Senator in Congress; he was called to the chief legislative and executive stations in Virginia; he represented the United States in France, Spain, and England; he was a prominent agent in the purchase of Louisiana and Florida; he was a member of Madison's Cabinet, and directed (for a while simultaneously) the departments of State and War; he was twice chosen President, the second time with an almost unanimous vote of the electoral college; his name is given to a political doctrine of fundamental importance; his administration is known as the 'era of good feeling.' The most interesting chapter of the book is that devoted to a consideration of the Monroe Doctrine. It took rise in the annual message of the President, of December, 1823, and may be found almost in a single sentence. Referring to the threatened, or suspected, interference of European powers to reestablish the power of Spain over her former colonies in America, the President said: "We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety." The author in this connection gives a detailed specification of the various expressions in books, messages, letters, and other sources, indicating from the time of the origin of the Government the drift of public opinion in the direction of resistance to interference of European powers with the republics on this side of the Atlantic. In the appendix is a very carefully prepared bibliography of Monroe and the Monroe Doctrine. We can commend the book as maintaining the high standard of the series. Björnson's Magnhild.1 VOCATION, especially for women, is a prominent question of the times. The growing spirit of willingness to place women on the same social and political level with men has given rise to a multitude of schemes for accomplishing this end, as contradictory in purpose and effect as the opinions of the interested parties who advance them. Most of these plans, however, have to do only with the tearing down of present barriers so as to widen the general field of feminine activity. The individual development of the woman, the question how she is to move in this widened field so as to be of the most and highest use to herself and to others, receives far less attention. The question of destiny, perhaps, cannot be formulated to rule. Magnhild is evidently an exposition of Björnson's ideas on this latter proposition, and deals entirely with the ways and means by which a young girl's influence acts on others for good, in her endeavor to carry out an ideal 1 Magnhild. By Björnstjerne Björnson. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1883. For sale in San Franisco by Billings, Harbourne & Co. of high-minded living. Magnhild believes she has a mission. Her own romantic nature suggests it, and the natural events of her early life seem to confirm it. The impression becomes so strong that she looks constantly forward to something unusual that shall change her life. As is usual in such cases, this event never comes. On the contrary, the degradation of her union with Skarlie, and the colorlessness of her daily existence, imbue her with the idea that her life is a failure, and it is long before the discovery comes that her true destiny has been fulfilled in the quiet ministry and helpfulness she has shown toward others. The keynote of the whole book is struck in the following passage: "The innocence of your soul became, amidst your peculiar circumstances, a moral atmosphere, which in you, more than any one I ever met, proclaimed itself to be a power. It was all the more beautiful because so unconscious in its manifestations. It was breathed from every manifestation of your bashfulness. It revealed itself to me, not alone in your blushes, Magnhild: no, in the tone of your voice also, in the immediate relations you held with every one you had intercourse with, or looked upon, or merely greeted. If there were those in your presence who were not pure, you made them appear abhorrent; you taught even the fallen ones what beauty there is in moral purity." This idea that the presence of high moral purpose as a guide to right living will make itself felt for good, even when the individual is unconscious of its effects and most afraid of failure, is certainly healthful in tendency if nothing more. Being a story with a purpose, the book is not as truly artistic as many of Björnson's other tales. The idioms and the abruptness of his style are more painfully apparent. On the further question involved-how far a wife is called upon to submit to the degradation and torture that an incongruous marriage forces upon her-the conclusions are more open to question. Björnson may, however, safely be classed among those who would allow the greatest warrantable liberty to the woman in the premises. Gesta Christi.2 THIS is not a religious treatise, but the work of a layman for laymen. In place of its Latin title, meaning the achievements of Christ, it might, perhaps, have appealed more directly to "men's business and bosoms," if it had been called "Christ and Civilization." For the real purpose of the work is to illustrate the influence upon the civilization of the last eighteen centuries of "certain practices, principles, and ideals—now the richest inheritance of the race-that have been either implanted or stimulated or supported by Christianity." It was a happy thought of Mr. Brace's to attempt to skim in this 2 Gesta Christi, or a History of Humane Progress under Christianity. By Charles Loring Brace. