are popular and widely read. "The Medal of Honor," General King's newest story, will prove no exception to this rule. It is poorly written from many standpoints, but tells an interesting tale of army life. which will be read. The story is placed in West Point, at an army post in Arizona, in a Western College town, a new departure for General King, and back again in West Point. Very little attention is given to character study in the book. There is the same brave hero, who seems to differ little from General King's other heroes. The heroine, however, is not the captain's daughter, and thus is interesting. General King writes, however, to tell his story, and he tells an interesting one in "The Medal of Honor." "L Little Burr* ITTLE BURR," except to a close student of history or to some Burr enthusiast, will scarcely be interesting. Having read "Blennerhassett" and "The Climax," it was no surprise to find Mr. Pidgin continuing in the same highly eulogistic strain. As an account of the Revolutionary War the story is incomplete, as a romance the hero is uninteresting, and although Mr. Pidgin is such a lover of Burr, he himself draws the picture as that of a self-opinionated, selfish, egotistical young man, with no higher concern than his own ambition and the exploitation of his own opinions. From the part of the war which Mr. Pidgin describes, and the part which Burr plays in it, it would seem as though that were the only part of the Revolution worth recounting, and Washington, Lafayette and the other generals were outclassed, and Burr, the greatest strategist, ungeneralized. The present volume is his first attempt to write consecutive novel, and it embodies in its pages descriptions of life aboard a pirateer, which are remarkable for their strength and realistic and thrilling in their coloring. The story is told. in the first person by a man named Heywood, who is induced to seek a berth under false pretenses. He later finds that the frigate is a slaver and instead of being "First Officer," as his papers designate, he is relegated to the guns. The interest of the story is augmented by the presence on board of the daughter of one of the owners of the pirate ship, and the gathering of the slaves is a descriptive bit full of vivid interest. The mutiny which finally breaks all bonds, the murderous melee which follows, in which the blacks play their part, and the survival of only Heywood, Miss Allen and a sailor, when rescued by a United States Man-ofWar, is told with an intensity that pictures closely the scene of massacre. The story is interesting throughout, and replete with the vernacular common to seafaring folk. TH The Outlet* HE instinct for adventure is primal in the race; hence it is that we read with a vivid interest such a book as this one, despite its lack of perspective and proportion. In addition to the appeal of nature, to the thrill of a life without conventions or reflections, energized by a splendid physical activity as constant and unconscious as breathing, there is also the romance that attends on large undertakings, on struggles in whatever field of brains and skill and strength against odds, the reading of which calls the pulse of the reader to a noble response. Here is the raw material of the beef trust, the incipience of a business of enormous import, a conflict of huge proportion from start to finish, from the hoof to the ticker. Stories of plainsmen, narratives of cattle-ranching, have been dressed for us before now in the language of romance, and sometimes they have gained, sometimes they have lost thereby. Here are the ungarnished, unaligned facts of a great *THE OUTLET. By Andy Adams. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. cattle-drive of the early '80's, told in the language of a "cow-man." The language, as the whole book, fairly reeks of its subject, even to the extent of having its very explanations of the ways of cattle-craft so full of the vernacular as to be at times difficult to the layman, though that fact somehow adds to the convincingness of the result. One is not reading fiction, but a faithful reproduction of the conditions. which after the war confronted the Western producer of beef for market. Incidentally, the reader may also find pleasure in sundry glimpses here vouchsafed him of the buoyant and abandoned humor, the generous humanity, and the guileless profligacy of the genus cowboy. H. T. P. I T is a far cry from Gibraltar to Luzon, but the way seems short, when we travel on the "Gunga" in Dr. Rowland's "Wanderers." A duel in Spain, a stolen yacht, several interesting proposals, a hurricane at sea and similar episodes follow each other in quick succession. Brian Kinard, owner of the Gunga, a scatter-brained but good-hearted Irishman, and his friend Arthur Brown, worldfamous artist and