Concord Days. By A. Bronson Alcott. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
In these loose leaves we have the St. Martin's summer of a life. Mr. Alcott, from his quiet home in Concord, and from the edifice of his seventy-three years, picks out those mental growths and moral treasures which have kept their color through all the changes of the seasons. They bear the mark of selection, of choice, from out a vast abundance of material: to us readers the scissors have probably been a kinder implement than the pen. Be that as it may, the selections given are all worth saving, and the fragmentary resurrection is just about as much as our age has time to attend to of the growths that were formed when New England thought was young. That was the day when Mrs. Hominy fastened the cameo to her frontal bone and went to the sermon of Dr. Channing, when young Hawthorne chopped straw for the odious oxen at Brook Farm, and when a budding Booddha, called by his neighbors Thoreau, left mankind and proceeded to introvert himself by the borders of Walden Pond. Mr. Alcott's little diary gives us some of the best skimmings of that time of yeast. There is Emerson-worship, Channing-worship, Margaret Fuller-worship and the pale cast of The Dial. There is, besides, in another stratum that runs through the collection, a vein of very welcome investigation amongst old authors—Plutarch's charming letter of consolation to his wife on the death of their child; Crashaw's "Verses on a Prayer-Book;" Evelyn's letter on the origin of his Sylva; and many a jewel five-words-long filched from the authors whom modern taste votes slow and insupportable. We mention these to give some idea of the spirit in which this work of marquetry is executed—a work too fragmentary and incoherent to be easily describable except by its specimens. And while culling fragments, we cannot forbear mentioning the curious records of Mr. Alcott's "Conversations," held now with Frederika Bremer, now with a band of large-browed Concord children, held forty years ago, and turning perpetually upon the deeper questions of metaphysics and religion; we will even indulge ourselves with a short extract from one of the "Conversations with Children," reported verbatim by an apparently concealed auditress, and eliciting many a cunning bit of infantine wisdom, besides the following finer rhapsody, which Mr. Alcott succeeded in charming out of the lips of a boy six years of age:
"Mr. Alcott! you know Mrs. Barbauld says in her hymns, everything is prayer; every action is prayer; all nature prays; the bird prays in singing; the tree prays in growing; men pray—men can pray more; we feel; we have more, more than Nature; we can know, and do right: Conscience prays; all our powers pray; action prays. Once we said, here, that there was a Christ in the bottom of our spirits, when we try to be good. Then we pray in Christ; and that is the whole!"
To think that the lips of this ingenuous and golden-mouthed lad may be now pouring out patriotism in Congress is rather sad; but the author's own career tells us that there are some of the Chrysostoms of 1830 who have had the courage to keep quiet, and sweeten their own lives for family use. Mr. Alcott betrays in every line the kindest, sanest and humanest spirit; and we wish he could feel how grateful some of us are for his example of a thinker who can keep quiet, and a writer who can show the power of reticence.
Thirty Years in the Harem; or, The Autobiography of Melek-Hanum, wife of H.H. Kibrizli-Mehemet-Pasha. New York: Harper & Brothers.
We have had many revelations from the interior, but nothing quite like this. Most histories are valuable in proportion to the truthfulness of the narrator, but Mrs. Melek's story owes a large show of its interest to her obvious tension of the long-bow. It is, in fact, a self-revelation—the vain and audacious betrayal by an Oriental woman of the narrowness, the shallowness, the dishonesty which ages of false education have fastened upon her race. The lady in question is—and evidently knows herself to be—an exception among her countrywomen for ability and acumen: an extreme self-satisfaction and vanity are revealed in the recital of her most disreputable tricks. She passes for a white blackbird, a woman of intellect caught in the harem; and it needs but little ingenuity to guess the torment she must have been to her protectors—first to the excellent Dr. Millingen, with whom she formed a love-match, and whom she abuses—and then to her second husband, Kibrizli, ambassador in 1848 to the court of England, upon whom she attempted to palm off an heir by the ruse practiced by our own revered Mrs. Cunningham. Whatever the clever Melek does, or whatever treatment she receives, it is always she who is in the right, and her eternal "enemies" who are unjust, barbarous and stingy. The ferocious blackmailing of natives in the Holy Land which she practiced when her husband represented the sultan there, is represented as cleverness; but her divorce after the infamous false accouchement is a piece of persecution. The marriage and adventures of her daughter form a tangled romance through which we hear of a great deal more oppression and cruelty; and the escape into Europe, where the old enchantress appears to be now prowling in poverty and degradation, concludes the curious story. The narrative bears marks of having passed through a French translation and then a British version. To disentangle the thread of actuality that probably runs through it would be too troublesome and futile; but the truths that the wily Melek cannot help telling—the facts of the harem and of Eastern life that involuntarily sprinkle it all like a flavoring of strange spices—these are what give it the odd dash of interest which keeps it in our hands long after we had meant to toss it aside. Here is a "screaming sister" of the East—an odalisque who was not going to be oppressed and degraded like the other women, but who meant to be capable and cultivated and smart, just like the Christian ladies; and this bundle of lies and crimes and hates is what she arrives at.
Hints on Dress; or, What to Wear, When to Wear it, and How to Buy it. By Ethel C. Gale, (Putnam's Handy-Book Series.) New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons.
This little book will certainly elicit commendation from all who consider the subject of dress within the pale of aesthetic treatment; and, what is still more fortunate, it will probably serve to elevate, in some degree, the standard of taste among that large class of persons for whom handy volumes are chiefly compiled. Its statements and deductions are accurate, sensible, comprehensive and practical, and the style in which they are presented is simple and attractive. The color, form and suitability of dress, as well as the best methods of economy in its purchase and manufacture, are intelligently treated. We have only to regret the want of a chapter devoted to the hygiene of dress, which is a subject deserving the earnest attention of every friend of physical development. Ten or a dozen pages given to this topic might have done a service to hundreds who are willing enough to gather knowledge in passing, but who are repelled from the separate consideration of any subject which seems to call for the exercise of serious thought.
A Sketch Map of the Nile Sources and Lake Region of Central Africa, showing Dr. Livingstone's Discoveries and Mr. Stanley's Route. Folio, folded. Philadelphia: T. Elwood Zell.
A clear, well-executed polychrome map, evidently copied from the one recently published in England, if not actually printed there. It exhibits not only the route of Dr. Livingstone during the period included between the years 1866 and 1872, and that taken by Mr. Stanley in his recent search, but also the course which the former proposes to follow in the prosecution of his discoveries. The boundaries of lakes and the courses of rivers, where definitely known, are indicated by unbroken lines—where still supposititious, by dotted ones. The map, which is printed on heavy paper, is thirteen inches wide by eighteen inches long, and being folded within a stiff duodecimo cover, can be easily preserved and readily consulted.