The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1857-12-01
NOTICES OF BOOKS.

"MUsTANG GRAY" is the title of a
very interesting Romance, presented us by
the publishers, Lippincott & Co., Phila-
delphia. The stirring scenes, so graph
cally described by the author, are lain
amid the dense pine forest which skirt Cape
Fear River in North Carolina. The moral
tendency Of the book is, Ito quote the
authors own words,) ito impress on the
mind of the reader, the one great truth: that
the only way to escape from He'll, is to
keep our eyes forever fixed on Heaven
The book is written by Hon. Jeremiah
Book Store in this place.
For the Western Democrat.
JANE EYRE.
This is book of intense interest. The
plot, incidents, courtships and the charac-
ters are original. You cannot read fifty
it never more. Each person stands out
separate and distinct from the rest. The
meek, lovely Helen Burns; the beautiful,
graceful, angelic Rosamond Oliver, eccen
trio St. John Rivers strongwilled Roches-
ter, Di Rivers and Mary, and Jane Eyre
all are as different frem each other as any
in real life. Her style is intensified at
times, pathetic when she chooses, humor-
Gus here and there, and the whole book is
full of burning eloquence ever ready to
gush out and thrill you. Evidently Char
Iotte Bronts has drawn largely from her
own life aid experience, and as evidently
that life has been saddened by suffering.
The heroine plain in features, attire and
manners, without wealth and without social
position-a thing unheard in novels. The
hero (if we may call Rochester SOY is al
most repulsive in person and manner, and
yet attracts you in spite of yourself.
Jane Eyre's conduct in the courtship of
Rochester is positively indelicate. and
Rochester in attempting to marry her in
spite of principle, reason, religion and law,
| isRcriminal; and yet, Jane Eyre loves him
afterwards with an almost maddening pas
sion, and married him at last when the
Grace Poole mystery is solved and Bertha
| Mason is dead, though she finds bin her.
nit, manned and blind. The firing of
| Thornfield Hall by the maniac wife. Roch-
| ester's bravery and his hurts, the wild
| spectacle of Bertha Mason, standing upon
| the leads of the roof wrapt in the flames,
which wave like fiery banners against the
! sky, and thus springing off to be dashed
| lifeess upon the pavement below, make
one of the most stirring scenes in the book.
Perhaps it was suggested by the still more
| sublime picture, drawn in 1yenhoe by
SCOTS master hand, of the burning of
Front De Baufs castle, Ferguilstone, and
the death or war song of the bag Ulfrida
| Gf we recollect her name aright) to the
| Saxon god from the battlements.
A strange religious belief is limited at
the equality of disembodied spirits-its tone
morbid and unhealthy, it's morality ques-
tionable, but it is work of genius. To
know it, read it for yourself, aud thus form
yolr opinion. One extract to show how
nrettily she handles our mother tongue,
and we have done. Describing sunset be-
fore the courtship, she says: ~
.sWhen the sun had gone down in simple
state-pure of the pomp of elouds-spread q
solemn purple, burning with the light OF red
fuel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill
peak and extending high and wide. soft and
still softer over halfheaven. The east bad it,
| charm of fine deep blue, and its own modes
gem rising and solitary STAR
One thing you must say, when you have
read Jane Eyre, that its authoress knew
the extent and power of the English lam
euase. Whatever may be her faults. speak
of them lightly, for Charlotte Bronts, like
her own Helen Burns, now lays in the
green and quiet eisurchyard. and on thu
white or gray marble tablet which rises a
her head, may be written the same simple
t,ucLinr epitaph - ReSurgdm."