chronic globe-trotter, figure in hair-raising episodes and escapes, most of Brown's being from women, and there are several delicious descriptions of how not to become engaged. Brown falls desperately in love in every port and between times, but escapes unscathed and sheds no salt tears over what might have been, in which result the reader readily acquiesces. Aided by wind, fortune and friends, they arrive at Singapore, and one must regret that the voyage could not have been made a more protracted one. fact. The land boom and its collapse, the ambitions, the contentions, the intrigues, are at the base of familiar dangers that we stimulate rather than curb. Elijah Berl's vision was to make the barren land "blossom like the rose." Alone he could not do it. Winston, the engineer, clear, straight, bracing, hesitates to join the man whose moral crookedness he felt. In the brief limit of my review it is impossible to trace the stream from the parting of the way, or to show how the New England conscience was silenced. But the author makes clear that the greater part of sin is not the result of deliberation, but the unconscious instinct yielding to impulses that should be strangled. The silent growth of sin and its accumulated penalties in the life and tragic death of Elijah we can only glance at. That sex cannot be ignored we see in the fearless Helen Lansdale, who moved without hesitation among men, considering work and not sex, and yet paying the penalty in pity, in suffering and sacrifice. A KATE BLACKISTON STILLE. Pocket Books MAN may slip one of these red and green "Pocket Books" (Bobbs-Merrill Co.) in his pocket and read it on the day's trips to and from town. They will occupy those hours. when he feels the need of laying aside business cares and problems. They were written to amuse, and amuse they will. The first five in the series comprise "The House in the Mist" and "The Amethyst Box," by Anna Katherine Green; "The Princess Elopes" and "Enchantment," by Harold MacGrath, and "Motormaniacs," by Lloyd Osbourne. The two mystery tales by Mrs. Rohlfs are characteristic. Either will keep one on the qui vive for an hour, and one may produce the "creeps." Mr. MacGrath's story of the princess who ran away is a delectable bit of humorous imagining. while the tales in "Enchantment" are fifteen-minute comedies in adventure. The idiosyncrasies of the "Motormaniacs" are described in a way to provoke plenty of healthful laughter, and as an after-dinner diversion deserve the heartiest recommendation. Books of General Interest History Literature-Travel-Biography-SociologyPolitical Economy T Modern England* HE third volume of Mr. Paul's val facts of history as gathered from politics, social life, literature, science and intellectual development. He aims to present a uable "History" shows no falling picture of the time with such criticism and off in the merits which marked the first two volumes and made them the object of favorable comment from the critics. The author brought his second volume to a close with the death of Lord Palmerston, and the present installment opens with the formation of the Russell-Gladstone administration, and traces the history of England from that event (1866) through the ten years following. The importance of this period of English history is at once manifest to anyone who takes the trouble of passing in review the principal facts of the time. In English politics the chief figures, of course, were Gladstone and Disraeli. The FrancoPrussian War was the most momentous event of Continental history, while the convention for the settlement of the claims against Great Britain arising from the damage inflicted by the Confederate cruiser "Alabama" upon the commerce of the United States was a memorable event in international affairs. The internal history of England during these years witnessed many striking vicissitudes. Among them may be cited the full-blown flowering of Liberalism, with its profound effects upon life and thought. The abolition of religious tests at the great universities; the new conceptions of political economy, fostered by J. S. Mill and his followers the sweeping effect of enlightened legislation, which brushed away many anachronisms in the law; together with a powerful intellectual and ethical movement in which some of the most able pens were employed-all these factors contribute to make the ten years surveyed in this volume one of the most interesting decades of modern English history. Mr. Paul has followed the general plan of his preceding volumes. He notes the *A HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND. By Herbert Paul. Vol. III. The Macmillan Co. explanation as may be needful for the better understanding of the reader. In general it may be said that the author's judgments of the chief actors