By MARY ANGELA DICKENS. No. 99, Town and Country Library, 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.

"There have been few better judges of fiction than Charles Dickens, and had he lived to read his grand-daughter's first novel the veteran writer would have found pleasure in the thought that, after he was gone, the name of Dickens would still be honorably associated with imaginative literature. · Cross Currents' is not only an excellent novel, but it is distinguished by a kind of excellence which is exceedingly rare in the work of a beginner. Every page of Cross Currents' inspires one with a desire to meet its author again. London Spectator.

"A new novel of original power and great promise."Scotsman.

PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN. By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL, author of "Stephen Ellicott's Daughter," "The Story of Philip Menthuen," ete. 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.

"The elevation of Mrs. Needell's style, her power in the development of character, and her skill in the management and evolution of her plots, make her books thoroughly worth reading." Charleston News and Courier.

Of Stephen Ellicott's Daughter" Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE says: "I am desirous to bear my humble testimony to the great ability and high aim of the work." ARCHDEACON FARRAR says: "I find it exceedingly interesting, and like its high tone.' The London Spectator says: "From first to last an exceptionally strong and beautiful story."

A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF
UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

Extending from the Earliest Times to the Year 1892. For the Use of Students, Teachers, and Readers. By Louis HEILPRIN. 12mo, 200 pp. Cloth, $1.25. This is one of the three sections comprised in "The Historical Reference-Book," bound separately for convenience of those who may not require the entire volume. Its arrangement is chronological, each paragraph giving, in briefest practical form, an outline of the principal events of the year designated in the margin.

APPLETONS' SUMMER SERIES.

Each, 16mo, tastefully bound in special design; price, 50 cents.

MR. FORTUNE'S MARITAL CLAIMS. BY RICHARD

MALCOMB JOнистом.

PEOPLE AT PISGAT. By EDWIN W. SANBORN. GRAMERCY PARK: A Story of New York. By JOHN SEYMOUR WOOD.

A TALE OF TWENTY-FIVE HOURS. BY BRANDER MATTHEWS and GEORGE H. JESSOP.

A LITTLE NORSK: or, Ol' Pap's Flaren. By HAMLIN GARLAND.

ON THE LAKE AT LUCERNE AND OTHER STORIES. By BEATRICE WHITBY.

ADOPTING AN ABANDONED FARM. By KATE SANBORN.

FROM SHADOW TO SUNLIGHT. By the MARQUIS OF LORNE.

TOURMALIN'S TIME CHEQUES. By F. ANSTEY.

Second Edition Ready of

AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. Notes and Recollections. In Two Volumes, 12mo. Cloth, $4.50.

"The extraordinary interest of this book is heightened when we learn from what seems trustworthy authority that the writer is Sir Richard Wallace. . . It is certain that Sir Richard Wallace may be regarded as a Parisian by predilection and adoption, and that no Englishmen and few Frenchmen have had such ample opportunities of knowing the political, social and literary celebrities of the French capital during the last century. Considered as a gallery of portraits and a storehouse of anecdotes, this work is unique in the literature of our day."-New York Sun.

..

We have rarely happened upon more fascinating volumes than these Recollections. One good story leads on to another; one personality brings up reminiscences of another, and we are hurried along in a rattle of gaiety. We have heard many suggestions hazarded as to the anonymous author of these memoirs. There are not above three or four Englishmen with whom it would be possible to identify him. We doubted still until, after the middle of the second volume, we came upon two or three passages which strike us as being conclusive circumstantial evidence. We shall not seek London Times.

to strip the mask from the anonymous.'

No. 149.

THE NEW DIAL.

