Any notice of Madame de Staël would be imperfect
without a review of her works. She did
not begin, like so many famous authors, to write
at an abnormally early age—it is true, she composed
Portraits, which were read aloud in her
mother’s salon, but everybody did as much in
those days, and her attempts were not sufficiently
remarkable to stamp her at once as a literary
genius. It has been said how much her father
discouraged her writing. This may account in
part for the tardy development of the taste, although
more was doubtless due to the peerless
conversations in which, before the Revolution,
her young intellect found all that it could need
of ideas. However this may be, she was twenty
before she wrote Sophie, ou les Sentiments Secrets,
that elegiac “comedy” which drew down on its
authoress’s youthful head the animadversions of
her austere mother. Madame Necker was
shocked at the subject, which represented a
young girl of seventeen struggling against a
secret passion for her guardian, a married man,
who is in love with her. Sophie (who, by the
bye, is English) behaves in the noblest manner
as soon as she discovers that her feelings are
reciprocated, and leaves the home of which she
has unwittingly destroyed the peace. Her guardian
and his wife are no less equal to the occasion,
and Milord Henri Bedford, Sophie’s slighted
swain, is inspired by their example. Everybody
expresses his or her sentiments in polished and
prolix verse, and the curtain finally falls on four
loftily eloquent and magnanimously miserable
people. The style is not inflated, but the piece
is very dull, and, while betraying little of the
writer’s future talent, reveals two of her defects,
exaggeration of sentiment and a want of humor.
To the same date as Sophie belong Jane Grey,
a tragedy in five acts, also in verse, of no real
merit; another tragedy, Montmorency, and three
tales—all romantic and tiresome.
Finally, in 1788, when she was nearly twenty-two,
Madame de Staël published her Letters on
Rousseau, and thus established her position as an
aspirant to literary fame. The book, coming
from a woman, made a great sensation. Indeed,
this fact of her sex must never be lost sight of
in judging the reception accorded to Madame de
Staël’s works. She attempted subjects of historical
and philosophical interest which no woman
in her country or age had approached before her.
As might be expected, she was an ardent admirer
of Rousseau. Her sympathy with the
philosophy of Helvetius was naturally slight.
She required something declamatory, earnest,
and didactic. In a glorification of natural sentiments
to result in some future apotheosis of
humanity lay the key to her creed. “Virtue”
and still “virtue” and more “virtue” was her
cry, as though “virtue” were a tangible and
definitely constituted thing to be extracted en bloc
out of the materials composing humanity. To
such a mind it was inevitable that Emile and the
Contrat Social should appeal more strongly than
any number of witty epigrams at the expense of
penitents and priests.
She sympathised with the philosophy of the
eighteenth century in so far as it tended, by uprooting
abuses, to promote the progress of culture
and the emancipation of the oppressed, but
she required some system that would reconstruct
as well as destroy; and being a fervid believer
in theories, disliked nothing so much as the idea
of leaving the human race to take care of itself.
Rousseau, as embodying a protest against the
spirit of frivolous negation, appeared to her in
the light of a prophet of perfection; and she
saw in the approaching meeting of the States
General a first step towards the realization of his
views. These radiant ideals were destined to
be suddenly and painfully obscured by the
events of the Terror. Her only contribution to
literature during that time was her celebrated
and impassioned defence of the unhappy Queen.
Public events so fascinated her attention that she
had no leisure for any other thought. Two sentences
in her Réflexions sur la Paix, published in
1794, reveal this preoccupation.
“During the reign of Robespierre,” she says,
“when each day brought a list of devoted victims,
I could only desire death, and long for the
end of the world and of the human race which
was witness to, or accomplice in, such horrors.
I should have made a reproach to myself even
of thought, because it was separate from sorrow.”
In another passage she exclaims: “Oh
appalling time, of which centuries will barely
dim the trace; time which will never belong to
the past!”
Nevertheless, Robespierre had hardly fallen,
before her ever vivid faith in humanity revived
in full force. She looked for safety to the faction
which divided extreme revolutionaries from
extreme reactionaries, and refused to believe
that it could only act as a buffer. Its moderation
was partly caused by exhaustion; yet
Madame de Staël, always optimistic, maintained
that having no passions it must have convictions,
and that the trumpet-call of liberty would summon
it to the front. In this she was mistaken;
but in the course of her observations on public
events she uttered one remarkable prophecy.
“France,” she wrote, “may remain a republic;
but to become a monarchy it must first submit
to a military government.”
In 1790 she published her work on The Influence
of the Passions upon Human Happiness.
This was originally to have been divided into
two parts. The first portion was to be devoted
to reflections on man’s peculiar destiny; the
second, to the constitutional fate of nations. We
have to concern ourselves with the first alone, as
the second, which would have required an immense
and minute knowledge of ancient and
modern governments, was never even begun.
In Madame de Staël’s view the true obstacle
to individual and political happiness lay in the
force of passion. Neutralize this, and the problem
of government would be solved. Happiness,
as she conceived it, was to consist in having
hope without fear, activity without anxiety,
glory without calumny, love without inconstancy—in
a word, ideal good with no admixture
of evil. The happiness of nations would consist
in the combination of Republican liberty with
monarchical calm, of emulation among talents
unaccompanied by factious clamor, of military
spirit in foreign affairs, and a law-abiding tendency
in domestic matters. She concluded by
saying that such an ideal is impossible of attainment,
and the only achievable happiness is to
be acquired by studying the true means of
avoiding moral pain. To the discovery of this
spiritual Nirvana her work was directed. The
subject, as is evident, was a sterile one, since it
dealt with abstractions that have no corresponding
realities. To say that men and nations
would be prosperous and contented without
some particular institution or defect, is the
same as to say that a human face would be
beautiful without features. A blank surface is
conceivable as a blank surface, but not as a
physiognomy; and to speculate concerning ideal
humanity divorced from social systems, imposes
on thought the most futile exercise that ever
occurred to an enlightened mind. Such being
the case, it is not surprising that Madame de
Staël should eventually have abandoned her
self-imposed task. Even as much of it as she
accomplished landed her on a moving morass of
conclusions of which the essential nullity must
have been evident to herself before anybody.
For the rest, her analysis of the various passions
is admirable. One wonders as one reads how a
young woman could have reached so perfect a
comprehension of the springs of human action.
The penetration displayed is unerring, and only
equalled by the masculine vigor of touch. A
good example is the following: “Truly great
men are such as have rendered a greatness like
their own less necessary to successive generations.”
And here is another striking passage:
“A revolution suspends every action but that of
force. Social order establishes the ascendancy
of esteem and virtue, but a revolution limits
men’s choice to their physical capacities. The
only sort of moral influence that it does not exclude
is the fanaticism of such ideas as, not
being susceptible of any restraint, are weapons
of war and not exercises of the mind. To aspire
to distinction in times of revolution one must
always outstrip the actual momentum of events,
and the consequence of this is a rapid descent
which one has no power of staying. In vain
one perceives the abyss in front. To throw
oneself from the chariot is to be killed by the
fall, so that to avoid the danger is more perilous
than to face it. One must of one’s own accord
tread the path that leads to ruin, since the least
step backwards overturns the individual but does
not hinder the event.”
This is a very good example both of the clearness
of Madame de Staël’s thought and the careless
confusion of her style. She introduced
metaphors just as they occurred to her, without
any preparatory gradations of thought.
The second section of the work is devoted to
the examination of natural affections such as
family love, friendship, and pity. Here, again,
the analysis is delicate and true, but the mind,
fatigued by the futility of the theme, recoils
from such minute dissection of emotion. Passion,
being comparatively rare, is always interesting,
but sentiment does not bear prolonged
contemplation.
Finally come the remedies to be applied to the
evils worked by passion. They consist in philosophy,
in study, and the practice of benevolence,
joined, if possible, to a child-like faculty
of extracting from each hour just the amount of
happiness that it contains. With this lame and
impotent conclusion the book practically ends,
for all the remaining reflections do not avail to
place in any clearer light the uncertain and
colorless thought of the writer.
Her next work was that on Literature Considered
in Relation to Social Institutions. Its
object was to establish the continuous progress
and ultimate perfectibility of the human mind,
and the happy influence exercised by liberty
upon literature.
The theory of the authoress was that the progress
of philosophy, i. e. thought, had been gradual,
while that of poetry had been spasmodic.
Art, indeed, offering, by its early maturity, an
awkward contradiction to her system, she proceeded
to get rid of it by describing it as the
product of imagination rather than of thought,
and by adding that its plastic and sensuous
qualities rendered it capable of flourishing under
systems of government which necessarily crush
every other form of intellectual activity. To
prove the perfectibility of the human mind, she
then had but poetry and philosophy. To the
latter she assigned the really glorious future,
while the former she regarded as finished. She
was the first of the Romanticists, in the sense
that she preferred the poetry of the north to
that of the south; and her predilections in this
line carried her so far, that she placed Ossian
above Homer. She considered that the early
forms of poetry—in other words, mere transcripts
of material impressions—were superior
to those later creations in which sentiment
enters as an element. And this idea, which
seems at first a contradiction to her theory of
perfectibility, was really intended to confirm it.
For, in her view, the value of literature consisting
exclusively in the amount of thought that it
contained, introspective poetry became a mere
bridge which the mind traversed on its way to
wider horizons.
Madame de Staël was not only not a poet
herself, but she was incapable of appreciating
the higher forms of poetry. In her excursions
through the regions of literature, she was always
in pursuit of some theory which would reconcile
the contradictions of human destiny. Man, regarded
as socially perfectible, being her ideal, she
was in haste to classify and relegate to some
convenient limbo the portions of a subject which
did not directly contribute to her hypotheses.
Having disposed, therefore, of poetry and art,
she undertook to consider literature from the
point of view of psychology. She was only
pleased with it when self-conscious and analytical.
