Recent Literature

PROFESSOR WHITNEY has done great service to the public by collecting in one volume a number of his essays, many of which must have been read by some of our readers in different numbers of the “North American Review,” while others were hidden in less accessible pages. For many years Mr. Whitney has labored at the head of American students of linguistics and of Sanskrit ; more than any one in the country he has devoted his life to the pursuit of those studies of which there is, in general, a lamentable ignorance in America ; and not only in the way of encouragement and advice has he served this cause, but by an unceasing and intelligent criticism of other workers in the same field. Very gradually the knowledge of the importance of the thorough study of linguistics, which of itself demands as the corner-stone some acquaintance with Sanskrit, has come to teachers and scholars. To those men who had acquired their knowledge of Greek and Latin from the old-fashioned text-books, according to the old-fashioned rules, there seemed something presumptuous in the statement that a science had been discovered which made necessary the rewriting of our once-valued grammars, aud tested the knowledge of Greek and Latin from another standpoint. There was nothing, however, that was claimed for this new science which destroyed the value of the knowledge which its possessors, educated according to the old traditions, naturally and justly claimed ; but it was regarded from another point of view, as something not absolute in itself, but as a link in a much longer chain. Already the greater part of Greek and Latin etymology has been rescued from the hands of grammarians who failed, not from any culpable ignorance, but from the impossibility of knowing what only the last half-century has made clear. There are indications, too, of new light being thrown upon the complications of syntax. But meanwhile the leaders have gone far in advance of their flock, while in Europe, and especially, of course, in Germany, within the memory of living men this science has taken its place along with chemistry, mathematics, or philosophy, while in this country some of our best colleges are dependent on the piecemeal work of individual instructors who know the importance of this subject and feel keenly the disadvantages under which both they and their students labor. That the public should have but slight acquaintance with and less interest in these subjects is only natural, but “ the public ” is a vague term, and we are sure that there are many who will be glad to hear of this volume and who will profit by it.

The first few essays are about the Vedas ; giving in the first place a descripton of them, and taking up in greater detail, in one case, the Vedic notion of a future life. Following this we have some thorough reviews of Max Müller’s history of Vedie literature, of his translation of the Rig-Veda, and a discussion of different theories about the method of accomplishing this difficult task, the translation of the Veda. Further on we find two admirable reviews of Max Müller’s “ Lectures on Language,” one of Schleicher’s Darwinism in language, which, to our thinking, is the best in the book ; an easy overthrow of Steinthal, and an admirable article on “ Language and Education.” From this varied list of subjects it will be seen that this is a volume that no student of linguistics can avoid reading. In almost every one of the essays Mr. Whitney appears as a critic, and it is especially in this capacity that he is deserving of praise. He has the judicial coolness that prevents him from being run away with by any wild theory; he points out clearly, and often with humor, the inconsistencies and vagueness of many eminent leaders who are more enthusiastic than critical ; and, particularly, he keeps an ever watchful eye upon Max Müller. That he should do this is not strange. It would be hard to find two men more unlike than these two. Müller is a brilliant, fascinating writer, who by the charm of his two volumes of Lectures must have won many students to interest themselves in linguistics ; his work, too, has been of great importance, but his very enthusiasm makes him hasty and often inaccurate in his judgments ; questions of the utmost importance, that require the most delicate and patient examination, he will declare to be settled in a turn of his hand. He is an admirable man to have before the public; he amuses at the same time that he instructs those who otherwise might dread the arid stretches of the science. His uncertainties, his inaccuracies, the unsatisfactoriness of very much of his work, — and especially just where the test would be put on the strength of the writer’s mind, —and his equivocal dexterity at avoiding a difficulty, are all shown by the criticisms of Mr. Whitney, although never in any unjust or spiteful way. Mr. Whitney lacks Professor Müller’s fire, but he is far more accurate as a guide. His earnestness in attacking Schleicher’s theory of the “ independent and organic life of language,” a familiar heresy, illustrates well Mr. Whitney’s power. Besides his controversy with Müller and his refutation of Schleicher, he has a good word for Professor Key of London, who looks down upon the frivolous pretensions of Sanskritists, and M. Oppert, of Paris, receives a thrust that should have done him some good.