When THE DIAL was established, in May, 1880, it was the intention of the editor and publishers to make of it a critical review of the first rank, which should occupy in this country a field somewhat similar to that occupied in England by such papers as "The Athenæum" and "The Academy." At that time no such review was in existence, or had existed, in the United States, and the interests of literature found but scanty or casual representation. The success of THE DIAL in its attempt was instant and pronounced. It won recognition from the start, as embodying a higher critical standard than had hitherto been upheld in American letters, and as dealing with literary interests in a just, dignified, and authoritative manner. During the twelve years of its publication it has received cordial commenda129 tion from the most diverse sources, American and English; it has won for itself a permanent place in the regard of the intellectually disposed portion of the public; and it has so maintained the standard with which it set forth that it has found no serious competitor in its special field of literary criticism.

128

130

131

Emerson's Obtuseness to Shelley. Anna B. McMahan.

130

BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS

Caird's Essays on Philosophy and Literature.-Studies of Homer as a Poet and a Problem.-A judicial view of the American Colonial Era.-A father and daughter in the Swiss Highlands.-A companion to the "Reveries of a Bachelor."-A serviceable volume about Julius Cæsar.-The life of an American College President.-A plea for the Organic Unity of Christendom. Recreations of an old-fashioned Scholar. The folk-lore elements of modern culture. -A boon to Goethe students.-Charles Sumner as a Maker of America.- An injudicious and one-sided Kansas History.

BRIEFER MENTION.

LITERARY NOTES AND NEWS

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146

150

151

But gratifying as these evidences of success have been, we have felt for some time that within our reach lay an opportunity not fully grasped. On many occasions friendly critics have hinted that a review appearing but monthly could not keep its readers fully abreast of the stream of literary production, and that many literary interests, quite as genuine as those immediately relating to the actual publication of books, were ignored by the too rigid method of devoting our space almost wholly to reviews of new works. Realizing the force of these criticisms, we have for a considerable time had in contemplation plans for the enlargement and improvement of THE DIAL, and these plans we now have the pleasure of outlining for our readers.

*

In the first place, THE DIAL, while retaining its familiar form and size, becomes with this issue a semi-monthly publication, and will appear promptly on the first and sixteenth of each month.* Having thus at our command twice as much space as formerly, we shall be enabled both to give a more adequate treatment than heretofore to current publications, and to extend the scope of our review by the inclusion of new, and not strictly critical, departments. Of these new departments, some indication is afforded by the contents of the present number, and their general character may be here summarized. The new sub-title of THE DIAL states its purposes

*Although double the amount of matter will be furnished, the annual subscription is raised from $1.50 to $2.00 only. Subscriptions already paid will be continued for the full period without extra charge.

as accurately as such narrow limits allow. It is .. a semi-monthly journal of literary criticism, discussion, and information." Discussion of matters of current literary interest, both by editors and contributors, will hereafter be one of its prominent features, and the paper will assume a distinct voice upon questions of general intellectual concern. The lives and works of writers recently deceased will receive careful attention. A special feature of each issue will be the leading review, descriptive and extractive rather than critical, of the most important book of the fortnight, provided it lend itself to such treatment. As a journal of literary comment and information, THE DIAL will give the latest news about books, their writers and publishers, and other subjects of allied interest. Its regular bibliographical features will be retained, and new departments will be added from time to time as the broadening field of intellectual activity shall seem to make them desirable. THE DIAL aims to make itself indispensable to educators and librarians, to authors and their publishers, to book-sellers and book-buyers, and to the intelligent reading public in general.

While its field is thus co-extensive with the field of culture, the critical review, which in the past has been THE DIAL's almost sole mode of expression, will continue to be the principal means of its appeal to the reader. As heretofore, these reviews will be the work of competent specialists, and the longer ones will bear the authority of their authors' signatures. As our readers well know, the list of contributors to THE DIAL includes the names of many scholars of the highest eminence, representing the universities, the professions, and the ranks of private scholarship. This list is being constantly recruited, and is one of which a journal may well be proud. THE DIAL stands preeminently for objective and scientific criticism; it believes in the existence of critical canons, and endeavors to discover and adhere to them. On the other hand, it endeavors to avoid that miscalled criticism of the subjective sort which displays the mood of the critic rather than the character of the work that he is handling, and whose flippancy or triviality of tone seems mainly designed to excite admiration for the cleverness of its writer. This sort of writing may be amusing enough to read, but it fails utterly of the purpose of criticism in the genuine sense. Again, the constituency of such a journal as THE DIAL demands that the specialist reviewer shall not be too technical in his criticism, that he shall combine scientific accuracy, on the one hand, with a readable and generally interesting treatment of his theme, upon the other. This sort of treatment will continue to be, as it always has been, the prevailing note of our criticism.

