Again the sometime actress, Clara Morris, author of "Life on the Stage," "The Pasteboard Crown," etc., comes to us with news of the great theatrical world, the realm of wonder and delight to so many. Her new book, "Stage Confidences," is one of great interest. It will be warmly welcomed by all those who think, with Hamlet, "the play-the play's the thing!" It should meet with an especially hearty reception from the would-be actresses to whom Miss Morris so cordially says: "To those dear girls who honor me with their liking and their confidences, greeting." She then continues with a proposition: "Why not become a lovely composite girl, my friend, Miss Hope Legion, and let me try to speak to her my word of warning, of advice, of remonstrance? If she doubts, let me prove my assertions by incident, and if she grows vexed, let me try to win her to laughter with the absurdities that are so funny in the telling, though so painful in their happening.'

With these kindly opening words, Miss Morris proceeds to give a true picture of the actor's life. She shows it forth not only in all its glitter, so wondrously fascinating to the eyes of the uninitiated, but also in the pitiless glare of that fierce light that beats upon a stage. She tells of the difficulties in the way of the beginner, of the harsh criticism, of the long weary years of waiting and of ceaseless study, of the sadness of the actor's homeless life, of the perpetual wandering, with its breaking of sweet friendships. She denies, however, that her profession is filled with "strange and terrible pitfalls

curtain on the audience at night is to you as the magic blossoming of a mighty flower-if these are the things that you feel, your fate is sealed. Nature is imperious, and through brain, heart and nerve she cries to you, Act! Act! Act! and act you must * * * I have faith to believe that, if God has given you a peculiar talent, God will aid you to find a way properly to exercise that talent."

Miss Morris's book will be enjoyed by many besides the so-called "stagestruck" girls. Almost all theatregoers are interested in what takes place "behind the scenes." Miss Morris lifts the curtain and ushers us back, where we may see the actors and actresses in their social life. their social life. The view may be somewhat disillusionizing, but it is certainly capable of giving a great deal of amusement. Many a laugh may be enjoyed over the jokes that the fun-loving actors practice upon one another.

In "Stage Confidences" there is wide scope for pathos as well as for humor. The great sorrows of "poor Semantha" cause us grief as we read. Miss Morris is an artist, with the delicate sympathy that one artist feels for another. In her book she takes the opportunity to defend the great actor, Tommaso Salvini, from himself, as she says, and she speaks well for her hero.

The pictures of Clara Morris in her noted parts, and those of other actresses and actors, add to the enjoy ment derived from her book. Besides giving pleasure, "Stage Confidences" may do much to dissipate that narrowminded prejudice against the theatre, if the book may number among its

The author of this volume tells us in the preface that it is the outcome of a fairly extensive study during the last fifteen years of Dumas and whatever has been written about him. Without any such statement we could have testified as much from the keen appreciation and knowledge he displays of his subject. His has evidently no hasty familiarity cultivated with Dumas for the purposes of the present work, but an acquaintance extending over a long period. Taking up the life of the great French author from the time of his boyhood at Villers-Cotterets, he shows how he left the notary's office where he was early employed and went up to Paris, there obtaining a post as supernumerary clerk in the Secretarial department of the Palais Royal. With an impudence that was certainly sublime, he devoted most of his time to the writing of plays, and his official work consequently suffered. The production that first brought him substantial reputation was "Henry III," and he then severed his connection with bureaucracy. "Throughout," says our author, "he depicts himself as a victim, and with singular simplicity seems to

consider it unreasonable that he should have been expected to subordinate his private work to official duties." From the drama of the stage Dumas next turned his attention to the drama of the streets, and during the years 183032 conducted himself as an ardent revolutionist. A further chapter on his work at the theatre chiefly refers to the plays "Antony," "Napoleon Bonaparte," "Charles VII," "Richard Darlington," "Catherine Howard," "La Tour de Nesle," "Caligula," "Mademoiselle Belleisle," and "Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr." Dumas's life in Paris and abroad is next reviewed, and then we come to the great novels, in the consideration of which the reader may be assured the notable Musketeer cycle is not overlooked. The later chapters of the volume are devoted to an account of Dumas's exile at Brussels, the visit paid in 1857 to this country, his stay at Naples, and the closing years of a memorable life. At the end of the volume is a keen analysis of Dumas's character, in which his faults and good qualities are very justly summed up.-London Publishers' Circular.

