upon the thinking apparatus have never been greater than at present; but at the same time the factors which exert a prejudicial influence on the cerebral mechanism have never been more numerous." The author begins by laying a broad foundation for his deductions in considering the law of the convertibility of forces to the dynamics of the brain. The doctrine of the "conservation of force' is now a well-established principle in physics, and its application to the flow and ebb of brain energy can be indicated with almost as much accuracy as the flow of the tides. This parallelism between inanimate physics and cerebral action is closely followed by our author and with excellent results. If it can be shown that a foot-pound of force is the exact sum of the factors which enter into it, so it can be shown that the capacity of the brain for work is also so proximately estimated as to be trustworthy for all practical purposes. Dr. Corning proceeds to classify his facts which appear to be drawn from wide experience and study, and to marshal them with the skill of a trained scientist. He first considers the various existing causes which conduce to brain exhaustion in the physical sense, such as alcohol drinking, tobacco, excessive sexualism, irregular hours, etc., in the mental sense, over-work whether in study and business, fret and worry, false educational methods, etc. These chapters make up a large part of the body of the book. He concludes with a summary of the principles of brain-hygienics, and indicates very clearly how brain exhaustion may be remedied before the final and inevitable result comes. In these latter chapters the author discusses the relation of blood to muscle and brain, the relation of food to mental phenomcna, rest, special medication, etc. The book is admirably written. The style is simple, direct, lucid, with as much avoidance as possible of technical terms and purely professional logic. It is a timely work, which every thinking man can read with interest without being a physician. Brain-workers everywhere, and in these days every man must be a brain-worker if he would rise above the condition of the daylaborer or mere mechanic, can study this able digest with both profit and pleasure. MEMOIR AND CORRESPONDENCE OF ELIZA P. GURNEY. Edited by Richard F. Mott. Philadelphia 7. B. Lippincolt & Co. This record of Mrs. Gurney's life, accompanied with extracts from her letters will be received with pleasure by those who knew this distinguished and devoted Christian woman in her long career of usefulness and benevolence. Mrs. Gurney was a leading member of the Society of Friends, and was a model of all those virtues so often exemplified in the lives of Quaker families. In her public capacity as a preacher and exhorter, in her private life so full of benefactions, which she was enabled to bestow so freely on account of her large wealth, her biography is full of interest. Eliza Kirkbride was the daughter of a leading family of Philadelphia Quakers, and from early life was exceptionally noted for piety and gentleness of nature, as well as for those physical graces, which so often blossom nobly under the plain cap and coif of her sect. When she was about eighteen she met Joseph J. Gurney, a worthy English Quaker, who had come to America on a mission of benevolence, and the acquaintance was then formed, which ripened afterward into the marriage relation, when Miss Kirkbride went to England a few years afterward and met Mr. Gurney, who had then become a widower. Though much her senior, and with a family of sons and daughters nearly grown up, the connection proved a very happy one. Mr. Gurney's large wealth enabled the couple to pursue their schemes of benevolence and Christian teaching without being in the least harrassed by the servile toils of life. From England to the Continent, from Europe to America they passed again and again preaching and exhorting, helping the needy, comforting the afflicted from the royal family to the peasant hut (one of the most interesting episodes is the visit to the palace of Louis Philippe, on a mission of condolence and sympathy on the death of one of the royal children), and assisting to build up all kinds of worthy benevolent enterprises. They met in their peregrinations many of the most distinguished people of Europe, and seem to have been everywhere received with the greatest kindness and respect. These journeys at first sight appear rather strange, but when we read them in the light of Mrs. Gurney's correspondence, the simple devotion to Christian duty, delicacy, and gentleness which characterized all their visitations, give them a quaintly delightful flavor of the Apostolic times. When Joseph Gurney died, his widow after a year or two of residence in England came to America for the rest of her life where she divided her time between Philadelphia and Atlantic City, at the latter of which she had a spacious cottage which she made the centre of a large Christian hospitality. During the great Civil War Mrs. Gurney gave largely to the Christian Commission and other charities growing out of the war, and had several interviews with Mr. Lincoln, between whom and herself a number of letters passed. This correspondence is of great interest, and shows how deeply Mr. Lincoln was touched by Mrs. Gurney's Christian sympathy and interest. She died in 1881, and a life full of ripe usefulness and meek virtue came to an end. The story is very simply told, and the reader will probably be more interested in the letters than in the biography proper, though both are touching and attractive. BALLADES AND VERSES VAIN. By Andrew Lang, author of "Helen of T.oy." New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Mr. Andrew Lang is one of the best known