& John Lane, London; Stone & Kimball, I Knew Best of All, a Memory of the Mind of a Child, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. (Scribners.) Pierre Loti and Stevenson have set the modern fashion of interpreting the life of the imaginative child in terms which produce not "juvenile literature," but books for the big about the little. Mrs. Burnett's opportunity was the treatment of the English little girl, a species distinct from all other little girls, and of course widely different from the little boy of any race whatsoever. This autobiography of the childhood period, then, is a book which women should thoroughly understand more than men ; yet it must be a dull grown person of either sex who would fail to find in the record many remembrancers of the thoughts still near the East and by Nature's priest attended. The first experiences of books, death, babies, weddings, authorship, and many other things are set forth in a style admirably adapted to its purpose. It is none too high praise to say that the book is charming. - SingSong, a Nursery Rhyme Book, by Christina G. Rossetti. With One Hundred and Twenty Illustrations by Arthur Hughes. (Macmillan.) This is a fuller edition of a book which appeared several years ago. It is a curious example of simplicity which is held as an art, or perhaps, to speak more accurately, of simplicity as an element in a very complex nature. Miss Rossetti is a poet with a strong touch of mysticism, yet she perceives the absolute necessity of simplicity in nursery rhymes, and she has been simple, strenuously simple, in these little catches and verses. There is nature in them, but after all one feels that it is nature bathed in Miss Rossetti's atmosphere. - A Child's History of Spain, by John Bonner. (Harpers.) This book is similar in plan to the author's Child's History of France, and has the same merits and defects. The work follows the whole course he is? After all, we can imagine that many of Spanish history, and a good deal of skill Humor. There appears to be no limit to the ingenuity of man in devising series of books. Of the International Humour Series (Imported by Scribners), we have received The Humour of Holland, translated, with an Introduction, by A. Werner, and The Humour of America, selected, with an Introduction and Index of American Humourists, by James Barr. It cannot be said that these volumes are exceptions to the rule which gives a place to books of humorous selections among the volumes of doleful reading. This is especially true of the Dutch collection. In his Introduction, the translator makes the unfortunate admission that "the Netherlander likes his fun pretty obvious, and not too concentrated," and the specimens of Dutch humor bear out the statement. A few of the bits of newspaper wit are amusing, but the illustrations, most of which were apparently done out of Holland, are the funniest things in the book. Can it be that the Dutchman looks funnier - at least as others see him than is shown in selecting, arranging, and condensing; but the writer's style, in its easygoing colloquialism, leaves something to be desired, his taste is occasionally at fault, and his jaunty, offhand summaries of important events are often open to criticism. In the account of the honors attained by the kindred and descendants of Columbus, the young reader will be attracted by a bit of contemporary history of which he has some cognizance: "The head of another branch [of the Columbus family] married the Infanta Eulalia, and lately visited this country on the occasion of the World's Fair at Chicago." This is almost journalistic in its confusion and inaccuracy. — The Light Princess, and Other Fairy Tales, by George Macdonald. (Putnams.) Mr. Macdonald has fancy, but, unfortunately, his taste cannot always be counted on, and thus there are scenes in this book which one would not wish to be set before children. A Tiff with the Tiffins, by Frances Isabel Currie. (Hunt & Eaton.) The story of a little girl, at once strong-willed and fanciful, who, imagining herself neglected at home, runs away, accompanied by a faithful dog, and meets with such adventures and accidents by the way that she is soon reduced to a properly penitent mood. These well-worn incidents are treated with some freshness, but the author does not always keep within the boundary which separates tales for from tales of children. The World's Fair. We have received a Souvenir Copy of The World's Columbian Exposition's Memorial for International Arbitration, a formidable array of autographs and resolutions. From the illegibility of many of the signatures, it is to be inferred that they were inscribed by very great men; indeed, quite aside from the significance of an appeal against war to the governments of the world from representatives of so many of its countries, a study of the handwritings preserved would be most interesting. We wonder if Oriental eyes could see in our Western script anything so imposing as the Korean, Japanese, and Indian autographs seem to us? In any event, let us hope that the governments of the world will not be