The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 63, January, 1863

This is a charming book for the holidays. Not that it requires such a temporary occasion to give it interest, elevated as it is by its inherent excellence above that class of books which may be said almost entirely to depend upon such factitious accidents for whatever of success they may reasonably hope to obtain. It is, irrespective of time or occasion, a genuine story-book, adapted particularly to children between the ages of six and sixteen years, yet not, as is usually the case in books for children, confined to these narrow limits in either direction; since there is somewhat for any child that can be supposed to have an interest in narrative, and a great deal for every man who has genius, according to Coleridge's well-known definition of genius,—namely, that it is the power of childhood carried forward into the developments of manhood. This is saying, indeed, quite as much as could be said for the general features of the book, and more than could be said for any other child's book, excepting alone Hans Andersen's inimitable stories.

Speaking of the book as compared with the works of Hans Andersen, it is more consciously a work of art, in an intellectual sense; it is more complicated in incident, or rather, we should say, in the working-up of the incident, whether that be an advantage for it or not. In almost every instance, Hans Andersen's stories could be told apart from the book,—indeed, it is true that many of them were thus told to children, whom the Danish storyteller casually met, before they were committed to writing; and they were written, we imagine, very much as they were told. The seven stories of which this book is made up, on the other hand, could none of them be told naturally, and yet preserve every artistic feature which belongs to them, as they are written. As there is more of intellectual consciousness in their development, giving them more finish and greater multiformity as products of art, so also there is more depth of idea in their design. The writer is evidently not satisfied with simple narrative; the movement of his stories is more important in his eye than incident, and to the former there must have been considerable sacrifice of the latter,—that is, much of the incident which might have been given in a simple narrative has been left out, because it would mar the formal design.

From what has been said it will be evident that the book is not one of those designed to affect the reader mainly through a scrupulous conscience, or indeed distinctively through conscience at all. It appeals to the imagination preëminently, and through that to the will. It is the greatest merit of the book, that it is designed for the culture and development of the imagination in children,—a faculty almost entirely neglected, or, what is worse, oftentimes despotically crushed and thwarted in children.

In "The Three Wishes" is developed for the child the mystery of work and of worship; but it is all accomplished through incidents appealing wholly to imagination, and with beautiful art. "The Little Castaways"—really a deliberate farce, "taking off," the stories of similar incident written for older folk—is yet, in itself, for the child much more than that which is thus "taken off" ever could be for the older and more romantic reader. "The Rock-Elephant" is full of humor and imaginative pathos. "A Faëry Surprise-Party" is as delicate as are Jack Frost's pencillings, through which all the events of the story curiously move. "New-Year's Day in the Garden" has equal delicacy, and even greater beauty.

In all the stories there is a humanizing of all elements introduced, even the most material. We are assured that the author's efforts will meet with success. Children, certainly, and all those especially interested in children, will hail the book with delight. It is finely illustrated by F.A. Chapman, who, it is evident, has spared no pains to render it attractive. The engravings, be it said in their favor, are not too directly suggestive, as is generally the case, but, from their delicate insinuations, particularly beautiful.

notes

1

Comte did, indeed, profess to furnish a central law of belief. It is due, he said, to the tendency of man to flatter his own personality by foisting its image upon the universe. This, however, is but one way of saying that it is wholly gratuitous,—that it has no root in the truth of the world. But universal truth and universal law are the same; and therefore that which arises without having any root in eternal verity is lawless in the deepest possible sense,—lawless not merely as being irregular in its action, but in the deeper and more terrible sense of being in the universe without belonging there. To believe, however, that any product of universal dimensions can be generated, not by the truth of the universe, but by somewhat else, is to believe in a Devil more thoroughly than the creed of any Calvinist allows. But this is quite in character. Comte was perhaps the most superstitious man of his time; superstition runs in the blood of his "philosophy"; and Mr. Buckle, in my opinion, escapes and denounces the black superstitions of ignorance only to fall into the whited superstitions of sciolism.

2

It may be said that this is a mere arguing by supposition. But the supposition here has respect only to the numbers.