and  with  the 
restoration  of  her  property. 

WOMAN  KILLED  WITH  KINDNESS,  A,  by  Thomas  Heywood  (1603).  Of  this 
writer  Lamb  speaks  as  "a  sort  of  prose  Shakespeare:  his  scenes  are  to  the  full  as 
natural  and  affecting.  But  we  miss  the  Poet,  that  which  in  Shakespeare  always 
appears  out  and  above  the  surface  of  the  nature."  Though  later  critics  than  Lamb 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  911 

are  less  enthusiastic  in  their  praise,  all  accord  to  Heywood  the  merit  of  naturalness 
and  pathos.  l A  Woman  killed  with  Kindness'  has  been  called  by  Symonds  "the 
finest  bourgeois  tragedy  of  our  Elizabethan  literature."  Heywood  discusses  the 
problem  of  the  unfaithful  wife  in  a  way  very  unusual  in  Elizabethan  drama,  and 
arrives  at  a  solution  not  out  of  accord  with  modern  ethics  and  sentiment.  Master 
Frankford,  an  English  gentleman,  wealthy,  cultured  and  well  connected  has  married 
the  sister  of  Sir  Francis  Acton,  who  as  he  supposes  is  "a  fair,  a  chaste,  and  loving 
wife;  perfection  all,  all  truth,  all  ornament."  Wendell,  well-born  but  unfortunate 
and  poor,  is  generously  treated  by  Sir  Francis,  and  basely  requites  his  patron's 
confidence  by  debauching  his  wife,  who  gave  way  rather  from  weakness  than  sinful- 
ness.  Instead  of  taking  her  life,  Frankford  resolves  to  "kill  her  even  with  kindness, " 
and  sends  her  loaded  with  every  provision  for  her  needs  to  a  lonely  manor-house,  but 
forbids  her  to  look  on  him  or  on  her  children  again.  Solitude  and  remorse  break  her 
heart,  but,  as  she  lies  on  her  deathbed,  the  husband  whom  she  had  sent  for  to  ask 
his  forgiveness  gives  her  his  blessing. 

WOMAN  MOVEMENT,  THE,  by  Ellen  Key,  was  published  in  Swedish  in  1909, 
and  in  an  English  translation  by  Mamah  Bonton  Borthwick  in  1912.  After  tracing 
the  gradual  emancipation  of  woman  from  the  extension  of  her  civil  rights,  through  her 
admission  to  equal  educational  advantages  and  to  most  vocations  open  to  men,  to  her 
approaching  achievement  of  the  right  to  vote,  the  author  goes  on  to  point  out  the 
need  of  further  liberation  of  a  spiritual.kind,  her  idea  being  that  woman  should  have 
the  right  to  the  free  development  of  her  nature  without  conformation  to  masculine 
standards.  For  this  consummation  certain  socialistic  alterations  in  the  organization 
of  society  would  be  necessary,  giving  woman,  if  she  desires  it,  a  right  to  motherhood 
and  adequate  opportunity  to  rear  her  children.  Some  interesting  observations 
as  to  the  effect  of  the  emancipation  of  woman  upon  the  comradeship  of  young  people, 
upon  the  relations  of  man  and  wife,  and  upon  those  of  mother  and  daughter,  conclude 
a  stimulating  and  timely  study. 

WOMAN  OF  NO  IMPORTANCE,  A,  by  Oscar  Wilde  (1893).  This  successful 
drama  is  more  remarkable  for  the  brilliance  of  its  dialogue  than  for  the  coherence  and 
credibility  of  its  plot.  Twenty  years  before  the  play  begins,  Lord  Illingworth,  then 
George  Harford,  betrayed  an  innocent  girl,  whom  he  had  promised  to  marry.  The 
girl,  to  him,  was  "a  woman  of  no  importance."  Her  son,  Gerald  Arbuthnot,  an 
underpaid  bank  clerk  in  a  provincial  town,  meets  Lord  Illingworth,  who  takes  a  fancy 
to  him,  and  offers  to  make  him  his  secretary.  Mrs.  Arbuthnot  recognizes  the  man 
who  as  George  Harford  ruined  her  life,  and  refuses  her  consent  to  her  son's  appoint- 
ment. Gerald  cannot  understand  her  change  of  mind,  and  is  unwilling  to  give  up 
this  promising  opportunity.  Lord  Illingworth  tells  her  that  he  considers  Gerald's 
future  more  important  than  her  past,  and  dares  her  to  tell  her  son  the  truth.  She 
tells  Gerald  her  own  story  as  that  of  another  woman,  but  his  answer  is  to  condemn 
the  woman.  "No  really  nice  girl, "  he  says,  "would  go  away  from  home  with  a  man 
to  whom  she  was  not  married."  Gerald  argues  that  he  will  be  in  a  position  to  ask 
Hester,  the  American  girl  he  loves,  to  marry  him.  Mrs.  Arbuthnot  withdraws 
objection  rather  than  give  her  real  reason.  One  of  the  guests  at  this  week  end  house 
party  has  dared  Lord  Illingworth  to  kiss  the  puritanical  Hester.  Hester  rushes  in 
from  the  terrace  crying  out  to  Gerald  that  Lord  Illingworth  has  insulted  her.  Gerald, 
beside  himself  with  anger,  springs  at  Lord  Illingworth.  "Don't  hold  me  mother," 
he  cries/  "I'll  kill  him."  His  mother  stops  him  with  the  confession  that  Lord  Uling- 


912  THE   READER  S  DIGEST   O* 

worth  is  his  father.  Gerald's  first  idea  is  that  Lord  Illingworth  must  make  repara- 
tion by  marrying  his  mother.  She  refuses  to  consider  the  hideous  mockery  of  such  a 
marriage.  While  Hester  and  Gerald  are  in  the  garden,  Lord  Illingworth  comes  to 
Mrs.  Arbuthnot  to  try  to  make  arrangements  to  keep  his  son.  He  offers  to  rnarry 
her,  but  she  tells  him  he  has  come  too  late.  When  the  lovers  return  Gerald  asks  his 
mother  if  she  has  had  a  visitor.  She  replies,  "No  one  in  particular,  A  man  of  no 
importance." 

WOMAN  THOU  GAYEST  ME,  THE,  by  Hall  Caine  (1913)-  The  father  of  Mary 
O'Neill,  bitterly  disappointed  that  she  is  not  a  son  to  inherit  the  title  and  property 
of  Lord  Raa  of  Castle  Raa,  wholly  neglects  her.  Her  mother  is  an  invalid  and  the 
child  is  unkindly  treated  by  her  Aunt  Bridget  who  has  charge  of  the  household.  When 
she  is  seven  years  old  she  is  sent  to  a  convent  in  Rome,  and  remains  there  until  she  is 
eighteen,  only  once  being  allowed  to  visit  her  island  home.  It  is  her  mother's  dying 
wish  that  she  should  become  a  nun,  but  her  father  suddenly  takes  her  away  and 
proposes  to  many  her,  against  her  wishes,  to  the  distant  cousin  who  has  become 
Lord  Raa.  Before  she  leaves  Rome  she  meets  her  childhood  friend,  Martin  Conrad, 
who  is  about  to  sail  on  an  expedition  to  the  Antartic.  He  tries  to  prevent  the  marri- 
age, but  in  vain.  Lord  Raa  and  his  bride  start  on  their  honeymoon  in  a  raging  storm 
which  is  symbolical  of  their  married  life.  Mary  refuses  to  allow  her  husband  to 
come  near  her.  Lord  Raa  despatches  a  messenger  to  her  father,  who  sends  her  Aunt 
Bridget  and  the  priest,  Father  Dan,  to  reason  with  her.  It  is  finally  arranged  that 
Lord  Raa  shall  not  force  her  to  obey  him  until  she  comes  to  love  him.  On  the  steamer 
going  to  Marseilles  they  meet  Alma  Lier,  an  American  girl,  who  had  been  at  the 
convent  with  Mary  and  is  now  a  handsome,  fashionably  attired  woman,  the  divorced 
wife  of  a  bogus  Russian  count.  Alma  plans  Mary's  ruin.  After  endless  mortifying 
experiences  in  various  cities,  Mary  and  her  husband  return  home  to  Castle  Raa,  where 
Lord  Raa  plans  to  have  a  house-party  and  Alma  is  invited.  While  in  London  Mary 
tries  to  see  if  she  can  secure  a  divorce  from  Lord  Raa,  but  neither  Church  nor  State 
will  countenance  it.  She  meets  Martin  again,  and  Lord  Raa  invites  him  to  visit 
them.  Alma  plans  that  while  the  rest  of  the  party  are  away  on  a  yachting  cruise, 
Mary  and  Alartin  shall  be  left  together.  Martin  begs  Mary  to  flee  with  him,  and 
defy  the  law.  She  refuses  and  he  leaves  her  to  go  on  his  expedition  to  the  Souti 
Pole. 

Some  weeks  later  while  Lord  Raa  is  in  London  Alma  discovers  Mary's  delicat<. 
condition  and  announces  it  to  Lord  Raa  and  Mary's  father.  The  father  is  delighted 
and  plans  a  great  celebration.  Lord  Raa  is  furious,  charges  Mary  with  being  un- 
faithful to  him  and  strikes  her.  Mary  decides  to  flee  the  castle  and  with  the  help  of 
her  maid  leaves  that  very  night  and  goes  to  London  with  very  little  money.  She  keeps 
in  hiding,  but  hears  the  report  that  Martin's  ship  has  been  lost.  No  maternity 
hospital  in  London  will  take  her  without  knowing  the  name  of  the  prospective  child's 
father,  so  she  has  to  remain  in  cheap  lodgings  with  insufficient  food  and  care.  After 
the  birth  of  the  baby  girl  she  boards  her  with  a  poor  woman  and  works  day  and  night 
sewing  for  a  greedy  Jew.  When  the  Jew  discovers  that  she  has  a  baby  he  discharges 
her.  The  baby  sickens  from  lack  of  care  and  from  soothing-syrups  and  Mary  is  in 
despair.  Half -crazed  she  dresses  up  in  her  one  fine  gown  still  remaining  and  goes  out 
on  the  street.  As  she  wanders  about  she  falls  into  the  arms  of  Martin,  who  has  re- 
turned and  had  been  searching  all  London  for  her.  Mary  is  unconscious  for  two  days. 
By  means  of  a  letter  found  in  her  pocket  the  baby  is  recovered,  is  taken  to  a  good 
home  in  the  country,  and  is  restored  to  health.  Mary  is  taken  back  to  her  island 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  913 

home,  to  Martin's  father,  who  is  a  doctor.  Lord  Raa  obtains  a  divorce  from  her  and 
marries  Alma.  Martin  is  knighted  by  the  king  and  plans  to  marry  Mary  and  take 
her  to  the  Antarctic  with  him,  but  the  exposure  and  deprivations  she  has  undergone 
prove  too  much  for  her,  and  she  dies  before  the  time  for  him  to  leave. 

WOMEN,  see  SUBJECTION  OF  WOMEN,  by  J.  S.  Mill. 

WOMEN,  VINDICATION  OF  THE  RIGHTS  OF,  by  Mary  WoUstonecraft,  see 
VINDICATION,  ETC. 

WONDERFUL  ADVENTURES  OF  NILS,  THE,  by  Selma  Lagerlof  (1906).  A 
cruel  selfish  boy  is  changed  into  an  elf  as  punishment  for  a  mischievous  trick.  He 
travels  on  the  back  of  a  goose  with  the  wild  ducks  all  over  Norway,  learning  kindness 
and  helpfulness  in  fellowship  with  the  birds  and  animals,  his  friends.  This  fairy  tale 
is  the  result  of  years  of  study  of  animal  and  bird  life  by  the  author  to  make  an  interest- 
ing nature  book  for  the  public  schools.  She  has  woven  legend  and  folktales  into  the 
story  of  little  Nils'  journey,  which  has  become  a  children's  classic.  As  "Thumtietot" 
the  elf,  he  sees  farms,  manors,  castles,  cities,  logging  camps,  and  mines,  and  has 
thrilling  adventures  with  bears  and  eagles  and  reindeer.  At  the  end  of  the  sequel 
'Further  Adventures  of  Nils1  (1907)  he  returns  home  and  finds  himself  a  human  boy 
again  when  he  knocks  at  the  cottage  door. 

'WONDERFUL  MAGICIAN,  THE,  'El  Magico  Prodigioso,'  a  drama  by  Pedro 
Calder6n  de  la  Barca,  first  published  in  1637.  The  theme  is  the  martyrdom  of  Saint 
Cyprian  and  Saint  Justina  in  Antioch,  290  A.D.  Cyprian,  a  noted  scholar  of  Antioch, 
is  visited  by  a  demon,  in  human  guise  who  attempts  to  entangle  him  by  a  discussion  of 
the  nature  of  God.  Finding  this  vain  he  determines  to  attain  the  ruin  of  Cyprian 
by  inspiring  him  with  love  for  Justina,  a  poor  Christian  girl  already  the  subject  of 
Satanic  temptations.  An  occasion  is  presented  when  Lelius,  son  of  the  governor,  and 
Florus  enter  and  proceed  to  fight  a  duel  for  her  hand.  Cyprian  intervenes  in  the 
dispute  and  proposes  to  go  to  the  lady  as  intermediary.  On  his  arrival  at  the  house 
'of  her  foster-father,  Lysander,  he  promptly  falls  in  love  with  her  himself  and  is  as 
promptly  rejected,  the  lady  having  fixed  her  affections  only  on  Heaven.  The  demon 
now  causes  trouble  by  appearing  in  the  form  of  a  man  descending  from  her  window 
in  the  sight  of  Lelius  and  Florus,  who  have  come  up  from  different  directions  to  watch 
her  house,  and  each  of  whom  takes  the  intruder  for  the  other.  Encouraged  by  their 
withdrawal  from  the  suit  of  one  whom  they  now  believe  wanton,  Cyprian,  in  hand- 
some clothes,  again  wooes  Justina  and  is  again  rejected-.  In  desperation  he  declares 
that  he  would  willingly  sell  his  soul  to  possess  Justina,  and  is  at  once  confronted  by 
the  demon  in  the  form  of  a  magician,  who  makes  a  formal  contract  with  him,  sealed 
in  blood,  to  give  him  Justina  in  exchange  for  his  soul.  To  compass  his  desires  a  year 
of  instruction  in  a  subterranean  cavern  is  necessary ;  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  Cyprian 
prepares  his  spells  to  draw  Justina  to  his  embraces.  The  demon  by  a  chorus  of 
spirits  and  by  violence  attempts  to  bring  her  in  person.  She  appears  touched,  at  first 
but  her  virtue  and  Christian  principles  come  to  her  aid  and  she  not  only  rejects  his 
advances  but  successfully  resists  his  attempts  to  carry  her  off.  -The  demon  then  has 
recourse  to  illusion,  creating  a  phantom  figure  of  Justina  which  responds  to  Cyprian's 
invocations.  But  by  divine  grace  it  turns  to  a  skeleton  just  as  he  is  about  to  embrace 
it.  Cyprian  is  profoundly  stirred  and  repentant,  as  he  realizes  that  it  is  the  Christian 
God  who  has  saved  Justina  and  who  may  yet  save  him.  Meanwhile  the  Christians 
58 


914  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

are  arrested  while  at  worship,  Justina  among  the  rest;  and  the  governor  who  fears  her 
influence  over  his  son,  condemns  her  to  death.  Cyprian  appears  at  her  side,  relates 
his  commerce  with  the  demon  and  his  salvation  from  his  compact,  avows  himself  a 
Christian,  and  goes  forth  to  martyrdom  with  Justina. 

An  incongruous  comic  interlude  is  furnished  by  the  rivalry  of  Cyprian's  two  ser- 
vants for  the  hand  of  Justina's  maid  and  the  bargain  by  which  each  is  to  have  her  on 
alternate  days. 

In  its  piety,  exaltation  of  personal  honour,  and  fine  lyrical  passages  the  play  is 
characteristic  of  Calder6n. 

WONDERFUL  YEAR,  THE,  by  W.  J.  Locke  (1915).    The  wonderful  year  is  the  year 
before  the  war.    Martin  Overshaw,  the  hero,  is  an  impecunious  young  English  school- 
master.   In  Paris  for  the  first  time  for  a  holiday,  he  meets  the  equally  impecunious 
Corinna.    As  they  sit  at  dinner  in  a  little  restaurant  in  the  Latin  quarter,  Corinna 
confesses  that  though  she  has  studied  art  for  three  years  she  "cannot  paint  worth  a 
cent,"  that  she  has  spent  all  her  money,  and  has  to  go  home  to  England.  Corinna  calls 
to  the  table  a  newcomer,  Air.  Daniel  Fortinbras,  whom  she  introduces  to  Martin  as 
a  "Marchand  de  Bonheur,"  a  dealer  in  happiness  at  five  francs  a  consultation. 
They  ask  his  advice  as  "candidates  for  happiness."    He  sends  them  off  on  a  bicycle 
trip  together  to  his  brother-in-law,  Bigourdin  the  innkeeper  at  Brant6me.     This 
unconventional  prescription  does  not  cause  the  hero  and  heroine  to  fall  in  love  as 
they  should.    Corinna  returns  to  England  to  become  a  failure  as  a  professional  suffra- 
gette, since  her  enthusiasm  is  not  sufficient  for  imprisonment  and  hunger  strikes. 
Martin  remains  at  the  inn  as  waiter  and  friend  of  Bigourdin  and  his  lovely  niece, 
Felise,  rather  than  return  to  the  drudgery  of.  teaching  the  "drybones  of  examination 
French. "   He  is  led  away  from  the  inn  by  the  lure  of  an  American  guest,  Lucilla  Mcrri- 
ton,  and  on  the  last  of  his  savings  becomes  a  fashionable  tourist  in  Egypt.    Failing 
to  win  Lucilla,  he  starts  back  by  steerage  via  Hongkong  and  India  and  arrives  in 
France  just  as  war  is  declared.    He  finds  he  has  really  left  his  heart  at  the  inn  with 
Felise  and  at  the  end  of  the  wonderful  year,  he  enlists  with  Bigourdin  to  fight  for 
France.    The  last  chapter  of  the  story  takes  him  back  to  Felise,  a  hero  with  an 
empty  sleeve.    Corinna  receives  a  love  letter  from  Bigourdin  wounded  at  the  front, 
discovers  her  heart,  and  goes  to  him  and  then  to  Brant6me  to  await  his  homecoming. 
The  "Marchand  de  Bonheur11  gives  his  blessing  to  the  happy  couples. 

WOODSTOCK,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  (1826).  'Woodstock'  is  an  English  historical 
novel  of  the  time  of  Cromwell;  the  events  occurring  in  the  year  1652,  immediately 
after  the  battle  of  Worcester.  The  scene  is  laid  chiefly  in  the  Royal  Park  and  Manor 
of  Woodstock,  —  "Fair  Rosamond's  bower."  In  addition  to  King  Charles  II., 
disguised  as  Louis  Kerneguy,  a  Scotch  page,  the  leading  personages  are  Sir  Henry 
Lee,  the  royal  ranger  of  the  Park;  his  son  Albert,  a  royalist  colonel;  his  daughter 
Alice;  and  Colonel  Markham  Everard,  who  is  high  in  favor  with  Cromwell.  The 
Lees  and  Everards  have  been  intimate  friends  before  the  war  separated  them  politi- 
cally; and  Markham  and  Alice  are  lovers.  Other  principal  actors  are  Roger  Wild- 
rake,  a  dissipated  but  brave  and  loyal  Cavalier;  Joceline  Joliffe  the  underkeeper,  and 
his  pretty  sweetheart  Phcebe  Mayflower;  and  Joseph  (miscalled  "Trusty")  Tomkins, 
a^Cromwellite  soldier  and  spy.  The  story  opens  with  service  of  a  warrant  by  Tom- 
kins  upon  Sir  Henry  Lee,  ordering  him  to  surrender  the  Park  Lodge  to  a  Parliamen- 
tary Commission,  charged  with  sequestrating  the  property.  Colonel  Everard  sends 
Wildrake  to  Cromwell,  and  procures  the  revocation  of  the  order.  Dr.  Rochecliffe,  a 


THE  READER  S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  915 

scheming  royalist,  is  in  hiding  in  the  secret  passages  with  which  the  Lodge  is  honey- 
combed, and  terrifies  the  commissioners  with  nocturnal  noises  and  other  annoyances, 
which  they  believe  to  be  the  work  of  the  Devil;  and  they  gladly  withdraw.  Colonel 
Albert  Lee  arrives  with  Charles  disguised  as  his  page;  and  Alice's  loyal  devotion  to 
the  King,  coupled  with  the  gift  of  a  ring  from  him,  arouses  Everard's  jealousy. 
He  challenges  his  Majesty;  the  duel  is  prevented  by  Alice,  but  in  such  a  manner  as 
further  to  inflame  Everard  and  confirm  his  suspicions.  To  save  Alice's  honor  and 
happiness,  the  King  avows  his  identity,  throwing  himself  upon  the  honor  of  Everard, 
who  accepts  the  trust.  Tomkins  is  soon  after  killed  by  Joliffe  for  undue  familiarity 
with  Phcebe;  but  has  already  made  reports  which  bring  Cromwell  to  the  spot  with  a 
detachment  of  soldiers.  The  King  and  Albert  exchange  clothes,  and  the  former 
escapes,  leaving  Albert  to  simulate  him.  Cromwell  besieges  and  storms  the  Lodge 
and  captures  Albert,  but  the  delay  has  saved  King  Charles.  Cromwell  is  furious  at 
the  successful  deception,  but  finally  relents,  and  releases  Albert,  who  goes  abroad, 
where  he  subsequently  dies  in  battle.  Everard  and  Alice  are  married.  The  book 
ends  with  a  sort  of  epilogue,  in  which  Sir  Henry,  old  in  years  and  honors,  presents 
himself  at  the  triumphal  progress  of  Charles  at  the  Restoration,  eight  years  later;  he 
is  recognized  and  affectionately  greeted  by  the  King,  and  passes  away  in  the  shock 
of  his  loyal  joy,  murmuring  Nunc  dimittis. 

