does not make Mr. Howells's story of general application; for, though one grant that ninety-nine women out of a hundred are unfit for physicians as was Grace Breen, it is only the hundredth or the thou sandth woman who has any idea of becoming a physician.

Miss Phelps wisely enough assumes the problem of intrinsic capacity for the profession as settled, as far as regards the exceptional woman. Not only are there actual facts for this, but Miss Phelps so constructs her woman as to premise that, whether there ever were such a woman or not, if there were, she would be a successful doctor; and thus to have the ground clear for the profounder and more practical problem of the place for love and marriage in such a woman's life. "Doctor Zay" may therefore be considered a general study. Not but what Atalanta Lloyd is vastly more exceptional a woman than Grace Breen; nevertheless, all that Mr. Howells's story treats is the special question whether Grace Breen and her class can practice medicine; while Miss Phelps's story treats the general question whether any woman whatsoever can reconcile that profession and marriage.

She does not pretend to answer the question. She merely expounds some of the conditions of it. The whole story is really a curious experiment at inverting the relation of man and woman to each other. It would all apply just as well to the woman with a vocation of any sort as to the woman doctor. It is an inquiry whether it is essentially in man's and woman's nature that the man should have outside occupation and interest that, in many cases, stand first in his heart, while he himself and the ministering to his interests stand first in his wife's; whether, in the society of the future, this predominance may not fall to either husband or wife indifferently, according to individual character. As before said, she does not pretend to answer this question; but she makes at least this evident: that, under present social conditions, the relation could only be made possible by the most peculiar circumstances of dependence on the part of the man and protection on the part of the woman, and by certain womanly traits in the character of the man-not womanly weaknesses, but rather the womanly virtues of generosity in love, and willingness to take the second place, and become supplementary to the vocation of the loved one. "The Story of Avis" was a study of this same subject -the woman with a vocation and marriage; but this time marriage with a man incompetent to his share of the difficult task. But a far more difficult question than that of reconciling a vocation with wifehood lies beyond anything that Miss Phelps has touched: that of reconciling a vocation with motherhood.

As a social study, "Doctor Zay" will probably be underrated by the critics. As a piece of literary work, it will probably receive more than its due. Miss Phelps would be well nigh an exception among

authors if she did not in her later works exaggerate the mannerisms of her earlier ones. Turns of expression that in her first books were really felicities, accented barely beyond what is allowable for a pure and unaffected style, have now become painfully predominant. It was in "The Story of Avis" that this unreal, sentimental manner of writng first became conspicuous; and it robbed that book, as it will the present one, of half its weight. It is what the unlearned and inaccurate would term a "transcendental" style; it is a style that makes discreet and sober readers distrust the whole thing; and it may be added that the incessant attitudinizing, the "intense" conversations, the over-vivid rhetoric, are painful to the reader of quiet taste, and give a despairing sense of genius misused. In all this, Miss Phelps does not stand alone: this is the fatal weak ness of almost all that school of American women writers with which Miss Phelps is strictly contemporary, and at the head of which she probably stands. It is a literary fate that hangs threatening over the heads of the newer writers; yet, on the whole, the world moves in this respect.

The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich.1

THE partial collections of Mr. Aldrich's poems hitherto from time to time published, as well as the occasional appearance of his poems in the magazines, have abundantly established his position as the best writer of graceful light verse in America, past or present. Both Holmes and Lowell, it is unnecessary to say, surpass him, out of all comparison, not merely in wit, but also in humor; and Mr. Holmes, in verse that, while not distinctly humorous, is still bright, facile and far from serious. Surpasses, we say, but the word is inaccurate; for we do not find a single poem in which Mr. Aldrich has so much as tried to do what Mr. Holmes does; nor one in which Mr. Holmes tries to do what Mr. Aldrich does. Mr. Aldrich is, in fact, the first American writer of successful society verses. Our other poets, even in their lightest moods, are Anglo-Saxon of the Anglo-Saxons, muscular and of appreciable weight. Mr. Aldrich has the French accent. Yet to describe his poems merely as society verses would be unjust and inadequate; they range out on either side of society verse into pure description, and deepen down below it to fine pathos and feeling. Yet the verse, at its deepest, is always light of touch, neat, epigrammatic if possible, and picturesque; the keenest pathos touched is in the embodiment of the little stray moods and minor incidents that hover and flutter around every profound feeling. "The One White Rose"; "Nameless Pain"; "Palabras Carinosas"; "Nocturne"; "Rencontre"; "Palinode." There is much luxurious description, written for description's own sake, not as back1 Illustrated by the Paint and Clay Club. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1882. For sale by Billings, Harbourne & Co.

