The herald., 1893-06-02
|EIfANz'z1s2Nl,EI1lI@EjTRoRd
II HzE1]El8R!5

ny Dhllu Qo IeuclUs IQ6Io are on 1tb
shelves today, properly classified and
catalogued, over 100000 of printed
books, not to enumerate its many
thousands of rare manuscripts which
are held of priceless value. The books
in the Valletta collection are principally
in Latin. italian and French, but there
is also large assortment in other Eu-
ropean and in AHiatic tongues.
Hannibal, the famous Carthaginian
general, was born in Malta, and Menau-
der, the famous orator, was also born
there. AuluH Licinius, whom Cicero
styled the Aristotle of Malts, and Diodo-
tus, the publisher and intimate friend of
Cicero, we're also born there.
And 80 we pass from page to page, each
one containing o new surprise concern
ing the wonderful island until we close
the book, wondering how 30 much could
come from such small place. Here ts
America in the youth Of its civilization,
while in this isolated Mediterranean
group, SO circumscribed in space, we
have monuments which may nearly
equal the pyramids in age. These to-
kens exhibit here q tangible page OF
Pb@nician and there of Punic history,
together with ruins of Roman and
Grecian temples, besides which there
are footprints OF many Asiatic
tribes. How ones imagination is awak-
ened by the description of the sights OF
the half-efaced mementos of races dead
and forgotten long agoi Crumbling
ruins are milestones, as it were, on the
road of time. What region would not
become interesting to an appreciative
observer under such circumstances, and
entertaining in book SO full of interest
ing descriptions. 1t ia book so COM
plete as to form whole library in
itself.
Coamopolis ia the title of q new book
written by Paul Bourget, and published
by TAFT, Sons & Co., New York. The
International aspectsof modern European
aociety is q subject so complicated and
difficult OF definition that Paul Bour-
gets success in portraying some of its
phases in Cosmopolie ia little short of
marvellous. 1t is a book that at once
betrays the practical dramatist in its
bold, well-conceived plot, and the fin
ished literary artist in the use of words
that in novel must take the place of
characters and stage setting.
With rare judgment Bourget has Sc
lected Rome es Cosmopolia. The soci-
ETY. he describes, composed of individ-
uala favored in the goods of this world,
and as rule acknowledging no higher
guide than their own pRmpered tastes
and untrammelled wills, in this age of
travel and unrest, sooner or later drifts
to Rome; and nowhere could their ef-
fste manhood and womanhood, their
shallow lives and ignoble aims, or equal
ly ignoble lack of purpose, be brought
out more tsllingly than against the
background OF the Eternal City. This
choice when Paris, or even the Riviera,
would have seemed a more promising
# ar xza nasaad hu tha arfistio- aqaaa 81
| this roth the everything majesty of
faith, the unmovable strength of the
church whose head thrones in the Eter-
nal City. and which is truly and for All
times cosmopolitan, catholic and strong.
The characters are Venetians, Eng
lish, Romans, Poles, Americans, French
men and Jews, and in keeping
these nationalities distinct, and in
knowledge Of racial chsracteris-
tics, Bourget shows power
in which French authors are almost
wholly lacking. The story itself relates
to the love affair between the Countess
Steno, a descendant OF a long line of
doges, and Lincoln Maitland, young
American painter. The countess is a
widow, and a profoundly immoral
woman, sensual and unscrupulous. She
has had many lovers, and has Dismissed
them one after the other, eoldly,
bluntly, when new lover crossed her
path.
Maitland's immediate predecessor had
been the Count Gerka, Pole, a cosmo-
politau like all others, but crafty, ieal-
GUS and revengeful, and his return to
Rome, otter his Dismissal bv Nine.
Steno, is the starting point of the story.
As types OF the permanence of races.
Bourget has drawn Nine. Steno. We
netiRn Messalina; her discarded lover.
the Polish Count Gorka; her new lover,
the American artist, Maitland, the hus-
band of Louisiana French girl with
negro blood in her veins, whom he has
married for money; her brother,
as loyal as Mrs. Maitland is
false, and passionately attached to
his sisters husband Countess Alba, the
daughter Of Countess Strno, as pure as
her mother is corrupt; Jew fnancier
baron; his daughter Fanny, who enters
convent; her suitor, ruined Italian
prince; French writer, accused by an
ultra-Cstholic marquis of intellectual vo-
luptuousness and the great intellectual
sin of attacking thought. This book is a
remarkable book, in being the first at
tempt at gathering in single volume
the salient types of modern information
al society, and portraying its vices, its
pernicious influences and its instability.
That Bourget falls into the common mis-
take OF believing thatthe Countess Strno
and Count Gorka are really great mobiles
ia not 80 very strange. But, with these
two exceptions, he has seen clearly
through the false pretenses of his pup
pets and has exposed them.
The last scene OF the book is in the
vatican gardens, and gives glimpse of
Leo KILL, about whom the MARQUIS de
Montsfanon's reflections are both beau-
tiful and eloquent in thought and form.
The novel OF cosmopolitan life has
attracted other writer's of this
century before Bourget. Balyac at
tempted it. and Daudet and Maupass-
ant more than once introduced the
subject incidentally in their novels.
But the honor Of making the first delib-
crate attempt at gathering the different
threads and weaving them together be-
longs to the author ofCosmopolis.
Any large city OF the present day has
its Cosmopolites; and American Cosmo-
politics especially need the lessons con-
veyed with such exquisite art in Bour-
gets fine work. Until the present.
Bourgeois style has been his most distin-
guished title to rame. In his Cosmo-