hankering is fruitless. The feeling of pity with
which a "yearnest" one regards somebody who cares only for pleasant
and simple or pathetic books is very creditable; but it weighs on the
average human being. Why on earth should a girl leave the tenderness
of "The Mill on the Floss" and rise to "Daniel Deronda's" elevated but
barren and abhorrent level? There are people capable of advising girls
to read such a literary production as "Robert Elsmere"; and this
advice reveals a capacity for cruelty worthy of an inquisitor. Then we
are bidden to leave the unpolished utterances of frank love and
jealousy and fear and anger in order that we may enjoy the peculiar
works of art which have come from America of late. In these
enthralling fictions all the characters are so exceedingly refined
that they can talk only by hints, and sometimes the hints are very
long. But the explanations of the reasons for giving the said hints
are still longer; and, when once the author starts off to tell why
Crespigny Conyers of Conyers Magna, England, stumbled against the
music-stool prepared for the reception of Selina Fogg, Bones Co.,
Mass., one never knows whether the fifth, the twelfth, or the fortieth
page of the explanation will bring him up. There is no doubt but that
these things are refined in their way. The British peer and the
beautiful American girl hint away freely through three volumes; and it
is understood that they either go through the practical ceremony of
getting married at the finish, or decline into the most
delicately-finished melancholy that resignation, or more properly,
renunciation can produce. Yet the atmosphere in which they dwell is
sickly to the sound soul. It is as if one were placed in an orchid
house full of dainty and rare plants, and kept there until the quiet
air and the light scents overpowered every faculty. In all the doings
of these superfine Americans and Frenchmen and Britons and Italians
there is something almost inhuman; the record of a strong speech, a
blow, a kiss would be a relief, and one young and unorthodox person
has been known to express an opinion to the effect that a naughty word
would be quite luxurious. The lovers whom we love kiss when they meet
or part, they talk plainly--unless the girls play the natural and
delightful trick of being coy--and they behave in a manner which human
beings understand. Supposing that the duke uses a language which
ordinary dukes do not affect save in moments of e