In all of Mr. Whitney’s writing we find the same merits,—the careful accuracy, the constant appeal to common-sense, and often the humor that only appears in connection with some peculiarly telling blow. Of all the men now working in linguistics, there is no one who works with more intelligence than Mr. Whitney ; he and M. Bréal, in respect to that quality, stand easily foremost and nearly equal. We would warmly recommend this book to teachers and students and to all who take any interest in the condition of one of the most fascinating of sciences. We trust that the author will fulfil his half-promise of giving us another volume ; there is no Superfluity of such books in the American market, nor in any market, for the matter of that.

— Far back in the youth of the world,— or in the age of a world that has passed away, — or at any rate, six or seven years before the war, — when this old magazine was new, the newest thing in it was a series of papers called “ The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.” It was so novel that it seemed a new kind in literature ; it was so unique an expression of a peculiarly original mind, that it defied the hand of the imitator, and never wearied by becoming a manner or a fashion. It remained the inventor’s own, and will be inalienably his. When he gave us “ The Professor at the Breakfast-Table,” he did not repeat himself, but continued what he had to say in another character that showed a new phase of the same mind ; and now, after a lapse of twelve years, he completes the personal trilogy in “ The Poet.” We say personal for want of some better word, but we should be sorry not to recognize that the personal form is only a means of study, a bond of union with other minds which the author constantly seeks to trace out and strengthen. It is by virtue of this that he has been able to strike so many responsive chords in his readers, and to establish such close sympathy with them. He studies them through himself; he is interested in himself because he is like them, and explains them to themselves ; and we all find that his hopes and fears, his prejudices, his antipathies, his impulses, his vague psychical impressions and intimations are for the most part our own.

We cannot imagine that the Poet has been talking to any of his readers here to so small purpose that we need animadvert particularly upon what he has been saying during the past year. But some of his fellow-boarders have taken our liking to that degree that we must not let them pass out of these pages unsaluted. The slight thread of love-story running through the papers unites two characters in whom is a fresh and delicate attraction. That sweet newspaper Scheherazade is new to the great company of fiction ; she is scarcely more than indicated ; but she seems, with her almost impossible conditions, a familiar reality ; and in the young Astronomer, who takes her away from her heroes and heroines, and their cruel critic, is felt that simple self-abnegation which one perceives in scientific men, and which is here suggested we think for the first time. It gives him a serene elevation of character, as it gives a beauty to the grotesque Scarabee, who disclaims the title of Entomologist: “A society may call itself an Entomological Society, but the man who arrogates such a broad title as that to himself, in the present state of science, is a pretender, sir, a dilettante, an impostor.” These people have the extraordinary advantage of being all unhackneyed personages, and so has “ the Lady,” with her gracious friendship for the poor little Scheherazade, at whose jokes she laughs, and at whose stories she weeps ; and the whole conceit of her poverty-stricken elegance and meek gentility is charming.

As for the Man of Letters, we could wish he were more like — rather, we should be glad to believe that all brutal critics smoke a had quality of tobacco and go off leaving their board bills unpaid. But we are afraid they do not. What they can do to torture and embarrass an author is well enough suggested in the conduct of the Man of Letters towards Scheherazade, whose stories he hunts down in their successive instalments, anticipating their course, and ridiculing their end beforehand. The limitations of the mere book-noticing critic’s work in time and space are such that it can hardly ever be adequately done, and in a keen and not too kind ly intellect, the perfect immunity enjoyed while striking out day after day, or week after week, — or month after month, dear reader, if you will, — and feeling that some one writhes at every stroke, begets a cruelty which is none the less cruelty because it persuades itself that it is zeal for literature and taste. It is so sweet to know whilst you make Smith hop by your notice of his poem, that you are also defending the cause of true poetry ; that the sneer under which Jones squirms, not only hurts him who wrote the ridiculous magazine paper, but also contributes to elevate the standard of magazine writing ; that the stab administered to Miss Robinson through her novel reforms fiction whilst it amusingly rankles in her stricken bosom ! This privilege, we say, of indulging a taste for blood in the service of elegance and refinement, is one that will go as near to deprave a man as anything we know ; and we would fain urge upon the brotherhood that, since it is so very hard to be just, it is always well to be merciful, in self-defence, if in no better cause. The Man of Letters will not agree with us, but will ask us if the reading-public has no rights in the matter. Dear friend and brother, do you suppose the reading-public cares for your opinions ? It relishes your sour sarcasm and ruthless wit, and when it has had a good deal of you, it will like still better some sharper cynic who shall finally abolish you as a literary terror.