Dante probably perplexed her, and she
evoked to condemn him the perruqued shade of
“Le Goût.” Shakespeare she applauded, as
might be expected, chiefly in consideration of
Hamlet; while Petrarch pleased her principally
because he was harmonious; and Ariosto because
he was fanciful. The true significance of
the Renaissance escaped her. She sought for
the origin of each literature in the political and
religious institutions of the country where it
arose, instead of regarding both literature and
social conditions as simultaneous products of
the national mind. Her erudition was inadequate
to her task, and the purpose of her works,
by warping her judgments, contributed to make
them superficial. While pronouncing the English
and French drama to be essentially superior
to the Greek, she characteristically preferred
Euripides to his two mighty predecessors. The
grandeur of the dominant idea of Greek tragedy—that
of an inevitable destiny, against which
man struggles in vain—appears to have escaped
her altogether. This is not surprising, since
such a conception was entirely opposed to her
own order of mind and to the age in which she
lived. The root of all the social theories then
prevailing was the value of the individual. Man
was not a puppet of the gods, but the architect
of his own fate. To lose hold of ideal virtue
was to become incapable of governing or being
governed; and ideal virtue was a definite entity
which anybody might possess who chose. This—rather
crudely stated—was Madame de Staël’s
point of view. Her enthusiasm rejected all
idea of limited responsibilities. The ethical
value of the Æschylean trilogy—the awful sense
of overhanging doom which pervades it—did
not appeal to her, because it tended to the annihilation
of the struggling soul. In other
words, she liked self-conscious drama, and was
attracted to Euripides by his creation of artificial
situations, in which interesting personages
had room and leisure to explain themselves.
With Aristophanes she was frankly disgusted;
from her didactic standpoint, because of his pronounced
indecency; and on artistic grounds,
because he attacked living individuals instead of
creating characters like Tartufe and Falstaff.
To his beauties she remained entirely blind, and
this, perhaps, is to be explained by her deficiency
in the æsthetic faculty. It is said that Châteaubriand
first taught her to appreciate nature, and
Schlegel to perceive the loveliness of art. Chênedollé
complained that she had lived for years
opposite Lake Leman “without finding an image”
in regard to it; and she herself once
frankly admitted that of her own accord she
would hardly open her window to gaze on the bay
of Naples, while she would go a hundred miles
to converse with a new mind.
Its defects admitted, we may own that Madame
de Staël’s work contains many charming chapters.
If, true to her theory, she provokes her
reader by preferring the Latin poets to the Greek
ones, and Quintilian to Cicero, simply because
of their later date; if she persists, rather than
modify her views, that the sterile scholasticism
of the Middle Ages was not a real retrogression,
and strangely overlooks, in her admiration for
Christianity, the intellectual benefits which man
owes to the Arabs; on the other hand, she has
flashes of admirable insight. The chapter on
the invasion of Italy by the barbarians, and the
part played by Christianity in fusing the two
races, is very suggestive. But, unfortunately, it
is suggestive only, and sins by a sketchiness
which, more or less, mars the whole book. This
was one of Madame de Staël’s defects. She
abounded in ideas, but failed either in the power
or the patience to work them out.
Two other interesting chapters are those on
the “Grace, Gaiety, and Taste of the French
Nation,” and on “Literature in the Reign of
Louis XIV.” The peculiar social influences
which, among successive generations of courtiers,
produced the best writers of France, are
very happily described; but here again the conclusions
are indicated rather than developed.
Madame de Staël stated her conviction that the
palmy days of French wit were over, and that
the literature of the future, if it wished to flourish,
must invest itself with greater gravity.
Convinced that the moment had come for the
dramatist to pack up his puppet-show and despatch
it to a museum of antiquities, she laid
down rules for an ideal republican literature, and
prescribed strong emotions, careful analysis of
character, and a high moral tone as indispensable
ingredients. She was in fact one of the first
to admire and write that appalling product, the
novel with a purpose.
Anything duller than Delphine it would be
difficult to imagine. From the first page to the
last there is hardly one line of genuine inspiration.
All is forced, exaggerated, overstrained.
The misfortunes of the heroine are so needlessly
multiplied, that they end by exasperating the
reader; and the motif of the book—the contrast
between conventional and moral ideals—fails in
true dramatic interest. The plot is as follows:
Madame de Vernon has a daughter, Mathilde,
beautiful and sanctimonious, whom she desires
to marry to Léonce de Mondoville, a young
Spaniard of noble birth and aristocratic prejudices.
Madame de Vernon has in the whole
world one friend, Delphine d’Albémar, a miracle
of grace, wit, and beauty, who does acts of unheard-of
generosity, and generally by some evil
chance accomplishes them at the moment when
they lead to unlucky results for herself. She is
a young widow, and has been left by her elderly
and devoted husband a fortune, of which she
proceeds to divest herself as rapidly as possible.
One of her favorite objects of charity is Madame
de Vernon, who does not deserve her pity, since
the pecuniary embarrassments under which she
suffers arise from her love of card-playing, and
general mismanagement. But Delphine adores
her friend, who is represented as extremely
charming, and is in some respects a well-drawn
character. Her life is one long act of dissimulation.
She masks her cynicism cleverly, under
an appearance of indolence, which dispenses her
from ever taking inconvenient resolutions, or appearing
agitated by events which should—but do
not—move her. She has some faint affection
for her generous dupe—Delphine; but not
enough to be prevented from taking every mean
advantage of her. There is some difficulty in
arranging Mathilde’s marriage, on account of the
want of a dowry. Delphine hastens to supply
this, and then the bridegroom elect, Léonce,
appears on the scene. He is described as divinely
handsome. The cold and pietistic
Mathilde falls in love with him immediately (as
was her duty, since he was to be her husband),
but so, unfortunately, does Delphine. What is
still worse, he is by no means attracted by his
fiancée, but reciprocates the young widow’s passion.
Then the drama begins. Madame de
Vernon, while seeming to see nothing, sees
everything. Mathilde is really blind. Delphine
is agitated, but resolved, if possible, to be happy.
This, by the way, is the only gleam of common
sense that she has throughout the book. Unfortunately,
she manages to compromise herself (of
course quite innocently) by espousing the cause
of a pair of guilty but repentant lovers; and
Madame de Vernon cleverly uses the awkward
positions in which she places herself, in order to
detach Léonce from her. He marries Mathilde
and is madly unhappy. Delphine pours out her
feelings in long letters to her sister-in-law and
confidant, Mademoiselle d’Albémar, letters which
she writes, by the way, on recovering from fainting
fits, or when lying in bed, or when on the
verge of distraction. The whole of the novel
is told in letters, and is proportionately long-winded
and unnatural.
Not long after the marriage Madame de Vernon
dies, and on her death-bed confesses her perfidy
to her victim. Then the mutual passion of Delphine
and Léonce enters upon a new and harrowing
phase. They determine to remain
technically virtuous, but to see one another constantly—of
course unknown to Mathilde. This
unnatural situation—unnaturally prolonged, becomes
unbearable through its monotonous
misery.
Finally Mathilde discovers the state of the
case and conjures Delphine to separate herself
from Léonce. Madame d’Albémar consents, and
disappears. Léonce is then described by his
confidant as being on the point of madness. He
alternately loses consciousness, and rushes about
with dishevelled hair and distraught looks. Delphine
goes to Switzerland, and there proceeds
to compromise herself anew, this time beyond
recall, for the sake of a rejected lover who had
behaved disgracefully to her.
She had taken refuge in a convent of which
the superioress, Madame de Ternan, turns out
to be the aunt of Léonce. This lady is something
of the same sort as Madame de Vernon—except
that her egotism, although quite as systematic,
is not so base. But it can become so on
occasion, and, as she is rather fond of Delphine
and anxious to keep her with her to solace her
old age, she plays into the hands of Madame de
Mondoville (the mother of Léonce) and cleverly
contrives to make Delphine take the veil. Barely
has this been done when Léonce appears and
claims her as his own, Mathilde having in the
meanwhile died. Then is the exhausted reader
harassed anew by a fresh spectacle of poignant
anguish. A Monsieur de Sebersci suggests that
Delphine should break her vows, quit her convent,
and join Léonce, pointing out that, thanks
to the Revolution, they can be quite respectably
married in France. Delphine is horrified at first,
but Léonce having announced the firm intention
of putting an end to his existence if she remains
a nun, she finally escapes and joins him. One
begins to hope that they are going to be happy
at last, when the “purpose” of the book presents
itself. Madame de Staël was anxious to
prove that social conventions may not be braved
with impunity, but overtake and crush the nature
which defies them. Delphine throughout had
listened to no voice but that of her conscience
and her heart; she is consequently the victim of
calumny. Léonce is principally swayed by passion.
He defies society in the end to possess
Delphine, but has no sooner induced her to
break her vows for him than he begins to feel
the stigma of the act. He leaves her, and seeks
death on the battle-field. Death spares him, but
he is arrested as an aristocrat and condemned to
be shot. Delphine follows him, and by her eloquence
wrings a pardon from the judge. Léonce,
enlightened by the approach of death as to the
nothingness of the world’s opinion, is prepared
to live happily at last with the woman whom he
still professes to adore. But all at once the
order for his release is rescinded and he is taken
out to die. Delphine accompanies him, and
talks all along the road. Indeed, she is superfluously
eloquent, from the first page of her
history to the last. When Léonce has been
strung up by her to the highest pitch of exalted
feeling, she takes poison and dies at his feet.
He is then shot; and the lovers are interred in
one grave by Monsieur de Serbellane, who has
appeared again in the last chapter, after having
been the primary though unwitting cause of his
unhappy friends’ woes.
It is difficult to understand why critics like
Sainte Beuve should so warmly have praised
this novel. No doubt it shows talent, especially
in the analysis of mental struggle; but it is false
from beginning to end. All the characters want
vitality, although some of the qualities attributed
to them are described with penetration and force.
Delphine and Léonce talk too much, and faint
too much, and are simply insupportable. Finally,
the book is drearily monotonous and unrelieved
by one gleam of poetry or humor.