Thus:

ground; several very graceful long poems, of which “Judith” is chief; some merely society verse, and a good deal of this that we have spoken of, that deepens down from society verse into profounder feeling and in this last Mr. Aldrich is at his best. French, we have called his accent; yet, there is much in which he suggests the later Eliza bethan verse: the lighter touch, the prevalence of the "conceit," the great value placed on form, the decline of intensity-all this coming, as before, at the close of a great poetic era, strongly suggests that it is the poetry of a decadence. But this is no reproach to it: let us be thankful for the poetry of a decadence, as for one more late-blooming flower on the well-nigh exhausted plant. It is exquisite verse: none the less so if, like the red leaves of October, it be in itself an indication that the summer is ended.

No poet could be more suitably put into a luxurious dress of type and paper then Mr. Aldrich. Indeed he is one of those whose poems seem actually enhanced in excellence by it. Other poets afford an excuse for pictorial and typographical art: Aldrich, like Herrick, demands it. The present edition, therefore, is more welcome than an equally handsome one of many a greater poet would be. With flexible covers, heavy pages, perfect typography, and abundant and beautiful illustration, it makes one of the most satisfactory gift-books of the year. The illustrations are by the Paint and Clay Club. A dozen different names appear as members of this club, appended to the twenty-nine illustrations: W. L. Metcalf, W. L. Taylor, Marcus Waterman, W. B. Closson, H. Sandham, W. F. Halsall, E. H. Garrett, F. W. Rogers, T. H. Bartlett, S. E. Carlsen, and F. D. Millet, are the artists; George F. Andrew, W. B. Closson, W. J. Dana, J. P. Davis, Frank French, Arthur Hayman, and S. L. Putman, the engravers, besides the steel engraver of the portrait frontispiece, J. A. J. Wilcox.

Bancroft's Works.1

THE series of histories now beginning to be published under the above title consists, so far as the six volumes already issued go, of the five volumes of the "Native Races," widely noticed some years ago, and the first volume of the "History of the Pacific States" proper, to which the "History of the Native Races" is regarded as merely preliminary. This first volume of the "History of the Pacific States" is, again, the first of several volumes of the "History of Central America."

It will be seen, therefore, that the series of "Bancroft's Works" is simply a uniform (and ultimately a complete) edition of the histories from time to time published as separate volumes.

1 The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vols. I., II., III., IV., V., VI. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co. 1882.

At the time of the issue of "Native Races," the general plan of the Bancroft histories was mapped out to some extent; and the present beginning of what is to be finally the complete edition is a suitable occasion for a resume, both of what was at that time shaped of the plan, and what has taken shape since. The ground covered by the term "Pacific States" is extremely liberal, for it includes the whole of Central America and Mexico, almost all of the United States and British America west of the central line, and the whole of Alaska. There is enough in common ethnologically and historically between these geographically widely separate States—most of all, their common difference from the Atlantic half of North America-to justify this extension of the designation, "Pacific States." The separate divisions will be Central America in two volumes; Mexico in two volumes; the North Mexican States, California, the North-west Coast and Oregon, New Mexico and Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Washington, Idaho and Montana, British Columbia and Alaska, each will be in several volumes. Instead of following the history of each district through before beginning the next, the publishers announce that, in order to keep the volumes nearer together chronologically, the first volume of "Central America" will be followed by the first volume of "Mexico," and this probably by the successive first volumes of the other branches of the work. In the complete series, however, the first six volumes of which are now under review, the volumes will be arranged in their natural order, Central America being completed, then Mexico, etc.

This cursory glance over the ground covered and to be covered will give the reader an idea of the point to which Mr. Bancroft's historical scheme has progressed. In our next issue we shall review at length the new volume of the series, Volume I. of the "History of Central America."

It

J. A. Lowell's Engraved Cards. WE receive from A. L. Bancroft & Co., agents for the Lowell engraved cards, this year's holiday issue of these, the most artistic of all the Christmas cards. The Lowell cards are not, on the whole, as good in design this year as last: a more trivial style is apparent, as though the designer had tried to make them approximate more nearly to popular taste. is a mistake, if he has; for in the nature of the thing the class that care for this exquisite engraving, and not for colors, are the very ones that demand a high artistic rank in the designs. Last year there was nothing among the holiday cards that could compare with Lowell's, not only for beautiful workmanship and graceful designs, but also for high quality of sentiment a thing, as every fastidious person knows, hard to preserve in gift-cards. This year, while they have nothing very good in the way of Christmas sentiment, they have several designs that are

better than anything we have seen in the way of quaintness; and the workmanship is, of course, as perfect as ever.

