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umes of them, edited by his son, Edward W. Emerson, and his grandson, Waldo Emerson Forbes, to perceive how great a loss it would have been had they been withheld, and how bright a light they throw upon the development of Emerson's mind and thought. Here, in these two volumes, we have the later Emerson in the making. The Journals here quoted extend from the year 1820, when Emerson was a boy of 16 at college, to the year 1832, when, at the age of 28, he severed his pastoral connection with the Second Church of Boston and entered upon his broader career in philosophy and letters. These twelve years were crowded full with intellectual and spiritual experiences. It is of these chiefly that he wrote in his Journals; not of persons, not of incidents or outward happenings; but of books, of reflections, of high thoughts, imaginings and aspirations. At the age of 16, when the average boy of to-day is largely absorbed in athletics, he was "reading patches of Barrow and Ben Jonson," gravely considering Bacon's "Novum Organum," or recording his thoughts upon the Greek drama, the religion of the middle ages or the enjoyment of art. These Journals give a more intimate view of Emerson's personality than could be obtained from any formal biography or autobiography. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Daniel Gregory Mason's "A Child's Guide to Music" (The Baker Taylor Co.) is written primarily, as the title indicates, for children, but it may well be useful also to older people who have but an indifferent knowledge of musical forms and whose musical taste needs stimulus and direction. Mr. Mason writes with the simplicity which is the fruit of a thorough mastery of his subject, and with a most engaging directness. Even readers who fancy themselves wholly bereft of musical

sensibility will find enjoyment in the author's presentation of the subject. Portraits of a dozen of the greatest composers illustrate the book. In the same series appears "A Child's Guide to American History," by Henry Y. Elson. This is not a formal history, although it is systematically arranged. But it supplements the formal histories with a multitude of anecdotes, incidents and descriptions, strung upon a thread of historical narrative. Put into the hands of boys or girls who are worrying through dry-as-dust textbooks of American history, it will furnish enjoyable supplementary reading, and will incidentally awaken the youthful mind to the real fascination which American history possesses. Both for what it is in itself, and for the inspiration and suggestion which it furnishes, this is as good a book for Santa Claus to leave in the stockings of young America as the present season has afforded.

In his new novel, "Old Harbor," Mr. William John Hopkins departs from his custom of telling a story in the first person, and becomes much more vivid and interesting in consequence. Moreover, he does not content himself with two or three characters, but introduces an entire family, with their friends and connections and an humble villain or two, to say nothing of a very creditable family mystery, and he adds one more to the noble company of doctors in American fiction, that company which according to Dr. Holmes includes no bad characters because a model is lacking. The result is a novel superficially like dozens of others in which the scene is a once prosperous town, left in isolation by the retirement of the tide of business, and peopled by men and women of types not developed in the atmosphere of to-day. Actually, however, "Old Harbor" folk are capable of rebellion against the inertness of their

world, and Mr. Hopkins shows them at the moment when they declare their individual independence, and set in motion a train of highly humorous incidents all pretending to be tragic, and beguiling the reader of his tears and his shivers, until their imposture stands revealed. The new type is superior to the old and it is to be hoped that Mr. Hopkins will not return to the agreeable but slight sketches with which he made his first reputation as a novel writer. Houghton Mifflin Company.

One may shrink with horror from the spectacle of bloodshed and misery afforded by the Napoleonic wars; and yet the spectacle of the fallen Emperor, the conquered general at St. Helena, touches the heart. So fallen, so lost, he appeals to all the gentle emotions. Mr. Philip Gonnard's "The Exile of St. Helena" seems at first to be an exception to the general rule of meting out kindness to the prisoner of the rock. One who attitudinizes ceases to be dignified when his artificiality is detected, and when M. Gonnard speaks of Napoleon as occupied in those last melancholy years in creating the Napoleonic legend, that body of belief crediting him with fine motives and noble intentions all utterly unselfish, one has no more respect for him than for the usurper who made Talma give him lessons in the art of sitting with majesty. But as the author goes on, revealing motive beneath motive and showing that it was for his luckless son that Napoleon strove to attach the French people to his own memory: that it was for him that he annotated histories, and wrote and rewrote and revised, often in pain and in weakness; one reverts to the old regret, perhaps even finds it heightened, and one's respect for Napoleon grows immensely. The work which at first seemed an attack reveals itself as a panegyric. The volume is

illustrated by many Bonaparte portraits and other historical pictures, and a valuable bibliography follows a series of appendices containing much that is curious. J. B. Lippincott Company.

