"A French girl of fifteen is as mature as an English one of eighteen." What will Mr. Roberton of Manchester, who has exploded so many of our fancies about the women of the East, say to this?
"A wound, for which the German woman would require surgical aid, in the French woman cures itself." We must say of such an unproved assertion as the French General said of the charge at Balaklava,—"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la"—médecine.
"Generally, she [woman] is sick from love,—man, from indigestion." What a pity Nature never makes such pretty epigrams with her facts as wits do with their words!
We have enough, too, of that self-assertion which Carlyle and Ruskin and some of our clerical neighbors have made us familiar with, and which gives flavor to a work of genius. "I was worth more than my writings, more than my discourses. I brought to this teaching of philosophy and history a soul as yet entire,—a great freshness of mind, under forms often subtle,—a true simplicity of heart," etc.
M. Michelet does not undervalue the importance of his work. He thinks he has ruined the dancing-gardens by the startling revelations respecting woman contained in his book. He announces a still greater triumph:—"I believe I have effectually suppressed old women. They will no longer be met with." M. Michelet has not seen the columns of some of our weekly newspapers.
These are scales from the husk of his book, which, with all its fantasies, is a generous plea for woman. Wise persons may safely read it, though they be not Parisians.
The translation is, and is generally considered, excellent. We notice two errors,—Jerres, instead of Serres,—and would, for should, after the Scotch and Southern provincial fashion;—with some questionable words, as reliable, for which we have Sir Robert Peel's authority, which cannot make it as honest a word as trustworthy,—masculize, which is at least intelligible,—and fast, used as college-boys use it in their loose talk, but not with the meaning which sober scholars are wont to give it. With these slight exceptions, the translation appears to us singularly felicitous, notwithstanding the task must have been very difficult, which Dr. Palmer has performed with such rare success.
Farm-Drainage. The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land, with Wood, Stones, Ploughs, and Open Ditches, and especially with Tiles; including Tables of Rainfall, Evaporation, Filtration, Excavation, Capacity of Pipes; Cost, and Number to the Acre, of Tiles, etc., etc.; and more than One Hundred Illustrations. By Henry E. French. New York: A.O. Moore & Co. 1859. 8vo. pp. 384.
We remember standing, thirty years ago, upon the cupola of a court-house in New Jersey, and, while enjoying the whole panorama, being particularly impressed with the superior fertility and luxuriance of one farm on the outskirts of the town. We recollect further, that, on inquiry, we found this farm to belong to a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, who also exercised the trade of a potter, and underdrained his land with tile-drains. His neighbors attributed the improvement in his farm to manure and tillage, and thought his attempts to introduce tile-drains into use arose chiefly from his desire to make a market for his tiles. Thirty years have made a great change; and a New Hampshire Judge of the Court of Common Pleas gives us a book on Farm-Drainage which tells us that in England twenty millions of dollars have been loaned by the government to be used in underdraining with tile!