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to work Mr. Jenks shows himself such a friend as boys meet in few of the current books prepared for their instruction. Frederick A. Stokes Co.

Herr Angelo Neumann's "Personal Recollections of Wagner," having passed into its fourth German edition, is now translated by Miss Edith Livermore, and appears in a large, handsome volume, doubtless to be eagerly read by American Wagner lovers. Probably no one knew the "Master" better than Herr Neumann, whose relations with him were such as to deprive him of his last shred of insincerity and to compel the real man to speak with perfect frankness. It was not always pleasant speech which he uttered, or which he wrote, but it voiced the true, real Wagner. Sensitive beyond reason, and almost implacable in anger; generous in his rare praises and full of desire to be amiable; blunt, almost savage in his treatment of sins against music and prone to regard himself as music; not too grateful to those who made his public successes possible, the "master" was better served gratuitously than those who could offer the great rewards of the world. Herr Neumann's devotion, on the other hand tolerated almost everything inflicted upon himself and the one case in which he yielded to vexation was one in which Wagner contrived to offer petty insult to his king and to the entire company assembled to do honor to him, and alleged his weak heart as an excuse. For once Neumann doubted and declared his doubt and the trouble lasted long. Myriads of anecdotes of minor musical and dramatic lights are to be found in the book, and the history of many seasons in the great capitals. No page should be neglected; a good story; a revelation of character; a pungent letter, something that must not be missed surely lurks between

the running title and the foot of the page. The translation is wonderfully good, easy, idiomatic and never suggesting that it is not original composition. Henry Holt & Co.

If "The Testing of Diana Mallory" be a novel "with a key" the criminal case upon which its chief interest depends is not generally familiar in the United States, and the ability of Mrs. Humphry Ward to weave and to ravel a complicated plot has so many times been proved, that any effort to discover a real fountain for this noble stream of fiction is supererogatory. The beautiful womanliness of the heroine; the perfectly consistent cowardliness and cleverness of the caitiff upon whom she bestows her heart; the repulsive but not exaggerated vulgarity of the woman who nearly ruins her life; and the perfect vitality of the unseen group of personages constituting the real motive power of the story need no actual prototypes to add to the spell in which they jointly hold the reader until the last page brings emancipation and rebellion against the fate which the author awards to the heroine. "Deliberate choice of self-sacrifice, and perfect happiness therein," cries the reader, "do not excuse the unequal yoking of feminine perfection and masculine deficiency in all fine masculine qualities," and in that belief he will persist, even as an elder generation persisted, in regretting the bestowal of Wilfred upon Rowena. The elder group of characters, the selfish autocratic Lady Lucy gently exacting subservience from all the world; the statesman whose personal character she blasts so subtly that he does not perceive his own condition until the approach of death clears his vision; the eccentric, warmhearted, fearless Lady Niton, and Sir James Chide, one of the most noteworthy Catholic laymen ever drawn, are four figures which, by themselves,

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Miss Edith Sichel calls the seque! of her "Catherine de' Medici and the French Reformation," "The Later Years of Catherine de' Medici," and makes of it a volume of 450 large pages written with that toleration which is one of the few agreeable traits of the present period of religious indifference. She is neither the friend nor the apologist of Catherine, but she writes of her calmly, and at the last with some faint pity for the wickedness which had been so fruitless and had left her who wrought it to meet her death the loneliest of mortals. For those who surrounded Catherine, the gentle Elizabeth of Austria excepted, Miss Sichel has no more good words than they deserve, and those were few indeed. The time was incredible and meditation upon it is a nightmare, only less ugly than that which follows contemplation of the equivalent Italian period, but it is individuals to whom Miss Sichel calls her readers' attention. She says that her aim has been no more than to paint portraits, but she gives the portraits so many accessories that they really have the background forbidden to the true portrait and are like fragments of crowded canvas with one prominent figure. Behind Coligny one sees the austere intensity of those "of the faith"; behind Margot, the graceful rabble of her ladies, and the elegant energy of her studies; behind Henri Third, the sinister clever Guises, their patience sorely tried by contemporary dulness; and about Catherine herself the court circle fluctuates, disperses and forms again, leaving her slowly wearing herself away with wilful

wrong doing. The story of St. Bartholomew told in a new way is none the less horrible for the introduction of the element of great deliberation, but it is dispassionately related. The separate chapters are as good light reading as so many short stories, but each is a valuable addition to the growing number of good French historical studies. E. P. Dutton & Co.

Since "The Prisoners of Hope" revealed the existence of a young American novelist of rare quality, Miss Mary Johnston has gone far, and "Lewis Rand," her latest story, although perhaps lacking the perfect finish of “Audrey," has instantly taken rank among the foremost novels of the season. Burr and Jefferson are among its characters, and the Burr conspiracy involves its hero, but Miss Johnston has always known how to subordinate the historic to the personal element in her work, and Rand's struggle with fate absorbs the reader, and in most cases a second perusal will be necessary to the perfect realization of the skill with which Jefferson is delineated. One may not accept Miss Johnston's conception of him, but one must grant it the merits of strength and consistency. Rand himself, son of a rough, stern, ignorant tobacco roller, and of a woman degraded by the husband whom she married in the hope of elevating him, is fiercely resolved to escape to the higher social levels, and succeeds in attaining preeminence at the bar and in Virginian politics, and marries a patrician girl who has loved him from childhood; but close and near he always sees the figure of his rival, born to the superiority which he envies. The brilliant phrase, the graceful act, even the chivalrous deed which he himself achieves only by laborious effort are the simple expressions of this man's nature, and beholding them he yields more and more to the fierce hatred bred

of his sense of inferiority, and when temptation and opportunity coincide he falls as hopelessly as the Lucifer to whom his friends have always compared him. The closing passages following this apparent climax of interest are very fine and in them the heroine reveals feminine nobility of a high order. The subordinate personages, the soldierly old planters, and the superbly capable matrons of the Virginia of the early nineteenth century are as real as the chief characters. In short, Miss Johnston has forgotten nothing and learned much during her temporary absence from the field of fiction. Houghton, Mifflin Co.

