admitted even by those who except and carp at what they allege as special points of technical shortcoming. Her great merit, in this respect, is indisputably the valuable quality of vocal emission. Whatever her merits or demerits in other regards, in purity of tone formation, in the admirable way in which she gets her voice out of her, Christine Nilsson has exceptional power. And when we consider how strong is the sway of this silvery purity of tone-this spiritual spontaneity of musical utterance-over the feelings and imagination of susceptible people, it is not strange that she should exercise upon her auditors a fascination which passes from the artistic to the personal, and blends the warmer tones of individual sentiment with the calmer æsthetic judgment.

This personal spell is only deepened by her dramatic skill. She has little of the effusive passion of the conventional Italian school, but, instead, a calm and thoughtful depth of conception, which appeals to the cultivated taste far more powerfully than the spasmodic and superficial intensity of Verdesque sentiment. Miss Nilsson's peculiar power is quite as much temperamental and individual as artistic in the narrower

sense.

She represents the force of a clear brain and strong, healthy, magnetic nature, quite as much as that of a merely perfected technique.

This exceptional element of power goes far to explain the unusual success of the whole engagement in America. Mr. Strakosch, for almost the first time in operatic annals, has made money-and plenty of it -by his enterprise. For his merits in introducing us to the greatest of lyric artists we can cheerfully wish him joy of it-hardly for any other. His subsidiary artists-Capoul, Cary, and Jamet-are excellent in their departments, and Duval, Brignoli, and Barré, along with marked deficiencies, have some very estimable and pleasing qualities. But all these, of themselves alone, would hardly have made head against the poverty of appliance so noticeable in the material mounting of his representations, and the meagerness and general lack of novelty in the repertoire. We are promised by one manager or another wonderful things next season with Kellogg, Lucca, Patti and the rest, but the ruling powers will do well to consider the hint we have dropped, not merely from our own observation, but as the well-digested dictum of the best contemporary opinion. American audiences are growing in taste and knowledge, and are beginning, now if never before, to claim something of that breadth of choice and conscientious thoroughness and symmetry of detail which is so great a charm of the continental stage at its best estate.

This gradual advance in taste is pleasantly evident in the renewed popularity, this winter, of the chamber concert, which for some years past seems to have fallen into comparative disfavor. The warm recog. nition of such performers as Mehlig, and Mills, and Hoffman, and Damrosch, and Sarasate, and Bergner, the audiences which have forced the artists to relinquish the cramped quarters of Steinway's smaller

Hall, and betake themselves to the continental proportions of the larger, all show that our New York public can count an ever larger class of cultivated people who love music simply, purely, and for its own sake. The fact is full of promise. Music, if it means anything, means vital culture-an enlarging and elevating influence for brain and soul as well as a mere sensuous excitement, or dainty refinement of the superficial taste. In no form is this influence so perceptible as in chamber music. The concert vocalist may charm by grace of manner or sentiment, exquisite technique, and personal magnetism. The opera brings to its aid the extraneous enticements of fashion and toilet, of light, color, and scenic effect. But the piano-forte recital, the stringed trio or quartette, sets before our attention the chaste and unadorned beauty of the art in its purest expression. In no way can we study so well the absolute musical thought of the composer, no other melodic language speaks so clearly to the higher faculties of musical appreciation, or leaves so durable a result. Pity that the subtle grace which inheres in this most delightful form of musical interpretation should not meet its imaginative correspondence in beauty and fitness of locality. Those who remember the chaste and simple, yet harmonious architecture and decoration of some of the best smaller concert-rooms in Europe-to wit, such halls as the Berlin Sing-Akademie or the concert hall of the Schauspielhaus, will long for the time when we may see them imitated or bettered here. The chamber concert, they will feel, can never reach its finest expression till the claims of the eye and ear shall be more discreetly consulted in so ordering our material surroundings that we may commune with Beethoven and Mendelssohn, Schumann, or Chopin, or Heller in absolute repose of body and mind, with no disturb ing influence, of sight or sound, to interrupt the closeness of our attention or the serenity of our enjoy

ment.

Robert and William Chambers.

THE Chambers Brothers are so closely associated, in the minds of all who know anything concerning the honorable position in the world of letters to which they mounted hand in hand, and which they have so long occupied together, that it is hard to think of that fraternal partnership as being in any way interrupted. Interrupted, however, it has been by the most inevitable of interruptions; and, in the comely volume just issued from the press of Scribner, Armstrong & Co., the surviving brother William tells, with appreciative and discriminating tenderness, the story of his brother's life. But to tell that story was to tell the story of his own career as well; and so the book is, as its title indicates, almost as much autobiography as memoir.

