set of meanings, according to his individuality, insight, or experience. The study of the Faun's nature embraces the whole question of sin and crime, their origin and distinction. This Romance of Monte Beni is the story of the fall of man repeated without advocating any theory. Hawthorne's poetry, imagination, purity, and delicacy indicate a plan of redemption, striking the key-note of pure, primitive Christianity-self-sacrifice born of unselfishness. The Marble Faun" shows that after a sin, sudden and impulsive, a man may possibly reach a higher standard of moral excellence than he would have attained had he not transgressed. Hawthorne's other great works, "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of the Seven Gables," were wrought from such scanty material that they show the rare quality of his genius even more strikingly. In his Italian story he has rich and abundant material. Aside from its great moral lessons, "The Marble Faun" contains a history of art and finished criticisms of some of the great art-works of the world.

It is this side of the book that has brought it before a large class of readers less interested in the study of human nature and the great eternal truths embodied in its pages. For years it has been the fashion for tourists on reaching Rome to read "The Marble Faun" and compare their own ideas about the noted masterpieces of antiquity with those of America's

great novelist. After a time it became customary to buy copies of the great works described and to interleave the story with these pictures, and this has become so common that dealers in Rome and Florence make it their practice to keep such photographs arranged and ready for the traveller.

The publishers of Hawthorne's works have taken a hint from this well-established custom, and have prepared an edition of the work in two volumes, adding to the text the photogravures of fifty subjects, scenes, building, paintings, statues, and the like. Great care has been taken by these experienced and fastidious publishers in the choice of these photographs, and their selection is by no means a mere repetition of the dealer's choice. No pains have been spared to obtain the best, made directly from the objects. The publishers have thus given all lovers of art and letters an edition of Hawthorne's classic of more real and permanent value than if they had resorted to the usual method of employing artists to make original illustrations to the story.

These beautiful volumes are put into a binding of jacqueminot red and white with gold ornamentation and are protected by red covers and sold in a box. The publication is fully up to the best standard of the Riverside Press, which statement conveys to the initiated the fact that it is as perfectly made a book as the present state of book publishing makes possible.

THE city of Saint Augustine in Florida is the oldest city in the United States, having been settled by the Spanish in 1565. It was not till 1821 that the American flag supplanted that of the Spanish, and the city became an American cityan American city, however, only in name, for no change has occurred in its aspect in this century to make it other than the picturesque, neglected, slowly decaying Spanish town it had been for three previous centuries. This un-American physiognomy is perhaps its strongest attraction. The commonplace and monotony of prosperity find no place in it, American energy and enterprise having discovered no opening there for capital-except in the keeping of hotels. Hence it remains as time and nature made it-rich in a most delightful climate, in an abundance of flowers, fruits, and foliage, and in many interesting landmarks of the past. It is a Paradise for the traveller driven southward by the keen blasts of Northern winters, and a haven of peace and rest to the nervous, overworked business man flying from his kind.

Mrs. Margaret Deland was happily tempted to go South and spend a few winter months in St. Augustine. The result of this visit is embodied

in "Florida Days." One in search of information will not consult "Florida Days." It is no itinerary of travel, combining threadbare facts culled from an encyclo. pædia with mild personal adventures which interest no one. In place of the ordinary guide-book or diary, an exquisite collection of literary sketches of the people, the town, the sea, the sky, and the ruins is offered us, from the practised pen of a writer of exceptional gifts. The fine sense of rhythm so evident in "The Old Garden" makes itself felt in the author's descriptive passages, lending a color and music to the narrative that almost lifts it to the dignity of a poem.

The description is confined to the town of St. Augustine and to the banks of the St. John's River. The town is shown to us under just such aspects as a poet would view it at daybreak, at noon, at night. Touched with the first gleam of light from the east, we see the coquina reef, Anastasia Island, and the old coquina lighthouse, and imagine Sir Francis Drake and his Spanish ships bearing down upon the defenceless inhabitants. By and by the brilliant sun stands directly over the old town; its streets are silent, its picturesque houses with their shady balconies are bathed in its hot noonday rays, and the air is heavy with the odors of orange and jessamine trees. Colored humanity sleeps in the shade, and a drowsy boy in an old broken down car does not object when his mule comes to a halt to bite a troublesome fly upon his shaggy side. The mysterious atmosphere of the night brings out new details for the poet's and the artist's eye to dwell upon. The sea-wall, the old moat, old Fort Marion, and other familiar points are the central figures in new pictures.

IN OLD ST. AUGUSTINE.

