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 c 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 carrying out his purpose; but finding 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, and is a very characteristic piece of Mr. Aldrich's clever workmanship.

Italian Journeys, by W. D. Howells,

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 at Arquá, 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 show. ered its destroying petals all abroadwas it not tragic to find again the soft tints, the graceful shapes, the sweet perfumes, of the earth's immortal life? Of them that planted and tended and plucked and bore in their bosoms and twined in their hair these fragile children of the summer, what witness in the world? Only the crouching skeletons under the tables- Alas and alas!» His love of the beautiful is tempered by a keen sense of humor; and the combination makes his volume a delightful record, with the sunshine of Italy shut between its covers.

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 Ippopolito, a priest. The latter is a strongly drawn, interesting study. He is a man whom circumstances rather than inclination led into the priesthood. From the hour of his ordination he finds the holy office an obstacle to his 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 inventions 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.

Almayer's Folly, by Joseph Conrad, is

a novel of Eastern life, whose scene is laid on a little-known river of Borneo, and whose personages are fierce Malays.

322

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.

to impress Sir Guy, and contents herself with a Mr. Boer, appropriately 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 introducing any startling episodes. It paints a pleasant picture of English country life, with sufficient fidel

ford Edwards, appeared in 1864. It is the romance of a pretty girl, clever and capable, who, passing through some vexations 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.

Airy Fairy Lilian, by Mrs. Hunger

no

ford ("The Duchess"), needs 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 Chetwoode. Sir Guy Chetwoode, her rather young guardian; Cyril, his brother, and Florence Beauchamp, his cousin, complete the household. Sir Guy, staid, earnest, and manly, 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

light and shadow.

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 Switzerland 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 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.

Allan Quatermain, by H. Rider Hag

gard, rehearses the adventures of the old hunter and traveler who tells the story, and whose name gives the title to the book. He is accompanied from England on an African expedition by Sir Henry 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 under Quatermain. At a mission station the party leads an expedition to rescue the daughter of the missionary, Flossie Mackenzie, who had been captured by hostile

this little work, of one of their number, desultory and inartistic as it is, will be invaluable to the future 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 preface by Pavel Lavrof.

in the swift movement of the narrative, and the excitement of incessant advent

ure.

Underground Russia, by Stepniak.

The former editor of Zemlia 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 series 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 propaganda 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 successive changes that have taken place in the attack on Autocracy before and since 1871. 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 resource. Under the sub-title of Revolutionary Profiles,' he draws pen-portraits of some of his acquaintances among the Nihilists: Stepanovich, Dmitri Clemens, Valerian Ossinsky, Prince Krapotkin, Dmitri Lisogub, Jessy Helfman, Viera Sassulitch, 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 propaganda and methods of the revolutionists in attempting to free their country from governmental tyranny, and as a statement of their aims and purpose,

sky. Sonya Kovalevsky, whose fafather was a general at the head of the Russian artillery, adopted the Nihilistic procedure 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 University. 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. (Vera 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 posi tion 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 in clines to take the side of the peasants in their differences with their former masters, is "interned» at Viatka, and dies there of consumption. Vera sacrifices herself by marrying a poor Jewish con spirator, 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 selfsacrificing 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

he story lies in its pictures of life at the time of the liberation of the serfs. It has been twice translated into English. The author died in 1891, at the age of forty-one.

Tent Life in Siberia, by George Ken

nan. (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 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 the vastness, 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.

French and German Socialism in

Modern Times, by Richard T. Fly, associate professor of political economy in Johns Hopkins University. (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 rendering 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 themselves 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 principal French and German plans of reform that have been proposed. These include the systems of Baboeuf, Cabet, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, Proudhon, French socialism since Proudhon, Rodbertus, Karl Marx, the International Association, Lassalle, the Social Democracy, Socialism of the Chair (i. e., 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.