to all
who read thoughtfully. It is the work of a thoroughly cultivated woman,
who, in her nobleness of aim, in her generosity of sentiment, in her
purity of thought and style, may be considered a worthy representative
of our best type of educated womanhood. Mrs. Lee's former writings have
made her name honored and cherished in both hemispheres. Thomas Carlyle
said of her "Lives of the Buckminsters," "that it gave an insight into
the real life of the highest natures,"--"that it had given him a much
better account of character in New England than anything he had seen
since Franklin."

We hail a production like this, so scholarlike and serene, so remote
from the trivialities and vulgarities of ambitious book-makers, with
pleasure and pride. We are thankful--let us add in a whisper--for
a story, with love and woman in it, which does not rustle with
_crinoline_; that most useful of inventions for ladies with limited
outlines, and literary man-milliners with scanty brains; which has
filled more than half the space in our drawing-rooms, and nearly as
large a part of some of our periodicals, since the Goddesses of Grace
and of Dulness united to bestow the precious gift on Beauties and
Boeotians.

A story deals with human nature and time. All that is truly human is
interesting, however abstractly stated; but it requires the _mordant_
of specific circumstance, involving some historical period, to make
it stain permanently. Everything that belongs to Time, as his private
property,--everything _temporary_, using that word in its ordinary
sense,--is uninteresting, except so far as it serves to fix the colors
of that humanity which we always love to contemplate. The statuary,
who cares nothing about Time, loves to drop his costuming, trumpery
altogether. The cheap story, written for the day, is dressed in all the
fashionable articles that can be laid upon it, like the revolving lady
in a shop window. The real story, which alone outlives the _modiste's_
bonnets and shawls, may drape itself as it pleases; for it does not
depend on its _peplos_, or _stola_, on its _stomacher_, or _basque_,--or
_crinoline_, for its effect.

"Parthenia" is a tale of the fourth century, but it tells the experience
of lofty souls in all centuries. The particular period chosen is one of
the deepest interest,--that of the conflict of expiring Paganism with
growing Christianity, under Julian the Apostate. Julian's character, as
drawn in the story, may be