Pure morals, kindliness, and heartfelt interest in the brotherhood of man breathe through these pages.
It is entirely free from that vein of self-conceit so visible in Villa Eden, by the same author, and the pages are not sullied by the infidel opinions which mar that volume; opinions "that have no sure, firm soil out of which they grow, but skip about like a 'will-o'-the-wisp' in the blue ether, very readily changing from transcendental to nonsensical." Indeed, we think these early German tales a great improvement on his later works.
Auerbach displays a keen power of analyzing hearts and motives, bringing to light the hidden springs of action; and in these stories it is done with such kindliness and evident desire to look on the best side of human nature, that his searchings of the heart leave no sting.
The book is in excellent type and paper, and, being of the "Handy Volume Series," would make a most comfortable and pleasing travelling companion.
The Mysteries of the Ocean. Translated, edited, and enlarged from the French of Arthur Mangin, by the translator of The Bird. With one hundred and thirty illustrations by W. Freeman and I. Noël. London: T. Nelson & Sons, Paternoster Row; Edinburgh and New York. 1868.
M. Mangin has chosen a grand subject, and treated it in a masterly and comprehensive manner. He takes us back to the very beginning of Old Ocean, when "Darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." These ages of chaos give him an opportunity of setting forth innumerable theories—enough to suit even the most scientific; and fancies enough to please the most imaginative. Here is his picture of the primeval ocean: "Imagination not unwillingly pictures to itself the strange and superb spectacle of a limitless ocean seething over its volcanic bed, and heaving in every direction its contending billows, kindled here and there by the blood-red lustre of a glowing sky, struggling through a dense and stifling mist; while in its waves myriads of invisible beings, embryos of future organisms fighting for life, and rising to the surface in quest of inspiring light, wait expectant, amidst the throes of the terrible stir and tumult all around them, the dawn of the true day upon a completed world." However, from the time that ocean becomes the ocean that we know it, he gives innumerable facts regarding its tides, circulation, convulsions, atmosphere, winds, and tempests. The living sea-weeds, the plant animals, the fishes of the ocean and even the sea-birds, are not forgotten in this study of the mysteries of the ocean.
The relations of man to the ocean are also treated of—navigation, whale and seal fishing, etc. Altogether the book is most interesting, is finely got up, and is fully illustrated with excellent engravings.
Adventures on the Great Hunting Grounds of the World. By Victor Meunier. Illustrated with twenty-two wood-cuts. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1869. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 297.