According to Maria. By Mrs. John Lane. (John Lane. '
This volume is less a novel than a study of coithinporary manners viewed from a satirical standpoint. The "Maria" of' the title is one of the most intolerable df the race of social climbers, and her struggles are depicted by an old friend with extraordinail vulgarity and vivaCity. Old friendship is, indeed; 'responsible for a good deal, for how the "I" of the story could 'ever continue on terms of intimacy with any one so unbearable as Maria is never explained. The intimacy, however, is carried on through twenty-four long chapters, and we have Maria's dictum on every social subject under' the sun. Occasionally, though not often, Maria achieves a really witty and pregnant truth, as in the chapter on etiquette :—" Maria put her study of etiquette in a nut- shell. You see,' she said, the lowest class don't know and don't care; the middle-class don't know and does care, and the upper knows but doesn't care." Those who like a study of manners among a class whom it would be a compliment to call the " better vulgar" will be much entertained by this work.
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