In closing, a word may be said of Chicago as the place of publication of such a review as THE DIAL. In most respects, the place of publication of such a review matters very little, and its contents should rarely offer any indication of the particular section

or community in which they see the light. But the rapid growth of Chicago in other than material directions is a phenomenon which, although recent, is rapidly forcing itself upon the attention of the country. Chicago is in the centre of the great book-buying and book-reading section of the country, and as a point of distribution it has already gained the importance that it is certain to have before long as a point of publication also; its public collections of books are in a fair way to rival those of any other city, and its new university is about to give a marked impetus to the interests of culture. In view of these facts it is at least not inappropriate that the name of Chicago should stand upon the title-page of THE DIAL.

THE CHICAGO UNIVERSITY.

The educated men and women of the northern Valley of the Mississippi are looking with keen yet sympathetic interest toward one of the largest educational experiments ever undertaken. Within two years President Harper has gathered, upon an utterly bare site, five millions of dollars, and a force of ninety instructors and investigators, many of them chosen from the very élite of the world's educational corps. The work of organization will now speedily follow, and in a few weeks another great teaching university will be in active operation. THE DIAL will have occasion from time to time to comment upon features of this fairly unique undertaking, which it recognizes as a collaborator for the advancement of high thinking in this new world of the mid-continent. Its first word will be one of friendly welcome, as it seeks to call attention to what it considers the gain already accrued to this Chicago-centred section through President Harper's personality and influence. His institution has yet to engage in the work of educating the youth of this wide field; but for two years its head has been engaged in the even more important work — which he will still continue of educating the business men of his constituency: of transforming shrewd money-getters into intelligent money-givers. As one looks back for thirty-five years over the many attempts to found and develop educational institutions in and about Chicago - whether his gaze may rest upon the old Chicago University, or the universities at Lake Forest and Evanston.—the same phenomena are recalled: an army of Western youth, too limited in means to attend our Eastern institutions, yet eager for knowledge, for educational discipline, for culture; small bands of singlehearted and devoted teachers, putting to one side their ambition for investigation and research, and for slender pay giving themselves to the work of instruction; boards of well-meaning but short-sighted trustees, expecting the same financial balance to the debit account as would be looked for in a packing establishment, and unable to grasp the oldworld truth that education costs in money but pays

richly in a hundred other ways. And so things went on for years, with presidents and faculties crippled in their educational plans by a half-hearted financial support, and everyone who could afford it sending his sons and daughters to the East for their education.

But in a happy moment Dr. Harper was called to establish a university anew in Chicago. Other presidents had indeed done yeoman service before he came. The devoted Burroughs of the old Chicago University, Haven and Fowler and Cummings at Evanston, Gregory and Roberts at Lake Forest, all helped to prepare the way for Dr. Har