are marked by fairness and discrimination. He has also used his abundant material with discretion. The volumes issued so far are very well done, and constitute a work the perusal of which the reader who likes his history with some warmth of coloring will find profitable. ALBERT S. HENRY. The Literature of the Russians* RINCE PETER KROPOTKIN delivered eight lectures on the "Literature of Russia During the Nineteenth Century" at the Lowell Institute, in Boston, during March of 1901. These discourses are now collected in a volume for the use of the general reader, who knows comparatively little about Russian literature, but who would like to know more. These 317 pages give a clear exposition of the chief characteristics of the great Russian writers of the nineteenth century, describing the important works of each. An introductory chapter contains a brief survey of the folk-lore and songs and the foundation features of the language. Russia is rich in tradition, and the late development of civilization among the people has been instrumental in preserving much of this, which can now be reclaimed in bulk and not in the fragments in which the large measure of our own English folk-lore has had to be rescued from oblivion. Regarding the greater of the Russian writers, Prince Kropotkin compares *RUSSIAN LITERATURE. By P. Kropotkin. McClure, Phillips & Co. Pushkin to Schiller, and speaks of his having been called the Russian Byron, an incorrect appreciation. For, he says, With his light character, Pushkin could not fathom, and still less share, the depth of hatred and contempt towards post-revolutionary Europe which consumed Byron's heart. Pushkin's real force was in his having created in a few years the Russian literary language, and having freed literature from the theatrical, pompous style which was formerly considered necessary to whatever was printed in black and white. He was great in his stupendous powers of poetical creation: in his capacity of taking the commonest things in everyday life, or the commonest feelings of the most ordinary person, and of so relating them that the reader lived them through. As to beauty of form, his verses are so "easy" that one knows them by heart after having read them twice or thrice. Considerations of Lermontoff, Gogol, Turgueneff, Tolstoy, Gontcharoff, Dostoyevskiy and Nekrasoff follow. The last three chapters in the book are devoted to a study of the drama, the folknovelist and the realists, of which Gorky is one, and general literature-political writings, satire, art-criticism, etc. In Russia, literature is a great influence and has much to do with the development of character. To put even a general survey of Russian literature into so small a compass has been a difficult task, but the volume presented by Prince Kropotkin should offer an interesting study to the reader who is not prepared to go deeply into the subject, yet who would, to a certain extent, be well-informed. The book should be the means of introducing many to the works of the Russian writers, in which there is so much of beauty, of originality and, best of all, of life. Following the Sun-Flag* W ITH Port Arthur as a goal, a number of war correspondents, among them Mr. John Fox, Jr., set out for Japan in the early part of the Japanese-Russian war, with the distinct. purpose in view of witnessing the Japanese "in assault and in retreat-to see him fighting, wounded, and since such things in war must be, dying-dead." Without the consent of the Japanese it was impossible to reach Port Arthur. *FOLLOWING THE SUN-FLAG. By John Fox, Jr. Charles Scribner's Sons. Supposedly this consent was gained, also promise of assistance and escort, and outwardly furthering the plan, the Japanese, with characteristic cunning, prevented their reaching the front. For seven months they were detained in Tokio and Manchuria, seeing or learning nothing concerning the real object of the journey. But one Russian soldier was seen, described by the author as follows: "We had a shock and a thrill to-day. It was noon, and while we sat on a low stone wall in a grassy grove, a few carts filled with Japanese passed slowly by. In one cart sat a man in a red shirt, with a white handkerchief tied over his head and under his chin. Facing him was a bearded Japanese with a musket between his knees. The man in the red shirt wearily turned. his face. It was young, smooth-shaven and white. I couldn't help feeling pity and shame-pity for him and a shame for myself that I needn't explain. It's no use. Blood is thicker than water." It was during this time that Mr. Fox, a close and sympathetic observer, gathered the interesting material in the present volume. "Following the Sun-Flag" gives us a picture of present-day society in Japan, a comparative study of Japanese character that is finely