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son. 1882. way the cream of history, and anybody who desires to know how much the practical living of men has been bettered from age to age by the moral teachings of Christ will find the answer in these scholarly pages. The author conveniently divides his work in three parts, considering the humanizing influence of Christianity first upon the Roman world, secondly upon the Middle Ages, and lastly upon modern times. Each division abounds in interesting topics, only a few of which can be indicated here. In Roman life, for example, the modifying influence of Christianity is shown in the improved position of women, the increased regard for personal purity and the sanctity of marriage, the opposition to the exposure of children, the end put to cruel and licentious sports. In the Middle Ages, again, it is pointed out how Christianity had power to restrain feud and blood revenge, to elevate woman, to check private war, to oppose ordeals and trials by combat, to restrain torture, to extend humanity to the stranger and shipwrecked. Finally, in the modern world we are shown its effect upon divorce, slavery, international law, dueling, prison reform, intemperance, and other topics. The religious opinions of the author are not obtrusive, and do not interfere with the wholly distinct merit of his work as a piece of historical study. It is certainly very opportune that such a record of the influence of Christ's moral teachings upon human life should appear at a moment when many people, in view of the modern criticism which aims to deprive Christianity of its divine sanction, are inclined to relinquish also their respect for its morality. Corea, the Hermit Nation.1 THIS is a readable book about a very interesting country, by the author of "The Mikado's Empire," and one which is likely to meet with as hearty a reception as was accorded Mr. Griffis's first venture in the fields of Far Eastern literature. Its appear ance is particularly opportune, as the coming summer is to see the Hermit Kingdom thrown open to foreign commerce. The publishers claim for the book that it is the first attempt to treat of Corea and the Coreans in a systematic and serious manner. This seems just a little pretentious, the Rev. John Ross of Newchwang, and the traveler Ernest Oppert, having first produced works as exhaustive in their way, and probably quite as important, as that of Mr. Griffis, the value of whose labors is considerably diminished by the fact that the author never enjoyed an opportunity of setting foot within the borders of the Hermit Kingdom, and is indebted 1 Corea, the Hermit Nation. By William Elliot Griffis, late of the Imperial University, Tokio, Japan, and author of The Mikado's Empire." New York: for his knowledge of its people, language, and literature to the writings of the authors mentioned, and of other travelers, Caucasian and Mongolian, who have managed to penetrate within its jealously guarded walls. Fully two-thirds of the whole book is devoted to a history of the Corean people, from the very earliest times down to the signing of the treaties last year, which is shortly to result in the opening up of the country to foreign trade. This history is dull reading, and its value questionable. Oppert's version of the history differs from it materially; and whatever may be said about the authenticity of the rest of his narrative, the historical portion of his work is entitled to a place of equal rank with that of Mr. Griffis, the authorities consulted being to a large extent identical. The rest of the book is interesting, and on the whole valuable; though here and there errors crop up. For example, the statement is made that "steamers ply between Nagasaki [Japan] and Fusan [the most southern of the Corean ports] in four hours." As a matter of fact, the two ports are a hundred and fifty miles apart in an air-line. Again: in a reference to the foreign settlement of Shanghae, the habitues of the club are made to indulge in "the pleasures of wheelbarrow rides, and visits to the bubbling springs.' A buggy drive around the Bubbling Well Road was doubtless what the author had in mind when he penned the concluding portion of the sentence; as to the wheelbarrow rides, none but the poorest of the Chinese ever dream of employing such a mode of conveyance. Not much is said about the ethnology of the Coreans; but we are told a great deal that is entertaining about their social habits, their out-door life, religion, education, and culture. A couple of chapters are devoted to legends and folk-lore, proverbs and pithy sayings, and quite a number of pages to an account of the attempts of French missionaries to introduce Christianity into the country. In an appendix we are taught something of the construction of the Corean language, measures, weights, money, time, and other matters necessary to be known by Americans contemplating a visit to the peninsular kingdom. A handsomely got-up map accompanies the volume, which is furthermore