AMINTA.

ARCHBISHOP O'BRIEN'S versatile tale of "Aminta" "is not," the author asserts, "intended for the light and thoughtless, but for those who, having received a liberal education, reflect at times on the unrest of modern intellects, and seek to learn something of its cause." Aminta is a fair maiden who has been brought up on the writings of Emerson and Matthew Arnold, whose teachings are unsparingly condemned by Archbishop O'Brien. She became an agnostic and dwelt in "cultured pride."

Earth was for her life's chiefest sum,

And she the chiefest thought of life:
She little recked how much of strife
To proud, cold hearts must ever come.

To those who gird with self the earth,
And think for self each flower has birth,
Great nature is forever dumb.

The other chief character in the narrative is Coroman, who goes through a course of philosophical study with most unhappy results.

With Kant he sought all truth to scan;

"Pure Reason's Critique" was his lamp:,
He thought cognitions owed their stamp
To nature of the soul in man-

So sayeth Kant, and Kant is king
Of owlets who on feeble wing
Have swirled around outside truth's span.

With Hegel, Fichte, and all that crew

Next sought he truth that should be clear;
But German lore, like German beer,

Is stomached only by the few ;

It bears the froth of pompous praise,
No ray of reason clews its rays,
To mind and sense a dreary view.

Coroman woos Aminta, and the course of their love does not run smooth. Aminta's sire," it seems,

Cared not for our hero's ways,
And bade him quench the new lit fire.
And so each night beneath the cliff
Young Coroman came in his skiff,
And saw afar. his heart's desire.

However, love, as we know, laughs at paternal severity, and these two agnostics are happy for a time, only to be plunged at length into despair. Coroman, for no very obvious reason, is obliged to go away, and Aminta is left forlorn. After a time he wanders to Rome, and there finds surcease from his doubts and griefs by turning monk, while Aminta enters a sisterhood. This Archbishop O'Brien regards as "a very real life drama," and with its narration he ventures to think that he has broken new ground in poetry." It cannot be denied that the whole work has the tone of a serene personal conviction, and the ideas it advances will doubtless appeal to minds of a certain order; but the theme is manifestly not new, and the form is, we are sorry to say, not at all likely to win adherents to the author's special creed. (Appleton. $1.)-Boston Beacon.

NORA AND HELMAR.

THE wonderful drama of Henry Ibsen called "The Doll's House," has awakened such a deep interest in most of its readers, that we have all become like children, who, unsatisfied with its truly dramatic ending, have asked eagerly, “Did she ever come back?"

It may well seem an impertinence to answer this question. The author is fully justified in leaving it where he did, with the slight suggestion of hope, which is enough for imaginative minds. I should have left it untouched, but for the publication of a sequel to the play by the wellknown writer, Walter Besant, in Macmillan's Magazine. He has given (to my thinking) such a false interpretation to the character of Nora, and to the spirit in which she left her husband, as well as to the egotistic but honest nature of Helmar, that I could not resist making the attempt to indicate the way in which a reconciliation might become possible between these two natures, one of whom is buried under the conventionalisms of his position and knows neither himself nor others, while the other is like a bird of Paradise, who knows not that she has feet because she has always fluttered on her wings.

This change could not be wrought out by any train of circumstance, but only through a process of self-examination, and a recognition of their true relations to life and to each other.

Nora must learn the duty of truth and the responsibility of life in serious service for others. Helmar must recognize the rights and free will of others, and learn that loving service need not be slavish obedience. The circumstances which help to this understanding of themselves and each other are slight and familiar, but I thought in keeping with their characters and lives. A careless reading of the play leads one to wonder at the prominence given to the part of Dr. Rank in the dramatis personæ, but a closer study shows how great his influence had been in preparing Nora to meet the crisis of her life.

I have made no attempt to preserve the national character and scenery of the play; I had too little knowledge of either to do it successfully, and the problem presented is of all lands. Still less have I tried to imitate the powerful dramatic character and vigorous language of the original. I have only followed out the thought of one line (by no means the only one) on which the separated pair might come together again with justice to both.

I shall rejoice if the suggestion helps any one to understand more clearly the purpose of this remarkable drama, which stands unrivalled in its powerful delineation of the life of woman, and the need of fuller recognition of her individuality, and her right to lead a life of genuine activity and development. (Lee & Shepard. 50 c.)-From Cheney's "Nora's Return."

THE HUNDREDTH TOWN..

