Grand Canal. Hawthorne's American | notice we imagine that he would have felt characters in "Transformation are too apt to forfeit their nationality, to pay toll from it, as it were, to the power of Rome. Mr. Howells himself, in his two books of Italian sketches, and the dramatis persone of his Venetian novel, pass through Italy without any such loss, without, in other words, parting with a shred of any fundamental or characteristic American quality. This of itself shows a strength of literary and artistic fibre from which great things might be expected.

its weak points more strongly than its charms, and in handling it he would scarcely have refrained from satirizing it. Mr. Howells, indeed, draws his heroine with uncompromising truth. He shows you how her Yankee idioms, her ignorance, her unconventionality, shock the fine breeding of the Bostonians, and the candid reader feels that in their place he would probably have disliked them equally. But through it all there is not an unkindly or unsympathetic touch. The fine, His persistent Americanism, however, natural temper, the beauty, the innocent is but the setting to more positive literary naïveté of the young girl, the readiness merits. "A Wedding Journey" (Boston: with which she catches up the outer polHoughton and Co.), his first real novel, ish of her new friends, having inwardly published in 1871, when, after his return nothing to learn from them in refinement, from Italy, he was acting as editor of the her slowly yielding reserve on board ship, Atlantic Monthly, struck those readers the return upon her of all her old New who were able to judge as a piece of work England stiffness when she is brought wholly different in aim and treatment from face to face with what seems to her the anything which had yet appeared in Amer- wickedness of Venetian life, and there is ican fiction. It describes nothing more no lover by to soften or inform her judg than the wanderings of a young American ment, the delicacy and dignity of her pascouple in search of scenery on their wed- sion, the sweetness of her final surrender ding tour. The scenery is wholly Amer- - all these are drawn with a humorous ican, and its climax is the vulgarized and tenderness beyond praise. Here is the much-bewritten Niagara; there is no plot, situation on board the "Aroostook." no tragedy, and, if we remember right, Lydia Blood, a young school-teacher from only one quarrel. The incident is of the an up-country Massachusetts village, has slightest, the events just such as might been shipped off to Europe by her aunt happen to any young and prosperous and grandfather, on a visit to another couple under similar circumstances. And aunt living at Venice. The old grandindeed, we are not prepared to say that father, utterly ignorant of the ways of the the general result is particularly interest- world, comes to Boston to arrange about ing. Mr. Howells has done very much the journey. Referred to Captain Jenbetter work since. Still, the bright, cour-ness, of the sailing ship Aroostook," ageous, light-touched realism of the whole, bound from Boston straight to Trieste, the gay charm of the principal characters, the old man asks the good-natured capthe refined humor of some of the incident, the sentiment and style in which the pretty, sparkling story lies, as it were, imbedded, were such as showed a new artistic force at work and announced a great and original talent. Since then, in "The Lady of the Aroostook" and "A Foregone Conclusion," Mr. Howells has more than justified the promise of "A Wedding Journey."

There are few more perfect stories than "The Lady of the Aroostook" (Boston: Houghton and Co., 1881). Lydia Blood, its heroine, the young, pretty, unsophisticated schoolmarm from South Bradfield, Massachusetts, who finds herself crossing the Atlantic alone and unchaperoned in the company of three young men, two of them well-born and cultivated Bostonians, would have been in Mr. James's hands, we cannot help thinking, a little ridiculous. If such a character had come under his

tain to take charge of his "little girl." The captain thinks the child may be "a bother on the voyage;" but reflecting that he is used to children, consents, and the grandfather goes back to fetch Lydia. The captain's dismay when "the little girl" turns out to be a slim, beautiful, and well-dressed damsel, whom her confiding grandfather leaves solely in his charge on the day of sailing, is considerable, especially as he has already promised berths to three young men, two of them of excellent character and antecedents, the third a youth of dissipated habits, whom out of compassion he had consented to take to Europe, in order to try the reforming effects upon him of a sea voyage. Lydia has a few pangs of lonely disappointment when she finds out that there is neither stewardess nor woman of any kind on board, and the sight of the young men is an uncomfortable sur

