which characterize one whose vision is not sufficiently restricted. If he had shut one eye he might have been more single-minded, more zealous, more confident, more saint-like, more poetic. His recently-published "Letters" (Charles Scribner's Sons) constitute one of the most valuable books of the year. The more one knows of Thackeray the more one loves him; and these letters bring us more intimately into his confidence than we have ever been brought before. Here is a beautiful passage, which comes in so aptly after the discussion with which this Book-Talk began, that to resist quoting would be impossible: "I was thinking about Joseph Bullar's doctrine after I went to bed, founded on what I cannot but think a blasphemous asceticism, which has obtained in the world ever so long, and which is disposed to curse, hate, and undervalue the world altogether. Why should we? What we see here of this world is but an expression of God's will, so to speak,—a beautiful earth and sky and sea, beautiful affections and sorrows, wonderful changes and developments of creation, suns rising, stars shining, birds singing, clouds and shadows changing and fading, people loving each other, smiling and crying, the multiplied phenomena of Nature, multiplied in fact and fancy, in Art and Science, in every way that a man's intellect or education or imagination can be brought to bear. And who is to say that we are to ignore all this, or not value them and love them, because there is another unknown world yet to come? Why, that unknown future world is but a manifestation of God Almighty's will, and a development of Nature, neither more nor less than this in which we are, and an angel glorified or a sparrow on a gutter are equally part of His creation. The light upon all the saints in Heaven is just as much and no more God's work, as the sun which shall shine to-morrow upon this infinitesimal speck of creation, and under which I shall read, please God, a letter from my kindest Lady and friend. About my future state I don't know; I leave it in the disposal of the awful Father,—but for to-day I thank God that I can love you, and that you yonder and others besides are thinking of me with a tender regard. Hallelujah may be greater in degree than this, but not in kind, and countless ages of stars may be blazing infinitely, but you and I have a right to rejoice and believe in our little part and to trust in to-day as in to-morrow."
The danger of too much breadth is exemplified in such a book as "The Revolution in Tanner's Lane," by Mark Rutherford. Edited by his friend Reuben Shapcott. (Putnams.) Abstractly speaking, breadth is a virtue; but it is better to be deep as a lake than broad as a marsh. Now, this book is a sort of intellectual marsh-land inhabited by those unpleasant imps known as blue devils. To read it is to lose your appetite and your cheerfulness for the day. It has a certain kind of strength, of course, or it would not affect you so, but the strength is a feverish and not a healthy strength. The author sees all sides of a question and sees into none. He is helplessly unable to make up his mind on any mooted point of conduct, morals, or politics. He has lost not only faith, but hope and even charity. There is not a lovable character in his book, save a poor little girl who is despised by her prig of a husband for not being as solemnly and stupidly "intellectual" as himself. The narrative drifts along without art or method,—rudderless, chartless as the author himself.
With the exception of the French, Americans are at present the best writers of short stories. Here are three volumes of such stories published almost simultaneously, "In Ole Virginia," by Thomas Nelson Page, "The Beeman of Orr,
