I BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS. T was with a deep sense of personal loss that the publishers of HARPER'S MAGAZINE received the announcement of the death of Mr. William Black, in England, on December 10, 1898. An association of William Black. many years was thus brought to a close; an association in which there was so nuch that was of a purely personal charm based upon an affectionate regard from those on this side of the sea for their friend on the WILLIAM BLACK. other, that his death involves the severance of a friendly as well as of a commercial tie. It was the good fortune of Messrs. Harper and Brothers to be for a period of quite thirty years the publishers for Mr. Black in the United States. During that time, in periodical and in book form, all that he wrote was brought before American readers by this house, and during this period the relations existing between author and publisher were of the most cordial and friendly character. It seems only fitting that a brief word of farewell should be said here to the loyal friend and brilliant novelist. Of his work it is impossible, within the brief compass of a paragraph, to make a just and adequate estimate. From his first to his latest novel he had and held a constituency of his own. None of his contemporari in the field of fiction had so wide a ra as his such as that indicated by a comparison of Briseis, one of his latest, with A Daughter of Heth, one of his earliest novels. His artistic skill never failed him, and all his work was characterized by a sweet wholesomeness and generous charm that endeared him to all his readers. There is melancholy satisfaction in noting, now that the pen of William Black has done its work, that despite the temptations of the hour the high-minded writer never for an instant lost sight of his ideals, nor forgot the traditions which had, at the outset of his career, seemed to him to be the noblest in English letters. Sincere and consistent to the last, it may be said of Mr. Black's finished work that there will be found nowhere a higher standard of sustained excellence, and while prophecy is unwise, it is difficult to believe that his work will be permitted to sink into obscurity by any generation of readers of cultivation and of discriminating taste. "The Copper IT is by no means a difficult task for either a critic or a parent to see why small boys between the ages of six and ninety take a sincere pleasure in reading the books of Kirk Munroe. Indeed, when one small boy in particular, not unrelated to the writer of these notes, at the age of eight, observed that his favorite authors were Kirk Munroe and Shakspere, in the order named, his father never thought of questioning the precedence, but was somewhat puzzled at the lad's selection of the second, with Henty and Oliver Optic and Castlemon to choose from, although he was pleased that one so young should seem to like the works of one so great. It transpired that the little lad had in some way familiarized himself with the main incidents of "Julius Cæsar" and "Macbeth," which he found sufficiently sanguinary to suit the gory tastes of his age. But his liking for Kirk Munroe was based upon something better, and one may think more vitally critical. "I don't know exactly why I like 'em," he observed, when speaking of Munroe's books. "But I guess it's because they're realler than most others "a statement which encouraged his father to believe that if his boy ever should find it necessary to abandon his ambition to become a motorman in later life he might fall back on the profession of literary criticism with some hope of ultimate success. It was a very true estimate of the value of the work of the author of "A Flamingo Feather," "The Painted Desert," and "Dorymates." It is the quality of reality that has made Mr. Munroe's stories so full of charm to those who read him, whatever their age may be. His heroes are easily recognizable as living creatures, and as yet their creator has not manipulated their work in life from the given point of a recipe. His stories are by no means stereotyped. He uses a vigorous pen in the chase, and does not content himself, as so many writers for the young have done, with a brush and a stencil. However debatable it may be when said of those of maturer years, there can be no doubt that children like to believe their stories true, and there is, after all, no more keenly critical audience anywhere than that which is made up of the little folks. It does not take them long, once they are at all interested, to strip an author down to his very essentials, and if these do not strike them as related to real life they want no more of him. They are quick to detect a false note in construction or delineation of character, and, with the charming naïfness of children, are never afraid to express their real opinion. This Mr. Munroe, as much as if not more than any of our recent writers of books for boys, seems to have realized, and the result is that his work is always sincere, and wholly free from the little literary hypocrisies involving a laugh at the expense of the children between the lines, which we so frequently find in books written for the young, with a