The Portland daily press., 1893-05-10
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

by Mr.. John T. Morse, which appears in
the American Statesmen Series of Messrs
Houghton, Mif1in & Company, is the
most satisfactory biography of the six
teenth President of the United States
that has yet been offered. 1t does not,
to be sure, contain many documents, like
the large work written by Lincoln's Sec
retaries, but unlike that pretentious
biography, it is not written in spirit of
intense personal partisanship and with
wilful blindness to all the facts that make
against preconceived theory of the man
and his work. Mr.. Morse does not find
it necessary to depreciate those who dis
agree with Mr.. Lincoln, to underrate
their abilities and question their motives,
though promptl enough to expose their
blunders and correct their mistakes,
His attitude toward Lincoln is one of
profound admiration, but it does not
lead him into the mistake of utterly con-
demning Mcclellan and Chase, Wade
and Winter Davis. He sees Lincoln as a
great man, the most singular man of
this century, but not as demigod, or a
faultless monster which the world ne er
saw. Unlike Holland and Coffin he does
not finch at the wretched surroundings
of Lincoln's birth and boyhood, ''using
alternating adjectives with literary SKILL"
but prefers to follow the frank realism
of Herndon and Lamon. And in depict
ing Lincoln's manhood and political
career he does not deem it necessary to
portray the Illinois politician as
shrinking man devoid of personal am
bition and pressed into the conflict bv
far-seeing friends who discovered ex-
traordinary abilities beneath his uncouth
exterior. He recognizes Lincoln's in
tense ambition for political preferment,
and his employment of all the legitimate
arts OF the politician. Despite the mighty
melancholy of his mood Lincoln was no
dreamer, but one Of the most practical
OF statesmen. AS wisely and faithfully
portrayed by Mr.. Morse we can trace
his constant growth and the educating
process by which he became the fore
most man of his time. He even looms
up larger than in the apologetical lives
Under Mr. MorSe'S treatment he is made
very Humankind yet this latest ana best
blographer frankly confesses his ina
bility to fully understand that singularly
enigmatical character. He concludes
that Lincoln is a man that cannot
be ranged or catalogued but who stands
in an order by himself. If not among
the greatest of political leaders he is GER
tainly the most singular.
The literary merit of Mr.. Morse's work
is high and striking; and the sustained
simplicity of its style, its clearness of
statement and ease in narrative render it
fascinating reading.
The work. in two volumes, is for sale
in Portland by Loring, Short & Har-
mon, at $3.50 the set.
Strikingly unlike those historical nov
els which have made his name SO widely
known, is the Without Dogma of Hen
ryk Sienkiewicz, translated from the Po-
lish by LA Young. Whether it be the
dizziness Of the story in the original or
the inadequacy Of the translation one is
at loss to say, but the novel is undeni-
ably tiresome. There are noble thoughts
in it, nobly phrased, and no little wisdom
with much folly. 1t is full of philoso-
ply, usually attractive and mostly bad.
But there is little action, the characters
of the tale are uninteresting, and the au-
thor, after all his labor, reaches no wise
conclusion. The hero is patterned after
Hamlet, but his inadequacies and hesita-
lions teach nothing, his perplexities an
peal neither to our kindness nor our Gil
riosity, and we find ourselves profoundly
Indifferent to his fate. Yet the book has
so much the air of being something. of
conveying some large lesson. that it will
very likely impose upon many and be-
come fad. 1t contains many obscure
passages that people cannot understand
and consequently consider great-iust
just the kind of book it is the fashion
nowadays to make fetch of.
Boston: Little, Brown & COMPANY:
Portland: Loring, Short & Harmony
Donald Marcy is vivacious story told
less strenuously than is the wont of Mrs.
Phelps Ward and with noticeable and
very comforting absence of verbal fire.
works. 1t is the story of astudent of
Harle University (which may be rem
dered Harvard OF Yale, as the reader
wishes) and his struggle forlthe De Court
ney prize; and though as sketch of COL
lege life little out of drawing, suffi-
GENTLY near accuracy to command the
interest of students and graduates, and
sufficiently attractive in outline and color
to win the enthusiastic admiration of
young women, for whose delight indeed
idly told. and is of unfagging interest
from the first page to the happy conclu-
sion.
Donald Marcy, by Elizabeth Stuart
Phelps, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin &,
Company; Portland: Loripg, Short &
Harmon. Price $1.25.)