A most wholesome and profitable book it is, and freshly entertaining too,—not to be read by any one without deep sympathy and interest in the manly struggle against great odds of poverty and adversity, by which

these brave souls rose to honorable fame and usefulness. It is no doubt true that among those characteristics which are considered distinctively Scotch, there are some which are attractive chiefly by their grotesqueness, and some which are not attractive at all; and there are glimpses of these peculiarities in the characters who are incidentally introduced to us in Mr. Chambers's very readable narrative. But it is also true that there are to be found among the Scotch, as hardly anywhere else, examples of sturdy integrity without defect of churlishness or narrowness, with great sweetness and refinement of nature, and with wonderful tenderness and earnestness of spirit. It is with this better sort of characters that the book before us has most to do; it is to this sort, indeed, that these two brothers themselves belong. It often happens that, with those who are called self-made men, there is a lack of modesty or an excess of arrogance, an audacious disregard of the tastes and opinions of their fellows, which makes them more or less odious, and prevents them from being held up, for example, as models to young men. But if ever there were selfmade men in the truest and fullest sense of that phrase, these two brothers were. And one searches the story of their lives in vain to discover that they gained success by unworthy artifice, by any other than honest and laborious industry, making the world better as they lifted themselves. If any parent wishes to give his son a book which, more than dozens and scores of ordinary Sunday-school books, will help him to be patient, industrious, trustful and true, let him have this story of the life of Robert Chambers. And if any one wishes the wholesome entertainment which comes from the study of a cheerful, hopeful, victorious life passed amid all sorts of people, odd and admirable, lowly and lofty, and amid great vicissitudes of fortune, from the extreme of penury and hardship to the extreme of large and honorable influence and usefulness, he will find it here more than in any book which has come under our notice for a long time.

August Blanche.

THE English-reading world owes much to the patient and painstaking translators who have given us some glimpses of the treasures which have lain buried in Northern language and literature. The homely,

hearty tales of Fredrika Bremer, the charming stories and artless autobiography of Hans Christian Andersen, and the dramatic novels of Marie Schwartz, might have longer remained undiscovered to us but for the modest, yet loving hands which have unfolded to us the charms which have been concealed in the wrappings of an unknown tongue. When the world is older, wiser, and more thoughtful, it will do tardy justice to the conscientious labors of translators. Now we are only glad to avail ourselves of the results of their thankless toil, and enter into the fields which are thus freely thrown open. Of the Scandinavian writers whose works come last to us in the garb of an Eng

lish translation, the name of August Blanche is unfamiliar; but it will anon become a household word, if the first book from his pen, laid before the American reader, is any fair representative of what shall follow. We have now only The Bandit, translated from the Swedish by Selma Borg and Marie A. Brown, two ladies who have won considerable repute by their translations of the novels of Madame Schwartz; but this work is enough to Indicate that the writer has rare power, vivid imagination, and a great heart.

ment.

In Swedish literature August Blanche holds a high place. He was born in 1811, studied law at Upsala University, forsook law for literature, and before his death, which occurred but recently, created many works which form a considerable part of the rich literary stores of his own land. Of his comedies "The Foundling," ," "The Rich Uncle," and "A Tragedy in Wimmerby," have obtained a lasting place among the acted plays of Sweden, and are reckoned with the best of their school. Other dramatic productions there were, romantic and tragic; but on his novels chiefly rest his claims to fame and literary achieveOf these his most popular works are: Pictures and Stories from Stockholm Life, The Apparition, The Bandit, The Son of the North and the Son of the South, and The Stories of the Chorister in Danderyd. Best beloved by the people, possibly, were the condensed tales or miniature stories, a series of Teniers-like sketches-in-little, which appeared in his illustrated paper during 1857-8. These are The Coachman's Stories, The Minister's Stories, etc. Most of his works have been translated into German, but The Bandit, now brought out by G. P. Putnam & Sons, is the first which has ever been translated directly from the Swedish into English.

As we shall read much of Blanche, we hope, it may be interesting to know that he was a great, warmhearted man-a man of the people, pre-eminently. Endowed with wealth of gold, as well as with wealth of intellect, he seems to have lived for the benefit of his race for the saving, healing, and comfort of those who needed saviour, physician, and comforter. In the Diet of 1859, 1862, and 1865, where he stood as the chosen representative of the burgher class, he wrought and spoke eloquently (for he was an orator as well) for abolition of the death penalty, against conscription, in favor of religious freedom in Sweden, and lifted his hand against every form of oppression and invasion of popular liberty. Compact, commanding, and of substantial port, he seemed, say the chroniclers, an embodiment of the great genial class which he represented. He was a man of the people.

