Living Leaders of the World. Illustrated. (Griffith, Farran, and Co.)—We
raise an objection at once to the above title, and the principle on which the plan of the book is founded. Biographies of living people are to us hateful, and should be to the subjects also. The curse of this century is the insatiable curiosity of the public, who must learn the pettiest details about the lives of those in any way separated by intellect, wealth, or birth from the rest of their fellow-creatures. Like a child who tears to pieces a doll to find out what it is made of, the public are not satisfied unless they can rend the few remaining rags of privacy from their idols. "Success is the test of success,"—this is the motto of the work, we should say, from internal evidence, and the reason why kings, princes, and prelates are jumbled up together with American statesmen, successful tradesmen, and smart speculators, also American. The book, we may add, is from an American source. Considering the somewhat loose significance attached to the word "leader," one is at first surprised to find Newman omitted; but perhaps this is not a matter for lasting wonder; Vanderbilt, after all, is the ideal man, not Newman. There are one or two redeeming features in the book, amongst which we include an appreciative notice of Lord Tennyson.
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