realistic, and a series of personal experiences carefully noted. The work is sometimes discursive, as such a volume is likely to be, but never dull, and brightened with a touch of happy humor. Mr. Fox has the faculty of using words with an attractive ease that is wholly pleasing; a situation is explained; a trait in character is particularized; a patriotic spirit illustrated by what appears for the instant to be a trifling assertion. F M. J. GILL. William Cullen Bryant* OR the biographical facts of this monograph Mr. Bradley has relied on the "official" "Life" of the poet by Parke Godwin. The literary criticism. represents the author's individual point. of view. As a biography this little book is excellent; the story of Bryant's life has *WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. By W. A. Bradley. English Men of Letters Series. The Macmillan Company. been told with interest and sympathy. To ample knowledge of poetry Mr. Bradley brings a lucid and engaging style which merits praise. The author's tone is serious and thoughtful; the tone of a cultured student of letters. Surely it is pleasant to meet a new book in these days of slovenly writing, which was evidently composed according to the principles of English diction. Together with his strictly biographical duty to faithfully narrate Bryant's career, and to portray his personal and literary character, Mr. Bradley thinks he is obliged to defend the poet from adverse criticism. Perhaps, as he urges, our critics have done Bryant scant justice. It is customary for poets to have alternate periods of praise and detraction. And, as our author suggests, it may be that in the future Bryant will be assigned his true place in literature, a place not so high, perhaps, as his enthusiastic admirers would like, but still secure in the temple of letters. Mr. Bradley points out that there is a double strain in Bryant-Puritanism and Paganism. In this, however, Bryant is at one with some of the first poets of modern times. For the love of righteousness and the perception of beauty are two of the strongest cultural forces in the modern world. Bryant looked into the heart of man, and he looked into nature, not, however, with intellectual depth or warmth of feeling. "He is the poet," says Mr. Bradley. Even of nature only in the sense of seeking to reproduce the charm of her external loveliness. He does not penetrate like Wordsworth into her fastnesses, and even the moral or religious significance which he finds in nature is less the result of any spiritualizing of her own proper life or influences, than what is brought to her by Bryant out of his inherited Puritan theology. nity of letters at a time when our national I Ernest Renan* N the eight chapters comprising this volume Dr. Barry describes Renan's career, and gives some account of the famous books which alternately amazed and fascinated the world. There are other lives in the history of literature more interesting than Renan's-lives where personality rose to heights never reached by the French savant-but Renan, both in his life and his works has this interest: he was typical of a phase in the history of human intellect during the last century; he represented the attitude of a man whose prime saw the beginning of a great scientific movement, but who, unfortunately, did not live long enough to see its simply destructive tendencies begin to wear out and a new criticism assail the positions confidently maintained by the older critics. Renan could not solve the riddle of existence, and he fell back upon negation and hedonism. In this he was not alone. Many strong intellects of the century assumed practically the same attitude. Such men are not immoral; they are non-religious. Many of Dr. Barry's interpretations and comments on Renan's writings are particlarly felicitous and effective. He shows, what is very true, that Renan was everyWhat is his place in American literature? where and at all times a literary artist. In In the well-chosen phrase of Mr. Bradley, scholarship he followed the lead of the "He marked the first growth of imagina- Germans, his immense erudition led to no tive self-consciousness in America." Per- conclusions that could be accepted as final; haps this is, after all, his true position in he settled no vexed question beyond disletters. He was surely not a great poet; pute. The "Life of Jesus" is a prose he was not, indeed, a great writer in prose poem, beautiful and infinitely pathetic, peror verse; he has left no splendid and en- haps, but it is not science, nor is it history. during work, the loss of which would be Written in the Holy Land, in a moment of deeply felt in literature. But he had much *ERNEST RENAN. By William Barry, D. D. poetical ability, and he maintained the dig- Literary Lives. Charles Scribner's Sons. |