The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-10-30


Mr.. Forbes enjoys advantages over
his predecessors as a historian of the
second empire in the fact that consid-
cradle new material has been placed at
his disposal by the Bonaparte family
who have, to an extent, authorized the
new work. Thus his association with
the prince imperial in Zululand at
forded him the opportunity to hear at
first hand many details of great inter-
est connected with the French side of
the Franco Prussian war and the ca
tastrophe ait SedanA In addition, the
volume is enriched with numerous por-
traits fac-simile of Napoleon's letter
of surrender to Kaiser Wilhelm at Sc
dan, speeches, wills and innumerable
anecdotes which are now published for
the first time.
One by one the chief actors in the
drama of Louis Napoleons life have
passed away. Napoleon himself died
early in 1873; six years later he was
| followed by the prince imperial; Mar
shal Mel died in 1869; Winpffen in
1884; the Emperor William in 1888; Won
Moltke in 1891; Marshal MacMahon in
1898; DR.. Evans, who was one of the
attending physicians in Napoleon's last
| Illness, died in 1897 The last to go
was the man whom Napoleon thought
| mad" the man who more than any
other was the cause of the overthrow
of the second empire and the down
fan of the Emperor Napoleon III-Otto
Won Bismarck Mr.. Forbes history is
indeed timely
1.-THE Blindmans World and Other
Stories" by Edward Bellamy, with
predatory sketch by w. ID. Howells.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
Ones first emotion on finishing The
Blindman's World, and Other Stories,
by the late Edward Bellamy, is a two
fold feeling of regret-regret that the
talented author was cut off in his early
prime, leaving the ends of his life
frayed and unfinished, and regret that
the imperative call of humanity left so
little residue of time and strength for
work of purely literary. quality II
does not need Mr. Howells' or Mr.. BaX-
ter's sympathetic appropriations to tell
us that in Mr.. Bella1ny the world lost
one of its most original and able think
ers along social lines and one of its
eleverest creators and constructors IN
the more limited field of literary inven
ton. If equality is a social econom-
ical dissertation galvanized into an
imitation of life by a thin infusion of
vitality, at least Looking Backward
has real flesh and blood in it. And
surely no one who has read that charm
Ing tale Miss Luddington's Sister"
doubts Mr.. Bellamy's skill in telling a
story
The stories in the present collection
are by no means equally good, but all
are bright and Interesting and distinct
ly above the modern average.
The opening story, which gives its
name to the volume, hinges on the won
derful possession of the inhabitants of
the planet Mars in the gift of fore
sight, by virtue of which they are en-
abled to read the future, and is at once
the most characteristic and the least
interesting of the number
One literary miracle Mr.. Bellany
never attempted, and that was to make
bricks out of straw. He always has a
story to tell when he sets out to tell
story. Generally familiar elements are
employed to produce novel and striking
combinations, as in POTTS Painless
Cure" which is the story of a college
student who, desiring to break with the
girl he is engaged TO at the least cost
of pain to her, studiously sets out to
make himself SO odlous in her eyes that
she will end the engagement of her
own accord. He succeeds in making
himself appear a cad, and in disgust
ing The girl, only to find himself in love
with her and refused Perhaps the best
bit of story telling in the collection is
/ "A Love Story Reversed which tells
! how shy, proud young girl proposed
to a young man. A delightful little
sketch of spell of cold weather while
not a story has ali the suspense and
excitement of a story, and deserves, if
ever an anthology of New England
weather is compiled, to belong to it.
ga World of Green Hills: Observa-
u =
| the Blue Ridge" by Bradford Tor
4 rey. Houghton, Miflin & Co.
/ We n not know or care anything
about birds or wild flowers, but when
Mr. Torrey talks about them, we find
ourselves Joining in his guests with al
most thu keen enthusiasm OF the orni-
biologist. following his varying for
tunes with the zest Of specialist and
glorying In his successes with the disin-
interested satisfaction with which we
receive the news of friends triumphS
In him the missionary seems to com
bine with the specialist, and the man
of letters. with result so potent, so re-
freshing and withal so fascinating, that
the hide-bound dweller among brick
walls, who cannot tell a robin from
sparrow or a trillium from a Iady's
slipper, is captivated and thrilled.
| In "A World of Green Hills" Mr.
Torrey has brought together six essays
which have appeared from time to time
in the periodical press mostly, if not
entirely, in the pages of the Atlantic
Monthly. Four of the essays describe
his rambles and scientific adventures
in North Carolina, While the last two
give glimpses of Virginia. They are
marked by the power of keen observa-
ton, the delicate literary touch, the
delicious, sly humor and the sense of
broad human comradeship which have
won for their. predecessors the appreci-
alton of the reading public
"The Business Girl in Every Phase
of Her Life" by Ruth Ashmore of the
editorial staff of the Ladies' Home
Journal Doubleday & Mcclure Com
pany, New York; Curtis Publishing
Company, Philadelphia.
The title is correct With the skill
of the female detective, Ruth Ashmore
has tracked the business girl into every
nook and Granny of her existence; she
has lain in wait for her in her office,
her boarding house, at church, on her
summer vacation, in her relations with
her employer, and in the verginal Sc
clusion of her hall bedrooms. There is
nothing she does not know about her
1t is this universally and thorough
ness of information that fits her to give
the good advice she does upon a be-
wildering number of topics, including
the care of umbrellas, how to eat
cheese, the proper care of the shoes,
the folly of cheap jswelry, getting up
early and enough more matters TO fill
this column.
1t is painful to have to note one or
two slips in a volume otherwise so
trustworthy. Thus the author lays
particular stress upon the point that
the business girl should never accept
an invitation to go to lunch with her
employer. If she had ever lived in