Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Critical Notices Of The Literature Of The Last Three Months,
the stricken symmetry of the lighthouse . Ho approached it then over the grassy level ; no sound escaped himyet , but he knocked at the narrow door . He waited , —he opened it , —he ran up the corkscrew-staircase , displacing tho shattered fragments with his feet ; and , standing with the jagged wall broken round him , exclaimed beneath his breath , 'Thank God . ' In answer to that whisper , a voice shouted out from beneath , ' M . Bernard 1 M . Bernard !'"
Here is confusion worse confounded , — "lawn" and shattered "lighthouses , "— " grassy levels " and " corkscrew-staircases , " the whispers of an enthusiastic poet , and the shout of somebody somewhere in a cellar . From all this it is refreshing to turn to Emile Carlen ' s " Professor , " * a good-tempered , eccentric old man , whose chief happiness is doing kind acts in a kind manner , and whose nephews and nieces , having true touches of nature in them , love each other very heartily , quarrel and make it up
again in a plain matter-of-fact sort of way , eminently Swedish , but not the less agreeable , after the stormy pictures of passion , selfishness , and sacrifice which the two preceding novels furnish . The great charm of Emile Carlen ' s works consists in the pictures of Swedish life which they furnish , and which , even where the tale itself lacks incident , arrests the attention of the reader , and inspires an interest which , from the frequent want of plan or plot in the storyhe miht not otherwise feel .
, g Of Miss Mitford ' s works f we are always anxious and generally able to speak well ; but of the last which has fallen under our notice , consisting of a novel , in one volume , called "Atherton , " and a collection of tales that have seen the li ght under the guardianship of numerous albums and keepsakes , we are utterly at a loss to know what to say . Praise them we cannot ; and , yet , to criticise them as they deserve would be an unkindly act toAvards so old and deserving a public favourite as Miss Mitford . We
may wish , however , that she had not written them , or rather that she had not reprinted them ; for , composed , as they most probably were , on the spur of a moment , and to fill a few pages in a publication that was only intended to live a year , they do not certainly deserve the censure of a critic , while still less are they entitled to his respect or approval . "Phemie Millar"J is an improvement upon the ordinary pictures of humble Scottish life ; and although the author falls into the too common
mistake of wearying the reader with domestic details and small-talk , yet , on the whole , there is more genius and power in the work than in any other which we have yet had occasion to notice . The heroine is a Scottish lass , the daughter of a well-to-do tradesman or merchant , who , with more strings to her bow than she knows very well what to do with , gives her heart to a young artist , struggling with the world , and with the thousand and one faults which mar his fortunesand render his character somewhat
, unamiable . The portraits , however , are well drawn , and true to nature . They are all thoroughly Scotch ; and if Phemie herself is not quite the heroine the auther intended her to be , her little weaknesses are womanly , and therefore not the less interesting or real . Of Miss Pardoe ' s novel of " Reginald Lyle " § we can speak with more
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Critical Notices Of The Literature Of The Last Three Months,
the stricken symmetry of the lighthouse . Ho approached it then over the grassy level ; no sound escaped himyet , but he knocked at the narrow door . He waited , —he opened it , —he ran up the corkscrew-staircase , displacing tho shattered fragments with his feet ; and , standing with the jagged wall broken round him , exclaimed beneath his breath , 'Thank God . ' In answer to that whisper , a voice shouted out from beneath , ' M . Bernard 1 M . Bernard !'"
Here is confusion worse confounded , — "lawn" and shattered "lighthouses , "— " grassy levels " and " corkscrew-staircases , " the whispers of an enthusiastic poet , and the shout of somebody somewhere in a cellar . From all this it is refreshing to turn to Emile Carlen ' s " Professor , " * a good-tempered , eccentric old man , whose chief happiness is doing kind acts in a kind manner , and whose nephews and nieces , having true touches of nature in them , love each other very heartily , quarrel and make it up
again in a plain matter-of-fact sort of way , eminently Swedish , but not the less agreeable , after the stormy pictures of passion , selfishness , and sacrifice which the two preceding novels furnish . The great charm of Emile Carlen ' s works consists in the pictures of Swedish life which they furnish , and which , even where the tale itself lacks incident , arrests the attention of the reader , and inspires an interest which , from the frequent want of plan or plot in the storyhe miht not otherwise feel .
, g Of Miss Mitford ' s works f we are always anxious and generally able to speak well ; but of the last which has fallen under our notice , consisting of a novel , in one volume , called "Atherton , " and a collection of tales that have seen the li ght under the guardianship of numerous albums and keepsakes , we are utterly at a loss to know what to say . Praise them we cannot ; and , yet , to criticise them as they deserve would be an unkindly act toAvards so old and deserving a public favourite as Miss Mitford . We
may wish , however , that she had not written them , or rather that she had not reprinted them ; for , composed , as they most probably were , on the spur of a moment , and to fill a few pages in a publication that was only intended to live a year , they do not certainly deserve the censure of a critic , while still less are they entitled to his respect or approval . "Phemie Millar"J is an improvement upon the ordinary pictures of humble Scottish life ; and although the author falls into the too common
mistake of wearying the reader with domestic details and small-talk , yet , on the whole , there is more genius and power in the work than in any other which we have yet had occasion to notice . The heroine is a Scottish lass , the daughter of a well-to-do tradesman or merchant , who , with more strings to her bow than she knows very well what to do with , gives her heart to a young artist , struggling with the world , and with the thousand and one faults which mar his fortunesand render his character somewhat
, unamiable . The portraits , however , are well drawn , and true to nature . They are all thoroughly Scotch ; and if Phemie herself is not quite the heroine the auther intended her to be , her little weaknesses are womanly , and therefore not the less interesting or real . Of Miss Pardoe ' s novel of " Reginald Lyle " § we can speak with more