wise "wink" at the parent who reads them aloud. In The Copper Princess Mr. Munroe has given to his readers a story that is fully up to his own excellent standard. Peveril is a real being of a not too heroic mould; his adventures are sufficiently exciting, and the people with whom he comes into contact sufficiently amusing. The story is dramatic, within the bounds of possibility, and must prove welcome to all who wish wholesome fiction for their children as well as for themselves. "The Associate Hermits." By FRANK R. STOCKTON. THE clever persons who, for once forgetting themselves, assert that America has no humorists honor themselves unduly at the same inoment by forgetting Mr. Frank R. Stockton. It would be a pity if Mr. Stockton were to have to share the oblivion into which these critical and amusing persons would thrust him and themselves together. One may not complain whatever the quality of oblivion it is that may come to them, but one may be excused for wishing to choose for Mr. Stockton something of a more lasting nature. The kind of oblivion that will come to Mr. Stockton will shine lustrously through a humor-loving world long after this self-same world is oblivious of the critic who is dealing out dark places in the kingdom which awaits him. Mr. Stockton has a delightful and at the same time difficult mission in this life. He has to live up to his own standard. How difficult this is to any man, whatever his standard may be, the author doubtless appreciates in deed, there is direct evidence that he does so, for some years ago he wrote a tale in which he told of an individual who, in a certain line of human endeavor, once did so well that it ruined him, because he could never do so well again, and his consumers would have nothing below the standard of his first effort. But Mr. Stockton seems to have discovered the trick of living up to his own past. Not that he has either surpassed or even equalled “Rudder Grange in his later work, but that the workmanship, the whimsical humor, the intense reality, every quality, indeed, that made of "Rudder Grange" an appealing and therefore a great book is discernible in the books he has written since. Mr. Stockton's work is individual, and therefore original. There has been nothing like him in letters before, and he appears at present to have no understudies. Of The Associate Hermits it is enough to say that it is characteristic and worthy of its anthor. It will not rank with "Rudder Grange' or "Captain Horn," nor will it find so sure and continuous an appreciation as many of the author's short stories, but in the grade of Mr. Stockton's work that is represented by "The Girl at Cobhurst," "The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine," and "The Dusantes," it may be said to rank high. "Old Chester Tales." By MARGARET DELAND. IF one wishes to be an intimate friend of living creatures; to laugh at folly, and to smile at pleasant things; to sympathize with those who are troubled, and to weep with those in sorrow; to live in a dear old town so wedded to its past that going into and liking another town seems really a just cause for divorce-one should read with due appreciation Old Chester Tales, by Margaret Deland. Old Chester is not an abstract township. It may not be found on the map, as New York is, but it is quite as real as many more favored communities, and in its historian is indeed happy. Mrs. Deland's eye is a very penetrating one, and she has an unusual gift for putting into words that which she sees a gift which has been an acknowledged possession ever since her first notable work in "John Ward, Preacher," when she forced Mrs. Humphry Ward and "Robert Elsmere" to share with her some of the laurels the latter had Won. Allied to a clear vision and a lucid style, Mrs. Deland has a charming humor, which she lavishly displays throughout her stories, to carry us over the tearful spots, which might otherwise leave the reader oppressed; and as for the men and women, old and young, who grace her pages, they are all living, and easily recognizable as types carefully studied and admirably drawn. Besides "The Promises of Dorothea," which strikes one as very much like a case of kidnapping, and the very beautiful story of "The Child's Mother," the volume contains "Good for the Soul," "Miss Maria," "Justice and the Judge,” "Where the Laborers are Few," "Sally," and The Unexpectedness of Mr. Horace Shields." Through them all, as a sort of tie binding the series into one, walks the figure of good old Dr. Lavendar, who will rank among the strongest characters that we have had from Mrs. Deland's pen. The volume is but additional evidence, if any were needed, of the author's power to depict phases of life lying round about us, in such fashion as to bring pleasure to the reader, and to add substantially to the sum of American literature that is worth preserving. "An Angel In JULIAN RALPH. part of the pleasure to be derived from a reading of his novel comes from this fact. The author has yet to win his spurs as a writer of fiction-and one wonders, in thinking about it, why, with so excellent a pair already won in other fields, he really cares for the new. There are so many good writers