not, an oldish man, gray and strong and square, who had often patted him on the back, giving him many examples of his toric perseverance when failure beset him. Let him stand for the father, and Bordon for the son and gladiator; and see the older man silent in the corner of the casting-house, seated hour after hour on the same loose pile of bricks I have sat upon to watch Bordon now victorious and full of knowledge. But his friend watched him when triumphs were won hardly, when he was now cast down and now greatly hoping. Did the furnace burn well? Then the worker sat up and glared triumphant. Did Bordon fear the metal would not run? Then the eager head sank down upon the hand hiding eyes as the father did when the shouts in the arena made him fear for his son's life. But now it seems that the metal is fluent, it runs and there is sufficient; and when at last, after anxious waiting, the mould is broken and the hot, bust is found perfect, both worker and watcher dance a wild dance of triumph, free from anxiety once more. The gladiator is victorious. com Perhaps, reader, you may now plain that you have not grasped the whole method of cire perdue, and mutter that I have been like Florence or Naples, chary of letting you into the secrets. I have not even said a word about patina, and its preparation with acid, or salt, or the blow-pipe, or sal-ammoniac. Perhaps it may be so, but I meant not to give you cold facts but rather the warm man living and on fire. If I have indeed done well you should see him as I saw him but a few nights ago, leaping on his furnace, armed with great tongs or pincers, dampbrowed, glittering-eyed, with the hot glare strong upon him, until the lifted crucible shone white and electric in the shed's darkest corner. You should see his men rush with ready bar to relieve him, taking the weight from his strained muscles, and then behold him raking the oxide from the carefully tilted pot and pouring the clean fierce stream into the mould whose wax was yesterday baked out. To-morrow the sculptor may come down to Chelsea and look at his work in its final foreseen material, wanting only the patina which Bordon knows as part of the fine-bronze art, knows as he knows the rest, by trial, by perseverance, by experiment, by failure. He knows as we should all know, if indeed we be artists, that the time lost by such failures is no more wasted or in vain than the lost wax which melts away between the outer mould and inner core, and lets the hot metal of our thought and work run in fluently, to be' broken out as something fit and able to endure.-Macmillan's Magazine. RECENT FICTION. THE NUGENTS OF CARRICONNA. LITERARY NOTICES. An Irish Story. (No. 65, Appleton's "Town and Country Library.") By Tighe Hopkins. New York: D. Appleton & Co. A SUCCESSFUL MAN. By Julien Gordon, author The Irish temperament and conditions of social life lend themselves admirably to the uses of fiction. The mixture of sunshine and gloom, of possible tragedy and comedy, of the most insouciant gayety with brutal and headstrong passion, of a high degree of sentiment and emotion with the most callous disregard of things which appeal strongly even to many savages, makes the Irish Celt an enigma. This paradoxical character, united with the unfortunate social and political conditions that perhaps may be considered partly responsible for it, offers to the student of human nature the opportunity for fascinating study. It is for this reason that so many of the good current English novels are Irish, to use a bull, which is pardonable in treating an Irish topic. disinherited heroine in attempting to regain the property left by her father, in his anger, to his brother, an uncle whom the lady had never seen. Anthony Nugent, seized with a passion for astronomy, a fad conceived in a manner most amusingly Hibernian, advertises for a learned secretary, and in answer to this receives in his house his unknown niece. The game of cross-purposes at once begins. Anthony's shrewdness soon detects who the stranger is, and seeks to solve the problem by inducing his son, just returned from Africa, to fall in love with the young lady, who is a widow. All this is foiled, however, by the fact that young Nugent is in love with Lady Kitty Chevenix, who lives on an adjoining estate, and that Madame Dora, the masquerading niece, falls in love with Captain Trenchard, another neighbor and a gentleman of property. Out of these complications an amusing and clever story is wrought. Dora, as the widow of a doctor, finds herself the guardian angel of the man she loves by helping to rescue him from the horrors of the opium habit, as narcomania had been a subject to which her former husband had given special study. The touches of pathos and tragedy which here and there intensify the human interest are set off by an atmosphere of pleasant and natural comedy. The Irish characteristics are dashed off with much effect and genuineness both as to peasants and the gentry. The chapters describing the boycotting of the Chevenix family, because a dishonest bailiff had been discharged, are among the best. The ladies and gentlemen of the neighboring families volunteer to harvest the crops, in lack of other labor, and the scenes depicted are fresh and amusing. The character of Anthony Nugent is one of the best of recent literary additions to the Irish portrait gallery, and thoroughly racy in a double sense. Julien Gordon wrote a capital first book, with all its defects and inconsistencies, in A Dip. lomat's Diary." It had the