Under the title of A Crystal Age (Fisher Unwin)—the reason
of the epithet " crystal" is not revealed in the book—a young gentleman of the nineteenth century, who has been buried by a fall of earth, relates his experiences when he comes afresh to the surface, after a lapse of "hundreds of centuries," in a land where excellent English is spoken, but the names of Homer, Shakespeare, Queen Victoria, Lord Randolph Churchill, and Smith (his own name) are equally unknown. It appears that the world will then be inhabited by a few widely dis- persed "Families," which send pilgrims periodically to one another, and each of which cultivates some one element of "sweetness and light," music being the specialty of the Family into which Smith is adopted. Of conrse, such a phantasy involves numberless incongruities ; bat, on the whole, the idea is consistently worked out; and the description is charming of the "Mother of the Family "—apparently, like a queen-bee, the only fertile member of it—to whom, with "the Father," loving and unquestioning obedience is paid by all the members. If fault is to be found with any part of a pleasant book, it will be with the long descriptions of furniture and architecture, which, however, most readers will probably skip.
Previous page
