City Snowdrop.. By M. E. Winchester. (J. F. Shaw and
Co.)— Miss Winchester's book has suffered aomewhat, in a literary point of view, from a division of interest. The principal figure in her story is one that is invested with much pathos. Old Dinah, a Negro woman who makes a precarious living by selling small wares in the streets of Liverpool, has been a South Carolina slave. Mies Winoheater tells us her story, a story which might well have furnished materials for a book. As it is, it comes in as an episode, and inconveniently dis- tracts the attention from such story as there is,—and it must be allowed that there is very little. For the authoress's chief interest is in the waifs and strays of the great city. The desolate little children who shiver and starve in its alleys, or try to make their living in its busy 'Areas and quays, are very near to her heart, and she will not lase a chance of interesting her readers in them. Then, again, she has a strong religions purpose, to which she cannot forbear giving all the effect she can. These elements it is difficult to combine in a harmonious' literary whale, and it 1.13 not to be wondered at that a complete moms has not been attained. The movement of the story is at first very slow; but we would warn readers that they must not be discouraged by it. There is much that will amply repay their trouble further on, and the end is one that will do any one's heart good to read. Here the authoress is thoroughly at home in a subject which profoundly interests her, and she writes with eloquence and force. Elsewhere we have found her style occasionally disfigured by carelessneases to which a writer of so mush experience should not be liable.
Previous page
