The readers of "Marcia Schuyler" had almost despaired of ever seeing a second novel from the hand of Mrs. Grace Livingston Hill Lutz, but they will agree that "Phoebe Deane" compensates them for the delay. It is the story of a solitary girl set in the family of a half brother married to an unpleasantly pugnacious wife, whose avaricious soul is sorely displeased whenever she muses upon the expense of feeding and housing her sister-in-law. An entirely disagreeable widower with a family of small children persecutes the girl with attentions, and is encouraged by the sister-in-law, but he is circumvented by an unscrupulous little serving-maid, and by the handsome and wealthy lover who in due time appears to wed the heroine and carry her off to a life of happiness. Marcia Schuyler and her husband and his aunts reappear in this story, and surely they will be welcome. Lippincott Company.

In the art of making friends the late Nathaniel Southgate Shaler was preeminent. Not only those with whom he spoke, and those whom he taught were won by his frank honesty and gentle adaptiveness never derogating from his sturdy independence of soul, but readers of his books and of his published articles, men and women who never looked upon his face, were won by the generous uprightness, manifested in his methods of treating persons and theories. In his "autobiography" now published, one perceives this quality of his mind in even greater measure, especially in his judgment of men often called haughty and unsympathetic, although their real nature was far otherwise, and many a reader will turn from it with happier views of mankind. The volume is agreeably large, includ

the autobiography occupies less than half, but it is supplemented by many letters and other writings, and by Mrs. Shaler's memories, and dominates the work. Portraits of Mr. Shaler and some of his kinsmen are added and also pictures of places which he once called home, but the delightfulness of the book is not to be conveyed by statements as to the character of its subject, or enumeration of its ornaments. No recent American autobiography is more winning; none reveals so much of the life of its time and yet reveals nothing repulsive. Houghton Mifflin Company.

One respectfully declines to believe in the "original French" in which "The Journal of a Recluse" asserts in its preface that it was written, for its thought is that of one whose mind naturally expresses itself in English, but one accepts everything else in its pages unconditionally and gladly, for since "Il Cuore" neither the English nor any European tongue has laid so important a fictitious "Journal" before the American reader. The supposed writer, by temperament forced into spiritual solitude for long periods, lives alone, and learns to abstract his mind from prejudice, and not only is his criticism of life and of institutions valuable, but it is so written that it would be attractive were it worthless. He receives an uncommonly good education from both travel and books, and learns a lesson or two from life before he comes to the United States, and, led by Ripley's review of Thoreau and by his own reading of the Walden philosopher, goes to the Pacific Coast, and civilizes a domain for himself. Strange experiences come to him here, and with them comes also an assurance of happiness for the closing years of his life. After having been his companion through so many years, the reader will

not part with him, for his is a character to remain an abiding influence with those who learn to know it. Possibly this book may not greatly disturb the surface of the reading world, but it will influence those who move that world to its depths. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

Were it not for Mr. Hall Caine's tender and almost reverent affection, the Arab would be the Mrs. Gummidge of fiction, lone and lorn, and accustomed to have things "go contrairy," and mourning for the days that will never return. Now, he drops, naturally into the part of villain, and he occupies it in Miss Ethel Stefana Stevens's "The Veil," a romance of Tunis. The villain is a patriot according to the perverted vocabulary of the modern lawbreaker; in plain English he is an assassin on a large scale, with no scruples as to explosives, but he is handsome, mellifluous of speech and equally well skilled in attracting useful friends, and in compelling unwilling enemies to work for him. The hero, a rather poor specimen of the Sicilian, loves a wonderful Arab dancer, who loves the villain because he has treated her with exquisite brutality, and through her manages Europeans like so many puppets. The catastrophe is a premature outbreak of rebellion in which the populace attacks its leader and slays him. He dies prophesying the future glory of the Arab and assuming such dignity that his crimes are forgotten. The merit of the story lies in its impressive presentation of the daily hurry and glare of the physical life of Tunis and of the close woven web of intrigue and deceit, and its effect upon Europeans and Americans. Further, it reveals Mohammedans under French control, a species neglected for some time although common enough in the fiction of both Empires. Miss Stevens evi

dently holds much unused material in reserve, and there is hope of other African novels from her. Frederick A. Stokes Company.

Forty years of story writing and the writer's mind still "wax to receive" impressions as in the first days of her authorship, still as swiftly giving assonant response to every chord of feminine emotion and of masculine humor! It is more than one expects or has any right to expect, but it is what one finds in Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward's "The Oath of Allegiance." One turns over the leaves of "The Gates Ajar," of "Gypsy Breynton" and "Trotty" and comes back to the eleven stories in the new volume to discover that although they are more exquisitely finished, they are of exactly the same substance as the earlier work. It is matter of common knowledge that it was this author's fortune while yet she was young to endure a sorrow which brought her into sympathy with all whose dead lay on Southern battlefields, and that the story with which she made herself a great company of life-long friends was written for her fellow sufferers. It happens that the first of the tales in this book has a somewhat similar theme, and she traces the life of the similar heroine to a point some years beyond that at which she left her first creation, but she in no wise changes the character of the girl. Her ideal of womanhood is unaltered. The other stories tell of one called away from earth while still longing to serve her fellow creatures; of a wedded pair who fancied themselves estranged until they tried to separate; of a pair who fell apart but were united again by a friend; of a woman who fancied herself useless but found that she was the keeper of her husband's soul. There is a story of the love of a boy for his dog and two strictly modern tales, one of a tele

phone operator who died at her post that she might warn others of a coming flood, one of persons bound to gether by a common sorrow caused by the bloodthirsty innocent motor car. All are excellent in workmanship; all hold the reader with such a power as very few of the younger writers can exert. All show that the eager sympathetic heart that sent "The Gates Ajar" upon its way is as swift to feel as ever after forty years. Houghton Mifflin Co.