Corinne is a classic of which everybody is
bound to speak with respect. The enormous
admiration which it excited at the time of
its appearance may seem somewhat strange in
this year of grace; but then it must be remembered
that Italy was not the over-written country
it has since become. Besides this, Madame de
Staël was the most celebrated woman, and, after
Napoleon, the most conspicuous personage of
her day. Except Châteaubriand, she had nobody
to dispute with her the palm of literary glory in
France. Her exile, her literary circle, her courageous
opinions, had kept the eyes of Europe
fixed on her for years, so that any work from her
pen was sure to excite the liveliest curiosity.
Corinne is a kind of glorified guide-book, with
some of the qualities of a good novel. It is very
long-winded, but the appetite of the age was
robust in that respect, and the highly-strung
emotions of the hero and heroine could not
shock a taste which had been formed by the
Sorrows of Werther. It is extremely moral,
deeply sentimental, and of a deadly earnestness—three
characteristics which could not fail to
recommend it to a dreary and ponderous generation,
the most deficient in taste that ever trod
the earth.
But it is artistic in the sense that the interest
is concentrated from first to last on the central
figure, and the drama, such as it is, unfolds
itself naturally from its starting-point, which is
the contrast between the characters of Oswald
and Corinne.
Oswald Lord Nelvil is a young man of exquisite
sensibility and profound melancholy. He
comes to Rome (after distinguishing himself heroically
during a fire at Ancona) accompanied by
a young Frenchman, the Count D’Erfeuil, whom
he has casually met. One of the first sights
which greets them on their arrival in the Eternal
City is the triumphal procession of “Corinne”
on her way to be crowned in the Capitol. She
is a musician, an improvisatrice, a Muse or Sibyl,
with all the poetry and passion of Italy stamped
upon her radiant brow. In the midst of her
improvisation she exchanges glances with Lord
Nelvil, and the fate of both is sealed. He is intended
to be a typical Englishman imbued with
a horror of eccentricity in women. His ideal of
the sex is a domestic angel, and he feels bound
to disapprove of Corinne, who lives alone, though
young and beautiful, and offers the spectacle of
her various talents to the profane view of the
crowd. The Count D’Erfeuil mocks at everything,
and is the most amusing character in the
book; feels no scruples about knowing Corinne,
and, having quickly discovered that his reserved
English friend pleases her, he persuades that
gentleman to call on her also. Corinne speaks
English wonderfully, and allows Lord Nelvil to
divine that there is a mystery about her past.
Once she betrays great agitation on hearing the
name of Edgermond, which is the patronymic of
a certain Lucile, whom Lord Nelvil’s father had
destined him to marry. Grief at the death of
this father is, by the way, the ostensible cause of
his persistent melancholy, but he also vaguely
hints at remorse. He promises that he will one
day confide his history to Corinne, who on her
side prepares herself to tell him hers. But as
she greatly fears the effect of it on him, and is
deeply in love, she puts off the evil hour, and, in
order to keep him with her, offers to be his
cicerone in Rome. Together they wander among
the ruins, visit the galleries, and drive on the
Appian Way. Corinne explains everything, discourses
on everything, and Oswald interrupts
her with exclamations of rapture at her wit and
learning. This novel form of courtship lasts
for some weeks, and finally the lovers proceed to
Naples. Corinne persuades Oswald that there
is nothing at all extraordinary in such conduct
in Italy, where everyone, according to her, may
do as he likes. But the Count L’Erfeuil makes
remarks which, although intended to be merely
flippant, are sensible enough to convince Lord
Nelvil that he must either marry Corinne or
leave her. He is very much in love, or fancies
himself so. Nevertheless he hesitates because
of the mystery surrounding his inamorata. Who
is she? What is her name? Whence comes
her fortune? If she is not quite blameless, he
thinks he can never marry her, for that would be
derogating from the traditions of his order and
outraging the shade of his father. The mental
struggle which he undergoes is visible to Corinne
and fills her with anguish and alarm. At last,
during an expedition to Vesuvius, Oswald speaks.
He had been at one time in love with an unworthy
Frenchwoman; had lingered in France
when his father required his presence in England,
and had finally returned, only to find him dead.
From that hour he had known no peace; remorse
had pursued him; his filial love, which
was morbidly excessive, caused him to look upon
himself as almost a parricide, and he considered
that he was thenceforward morally bound to do
nothing which his father might disapprove.
This absurd conclusion afflicts Corinne visibly,
and the sight of her agitation reawakens all
Oswald’s doubts. He conjures her to tell him
her history. She consents; but begs for a few
days’ grace, and employs the interval in planning
and carrying out a fête on Cape Misenum. In
front of the azure, tideless sea she takes her lyre
and pours out an improvisation on the past
glories of that classic shore. This, although
Oswald does not know it, is an adieu to her past
life, for she foresees that what she has to tell
him of herself will entirely change her destiny.
Either he will refuse to marry her, and then she
will never know happiness again, but wingless,
voiceless, will go down to her tomb, or else he
will make her his wife, and the Sibyl will be lost
in the peeress.
The next day she leaves with him the narrative
of her youth. She is the daughter of Lord Edgermond
by an Italian wife, consequently the
half-sister of Lucile. At the age of fifteen she
had gone to England, and fallen under the rule
of her stepmother, Lady Edgermond, a cold and
rigid Englishwoman, who cared for nothing outside
her small provincial town, and regarded
genius as a dangerous eccentricity. In the
narrow monotony of the life imposed upon her
Corinne nearly died. At the age of twenty-one
she finally escaped and returned to Italy, having
dropped her family name out of respect for Lady
Edgermond’s feelings. Until her meeting with
Oswald she had led the life of a muse, singing,
dancing, playing, improvising for the whole of
Roman society to admire, and had conceived no
idea of greater felicity until learning to love.
This love had been a source of peculiar torment
to her from the fact of her divining how much
the unconventionality of her conduct, when fully
known to him, must shock Oswald’s English
notions of propriety. In the first moment, however,
his love triumphs over these considerations,
and he resolves to marry Corinne. Only he
wishes first—in order that no reproach may
attach to her—to force Lady Edgermond once
again to acknowledge her as her husband’s
daughter. He goes to England, partly for this
purpose, partly because his regiment has been
ordered on active service.
In England he again meets Lucile, a cold-mannered,
correct, pure-minded, but secretly
ardent English girl, with an odd resemblance in
many ways to a French jeune fille. He mentions
the subject of her step-daughter to the
upright but selfish Lady Edgermond, who has
set her heart on seeing Oswald the husband of
Lucile. She is too honorable to try and detach
him from Corinne by any underhand means, but
does what she knows will be far more effectual;
that is, she makes him acquainted with the
fact that his father had seen Corinne in her
early girlhood, had admired her, but had strongly
pronounced against the marriage proposed by
Lord Edgermond between her and Oswald. In
the view of the late Lord Nelvil, she was too
brilliant and distinguished for domestic life.
This is a terrible blow to Oswald. He begins to
think he must give up Corinne, and is strengthened
in the idea by perceiving that the beautiful
and virtuous Lucile is in love with him. Finally
he marries her, decided at the last by Corinne’s
inexplicable silence. She has not answered his
letters for a month, and he concludes that she
has forgotten him. But her silence is owing to
her having left Venice and come to England.
She loses a whole month in London, for very insufficient
reasons—necessary, however, to the
story—and at last follows Oswald to Scotland
just in time to learn that he is married, to fall
senseless on the road-side, and to be picked up by
the Count D’Erfeuil. She returns heart-broken
to Italy, and dies slowly through four long years
of unbroken misery.
When she is near her end Oswald comes to
Florence, accompanied by his wife and child.
He had begun to regret Corinne as soon as he
had married Lucile, who, on her side, being
naturally resentful, takes refuge in coldness and
reserve. As soon as Lord Nelvil learns that
his old love is in Florence and dying he wishes
ardently to see her, but she refuses to receive
him. He sends the child to her, and she teaches
it some of her accomplishments. Lucile visits
her secretly, and is converted by her eloquence
to the necessity of rendering herself more attractive
to her husband by displaying some graces
of mind.
At last Corinne consents to see Oswald once
again, but it shall be, she determines, in public.
This is one of the most unnatural scenes in the
book. Corinne invites all her friends to assemble
in a lecture hall. Thither she has herself
transported and placed in an arm-chair. A
young girl clad in white and crowned with flowers
recites the Song of the Swan, or adieu to
life, which Corinne has composed, while Oswald,
listening to it and gazing on the dying poetess
from his place in the crowd, is suffocated with
emotion and finally faints. A few days later
Corinne dies, her last act being to point with her
diaphanous hand to the moon, which is partially
obscured by a band of cloud such as she and
Lord Nelvil had once seen when in Naples.
Even as a picture of Italy, Corinne leaves
much to be desired. Madame de Staël’s ideas
of art were acquired. She had no spontaneous
admiration even for the things she most warmly
praised, and her judgments were conventional
and essentially cold. Some of the descriptions
are good in the sense of being accurate and
forcibly expressed. But even in the best of
them—that of Vesuvius—one feels the effort.
Madame de Staël is wide-eyed and conscientious,
but has no flashes of inspired vision. She can
catalogue but not paint. A certain difficulty in
saying enough on æsthetic subjects is rendered
evident by her vice of moralizing. Instead of
admiring a marble column as a column, or a picture
as a picture, she finds in it food for reflection
on the nature of man and the destiny of the
world. Some of her remarks on Italian character
are extremely clever, and show her usual surprising
power of observation; but they are generally
superficial.
This was due, in part, to her system of explaining
everything by race and political institutions,
in part to her passion for generalization.
Because Italians had produced the finest art and
some of the finest music; because they had no
salons and wrote sonnets; because they had developed
a curiously systematic form of conjugal
infidelity; finally, because they had no political
liberty, Madame de Staël constructed a theory
which represented them as simply passionate, romantic,
imaginative and indulgent. This theory
has cropped up now and again in literature from
her days to our own, and if partially correct,
overlooks the subtler shades and complex contradictions
of the Italian mind.