As to the feeble books which but for you you fear would become classic and immortal, we really believe they would somehow perish without you. Our author suggests letting them alone ; and that passage about the best way of getting rid of Angelina’s book of verses is full of the tolerant wisdom of all the Poet’s discourse.

Of the different chapters we believe we like none better than the first describing the old gambrel-roofed house, which the visitor to Cambridge will recognize from its likeness in this volume. Of the poems, ” Homesick in Heaven ” and the “ Epilogue to the Breakfast-Table Series ” please us best as being best representative of two prevailing moods of a genius, which, in whatever mood it speaks, rarely speaks without giving some subtle delight or uttering some penetrating thought, or suggesting some new sense of the mystery which surrounds life. It is a genius which is alert, through and through ; which responds vividly to every influence stirring the common life, and to the thousand finer touches that leaves most lives dumb; which learns itself from all things that are, and which is as sole of its kind as any that ever was.

— One feels at once, in taking up a book of Mr. Eggleston’s, that he has to do with a natural story-teller. The author’s own eager interest in what he is about, and his thorough realization of the people he has set out to describe to us, have their immediate effect on the reader, with whom, when he has begun the book, it is never a question whether he shall leave off till he comes to the end. In the present story the materials are simple and even common, but several of the persons are new, and there is the shadow of a grand dramatic element thrown across the ordinary plot that gives it dignity and solemn force. The scene is in Southern Indiana, and the time is that of the great Millerite excitement, when vast numbers of good people throughout the country believed that the end of the world was at hand, and probably most men were touched with a vague fear that it might be so. The lovers in Mr. Eggleston’s book were among those who thought it might be so ; and, to be prepared for any emergency, they ended their varied tribulations by getting married the very night that the world was appointed to be consumed. They are Julia Anderson, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, and August, his German farm-hand ; and they are persecuted by Julia’s mother, who leads her whole family a life of such torment as a vulgar shrew can inflict. She feels it a great disgrace that her daughter should be “ in love with a Dutchman,” and tries to promote her marriage with Mr. Humphreys, a river-gambler, who has retired to the country in the character of singingmaster, until a little excitement about him in Paducah has subsided. The lovers are befriended by the good Methodist “ help,” Cynthy Ann, and by Jonas, the farm-hand who succeeds August when he is “ turned off” for being in love with Julia ; and they are also abetted by Julia’s uncle, whom her mother had jilted in his youth, and who had since become a philosopher and lived alone in a log - built “ castle ” in the woods. “Andrew Anderson belonged to a class noticed, I doubt not, by every acute observer of provincial life in this country. In backwoods and out-of-the-way communities literary culture produces marked eccentricities in the life. Your bookish man at the West has never learned to mark the distinction between the world of ideas and the world of practical life. Instead of writing poems or romances, he falls to living them, or at least trying to. Add a disappointment in love, and you will surely throw him into the class of which Anderson was the representative.” This personage adds to the romance and variety of the story, and he may be true enough, but he is not a very tangible figure. August himself is only objectionable as all sentimentalized Germans in American stories must be ; he has manly qualities and does natural things, while Julia is very much more of a woman than heroines are apt to be. We find, moreover, a great reality in the characters casually introduced. Dr. Ketchup, the “ steam-doctor,” who had been a blacksmith ; the gamblers on the river-steamboat ; the “ mud-clerk ” with his cool, humorous liking for August, and the cynical philosophy which enables him to lead a quiet life among the pistolling passengers of the “ Iatan ” ; Bob Walker, the poor “renter,” who is doomed to lasting want, by reason of being both indolent and honest, but who wants to buy Mr. Anderson’s place when it is to be sold for little or nothing just before the end of the world ; the sanctimonious young clergyman, who advised against Cynthy Ann’s marrying Jonas because he was a New Light, — all these, though slightly sketched, are very credible and recognizable people, and pre-eminently help to verify locality.

