rises the dome of Valhalla, palace of immortality, where repose the souls of warriors slain in battle, surely Mary Trap's heroic soul rests there with a martyr's victor crown, and robed in radiant white. Alas! of how few of us can the angels ever write Blessed, until we enter into rest. Blessed is the baptismal word with which the angels crown the soul as it comes up out of the river of death, and joins the white-robed church. "Blessed are the first drops of the life river that kiss the brow, as the transfigured soul puts on her radiant immortal. "All their tears are wiped away, All darkness turned to perfect day; CHAPTER XLIII. WHAT THE CRITICS SAY. "A perfect judge will read each work of wit, "Who shall dispute what the reviewers say? "Beasts of all kinds their fellows spare; CHURCHILL. THERE are many expensive bridal gifts on the table in Nepenthe's room, but there's one-the last, but not the least on which her eyes will often rest. It is a little bluecovered book, with the word Dawn printed on its back. And Frank reads it aloud one evening. As he closes the book, he looks up to Nepenthe and says, archly, "If I had not fallen in love with you, Nepenthe, I should be in great danger of being captivated with the writer of this story. My boyish ideals were all authoresses." "And mine were all artists," said Nepenthe, laughing; "but you can't make me jealous, Frank," she added-and her whole face glowed with pleasure. Mr. Stuart comes in the next Monday morning with a pa per in his hand and a very knowing look on his face. "Ah, Frank," said he, "you wrote this review, I know you did." "Yes, I did," said Frank, looking at Nepenthe mischiev ously; " and I wish I knew who the authoress was. I might be in danger of falling in love, for my boyish loves were all authoresses." Mr. Stuart takes Frank's arm and walks into the other room. He says, as they stand before the portrait Dawn, "There, Frank; there is a pretty good picture of the unknown authoress; and now I have introduced you," he added, laughing, "I will leave you to cultivate her acquaintance." A surprise never looks picturesque on paper, so we'll not repeat Frank's comments and questions and Nepenthe's explanations and answers. We will leave them a week, till we see Frank coming in one day with a budget of fresh newspapers. The morning, evening, daily and weekly papers, and we'll hear what the critics say. "The Sunday Telegraph says," said Frank, "that you have written a very good book, but it is of entirely a too religious a cast-a very serious fault," he added. The Morning Glory ends by saying that it is a charming story, and its chief charm is its high moral tone, its elevated religious sentiment. You know how disturbed you were, Nepenthe, on account of that remark of Miss Charity Gouge's about the book s being so full of chopped sentences.' Here is a review, in the Metropolitan Day Book, which is a very good offset to that. The critic says the style is simple and elegant, and its language poetic and eloquent." "Mrs. John Pridefit remarked," said Nepenthe, "that the book was full of egregious grammatical blunders. She evidently gave me credit for all the inaccuracies I put in the mouths of my characters, and in ordinary conversation very few persons speak with perfect grammatical accuracy." "Don't break your heart, Nepenthe; but the reviewer in the Daily Wonder says your book is loosely put together,' -but here is the Evening Guest, and the critic remarks that the style is simple, concise, and natural.' The sharpest review you have had is from the Weekly Raven. The editor says not knowing what else to do with your heroine, you set her school-teaching for her living, and this is a stale resource for feeble authors.' I won't read all the sharp things he says, but he evidently thinks it a great fault; but they say the editor is an Englishman, and down on all American books. But here is the American Violet, one of the ablest magazines in the country, and its reviewer says that this very school-keeping heroine is the chief charm of the book-so there's a heart's ease for you, Nepenthe. There's also a very able review of a similar character in the Independent Truth Teller, and another very just criticism in the American Evangelist." "What is there in real life," said Nepenthe, " for an educated poor young person to do for a living but teach? It is common in stories, but not more common than in life; but I wonder why I have had no reviews from the Morning Dew Drop and Evening Primrose. The editors are my personal friends." 