The Princess Daphne (Belford, Clarke, and Co., New York), is
a story of America and England, vulgarity and Bohemianism, love and death, slang, senuousness, and occultism. It seems to have been to some extent inspired by Th‘ophile Gautier, and perhaps this may account for its unpleasantly erotic character, though not, of course, for the "transmigration of souls," or for whatever is the synonym of this old process in the vocabu- lary of occultism. But there is a great deal of literary faculty, particularly in the way of character-analysis, diffused over and, in a sense, wasted on The Princess Daphne. When the powers of the writer are better disciplined, and when he finds a better subject, he will probably produce much superior work. This book is worthy of attention for the promise indicated, rather than directly exhibited, by it.
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