The population is the same as that in “ The Hoosier Schoolmaster,” but it is in a higher mood, thanks to the prevailing fear that the destruction of the world is at hand.

The haste with which a fiction must be written for publication from week to week has left its marks upon the conduct of Mr. Eggleston’s story and the development of its characters, and in the fresh field which he has opened, we have chiefly to wish him more favorable conditions of work.

— The latest of the Idyls of the King can scarcely be thought the best of them. The story of “ Gareth and Lynette ” is not very pleasing, and the treatment, though it has that grace which belongs to all the poet’s work, has not many peculiar graces. Gareth is the son of Queen Bellicent and King Lot, on whom his fond mother, to keep him at home, imposes the condition that if he goes up to Arthur’s court, he shall go unknown, and shall serve a year and a day in Arthur’s kitchen ; but Gareth is very glad to go, even on those terms. At the end of his service, he is known, and demands of the king that he may be the first knight sent on any enterprise thereafter ; and while he stands before the king, still in his scullion’s dress, there comes the lady Lynette to ask Lancelot’s help against three outlaw knights who beleaguer her sister Lyonors in her castle. She cries “ Fie on thee, king,” when Arthur offers her the service of the scullion, instead of Lancelot, and turns from his presence in scorn ; but Gareth rides after her all the same, and, in spite of her contempts and disdains, overthrows her sister’s foes, and then, the two being overtaken by Lancelot, is known for Prince Gareth,—

The passages that relate to Arthur in the poem complete the conception of that large and noble character, whose heroic goodness and grand patience make him the most beautiful figure of romance. As he sits at judgment in the hall, a widow appears before him, and with such an appeal as a high-tone Southern lady might have addressed to Lincoln : —

And Arthur promises to See her righted with much the same sad tolerance of her insult, as Lincoln used toward such petitioners.

The character of Gareth is not much, nor that of Lynette, though there is a pretty touch of nature in her that shows her angry to find him prince whom she had half learned to love as scullion. A dreamy light of allegory dwells upon the story, adding a charm which we should fear to spoil by too close scrutiny, and there are of course pictures that take the sense with their inimitable perfection, like this : —

Besides such pictures there are those miracles of exquisite phrase that none but this poet can work, with wonders of artful simplicity, and marvels of gracious affectation, better than nature (which, by the way, we never do get in works of art, and should not like if We did); so that, if it is indeed the least of the Idyls, we have still to lament that it is the last of poems the like of which no one will write again.

— Whatever may have been Sir Charles Eastlake’s weaknesses as a painter, they certainly did not impair his ability to write a most entertaining as well as valuable book. Long referred to as the standard manual on the subject of which it treats, we are glad to see his “Household Taste ” introduced to the American reader, through the medium of a reprint, and by an editor who has a lively and correct appreciation of the need from which the arts of design, and, proportionately those of painting and sculpture, in this country suffer.

The range of the book is ample. Beginning with a chapter on Street Architecture, we are led successively into the entrance-hall and through the most important rooms of the house, discussing all the details from roof to floor, not disdaining even to touch upon the fire-poker and the cords by which pictures are hung. The latter, for instance, must harmonize in color with the tint of the wall, and their lines must be reconciled with the prevailing vertical and horizontal lines of the room, through the abolition of the present triangular figure composed by every picture-cord. The remarks upon carpets touch us even more nearly than they did the author’s original audience. The underlying principle traceable throughout his hints is this : that every piece of furniture or appurtenance about a house should be rendered as beautiful and pleasing as possible consistently with the end for which it is made. Such things cannot be pleasing and beautiful unless harmoniously combined and contrasted; and so a necessity arises of organizing the interior of each room with a view to its whole effect, — a necessity seldom regarded by modern professional furnishers. Use is the first consideration, ornament the second. Neither must use be allowed to banish ornament, nor ornament to conceal nor interfere with use. The illustrations and designs with which the book is well supplied have a strong mediæval character, a fact which points us to the root of reform in household taste. In order to resume progress in the industrial arts, we must take up their history at the time when good taste last directed them. What we have not we must borrow, and borrow from the later centuries of the Middle Ages. The new birth of mediævalism will in time develop an individuality as expressive of the present as the arts of the “cinque cento ” were of that epoch.