of England's younger poets, and among that school of word artists, who have carried poetic technique to such a degree of dainty perfection he stands unrivalled, except by Austin Dobson. But Mr. Lang has genius for something more than delicate filigree work and gemcarving, adept as he is in this exquisite craft. We get glimpses from time to time, of command over more large and robust methods, of a more virile grasp of the great questions which must haunt the true poetic imagination, of a bigger sweep of sympathy than is necessary for the graceful and decorative domain of the poet's art. Accordingly amid the many society-verses and idly beautiful rhymes, we find poems of a stronger texture, though all of them are marked by that chaste symmetry of form, which is the natural outcome of a mind saturated with Hellenic studies, and with Hellenic enthusiasm. Many of the better poems are immediately inspired by Greek literature and myth. As a good specimen of the poet's work, we may cite the sonnet on "The Odyssey :" "As one that for a weary space has lain This sonnet is as perfect in shape and color as a sea-shell, and as full of music. Mr. Lang has more than a little of the gift-the highest power of the poet's faculty-that of making the imagination grasp meanings far more than the words carry. This onomatopocia or quality of form by which words in themselves, their collocution, and their cadence become to us like the mysterious Orphic songs of windswept trees, of ocean waves, of the twittering of birds, of the hum of bees, and to which the more literal meaning is like the body without the soul, is the final essence of the art of the poietes or "maker." We find so much of it in Mr. Lang's more ambitious verse that it is almost a pity his skilful handicraft has turned out so many jewelled trifles as to associate himself largely in the popular mind with verse of this order. It is not very long since Mr. Lang, co-operating with another distinguished scholar, gave the world the best translation of the Odyssey ever made. He displays in various-ways his command over the higher resources of the poet's art. The world has a right to look for work from him, which will set a star on his face, the lustre of which will shine brightly amid his greatest brother bards. The "American Novel Series' continues to show the publisher's purpose of making this series distinguished for a special flavor of its own. Certainly, so far they have been marked by no little individuality, though that individuality has not been altogether inoffensive. Το smite all Philistine notions and conventionalities hip and thigh, though by no means with the jaw-bone of an ass, seems to have been the ambition of each of the authors. The art of the storyteller, however, is to please and interest, and as long as he does not offend against the fundamental principles of right and wrong, novel-readers, who are very liberal in these days, are willing that he should cut very close to the edge. "Stratford by the Sea" opens its story in a quaint New England fishing town, and the heroine has been brought up in the simple, old-fashioned notions of a community which knows nothing of the habits and ways of cities. Her beauty and simplicity win the regard of a nice young Bostonian, and she marries him against the wishes of her family. Oswald Craig, her husband, is depicted as a bright, keen, capricious man of intellect and culture, with larger capacity of passion than of affection. The country flower which he had plucked withers for him and loses its fragrance, and then he turns from her as from one who has been tried and found wanting, wanting in all that ripeness of physical and mental resource which he believes his larger nature needs. He at last finds a woman of his full measure in a brilliant and beautiful actress, who loves him passionately, believing him free. It is only at the last that she discovers her lover's deceit, and we are still left in doubt as to whether or not she will consent to elope with him, when a providential railway train cuts short the career of this gay Lothario by running over him. The fortunate widow, after recovering from the shock, marries a good man, who is far better suited for her than the man who had first won her virgin heart. The interest of the story is really in the relations between Oswald Craig and Victoria Landor, the actress. She, after discovering that her lover was a married man, is carried away by his ardor and protestations that his wife's neglect and indifference had made his home wretched. She will surrender to him, but she must first see his home life for herself. She discovers that her lover's story is a lie, but it is still left uncertain what she will ultimately do when the problem is solved for her by fate. The novel has a good deal of dramatic vigor, clever analysis of motive, considerable freshness of individualization, and some very charming descriptions of New England provincial life. The latter occur in the first part of the book, which is indeed the best part of the story. The style is bright, crisp and effective, and on the whole "Stratford by the Sea" may be pronounced a book of more than average merit. algar," on the other hand, is a simple but capital story. It is the narrative of the servant of a Spanish naval officer, who witnesses and takes part in the great battle of Trafalgar, in which Lord Nelson was killed, but not before he had struck a fatal blow at the naval power of France and Spain. The description of the battle, which is the most interesting episode of the book, is as vivid and striking as any battle-scene in word painting can be, though all who have ever smelt gunpowder" on a large scale know that words utterly fail to give any fully adequate expression of