WOOLMAN,  JOHN,  'A  Journal  of  the  Life,  Gospel,  Labours,  and  Christian  Experi- 
ences of  John  Woolman'  was  published  in  1774.  Woolman  was  born  in  Northamp- 
ton, New  Jersey,  in  1720.  Becoming  an  earnest  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends  in 
1721  he  devoted  his  life  to  religious  exhortation,  travelling  from  one  settlement  to 
another  and  supporting  himself  by  work  as  a  tailor  or  a  merchant's  clerk.  He 
married  in  1749  and  until  1756  kept  a  store  at  Northampton,  though  his  principal 
concern  was  for  his  missionary  journeys.  Having  won  considerable  influence  in  the 
Society  he  undertook  in  1772  a  voyage  to  England,  where  he  visited  various  Quaker 
meetings.  He  died  of  small-pox  in  the  city  of  York,  October  7,  1772.  Woolman's 
journal  is  characterized  by  absolute  simplicity  and  sincerity.  The  language  is  plain 
and  unadorned  and  there  is  an  utter  absence  of  pose,  of  garrulousness,  and  of  striving 
for  picturesqueness  of  effect.  Quiet  humility,  delicate  consideration  for  others,  and 
unaffected  sense  of  the  divine  presence  breathe  through  every  line  of  the  book.  An- 
other characteristic  is  a  sensitiveness  though  not  a  morbidity  of  conscience  and  a 
quiet  moral  resoluteness  in  following  its  dictates.  Woolman  disapproved  of  slavery  as 
an  institution,  did  all  that  he  could  to  discourage  it  among  the  Quakers,  and  refused 
to  countenance  it  in  any  way,  direct  or  indirect.  He  had  a  similar  feeling  towards 
the  exploitation  of  the  poor  and  the  use  of  luxuries  and  scrupulously  avoided  any  action 
which  might  in  any  way  be  interpreted  as  encouraging  such  wrong-doing.  For 
instance,  he  refused  to  sell  merchandise  of  a  frivolous  or  unnecessary  kind,  and  he 
shipped  to  England  in  the  steerage  because  the  cabin  accommodations  seemed  to 
him  needlessly  luxurious.  His  piety  is  without  fanaticism  or  hypocrisy  and  the  record 
of  it  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  Christian  biographies. 

WORK,  see  ROUGON-MACQUART. 

WORKERS,  THE,  by  Walter  A.  Wyckoff  (1897-99).  These  remarkable  personal 
reminiscences  describe  the  experiences  of  a  young  college  graduate  who  'in  order  to 
solve  for  himself  some  of  the  social  problems  of  the  day,  goes  out  into  the  world  in 
the  guise  of  a  day  laborer.  He  starts  from  Philadelphia  without  money  in  his 


916  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

pocket  and  only  the  clothes  upon  his  back,  and  prepares  to  work  his  way  across  the 
country  in  the  r&le  he  has  assumed.  'The  Workers'  is  in  two  volumes  and  in  the 
first  entitled  'The  East,'  we  are  told  of  the  difficulties  attending  the  adjustment  of 
the  writer  to  his  new  conditions,  and  are  given  a  detailed  account  of  his  experiences 
as  a  day  laborer,  a  hotel  porter,  a  hired  man,  and  a  farm  hand.  The  first  volume 
closes  with  a  description  of  his  lif e  in  a  logging  camp,  and  in  this  first  part  of  his 
work  he  has  dealt  entirely  with  rural  conditions;  he  has  been  a  laborer  in  an  un- 
crowded  market  and  has  been  in  close  contact  with  poverty,  but  not  despair.  In 
his  second  volume,  however,  entitled  'The  West/  he  gives  a  graphic  picture  of  the 
misery  and  suffering  of  the  vast  army  of  the  unemployed  in  the  crowded  labor  mar- 
ket of  Chicago,  and  his  own  experiences  are  most  thrilling.  As  a  factory  hand  he 
has  a  chance  to  study  organized  labor  in  a  big  factory,  he  analyzes  the  social  dis- 
content of  the  anarchists,  and  works  as  a  road  builder  on  the  grounds  of  the  World's 
Fair.  He  works  his  way  to  California  through  the  great  wheat  farms,  toils  in  the 
mines,  and  drives  a  burro  across  the  desolate  plains.  After  a  year  and  a  half  spent 
amongst  these  conditions,  the  author  reaches  his  destination,  the  Pacific  coast;  his 
experiment  is  at  an  end  and  one  of  the  most  striking  narratives  ever  written  by  a 
scholar  comes  to  a  close. 

WORLD  AS  WILL  AND  IDEA,  THE,  a  philosophical  treatise  by  Arthur  Schopen- 
hauer, first  published  in  four  books  in  1819,  and  enlarged  in  the  editions  of  1844 
and  1859  by  chapters  supplementary  to  each  of  these  books.    Beginning  with  Kant's 
theory  of  the  purely  subjective  character  of  our  acquaintance  with  the  world  he 
proceeds  'to  inquire  whether  it  is  not  possible  to  determine  the  nature  of  reality. 
And  he  answers  that  the  fundamental  fact  in  the  universe  is  will.     This  will  is  a 
blind,  unconscious  tendency  to  live  and  propagate  itself,  inherent  in  everything, 
animate  and  inanimate,  in  nature,  in  the  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  kingdoms, 
and  in  all  the  physical  processes  of  man's  body,  and  arises  to  consciousness  only  in 
his  deliberate  acts.    But,  inasmuch  as  all  life  is  full  of  rapine,  cruelty,  and  suffering, 
and  of  desires  the  satisfaction  of  which  brings  nothing  but  new  desires,  disillusion, 
or  ennui,  this  instinctive  will  to  live  is  an  evil.    It  may  be  overcome  in  two  ways: 
by  means  of  the  enjoyment  of  art  which  is  the  representation  and  contemplation  of 
the  idea  of  the  beautiful  which  the  world  is  trying  to  express,  and  which  lifts  man 
into  a  serene  passionless  atmosphere;  or  by  the  denial  of  the  struggle  for  existence, 
the  renunciation  of  all  desires,  and  the  attainment  of  a  state  of  peaceful  resignation 
akin  to  the  Buddhist  Nirvana.    A  fuller  statement  of  Schopenhauer's  philosophy  is 
given  in  the  introduction  to  the  extracts  in  the  LIBRARY  and  in  the  extracts  them- 
selves.   Kant,  Plato,  and  the  Hindu  religious  writings  are  named  by  the  philosopher 
as  the  three  chief  influences  which  helped  to  fashion  his  thought.     His  brilliant 
originality,  unusual  range  of  information  and  culture,  and  exceptional  literary  gifts 
make  him  one  of  the  most  widely-read  of  philosophers.    His  pessimism  reflected 
certain  prevalent  tendencies  of  nineteenth-century  thought  but  had  had  less  influ- 
ence on  philosophic  development  than  his  doctrine  that  everything  is  reducible  to 
a  manifestation  of  will.    This  latter  doctrine  is  developed  by  Hartmann,  Nietzsche, 
and  the  Pragmatists. 

WRECK  OF  THE  GROSVENOR,  THE,  by  W.  Clark  Russell  (1874).  This  story 
of  the  British  merchant  marine  is  notable  amongst  sea  novels  for  its  fidelity  to  the 
life,  some  phases  of  which  it  vividly  portrays;  and  is  the  best  by  this  author.  The 
story -is  told  by  the  second  mate  of  the  ship  Grosvenor;  and  it  relates  the  causes 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  919 

YESTERDAY,  TO-DAY,  AND  FOREVER,  'a  poem  in  twelve  books/  by  Edward 
Henry  Bickersteth  (1866).  A  work  in  blank  verse,  10,750  lines  in  length,  devoted 
to  imaginative  journeyings  after  death  in  Hades,  Paradise,  and  Hell,  with  a  review 
of  creation,  the  Fall,  the  empire  of  darkness,  redemption,  the  war  against  Satan, 
the  victory  over  Satan,  the  millennial  Sabbath,  the  Last  Judgment,  and  heaven's 
many  mansions.  The  author,  who  was  made  bishop  of  Exeter  in  1885,  has  been  in 
his  generation,  as  his  father  was  in  the  previous  generation,  a  chief  representative 
in  the  Church  of  England  of  profoundly  Evangelical,  anti-Romanist,  and  anti- 
liberal,  pietism  and  teaching, — a  very  emotional  and  earnest  pietism  and  intensely 
orthodox  Low  Church  teaching.  The  'Christian  Psalmody,'  compiled  by  the 
father  in  1832,  which  went  through  59  editions  in  seven  years,  was  the  most  popular 
hymn-book  of  the  Evangelical  school  in  the  Church.  The  'Hymnal  Companion/ 
prepared  by  the  son  (final  revised  and  enlarged  edition,  1876),  is  in  use  in  thousands 
of  churches  in  England  and  the  colonies.  It  was  to  impressively  invoke  divine-and 
eternal  auspices  for  the  doctrines  and  pietism  of  the  Evangelical  party,  and  to  feed 
Evangelical  faith  and  enthusiasm,  that  the  younger  Bickersteth,  with  Dante  and 
Milton  in  view,  essayed  his  ambitious  task,  and  executed  it  with  very  fair  success, 
at  least  as  to  teaching  and  emotion. 

YESTERDAYS  WITH  AUTHORS,  by  James  T.  Fields.  With  the  exception  of 
Miss  Mitford's  letters  and  some  paragraphs  of  other  matters,  the  contents  of  this 
book  first  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  during  the  year  1871,  in  a  series  of 
papers  called  '  Our  Whispering  Gallery.'  The  'Yesterdays'  are  spent  with  Pope, 
Thackeray,  Hawthorne,  Dickens,  Wordsworth,  and  Miss  Mitford.  With  all  but 
the  first  of  these  Fields  had  a  personal  acquaintance;  with  Hawthorne,  Thackeray, 
and  Dickens,  a  warm  friendship  which  lasted  until  their  deaths.  The  relation 
between  publisher  and  author  is  of  a  delicate  nature,  having  in  it  elements  of  mutual 
interest  and  enforced  intimacy;  when  to  this  is  added  the  tie  of  kindred  mind  and 
personal  predilection,  the  record  of  it  is  noteworthy.  The  title  is  particularly  appli- 
cable to  the  subject-matter.  The  remembrance  of  the  day  before  is  so  potent  in  the 
present;  yesterday  and  to-day  are  so  allied  in  sentiment,  that  in  reading  these  charm- 
ing recollections,  conversations,  letters,  anecdotes  of  work  and  play,  one  feels  that 
the  veil  has  been  withdrawn,  and  those  to  whom  we  owe  so  much  entertainment 
and  instruction  are  still  with  us,  not  merely  portraits  in  a  picture  gallery  revivified 
by  the  touch  of  the  artist.  The  author's  recollections  of  Dickens  are  exceptionally 
interesting.  To  him  is  accorded  a  major  portion  of  the  book,  as  in  life  was  accorded 
a  greater  share  of  time  and  affection. 

YOKE  SANTO,  'a  Child  of  Japan,'  by  Edward  H.  House  (1888).  This  pathetic 
little  story  of  life  in  Tokio  appeared  first  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  and  met  with  much 
favor.  Its  author  was  an  American  journalist  and  critic  long  resident  in  Japan. 
Yone  Santo  is  a  lovely  Japanese  girl,  with  a  thirst  for  knowledge,  and  a  genius  for 
self-sacrifice  rare  in  any  country.  The  victim  of  cruel  tyranny  in  her  own  home 
she  wins  the  compassionate  interest  of  Dr.  Charwell,  who  helps  her  to  get  an  educa- 
tion, and  tries  to  shield  her  from  the  misdirected  zeal  of  certain  women  missionaries. 
Brought  up  to  accept  without  question  the  authority  of  her  older  relatives,  the  gentle 
Yone  had  been  married  to  a  coarse,  ignorant  old  boat-builder;  and  afterwards  she 
meets  the  handsome  young  Bostonian,  Arthur  Milton,  who  wins  her  love  for  his  own 
careless  pleasure.  Her  childlike  confidence  in  the  good  doctor  saves  her  from  trust- 
ing herself  to  Milton's  treacherous  schemes,  and  she  lives  out  her  short  though  not 


920  THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

unhappy  life  under  the  protection  of  her  Western  friends.  Her  lover  penitent  and 
remorseful,  returns  to  receive  her  dying  blessing;  and  at  last  this  long-suffermg 
white-souled  little  pagan  saint  found  rest. 

The  story  excited  resentment  for  its  bitter  arraignment  of  missionaries. 

YOUTH'S  ENCOUNTER,  see  SINISTER  STREET. 

YUCATAN,  TRAVELS  IN,  see  CENTRAL  AMERICA,  INCIDENTS  OF  TRAVEL 

IN,  by  J.  L.  Stephens. 

ZAJUTHUSTRA,  see  THUS  SPAKE  ZARATHUSTRA. 
ZEND-AVESTA,  THE,  see  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

ZINCALI,  THE,  by  George  Borrow.  This  account  of  the  gipsies  of  Spain  ap- 
peared in  England  in  1842,  and  quickly  ran  through  three  editions.  Borrow  evinced 
in  early  life  a  roving  disposition  and  linguistic  ability.  In  1835,  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
two,  he  undertook  to  act  as  the  agent  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  in 
Spain,  and  accomplished  his  perilous  mission  with  the  devotion  of  an  apostle  and  the 
audacity  of  a  stage  brigand.  He  was  all  things  to  all  men,  especially  to  gipsies; 
and  in  'The  Bible  in  Spain/  his  first  book,  he  relates  his  amusing  and  interesting 
adventures.  *  The  Zincali '  grew  out  of  this  journey,  and  deals  with  the  gipsies  alone. 
The  charm  of  the  book,  which  is  full  of  anecdote,  lies  in  its  graphic  fidelity.  The 
Spanish  gipsy,  as  described  by  Mr.  Borrow,  differs  in  many  respects  from  the  gipsy 
of  romance.  His  hardihood  and  wretched  mode  of  life;  his  virtues,  his  faults; 
his  devotion  to  family  and  kindred;  and  his  inveterate  dishonesty,  are  faithfully 
portrayed.  The  very  same  gipsy  woman,  who,  being  waylaid  and  robbed,  is  heroic 
and  unconquerable,  in  defense  of  her  own  virtue,  and,  stripped  of  her  property, 
makes  her  weary  journey  200  miles  on  foot  with  her  poor  children,  is  absolutely 
vile  in  leading  others  into  infamy  to  recoup  her  finances.  A  chapter  on  gipsies 
in  various  lands  depicts  the  universal  gipsy,  the  product  of  the  mysterious  East. 
Mr.  Borrow  gives  many  illustrations  of  his  popularity  with  the  gipsies;  one  at 
Novgorod,  where  one  sentence  spoken  by  him  in  Romany  brings  out  a  joyful  colony 
of  gipsies  in  song  and  loving  greeting.  His  love  of  adventure,  of  unconventional 
human  life,  and  of  philology,  went  hand  in  hand  and  reinforced  each  other. 

ZURY;  THE  MEANEST  MAN  IN  SPRING  COUNTY,  a  Novel  of  Western 
Life,  by  Joseph  Kirldand  (1887).  'Zury'  is  a  tale  of  the  life  and  society,  of  the 
struggles,  reverses,  and  disappointments,  of  those  who,  at  the  period  immediately 
preceding  our  Civil  War,  journeyed  in  prairie  schooners  to  the  settlement  of  the 
great  West. 

The  story  is  almost  entirely  in  the  form  of  dialogue — the  peculiar  patois  of  the 
backwoods— and  of  such  a  construction  that  it  must  be  followed  word  for  word 
for  the  successful  unraveling  of  the  plot.  There  are  no  tiresome  descriptions,  and 
but  little  narrative,  where  one  so  usually  finds  a  r&jume*  of  what  has  passed  and  a 
brief  prospectus  of  what  he  may  expect;  so  that  the  careless  reader,  who  glances 
at  the  beginning,  takes  a  peep  or  two  at  the  middle,  and  then  carefully  studies  the 
last  two  chapters,  will  certainly  find  himself  quite  nonplussed. 

Zury  (an  abbreviation  for  Usury)  Prowder  arrives,  while  still  a  child,  in  the  wild 
forests  of  Illinois,  there  to  grow  up  with  the  country.  One  by  one  his  -little  sister. 


THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS  921 

his  father,  and  mother  give  up  and  die;  but  still  the  boy  continues  to  live  on,  and  in 
the  end  carves  riches  out  of  poverty.  To  do  this  he  has  suffered  extreme  privations, 
and  reduced  the  science  of  economy  to  such  a  degree  that  he  has  earned  the  distinc- 
tion of  being  the  meanest  man  in  the  county.  At  the  juncture  when  Zury  owns 
half  the  town,  and  holds  mortgages  on  the  other  half;  when  he  is  the  whole  muni- 
cipal government  and  most  of  the  board  of  public  education,  a  young  woman  from 
Boston,  Miss  Ann  Sparrow,  appears  upon  the  scene  to  take  charge  of  the  "deestrict" 
school.  Henceforth  the  interest  in  the  two  is  paramount,  and  through  the  now 
humorous,  now  pathetic  struggles  of  the  girl,  at  first  for  recognition,  then  for  success, 
we  see  of  what  delightfully  superficial  nature  Zury's  meanness  was  after  all;  and 
once  more  find  an  illustration  of  the  wonders  that  a  little  of  the  sweetness  and  light 
which  accompany  education  may  accomplish,  even  in  the  wilderness. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Evelyn,  and  Campbell,  Lewis,  Life  and 

Letters  of  Benjamin  Jowett,  The,  457 
About,  Edmond,  King  of  the  Mountains.  The, 

471 

Abu  al-Fazl,  Akbar-Nahmah,  12 
Addams,  Jane,  Twenty  Years  at  Hull-House, 

862 
Addison,  Joseph. 

Cato  of  Utica,  130 

Tatler,  The,  826 

Mneas  Sylvius,  see  Pius  II.,  pope. 
JEschylus. 

Agamemnon,  7 

Prometheus  Bound,  699 
^Esop,  Fables,  287 
Ains worth,  William  Harrison,  Old  St.  Paul's, 

623 
Alarc6n,  Pedro  Antonio  de. 

Captain  Veneno,  122 

Child  of  the  Ball,  The,  144 
Alcott,  Louisa  May,  Little  Women,  512 
Aldrich,  Mildred,  Hilltop  on  the  Marne,  A,  399 
Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey. 

Marjorie  Daw,  543 

Story  of  a  Bad^Boy,  The,  808 
Aleman,  Mateo,  Life  and  Adventures  of  Guz- 
man d'  Alfarache,  The,  372 
Alexander,  Mrs.,  Her  Dearest  Foe,  394 
Allen,  Grant,  Linnet,  505 
Allen,  James  Lane. 

Aftermath,  468 

Choir  Invisible,  The,  148 

Kentucky  Cardinal,  A,  468 
Amicis,  Edmondo  de. 

Cuore,  199 

Morocco,  580 

Amiel,  Henri  Fre'de'ric,  Journal,  27 
Amundsen,  Roald,  North-West  Passage,  The, 

613 
Andersen,  Hans  Christian,  Improvisatore,  The, 

424 
Andreyef,  Leonid  Nikolaivich. 

Anathema,  30 

Red  Laugh,  The,  715 

Seven  who  were  Hanged,  The,  779 
Annunzio,  Gabriele  d1. 

Daughter  of  Jorio,  The,  207 

Flame  of  Life,  The,  308 

Gioconda,  343 

Antin,  Mary,  Promised  Land,  The,  701 
Apollonius  of  Rhodes,  Arg-mautica,  48 
Apuleius  of  Madaura,  Golde.i  Ass,  The,  348 
Arblay,  Mme.  Frances  (Buriiey)  d1,  see  Burney, 

Frances. 

