The Rochester (N.Y.) Herald speaks of this extremely interesting book as "a singular collection of names, wide apart in many respects, but they represent men whom it is interesting to read about."
Anna Maria's Housekeeping. By Mrs. S.D. Power. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. Price $1.00. If we were asked to recommend any one single book to a young housekeeper which should serve as a domestic guide, counsellor and friend, we should unhesitatingly name Anna Maria's Housekeeping. So far as our knowledge extends, there is no other book which so exactly and thoroughly fulfils the needs implied in those titles. It is no mere collection of receipts, but a complete and common-sense treatise on the whole science of housekeeping, tersely and clearly written, with a flavor of experience about it that makes one accept it as authoritative. It is a staff upon which the young housekeeper may confidently lean, and by the aid of which she may overcome obstacles which without it would seem insurmountable. Mrs. Power does not believe in a house keeping itself. It requires continual care and oversight, and a clear knowledge of what is to be done. She believes, too, that a house can be well kept as easily as badly kept, and that a bright, clean, well-ordered home has a deal to do with molding the temper and even character of its members. "It is no small thing," she says, "to stand at the head of affairs, and be the motive power on which depend the welfare and credit, the health, temper and spirit of the whole family. When in midlife you come to find how essential the comfort of a well-kept home is to the bodily strength and good conditions, to a sound mind and spirit, and useful days, you will reverence the good housekeeper as I do, above poet or artist, beauty or genius." In the opening chapter of the book the author instructs Anna Maria in the art of "How to Make Home-work Easier." In the succeeding chapters she takes up the various kinds of work there is to be done about the house, and describes the easiest methods of doing it. "No attitudinizing," she remarks, "no fine lady affectations over the griddles and saucepans; instead, cultivate the fine character which acts up to the need of the hour swiftly, promptly, but with quiet and certainty." Her definition of "good food" is to the point. "It is not," she says, "rich food, nor even the tolerable fare which is just undercooked and flavorless enough to tax digestion more than it ought. It is the best of everything cooked in the nicest possible way, and with pleasant variety." Passing from the kitchen the care of the different rooms of the house is taken up—the chambers, the sitting-room and the storeroom; instructions are given for making "blue Monday" less blue; the arts of starching and ironing are discussed; and a chapter is given to the mending and darning basket. Other portions of the book are devoted to "Company Days," "Shopping," "Sickness in the House," "Making the best of Things," and "Helps that are Helps," the servant-girl question forming the subject of the closing chapter. The volume is very handsomely brought out, but even were it not, it would be worth its weight in gold to the young and inexperienced housekeeper.
Gertrude's Diary. By Pansy. Illustrated. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. Price 60 cts. A new book by Pansy is always hailed with delight, and that delight generally mingled with wonder can possibly write so much and yet keep the freshness and brightness which runs through all her books. Gertrude is a girl of fifteen, wide awake, full of life, generally good tempered, and yet with as many faults as most girls of her age have; faults which arise more from thoughtlessness than from intent. She is one of four who agree to keep diaries, in accordance with a suggestion made by their Sunday-school teacher, and she records with impartiality all her good and bad times, her trials and her triumphs. Aside from its interest, it contains suggestions which cannot fail to make an impression upon the mind of any young girl who reads it, and to strengthen her in like temptations and under the same conditions. A pleasant story runs through the diary.
Many Colored Threads. From the Writings of Goethe. Selected by Carrie Adelaide Cooke. With an Introduction by Kev. Alexander McKenzie, D.D. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. Price $1.00. No other volume of the Spare Minute Series contains more real meat than this. Goethe was epigrammatic, and his ideas took the concentrated form of bullets, instead of scattering like shot. We doubt if there is another author, always excepting Shakespeare, from whose books so many noble and complete thoughts can be extracted. In the two hundred and fifty pages of this volume are more than a thousand of these gems, each worth; its setting. Dr. McKenzie says aptly of Goethe that he is able by virtue of his own genius to set more than the common man and to put his visions and his reflections in such form that others who would never have seen the tilings for themselves or been able to think deeply upon them, can have the benefit of his generous study and thought. He was many-sided. His mind took a wide range and seemed almost equally at home in many places. The real and the ideal both interested him and were cherished by him. Science and art, philosophy and poetry, engaged his attention and were enriched by his handiwork. In this versatility of his power and the manifoldness of their application he was remarkable. Out of this breadth of study came varied and large thoughts of the world and of human life. He had the faculties with which nature and humanity and divine power could breathe their inspiration for the world's instruction and delight, and that they were fully employed no-one who turns over the pages of this collection can doubt. A brief biography of Goethe takes the place of a preface, and there is an index of subjects.
MR. CHARLES LANMAN THE AUTHOR OF "THE LEADING MEN OF JAPAN."
Mary Cole Baker writes in the Washington (D.C.) Republic: "Mr. Lanman is well known both in England and America as the writer of some of the most delightful descriptive books in the English language. To the facile wielding of his pen he adds an equally adroit and skilful use of the pencil, and his admirable results in these combined pursuits won for him from his friend and brother of the quill, Washington Irving, the apt and deserved soubriquet of 'the picturesque explorer of America.' To the pleasure which Mr. Lanman derived from these pursuits he added a sportsman's love for the field and took genuine delight in the 'contemplative art' of angling. He was the first American to cast the artificial fly in the Saguenay region and to describe for the angler the charms of that since famous locality. He has followed this sport in nearly every State in the Union, never without his sketching materials, which he used unstintingly. The results of these labors are many hundreds of sketches of American scenery, invaluable now that the march of civilization has so completely changed the face of a large part of the country. It is delightful to find a man who has been able to get so much good from life as has Mr. Lanman. One would think that the writing and illustrating of more than thirty books, some of which are in two large octavo volumes, was the work of a lifetime. But this has been to Mr. Lanman his recreation. The fact that his books have been successful pecuniarily has not prevented him from following the duties of the various governmental positions in which he has been placed. No sinecures they either—librarian at different times of the House of Representatives, the War Department, of copyrights in the State Department and of the Interior Department, secretary to Daniel Webster, at the head of the returns of office of the Interior Department, and for the last ten years the American Secretary to the Japanese Legation at Washington. A lover of social intercourse, Mr. Lanman has led the typical busy life of the American, untouched by the direful and disastrous ills it is supposed to bring. He is now engaged in editing fourteen of his books for reproduction in uniform style, and a new book, The Leading Men of Japan, is ready for issue." 12mo, $1.50. Boston: D. Lothrop, & Co., Publishers.
Couldn't be Bought: and Other Stories. By Faye Huntington. Illustrated. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. Price 75 cts. A delightful collection of short stories for boys and girls, adapted to the Sunday-school library. The volume takes its name from the leading story. The author has a pleasant and attractive style, and her stories have a large amount of "telling" force in them.