By reason of the distinguished service which Mr. Frederic Harrison has rendered to English literature, an unusual interest attaches to the volume on Ruskin which he has written for the "English Men of Letters" Series. Mr. Harrison has been long regarded as the chief exponent and champion of the philosophy of August Comte in England. As we all know, Ruskin was a bitter antagonist of the Positive Philosophy, and it might have been expected that the disciple of that system would prove a severe, if not onesided, critic of the author of "Modern Painters." The reverse of this is the

truth. In a previous essay, Mr. Harrison brilliantly discussed Ruskin as a master of prose, and the sincerity of the praise in that article will be remembered by all who have read it. The present biography goes further than the essay and deals with Ruskin not only as man of letters and art critic, but as social thinker and reformer. From every side Mr. Harrison approaches his subject with profound sympathy and insight. His book is enriched by many personal recollections of Ruskin, and, as a whole, will rank as an excellent first hand study of one of the greatest writers in English

literature. The editor of this valuable series is to be congratulated on the selection of Mr. Harrison as the biographer of John Ruskin.

The main facts of Ruskin's life are so well known through the several able biographies which have already appeared that it is not necessary to rehearse them here. Besides, Ruskin in "Praeterita" has given us the most interesting autobiography in the English language. It is a book which every lover of Ruskin will read and reread with renewed pleasure. The life of a great author or thinker is frequently as monotonous and devoid of external incidents of an exciting character as are the lives of ordinary men. But the personal career of Ruskin, in some things, is unique in the history of letters. His father, "an entirely honest merchant," as the son afterwards inscribed on his tomb, was possessed of a large fortune, and everything that money could purchase for the comfort, training_and well-being of that son the elder Ruskin procured from the boy's earliest infancy. As is often the case with an only child, John Ruskin grew to be an extremely sensitive, shy young man, with a suggestion of girlishness. His parents destined him for the church, and though he never took clerical orders, he was essentially a preacher all his life. It was, no doubt, the mistaken system of home education which was inflicted upon him that was afterwards responsible for the long years of bitter mental agony which he suffered when the harsh realities of this world pressed upon him, and tore and bruised his affectionate and gentle nature. All the brilliant literary victories which he won, do not hide from us the fact that much of Ruskin's life was spent in mental anguish over circumstances which he could not control, and that he went to his grave a saddened, disappointed, broken man.

In his youth Ruskin took a flight in poetry. But his genius did not lie in verse, and he had the good sense to

see that it did not. The best thing that can be said for his poems is that they show how a boy who was to become a great master of prose could put his ideas into respectable poetical form. Mr. Harrison disposes of the poetry in half a dozen pages; he might have said all that was necessary in half that number.

The first volume of "Modern Painters" appeared in 1843, and produced, says his biographer, "a real sensation in the artistic, and even in the literary world." It was a passionate defense of Turner and the supremacy of modern landscape painters over the ancients. "The recognized organs of criticism were hostile and contemptuous." But the merits of the work were appreciated by some of the leading literary men of the time, notably Rogers, Sydney Smith and Tennyson. The next book of importance, the "Seven Lamps of Architecture," was one which Ruskin himself afterwards severely criticised. It is a masterly book in point of style, and, as Mr. Harrison points out, contains truths which are now the alphabet of sound art.

To many readers "The Stones of Venice" is the most interesting of all Ruskin's books on art. It "was designed as a concrete expansion of the "Seven Lamps"-to give historical and material proof of the intimate reaction of a noble type of public and private life on the edifices erected by the nation is inspired." "Although "The Stones of Venice' is less fanciful, less discursive, less rhetorical and less combative than 'Modern Painters' or the 'Seven Lamps,' this is only in a matter of degree and by comparison. There is plenty of fantasy, excursion, rhetoric and combat in the book. But it may be called the most organic and coherent work of a man who openly scoffed at things organic and coherent."

The year 1860, the central year of Ruskin's life, saw the publication in the "Cornhill Magazine" of the four essays which were afterwards issued under the title "Unto this Last." This

He

is the beginning of Ruskin's career as a social writer and reformer, and all his books after that time, no matter what the ostensible subject was, are full of eloquent pleadings for the cause of justice and righteousness in the social organism. In this book Ruskin made a furious attack on the current dogmas of Political Economy. was not equipped with a scientific knowledge of the subject, but he had, as Mr. Harrison says, all the sublime confidence in himself that characterized the Knight of La Mancha. Many of the doctrines against which Ruskin leveled his lance of sarcasm have now been given up. The book, however, is an acknowledged masterpiece of wit, wisdom and eloquence.