Prang's Holiday Cards.

We receive, too late for extended notice, Prang's prose and other cards. The Prang cards are and will continue to be the most popular of all; and it is pleasant to notice the steady increase from year to year in richness and beauty of coloring, and abandonment of hard or gaudy tints. The total amount

offered for prizes this year was divided equally between two series of prizes, each series consisting of four prizes of $1,000, $500, $300, and $200, respectively. One series of prizes was awarded by a jury composed of all the well-known artists of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia; and the other by the votes of the general public visiting the exhibition. The first artists' prize and the first popular prize fell to the same design, that of Miss Dora Wheeler, of New York, who had gained the second prize in the previous exhibition, and thus wins $2,000.

DAILY the nerves of civilization, the post and telegraph, convey the thoughts and interests of one-half the globe to the other half. The speech in the French Chambers, the English Parliament, or the western legislature, the new dancer or singer at St. Petersburg, the fossils upturned in the Nevada prison-yard, the operations of some village benevolent society in western Massachusetts, have each and all a vital interest for denizens of the rest of the world. No part of a continent is allowed to insulate itself from this community of interest. The moment a town or region sets limits to its sympathies, it puts an end to its own growth and influence, and begins to harden and decay. There may be significance in the fact that the poles so long elude discovery. Certain cities and countries which fondly imagined themselves occupying the exact center of the globe have in time found this a delusion-or others have found it out for them. It is the privilege of fresh undertakings to begin with one less error than their immediate predecessors. Perhaps the mistake that the affairs and opinions of our own immediate quarter are the only ones of consequence to ourselves, or that we can afford to neglect any advance in social, artistic, or moral ideas, come whence it may, is one which needs no illustration in these pages.

Pacific Holidays.

THE visitors who have flown hither to spare their feeble bronchials and rasped nerves the rigors of an Atlantic winter find a difficulty in recognizing the special feasts and seasons of the New-Year. Thanksgiving goes by without a frost to tone digestion or appetite for the mince pies which have barely gained due seasoning; it is not cold enough to evoke in stinctive gratitude for bright fires or snug rooms; no sharp November twilights, with lingering jonquil tints in the breezy west, send one homeward with pulses throbbing with dear sense of the comfort and delights of home. By good rights, Thanksgiving Day ought to dawn clear, and cloud in the afternoon with a gray, soft film over the sky, sifting a few

In

flakes of the first snow, against which the graceful tracery of bare elms and the cordage of wild clematis and grape-vine are relieved like drawings on porcelain. Later in December come exquisite days, when the New England meadows or the Hudson lawns are at their deepest green, woodlands are clouds of gray branches in the distance, and skies rifts of clearest blue, glimpses of unstained heaven; while the air, soft and brooding, breathes an odor of ripe leaves, ferns, and aromatic bark—a subtle, penetrating incense from the last sacrament of the year. sheltered hollows the late violet smiles undaunted, or the gentian surprises one on moist, open hillsides, which would be called moorlands in Great Britain. The grass-plots about city churches are beds of green ecclesiastical velvet-certainly no grass ever seems so fresh, so deep, even, and well kept. The moresque tracings of ivy and ampelopsis, bare of leaves, come out against granite city walls like delicate oil-painting on the gray stone. Views seaward and inland are full of tender, clear tints, in the dryer air: Nature is everywhere found in serene, thoughtful, elevated, mood. Perhaps on some gravely clouded day the snow falls, the hard frost sets its seal on the white outlines, and next morning the landscape is transfigured. The cold, electric air stimulates frame and brain as the keen breath does of upper mountain levels. To the well clad and well housed the crisp winter-day cold is a stimulating draught, which tones them for the year to come. The trance of out-door life wakens the zest of social cares. When "knee-deep lies the winter snow," loads of laurel and creeping pine are most prized to deck the rooms, glad with leaping fires. A cornice of thick-twisted cedar crowns the sittingrooms and hall; pictures look out of ambush of red-berried boughs; inkberry, woodbine, bitter-sweet, clematis, and holly, lend their winter decoration; Christmas trees come down by car-loads from the Androscoggin, the Catskills, and Adirondacks; houses are warm from street door to attic, fragrant and gay with holiday tokens and cheer. Luxurious

