The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1905-08-03
THE new PUBLICATIONS
SOME OF THE LATEST BOOKS or
THE SEASON.

Swinburne's "Gove's Cross Currentsv--
"BIack BUTTERFLIES" by Berthe st.
LuE-Notes of Forthcoming books
The Magazines.
Loves Cross Currents" BY Alger-
non swinburne, published by Harper
& Brosn is the reprinted novel OF
Swinburne's youth that appeared in
the pages of The Tattler a generation
or more ago under the title "A Years
Letters It is dedicated to the poets
tnsepalSSle companion, Theodore
Watts Dunton. The opening words OF
the desicatory epistle run as follows:
AS it has pleased you to disinter
this buried bantling of your friends
literary youth, and to find 1t worth
resurrection, must inscribe it to YOU
as the person responsible for its revi-
val. Were it not that a friends
Judgment may always seem liable to
be colored by the unconscious inf1u-
ence of friendship, ! should be reas~
sured as to its deserts by the appro-
val OF a master from whose verdict
on strangers attempt in the crea-
tive art of fiction there could be no
reasonable appeal and who, feel
bound to acknowledge with gratitude
and satisfaction, has honored 1t by the
sponsorial suggestion of a new and
happier name. (
The story of Loves Cross Cur
rents is told in the epistolary form
for which the author makes due apol-
ogy in preface. There is first j.
prologue, then a letter, another letter.
and still more letters, all Of more or
less cleverness and Wit-and then
nothing. That is, nothing particulars
i ~ happens There is no dramatic de-
| Velopment or denouement. "And so
our little bit of comedy slips off the
stage without poise, and the curtain
i laps down over it, Lucky 1t never
turned to the fearful style, ais it once
threatened to do we read in the clos
ing letter
The leading role falls to Lady Mid
| hurst a sharp tongued clear-headed.
and rather cynical old doWager
4 whose criticisms Of life and its pro
blems have often Gallo flavor.
About her are nenhews and nieees
/ grandchildren and relatiyes-in-law.
whose cross currents IN love she tugs
at with tolerable success. We glimpse
the grain of her philosophy in Sim
gular letter of confidence to her Wild
I owed granddaughter from which We
quote: Resign yourself by all means
to the unavoidable; take patiently
what will come; refuse yourself the
relaxation Of complain s447. u
i tie as you can to do with fear, q 49,
4 pentance, or retrospection of any kind
Fear IS improbable; to look bacl
will weaken your head. AS to repen
lance, it never did good or undid
I HARM Be content to endure
without pluming yourself on sense
| OF submission. We submit be.
cause we must, and had better NOT
fatter ourselves with the fancy that
We submit out of goodness. .
But above all things, ! would have
| you always keep as much as you can
Of liberty Give up all for that; sac
rifce it to nothing-to no religious
| theory, to no moral precept. All slay-
| ishness, whether Of body or Of spirit.
I leaves a faint where it touches 1t Is
as bad to be servile to God as it to be
| seryile to man.
The old lady's wit is especially
pointed when aimed at her relatives
| OF one Of her brothers she says: size
was certainly the stupider Of my two
brothers; and, my dear, you have no
| idea what that implies" IN regard to
nepheW-in-law scientist; she uses
the qualifying phrase, "if he has any
thing behind his spectacles whatever.
| which / have always felt uncertain
of. OF the scientists wife, her niece
she says she is ''the cleverest stupid
woman I know" She has a favorite
grandson with whom she is more lem
lent. OF him she says: II like to see
such capacity for greatness; it looks
as Il a man had some corresponding
capacity for being reasonable when
his time came" Some of her harsh
| judgments, especially in regard to her
own SEX, Lady Midhurst is willing to
have ascrfbed to the fact that she her
self is a woman, IF you think one can
be a woman at my agea thing be-
lieye to be impossible, il one has the
very smallest share Of brains to start
with"
There is no plot worth mentioning,
but witty, iconoelastic lines, such w
SWinburne liked to write years ago.
keep one in good humor 1t is a book
no one should miss In the twentieth
letter is a highly characteristic poem.
from which we quote the opening
stanzas:
Fair face, fair head, ana goodly gentle
broWs,
Sweet beyond speech and bitter be-
yo1d measure;
A thing to make all vile things virtu-
GUS,
Fill fear with force and pains
hearts blood with pleasure;
Unto thy love my love takes fight.
and flying
Between thy lips alights and fails I'd
signing.
Breathe, and my soul spreads wing
upon thy breath;
Withhold it, in thy breati1,s re-
straint perish;
With life indeed is life, and death is
death. d,
AS thou shalt choose to cfiasten
them or cherish;
AS thou shalt please; for what Is GOOD