An Open
Letter to

Crayon Bleu.

-

A contributor, who has had some slight and only slight - acquaintance with the blue pencil of the proof-reader, sends the following amiable remonstrance touching his severity. We ourselves owe him nothing but thanks. When he insists too strongly on excluding the duplicate word, -a matter of no moment, we forgive him, for the sake of the hundred times he has saved us from falling into very deep verbal pits. We are far from holding that "a quotation slightly inexact is sometimes rendered more telling and poignant," though the inexact quotation instanced by the contributor must have been "poignant" enough to the quoter when he discovered its inexactness. He would have been prevented from committing wholesale homicide if the proof-reader had exercised a little more of that patient care for which he is now reproached. We take exception to another point made by our ingenious contributor, whose practice is happily finer than his theory. If it is necessary to write carelessly in order to promote "the flexibility of the language," it occurs to us that "flexibility" is very dearly paid for by the reader. We have noticed that certain authors have written with approximate correctness without becoming either purists or pedants. But we are wrong in taking our contributor au grand sérieux; he is slyly heaping the most delicate flatteries on Monsieur Crayon Bleu :

AUGUST SIR, - By the consensus of the Club, I am permitted to address you a letter of remonstrance upon a subject whose agitation should, in my judgment, result to the advantage both of professional and of casual littérateurs.

Favored as you are, from time to time, with the opportunity of examining our MSS. (I speak in behalf of the entire literary body), whether these be in prose or verse, whether designed for periodical or book issues, your Ceru

upon

In the work which we writers throw off in the white heat of inspiration, it sometimes chances that a predicate (plural) will leave its subject (singular) in the lurch. You must be aware that we stand not alone in this petty offense; the great masters of the language have distinguished themselves by like lapses, and this not so rarely but that we are kept in countenance. Nevertheless, you do not spare to brand with your azure stigma all our little slips by the way, whether they be disagreeing verb and subject, negatives in too friendly conjunction, or merely the harmless recurrence of buts, yets, ands, thes, or other similar prompt monosyllables. We believe that a too scrupulous correctness in these particulars is not only needless, but is even of positive detriment to that public for whom you so carefully cater; since instead of promoting the flexibility of the language by admitting examples of graceful license in good writers, contemporary classics, — you, by restricting these, do but encourage the race of purists and precisians, ever the bane of a racy and idiomatic style. But our chief remonstrance touches other more serious matters. How is it that you have conceived such antipathy against the choicest treasures of our diction that, if the same specimen occurs upon two consecutive pages of our manuscript, down falls your obliterating mace upon one of the offending duplicates, and we in consequence are obliged to search our jewel

box for something that will fill out the gap? We have remarked also your extreme aversion for fine writing, and especially for certain adjectives. You do not like delectable, quaint, dainty, lush, debonair, and you offer no conditions to eerie, and eldritch, and grewsome. You do not encourage fine writing; permit us also to say that you evince but small appreciation for humorous writing; else why do our keenest quips, our most irresistible jovialities, come back to us, struck through with the indigo barb of disapprobation?

Above all, we allege that you hamper us, quite unnecessarily, by compelling verification of every doubtful quotation occurring in our manuscripts. If the quotation has been made from some one of the ancients, a dead language, a dead author, to whom is injury done, if the text is not quite accurately cited? Perhaps the public is no more au fait in its Latin and Greek than we are, or than was one William Shakespeare. Moreover, a quotation slightly inexact is sometimes rendered the more telling and poignant. Such an instance we recall, where the inadvertence of the writer, or of yourself, dear Crayon Bleu, or

was it the printer's devil? (a blue devil he), let slip into type the following variant of Emerson's The Test:

"I hung my verses in the wind,

Time and tide their faults may find.
All were winnowed through and through,
Five lines lasted sound and true;

Five men smelted in a pot,

Than the South more fierce and hot."

Respectfully submitted by a

periods there is not in the whole neighborhood a more quiet, homekeeping body. But on the return of her affliction she is much given to fantastic apparel, to roving about, and to chatty discourse. In this condition she recently visited me. On my inquiring, soothingly, as to the state of her health, she replied with jaunty reassurance, “Oh, don't you fret about me; I'm all right. You know I'm a little out sometimes, and then my head is bad. I've had one of those spells, but I've got over it now, and am just as pert and chipper as ever!" Her concluding statement I could not doubt; indeed, her face beaming with smiles, her bright eye, and her brisk tones might have inveigled a stranger to credit her entire testimony. She soon departed, but not so the train of reflections her words had started. Poor soul! I thought, was this her lucid interval? And were those times in which we accounted her rational, and in which appeared an unusually retiring and selfcontained spirit, now presented to her mind as the periods of mental unsteadiness? Of course my light-brained neighbor was in error, and we were in the right, as to her condition on these occasions - yet—and here I fell into a limbo of confusing speculation on the whole subject of human sanity or nonsanity.

