TALES.—The Repentance of Nussooh. Translated from the original Hindustani. By
M. Bempson. (W. H. Allen and Co.)--This is a very remarkable little volume. The author is an official in the ser- vice of the Nizam, and his book obtained the prize of 210) offered by the Government of India some ten years ago for a meritorious treatise in the vernacular. Its most notable characteristic is the earnest but liberal piety of its tone. A sincere devotion to Islam, combined with a fraternal regard for Christianity, distinguishes the book from beginning to end, and makes it a most interesting study. The plot is briefly this : Ntissooh, a citizen of Delhi, falls ill of the cholera. (We note, by the way, that our author much prefers European to native medicine.) The opium administered to him sends him jute a sleep, in which he sees a "Vision of Judgment." He arises an altered man ; and the story thenceforth is chiefly occupied with his efforts to per- form his long-neglected duty to his family, a family which he has per- mitted to grow up with even less sense of religion than he has him- self had. The younger ones learn the lesson readily enough. As the proverb has it—and our author's pages are liberally strewn with proverbs—" It is easy work pinching wax noses." Two of the !ions, indeed, are found by the father to have already anticipated his wishes, and to have taken a serious view of life. It is with his two eldest children that he has the most difficulty. Kulleen, the eldest son, proves obdurate, leaves his father's house, squanders money which he has unlawfully obtained, and finally, being wounded in the service of a native Prince, comes home to die, repenting in his last days. The daughter Naeewal, happily for herself, is hedged-in by convention from taking to such courses, and is brought to see the folly of her ways at a smaller cost. The tale is both interesting in itself and as a picture of the interior of Idahometan life.— Dieudonnee, by Richard ap Rhys (Remington and Co.)—This is a melancholy little story of life in Normandy. Zephyrin and Diendonnee are lovers; and one day she goes with him for a scramble on the rocks at low water (is this according to French etiquette ?).
Bat she has left some wood nnstacked at home, and comes back to find that her old grandmother has fallen over it and met with a fatal accident. Her grief and self-reproach refuse consolation ; and when Zephyrin, at the end of a year, ventures to speak to her, he is repulsed. Then comes the Franco-German war, and he is drawn in
the conscription,—a misfortune which he would have had a better chance of avoiding had he been married. Again Dieudonnee's repentance is too late. The story is prettily written, but somewhat morbid in tone. Dieudonn6e is certainly very unlike the practical, common-sense type of character which we commonly associate with the Norman peasant.—Carola. By Hesba Stratton. (Religious Tract Society.)—This story is considerably above the average of the class of literature to which it belongs. Carole lives till her eighteenth year with a drunken grandmother, and receives all the good she has from the teaching of an old Jew shoemaker in whose house the two lodge. She has never heard of the name of Christ ; and the Jew, who conceives of Christianity from the miserable spectacle of degradation which he sees about him in East-End streets, keeps her sedulously from the knowledge. But it comes to her. The chaplain who officiates at her grandmother's funeral gives her a Testament, and she reads, for the first time, the story of the Gospels. The account of the impression made upon an active and sympathetic mind—for such, in spite of her unfavourable sur- roundings, the girl has—is very striking. This, indeed, is the charac- teristic feature of the story. Carole brings to her new faith a simplicity and directness of purpose which perplex those who have grown used to take conventional views of it. We will not follow the story any further, but would advise the reader to do that for himself.
He will find a very effective narrative indeed. May we point out to Miss Hesba Stretton that her rural scenery is a little at fault ? On p. 81, "flue oaks and elm trees" are "still in full leaf." This seems to point to a time in October, though the oak foliage survives the elm's. Nor would "the shining gossamer web woven round them" disagree. But then "the corn is gathered into brown shocks."
This would hardly be so late. And then, "a lark began to sing." Do larks sing so late P—Joyful through Hope. By Blanche Garvock.
(Seeley and Co.)—This story is somewhat in the style of Miss Yonge, only that it is not so easy to trace any distinguishing mark of Church opinion. That is no disadvantage, and, indeed, the religious element in the tale is managed with taste. But the whole effect is not quite satisfactory. The subject of the story is presumably clerical poverty, borne with dignity, and not suffered to interfere with duty. Hope Fenwick, née Milford, besides having an alarming number of children, has to receive into her household a mother-in-law and sister-in-law, who have lost their property. The author has scarcely had the courage to make the picture as gloomy as the reality, nor can she refrain from bringing in an opportune legacy at the end. But it is not every poor "Mr. Quiverfal " that has a rich cousin ready to die at the right moment. Wily could she not give us a picture of hope and faith triumphing over an unrelieved poverty F—The Last Abbot of Glastonbury. By the Rev. G. D. Crake, B.A. (A. R. Mowbray.)—This is "a story of the dissolution of the monasteries," the tragical history of Abbot Whiting being supplemented by another, in which Sir Walter Trevannion, otherwise Father Cuthbert, formerly of the Abbey of Furness, plays a part, the connecting link between the two tales being a certain Cuthbert, who has been an acolyte at Glastonbury. The book is sufficiently readable; but Mr. Crake sometimes seems to forget the times in which the scene of his story is laid. The youth who in 1548 was "a fair master of English, French, and Latin," with "some knowledge of German," and "mathematics tolerable as things go," must have been a prodigy ; while the description of the schoolboys at Glaston- bury shootings for a silver arrow seems a little fanciful. Has Mr. Crake found out anything definite about these Monastic schools ? It is a very obscure subject. In the lists of St. Albans no school- master appears among the officials either in 1451 or 1479, though the " printer.monk " is described as having been formerly "school- master." In the list of 1479 there is a majestic " novitiorum," five " novitii," and three " scholares."—In Meiji Days : or, a Sofa Hiding Place, by Grace Stebbing (Shaw and Co.), we have a readable story of the Reformer, introduced by the machinery of some precious manuscripts which are preserved in a manor-house. It would not be difficult to point out some anachronisms in the narrative. Indeed, the whole has a somewhat modern look, but it is put together with creditable skill.—Glenairlie : the Last of the Graentes. By Robins F. Hardy. (Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier.) —Miss Hardy has, we think, done better work than this somewhat improbable story, with its conventional characters. The best situa- tion in the book is where Martha Leslie, having hidden her father's will in the interest of her nephew, finds herself by an earlier instru- ment left in possession of the estate. Of course, everything comes right ; but is not Miss Leslie let off a little too easily ? It is curious how novelists seem to consider philanthropy a fitting career for wrong-doers.
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