Spring and Autumn. By the Author of Morning Clouds. (Longman
and Co.)—A pleasant and graceful little tale, in which Maida Hatton, who is as near perfection as any lady can be, keeps two lovers apart because she herself is in love with the gentleman. The lady lover dies of consumption, and Maids becomes a deaconess at Kaisarwerth. It is astonishing what a taste there is among novelists of the school of Miss Yonge for creating these perfect female characters, whose very strength is the source of their weakness. Maida is, however, well drawn, because she never does anything actually wrong in itself, but only fails to do the good she might from bad motives. On the other hand, any lovers in real life would not be kept apart by ten times the opposition Maids ever offers. The strong points of the story are the style and the knowledge of the human heart which it displays. It is the work of one who has observed carefully and thought deeply on the motives of human action, but his, or probably we should say her, imagination is lase creative than analytical.
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