The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1894-11-11
THE CRITICS CORNER.
DEVOTED TO COMMENT UPON RE-
CENT PUBLICATIONS.
"Ths Wagaar Story Book"-"Lifs ana Let
tiers Of Ersstfn us"-The Farmers
Boy"-Litersry Notes.

BY William Henry Frost. Illustrator
by Sidney Richmond Burleigh. Charles
Scribners' Sons New York. $l.5O. For
sale by West, Johnston Il Co.
what shall we give our children to
read?' is one of the questions Of the
day. The eager restless. craving little
minds the quick lamentations feeding
upon fancies before they have mastered
facts, the infant appetite for the won
derful, how shall We foster and direct
these? Where all the thinking is
In pictures, fiction is an unknown word
expressing only child's mental play
and there is no standard by which TO
measure the marvellous. the impossible.
Dreams run into underlined lines OF every
day life and the child's tireless spirit,
fresh from natures fount, rises above
our pale limitations Of reason and sees
only the wOndrous early gods. and the
flaming ramparts OF the world" So the
wonder stories Of all ages have been
to Captain Rid, but no one before has
had the happy thought OF Wagner
Story Book.
Under the graceful gulse OF fairy tales
seen In the fire and told to a child, we
have here all the Scandinavian myths
and poetic legends immortalzed by being
linked with the music Of Wagner. II Is
a wholesome book besides, with its big
mystical heroes. and enchantresses who
always fail to overcome the right-some-
thing of the high, pure air of the Morse
land blows through its pages fresh and
sweet and strong, are the pictures so
daintily held up before the little girl
who gazes with wide eyes into the fire
to watrh the facinating procession-the
stately swan OF Lohensrn. the pilgrims
march in Tannhauser the wondrous
fiower-garden of Parsifal and its holy
grail shining under the dome. The I'M
dulating forms of the sear-nymph and
before her. as they guard their glittering
treasure; far down, hideous dwarfs are
forging the margin ring, while above all,
beckons the glorious palan of the. gods.
When the Trilogy Is one day put before
her 1t will not be only the opera"-she
will understand II all as a great moral
drama. The sword of Siegfried, the birds
that talk to him the dragon he Stays
the curse of the gods, will all rave
their meaning. she comes face TO face
with the Valkyrias, the choosers of
the slain, as they gather at the bridge
OF Valhalla.
Nothing in classic fable equals in fire
and poetry this wild ride of the Valkyrias
coming with the speed of the winds from
many a battlefield and on a pathway of
cloud, each bearing the body and soul
or dead warrior into the paradise be-
yond. The plunging horses that CHOKE
the darkness from their loosened nanes,".
refined by these goiden-haired daughters
OF the god, calm, beautiful, majestic,
their CORY burdens before them. seem
some splendid fragment OF an old Morse
freize that Wagner has reproduced for
modern art
But besides word pictures the "story
book" gives everywhere lessons for the
little ones. The gods themselves grow
pale and old when love is not with them
promises must be kept at any cost-pun-
fshment follows all crime only the BRAY
est and truest could wake the goddess
who slept. guarded by the fire Of purity
magic. saving the fallen and healing at
touch the wounds OF this weary world.
ID. II. III.
LIFE AND LETTERS OF SRASMUs. by
James Anthony Fronde, Charles
Scribner's Sons New York. 900
For sale by West. Johnston & Co.
In this series of lectures, delivered at
Oxford, 1884, and published precisely
as delivered. Mr.. Fronde gives us not
only a very sympathetic, valuable, and
attractive piece of biography, but neCes-
sarily. Erasmus being what he was,
ghmpses at the principal actors in Eu-
ropean political and religious life i'm an
era when the world was In travail for
the oeiiVery or the pure and naked truth,
ana when the Spirit Of God was moving
upon the face of the waters
The letters from which he has quoted
are so numerous and so lengthy, that. as
ne himself says. he has been compelled
10 "abridge, compress, and epitomize."
His object. he states. has been rather
10 lead historical readers to a study of
Erasmus own writings than to provide
an abbreviated substitute for them"
The personality OF Erasmus we are
not long In discovering is one with which
Mr.. FToude is more closely i'm touch
than that OF the fearless, passionate,
lion-hearted German Luther, but while
conceding much that he claims for the
former. We are certainly not prepared TO
concede, even with so eminent and able
scholar as Mr.. Froude, that to the
two great men the former was the great
er.
His views regarding Henry VIII. are.
OF course, those whose expression start
led the public years ago.
To presenting the character OF Eras-
mus justly Mr.. Froude has lent all the
force and charm OF his delightfully."- dis
tinctive literary style with the results
that he has given TO the public a book
combining educational value with the
fascination sure to attach TO a brilliant
and sympathetic sketch OF vivid life
lived In vivid times. The quotations from
the letters OF Erasmus are aptly intro
duced, and emphasize Mr.. Froude's views
OF his character. as we'll as suggest by
their literal reflections OF the times in
which he lived their value TO historical
readers as study. which latter was
Mr.. Froude's avowed object in introduc-
Ing them.
THE BURIAL OF THE GUNS: By
Thomas Nelson Page Charles Serb
z.n