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1412 THE lEiDEE. [-No. 457, Deoembeii 24...
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FATHER AND DAUGHTER. Father and Daughter...
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BOOKS FOK YOUTH. The Boy's Book of Moder...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
New Pictures And Old Panels. Neio Pictur...
rical , legendary , and literary sketches , strungtogtthcr upon a plan which publishers demand rather th . authors . supply , because they imagine , that by such means a connected air is / given" to a scries of unconnected stories . The plan in this case is the shaetow of a shade . A . company of some half-dozen artists and others are supposed to assemble , and to interchange the stories which compose the volume , as they gaze upon pictures and photographs of the individuals who form the central objects of the stories / A few uninteresting words at the
commencement of a sketch , and a few equally tininteresting remarks at its conclusion , are all that we see of our entertainers . They are like phantom showmen ; they cannot place a picture before us ¦ without a few bony gesticulations ; and when in husky tones they endeavour to tell us which " is a lion , " the words seem to stick in their thin and irn palpable throats . They are present to satisfy a superstition in the publishing trade , and the quicker they do their work , the better we like them . They are the froth on the top of a tankard of beer , which it is necessary to blow away in order to get at the fluid .
Dr . Doran does not confine himself to his own country * but treats us to French , Spanish , Danish , Greek , and German sketches . There is an account of Andre * Chenier , the French poet , who perished in the Reign of Terror , and whose poems were collected in scattered scraps of manuscript after an interval x > f more than twenty years . There is a string of Sylvanus Urban gossip , giving a somewhat touch-and-go picture of our country and our countrymen a century back . There is a picture of England as drawn by foreigners ( a rather overworked subject ) , the foreigners being Alexandra Dumas . Max Schlesinsrer , and Heyne . The latter
ought to be spelled Heine , as he may be confounded with the bid classical scholar . There are several legendary religious pictures , " Our Lady of Boulogne , " and others ; and as a set-off to the pictures of the English by foreigners , there are pictures of foreignercTby the English .- In tliis latter paper the author pretends to find it difficult to spell the name of a Polish village , and he tells us to pronounce it by sneezing five times , and adding iski ! This may be given as a satire upon the vulgar wit in which the average English traveller indulges at the expense of his foreign friends ; hut , any way , the joke is rather mouldy , and had better have been left out . in the opening sketch—called "A Picture in Three last
Panels ";—we move in English society of the century , with Dr . Dodd , Mrs . Bellamy , Griffiths the publisher , Dr . Wesley , and Oliver Goldsmith , —the most lovable character in literary history . In all such , resurrection sketches the performers are wooden ; they talk as they never did talk while on earth ; their attitudes are angular , and they are jerky as marionettes . Goldy may have been a fool in conversation , and Dr . Doran does not improve him . Dr . Dodd is more elaborately portrayed , and repulsive as he is , we like the portrait better than that of the transcendental Wesley . We give a neat and complete little French story of Lantarathe painter , as a specimen of the author ' s agreeable style : —
"An artist of quite another stamp once made the Rue St Denis joyous . I allude to ( in one sense ) the French Morland , — -gay , dissolute , tippling , and inimitable Lantara . The death of one he loved paralysed Lantara as it had done Vanloo . In other respects , however , the eases were dissimilar . Lantara was a painter of country scenes , and these he executed amid the din and dirt of the noisiest and dirtiest parts of Paris . He t loved nature much , bat the bottle more ; and he drank the deeper because he could not see more of nature . His onl was a bright gem , and his body was its very course
and ugly setting . He was for ever expatiating on the loveliness of the country , imagining or painting its beauties , and ho the while was tipsily lounging before his palette , or uproariously descanting in dark taverns , Or warmly making love to some laughing fruit-seller , whom he loved the more , he said , because she dealt in natural productions . This tipsiest of painters met with the very pearl of fruit-dealers , in a certain Jacqueline , whose voice -was like a bird ' s , and whose smile was like nothing on earth , but—as the trinerloving artist kh wont to remark—but in its bright promise , only like the
rainbow in heaven . Jacqueline waa the friend , mistress , and guardian angel of the painter . She lived In the lower part of the house , in the attlo of which the desolate artist had a refuge rather- than a home . He was a solitary man without family or kin , and Jacqueline , who reverenced him when sober , and pitied him when drunk , loved and helped him , with all hit merits and defects . He would have died of starvation but for the poor fruit-girl , who
sayr him descend shivering and hungry from his garret , and -was delighted to share with him , what he was never very reluctant to take , her soupe , bauilli , and litre o , wino . For dessert poor Jacqueline bestowed on her illustrious and vagabond friend the rarest fruit which she had in her shop . The poor girl strained her very utmost to make Lantara prefer her back parlour to the public-house , and the careless fellow had just begun to appreciate each according to its real value , whan Jacqueline suddenly died . Lantara plunged for consolation into the nearest wine-shop in the street .