prise; but on the whole she is too igno- | High Church, and engaged, befriends her rant and too guileless to feel the awkward- from a purely disinterested standpoint, ness of the situation as she should. And the captain watches over her as he would out of pure good feeling the young men, over one of his own girls, the sailors after the first shock, determine that, as show her little attentions, the cabin boy far as in them lies, she shall never feel it. fetches and carries for her, and even The two friends Staniford and Dunham Hicks, now compulsorily sober and well discuss the situation after the first com- behaved, shows himself pleasant and remon meal of the oddly assorted little com- spectful. Only Staniford holds aloof. He has a turn for character-reading, and pany: for a time prefers dissecting Lydia at a distance to making friends with her. Of course the aim of the story is to show how Staniford's indifference gives way first of all to the natural interest of a young man in a young girl; then to jealousy, and, lastly, to the mingled power of the young girl's beauty, helplessness, and genuine refinement of nature.

"Oh

As Dunham lit his cigar at Staniford's on deck, the former said significantly, "What a very American thing.' "What a bore," answered the other. Dunham had never been abroad, as one might imagine from his calling Lydia's presence a very American thing; but he had always consorted with people who had lived in Europe, he read the Revue des Deux Mondes habitually, and the London weekly newspapers, and this gave him the foreign standpoint from which he was fond of view ing his native world. "It's incredible," he I don't know," returned Staniford, with a cold disgust; "I should object to the society of such a young person for a month or six weeks, under the most favorable circumstances and with frequent respites; but to be imprisoned on the same ship with her and to have her on one's mind and in one's way the whole time is more than I bargained for. Captain Jenness should have told us; though, I suppose, he thought that if she could stand it we might There's that point of view. But it takes all ease and comfort out of the prospect."

added "Who in the world can she be?"

The only incident, properly so called, in the voyage is afforded by Hicks's outbreak of drunkenness at Gibraltar, and by Staniford's meeting with some fashionable friends of his at Messina. But every page is interesting, and Lydia's tête-à-têtes, now with Dunham, now with Staniford, her musical relations with Hicks and the jealousy they rouse in Staniford, and through it all her innocence, her naïveté, her unconsciousness in the midst of a situation which would have proved intolerably embarrassing to any one less ignorant and unworldly, make up a charming picture. The plot begins to thicken towards the climax with the appearance of the Messina friends. Their astonishment recalls Staniford to the oddity of Lydia's position, and at the same time makes him feel by contrast the peculiar rarity and simplicity of her character. His love takes rapid and fiery shape, and only his chivalrous scruples prevent his proposing to her before they part at Trieste. He resolves, however, to take no advantage of her loneliness, "and to wait till she is under her aunt's roof at Venice. The complications to which this leads, and the cruel way in which Lydia's eyes are opened at Venice to the social solecism she has committed in crossing the Atlantic without a chaperone, bring a vein of pathos into the story and supply the necessary relief to the pretty little Utopia on board the "Aroostook." Her aunt gets the terrible truth out of her:

At this point, however, the questionable youth, Mr. Hicks, comes up to report all the gossip about Lydia that he can glean from the cabin-boy, and immediately the sympathies of the two friends set strongly in her favor. Hicks finds himself severely snubbed, and Staniford concludes that Lydia's unprotected presence among them is "plainly due to a supernatural innocence on the part of herself and her friends, which wouldn't occur among any other people in the world but ours." They agree, so far as they are able, to "make her feel that there is nothing irregular or uncommon in her being here as she is." At the same time Staniford, the elder and cleverer of the two friends, does not allow his gentlemanly instincts to blind him to the comedy of Lydia's Yankeeisms and curious bringing up. He philosophically declares her beauty is only" part of the general tiresomeness of the situation," and finds perpetual entertainment in speculating with Dunham as to the countrified views and feelings hidden under the girl's quiet manner. Meanwhile the whole ship devotes itself to taking care of Lydia. Dunham, who is

"Had you many passengers?" said Mrs. Erwin. "But of course not. That was what made it so delightful when I came over that way. I was newly married then, and with spirits-oh, dear me, for anything. It was one adventure the whole way, and we got so

772

well acquainted it was like one family. Isup- | you mean, Aunt Josephine; but two days ago
pose your grandfather put you in charge of
some family. I know artists sometimes come
out that way, and people for their health."
"There was no family on our ship," said
Lydia. "My state room had been fixed up
for the captain's wife."

