The author is more successful in her treatment of landscape than of
figures. Her village people are shown too much under one aspect: she
possesses none of the humor which dares to take the most opposite
traits, the grotesque and the beautiful alike, and blend them in a
sound, artistic whole. Her characters are evidently drawn from life,
but we miss the many little touches which would make them alive. An
essay on "Old Trees" contains some of the best work in the book, with
its charming sketch of an old orchard, bringing to view the twisted
trees and even the irregularities of the ground, and to the palate a
sharp after-taste of yellowing apples picked up from tufts of matted
grass. After all, the New England of the writer's bygones does not
differ essentially from the New England of to-day, though a more vivid
study of life would perhaps have brought out more contrasts between the
two.
_Books Received_.
Homo Sum: A Novel. By Georg Ebers. From the German by Clara Bell. New
York: William S. Gottsberger.
Unto the Third and Fourth Generation: A Study. By Helen Campbell. New
York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert.
Allaooddeen, a Tragedy, and Other Poems.
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