sensibilities of the ubiquitous young woman, as one of these story-tellers phrases it, shall we be deceived? Shall we be blinded by the dazzle of style to the scarcely veiled indecency that gave spice to one of last year's shelved favorities? Does ridicule cast upon one of the most sacred of subjects and the most sacred of books, become more tolerable because the author, after making one of his characters soliloquize amiably and atheistically with all the ingenuity at his disposal, tells us in one curt sentence that these are not his opinions?

The oft quoted saying of Burke that "vice loses half its evil by losing all its grossness is an epigrammatic lie and nothing better, Sewer gas does not lose half its danger by losing all its odour. And if sewer gas should come to us hidden in the aroma of roses, spices, and citron groves, it becomes, because of its borrowed attractions, far more dangerous than if it had no odour at all. No cunning or refinement of style can make what is ethically ugly artistically beautiful.

On the other hand, sewer gas, though presented in all its repulsiveness, is disagreeable as a literary atmosphere. One of the books that social tyranny forced on us last year is nothing less than a study in moral pathology. The author seems recently to show a preference for the seven deadly sins. Last year avarice supplied him with a motif; this year a grosser sin-though by no means grossly dealt with-forms the groundwork of a tale unenlivened by a single noble character. And, although his superb skill as a writer and analyst, and, as a rule, the rectitude of his moral sense must be conceded, probably not one reader out of ten will grasp the full purport of the story, and the other nine will be injured by it. Treatises on disease are useful for medical practitioners, but the reading of them by the ordinary layman would result in producing an army of hypochondriacs.

Our attitude towards literature of this kind ought to be evident. If it is admired, if its offences against morality and religion, good taste and decency, are palliated, because these offences are committed with literary refinement, it becomes our duty to keep our judgment clear and right in its presence. Examine it in the light of faith and the native instincts of morality implanted in every soul. Distrust and challenge even the judgment of the majority. Remember that the chorus of claqueurs is composed of those whose judgment on the elementary principles of morality and

good taste is not better than yours. If we Catholics are not the salt of the earth, how will the earth be seasoned? But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be savoured ?

TIMOTHY BROSNAHAN, S.J.

0

HEAVENWARD.

FROM THE HEART.

YE whose leaving made us desolate,

Do ye remember? Do ye sometimes wait,
Hovering expectant about heaven's gate,
Listening for a call,

Or for a footfall,

With hope to welcome us the first to rest?
Ah, surely ere we share life with the blest,
We must wipe out the memory of the years
Of sorrow, yearning, loneliness and fears
Near you, in sight of you, with blissful tears.

FROM THE SOUL.

Tears, what need for tears?

O Lord, we know, when kneeling at Thy feet,
By every tender thought and glad heart-beat,
That Thou alone canst give us joy complete;
That, when Thy face we see,

Vanished for aye will be

Earth and all its

years.

JESSIE TULLOCH

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

1. Among the Untrodden Ways. By M. E. Francis (Mrs Francis Blundell) Author of "In a North "A Daughter of the Soil," "Frieze and Fustian, Sons: London and Edinburgh).

etc. (William Blackwood and

We have already introduced this delightful book to our readers, but are fain to return to it. Mrs. Blundell dedicates it to the amiable and gifted lady who has won renown as the painter of "The Roll Call" and other great military pictures, and who is besides the sister of Alice Meynell and the wife of Sir William Butler.

"You may have forgotten, dear friend, a certain summer's afternoon which we passed together some years ago on the sunlit slope just outside the doors of your pretty Irish home. We discussed Art: yours, of which you had long had the mastery; mine, which I was then beginning to serve. You had thrown yourself back on the warm scented grass, and were gazing up dreamily at our wonderful changeful Irish sky, when of a sudden there came a sound of small eager feet and rapturous baby chatter, and all at once, between your eyes and the lambent blue overhead, was interposed the laughing face of your youngest born. I remember it well the child's roguish face and golden curls transfigured in the sunshine, his white hat an aureole. Then you, sitting up, clasped him close and said: ' After all, this is best-this is Life.'

With the remembrance of that golden hour I now offer you this little book. There is no great art in my sketches and studies, but I have tried to make them true to life; and in dedicating them to you I ensure something at least that is real-the tribute of a warm and admiring affection."