IF very many local histories were equal in interest to "The Hundredth Town," by Harriette Merrifield Forbes, we should all stop reading

novels for a time and solace ourselves with a new

and delightful sort of literature. Westborough is the hundredth town of which we get such attractive glimpses in Mrs. Forbes' animated chronicle, the title referring to its order of incorporation. Indian legends and traditions, anecdotes with regard to the early settlers, and romantic details concerning the old roads and taverns of the town, fill three chapters, and are made fresh and piquant by the graceful manner in which Mrs. Forbes relates them. But the choicest part of the book is the chapter on "The Minister's Family." The minister was the Rev.

Ebenezer Parkman, who, then a young man fresh from Harvard, settled in Westborough, with Mary Champney, his newly wedded wife, in the year 1717. Mrs. Forbes has had the good fortune to be able to make use of the journals of this amiable and upright man, and the quotations she gives from them are not only immensely valuable for the light they throw upon ways of living a century and three-quarters ago, but are in them selves fascinating for the revelation they afford of a delightful personality. Here is one entry recorded as a "special resolution":

"To return or pay for the books I have some time ago borrowed and negligently and unjustly retained for some years from ye owners ytf: at those times proposing to buy ym, but to this Day have omitted it, by which I have involved myself in the Guilt of Unrighteousness."

Here is the story of Mr. Parkman's courtship of Mrs. Hannah Breck, who became his second wife :

March 19, 1736. A.M. to Dr. Gott's, but a short space with Mrs. Hannah. At my request she had (she assured me) burnt my letters, poems, &c. "March 25. I spent the afternoon at Dr. Gott's.

Mr. Hovey there with a Bass Viol. N. B. Mrs. Hh Bk at ye Drs. Still. Our Convers'n of a piece w'th w't it used to be. I mark her admirable Conduct her Prudence & wisdom, her good manners and her distinguishing Respect fullness to me which accompany her Denyals.

"April 1. At Eve I was at Dr. Gott's. Mrs. H-h was thought to be gone up to Mr.

Week's or Capt. Williams with Design to lodge

there, but she returned to ye Doct'r and she gave me her Company till it was very late. Her conversation was very friendly and with divers Expressions of Singular and Peculiar Regard. Memord'm Oscul. But she cannot yield to being a stepmother.-I lodg'd there and with gr't satisfaction and composure."

When his daughter Mary was married Mr. Parkman made a list of the articles in her wedding outfit. It included "1 Feather Bed new Tick," valued at 40s., 72 yds. Garlix at 14s." and "2 pairs of Cotton and Linen Sheets (worn)." The value of the whole outfit was a little

over four hundred and forty-four pounds. Mrs. Forbes has also made use of the memorandumbooks of Dr. Hawes, the town physician, and has thus brought to light significant facts with regard to the medical practices of early days. The doctor's essay on“ Imagination" is well worth having. There are chapters on legal practices, on popular folk-lore, on Stephen Maynard and his neighbors, and on social customs. Through

the whole narrative the Rev. Ebenezer Parkman

is constantly appearing, and always to the pleasure and edification of the reader. This entry from his journal closes the volume :

WHY CATS DO NOT GROW FAT.

FENCING is unsuitable to men who study, and equally so to children who work their brains to excess, and it is the last exercise we should advise for very excitable temperaments, unless we have to provide food for unoccupied brains, for unquiet spirits whose activity consumes themselves, failing better occupation. In such cases fencing may become a precious derivative, by absorbing, as would mental work, the excessive nervous force which was tormenting the inactive mind.

Fencing, like all exercises which produce disturbances in the nervous system, is a most valuable exercise to persons who wish to get thinner. Among the most important functions of the nervous system is that of regulating nutrition; so we see all fatigue borne by the nerves, all excessive expenditure of nerve-force lead to diminished energy of the process of nutrition and favor the opposite process, thereby causing loss of weight.

Psychical disturbances, sustained emotions, through the waste of nervous energy which they occasion, hinder the nutritive functions, and lead to loss of weight. It is by an identical mechanism that the same result is produced after exercises needing a great expenditure of nervous energy. It is curious to see animals whose mode of life

necessitates movements similar to those of fenc ing have the privilege of escaping obesity.

Have you ever inquired how it is that cats can combine with their proverbial idleness such great agility? Muscular inaction leads just as much in other kinds of animals as in the human species to obesity; the dog which does not hunt, the horse kept in the stable, become fat and sluggish. Wild animals even, if kept in a cage, where they are forced into the repose of domestic life, very rapidly lose their slenderness of figure and their ease of

movement.