His teaching facility

was extolled and that he is an inspiring and gifted teacher, teachers can best bear witness,but he is here also only one of a large brotherhood. Had he possessed both scholarship and teaching faculty in a far higher degree, he might have come and gone, and, like many another, left only a reminiscence in the Chicago sensorium. But something in this man's personality has taken hold on the potential benefactors and donors of Chicago, and has constrained them to do his bidding, and to do it gladly. For while we do not forget that over two and a half of his millions have come from Mr. Rockefeller, and almost another million from other outside sources, we still note that Chicago has paid in a million and a half of hard dollars toward this enterprise. We do not overlook the advantage that President Harper has derived from the pioneer work of his predecessors. Nor do we attempt to analyse or explain the peculiar power by which he has been able to unloose the purse-strings of our rich men. We merely wish to emphasize the fact that he has done so, and then to indicate the importance of his success to the cause of education in the West. For what he has done, in our judgment, has been to produce a change of tissue in the brain of moneyed Chicago, to set up a contagion in the financial corpuscles of its social being. He has led and is leading the wealth of Chicago to view its obligations to society more seriously, to realize that there is more fame in a memorial endowment, or hall, or scholarship, than in an obelisk at Rose Hill; to understand more discerningly the need for education here in the West, and the cost that it must entail and should entail on Chicago herself. Under the stimulus of his purposes and his personality, men find not only that they cannot refuse to give to aid his plans, but that they have confidence in his leadership, which commends to them what it takes for its aims. He himself says it is easiest to beg for a large undertaking, and he has at last convinced our Chicago merchants that it is easy to do largely

for education, as well as for public improvements and Columbian Expositions.

This awakening of the moneyed classes of Chicago in behalf of the new university will inure to the benefit of sister institutions. Already there are indications that the colleges at Evanston and Lake Forest are to appeal to a more enlightened constituency hereafter, when the cause of education under denominational control is presented to the Methodists and Presbyterians of the vicinity. But all eyes seem to be looking to the plans and purposes of the new Chicago University for suggestion and instruction. Boards of trust cannot escape the information on educational matters which the

daily press of the city is giving them so frequently and so lavishly, and our business men gradually are accustoming their minds to the thought that educational institutions are at their doors, are come to stay, and are to be carried on by their funds, but along lines laid down by others more expert in educational details than themselves. President Harper has at last produced an educational atmosphere in Chicago, and all workers for culture and ideas must hail its creation as one of the most beneficent dispensations that have ever befallen the city. It is of secondary importance that details of his plan may be criticised. Time alone can decide how workable a plan it is, but the lapse of time will only strengthen the conviction that with his coming a less material epoch began for Chicago.

A CENTURY OF SHELLEY.

A hundred years have passed since the birth of Shelley, and the star of his fame seems fairly to have emerged from the mists of the horizon upon which it rose. The third generation of his successors is now upon the scene, and the judgment of a third generation is apt to have many of the characteristics of finality. A close observer of the course of critical opinion can but be gratified at the way in which Shelley has come to be taken more and more seriously as the years have passed, and at last assigned to immortality by an almost universal consensus. The "inopportune brawler" of whom Mr. Lang has spoken still lifts up his voice from time to time, and "chatter about Harriet" is still heard in Philistine circles; but the one finds few listeners to-day, and the other excites but a weary and contemptuous smile. The great but not unerring critic who found too littlecriticism of life" in the Ode to the West Wind," and who, enslaved by a narrow formula, sought to exalt the fame of Wordsworth, and even of Byron, above that of the poet of "Hellas" and "Prometheus Unbound,” only succeeded in making a display of his own limitations, and reached the very nadir of his discernment in the memorable suggestion that the essays and letters of Sheliey might finally come to stand higher than his poetry."

And at the same time that the supremacy of

Shelley's song has received the widest recognition, the beauty of his life and the value of his ideals have won their share in the general tribute of praise. That his life, to the penetrating gaze, and seen in true perspective, was one of absolute devotion to the good, the true, and the beautiful, has become more apparent; that his ideals were better than his contemporaries knew, is revealed to us when we compare them with those of Scott, Bryon, and Wordsworth, subject in their nature to the outwearing process of time. As Mr. Gosse said, in his address at the recent Horsham celebration, "Today, under the auspices of the greatest poet our language has produced since Shelley died, encouraged by universal public opinion and by dignitaries of all the professions, yes, even by prelates of our national church, we are gathered here as a sign that the period of prejudice is over, that England is in sympathy at last with her beautiful wayward child, and is reconciled to his harmonious ministry.' It is sadly true, indeed, that the world's great age has not yet begun anew, nor have the golden years returned; but Shelley's prophecy is still the best inspiration for those who have not, discouraged, abandoned hope, and they think of him as no beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain," for they well know that his ideal, in the imperishable form of his expression, has not lost, nor is likely to lose, any thing of its persuasive power to shape to better ends the lives of men.