Under his repulsive and fiery exterior there was still some tenderness of sentiment . No pressure of thirst could induce the drunkard to part with a landscape -which he had painted on one of his sober days , while Jacqueline carolled one of her rustic lays at his side . In the garret next to that in which Lantara passed his last days there lived an old opera-dancer , almost as drunken , and quite as desolate , as the painter . She saw- him one morning crying over this landscape in question . ' 1 wonder , ' said she , ' that you do not sell that country-piece ! ' 'Sell , it ! ' cried Lantara , not too tipsy to be unsentimental , ' never ! never ! I can hear Jacqueline ' s voice in it , coming to me through the foliage . ' . ' ___ . _ ¦
" He drank on till wine killed him . In his last illness he was carried to the ' Hopital de la ChafiteV A confessor stood by his bedside administering what consolation he could . * Rejoice , my son , ' said the priest , ' you are on the road to Paradise , where , as long aa eternity lasts , you -will behold the Almighty face to face . ' * Face to " face V muttered the broken-down artist —and he did not mean it profanely , — ' face to face ! what , never in profile ?'—and with this artistic query poor Lantara died . "
The book is nicely got up in the matter of paper and type ; aud is embellished with a very good portrait of 'Doran , from a careful photograph by Herbert Watkins .
1412 The Leidee. [-No. 457, Deoembeii 24...
1412 THE lEiDEE . [ -No . 457 , Deoembeii 24 , 185 B
Father And Daughter. Father And Daughter...
FATHER AND DAUGHTER . Father and Daughter . By Miss F . Bremen Translated by Mary HowitU Hall , Virtue , and Co . Miss Bremer ' s reputation is peculiar . She made it immediately with the English public when her first productions were presented to their notice . Her status as a literary artiste was at once assigned to her , and her subsequent works were quite in harmony with the popular decision . It was felt that a new writer of Nature ' s school had manifested her presence in the literary world . No one , after perusing Miss Bremer ' s first simple and faithful delineation of Northern life and manners , ever desired or expected to see the gifted writer stray from her proper path into
regions of sentimentality or melodramatic maudlinism . We have before us a work winch lias led us to regret that it was written by Miss Bremer . Father and Daughter might have made a name for a less distinguished writer , but we fear to ¦ he rich harvest of well-earned laurels that rightly adorns Miss Bremer ' s brow it will not add a single leaf . The " nature" that we so much admired in the clear , life-like , and quietly humorous pictures in Home , the // - Family , and the earlier works , is wanting here . There is the hand now and then visible of the master , but there is also the '" prentice hand" unmistakably too conspicuous . Miss Bremer tells the reader , in the preface , this : — "I am tired of the old
story of lovers' sighs , hopes , torments , quarrels , reconciliations , fascination , and happiness or despair . I am tired of writing about them , as if the romance of life had not something more beautiful , something bettor . " From this exordium the eager render will naturally be induced to expect in Father ^ Daughter " something more beautiful , something better" than even established favourites have evinced . Let us see whether this expectation will bo fulfilled . About eighty pages at the commencement are devoted to dialogues between Professor Norrby and his daughter , Itosa Norrby , who live a studious and secluded life at Wisby , in Gothland , and extracts from the works of Caesar , Onto , Seneca , Marcus Aurelius , and other antique authors of exploded metaphysical fallacies , sweetened with doses of paternal and filial love .
