The result is a
"romance of history" which contains more essential truth than the most
labored histories; for the writer is a man who has both the heart to
feel and the imagination to conceive the realities of the time about
which he writes.
The characterization of the book is original, various, and powerful.
It ranges from the lowest hind to the most exquisite representative
of female tenderness and purity. The scenes of passion show a clear
conception of and a strong hold upon the emotional elements of
character, and a capacity to exhibit their most terrible workings
in language which seems identical with the feelings it so burningly
expresses. In vigor and vividness of description and narration the novel
excels any of Reade's previous books. The plot is about the same as that
of "The Good Fight," though the _denouement_ is different. "The Cloister
and the Hearth," indeed, incorporates "The Good Fight" in its pages, but
the latter forms not more than a fourth of the extended work. Altogether
the romance must be classed among the best which have appeared during
the last twenty years.
_Lessons in Life_. A Series of Familiar Essays. By TIMOTHY TITCOMB. New
York: Charles Scribner, 16 mo.
Who is more popular than honest Timothy? Opening this, his latest
volume, we read on, a fly-leaf fronting the title-page that twenty-six
editions of the "Letters to Young People," fifteen editions each of
"Bitter-Sweet" and "Gold Foil," and thirteen editions of "Miss Gilbert's
Career" have gone the way of all good books.
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