In the absence of positive contrasts of sensation which make life so vivid on the Atlantic side of the country, what have we in Pacific holidays? Possibly, after a night of showers, the sun looks out from a heaven of April blue and mildness; the hills are green, the standard roses in blossom, the magnolias tardily perfect their huge buds, and you may add some casual orange buds and blossoms to your New-Year bouquet from the open garden. The time of the singing of birds is here; and linnet, thrush, starling, and finch go wild in the boughs of live-oaks. You don't care to sit out of doors beyond mid-afternoon, but your strawberries, tended for holidays, ripen perfectly in their sheltered, sunny bed. By the ocean edge a southern spring balm seems wafted over the blue, caressing waves from palm and spice islands; this is the Ægean: the Farallones, dim on the horizon, are the haunts of demi-gods, naiads, and tritons. Tamalpais is so evidently an Athenian height, that fancy sees the white porticoes of its renowned temples through its glowing violet shadows. In the Coast Range, the flanks of earth are red or yellow, for fruit or gold as you may find it; the sunny fresh forests disclose ideal blue distances; the manzanita stands detected, an Indian dryad, with the warm flesh tints not yet absorbed by the bark. Where could Santa Claus find stabling for his reindeer, or keep his furs comfortably in such a joyous, summery region. The old continental and New England associations of the holiday season drop away; mince pies, turkey and gifts are sole remains of Yankee theology or Saxon legend. An editor of the old OVERLAND MONTHLY, the lamented Avery, wrote in a holiday comment of "the unceasing gayety of the Occidental year," a turn of his felicity of phrase which fixes itself in the mind of the reader, whose spirits some times sink with the changeless round of charm. What is a holiday more or less, in a year crowned with flowers? We cease to return thanks for favors which become matter of course. The saint may stay up in the Sierras forever, if he sends his pack of toys on by train. The sentiment of the Parisian New-Year is more congenial here, with its gay scattering of compliments, social gayeties, and fashionable gifts. Yet it was in such a country and climate the Christmas song was first chanted by angels floating over the fresh Judean sierras, to the herders lying out over night in the mild, spring-like darkness with their flocks. And here one might link the plans and issues of this life with that year "where ever

For holidays are not merely pleasure days, but times set apart for special deeds and remembrances of friendship to our own families and our wider kin of humanity. We cannot make one day much more a feast than another in this land of flowers and lav ishness, save by the exercise of this gracious and generous spirit which imparts new flavor to the most fortunate year.

New Words Wanted.

HOLIDAYS of old were times for good resolutions, for mending one's ways, and marking bad habits for cutting down. Illuminated cards have in some sort done away with the resolutions, and sending pretty sentiments and choosing bric-a-brac leave small time for pious resolutions. But seated by a low fire in the twilight which falls too early, between the call of the last visitor and the time for lighting lamps, some vagaries settle into shape in one's mind in this wise: You wonder if there is no word to be found which will express the nice sense between friend and acquaintance which one can apply to the amiable people of one's circle, without giving away the preciousness of the first, or consigning them to the mere indifference of the other. The word "friend" in its old meaning is too full of comfort, too sacred, to become a convenience of speech. Those whose sympathies run with yours, whose insight and agreement never read false, who have learned to give you a personal value which can brave a criticism or suffer a loss for your sake, are too rare, too priceless, to be numbered under the same name as those whose gossip is pleasant, and who had as lief pass an hour with you as with almost any one else—as you would with them. We want some neat little word which signifies the right shade of pleasant feeling and social kindness without the non-committal sense of mere acquaintance, and which will not touch on the privileges of that most dear and true word “friend.” One might resolve, as the warm darkness allows the desires of his mind to slip forth in their proper shapes, to be more loyal to the old meaning, to make more of the two or three friends he is rich enough to own, and not make mockery of the looks and tones which belong by right to them alone, by using them to gain the name of popularity.

