The Portland daily press., 1893-02-24
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AS thoroughly delightful book as
often gets printed is Frank Bolles's At
the North of Bearcamp Water; chroni-
cles of Stroller in New England from
July to ecember-delightfu in matter
and manner. The style is well-nigh per-
feet in it's way, and reminds one of the
old definition of we'll dressed woman
she who is attired with so exquisite
taste that one never thinks of asking
what she has on. A man who can pass
a night by himself on Chocorua, as Mr..
Bolles did and without recourse to strange
words, without pomp of adjectives and
loud resounding phrase. so convey his
feeling of utter loneliness amid the sol
emn beauty of his surroundings that the
reader stands in his place with only the
stars above and the shadows about him,
is master of that noble instrument, the
English language. Nor is there about
Mr.. Bolles's style the least straining
after simplicity, the slightest affectation
in the use only of common forms of
speech. 1t is fully proportioned and adj
equate to the expression of varying
moods of thought.
The strolls that Mr.. Bolles took and
so delightfully."- describes were about
Chocorua and the Bearcamp. Passacona-
way and Saba Day Falls, and that
strange mountain indifferently known as
Old Shag, Toadback or Paugus. He has
the eye of the naturalist as well as the
soul of the poet, and gives us the birds
with their song and color, the leaves in
their verdure and flush and fall, the pale
little flowers that sparsely dot the noun
tain side. 1t is charming book.
At the North iof Bearcamp Water is
published in Boston by Houghton, Milf
lin & Co. and for sale in Portland by
Loring, Short 6 Harmon. Price $1.25.
A Girl With Temper, by H. B. Fin
lay Knight, is story in the cynical
manner so much affected of late by the
British minor novelist, in which the
justice and injustice melted out are not
of the poet, but emphatically after the
fashion of this world Ingenious in plot
and vivacious in narrative, tits pretty
enough reading for an idle evening.
New York: Harper 6 Brothers; Port
land: Loring, Short & Harmon. Price
80 cents.
In the quire of ''idle singers Of an
empty day. the voice of Edith Thomas
is heard, slender and sweet. Much OF
her verse is gathered in the volume
Fair Shadow Land, published by Hough-
ton, Mifdin G. Company; and if it be not
verse that will linger in the memory and
quicken the pulse, it makes music to the
ear and gives pleasing expression to
those moods, sombre OF gay, into which
most people of sensibility fall in mo-
ments of idleness. Sometimes she
strikes a note high and strong, as in her
variation on the old theme of P@tus and
ARIA. Here we have a real poem, not
merely pleasant piece of versifcation;
and her triumph is notable in face of the
comparisons to which she necessarily
subjects herself. Occasionally she re-
calls Hood, as in Petits Naufrages-not
the punning Hood of common noto-
riety," as the current phrase has it, but
Hood as he wrote Fair Inez, and Re
member.
Fair Shadowland is for sale in this city
by Loring, Short & Harmon. Price.
$1.25.
A North Country Comedy, by M. Beth
am-Edwards philadelphia: J. B. Lip
pincott Company is pleasant story
told with unnecessary minuteness of
detail in $50 pages. 1T is the kind of
story that has all the stretchiness of mo-
lasses candy; and there is no reason why
the author might not, by the simple ex-
pedient Of postponing the wedding, pull
it out three hundred pages longer with
out harm to it's languid sweetness. The
comedy element is to be found in the
situations rather than in the characters.
price so cents).