e scene is laid in Syria, instead of New England, and the
"village" known to New Yorkers as Boston gives way to "El Fureidis,"
a village in the valley of Lebanon. But while so swift a transition
from the West to the East may disappoint that "Expectation" which
Fletcher tells us "sits i' the air," and which we all know is not to
be balked with impunity, there can be no doubt, that, in shifting the
scene, the authoress has enabled us to judge her essential talent
with more accuracy. Possessing none of the elements which are thought
essential to the production of a sensation, "The Lamplighter" forced
itself into notice as a "sensation book." The writer was innocent of
all the grave literary crimes implied in such a distinction. The
first hundred and fifty pages were as simple, and as true to ordinary
nature, as the daisies and buttercups of the common fields; the
remaining two hundred pages repeated the stereotyped traditions and
customary hearsays which make up the capital of every professional
story-teller. The book began in the spirit of Jane Austen, and ended
in that of Jane Porter.

In "El Fureidis" everything really native to the sentiment and
experience of Miss Cummins is exhibited in its last perfection, with
the addition of a positive, though not creative, faculty of
imagination. Feeling a strong attraction for all that related to the
East, through an accidental connection with friends who in
conversation discoursed of its peculiarities and wonders, she was led
to an extensive and thorough study of the numerous eminent scholars
and travellers who have recorded their experience and researches in
Syria and Damascus. Gradually she obtained a vivid internal vision of
the scenery, and a practical acquaintance with the details of life,
of those far-off Eastern lands. On this imaginative reproduction of
the external characteristics of the Orient she projected her own
standards of excellence and ideals of character; and the result is
the present romance, the most elaborate and the most pleasing
expression of her genius.

There is hardly anything in the work which can rightfully be called
plot. The incidents are not combined, but happen. A shy, sensitive,
fastidious, high-minded, and somewhat melancholy and dissatisfied
Englishman, by the name of Meredith, travelling from Beyrout to
Lebanon, falls in love with a Christian maiden by the name of
Havilah. She rejects him, on the ground, that, however blessed with
all human