Artosto,  Ludovico,  Orlando  Furioso,  634 
Aristophanes. 

Birds,  The,  90 

Clouds,  The,  164 

Frogs,  The,  328 
Aristotle,  Works,  48 
Arnim,  Mary  Annette  (Beauchamp)  grafin  von, 

Elizabeth  and  her  German  Garden,  255 
Arnold,  Sir  Edwin. 

Light  of  Asia,  The,  500 

Light  of  the  World,  The,  501 
Arnold,  Edwin  Lester,  Strange  Adventures  of 

Phra  the  Phoenician,  The,  673 
Arnold,  Matthew. 

Culture  and  Anarchy,  198 

Essays  in  Criticism,  272 

Sohrab  and  Rustum,  798 


Artsybashev,  Mikhail,  Millionaire,  The,  563 
Asbj0rnsen,  Peter  Christian,  Popular  Tales  from 

the  Norse,  683 
Ashton,  John,  Dawn  of  the  XlXth  Century  in 

England,  The,  211 
Atherton,  Mrs.  Gertrude. 

Conqueror,  The,  177 

>  Julia  France  and  her  Times,  460 
Atkinson,    Thomas    Dinham,    Cambridge   De- 
scribed and  Illustrated,  117 
Audubon,  John  James,  Birds  of  America,  The, 

90 
Auerbach,  Berthold. 

Little  Barefoot,  508 

On  the  Heights,  627 
Augier,  Emile,  and  Sandeau,  Jules,  Gendre  de 

M.  Poirier,  Le,  335 
Augustine,  Saint. 

City  of  God,  The,  157 

Confessions,  175 

Aulard,  Alphonse,  French  Revolution,  The,  325 
Aungerville,  Richard,  see  Richard  de  Bury. 
Austen,  Jane. 

Emma,  257 

Pride  and  Prejudice,  688 
Austin,  Alfred,  Madonna's  Child,  529 
Austin,  Mrs.  Jane  (Goodwin). 

Betty  Alden,  83 

Standish  of  Standish,  806 
Avebury,  John  Lubbock,  ist  baron. 

Ants,  Bees,  and  Wasps,  43 

On  the  Origin  of  Civilization  and  Primitive 

Condition  of  Man,  633 

Azarias,    Brother,    Phases    of    Thought    and 
Criticism,  670 

Bacheller,  Irving. 

D'ri  and  I,  241 

Eben  Holden,  247 
Bacon,  Francis. 

Advancement  of  Learning,  The,  5 

Novum  Organum,  The,  616 
Bacon,  Roger. 

Opus  Majus,  The,  630 
Bagehot,  Walter. 

English  Constitution,  The,  263 

Lombard  Street,  515 

Parliamentary  Reform,  651 
Bailey,  Philip  James,  Festus,  304 
Bain,  Robert  Nisbet,  comp.  and  tr.,  Cossack 

Fairy  Tales,  186 
Baker,  Sir  Samuel  White. 

Albert  N'yanza,  The,  13 

Nile  Tributaries  of  Abyssinia,  The,  13 
Balfour,  Arthur  James,  Foundations  of  Belief, 

The,  314 
Ball,  Sir  Robert  Stawell,  Story  of  the  Heavens, 

The,  812 
Balzac,  Honore"  de. 

Alkahest,  The,  16 

C&ar  Birotteau,  137 

Chouans,  The,  149 

Country  Doctor,  The,  189 

Cousin  Pons,  191 

Cousine  Bette,  191 

Duchesse  de  Langeais,  The,  243 

Eugenie  Grandet,  277 

Modeste  Mignon,  574 

Peau  de  Chagrin,  La,  658 

Pere  Goriot,  666 
Barclay,  Mrs.  Florence  Louisa,  Rosary,  The,  747 


923 


924 


INDEX 


Barham,  Richard  Harris,  Ingoldsby  Legends 

The,  433 

Baring-Gould,  Sabine. 
Gaverocks,  The,  335 
Mehalah,  555 
Noemi,  612 
Richard  Cable,  729 

Barker,  Granville,  Madras  House,  The,  529 
Barlow,  Jane,  Maureen's  Fairing,  551 
Barr,  Mrs.  Amelia. 
Friend  Olivia,  327 
Jan  Vedder's  Wife,  443 
Barr,  Robert,  Mutable  Many,  The,  587 
Barrie,  Sir  James  Matthew,  bart. 
Admirable  Crichton,  The,  3 
Auld  Licht  Idylls,  62 
Little  Minister,  The,  510 
Margaret  Ogilvy,  542 
Peter  Pan,  668 

Professor's  Love  Story,  The,  698 
Tommy  and  Grizel,  843 
Window  in  Thrums,  A,  903 
Barthelemy,  Jean  Jacques,  abbe1.  Pilgrimage  of 

Anarcharsis  the  Younger  in  Greece,  676 
Bashkirtseff,  Marie,  Journal,  73 
Bastable,  Charles  Francis. 

Commerce  of  Nations,  The,  171 
Public  Finance,  704 
Bates,  Arlo,  Philistines,  The,  672 
Bayle,  Pierre,  Historical  and  Critical  Diction- 
ary, An,  226 

Bayly.  Ada  Ellen,  see  Lyall,  Edna. 
Bazan,  Emilia  %  Pardo,  condesa  de,  see   Pardo 

Bazan,  Emilia,  condesa  de. 
Beach,  Rex. 

Net,  The,  601 
Spoilers,  The,  805 

Beaconsfield,  Benjamin  Disraeli,  ist  earl  of. 
Coningsby,  176 
Endymion,  260 
Lothair,  520 
Beaulieu,  Anatole  Leroy-,  see  Leroy-Beaulieu, 

Anatole. 

Beaumarchais,  Pierre  Augustin  Caron  de. 
Barber  of  Seville,  The,  70 
Marriage  of  Figaro,  The,  544 
Beaumont,  Francis,  Maid's  Tragedy,  The,  532 
Beaumont,  Francis,  and  Fletcher,  John. 

Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle,  The,  474 
Philaster,  670 
Becker,  Wilhelm  Adolf. 
Charicles,  141 
Gallus,  Time  of,  331 
Beckford,  William,  History  of  the  Caliph Vathek, 

The,  874 

Bede,  Ecclesiastical  History  of  England,  248 
Bede,  Cuthbert,  Adventures  of  Mr.  Verdant 

Green,  an  Oxford  Freshman,  The,  875 
Beith,  John  Hay,  see  Hay,  Ian. 
Belcher,  Lady  Diana    (Joliffe),  Mutineers  of 

the  Bounty,  The,  588 
Bellamy,  Edward. 
Equality,  517 
Looking  Backward,  517 
Benjamin,  Ren6,  Private  Gaspard,  695 
Bennett,  Arnold. 

Clayhanger,  161 
Old  Wives'  Tale,  The,  625  ' 
Benson,  Edward  Frederic,  David  Blaize,  208 
Bentham,  Jeremy,  Introduction  to  the  Prin- 
ciples of  Morals  and  Legislation,  An,  694 
Bentley,  Richard,  Dissertation  upon  the  Epistles 

of  Phalaris.  669 

Beresford,  John  Davys,  These  Lynnekers,  832 
Bergson,  Henri,  Creative  Evolution,  192 
Bernhardi,    Friedrich  von,   Germany  and  the 

Next  War,  340 

Berry,  Mary,  Extracts  of  the  Journals  and  Cor- 
respondence of  Miss  Berry,  81 
Besant,  Sir  Walter. 

All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men,  17 
Armorel  of  Lyonesse,  51 
Bell  of  St.  Paul's,  The,  79 


Children  of  Gibeon,  146 

For  Faith  and  Freedom,  311 

French  Humorists,  The,  from  the  Twelfth 

to  the  Nineteenth  Century,  323 
London,  515 

Besant,  Sir  Walter,  and  Palmer,  Edward  Henry, 
Jerusalem,  the  City  of  Herod  and  Saladin, 
447 

Besant,  Sir  Walter,  and  Rice,  James. 
Chaplain  of  the  Fleet,  The,  140 
Golden  Butterfly,  The,  350 
Bickersteth,    Edward    Henry,    bp.    of    Exeter, 

Yesterday,  To-day,  and  Forever,  919 
Bigelow,  John,  Molinos  the  Quietist,  575 
Bird,  Robert  Montgomery,  Mck  of  the  Woods, 

609 

Bishop,    Mrs.    Isabella    (Bird),    Golden    Cher- 
sonese, The,  350 
Bjornson,  Bjornstjerne. 
Arne,  51 

Fisher  Maiden,  The,  308 
Synnove"  Solbakken,  817 
Black,  William. 

Daughter  of  Heth,  A,  207 
Green  Pastures  and  Piccadilly,  364 
Blackmore,  Richard  Doddridge. 
Clara  Vaughan,  159 
Cripps,  the  Carrier,  194 
Maid  of  Sker,  The,  531 
Lorna  Doone,  519 
Blackstone,  Sir  William,  Commentaries  on  the 

Laws  of  England,  171 

Elaine,  James  Gillespie,  Twenty  Years  of  Con- 
gress: from  Lincoln  to  Garfield,  862 
Blouet,  Paul,  see  O'Rell,  Max. 
Boccaccio,  Giovanni,  Decameron^  The,  214 
Boethius,  Anicius  Manlius  Severinus,  Consola- 
tions of  Philosophy,  The,  179 
Bohn's  Libraries,  97 
Boileau-Despre~aux,  Nicolas,  Art  of  Poetry,  The, 

Boissier,  Gaston,  Cicero  and  his  Friends,  154 
Boldrewood,  Rolf,  Robbery  Under  Arms,  737 
Booth,  William,  In  Darkest  England,  and  the 

Way  Out,  424 
Borrow,  George. 

Bible  in  Spain,  The,  86 
Lavengro,  485 
Romany  Rye,  485 
Zincali,  The,  920 

Boswell,  James,  Life  of  Johnson,  453 
Bourget,  Paul. 

Cosmopolis,  186 
Disciple,  The,  227 
Tragic  Idyl,.  A,  848. 

Bourrienne,  Louis  Antoine  Fauvelet  de,  Mem- 
oirs of  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  594 
Bourry,  Ermle,  Treatise  on  Ceramic  Industries. 

A,  137 
Bowles,  Samuel. 

Across  the  Continent,  2 
Our  New  West,  2 
Switzerland  of  America,  The,  2 
Boyesen  Hjalmar  Hjorth,  Gunnar,  370 
Bradley,  Edward,  see  Bede,  Cuthbert. 
Brand,  John,  Observations  on  Popular  Anti- 
quities, 618 
Brandes,  Georg. 

Eminent  Authors  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury, 257 
Main    Currents    in    Nineteenth    Century 

Literature,  532 
Breasted,  James  Henry,  History  of  Egypt,  A, 

251 

Bremer,  Fredrika,  Neighbors,  The,  599 
Brieux,  Eugene. 

Red  Robe,  The,  716 

Three  Daughters  of  M.  Dupont,  The,  833 
3rontfi,  Anne,  Agnes  Grey,  9 
Bronte,  Charlotte. 
Jane  Eyre,  443 
Shirley,  785 
Bronte1,  Emily,  Wuthering  Heights,  917 


INDEX 


925 


Brooke,  Henry,  Fool  of  Quality,  The,  310 
Brother  Azanas,  see  Azarias,  Brothef . 
Broughto  i,  Rhoda. 

Goodbye,  Sweetheart,  351 
Red  as  a  Rose  is  She,  714 
Brown,  Alice,  Prisoner,  The,  694 
Brown,  Horatio  Forbes,  Life  on  the  Lagoons,  499 
Brown,  John,  Rab  and  his  Friends,  709 
Browne,  Thomas  Alexander,  see  Boldrewood. 

Rolf. 
Brownell,  William  Crary. 

American  Prose  Masters,  25 
French  Traits,  326 
Browning,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  (Barrett). 
Aurora  Leigh,  63 
Letters,  108 
Browning,  Robert. 

Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  A,  95 
Ring  and  the  Book,  The,  734 
Browning,   Robert,    and   Browning,   Elizabeth 

Barrett,  Letters,  494 

Bryce,  James,   viscount,   American   Common- 
wealth, The,  23 
Buckland,  Francis  Trevelyan. 

Curiosities  of  Natural  History,  200 
Log-Book  of  a  Fisherman  and  Zodlogist, 

514 
Buckle,  George  Earle,  see  Monypenny,  William 

Flavelle,  and  Buckle,  G.  E. 
Buckle,    Henry   Thomas,   Introduction   to  the 

History  of  Civilization  in  England,  158 
Buckley,  James  Monroe,  History  of  Methodism 

in  the  United  States,  A,  558 
Buffon,  Georges  Louis  Leclerc,  comte  de,  Na- 
tural History,  596 
Bulfinch,  Thomas. 

Age  of  Chivalry,  8 
Age  of  Fable,  8 
Bullard,  Arthur,  Panama,  645 
Bulwer-Lytton,  Edward,  1st  baron  Lytton,  see 

Lytton,  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton,  1st  baron. 
Bunyan,  John. 

Grace  Abounding  to  the  Chief  of  Sinners, 

354 

Pilgrim's  Progress,  The,  676 
Burke,  Edmund. 

Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France, 

719 
Speech  on  Conciliation  with  the  American 

Colonies,  173 
Burnet,  Gilbert,  bp.  of  Salisbury. 

Exposition  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  720 

History  of  his  Own  Time,  720 

History  of  the  Reformation  of  the  Church 

of  England,  The,  720 
Burnett,  Mrs.  Frances  (Hodgson). 
Fair  Barbarian,  A,  288 
Lady  of  Quality,  A,  476 
Making  of  a  Marchioness,  The,  534 
Shuttle,  The,  786 
Burney,  Frances. 
Cecilia,  133 
Diary  and  Letters,  46 
Evelina,  280 

Burnham,  Mrs.  Clara  Louise,  Dr.  Latimer,  234 
Burns,  Robert,  Jolly  Beggars,  The,  454 
Burroughs,  John. 
Pepacton,  664 
Signs  and  Seasons,  787 
Burton,  Lady  Isabel,  Life  of  Captain  Sir  Rich'd 

F.  Burton,  The,  111 
Burton,  Robert,  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  The, 

31 

Bury,  Richard  de,  see  Richard  de  Bury. 
Busch,  Moritz,  Bismarck,  some  Secret  Pages  of 

his  History,  91 
Butler,   Joseph,   bp.   of   Durham,   Analogy   of 

Religion,  28 

Butler,  Samuel,  1774-1839,  Hudibras,  413 
Butler,  Samuel,  1835-1902,  Way  of  all  Flesh, 

The,  891  ^       , 

Bynner,  Edwin  Lassetter,  Begum  s  Daughter, 
The,  78 


Byron,  George  Gordon  Noel,  6th  baron. 
Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,  145 
Don  Juan,  237 

Cable,  George  Washington. 
Cavalier,  The,  131 
Grandissimes,  The,  355 
Dr.  Sevier,  235 
Cffidmon,  113 

Csesar,  C.  Julius,  Commentaries,  114 
Caine,  Hall. 

Bondman,  The,  97 
Christian,  The,  149 
Deemster,  The,  215 
Eternal  City,  The,  275 
Manxman,  The,  541 
Prodigal  Son,  The,  697 
Woman  thou  Gavest  Me,  The,  912 
Calderon  de  la  Barca,  Pedro,  Wonderful  Magi- 
cian, The,  913 

Calvin,  John,  Institutes  of  the  Christian  Reli- 
gion, 436 

Campbell,  Douglas,  Puritan  in  Holland,  Eng- 
land, and  America,  The,  705 
Campbell,  James  Dykes,  Samuel  Taylor  Cole- 
ridge, 166 
Campbell,  Lewis,  we  Abbott,  Evelyn,  and  Camp- 

bell,  Lewis. 

Campbell,  Thomas,  Gertrude  of  Wyoming,  341 
Canning,  George,  Loves  of  the  Triangles,  The, 

523 
Carlyle,  Thomas. 

French  Revolution,  The,  324 

History  of  Friedrich  II.  of  Prussia,  321 

On  Heroes,  Hero-Worsbip,  and  the  Heroic 

in  History,  397 
Past  and  Present,  651 
Sartor  Resartus,  768 
Carnegie,    Andrew,    Triumphant    Democracy, 

855 
Caron,    Pierre    Augustin,    see   Beaumarchais, 

Pierre  Augustin  Caron  de. 
Carroll,  Lewis. 

Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland,  15 
Through  the  Looking-Glass,  15 
Casas,  BartolomS  de  las,  bp.  of  Chiapa,  General 

History  of  the  Indies,  429 
Caskoden,  Edwin,  When  Knighthood  was  in 

Flower,  896 

Castiglione,  Baldassare,  Courtier,  The,  99 
Castle,  Mrs.  Agnes,  and  Castle,  Egerton,  Rose 

of  the  World,  The,  748 

Gather,  Willa  Sibert,  Song  of  the  Lark,  The,  801 
Catheroood,  Mrs.  Mary  (HartweU). 
Lady  of  Fort  St.  John,  The,  476 
Lazarre,  487 

Romance  of  Dollard,  The,  743 
Cellini,  Benvenuto,  Life  of  Benvenuto  Cellini, 

The,  134 
Cervantes,   Saavedra,    Miguel   de,   History   of 

Don  Quixote  de  La  Mancha,  The,  238 
Chamberlain,  Basil  Hall,  Aino  Folk  Tales,  11 
Chamberlain,  Nathan  Henry,  Samuel  Sewall, 

and  the  World  he  Lived  in,  780 
Chambers,  Robert,  Book  of  Days,  The,  98 
Chambers,  Robert  William. 
Fighting  Chance,  The,  305 
Firing  Line,  The,  307 

Chamisso,  Adelbert  von,  Peter  Schlemihl,  669 
Chapais,  Thomas,  Marquis  de  Montcalm,  Le, 

577 

Chapman,  George. 
All  Fools,  17 
Bussy  D'Ambois,  112 
Charles,    Mrs.    Elizabeth,    Chronicles    of   the 

Schdnberg-Cotta  Family,  152 
Charnwood,    Godfrey   Rathbone   Benson,    1st 

baron,  Abraham  Lincoln.,  502 
Chateaubriand,  Francois  Auguste,  vicomte  de. 
Atala,  59 

Genius  of  Christianity,  The,  336 
Rene,  723 
Chatrian,  Alexandre,  see  Erckmarm-Chatrian.. 


926 


INDEX 


Chaucer,  Geoffrey. 

Canterbury  Tales,  The,  120 
~.     Troilus  and  Criseyde,  855 
Chekhov,  Anton. 

Cherry  Orchard,  The,  144 
Daring   The,  206 
Cherbuhea,  Victor. 

Jean  Teterol's  Idea,  446 
Revenge  of  Joseph  Noire!,  The,  726 
Samuel  Broh!  and  Companv,  765 
Cnerbury   Edward  Herbert,  1st"  baron  Herbert 
or,  see  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Edward  Herbert, 
1st  baron. 
Chesney,  Charles  Corawallis,  Battle  of  Dorking, 

^Ihe,  *4 
Chesterfield,  Philip  Dormer  Stanhope,  4th  earl 

oi,  Letters  to  his  Son,  496 
Chesterton,  Gilbert  Keith. 
Heretics,  395 
Orthodoxy,  637 
<-hda,    Francis   James,    English   end   Scottish 

Popular  Ballads,  67 
Chipiez,  Charles,  see  Perrot,  Georges,  and  Chip- 

lez,  Cnaries. 
Choltnondeley,  Mary. 

Danvers    Jewels,    The,    and    Sir    Charles 

Danvers,  204 
/-v    D^,na  Tempest,  225 
Churchill,  Winston. 
Coniston,  176 
Crisis,  The,  194 
Far  Country,  A,  296 
Inside  of  the  Cup,  The,  436 
Mr.  Crewe's  Career,  569 
^     Richard  Carvel,  729 
Churchill     Winston    Leonard    Spencer,    Lord 

Randolph  Churchill,  153 
Cibber,  Colley,  Apology  for  his  Life,  An,  45 
Cicero,  Marcus  Tullius. 
Brutus,  109 

Oa  the  Reply  of  the  Haruspices,  379 
Claretie,  Jules,  Crime  of  the  Boulevard,  The,  194 
Clemens,  Samuel  Langhorne,  see  Twain,  Mark. 
Clodd,  Edward. 

