Her Own Fault. By Mrs. J. K. Spender. Hurst and Blackett.
Mrs. Spender writes with great care and with considerable strength. Her story is well constructed, and the characters are marked by strong individuality. The story is a stormy one. Sara, who is a very fine creation, is 'a beautiful embodied storm.' Indeed, the defect of Mrs. Spender is, that her strength is not sufficiently calm. Every character is wrought up to the agony pitch: Sara, when she has accepted Rosswith Maxwell—Bryan on the night when he learns his rejection—Lawrence Routh in his suppressed intensity—Charley in her passionate sisterliness—all are wrought up to powerful and exaggerated passion. Mrs. Spender might say with the American young lady after dinner, 'I guess I've piled it on.' The story, however, is vigorous and original, although it is not a very pleasant one. Everybody is to be pitied. Poor Bryan is left with a sentence of death recorded against him.
JUVENILE LITERATURE.
Among children's books of the past Christmas which reached us too late for notice in our New-Year's Juvenile Section, are two or three, altogether too remarkable to be passed over. 'At the Back of the North Wind' (Strahan), and 'Ronald Bannerman's Boyhood,' both by George Macdonald, are two books almost sufficient by their excellences to mark an epoch in juvenile literature. Excepting 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,' no recent work that we can remember is worthy of being compared with the former. In no other of his many books has Mr. Macdonald shown more strikingly the power and delicacy of his imaginative genius. The blending of sober history with the most Puck-like fancies—the underlying thoughtfulness of both—the inlaying of wise reflections, subtly hinted or delicately touched—the blossoming into poetical beauty of almost every position and teaching—the light, graceful hand with which the whole is carried on—the deep, spiritual meanings that transfigure the lightest incidents—altogether constitute a fairy tale the like of which we have rarely seen, and which is as suggestive to the mature as it is amusing to the juvenile. We know youngsters in the nursery who, if they could not literally recite it by heart, would infallibly detect the alteration of a single sentence. Mr. Macdonald has attained to that perfection of excellency which understands the heart of a child. He has made 'Diamond' immortal. 'Ronald Bannerman's Boyhood' (Strahan), is altogether different in conception, feeling, and style. Mr. Macdonald's affluence of fancy is, with perhaps an equal exercise of imagination, subdued to the plain matter-of-fact, no-nonsense-about-it, autobiography of a school-boy. The sympathy with boy-nature is as perfect as in the other volume is the sympathy with child-nature. The narrative is bright, generous, and true—the exact tone of a noble-hearted boy, who has, however, to speak of some of the troubles and sorrows of life. Mr. Macdonald, however, never lacks humour. His description of Mrs. Mitchell, his father's sour housekeeper, and of the Dame School to which Ronald was sent, as well as of Kirsty and the experiences at the farm, is rich and racy in a high degree. Kirsty tells some capital kelpie and other Scotch stories and legends. It is a beautiful picture of childhood, teaching, by its impressions and suggestions, all noble things. 'Chamber Dramas for Children,' by Mrs. George Macdonald (Strahan), are four little plays, good as Hannah More's Sacred Dramas, and amusing as the stories of Cinderella, and Beauty and the Beast, out of which two of them are constructed. They are cleverly done, and will doubtless do duty in many an acted charade. The 'Tetterby's' is founded upon Dickens's Haunted Man. The 'Snowdrop' is new to us. 'The Boy in Grey' (Strahan), by Henry Kingsley, which appeared in Good Words for the Young, together with the above, was thereby subjected to a severe ordeal. It can ill bear the comparison. Instead of the translucent fancies of Mr. Macdonald, it is turgid and confused, and when it would be aërial, produces the effect that sculptured clouds do. Its allusions are often beyond the range of a boy's knowledge; its nonsense limps, and its wisdom is ponderous. We have found it very difficult to understand Mr. Kingsley's meaning. 'Lilliput Lectures,' by the author of 'Lilliput Levée' (Strahan), is again perfect in its way. The lectures are on all sorts of things—social and religious, physical and metaphysical, artistic and commercial. The writer tells us that he writes for no particular age, but aims generally at a childlike way of putting things. Some of the things put are high and mysterious; but then youth has wondrous dreams and speculations, and the happy simplicity of the writer helps youthful thought to climb. Each lecture winds up with some verses such as only the author of 'Lilliput Levée' can write. 'Choice Poetry for Children' (Religious Tract Society), is a small selection of religious and moral pieces by modern writers—of course, of unequal merit, but wisely and suitably chosen. 'The Pearl of Story Books' (Nelson) is a collection for children of Bible narratives in Bible words. 'Mrs. Montmorency's Money,' by Emma Jane Worboise (Clarke), belongs to minor fiction rather than to juvenile literature. Its moral is that 'the love of money is the root of all evil.' As is always the case with Miss Worboise, it is carefully written, and there are clever descriptions and scenes of pathos in it; but it is overlaid with moral, and not so successful in its plot as some of her tales. It is, however, a wholesome and readable story, and its moral is as timely as it is unexceptional.
Brevia, Short Essays, and Aphorisms. By the Author of 'Friends in Council.' Bell and Daldy.
Most of the writings of Mr. Helps are Brevia. His books are made like Armstrong guns, of welded pieces; and the process would not be a very violent or destructive one that resolved them into the shape of these fragments. We can well imagine them to be not so much chips as prepared blocks for larger works, which the architecture did not admit of, and which, therefore, the author has wrought into independent art forms. They are brimful of thoughtfulness and practical wisdom; always genial, often humorous, they make up a table book of aphorism and apologue, of colloquia, and short essay, independently conceived and gracefully expressed—which among living writers it would be difficult to parallel. They remind us most of Whately; only Mr. Helps is more terse than he. Sometimes reams of discussion are gathered into half a page; sometimes a single sentence contains seeds for reams of discussion. Mr. Helps has given us a volume of 'Aids for Reflection,' which is worthy the study of the most desultory. Most of these short essays and aphorisms have appeared in Good Words. We quote one sentence—'Some persons, instead of making a religion of their God, are content to make a God of their religion.'
Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain. By John Ruskin, LL.D. Sold only by G. Allen, Heathfield Cottage, Keston, Kent.
In these letters Mr. Ruskin seeks to teach the workmen and labourers of Great Britain some political economy which we are commonplace enough to think fallacious, and some history which we are not Vikings enough to think otherwise than mischievous. But we are in full accord with him in his desire to lighten the national distress around us, and to exterminate the yahoos of civilization; and if he can show us, as he seems to think he can, some sure method of doing both or either, we will abandon Mr. Mill, and will take our history from Mr. Carlyle. In the three letters already published we have not been able to discover any proposal leading to action, or, indeed, leading to anything at all, except weariness and vexation of spirit. But we are perhaps even now on the verge of the promised land. Mr. Ruskin has become so practical of late years that we are inclined to think he has made a real discovery. But he seems in no hurry to announce it, and delay is naturally tantalizing.