"Davy the Goblin; or, What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,'" By Charles E. Carryl. Boston; Ticknor & Co.
"Bric-à-Brac Stories." By Mrs. Burton Harrison. Illustrated by Walter Crane. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
"Rudder Grange." By Frank R. Stockton. Illustrated by A.B. Frost. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
In turning over the pictorial books of the season one experiences a genuine pleasure in coming upon this illustrated edition of "The Sermon on the Mount," which belongs to a high order of merit from its satisfactory interpretation of the subject and the beauty of its general design and careful detail. It is, of course, a modern performance, and nothing is more characteristic of most modern art than that it does consciously, from reminiscence and with a reaching after certain effects, what was once done simply, intuitively, and from the urgency of poetic feeling. A great difference must naturally exist not only in the outward mode but in the spirit of a group of modern artists who set to work to illuminate a sacred text, and that in which the task was undertaken by cloistered monks in whose gray lives a longing for beauty, for color, found expression only here. Thus one realizes that the decorative borders—which one looks at over and over again in this volume, and which actually satisfy the eye—do not represent the artist's own actual dreams, but are founded instead upon the ecstatic visions of Fra Angelico and others as they bent over their work in their silent cells; but they are beautiful nevertheless, far transcend what is merely decorative, and are full of imagination and feeling. In fact, into this frame-work, which might have contained nothing beyond conventional imitation, Mr. Smith has put vivid touches which show that he has the faculty to conceive and the skill to handle which belong to the true artist. It would be easy to instance several of these borders as remarkably good in their way: that which surrounds the "Lord's Prayer" suggests dazzling effects in jewelled glass. The book is made up in a delightful way, with full-page pictures interspersed with vignettes illustrating the text and set round with those richly-designed borders to which we have alluded. Mr. Fenn's pictures of actual places in the Holy Land, besides striking the key-note of veracity which puts us in a mood to see the whole story under fresh lights, are full of beauty and charm. We are inclined to like everything in the book, although in the various ways in which the beatitudes are interpreted we are conscious of some incongruities, and wish that certain illustrations had made way for designs showing more unity of conception among the artists. For instance, Mr. Church's introduction of a New England scene of tomahawking Indians cannot be said to throw a flood of light upon the meaning of "Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake." Mr. St. John Harper's pictures are a trifle obscure; but their obscurity veils their want of pertinence and suggests subtilties that flatter the imagination into fitting the application to suit itself. Any mention of the book which failed to include Mr. Copeland's work on the engrossed text would be altogether inadequate, for it is very perfect, very beautiful, full of surprises and delightful quaintnesses, and helps to make the book what it actually is, a complete whole, which really answers our wishes of what an illustrated book should be.
Mr. Whittier's "Poems of Nature" make the felicitous occasion this year for one of Messrs. Houghton & Mifflin's rich and attractive series of their authors' selected works. An admirable etching of the poet faces the title-page, and the poems, chiefly descriptive of New England scenes, are illustrated by designs from nature, the work of a single artist. That Mr. Kingsley is in sympathy with the poet, and that he is an impassioned lover of nature and the various moods of nature, no one can doubt, and the impression of truthfulness which his work produces on the mind makes his pictures interesting and full of sentiment even when they are not entirely successful. Perhaps he aims in general at rather too large effects to bring them out vividly; for when the scene he chooses is least composite he is at his best. "Deer Island Pines," for example, and "The Merrimac" are excellent, and we find much charm in "A Winter Scene" and in a Boughton-like "November Afternoon."
There is a certain temerity in undertaking to illustrate a work like "Childe Harold," which, if it has been read at all, has aroused its own distinct conceptions of scenery in the mind of its reader which must make any ordinary pictures setting off familiar lines tame and insipid. It is the triumph of art when the artist can bring out meanings and beauties in the text hitherto undreamed of; but we acquit the artists of the present book of any failure in that respect, for their intention seems never to have gone beyond amiable commonplace. The little cuts are all pleasant, trim, and, if not suggestive, at least not sufficiently the reverse to be displeasing. The head-pieces to the cantos are extremely good, and the two scenes "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods" and "There is a rapture on the lonely shore" we like sufficiently well to exempt them from the accusation of insipidity.
Happy the poet who lives to see one of the poems he carelessly flung off in early youth come back to him in his old age in such a setting as is here given to Dr. Holmes's "Last Leaf." "Just when it was written," the author says in his delightful and characteristic "Envoi" to the reader, "I cannot exactly say, nor in what paper or periodical it was first published. It must have been written before April, 1833,"—that is, when he was in the early twenties. The poem has always been a favorite, its sentiment suggesting Lamb's "All, all are gone, the old familiar faces." It must henceforth be ranked as a classic, for it is the happy destiny of the two artists who have worked together to give it this exquisite setting forth to make its actual worth clear to every reader. They have put nothing into the lines which was not there already, but they have shown fine insight in their choice of subjects and in conveying delicate and far-reaching meanings. They have subordinated—as designers do not invariably do—their instinctive methods and capricious inclinations to a careful study of their subject. The result is—instead of a pretty but chaotic decorativeness interspersed with florid and meaningless exaggerations—a complete and beautiful whole marred by no redundancy or incongruity. Their full play of intelligence brought to bear upon the suggestions of the poet has developed a series of pictures which give occasionally a delightful sense of surprise at their grace and unexpectedness. For example, the three which illustrate
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom
have absolutely a magical effect. Besides the full-page pictures, etchings, and photo-gravures, the minor details of title-lines, head- and tail-pieces, and the like, are executed in a way so pretty and clever as to leave nothing to be desired. The rich quarto is sumptuously bound, and, altogether, as a holiday gift-book the work has every element of beauty and appropriateness.
"Pepper and Salt" is one of those brilliantly clever books for little people which rouse a wonder as to whether the juvenile mind keeps pace with the highly stimulated imaginative powers of modern artists and finds solid entertainment in the richly-seasoned feast prepared for it. There is plenty of humor and whim in this volume, in which many old apologues appear in new shapes; wit, too, is to be found, and a sprinkling of wisdom. Effective designs, droll, fantastic, and invariably ingenious, set off the least of the poems and stories, and make it as striking and attractive a quarto as will be found among the young people's books this season.