Although it is generally admitted that its young men give a nation its best opportunity for investment, the converse proposition that the aged represent capital invested is seldom enunciated, and old men howsoever great their official dignity, howsoever profound their wisdom, are escorted from life to the cheerful music of "No man is indispensable." As for their memoirs, they may be eagerly read, but rather from curiosity than in the hope of receiving sage counsels. But the very dimensions of the three volumes of Mr. Bigelow's "Retrospections of an Active Life" protect them from that indignity. Not for curiosity does an ordinary man consent to sustain the weight of 700 imperial octavo pages while reading them, although if he once undertook the task, he would probably not relinquish it until he reached the index in the third volume. Having arrived there he would probably demand a few more volumes to cover the forty-two years which have elapsed since the last incident of which he had read, the Maximilian tragedy; for no memoirs more interesting or more valuable have been published in this country or in England during these last twenty years of voluminous memoirs. Mr. Bigelow's plan in preparing this work includes but a brief account of his young manhood, and of his childhood only such memories and anecdotes as he has from time to time given to his descendants. But in his preface he very strikingly compares the present and the past by showing what would be the result if the New York of to-day were to be deprived of the resources with which science and the industrial arts have supplied her since

the time of John Quincy Adams. Mr. Bigelow was educated at home, at Walnut Grove Academy, at Washington College and Union College; read law in three offices, the third being that of Robert and Theodore Sedgwick; and was admitted to the bar before he was quite twenty-one years of age, for such things were possible before the time of short school days and long vacations. In New York he entered at once into a circle including so many names which were to become distinguished that even Disraeli would have hesitated to endow his most brilliant young hero with such a set of acquaintances; and as he began so he continued. Не formally entered journalism as Bryant's partner, and when after his marriage he visited Europe, he added the names of many Englishmen and Frenchmen to his list of friends. In 1861 he was sent to Paris as consul, being selected because it was believed that he was especially qualified to deal with the French press, at that time the object of much Southern intrigue, and to a great extent under the influence of Southern sympathizers. From that position he naturally advanced to that of minister.

In telling his story he inserts let

ters judiciously, interlarding them with admirable portraits, English, French and American, recording his impressions even when erroneous and thus giving a more truthful picture than he could by repeating a verdict revised by history. Among the letters are included many to and from Seward, and many exchanged with ministers resident in other parts of Europe, and a long magazine article on the triumph of union by Montalembert, unfamiliar if not unknown to most Americans. But collections of letters and portraits may be prepared by editors who never saw the writers and who have pieced the portraits together matching feature to feature from records of various character. The point

wherein a work like this is unique is in the generalizations and comment possible only to long experience, varied or repeated. For instance, in noting the ignorant criticism and unwarranted censure levelled at Seward, Mr. Bigelow says, "There will always be some who will complain that flowers will not flourish under the monarch of the forest, but most people feel amply compensated by the majesty of its proportions and the luxury of its shade, and the music of the birds that nestle in its branches, for the loss of the flowers." Only to one who had not only seen many men misjudged, but had stood near many misjudged great men, would such a comparison have occurred, but it is but one of scores to be found in these pages. In the preface he says that "In the heart of every loyal patriot arises the question whether the base line which measures the distance between our country when it first came within my field of vision, and its condition as we find it to-day, indicates that we are as a nation, advancing into Canaan or retrograding into Egypt. Do the searchings of the national heart betray the greater solicitude about the deliverances from Mount Gerizim or those from Mount Ebal? God only knows, but he lets us hope." Doubt is common to men of all ages; to doubt and yet to hope is the privilege of those who have seen so many good causes saved in the very darkest hour, by interposition of unimagined forces that they dare not wholly doubt. Mr. Bigelow calls his life "active." Carefully surveying many of the periods here recorded he seems active indeed. The mere examination of the incidents upon which his work puts a new face will give many a student days of work, and occasional remarks will initiate long investigations. "Old men for counsel"; here is counsel of the best. Taylor Co.

Baker &

SEVENTH SEKIES)
VOLUME XLV.

No. 3416 December 25, 1909

CONTENTS

FROM BEGINNING

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The Question of Medical Priestcraft. By S. Squire Sprigge, M.D.
Editor of The Lancet. NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER 771
The Writings of M. Andre Gide. By Edmund Gosse

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CONTEMPORARY REVIEW 780
As It Happened. Book IV. Hard Nuts and Soft Kernels. Chapter I.
A Haven of Refuge. By Ashton Hilliers. (To be continued.) 786
Sir Wilfrid Laurier. By J. Castell Hopkins NATIONAL REVIEW
Almost an Immortal.

H. Stewart

NATION

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FOR SIX DOLLars, remitted directly to the Publishers, Tær Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage, to any part of the United States. To Canada the postage is so cents per annum.

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