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Mr. Arthur Symons has chosen novel form for his "The Romantic Movement in English Poetry." For an introduction he gives it a paper in which he analyzes and criticizes the verse of the eighteenth century, expounds his theory of the nature of poetry, showing that the best verse of the nineteenth century conforms to it; and follows this by critical biographies of some four score poets; and never was any one of the eighty judged with more originality, or when judged favorably, with more grace. Many of the biographies may be counted by lines, but none is too brief to contain a phrase, a sentence not to be forgotten. He cites Home's one remembered fragment, "My name is Norval," as typical of him and dryly says, "He shares with Joanna Baillie the doubtful honor of being compared with Shakespeare; she, by Scott, he, by Burns." "No more deliberate endeavor of a prose mind to produce poetry of a formally accomplished kind has been seen than that of Dr. Dar. win in the 'Botanic Garden,'" he writes, and gives six jewels of quotations, with one from the famous parody, "Loves of the Triangles." Hannah More's little plays he says, are "still readable of a dull afternoon." He compares Curran's "Deserter's Meditation" with "the great gallows song of Burns." The authors of one

poem or of no completed poem he has studied and summarizes, but Blake he presents in detail, and declares that what was abnormal in him was his sanity. He sets forth Crabbe's acute self-criticism. He notes that Joanna Baillie forestalled some of the stage management of to-day. He dryly says, speaking of the Invocation to Poetry of Sir Egerton Brydges, that the author "always fell asleep when he found himself in the company of poetry." He gives five pages to Rogers, whose personal character he treats with a reserve almost tender. To Wordsworth he gives many pages after saying, "Sincerity was at the root of all Wordsworth's errors and defects: it gave him his unapproachable fidelity to nature and also his intolerable fidelity to his own whims." As one turns the leaves brilliant phrases flash forth from every paragraph; the paper on Byron, melancholy in its summary, is fiercely epigrammatic in dealing with some of Childe Harold's weaknesses and inconsistencies. Shelley is characterized as the one perfect illustration of the poetic nature, as that nature is generally conceived; and Keats is cited as the man who had courage of the intellect and cowardice of the nerves. These fragments give but a faint idea of the pleasure to be derived from this part of the volume. If after reading it, the introduction be reviewed the reader will perceive that each biography has played its part in illustrating the thesis of the introduction. Incidentally he may note that considering the width of the angle between their points of view the agreement of Mr. Symons and the Laureate on the essentials of English poetry is tantamount to proof that both are correct in their judgment. E. P. Dutton & Co.

A "Mosher book" has come to be a synonym among American booklovers

for whatever is most choice in selection and daintiest in format. The books have this further attraction that, while printed in limited editions, and in exquisite typography upon handmade paper they are sent out at prices which put them within any one's reach. This year's additions to the list constitute a noteworthy group. To the Old World Series are added "Silhouettes: A Book of Songs" by Arthur Symons, and "Félise: A Book of Lyrics" by A. C. Swinburne. "Silhouettes" follows the text of the author's latest edition, but adds to it seven poems which appeared in the first or second edition but were cancelled in the third. "Félise" adds to the poems printed fifteen years ago in the first edition in the Bibelot Series nearly as many more. To the Lyric Garland Series three additions are made: "A Branch of May" by Lizette Woodworth Reese, a reprint of a singularly simple and melodious group of poems; a third volume of William Ernest Henley's lyrics, "Rhymes and Rhythms and Arabian Nights' Entertainments"; and "Proverbs in Porcelain and Other Poems" by Austin Dobson, containing twentyfour of Mr. Dobson's most characteristic poems. To the Vest Pocket Series, published at a price no greater than one pays for a magazine at the news counter,-are added Walter Pater's exquisite "The Child in the House" and "The Lost Joy and Other Dreams" containing eight little-known poems in prose by Olive Schreiner. Twelve of Charles Baudelaire's "Poems in Prose" deftly translated by Arthur Symons are published, by Mr. Symons' expressed desire, in the Ideal Series of Little Masterpieces. Among the miscellaneous volumes, not included in any series, but each in a beautiful form, suited to its length and character, are Milton's "Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity" and Browning's noble poem "Rabbi Ben Ezra," in uniform size and binding; Francis

Thompson's posthumous essay on "Shelley," to which is prefixed a beautiful tribute to the memory of Thompson by Charles Hanson Towne, entitled "The Quiet Singer"; William Butler Yeats's play "The Land of Heart's Desire,"-in a small quarto, on Japan vellum, and in an edition of only 500 copies: Eugene Lee-Hamilton's "Mimma Bella," one of the most tenderly beautiful memorial poems in the language, a sequence of sonnets, perfect in form and freighted with loving memories of the poet's little child; and "A Wayside Lute," Lizette Woodworth Reese's latest volume of verse, in a small quarto edition, limited to 450 copies. In this volume of new verse many poems tempt to quotation, but to those who do not know Miss Reese's delicacy of sentiment and expression perhaps the following sonnet, "Tears" -may serve as an introduction:

"When I consider Life and its few years

A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;

A call to battle, and the battle done Ere the last echo dies within our ears; A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;

The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat;

The burst of music down an unlistening street

I wonder at the idleness of tears. Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight,

Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of

the sheep,

By every cup of sorrow that you had, Loose me from tears, and make me see aright

How each hath back what once he stayed to weep;

Homer his sight, David his little lad!"

Mr. Mosher's own introductions, prefixed to several of these volumes, show a delicacy and justness of appreciation which go far to explain the beauty of the selections. (Thomas B. Mosher, publisher, Portland, Maine.)