The descriptions of the woods and swamps along the St. John's River, with their strange inhabitants, afford fine material for the author's delicate wit and keen insight into human nature. The accounts of "a wash-foot Baptist meeting" and of the "Cracker" family in the woods illustrate especially Mrs. Deland's talent as a successful novel-writer. That insistent looking beneath the surface of things so characteristic

of "John Ward, Preacher," is seen again in this fresh handling of an old subject. The "Cracker" as she presents him is a new psychological study.

The sweet restfulness of the book is, after all, its chief charm; as page after page is turned, our senses become steeped in the "dreamful ease " of "the lotus-eaters," and we feel indeed we are in

"A land

In which it seemed always afternoon." The publishers, Little, Brown & Co., have given this volume a beautiful setting. All the romance of the text, is reproduced in Mr. Louis K. Harlow's graceful illustrations; besides the numerous smaller pictures scattered through the reading-matter, there are several full-page designs in black and white, several printed in colors, and two graceful etchings; paper, print, and binding are rich and elegant.

Either his each year

Railways are naturally a subject of interest to him. The history and extent of the road over which he travels, the probable risks he runs, or his immunity from danger, promise always most congenial reading. To have it proved to his sceptical mind (in figures, which never lie) that only one person in ten million is killed through accidents on railways-being a much smaller average than those who come to a fatal ending by falling out of windows-is consolatory and reassuring to a wonderful degree.

The occasional traveller who takes a trip from Boston to New York, or from New York to Philadelphia, or goes westward from any of these points to Chicago, fancies, with the natural conceit of man, that he knows something about railways. But even when the facts are placed before him, he but faintly realizes the immensity of the railway system in the United States. When told that there are one hundred and fifty thousand miles of railway, covering the length and breadth of the land, his mind fails to grasp the full significance of the figures. One hundred and fifty thousand miles of railway means three hundred thousand miles of rails, which are sufficient to make twelve steel girders for the earth's circumference. The bridges of these railways, if placed in line, would reach from New York to Liverpool, while the railways would reach more than half way to the moon. The number of persons employed in constructing, equipping, and operating these roads is said to be two millions, while the capital invested in them is computed at nine thousand millions of dollars.

A system so wide-spread in its interests, so deeply interwoven with all the events of our social and business life, so vast and so intricate, offered a topic of the richest possibilities to the magazines. The only wonder is that it was not till June of 1888 that this fertile soil was upturned. Then a series of articles was begun in Scribner's Magazine, which as they ran on proved to be a most comprehensive account of the construction, marvellous development, management, and appliances of American railways. The series attracted universal attention. Nothing like it had before been published. Not only the freshness of the subject, but the popular graphic style in which it was written gained for it many readers. The articles comprised in this series, revised and expanded, and with many new illustrations added, are now offered in book-form by the Scribners, under the title of "The American Railway."

chains the imagination of the "general" reader. The wonderful engineering feats in the deep cañons and among the high mountains of the Pacific coast are as thrilling as any story Jules Verne ever told.

The articles show in logical sequence the lives of railroad men from president to firemen and trackwalkers. Each one has been written by a man eminent in the department he was asked to describe. The list of authors includes two railway presidents, two vice-presidents, a superintendent, two expert civil engineers, three editors, an ex-postmaster general, and a distinguished author and professor. As the titles of the articles best define the scope of the book, we give them as follows: "The Building of a Railway," by Thomas Curtis Clarke; "Feats of Railway Engineering," by John Bogart; American Locomotives and Cars," by M. N. Forney; "Railway Management," by General E. P. Alexander; “Safety in Railroad Travel," by H. G. Prout; Railway Passenger Travel," by General Horace Porter ; "The Freight-car Service," by Theodore Voorhees; "How to Feed a Railway," by Benjamin Norton; "The Railway Mail Service," by Thomas L. James; The Railway in its Business Relations," by Arthur T. Hadley; "The Prevention of Railway Strikes," by Charles Francis Adams; and "The Every-day Life of Railroad Men," by B. B. Adams, Jr. The volume has a special feature, completing it, in a series of statistical railway studies, geographically illustrated with maps and charts, showing railway development in the United States from 1830 to the present day. These important statistics have been gathered by Mr. Fletcher W. Hewes, the author of "Scribner's Statistical Atlas." Judge Thomas M. Cooley, chairman of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, furnishes the valuable introduction, treating of the relations of railway corporations to each other. A complete index makes the volume an easy one for reference.

From an artistic standpoint, likewise, praise may be liberally bestowed. The pictures are profusely scattered through the volume, and they are, with scarcely an exception, excellent. The best artists were employed to make them, and the best engravers to reproduce them. They are, besides being artistic, exceedingly characteristica great merit-as they really illustrate the text, making clear many points it might be difficult quite to realize without them. In respect to paper, type, binding, the work is an unusually handsome one.