New-York tribune., 1901-12-19

VOYAGE AUTOUR DE MA CHAMBRE Par
ton. Mifffin & Co
oBERMANN- Selections from Letters to & Friend nd
Translated, with an Int-oductory Ess@y ana
ator Of the Journal Of Maurice de @ G1ern; n
Two Volumes. Octave pp- lviii, lZ 2o1 Hough-
ton. Mifflin & Co
The grouping together of these three books
might at first blush to be forced: but for
once such a grouping may be permitted for the
sake of the external characteristics Of the vol
unes in question. We have here three triumphs
Of the printers art three publications which
may Justly be described faultless- They rep
resent an enterprise upon which the authorities
Of the Riverside Press have for some time been
engaged. From that press We have been 40
customed for many years to receive luxurious
printing: but Of late special pains have been
lavished upon a series of books in which the
publishers have sought TO surpass even their fin
est previous achievements. They have succeed
ed in their aim. The volumes before us are
among the most beautiful that have been pub
Ished in many a long year on either side of the
Atlantic.
In each case style has been adopted which
is precisely fitted TO the original date and to the
character Of the work reproduced. Thus Mr
Browns Letters appears in a form which
Thackeray himself would have applauded, the
page being severely simple in arrangement, but
with that positive beauty hanging about 1t which
comes from admirable proportion. not TO mention
clearness of type and exquisiteness OF paper
The quiet masterpiece of Xavier de Mals1re
might pass in its present form for one OF those
quiet masterpieces of printing which so many
French publishers have put forth. 1t is an en-
chantingly dainty volume saturated in Its typo
graphical style in its title page. vignettes. and
so on with the spirit of the purest French taste
In this as in the reprint Of Thackeray. exactly
the right type is used, and 1t is placed on the
page with the unerring Judgment Inc
tzuo volumes in which Miss Frothingham's trans
Iation Of Senancour is printed show some
what larger type, arranged with a due sense OF
scale as regards its disposition on the page All
three Of these publications are bound in boards
hut all three have dignity far beyond that Of
countless books we have seen in all the glory
OF the most costly bindings. 1t may be added
that they are well sewn that they open ana
stay open. easily. and without hint OF damage
to the back. Altogether, the publishers are TO
be CONGRATULATED on having produced three OF
the finest examples OF bookmaking ever put 10
the credit of an American firm
OF the works chosen for publication IN tnls
series &. Is unnecessary to speak in every case
st anv great length. The humor and charm OF
those chapters which Thackeray wrote in ad-
rnonitory but wholly genial mood for Puncn
more than fifty years ago are TOO wen known
to readers Of the great novelist to call TOT COM
nent now-though We may note that they are
here printed for the first time as a single vol
ume. The Voyage Autour de Ma Chambre is
also more familiar to English and American as
well as TO French readers. But with Senancour
If Is different His name is widely known
through Matthew Arnold's tributes TO him in
verse but Miss Frothinghann's volumes are the
first to present his personality and work In ade-
uuate form, before readers who have not sought
him out in his oTn language. We are proper
tionately appreciative Of her industry and en-
thusiasnl yet II may be doubted II the latter
quality has not led her somewhat astray
senancour is an interesting writer but he is
very far from being great one, and while these
two volumes are worth having, II is important
10 remember what Miss rockingham seems dis
posed TO forget, that they do not constitute a
very serious boon TO mankind. 1t is true that
she has the sanction Of E-atthew Arnold, to
name no others. yet she unconsciously puts her
finger on an essential flaw in the Frenchman
when she quotes, in illustration Of the reseIn-
blance between him and his English admlrer,
the following words Of the latter:
For the world which seems
To lie before US like land Of dreams,
So various so beautiful new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love- nor nght,
Nor gertrude nor peace, nor help for pain.
The poem from which this is quoted is one of
the most beautiful in the language, yet there is.
perhaps as much danger in accepting unques-
toned the philosophy of the words given above
as there is in complacently adopting the theory
that all is for the best in this best Of all posi-
bic worlds and Senancour invites lis TO the risk
He pays the penalty Of the man who torments
himself unduIy with metaphysical hair splitting.
'I could not sacrifice my manhood he says,
in order to become a man of affairs" Perhaps
If he had made what seemed to him "sacri-
fee" he might have led happier life. and might
have left more stimulating writings. Miss
Frothingha-n speaks Of his extreme literary
reserve which led him, perhaps, to veil
his thought Was this yelling Intentional? Is
not Senancour's frequent obscurity rather the
result Of mental processes too vacillating and
turbid 10 result in phiiosophic utterance at
once luminous and helpful? He spent much of
his life in interrogating the universe under some
of its grandest visible aspects, but while the
exnerience gave him interesting thoughts. and
certainly moved him tc the composition of ad-
nirable descriptive passages it failed to i'm
cart TO his prose the tonic element without
which he was inevitably destined to hold only
limited sway over modern readers 1t is not
simply that he formulated system; for that
we can even be grateful. Has not Platonism
itself been characterized as habit Of mind
rather than a system? But there is too much
in Senancour that is indeterminate; too much in
which the thought is only dirnly suggested, and
is not very valuable at that. Miss Frothing-
ham mentions that he born in the same
year with Wordsworth. and. quoting from
Senancour she quotes from his great contem-
porarv The association of their names is hardly
happv There is an enormous difference between
the Frenchman's magnificent vaporings and
those noble smpIcities which are Of the very
essence Of wordsworth's genius; just as. on the
merely rhetorical side, there is enormous DIFF