Blanche's style, as a writer, is affected by the traits which we have thus briefly sketched. His diction is clear, pellucid, simple, and direct. Yet, underneath the lucidity of his language throbs a warmth which belongs only to a large and generous naturequick to perceive and resent injustice, and ready to seize on any possible excuse to palliate the sins and

crimes of the outcasts, the neglected and the miserably poor. Without mawkish and morbid sympathy with the sin, he has pity and pardon for the sinner. His dramatic power is very great, and the "situations" of his first translated novel, now before us, are effective and uncommonly picturesque. The story reads like a drama, and moves on without a dull scene or a page of tame dialogue.

But

Personal magnetism and hearty zeal in countless schemes for the relief of humanity, doubtless, had much to do with the extraordinary popularity which Blanche seems to have won in his native land. one can see, by glancing through the pages of the works which are now passing into English literature, that he wrote, as well as wrought, for that within us which is the best of us. In a speech on the Conscription Act he said: "To such an extent does it spur and ennoble man to believe himself more than a mere delver and digger, who toils for the necessity of the moment to believe himself indispensable to the country he calls his Fatherland—that this belief may be said to have its deepest roots in man's breast." To such belief, such roots of sentiment does Blanche continually appeal; and the finer sensibilities and nobler motives of men are touched by his charming hand. For with his subtlety of invention and powerful imagination walks a good and honest purpose.

A Monument for the Fatherland.

A GRAND national monument, commemorative of German victories and German unity, is now the subject of discussion in the Fatherland. And we notice that the German Consul-General in New York has called on his countrymen in this city and country to come forward in aid of the enterprise. Germany is already famous for splendid monuments, as is attested by those to Luther and Frederick the Great, by the stupendous "Bavaria" at Munich, and the Walhalla on the Danube. But this last is to tower above all these in significance and value, and is to stand as an eternal Watch on the Rhine, on the mountain side of the Niederwald, whence it can overlook that portion of the valley where the conflict between the Teuton and the Gaul has been fiercest, and where the former has most firmly held his ground.

The originators of the enterprise invite suggestions as to the form of the monument-one that will best represent to posterity the spirit of the present age. There is a strong inclination to erect a gorgeous temple, monumental in its architecture, containing the statues of leading men. Such impersonations, it is thought, will be more effective and acceptable than anything of an allegorical character. On the other hand, it is urged that it would not be becoming to thus apotheosize living men. Even the Emperor is

said to be averse to the erection of a monument raised to himself while he is still alive. It is suggested, therefore, that the present generation build a noble edifice, and adorn it with the statues of Charlemagne, Barbarossa, etc., and add to the collection

effigies of heroes as they shall step from the stage of action with the final indorsement of the nation.

Northern Africa.

ROHLFS, the famous German explorer of Africa, has lately been entertaining and instructing his countrymen in Berlin by a series of popular lectures on his explorations of Northern Africa, which, he thinks, with proper treatment, might again be turned into the paradise that some portions of it were under the Carthaginians and Romans. He has found on the Gulf of Sidra, west of Tripoli, the site of the garden of the Hesperides and the river of Lethe, and he has a strong desire to see his countrymen eating the golden apples so famous in ancient story. He declares that Central Africa is as rich as India, and that a grand highway to the Kingdom of Soudan might easily be constructed across the desert from a port to be established on the site of ancient Carthage. He would encourage German emigration thither, and thus found an independent colony that might in time be a nucleus for operations that would turn all Central Africa into a German India. To this end the Germans have already a strong foothold in the friendship now existing between the Emperor William and his sable majesty of Soudan, to whom the German ruler recently sent some magnificent presents, which were received with all the pomp and circumstance that the African monarch could command. Bismarck and all his countrymen are said to be listening most seriously to these stories and suggestions, and are beginning to feel that their mission is to regenerate Africa and open it to the civilized world. This would be a great task, but the Germans understand Africa thoroughly, for their scholars and geographers have been quietly exploring it for twenty years, and are now no strangers to its hidden recesses and its secluded treasures.

The new Volume on Arabia.

IT seems strange, until one comes to think about it, that a land so near to the great highways of commerce and of empire as is the Arabian peninsula, should have been so long and so utterly secluded from the knowledge of the civilized world. The waters of the Mediterranean, so thronged with traffic and with travel, almost touch the inhospitable shores. The frequent steamships of one of the greatest of navigation companies plow the waters of the Red Sea, under the very shadow of the stern Arabian mountain walls by which those waters are shut in. And the voyager on business or on pleasure, on his way to India and the far East, passes within sight of the port of Mecca and within a few score miles of the sacred shrine of the prophet. And yet it is only within a few years that we have known anything accurately even of the inhabitable coasts of Arabia; and until Mr. Palgrave's adventurous and successful exploration of the interior, it was as much a terra incognita as the interior of Africa.