keen-sighted enough to notice pursued spelt on the first page persued. Fiction. A Motto Changed, by Jean Ingelow. (Harpers.) The changed motto is, “A little less than kin, and more than kind," and presumably has reference to the fact that the young hero is really only the adopted child of his reputed father, he having been one of those infants, not uncommon in fiction, who are found on wrecked vessels, the sole survivors. The not very interesting love-story of this youth forms the main motive of the tale, though the heroine's precocious little brother, — who, when first introduced to us, is discussing the question "whether we owe any duties towards vermin," unlike his delightful predecessors, the clever and original children in the author's earliest novel, is sometimes distinctly tiresome. This condemnation the story itself could not escape, being as it is slight in texture, commonplace in incident, and weak in characterization, if it were not so brief in the telling. - Keynotes, by George Egerton. (Roberts, Boston; Elkin Mathews & John Lane, London.) These tales are a series of analyses of what the author calls the female animal, — modern, introspective woman, recognizing among the new things that have come to her a return of elemental human impulses, of which she has no fear to acknowledge the power. Of course she is usually married to the wrong man, and "misunderstood." The writer apparently has been much in Norway, and has read deep in Ibsen. There is plenty of plain speaking in the stories, and a good measure of merciless, clear seeing. The style has lapses from taste, but in general is effective, like persons of the type with which it deals. Regarding this type two strong impressions are made by the book: that life has a frightfully present quality,—so present that a sort of triumph seems to be achieved when one's vision is carried ever so short a distance ahead; and - reassuring thought that, however "advanced" she may be, woman is but yet very much a wo man. A Reminis THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB. A LITTLE more than five years cence of the ago I was sailing the Spanish Kearsarge. main on the historic old Kearsarge. We were nearing San Salvador; would have sight of it off westward the next day (just as Columbus had seen it), unless the hurricane our navigators were dreading not a little "We can almost count its teeth," said one of them - whisked us out of our southerly course. The sea was smooth as glass. We had spent the afternoon gleaning from the ship's library the accounts of the sinking of the Alabama. The officers, not one of whom had been in the fight, had added many incidents handed down to them by their predecessors in command of the Kearsarge. I was wonderfully impressed by what one of the officers related of that memorable engagement, the most glorious in our naval history. "When the Alabama went down, there was never a shout from the Kearsarge. Silence, boys, silence!' was the stern command; and in dead, awful silence the buccaneer sunk to the bottom of the sea." There was chivalry for you, one of the grand silences of history, silence thrilling with brotherhood, prophetic of brotherhood restored. How naturally, unless we know the facts, we assume that there was a fine hurrah of rejoicing on the Kearsarge when the Alabama went down! Could outburst of victory have surpassed that silence? a How we cheered at the North when the news came over the wires! 'Hurrah for the Kearsarge! Hurrah for Captain Winslow!" What cheers when the saucy little ship came home! What cheers greeted her in every port for years after! "She licked the Alabama!" our boys were proud to affirm, at every mention of her name. Those boys are men now. How many of their boys know much about the Kearsarge? Just before we sailed from New York a newspaper reporter came aboard. "Those are the very guns that were fired upon the Alabama," he was told. Now, this reporter was a bright young fellow, but it soon came out that he did not know anything about the old Kearsarge; had heard of the Alabama, of course, but could not have told the name of the ship that "whipped her," or anything about it. "One can't remember everything, in these overcrowded times." Then he made a suggestion that no one approved: "Why don't they put the old ship into some naval museum? It's a shame to let her go beating around the world any longer." "No, let her keep in the line. Did n't she give chase to the buccaneer Alabama, that pirate with English guns, English crew, and Britain's flag? Did n't she steam after her into Cherbourg Harbor, with American guns, an American crew, and the stars and stripes, and did n't she sink the Alabama in one hour and twenty minutes?" And now she lies a wreck, her back broken amidships, her historic guns at the bottom of the sea! That tropical moonlight night, as we were nearing San Salvador, I stood on the famous deck of the Kearsarge and heard what I shall never forget,— the singing of the story of the fight by the sailors and marines. They were gathered around the guns, the flag flying over their bare heads; their voices