DEATH OF SHELLEY.

I saw a form all robed in dazzling white,
Floating and waiting o'er a stormy sea;
Dark brooded down the dreadful arch of Night
Over a sail that bent tempestuously;
And through the storm rang out melodiously
Great Shelley's death-song, as, no help at hand,
The wave onbore him to Eternity,
Dirged by the passion at his own command.
Then, as his body sank beneath the brine,
From out the surge his spirit touched the air;
And, hovering low, the form of Keats divine
Seized him away from that condign despair,
Part of the Universe, and far on high
They passed together to the inmost sky.

COMMUNICATIONS.

W. R. P.

EMERSON'S OBTUSENESS TO SHELLEY.

(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)

Apropos of the Shelley Centenary, can anyone suggest a probable explanation of Emerson's lack of appreciation of Shelley? In his essay on "Poetry and Imagination," Emerson says, "When people tell me they do not relish poetry, and bring me Shelley or Aikin's Poets, or I know not what volumes of rhymed English, to show that it has no charm, I am quite of their mind.” When one reflects on the similarity of spirit between Emerson and Shelley, this disparagement seems all the

more unaccountable. Both were passionate worshippers of nature, both were pantheistic in philosophy, both ardent disciples of Plato. How could Emerson have failed to feel a sense of kinship toward one whose virtues were originality in convictions, purity in morals, generosity of disposition, and high attainments in scholarship? It is true that Emerson further confesses, “I look in vain for the poet I describe"; but, on general principles, one would think that the author of "The Skylark " and the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty would have been recognized as possessing a very large number of the qualifications enumerated in this truly great and generally sound criticism on the art of poetry. Certain friends have suggested various theories. One says that Emerson lacked the musical ear, and thus missed one of Shelley's greatest charms; another, that Emerson could not pardon the note of lamentation running through Shelley's poetry, since the mission of poetry is to invigorate and not depress the soul; M. D. Conway hints that it looks like a theological “survival,” this failure to recognize the "authentic fire” of Shelley. Are any of these theories adequate, or can anyone offer a better? ANNA B. MCMAHAN.

Quincy, Ill., August 22, 1892.

UNIVERSITY EXTENSION WORK IN CHICAGO. (To the Editor of THE DIAL.)

As some injudicious articles have lately appeared in Chicago newspapers representing that there was an unpleasant competition and rivalry between the various universities and societies engaged in plans for University Extension work in and around Chicago, the friends of this important educational movement will be glad to be assured that there is, fortunately, no foundation for such statements. There is more work in sight than all these agencies can do, and their relations in this matter are most cordial and harmonious. The interest developed in the preliminary work begun last winter is a sure promise of the success which will attend the larger preparations now nearly completed for lectures during the coming season. The Newberry Library Centre during the past season maintained three evening courses of six lectures each; and the hall was so crowded it was necessary to repeat the lecture to another audience the next morning. There were also successful courses at five other centres, namely: The Athenæum, Union Park, Workers' Church, Oak Park, and South Evanston. The Chicago University now appears in the field with a comprehensive scheme of work which requires for its execution six executive officers and twenty-five professors as lecturers. Through the Chicago Society for University Extension, the University of Indiana offers a scheme of subjects, with seventeen lecturers; the Northwestern University, with fourteen lecturers; the University of Illinois, with nine; and Lake Forest University, and Wabash College, with two each. Almost every subject, in science, art and literature, is represented in these schemes. Professor Richard G. Moulton, one of the pioneers of and perhaps the most successful English lecturer in University Extension work, will open the Newberry Library Centre course on Friday evening, September 30, upon the subject of English Literature. As the class will doubtless be large, more spacious accomodations will be procured than the auditorium of the Newberry Library. For Monday evenings, courses upon Science will be arranged; and for