The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-30
LITNRATURH.
RE VIEW OF VIEW ROOFS.

All of the stories and sketches contained
in this little volume have, we believe, been
published in The Ooerldnd Monthly, of
which Mr.. Harte is editor, and many of them
have been extensively copied by the news
papers, and have achieved a great popu-
larity in all sections of the country. We are
glad to see these sketches, and are pleased to
see them collected in book form that will
give them q permanent place in literature
that they could scarcely enjoy while floating
around in the newspapers, for two reasons
they are intrinsically good in themselves and
eminently worthy of an even greater popularity
than they have attained, and they point very
plainly to the right path for American au-
thors to tread if we are to have a distinctively
American literature. Mr.. Harte is a master
of the very rare art of writing good short
story. All of the sketches in this book are
short, and yet they say all that need be said,
and they apparently exhaust their subjects
Their chief merit, however, is that they show
the power of a true artist to detect the latent
poetry that exists in the most unpromising
subjects, and they are undeniably the finest
sketches of the rough life of the gold dig
gings that have ever been given to the world
Other writer's have essayed the same line
of subjects, but they have either drawn upon
their imaginations or have contented them
selves with mere descriptions of the outward
characteristics, and few if any have attempted
to go below the surface in search of the finer
qualities of human nature that underlie even
the roughest exteriors. This, however, is
the great merit of Mr.. Harte's stories, and
while, with the instinct of a poet,
he keeps in the background the most often
sive features of his subjects, his sketches are
nevertheless true to life, and they are charac-
terized by mingling of humor and pathos
that accounts in large measure for their
popularity. They are liked, however, by the
mass of the readers because they are en-
phatically American in subject and treatment:
they smell of the soil and they suggest un-
limited opportunities for writers who will study
the humanity that surrounds them, and put
it in their works, instead of adopting Dickens,
Ihackeray, George Eliot, or Charles Reade
for their models. "The Luck of Roaring
Camp" from which the book takes its title,
is one of the best of the series, but all are so
very good that it is impossible to declare a
PlOiOiohCC, u11 Wo COHluloHu buOul W OuI
readers with far greater cordiality than we
do most of the current fiction of the day.
j. B. Lippincott & Co. also send us 'Henry
Courtland; or, What Farmer Can Do" by
A. j. Cline. The object of this story appears
to be to glorify tho occupation OF the farmer,
and with such worthy object in view we
regret that the author did not produce more
entertaining narrative.
From William Flint, No 26 South
Seventh street, we have received ''The
Secrets of Internal Revenue" by U. S.
Vidocq edited by Franklin Eliot Norton.
This work commences with the attempted
assassination of Revenue Detective Officer
James J. Brooks, and gives the various
operations of the whisky ring in various parts
of the country; the performances of the gold
ring, with an account Of the great gold panic
in Wall street in last September, and various
other matters of interest. The book appears
to have been compiled entirely from the
columns of the newspapers, and much of it is
put together in very clumsy manner. So
far as the secrets of the internal revenue are
concerned, we discover nothing IN it that has
not already been made public, and we find
very little to commend except the fact that
it gives a mass of information about the
matters of which it treats in more compact
shape than could be obtained elsewhere.
Minnesota as it is in 1S7O," by j. w.
McClurg, of St. Paul, Minnesota, is a very
complete description of State that is appa-
rently destined to become one of the most
prominent in the whole Union. The Northern
Pacific Railroad will make Minnesota, and in
view of the early inception of that great work
the information contained in such work as
this will be of value to capitalists, business
men, and prospective settlers, as we'll as in
valids and tourists.
From Turner & Co. we have received
AppIet0n'S Journal, Our Boys and Girls, and
ECe7y SATURDAY for May Z, and The Trans
atlantic for May 10. E0ery Saturday con
tains q continuation of Dickens new story
''The Mystery of Edwin Drood," and large
drawing of ''Sairey Camp and Betsy Prig,
by Sol. Eytinge.
The Central News Company, No. 50i
Chestnut street, send us the latest numbers Of
The ST. James Magazine, Punch, and Fun.
Tile SchOOEday Visitor for May, as usual,
presents an agreeable variety of entertaining
reading matter for young people.
The AprN number of The Journal Of Mt
Franklin Institute has number of excellent
articles on scientific and practical subjects.
From John Murphy & Co., of Baltimore
we have received pamphlet copy of ''Dis
course on the Life and Character of George
Peabody" delivered in the hall of the Pea
body Institute, Baltimore, Feb. 18, 1870, anG
repeated Feb. 25 before the Senate anC