The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1888-09-25
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Studies In Criticism. By Florence Trail.
IL is impossible not to be reminded in read
ing this book of the gentleman whose
foible was omniscence." Miss Trail-we
know absolutely nothing about her, but, in
spite of her erudition, imagine her young,
and not SO very long out of female college
lis really learned, has, at least, rea,. n
immense number of volumes and must hay
quite remarkable memory, or has else kept
greater number of notebooks, and far
more methodically, than most of US can
manage The extent of this learning, If
| judged alone by its illusions, is fairly over
powering. She has philosophy, art, music,
history, mythology, religions at her penis
end, and, really,-let us be just,-says very
good things upon many of her subjects. If
she had only given us an indexl and,
assuredly, In a collection Of quotations and
| historical and philosophical and literary and
religious illusions like this, the want of an
index is quite objectionable. This book will
have its largest value for students, certainly
1t will require thoughtful readers who wish
to find summaries Of ideas that are not ordi-
narily met with In the sources at our COM
mand Thus the elaborate "Glimpses into
French Literature" is, in reality, con-
densed estimate of the literature of France
from the Tronbadour and Trouyere poetry
to Balzac and Victor Hugo. and in this short
compass more information, and often Of very
| good quality. than we can, perhaps, lay our
hands on easily elsewhere. The only warn
ing we have is suggestion that not all of
Miss Trails comments are TO be taken as
| infallible. For example, though she says
with perhaps over dissatisfaction that she
| has had "access to two versions of the
original text" of The Song of Roland, and
though we unblushingly confess it only
knowing one single translation of this old
chronicle of arms. yet we should not have
cared to remark that ''its relation is more
like the vision of successive tableaux than
that demand upon the fancy, memory, atten-
ton and reflective powers which one is
accustomed to connect with the thought of a
long poem" OF course, she really means
that The Song of Roland is narrative
and descriptive poem. full of life and free
| dom, but she has actually contriyed to make
us question Its real poetic quality. She too
summarily ascribes The Imitation of Christ
to the Chancellor of the University of Paris,
and dismisses the idea of its authorship by
"the humble monk whose name has so long
been identified with this celebrated book,'--a
scorned theory which was, nevertheless,
stated only the other day, with quite particu-
lar evidence in its favor, in one of the great
English monthlies. The estimate of Mon
taigne is excellent, though with our remem-
brance of the judgment upon him by Emer-
son and Birrell and others, we are not quite
sure that she has wisely called him "a medi-
OGRE intellect" Miss Trails admiration for
Tame is immense; so is ours, but not based
wholly on the same grounds, or with just the
same statement of it. She calls him the
| greatest of all critics-with Sainte Beure,
and Scherer, and Coleridge and Arnold and
Morley. to 90 no further back, this is posi-
bly, questionable-wh possesses a fully
| rounded, well-defned philosophical theory,
which theory, she adds naively is, to be sure,
capable of great abuse, but if one is able to
contemplate 1t as an abstraction, it throws an
almost dazzling light upon all history. But
| how is one to regard the brilliant French
mans theory as mere abstraction, when it
| is SO dazzling as fairly to make nonsense
some of his otherwise most effect pages,-a
theory so we'll sounded that it has too often
destroyed all fairness, or business of proper
tion or even common clearness Of visionP
Much could be said of Miss Trails views
on philosophy and religion. In her opening
essay we were somewhat at loss to discover
whether she intended to espouse the intui-
tional or experimental doctrine. She feels
that the experience school has exercised a
very significant influence in checking the
tendency of the metaphysically- minded
toward over-subtle thought; still, she assures
US, we need have no fears in regard to the
ultimate ascendancy of the Intuitive Phil
osophy. We infer, accordingly, that she has
hopes, rather Utopian, to judge from the
past, that what the old Scotchman called
"the INJUNCTION folks" will kiss and make up
with the sensationalists (she thinks Herbert
| Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy a most
| delightful work, so it is, but rather hard
reading just the sameD and that each will
gain moderation from witnessing the extrav-
agances of the other. Heaven speed the
| dayl
There are really excellent things here and
there, as when she says, to quote at random
"The starting point of education is admira-
tion," or, and really there is much of pro-
fundity here, that, "The passion for natural
Il
miration for morality that is, because
growth in morality implies obedience to law,
and turns us away from mere morbid self
questioning. She has an excellent para
graph to show that Shakespeare-a fact not
always admitted-was moralist of the high
est order, who makes character preponder-
ate over action, time and place." And she
declares Of George Eliot's novels, that 'they
are veritable tests, scrutinizing the heart
with their terrible iDtrospection, inyigorat-
ing to the pure and full of despair to the
hopeless" A writer who has evidently read
and thought so much as the author Of these
Studies in Criticism. in days when we take
our reading and our thought rather too
easily, certainly deserves more than passing
notice. (New York: Worthington Com
pany)