only a
few months. As soon as he perceived Charlotte to be really anxious for
the union, he gave his full and kindly consent. All his daughters used
him and his scapegrace of a son freely as literary material, drawing
from them the central figures of the most effective of the novels. Nor
was he an unconscious or unwilling sitter. The writing of the tales soon
ceased to be a secret to him. He criticised, suggested and otherwise
assisted with some of them in a more active sense of the term than that
in which it is applied to a spectator.

A secluded life and narrow range of observation mainly account for what
of morbidness and lack of geniality marks these works. Charlotte's
private correspondence, when printed precisely as written and not
clipped or garbled, shows distinctly a sunny side, and justifies the
conclusion that the early life of the sisters was "unquestionably
peaceful, happy and wholesome." That this should be the fact adds to our
enjoyment of the novels. Our confidence in, and consequent admiration
of, a powerful picture are the more assured by our knowledge that the
touch under which it grew was not cramped or warped by suffering. Had
Charlotte Bronte's literary life been prolonged under the new conditions
opened to her by her sudden fame, we have small reason to suppose that
she would have created a more telling character than Rochester, though
she would not have exhausted her powers in the microscopic delineation
of commonplace people which constitutes the province of her most popular
female successor. She would have portrayed stronger subjects in a more
vigorous and incisive style. Some critical remarks in her few letters
from London are strikingly direct and acute. Thackeray, Mrs. Browning,
Turner and Macready come in for a few lines each which hit them to the
life. She possessed the critical temperament and faculty. The
metropolitan field suited to its best exercise she was, alas! destined
never to enter.

Kismet. (No-Name Series.) Boston: Roberts Brothers.

As long as there are readers who care for a novel packed from cover to
cover with interesting scenes of a promising flirtation that ripens into
enthusiastic love-making by which three persons are in turn made
miserable, so long such books as _Kismet_ will be liked. The scene of
the story is the Nile, the characters are for the most part voyagers on
that river, and descriptions of the wonders that line its shores make an
imposing backgrou