But since Christianity already covered these poor lives with love and pity, let them live in the beautiful illusion, so long as the ugly facts did not break through! What mattered if these sites were true or false—the believing soul had made them true. All these stones were holy, if only with the tears of the generations. The Greek fire might be a shameless fraud, but the true heavenly flame was the faith in it. The Christ story might be false, but it had idealized the basal things—love, pity, self-sacrifice, purity, motherhood. And if any divine force worked through history, then must the great common illusions of mankind also be divine. And in a world—itself an illusion—what truths could there be save working truths, established by natural selection in the spiritual world, varying for different races, and maintaining themselves by correspondence with the changing needs of the spirit?
Absolute religious truth? How could there be such a thing? As well say German was truer than French, or that Greek was more final than Arabic. Its religion like its speech was the way the deepest instincts of a race found expression, and like a language a religion was dead when it ceased to change. Each religion gave the human soul something great to love, to live by, and to die for. And whosoever lived in joyous surrender to some greatness outside himself had religion, even though the world called him atheist. The finest souls too easily abandoned the best words to the stupidest people.
The time had come for a new religious expression, a new language for the old everlasting emotions, in terms of the modern cosmos; a religion that should contradict no fact and check no inquiry; so that children should grow up again with no distracting divorce from their parents and their past, with no break in the sweet sanctities of childhood, which carry on to old age something of the freshness of early sensation, and are a fount of tears in the desert of life.
The ever-living, darkly-laboring Hebraic spirit of love and righteous aspiration, the Holy Ghost that had inspired Judaism and Christianity, and moved equally in Mohammedanism and Protestantism, must now quicken and inform the new learning, which still lay dead and foreign, outside humanity.
If Evolution was a truth, what mystic force working in life! From the devil-fish skulking towards his prey to the Christian laying down his life for his fellow, refusing the reward of the stronger; from the palpitating sac—all stomach—of embryonic life to the poet, the musician, the great thinker. The animality of average humanity made for hope rather than for despair, when one remembered from what it had developed. It was for man in this laboring cosmos to unite himself with the stream that made for goodness and beauty.
A song came to him of the true God, whose name is one with Past, Present, and Future.
PERLYCROSS. A Novel. 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 75.
Told with delicate and delightful art. Its pictures of rural English scenes and characters will woo and solace the reader.... It is charming company in charming surroundings. Its pathos, its humor, and its array of natural incidents are all satisfying. One must feel thankful for so finished and exquisite a story.... Not often do we find a more impressive piece of work.—N.Y. Sun.
A new novel from the pen of R.D. Blackmore is as great a treat to the fastidious and discriminating novel-reader as a new and rare dish is to an epicure.... A story to be lingered over with delight.—Boston Beacon.
SPRINGHAVEN. Illustrated, 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper, 25 cents.
LORNA DOONE. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00; 8vo, Paper, 40 cents.
KIT AND KITTY. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; Paper, 35 cents.
CHRISTOWELL. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
CRADOCK NOWELL. 8vo, Paper, 60 cents.
EREMA; or, My Father's Sin. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
MARY ANERLEY. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper, 15 cents.
TOMMY UPMORE. 16mo, Cloth, 50 cents; Paper, 35 cents; 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
His descriptions are wonderfully vivid and natural. His pages are brightened everywhere with great humor; the quaint, dry turns of thought remind you occasionally of Fielding.—London Times.
His tales, all of them, are pre-eminently meritorious. They are remarkable for their careful elaboration, the conscientious finish of their workmanship, their affluence of striking dramatic and narrative incident, their close observation and general interpretation of nature, their profusion of picturesque description, and their quiet and sustained humor.—Christian Intelligencer, N.Y.
arrow The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.
A DAUGHTER OF HETH.
A PRINCESS OF THULE.
DONALD ROSS OF HEIMRA.
GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY.
IN FAR LOCHABER.
IN SILK ATTIRE.
JUDITH SHAKESPEARE. Illustrated by Abbey.
KILMENY.
MACLEOD OF DARE. Illustrated.
MADCAP VIOLET.
PRINCE FORTUNATUS. Ill'd.
SABINA ZEMBRA.
SHANDON BELLS. Illustrated.
STAND FAST, CRAIG-ROYSTON! Illustrated.
SUNRISE.
THAT BEAUTIFUL WRETCH. Illustrated.
THE MAGIC INK, AND OTHER STORIES. Illustrated.
THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A HOUSE-BOAT. Ill'd.
THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON.
THREE FEATHERS.
WHITE HEATHER.
WHITE WINGS. Illustrated.
YOLANDE. Illustrated.
12mo, Cloth, $1 25 per volume.
WOLFENBERG.—THE HANDSOME HUMES.
Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 each.
BRISEIS.—HIGHLAND COUSINS.
Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 75 each.
Complete Sets, 27 Volumes, Cloth, $31 50; Half Calf, $60 00.
EDITIONS IN PAPER COVERS:
Donald Ross of Heimra. 8vo, 50 cents.—Sabina Zembra. 4to, 20 cents.—Judith Shakespeare. 4to, 20 cents.—That Beautiful Wretch. Illustrated. 4to, 20 cents.—Sunrise. 4to, 20 cents.—Macleod of Dare. Illustrated. 8vo, 60 cents. Illustrated. 4to, 15 cents.—Green Pastures and Piccadilly. 8vo, 50 cents.—Madcap Violet. 8vo, 50 cents.—A Daughter of Heth.—8vo, 35 cents.—An Adventure in Thule. 4to, 10 cents.—In Silk Attire. 8vo, 35 cents.—Kilmeny. 8vo, 35 cents.—The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton. 8vo, 50 cents.—The Maid of Killeena, the Marriage of Moira Fergus, and Other Stories. 8vo, 40 cents.—The Monarch of Mincing-Lane. Illustrated. 8vo, 50 cents.—The Strange Adventures of a House-Boat. Illustrated. 8vo, 50 cents.—In Far Lochâber. 8vo, 40 cents.—Prince Fortunatus. Illustrated. 8vo, 50 cents.-Stand Fast, Craig-Royston! 8vo, 50 cents.
arrow The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price.
Hardy has an exquisite vein of humor. His style is so lucid that the outlines of a character in one of his books are unmistakable from first to last. He has a reserve force, so to speak, of imagination, of invention, which keeps the interest undiminished always, though the personages in the drama may be few and their adventures unremarkable. But most of all he has shown the pity and the beauty of human life, most of all he has enlarged the boundaries of sympathy and charity. His has been no barren labor, for he makes his reader think less of himself and more of mankind, he teaches the glory of renunciation, the dignity of pain, and the transfiguring power of unblemished love.—N.Y. Tribune.
UNIFORM EDITION:
The Well-Beloved. $1 50.
Jude the Obscure. Illustrated. $1 50.
Under the Greenwood-Tree. $1 50.
Wessex Tales. $1 50.
Desperate Remedies. $1 50.
A Laodicean. $1 50.
The Hand of Ethelberta. $1 50.
The Woodlanders. $1 50.
The Trumpet-Major. $1 50.
Far from the Madding Crowd. $1 50.
The Mayor of Casterbridge. $1 50.
A Pair of Blue Eyes. $1 50.
Two on a Tower. $1 50.
Return of the Native. $1 50.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Illustrated. $1 50.
Life's Little Ironies. A Set of Tales; with some Colloquial Sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
A Group of Noble Dames. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25; Post 8vo, Paper, 75 cents.
The Woodlanders. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents.
Fellow-Townsmen. 32mo, Paper, 20 cents.
arrow The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price.
Mr. Christie Murray is a kindly satirist who evidently delights in the analysis of character, and who deals shrewdly but gently with the frailties of our nature.... The pages are perpetually brightened by quaintly humorous touches. Often in describing some character or something that is commonplace enough, a droll fancy seems to strike the author, and forthwith he gives us the benefit of it. Consequently there is a spontaneity in his pen which is extremely fascinating.... We can only say generally that Mr. Murray's plot is sufficiently original and worked up with enough of skill to satisfy any but the most exacting readers. We found ourselves getting duly excited before the denouement.... Readers of Mr. Christie Murray's novels will know that he belongs to the school of Mr. Charles Reade. And it is no small praise to say that he has caught a fair share of the vigor and rapidity of that romancer. His characters, too, belong to the same category as those that figure in Mr. Reade's stories. They are drawn with a sufficient resemblance to nature to take a complete appearance of vitality so long as we are in the whirl of the plot, which is also what we feel about the characters of a good modern drama while we are watching its representation.... There is a certain alertness and vigor in the author's portraits which make them pleasant to meet with.—Saturday Review, London.
THE MARTYRED FOOL. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
IN DIREST PERIL. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
TIME'S REVENGES. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
A DANGEROUS CATSPAW. 8vo, Paper, 30 cents.
A LIFE'S ATONEMENT. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
VAL STRANGE. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
A MODEL FATHER. 4to, Paper, 10 cents.
HEARTS. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
A WASTED CRIME. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
THE WEAKER VESSEL. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
BY THE GATE OF THE SEA. 4to, Paper, 15 cents; 12mo, Paper, 20 cents.
THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
CYNIC FORTUNE. 12mo, Paper, 25 cents.
AUNT RACHEL. 12mo, Paper, 25 cents.
RAINBOW GOLD. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
arrow The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.
Typographical errors corrected in text:
Unusual words:
Page 183: astonied is an obsolete word for bewildered, dazed, astounded.