Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/95



fairy stories of The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, 'Cinderella,' Beauty and the Beast,"' 'Little Red Riding Hood," and '*Jack the Giant-Killer —in which we think Miss Thackeray is happiest. The historic figures of the doughty and somewhat Quixotic '"'Jack; the faithful, trusty, ugly "Beast; charming little '*Cinderella,"and all of the rest of them, Miss Thackeray shows us are masquerading before us, as every-day acquaintances. Only, we have been too busy or too dull to recognize them. But in these pages we have come to the house of the Interpreter," and the dullest of ' Pilgrims,"' who shall say '* What means this?'shall receive such a vivid and glowing explanation that he will continue his pilgrimage, happier and stronger, because he has looked on the pictures. Perhaps no better idea can be gained of her writings than is contained in this quotation from the story "Sola: '*What does it take to make a tragedy? Youth, summer days, beauty, kind hearts, a garden to stroll in; on one side an impulsive word, perhaps a look in which unconscious truth shines out of steadfast eyes, perhaps a pang of jealousy in a tender heart; and then a pause or two, a word, a rose off a tree—that is material enough for a tragedy." To be sure the people who usually get into a novel would decline an engagement with such meagre stage accessories. There would have to be, at least, a pistol for the hero to shoot his rival with, a light-gray powder for somebody to put into a glass of wine, and the revelation of some fearful mystery in the closing chapter. But Miss Thackeray's characters are as simple and natural as the circumstances by which they are surrounded. If she has a theory to delineate by character, it is that of self-abnegation. We sometimes wish that her characters would consider their own personal inclinations, instead of consulting the wishes of aunts, uncles, and cousins, and betraying a tender concern for the feelings of all their estimable kith and kin. But we do not apprehend that this fault of self-abnegation will become epidemic. The good people who already practice it will find encouragement in these pages, and the selfish ones models which it will not harm them to contemplate.

The paper entitled 'Little Scholars'' is charming in its way. It is a description of public charities for children in London. The sympathy and appreciation for children which it evinces are rarer than the love for them. One is conscious, in reading these accounts, that the authoress has been admitted into that odd Free Masonry, and that she is still acquainted with all of those quaint secrets which most of us have outgrown. How deftly she uses the pass- words which admit her to their confidences, but which are as impossible for the uninitiated to pronounce as the ancient  Shibboleth was to any but the elect. And once more, to let her speak for herself, after describing, with equal sympathy, the charities of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, she says: ''And so, I suppose, people of all nations and religions love and tend their little ones, and watch and yearn over them. . . . Who has not seen and noted these things, and blessed, with a thankful, humble heart, that fatherly Providence which has sent this pure and tender religion of little children to all creeds and to all the world? "

QUEEN HorTEnsE: A Life - Picture of the

Napoleonic Era. An Historical Novel. By L. Muhlbach. Translated from the German by Chapman Coleman. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

The Muhlbach novels, which were so popular when they first appeared, two or three years ago, are already a drug in the market, even voracious circulating libraries receiving them with apathy. So much delectable gossip, although whispered in high places, at length palls upon the public appetite. In fact, is not the American novel-reading public a/ready acquainted with every scandalous tidbit concerning '' Joseph II and his Court?"Has rumor said any thing of Marie Antoinette which this same public does not know? Or were there any intrigues of crowned heads which are not already as familiar as household words? But if the American public is flattering itself that it has exhausted all of the sources of information in regard to these topics, the persistent appearance of the Muhlbach novels successfully demonstrates that this belief is no more than a pleasant delusion, and that there are yet secret things to be made plain. Qween /lortense is, we be-