  On looking through the preceding pages, I have been struck with one special shortcoming. I am painfully conscious how poor and shallow the picture here attempted will be, in any case, to those who knew my brother best. Nevertheless, those for whom it was undertaken will, I trust, be able to get from it some clearer idea of the outer life of their father and uncle, but of that which underlies the outer life they will learn almost nothing. And yet how utterly inadequate must be any knowledge of a human being which does not get beneath this surface! How difficult to do so to any good purpose! For that “inner,” or “eternal,” or “religious” life (call it which you will, they all mean the same thing) is so entirely a matter between each human soul and God, is at best so feebly and imperfectly expressed by the outer life. But, difficult as it may be, the attempt must be made; for I find that I cannot finish my task with a good conscience without making it. There is not one of you, however young, but must be living two lives—and the sooner you come to recognize the fact clearly, the better for you—the one life in the outward material world, in contact with the things which you can see, and taste, and handle, which are always changing and passing away: the other in the invisible, in contact with the unseen; with that which does not change or pass away—which is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The former life you must share with others, with your family, your schoolfellows and friends, with everyone you meet in business or pleasure. The latter you must live alone, in the solitude of your own inmost being, if you can find no Spirit there communing with yours—in the presence of, and in communion with, the Father of your spirit, if you are willing to recognize that presence. The one life will no doubt always be the visible expression of the other; just as the body is the garment in which the real man is clothed for his sojourn in time. But the expression is often little more than a shadow, unsatisfying, misleading. One of our greatest English poets has written— “The one remains, the many change and pass, Heaven’s light for ever shines, earth’s shadows fly. Time, like a dome of many coloured glass, Stains the bright radiance of eternity, Until death tramples it to fragments.” And so you and I are living now under the dome of many-coloured “The outer life of the devout man,” it has been well said, “should be thoroughly attractive to others. He would be simple, honest, straightforward, unpretending, gentle, kindly;—his conversation cheerful and sensible: he would be ready to share in all blameless mirth, indulgent to all save sin.” And tried by this test, the best we have at command, my brother was essentially a devout man. The last thirty years, the years of his manhood, have been a period of great restlessness and activity, chiefly of a superficial kind, in matters pertaining specially to religion. The Established Church, of which he was a member, from conviction as well as by inheritance, has been passing through a crisis which has often threatened her existence; faction after faction, as they saw their chance, rising up and striving in the hope of casting out those whose opinions or practices they disliked. Against all such attempts my brother always protested whenever he had an opportunity, and discouraged all those with whom he had any influence from taking any part in them. “I have no patience,” for instance, he writes at one of these crises, “with —— for mixing himself up with Church politics. I believe you know what I think about them, namely, that both parties are right in some things and wrong in others, and that the truth lies between the two. I hope I shall always be able to express my dissent from both without calling names or imputing motives, and when I hear others doing so, I am always inclined, like yourself, to defend the absent. I was very sorry to hear that —— has given up his parish. I cannot understand his excessive attachment to what is, after all, only the outside of religion; but he is so good a man, so hard-working, so self-denying, that one feels what a great loss he must be.” Outside the Church the same religious unrest has had several noteworthy results, perhaps the most remarkable of these being a negative one: I mean, the aggressive attitude and movement of what is popularly known as scientific thought. Amongst its leaders have been, and are, some of the best, as well as the ablest, men of our time, who have had, as they deserved to have, a very striking influence. But the tone of scientific men towards religion has been uniformly impatient or contemptuous, not seldom petulant. “Why go on troubling yourselves and mankind about that of which you can know nothing?” they have said. “This ‘eternal’ or ‘inner’ life of which you prate is wholly beyond your ken. We can prove to you that much of your so-called theology rests on unsound premises. Be content He was, however, neither so tolerant of, nor I think so fair to, the stirring of thought within the Church, which has resulted in criticisms supposed to be destructive of much that was held sacred in the last generation. His keen sense of loyalty was offended by anything which looked like an attack coming from within the ranks, and so he shared the feeling so widely, and I think wrongly, entertained by English Churchmen, that the right of free thought and free speech on the most sacred subjects should be incompatible with holding office in the Church. As to his own convictions on such subjects, he was extremely reserved, owing to a tendency which he believed he had detected in himself to religious melancholy, which he treated simply as a disease. But no one who knew Of this old man, he writes himself to his mother:— “My old friend died on Saturday morning. I mean Tom Pearse, for fifty years an honest labourer in this Intercourse of the most sacred and intimate kind with the old, and dying, and suffering of another station in life is, however, far easier to a man of reserved temper than it