St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-05-15
BOOK TALKS.

volume to be issued in the convenient
revised edition of William Blacks nov
els which Harper & Brothers are pub
fishing. 1t will appear about the 18th
of May.
D. Lothrop company announces as
nearly ready: Rev. j. f. Cowan's
"Endeavor Doin's Down to the Cor
nerS,' quaint, keen, graphic deScrip-
ton of the Christian Endeavor work
accomplished in country village. 1t
is told i'll the droll Yankee Yernacular,
with all those odd phrases and bits OF
hunior peculiar TO the Yankee tongue,
and it shows the real scope Of this grand
work as no statistics could.
"The Penance of PORTER James," by
TaSmar, is a very sweet, very readable
story. The heroine, PORTER James, Is a
charming young girl whose childhood
had been passed on an Australian ranch
with her stepbrother, Wilmer James, and
there had met and became engaged.
when only sixteen, to John Morrison,
her brothers business partner, man
twenty years older than herself. The
last eighteen months of her engagement,
the marriage was not to occur till her
twenty-frst birthday. were spent i'll
Europe, where she had found many
things to educate and elevate a natur-
ally good mind. Among others she had
met an artist, Harry Tolhurst, who had
child on exhibition at the acad-
envy. This picture had weird
fascination for PORTER. and as the
story goes on becomes one of its chief
factors. Home at this time came John
Morrison, as different mentally, morally
and physically from the bright young
girl who had promised to be his wife as
it is possible to imagine. any one to be.
John never thinking of anything but
his love, insists on the marriage. Then
begins the complications of the story.
PORTER resenting with all pure woIn-
ans force and horror the things she
discovers in her husbands life. flies
from bin, and takes refuge with an
artist friend, woman whom she had
met in Paris. Ttither came Harry Toll
hurst, and the love that had had its
gentle beginning in the shadows of the
London academy grew to a mighty
force between them. In her deSpera-
ton PORTER appeals to Harry to advise
her. telling him the whole story, and
Harry. like the good, high-Souled man
that he was, advises the girl he
loved to be true 10 her vows. for to his
seeing no other course could bring hap
pinesS to her. 81 believe i'll a future"
he said. 81 think we are often called
upon to climb steep and thorny path
to heaven"
"Monte Carlo, It's Sin and Splendor,"
by One of Its Victims, is one or those
books that have 10 excuse for being.
The annals Of the gambling table have
been written again and again, with all
the adornments that differing minds
could bring to the task. Each has been
described. as they range from weakness
to madness, from pathoS to tragedy.
Every step on the downward road has
had its Raphael or Angelo, and yet how
little good has this writing done. Rather,
indeed, on the other hand these lurid
pictures have served to whet the curl
OSity of the young or arouse the sleep
ing passion for nnearned gain that lies
like lion in ambush in so many hearts.
So, after reading this book, one is
tempted to wonder that any one should
care to waste time over it.
The writing of funny things seems to
be like the bite OF the tarahtula-Once
the possessed begins to indulge or give
way to this insane desire, hope van
isheS. and the work is done. Few writ
ers of funny things realize the truth of
Hoods assertion that ut is very seri-
Gus thing to be a funny man." and, not
realizing, make sad spectacles of them
selves. Poor Christopher COlumbuSl
One is tempted to ask what he ever did
when on this earth to justify those who
are so fortunate as to live in the won
derful land that he discovered i'll the
indiScriminate onslaught that has been
made on him in every relation Of life in
the last few years? And now we see
him in the hands of the funny man,
McD. he calls himself, who writes his
tory made more hideous still by the
illustrations that represent the auStere
navigator as a cross between the popu-
lar picture of our Uncle Sam and an
opera bouffe cavalier. Aud then the
text that these works of art Illustrate!
Words fail one. Poor, poor Christopher
Columbus! to have fallen into the hands
of McD., who has written book and
called it San Unauthorized History OF |
Chris Columbus" ~
Henry NewboIt has made, from one |
of the many legends of tine attempts |
made by the friends of the great Ma |
poleon to rescue him from his desolate !
exile on st. Helena, very bright and |
readable story, which he calls Taken
From the Enemy" The characters !
are true and litelike. While the incidents
may be bit OverdraWn. it is story |
well worth reading and full Of interest,
as anything connected with that SPLEEN
did little CorSican ever is.
Stories of reformation, particularly in
an economic way, are one OF the feat
ures OF the present day, in a literary
way. Helen NJ. Winslow, in her story
of SalOme Shepard, tells OF the action
of beautiful cultivated girl, the grand
daughter of a sturdy New England
manufacturer of the time when men
knew and took interest in even the
smallest detail of their own business,
as well as in every Individual who was
in their employ. The spirit Of this
honest man seems to have passed over
his diletant son, the rich and idle man
ufacturer, who left his mills and the
people connected with them in the
hands of man who cared only for the
size of the years dividends, and ami
mated the breast Of the handsome
daughter. Salome, by her fathers
death, comes into possession OF these
vast mills, and soon recognizes her re-
sponsibility to the hands. This, with
the assistance of John Willard, she
splendidly discharges. A pretty love
story runs through the book, and all
ends, as a novel should, most happily.
One might be puzzled to tell just what
lesson, ii any, f. W. Robinson means
to teach by his book The Wrong That
Was Done" 1t is a somewhat intricate
story, and meanders along with. par
ticular desire to arrive anywhere or de
velop any certain plot. The characters
are vague and unreal, as all his charac-
tiers are. You cannot fancy being in
love with his men or any one of them,
and his women are perfectly impossi-
bic. The why of the pe0Dle or the
story is not to he found. Still 1t Will do
to while away an idle hour. There is
nothing sensational or impure about the
book. 1t will do no harm.
nnnUC DE NEIUEn