Childhood  of  Religions,  The,  192 
Childhood  of  the  World,  The,  192 
«_St9,ry  of  Creation,  The,  192 
r  Sylvanus>  Gun-Maker  of  .Moscow,  The, 


e.  Frances  Power,  Studies  New  and  Old 
-,  °f  S'kcal  fnd  Social  Subjects,  276 
Cobbett,  William   Rural  Rides,  755 

7'  Valentine  Vox'  the  Ventrilo- 

iebi8)'  Our 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor. 
Aids  to  Reflection,  10 
Biographia  Literaria,  89 


Antonina,  41 
Armadale,  50 
Moonstone,  The,  578 
Woman  in  White,  The,  910 
"  .ktttttis  Junius,  Agriculture,  9 

"  TKT'235       m'  TcmrS  °f  Dr'  Syntax' 

Commena,  Anna,  Alexiad,  The,  14 
Congreve,  William. 

Mourning  Bride,  The,  585 

Way  oTthe  World,  The,  891 
Connor,  Ralph. 

Doctor,  The,  232 


Constant,  Benjamin,  Adolphe,  4 
Conway,  Hugh,  Called  Back,  117 
Conway,  Moncure  Daniel. 

Demonology  and  Devil-Lore,  221 
Wandering  Jew,  The,  888 
Cook,  James,  Three  Famous  Voyages  of  Cap- 
tain Cook  Around  the  World,  The,  884 
Cooper,  Anthony  Ashley,  3d  earl  of  Shaftes- 
bury,    see    Shaftesbury,    Anthony    Ashley 
Cooper,  3d  earl  of. 
Cooper,  James  Fenimore. 
Bravo,  The,  103 
Deerslayer  The,  216 
Last  of  the  Mohicans,  The,  484 
Leatherstocking  Tales,  The,  488 
Pilot,  The,  677 
Red  Rover,  The,  717 
Corelli,  Marie. 
Barabbas,  69 

Master  Christian,  The,  549 
Corneille,  Pierre,  Cid,  The,  155 
Cottin,  Mrae  Sophie. 
Elizabeth,  255 
Mathilde,  255 
Couch,  Sir  Arthur  Thomas  Quiller,  see  Quiller- 

Couch,  Sir  Arthur  Thomas. 
Couperus,  Louis  Marie  Anne, 
Footsteps  of  Fate,  311 
Majesty,  534 
Courthope,  William  John,  History  of  English 

Poetry,  A,  265 
Coverdale,  Miles,  ed.,  First  English  Bible,  The, 

etc.,  85 
Cowper,    Benjamin    Harris,    tr.,    Apocryphal 

Gospels,  The,  43 

Cowper,  William,  Task,  The,  825 
Cox,  George  William,  Crusades,  The,  197 
Craddock,  Charles  Egbert. 
His  Vanished  Star,  403 
In  the  Clouds,  427 
Craik,  Mrs.  Dinah  Maria  (Mulock),  see  Mulock. 

Dinah  Maria. 
Crane,  Stephen,  Red  Badge  of  Courage,  The. 

71o 

Crawford,  Francis  Marion. 
Casa  Braccio,  126 
Corleone,  185 
Doctor  Claudius,  233 
Don  Orsino,  238 
Greifenstein,  365 
In  the  Palace  of  the  King,  644 
Lady  of 'Rome,  A,  476 
Mr.  Isaacs,  570 
Roman  Singer,  A,  741 
Via  Crucis,  876 

Crayon  Geoffrey,  see  Irving,  Washington 
Creasy,  Sir  Edwardjhepherd,  Fifteen  Decisive 
id   from    "       •' 


o 

Croce,  Benedetto,  ^Esthetic  as  Science  of  Ex- 

pression  and  General  Linguistic,  6 
Crockett,  Samuel  Rutherford. 

Raiders,  The,  709 

Stickit  Minister,  The,  807 
Croker,  Mrs.  Bithia  Mary,  Beyond  the  Pale, 

Cl700t  Herbert*  Pr0mise  of  American  Life,  The, 


rvSJ"**   x7er'    ett<7£  and  Speeches,  197 
Geor  e  '  Mary  Ann  (Evans)  Lewes,  see  Eliot, 


Almayer's  Polly,  19 

Lord  Jim,  518 

Nostromo,  614 

Victory,  878 

Conscience,  Henrik,  Lion  of  Flanders,  The  505 
h^le,  Thomas,  Archibald  Constable  and 
his  Literary  Correspondents,  ISO 


'  Litem?«re,T741iI10maS'  ^^  °f  Roma* 
Cugmiiu.  Maria  Susanna,  Lamplighter,  Ther 

Cunmngham,  William,  Growth  of 
dustry  and  Commerce,  The,  367 
Curtis,  George  William. 

Literary  and  Social  Essays,  505 

Potiphar  Papers,  684 

Prue^and  I,  _7p2 

ies  of  the 


INDEX 


927 


Custer,   Mrs.  Elizabeth  (Bacon),   "Boots  and 
Saddles,"  100 

Damascus,  John  of,  Saint,  see  John  of  Damascus, 

Saint. 
Dana,  Richard  Henry,  Two  Years  Before  the 

Mast,  S65 

Dante  Alighieri,  Divine  Comedy,  The,  230 
Darwin,  Charles. 

Descent  of  Man  and  Selection  in  Relation 
to  Sex,  The,  221 

On  the  Origin  of  Species  by  Means  of  Na- 
tural Selection,  633 
Darwin,  Erasmus. 

Botanic  Garden,  The,  103 

Loves  of  the  Plants,  103 
Daudet,  Alphonse. 

Immortal,  The,  423 

Jack,  442 

Nabob,  The,  593 

Numa  Roumestan,  617 

Tartarin  of  Tarascon,  824 
Davis,  Richard  Harding. 

Gallegher  and  Other  Stories,  330 

Princess  Aline,  The,  693 

Soldiers  of  Fortune,  799 

Van  Bibber  and  Others,  874 
Dawson,      William     Harbutt.     Evolution     of 

Modern  Germany,  The,  282 
Day,  Thomas,  Sandfordand  Merton,  766 
Defoe,  Daniel,  Robinson  Crusoe,  738 
De  Forest,  John  William,  Miss  Ravenel's  Con- 
version from  Secession  to  Loyalty,  568 
Dekker,  Thomas. 

Satiro-Mastix,  769 

Shoemaker's  Holiday,  The,  785 
Deland,  Mrs.  Margaret. 

Awakening  of  Helena  Richie,  The,  65 

Iron  Woman,  The,  438 

John  Ward,  Preacher,  452 

Philip  and  his  Wife,  671 
De  la  Ramie,  Louise,  see  Ouida. 
Delavigne,  Casimir,  Sicilian  Vespers,  The,  787 
De  Morgan,  William  Frend. 

Alice-for-Short,  15 

Joseph  Vance,  455 
De  Quincey,  Thomas,  Confessions  of  an  English 

Opium-Eater,  The,  175 

Dewey,  John,  Democracy  and  Education,  218 
Dickens,  Charles. 

Barnaby  Rudge,  71 

Bleak  House,  93 

David  Copperfield,  208 

Dombey  and  Son,  236 

Great  Expectations,  358 

Hard  Times,  377 

Little  Dorrit,  509 

Oliver  Twist,  626 

Our  Mutual  Friend,  639 

Pickwick  Papers,  The,  675 

Tale  of  Two  Cities,  A,  819 
Dickinson,  Goldsworthy  Lowes,  Letters  from  a 

Chinese  Official,  492 
Diderot,  Denis,  ed. 

Encyclopedic,  260 

Pensees  Philosophiques,  663 

Pensees  sur  Interpretation  de  la  Nature, 

664 

Disraeli,   Benjamin,   Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  see 
Beaconsfield,  Benjamin  Disraeli,  1st  earl  of. 
Disraeli,  Isaac. 

Amenities  of  Literature,  22 

Curiosities  of  Literature,  199 
Dobson,    Austin,    Thomas    Bewick,    and    his 

Pupils,  84 

Dodge,  Mary  Abigail,  see  Hamilton,  Gail. 
Dodgson,  Charles  Lutwidge,  see  Carroll,  Lewis. 
Donaldson,  James,  ed.,  Ante-Nicene  Christian 

Library,  39 
Doolittle,  Justus,  Social  Life  of  the  Chinese, 

796 
Dostoevsky,  Feoc'or  Mikhaflovi'ch. 

Brothers  Karamazoff,  The,  107 


Crime  and  Punishment,  193 

Idiot,  The,  418 

Letters,  492 
Dowie,  Menie  Muriel,  Girl  in  the  Carpathians, 

A,  343 
Doyle,  Sir  Arthur  Conan. 

Adventures  of  Sherlock  Holmes,  The,  783 

Great  Shadow,  The,  359 

Micah  Clarke,  559 

Sir  Nigel,  793 

White  Company,  The,  89$ 
Drayton,  Michael,  Polyolbion,  The,  682 
Dreiser,  Theodore,  Genius,  The,  336 
Droz,  Gustave,  Around  a  Spring,  52 
Drummond.  Henry. 

Greatest  Thing  in  the  World,  The,  360 

Tropical  Africa,  857 
Dryden,  John. 

Absalom  and  Achitophel,  1 

All  for  Love;  or,  The  World  Well  Lost,  17 

Hind  and  the  Panther,  The,  400 
Dubois,  Felix,  Timbuctoo  the  Mysterious,  838 
Du    Chaillu,    Paul   Belloni,   Explorations   and 

Adventures  in  Equatorial  Africa,  286 
Duchess,  The,  see  Hungerford,  Mrs.  Margaret 

Wolfe  (Hamilton). 
Dudevant,  Amandine  Lucile  Aurore  (Dupin;, 

baronne,  see  Sand,  George. 
Duff-Gordon,  Lady  Lucile. 

Last  Letters  from  Egypt,  492 

Letters  from  the  Cape,  492 
Dumas,  Alexandra,  1802-1870. 

Count  of  Monte  Cristo,  The,  188 

Forty-five  Guardsmen,  The,  313 

Three  Musketeers,  The,  834 

Twenty  Years  After,  861 

Vicomte  de  Bragelonne,  The,  877 
Dumas,  Alexandra,  1824-1895,  Camille,  115 
Du  Maurier,  George. 

Martian,  The,  546 

Peter  Ibbetson,  667 

Trilby,  854 

Dunlop,John  Colin,  History  of  Fiction,  304 
Dunne,  Finley  Peter,  Mr.  Dooley,  in  Peace  and 

in  War,  570 
Dunsany,  Edward  Drax  Plunkett,  18th  baron, 

Glittering  Gate,  The,  345 

Durand.  Mme.  Alice  Marie,  see  Gre" ville,  Henri. 
Duruy,  Victor,  History  of  Rome,  745 

Ebers,  Georg. 

Egyptian  Princess,  An,  252 

Ulrda,  867 

Echegaray,  Jose,  Great  Galeoto,  The,  359 
Eckstein,  Ernst. 

Nero,  601 

Quintus  Claudius,  709 
Edersheim,  Alfred,  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  the 

Messiah,  448 
Edgeworth,  Maria. 

Belinda,  79 

Castle  Racfcrent,  128 

Helen,  388 

Moral  Tales,  578 

Patronage,  655 
Edwards,  Amelia  Blanford,  Barbara's  History, 

70 

Edwards,  Mrs.  Annie,  Steven  Lawrence,  Yeo- 
man, 807 
Edwards,  Jonathan,  On  the  Freedom  of  the  Will, 

322 
Eggleston,  Edward. 

Beginners  of  a  Nation,  The,  77 

Hoosier  School-Boy,  The,  407 

Hoosier  School-Master,  The,  407 
Eliot,  Charles  William. 

American  Contributions  to  Civilization,  24 

Durable  Satisfactions  of  Life,  The,  244 
Eliot,  George. 

Adam  Bede,  3 

Daniel  Deronda,  203 

Felix  Holt,  the  Radical,  302 

Middlemarch,  560 


928 


INDEX 


Eliot,  George — Continued 

Mill  on  the  Floss ,  The,  563 

Romola,  746 

Silas  Marner,  78S 
Eliot,  John,  Indian  Bible,  The,  428 
Ellis.  Havelock,  Man  and  Woman,  537 
Ellwood,  Charles  Abram,  Social  Problem,  The, 

797 
Ely,  Richard  Theodore,  French  and  German 

Socialism  in  Modern  Times,  322 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo. 

English  Traits,  267 

Essays,  271 
Epictetus. 

Discourses,  578 

Manuel,  578 

Erasmus,  Desiderius,  Colloquies,  167 
Erckmann-  Chatrian. 

Conscript,  the,  179 

Friend  Fritz,  327 

Erckmann,  Emile,  set  Erckmaxm-Chatrian. 
Ervine,  St.  John,  Mrs.  Martin's  Man,  571 
Escott,  Thomas  Hay  Sweet,  England:  its  People, 

Polity  and  Pursuits,  262 
Euripides. 

Alcestis,  13 

Andromache,  34 

Ion,  437 

Iphigenia,  438 

Medea,  554 
Evans,  Edward  Paysonr  Animal  Symbolism  in 

Ecclesiastical  Architecture,  35 
Evans,  Sir  John,  Ancient  Stone  Implements, 
Weapons,  and  Ornaments  of  Great  Britain, 
The,  34 
Evelyn,  John,  Diary,  281 

Fabre,  Jean  Henri  Casimir. 

Bramble-Bees  and  Others,  547 

Mason-Bees,  The,  547 
Falconer,  Lance,  Mademoiselle  Ise,  528 
Faraday,  Michael,  Experimental  Researches  in 

Electricity,  285 

Fargus,  Frederick  John,  see  Conway,  Hugh. 
Fanna,  Salvatore,  Signor  lo.  H,  787 
Farnol,  Jeffery,  Broad  Highway,  The,  105 
Farquhar,  George,  Beaux  Stratagem,  The,  76 
Farrar,  Frederick  William. 

Gathering  Clouds,  334 

Life  of  Christ,  448 
Fawcett,  Edgar. 

Ambitious  Woman,  An,  22 

Social  Silhouettes,  797 
Fenelon,  Francois  de  Salignac  de  La  Mothe, 

Adventures  of  Telemachus,  The,  827 
Fergusson,  James,  History  of  Architecture,  A, 

Ferrero,  Guglielmo,  Greatness  and  Decline  of 

Rome,  The,  361 
Ferrier,  Susan  Edmonstone. 
Destiny,  222 
Inheritance,  The,  433 
Feuillet,   Octave,  Romance  of  a  Poor  Young 

Man,  The,  742 
Fielding,  Henry. 
Amelia,  22 
History  of  Jonathan  Wild,  the  Great,  The, 

Joseph  Andrews,  455 
Tom  Jones,  843 

Fields,  Mrs.  Annie,  Life  and  Letters  of  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe,  S12 

Fields,     James     Thomas,     Yesterdays     with 
Authors,  919 

Figuier,  Louis,  Primitive  Man,  689 

Finlay,  George,  History  of  Greece,  A,  361 

Fiske,  John. 

American  Revolution,  The,  26 
Beginnings  of  Kew  England,  The,  77 
Critical  Period  of  American  History,  17S3- 

1789,  The,  195 
Destiny  of  Man,  The,  222 
Discovers'  of  America,  The,  22& 


Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy  basefi.  on  the 

Doctrine  of  Evolution,  185 
Fitch,  Clyde,  Truth,  The,  858  • 

Fitzgerald,  Edward,  tr.§  see  Omar  Khayyam. 
Flaubert,  Gustave. 

Madame  Bovary,  527 

Salammbd,  764 
Fletcher,  John,  and  Shakespeare,  William,  Two 

Noble  Kinsmen,  865 

Fletcher,  John,  see  also  Beaumont,  Francis. 
Fletcher,  Phineas,  Purple  Island,  The,  705 
Fogazzaro,  Antonio. 

Leila,  654 

Patriot,  The,  653 

Politician,  The,  682 

Saint,  The,  653 

Sinner,  The,  653 
Foote,  Mrs.  Mary  (Hallock). 

Cceur  d'Alene,  166 

Led  Horse  Claim,  The,  490 
Ford,  John,  Perkin  Warbeck,  667 
Ford,  Paul  Leicester. 

Honorable  Peter  Stirling,  The,  406 

Janice  Meredith,  444 

Forster,  John,  Life  of  Charles  Dickens,  The,  225 
Forsyth,  William,  Life  of  Marcus  TulHus  Cicero, 

154 

Fothergill,  Jessie,  First  Violin,  The,  307 
Fouque,  Friedrich,  freiherr  de  La  Motte-,  see 

La  Motte-Fouque",  Friedrich,  freiherr  de. 
Fowler,  Hon.  Ellen  Thorneycroft,  Concerning 

Isabel  Carnaby,  173 
Fox,  George,  Journal,  317 
Fox,  John. 

Heart  of  the  Hills,  The,  384 

Kentuckians,  The,  468 

Little  Shepherd  of  Kingdom  Come,  The, 

511 

Foxe,  John,  Book  of  Martyrs,  The,  98 
France,  Anatole. 

Crime  of  Sylvestre  Bonnard,  The,  193 

Garden  of  Epicurus,  The,  333 

Gods  are  Athirst,  The,  345 

Histoire  Contemporaine,  L',  403 
L'Orme  du  Mail 
Le  Mannequin  d 'Osier 
L'Anneau  d'Amethyste 
M.  Bergeret  a  Paris 

Penquin  Island,  662 

Red  Lily,  The,  716 

Thais,  831 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  Autobiography,  320 
Frazer,  Sir  James  George,  Golden  Bough,  The, 

348 
Frederic,  Harold,  Damnation  of  Theron  Ware, 

The,  203 
Freeman,  Mrs.  Mary  Eleanor  (Wilkins). 

Jerome,  446 

Portion  of  Labor,  The,  683 
French,  Alice,  see  Thanet,  Octave. 
Frenssen,  Gustav,  Jdrn  Uhl,  454 

Klaus  Hinrich  Baas,  473 
Freud,  f  '  ^      - 

Life,',.. 
Freytag,  Gustav. 

Debit  and  Credit,  213 

Lost  Manuscript,  The,  519 

Technique  of  the  Drama,  826 
Froebel,  Fnedrich,  Pedagogics  of  the  Kinder- 
garten, 659 
Froissart,  Jean,  Chronicles  of  England,  France, 

Spain,  and  the  Adjoining  Countries,  152 
Froude,  James  Anthony. 

Caesar,  113 

Life  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  125 

Nemesis  of  Faith,  The,  601 

Oceana,  618 

Short  Studies  on  Great  Subjects,  786 

Two  Chiefs  of  Dunboy,  The,  863 
Fuller,  Henry  Blake. 

Cliff-Dwellers,  The,  163 

With  the  Procession,  907 


INDEX 


929 


Puller,   Margaret,   Woman  in  the  Nineteenth 

Century,  909 
Fuller,  Thomas. 

Good  Thoughts  in  Bad  Times,  352 
Good  Thoughts  in  Worse  Times,  352 
Holy  State,  The,  405 
Mixed   Contemplations  in  Better  Times, 

352 
Profane  State,  The,  405 

Gaboriau,  £mile,  File  No.  113,  306 

Galdos,  Benito  Perez,  see  Perez  Galdds,  Benito. 

Galen,  Complete  Works,  330 

Galsworthy,  John. 

Country  House,  The,  189 

Dark  Flower,  The,  205 

Fraternity,  321 

Justice,  464 

Strife,  813 

Gait,  John,  Annals  of  the  Parish,  37 
Galton,  Sir  Francis. 

English  Judges,  395 

Hereditary  Genius,  394 
Gardiner,   Samuel   Rawson,    Cromwell's  Place 

in  History,  197 

Gardner,  Percy,  Grammar  of  Greek  Art,  A,  354 
Garrison,     Wendell     Phillips,    and     Garrison, 
Francis  Jackson,  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  334 
Gaskell,  Mrs.  Elizabeth. 

Cranford,  191 

Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte1,  The,  106 

Mary  Barton,  547 

Wives  and  Daughters,  909 
Gauden,  John,  bp.,  Eikon  Basilike,  253 
Gautier,  The"ophile. 

Captain  Fracasse,  121 

One  of  Cleopatra's  Nights,  628 

Romance  of  a  Mummy,  The,  742 
Gay,  John,  Beggar's  Opera,  The,  77 
Geikie,  James,  Prehistoric  Europe,  6S7 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  bp.  of  St.  Asaph,  Jfis- 

toria  Britonum,  403 

George,  Henry,  Progress  and  Poverty,  699 
George,  W.  L.,  Second  Blooming,  The,  775 
Gerould,  Mrs.  Katherine,  Great  Tradition,  The, 

359 
Gibbon,  Edward. 

Autobiography,  342 

Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 

The,  214 

Gibson,  William  Hamilton,  My  Studio  Neigh- 
bors, 591 
Gifford,  William. 

Baviad,  The,  75 

Mseviad,  The,  75 
Gissing,  George. 

In  the  Year  of  Jubilee,  427 

New  Grub  Street,  605 

Unclassed,  The,  S67 
Gladstone,  William  Ewart. 