The chapter on dress is profoundly suggestive. Radical good taste, indeed, is closely connected with morals. Mr. Eastlake shows, for example, how the passion for expensive jewelry, as such, tends to destroy excellence of design in this department. That is, good taste cannot flourish long without good motive. Simplicity and sincerity forward good taste, and are in turn encouraged by it.

The great drawback, however, to the reform which the painter and his editor urge upon us is, that manufacturers cannot, at present, generally provide articles designed in good taste at so cheap a rate as those in a corrupted style, the demand for the latter being greater, and the skill to produce the former, rarer. Art-education will remove the last of these obstacles, but it lies with the possessors of wealth to give the reform its first impetus, by spending wisely as well as freely, and making their abodes in every detail sources of instruction and inspiration, without and within.

It is worthy of notice that the binding of Mr. Eastlake’s book — a detail not without the pale of criticism, in this case — is in a quaint and pleasant taste. The painterpoet Rossetti, who is also partner in a firm established for the production of improved furniture, metal-work, and stained glass, set the now prevalent fashion of decorative book-bindings, in the volume of his poems published a few years since.

FRENCH AND GERMAN.<FNREF>*</FNREF>

Of the books that we have before us today by far the most deserving of mention is Ferdinand Lotheissen’s Literatur und Gesellschaft in Frankreich zur Zeit der Revolution 17891794. It is by no means uncommon, as every reader of German knows, to find books in that language which are accurate and exhaustive ; and even if many are made less attractive by a rugged style and careless arrangement, they yet have enough positive merit to be indispensable to the student, who needs no rhetorical graces to tempt him on in his work. But not all German works are unattractive, even if they lack the grace that makes the reading of Sainte-Beuve, for instance, so agreeable that one is almost tempted to regard it as a frivolous joy. There is Julian Schmidt who, in spite of the enormous length and breadth of his pages, always interests his readers ; and in regard of interest we are sure that this work of Mr. Lotheissen’s will not be found defective. In his volume we find the following subjects discussed : society, women in the Revolution, parliamentary eloquence, the press, the theatre both before and during the Revolution, the two Chéniers, Shakespeare in France, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the songs of the time, the ideal in the Revolution, with a few pages on German literature in France. The French Revolution is a subject which, both from its complexity and interest, is not readily exhausted, and we can only be glad to be aided in our studies by such books as this which we are discussing. In his general remarks Mr. Lotheissen speaks of the Revolution as an outburst to be compared only with the Reformation, with this difference, that it was the work of philosophy and not of religion, and especially of a philosophy which, while it introduced great factors of uneasiness, such as equality, brotherhood, etc., into men’s minds, found those in authority — who were to be those most directly attacked by such principles — fortified only by ignorance and apathetic pessimism, which at once enslave and betray their victims. But it not so much for these more or less vague discussions that we mention this book, as it is for the chapters which treat of more definite subjects. Perhaps as fair an example as any would be the one on Shakespeare in France, where the author tells again the old story of Voltaire’s repugnance to the English poet, and of all his various unsettled feelings about him. A short story that is told in a foot-note may not be out of place. Speaking of a passage in which Voltaire has apparently imitated a line from Othello, La Harpe burst into admiration with the words, “ What lines these are in comparison with Shakespeare’s coarse (grossier) language ! ” Sedaine, however, who was a Shakespeare enthusiast, said, “ He who only took Zaire out of Othello has left the best part behind.” It would be well, however, for those who are most austere in their judgment of the classical minds of their neighbors to recall the time — to be sure it was earlier, but then it was in England that it happened — when even Dryden so wofully misunderstood the Tempest, when Shakespeare was considered a great, but untamed genius, who needed all sorts of manipulation to be made acceptable. Then in the last century, in Voltaire’s time, when the great Shakespeare revival began, Garrick could not keep from setting his dainty fingers to the improvement of Shakespeare, and acted Tate’s King Lear with its joy and blessing in the last act. If things were then in this state in England, — we need not speak of the present time,— we can surely forgive the French for their coldness. Shakespeare is worshipped by us so religiously, he is set on so lofty a pedestal, that any discussion about him is at once unfair and one-sided. But whatever his merits may be, he cannot be legitimately counted as belonging to recent French or German literature, with which we are now more particularly concerned. Once more we warmly recommend this book of Mr. Lotheissen’s to all students of literature.