The professor makes his daughter independent in circumstances at twenty-one , and then gives her permission to vary hor studious life by visiting some relations at Stockholm , the Baroness Norrby and her son , tho Baron Axtel Norrby . Rom takes leave of her learned parent , bogs his largo walking-stick for her oompagnon do voyage , and makes her first appearance to Baron Axtel , a Swedish buck of the first head , walking-stick in hand . Thp baronet at first' despises his rococo cousin , but soon afterwards , on the discovery of her great talents and amiability , changes his opinion , fulls , or affects to fall , in love with her , and makes her an offer of his hand , which offer Itosa accepts conditionally . A letter is received by Roja which induces hor to return suddenly to her father ' s house . She finds him in a . drooping state , smitten with blindness and
having a vertebral disease of which the surP ^^ idiocy or death . The father is deliberat e el ^ e d n ^ ing suicide by starvation . He coolly inform , idaughter of the fact , and then a good deal ? 3 J ! - losophy and many more extracts from anS authors are brought forward and quoted W fi father , in . justification of his determination bv ! i daughter , as arguments to prove that the determin * tion is a wrong one . The " father" is onlv £ duced to suspend his attempt on his lift . \ Z !{ : threat that the "daughter" would terminate h ™ exactly in the same fashion . Father and daueht * remove to a farm in their possession , and then bvtW aid of new scenery and new amusements the nm lessor-acquires a new stock of health , and his morbid fancies become gradually fainter . Baron Axtel visits Rosa , renew * his vows , and is told that the marriW cannot be so long as the professor requires his daughter ' s constant care . He vows eternal fidelity arid immediately transfers his love to Coraa e
, youn cousin of Rosa ' s . This new love becomes known to Rosa , and when the Baron offers his hand again some time afterwards , she rejects him , and acquaints him with scenes that bad been witnessed by her own eyes Rosa is then at the house of the Baroness , who has just died . She makes preparation to return home and in order to expedite her journey she embarks ' with the mails on board a small boat during the winter season . Here we have a minute history of the journey , the perils of the travelling party , their
sufferings among thp ice , from starvation , cold , and sudden death , and though we are assured that all the circumstances are founded on facts , and are taken from a newspaper statement of the mishaps of a real mail-bag party , we hardly think the general reader will consider them of sufficient value in themselves , or having a sufficient connexion with . the story or its moral , to entitle the narrative to be reproduced at such length . Rosa is rescued from all but inevitable destruction , and she lives on with her father and brother at their new home . Baron Axtel
and Cora are united , and several years afterwards the professor dies . There is a Madame Carlahder , the aunt , with her two only teeth , Malakoff and Sebastopol , her physic for everybody , and especially her " head cure for the stomach . " She is the only really " Bremer-like portrait" we have , and might have been made a good deal more of with advantage to the story .
This is all that Father and Daughter contains worth noticing . The materials are of the slightest , and the moral not likely to be very fully appreciated here , where the standard of filial duty and love is placed on what we would venture to term higher and more refined grounds than in Sweden . Of course the book will be read by everybody . Many will applaud , but more , we think , will be inclined to adopt our estimation of its merits .
Books Fok Youth. The Boy's Book Of Moder...
BOOKS FOK YOUTH . The Boy's Book of Modern Travel and Adventure . By Meredith Johnes . Kent and Co . False Appearances . A . Hall , Virtue , and Co . The Canadian Crttsoes . By Catherine V . TraiU . A . Hall , Virtue , and Co . The Kangaroo Hunters . By Ann Doirmsn ^ ^ The English Boy in Japan . By W « H « m Dritoa ^ ^
The Day ' s Book of Modern Travels and A dventure is not a collection of imaginary sketches , but is for the most part composed of extracts from some ^ of our most popular books of travel , with c cvercondensa tions of actual incidents and particulars of distant regions from the original works themselves . 1 . ta author h « s judiciously blended "" ructionjUh amusement . Binding , type , paper , and illustrations HT APptances is one of those pleasing domestic tales with' n moral which Mrs . Ilonum , JfaUJJ wood , and Mrs . Trimmer have "' j ^ JEJJffi ' Mrs . Maekay , tho authoress of the P ™ "' ' volumetakes high rank among these pi «««« « s
, writers of juvenile moral "ction . b . The Canadian Crusoes is of f / . ^^ Jfc Jickland . tain tho editorial revision of M «» A « ff' ? f £ pub to Tho first edition instantly e » t » bl » liod ' Jg ^ J favour , tho second will enlarge the au < l > cnco »»« putation of the work . om 0 of 1 The Kangaroo Hunters is as *« " «""«" som £ he Marryafs or Chamier ' s best P ^ ftonj authoress , we hope , WU 1 pan on us for g . vmg J P ^ of advice . In writing for childhood or yo «* ^ plicity of stylo ought to be carefully aUJiere Head Defoe's " Robinson Cru * O 9 f " tt « J K wMiw that tho secret of its universal charm » s t » o
and pure Saxon made use of . . bo m & The MngW Boy in Japan is not ft book ¦* JJj and thrown aside . Tho ™ w » w , oujtoBjJ . J " gends , as tho author himealf tolls us , imy gathered from tho latest as well as tho oarhj thoritles , the only imaginative pa ** » g ? { h 0 purvehicle which tho author hasi * ? I »[« , ' ^ i , & no pose of convoying the information he' » "JHg » doubt eaaer readers in its most attractive lorm .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 24, 1858, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24121858/page/12/
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