the facts. Galdós, the author, is among the most brilliant Spanish novelists of the day, and in this little book he sustains the reputation which he has won in his other novels. FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES. "WE regret to announce," says the Pall Mall Gazelle, "the death of Mr. Charles Reade, D.C.L., which took place on the 11th inst. at his residence at Shepherd's Bush. More than a fortnight ago Mr. Reade, who was seventy years of age, returned from Cannes, where he had been staying for the benefit of his health, and, on his way back, he was seized with bronchitis and congestion of the lungs. Mr. Reade was born in 1814, and was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, of which he was successively a demy and a fellow. He graduated B.A. in 1835, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1843. One of his first literary works, 'Peg Woffington,' was published in 1852; and this was followed by 'Christie Johnstone' in 1853. It is Never Too Late to Mend,' one of his most success. ful works, was published in 1857; Love me Little, Love me Long'in 1859, White Lies' and Cloister and the Hearth' in 1861, 'Hard Cash' in 1863, 'Griffith Gaunt' in 1866, Put Yourself in His Place' (first published in the Cornhill Magazine) in 1870, and A Terrible Temptation' in 1871. Mr. Reade also wrote several plays, and put on the stage dramatized adaptations of some of his works, including 'Put Yourself in His Place,' and Foul Play,' in which he had Mr. Boucicault for a collaborateur. In 1867 he dramatized Tenny. son's Dora,' and one of his latest dramatic productions was Drink, founded on Zola's L'Assommoir.' Mr. Reade has at various times contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette, and the unauthorized publication of a series of sketches written for its columns in 1876 on the Glasgow hero, James Lambert, 'led to a suit which at the time created some stir. More recently Mr. Reade contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette a series of articles on 'The Cremona Violin. ' Mr. Reade was frequently engaged in hot controversies, in which his treatment of his opponents was not of the mildest character; but, as the Times observes in concluding its memoir, 'he was, in truth, so warm-hearted and had such a rich imagination to contrive schemes which his benevolence suggested, that most of his faults, literary or personal-and these were venial ones at the worst-came from wishing to do too much good and struggling to do that much too quickly.' LORD TENNYSON, it is reported by Mr. Labouchere, does not appreciate his new honors, and has replied in a testy manner to many of the congratulations which have been ad dressed to him. AN English novelist declares that the evil of novel-writing at the present day is the competition of educated, rich but incompetent amateurs with the writer who has neither the name of a Wilkie Collins nor the check-book of the incompetent amateur. ANOTHER writer complains that the circulalating library system, which has grown to enormous proportions in England, has so far affected the minds of the people that they never think of buying a book. AN editorial writer in the London Daily News is not disposed to "take a back seat" in comparing the great men of Great Britain with those of America. "We," he says, "can set Mr. Ruskin against Mr. Richard Grant White, Mr. Matthew Arnold against Mr. Stedman, Mr. George Meredith to pair off with Mr. Howells, while Mr. Browning and the Laureate correspond to Dr. Holmes and Mr. Lowell. Comparisons are odious, but the company would have many pleasant elements in which all these gentlemen met." IT falls to M. Victor Cherbuliez, as directeur of the Académie française at the time of the death of Henri Martin and Laprade, to receive their successors, MM. de Lesseps and François Coppée. All the forty fauteuils are now full. THE Municipal Council of Paris has voted 10,000 frs. (£400) to the committee formed to celebrate the centenary of Diderot, being the same amount as was voted in the cases of Voltaire and Rousseau, on the condition that it be spent in erecting a statue of Diderot in Paris. There is also to be a local celebration at Langres, Diderot's birthplace, on July 30th. A STATUE of George Sand, by M. Millet, is to be unveiled at La Châtre on July 15th. THE Scheme for placing a public library in every municipal quarter of Paris is progressing, though slowly. Thirty-eight such libra ries are now in existence with a total of about 100,000 volumes. Last year the number of additions was 12,000 volumes, and the number of readers was 514,000, being an increase of 151,000 on the previous year. ware MISCELLANY. ART AND UTILITY.-Let us consider the original utility of a few artistic things. Blue was originally made blue probably because blue was simple and cheap; but it is now prized and imitated for more fanciful reasons. Statuary was at first an essential part (a figured column) of architecture, and the most elaborate architecture was the outcome of the simple need of a building. Climate, too, has been a more active designer than man. It decreed flat roofs where people wanted to sleep in the open; narrow streets where people needed shade, as in Italy; and angular roofs where snow and rain had to be manœuvred. Small dim-religious-light windows were once made small because larger ones could not so well be made, and were, in fact, then more ideal than real; but windows are now made sınall for artistic sympathies so sensitive that even the green bull's-eye is centred in the pane-not on economical grounds as heretofore, when every inch of glass was a luxury, but for decorative purposes in an age when we can let in daylight by the square yard. The niceties of jewelry that we now