But not all is good that comes out of Germany; there is occasionally a lack of judicial impartiality in their writings about their recent foes the French ; facts may be most thoroughly accumulated and then misused as badly in the new empire as in any republic on either side of the ocean. As a melancholy proof we would mention Hermann von Scharff-Scharffenstein’s Geheime Treiben, der Einfluss und die Macht des Judenthums in Frankreich seit hundert Jahren (1771-1871). While many pessimists give themselves up simply to general lamentation, to vague regrets about the emptiness of all things, there are yet others who have discovered either some cause of all our troubles, or, more commonly, foresee the dangers threatening civilization from some source which is generally disregarded by a careless world. There is no unanimity about this peril; with some it is a Chinese invasion, others dread the Jesuits or Communism, but our writer brands the Jews as the evil-doers in this world of sin and trouble. It is amusing to see the fire and tirelessness there is in this most fantastic hobby. For instance, Louis Napoleon, late Emperor of the French, was a foe of Germany ; his uncle, too, was not its cordial friend : why was this ? Because a great many Jews fled to Corsica in the Middle Ages, and from one of these families sprang the Bonapartes. Even the present Pope is said to have Jewish blood in his veins, and it is implied that his leniency towards those who were formerly obliged to live only in the Ghetto, and to be driven once a year to hear a sermon on the advantages of Christianity, is merely a bit of treachery in the interests of the religion which he secretly adores within his heart. Less conspicuous persons are also exposed. Meyerbeer is shown to have Composed his “ Huguenots ” with the malicious intention of setting, Protestants and Roman Catholics by the ears. Will not some one write a book to prove that in his L'Africaine he was only moved by a desire to expose the horrors of slavery ? It might help restore his damaged reputation. Offenbach is wilfully using the sweet charm of his music to undermine those principles which depend so much on a modern heresy not yet two thousand years old. The most successful opera-singers, the two Pattis and Lucca, are only successful by means of religious intrigue. If that is true we in America have no need to complain. But why go on ? In spite of its absurdities, in fact, by means of them, the book is extremely readable. It contains a mass of gossip and scandal, especially about financiers, that is very entertaining. A. von Hartmann, who is not to be confounded with E. von Hartmann, the author of the Philosophie des Unbewussten, of which we have already spoken, has written a little book called Goott und Naturwissenschaft, which contains a brief summary of the objections of materialists to theism and religion. It is no scurrilous pamphlet, although it is written with much interest. The small size of the book may make it seem more offensive than would the manner in which it is written. It is like having a little boy attacking the opinions of his parents. Perhaps the wicked have a similar feeling about tracts.

A book which deserves much more condemnation for its manner of treating sacred Subjects is Der Antoninus von Padua, with illustrations by Wilhelm Busch. The letter-press is in poetical form ; but it, as well as the illustrations, is in every way offensive to good taste, and we only mention the book because it is one that has already had a large sale and threatens to make its way in this country. It is really a ribald production. Busch has too much talent to make one patient of such prostitution of it. Much better examples of his humor may be seen in a book just published by J. C. Hotten in London, of course without acknowledgment of the person to whom the credit of the illustrations is due. The series representating the piano-forte player is inimitable.

Of French books we have but few. There is but little appearing in that country, as was naturally to be expected. There are a few novels, among others M. le Comte et Mme. la Comtesse, un Mari, which is an excellent example of the second-rate mechanical French novels,—excellent, be it understood, as an example, not as a novel. It is in such books as this that we see the venomous way in which the novelist of that country draws a husband, as a man unutterably despicable. Better writers do this with more art, but they almost all do it, and indeed the subject of most of their novels being what it is, this exaggeration has to appear to justify the usual dramatic action ot the story. But even that necessity does not make it pleasant. The story will not be found unreadable, perhaps, by those who need the strong waters of French fiction.

Not wholly uninteresting is a book entitled La Jeunesse de Lord Byron. It is a book that is composed entirely of material that exists in English, but is has the advantage of presenting it to the reader in a convenient and easily readable form. As a life of Lord Byron it is, of course, incomplete ; but, as far as it goes, it will be found entertaining and instructive.