Marked "In Haste." (Prow's Printing Company, New York ; Sampson
Low and Co., London.)—The plot of this story is very slight, the device of a brother mistaken for a lover, and becoming the cause of misunderstandings and jealousy, is threadbare. But the plot is but a small part of the book. The author frankly avows in his preface that he has drawn the portraitures of actual persons. "The American Colony in Paris" is his real subject, one to our minds not recognised by art, and certainly here treated without any kind of literary skill. The coarsest photographs have, of course, some kind of interest to those who know the originals; for others, they have no attraction. Dull and coarse sketches of the outside of life in Paris occupy several chapters; the topic is paltry, and the author is not even at home in it, praising mutton, for instance, for being "young." There are many instances of vulgarity and bad taste, and one pas- sage (p. 85) as shockingly blasphemous as what Mr. Foote was sent to prison for. What "Prow's Printing Company" may be, we do not know ; that an English house of credit should allow such words to appear in a book of their publishing is simply astounding.
Previous page