were strong and vibrant: that was singing with the spirit, and the understanding also. The wide, still sea was all around us; the old ship seemed sentient as she ploughed bravely on, as if listening in every timber, her heart-throb quickening with the stirring chorus. This is what they sang, - the story of her victory as told by her own sailors and marines, and written down for me by one of the singers. Let our boys read it, — sing it, if they can, slurring the word "Kearsarge into something like "Keer-sedge." "T was early Sunday morning in the year of sixty-four, The Alabama, she stood out along the Frenchman's shore. Long time she cruised about, long time she held her sway, But now she lies beneath the wave just off the Cherbourg Bay. Chorus. Hoist up the flag! Long may it wave Over the Union, the true and the brave! A Yankee cruiser hove in sight, the Kearsarge was her name; It ought to be engraved in gold upon the scroll of fame; Her timbers made of Yankee oak, her crew of Yankee tars, And at the mizzen peak she flew the glorious stripes and stars. Chorus. A challenge unto Captain Semmes bold Winslow, he did send: "Bring on your Alabama, and to her we will attend! We think your boasting privateer is not so hard to whip. We'll show you that the Kearsarge is not a merchant ship!" Chorus. 'T was early Sunday morning in the year of sixty-four, The Alabama, she stood out, and cannon loud did roar ; The Kearsarge was undaunted, and quickly she replied, And let a Yankee 'leven-inch shell go tearing through her side. Chorus. The Kearsarge then, she wore around, and broadside on did bear. With shot and shell and right good will her timbers she did tear; And when they found that they must sink, down came their stars and bars, For rebel gunners could not stand the glorious stripes and stars. Chorus. The Alabama, she is gone; she 'll cruise the seas no more; She met the fate she well deserved along the Frenchman's shore. And here is to the Kearsarge! We know what she can do. And here's to Captain Winslow and his brave and gallant crew! Chorus. The anniversary of the fight was always commemorated on the Kearsarge, Northerners and Southerners - for both were among her officers-joining in singing this rousing song. Toasting Captain Winslow was a marked feature of every celebration of the sinking of the Alabama, but the memorable silence was ever sacredly maintained, chivalry to the conquered. Sailors and marines would have hanged Semmes in effigy on several occasions, but nothing of the kind could be permitted on the deck of the old Kearsarge. "Silence, boys, silence!" The Revue de Paris. - The appearance of the new Revue de Paris - fortnightly, after the fashion of the French is an event in the literary life even of far-off lands that receive but fitful electric glimmers from this City of Light. The inspiring cause of the new phenomenon has been sought curiously. Some have thought to discover it in a not unnatural desire on the part of many to lessen the brilliancy of M. Brunetière's shining. His blinding and scorching criticism of modernité has not only triumphed in the Academy, but it now reigns supreme in the historic Revue des Deux Mondes, which is supposed to reflect all that shines permanently in contemporane ous French literature. Now it appears that the sole charge of the new review was originally offered to M. Brunetière. Then it has been said that Semitic influence is behind the new review. It is known that the publisher, M. Calmann - Lévy, is the chief stockholder, and Professor James Darmesteter, of the Collége de France, the solid man of the editorial staff, is also a true Israelite without guile. A more natural explanation would be the simplest, and probably nearest to the truth. The original shares of the Revue des Deux Mondes were five thousand francs each. Their number (eighty-three) has not been changed, and the annual dividend has of late been as high as six thousand francs, one hundred and twenty per cent of the par value. This financial success is alone enough to breed rivals, in spite of the many failures of ŝimilar attempts in the past. Another reason is that the literary men of a certain school- it may be named, broadly, the school of Renan, although the old review has had the publication of Renan's posthumous work-desire an outlet for their literature where it shall not be constrained by the methods of Taine; for it is the divergent spirit of Taine and Renan which for years to come must mark the course of French thought in the former, dogmatic in its demand for positive and verifiable science, with a practical reverence for all existing facts, including morals, with a painful working out of its literature; in the latter, skeptical in its fluid criticism of all existence, in which morals and life and death matter but little in comparison with serene philosophy and cultivated form and the play of a free-and-easy fancy. In practice, the older review is considered a cénacle académique, while the new goes so far as to admit the novels of the Parisienne "Gyp" and of the young Italian light, Gabriele d'Annunzio. All this is