Not along?" repeated Mrs. Erwin feebly.
"Who-who were the other passengers?"
"There were three gentlemen," answered
Lydia.

I couldn't have dreamt it. From the time the ship sailed till I reached this wicked place there wasn't a word said nor a look looked to make me think I wasn't just as right and safe there as if I had been in my own room at home. They were never anything but kind and good to me. They never let me think that they could be my enemies, or that I must suspect them and be on the watch against them. They were Americans! I had to wait for one of your Europeans to teach me that, for that officer who was here yesterday

Oh!" she moaned. "He has been in Europe, too, and I suppose he's like the rest of you; and he thought because I was alone and helpless he had the right to Oh, I see it. I see now that he never meant anything, and Oh, oh, oh."

Of course no novelist with a heart could

"Three gentlemen? Three men? Three -and you and " Mrs. Erwin fell back upon her pillow, and remained gazing at Lydia, with a sort of remote, bewildered pity, as at leave such a heroine uncomforted. But perdition, not indeed beyond compassion, but Staniford has an awkward quarter of an far beyond help. Lydia's color had been com- hour to go through before the vessel of ing and going, but now it settled to a clear love glides finally into port, and his anwhite. Mrs. Erwin commanded herself suffi-swers to Lydia's cross-questionings are ciently to resume:not all that could be wished in point of frankness. If only Lydia could have overheard one of the early conversations between Staniford and Dunham! But

"And there were there were ladies ?"

"No."

-no other

"And you were
"I was the only woman on board," replied
Lydia. She rose abruptly, striking the edge
of the table in her movement, and setting its
china and silver jarring. "Oh, I know what

the reader reflects with satisfaction that the two are safely wedded, and that Lydia will never know.

GIGANTIC AUSTRALIAN TREES. -The Min- | be two hundred and forty feet high, but in the neapolis Lumberman in a recent issue gave a deep gorges of this grand forest the writer has lengthy article on Australian big trees. The seen higher trees than this, though not of quite writer remarks that the marvellous dimensions equal circumference. But Victoria now claims of the forest trees of this continent are little the glory of owning the biggest of all the living known by the majority of readers. The fol- "big trees" in the world, so far as height is lowing paragraph may perhaps be fresh news concerned. In the Dandenong district at to some of our readers: The trackless forests Fernshaw has recently been discovered a speciin the west of Tasmania also contain huge tim- men of Eucalyptus amygdalia, or almond-leaf ber, and bushmen report that they have met gum, which has been accurately measured as with, specimens of eucalyptus measuring two reaching the enormous height of three hundred hundred feet from the ground to the first and eighty feet before throwing out a single branch, and fully three hundred and fifty feet branch, and four hundred and thirty feet to the in all. Until 1873 there was standing on the top, and having a girth of sixty feet at some eastern slope of Mount Wellington, within four distance above the ground. Some idea of miles of Hobart Town, a eucalyptus measuring what a height of four hundred and thirty feet eighty-six feet in girth and more than three represents may be gained from the fact that hundred feet in height, and its ruined boll still this gum-tree, if growing by the side of the forms a grim chamber in which many a merry Houses of Parliament at Westminster, would party have enjoyed a picnic. The famous tree overtop the clock-tower by exactly one hundred of the Huon forest measures seventy feet in feet. girth six feet from the ground, and is stated to

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SWEET little maid, whose golden-rippled head
Between me and my grief its beauty rears,
With quick demand for song—all singing's | And
dead;

My heart is sad; mine eyes are dimmed with My burden for me; if my home but stand.