Roman society in the beginning of this century
was far from being the transfigured and exotic
thing represented in Corinne. The modern
Sibyl’s prototype, poor Maddalena Maria Morelli,
was mercilessly pasquinaded, and on her
road to the Capitol pelted with rotten eggs.
This gives a very good idea of the sort of impression
that would have been produced on a real
Prince of Castel-Forte and his fellows by the
presence in their midst of a young and beautiful
woman, unmarried, nameless, and rich. Corinne’s
lavish exhibition of her accomplishments
is another “false note,” as singing and dancing
were but rarely, if ever, performed by amateurs
in Italy. What redeems the book are the detached
sentences of thought that gem almost
every page of it. Madame de Staël had gradually
shaken off the vices of style which her
warmest admirers deplore in her, and in her
Allemagne she was presently to reveal herself as
singularly lucid, brilliant, and acute. This work
of hers on Germany is, perhaps, the most satisfactory
of her many productions. As a review
of society, art, literature, and philosophy, it naturally
lends itself to the form best suited to her
essentially analytical mind.
Madame de Staël was always obliged to generalize,
that being a law of her intelligence, and
this disposition is accentuated in the Allemagne,
through her desire to establish such contrasts
between Germany and France, as would inspire
the latter with a sense of its defects. She saw
Germany on the eve of a great awakening, and
was not perhaps as fully conscious of this as she
might have been. As Saint Beuve happily says,
she was not a poet, and it is only poets who,
like birds of passage, feel a coming change of
season. Germany appealed to her, however,
through everything in herself that was least
French; her earnestness, her vague but ardent
religious tendencies, her spiritualism, her excessive
admiration of intellectual pursuits. She
was, therefore, exceptionally well-qualified to
reveal to her own countrymen the hitherto unknown
or unappreciated beauties of the German
mind.
She was, on the other hand, extremely alive to
the dullness of German, and especially of Viennese,
society, and portrays it in a series of
delightfully witty phrases. The Allemagne is
indeed the wittiest of all her works, and abounds
in the happiest touches.
The opinions expressed on German literature
are favorable towards it, and on the whole correct.
If she betrays that Schiller was personally
more sympathetic to her than Goethe, she nevertheless
was quick to perceive in the latter the
strain of southern passion, the light, warmth and
color, which made his intellect less national than
universal.
Her chapters on Kant and German philosophy
generally, are luminous if not exhaustive. She
takes the moral sentiment as her standpoint,
and pronounces from that on the different systems.
Needless to say, she admires metaphysical
speculations, and considers them as valuable
in developing intellect and strengthening character.
Les Dix Années d’Exil is a charming book.
Apart from its interest as a transcript of the
writer’s impressions during her exile at Coppet
and subsequent flight across Europe, it contains
brilliant pictures of different lands, and especially
Russia. One is really amazed to note how much
she grasped of the national characteristics during
her brief sojourn in that country. The worst reproach
that can be addressed to her description
is that, as usual, it is rather too favorable. Her
anxiety to prove that no country could flourish,
during a reign such as Napoleon’s, made her
disposed to see through rose-colored spectacles
the Governments which found force to resist him.
The Considerations on the French Revolution
were published posthumously. According to
Sainte Beuve, this is the finest of Madame de
Staël’s works. “Her star,” he says, “rose in
its full splendor only above her tomb.” It
is difficult to pronounce any summary judgment
on this book, which is partly biographical and
partly historical. The first volume is principally
devoted to a vindication of Necker; the second
to an attack on Napoleon; the third to a study
of the English Constitution and the applicability
of its principles to France. The first two volumes
alone were revised by the authoress before
her death. We find in this work all Madame de
Staël’s natural and surprising power of comprehension.
She handles difficult political problems
with an ease that would be more astonishing
still, had the book more unity. As it is, each
separate circumstance is related and explained
admirably, but one is not made to reach the
core of the stupendous event of which Europe
still feels the vibration. Her portrait of Napoleon
is unsurpassable for force and irony, for
sarcasm and truth. All she possessed of epigrammatic
power seems to have come unsought
to enable her to avenge herself on the mean,
great man who had feared her enough to exile
and persecute her.
In closing this rapid review of her works, one
asks why was Madame de Staël not a greater
writer? The answer is easy; she lacked high
creative power and the sense of form. Her
mind was strong of grasp and wide in range,
but continuous effort fatigued it. She could
strike out isolated sentences alternately brilliant,
exhaustive and profound, but she could not
link them to other sentences so as to form an
organic page. Her thought was definite singly,
but vague as a whole. She always saw things
separately, and tried to unite them arbitrarily,
and it is generally difficult to follow out any idea
of hers from its origin to its end. Her thoughts
are like pearls of price profusely scattered, or
carelessly strung together, but not set in any
design. On closing one of her books, the reader
is left with no continuous impression. He has
been dazzled and delighted, enlightened also by
flashes; but the horizons disclosed have vanished
again, and the outlook is enriched by no
new vistas.
Then she was deficient in the higher qualities
of imagination. She could analyze but not
characterize; construct but not create. She
could take one defect like selfishness, or one
passion like love, and display its workings; or
she could describe a whole character, like Napoleon’s,
with marvellous penetration; but she
could not make her personages talk or act like
human beings. She lacked pathos, and had no
sense of humor. In short, hers was a mind endowed
with enormous powers of comprehension,
and an amazing richness of ideas, but deficient
in perception of beauty, in poetry, and true
originality. She was a great social personage,
but her influence on literature was not destined
to be lasting, because, in spite of foreseeing
much, she had not the true prophetic sense of
proportion, and confused the things of the present
with those of the future—the accidental
with the enduring.
THE END.
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FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.
GEORGE SAND.
By BERTHA THOMAS.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“Miss Thomas has accomplished a difficult task with as much good sense as
good feeling. She presents the main facts of George Sand’s life, extenuating
nothing, and setting naught down in malice, but wisely leaving her readers to
form their own conclusions. Everybody knows that it was not such a life as the
women of England and America are accustomed to live, and as the worst of men
are glad to have them live.… Whatever may be said against it, its result on
George Sand was not what it would have been upon an English or American
woman of genius.”—New York Mail and Express.
“This is a volume of the ‘Famous Women Series,’ which was begun so well
with George Eliot and Emily Brontë. The book is a review and critical analysis
of George Sand’s life and work, by no means a detailed biography. Amantine
Lucile Aurore Dupin, the maiden, or Mme. Dudevant, the married woman, is
forgotten in the renown of the pseudonym George Sand.
“Altogether, George Sand, with all her excesses and defects, is a representative
woman, one of the names of the nineteenth century. She was great among the
greatest, the friend and compeer of the finest intellects, and Miss Thomas’s essay
will be a useful and agreeable introduction to a more extended study of her life
and works.”—Knickerbocker.
“The biography of this famous woman, by Miss Thomas, is the only one in
existence. Those who have awaited it with pleasurable anticipation, but with
some trepidation as to the treatment of the erratic side of her character, cannot
fail to be pleased with the skill by which it is done. It is the best production on
George Sand that has yet been published. The author modestly refers to it as a
sketch, which it undoubtedly is, but a sketch that gives a just and discriminating
analysis of George Sand’s life, tastes, occupations, and of the motives and impulses
which prompted her unconventional actions, that were misunderstood by a narrow
public. The difficulties encountered by the writer in describing this remarkable
character are shown in the first line of the opening chapter, which says, ‘In naming
George Sand we name something more exceptional than even a great genius.’
That tells the whole story. Misconstruction, condemnation, and isolation are the
penalties enforced upon the great leaders in the realm of advanced thought, by
the bigoted people of their time. The thinkers soar beyond the common herd,
whose soul-wings are not strong enough to fly aloft to clearer atmospheres, and
consequently they censure or ridicule what they are powerless to reach. George
Sand, even to a greater extent than her contemporary, George Eliot, was a victim
to ignorant social prejudices, but even the conservative world was forced to recognize
the matchless genius of these two extraordinary women, each widely different
in her character and method of thought and writing.… She has told much that
is good which has been untold, and just what will interest the reader, and no more,
in the same easy, entertaining style that characterizes all of these unpretentious
biographies.”—Hartford Times.
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FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.
MARY LAMB.
By ANNE GILCHRIST.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“The story of Mary Lamb has long been familiar to the readers of Elia, but
never in its entirety as in the monograph which Mrs. Anne Gilchrist has just
contributed to the Famous Women Series. Darkly hinted at by Talfourd in his
Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, it became better known as the years went on
and that imperfect work was followed by fuller and franker biographies,—became
so well known, in fact, that no one could recall the memory of Lamb without
recalling at the same time the memory of his sister.”—New York Mail and Express.
“A biography of Mary Lamb must inevitably be also, almost more, a biography
of Charles Lamb, so completely was the life of the sister encompassed by
that of her brother; and it must be allowed that Mrs. Anne Gilchrist has performed
a difficult biographical task with taste and ability.… The reader is at
least likely to lay down the book with the feeling that if Mary Lamb is not famous
she certainly deserves to be, and that a debt of gratitude is due Mrs. Gilchrist for
this well-considered record of her life.”—Boston Courier.
“Mary Lamb, who was the embodiment of everything that is tenderest in
woman, combined with this a heroism which bore her on for a while through the
terrors of insanity. Think of a highly intellectual woman struggling year after
year with madness, triumphant over it for a season, and then at last succumbing to
it. The saddest lines that ever were written are those descriptive of this brother and
sister just before Mary, on some return of insanity, was to leave Charles Lamb.
‘On one occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them slowly pacing together a little
foot-path in Hoxton Fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining them,
that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum.’ What pathos
is there not here?”—New York Times.
“This life was worth writing, for all records of weakness conquered, of pain
patiently borne, of success won from difficulty, of cheerfulness in sorrow and
affliction, make the world better. Mrs. Gilchrist’s biography is unaffected and
simple. She has told the sweet and melancholy story with judicious sympathy,
showing always the light shining through darkness.”—Philadelphia Press.
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Famous Women Series.
RACHEL.
