Books of the Day [pp. 377-384]

334 APPLETONS' JOURNAL.
reached a more serious and reflective period of life,
feels it incumbent upon him, as it were, to show that
there is a moral manliness which is of a far purer
and loftier type than mere animal manliness-that
the so much admired "courage" and "pluck" are a
very animal-like attribute in comparison with those
serener heights of manliness which it is given to man
only to scale. The only objection to the attempt is
that many good people will be repelled by the seeming irreverence of associating such distinctively secular qualities with a figure so sacred as that of Christ;
but even these will admit that certain aspects of
Christ's character and career are presented by Mir.
Hughes in a novel and suggestive light.
.... Though it contains nothing quite so striking and pungent as the chapter of "Portraits"
which opened the work, the second volume of Madame de Remusat's Memoirs* shows no falling off
in either interest for the reader or value for the historian. The truth is, that a character so many-sided
and complex as that of Napoleon can not be depicted
— it can not even be outlined adequately-in a general summary of a few pages; and the vast aggregate
of details to which every successive chapter of Madame de Remusat's makes its contribution, must be
weighed and considered as a whole, before one can
be sure that he has caught the more delicate gradations of light and shade in a portrait which is the
more fascinating the more carefully and minutely it
is drawn. The present volume covers the period
between I804 and I807, during which the Empire
was founded and consolidated, and in which occurred
the splendid episode of the campaign of Ulm and
Austerlitz, which raised Napoleon to the zenith of
his renown and power. Particularly interesting are
the chapters on the organization and etiquette of the
Emperor's Court, on his household;nd its expenses,
on the great military, civil, and ecclesiastical authorities of the new state, on the routine of palace life,
and on the literature and art of the period. The
discussion of these latter shows a keenness of insight and a literary skill on the part of Madame de
Remusat for which the reader was hardly prepared
by what went before; and there are more of the
piquant personal details about the Empress Josephine and other members of the Bonaparte circle.
.... Paraphrasing an oft-repeated quotation, it
may be said that while bad began in Zola's earlier
novels, worse remained behind in "Nana," f the
sequel to "L'Assommoir." In it M. Zola has depicted the life of a public woman, and of the pimps, par
* Memoirs of Madame de R/musat, 18o2~-8o8. Translated from the French by Mrs. Cashel Hoey and John
Lillie. In three volumes. Vol. II. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. 238.
t Nana. A Sequel to L'Assommoir. By Emile Zola.
Translated by John Stirling. Philadelphia: T. B.
Peterson Brothers. Part I. i6mo, pp. x85.
asites, and men of the town who hang about her,
with a minuteness of detail and an audacity of language that must astonish even those who are familiar
with his previous performances. If to excite disgust
and repulsion in every reader of any refinement suffices, as the author claims, to justify such art, then it
must be conceded that "Nana" is an entirely moral
work. But it can not be justified on any such
ground. "Nana" arouses at once commiseration
and contempt; yet it soils the imagination with conceptions and thoughts which eat into the fibers of
moral purpose as gangrene eats into a wound. No
doubt the reader of Zola's novels has learned to
know man- and woman-kind better; but the knowledge is of that sort which the wisest of the Greeks
has said we may well pray the gods to keep us ignorant of.
.... The paragraphs contributed to the Boston
Evening Transcript" by Causeur (it is an open
secret, we believe, that Causeur is Mr. Hovey, the
editor of the paper) are certainly far above the average of journalistic writing; but, when gathered into
a book, * they challenge comparisons which make
them appear somewhat light and tenuous. Nevertheless, the little book is very readable-dipped into
now and then, at odd moments. As a relater of
stories, Causeur is remarkably felicitous, and among
his Causerie are some of the freshest and best-told
stories that we have encountered for a long time.
Almost equally felicitous are the touches of personal
portraiture and the passing thrusts at certain social
foibles; but more serious topics for reflection are
sometimes suggested. Whatever may be his subject,
Causeur never loses his light and graceful touch; and
he brings to it a freshness of view and a geniality of
feeling which please even when they do not amuse.
.... A lecture on "The Origin of the Homeric Poems," t which was delivered in Vienna in
I86o by Dr. Hermann Bonitz, and which has since
passed through four editions in Germany, has been
translated by an American scholar, who gives as his
reason for doing so the fact that it is the best brief
and compact statement of the reasons that have led
so many German scholars to doubt the unity of authorship of the poems attributed to Homer, and to conclude that if there ever was any such person as Homer
he certainly did not write the Iliad and the Odyssey
in the form in which we now have them. Nearly
half the little volume is occupied by notes on the
lecture, and these notes contain a very valuable bibliography which would be of great service to any
one who desired to study the Homeric problem.
* Causerie. From the Boston Evening Transcript.
Boston: Robert Brothers. iSmo, pp. 2o3.
t The Origin of the Homeric Poems. A Lecture.
By Dr. Hermann Bonitz. Translated from the fourth
German edition by Louis R. Packard. New York: Harper & Brothers. x8mo, pp. xx9.
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APPLZETONS' JO URNVA~.