6 "Oh! they have a grudge against your publishers," said Carleyn; and they'll never notice any of their books. The editor of the Laughing Budget remarks that it is a bad taste to close with a death-scene,' but the Boston Puritan Evangel says the last chapter is a specimen of sublime and beautiful pathos throughout.' You see, Nepenthe," said Frank, "you've enough of all kinds of reviews to keep your spiritual equilibrium." "No one," said Nepenthe, can accuse me of writing a novel. I haven't written half the romance in my head. Of course it's a love story, for wouldn't anybody's life be tame and dull enough without a love story in it? 66 "But Miss Prudence Potter said she shouldn't have thought that Mrs. Carleyn, a professor, would have written so much of a novel," said Frank, and the critic of the Courier, of whose keen eyes you were so afraid, says 'it is a charming domestic novel,' but Miss Charity Gouge says she never'll read it through, for she doesn't like women's writings." "I am glad, Frank," said Nepenthe, "that my happiness does not depend upon the success or failure of my book." Frank reads aloud one more review from the Christian Intelligencer. It is beautifully written, and in deep sympathy with the author. The writer evidently judges discriminatingly, and praises real beauties, enters into the spirit of the book, and Nepenthe feels, as she listens till the happy tears will come, that she would like to grasp the writer's hand, and thank her for her kind, sweet, sympathetic words. "It has "Here is my olive leaf at last," said Nepenthe. fully rewarded me for opening my soul's window and sending forth the bird of fancy from the ark of my heart." After sitting quietly a few moments thinking, Nepenthe said, "Frank, I could write a better review of my book than anyone else can. I could say the style and thought were good. The chief charm of the book is not in its plot, which is neither intricate nor intense. There are too many char. acters for a thrilling book. It might have more unity. The best plot is like a noble river, every image, flower, star, or fancy should be tributary to it, like the flowers along its borders, all adorning its bank or mirrored in its crystal waters; but I am so delighted, Frank, to think I have a review from you, and you had no idea whose book it was. Isn't it funny-a man reviewing his wife's book? and yet, for once, a husband's opinion was impartially given. What would I have done if you had said anything sharp? It would have been almost like the first cross word. I'm afraid I never could have recovered from such a shock. I feared you would think the plot meandered and zigzagged too much, and I do care what you think more than I do for the opinion of all the world beside." "There's too much harmony between our souls," said Frank, "for me to find any great fault with any thought or fancy or feeling of yours. I felt a strange, peculiar interest in the author when I first read Dawn. She seemed to express my own thoughts better than I could myself, and that is as high praise as I can give any writer." Frank," said Nepenthe," since I have seen this book in print, I've had a great deal better book come in my head. It is all plot, passion and pathos. I can see the plot right through, just as you can see all the way down this avenue in the evening, with its long rows of lamps on each side. So all along the new path of fancy, it seems as if I can see little lights hung on both sides from beginning to end, and my thoughts delight in roaming all through this illuminated plot. I seem to meet living people, and hear living voices talking to me, till I fall in love with my own hero and wake up very early in the morning to hear what he has to say to me." "Is it a religious novel?" said Frank. "I hate that phrase-religious novels," said Nepenthe. "They generally are a bottle of fiction's deodorized benzine, superior to any other article in market for removing moral spots and spiritual stains of every kind from Fancy's gay, grave or gossamer robe without altering the fine color or texture, and sometimes they take the whole color out of fiction, so you can't tell what color it is or was. A religious novel is often only another name for the tamest kind of trash-but I hope nobody will call Dawn a quiet book," she added, as Bridget came in just then with a paper, having in it another quite lengthy review, "for when all is quiet' on thought's Potomac, no victories are ever gained on fiction's broad, contested field, no laurels ever won, and my poor little book might have to go at last to wait at some dusty corner of Nassau street, and with faded, threadbare cover lie outside in the cold in Fame's cheerless Potter's Field, among those long rows of unwept, unhonored and unsung volumes over whose neglected heads you read in dingy letters, as you pass along, this dismal obituary notice: 66 6 ANY OF THESE BOOKS CAN BE HAD FOR 25 CENTS.' Frank, if my Dawn were one of those stately thought castles, from whose ivied windows you could look out on fiction's broad field and see a solitary horseman ride by, or some persecuted woman in white hunted and haunted by villains in black; if I had made some dim, shadowy woods, where veiled ladies hide and ghosts hover in shrouds, it might be very popular-Mr. Caushus might, perhaps, sell three hundred thousand copies." Yes," said Frank; " and you might have had some highbred, haughty, heavenly hero emerge from those shadowy woods, hiding under his calm marble face boundless oceans of intensest passion, but bursting forth into wildest cataracts of emotion as some mysterious stranger crosses his path, holding in his coat pocket the dreadful secret and priceless safeguard of your hero's whole past life. should have gifted this mighty, matchless, murderous man with tongue of ice and heart of fire, as his bloody deeds half frighten one's conscience to death, wnile his celestial, immaculate motives win the ceaseless admiration of the most spotless maiden's pious, profoundest soul." You |