Book Reviews [pp. 103-112]

Book Reviews.
I had a premonition of my worth,
Strange pride-or rather a divine belief
That I was not as others on the earth,
But bare a gift to cheer them in their grief.
*;- - * X Y
Now sing of coiquest, 0 inspired Malln!
Three years, yea, four, I suffered business care;
Yet only once or twice beneath the ban
Of madness fell, and then I brake its snare.
Keep me, 0 God, a Sentimentalist
While through this unbelieving world I go.
* * *
All New York City spread before my gaze,
Needs the new power of the still weeping Christ,
Science is strong, but goeth its own ways,
And Art? In Greece it never quite sufficed.
* * * * -a
I am no prophet, but the end is clear:
Selfishness is the Fool of the Great King,
Pride, interest, success, are all too dear,
If, coming, Love and Quietness take wing.
This lesson, which my heart hath studied long
And learned in sorrow, this United States
Shall learn at last; not by a Poet's song,
But by the scourges of afflicting fates.
X' * * * * *
And in the Land mad Competition
Shall do its work, and bare the child Distress,
Until men know the calm and dreadful One
Whose name at first was only Righteousness.
There is not wanting a certain dignity and a
touch of the impressive in this; and there is at
least a good deal of psychological interest in the
whole series of verses. To examine the somewhat
uncouthly issued pamphlet numbers, in which the
poet takes himself and his work so seriously, to gether with the daintily bound productions of cul ture, the froth of light, modern, imitative verse,
the cruder Western efforts,-gives a curious sense
of the extent and variety of the intellectual forces
that, working on the less powerful order of minds
in our country, find expression in this heteroge nous mass of "minor verse."
Holiday and Children's Books.
Miss IRENE E. JEROME, a young artist who two
years ago came into notice with a series of studies
called "One Year's Sketch Book," has also pub lished, earlier this year, The Message of the Bluebird',
and now, Nature's Hallelujah2. Both these books con'The Message of the Bluebird. Told to me to Tell to
Others. By Irene E. Jerome. Boston: Lee & Shepard.
1886. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.
2Nature's Hallelujah. By Irene E. Jerome. Engraved
and Printed under Direction of George T. Andrew. Bos tt~n: Lee & Shepard 1887.
sist of studies of New England landscapes, flowers,
and birds, interspersed with illustrative poetry and
scraps of devotional sentences. The Message of the
Bluebird is issued in paper and in cloth binding,
both ornamental of their kind. It consists of some
half-dozen thick card pages, each containing a
charming study of a singing bird, usually associated with a hit of landscape, or tree or flower; and
lettered ornamentally, Christmas card fashion, with
scraps of verse and Scripture texts expressive of
joy atnd exultation. The poses and expression of
the little birds are admirable, and do translate the
accompanying sentiments quite impressively; the
abandon and ecstacy of a bird in mid-torrent of
song is well reproduced. The bits of landscape
and flower study are also true and lifelike and quite
expressive. Nature's IHallelujah is more elaborate,
and a very handsome gift-book, with gilded covers
and nearly fifty large plates, with studies of New
England spring and early summer-April, May,
and June. These studies are all good, and some of
them very good. The interspersing of texts and
devotional sentences, with the pictures, is a device
that savors too much of Christmas cards and of
merely decorative, instead of really illustrative,
purpose, for the highest order of book-making; but
the devotional intent runs through the whole plan
of the book. A still farther lapse in the same direction from higher standards of art is in the violets with children's faces singing from a book, and
the flight of autumn leaves, each bearing a little
picture. The selections of poetry are appropriate
and good; such as H. H.'s,
"Golden and snowy and red the flowers,
Golden, snowy, and red in vain.
Robins call robins through sad showers,
The white dove's feet are wet with rain."
or Longfellow's,
Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms
The snowflakes of the cherry blooms.
or Miss Coolbrith's,
"Sing loud, O bird in the tree,
O bird, sing loud in the sky;
And honey-bees, blacken the clover bed;
There are none of you glad as I.
For oh, but the world is fair, is fair,
And oh, but the world is sweet!
I will out in the gold of the blossoming mold,
And sit at the master's feet.
— Half a dozen of the illustrated poems that have
been issued in preceding years as gift books, in
various forms.-lHome, Sweet Home3, Abide With
3Home Sweet Home. By John Howard Payne. Designs by Miss L.B. Humphrey. Boston: Lee & Shepard.
For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.
1887.]
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