Homeric  Synchronism,  406 
Juventus  Mundi,  406 


Studies  on  Homer  and  the  Homeric  Age, 

406 
Glasgow,  Ellen. 

Deliverance,  The,  217 
Virginia,  880 
Wheel  of  Life,  The,  896 

Gneist,  Rudolf,  History  of  the  English  Con- 
stitution, The,  263 
Gobineau,  Joseph  Arthur,  comte  de,  Romances 

of  the  East,  744 
Godkin,  Edwin  Lawrence,  Problems  of  Modern 

Democracy,  696 

Godwin,  Mrs.  Mary  (Wollstonecraft),  Vindica- 
tion of  the  Rights  of  Woman,  A,  884 
Godwin,  William,  Adventures  of  Caleb  Williams, 

115 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang  von. 
Autobiography,  346 
Elective  Affinities,  254 
.Faust,  300 


Hermann  and  Dorothea,  396 
Wilhelm  Meister's  Apprenticeship,  902 
Gogol,  Nikola!  Vasilievitch. 
Dead  Souls,  212 
Taras  Bulba,  824 
Goldsmith,  Oliver. 

Citizen  of  the  World,  The,  156 
She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  782 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  The,  876 
Gonchar6f,    Ivan   Aleksandrovitch,    Obl6mov, 

617 
Goncourt,  Edmond  de,  and  Goncourt,  Jules  de, 

History  of  French  Society,  The,  326 
Gonse,  Louis,  Art  of  Japan,  The,  53 
Goodwin,  Mrs.  Maud  (Wilder),  White  Aprons, 

898 

Gordon,  Charles  William,  see  Connor,  Ralph. 
Gordon,  Lucile,  Lady  Duff-,  see  Duff-Gordon, 

Lady  Lucile. 
Gorky,  Maxim. 

Foma  Gordyeef,  309 
In  the  World,  590 
Mother,  582 
My  Childhood,  589 
Orloff  and  his  Wife,  636 
Gould,     Sabine     Baring,-     see    Baring-Gould, 

Sabine. 

Grabau,  Mrs.  Mary  (Antin)?  see  Antin,  Mary. 
Grand,  Sarah,  Heavenly  Twins,  The,  385 
Grant,  Robert. 

Average  Man,  An,  65 
High  Priestess,  The,  399 
Reflections  of  a  Married  Man,  The,  719 
Unleavened  Bread,  871 
Grant,    Ulysses    Simpson,    Personal    Memoirs, 

356 

Gras,  Felix,  Reds  of  the  Midi,  The,  718 
Gray,  Thomas,  Letters,  495 
Greeley,  Horace,  American  Conflict,  The,  23 
Greely,  Adolphus  Washington,  Three  Years  of 

Arctic  Service,  835 
Green,  Anna  Katharine,  Millionaire  Baby,  The, 

564 

Green,  John  Richard,  Short  History  of  the  Eng- 
lish People,  A,  785 
Greene,  Robert,  Groats-Worth  of  Wit  Bought 

with  a  Million  of  Repentance,  A,  366 
Gregory,  Lady  Isabella  Augusta,  Rising  ot  the 

Moon,  The,  735 
Gr6ville,  Henri. 
Dosia,  240 
Sonia,  802 
Grey,    Maxwell,   Silence   of    Dean    Maitland, 

The,  788 

Griffin,  Gerald,  Collegians,  The,  167 
Grimm,  Hermann,  Literature,  508 
Grotius,  Hugo,  Rights  of  War  and  Peace,  The, 

733 
Grove,   Sir  George,   Dictionary  of   Music  and 

Musicians,  A,  586 

Guarini,  Giovanni  Battista,  Pastor  Fido,  II,  652 
Guillemard,  Francis  Henry  Hill,  Malaysia,  63 
Guiney,  Louise  Imogen,  Patrins,  652 
Guizot,  Francois  Pierre  Guillaume,  History  of 

Civilization  in  Europe,  158 
Guyot,  Arnold,  Earth  and  Man,  The,  245 

Hadow,  William  Henry,  ed.,  Oxford  History  of 

Music,  The,  641 
Haeckel,  Ernst. 

Evolution  of  Man,  192 

History  of  Creation,  The,  192 

Riddle  of  the  Universe,  The,  730 
Haggard,  Rider. 

Allan  Quatermain,  18 

Cleopatra,  162 

She,  781 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  In  His  Name,  425 
Halfvy,  Ludovic,  Abb6  Constantin,  The,  1 
Haliburton,  Thomas  Chandler,  Clockmaker, 

The,  163 

Hall,  Granville  Stanley,  Adolescence,  4 
Hallock,  Charles,  Our  New  Alaska,  640 


930 


INDEX 


Hamerton,  Philip  Gilbert,  Human.  Intercourse, 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  Federalist,  The,  302 
Hamilton,  Anthony,  count,  Memoirs  of  Count 

Grammont,  354 
Hamilton,  Gail,  Country  Living  and  Country 

Thinking,  190 
Hammond,    John     Lawrence     and     Barbara, 

Village  Labourer,  The,  879 
Hamsun,  Knut,  Shallow  Soil,  781 
Harben,  William,  Inner  Law,  The,  434 
Hardy,  Arthur  Sherburne. 
But  Yet  a  Woman,  112 

His  Daughter  First,  401 
Hardy,  Thomas. 

Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd,  297 

Jude  the  Obscure,  459 

Return  of  the  Native,  The,  726 

Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles,  S30 
Hare,  Augustus  John  Cuthbert. 

Cities  of  Northern  and  Central  Italy,  136 
Days  near  Rome,  212 
Harland,  Henry,  As  It  was  Written,  55 
Harland,  Marion,  Alone,  19 
Harraden,   Beatrice,   Ships  that  Pass  in  the 

Night,  784 

Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  Uncle  Remus,  S67 
Harrison,  Frederic,  Choice  of  Books,  The,  14S 
Harrison,  Henry  Sydnor,  Queed,  706 
Harrison,  Mrs.  Mary  St.  Leger  (Kingsley),  see 

Malet,  Lucas 
Harrisse,  Henry.  John  Cabot,  the  Discoverer  of 

North  America,  and  Sebastian  his  Son,  113 
Harte,  Bret. 

Gabriel  Conroy,  329 

Luck  of  Roaring  Camp,  The,  524 
Haupt,  Paul,  ed.,  Polychrome  Bible,  The,  86 
Hauptmann,  Gerhard. 

Atlantis,  60 

Fool  in  Christ,  The,  309 

Sunken  Bell,  The,  815 

Weavers,  The,  893 

Hawker,  Mary  Elizabeth,  see  Falconer,  Lance 
Hawkins,  Anthony  Hope,  see  Hope,  Anthony 
Hawthorne,  Julian,  Garth,  334 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel. 

Blithedale  Romance,  The,  94 

English  Note-Books,  265 

House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  The,  411 

Marble  Faun,  The,  541 

Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,  582 

Our  Old  Home:  a  Series  of  English  Sketches. 

Scarlet  Letter,  The,  769 
Twice-Told  Tales,  863 
Hay,  Ian,  Right  Stuff,  The,  732 
Hay,  John. 

Bread-Winners,  The,  103 
Castilian  Days,  127 

in  Georct, 

Journey,  An, 

Hazen,  Charles  Downer,  Contemporary  Amer- 
ican Opinion  of  the  French  Revolution.  182 

Hazlitt,  William,  Table  Talk,  SIS 

Hearn,  Lafcadio. 

Gleanings  in  Buddha  Fields,  345 

Japan:  an  Attempt  at  Interpretation,  444 

Hector,   Mrs.  Annie  (French),  see  Alexander, 
Mrs. 

Hegan,  Alice   Caldwell,  see  Rice,  Mrs.  Alice 
Caldwell  (Hegan). 

Heine,  Heinnch. 

Harzreise,  Die,  380 
Pictures  of  Travel,  675 

HeHodorus  of  Emesa,  bp.  of  Tricca,  ^Jthiopica  6 

Helps,  Sir  Arthur.  ' 

Friends  in  Council,  327 
Life  of  Hernando  Cortes,  The,  185 
Spanish  Conquest  in  America,  The,  802 

Henry,  O. 


Herbert   of   Cherbury,    Edward    Herbert,    1st 

baron,  Autobiography,  394 
Herndon,  William  Henry,  Abraham  Lincoln,  504 
Hernck,  Robert. 

Clark's  Field,  160 
One  Woman's  Life,  629 
Real  World,  The,  712 
Together,  840 

Hertz,  Hennk,  King  Rene's  Daughter,  472 
Hewlett,  Maurice. 

Forest  Lovers,  The,  312 

Life  and  Death  of  Richard  Yea-and-Nay, 

The,  498..-. 

Heyse,  Paul,  Children  of  the  World,  147 
Hey  wood,  Thomas,  Woman  Killed  with  Kind- 
ness, A,  910 
Hichens,  Robert. 

Call  of  the  Blood,  The,  116 
Garden  of  Allah,  The,  332 
Green  Carnation,  The,  363 
Higginson,  Thomas  Wentwor  h,  Army  Life  in 

a  Black  Regiment,  51 

Hill,  George  Birkbeck,  ed.,  Johnsonian  Miscel- 
lanies, 453 

Hillern,  Frau  Wilhelmine  von,  Only  a  Girl,  630 
Hilprecht,  Hermann  Vollrat,  ed.,  Recent  Re- 
search in  Bible  Lands,  86 
Hippocrates,  Works  of,  401 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  Leviathan,  497 
Hobson,  John    Atkinson,   Industrial    System, 

The,  432 
Hofmannsthal,  Hugo  von,  Death  and  the  Fool, 

213 

Hogarth,  William,  Analysis  of  Beauty,  29 
Holland,  Josiah  Gilbert,  Bitter-Sweet,  91 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell. 

Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,  The,  64 
Elsie  Venner,  256 
Guardian  Angel,  The,  368 
Mortal  Antipathy,  A,  580 
Poet  at  the  Breakfast  Table,  The,  680 
Holzmann,  Oskar,  Leben  Jesu,  448 
Homer. 

Iliad,  The,  420 

Hooker,  Richard,  taws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity, 

Of  the,  486 
Hope,  Anthony. 
Phroso,  673 

Prisoner  of  Zenda,  The,  695 
Hope,  Thomas,  Anastasius,  29 
Horace,  Of  the  Art  of  Poetry,  54 
Home  Tooke,  John,  see  Tooke,  John  Home 
Hornung,  Ernest  William,  Bride  from  the  Bush, 

A,  104 
House,  Edward  Howard,  Yone  Santo,  a  Child  of 

Japan,  919 

Howard,  Blanche  Willis,  One  Summer,  629 
Howard,  Bronson,  Shenandoah,  782 
Howe,  Edgar  Watson,  Story  of  a  Country  Town, 

The,  809 
Howe,  Frederic  Clemson,  European  Cities  at 

Work,  278 

Howells,  William  Dean. 
Annie  Kilburn,  39 
April  Hopes,  45 
Chance  Acquaintance,  A,  138 
Foregone  Conclusion,  A,  311 
Hazard  of  New  Fortunes,  A,  382 
Italian  Journeys,  440 
Lady  of  the  Aroostook,  The,  477 
Landlord  at  Lion's  Head,  The,  482 
Modern  Instance,  A,  573 
Undiscovered  Country,  The,  870 
Howitt,  William,  Life  and  Adventures  of  Tack 

of  the  Mill,  The,  443 
Hue,  Eyariste  Regis,  abbe. 

Chinese  Empire,  Tartary,  and  Thibet,  The. 

150 
Christianity  in  China,  Tartary,  and  Thibet^ 

150 

Travels  in  the  Chinese  Empire,  150 
Hudson,  William  Henry,  Green  Mansions,  364 


INDEX 


931 


Hughes,  Thomas, 

Scouring  of  the  White  Horse,  The,  773 

Tom  Brown's  School  Days,  841 
Hugo,  Victor  Marie,  comte. 

Miserables,  Les,  566 

Ninety-three,  610 

Notre-Dame  of  Paris,  614 

Toilers  of  the  Sea,  841 
Huneker,  James  Gibbons,  Iconoclasts:  a  Book 

of  Dramatists,  417 
Hungerford,  Mrs.  Margaret,  Airy  Fairy  Lillian, 

Hunter,  Sir  William  Wilson. 
Annals  of  Rural  Bengal,  37 
Orissa,  37 
Hurtado   de    Mendoza,  Lazarillo   de   Tonnes, 

487 
Hutchinson,  Henry  Neville,  Marriage  Customs 

in  Many  Lands,  544 
Hutchinson,  Mrs.  Lucy,  Memoirs  of  the  Life  of 

Colonel  Hutchinson,  416 
Hutten,  Ulrich  von,  Epistolae  Obscurorum  Vi- 

rorum,  269 
Hutton,    Laurence,     Literary    Landmarks    of 

London,  506 
Hutton,  Richard  Holt. 
Literary  Essays,  831 
Theological  Essays,  831 
Huxley,  Thomas  Henry,  Lay  Sermons,  4S6 
Huysmans,  Joris  Karl. 
En  Menage,  258 
En  Route,  258 
La-Bas,  258 
Marthe,  258 
Soeurs  Vatard,  Les,  258 

Ibn-el-Awam,  Book  of  Agriculture,  9 
Ibsen,  Henrik. 

Doll's  House,  A,  236 
Ghosts,  341 
Hedda  Gabler,  386 
Peer  Gynt,  659 
Rosmersholm,  749 
Wild  Duck,  The,  901 
Inchbald,    Mrs.    Elizabeth,  Simple    Story,  A, 

789 
Ingelow,  Jean. 

Don  John,  237 
m  Off  the  Skelligs,  621 
Irving,  Washington. 
Alhambra,  14 
Astoria,  58 
Knickerbocker's   History    of    New    York, 

473 
Life  and  Voyages  of  Christopher  Columbus, 

The,  168 

Tales  of  a  Traveler,  820 
Isham,  Samuel,  History  of  American  Painting, 

The,  25 
Isocrates,  Antidosis,  40 

J.  S.  of  Dale,  see  Stimson,  Frederic  Jessup 
Jackson,  Mrs.  Helen  Hunt,  Ramona,  711 
Jacobs,  Joseph,  Jews  of  Angevin  England,  The, 

449 

Jacobs,  William  Wymark,  Captains  All,  122 
James,  Henry. 

Ambassadors,  The,  21 

American,  The,  23 

Bostonians,  The,  102 

Daisy  Miller,  202 

Europeans,  The,  279 

Golden  Bowl,  The,  349 

Portrait  of  a  Lady,  The,  683 

Princess  Casamassima,  The,  693 

Turn  of  the  Screw,  The,  860 

Wings  of  a  Dove,  The,  904 
James,  William. 

Pragmatism,  685 

Principles  of  Psychology,  703 

Talks  to  Teachers  on  Psychology,  821 
Jameson,    Mrs.    Anna   Brownell,    Sacred   and 
Legendary  Art,  755 


Janvier,    Thomas    Allibone,    Aztec    Treasure* 

House,  The,  66 
Jebb,   Sir   Richard   Claverhouse,    Growth   and 

Influence  of  Classical  Greek  Poetry,  161 
Jefferies,  Richard,  Amateur  Poacher,  The.  21 
Jefferson,  Joseph,  Autobiography,  446 
Jenkins,  John  Edward,  Ginx's  Baby,  342 
Jerrold,  Douglas. 

Mrs.  Caudle's  Curtain  Lectures,  571 

Chronicles  of  Clovernook,  The,  152 
Jevons,    William    Stanley,    Methods   of    Social 

Reform,  559 
Jewett,  Sarah  Orne. 

Country  of  the  Pointed  Firs,  The,  190 

Deephaven,  215 

Tory  Lover,  The,  S44 
John  of  Damascus,  Saint,  Barlaam  and  Josa- 

phat,  71 

Johnson,  Richard,  Seven  Champions  of  Chris- 
tendom, The,  778 
Johnson,    Samuel,    1709-1784,    Lives    of    the 

English  Poets,  512 

Johnson,  Samuel,  1822-1882,  Oriental  Religions 
and   their  Relation    to  Universal  Religion, 
632 
Johnston,  Mary. 

Audrey,  62 

Long  Roll,  The,  516 

To  Have  and  To  Hold,  839 
Johnstone,  Charles,  Chrysal,  153 
Jokai,  Maurice. 

Black  Diamonds,  92 

Eyes  Like  the  Sea,  286 

Green  Book,  The,  363 
Jones,  Henry  Arthur. 

Liars,  The,  498 

Michael  and  his  Lost  Angel,  560 
Jonson,  Ben. 

Epicene,  269 

Every  Man  in  His  Humour,  282 

Volpone,  883 

Josephus,  Flavius,  History  of  the  Jews,  449 
Junius,  Letters,  463 
Justinian  I,  Emperor  of  the  East,  Pandects, 

Kane,   Elisha  Kent,   Arctic  Explorations,  the 
Second  Grinnell  Expedition  in  Search  of  Sir 
John  Franklin,  1853,  '54,  '55,  47 
Kant,  Immanuel. 

Critique  of  Judgment,  196 
Critique  of  Practical  Reason,  196 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  195 
Keary,  Annie. 

Castle  Daly,  127 
Doubting  Heart,  A,  240 
Keddie,  Henrietta,  see  Tytler,  Sarah. 
Keim,  Theodore,  Geschichte  Jesu  von  Nazara, 

448 
Kemble,  Frances  Anne. 

Records  of  a  Girlhood,  713 
Records  of  Later  Life,  714 
Kempis,  Thomas  a,  see  Thomas  a  Kempis 
Kennan,  George,  Tent  Life  in  Siberia,  829 
Kennedy,  Charles  Rann,  Servant  in  the  House, 

The,  777 

Kennedy,  John  Pendleton,  Horse  Shoe  Robin- 
son, 408 
Kent,  James,  Commentaries  on  American  Law. 

170 
Kerr,  Orpheus  C.,  Orpheus  C.  Kerr  Papers,  The, 

636 

Key,  Ellen,  Woman  Movement,  The,  911 
King,  Basil,  Inner  Shrine,  The,  434 
King,  Bolton,  Italy  of  Today,  441 
King,  Charles,  Colonel's  Daughter,  The,  168 
King,  Clarence,  Mountaineering  in  the  Sierra 

Nevada,  584 

Kinglake,  Alexander  William,  ESthen,  268 
Kingsley,  Charles. 
Alton  Locke,  19 
Hereward  the  Wake,  396 
Hypatia,  416 


932 


INDEX 


Kingsley, 

Leighion  Court,  490 
Ravenshoe,  711 
Kipling,  Rudyard. 

Ballads  and  Barrack-Room  Ballads,  68 
Captains  Courageous,  123 
Diversity  of  Creatures,  A,  230 
Jungle  Books,  The,  462 
Kim,  469 

Light  that  Failed,  The,  501 
Puck  of  Pook's  Hill,  704 
Kirby,  William,  Golden  Dog,  The,  350 
lurk,  John  Foster,  History  of  Charles  the  Bold, 

a  Duke  of  Burgundy.  142 
Kirk,  Mrs.  Ellen  (Olneyj,  Story  of  Margaret 

Kent,  The,  Sll 
Kirkland,  Joseph,  Zury.  920 
Kirschner,  Lula,  see  Schubia,  Ossip. 
Knickerbocker,  Diedrich,  see  Irving,  Washing- 
ton. 

Kovaievsky,  Sonya,  Vera  Vorontsoff,  875 
Kraszewski,  Jozef  Ignacy,  Jew,  The,  448 
Kravchinskii,     Sergiei    Mikhailovich,    Under- 
ground Russia,  S69 

Kuprin,    Aleksandr    Ivanovich,     Duel,     The, 
243 

Laboulaye,  Edouard  de,  Paris  in  America,  649 
La  Bruyere,  Jean  de,  Characters,  The,  124 
LaJFarge,  John,  Artist's  Letters  from  Japan,  An, 

55 

La  Fontaine,  Jean  de,  Fables,  287 
Lagerlof,  Selma. 
Jerusalem,  447 

Story  of  Gosta  Berling,  The,  Sll 
Wonderful  Adventures  of  Nils,  The,  913 
Lamartine,  Alphonse  de,  Jocelyn,  450 
Lamb,  Charles,  Essays  of  Elia,  The,  273 
Lamb,  Charles,  and  Lamb,  Mary,  Tales  from 

Shakespeare,  S20 
Lamecnais,  Felicite  Robert  de,  Roman  Affairs, 

740 

La  Motte-Fouque,  Friedrich,  freiherr  de. 
Aslauga's  Knight,  56 
Undine,  S70 
Lanciani,  Rodolfo. 

Ancient  Rome  in  the  Light  of  Recent  Dis- 
coveries, 33 

Pagan  and  Christian  Rome,  642 
Lar.dor,  Walter  Savage,  Imaginary  Conversa- 
tions, 421 
Lane-Poole,  Stanley,  Egypt  in  the  Middle  Ages, 

Lang,  Andrew. 