Why does the cat escape the ordinary law, and why, in spite of the fact that it rarely moves, does it seldom become fat as does a dog or horse under similar circumstances? It is because its immobility is not that of inaction, and its nerves are working while its muscles seem at rest. Like a fencer waiting the moment to attack, the cat i constantly ready to spring. It is always watchs ing something; a rat, a fly, or a joint of meat. A drawing-room cat only makes three or four springs in the course of a day, but each of them has been preceded by two or three hours of latent work. When we believe that the animal is engaged in a happy dream, it is meditating a capture, calculating the distance of its spring, and holding its muscles in readiness for anything that may happen. Hence it is never taken by surprise. If a little bird escapes from its cage, it is caught and eaten in three seconds. The cat has been watching it for a week; when it seemed asleep, it was lying-in-wait. (Appleton.)—From Lagrange's Physiology of Bodily Exercise."

THE VILLAGE BARBER.

A BARBER-SHOP was something entirely new in Broughton, and the townspeople looked upon its striped pole with an excusable pride. From the day when the township was settled, under the stockades of a fort against the Indians, down to the time when Otto Meyer, a native of Bavaria and a recently naturalized citizen of the Center, concluded his arrangements with Samuel Parkinson, the good people of Broughton had shaved themselves and cut their own-or rather one another's hair.

Of late, to be sure, the village butcher, in his leisure moments, had acquired a good deal of skill in giving boys what he called a 'fighting cut," for the sum of ten cents each. To the more aspiring among the farmer's sons, especially in the winter season, about the time the annual singing-school commenced its sessions, the butcher administered his so-called 'fancy cut," which left the hair long on top and short up to the ears, and which, when treated plentifully with oil, looked very smooth and was well worth the fifteen cents it cost. But the butcher, even in his most ambitious moods and in spite of his proficiency with keen-edged tools, never dared to shave anybody, and indeed it would have been a gallant man who would have risked the operation.

The male population of Broughton, therefore, were favorably disposed toward Otto Meyer and his scantily furnished shop. The smart pole took away something of the rusticity of Main Street. Some of the younger men in the village fell into the habit of getting shaved at Meyer's regularly,

and he had also more or less custom from the guests of the Broughton House. Floyd had been one of his most faithful patrons, during the artist's stay in town. Meyer had left Bavaria to escape military service; and Floyd, finding that the barber had been in Munich, never tired of exchanging with him impressions of that city. The conversations were carried on mostly in German; for Floyd found that he could make himself understood, and it rather tickled his fancy to lie back in a barber's chair, up among the hills of Broughton, and talk familiarly about the Hofbrauerei, and the gilded state chariots of the mad King Ludwig. Meyer's knowledge of Munich, to tell the truth, was limited to these two subjects; but they possessed a perennial interest, and the more Meyer talked with Floyd about them, the more fluent did the latter's vocabulary become. By dint of unlearning all he had acquired previous to his emigration to America, Meyer had become a very decent barber; but he was vastly conceited about his skill, and dogmatic in regard to everything that concerned his profession. He did not conceal his contempt for the average inhabitant of Broughton, and declared that nothing but the oversupply of barbers at the Center had driven him up to this hill town, ten miles from a railroad. Toward "Mr. Floyt," however, he had a great respect, as was due to a man who had seen the world and could therefore tell when a razor was well handled. (Scribner.) - From Perry's "The Broughton House."

THE DEATH OF PUCK.

I FEAR that Puck is dead-it is so long

Since man last saw him-dead with all the rest Of that sweet elfin crew that made their nest In hollow huts, where hazels sing their songs; Dead and forever, like the antique throng

The elves replaced; the Dryad that you guessed Behind the leaves; the Naiad weed-bedraped ; The long-eared Faun that loved to lead you wrong. Tell me, thou hopping Robin, hast thou met A little man, no bigger than thyself, Whom they call Puck, where woodland bells are wet? Tell me, thou Wood-Mouse, hast thou seen an elf Whom they call Puck, and is he seated yet, Capped with a snail's shell on his mushroom shelf? The Robin gave three hops, and chirped and said: "Yes, I knew Puck, and loved him, though I trow He mimicked oft my whistle, chuckling low; Yes, I knew cousin Puck, but he is dead. We found him lying on his mushroom bedThe Wren and I-half covered up with snow, And we were hopping where the berries grow. We think he died of cold. Aye, Puck is fled." And then the Wood-Mouse said: "We made the Mole, The old, blind Mole, dig deep beneath the moss And four small Dormice placed him in the hole. The Squirrel made with sticks a little cross; Puck was a Christian elf, and had a soul; And all we velvet jackets mourn his loss." -EUGENE LEE HAMILTON, in The Academy.

The Literary News.

EDITED BY A. H. LEYPOLDT.