There might be a better word found for social duties, which would express more truly the place such things hold in our lives. The phrase has come into use within twenty years-it was one of several in our popular philosophy for which the late Dr. Holland stood sponsor, and which show the force carried in a word to affect people's imagination. When the young married folks of New England got it impressed on their minds that going to tea-parties and church sociables in their silk dresses and best coats was set up in the light of a duty as well as an amusement, a great bar was taken away from selfindulgence, which has its place in American as well

as other species of human nature. The new gospel fell on willing soil, and, being acceptable, found many preachers. The duty of having beautifully furnished houses, of leading easier lives, of being well dressed, of making frequent visits, and "seeing company" often, has been thoroughly expatiated upon during the last score of years; and in good truth, never before in the history of man has "duty" been so eagerly accepted or so earnestly followed. We hear of "more self-devotion, more martyrdom, masked in lace and velvet, sweeping through balls and receptions, exerting itself to be brilliant, than kneels in sackcloth and ashes, or bows over the bier of all it loves best." We are called to admire the heroic efforts of lovely women who nerve themselves to dazzle and emit repartee in the consciousness of faultless looks and charming costumes; we follow the career of these devout souls through their dreary lives of perfumed drawing-rooms, brilliant receptions, the cream of good company, and the barrenness of all hearts' desire; and are exhorted by direct advice and implication to go and do likewise as near as we can. Such a career of duty is the vista of every serial, every library novel, every "Home Column" of the weekly papers, and shines remarkably in the light literature of the religious press, the children's books, and Sunday-school stories. The old saying, "make the songs of a people and I care not who makes its laws," must be changed in these times, for this is not a singing age, nor are we a singing people. Write that one may make the stories of a country, and care not who sets its principles, and you have the truth; for boy, man, schoolgirl, woman, father, mother, all shape their lives as far as possible after the seductive ideal furnished in their common reading. There never were so many novels written, nor so much read by all classes; and no idea so rules in these stories as the duty of getting on in social life. With the prominence of this idea, some others of ancient esteem have fallen into disrepute.

For instance, one old-fashioned virtue was care of kindred, and it was held a discredit to any family if those of their own blood were left unaided in the struggle of life. It is a highly honorable feeling which holds that one's own porridge is better than any other man's broth. Families which stand by each other in poverty or reproach are sure to have a good name in the community, and those whose relatives are small credit to them generally have themselves to thank. If they think a little way, they can remember when a helping hand to the unlucky brother or sister with a young family would have helped them to a respectable position, instead of leaving them to sink in shiftlessness and discouragement; or when, if they had stood by the nephew through his youthful error instead of holding aloof, his fault might have long ago been wiped out by a successful record, like that of many another young scapegrace. But this is not the spirit of most modern kinsmen.

With his new English villa, furnished in æsthetic designs, with his handsome society-leading wife and dashing daughters, the well-to-do man does not want the faces of low-spirited kindred to mar the pleasant effects; questionable friends must be kept out of sight and mind. Along with the doctrine of social duty, its correlative, of insisting that every creature must be enough for itself, has been loudly enforced. The antique virtues of hospitality have not entered the newly fitted House Beautiful, where it is a social duty to call in one's neighbors and make a feast five times a season, or invite the mission school once a year for a holiday; but not to make the poor relation welcome on his journey, or to give the homeless invalid aunt a shelter for her few remaining days, or to take the orphans of near kin and give them home and care for the pittance left them till it grows into a decent inheritance. Why, to do this would be to love one's own flesh and blood as well as himself, and be quite contrary to the law of survival, which is the recognized creed of society to-day. I have heard a woman, who had just been telling with pride that her husband spent thirteen thousand dollars a year on the housekeeping, find fault with him for paying nine hundred dollars a year to help his brother's orphans to their education, which would be their sole portion. "Whenever she thought how much that money would bring her own children, it seemed as if she could not bear the robbery!" Yet she was a strong believer in social duties, like going to dinner parties and inviting nice people to make the house lively.

Social duties-what are they when a whole town looks on, and sees a respectable man absorb the property of a widowed connection against all right and justice, and not a soul dares rebuke the wrong or lift a finger in defense of the helpless. When women are allowed to sink under intolerable burdens, as they are sinking daily under the stress of our merciless civilization; teachers, seamstresses, singers, writers, gifted or ungifted alike; and every fortunate woman resents the suggestion that she might do anything to really help another, beyond the pauper tribute of lip-service. When a man may writhe all his life under the disgrace of a suspicion which the stern brow and courageous word of any honorable citizen might force to proof and extinction. When the proverbs of our refinement are that language is meant to conceal ideas; that we must treat every acquaintance as a possible enemy; and that society is an ambush where every one must walk on his guard. For heaven's sake let us stop prattling about partygiving, repartee, and good dressing as social duties, and find some other word for these things. Call them social indulgences, as they are, and let the obligations of hospitality, neighborliness, kindness, and help in its widest sense come home to our consciences, as the high, imperative duties that they are, and set our score of individual duty right, when we will find that society has taken excellent care of itself.