Mr. Harrison calls "Fors Clavigera"

Ruskin's "Hamlet." "Fors' is indeed the typical work of the man John Ruskin apart from his special studies and teaching in the arts." Every reader of Ruskin must have noticed the curious change in the style of "Fors" as compared with the earlier books. His biographer says with truth, in pointing out this change of style, "It is throughout a masterpiece of simple, graceful, pellucid English, like the most easy and

natural speech. It flows on in one fascinating causerie, as it might fall from the lips of a perfect master of the art of familiar conversation." Mr. Harrison also draws a parallel between some of the doctrines laid down in "Fors" and the philosophic scheme of Comte. It is an odd fact that Ruskin held many of the views of social regeneration which are advocated in the Positive Philosophy.

It would be interesting, did space permit, to discuss Mr. Harrison's account of Ruskin's schemes of reform and his numerous books on that subject. Mr. Harrison has compressed a world of criticism in his little book, and has given an excellent, if brief, deThe weak point in all this speculation scription of Ruskin's social philosophy.

is due to the fact that the author of it lacked the scientific spirit. He was a seer, a dreamer, and a composer of splendid rhapsodies. splendid rhapsodies. He gave to the world beautiful sermons on duty, faith, righteousness and love, and the world heard and passed on its way, scornful or indifferent, as it has done a thousand times with the great prophets. A. S. Henry.

The late John Fiske was one of those writers-somewhat rare in these days-who unite exact and varied. learning with a high quality of literary expression, and make their books as interesting as they are instructive. Mr. Fiske was a scholarly man, and though he wrote on many subjects, he uniformly wrote well. He will be best remembered, perhaps, for his work in American history-a work not completed when he died. The volume just issued under the title, "New France and New England," was practically finished when the author passed away, and is published as he left it, with the addition of some notes of ref

other with the Stamp Act." This is a large subject for a volume of moderate size, but all the main facts have been covered with a fulness which will give the reader a clear view of the period treated.

The rise of New France and New England and the conflict waged between the respective mother countries for the possession of North America, is one of the most brilliant chapters in the history of the New World. Much light has been thrown upon this period by the recent researches of historians and the eloquent and learned pen of Francis Parkman. Of all the material accessible Mr. Fiske has availed himself, and his book is a succession of vivid pictures, able discussions and attractive narratives, which hold the attention from the first page to the last. All the illustrious names of early American history pass before us. The memory of those men and their deeds comes to us suggestive of romance, of toil and daring, of invincible courage,

broken hopes, foiled ambitions, and success won over a thousand obstacles. Men like Champlain, La Salle and Frontenac would be a credit to any age and any country. They laid the foundations of an empire on this side the Atlantic which withstood the assault of Anglo-Saxon arms until the last great fight on the Plains of Abraham. Nor is the history of New England less replete in interest, and Mr. Fiske has given a brilliant epitome of the building of the English colonies. Comparisons are proverbially odious, and as the greater part of the subject

treated in this volume falls within the special province of Parkman, the temptation to compare Mr. Fiske with his gifted predecessor is almost irresistible. But we venture the assertion that, in the event of such a comparison being made, Mr. Fiske's book will pass the ordeal creditably. It is certainly an important contribution to American historical literature.

FICTION OF THE MONTH

This has been called the most sensational book of the year. The subject is daring to a fault, the treatment is bold, almost defiant, the effect is dynamic, almost paralyzing. A woman of the world, haughty, luxurious, spoiled, selfish to a degree beyond belief; a man, humble, but noble-spirited and pure, yet possessed of a capacity for passion as well as of an ability to suffer; these two are drawn each towards the other by affinity; they love, the woman tempts, the man is tempted, he yields, there is a momentary heaven,

then follows disillusionment, cruelty on the part of the wife, agony and consequent bitterness on the part of the husband, death to the child, separation— then the proud woman realizes her loss, follows the man whom she has so wronged, there is a reconciliation, and ten years of exquisite peace completed by the death on the cross. This is the outline, the details are the intrinsic portion. Joseph Freyer is no ordinary man; were he such the tale would be less strange. But this lofty-soused, almost divine character is the imperson