Current Literature [pp. 481-488]

CURRENT LITERA TURE.
of a warm, pure nature -these are not over- spiration and excellence as an artist for chil laid by incident, but shine out in lustrous dren. She is a writer of true genius, and
beauty and brightness. Hiers is a character has evidently had the necessary experience
well calculated to impress and captivate, and requisite to the clever portraiture and dress challenges both admiration and imitation. ingup of her figures. There is such a judi The authoress has drawn the picture grace- cious interblending of vivacity, pathos, hu fully and well. mor, and drollery; her characters are verita The salient points in the character of Ros- ble human beings, reproduced to the very
alind are less vigorously portrayed. We do life, not imitated. The secret of her success
not see the sprightly, voluble, playful, pict- lies in the indefinable charm of the real per uresque, pastoral Rosalind so clearly de- sonages to whom she introduces her readers:
fined; but the story is not less readable, per- they are omnipotent in their naturalness.
haps, for all that. An occasional flutter of In the present volume, the author sets
her wit is discernible-but we forget that the about her work with charming method, and
book is designed for the little folks, who will marshals her forces with astonishing dis not be apt to miss the jeu d'esprit of the patch. In the first chapter, Zerub Throop,a
charming Rosalind. the miserly old recluse, is brought face to
"Upon a naked, blasted heath, where face before us, with his black cat, Tophet,
neither tree nor bush could live, so barren descended from a long line of ancestry, and
was it in its bleakness, three witches, gray, Sarah, his odd, quick-witted, old maid-serv crooked, and misshapen, hovered around a ant, who was almost the only person who
boiling, bubbling caldron. The fire crackled ever made many words with Zerub Throop.
under the huge vessel, from whose blazing Hardly once a year did any one ring at his
depths came forth a vile and sickening odor. front-door; old vines, little trained or cared
The edge was lurid with sulphurous flames, for, tangled up the porch-way. But just
which gleamed upon the horrid faces of the now, Mrs. Whapshare is pulling at the bell.
unclean hags who tended it; lighting up in She has been ten years making up her mind
ghastly vividness their skinny arms, their to come -ever since her husband died, and
sharp faces, fringed with grizzled, scattering left her an inheritance of poverty and six
hlairs, which looked like beards, and show- young children, and, as Sarah puts it, "an
ing more plainly than the light of day their old house and garding, and a mess of old
eyes, staring and blood-colored, yet expres- store- books full of bad debts, and tribulasionless as the faces of the dead." Thus tions." Zerub thinks she has done pretty
does the fanciful authoress introduce her well, under the circumstances. Sarah retorts:
youthful auditors to those minions of Hecate "That's just it! She's a woman that's alon the heath of Forres, amid the thunder, ways been under a lot of'em-clear down.
wind, and rain, the weird incantations, and What business do folks have to be under the
the blackness of the night. Her audience circumstances, I wonder? Why don't they
will not be apt to fail her, until Lady Mac- get on top of'em? What is circumstances
beth-ambitious, cruel, treacherous, daring made for?"
Lady Macbeth-bows herself out of this "To stand round, Sarah," said Mr.
world, in remorse and despair, and the head Throop, in italics. "If you knew Latin,
of Macbeth is raised upon a pole above the you'd see. That's what we've got to do
walls of Dunsinane, by the conquering hand with'em. Keep'em in their places. Make
of Macduff.'em stand round!"
"Or git," said Sarah, sententiously.
The gist of the matter was, Zerub Throop
ZERUB THROOP'S EXPERIMENT. By Mrs. once owed Miles Whlapshare fifteen thousand
A. D. T. Whitney. Boston- Loring. *
A. D. T. Whitney. Boston: Loring. dollars; paid him twenty-five cents on the
Those who have read Tte Gaywortzys, dollar, and was discharged. Zerub had beFaith Gartney's Girlhood, and Patience gun again, and worked up; Miles WhapStrong's Outings, do not need to be remind- share did not work up. That was the difed tilett:M, Maps, Whibney possesses a special in- ference, and the widow was having a severely
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