Of course when one remembers that great physical

æsthetic susceptibility, that we find cause for protest. The picture of Lucilla, who, after life-long blindness, finds on recovering her sight that no person or thing corresponds to her imaginative conception, and, turning with horror from her disfigured lover, rushes to the arms of his handsome brother only to find later that her heart's subtle promptings contradict the lying testimony of her eyes, and to accept cheerfully the returning blindness which sets her at ease again with her instincts-this picture is, to be sure, psychologically probable and artistically good. The same is partially true of the timid and irresolute Oscar, though his quiet surrender to the apparent necessity of the situation, and withdrawal from competition with his brother and rival, Nugent, is a little superhuman in its self-renunciation. But there is something excessively ugly, and, to our thinking, no little improbable, in the sudden break-down in Nugent's once apparently fine character. There is something at once aesthetically bad and morally painful in the minute picture of sullen, obstinate, yet passionate selfishness with which a man, presumedly a gentleman, pursues a deception on an innocent girl just cured of her blindness, with the distinct intent of substituting himself not only in her affections, but in her memory and belief, for his twin brother. The network of event and human agency by which this at first seems possible but is at last baffled, and the blind girl restored to her rightful lover, is elaborated with the author's usual ingenuity, but it wofully lacks simplicity and probability The whole story, interesting, and in some regards true as it is, is in its general feeling sickly even to sadness, and can hardly be ranked as healthy reading.

With Mrs. Spofford's Thief in the Night, sent us by Messrs. Roberts Bros., we come back to the good old problem of misplaced and criminal attachment. All the well-known factors are there. A good-hearted, unsuspecting, and uxorious husband,- -a careless, discouraged, world-weary wife, and a magnetic and rather unprincipled amico di casa, who has loved fair Mrs. Beaudesfords before her marriage, and now tempts her to forget her duties. The husband, detecting their attachment, with exceptional generosity opens his veins, in the ancient Roman fashion, to make way for a union between his friend and his wife. Over the bedside of the apparent suicide, the wife, who has been guilty only in thought and by an erring fancy, discovers the weakness and nothingness of Gaston's personal fascination, and the real value of the affection which has been growing up in her heart for her husband. Beaudesford, like the Scotchwoman who was roused from a state of coma by her husband's exclamation: "Try her wi' a compli ment," is so stimulated by this assurance of unhopedfor regard from his wife, aided by the medical appliances of Dr. Ruthven, that he incontinently recovers, Gaston is forgiven, and general harmony restored.

The first elements of this bit of domestic drama are natural, and, in the sense of frequent occurrence,

normal enough. But the factors once stated, the working out of the problem is neither one nor the other. However dramatically intense, a narrative can hardly be æsthetically or logically praiseworthy which requires for its development. the utmost possible degree of blindness, stupidity, and wrongheadedness on the part of the actors. Catherine, a sensible but undramatic critic would suggest, had no business to marry Mr. Beaudesfords not loving him, for the purpose of keeping her family in luxury. Gaston, knowing his own feelings, had no business to stay in the Beaudesfords mansion. She, knowing his feelings and her own, had no business to keep him there. Beaudesfords had no business to kill himself to allow a new deal of the matrimonial cards; and finally, to cap the climax of inconsistency, though it might sound harsh to say that Mrs. Beaudesfords had no business to find out that she had loved her husband all along, it is certainly a little extraordinary that she should have done it just then and there.

In the telling of her story the author has shown her well-known power of imagery, and almost more than her usual wealth of sensuous description. The dialogue is pointed and vigorous, but affected. The overdramatic unreality of the characters, their situations and their actions, will not be acceptable to those who long for a fresher, more hopeful, more healthy style of fiction in place of the gaslight and staginess of the modern sentimental novel.

MRS. AMES's novel (Eirene; or, a Woman's Right, Putnam & Sons) has the first of virtues-it is readable. For a novel may explain all mysteries and contain all knowledge, and if it have not interest it is nothing. Interest, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. Not that its mantle need be stretched in the present case, for Eirene has not many sins to be covered.

Indeed, its most serious offense is that the personal Eirene has no discoverable sins at all. Nor can you imagine that from the teething miseries of her irresponsible babyhood to the heartbreak of her youth, so much as a querulous cry has been wrung from her deepest pain. We always felt that Agnes Wakefield would be rather depressing to live with; but she be comes of the earth completely earthy when compared with Eirene. And it seems quite fitting that such abstract and utter goodness should pass out of our sight by translation into the sublunary heaven of marriage with a De Peyster.

This unreality of the heroine (which makes her walk through the pages like an embodied Manua! of Advice to Young Ladies) suggests both the strength and the weakness of the book. It is a first novel, and the author, apparently feeling that those homely things which she knew best were not fine enough to please a fastidious public, has drawn some phases of social life and certain characters from her imagination. Thus her portraitures are admirable and her creations weak. Tilda Stade is excellent. Farmer Smoot, just