JULY, 1890.

THE LIBRARY.

GIVE me the room whose every nook
Is dedicated to a book,

Two windows will suffice for air
And grant the light admission there;
One looking to the south, and one
To speed the red, departing sun.
The eastern wall from frieze to plinth
Shall be the poet's labyrinth,
Where one may find the lords of rhyme
From Homer's down to Dobson's time;
And at the northern side a space
Shall show an open chimney-place,
Set round with ancient tiles that tell
Some legend old and weave a spell
About the firedog-guarded seat,
Where one may dream and taste the heat:
Above, the mantel should not lack
For curios and bric-a-brac-
Not much, but just enough to light
The room up when the fire is bright.
The volumes on this wall should be
All prose and all philosophy,

From Plato down to those who are
The dim reflections of that star;
And these tomes all should serve to show
How much we write-how little know;
For since the problem first was set
No one has ever solved it yet.
Upon the shelves toward the west
The scientific books shall rest;
Beside them, History; above-
Religion-hope, and faith, and love:
Lastly, the southern wall should hold
The story-tellers, new and old;
Haroun al Raschid, who was truth
And happiness to all my youth,
Shall have the honored place of all
That dwell upon this sunny wall,

And with him there shall stand a throng
Of those who help mankind along
More by their fascinating lies
Than all the learning of the wise.

Such be the library :"and take

This motto of a Latin make

To grace the door through which I pass :
Hic habitat Felicitas!

-FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN in The Century.

THE INDEX AS SHE IS COMPILED. No one would accuse Mr. St. George Mivart of a joke. He writes so earnestly and in such stately fashion that it is quite impossible to imagine him guilty of the literary indelicacy known as laughing in his sleeve. Yet he has permitted the publication under his name of one of the most riotous specimens of fun which has ever issued from the press. The book itself ("The Origin of Human Reason") is of the most decorous description, solid throughout, and perhaps just a

trifle dull.

It is not until the index is reached

that the fun breaks out, and then it waxes fast and furious. The index compiler must have been having a very dull time of it, and no doubt determined to revenge himself upon the very next author whose book fell into his hands, and this is how he does it. Mr. Mivart had found it necessary to refer occasionally and in passing to samples of animal sagacity. Here is the indexmaker's opportunity. There is, for instance, a reference to the story of Miss Benson's collie who used to run out of the house whenever the word "pigs" was uttered. First this appears under D-Dog hunting pigs after family prayers, 78. Then it reappears under H-Hunting of imaginary pigs after prayers, 78. Then under I-Imaginary pigs hunted after prayers, 78; and finally under P-Pigs, imaginary, hunted after prayers, 78. Why the compiler denied himself the pleasure of indexing it also under Prayers it is impossible to conjecture; but he makes up for the omission by cataloguing it under Archiepiscopal Collie Dog. Again, Mr. Mivart casually remarks on page 299 that the besetting sin of our day is sensationalism. This remark, which occurs in the middle of a paragraph, appears to have struck the indexer's fancy, and he indexes it under Besetting, under Day, under Sin, and under Our, though again unaccountably he misses the Of. We must pass over such flowers of composition as Dough, parrot up to its knees in," and a choice collection of extracts under the word "What," for the sake of calling attention to the masterpiece of the whole index, a masterpiece which we venture to prophesy is unsurpassable in the whole range of index-making. Mr. Mivart had referred, on page 136 of his book, to some articulate utterances of a certain parrot which sounded remarkably like replies to questions. This anecdote gives the indexer his great opportunity. He indexes this twice under A, and thereafter under twelve other letters with variations of perfectly fascinating ingenuity—thus :

Absurd tale about a Cockatoo, 136.

Anecdote, absurd one, about a Cockatoo, 136. Bathos and a Cockatoo, 136.

Cockatoo, absurd tale concerning one, 136.

Discourse held with a Cockatoo, 136.
Incredibly absurd tale of a Cockatoo, 136.
Invalid Cockatoo, absurd tale about, 136.
Mr. R—— and tale about a Cockatoo, 136.
Preposterous tale about a Cockatoo, 136.
Questions answered by a Cockatoo, 136.
R, Mr., and a tale about a Cockatoo, 136.
Rational Cockatoo as asserted, 136.
Tale about a rational Cockatoo, as asserted, 136.
Very absurd tale about a Cockatoo, 136.

Wonderfully foolish tale about a Cockatoo, 136. Could it have been some premonition of the fate his anecdote was going to meet with that led Mr. Mivart to close it with the words "enough has now been said "?-J. B. C., in Book-Mart.