Ballades  and  Verses  Vain,  67 
Books  and  Bookmen,  100 
Custom  and  Myth,  200 
Letters  to  Dead  Authors,  496 
Langland,  William,  Vision  of  Piers  the  Plow- 
man, The,  881 
Lanier,  Sidney. 

English  Xovel,  The,  265 
Science  of  English  Verse,  The,  265 
Laplace,  Pierre  Simon,  marquis  de,  Mechanism 

of  the  Heavens,  The,  553 
La  Rochefoucauld,  Francois  VI.,  due  de,  prince 

de  Marcillac,  Maxims,  552 
Lathrop,  George  Parsons. 

Echo  of  Passion,  An,  249 
Newport,  609 
Spanish  Vistas,  SOB 

Lavater,  Johann  Caspar,  Physiognomy,  674 
Lawless,  Hon.  Emily. 
Grania,  356 
Hurrish,  415 
Lawrence,    George   Alfred,    Guy    Livingstone, 

3/0 
Lawton,  William  Cranston,  Art  and  Humanity 

in  Homer,  406 

Layamon,  Layamon's  Brut,  108 
Layard,  Sir  Austen  Henry. 

Monuments  of  Nineveh,  61 1 
Nineveh  and  its  Remains,  611 


Lea,  Henry  Charles. 

History  of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle 

Ages,  A,  435 

Superstition  and  Force,  815 
Leacock,  Stephen,  Literary  Lapses,  507 
Lear,  Edward,  Book  of  Nonsense,  The,  98 
Lecky,  William  Edward  Hartpole. 
Democracy  and  Liberty,  219 
History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury, A,  262 
History  of  European  Morals  from  Augustus 

to  Charlemagne,  279 
Lee,   Robert   Edward,   Jr.,   Recollections   and 

Letters  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee,  490 
Lee,  Sidney,  Life  of  William  Shakespeare,  A, 

780 

Lee,  Vernon,  Miss  Brown,  567 
Legouve,  Ernest,  see  Scribe,  Eugene,  and  Le- 
gouve, Ernest. 
Lermontov,  Mikhail,  Hero  of  Our  Times,  A, 

397 
Leroy-Beaulieu,    Anatole,    Israel    among    the 

Nations,  439 
Le  Sage,  Alain  Ren6. 

Adventures  of  Gil  Bias  of  Santillane,  The, 

342 

Asmodeus,  57 

Leslie,  Charles  Robert,  Memoir  of  John  Con- 
stable, 180 

Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephraim. 
Laokoon,  483 
Nathan  the  Wise,  596 
Lever,  Charles. 

Harry  Lorrequer,  379 
Tom  Burke  of  "  Ours, "  842 
Lewes,  George  Henry,  Life  of  Goethe,  The,  346 
Lewes,  Mary  Ann  Evans,  see  Eliot,  George. 
Lewis,  Matthew  Gregory,  Monk,  The,  575 
Lie,  Jonas. 

Commodore's  Daughters,  The,  172 
Pilot  and  his  Wife,  The,  677 
Lightfoot,    Joseph    Barber,    bp.    of    Durham, 

Apostolic  Fathers,  The,45 
Lincoln,  Joseph  Crosby,  Rise  of  Roscoe  Paine, 

The,  734 
Linton,    Mrs.  Eliza,   True  History  of  Joshua 

Davidson,  The,  456 

Lloyd,  Henry  Demarest,  Wealth  Against  Com- 
monwealth, 892 

Lloyd,  John  Uri,  Stringtown  on  the  Pike,  814 
Locke,  John. 

Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding, 

An,  270 

Some  Thoughts  Concerning  Education,  833 
Locke,  Richard  Adams,  Moon  Hoax,  The,  577 
Locke,  William  John. 

Beloved  Vagabond,  The,  79 
Wonderful  Year,  The,  914 
Lockhart,  John  Gibson. 

Life  of  Robert  Burns,  The,  110 
Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  The,  771 
Some  Passages  in  the  Life  of  Mr.  Adam 
Blair,  Minister  of  the  Gospel  at  Cross- 
Meikle,  3 

Lockyer,  Sir  Joseph  Norman,  Dawn  of  Astron- 
omy, The,  210 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  Daniel  Webster,  893 
London,  Jack. 

Call  of  the  Wild,  The,  116 
Sea- Wolf,  The,  773 
Smoke  Bellew,  794 
Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth. 
Eyangeline,  279 
Hiawatha,  398 
Hyperion,  417 

Longus,  Daphis  and  Chloe,  204 
Loti,  Pierre. 

Iceland  Fisherman,  An,  417 
Madame  Chrysantheme,  528 
Marriage  of  Loti,  The,  545 
Lounsbury,  Thomas  Raynesford. 

History  of  the  English  Language,  264 
Studies  in  Chaucer.  143 


INDEX 


933 


Lover,  Samuel. 

Handy  Andy,  375 

Rory  O'More,  746 
Lowell,   Abbott   Lawrence,    Governments   and 

Parties  in  Continental  Europe,  353 
Lowell,  James  Russell. 

Biglow  Papers,  The,  87 

My  Study  Windows,  5*2 

Lowell,  Percival,  Soul  of  the  Far  East,  The,  802 
Lubbock,  John,  1st  baron  Avebury,  see  Ave- 

bury,  John  Lubbock,  1st  baron 
Lucian  of  Samosata,   Dialogues  of  the  Dead, 

223 

Lucy,  Sir  Henry  William,  Di-ry  of  Two  Par- 
liaments, A,  225 
Ludlow,  James  Meeker,  Age  of  the  Crusades, 

The,  197 
Lummis,  Charles  Fletcher,  Land   of  Poco  Ti- 

empo,  The,  482 

Luska,  Sidney,  see  Harland,  Henry 
Lyall,  Edna. 

Autobiography  of  a  Slander,  64 

Donovan;  a  Modern  Englishman,  240 
Lycophron  of  Chalcis,  Alexandra,  14 
Lyly.  John. 

Euphues  and  His  England,  278 

Euphues,  the  Anatomy  of  Wit,  278 
Lyttelton,  George,  1st  baron,  Dialogues  of  the 

Dead,  224 
Lytton,  Edward,  Bulwer-Lytton.  1st  baron. 

Alice,  270 

Caxtons,  The,  132 

Coming  Race,  The,  169 

Ernest  Maltravers,  270 

Eugene  Aram,  277 

Harold,  the  Last  of  the  Saxon  Kings,  378 

Kenelm  Chillingly,  466 

Last  Days  of  Pompeii,  The,  484 

My  Novel,  590 

Paul  Clifford,  656 

Pelham,  660 

Rienzi,  the  Last  of  the  Roman  Tribunes, 
731 

Strange  Story,  A,  813 

Maartens,  Maarten. 

God's  Fool,  346 

Sin  of  Joost  Avelingh,  The,  790 
Mabie,  Hamilton  Wright. 

Books  and  Culture,  274 

Essays  in  Literary  Interpretation,  274 

Essays  on  Nature  and  Culture,  274 

My  Study  Fire,  274 

Short  Studies  in  Literature,  274 

Under  the  Trees  and  Elsewhere,  274 
McCarthy,  Justin. 

Dictator,  The,  226 

History  of  the  Four  Georges,  A,  316 
Macaulay,     Thomas     Babington,     1st    baron 

Critical  and  Miscellaneous  Essays,  272 
McCutcheon,  George  Barr. 

Beverly  of  Graustark,  S3 

Graustark,  357 
Macdonald,  George. 

Annals  of  a  Quiet  Neighbourhood,  36 

Donal  Grant,  239 

Robert  Falconer,  738 

MacGrath,  Harold,  Man  on  the  Box,  The,  539 
Machiavelli,  Niccold. 

History  of  Florence,  The,  309 

Prince,  The,  690 
MacKaye,    Percy,  Canterbury  Pilgrims,    The, 

120 
Mackenzie,  Compton. 

Sinister  Street,  791 

Piaster's  Mead,  679 

Mackenzie,  Henry,  Man  of  Feeling,  A,  538 
Maclaren,  Ian.     Beside  the  Bonnie  Briar  Bush, 

82 
McMaster,  John  Bach,  History  of  the  People 

of  the  United  States,  A,  664 
Macpherson,  James,  Fingal,  an  Ancient  Epic 
Poem,  306 


Macquoid,  Mrs.  Katharine  Sarah. 

At  the  Red  Glove,  58 

Patty,  655 

Madison,  James,  Federalist,  The,  302 
Maeterlinck,  Maurice. 

Blind,  The,  94 

Blue  Bird,  The,  95 

Intruder,  The,  437 

Life  of  the  Bee,  The,  499 

Monna  Vanna,  575 

Treasure  of  the  Humble,  The,  S52 
Mahaffy,  John  Pentland. 

History  of  Egypt,  A;  Ptolemaic  Dynasty, 
252 

Old  Greek  Education,  622 

Rambles  and  Studies  in  Greece,  711 

Social  Life  in  Greece  from  Homer  to  Me- 

nander,  796 
Mahan,  Alfred  Thayer, 

Influence  of  Sea-Power  on  Histor>T,  1660- 
1783,  The,  432 

Interest  of  America  in  Sea  Power,  Present 
and  Future,  The,  437 

Life  of  Nelson,  The,  599 
Maine,  Sir  Henry  Sumner. 

Ancient  Law,  32 

Early  Law  and  Custom,  32 

History  of  Early  Institutions,  32 

Village  Communities,  32 
Maistre,  Xavier,  comte  de,  Voyage  Around  my 

Chamber,  883 

Major,  Charles,  see  Caskoden,  Edwin 
Major,  Richard  Henry,  Life  of  Prince  Henry  of 
Portugal,  Surnamed  the  Navigator,  The,  393 
Malet,  Lucas. 

Carissima,  The,  125 

Colonel  Enderby's  Wife,  168 

Far  Horizon,  The,  297 

History    of    Sir    Richard  Calmady,  The, 
793 

Wages  of  Sin,  The,  885 
Mallock,  William  Hurrell. 

New  Republic,  The,  607 

Social  Equality,  795 

Malory,  Sir  Thomas,  Morte  d'Arthur,  Le,  580 
Manatt,  James  Irving,  see  Tsountas,  Chrestos, 

and  Manatt,  James  Irving. 
Mandeville,  Sir  John,  Travels,  850 
Manning,    Anne,    Household    of    Sir   Thomas 

More,  The,  412 

Manzoui,  Alessandro,  Betrothed,  The,  82 
Marana,  Giovanni  Paolo,  Letters  Written  by  a 

Turkish  Spy,  859 

Marcus  Aurelius,  Meditations,  554 
Marlowe,  Christopher. 

Doctor  Faustus,  233 

Edward  II.,  250 
Marryat,  Frederick. 

Jacob  Faithful,  443 

Masterman  Ready,  550 

Mr.  Midshipman  Easy,  570 
Alarsh,  George  Perkins,  Man  and  Nature,  536 
Marston,_Tohn,  Antonio  and  Mellida,  42 
Martin,  William  Alexander  Parsons,  Cycle  of 

Cathay,  A,  200 
Martineau,  Harriet,  Hour  and  the  Man,  The, 

408 
Martinengo-Cesaresco,    Countess   Evelyn    Ca- 

vour,  131 

Marvel,  Ik,  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  727 
Marx,  Karl,  Capital,  121 
Mason,  Alfred  Edward  Woodley. 

Four  Feathers,  The,  315 

Turnstile,  The,  860 
Maspero,  Sir  Gaston. 

Dawn   of    Civilization,   The,   Egypt   and 
Chaldsea,  211 

Egypt,  Syria,  and  Assyria,  211 

Manual  of  Egyptian  Archaeology,  252 
Massinger,  Philip,  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts, 

A,  607 

Masson,  David,  Life  of  John  Milton,  The,  564 
Maupassant,  Guy  de,  Odd  Number,  The,  619 


934 


INDEX 


Mather,  Cotton,  Magnalia  Christi  Americana, 

530 

Mather,    Increase,     Remarkable    Providences 
Illustrative  of  the  Earlier  Days  of  American 
Colonization,  722 
Matthews,  Braider. 

Aspects  of  Piction  and  other  Ventures  in 

Criiicisn:,  57 
His  Father's  Son,  402 
Moliere,  his  Life  and  his  Works,  574 
May,  Thornas  Erskine,  baron  Famborough. 
Constitutional  History  of  England,  The, 

261 

Democracy  in  Europe,  221 
Melville,  Herman. 
Moby-Dick,  572 
Omoo,  S66 
Typee,  S66 

Mendqza,  Hurtado  de,  see  Hurtado  de  Mendoza. 
Meredith,  George. 

Beauchainp's  Career,  76 


, 

Diana  of  the  Crossways,  225 
Egoist,  The,  251 


Lord  Ormont  and  his  Aminta,  518 
Sandra  Belloni,  767 
Merimee,  Prosper. 
Carmen,  126 
Cclomba,  167 

Letters  to  an  Unknown,  495 
Lokis,  514 
Merivale,  Charles,  General  History  of  Rome,  A, 

744 
Michaud,    Joseph    Francois,    History   of   the 

Crusades,  197 
Michelet,  Jules. 
Amour,  L',  27 
Bird,  The,  90 
History  of  France,  319 
Middleton,  Thomas,  Trick  to  Catch  the  Old 

One,  A,  $53 
Mill,  John  Stuart. 

Autobiography,  562 

Considerations  on  Representative  Govern- 
ment, 723 
On  Liberty,  498 

Principles  of  Political  Economy,  681 
Subjection  of  Women,  The,  814 
Mule,  Pierre,  Under  the  Tricolour,  868 
Muler,  Hugh,  Schools  and  Schoolmasters,  My, 

Milne,  Joseph  Grafton,  Egypt  under  Roman 

Rule,  252 
Milton,  John. 

Paradise  Lost,  647 
Paradise  Regained,  648 
w*  T^ct^tQ  Ott  Education,  846 
Mitchell,  Donald  Grant,  see  Marvel,  Ik. 
Mitchell,  John  Ames,  Amos  judd,  27 
Mitchell,  Silas  Weir. 

AoVentures  of  Francois,  The,  Foundling, 

Thief,  Juggler  and  Fencing  Master,  319 
Constance  Trescot,  181 
...    Hugh  Wynne,  Free  Quaker,  413 
Mitford,  Mary  Russell,  Our  Village,  640 
Mohgre,  Jean  Baptiste  Poquelin. 
Ecole  des  Femmes,  L',  249  • 
Learned  Ladies,  The,  488 
Malade  Imaginaire,  Le,  535 
Miser,  The,  64 

Precieuses  Ridicules,  Les,  686 
Tartuffe,  S25 

Montaigne,  Michel  Eyquem  de,  Essays,  271 
Montesquieu,  Charles  Louis  de  Secondat,  baron 

de  La  Brede  et  de. 
Considerations  on  the  Greatness  and  Decay 

of  the  Romans,  360 
Persian  Letters,  497 
Spirit  of  Laws,  The,  804 

Monypenny,  William  Flavelle,  and  Buckle   G 
fildiV*  Benj"amin  Disraeli,  Earl  of  Beacons- 
William  Vaughn,  Great  Divide,  The, 


Moore,  George. 

Brook  Kerith,  The,  106 
Esther  Waters,  275 
Evelyn  Innes,  281 
Hail  and  Farewell,  373 
Moore,  Thomas,  Lallah  Rookh,  479 
More,  Hannah,  Ccelebs  in  Search  of  a  Wife, 

165 

More,  Paul  Elmer,  Shelburne  Essays,  782 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  Utopia,  872 
Morgan,  Lady  Sydney  (Owenson),  Wild  Irish 

Girl,  The,  901 
Morier,  James  Justinian,  Adventures  of  Hajji 

Baba,  of  Ispahan,  The,  373 
Morison,  James  Cotter,  Madame  de  Maintenon, 

534 
Morlev,  John,  viscount. 

Diderot  and  the  Encyclopaedists,  227 
On  Compromise,  173 
William  Ewart  Gladstone,  344 
Morris,  William. 

Earthly  Paradise,  The,  246 
House  of  the  Wolfings,  The,  411 
Morrison,  Arthur,  Child  of  the  Jago,  A,  145 
Morton,  Thomas,  Speed  the  Plough,  803 
Motley,  John  Lothrop. 

History  of  the  United  Netherlands,  871 
Life  and  Death  of  John  of  Barneveld,  The, 

72 

Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  The,  735 
Muir,  John,  Mountains  of  California,  The,  584 
Mulock,  Dinah  Maria. 
Hannah,  375 

John  Halifax,  Gentleman,  452 
Mullany,  Patrick  Francis,  see  Azarias,  Brother. 
Muller,  Friedrich  Max. 

Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,  148 
Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  The,  756 
Science  of  Thought,  The,  771 
Murfree,  Mary  NoaUles,  see  Craddock,  Charles 

Egbert. 
Murger,  Henri,  Bohemians  of  the  Latin  Quarter, 

The,  96 

Myers,  Frederic  William  Henry, 
Essays,  Classical,  273 
Essays,  Modern,  273 

Nadal,  Ehrman  Syme,  Impressions  of  London 

Social  Life,  with  Other  Papers,  423 
Nansen,  Fridtjof,  Farthest  North,  298 
Newell,  Robert  Henry,  see  Kerr,  Orpheus  C. 
Newman,  John  Henry,  cardinal,  Apologia  pr 
Vita  Sua,  44 

Callista,  117 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  Principia,  693 
Nex<£,  Martin  Alexander,  Pelle  the  Conqueror, 

661 
Nicholson,  Meredith. 

Hoosier  Chronicle,  A,  407 
Proof  of  the  Pudding,  The,  702 
Nicolay,  John  George,  and  Hay,  John,  Abraham 

Lincoln,  a  History,  503 
Nietzsche,    Friedrich    Wilhelm,    Thus    spake 

Zarathustra,  836 
Nordau,  Max. 

Conventional  Lies  of  our  Civilization,  The, 

183 

Degeneration,  216 
Norman,  Mrs.  Menie  Muriel  (Dowie),see  Dowie, 

Menie  Muriel, 
Norris,  Frank. 

Octopus,  The,  618 
Pit,  The,  678 
Norris,  Mrs.  Kathleen,  Mother,  582 
Norris,  William  Edward. 
Clarissa  Furiosa,  159 
Heaps  of  Money,  383 
Matrimony,  551 
North,    Christopher,   Lights   and   Shadows   of 

Scottish  Life,  502 

Norton,  Hon.  Mrs.  Caroline,  Old  Sir  Douglas, 
623 


L  pro 


INDEX 


935 


O'Brien,  Fitz- James,  Diamond  Lens,  The,  224 
Ohnet,  Georges,  Ironmaster,  The,  439 
Okey,  Thomas,  see  King,  Bolton. 
Oiiphant,  Mrs.  Margaret  Oliphant  (Wilson). 
Annals   of  a   Publishing  House,    \Vilham 

Blackwood  and  his  Sons,  93 
Chronicles  of  Carlingford,  The,  151 
Memoir  of  the  Life  of  Laurence  Oliphant 

and  Alice  Oliphant  his  Wife,  626 
Ollivant,  Alfred,  Bob,  Son  of  Battle,  96 
Olmated,  Frederick  Law,  Cotton  Kingdom,  The, 

187 
Journey  in  the  Seaboard  Slave  States,  A, 

456 

Omar  Khayyam,  Rubaiyat,  753 
Oppenheim,  Edward  Phillips,  Illustrious  Prince, 

The,  420 

O'Rell,  Max,  John  Bull  and  his  Island,  451 
Orton,  James,  Andes  and  the  Amazon,  The,  34 
Osborn,  Henry  Fairfield,  Men  of  the  Old  Stone 

Age,  556 
Osbourne,  Lloyd,  see  Stevenson,  Robert  Louis, 

and  Osbourne,  Lloyd. 
Ossoli,  Sarah  Margaret   (Fuller),  marchesa  d', 

see  Fuller,  Margaret.,^ 

Ostrogorskii,  Moisei  lAkovlevich,  Democracy 
and  the  Organization  of  Political  Parties, 
220 

Ostwald,     Wilhelm,     Individuality    and     Im- 
mortality, 431 
Ouida. 

Bimbi;  Stories  for  Children,  88 

Moths,  583 

Wanda,  Countess  von  Szalras,  SS7 

Page,  Thomas  Nelson. 

Gordon  Keith,  352 

Red  Rock,  717 

Social  Life  in  Old  Virginia  before  the  War, 

796 

Paget,  Violet,  see  Lee,  Vernon. 
Paine,  Thomas. 

Age  of  Reason,  The,  8 

American  Crisis,  The,  24 
Painter,  William,  Palace  of  Pleasure,  643 
Palacio  Valdes,  Armando. 

