d may be
now pouring out patriotism in Congress is rather sad; but the author's
own career tells us that there are some of the Chrysostoms of 1830 who
have had the courage to keep quiet, and sweeten their own lives for
family use. Mr. Alcott betrays in every line the kindest, sanest and
humanest spirit; and we wish he could feel how grateful some of us are
for his example of a thinker who can keep quiet, and a writer who can
show the power of reticence.

* * * * *

Thirty Years in the Harem; or, The Autobiography of Melek-Hanum, wife of
H.H. Kibrizli-Mehemet-Pasha. New York: Harper & Brothers.

We have had many revelations from the interior, but nothing quite like
this. Most histories are valuable in proportion to the truthfulness of
the narrator, but Mrs. Melek's story owes a large show of its interest
to her obvious tension of the long-bow. It is, in fact, a
self-revelation--the vain and audacious betrayal by an Oriental woman of
the narrowness, the shallowness, the dishonesty which ages of false
education have fastened upon her race. The lady in question is--and
evidently knows herself to be--an exception among her countrywomen for
ability and acumen: an extreme self-satisfaction and vanity are revealed
in the recital of her most disreputable tricks. She passes for a white
blackbird, a woman of intellect caught in the harem; and it needs but
little ingenuity to guess the torment she must have been to her
protectors--first to the excellent Dr. Millingen, with whom she formed a
love-match, and whom she abuses--and then to her second husband,
Kibrizli, ambassador in 1848 to the court of England, upon whom she
attempted to palm off an heir by the ruse practiced by our own revered
Mrs. Cunningham. Whatever the clever Melek does, or whatever treatment
she receives, it is always she who is in the right, and her eternal
"enemies" who are unjust, barbarous and stingy. The ferocious
blackmailing of natives in the Holy Land which she practiced when her
husband represented the sultan there, is represented as cleverness; but
her divorce after the infamous false accouchement is a piece of
persecution. The marriage and adventures of her daughter form a tangled
romance through which we hear of a great deal more oppression and
cruelty; and the escape into Europe, where the old enchantress appears
to be now prowling in poverty and degradation, concludes the curious
story. The narrative bears marks of