The grandeur which can survive proximity was peculiarly Abraham Lincoln's. Had that great and simple hero had a valet,—it is hard to conceive of him as so attended,—he must still have been a hero even to the eye grown severe in dusting clothes and brushing shoes. Indeed, first and last, he was subjected to very critical examination by the valet-spirit throughout the world; and he seems to have passed it triumphantly, for all our native valets, North and South, as well as those of the English press, have long since united in honoring him.
We see him in this book of Mr. Carpenter's to that advantage which perfect unaffectedness and sincerity can never lose. It is certainly a very pathetic figure, however, that the painter presents us, and not to be contemplated without sadness and that keen sense of personal loss which we all felt in the death of Abraham Lincoln. During the time that Mr. Carpenter was making studies for his picture of the President signing the Emancipation Proclamation, he was in daily contact with him,—saw him in consultation with his Cabinet, at play with his children, receiving office-seekers of all kinds, granting many favors to poor and friendless people, snubbing Secession insolence, and bearing patiently much impertinence from every source,—jesting, laughing, lamenting. It is singular that, in all these aspects of his character, there is no want of true dignity, though there is an utter absence of state,—and that we behold nothing of the man Lincoln was once doubted to be, but only a person of noble simplicity, cautious but steadfast, shrinking from none of the burdens that almost crushed him, profoundly true to his faith in the people, while surveying the awful calamity of the war with
"Anxious, pitying eyes,
As if he always listened to the sighs
Of the goaded world."
We have read Mr. Carpenter's book through with an interest chiefly due, we believe, to the subject; for though the author had the faculty to observe and to note characteristic and striking things, he has not the literary art to present them adequately. His style is compact of the manner of the local reporters and the Sunday-school books. If he depicts a pathetic scene, he presently farces it by adding that "there was not a dry eye among those that witnessed it," and goody-goody dwells in the spirit and letter of all his attempts to portray the religious character of the President. It is greatly to his credit, however, that his observation is employed with discretion and delicacy; and as he rarely lapses from good taste concerning things to be mentioned, we readily forgive him his want of grace in recounting the incidents which go to form his entertaining and valuable book.
Inside: a Chronicle of Secession. By George F. Harrington. New York: Harper and Brothers.
The author of this novel tells us that it was written in the heart of the rebellious territory during the late war, and that his wife habitually carried the manuscript to church with her in her pocket, while on one occasion he was obliged to bury it in the ground to preserve it from the insidious foe. These facts, in themselves startling, appear yet more extraordinary on perusal of the volume, in which there seems to be nothing of perilous value. Nevertheless, to the ill-regulated imagination of the Rebels, this novel might have appeared a very dangerous thing, to be kept from ever seeing the light in the North by all the means in their power; and we are not ready to say that Mr. Harrington's precautions, though unusual, were excessive. It is true that we see no reason why he should not have kept the material in his mind, and tranquilly written it out after the war was over.
Let us not, however, give too slight an idea of the book's value because the Preface is silly. The story is sluggish, it must be confessed, and does not in the least move us. But the author has made a very careful study of his subject, and shows so genuine a feeling for character and manner that we accept his work as a faithful picture of the life he attempts to portray. Should he write another fiction, he will probably form his style less visibly upon that of Thackeray, though it is something in his favor that he betrays admiration for so great a master even by palpable imitation; and we hope he will remember that a story, however slender, must be coherent. In the present novel, we think the characters of Colonel Juggins and his wife done with masterly touches; and General Lamum, politician pure and simple, is also excellent. Brother Barker, of the hard-shell type, is less original, though good; while Captain Simmons, Colonel Ret Roberts, and other village idlers and great men, seem admirably true to nature. Except for some absurd melodrama, the tone of the book is quiet and pleasant, and there is here and there in it a vein of real pathos and humor.
Royal Truths. By Henry Ward Beecher. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.
We imagine that most readers, in turning over the pages of this volume, will not be greatly struck by the novelty of the truths urged. Indeed, they are very old truths, and they contain the precepts which we all know and neglect. Except that the present preacher was qualified to illustrate them with original force and clearness, he might well have left them untouched. As it is, however, we think that every one who reads a page in the book will learn to honor the faculty that presents them. It is not because Mr. Beecher reproves hatred, false-witness, lust, envy, and covetousness, that he is so successful in his office. We all do this, and dislike sin in our neighbors; but it is his power of directly reproving these evils in each one of us that gives his words so great weight. He of course does this by varying means and with varying effect. Here we have detached passages from many different discourses,—not invariably selected with perfect judgment, but affording for this reason a better idea of his range and capacity. That given is not always of his best; but, for all this, it may have been the best for some of those who heard it. In the changing topics and style of the innumerable extracts in this volume, we find passages of pure sublimity, of solemn and pathetic eloquence, of flower-like grace and sweetness, followed by exhortations apparently modelled upon those of Mr. Chadband, but doubtless comforting and edifying to Mrs. Snagsby in the congregation, and not, we suppose, without use to Mrs. Snagsby in the parlor where she sits down to peruse the volume on Sunday afternoon. For according to the story which Mr. Beecher tells his publishers in a very pleasant prefatory letter, this compilation was made in England, where it attained great popularity among those who never heard the preacher, and who found satisfaction in the first-rate or the second-rate, without being moved by the arts of oratory. Indeed, the book is one that must everywhere be welcome, both for its manner and for its matter. The application of the "Truths" is generally enforced by a felicitous apologue or figure; in some cases the lesson is conveyed in a beautiful metaphor standing alone. The extracts are brief, and the point, never wanting, is moral, not doctrinal.
The Language of Flowers. Edited by Miss Ildrewe. Boston: De Vries, Ibarra, & Co.