Not many honest men in the United States are at this moment heartily disliked by so many persons as Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry; and a greater compliment could not be paid to one whose business is to correct abuses. The great octavo entitled "Foods and their Adulteration" written by Dr. Wiley in performance of his duty, gives permanent form to the results of his investigations in one branch of inquiry and will long be a valuable possession to those fortunate enough to obtain it. Eleven full-page colored plates and eighty-six smaller pictures illustrate the text, but it hardly needs their aid, so clearly is it written. In a brief introduction, the author defines his terms, a precaution seldom observed by those who write on hygiene for the laity. Meats and meat products are the topic of Part I, and inevitably the omnipresent subject of tuberculosis is briefly considered, but here it is mercifully dropped. The same treatment is awarded to the slaughter and preparation of carcasses, a matter in regard to which morbid curiosity has been rampant since the publication of Mr. Upton Sinclair's overwrought descriptions. The various methods of canning and preserving meat; the preparation of lard, soups,

and

In

extracts, dried and powdered meats and beef tea, and careful estimates of the comparative food-value of the products occupy the rest of this "Part." The next is given up to poultry and eggs, and game birds. one section of this "Part" is some curious information regarding the poisonous principles sometimes found in eggs. Under the head of "Fish Foods," the various species are separately considered, and also oysters, clams, the lobster and the turtle. Milk, milk products and oleomargarine are so fully treated in the next "Part" that very few readers will fail to find something new in its pages, and in Part Five, "Cereal Foods," comes the subject, which, judging by a paragraph in the "Introduction," seems to the author to be of peculiar importance. Briefly stated, he objects to the advertisements exaggerating the good qualities of certain cereals, and to the absurdity of asserting that certain articles "feed" definite parts of the body. It seems to be these claims that led him to prepare this manual for use in conjunction with works on dietetics, physiology and hy giene, and this "Part" is perhaps more valuable to the ordinary consumer than any other. In the latter part of the volume vegetables, condiments and fruits, nuts, the edible fungi, sugar in all its forms and invalid foods and infant foods are discussed and in the appendices, which occupy more than a hundred pages, are a large number of rules and regulations governing the manufacture and importation of food and drugs, and of decisions in cases presented to the government, making a mass of information of the greatest value to producers and tradesmen. It is not to be expected that those who have their living directly or indirectly from the articles condemned by Dr. Wiley's Bureau will be grateful for his book, but in time its great value must be perceived and properly appreciated by all others. P. Blakiston, Son & Co.

SEVENTH SERIES
VOLUME XLI.

No. 3358 November 14, 1908.

FROM BEGINNING
Vol. CCLIX.

CONTENTS

1. The Decay of the Short Story. By Edwin Pugh

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FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 387

II. The Origin of the Dog. By Woods Hutchinson

CONTEMPORARY REVIEW 395

III. Hardy-on-the-Hill. Chapter V. By M. E. Francis (Mrs. Francis
Blundell). (To be continued.)

TIMES 400

IV. Sixty Years in the Wilderness: Some Passages by the Way.
By Henry W. Lucy. (To be continued.) CORNHILL MAGAZINE
The Sacred Bird. By W. H. Hudson
SATURDAY REVIEW
The Tail Girl of Krobo Hill. By W. H. Adams

V.

VI.

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405

419

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FOR SIX DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, THE LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage, to any part of the United States. To Canada the postage is 50 cents

per annum.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office or express money order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. Drafts, checks, express All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so.

and money orders should be made payable to the order of THE LIVING AGE Co.

Single Copies of THE LIving Age, 15 cents.

PENELOPE TO ULYSSES.

Thou marvellest, husband, that I sit so mute

And motionless, but gazing on that face Which now the pine-fire throws up in a flame,

Now leaves in darkest night as thou dost lean

Massily drooping toward the log-fed

blaze.

Such silence has come down upon us two!

Yet a good silence after so long years, We only are awake and the live sea! But thou who hast borne all things may'st perhaps

Bear with a woman's fancies while she speaks them.

Think not, my man of men, that I am cold

In passion or heart! Far otherwise! I see,

And nothing else, I see, the brow that took

The blow of strange waves and the

furious kiss

Of different winds, the sad-heavenroaming eyes,

The mighty hands that piloted all night.

Yet art thou paler than my dream of thee.

Forgive me, O my lord, but I must speak.

Well-all these years have I imagined thee

So constantly that now thy visible form,

How noble! seems but shadow of such sight.

For I have seen thee in the deep of night

Leap silent, sudden up the stair, and I Fell toward thee in the darkness with

a cry,

Fluttering upon thy bosom like a bird. And I have seen thee spring upon this earth

At sunset dark against the fiery orb. Then have I often just upon daybreak Started and run down to the beach and heard

Thy boat grate on the pebbles: or again

It has been noon and thou hast come in arms

Over the sweet fields calling out my

name.

Sometimes in tragic nights of surf and cloud

Thou hast been thrown headlong in howling wind

On the sharp coast and up the seabank streamed,

Alone. This then I strive to shape to words

Thou hadst become with passing days and years,

With night and tempest, and with sun and sea,

A presence hovering in all lights and airs.

Thou wert the soul then of the evening star,

And thou didst roam heaven in the seeking moon,

Thou secretly wouldst speak from stirring leaves,

And what was dawn but some surprise of thee?

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