By Mrs. NINA H. KENNARD.
One Volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“Rachel, by Nina H. Kennard, is an interesting sketch of the famous
woman whose passion and genius won for her an almost unrivalled fame as
an actress. The story of Rachel’s career is of the most brilliant success in
art and of the most pathetic failure in character. Her faults, many and
grievous, are overlooked in this volume, and the better aspects of her nature
and history are recorded.”—Hartford Courant.
“The book is well planned, has been carefully constructed, and is
pleasantly written.”—The Critic.
“The life of Mlle. Élisa Rachel Félix has never been adequately told,
and the appearance of her biography in the ‘Famous Women Series’ of
Messrs. Roberts Brothers will be welcomed.… Yet we must be glad the
book is written, and welcome it to a place among the minor biographies;
and because there is nothing else so good, the volume is indispensable to
library and study.”—Boston Evening Traveller.
“Another life of the great actress Rachel has been written. It forms
part of the ‘Famous Women Series,’ which that firm is now bringing out,
and which already includes eleven volumes. Mrs. Kennard deals with her
subject much more amiably than one or two of the other biographers have
done. She has none of those vindictive feelings which are so obvious in
Madame B.’s narrative of the great tragedienne. On the contrary, she
wants to be fair, and she probably is as fair as the materials which came into
her possession enabled her to be. The endeavor has been made to show us
Rachel as she really was, by relying to a great extent upon her letters.…
A good many stories that we are familiar with are repeated, and some are
contradicted. From first to last, however, the sympathy of the author is
ardent, whether she recounts the misery of Rachel’s childhood, or the splendid
altitude to which she climbed when her name echoed through the world
and the great ones of the earth vied in doing her homage. On this account
Mrs. Kennard’s book is a welcome addition to the pre-existing biographies
of one of the greatest actresses the world ever saw.”—N.Y. Evening
Telegram.
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THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY.
BY VERNON LEE.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“It is no disparagement to the many excellent previous sketches to say that
‘The Countess of Albany,’ by Vernon Lee, is decidedly the cleverest of the series
of biographies of ‘Famous Women,’ published in this country by Roberts Brothers,
Boston. In the present instance there is a freer subject, a little farther removed
from contemporary events, and sufficiently out of the way of prejudice to admit of
a lucid handling. Moreover, there is a trained hand at the work, and a mind
not only familiar with and in sympathy with the character under discussion, but
also at home with the ruling forces of the eighteenth century, which were the forces
that made the Countess of Albany what she was. The biography is really dual, tracing
the life of Alfieri, for twenty-five years the heart and soul companion of the
Countess, quite as carefully as it traces that of the fixed subject of the sketch.”—Philadelphia
Times.
“To be unable altogether to acquiesce in Vernon Lee’s portrait of Louise of
Stolberg does not militate against our sense of the excellence of her work. Her
pictures of eighteenth-century Italy are definite and brilliant. They are instinct
with a quality that is akin to magic.”—London Academy.
“In the records of famous women preserved in the interesting series which
has been devoted to such noble characters as Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Fry, and
George Eliot, the life of the Countess of Albany holds a unique place. Louise of
Albany, or Louise R., as she liked to sign herself, possessed a character famed,
not for domestic virtues, nor even for peculiar wisdom and creative power, but
rather notorious for an easy-going indifference to conventionality and a worldly
wisdom and cynicism. Her life, which is a singular exponent of the false ideas
prevalent upon the subject of love and marriage in the eighteenth century, is told
by Vernon Lee in a vivid and discriminating manner. The biography is one of
the most fascinating, if the most sorrowful, of the series.”—Boston Journal.
“She is the first really historical character who has appeared on the literary
horizon of this particular series, her predecessors having been limited to purely
literary women. This brilliant little biography is strongly written. Unlike preceding
writers—German, French, and English—on the same subject, the author
does not hastily pass over the details of the Platonic relations that existed between
the Countess and the celebrated Italian poet ‘Alfieri.’ In this biography the
details of that passionate friendship are given with a fidelity to truth, and a knowledge
of its nature, that is based upon the strictest and most conscientious investigation,
and access to means heretofore unattainable to other biographers. The
history of this friendship is not only exceedingly interesting, but it presents a
fascinating psychological study to those who are interested in the metaphysical
aspect of human nature. The book is almost as much of a biography of ‘Alfieri’
as it is of the wife of the Pretender, who expected to become the Queen of England.”—Hartford
Times.
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Famous Women Series.
GEORGE ELIOT.
By MATHILDE BLIND.
One vol. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“Messrs. Roberts Brothers begin a series of Biographies of Famous
Women with a life of George Eliot, by Mathilde Blind. The idea of the
series is an excellent one, and the reputation of its publishers is a guarantee
for its adequate execution. This book contains about three hundred pages in
open type, and not only collects and condenses the main facts that are known
in regard to the history of George Eliot, but supplies other material from
personal research. It is agreeably written, and with a good idea of proportion
in a memoir of its size. The critical study of its subject’s works, which
is made in the order of their appearance, is particularly well done. In fact,
good taste and good judgment pervade the memoir throughout.”—Saturday
Evening Gazette.
“Miss Blind’s little book is written with admirable good taste and judgment,
and with notable self-restraint. It does not weary the reader with
critical discursiveness, nor with attempts to search out high-flown meanings
and recondite oracles in the plain ‘yea’ and ‘nay’ of life. It is a graceful
and unpretentious little biography, and tells all that need be told concerning
one of the greatest writers of the time. It is a deeply interesting if not
fascinating woman whom Miss Blind presents,” says the New York
Tribune.
“Miss Blind’s little biographical study of George Eliot is written with
sympathy and good taste, and is very welcome. It gives us a graphic if not
elaborate sketch of the personality and development of the great novelist, is
particularly full and authentic concerning her earlier years, tells enough of
the leading motives in her work to give the general reader a lucid idea of the
true drift and purpose of her art, and analyzes carefully her various writings,
with no attempt at profound criticism or fine writing, but with appreciation,
insight, and a clear grasp of those underlying psychological principles which
are so closely interwoven in every production that came from her pen.”—Traveller.
“The lives of few great writers have attracted more curiosity and speculation
than that of George Eliot. Had she only lived earlier in the century
she might easily have become the centre of a mythos. As it is, many of the
anecdotes commonly repeated about her are made up largely of fable. It is,
therefore, well, before it is too late, to reduce the true story of her career to
the lowest terms, and this service has been well done by the author of the
present volume.”—Philadelphia Press.
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FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.
EMILY BRONTË.
By A. MARY F. ROBINSON.
One vol. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“Miss Robinson has written a fascinating biography.… Emily Brontë is
interesting, not because she wrote ‘Wuthering Heights,’ but because of her
brave, baffled, human life, so lonely, so full of pain, but with a great hope shining
beyond all the darkness, and a passionate defiance in bearing more than the
burdens that were laid upon her. The story of the three sisters is infinitely sad,
but it is the ennobling sadness that belongs to large natures cramped and striving
for freedom to heroic, almost desperate, work, with little or no result. The author
of this intensely interesting, sympathetic, and eloquent biography, is a young lady
and a poet, to whom a place is given in a recent anthology of living English poets,
which is supposed to contain only the best poems of the best writers.”—Boston
Daily Advertiser.
“Miss Robinson had many excellent qualifications for the task she has performed
in this little volume, among which may be named, an enthusiastic interest
in her subject and a real sympathy with Emily Brontë’s sad and heroic life. ‘To
represent her as she was,’ says Miss Robinson, ‘would be her noblest and most
fitting monument.’ … Emily Brontë here becomes well known to us and, in one
sense, this should be praise enough for any biography.”—New York Times.
“The biographer who finds such material before him as the lives and characters
of the Brontë family need have no anxiety as to the interest of his work. Characters
not only strong but so uniquely strong, genius so supreme, misfortunes so
overwhelming, set in its scenery so forlornly picturesque, could not fail to attract
all readers, if told even in the most prosaic language. When we add to this, that
Miss Robinson has told their story not in prosaic language, but with a literary
style exhibiting all the qualities essential to good biography, our readers will
understand that this life of Emily Brontë is not only as interesting as a novel, but
a great deal more interesting than most novels. As it presents most vividly a
general picture of the family, there seems hardly a reason for giving it Emily’s name
alone, except perhaps for the masterly chapters on ‘Wuthering Heights,’ which
the reader will find a grateful condensation of the best in that powerful but somewhat
forbidding story. We know of no point in the Brontë history—their genius,
their surroundings, their faults, their happiness, their misery, their love and friendships,
their peculiarities, their power, their gentleness, their patience, their pride,—which
Miss Robinson has not touched upon with conscientiousness and sympathy.”—The
Critic.
“‘Emily Brontë’ is the second of the ‘Famous Women Series,’ which Roberts
Brothers, Boston, propose to publish, and of which ‘George Eliot’ was the initial
volume. Not the least remarkable of a very remarkable family, the personage
whose life is here written, possesses a peculiar interest to all who are at all familiar
with the sad and singular history of herself and her sister Charlotte. That the
author, Miss A. Mary F. Robinson, has done her work with minute fidelity to
facts as well as affectionate devotion to the subject of her sketch, is plainly to be
seen all through the book.”—Washington Post.
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MARGARET FULLER.
By JULIA WARD HOWE.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“A memoir of the woman who first in New England took a position of moral
and intellectual leadership, by the woman who wrote the Battle Hymn of the
Republic, is a literary event of no common or transient interest. The Famous
Women Series will have no worthier subject and no more illustrious biographer.
Nor will the reader be disappointed,—for the narrative is deeply interesting and
full of inspiration.”—Woman’s Journal.
“Mrs. Julia Ward Howe’s biography of Margaret Fuller, in the Famous
Women Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, is a work which has been looked for
with curiosity. It will not disappoint expectation. She has made a brilliant and
an interesting book. Her study of Margaret Fuller’s character is thoroughly
sympathetic; her relation of her life is done in a graphic and at times a fascinating
manner. It is the case of one woman of strong individuality depicting the points
which made another one of the most marked characters of her day. It is always
agreeable to follow Mrs. Howe in this; for while we see marks of her own mind
constantly, there is no inartistic protrusion of her personality. The book is always
readable, and the relation of the death-scene is thrillingly impressive.”—Saturday
Gazette.
