Book and Magazine Notices
image 1
image 2
image 3
image 4
cropped image 1
BOOK AND MAGAZINE NOTICES.
HARPER’S STORY BOOKS, No. 33.
This is a number of a series of books adapted for the perusal of children, and by the reading of which they may receive useful knowledge, conveyed in an attractive form. Messrs. Harper and Brothers, if we may judge from the numbers of this series which we have hitherto seen, are as successful in providing for the needs of the rising generation as in catering to the literary taste of the “children of a larger growth.”
A CHILD’S HISTORY OF GREECE, 2 vols. By John Bonner. New York; Harper and Brothers.
Mr. Bonner has clothed the facts of his narrative, interesting as they are in themselves, in a dress which renders them peculiarly attractive to the youthful reader. Parents and teachers should place these volumes in the hands of the children under their charge.
FAMILY GYMNASIUM, by R.T. Trall. New York; Fowler & Wells, Broadway.
Dr. Trall is an able coadjutor of Professor Fowler in the advocacy of his views on hygienic reform. His contributions to periodical literature, and former published works, have placed him high among the advocates of measures for ensuring the proper development of the physical system. The above named work contains hints and suggestions, statements, facts, and advice, of the utmost value to those who entertain a due regard for the greatest and most valuable of possessions, a sound, healthy bodily organism.
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, for September.—It is superfluous to commend this, the most widely circulated monthly in the world. Every one who knows anything of our periodical literature is aware that Harpers’ obtained and retains its enormous circulation by giving double the quantity of matter to be found in any other magazine of the kind or price—and selected with care and taste. The September No. presents a varied and excellent table of contents. One of its articles, entitled, “Are we a polite people—Our Ladies”—has already become the text of a controversy in the newspaper press, some gallant editors insisting that Harper is too unsparing in its strictures on the “dear creatures’” faults. We append an extract, leaving our lady subscribers to determine for themselves whether they are not too hardly dealt with:
This want of gracious acknowledgement of favors recieved in the ordinary intercourse of outdoor life, can not be excused on the score of modest reserve; for where does woman carry a bolder air in public than us? Where does she flaunt her charms so freely? Where does her eye look with a steadier gaze on man? Where does her voice sound louder, and her laugh ring more sonorously? There is nothing, in fact, which our women are so deficient in as reserve. There is a publicity of bearing about them which reminds one more of the hotel than of home. You see that they are veterans in courage, however young in years, and stand steadily the fire of a hundred eyes. Where a more timid bashfulness would not dare to show its face, they are as unmoved as bronze. If courage to face an enemy was all that was required, there would be no difficulty, we should think, in recruiting an army of bold-eyed Amazons among our beauties, ready to return look for look with the most formidable gallants that were ever marshaled for mischief.
The characteristic daring of our women, which we are willing to put down to their consciousness of robustness of virtue, has not always the most pleasing effect upon their manners. There is an eye bearing steadily the gaze of man, and having a conscious look of experience that by right belongs only to the wife, but which by some means or other has got into the heads of our most youthful vestals. There is a certain self-assurance, justified by little less than forty years of life and a considerable addition to the census, which is habitual with many of our belles long before their fingers glisten with the diamond of matrimonial engagement. There is a prominence of manner which catches eagerly at notice, and takes the lead in conversation with the opposite sex, that even in a Madame de Stael frightened the great Napoleon, and with which our female juveniles do not fear daily to startle us timid and respectable citizens.
Whatever may be the cause—whether it is that American girls, like their brothers, are too soon cut adrift from the apron-strings of their mothers; whether it is that they are brought up rather to dazzle society than to cheer and add to the comfort of home; whether it is that they are too often in the parlor and too seldom in the study or the kitchen; whether it is that they always go out to be seen, and never for purposes of health and enjoyment; whether it is that beind so much in public they forget that their proper place is at the fireside—whatever may be the cause, there is no doubt of the fact that our female youth are more in the public eye, have a bolder face, a looser tongue, and a freer air, than used to be considered consistent with the character of a young gentlewoman.