There is, to some people, a fascination and keen delight in sitting in a quiet nook out of the busy thoroughfare, where they can watch the steady stream of humanity flowing past on its varied errands of business or pleasure, joy or sorrow, mercy or hate. Every face betokens a different character-the stamp of an individual existence-for there are no duplicates in the divine work of the Creator. Something akin to this, almost unconsciously, affects the mind of the careful reader, when he compares the treatment by authors of different types of character, or the phases presented by them under a like crisis. There is the lover, for instance. One variety seems to be the special pet of novelists. He is "tall, dark, distingué, haughty, stern and unbending." His age is usually about thirty-four. By some unaccountable perversity of the feminine heart, the governess, or his cousin, or his ward, always falls in love with him! To be at his side is supreme joy, and the very intenseness of his silence seems to have a picturesqueness and enchanting power and beauty not readily appreciated by the matter-of-fact observer. He is usually cold, selfish and disagreeable; but this matters not.

These very

qualities, by some inexplicable ingenuity, seem to be most noble, true and generous. As soon as his "classic lips" have propounded the momentous inquiries, Rose Augustine feels a "pulsating thrill," a sudden scattering of dark clouds, an unaccountable brightness, and she is won, and his forever. He is a popular style of

lover, but why, we cannot say.

Then there is the young lover, true, faithful and happy, with him we have real sympathy. As soon as he has met her who is to be his ideal, the author gives us some incidental cue, and we watch him with interest. The premonitory "symptoms," of which he of course is unconscious, are all eloquent to us. His mistakes we see, he is constantly mislead by false signal-lights hung out from her conversation, though he uses all the "ten thousand pair of eyes" with which Shakespeare endows him; we long to give him a friendly hint, but left alone, he gradually emerges triumphantly into the full radiancy of their mutual affection.

The old bachelor, Lord Drydust, makes a funny lover when the Countess Caprice touches his heart.

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The rusty chivalry of his youth does not seem to fit him, and his attempts at pretty expressions of love in his letters and his speeches, have an antique camphorated flavor that does not seem genuine. Sometimes, of course, he loves deeply-then the theme supplies the eloquence. There are plenty of lovers in fiction, of one kind and another. Just watch them in your next reading, and see how they act.

DESTROYING THE REALITY.

Realness, not realism, is the key-note of the power of some of the master-pieces of fiction in our language. That subtle force developed in the character, in his acts, his speech, his surroundings, and his life, seizes us like a spell and makes us forget he is but a shadow of words-a creation formed in type. We take him to our hearts to love and to cherish, to watch over and to be with us ever. We rejoice in his success as if it were a personal triumph; his fortune becomes ours; his fame throws its light over our pathway; and, if he be cast down, a sadness we cannot explain steals over our own hearts. If he be a wicked character whom the genius of the author has made us believe we know, the hot blood mantles our cheek at his evil acts; we rebel against his injustice; and we long to thwart his machinations and diabolical intrigues. The realness is so powerful, we forget that a sheet of paper separates him from our wrath. It becomes a personal matter with us; and, friend or foe, our feelings are equally involved. As we gather round the death-bed of our dear Col. Newcome, see the sad, sweet smile shine on his face; hear his answer "adsum" to the call of the angel of death; watch the lamp of life wane, flicker, and then go out into eternal darkness; we turn away brokenhearted from the bed-side, for a dear friend has died. He is alone-Mr. Thackeray, the author, is nowhere to be seen.

Not so with some of the lesser writers, they are constantly obtruding themselves. No sooner have you become interested in the hero, than the author bobs up, sticks a pin in him, and assures you he is not real. Some of his weapons are, "The reader is doubtless waiting impatiently to know who the young lady with the red parasol is;" "What then occurred can best be given in the next chapter;" or, "The author trusts the reader

will pardon this explanation." Artemas Ward, in exhibiting his great panorama, would, with characteristic humor, beg the audience to excuse him a moment till he would go behind the scenes and make the moon rise. He has many successors in fiction.

