3 JANUARY 1891, Page 30

CURRENT LITERATURE.

GIFT-BOOKS.

Leal Souvenir. By Alice Weber. (Walter Smith and Innes.)— Miss Weber may fairly be proud of her twin pictures, Clare and Maude,—Clare the enthusiast, Maud the severely, sometimes almost cynically, practical. Both are admirably drawn, and set each other off in a very skilful way. Over against those are the two heroes, as they may be called,—Jack, the bravo, honest English lad who is content to do the duty that lies before him; and Harvey, the enthusiast whose soul is possessed with the sense of human Buffering. The story in which those four are, so to speak, set, just suits them. It has just interest enough of its own. Human nature, when it is so well drawn, is far better to road about than incident. Leal Souvenir is an excellent book, well written, and artistically finished. We do not like "bad endings," but cannot help recognising that Miss Weber does right to drown her impracticable young Socialist.