Splashes from a Parisian Ink - Pot. Translated from the French of
Jacques Normand, by Arthur Hornblow. (Remington and Co.)— These little sketches aptly illustrate the complaint that is made, and made with only too much truth, against the morality of French fiction. The most serious of them, the one which the writer imagines, we should think, to have the highest tone of them all, relates how a young diplomatist kills himself because the attachment of a married woman with whom he has been carrying on an intrigue begins to 000l. The dead man's friend, while yet unaware of the troth, and thinking the death an accident, harries to break the news to her, a singular mission which even the author seems to think a little odd, and finds that the adulteress—not that so harsh a word is used—has found another lover. This is the real meaning of the expression which be afterwards finds her to have used in a letter to the deceased that she must lead henceforth "a life of regret and ex- piation." This is all very nauseous stuff. Mr. Hornblow could hardly have chosen a less profitable employment than the task of extending the circle of its readers.
Previous page
