LETTERS TO YOUNG AND OLD.*
EXCEPT that Mrs. Earle uses the form of letters in her new hook, it is not, either in writing or in meaning, very different from the volumes of Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden with which she has for some years delighted her readers. As always, the interesting figure in Mrs. Earle's book is—Mrs. Earle. Her outlook on life is original, she is absolutely fearless and plain-spoken, and her real love for her fellow-creatures shines out from every page of her writing. This book, as we have just said, is arranged in letters, and so great is Mrs. Earle's kindliness towards all young people, that instead of putting "man" or "woman" after the initials of the person to whom each letter is addressed, she puts "nephew" or "niece." An amusing evidence of her large-heartedness and indulgence for human weakness is to be found on p. 156 in the " Dutch dish" at the end of the cooking receipts. It is quite delightful that a patient of Dr. Haig's and a firm believer in the Uric- Acid-Free Diet should yield to the temptation of tickling the palates of the unregenerate by publishing to the world a receipt which begins with these fatal words : Take "2 lbs. of pork and 2 lbs. of veal." One feels inclined to paraphrase the immortal words of Mrs. Gashleigh and exclaim " Never in a Christian household "—or, rather, in a reformed-diet house- hold—shall such atrocities be perpetrated. These four pounds of concentrated poison are to be minced and put up in the shape of a long sausage "like a fillet of beef." Could any receipt be devised in which horror is piled upon horror in more unblushing fashion ? The full wickedness of her deed strikes Mrs. Earle with such force that it suggests to her mind, on the very next page, the problem which is the real crux of all education and moral training : " Which is best,— uncompromising severity about what one believes to be right, or concession and compromise which may help along a weak brother ? " Whether the weak brother will be " helped along " by two pounds of pork and two pounds of veal all at the same time may be doubted.
"The Diet," as Mrs. Earle amusingly calls it, plays a large part in the present book ; brit the best of the seven chapters is the second, entitled. " Miscellaneous Letters." The casual and omnivorous reader may well take the whole book as an index to many little-known and delightful works on all sorts of subjects. For instance, a volume called The Prepara- tion of the Child for Science, which Mrs. Earle recommends, will be of interest to all amateurs of education, and her quotation from the book will probably introduce it to a large class of readers who would otherwise never have beard of it. No sounder advice was ever given to mothers than that on which Mrs. Earle constantly insists: that it is of vital import- ance not to depress a child by making undue calls upon its intellect. In a letter to a " niece " [who is obviously a real niece and the mother of one or two little girls] she insists on this point, and has many wise words to say on the difficulties of making children prepare lessons alone. The letter ends with the following paragraph, which is the quintessence of educational common-sense :— " Your plan of weekly questions on every-day subjects that all educated people know sooner or later seems to me original and excellent. But, again, they must be varied with things you know the children can answer, or the feeling of depression and the sense of ignorance will be too overwhelming, and no questions should to put that require a greater grasp of mind than the average child is likely to have. It is so difficult for grown-up people con- tinually to realise how every child that is born has to begin from the very beginning, and may often, in spite of many opportunities, fail to acquire certain facts which seem to us so prominent. For instance, I was quite startled the other day at bearing of a clever boy of about seventeen, who had done wonderfully well at Eton, saying, on his way to Paris : Who on earth is Josephine ? "
The chapter on gardening will be of very little interest to the purely urban reader, though full of practical hints to those who possess the smallest square of land in which they take an active interest. The following sentence might well be the motto of the whole chapter: "I am not going to tell you ordinary gardening things which you can see in any book, but • Letters to Young and Old. By Mrs. C. W. Earle. London. smith. Elder, and Co. [Is. 6d. net]
just give you a few personal notes about plants and plant cultivation which I have learnt of late years." Mrs. Earle's "personal notes" always show great power of observation, and her quality of fearless experiment is as prominent in the cultivation of the soil as in the cultivation of the human child.
The volume ends with two chapters of unequal merit. One contains Mrs. Earle's letters written during a visit to the Paris Exhibition of 1900, and is, as she acknowledges, rather sketchy and superficial. The other is a series of delightful letters from Lady Normanby, Mrs. Earle's aunt, who was Ambassadreas in Paris during the year• 1848, in which the Second Republic was established. The letters, extending from February to July, are full of vivid description of the state of affairs in Paris, and the reader will be much tantalised when they abruptly break off before the end of the political • crisis. The book is naturally somewhat discursive, and can only be described as a continuation of Mrs. Earle's former works. Those who liked her three books of Pot-Pourri will find it interesting, but no one to whom the three former volumes did not appeal should even try to read this one.
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