"A mad world, my masters!" Then who shall judge when its lucid intervals occur? Who knows but that those most specifically accused are after all the least topsy-turvy at the cerebral centre! Why did some ancient peoples hold in religious reverence those who were adjudged insane? Why was such regard paid to the ravings of the pythoness? The poet-why, the poet, if gray authority does not err, is a creature futile by himself, potential only when beside himself, enjoying a lucid interval only when the fine madness is on!

In my reflections on the question, I could but recall how one period of life

shifts this accusation of giddyhead back from itself upon another. Is youth the lucid interval? Yes, if youth be allowed to witness; no, if mature years are consulted. But youth suspects that But youth suspects that middle age and beyond have the judg ment and temper merely mulled, not mellowed. To bring the matter home, I reflected that there were acts in my life that, as I looked back upon them, appeared those of turbid brainsickness, whimsical folly; and yet at the time of their commission I certainly did not question my sanity, nor did any friend suggest the advisability of a straitjacket, or even of a special custodian, in my case. Strange that certain proced

ures of mine which had once seemed ordered by a wise dispassionateness of temper should now be clearly revealed as the effect of mere torpid fatuity! Strange, also, that conduct which had once impressed me as evidence of a glowing impetuosity, a generous sponta

neity, in myself should now show like the tumid self-importance and vainglory of some magnifico of the madhouse itself! Had I been somewhat beside myself in these remembered instances, and was my present attitude of severe survey a lucid interval, or was I, perhaps, still "far wide"?

In sleep none ever dreams that he has lost his wits or become a bedlamite, however his waking senses advise him of extravagance in his dream-conduct. To liken human life to a dream would be to propound no startling novelty; but let us follow up the suggestions of the analogy: since no one in dreams doubts his sanity, so we, in like manner, in the great dream of all, suspect not ourselves of aberrance. What if we but flatter our dreaming souls that we have at least gleams of right reason all through life? And what if the true lucid interval comes only after the "fitful fever" departs?

Fiction. A Princess of Java, a Tale of the Far East, by S. J. Higginson. (Houghton.) Merely to lay the scene of a novel in an unfamiliar region does not insure originality or attractiveness in a novel; but Mrs. Higginson, though she has written out of a full knowledge of Java, and succeeds in transporting the reader to the East Indies, uses her material so skillfully that the effect is very bright and novel. The mingling of races does not shock the reader, partly, perhaps, because the Caucasian element is chiefly Dutch, and the Dutch in the East Indies always seem half naturalized. There is a good deal of humor in the portraits of the two grandmothers and the old Tamung'gung, and the chase of the runaways is very spirited. The reader must not be disturbed by the strangeness of the East Indian words; let him imitate the wisdom of the darky when he came upon similar difficulties in Deuteronomy, call them all Moses, and let Run Away from the Dutch, or Bor

'em go. neo from South to North, by M. T. H. Pere

laer, translated by Maurice Blok, and adapted by A. P. Mendes. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) Under the form of a story of adventure, this book, which also lays open the East Indies, gives a picture of life in Borneo amid the perils of the interior from natives, mosquitoes, and other wild beasts. There is not the art that Mrs. Higginson shows, and it is in effect rather a boy's book than a veritable novel. - Love and Theology, by Celia Parker Woolley. (Ticknor.) A young man brought up in the straitest sect and intended for the ministry becomes engaged to a young woman similarly brought up, and foreordained to be a minister's wife. Theological study brings about a change in the young man's views, and the consistent young woman disentangles herself from an unholy alliance. So the book begins. At the end the two have married: the man still a very liberal preacher, but the woman permitting her love to subordinate her theology. It is not wholly easy to accept the rather weak young man at the beginning as the ultimate hero, but the au

