HANDY VOLUME SERIES.
II.
From The Round Table.
"This is a story which partakes somewhat of the domestic style of the German novelists without their extreme tediousness. It represents certain phases of life which afford but little scope for novelty or adventure, but which nevertheless call out whatever there is of good or bad, of passionate or enthusiastic, in the nature of each individual. . . . . Doctor Jacob is the centre figure, to which all the others are subordinate; one of the most skilfully drawn, original, and unsatisfactory characters we have ever met with. A man of brilliant attainments, not bad at heart, but seemingly devoid of principle, with a profound appreciation of all that is good in others, and trusting to his intellectual strength to keep him from the consequences of his errors. Though sixty years of age, his attractions are so great that he wins the love of a very young girl, whose affection is displayed with such artless simplicity, and yet with such earnestness that we can scarcely blame the doctor for lacking courage to resist the temptation of loving in return."
From The Nation.
"Her hero, Doctor Jacob, strikes us as a new acquaintance in fiction. He is a clergyman of the English Church, who comes to Frankfort for the purpose of raising funds to aid him in fulfilling his duties as a self-appointed missionary to the Jews. He is sixty years old, but handsomer than most handsome men of thirty. He has also a 'vast and well-stored mind,' great knowledge of human nature, manners which fascinate everybody, and a 'gift' in preaching which charms money out of all pockets. The actions of this aged Adonis do not in all respects conform to the received codes of either clerical or lay morality. In the first place, the reader is left until nearly the close of the book in suspense, which, considering that it is intentional on the author's part, is not too harrowing, as to the nature of his relations with Miss Macartney, the English governess in a school superintended by the Fräulein Fink. Miss Macartney is evidently greatly troubled by Doctor Jacob's advent in Frankfort; she has a horror of meeting him, and yet she loves him tenderly."
From The Commonwealth.
"This is a novel of the higher order,—a German story told in that smooth, graceful, leisurely style that contrasts so strongly with the crispness and sparkle of some of our most acceptable American novels,—an admirable style for certain purposes, and perfectly adapted to a minute and subtle analysis of character like this. Dr. Jacob, the hero, is a nobler sort of Harold Skimpole, with none of the childish inconsequence of that exasperating innocent. This is a generous-gifted, high-toned, and powerful nature, marred by one fatal flaw,—a tendency to profuseness and improvidence. The reader feels throughout all the charm and attractiveness of the winsome and benignant old man who, all his life, had 'plucked down hearts to pleasure him, as you would roses from a bough.' Yet his career is carried out unflinchingly to its logical sequence, and we see the gray-haired Sybarite sitting solitary and repentant among the ruins of a mistaken life, yet we view the wreck with compassion, and not without respect for the inherent nobleness visible through all. Only a profound student of human nature could have drawn such a portrait."
Mailed to any address, post-paid, on receipt of the advertised price.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston.