embellished by illustrations reproduced from photographs taken by the Japanese. A valuable feature of the book is a most exhaustive list of works pertaining to the country, which cannot fail to prove of the utmost value to students of the language, literature, and customs of the Land of Morning Calm. Charles Scribner's Sons. For sale by A. L. Bancroft & Co. OUTCROPPINGS. A Handful of Translations. THE EAGLE AND THE LARK. (From the German of Gleim.) AN Alpine eagle on his sun-path met A little hovering lark; And while she warbled to the silent sky, A moment stopped to hark. His wide wings lost their wonted speed, And while he poised, the very breeze "Thou singer, seat thee here," he said; "ACH, LIEB SO LANG DU LIEBEN KANNST." (From the German of Freiligrath.) O, LOVE so long as love you can! O, love so long as love you may! The hour shall come, the hour shall come, O keep, O cherish still your love Beats warm in love against your own! For love's sake serve him all you may; No hour sad through all the day. O God! it was not evil meant, And yet the other goes and weeps. O, love so long as love you can! In the long, wet churchyard grass. And say, "O, look upon me here, O God! it was not evil meant!" But he can neither see nor hear, Nor come, that you may serve him so; The mouth that kissed you never says, "Dear, I forgave you long ago." He did it, he has long forgiven, His end has come-now rests he well. O, love so long as love you can! O, love so long as love you may! The hour shall come, the hour shall come, When at the grave you weep and pray. Milicent Washburn Shinn. (From Bodenstedt's version of A. Puschkin.) O WERE it true that at night, When all life is silent in sleep, And only the rays of the pale moonlight Over the gravestones weep; O were it true, love, that free The dead leave their dark dwelling place, I should wait for thee, thee to embrace. Hear, Leila, hear! Come to me ! IMMORTALITY. WHEN by ethereal light serene, The stars illume the darkened night, As well the stars to die decrees, They see for aye their light extinct. My soul shall see the world's decease, Translated by J. G. McMurphy. February, 1883. ALMOST it seems that summer did not cease; To meager store, filches oak-gamers near. Peers out the sand-sunk stream 'neath flood-rock sheer A space, then of its cisterns takes new lease. The trickster rain plays sleight; with anxious mien Masks he a while, a cloud-cowled Capuchin, To dust-grimed farmers bearing cool relief. Then sudden drops his gleaming, empty bowls. Ever from patient plows the brown cloud rolls Toward unreaped harvests and the unbound sheaf. E. T. N. THE UNIVERSIT OVERLAND MONTHLY. DEVOTED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY. VOL. I. (SECOND SERIES.)-JUNE, 1883.-No. 6. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. IN the summer of 1857 I was a member of a small community who by the aid of rockers, toms, and sluices extracted a precarious livelihood from the placer diggings of Gold Cañon-a broad and shallow ravine, dry in summer, but in winter, spring, and fall sending a diminutive tribute of muddy water to the Carson River. Around on all sides sand and sage brush stretched interminably. East, north, and south the outlines of the foot-hills, clothed with scrubby cedar and pine, rose and fell in long, rolling undulations; while to the west, in full view, the Sierra Nevadas lifted their bald summits against the almost constant blue of the sky. Immediately at their foot lay Carson, Eagle, and Washoe valleys, each occupied by a few ranchers; while the mining population of the Cañon might have been three or four dozen. Our total number reached perhaps a couple of hundred souls, scattered over a country thirty or forty miles across in each direction. To the east, our nearest neighbors lived seven hundred miles distant, on the shore of the Great Salt Lake; across the mountains to the west, we reached by a walk of a little over a hundred miles the westernmost mining camps of California; north and south as far as our knowledge extended the barren VOL. I.-37. slopes of the foot-hills were still in the undisturbed possession of Washoe and Piute Indians; along the highlands towards the head of the cañon, where now stands Virginia City, Silver City, and Gold Hill, the mountain-sheep suckled her young, unmolested except by the gray wolf. The social state of this small community was genuinely Arcadian in its simplicity. No civil, military, or ecclesiastical organization existed among us. Utah Territory, in which we lived, had at that time no laws or courts, and Gold Cañon possessed no church of any denomination. In spite of the absence of these signs of civilization, I have never known a community the members of which were better disposed or conducted. There was no theft, no violence, and hardly ever even an instance of drunkenness or a quarrel. Each worked steadily all the week, and after a general wash-up on Sunday morning, it was the rule to adjourn to our general headquarters at Johntown, and spend the afternoon and evening over a social game of cards. Among the miners of Gold Cañon were two brothers, named Allan and Hosea Grosh. They were Pennsylvanians, and had gone to California through Mexico in 1849. They |