first of all good qualities in a novel, the power to seize and captivate the reader from title to finis, with no intermissions of dulness. Julien Gordon's personages are not easy to understand by any standard of reasonableness, and act on somewhat extraordinary principles. But this certain element of perversion and exaggeration does not prevent us from taking a keen interest in the people, specially as he (if we are right in assuming the masculine pronoun) knows how to make them talk with crisp brill. iancy, and to put them into effective situa tions. This author should possess the powers of a clever playwright. The heroine of the novel before us is a strange creature measured by any rational test. Why she should attempt to enmesh the politician Lawton with her wiles with no serious object at the start except to display her arts of coquetry, one does not quite take in, as her victim is not a specially fascinating personage, and is himself a married man. But if one should try to explain logically the things people do in fiction, he would be fully as much puzzled as he frequently is in real life. The difference is that one of the prime ob. jects of fiction is to unravel and explain the motives of people in doing even extraordinary things, and make them rationally thinkable to the intelligent reader. That the affair becomes more serious is natural, but the denouement is in every way unsatisfactory. There are faults of taste in the book, but some things which are very pathetic. The picture of the forlorn and discrowned wife, who though hopelessly commonplace has yet been a devoted wife and mother, and who sees her infatuated husband bound hand and foot by a charming coquette, is a touching one, and admirably sketched by the author. Miss Jewett ranks easily among the best of our fiction writers. She is in the laudable sense of the much-abused term a realist; real in this, that she draws her characters straight from life, and preserves the homely vigor of the types which she delights in. This is so far from being inconsistent with a high degree of imaginative power, that one can hardly fancy the true realist at the best without this life-giving force, for it is this alone which breathes fire and soul into portraiture. Miss Jewett is most at home in New England life, and she wisely confines herself to this field for the most part. The present collection of short stories and sketches relates entirely to village life in New England, and they are delightful bits cut out of the very heart and truth of rustic and suburban life. Most if not all of them have been printed before in the mag. azines, but Miss Jewett's things, even of a minor sort, very well bear being put in permaDent form. There is no form of life in America which is more marked in its idiosyncrasies than that of a New England village. It has depths of tragedy mostly of a spiritual sort, which the casual on-looker rarely sees. Within its nar row walls there is a certain intensity oftentimes the result of acute minds and passionate temperaments beating against intractable conditions. As much as modern industrial change has vulgarized and belittled life in many a New England town, there still exists not a little of that brooding introspective discontent in the typical Eastern mind, such as Hawthorne saw in it, and made the raw material of some of his most striking work. Nowhere else in this country is the power of tradition even in the lower forms of social habit so potent, nowhere are there such noticeable contrasts of character, though the same unique and peculiar flavor runs through them all. Meanness of habit and largeness of mind, passion for trivial detail and love of scandal running side by side with a keen sense of the spiritual stress of life, the most amusing parsimony coincident in the same person with active sympathy and helpfulness, the most prosaic and practical view of every-day matters encrusting something of the ideal and aspiring -all this, one does not seek far to find in the New England village. Carlyle wrote of Coleridge," And so the empyrean buried under the terrene, yet struggling there made sad writhings." This in another way is eminently characteristic of life in the region we refer to. The proof of it is that in no part of the country are the lunatic asylums so well filled, and largely, too, from classes who seem to be most free from the tremendous nerve strain which frets the lives of those residing in great cities. Miss Jewett, in these stories, touches the humorous as well as the sad aspects of village life, and does it all with nicety of skill and excellent taste. Books of short stories do not, we believe, generally prove very profitable either to publisher or author, but this collection merits a better fate. Mr. Morley Roberts is not unknown in current literature, but if he continues doing as good work as he has put into "In Low Relief," it will not be long before he is deservedly better known. The scene of the novel is laid in Bohemia, that mythical land yet so real, where those who dabble in or procure a living by art or by letters in all their various branches are supposed to dwell. sonages are victims of the divine malady," and the only one who is not either an amateur or professional is the heroine, who has only the brevet rank of artist's model. John Torrington, an indolent, capricious, unsuccessful writer, yet full of fine possibilities in spite of The per his cynicism and bitterness, which are for the most part only skin deep, becomes desperately enamored of the