thor has managed to keep the interest up to the end, and to make the relations of the various people reasonable. There is no little skill in characterization, but we warn readers that the material out of which the story is hewn is chiefly theological and ecclesiastical. The relation of the Episcopal rector to his wife is quite entertainingly described. He certainly is very much married. - Button's Inn, by Albion W. Tourgée (Roberts), is a novel in which Judge Tourgée has used the Mormon delusion in its earlier phases as the occasion for tracing an involved web. He rightly recognizes that the Mormonism of Smith had a romantic and poetic element in it quite wanting in the later development, and in following the narrative the reader will not find himself facing the unpleasant, sordid features of a wasted faith, as he does when he encounters the ordinary Mormon novel. The Romance of the Canoness, by Paul Heyse, translated by J. M. Percival. (Appleton.) Romantic enough, and of course interesting; the situations are not such as the realists would devise, and a melancholy air pervades the whole, as if the narrator did not quite expect to be believed, but it is conceived with poetic thought, and taken as a lyric of the stage is not without a certain beauty.. Thraldom, by Julian Sturgis. (Appleton.) The thraldom in this short story is of an uncanny sort, and a lover comes near being separated from his love by her slipping into the power of a new-style witch; but though Mr. Sturgis has given us sturdy Englishmen and serpentine tropical people for contrasting figures, he has not produced more than a teaspoonful of real horror. We think he can be at better business than manufacturing agonies. - With the King at Oxford, by Rev. A. J. Church (Dodd, Mead & Co.), is not so simple a tale as the Children of the New Forest, but it enlists the interest somewhat in the same way. Mr. Church has taken great pains with the lifelikeness of his story, and he has used a moderate tone throughout, which comports with the scholarly and historic mind. - An Operetta in Profile, by Czeika. (Ticknor.) We may as well own at once, before we are found out, that we don't understand this book. It is a piece of fooling, but even fooling should be, if not obvious, yet amusing on the surface. This book may be funny in its depths, but our lead brings up nothing but an occasional thin joke. In Ticknor's Paper Series a new number is E. W. Howe's The Story of a Country Town. - Recent numbers of Harper's Franklin Square Library are Prison Life in Siberia, by Fedor Dostoïeffsky, translated by H. Sutherland Edwards, and In Bad Hands, and other Stories, by F. W. Robinson. - In The Bee-Man of Orn, and other Fanciful Tales (Scribner's Sons), Mr. Stockton addresses him

self to his younger audience, with whom he is as great a favorite as with, their elders. Knickerbocker Nuggets is the title given to a series of neatly printed and tastefully bound little books issued by the Putnams. The volumes at hand contain Gulliver's Travels, tales from the Gesta Romanorum, and T. L. Peacock's stories of Headlong Hall and Nightmare Abbey. The Revolution in Tanner's Lane, by Mark Rutherford (Putnams), is an ill-constructed novel, portions of which are written with a certain kind of power. Most of the characters are either hanged or shot, or otherwise killed, the instant they become interesting. The second half of the story has little or no connection with the first part, and is rather tough reading. The Putnams have issued a new edition of Mayo's ever-delightful Kaloolah, with many spirited illustrations by Fredericks. We commend the book to old and new readers.

makes fresh excursions.

Poetry. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, and other Dramas, by Robert Browning, edited by W. J. Rolfe and Heloise E. Hersey (Harper & Brothers), is an excellent companion volume to the Select Poems of Browning, by the same editors. The present collection embraces, in addition to the initial piece, Colombe's Birthday and A Soul's Tragedy, with a variety of critical comment. Mr. Lawrence Barrett's letter, relating the history of his production on the stage of A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, is an interesting contribution to the matter in hand. - A new edition has been issued of The Old Garden, an other Verses, by Margaret Deland (Houghton), with a few more poems than the first edition contained; but the same pretty exterior remains, and the verses which at first sight might strike readers as quaint fancies and the pastime of a dilettante prove of more lasting worth. Their fragrance is not evanescent. It returns as one -Songs of New Sweden, and other Poems, by Arthur Peterson, U. S. N. (E. Stanley Hart & Co., Philadelphia.) Carefully written, with but few lapses into the cheap commonplace, these poems rarely rise to any high level, and sometimes the passion is pretty well divorced from ideas, as in the poem Recognized. Songs and Song Legends, by Edward Lippitt Fales. (The Author, St. Paul, Minn.) Easy-going verse, fluent, decorous, and charged with some personal feeling. Wind Flowers, by J. Luella Dowd Smith. (C. H. Kerr & Co., Chicago.) Arranged under the months of the year, and including translations from the German as well as original verse. A religious vein runs through much of the verse. -The Unseen King, and other Poems, by Caroline Leslie Field. (Houghton.) A book of simple, unpretentious verses, with a refinement about them which disarms criticism.