Prairie Folks. By Hamlin Garland. (Sampson Low and Co.)— These
stories have the same dismal tone which characterises all descriptions of agricultural life in the States. Whatever depres- sion there may be in this country, the average farmer is a fairly cheerful individual. The farmer in the States, as he is pictured to us in such books as this, is a gloomy and disappointed person ; as for his womankind, all, with the possible exception of the young girls, are hopeless and broken-down. How far this is true, we know not ; but the unanimity of the writers of fiction is very striking. Probably things are much the same in our own Colonies; only they have scarcely found their way into literature. These stories are very effective in producing this impression.—A notable contrast may be found in My Village, by R. Menzies Fer- guson (Digby and Long).—This volume consists of sketches of Scottish rural life. We find, of course, the elements of crime and trouble, but the tone is, on the whole, unmistakably cheerful. The pictures which Mr. Ferguson draws of the familiar characters of Scottish village life are fairly good, but they suggest a com- parison with abler work, which is not to their advantage.—We have received the fifth edition of Ideate, by Madame Sarah Grand (Heinemann); and a now edition of Steadfast, by Rose Ellen Cooke (Sunday School Union).
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