Young’s Night Thoughts. 38 cts.
D. Appleton & Co’s Publications.
LAMARTINE’S LAST WORK.
D. Appleton & Co. have recently published,
LES CONFIDENCES.
CONFIDENTIAL DISCLOSURES,
OR
MEMOIRS OF MY YOUTH,
BY
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE,
AUTHOR OF “THE HISTORY OF THE GIRONDISTS,” ETC.
Translated from the French,
BY EUGENE PLUNKETT.
One volume 12mo. Paper cover 25 cents. Cloth 50 cents.
“This volume might well open with the beautiful introductory sentence in Johnson Rasselas, “Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, or pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, or that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow”—give ear!
“It is a remarkable and most attractive book. The circumstances under which it has been given to the world are detailed in a Preface in a manner to enlist our sympathies, and to bring Lamartine before us as a confiding friend, narrating the scenes and events of his youth, not as an idle tale, nor to indulge egotism, but to convey some of the best lessons for the mind and heart. His description of the home of his youth, and shepherd employment; his portrait of his mother who was the idol of her children and her husband—if an object of such pure affection and worth can be called an idol; the Italian peasant girl Graziella; the young Aymon de Varien, who passed through skepticism to faith in God; are passages that we have read with absorbing interest. We understand Lamartine better, and respect him more, for the use he has made of the discipline of life, nay, even of his youthful transgressions. It is possible that to some there may appear a tragic affectation here and there, but we see beneath it the most genuine feeling, and only a somewhat cold New Englander would find fault with the mode in which the feeling has expressed itself.—Boston Courier.
“Although this work is called ‘Confidential Disclosures,’ it evidently tells neither the whole truth nor nothing but the truth. It is, however, none the less agreeable on that account; glowing and beautiful as is the coloring through which the reader looks on the illuminated pages of that author’s youth and early love, he can easily pardon the enthusiasm, by turns joyous and melancholy, from which it sprung. To one whose love of Nature is something more than a feeling—whose passion for every form of external beauty, joined to a pure and lofty imagination, gives a vital spirit and sympathy to every thing on which he looks, the language of this volume is not extravagant, nor are its glowing and oft repeated descriptions of mere scenery wearisome. It is a work whose brilliancy all will admire, but whose true feeling will be appreciated by the imaginative only. The scenes of the poet’s childhood—his free life on the hills of Burgundy—his ramble in the Jura and among the Alps of Savoy—his Ossianic attachment for a young girl, whose tower he watched from the heights and whom he addressed in poetic rhapsodies about the harp of Morven and the ghosts of Cromla—are all described with exquisite poetic frankness. The episode of Graziella, though it is impossible to say how much truth there is in its details, is the finest thing in the book, and perhaps the best thing Lamartine has ever written. It is a picture which will be read and remembered, even should its framework fall into decay. The translating of this edition is well done, and the original of several poems introduced in the work is judiciously given in an appendix.”—Journal of Commerce.
D. A. & Co. ALSO PUBLISH IN THE ORIGINAL FRENCH,
LES CONFIDENCES
ET
RAPHAEL,
PAR M. DE LAMARTINE.
One volume 8vo. Price $1.