of fiction, and so few clear visioned "chiels amang us takin' notes," that it comes to the reader with a sense of surprise that Mr. Ralphi should wish to desert the ranks of the few for those of the many. "The New God." By RICHARD Voss. As yet the name of Richard Voss does not convey much to the mind of the American reader, because Richard Voss is not a writer whose name appears every day in the American newspapers; but those who are familiar with recent developments in German letters can readily comprehend why anything that he does in the way of literary endeavor is worthy of consideration. He is by no means a Sienkiewicz or a Tolstoi, but he is nevertheless a factor in the European letters of to-day. He has written much that betokens an enviable future; he has written much which, betokens an enviable past; and, ten much that might just as well be forgotten. He has also written a book, published some years ago by two American authors, who apparently forgot that Mr. Voss wrote it first, since his name appeared nowhere on the titlepage. His most recent book, The New God, comes to us as the latest in a course of literature of very much the same kind. We have had" Ben Hur," by General Wallace. We have had "Quo Vadis," by Sienkiewicz. These have made us more or less receptive-Kingsley and "Hypatia" having first led us astray, if we may be classed among the wanderers fiv liking this sort of thing. ONE who was delegated specially to classify the Romance and the Realism in a library containing both would find some difficulty in placing An Angel In a Web, Mr. Julian Ralph's latest and most ambitious work. Mr. Ralph has been known hitherto rather as an observer of events than as a writer of fiction. As an attractive writer upon things, strange and otherwise, that he has seen at home and in the foreign lands he has had the good fortune to visit, under conditions which permitted of his seeing phases not visible to the eye of the ordinary traveller, he has been on "the fighting-like most really human creatures, he has writline." But as a fictionist, he has been an untried volunteer. Hence it is that when Mr. Ralph enters into a field hitherto unexplored by him, he must find his work judged by other than the usual standards, and he does not come out of the tourney badly, for, like the volunteer, whatever his faults may be, they must be ascribed to the fact that he is "feeling his way." One notes throughout the story of the Angel a consciousness of latent strength. The author believes in his Angel, and handles his narrative with the inexorable pen of a creator who considers that he knows what he is about, and intends to have his way, but, like the volunteer, he is not quite sure under what leadership he is fighting. Is he a romancer or a realist? In other words, must "An Angel in a Web" be judged from the stand-point of Poe or Hoffman-to be extreme--or from the point of view of Mr. Howells? Or in the intermediate stage of the lamented Du Maurier? One cannot help feeling, with his Ethereaus in mind, that Mr. Ralph has endeavored to stand upon a common ground with the author of "Peter Ibbetson," and not quite successfully. The reader's interest is kept dangling like Mohammed's coffin betwixt heaven and earth, and it is often difficult to decide if one is reading of mortals or of departed spirits. The mystic phases of the story are not so satisfying nor so well conceived as the more material, and one is impressed with the notion that Mr. Ralph's story would have been a vastly better one if his Ethereans had been left out of it. His descriptions of localities have all of that vivid picturesqueness which is characteristic of his books of observation, and the greater There has been a marked tendency later!" among our authors to write of matters: long since tabooed. Some years ago the socalled "Revised Testament" aroused nothing but horror among a certain class of worthy readers, who promptly anathematized the revisers. To-day we have a modern tale published in the guise of fiction which is nothing more or less than a story of the Christian tragedy. The story is handled with much delicacy, and so reverently withal that none but the most hypercritical of readers can object. It is not easy for one who has not read the book in the original to judge of the merits of the translation, which is by Miss Mary F. Robinson; but it appears to be excellent, and in every way worthy of the Odd-Number Series in which "The New God" appears. The sudden revelation of the emptiness of the old religions to the High Priest Velosianus; the mental and spiritual vagaries of the moribund Cæsar; the uneasy self-reproaching of Pilate; the mystical nature of the Hebrew maiden whom Christ had raised from the dead; the despair of Mary-all the besetting perplexities of the time are very vividly portrayed in the narration given us by Mr. Voss. The interest is tolerably well sustained throughout, but one notes a slight dilution of dramatic intensity as the story progresses. It lacks the vigor of Sienkiewicz, and is wanting in that cumulative force which one may think is essential to the best work of this nature. Nevertheless the story is well worth reading, and will undoubtedly impress