William Maccall in The People, gives the following graphic account of his first interview with John Stirling. "Sometime in March, 1841, I was traveling by coach from Bristol to Devonport. I had for companion part of the way a tall, thin gentleman, evidently in bad health, but with a cheerful, gallant look which repelled pity. We soon got into conversation. I was much impressed by his brilliant and dashing speech, so much like a rapid succession of impetuous cavalry charges; but I was still more impressed by his frankness, his friendliness, his manliness. A sort of heroic geniality seemed to hang on his very garments. We talked about German literature; then about Carlyle. I said that the only attempt at an honest and generous appreciation of Carlyle's genius was a recent article in The Westminster Review. My companion replied, 'I wrote that article. My name is John Sterling.' We seemed to feel a warmer interest in each other from that moment; and, by quick instinct, we saw that we were brothers in God's Universe, though we might never be brought very near each other in brotherhood on earth. Sterling left me at Exeter, and a few days after my arrival at Devonport I received a letter, which leavens my being with new life, every time I read it, by its singular tenderness and elevation."
The English literary journals are always suggestive, often amusing, and sometimes not a little "verdant," as the Yankees say, in their notices of American books. We subjoin a few of their criticisms on recent popular works. Of Queechy, by Elizabeth Wetherell, the Literary Gazette discourses as follows: "The authoress of 'Queechy' has every quality of a good writer save one. Good feeling, good taste, fancy, liveliness, shrewd observation of character, love of nature, and considerable skill in the management of a story—all these she possesses. But she has yet to learn how much brevity is the soul of wit. Surely she must live in some most quiet nook of 'the wide, wide world,' and the greater part of her American readers must have much of the old Dutch patience and the primitive leisure of the days of Rip Van Winkle. Doubtless the book will have admirers as ardent in the parlors of Boston as in the farm-houses of the far West, who will make no complaints of prolixity, and will wish the book longer even than it is. There is a large circle in this country also to whom it will be faultless. The good people who take for gold whatever glitters on the shelves of their favorite booksellers, will be delighted with a work far superior to the dreary volumes of commonplace which are prepared for the use of what is called 'the religious public.' But we fear that those to whom such a book would be the most profitable will deem 'Queechy' somewhat tiresome. The story is too much drawn out, and many of the dialogues and descriptions would be wonderfully improved by condensation."
The Athenæum has a decent notice of Curtis's Howadji in Syria, which by the by, has got metamorphosed into The Wanderer in Syria, in the London edition.
"It is about a year since we noticed a book of Eastern travel called 'Nile Notes'—evidently by a new writer, and evincing his possession of various gifts and graces—warmth of imagination, power of poetic coloring, and a quick perception of the ludicrous in character and in incident. We assumed that an author of so much promise would be heard of again in the literary arena; and accordingly he is now before us as 'The Wanderer in Syria,' and has further announced a third work under the suggestive title of 'Lotus-Eating.' 'The Wanderer' is a continuation of the author's travels—and is divided between the Desert, Jerusalem, and Damascus. It is in the same style of poetic reverie and sentimental scene-painting as 'Nile Notes,'—but it shows that Mr. Curtis has more than one string to his harp. The characteristic of his former volume was a low, sad monotone—the music of the Memnon, in harmony with the changeless sunshine and stagnant life of Egypt—with the silence of its sacred river and the sepulchral grandeur of its pyramids and buried cities. 'The Wanderer,' on the contrary, is never melancholy. There is in him a prevailing sense of repose, but the spirit breathes easily, and the languid hour is followed by bracing winds from Lebanon. There is the same warm sunshine,—but the gorgeous colors and infinite varieties of Eastern life are presented with greater vivacity and grace.
"Mr. Curtis's fault is that of Ovid—an over-lusciousness of style—too great a fondness for color. He cloys the appetite with sweetness. His aim as a writer should be to obtain a greater depth and variety of manner—more of contrast in his figures. He is rich in natural gifts, and time and study will probably develop in him what is yet wanting of artistic skill and taste.
"Of Mr. Curtis's latest work, entitled 'Lotus-Eating; a Summer Book,' the Literary Gazette says:
"A very cheerful and amusing, but always sensible and intelligent companion is Mr. Curtis. Whether on the Nile or the Hudson, on the Broadway of New York or the Grand Canal of Venice, we have one whose remarks are worth listening to. Not very original in his thoughts, nor very deep in his feelings, we yet read with pleasant assent the record of almost every thing that he thinks and feels. This new summer book is a rough journal of a ramble in the States, but every chapter is full of reminiscences of the old European world, and an agreeable medley he makes of his remarks on scenery, and history, and literature, and mankind. Mr. Curtis is one of the most cosmopolitan writers that America has yet produced. This light volume is fittingly called a summer book, just such as will be read with pleasure on the deck of a steamer, or under the cliffs of some of our modern Baiæ. It may also teach thoughtless tourists how to reflect on scenes through which they travel."