A Novel of American life, incident, and character. The style is easy, the tale interesting, the moral healthful. There is considerable humor in the delineation of character. The people drawn are such as we have all known, sketched without exaggeration, and actuated by constantly occurring motives. The book is anonymous, but we believe the author will yet be known to fame, Tiffles and Patching are true to life, and the exhibition of the 'Pannyrarmer' worthy of Dickens.
The Life of Jesus. By Ernest Renan, Membre de l'Institut. Translated from the original French by Charles Edwin Wilbour, translator of 'Les Misérables.' New York: Carlton, publisher, 413 Broadway.
A book which has attained a sudden and wide circulation, if not a lasting popularity, in France. We look upon it as a romance based upon the Sacred History of the Gospels. It is artistically constructed, and written with considerable genius. 'It is dramatic, beginning with a pastoral and ending with the direst of human tragedies.' M. Renan we suppose to be a Pantheist. He says: 'As to myself, I think that there is not in the universe an intelligence superior to that of man.' This view of course leads him to discard supernaturalism, and write of Christ as simply man. He believes as suits his system, and refuses testimony—without condescending to tell us why it is not equally as valid as that received. He says: 'The highest consciousness of God that ever existed in the bosom of humanity, was that of Jesus.' He is the 'universal ideal'—and yet we think he strives to make of this 'universal ideal' an impostor! Christ tells us of various facts with regard to himself: of his divine Sonhood and mission—if these things are not true, then was he either weakly self-deceived or a wilful deceiver. He sets up a claim to the working of miracles, and assumes the part of the Messiah of the prophets. This want of truth M. Renan smooths over by saying: 'Sincerity with oneself had not much meaning with Orientals; they are little habituated to the delicate distinctions of the critical spirit!' The resurrection of Lazarus, as he represents it, was a pious fraud managed by the apostles, agreed to by the Master, 'because he knew not how to conquer the greediness of the crowd and of his own disciples for the marvellous.' Does not the mere fact of such an acquiescence argue the impostor? Christ seeks death to deliver himself from his fearful embarrassments! Did he really rise from the dead? M. Renan tells us, with a sickly sentimentalism worthy of Michelet: 'The powerful imagination of Mary of Magdala played in that affair a capital part. Divine power of love! Sacred moments, when the passion of a visionary gives to the world a resuscitated God.' If this be indeed the Life of Jesus, well may we exclaim with the apostle: 'If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are, of all men, the most miserable.' And is this all that the most advanced naturalism can do? All that human genius and erudition can offer us? All that artistic grace and tenderness can win for us? Clouds and darkness rise before us as we read, the mother of our Lord loses her sanctity, Jesus becomes an impostor, the apostles deceivers, human testimony is forever dishonored. A pall shrouds the infinite blue of the sky, and our beloved dead seem festering in eternal corruption!
We must confess we prefer the bold and defiant scepticism of Voltaire, to the Judas kiss of M. Renan.
EDITOR'S TABLE.
ART ITEMS.
Among our exchanges is a little periodical entitled 'The New Path, published by the Society for the Advancement of Truth in Art.' The members of this Society are otherwise known as 'Pre-Raphaelites,' in other words, as seekers of the Ancient Path, trodden before certain mannerisms had corrupted the minds of many painters and most technical connoisseurs. Their aims and principles are, so far as they go, pure and lofty. Truth in Art is a noble thing. But can these gentlemen find none outside of their own society? The face of nature is very dear to us, and during long years have we closely observed its forms, its changing hues and expressions. We do like when we look at a picture to know whether the trees be oaks, elms, or pines; whether the rocks be granitic, volcanic, or stratified; whether the foliage be of spring, midsummer, or autumn; even whether the foreground herbage be of grasses or broad-leaved weeds; but is there no danger that minutiæ may absorb too much attention, that the larger parts may be lost in the lesser, that while each weed tells its own story, the distant mountains, the atmosphere, the whole picture, in short, may fail to tell us theirs in any interesting or even intelligible manner? In excess of surface details, may we not lose body, roundness; and, in matching exact color rather than the effect of color through the tremulous ether, may not the subtle mysteries of distance, of actually diffused and all-suffusing light, escape the painter? It is possible to possess the body and fail to grasp the life. Give us not blotchy nondescripts for natural objects, fling to the winds all narrow, school-made, conventional ideas, but, in giving us the real, give us the ideal also; otherwise we freeze, missing the spirit which should warm and shine through the letter.
We fear lest in his zeal for truth, many a Pre-Raphaelite may be led to overlook beauty. To a finite mind the two words are by no means synonymous. There can be no real beauty without truth, but many truths are not beautiful, and beauty, no less than truth, is an important ingredient in that complex resultant, Art.
We quote from one of the articles of organization of the above-named Society: 'The right course for young artists is faithful and loving representations of Nature, selecting nothing and rejecting nothing, seeking only to express the greatest possible amount of fact.' Now we all know that the best way to stultify the mind and conception of a youthful student, in any branch of art, is to keep before him commonplace models. Indeed, what student gifted with genius, or even with any high degree of talent, will not (if unrestrained) himself select as studies, not any mere chronicle of desired facts, but the most significant forms (suited to his proficiency) in which he can find those facts embodied?