show as art-curiosities in museums were made for very practical daily use. The coins we copy and reiterate in brooches, bracelets, and solitaires were as utilitarian as our coins are now. The common alphabet, out of which we in the name of art elaborate so many varieties of form in public petitions and addresses, no doubt received the first variety of form through the uncompromising necessity that there should be distinctions between one letter and another. Monks decorated their books, not for decoration and as decoration only, but as a beautiful offering to their faith; but it was an offering and prayer first; it was truly a devotion, not to art as art, but through art to the deity. The statues devoted to Greek temples had the utilitarian character of offerings or expressions of worship. The marble figures we so much admire as figures in the church of Santa Croce at Florence were not executed and crected as to-beadmired figures only, but primarily for the very utilitarian purpose of commemorating the worth-and, after all, the moral worth-of Dante, Michelangelo, and others. Monks, poets, musicians, and actors, have kept cleanshaven faces-as an indication of a certain religious order with the monk, necessity with the actor, and personal comfort or an innate sense of the fittest with the poet and musician; and yet clear-cut clean-shaven faces are oftenest depicted by artists in their portraitures of ideal or conceived characters. Men of rapid and passionate thought, in the necessity of expression, evolve a forin of handwriting which other people with no very rapid or passionate thought try to imitate; they are attracted by the aggregate beauty of form which this perfectly utilitarian writing presents. Finally, as a matter of honor, some American Indians retained a long lock of hair on the top of their skulls to aid the process of scalping should they fall victims to opposing tribes; and fashion not long ago decreed something very similar, either direct from this or through the Chinese pig-tail, to ornament the humanity of civilization.Magazine of Art. THE FACE OF AN EAST INDIAN CYCLONE.Some part of the difference in the impression created by gales and hurricanes is due, no doubt, to terror. An English gale does not frighten men unless, as sometimes happens, it rocks an upper story till the beds shake, as a tropical hurricane does. It is not, to begin with, accompanied by so much electrical disturbance. 'In a cyclone in Bengal, the rush of the wind is accompanied by what seem, and usually are, discharges of thunder-bolts, visible balls of fire, rushing downward with a sharp, cracking roar -very unlike, we may remark in passing, the roar of artillery, to which it is compared, resembling rather the clang of iron upon iron, or the breaking of something in the heavenswhich strike the buildings, often fatally, within sight. The chance of the bolt, which is by no means a remote one, does not soothe the nerves; and if the discharges have continued, as often happens, for five or six hours, the watcher, perhaps with a shivering household round him, is in no condition to observe scientifically, or indeed, to do anything except wait with a certain doggedness, and that rising of the temper which a true hurricane often provokes. The noise is so exasperating, and the wind does seem so devilish in its malice. It does not blow and then leave off, leave off and then blow again, as it does here; but keeps on blowing with a steady, persistent, maddening rush, which is more like the sway of the tide against you when you are half-drowned, than the action of anything which in Europe we call wind. We suppose the rush is not quite continuous, for the distinct and shattering blows on the walls which seem to accompany it must really be part of it, and indicate gusts; but there never is a moment while the hurricane lasts when the opening of a shutter or a door would not be followed by the entrance of what seems not wind, but an invisible battering-ram. The writer once saw a shutter incautiously loosened while a hurricane was high, and pressing outside like a hydraulic press. In an instant, not only were the shutters blown in and himself flung down as by a heavy weight, but the open door of a large wardrobe standing against the wall was blown off its hinges as if struck by a machine. It had not six inches to recede, and the hinges must have been literally crushed out. The struggle with the continuous impact of a blind force of this kind, pressing inward for hours, is very terrifying, for no experience will make you believe in the resisting power of the walls. It seems as if they must come down, and if they do, you may be dead in five seconds, or worse still, stand suddenly alone in the world. The imprisonment, too, is nearly perfect. A hurricane will last sometimes twenty hours, and during that time there is no five minutes during which you can walk ten yards. If you face the wind, it strangles you, literally and actually rendering respiration impossible; and as you turn round, you are thrown sharply down. There is nothing for it but crawling, and that is difficult, for whatever the scientific explanation may be, it is quite certain that the vertical edge of a tropical hurricane comes, in its full strength, much lower down, nearer the earth, than that of an English gale. All the while, moreover, we repeat for the third time-for after all, it is in this that the special horror of a hurricane consists-the watcher retains, ever rising higher and more resistless, that notion of the deliberate malice of the elements, of being attacked by them, of suffering from the spite and anger of some sentient will, which is at once hostile and perverse. You are fighting, while it lasts, not enduring.-The Spectator. |