Christy Carew, in its picture of two middle-class Catholic families in Dublin, takes us back to the society described in Hogan, M.P., but its range is narrower and its theme rather social than political. It is a softer and more attractive book than Hogan, M.P., though, like that novel, it is devoted to a realistic picture of life. Miss Laffan's characters have the merit of being always real. They are often types, but they are never mere abstractions. Whatever their importance or qualities, they stand firmly on their feet, are individual and alive. Her men are drawn with a vigor which ought to ensure them from the reproach of being ladies' men. They may display traits of weakness, but these are due to no faltering on the author's part. In Christy Carew the men are in a minority as far as minuteness of portraiture goes, and the most elaborate touches are bestowed on the two young girls who act as heroines, for the one is as prominent as the other. Christy and her friend Esther O'Neil present two types of girlhood. Esther, dévote and gentle, is a very tender, lovable figure, but there is perhaps more skill shown in the more contradictory character of Christy, a pretty girl addicted to flirting, keenly intelligent and impatient of the restraints and inconsistencies of her religious teaching, yet with an earnestness which makes her feel the emptiness of her life and vaguely seek for something higher. When each of the friends is sought by a Protestant lover their different ways of regarding the calamity are in keeping with their characters, and though any reader will agree with Christy that Esther was the more deserving of happiness, no one will be sorry that her own love-story should find a pleasant dénouement. As an argument in favor of mixed marriages the book would have been stronger if Esther's lover had been separated from her only by prejudice, and not by unworthiness as well, but the pathos of the story is in no way marred by the neglect to clinch an argument. Like all Miss Laffan's novels, it is simple in plot. Construction is not her strong point, and though Christy Carew has more story to it than her former books, it is by no means technically perfect. There is a certain hurry about it: its good things are not driven home, and effects upon which more skilful artists would dwell at length are dropped in a concentration upon other objects. The book, in the American edition, is also marred by numerous typographical defects that betray a singular laxity in proof-reading.
Hogan, M.P., was published in 1876: Miss Laffan's career as a novelist is therefore only four years old. We will not attempt to cast its future: we have simply endeavored, as far as space would admit, to point out the soundness of its foundation and the method by which it has been laid. In all that she has written there is a reserved strength, a sincerity and conscientiousness, which mark her work as unmistakably genuine. A large store of observation lies behind all her writing, and an intellectual power of a very high order is apparent throughout. What she lacks is a mellowness and breadth of art which would enable her to blend and concentrate her qualities—to bring the realism of Hogan, M.P., into unison with the grace of The Honorable Miss Ferrard and the pathos and sympathy of Christy Carew—to give form and completeness to her work. Then Ireland would have a great novelist.
The Reminiscences of an Idler. By Henry Wikoff. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert.
The reminiscences of idle men are apt to be more entertaining than those of busy men. The idler, passing his time in search of amusement, can hardly fail to communicate it when he yields up his store of experiences. Being disengaged, his mind is more observant and more retentive of the by-play of life, which is the only amusing part of it, than that of one of the chief actors can possibly be. Moreover, idlers are the natural confidants of the busy: they are consulted, made useful as go-betweens, entrusted with those little services which, being transient and disconnected, are precisely suited to their disposition and secure them a place in the economy of Nature. Mr. Wikoff has been a model idler, with large opportunities of this description. From boyhood he has, according to his own account, shirked all regular application and devoted himself to the pursuit of pleasure, including the gratification of an intelligent but superficial curiosity in regard to men and manners. He has come in close contact with a great variety of people, especially of a class whose private lives and public careers react in the production of a piquant interest. These associations kept his hands full of what only a very rigid censor would denominate mischief. His intimacy with Forrest gained him a suitable companion in a journey to the Crimea, and the tragedian a not less suitable negotiator in the arrangements for his marriage and his professional engagements in London. He aided Lady Bulwer in her fight with her husband's family and the recovery of her stolen lap-dog. His friendly offices to Fanny Ellsler were more important and fruitful. He had the chief share in bringing her to America, smoothing away the difficulties, assuming the responsibilities, and escorting her in person, while taking charge at the same time of two other interesting and otherwise unprotected females. It was, indeed, we need hardly say, in feminine affairs that Mr. Wikoff was most at home. But his obliging disposition made him equally ready to execute commissions for members of the Bonaparte family, his relations with whom grew closer and more interesting at a period subsequent to that which is embraced in this volume. Many other notabilities, both American and European, have more or less prominence in its pages. Some letters from Mrs. Grote are especially deserving of notice. As long as it is confined to personal topics the narrative is never dull. Without being distinguished for vigor or wit, it has the graceful and sprightly garrulity characteristic of the well-preserved veteran. Unfortunately, it betrays also the tendency to tediousness which belongs to a revered epoch, much of it, being devoted to persons and things seen only from a distance and without the powers of vision requisite for penetrating their true character. But, in spite of this defect, the book is exceedingly readable and enjoyable, and we trust to have a continuation of it which may show a restraining influence exercised with kindness and tact, such as were so often exerted by the author for the benefit of his friends.
The Life and Work of William Augustus Muhlenberg. By Anne Ayres. New York: Harper & Brothers.
There could not well be a stronger contrast than between the subject of this book and that of the one just noticed. We have called Mr. Wikoff a model idler, and with at least equal truth we may call Dr. Muhlenberg a model worker, not because he was unremitting and methodical in labor or because his work was his delight, but because it was consecrated by a devoted singleness of purpose and crowned by the noblest achievements. The life of the founder of St. Luke's Hospital and St. Johnland, as exhibited in this faithful record, has the simplicity and grandeur of an antique statue, and in the contemplation of it the marvel of its rare perfection grows, till we are half inclined to ask whether it, too, be not some relic of the remote past rather than a product of our own age. Saintly purity, unbounded beneficence, intense earnestness and great-hearted liberality of sentiment were never more symmetrically blended than in the character of "the great presbyter," whose ministrations were neither inspired nor confined by any narrower dogma than "that love to man, flowing from love to God," which, as he himself, with no lack of humility, said, "had been their impulse." It has been justly observed that "he was eminently the common property of a common Christianity," and not less truly that "there is, and ever will be, more of Christian charity in the world because Dr. Muhlenberg has lived in it as he did." He was perhaps not a man of extraordinary intellect, but his singularly healthy mind, with its union of resoluteness and candor, sound sense and lively fancy, gave the needed counterpoise to his moral qualities, keeping his enterprises within the domain of the useful and the practical, and thus saving him from the disappointments that too often checker the career of the philanthropist. This biography, written from long and intimate knowledge and admirable alike in spirit and execution, will find, we may trust, a multitude of readers among members of all sects and those who belong to none. Its interest is of a far more absorbing kind than any that can be excited by gossip or anecdote. It is that of a vivid portraiture, in which nothing characteristic is missing, in which the details are all harmonious, and which awakens not only our admiration, but our warmest sympathies.
Books Received.
History of Political Economy in Europe. By Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui. Translated from the fourth French edition by Emily J. Leonard. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Pure Wine—Fermented Wine and Other Alcoholic Drinks in the Light of the New Dispensation. By John Ellis, M. D. New York: Published by the Author.