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atmosphere and relief, and the volume is better literature than its predecessors. E. P. Dutton & Co.

"The Culture of the Soul Among Western Nations," by P. Ramanthan, solicitor-general for Ceylon (G. P. Putnam's Sons) presents the impressions which Occidental religion makes upon a thoughtful Oriental. The author has spent some months in this country, upon invitation, and his expositions of the Hindu faith have quickened interest in that cult. His dominant thought is that knowledge of. God is to be gained by the development of love in the soul, a view which, baldly stated, seems essentially the same as that of Christianity as expressed by Christ Himself, and by the loving Apostle who knew Him best.

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The story of the late Professor Shaler's tardy devotion to the Muses lends unique interest to the volume "From Old Fields," now published by his wife, with a dedication "To the people of Kentucky." As the second title announces, the poems deal with civil war topics, being chiefly versified anecdotes and "yarns" such as are current at Grand Army campfire and smoke talk. A brief epic, "Under the Banner," and a lyric, "The Orphans' Brigade" are in a different vein and give cause for regret that their author did not earlier discover the delights of verse making, for "The Orphans' Brigade" shows that he might have given "Sheridan's Ride" a formidable rival. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Miss Geraldine Bonner's "Rich Men's Children" deals with but two of the class named, an exquisitely feminine girl, and a man who, having made a thoroughly foolish marriage, is bitterly repentant and quite aware that his shrewish wife values him only as

the means through which she may obtain social recognition. The unawakened girl and the unhappy man, being thrown into intimate relations by an unavoidable accident, love one another, and the girl's father, under pretence of being the agent of the man's implacable mother, attempts to bribe his wife to desert him. The magnitude of the sum which he offers is the only detail justifying the title of the book, in which wealth determines neither character nor conduct. As a version of the old tale of the man, the wife and another, the book has average merit, but riches affect none of them. Bobbs-Merrill Company.

The Academy remarks that the recent announcement of the death of Charlotte Brontë's husband, the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, came as a surprise to many people who were not aware he had survived his first wife so long. The courtship was a fine instance of "dogged does it." Mr. Nicholls, a strict, decorous, taciturn man, and a poor curate, made up his mind to marry "Currer Bell," and proposed to her at the height of her fame. The lady seems to have been indifferent, her father, the vicar, was furious; Mr. Nicholls had to leave the parish. But he held to his point, corresponding privately with Charlotte Brontë until her father's opposition was sufficiently worn down to admit of the curate being recalled and the marriage taking place, though without the final sanction of the Rev. Patrick Brontë's presence. The simple curate and the lady of genius lived very happily together for something less than a year, when death severed the union. For more than fifty years Mr. Nicholls lived, mainly upon a farm in Ireland, honoring the memory of his wife and - what is more respecting her family secrets.

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The second volume of the series of French Men of Letters, of which Dr. Alexander Jessup is editor and the J. B. Lippincott Company publishers, is a really noteworthy addition to the literature of criticism and biography. The subject is Honoré de Balzac and the author is Ferdinand Brunetière, the distinguished historian and critic, whose brilliant career has but just closed. As probably the last completed work of M. Brunetière, the volume would possess more than ordinary interest; but, quite independent of that circumstance, it is of value as a delightfully cordial yet discriminating appreciation of the great master of realistic fiction. The author concerns himself but little and only incidentally with his subject's personal history. It is as a force in literature, the founder of a new school of fiction, that he treats him. He remarks of him that he is not only the greatest, the most fertile and diverse of French novelists, but "the novel" itself; so that for the last fifty years "a good novel has been a novel which first of all resembles a novel of Balzac." He prefaces his study of Balzac with a rapid and extremely interesting sketch of the modern novel before Balzac, in the course of which, as lovers of Scott will notice with pleasure, he gives a more prominent place to Sir Walter than some foreign critics have done. Touching briefly the years of Balzac's apprenticeship, he passes to a consideration of The Human Comedy, and to a careful estimate of the significance and value of Balzac's novels, their social bearing, their morality and their influence and the place of Balzac in literature. A full bibliography forms an appendix. It should be added that the work, although written in French, was written for this series. Robert Louis Sanderson, assistant professor of French at Yale, is the translator.

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PROTOTYPES OF SOME OF THACKERAY'S CHARACTERS.

He who would trace the prototypes of Thackeray's characters is met at the outset with the novelist's declaration that he never copied any one. There can be no doubt, however, that, like all writers of fiction, he derived, more or less consciously, from his acquaintances many suggestions. "Mr. Thackeray was only gently skilful and assimilative and combinative in his characters," said the late George Augustus Sala. "They passed through the alembie of his study and observation. Marquis of Steyne is a sublimation of half-a-dozen characters. So is Captain Shandon; so are Costigan and the Mulligan. And the finest of Mr. Thackeray's characters-Becky, Dobbin, Jos Sedley, and Colonel Newcome-are wholly original, from the celebrity point of view at least." The accuracy of these statements will now be examined.

The

It is commonly supposed that the inimitable Becky had an original, though her name is known to few. Mrs. Ritchie saw her once. She drove to Young Street to see Thackeray, a most charming, dazzling little lady, dressed in black, who greeted the novelist with great affection and brilliancy, and on her departure presented him with a bunch of violets. Thackeray always parried with a laugh all questions concerning this prototype. However, a lady who knew him intimately was not so reticent. She said the character of Becky was an invention, but it had been suggested to him by a governess who lived in the neighborhood of Kensington Square, and was the companion of a very rich and very selfish old woman. The governess, strange to say, followed in the footsteps of Becky. Some years after the publication of Vanity Fair she ran away with the

nephew of the lady with whom she was living, and for a while made a sensation in society circles, quite in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's style and entirely by Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's methods. This living handsomely on nothing a year resulted in the usual way; and in the end the ex-governess fled the country, and was to be seen on the Continent flitting from gamblingplace to gambling-place.

Charles Kingsley used to tell a good story of a lady who confided to Thackeray that she liked Vanity Fair exceedingly. "The characters are SO natural," she said, "all but the baronet, Sir Pitt Crawley, and surely he is overdrawn; it is impossible to find such coarseness in his rank of life." "That character," the author smilingly replied, "is almost the only exact portrait in the book." The identity of the prototype was not revealed for many years; but it has recently been asserted that the character was sketched from a former Lord Rolle. "Sir Pitt's letters to Becky were very badly spelt and written," remarks the gentleman who puts forward this theory, "and I may say that I have in my possession a letter written by Sir Robert Brownrigg to His Royal Highness the Duke of York when Commander-in-Chief of the British army, complaining that a report received from Lord Rolle, as Lord-Lieutenant of his county, was so badly written that he could not decipher it."

"You know you are only a piece of Amelia," Thackeray wrote to Mrs. Brookfield. "My Mother is another half; my poor little Wife y est pour beaucoup." Mrs. Brookfield was a daughter of Sir Charles Elton, who lived at Clevedon Court, Somersetwhich house figures in Esmond as Cas

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