SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading ye notice such Books of the week as haoe not been reserved for review in other forme.]
King Leopold's Soliloquy a Satire. By Mark Twain. (T. Fisher Ellerin. Is. net.)—While we are wholly in sympathy with Mark Twain's purpose, we cannot approve of his method. The literary strategy of the attack is not to our liking. And there is little vraisembiance in the "satire" itself. The man so soliloquising would not say the things which the King is made to say, would not quote long passages which are, in fact, evidence against himself of the most damnatory kind. It is not a case, we think, in which fiction can be legitimately used, and, as a matter of fact, it is not used with any great subtlety or art. The appendix is much more to the purpose. Not the least telling part of it is the exposure of the methods which have been employed to deceive the American public. Mr. Morel, who has collaborated with Mr. Clemens, gives the names, and even the remuneration, of the agents whom the Congo State has employed. It is not easy to grasp the realities of the situation, to understand, for instance, the action of the Belgian nation. King Leopold's dominion over the Congo State is said to be wholly independent of the people over which he rules. How a free nation can put up with such a state of things is past all imagining. What would happen here ? One is ashamed even to think of such a thing,—a British Xing doing such deeds, or the British nation putting up with them. It is impossible to acquit the dominant party in the Belgiau State of all guilt in the matter, and it is especially deplorable to see that in America high-placed Roman ecclesiastics have taken the wrong aide.
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