those who read literature for its literary qualities, as the work of one who is very much in earnest, and of whom much that is excellent may yet be confidently expected. "The Life of Charles Stewart Parnell." By BARRY O'BRIEN. THE readers of to-day are a somewhat fortunate class, as they may realize when they consider the opportunities which have been presented to them recently. On this side of the Atlantic Ocean we have witnessed developments in European politics which have brought great men to the surface. We have seen them in the midst of their labors; we have heard them praised, and we have heard them reviled, and we have to a degree been able to see just how far the ideals for which they have striven have been realized. In other words, we have, in a sense, been an audience in a great world's theatre, sitting apart in a sizable private box of our own, watching great actors making history. Latterly we have become somewhat excited by the great drama of life, and, like the gallery gods, have shown a disposition to jump on the stage and take a hand in the thrashing of the villain ourselves—that is, some of us have -forgetting, perhaps, how comfortable it is to sit in a box and watch the goings on of others. But it has been an interesting spectacle. We have seen the rise and the fall of great men, and our sympathies and our animosities have been aroused just as they are likely to be in a theatre where there are strong actors. We have seen the great men reach the zenith of their powers, and we have seen them pass into retirement, and then into the vale of eternal rest. Among them, taking our drama in its merely historical aspect, have been Gladstone and Bismarck and Parnell. These three names, one may say with confidence, have more than any others had significance. To precisely the extent that Mr. Gladstone represented the Briton's sense of justice, and went groping about to find what it meant, Mr. Gladstone became the conspicuous Briton of the age. To precisely the extent that Bismarck was the embodiment of an adapted mediævelism, and stood as the creator of an imperial republic, with a great surface show of imperialism allied to an irresistible undercurrent tending toward liberty, he has become the conspicuous Prussian of his century. And as a stern, inscrutable, unyielding champion of an everlast ing principle, Charles Stewart Parnell may very well be named as the third of the most conspicuous figures in foreign politics in our own day we say foreign, in spite of the fact that Mr. Parnell and his principles have seemed at times to mitigate somewhat the severities of our own domestic differences by overshadowing them. Whatever one may think of the abstract merits of the argument as between England and Ireland, there can be no question that Mr. Parnell stood for a principle. While he lived he was the object of that malignant animosity which one who chooses to be strong must always accept as one of the disadvantages of his courage. When he died even his detractors felt that a man had gone out of life, becanse they were forced to admit that despite his weaknesses, despite his political views, with which they could no more agree than he could with theirs, despite every little human consideratiou to which society is so devoted, a vital figure, representing a vital principle with vital force, had passed beyond their ken. The lives of Bismarck and of Gladstone have been published, although neither of them has been dead a year. Mr. Parnell's biography has had to wait seven years-possibly because he seemed less great than others; possibly because none could write his life without an enthusiasm or an animosity born of immediate politics; possibly because Mr. Parnell died in the middle of a struggle, the end of which is not yet in sight; his work was not accomplished as Bismarck's was, and he was identified with but one question, as Gladstone was not. Mr. Barry O'Brien has written Mr. Parnell's biography judiciously. He has made his central figure a live person. One cannot read his pages without seeing or seeming to see Parnell. He has not idealized his subject, nor has he minimized the importance of his influence on British politics. His book is not a brief to prove that the Irish cause is a righteous one. He has merely presented, in all its aspects, the life of a strong representative of a question at issue from the point of view of one who, while sympathetic, is not blind to the facts. One could not have a happier, more judicious biographer than Mr. O'Brien, and the detail that his work, as published in England, has appealed both to the British sense of justice and to the Irish enthusiasm, is the best evidence of its merit that can be adduced. Had Mr. O'Brien called his book "The Real Parnell," according to latter-day fashions in titles, none could question the accuracy of it. As a story of a great man's life the biography is entertaining. As a side light on history it is of great value. As a picture of the aspirations of a self-denying soul it is wonderful, and as an estimate of the character of one who, though great, was yet human in his weakness, it is worth reading by all who are interested in and in sympathy with life itself. |