girl, Mary Morris, who was continually flitting from one to another of the studios where Torrington idles away so much of his time. His ardent love-making to the girl of saintly face who had so fascinated his imagination occupies by far the most of the book. True love does not run smooth, however, for in this case the heroine is already in love with a sculptor, Paul Armour, who unwittingly returns the passion. He does not discover his own heart till he learns that Torrington is ardently enamored and anxious to marry Mary. He agrees to give his rival till Christmas (about three months) to press his courtship; but, without meaning aught unfair, he, in the mean time, tells Mary that he is only waiting the expiration of that period to declare his own affection pro forma. The upshot is that the artist beats the author in the race. The story of the book is very simple, but is touching and genuine in its painting of the fierce vicissitudes of Torrington's passion. Many of the scenes are delightfully amusing— those, for example, describing the queer, uncertain, hand-to-mouth methods of life in Bohemia, and the bonhommie with which the inhabitants thereof meet all the ups and downs of fate. There is a tragic touch in Torrington's love, and the nobility of renunciation is beautifully embodied in the catastrophe. The scene in which he makes his poetical proposal to Mary is one of the cleverest passages of a clever book. On the whole, In Low Relief" is a very good piece of literary workmanship, simple, strong, yet marked by no little brilliancy. If this is the maiden effort of Mr. Roberts in fiction, it points to something notable to come. Both in its freshness of conception and strength of treatment it is a book to attract attention, it is but right to say, for its own sake. FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES. THE YOUNG FOLKS' CYCLOPEDIA OF GAMES AND SPORTS. By John D. Champlin, Jr., late Assistant Editor of the American CycloWith pædia, and Arthur E. Bostwick. numerous illustrations. New York: Henry Holl & Co. This handy reference book of all matters affecting games, sports, and amusements is the most comprehensive manual which, to our knowledge, exists. It is arranged on the alphabetical plan, and is therefore most convenient for use, and in its falness it is, as its title indicates, encyclopædic. Mr. Champlin, the principal editor, has had large experience in this kind of work, and in the present book displays the fruits of his long training. Not only is every game and amusement accurately described in detail, but the history of it or of the steps which belong to its evolution. Of course, such a work not only entails wide research, but the absolute practical knowledge which belongs to the present condition of amusements and games. So we may assume that a large number of the articles have been prepared by experts. Everything which belongs to the standard games pleasing to children may be found in these pages, including all manner of scientific amusements, which unite pleasure with in. struction, and the more trifling games which while away a passing hour as well as those which join exercise with recreation. No less than minors, children of a larger growth will find abundance to attract their attention. For example, athletics of every description, general gymnastics, and special games, such as baseball, foot-ball, rowing, walking, running and jumping matches, skating, swimming, fencing, boxing, wrestling, are treated in full. Such games as chess, draughts or checkers, backgammon, lawn-tennis, croquet, etc., are explained and discussed with great wealth of detail, both in word and picture. There is nothing which comes by a wide latitude under the name of games overlooked by the vigilance of the editor. He tells us in his preface: "Intended primarily for the family, for the use of children and youth of all ages, it will be of equal value to the adult, as it includes the official scores given word by word of athletic sports and standard games, and the official records of athletic meets and events, thus making it a work of reference for the settlement of disputed questions relating to such matters. To insure accuracy, such articles as require it have been revised by competent experts." The immense range of this book makes it equally useful, as we have said, for children and adults; and in this day of deep interest in all that relates to that development of young people which aims to unite physical with intellectual culture, and lays stress on the sane mind in the sane body, it should find a large clientage. The plan is an excellent one, and it has been admirably carried out. It has been devised for American use from the American standpoint, and both editor and publisher have spared no effort to make the book cover the ground most completely. A NEW DICTIONARY. .. A STEM DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. For use in Elementary Schools. By John Kennedy, author of What Words Say." New York and Chicago: A. S. Barnes & Co. The difficulty of mastering any language beyond the ordinary needs of use consists of the immense multiplicity of words involving subtle shades of application. Of course we do not now refer to the great mass of technical and scientific words which are being continually added to our language, but to those words which are not merely the names of things more or less common, but which involve the expression of an idea. The author of this novel and useful dictionary has hit on the idea of classifying words by the