Life — May 31, 1888 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

308 THE SERENADE. BREATHED a song into the air— I fell to earth, he hit me square ; I found my banjo still unbroke, But some loving words remain unspoke. CURRENT FICTION. B. MeV. A, « y . * 5 . O write a good summer novel, producing entertainment and interest without too much trouble on the reader's part, is one of the commendable branches of the BRIDLE-PATH STUDIES. art of fiction. And Duffield Osborne has practised it with some skill in “The Spell of Ashtaroth” (Scribner's). This is a novel in a similar field to Crawford's “ Zoroaster,” which it is said has won the admiration of Mr. Gladstone. There are several stately pictures in the story—the fall of Jericho, the drawing of the lot, and the death scene in the Valley of Achor. The-language is stilted at times, and touched with bombast, but contains good imagery. One would prefer more definite pictures of the beautiful Canaanite and her lover, to bring them wholly within the range of his sympathies. * * * SPONTANEOUS movement seems to be on foot in fiction to promote the right of a woman to declare her affection for a man, rather than to allow him to escape because he is ignorant that he is loved. The recent “Love Story Reversed” with this motive (in ¢he Century), is followed by ‘‘ Beautiful Mrs. Thorn- dyke” in Zzppzncott's—a novelette by Mrs. Poultney Bigelow, with a heroine possess- ing wealth, generosity, and beauty in unlimited quantity. The hero, who is diplo- matically pursued by Mrs. Thorndyke, is a journalist, fully endowed with the moral and intellectual qualities which are superfluous in that profession, but sadly lacking in the indispensable element in newspaper enterprises—Money. It must be set down to the credit of this unworldly editor, that he had developed journalistic sense enough to know his weak point, and so gracefully surrendered A HIGH BRED MAN ON A LOW BRED Horse. when M/rs, Thorndyke offered herself. The future of his paper, Books and Authors, is thus happily assured. The reader closes the book, feeling that Mrs. Thorndyke disposed of her superfluous income in the right quarter. * * * S for the new social question which these stories propose, it would probably be the mature verdict of the majority of men, that the arts which woman already wields with consummate skill to bring a man to a prompt and fervent declaration are more effective than a direct avowal on her part of the affection which possesses her. At any rate, the rules of the game should not be changed without an international Congress, and a formally promulgated decree. The odds are already against men in flirtations, and any further aggressions by women would approach perilously near tyranny. * * * HOSE who have admired the folk-lore stories of Middle Georgia, as told by Uncle Remus, will be interested in “Negro Myths from the Georgia Coast” (Houghton), by Charles C. Jones, Jr. These preserve the “lingo of the rice-field and the sea-island negroes,” which is essentially different from Uncle Remus's. Droch. NEW BOOKS - ASRAHAM LINCOLN. & Biography for Young People, By Noah Brooks. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. His Way and Her Will. Chicago, New York and San Francisco: Belford, Clarke & Co. Hints from a Lawyer ; or, Legal Advice to Men and Women, By Edgar A. Spencer. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. A LOW BRED MAN ON A HIGH BRED HORSE. The Heart of the Creeds. By Arthur Wentworth Eaton. New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. comicbooks.com