atal inevitableness of a
natural product. They do not appear to grow out of a tough, knotted,
impracticable intellect; in that case we should not hesitate to forgive
them; but they seem to be adopted with malice aforethought; and used
with the keenness of a native Yankee, as the most available capital for
the accomplishment of his purposes. With this writer, the story is
subordinate to another object. He makes it the vehicle for sundry
reflections and speculations, that are often ingenious, and always
interesting. In this point of view, his book has considerable value. It
is suggestive of more problems than it resolves. It points out many
tempting paths of inquiry, which it does not enter. No one can read it
without receiving a new impulse to his thoughts, and one usually in the
right direction. The author is evidently a man of heart as well as of
intellect, and inclines to a generous view of most subjects. His book
should be looked at rather in the light of an ethical treatise than of a
novel. The plot is less in his mind than the moral. But such hybrid
productions are apt to fail of their end. If we desire to study
philosophy, commend us to the regular documents. We do not wish for
truth, as she emerges dripping from the well, to be clothed in the
garments of fiction. Such incongruous unions can hardly fail to shock a
correct taste, even if the story is managed with tolerable skill. In
this instance, we can not highly praise the conduct of the narrative. It
is full of improbable combinations. Persons and scenes are brought into
juxtaposition, in a manner to violate every principle of
_vraisemblance_. The effect is so to blunt the interest of the story,
that we can hardly plod on to the winding-up.

Still we find talent enough in _Richard Edney_ to furnish materials for
a dozen better books. It has a number of individual sketches that are
admirably drawn. We might quote a variety of isolated passages that
impress us deeply with the vigor of the writer, and which, if wrought up
with as much plastic skill as is usually connected with such inventive
talents, would secure his rank among the _elite_ of American authors. He
has not yet done justice to his remarkable gifts, not even in the
inimitable _Margaret_--the poem _Philo_ we regard as a dead failure--and
if our frank, though friendly criticism, shall act as a provocative to
his better genius, he is welcome to the benefit of it.

_The Issue of Modern Philosophic Though