introduced are such as imagination could of itself never suggest,
in such an order and connection. There is no mark of any conscious
seeking for dramatic effect. The moods that the writer expresses
indicate no remote purpose, but are the simple embodiment of the
thoughts of a sensitive mind, interested deeply in the wealth of
new experiences. The letters are charmingly unsentimental; the
style is sometimes a little stiff and provincial, but is on the
whole very readable.

No typographical or other changes are made in printing these extracts
from Dr. Royce's history, and as typographical style is involved in
noticing further the Doctor's review of the Shirley Letters, it is
proper to say here that his volume was printed at the Riverside Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts,--a press that, in the words of a writer on
matters of typographical style, "maintained the reputation of being one
of the three or four most painstaking establishments in the world."
Such places are few and far between, unlike the "book and job printing
establishments" that, like the poor, are always with us, and where no
_book_ was ever printed.

After having so fittingly introduced Shirley to his readers, it is
unfortunate that the Doctor is not always accurate in his citation of
the facts as printed in the Letters. Thus on page 347 of his history,
he says that the wife of the landlord of the Empire Hotel at Rich Bar
was "yellow-complexioned and care-worn." She does not appear to have
been a care-worn person. Shirley says of her (post, p. 39),--

Mrs. B. is a gentle and amiable looking woman, about twenty-five
years of age. She is an example of the terrible wear and tear to
the complexion in crossing the plains, hers having become, through
exposure at that time, of a dark and permanent yellow, anything but
becoming. I will give you a key to her character, which will
exhibit it better than weeks of description. She took a nursing
babe, eight months old, from her bosom, and left it with two other
children, almost infants, to cross the plains in search of gold!

The Doctor says, "The woman cooked for all the boarders herself," and
in the preceding sentence states, "The baby, six months old, kicked and
cried in a champagne-basket cradle." Shirley does not use the word
"boarders." The baby was only two weeks old. With the details of the
birth of this baby omitted, Shirley's account of these