Fourth  Estate,  The,  317 

Grandee,  The,  355 

Maximina,  552 

Palfrey,  John  Gorham,  Compendious  History 
of  New  England,  A,  602 


Journey  Through  Central  and  Eastern  Arabia, 
45 
Palmer,  Abram  Smythe,  Babylonian  Influence 

on  the  Bible  and  Popular  Beliefs,  67 
Palmer,  Edward  Henry,  see  Besant,  Sir  Walter, 

and  Palmer,  Edward  Henry. 
Pardo   Bazan,   Emilia,   condesa   de,   Christian 

Woman,  A,  150 

Paris,  Louis  Philippe  Albert  d'Orleans,  comte 
de.  History  of   the  Civil  War  in  America, 
158 
Parker,  Sir  Gilbert,  bart. 

Judgment  House,  The,  460 
Ladder  of  Swords,  A,  475 
Right  of  Way,  The,  732 
Seats  of  the  Mighty,  The,  774 
When  Valmond  Came  to  Pontiac,  896 
Parker,  John  Henry,  Introduction  to  the  Study 

of  Gothic  Architecture,  An,  353 
Parker,  Theodore,  Historic  Americans,  404 
Parkman,  Francis. 

Conspiracy  of  Pontiac,  The,  319 
France  and  England  in  North  America,  318 
Oregon  Trail,  The,  631 
Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  World,  678 
Parton,  James,  Caricature  and  Other  Comic  Art 

in  all  Times  and  Many  Lands,  124 
Pascal,  Blaise,  Pensees  sur  la  Religion,  663 


Pater,  Walter. 

Greek  Studies,  363 
Marius,  the  Epicurean,  543 
Pt-imore,  Coventry,  Angel  in  the  House,  The9 

35 

Paul,  Jean,  see  Richter,  Johann  Paul  Friedrich. 
Paulsen,   Friedrich,   Immanuel  Kant,  his  Life 

and  Doctrine,  465 

Payn,  James,  Lost  Sir  Massingberd,  520 
Peacock,  Thomas  Love,  Crotchet  Castle,  197 
Gryll  Grange,  367 
Headlong  Hall,  382 
Peary,  Mrs.  Josephine  (Diebitsch),  My  Arctic 

Journal,  5S9 

Pellissier,  Georges,  Literary  Movement  in 
France  during  the  Nineteenth  Century,  The, 
507 

Peltier,  Jean  Gabriel,  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  2 
Pepys,    Samuel,    Diary   and    Correspondence, 

665 

Perez  Galdds,  Benito. 
Dona  Perfecta,  239 
Leon  Roch,  491 
Saragossa,  768 
Trafalgar,  848 
Perrot,  Georges,  and  Chipiez,  Charles,  History 

of  Art  in  Ancient  Egypt,  A,  53 
Peters,  John  Punnett,  Nippur,  611 
Petrie,  William  Matthew  Flinders. 
History  of  Egypt,  A,  252 
Ten  Years'  Digging  in  Egypt,  829 
Peyton,  Thomas,  Glasse  of  Time  in  the  First 

Ages,  The,  344 

Phelps,  Elizabeth  Stuart,  Singular  Life,  A,  791 
Phillips,  David  Graham,  Deluge,  The,  218 
Phillips,  Stephen,  Paolo  and  Francesca,  646 
Phillpotts,  Eden,  Secret  Woman,  The,  775 
Pidgin,  Charles  Felton,  Quincy  Adams  Sawyer 

and  Mason's  Corner  Folks,  708 
Pinero,  Sir  Arthur  Wing. 

Gay  Lord  Quex,  The,  335 
Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,  The,  775 
Pius  II.,  Pope,  Commentaries,  170 
Plato. 

Banquet,  The,  68 
Dialogues,  223 
Laws,  The,  485 
Republic,  The,  724 
Plautus,  Titus  Maccius. 
Aulularia,  62 
Menaschmi,  557 

Pliny  the  Elder,  Natural  History,  598 
Pliny  the  Younger,  Letters,  494 
Plutarch,  Plutarch's  Lives,  680 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  Gold  Bug,  The,  347 
Polo,  Marco,  Travels,  849 
Pope,  Alexander,  Dunciad,  The,  244 
Poquelin  de  Moliere,  Jean  Baptiste,  see  Moliere, 

Jean  Baptiste  Poquelin  de. 
Poole,  Ernest. 

Harbor,  The,  376 
His  Family,  402 

Porter,  Eleanor  H.,  Just  David,  464 
Porter,  Mrs.  Gene  (Stratton),  Harvester,  The, 

380 
Porter,  Jane. 

Scottish  Chiefs,  The,  772 
Thaddeus  of  Warsaw,  830 
Porter,  William  Sydney,  see  Henry,  O. 
Potter,  Henry  Codman,  Scholar  and  the  State, 
The,  and  Other  Orations  and  Addresses,  770 
Pratt,  Waldo  Selden,  History  of  Music,  The, 

587 
Prescott,  Harriet,  see  Spofford,   Mrs.  Harriet 

(Prescott). 
Prescott,  William  HicHiug. 

History  of  the  Conquest  of  Peru,  178 
History  of  the  Reign  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  720 
Preston,    Harriet    Waters,    Troubadours    and 

Trouveres,  857 

Prevost,  Antoine  Francois,  abb£,  called  Prevost 
d'Exiles,  Manon  Lescaut,  540 


936 


INDEX 


Prevost,  Marcel,  Lettres  de  Femmes,  496 
Pryce,  Richard. 

Christopher,  150 

David  Penstephen,  210 
Psalmanaazaar,   George,   Historical  and  Geo- 
graphical Description  of  Formosa,  An,  312 
Ptolemy  of  Alexandria. 

Almagest,  The,  18 

Geography,  19 

Purchas,  Samuel,  Purchas  his  Pilgrimes,  70o 
Pushkin,   Alexander  Sergyeex-itch. 

Boris  Godunoff,  101 

Captain's  Daughter,  The,  123 
Putnam,  George  Haven. 

Authors  and  their  Public  in  Ancient  Times 
100 

Books  and  their  Makers  during  the  Middle 

Ages,  100 

Pyeshkov,  Aleksei   Maximovitch,  see  Gorky, 
Maxim. 

Quarles,  Francis. 

Divine  Fancies,  256 

Divine  Poems,  256 

Emblems,  256 
Quiller-Couch,  Sir  Arthur  Thomas. 

Adventures  in  Criticism,  5 

Delectable  Duchy,  The,  217 

Splendid  Spur,  The,  S04 
Qaintilian,  Institutes  of  Oratory,  436 

Rabelais,  Francois,  Gargantua  and  Pantagniel, 

333 
Racine,  Jean. 

Andromache,  35 
Athalie,  60 
Mithridate,  572 
Radclif  e,  Mrs.  Ann,  Mysteries  of  Udolpho,  The, 

592 

Raimbert  de  Paris,  Ogier  the  Dane,  622 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  History  of  the  World,  The, 

404 

Raspe,  Rudolph  Erich  T  Travels  and  Surprising 
Adventures  of  Baron  Munchausen,  The,  849 
Reade,  Charles. 

Christie  Johnstone,  150 
Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  The,  164 
Griffith  Gaunt,  366 
Hard  Cash,  377 

Love  Ale  Little,  Love  Me  Long,  521 
Peg  Womngtqn,  660 
Put  Yourself  in  his  Place,  705 
Redfern,  Percy,  Story  of  the  C.  W.  S.,  The,  812 
Reinach,  Salomon,  Apollo,  44 
Renan,  Ernest. 

History  of  the  People  of  Israel,  440 
Vie  de  Jesus,  La,  448 

Repplier,  Agnes,  Americans  and  Others,  26 
Reuter,  Fritz. 

In  the  Year  '13,  427 
Old  Story  of  My  Farming  Daj-s,  An,  624 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  Discourses  delivered  at 

the  Royal  Academy,  227 
Rhodes,  James   Ford,   History  of  the  United 

States  from  the  Compromise  of  1850,  871 
Rice,  Mrs.  Alice  Caldwell  (Hegan). 
Lovey  Mary.  523 

Mrs.  Wiggs  of  the  Cabbage  Patch,  571 
Sandy, 767 
Rice,  James,  see  Besant,  Sir  Walter,  and  Rice, 

James. 

Richard  de  Bury,  Philobiblon,  673 
Richardson,  Samuel. 

Clarissa  Harlowe,  160 
Pamela,  645 

Sir  Charles  Grandison,  bart.,  792 
Richter,  Jean  Paul,  Flower,  Fruit,  and  Thorn 

pieces,  328 
Riis,  Jacob  August,   Making  of  an  American, 

Rinehart,  Mrs.  Mary  Roberts,  "K,  "  465 
Rives,  Ame"lie,  Quick  or  the  Dead?,  The,  70S 


Roberts,  Alexander,  ed.,  Ante-Nicene  Christian 

Library,  39 
Roberts,  Frederick  Sleigh,  1st  earl,  Forty-one 

Years  in  India,  313 
Robinson,   John,    New   Essays:   Observations, 

Divine  and  Moral,  603 
Roche,    Mrs.  Regina   Maria,   Children  of  the 

Abbey,  The,  146 

Rod,  JfcSdouard,  White  Rocks,  The,  899 
Roe,  Edward  Payson,  Barriers  Burned  Away, 

73 
Rogers,  James  Edwin  Thorold. 

Economic  Interpretation  of  History,  The, 

250 
History     of   Agriculture    and     Prices    in 

England,  A,  10 
Industrial    and    Commercial    History    of 

England,  250 

Rolland,  Romain,  Jean-Christophe,  445 
Roosevelt,  Theodore. 

Strenuous  Life,  The,  813 
Winning  of  the  West,  The,  905 
Roscoe,  William,  Life  and  Pontificate  of  Leo  the 

Tenth,  The,  491 
Rose,  John  Holland,  Life  of  Napoleon  I.,  The, 

593     ' 

Rosset,  Pierre  Fulcran  de,  Agriculture,  10 
Rossetti,  Maria  Francesca,  Shadow  of  Dante,  A, 

203 

Rostand,  Edmond. 
Chantecler,  139 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  201 
L'Aiglon,  11 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques. 
Confessions,  174 
tfmile,  256      • 
Social  Contract,  The,  795 
Rowntree,  Benjamin  Seebohm. 
Land  and  Labour,  480 
Poverty,  685 
Rowson,    Mrs.   Susanna    (Haswell),    Charlotte 

Temple,  142 

Ruffini,  Giovanni,  Doctor  Antonio,  232 
Runkle,  Bertha,  Helmet  of  Navarre,  The,  388 
Ruskin,  John. 

Modern  Painters,  573 
Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,  778 
Stones  of  Venice,  808 
Russell,  William  Clark,  Wreck  of  the  "Gros- 

venor,"  The,  916 

Rutherford,  Mark,  Catharine  Furze,  129 
Rydberg,  Viktor,  Last  Athenian,  The,  483 

Sabatier,  Paul,  Life  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  319 
Sacher-Masoch,  Leopold,  ritter  von,  Seraph,  776 
Sa'di,  Gulistan,  368 
Saint-Pierre,  P-rnardin  de,  Paul  and  Virginia, 

655 
Saint-Simon,    Louis    de    Rouvroy,     due     de, 

Memoirs,  76* 

Sainte-Beuve,  _narles  Augustin. 
Causeries  du  Lundi,  130 
Gallery  of  Celebrated  Women,  331 
Nouveaux  Lundis,  615 
Saintsbury,  George,  Short  History  of  French 

Literature,  A,  323 
Sand,  George. 

Consuelo,  181 

Countess  of  Rudolstadt,  The,  181 
Elle  et  Lui,  255 
Haunted  Pool,  The,  381 
Histoire  de  Ma  Vie,  L',  766 
Indiana,  429 
Little  Fadette,  510 
Sandeau,  Jules. 

Catharine,  129 
House  of  Penarvan,  The,  410 
See  also  Augier,  Emile,  and  Sandeau,  Jules. 
Savage,  Richard  Henry,  My  Official  Wife,  591 
ScherTel,  Joseph  Victor  von,  Ekkehard,  253 
Schiller,  Friedrich  von. 
Wallenstein,  885 
William  Tell,  903 


INDEX 


937 


Schliemann,  Heinrich,  Troy  and  its  Remains, 

Schnitzler,  Arthur. 

Anatol,  30 

Lonely  Way,  The,  516 

Professor  Bernhardi,  698 
Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  World  as  Will  and  Idea, 

The,  916 
Schreiner,  Olive,  Story  of  an  African  Farm,  The, 

809 

Schubin,  Ossip,  Boris  Lensky,  102 
Schwartz,  Jozua  Marius  Willem,  see  Maartens, 

Maarten. 

Scott,  Michael,  Tom  Cringle's  Log,  842 
Scott,  Robert  Falcon,  Scott's  Last  Expedition, 

772 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  bart. 

Abbot,  The,  1 

Anne  of  Geierstein,  38 

Antiquary,  The,  41 

Bride  of  Lammermoor,  The,  104 

Count  Robert  of  Paris,  188 

Fair  Maid  of  Perth,  The,  289 

Guy  Mannering,  372 

Heart  of  Midlothian,  The,  383 

Ivanhoe,  441 

Kenilworth,  467 

Quentin  Durward,  707 

Redgauntlet,  718 

Waverley,  890 

Woodstock,  914 
Scribe,  Eugene,  and  Legouve,  Ernest,  Adrienne 

Lecouvreur,  4 

Scudder,  Horace  Elisha,  Dream  Children,  241 
Scudery,  Madeleine  de,  Clelie,  162 
Sedgwick,  Anne  Douglas,  Tante,  823 
Sedgwick,  Catharine  Maria,  Hope  Leslie,  408 
Seebohm,  Frederic. 

English  Village  Community,  The,  268 

Oxford  Reformers,  The,  641 
Seeley,  Sir  John  Robert. 

Ecce  Homo,  247 

Expansion  of  England,  The,  284 

Life  and  Times  of  Stein,  806 
Sellar,  William  Young,  Roman  Poets,  The,  741 
Seneca,  Lucius  Annaeus,  Morals,  579 
Serao,  Mathilde, 

After  the  Pardon,  7 

Land  of  Cockayne,  The,  481 
Seton,  Ernest  Thompson,  Lives  of  the  Hunted, 

513 

Sevign6,  Marie,  marquise  de,  Letters,  493 
Sewall,  Anna,  Black  Beauty,  92 
Shackleton,   Sir  Ernest  Henry,  Heart  of  the 

Antarctic,  The,  384 

Shadwell,  Arthur,  Industrial  Efficiency,  432 
Shaftesbury,  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  3d  earl 
of,  Characteristics  of  Men,  Manners,  Opin- 
ions, Times,  etc.,  140 
Shakespeare,  William. 

All's  Well  That  Ends  Well,  18 

Antony  and  Cleopatra,  42 

As  You  Like  It,  56 

Comedy  of  Errors,  The,  168 

Coriolanus,  184 

Cymbeline,  201 

Hamlet,  374 

Henry  IV.,  389 

Henry  V.,  390 

Henry  VI.,  391 

Henry  VIII.,  391 

Julius  Cffisar,  461 


, 

King  John,  470 
King  Lear,  470 


King          , 

Love's  Labour's  Lost,  522 

Macbeth,  526 

Measure  for  Measure,  552 

Merchant  of  Venice,  The,  557 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  The,  558 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  A,  561 

Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  585 

Othello,  the  Moor  of  Venice,  638 

Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre,  666 


Richard  II.,  728 

Richard  III.,  728 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  745 

Taming  of  the  Shrew,  The,  822 

Tempest,  The,  827 

Timon  of  Athens,  839 

Titus  Andronicus,  839 

Troilus  and  Cressida,  856 

Twelfth  Night,  860 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  S64 

Winter's  Tale,  The,  905 

See  also,  Fletcher,  John,  and  Shakespeare, 

William. 
Shaw,  George  Bernard. 

Caesar  and  Cleopatra,  113 
Candida,  118 
Man  and  Superman,  537 
Sheldon,  Edward,  Salvation  Nell,  765 
Shelley,  Mrs.  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  Franken- 
stein, 320 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe. 
Cenci,  The,  134 
Prometheus  Unbound,  700 
Sheppard,  Elizabeth  Sara,  Charles  Auchcster, 

141 

Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley. 
Critic,  The,  195 
Rivals,  The,  736 
School  for  Scandal,  The,  771 
Sherman,  William  Tecumseh,  Memoirs,  7S3 
Sherwood,     Mrs.     Mary    Elizabeth    (Wilson), 

Epistle  to  Posterity,  An,  269 
Shorter,  Clement  King,  Charlotte  BrontS  and 

her  Circle,  106 
Shorthouse,    Joseph    Henry,    John    Inglesant, 

452 

Shunsui,  Tamenaga,  see  Tamenaga,  Shunsui. 
Sidney,    Sir   Philip,    Countess   of   Pembroke's 

Arcadia,  The,  46 
Sienkiewicz,  Henryk. 

Children  of  the  Son,  147 
Deluge,  The,  907 
Pan  Michael,  907 
Quo  Vadis,  709 
With  Fire  and  Sword,  907 
Without  Dogma,  908 

Simms,  William  Gilmore,  Yemassee,  The,  918 
Simonde  de  Sismondi,  Jean  Charles  Leonard. 
Historical  View  of  the  Literature  of  the 

South  of  Europe,  508 
History  of  the  Italian  Republics,  441 
Sinclair,  May. 

Divine  Fire,  The,  231 
Helpmate,  The,  388 
Sinclair,  Upton,  Jungle,  The,  461 
Sinnett,  Alfred  Percy,  Esoteric  Buddhism,  270 
Sismondi,  Jean  Charles  Leonard  Simonde  de, 
see    Simonde    de    Sismondi,    Jean    Charles 
Leonard. 

Skelton,  John,  Colin  Clout,  166 
Skelton,  Oscar  Douglas,  Socialism;  a  Critical 

Analysis,  798 
Slatin,  Rudolf  Carl,  pasha,  Fire  and  Sword  in 

the  Sudan,  306 
Sloane,    William    Milligan,   Life   of   Napoleon 

Bonaparte,  The,  594 
Smiles,  Samuel. 

Publisher  and  his  Friends,  A,  Memoir  and 
Correspondence  of  the  late  John  Murray, 
586 

Self  Help,  776 
Smith,  Adam,  Inquiry  into  the  Nature    and 

Causes  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  An,  892 
Smith,  Alexander,  Dreamthorpe,  241 
Smith,  Francis  Hopkinson. 
Felix  O'Day,  303 
Kennedy  Square,  467 
Tides  of  Barnegat,  The,  837 


Smith,    Gold  win.    Three    English    Statesmen, 

834 
Smith,   James,  and   Smith,  Horace,   Rejected 

Addresses,  721 


93$ 


INDEX 


h,  Capt.  John,  True  Relation  of  such  Oc 
curences  and  Accidents  of  Noate   as    hat 
hapned  in  Virginia,  A,  S5S 
Smollett,  Tobias  George. 

Expedition  of  Humphrey  Clinker,  The,  41- 
Roderick  Random,  739 
Sologub,  Fedor,  Old  House,  The,  623 
Somerviile,  Mrs.  Mary,  Personal  Recollection 

from  Early  Life  to  Old  Age,  SOO 
Sophocles. 
Ajax,  12 
Antigone,  40 
(Edipus  at  Cclonus,  620 
CEdipas  the  King,  621 
Soathey,  Robert. 

Doctor,  The,  232 
Life  of,Nelsan,  The,  600 
Souvestre,  fissile,  An  Attic  Philosopher,  60 
Spencer,  Herbert,  Education,  250 
Spenser,  Edmund,  Faery  Queen,  The,  2S7 
Spielhagen,  Friedrich. 

Hammer  and  Anvil,  374 
Problematic  Characters,  696 
Through  Night  to  Light,  S35 
Spofford,  Mrs.  Harriet  tPrescott),  Amber  Gods 

The,  21 

Squier,  Ephraim  George. 
Nicaragua,  136 

Notes  on  Central  America,  136 
Peru,  137 

Serpent  Symbol,  The,  and  the  Worship  of 
the  Reciprocal  Symbols  of  Nature  in 
America,  137 

States  of  Central  America,  The,  136 
Stael-Holstein,  Anne  Louise  Germaine  (Necker)» 

baronne  de, 
Corinne,  1S3 
Delphine,  217 
Germany,  339 
Stanley,  Arthur  Penrhyn,  Life  and  Correspond- 

ence of  Thomas  Arnold,  The,  52 
Stanley,  Sir  Henry  Morton,  Through  the  Dark 

Continent.  835 
Stedman,  Edmund  Clarence. 

Nature  and  Elements  of  Poetry,  The,  598 
Poets  of  America,  6S1 
Victorian  Poets,  S7S 
Steele,  Sir  Richard,  Tatler,  The,  S26 
Stephen,  Sir  Leslie. 

History  of  English  Thought  in  the  Eigh- 

teenth Century,  266 
Hours  in  a  Library,  409 
Stephens,  Henry  Morse,  History  of  the  French 

Revolution,  A,  325 
Stephens,  John  Lloyd. 