ABOUT

AUTHORS

WITH MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.

When the terrors of May cause the unhappy householder to look for a new domicile, the prospective landlord, blandly and serenely, points out the many modern improvements the new apartments containelevators, pneumatic tubes, two pier glasses in every room, etc. If you desire to purchase a steam-engine, the latest novelties in reversable dampers, ninety-eight per cent. burners and other gilt-edged attachments are thoroughly explained. This spirit of keeping up with the times has ardent disciples among the novelists. The opening of an Information Bureau" supplies the observant author with the nucleus of a most bright and witty story. A grand discovery in science is hailed with delight by Jules Verne and his followers, as a new field in which the imagination may run riot with fact, by merely intensifying and amplifying the impossible of to-day into the stern reality of to-morrow. Some strange psychological freak, daring operation or startling medical compound, gives a new and unexpected turn to the kaleidoscope of plots, and reveals a clever, brilliant combination. Even current issues on political or social problems; as, "Labor," "The Irish Question," etc., have furnished bone and sinew for most strong and powerful fiction. The present rage for the study of the occult science of the Orient, has created the theosophist, who makes his debut on the stage of fiction, as the expounder of the wisdom of ages. He will appear in many roles, under varied lights, with different missions, will recite his part now soberly as a zealous interpreter; now, perhaps, in witty pantomine, as the tool of the satirist, to clip the wings of pseudo converts. These are mere suggestions of the modern improvements in fiction.

The successful novelist, is often he, who by keenly observing the tenor of the advance of thought and institutions, first seizes the possibilities they contain, and evolves a new plot or character. Then the novel could not be skeletonized, as it too often may, into A and B love C; A is poor and handsome; B is neither; B wins her, and all the rest is scenery.

The new edition de luxe of George Eliot in twelve volumes will be the most exquisite set of the novels of any author. The paper is large, the type is excellent, and the etchings and engravings are superb. The first volume, to be ready in July, will be Adam Bede. There is but one thing the most captious critic could desire, that is to possess it.

Another work of beauty to the soul of the literary epicure is the work on Orchids, published serially, in London. The first part is now ready.

"Pray you, sit down!

For now we sit to chat."

-ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

Droch's book reviews and comments in Life are bright, shrewd and terse; and are always pleasant reading. In these few respects they depart from the standard of current reviewing.

The New Orleans papers have given Miss Hunt highest praise for the pictures of Creole life drawn in her Memoir of Mrs. Livingston. One of the critics goes so far as to say that Mr. Cable's descriptions prove he is unacquainted with Creole manners and customs, while Miss Hunt's lines paint the old days with the truth of affection.

Jas. Wood Davidson, whose handy manual, The Correspondent, appeared some months since, is engaged at his home in Florida on an extensive work entitled Dictionary of Southern Authors. The past few years have added many bright lights to the Southern literary world, and a work on this subject would be of interest.

Frances Courtney Baylor, author of On Both Sides, contributes an historical sketch entitled Around a Dispatch Box, to the Princeton Review.

Some of the fascinating power of Ouida may be in the stained-glass tints she throws over the most trivia affairs of human life. An ordinary collar-button worn by a Ouida hero "scintillates with dazzling radiancy, and glitters in the fairy reflections thrown from the myriad-colored lights that flashed from the tassellated marble balcony of the beautifully decorated jardin of the Countess de Tuilleries." This same rose-color predominates in all her descriptions. Miss Preston writes a very careful critique on Ouida in the July Atlantic.

Vanity Fair needs a funny editor on its editorial corps, for the gentleman who wrote the recent counterfeit facetious article on Oliver Wendell Holmes, is neither funny nor bright. "The poet's verse," he says, "is quite harmless and full of common-sense and flippancy. They range from commemoration odes to valentines, and are excellent examples of what poetry ought not to be." Perhaps this humor is taken from Punch. The cartoon supplement misrepresents the Doctor very successfully.