Current Literature [pp. 582-584]

CURRENT LITERA TURE.
IF, YES, AND PERHAPS. Four Possi bilities and Six Exaggerations, with some
Bits of Fact. By Edward E. Hale. Bos ton: Ticknor & Fields, I868.
To write pleasing or amusing stories is
tolerably easy; even to so deftly arrange
artful language that the plot and dialogue shall seem "natural," as the critics
say, is not a difficult thing for a capable and
clever man. But to so write a fictitious
narrative that you shall deceive even the
very elect; to invent out of the whole
cloth, a story that shall actually beguile
numberless cool, sensible people, into fully believing'every word you say-this requires such genius as few men besides Mr.
Edward E. Hale possess. How dreadfully
outraged must have been the self-conceit of
some of those people who believed "The
Man without a Country" a matter-of-fact
relation, when answers to their letters of
inquiry came back from the Navy Department informing them that no such man as
Nolan was ever known in the service, and
"that this Department is advised that his
reputed biography is a work of fiction."
More than the world-wide fame of Charles
Dickens might one covet the joy of hugging
himself over a long series of such complete
and harmless deceptions as these.
It is not merely truthfulness to nature that
marks Mr. Hale's works; that is too tame
an expression; he absolutely takes you out
of the domain of fancy, and compels you to
believe that you are not only reading a record of what actually occurred, but a part of
which you saw, or heard of, or read at the
time; said point of time being, of course,
years ago, but not so far off that your memory does not hold some trace of the story
yet. You read more famous works of fiction than Mr. Hale's, with the flattering
comment of "How true to life this is!"
But you read "The Man without a Country," and "My Double," with the feeling
that this is life itself; it is a leaf out of the
writer's own experience, and you enjoy being the first to whom he has confided the
story. To cheat the sense into an involuntary belief that the imaginary persons were
realities, and their haps and mishaps were
actual occurrences-this is the audacity of
genius. One is divided between admiration
for the cunning of the writer, and chagrin at
the mystification in which he has left us by
his artful pretences at matter-of-fact explanations and annotations to his stories.
Nor is this peculiar charm of reality all
that the author of these unpretending tales
brings to his work. A wholesome lessonnot too prominent —points every tale, and
through the whole there gleams a thread of
quaint humor which reminds one of some
of the older English writers. His diction
is clear, strong and fresh, just toned down,
perhaps, by as much of the current liberalisms of speech as a man of culture would
use in the ordinary conversation of daily
contact with his friends. There are eleven
sketches or stories in the book, every one of
which is good, and none containing a dull
line. Can one say more?
No book of modern times has so diverted
public attention from its contents to its title.
To say that it is "simply idiotic," as some
harsh critics have declared it, is quite too
violent criticism; but it is certainly an unfortunate combination of oddity, which looks
more like an attempt to tickle the ears of
the groundlings than we would suppose the
writer to be guilty of. It has had the bad
effect of setting the critics to talk about the
title of the book rather than what is in it;
which may be good as an advertisement,
but is not fair by the book itself.
LOCKSLEY HALL. By Alfred Tennyson.
With Illustrations. Boston: Ticknor &
Fields.
Mr. Hennessey's illustrations of this
popular poem are, of course, subject to the
difficulties which usually obtain in such
attempts-the materializing of the ideal to
suit the different conceptions of all readers.
No two admirers of a favorite poem would
probably draw the image presented to their
minds alike; and it may easily be imagined,
that while there might be an equal appreciation, the school-girl's conception of Locksley Hall would be very different from that
of a student of metaphysics. The "ficklehearted" Amy will, of course, always
strongly resemble that faithless creature
who embittered the days of our adolescence,
and to whom, "mated with a clown," we
still revert with sentimental regard; while
the successful suitor will always look like
our hated rival. Mr. Hennessey's idea of
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