not to say that Professor Darmesteter lacks an earnestness unknown to his master. He is an Oriental in his looking before and after, as his book on the prophets of Israel might show. For him, the universal consciousness has been manifested in his race by an utterable intuition of things which, without being supernatural (for it is a part of the eternal onward march of natural existence), still merits the name of prophecy. And as the Hebrew prophets were men of living earnestness, so their disciple looks on the most modern things with intuitions that strain to be earnest sight. The paper on the wars and religious strife of France for the last twentyfive years, with which he has announced his presence in the new review, could not have been written by Renan with all his ingrained habits of Catholic thought. In it the writer has risked frightening away subscribers by telling the French Royalists roundly that they are nothing but fossils doomed to forgetfulness. The modernité of Professor Darmesteter's literary taste may perhaps best be gathered from the fact of his marriage with Mary Robinson, who is a delightful English poet, singing notes, all too few, of a strain unknown to other times. By a strange contrariety, as in some literary tour de force, the Academy has crowned this lady's French work, which is carefully done in the style of the old-time Reine Marguerite. It is understood, however, that the literary editing of the new review as distinct from solid history, or science, or politics-is to be the task of the second editor, M. Louis Ganderax, who has long been a light of the Boulevard press. So much has been said, inaccurately, about the name of the new review that it is well to set down its actual history. It was adopted in 1829 for the first serious French review modeled after the English quarterlies then existing, the Edinburgh (1802), the Quarterly (1809), and the Westminster (1824). Its directors were Dr. Véron and Balzac. François Buloz was then simply a proof-reader, who kept his eyes open. A geographical review, founded in the same year as the Revue de Paris, came to grief in 1831, and Buloz succeeded in getting capital to buy it, along with its name, which has ever since been a puzzle, Revue des Deux Mondes. In 1834 he bought up the Revue de Paris, which he kept running separately for several years. Among its writers were Mérimée, Sainte-Beuve, De Vigny, Jules Janin, Eugène Sue, Alphonse Karr, Alexandre Dumas père, Alfred de Musset, Scribe, and even Lamartine. It was revived in 1858 by Théophile Gautier and his friends, and again as late as 1887 by Arsène Houssaye, — always unsuccessfully. The latter exhorts the new review to beware of realism. -I am not of those who talk A Rustic in New York. flippantly about "running over to New York this afternoon," as if they were going to step across the street for a chat with a neighbor. I know one man who makes the journey there and back so often that he has become the confidant of more than half the porters on the drawingroom cars which intervene between the two cities. But when we countrymen visit the metropolis, the event marks an epoch in our lives. We dream of it for weeks beforehand, and while we are there we accumulate impressions enough to keep us going, intellectually, for at least a twelvemonth. The truth is that our minds are open, empty, if you will; our perceptive faculties are on the qui vive; we are like sensitive plates, ready for new impressions : whereas one who is much in New York, or in any other great city, becomes blunted as to its salient features. He is, in fact, a part of the thing itself, and so he cannot get an outside view of it. Nobody in Paris anticipated the Revolution of 1789; but when Lord Chesterfield "ran over " from London, he saw the storm coming, and he made the famous observation with which the reader is doubtless familiar. In New York, to-day, there is as great a gap between rich and poor as there was in Paris before the Revolution, and it is a gap in sympathy as well as in material conditions. I happened to be in the city during horse-show week, and I saw Madison Square Garden filled with extravagantly dressed women and vacuous men, talking in English slang, gazing with languid interest at English horses which were handled by English grooms, and judged by an English expert brought over from London for the purpose. Just outside of the garden I met a woman in a ragged calico gown, with the rag of another calico gown thrown across her shoulders in place of a coat. She wore no hat, and instead of shoes she had a pair of old slippers full of holes, and this was on a cold, wet day in November. After such an encounter, one goes into Delmonico's, sits down at the next table to a rich Jew, and sees Mene, Mene" written on the walls of that place of feasting as plainly as the French names of the dishes are printed on the bill of fare. 66 The spectacle of one citizen enjoying a dinner of ten courses in a palace, while another citizen, together with his family, is going without dinner in a tenement house, will not last so long in a republic as it has |