“Mrs. Julia Ward Howe has retold the story of Margaret Fuller’s life and
career in a very interesting manner. This remarkable woman was happy in
having James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Henry
Channing, all of whom had been intimate with her and had felt the spell of her
extraordinary personal influence, for her biographers. It is needless to say, of
course, that nothing could be better than these reminiscences in their way.”—New
York World.
“The selection of Mrs. Howe as the writer of this biography was a happy
thought on the part of the editor of the series; for, aside from the natural appreciation
she would have for Margaret Fuller, comes her knowledge of all the
influences that had their effect on Margaret Fuller’s life. She tells the story of
Margaret Fuller’s interesting life from all sources and from her own knowledge,
not hesitating to use plenty of quotations when she felt that others, or even
Margaret Fuller herself, had done the work better.”—Miss Gilder, in Philadelphia
Press.
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MARIA EDGEWORTH.
By HELEN ZIMMERN.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“This little volume shows good literary workmanship. It does not weary the
reader with vague theories; nor does it give over much expression to the enthusiasm—not
to say baseless encomium—for which too many female biographers
have accustomed us to look. It is a simple and discriminative sketch of one of
the most clever and lovable of the class at whom Carlyle sneered as ‘scribbling
women.’ … Of Maria Edgeworth, the woman, one cannot easily say too
much in praise. That home life, so loving, so wise, and so helpful, was beautiful
to its end. Miss Zimmern has treated it with delicate appreciation. Her book
is refined in conception and tasteful in execution,—all, in short, the cynic might
say, that we expect a woman’s book to be.”—New York Tribune.
“It was high time that we should possess an adequate biography of this ornament
and general benefactor of her time. And so we hail with uncommon pleasure
the volume just published in the Roberts Brothers’ series of Famous Women,
of which it is the sixth. We have only words of praise for the manner in which
Miss Zimmern has written her life of Maria Edgeworth. It exhibits sound
judgment, critical analysis, and clear characterization.… The style of the
volume is pure, limpid, and strong, as we might expect from a well-trained English
writer.”—Margaret J. Preston, in the Home Journal.
“We can heartily recommend this life of Maria Edgeworth, not only because it
is singularly readable in itself, but because it makes familiar to readers of the
present age a notable figure in English literary history, with whose lineaments
we suspect most readers, especially of the present generation, are less familiar
than they ought to be.”—Eclectic.
“This biography contains several letters and papers by Miss Edgeworth that
have not before been made public, notably some charming letters written during
the latter part of her life to Dr. Holland and Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor. The author
had access to a life of Miss Edgeworth written by her step-mother, as well as to a
large collection of her private letters, and has therefore been able to bring forward
many facts in her life which have not been noted by other writers. The book is
written in a pleasant vein, and is altogether a delightful one to read.”—Utica
Herald.
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ELIZABETH FRY.
By Mrs. E. R. PITMAN.
One vol. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“In the records of famous women there are few more noble examples of
Christian womanhood and philanthropic enthusiasm than the life of Elizabeth
Fry presents. Her character was beautifully rounded and complete, and if she
had not won fame through her public benefactions, she would have been no less
esteemed and remembered by all who knew her because of her domestic virtues,
her sweet womanly charms, and the wisdom, purity, and love which marked her
conduct as wife, mother, and friend. She came of that sound old Quaker stock
which has bred so many eminent men and women. The time came when her
home functions could no longer satisfy the yearnings of a heart filled with the
tenderest pity for all who suffered; and her work was not far to seek. The prisons
of England, nay, of all Europe, were in a deplorable condition. In Newgate,
dirt, disease, starvation, depravity, drunkenness, &c., prevailed. All who surveyed
the situation regarded it as hopeless; all but Mrs. Fry. She saw here the
opening she had been awaiting. Into this seething mass she bravely entered,
Bible in hand, and love and pity in her eyes and upon her lips. If any one
should ask which of all the famous women recorded in this series did the most
practical good in her day and generation, the answer must be, Elizabeth Fry.”—New
York Tribune.
“Mrs. Pitman has written a very interesting and appreciative sketch of the
life, character, and eminent services in the causes of humanity of one of England’s
most famous philanthropists. She was known as the prison philanthropist,
and probably no laborer in the cause of prison reform ever won a larger share of
success, and certainly none ever received a larger meed of reverential love. No
one can read this volume without feelings of admiration for the noble woman who
devoted her life to befriend sinful and suffering humanity.”—Chicago Evening
Journal.
“The story of her splendid and successful philanthropy is admirably told by
her biographer, and every reader should find in the tale a breath of inspiration.
Not every woman can become an Elizabeth Fry, but no one can fail to be impressed
with the thought that no woman, however great her talent and ambition,
can fail to find opportunity to do a noble work in life without neglecting her own
feminine duties, without ceasing to dignify all the distinctive virtues of her sex,
without fretting and crying aloud over the restrictions placed on woman’s field of
work.”—Eclectic Monthly.
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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL.
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“So far as it has been published, and it has now reached its ninth volume, the
Famous Women Series is rather better on the whole than the English Men of
Letters Series. One had but to recall the names and characteristics of some
of the women with whom it deals,—literary women, like Maria Edgeworth,
Margaret Fuller, Mary Lamb, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, and George Sand;
women of the world (not to mention the other parties in that well-known Scriptural
firm), like the naughty but fascinating Countess of Albany; and women of
philanthropy, of which the only example given here so far is Mrs. Elizabeth
Fry,—one has but to compare the intellectual qualities of the majority of English
men of letters to perceive that the former are the most difficult to handle, and
that a series of which they are the heroines is, if successful, a remarkable collection
of biographies. We thought so as we read Miss Blind’s study of George
Sand, and Vernon Lee’s study of the Countess of Albany, and we think so now
that we have read Mrs. Elizabeth Robins Pennell’s study of Mary Wollstonecraft,
who, with all her faults, was an honor to her sex. She was not so considered
while she lived, except by those who knew her well, nor for years after her
death; but she is so considered now, even by the granddaughters of the good
ladies who so bitterly condemned her when the century was new. She was
notable for the sacrifices that she made for her worthless father and her weak,
inefficient sisters, for her dogged persistence and untiring industry, and for her
independence and her courage. The soul of goodness was in her, though she
would be herself and go on her own way; and if she loved not wisely, according
to the world’s creed, she loved too well for her own happiness, and paid the
penalty of suffering. What she might have been if she had not met Capt.
Gilbert Imlay, who was a scoundrel, and William Godwin, who was a philosopher,
can only be conjectured. She was a force in literature and in the enfranchisement
of her sisterhood, and as such was worthy of the remembrance which she
will long retain through Mrs. Pennell’s able memoir.”—R. H. Stoddard, in the
Mail and Express.
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HARRIET MARTINEAU.
By Mrs. F. FENWICK MILLER.
16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00.
“The almost uniform excellence of the ‘Famous Women’ series is well sustained
in Mrs. Fenwick Miller’s life of Harriet Martineau, the latest addition to
this little library of biography. Indeed, we are disposed to rank it as the best of
the lot. The subject is an entertaining one, and Mrs. Miller has done her work
admirably. Miss Martineau was a remarkable woman, in a century that has not
been deficient in notable characters. Her native genius, and her perseverance in
developing it; her trials and afflictions, and the determination with which she rose
superior to them; her conscientious adherence to principle, and the important
place which her writings hold in the political and educational literature of her day,—all
combine to make the story of her life one of exceptional interest.… With
the exception, possibly, of George Eliot, Harriet Martineau was the greatest of
English women. She was a poet and a novelist, but not as such did she make
good her title to distinction. Much more noteworthy were her achievements in
other lines of thought, not usually essayed by women. She was eminent as a
political economist, a theologian, a journalist, and a historian.… But to attempt
a mere outline of her life and works is out of the question in our limited space.
Her biography should be read by all in search of entertainment.”—Professor
Woods in Saturday Mirror.
“The present volume has already shared the fate of several of the recent biographies
of the distinguished dead, and has been well advertised by the public contradiction
of more or less important points in the relation by the living friends of the
dead genius. One of Mrs. Miller’s chief concerns in writing this life seems to
have been to redeem the character of Harriet Martineau from the appearance of
hardness and unamiability with which her own autobiography impresses the
reader.… Mrs. Miller, however, succeeds in this volume in showing us an altogether
different side to her character,—a home-loving, neighborly, bright-natured,
tender-hearted, witty, lovable, and altogether womanly woman, as well as the clear
thinker, the philosophical reasoner, and comprehensive writer whom we already
knew.”—The Index.
“Already ten volumes in this library are published; namely, George Eliot,
Emily Brontë, George Sand, Mary Lamb, Margaret Fuller, Maria Edgeworth,
Elizabeth Fry, The Countess of Albany, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the present
volume. Surely a galaxy of wit and wealth of no mean order! Miss M. will
rank with any of them in womanliness or gifts or grace. At home or abroad,
in public or private. She was noble and true, and her life stands confessed a success.
True, she was literary, but she was a home lover and home builder. She
never lost the higher aims and ends of life, no matter how flattering her success.
This whole series ought to be read by the young ladies of to-day. More of such
biography would prove highly beneficial.”—Troy Telegram.
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MADAME ROLAND.
By MATHILDE BLIND,
AUTHOR OF “GEORGE ELIOT’S LIFE.”
