Page:The Overland Monthly, Jan-June 1894.djvu/288

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
224
Book Reviews.
[Feb.


BOOK REVIEWS.

Briefer Notice.

Our Dick[1] is an appreciative study of the life and character of a Scotch terrier which will touch a responsive chord in the hearts of all lovers of his race,—not that they will admit at all that this dog, who has his virtues chronicled and his portrait taken in a dozen poses, is at all equal to their own pets; but nevertheless they will enjoy reading the pretty little book, and put the writer down as a person of intelligence and insight.

Miss Repplier's Essays in Idleness[2] causes one to doubt the aptness of its title, for they seem to be the result of very commendable industry. Possibly the idleness may lie in the author's mind in the fact that in these essays she has not her war paint and feathers on so much as usual, and that she has used her scrap-book more than she often does.

The result is pleasing and reposeful essays, with a decided "literary" tone to them. The first essay, "Agrippina," celebrates Miss Repplier's cat, and it is a cat that deserves, no doubt, to be celebrated, but its high desert would have met with slight recognition had it not had for an associate (Miss Repplier expressly renounces the title of mistress) so discerning and sympathetic a person. Cat lovers will be glad to have in print an essay so accurate and so acute on the esoteric characteristics of their pets.

Books Received.

Our Dick. By Willard Brown Harrington. San Francisco: C. A. Murdock: 1894.

The Conquest of Death. By Abbot Kinney. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons: 1893.

Tasks by Twilight. Ibid.

In This Our World. By Charlotte Perkins Stetson. Oakland, California: McCombs & Vaughn: 1893.

Father Junipero Serra. By Chester Gore Miller. Chicago: Skeen, Baker & Co.: 1893.

On Sunny Shores. By Clinton Scollard. New York: Chas. L. Webster & Co.: 1893.

The Art of Living in Australia. By Philip E. Muskett. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode: 1893.

Standard Dictionary of the English Language. Vol. I. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co.: 1893.

Manuel de la Littérature Française. By A. de Rotigemont. New York: William R. Jenkins: 1893.

College Preparatory French Grammar. By Charles P. Du Croquet. Ibid.

Paul Bercy's French Reader. Ibid.

Another Juanita. By Josephine Clifford. Buffalo: Charles Wells Moulton: 1893.

Petrarch and Other Essays. By T. H. Rearden. San Francisco: William Doxey: 1894.

Ninette. By John Vance Cheney. Ibid.

A History of Chile. By Anson Uriel Hancock. Chicago: Charles H. Sergei & Co.: 1893.

  1. Our Dick. By Willard Brown Harrington. San Francisco: C. A. Murdock & Co.: 1894.
  2. Essays in Idleness. By Agnes Repplier. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.: 1893.