root or stem syllable, which gives the distinctive force to the word as modified by the prefix or suffix. After a brief study of the system it is seen that the notion is a very simple one, and yet a very comprehensive and philosophical nucleus of classification. Every word is referred back to its elementary notion. Once having mastered the value of the prefix and the suffix, and having the root value clearly fixed in mind, it becomes easy to master for easy use a great variety of words otherwise difficult to remember. The practical use of the method depends on the law of suggestion, which is the most potent ally in the exercise of a reliable memory. Not only does the study of such a system help the mind to the command of a large vocabulary; but it also helps to that differentiation of words which enables one to use language with felicity and precision. This Stem Dictionary seems well planned and carried out, and ought to be a very helpful supplement not only to the pupil at school, but to all others who are interested in the study of language. The classification is by the root-words alphabetically arranged, and reference is as easy as it would be in the case of an ordinary dictionary. FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES. PROFESSOR MAHAFFY, the distinguished Greek scholar, has given some reminiscences of the achæologist, Henry Schliemann, who recently died at Naples, to the Academy. He makes the following estimate of Schliemann's work : "It is not my object to rehearse again the catalogue of his books, or to give a summary of the great discoveries with which he revolutionized our notions of prehistoric Greek culture. I desire rather to give my personal impressions, gathered from many years' knowledge of him and many pleasant days we spent together. At Athens I often enjoyed his large hospitality; at Tiryns I was with him during the most exciting moments of his work; and in constant correspondence I learned to know even more of him than he revealed in his very outspoken autobiography. Had it not been for the curb of a friendly English editor, who feared the effect upon our public of his candid confessions, many more curious details of his early days would have astonished the world in his 'Ilios.' For Schliemann had what I will venture to call the childish simplicity of genius. He was not what we commonly call a clever man; he made many obvious mistakes, he was often carried astray by his enthusiasm ; but for all that, perhaps most clearly because of that, he must be regarded as a genius. He had an extraordinary faculty for scenting out the likely spots to excavate; where others hoped for nothing he saw at once that great results were possible. I will not say that he always looked for the right thing--certainly not. But his search for the tomb of Agamemnon was like Columbus's search for the Indies. Because Columbus actually thought he had found the extreme east of Tartary do we deny him credit of his discoveries? The civilization which Schliemann found at Ilios, at Mycenae, and at Tiryns was not that of the Homeric poemsnay, it may even be called a civilization very distinct from it. But it was not so far removed as to have left no trace in the minds of Homeric men, and where Schliemann found his gold and his ornaments the Homeric Greeks knew that the greatest seats of early culture had flourished. Any one, however, who visits either the Museum of Berlin or that of Athens will not quarrel with Schliemann's theories, but stand in wonder at the marvellous treasure which he rescued from oblivion." · and he frequently surpassed it in the thirtyfour years since it appeared. Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre' two years later at once became, and has never ceased to be,. popular. The Histoire de Sibylle' (1862), a novel with a purpose (a kind to which M. Feuillet became more and more addicted), brought George Sand to the rescue of what she considered her own principles in "Mademoiselle La Quintinie ;" and a good many critics rank M. de Camors' (1867) as the author's masterpiece. As a picture of manners it pretty certainly is; in character, and especially in passion, it cannot pretend to vie with the narrower, but more concentrated power of Julia de Trécour' (1872), where the ill. starred love of the heroine for her stepfather is depicted with extraordinary force and delicacy. M. Feuillet's reputation was sustained, but not heightened, by the three novels which followed: 'Un Mariage dans le Monde,' 'Les Amours de Philippe,' and 'Le Journal d'une Femme' (of which the second is the best, and all of which appeared in the seventies). Written but three or four years ago, 'La Morte' (like 'Sibylle,' a challenge to free thought, and an exceedingly powerful, though very unequal book) was, perhaps, the strongest work that any novelist of such an age has produced in our time. Opinions varied more about Honneur d'Artiste,' which appeared but a few months ago; but neither it nor some shorter stories which had previously appeared show a real decadence, while the author's mastery of French had by the mere falling off of his rivals become almost unique. To this fact of his survival he owed much in other ways, and he will never be classed with (in different lines of fiction) Dumas, or Balzac, or Gautier, or Mérimée, or Flaubert. Bat with the exception of George Sand (to whom some have even held him equal except in point of fecundity) there is hardly another dead French novelist of the last half century with whom he need fear comparison. |