A Passionate Pilg; ; and other Tales. By Henry James,
Jun. (Boston, U.S., Osgood and Co.; London, Triibner.)—There is a pecu- liarly American flavour of the pleasant sort about this little collection of tales. Their writer has studied Nathaniel Hawthorne to good purpose. He imitates, but does not copy the master. The atmosphere into which he brings us is not so oppressively mysterious ; his humour is gayer. The personage from whom the first tale takes its title is drawn with much subtlety and skill. He is an American, in whose family has been preserved the tradition of claims to an ancestral estate in England. He crosses the Atlantic to investigate these claims, and is bitterly dis- appointed to learn how unsubstantial they are. The narrator of the story finds him in the depths of despair and of actual poverty. He relieves his needs, and persuades him to go down and visit the place. It is found to have all the Old-World charm which would most attract the sentiment of an American. What experiences he meets with we shall leave the reader to discover from Mr. James's pages, assuring him that he will be well repaid for the trouble of reference. Clement Searle, the "pilgrim," meant for an English squire devoted to books and family traditions, but set down by an unlucky fate to make his fortune in America, and mocked withal with an unattainable vision of the very destiny which would have best suited him, is quite a fine conception. "The Madonna of the Future" is also a study of great merit. Here a man dreams away his life in thinking of a great picture he is going to paint. He finds his model ; there never was a face so perfectly repre- senting the Virgin Mother. He studies this face daily. The years slip by. She grows old, but he does not perceive it. All the while the canvas which is to receive the unparalleled face is never touched ; and then, when some one to whom he reveals his thoughts tells him the truth, his heart is broken. The story is very powerful and pathetic.
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