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
“Of all the interesting biographies published in the Famous Women Series,
Mathilde Blind’s life of Mme. Roland is by far the most fascinating.… But
no one can read Mme. Roland’s thrilling story, and no one can study the character
of this noble, heroic woman without feeling certain that it is good for the world to
have every incident of her life brought again before the public eye. Among the
famous women who have been enjoying a new birth through this set of short
biographies, no single one has been worthy of the adjective great until we come
to Mme. Roland.…
“We see a brilliant intellectual woman in Mme. Roland; we see a dutiful
daughter and devoted wife; we see a woman going forth bravely to place her neck
under the guillotine,—a woman who had been known as the ‘Soul of the Girondins;’
and we see a woman struggling with and not being overcome by an intense
and passionate love. Has history a more heroic picture to present us with? Is
there any woman more deserving of the adjective ‘great’?
“Mathilde Blind has had rich materials from which to draw for Mme. Roland’s
biography. She writes graphically, and describes some of the terrible scenes
in the French Revolution with great picturesqueness. The writer’s sympathy
with Mme. Roland and her enthusiasm is very contagious; and we follow her
record almost breathlessly, and with intense feeling turn over the last few pages
of this little volume. No one can doubt that this life was worth the writing,
and even earnest students of the French Revolution will be glad to refresh their
memories of Lamartine’s ‘History of the Girondins,’ and again have brought
vividly before them the terrible tragedy of Mme. Roland’s life and death.”—Boston
Evening Transcript.
“The thrilling story of Madame Roland’s genius, nobility, self-sacrifice, and
death loses nothing in its retelling here. The material has been collected and
arranged in an unbroken and skilfully narrated sketch, each picturesque or exciting
incident being brought out into a strong light. The book is one of the best in an
excellent series.”—Christian Union.
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NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS
(Not included in General Catalogue)
LATELY PUBLISHED BY
MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS,
3 Somerset Street, Boston.
JULY, 1887.
A NEW “NO NAME” NOVEL.
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY.
Being the tenth volume in the third “No Name Series.” 16mo.
Cloth. $1.00.
“A Question of Identity” takes its title from the resemblance of girl twins
to each other,—a resemblance so strong that a lover of Rachel offered himself to
Leah, calling her his beautiful Rachel. It is a story of New England life, with
strong characterization and intense dramatic incidents which give coloring to the
impression that it is very real. The locality might be a half-hour’s ride from
Boston by rail.
A YEAR IN EDEN.
Part I. Spring; Part II. Summer; Part III. Autumn; Part IV.
Winter. By Harriet Waters Preston. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00;
paper covers, 50 cents.
“There is a great charm in the style, and there are some exquisite scenes
unsurpassed by any writer on New-England life. The book will interest a very
large number of readers by its subject, its thought, and its wit.”—London
Academy.
A LAD’S LOVE.
A Campobello Romance. By Arlo Bates, author of “The
Pagans,” “A Wheel of Fire,” etc. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS:
Short Chats on Social Topics. By Louise Chandler Moulton,
author of “Bed-Time Stories,” “Some Women’s Hearts,”
“Random Rambles,” etc. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
AGATHA AND THE SHADOW.
The second volume in the “Old Colony Series” of novels.
Uniform in size and style with “Constance of Acadia.” 12mo.
Cloth. $1.50.
“This is the second in the ‘Old Colony Series.’ Agatha is represented as
the daughter of Elder Brewster, and the wife of Bernard Anselm. The story is
a series of pictures of the early life of this country, always with Puritans as the
central figures. Indians have a large place in this record of Pilgrim life, and
the book is crowded with romantic and dramatic material, with intense feeling,
with brilliant descriptions.”—Worcester Spy.
CARVING AND SERVING.
By Mrs. D. A. Lincoln, author of “The Boston Cook Book.”
Square 12mo. Illuminated board covers. 60 cents.
“Carving and Serving,” by Mrs. D. A. Lincoln, author of the “Boston
Cook Book,” is a little manual by the aid of which any gentleman or lady can
become an expert carver. What an advantage it must be to be able to place with
the left hand a fork in the breast of a turkey, and, without once removing it, with
the right hand to carve and dissect, or disjoint, the entire fowl ready to be helped
to admiring guests! This is done by skilful carvers. The book also contains
directions for serving, with a list of utensils for carving and serving.
MABEL STANHOPE.
A Story. By Kathleen O’Meara, author of “Madame
Mohl,” etc. 16mo. Cloth. $1.25.
This is a French story, with both English and French characters. The author,
Miss O’Meara, by a long residence in Paris, has become familiar with French
life; and her delightful book, “Madame Mohl, her Salon and her Friends,” is
a foretaste of what “Mabel Stanhope” will be found to be.
THE COMMON SENSE OF RIDING.
RIDING FOR LADIES.
With Hints on the Stable. By Mrs. Power O’Donoghue,
author of “Ladies on Horseback” and “A Beggar on Horseback.”
Very fully illustrated by A. Chantrey Corbould. Square
12mo. Cloth. Gilt. $3.50. Special English edition.
So much interest is now being given to horseback-riding that the publication
of this book is very opportune. It is a collection of useful and practical hints on
matters that pertain to the horse and his management. The instructions given
are of the plainest and easiest description, and are the result of an experience
which has in some instances been dearly bought.
FRANKLIN IN FRANCE.
From Original Documents, most of which are now published
for the first time. By Edward E. Hale and Edward E. Hale,
Jr. With three newly engraved portraits of Franklin from copies
which are now quite rare, and numerous portrait-illustrations
throughout the text. One handsome 8vo volume of 500 pages.
Cloth. $3.00.
When Benjamin Franklin died, in 1790, he left to his grandson, Wm. Temple
Franklin, the largest collection of his papers. This collection, which had been
supposed to be irrevocably lost, was found a few years since on the top shelf of an
old tailor’s shop in St. James, became the property of Mr. Henry Stevens, and
finally of the United States. From this collection and from other original documents,
this life of “Franklin in France” has been written.
SOME CHINESE GHOSTS.
By Lafcadio Hearn.
“If ye desire to witness prodigies and to behold marvels,
Be not concerned as to whether the mountains are distant or the rivers far away.”—Kin-Kou-Ki-Koan.
Contents: The Soul of the Great Bell; The Story of Ming-Y;
The Legend of Tchi-Niu; The Return of Yen-Tchin-King; The
Tradition of the Tea-Plant; The Tale of the Porcelain-God.
16mo. Cloth. $1.00.
CATHEDRAL DAYS.
A Tour through Southern England. By Anna Bowman
Dodd. Illustrated from sketches and photographs by E. Eldon
Deane. 12mo. Cloth. $2.00.
“Mrs. Dodd is a most delightful travelling companion. Nothing in method
exactly like “Cathedral Days” is, so far as we know, to be found in English.
We can no more describe its flavor than we can describe the flavor of a fruit.
Nobody who once takes it up will be willing to put it down until he has absorbed
the whole of it. People who are going to England ought to take Mrs. Dodd’s
book with them. People who must stay at home ought to read it and enjoy the
trip in fancy.”—N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.
A WEEK AWAY FROM TIME.
16mo. Uniquely bound in cloth. $1.25.
“Fair Harbor is one of the few places now left in the world which most
people know nothing about. You may count on your fingers the men and women
who have ever heard of it; and if you have the usual number of fingers, your list
will come to an end first.” And in this “singularly pretty and attractive bit of
the very tip end of the heel of Cape Cod” some happy summer idlers passed
the delightful “week away from time” which the book records. A bit of advice:
Read it.
THROUGH THE GATES OF GOLD.
A Fragment of Thought. By Mabel Collins. 16mo. Limp
cloth. Style of “A Little Pilgrim.” 50 cents.
“A work which is reported to be of a remarkable character will be published
by Roberts Brothers in February. It is called ‘Through the Gates of Gold;’
and though by a well-known author, it was submitted to that house under conditions
of the strictest secrecy, and nothing concerning the writer’s identity or
nationality is to be revealed. As Roberts Brothers have had much experience in
the secret-keeping business, there seems to be little prospect that the mystery
surrounding the origin of the work will be penetrated. The book deals with
problems of the future life in an unusual manner, and it is believed that it will
make as much of a sensation as did ‘The Gates Ajar.’ Its simultaneous publication
in London has been arranged for.”
MARGARET OF ANGOULÊME, QUEEN OF
NAVARRE.
By A. Mary F. Robinson, author of “Emily Brontë.”
MRS. SIDDONS.
By Mrs. Nina H. Kennard, author of “Rachel Félix.”
Two new volumes in the “Famous Women Series,” which now
comprises Lives of George Eliot, Emily Brontë, George Sand,
Margaret Fuller, Mary Lamb, Maria Edgeworth, Elizabeth Fry,
Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Martineau, Countess of Albany,
Rachel Félix, Madame Roland, Susanna Wesley. Uniform library
volumes. 16mo. $1.00 each.
DANTE:
A Sketch of his Life and Works. By May Alden Ward.
16mo. Cloth. $1.25.
A delightful study of the poet’s life and works, written with remarkable
clearness and lucidity both of style and arrangement.
THE KERNEL AND THE HUSK.
Letters on Spiritual Christianity. By the author of “Philochristus”
and “Onesimus.” 12mo. Cloth. $1.50.
The author of this book asserts that a belief in the miracles of Christ is not
essential to a belief in Christ; and in an introduction “to the reader” he says
“it is to the would-be worshippers and the doubtful worshippers of Christ that
the following letters are addressed by one who has for many years found peace
and salvation in the worship of a non-miraculous Christ.”
FOOTPRINTS OF THE SAVIOUR.
A Volume of Devotional Studies in the Life and Nature of our
Lord. By the Rev. Julian K. Smyth, pastor of the New-Church
in Boston Highlands. One handsome 16mo volume. Cloth. Gilt
top. Rough edges. $1.00; white and gold cover, in a neat box,
$1.25.
LAST DAYS OF MARIE ANTOINETTE.
An Historical Sketch. By Lord Ronald Gower, author of
“My Reminiscences.” With a steel portrait of Marie Antoinette,
and a fac-simile letter. The edition is limited to 483 copies, numbered.
Printed on hand-made Irish linen paper. Small 4to.
Beautifully bound in cloth. Gilt top. $4.00.
CALENDRIER FRANÇAIS. 1888.