We venture by a fond conjecture to claim for our own beautiful Delgany the glory of the idyllic scene described here so exquisitely. We dispute the statement of "M. E. Francis" that she was only then beginning to devote herself to her Art. Her vocation was clear from the first. But she has certainly made wonderful progress. Many warm tributes to the merits of Mrs. Blundell's newest book have caught our eye in the press. According to The Academy- which, by the way, seems to us much more interesting in its new form-" she has put some of the best writing she has done into these stories. Her themes are handled with a rare felicity and restraint. All the characters are essential; every touch of description, every bit of admirable dialogue, is made to tell." The Manchester Guardian, in reviewing this "set of fresh and exquisite stories," says "her style has the freedom and ease of a just and perfect taste." The British Weekly thinks that "Mrs. Blundell's new book shows growing mastery not only of literary technique but also of Lancashire rustic life." Passing over The Scotsman and The Birmingham Gazette, etc., we notice

on this side of the Channel The New Ireland Review speaks of Mrs. Blundell as a delineator of rural life and village types with much of the winning charm of Miss Austen and the authoress of "Cranford." The reviewer adds: "How an Irish lady can so skilfully enter into English types is a mystery, but Mrs. Blundell writes with unerring insight." Indeed The Sketch suspects that she "owes her healthy, hearty outlook on humble folks' concerns to the fact that she is Irish."

2. Flora, the Roman Martyr (London: Burns and Oates). This is the third edition of a full-length historical novel relating to the third century of the Christian era. It is ten years since it was first published, and it has meanwhile been translated into Italian and French. A German translation is about to be published. The interest of the romance is very well sustained, although much space is given to Roman scenes and to their classical and christian associations. A great deal of information and edification may be gained by the attentive reader of these forty chapters, filling five hundred admirably printed pages. Flora cannot pretend to the high literary merit of the two classical models by two great Cardinals, which its name and its theme recall. At the very start the word "onset" is very oddly used in the new preface. But there is no need to pick out faults in a very meritorious work.

3. Three Daughters of the United Kingdom. By Mrs Innes Brown (London: Burns and Oates).

This large and handsome volume contains part of the history of three girls, English, Irish, and Scotch, who at the opening of the story are taking leave of the old Benedictine convent in northern France in which they had been educated. The compact they make resembles so closely the opening of Mrs. Plunkett-Kenney's tale "A State of Life" recently published by Moran and Co., of Aberdeen, that at first we almost suspected that this was only a full development of the same plot under a new name; but Beatrice, Madge, and Marie have quite different fortunes before them. Many young persons will study their careers, as here narrated, with much pleasure and profit. 4. The Secret Directory. A Romance of Hidden History. By Madeline Vinton Dahlgren (Philadelphia: Kilner and Co.)

Mrs. Dahlgren's romance is of a very different character from the two we have just brought under the notice of our readers. It professes to palpitate with actuality, as they say in France-dealing with hypnotism, the Royal Arch, secret societies, Mazzini, and other persons and things pertaining to revolutionary Europe. An air of realism is given to the narrative by introducing a verbatim copy of an unpublished letter of Mazzini, which is even photographed as one of the seven

illustrations. The same honour is conferred on a private and confidential letter of Admiral Charles Napier, which expresses his anxiety to assist Garibaldi. The difficulty is to determine in what proportions history and romance are combined in Mrs. Dahlgren's interesting work. It belongs to the same class as Father Bresciani's "Jew of Verona.” Many prefer to take their history and their romance in separate draughts. Mrs. Dahlgren has performed her task very ably.

5. How many of our readers acted on our suggestion about supplying themselves with the first volume (all that is yet issued) of the Rev. Henry Gibson's "Short Lives of the Saints" (London and Leamington: Art and Book Company) and reading, day after day, the two or three pages allotted to each day, beginning with the first of January? Few physicians make use of their own prescriptions, as has happened in this case-with such satisfactory results that the advice is now earnestly repeated. You would do very well, dear reader, just before preparing overnight the points of your morning meditation, to read the brief story of the saint whom Father Gibson has linked with the coming day.

6. "Gloomy Winter's Noo Awa'." By M. M. (London and Leamington: Art and Book Company).

“M. M.” is the writer of a pleasant little book, "Memories of my Pilgrimage to the Holy Land." Her present story is neatly written and is intended to point to a useful moral; but we do not like the mingling of melodrama and piety, and the plot will hardly satisfy a careful Convent librarian. The writer imagines that Quakers ring the ordinary grammatical changes upon the pronoun thou, but they use thee as nominative. For instance, the last line of Longfellow's runs thus:

"Elizabeth"

"But thee may make believe, and see what will come of it, Joseph."

7. The Thanes of Kent. By C. M. Home (London: Catholic Truth Society, 21 Westminster Bridge Road, S.E.)

This handsomely produced half-crown volume is another historical novel by the author of "Claudius." All her subjects seem to be taken from ecclesiastical history. The present romance belongs to the last years of the sixth century and is concerned with England's conversion to Christianity. It has been written "in honour of St. Gregory the Great, Supreme Pontiff, who loved our nation, and of St. Augustine, Apostle of the English, whom he sent hither to preach the faith of Christ." It is dedicated to the latter "on the approach ing thirteenth centenary of his coming to our land."

• Some twenty lines earlier in this "Theologian's Tale" in the third part of "Tales of a Wayside Inn" occurs the passage which has given a name to Miss Beatrice Harraden's " Ships that pass in the Night."