This is a book written by a lady, and it bears in every chapter and page the impress of a delicate, sensitive, and refined mind. It cannot be called artistic in the truest sense, for the plot is simple, and the characters are so natural that we feel in reading it that we are only renewing our acquaintance with old friends. The scene is laid in this country, and the actors are Americans, some by birth, others by adoption, and in this respect it has the advantage over most of the works of fiction which have issued from the press of late, which, while treating us, or pretending to treat us, to a view of the inside lives of Europeans, utterly ignore the fact that at our very door there are abundant materials for a hundred novels and romances, still unused and neglected.
[Isabelle de Verneuil; or, The Convent of S. Mary’s.] By Mrs. Charles Snell. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.
This is a story about life in a convent school, written in an interesting and ladylike style, and with a sufficient number of exciting incidents to gratify the well-known taste of young ladies of about the age of Mlle. Isabelle de Verneuil.
[Lars: A Pastoral of Norway.] By Bayard Taylor. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. (late Ticknor & Fields). 1873.
This poem is dedicated to John Greenleaf Whittier. It is fully worthy his acceptance. Besides a delicious freshness which pervades the story, like the air of its rural scene—the leading characters are strikingly delineated. One sees their very faces; while never was contrast more perfect than between Per and Lars, Brita and Ruth. The last, the angel of the piece, is a Quakeress, and the tale seems written in the interests of that persuasion, yet contains nothing designedly offensive to a Catholic. The verse, smooth and strong, is very scholarlike, and wisely modelled on Tennyson.
[Essays on Various Subjects.] By Cardinal Wiseman. In six volumes. Volumes I. and II. New York: P. O’Shea. 1873.
This is, in one respect, the most desirable of Mr. O’Shea’s reprints of the great Cardinal’s works, inasmuch as it is the only one, of the Essays, that has yet appeared in this country, and the original edition is out of print. It is needless to say aught in commendation of these incomparable writings.
[Memorials of a Quiet Life.] By A. J. C. Hare, author of Walks in Rome, etc. New York: G. Routledge & Sons. 1873.
The life which this book relates was sufficiently quiet, so far as its immediate subject was concerned, to suggest to other than personal friends the sense of tame and insipid, were it not for its association with characters more or less historical. And this reminds us of the difference between Catholic and Protestant biography: whereas the latter is restricted in its range to one country or language, the former embraces within the scope of its interest all nations and races. The record of the obscurest priest, if true to his vocation, may excite sympathy in those widely separated from him in time and space: for his spiritual life is quickened by the same blood which courses through kindred veins in the highest social walks, and among the rudest tribes of distant islands; the works of mercy and charity in which he is engaged also occupy the thoughts and energies of his brethren in every part of the globe; and the same seal which attests his ministry may be recognized in theirs also.
The subject of this volume, the widow of Augustus W. Hare, was the daughter of a clergyman, and in her maiden years was an intimate friend of Bishop Heber, then rector of Hodnet, England. Her husband, himself a clergyman, was joint author with his brother Julius W., also a clergyman, of Guesses at Truth. The family trace their descent from Francis Hare, one of the bishops of George II.’s reign, and boast of other prelatical and noble connections with the church “as by law established.”
It might naturally be inferred, therefore, that the author, a nephew of the subject, would be thoroughly penetrated with Anglican “principles,” and find all his ideals in the communion to which we are inclined to attribute the discovery of the “happy medium” between truth and error. But, alas for the perversity of human nature! he cannot see the schemes of Victor Emmanuel through a rose-colored lens. He has the temerity to express sympathy for the august prisoner of the Vatican; his regret for the dismemberment and spoliation of convents and monasteries—the dispersion of their libraries, the interruption of the charitable works in which they were engaged, and the appropriation by the government of the dowers which these religious brought with them to their respective houses; the wiping out of many beautiful religious associations, along with the destruction of the monuments with which they were connected. He even has the hardihood to doubt whether there is a moral gain in the freedom now vouchsafed to the vendors of Protestant Bibles and the flood of popular literature, which has signalized the advent of the Sardinian usurper, as we glean from an article by the author in a recent number of Good Words.
[The Poodle Prince.] By Edouard Laboulaye, Member of the Institute. Translated by W. H. Bishop. Milwaukee: Office of the Journal of Commerce. Pamphlet.