Printed entirely in the French language, and mounted on a card
of appropriate design. Price, $1.00.
“A calendar with a handsome illuminated background of scarlet, blue, and
gold, containing a fine collection of bits from the best French literature of modern
and olden times, all in the French language. It is a good idea, well carried out.”—Hartford
Times.
IMAGINATION IN LANDSCAPE PAINTING.
By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. An elegant folio volume,
fully illustrated, and bound in cloth. Gilt. $6.50. (Limited
edition.)
“A richly illustrated folio, of especial interest to students of art, and, it
might be added, to students of mental philosophy; for the imaginative faculty
is here investigated quite as much as are its bearings on the painter’s art. Mr.
Hamerton even goes into the distinctions between fancy and imagination,—a
labyrinth in which Ruskin once confessed himself as good as lost.”—Commercial
Gazette, Cincinnati.
REYNARD THE FOX.
After the German Version of Goethe. By Thomas James
Arnold, Esq. With 60 woodcut illustrations from the original
designs of William Von Kaulbach, and 12 full-page etchings by
Fox, from designs by Joseph Wolf. One handsome super-royal
8vo volume. Bound in half seal morocco. Cloth sides. Gilt top.
$9.00.
“The illustrations are wonderful studies in animal expression, and convey a
meaning no less sharp than that of the poem itself. Their humor is of the grotesque
variety, but it is nevertheless a rich humor.… The volume is sumptuously
printed, and is a standard edition of one of the world’s most celebrated
books.”—N. Y. Tribune.
TWO PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS
From Fair Florence to the Eternal City of Rome. Delivered
Under the Similitude of a Ride, Wherein is Discovered, The
Manner of Their Setting Out, Their Dangerous Journey, and Safe
Arrival at the Desired City.
“And behold, they wrought a work on the wheels.”—Jer. xviii. 3.
By Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell. With illustrations
by Joseph Pennell. 12mo. $2.00. Paper covers, 50 cents.
“The whole work is pervaded with a sense of the glory of movement, the
buoyancy of open air, the joy of rapid passage through exquisite scenery. The
gayety of spirits is infectious; and the reader shares, while he envies, the pleasure
of the pilgrims.”—London Academy.
FAMILIAR TALKS ON SOME OF SHAKSPEARE’S
COMEDIES.
By Mrs. E. W. Latimer. 12mo. $2.00.
The Comedies are “The Winter’s Tale,” “The Tempest,”
“Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Taming of the Shrew,” “Much
Ado about Nothing,” “As You Like It,” “Twelfth Night; or,
What You Will,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Cymbeline.”
“A series of easy-going essays in æsthetic criticism which were delivered
before a women’s reading-class in Baltimore. For similar clubs, and for students,
Mrs. Latimer’s book will be found entertaining, sometimes original, occasionally
naïve, and often suggestive.”—Shakesperiana.
A PHANTOM LOVER.
A Fantastic Story. By Vernon Lee, author of “Baldwin,”
“Euphorion,” “The Countess of Albany” (Famous Women
Series), etc. 16mo. 50 cents.
“‘A Phantom Lover’ is probably the best shilling story since ‘Dr. Jekyll.’
It is short; it is startling.… One is fascinated, and offended, and finally appalled.”—St.
James’s Gazette.
JOHN JEROME: HIS THOUGHTS AND WAYS.
A Book without Beginning. By Jean Ingelow, author of
“Off the Skelligs,” “Fated to be Free,” “Sarah de Berenger,”
and “Don John.” 16mo. $1.25.
“Every page is fresh and original, and touched with a charm all its own. The
talented author has never produced anything better.”—Springfield Union.
BERRIES OF THE BRIER.
Poems. By Arlo Bates, author of “A Wheel of Fire,” etc.
16mo. Cloth. $1.00.
“Those who like choice and true work will possess this volume, and find in
it the echo of much that passes within the reserve of their own lives.”—Boston
Herald.
BALDWIN:
Being Dialogues on Views and Aspirations. By Vernon Lee,
author of “Euphorion: Studies of the Antique and the Mediæval
in the Renaissance,” “The Countess of Albany” (Famous Women
Series). 12mo. $2.00.
“Vernon Lee’s writing would stand alone in any hall of philosophy. Her
reasoning is keen and subtle, her divination wonderful; her tolerance, being a
woman, most wonderful of all. Her scholarship is deep and broad and serviceable.
She takes rather too much pains with her ideas, but the result is that there
is no doubt about her meaning. And her thought, while it has the defects of
modernness, has also its virtues. It is vital in every part, and full of a vivid
individuality. We would not dispossess her of even her æsthetic weather-phases;
she seems, oddly enough, to draw such inspiration from them.”—The Week,
Toronto.
GEORGE MEREDITH’S NOVELS.
A NEW AND UNIFORM EDITION.
- THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL.
- EVAN HARRINGTON.
- HARRY RICHMOND.
- SANDRA BELLONI.
- VITTORIA.
- RHODA FLEMING.
- BEAUCHAMP’S CAREER.
- THE EGOIST.
- DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS.
- THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT, AND FARINA.
10 vols. 12mo. English cloth. Uncut leaves. $2.00 per volume.
10 vols. 12mo. Half calf. Extra. $25.00 the set.
“That Mr. Meredith is a master of his art, and a master of the highest
qualities, is unquestionable. That his popularity will ever be as great as is that
of many less gifted artists may be doubted; but among the refined and thoughtful,
among those who recognize and appreciate what is most artistic in art, among
those who have studied and know men and women, and who feel the charm of
brilliant literary style as exercised by an original thinker and a man of uncommon
genius, George Meredith will always hold an unassailable position.”—Saturday
Evening Gazette, Boston.
GOLDEN MEDIOCRITY.
A Novel. By Mrs. Eugenie Hamerton. 16mo. $1.00;
paper covers, 50 cents.
Mrs. Hamerton is the “Eugenie” to whom her husband dedicated
his book, “The Intellectual Life.”
“She paints a scene in which modesty, simplicity, frugality, and fine culture
combine to make a home free from ostentation, and full of those domestic virtues
which we are so slow to associate with French family life.”—Christian Register.
“It must be said of Mrs. Hamerton’s characters that they are far beyond the
golden mediocrity of clearness and naturalness. The reader accepts them unfalteringly;
they are real and living beings, human but alive.”—N. Y. Graphic.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
Of Giovanni Duprè. Translated from the Italian by E. M.
Peruzzi (a daughter of William W. Story). With an introduction
by William W. Story and a fine portrait of Duprè. 12mo.
Cloth. $2.00.
“A book published by Blackwood, of Edinburgh, has been attracting great
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clever, original, and spirited work,—as characteristic of the middle decade
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from the Italian by Edith Marion Story (Mme. Peruzzi), daughter of our brilliant
sculptor, poet, writer, and talker, Story.”—Miss Brewster’s Correspondence
from Rome.
THE SERVICES OF WASHINGTON.
An Address before the School Children of Boston, in the Old
South Meeting House, Feb. 22, 1886. By William Everett.
16mo. Paper covers. 15 cents.
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true secret of Washington’s greatness is set forth, and his excellence of character
commended as an example to youth.”—Alton Telegraph.
SUSANNA WESLEY.
By Eliza Clarke. Being the thirteenth volume in the
“Famous Women Series.” 16mo. $1.00.
“This new life of Mrs. Wesley will find many readers; for the strong, true,
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SANTA BARBARA AND AROUND THERE.
By Edwards Roberts. With 16 illustrations. 16mo. 75 cts.
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PRISONERS OF POVERTY.
Women Wage-workers, their Trades and their Lives. By
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These are the articles which have been appearing in the New York Sunday
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DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI’S COLLECTED
WORKS.
Edited, with Preface and Notes, by William M. Rossetti.
2 vols. 12mo. Cloth. Gilt. Price, $6.00.
Contents: Vol. I. Poems, Prose Tales, and Literary Papers.
Vol. II. Translations, Prose-Notices of Fine Arts.
The original poems are rearranged, so far as was practicable and convenient,
in order of date. Eight minor poems, which appeared in print while Rossetti
was alive, but which were not included in his volumes, are added; also twenty-two
others (besides some “versicles and fragments”), of which the great majority
have never yet seen the light. All the prose writings of Rossetti are also printed.
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI’S POEMS.
Including the original volume of Poems, and Ballads and Sonnets,
together with some forty new poems, making a complete edition
of Rossetti’s Poems. With portrait. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth.
Gilt edges. Price, $2.00. Half calf, $3.50; tree calf, $5.00.
DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE.
With the Italian Poets preceding him. (1100-1200-1300.) A
Collection of Lyrics edited and translated in the Original Metres.
By Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A new American edition, containing
a Preface to the first English edition. 1 vol. 12mo.
Cloth. Gilt. Price, $2.00.
CRACKER JO.
A new “No Name” Novel, the eleventh in the Third Series.
16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
SONNETS IN SHADOW.
By Arlo Bates, author of “Berries of the Brier,” “A Wheel
of Fire,” etc. 16mo. Cloth. $1.00.
ONE DAY IN A BABY’S LIFE.
From the French of M. Arnaud. Translated and adapted by
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With Others of their Kin. By Lucretia P. Hale. With
illustrations. Square 16mo. $1.25.
“It is such sweet sorrow to say good-by to this astonishing family that one
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would be if it should turn out that they had reunited and had merely gone off
into some wilderness to get ready for further campaigning!”—Boston Advertiser.
IN THE TIME OF ROSES.
A Tale of Two Summers, told and illustrated by Florence
and Edith Scannell. 12mo. $2.00.
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which it is illustrated. Altogether, author and artist have worked together with
admirable sympathy to produce a charming story.”—Christian Union.
Gordon Browne’s Series of Old Fairy Tales:
NO. 1. HOP O’ MY THUMB.
NO. 2. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
The Stories Retold by Laura E. Richards. The drawings by
Gordon Browne. 4to. Illuminated paper covers. 40 cents each.
“The venerable classics, ‘Hop o’ My Thumb,’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast,’
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