At least one novel book has been issued among the recent holiday volumes. It is “One Year’s Sketch Book,”[D] a collection of engravings following the birth, growth, and death of a year. Flowers are made to interpret the changing phases of the seasons by the artist, for, though she weaves in many landscapes, they are almost always as backgrounds, for now a bunch of ox-eyed daisies, a bouquet of blue violets, a loose cluster of roses, a spray of clematis, or a bunch of bitter-sweet. She deals more sympathetically, too, with flowers than with other subjects, and her work on them shows much more finish. There are several anachronisms in the book that are annoying. March is made to follow May; the page called the end of spring-time bears a cluster of trailing arbutus as its emblem, a flower which belongs to the birth of spring; and in her preface, she makes her newly wedded birds hesitate between nest building in the locust, with its “drooping white blossoms heaving with sweetness,” and the apple trees with their “pink and white glory blushing against the sky,” forgetful that the “pink and white glory” has fallen to the ground before the locust flower has come. The pictures are quite as beautiful, however, as if placed in strict calendar order, and the make up of the book is delightful.
Probably the most suggestive work on education ever written is Rousseau’s “Emile.”[E] It is the work to which we owe the common sense and the thoughtful training which more and more characterize our system of education. It is the work which aroused Pestalozzi and Frœbel, but it has been for many years practically a dead volume, particularly to English readers. Old, poorly translated, long, and with many tedious digressions, teachers and mothers who ought to have been reading it were repelled by these difficulties. Some time ago M. Jules Steeg removed these barriers from his French countrymen by arranging a volume into which he gathered the most valuable portions of Emile, and now one of our country-women has removed the difficulties from English readers by a clear translation of Mr. Steeg’s work. It is a book worth possessing, and educators ought to welcome this practical and satisfactory arrangement of Rousseau’s great book.
A jest book and a history are not often found in the same volume, but the “Enchiridion of Wit,”[F] is not only what it professes, a hand book of English conversational wit; it is a very delightful history of certain periods of English court and society life. The author has adopted the novel plan of arranging chronologically the bon-mots he has collected. The effect is very striking. This grouping into periods enables a reader to study the progress, the men, the culture and refinement of each age from an entirely new standpoint, and one which no other book with which we are familiar makes possible. The volume will form a valuable handbook in studies of the education and polish of the social and literary coteries from the time of Sir Thomas Moore down to the days of Thackeray and Bishop Wilberforce.
“A Penniless Girl”[G] is the story of one who, simply because she was a girl, could not inherit the immense fortune which would have fallen to a son. Her father’s disappointment, and neglect of the daughter whose mother died at her birth, her reception into the house of a wealthy noble family where, after she had been well educated, she accepted the position of governess; and her struggles to free herself from the meshes spread on all sides to lead her into a marriage for wealth and position, and to remain true to herself and the man she loved, make up the plot. It is a book that will help while away an hour or so very pleasantly.
A few short extracts from the first page of “Episodes of My Second Life”[H] give the meaning of the title. “On the 15th of August, 1836, I was born again. On that day I embarked at Gibraltar for New York, being then twenty-five years old. It was the beginning of a new life.” The author is an Italian, and had passed his seventieth birthday before beginning this book. It is made up principally of reminiscences of his life in America and in England. His comments on some of the customs of American social life give us a not very flattering view of ourselves as others sometimes see us. His appreciation of the treasures of English literature is very great, and his commendation of them as warm as his denunciation of French literature is bitter. His patriotic, diplomatic, literary, parliamentary, and journalistic experiences give quite an insight into these great fields of labor. There is much of egotism within its pages, but the book is very readable and possesses literary merit.
“Light Ahead”[I] is one of those satisfactory books in which the poor good characters all turn out well, and have abundant opportunity to heap coals of fire on the heads of the bad rich ones, who in former years had treated them with contempt. The story of the little spirituelle Alice, who, from a refined home where poverty dwelt, won her way among the noble and the true in the highest circles, until she gained an established position in the very best society, will do good wherever it goes.
“Pretty Lucy Merwyn”[J] is a charming story for the young. There is a freshness and an individuality about it that captivates the reader from the first. The racy, original little speeches of Lucy and her companions have in them a naturalness that is seldom found, and the descriptions of their travels abroad are so vivid that those reading half believe that they themselves are visiting the “memory haunted lands beyond the seas.” It is written in good style and in the purest English.
Marion Harland, with her usual good sense in taking everything new and good into the kitchen, has prepared a “Calendar”[K] for housewives. It is the aptest device we have ever seen for furnishing a daily inspiration to model housekeeping. No woman with a spark of household pride in her soul can pull away the leaves of this pretty calendar day by day and read the bright thoughts, the practical hints, and the encouraging words which Mrs. Terhune has put on them without profit. It is a pretty object, too, for a wall, with its richly colored sketch of Marion Harland herself, sitting in the corner of her library.
A choice little book is the one containing two brief sketches called “Miss Toosey’s Mission” and “Laddie.”[L] One experiences something of a sense of wrong on looking in vain at the title page for the author’s name. Both stories are written in a delightful manner, and find their way straight to one’s heart. Would that there were more like poor Miss Toosey, who grieve over making just such failures of their lives as she thought she had. Could she only have known of the purpose which she fanned to life in the breast of strong John Rossiter to go into the mission field and really do what she so fondly dreamed of once, she would have felt that she had wrought “better than she knew.”
The “Laddie” was a prominent physician in London, who years before as an uncommonly promising youth had left his simple rural home and poor mother. The story tells of how she went to find him, and the thoughtless words he spoke which made her leave his grand house, and of the long search he had for her and the sad finding.