Incidents  of  Travel  in  Central  America, 

Chiapas,  and  Yucatan,  136 
Travel  in  Yucatan,  136 
Stepniak,   Sergius,  see    Kravchinskft,   Sergiet 

MikhaBovicfa. 
Sterne,  Laurence,  Life  and  Opinions  of  Tristram 

Shandy,  Gentleman,  The,  854 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis. 
David  Balfour,  207 
Dr.  Jelcyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  234 
Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books,  296 
Kidnapped,  469 
Master  of  Ballantrae,  The,  549 
Travels  with  a  Donkey  in  the  Ce 
Weir  of  Hermiston,  894 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  and  Osbourne,  Lloyd, 

Wrecker,  The,  917 
Itevenson,  William  Barrow,  Crusaders  in  the 

East,  The,  198 
Still,  John,  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  332 

Cretao 


CeVennes,  851 


Stimson,  Frederic  Jesup. 

Crime  of  Henry  Vane,  The,  193 

King  Noanett,  471 
Stockton,  Frank  Richard. 

Casting  Away  of   Mrs.  Leeks  and   Mrs. 
Aleshine,  The,  127 


Lady  or  the  Tiger,  The,  477 
Rudder  Grange,  754 
Stoddard,  Mrs.  Elizabeth. 
Morgesons,  The,  579 
Temple  House,  828 
Two  Men,  864 

Storm,  Theodor,  Immensee,  422 
Stowe,  Mrs.  Harriet  (Beecher). 
Agnes  of  Sorrento,  9 
Minister's  Wooing,  The,  565 
Old  Town  Folks,  624 
Pearl  of  Orr's  Island,  The,  658 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  867 
Strabo,  Geography,  338 
Stratton-Porter,  Gene,  see  Porter,  Mrs.  Gene 

(Stratton). 

Strauss,  David  Friedrich,  Leben  Jesu,  Das,  448 
Strindberg,  August. 

Confessions  of  a  Fool,  The,  174 
Miss  Julia,  567 

Stubbes,  Philip,  Anatomic  of  Abuses,  The,  30 
Stubbs,  William,  bp.  of  Oxford, 

Constitutional  History  of  England,   The, 

261 

Select  Charters,  261 

Sturlason,  Snorri,  Heimskringla,  The,  386 
Sudermana,  Hermann. 
Dame  Care,  202 
Toy  of  Living,  The,  458 
Magda,  530 

Song  of  Songs,  The,  801 
Sue,  Eugene,  Wandering  Jew,  The,  889 
Suetonius    Tranquillus,    Caius,    Lives    of    the 

First  Twelve  Caesars,  The,  114 
Sumner,  William  Graham,  What  Social  Classes 

Owe  to  Each  Other,  895 
Suttner,  Bertha,  baroness,  von,  Ground  Anns 

367 
Swift,  Jonathan. 

Battle  of  the  Books,  The,  74 
Drapier's  Letters,  The,  240 
Gulliver's  Travels,  368 
Tale  of  a  Tub,  A,  818 
Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles. 
Atalanta  in  Calydon,  59 
Chastelard,  143 
Sybel,  Heinrich  von. 

Founding  of  the  German  Empire,  The,  314 
History  and  Literature  of  the   Crusades, 

Symonds,  John  Addington. 

Giovanni  Boccaccio  as  Man  and  Author,  96 
Renaissance  in  Italy,  723 
Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets,  362 
Symons,  Arthur,  Symbolist  Movement  in  Liter- 
ature, The,  816 
iynge,  John  Millington. 

Playboy  of  the  Western  World,  The   679 
Riders  to  the  Sea,  731 

"acitus,  Cornelius,  Germany,  339 
Taine,  Hippolyte   Adolphe. 

Ancient    Regime,  The,  33 

French  Revolution,  The,  324 

History  of  English  Literature,  264 
Tourneys  Through  France,  457 

Lectures  on  Art,  53 

Modern  Regime,  The,  574 
.ametaga,  Shunsui,  Loyal  Ronins,  The,  524 
Tarbell,  Ida  Minerva. 

Business  of  Being  a  Woman,  The,  111 

History  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  The, 
805 

Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  The,  504 

Madame  Roland,  740 
Tarkington,  Booth. 

Conquest  of  Canaan,  The,  178 

Gentleman  from  Indiana,  Th«  337 

Monsieur  Beaucaire,  576 

Penrod,  662 

Penrod  and  Sam,  662 

Seventeen,  779 

Turmoil.  The,  859  - 


INDEX 


939 


Tasso,  Torquato,  Jerusalem  Delivered,  447 
Taylor,  Bayard,  Hannah  Thurston,  376 
Taylor,  Jeremy,  Holy  Living  and  Dying,  405 
Taylor,  Sir  Henry,  Philip  van  Artevelde,  672 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  1st  baron. 
Idylls  of  the  King,  418 
In  Memoriam,  425 
Princess,  The,  692 
Tennyson,    Hallam,    2d   baron,   Alfred,    Lord 

Tennyson,  a  Memoir,  829 
Terhune,    Mrs.    Mary    Virginia    (Hawes),    see 

Harland,  Marion. 

Teternikov,  Fedor  Kuzmich,  see  Sologub,  Fedor. 
Thackeray,  William  Makepeace. 
Book  of  Snobs,  The,  99 
English    Humorists    of    the     Eighteenth 

Century,  The,  263 
Four  Georges,  The,  316 
History  of  Henry  Esmond,  Esq.,  The,  392 
History  of  Pendennis,  The,  661 
Lovel,  the  Widower,  521 
Memoirs  of  Barry  Lyndon,  The,  73 
Newcomes,  The,  608 
Rose  and  the  Ring,  The,  748 
Roundabout  Papers,  753 
Vanitjr  Fair,  874 
Virginians,  The,  881 
Thanet,  Octave. 

Knitters  in  the  Sun,  474 
Man  of  the  Hour,  The,  539 
Thayer,  William  Roscoe. 

Life  and  Letters  of  John  Hay,  The,  382 
Life  and  Times  of  Cavour,  The,  132 
Thiers,  Louis  Adolphe,  History  of  the  Consulate 

and  the  Empire,  182 
Thomas,  Augustus  M.,  Witching  Hour,  The, 

906 
Thomas,  Calvin,  Life  and  Works  of  Friedrich 

Schiller,  The,  770 
Thomas,  Cyrus,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of 

North  American  Archaeology,  612 
Thomas  a  Kempis,  On  the  Imitation  of  Christ, 

421 
Thompson,    Ernest   Seton,    see   Seton,   Ernest 

Thompson. 

Thompson,  Maurice,  Alice  of  Old  Vincennes,  16 
Thoreau,  Henry  David. 
Cape  Cod,  121 
Maine  Woods,  The,  533 
Walden,  885 
Thurston,  Mrs.  Katherine  Cecil,  Masquerader, 

The,  548 
Thwaites,  Reuben  Gold,  ed.,  Jesuit  Relations, 

The,  and  Allied  Documents,  447 
Ticknqr,  George. 

History  of  Spanish  Literature,  803 
Life,  Letters,  and  Journals,  837 
Tocqueville,  Alexis  de,  Democracy  in.  America, 

220 

Tolstoy,  Count  Lyof ,  Anna  Kare*nina,  35 
Cossacks,  The,  186 
Death  of  Ivan  Ilyitch,  The,  213 
Resurrection,  725 
War  and  Peace,  889 
Tooke,  John  Home,  Diversions  of  Purley,  The, 

229 
Topelius,    Zakarias,    Surgeon's    Stories,    The, 

815 
Topffer,  Rodolphe,  Adventures  of  Mr.  Obadiah 

Oldbuck,  617 

Tottel,  Richard,  Tottel's  Miscellany,  845 
Tourgee,  Albion  Winegar,  Fool's  Errand,  by  One 

of  the  Fools,  A,  310 

Toy,    Crawford   Howell,   Judaism   and    Chris- 
tianity, 459 
Trenck,  Friedrich,   baron  von,  Life  of  Baron 

Frederic  Trenck,  The,  853 
Trevelyan,  George  Macaulay. 

Garibaldi  and  the  Thousand,  333 
Life  of  John  Bright,  The,  105 
Trevelyan,  Sir  George  Otto.  bart. 

Early  History  of  Charles  James  Fox,  The, 
317 


Life  and  Letters  of  Lord  Macaulay,  The, 

525 
Trollope,  Anthony. 

Barchester  Towers,  71 
Claverings,  The,  161 
Doctor  Thorne,  235 
Duke's  Children,  The,  650 
Parliamentary  Novels,  650 
Phineas  Finn,  the  Irish  Member,  650 
Phineas  Redux,  650 
Prime  Minister,  The,  650 
Troubetzkoy,  Am61ie  (Rives)  Chanler,  Princess, 

see  Rives,  Amelie. 
Trowbridge,  John  Townsend. 
Cudjo's  Cave,  198 
Neighbor  Jackwood,  598 

Trumbull,  Henry  Clay,  Knightly  Soldier,  The, 
A  Biography  of  Major  Henry  Ward  Camp, 
474 

Trumbull,  John,  McFingal,  526 
Tsountas,  Chrestos,  and  Manatt,  James  Irving, 

Mycenasan  Age,  The,  592 

Tupper,  Martin  Farquhar,  Proverbial  Philoso- 
phy, 702 
Turgeneff,  Ivan. 

Annals  of  a  Sportsman,  37 
Dmitri  Roudin,  231 
Fathers  and  Sons,  299 
Liza,  513 
On  the  Eve,  627 
Virgin  Soil,  879 

Tuttiett,  Mary  Gleed,  see  Grey,  Maxwell. 
Twain,  Mark. 

Adventures  of  Huckleberry  Finn,  The,  412 
Connecticut    Yankee    in    King    Arthur's 

Court,  A,  177 

Innocents  Abroad,  The,  435 
Life  on  the  Mississippi,  500 
Personal  Recollections  of  Joan  of  Arc,  449 
Prince  and  the  Pauper,  The,  691 
Roughing  it,  749 
Tyler,    Moses    Coit,  f  Literary   History   of  the 

American  Revolution,  The,  506 
Tylor,  Edward  Burnett. 
Anthropology,  39 
Primitive  Culture,  245 
Researches  into  the  Early  History  of  Man- 
kind and  the  Development  of  Civiliza- 
tion, 245 
Tyndall,  John. 

Faraday  as  a  Discoverer,  298 

Lectures  on  Heat  Considered  as  a  Mode  of 

Motion,  385 
Tytler,  Sarah,  Citoyenne  Jacqueline,  157 

Udall,  Nicholas,  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  710 
Ulfila,  bp.,  Codex  ArgenteuR,  165 
Underwood,  Francis  Henry,  Quabbin,  706 
Urfe,  Honor6  d',  Astrea,  58 

Vald6s,  Armando  Palacio,  see  Palacio  Valdes, 

Armando. 
Valera,  Juan. 

Dona  Luzf  239 
Pepita  Jimenez,  665 
Valla,  Lorenzo,   Elegantiae  Latinae   Sermonis, 

254 

Van  Dyke,  Henry,  Little  Rivers,  511 
Van  Laun,  Henri,  History  of  French  Literature, 

323 

Varro,  Terentius,  Agriculture,  10 
Vasari,    Georgio,   Lives   of  the  Most  Eminent 

Painters,  Sculptors,  and  Architects,  513 
Vazov  Minchov,  Ivan,  Under  the  Yoke,  868 
Veblen,  Thorstein,  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class, 

The,  831 
Verga,  Giovanni. 

Cavalleria  Rusticana.  131 
House  by  the  Medlar  Tree,  The,  409 
Vergilius  Maro,  Publius,  see  Virgil. 
Verne,  Jules,  Around  the  World  m  Eighty  Days, 

52 
Viaud,  Julien,  see  Loti,  Pierre. 


940 


INDEX 


Viebig,  Klara,  see  Cohn,  Frau  Klara  (Viebig). 
Vigny,  Alfred,  comte  de,  Cinq-Mars,  155 
Vulari,  Pasquale,  Life  and  Times  of    Niccold 

Machiavelli,  The,  527 

Vincent,  John  Martin,  Government  in  Switzer- 
land, 353 

Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  Treatise  on  Painting,  852 
Viollet-Le-Duc,  Eugene,  Annals  of  a  Fortress, 

36 
Virgil. 

-Sneid,  6 

y£neid,  Translations  and  Adaptations,  6 
Georgics,  The,  338 
Volney,     Constantin     Francois,     comte      de, 

Ruins,  The,  754 
Voltaire,  Francois  Arouet  de. 
Alzire,  20 
Candide,  118 

History  of  Charles  XII.,  142 
Letters  Concerning  the  English  Nation,  491 
Voynich,  Mrs.  Ethel  Lillian   (Boole),  Gadfly, 
The,  329 


Wace,  Robert,  Roman  de  Brut,  109 
Wagner,  Charles,  Simple  Life.  The,  789 
Waldstein,  Charles,  Essays  on  the  Art  of  Phei- 

dias,  670 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russel. 
Australasia,  63 
Contributions  to  the  Theory  of  Natural 

Selection,  598 

Malay  Archipelago,  The,  536 
Wallace,  Lew. 
Ben  Hur,  80 
Fair  God,  The,  2SS 
Prince  of  India,  The,  691 
Walpole,  Horace. 

Castle  of  Otranto,  The,  127 
Letters,  493 
Walpole,  Hugh. 

Dark  Forest,  The,  205 
Duchess  of  Wrexe,  The,  242 
Walter  of  Exeter,  Guy  of  Warwick,  372 
Walters,  Henry  Beauchamp,  History  of  Ancient 

Pottery,  Greek,  Etruscan,  and  Roman,  32 
Walton,  Izaak,  Compleat  Angler,  The,  172 
Ward,    Mrs.    Elizabeth    Stuart    (Phelps),    see 

Phelps,  Elizabeth  Stuart. 
Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry. 
Eleanor,  2o4 
Fenwick's  Career,  303 
History  of  David  Grieve,  The,  209 
Lady  Rose's  Daughter,  478 
MarceUa,  542 

Marriage  of  William  Ashe,  The,  545 
Mating  of  Lydia,  The,  550 
Robert  Elsmere,  737 
Sir  George  Tressady,  792 
Story  of  Bessie  Costrell,  The,  810 
Ware,  William,  Aurelian,  63 
Waring,  George  Edwin,  Whip  and  Spur,  897 
Warner,  Susan,  see  Wetherell,  Elizabeth. 
Warner,  William,  Albion's  England,  13 
Warren,  Samuel,  Ten  Thousand  a  Year,  828 
Washington,  Booker  Taliaferro,  Up  from  Slav- 
ery, 872 

Watson,  John,  see  Maclaren,  Ian. 
Watts,  Mary  Stanbery,  Nathan  Burke,  595 
Webb,  Sidney  and  Beatrice,  History  of  Trade 

Unionism,  The,  847 
Webster,  John. 

Duchess  of  Malfi,  The,  242 
White  Devil,  The,  898 
Wedekind,  Frank,  Awakening  of  Spring,  The, 

66 
Weise,  Arthur  James,  Discoveries  of   America 

to  the  Year  1525, 228 
Weiss,  Bernhard,  Leben  Jesu,  Das,  448 
Wells,  Herbert  George. 

Mr.  Britling  Sees  it  Through,  569 
New  Machitvelli,  The,  606 
New  Worlds  for  Old,  608 


Research  Magnificent,  The,  725 
Tono-Bungay,  844 
Wife  of  Sir  Isaac  Harman,  The,  900 
Wesley,  John,  Journal,  894 
Westall,  William,  Birch  Dene,  89 
Westcott,  Edward  Noyes,  David  Harum,  209 
Westermarck,   Edward  Alexander,   History   o 

Human  Marriage,  The,  414 
Wetherell,  Elizabeth. 
Queechy,  706 

Wide,  Wide  World,  The,  900 
Weyman,  Stanley  John. 

Gentleman  of  Prance,  A,  337 
House  of  the  Wolf,  The,  411 
Red  Cockade,  The,  715 
Wharton,  Mrs.  Edith. 
Ethan  Frome,  276 
House  of  Mirth,  The,  410 
Reef,  The,  719 
Valley  of  Decision,  The,  873 
Whewell,   William,  History  of   the   Inductiv< 

Sciences,  431 

White,  Andrew  Dickson,  History  of  the  War 
fare  of  Science  with  Theology  in  Christendom 
A,  890 
White,  Gilbert,  Natural  History  and  Antiqui 

ties  of  Selborne,  The,  597 
White,  Richard  Grant. 

England  Without  and  Within,  262 
Fate  of  Mansfield  Humphreys,  The,  299 
White,  William  Hale,  see  Rutherford,  Mark. 
Whitman,  Walt,  Leaves  of  Grass,  489 
Whitney,  Mrs.  Adeline  Dutton  (Train). 
Faith  Gartney's  Girlhood,  295 
Real  Folks,  712 
Whitney,  William  Dwight,  Language  and  the 

Study  of  Language,  482 
Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  Snow-Bound,  794 
Wiedemann,   Alfred,   Religion  of  the  Ancient 

Egyptians,  721 

Wiggin,  Mrs.  Kate  Douglas,  Rebecca  of  Sunny- 
brook  Farm,  713 

Wigglesworth,  Michael,  Day  of  Doom,  The,  212 
Wilde,  Oscar. 

Lady  Windemere's  Fan,  478 
Woman  of  No  Importance,  A,  911 
Wilkins,    Mary   Eleanor,    see   Freeman,    Mrs. 

Mary  Eleanor  ( Wilkins). m 

Williamson,  Charles  Norris,  and  Williamson, 
Mrs.  Alice  Muriel,  Lightning  Conductor, 
The,  501 

Wilson,  John,  see  North,  Christopher. 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  New  Freedom,  The,  604 
Winsor,  Justin,  Narrative  and  Critical  History 

of  America,  595 

Winter,  William,  Gray  Days  and  Gold,  365 
Winthrop,  Theodore. 
Cecil  Dreeme,  133 
John  Brent,  451 
Wister,  Owen. 

Lady  Baltimore,  475 
Lin  McLean,  502 
Virginian,  The,  880 
Woermann,  Karl,  see  Woltmann,  Alfred,  and 

Woennann,  Karl. 

Wolff,  Julius,  Robber  Count,  The,  736 
Woltmann, Alfred.and  Woermann,  Karl,  History 

of  Painting,  643 

Wood,  Mrs.  Henry,  East  Lynne,  247 
Woodberry,  George  Edward,  Edgar  Allan  Poe, 

Woolman,  John,  Journal,  915 
Woolson,  Constance  Fenimore, 

Anne  38 

East  Angels,  246 
Wordsworth,  William. 

Excursion,  282 

Lyrical  Ballads,  525 

Prelude,  The,  687 
Wright,    Harold    Bell,    Winning    of    Barbara 

Worth,  The,  904 

Wycherley,  William,  Plain  Dealer,  The,  679 
Wyckoff,  Walter,  Workers,  The,  915 


INDEX 


941 


Wyss,  Johann  David  von,  Swiss  Family  Robin- 
son, The,  816 

Xenophon. 

Anabasis,  The,  2S 

Banquet,  The,  69 

Memorabilia,  556 

Xenophon,   of  Ephesus,    Anthia    and   Habro- 
comas,  39 

Yates,  Edmund,  Black  Sheep,  92 

Yeats,  William  Butler. 

Hour  Glass,  The,  408 

Land  of  Heart's  Desire,  The,  481 

Yonge,  Charlotte  Mary,  Heir  of  Redclyffe,  The, 
387 

Youmans,  Edward  Livingston,  ed.,  Culture  De- 
manded by  Modern  Life,  The,  199 

Young,   Arthur,   Travels  in  Prance  during  the 
years  1787T  1788,  1789,  849 

Zangwill,  Israel. 

Children  of  the  Ghetto,  147 

Master,  The,  548 

Melting-Pot,  The,  555 

Zeller,  Eduard,  Outlines  of  the  History  of  Greek 
Philosophy,  362 


Zola,  Emile,  Rougon- Macquart  Series,  The,  730 

Argent,  L',  752 

Assommoir,  751 

Au  Bonheur  des  Dames,  751 

B6te  Humaine,  La,  752 

Conque'te  de  Plassans,  La,  730 

Curee,  La,  750 

Debicle,  La,  752 

Docteur  Pascal,  Le,  753 

Faute  de  FAbbS  Mouret,  La,  751 

Fortune  des  Rougon,  La,  7oO 

Germinal,  752 

Joie  de  Vivre,  La,  752 

Nana,  751 

CEuvre,  L',  752 

Page  d 'Amour,  Une,  751 

Pot-Bouille,  751 

R§ve,  Le,  752 

Son  Excellence  Eugene  Rougon.  751 

Terre,  La,  752 

Veutre  de  Paris,  Le,  750 
Zouche,  Robert  Curzon,  14th  baron,  see  Curzon, 

Robert 
Zschokke,      Johann      Heinnch,      Goldmakers* 

Village.  The,  351 

Zueblin,  Charles,  American  Municipal  Progress. 
25