Bolanden's works fairly palpitate with the gravity of themes of living interest. The new German Government, the burthen of the present tale, has given evidence of their telling effect by ordering their suppression.
Geraldine: A Tale of Conscience.By E. C. A. New York: P. O'Shea.
Geraldine was one of the first successful religious novels which followed the revival of Catholic doctrine in England, and bids fair to hold its own for many a year to come. It enjoys a wider reputation than either of Miss Agnew's other works, one of which, Rome and the Abbey, forms a sequel to this.
Mr. O'Shea also issues a reprint of Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion; intended, apparently, as the commencement of an uniform series of the great author's works.
It is to be regretted that this work had not undergone a thorough revision by some competent hand before its reappearance, in order to adapt it to the present state of scientific investigation. Although true science can never be out of harmony with revelation, its successive developments may enable us to see the conditions of that harmony and relation in a clearer light than when the Lectures were originally published.
The History of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Translated from the French of the Abbé Orsini, by the Very Rev. F. C. Husenbeth, D.D., V.G. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1872.
This work is already known to many readers in the presentation edition issued by the Messrs. Sadlier some years since, and the recent English edition of which the above is a fac-simile. We are glad to see an edition like this made accessible to the great body of readers, though the fire in which the publisher was involved, will interfere for a time with that consummation. It has a number of pictorial illustrations, and there are appended the letters apostolic concerning the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception.
Liza. By Ivan S. Turgenieff. New York: Holt & Williams. 1872.
Liza is another work from the pen of M. Turgenieff, the distinguished Russian novelist, several of whose works are already familiar to us. His quiet sarcasm in depicting the Russian of the old school, who needs no scratching to reveal the genuine Tartar—crafty and brutal, but with a kindly streak withal—and the Russian of the present generation who has imbibed foreign habits and theories by no means elevating, is admirably calculated to correct the evils of a transition state of society. The former affords us two affecting pictures in this book of women of repressed lives, who humbly kiss with their dying lips the hand that has crushed them. One of them leaves a young son, Fedor Lavretsky, who never forgets his pale and gentle mother, who in turn hardly dared caress him for fear of the sharp eyes and cutting tongue of her sister-in-law, Glafira, who had taken charge of the child. He is brought up under a system of repression, and, when his father dies, he goes to Moscow determined to repair the defects of his education. There he falls in love with the face of a beautiful girl who regards him as a schöne Partie and marries him. He gives himself up to the happiness of his new life, and is induced by his wife to leave his estate, and, after various changes, to go to Paris, where admiration seems to have intoxicated her. Fedor, becoming aware of her real character, settles an annuity [pg 574] on her, leaves her, and returns to his native land. He cannot bear, however, to go to his own seat where he passed the first happy days of his married life, but betakes himself to his aunt's place—the stern Glafira, who had died during his absence. The desolate house is once more opened, and he stands alone in the room where she breathed her last, and looks with softened heart on the sacred icons in their gilded frames in the corner, and the worn carpet, covered with drippings from the wax candles she had burned before them, and on which she had knelt to pray. His old servant waits on him, he drinks tea out of the great cup he had used in his boyhood, looks over the large book full of mysterious pictures which he had found so wondrous in childish days. Everything recalls the earlier remembrances of his life. “On a woman's love my best years have been wasted,” thought he.
Going to pay his respects to his great-aunt, who is admirably drawn with a few vivid touches, he meets with Liza, whom he left a child, but is now nineteen years of age. There is a natural grace about her person; her face is pale, but fresh; her eyes lustrous and thoughtful, her smile fascinating, but grave, and she has a frank, innocent way of looking you directly in the face. Lavretsky is instantly struck with her appearance, and the impression is deepened the oftener he sees her. Liza's mother is one of those women, qui n'a pas inventé la poudre, la bonne daìne, as one of her visitors ungratefully remarks. Her daughter owes the elevation and purify of her character to the nurse of her childhood, who gave herself up to penitential observances. Instead of nursery tales, she told Liza of the Blessed Virgin, the holy hermits who had been fed in their caves by the birds, and the female martyrs from whose blood sprang up sweet flowers. She used to speak of these things seriously and humbly, as if unworthy to utter such high and holy names, and Liza sat at her feet with reverent awe drinking in the holy influences of her words. Aglafia also taught her to pray, and took her at early dawn to the matin service. Liza grew up thoroughly penetrated with a sense of duty, loving everybody, but loving God supremely and with tender enthusiasm. Till Lavretsky came, no one had troubled the calmness of her inner life.