Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885

Mrs. A.L. Wister. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company.

"Barbara Heathcote's Trial." By Rosa Nouchette Carey. Philadelphia: J.B.

Lippincott Company.

"The Bar Sinister. A Social Study." New York: Cassell & Co.

"Pine-Cones." By Willis Boyd Allen. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co.

"An Old Maid's Paradise." By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Boston: Houghton,

Mifflin & Co.

In spite of all the clever pleas urged by the lovers of realism for realistic novels, it is easy enough to see that the mass of readers are just as much in love as ever with a high romanticism, and Miss Marlitt's stories still retain the strong hold they first took of the popular heart. The success of fiction comes from the fact that it supplies a want existing in most people's minds: lively incidents to awaken and stimulate the fancy, a touch of mystery to give a thrill of pleasing fear, sharply diversified characters impelled by strong motives which insure a lively conflict of passions,—all these are what the average novel-reader demands, and finds in Miss Marlitt's works. A great rambling German house, with suites of disused apartments shut away from sunshine and air and haunted by vanished forms and silent voices, while its open rooms are tenanted by a nest of gentlefolks of all degrees of relation,—some united by love, and others at swords'-points,—offers a lively field for the romancer; and such is the scene in "The Lady with the Rubies." "Belief in the Powers of Darkness will never die so long as poor human hearts love, hope, and fear," is the moral, so to speak, of the book; and the author has used with good effect this vein of superstition which "makes the whole world kin." Little Margarete's encounter with the family spectre, her flight from home, her lonely and terrifying night, are touchingly described; and, in fact, the book is full of pretty child-pictures, which enhance the pleasantness and charm of the love-story. Few of Miss Marlitt's books possess more interest and diversity than "The Lady with the Rubies;" and, as usual with Mrs. Wister's work, it is well and gracefully translated.

Given a family of girls well contrasted, utterly untrammelled, and each in possession of a will and a way of her own, materials for a romance are not hard to find; and in telling the story of the Heathcotes Miss Carey seems to have jotted down a series of events exactly as they fell out in actual life. There is plenty of sentiment, but its expression is dealt out with a sparing hand; there are pretty sylvan scenes, and the wood-paths, the warm homesteads, the meadows and fields, all enter into the story and make a pleasant part of it. If "Barbara Heathcote's Trial" has no leading motive as strong and as universally interesting as the author's former book, "Not Like Other Girls," it is, to our thinking, quite as pleasant and readable, and will no doubt enjoy its predecessor's popularity.

Romance has done much good work in the way of laying bare men's faults, hypocrisies, and evil lusts, and if Mormonism is actually on the increase among us there is good reason for a novel like "The Bar Sinister," which tells us the story of certain converts to the peculiar tenets of the saints and introduces us into the every-day life of Salt Lake City. That our families and our institutions are in peril from this monstrous and ridiculous evil it would not be easy for us to believe. Yet it is impossible to read this book without a conviction that the author could easily substantiate his facts by proofs, and that intelligent men and women have been and are still being led away into the heresy. The incidents of the story are, however, calculated to shock and repel the reader, who rises from its perusal sick and indignant as much from having been confronted with such personages and their doings as from the fact that such people are in existence. The author has without doubt enjoyed the advantage of a flesh-and-blood acquaintance with leaders of the faith who talk unctuously of "Class No. 1, 2, 3, 4," etc.; and, besides actual knowledge, there is strong feeling and earnest principle behind the whole narrative.

"Pine-Cones" is a pleasant story for young people, telling the adventures of a party of boy and girl cousins making a visit among the great pine woods of Maine. There is plenty of open air in the book, bright talk, and earnest stories told round the fire.

"An Old Maid's Paradise" is a bright little sketch of the adventures and misadventures of a woman who builds a cottage on Cape Ann promontory for five hundred dollars, and settles down to a joyful existence without any need of aid or comfort from living man except as a purveyor and burglar-alarm. Every one likes to know the price of things, and it is pleasing to understand exactly what may be done with five hundred dollars. "The cottage," as described by Miss Phelps, "contained five rooms and a kitchen. The body of this imposing building stood twenty feet square upon the ground. The kitchen measured nine feet by eight, and there was a wood-shed three feet wide, in which Puella managed to pile the wood and various domestic mysteries into which Corona felt no desire to penetrate. There were a parlor, a dining-room, a guest-room, and two rooms left for 'the family.' There were two closets, a coal-bin, and a loft. The house stood on what, for want of a scientific term, Corona called piers…. Corona's house had no plaster, no papering, no carpets. Her parlor, which opened directly upon the water, was painted gray; the walls were of the paler color in a gull's wing; the ceiling had the tint of dulled pearls; the floor was rock-gray (a border of black ran around this floor); the beams and rafters, left visible by the absence of plastering, were touched with what is known to artists as neutral tint," etc. A very pleasant little cottage in itself, the description may be of practical utility to many who would like some pied-à-terre by mountain or shore, and who are not quite certain what a moderate outlay can do.

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Books Received.

The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Household Edition. With illustrations. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Due South; or, Cuba Past and Present. By

Maturin M. Ballou. Boston and New York:

Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

City Ballads. By Will Carleton. Illustrated.

New York: Harper & Brothers.

A Social Experiment. By A.E.P. Searing.

New York and London: G.P. Putnam's

Sons.

Lawn-Tennis. By Lieutenant S.C.F. Peale,

B.S.C. Edited by Richard D. Sears. New

York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

The America's Cup. By Captain Roland F.

Coffin. New York: Charles Scribner's

Sons.

Our Sea-Coast Defences. By Eugene Griffin,

New York and London: G.P. Putnam's

Sons.

Cholera. By Alfred Stillé, M.D., LL.D. Philadelphia:

Lea Brothers & Co.