is with the young and healthy. The most difficult class to reach in country villages, as in our great towns, is that which is entering life, not that which is thinking of quitting it. You may get young men together for cricket or football, or even for readings, or in a club, and attain in the process a certain familiarity with them, useful enough in its way, but not approaching the kind of intimacy which should exist between people passing their lives in the same small community. The effort to do anything more with a class just emancipated from control, full of strength and health, and as a rule suspicious of advances from those in a rank above their own, must always be an exceedingly difficult one to make for such a man as my brother, and is rarely successful. He made it, and succeeded. During all “O Lord God, Thou knowest all things. Thou seest us by night as well as by day. We pray Thee, for Christ’s sake, forgive us whatever we have done wrong this day. May we be sorry for our sins, and believe in Jesus Christ, who died for sinners. May the Holy Spirit make us holy. Take care of us this night, whilst we are asleep. Bless our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and all our relations and friends, and do them good, for Christ’s sake. Help us to be good as long as we live, and when we die, may we go to heaven and be happy for ever, because Christ died for us. Amen.” If I were to write a volume, I could throw no clearer light on the inner life of my brother than shines out of “Such lived not in the past alone, But thread to-day the unheeding street, And stairs to sin and sorrow known Sing to the welcome of their feet. “The den they enter glows a shrine, The grimy sash an oriel burns, Their cup of water warms like wine, Their speech is filled from heavenly urns. “Around their brows to me appears An aureole traced in tenderest light, The rainbow gleam of smiles thro’ tears, In dying eyes by them made bright, “Of souls who shivered on the edge Of that chill ford, repassed no more, And in their mercy felt the pledge And sweetness of the farther shore.” FINIS. THOMAS HUGHES’S WORKS. SCHOOL DAYS AT RUGBY. BY AN OLD BOY. 1 vol. 16mo. New Illustrated Edition. $1.25. TOM BROWN AT OXFORD: 2 vols. 16mo. $3.00. ALFRED THE GREAT. With Illustrations and Map. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston. ENIGMAS OF LIFE. By W. R. GREG. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.00. CONTENTS.—Realizable Ideals.—Malthus Notwithstanding.—Non-Survival of the Fittest.—Limits and Directions of Human Development.—The Significance of Life.—De Profundis.—Elsewhere.—Appendix. “What is to be the future of the human race? What are the great obstacles in the way of progress? What are the best means of surmounting these obstacles? Such, in a rough statement, are some of the problems which are more or less present to Mr. Greg’s mind; and although he does not pretend to discuss them fully, he makes a great many observations about them, always expressed in a graceful style, frequently eloquent, and occasionally putting old subjects in a new light, and recording the results of a large amount of reading and inquiry.”—Saturday Review. “It would be unfair to deny to these essays very great ability. The style is clear and vigorous; the amount of thought and power displayed is considerable. Many of the remarks on our social condition, on the prevention of disease, on the forces which act on population, are exceedingly valuable, and may be read with much advantage.”—The Illustrated Review (London). “The whole set of Essays is at once the profoundest and the kindliest that has for some time tried to set people a-thinking about themselves and their destiny.”—Daily Telegraph (London). “Mr. Greg is fertile, vigorous, and suggestive in his thinking; he is a thoughtful, earnest, independent, and well-informed man, who really faces the problems he discusses.”—Boston Globe. “Full of writing of singular force and singular candor.”—The Spectator (London). For sale by Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers, JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston. MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS: By JOHN FISKE. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.00. “It is both an amusing and instructive book, evincing large research and giving its results in a lucid and attractive style. The author’s purpose is to present old tales and superstitions as interpreted by comparative mythology. The seven chapters of the volume relate respectively to ‘The Origins of Folk Lore,’ ‘The Descent of Fire,’ ‘Werewolves and Swan-Maidens,’ ‘Light and Darkness,’ ‘Myths of the Barbaric World,’ ‘Juventus Mundi,’ and ‘The Primeval Ghost World.’ The volume is so rich in matter that the task of selection is difficult.”—Boston Globe. “With the capacity for profound research and the power of critical consideration, he has a singular grace of style and an art of clear and simple statement which will not let the most indifferent refuse knowledge of the topics treated. In such a field as the discussion of old fables and superstitions affords, we have not only to admire Mr. Fiske for the charm of his manner, but for the justice and honesty of his method.”—The Atlantic Monthly. “Mr. Fiske is a master of perspicuous explanation. He has not laid claim to any originality in the present volume, but his most grudging critics must allow that his presentation of this intricate subject is simple and straightforward and at the same time scholarly.”—New York World. For sale by Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers, JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston. “A genial exponent of the best sort of American thought.”—The Examiner (London). BACKLOG STUDIES. BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, AUTHOR OF “MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN,” “SAUNTERINGS,” ETC. With Twenty-one Illustrations by Augustus Hoppin. 1 vol. Small quarto. $2.00. This delightful volume has been greeted with remarkable unanimity as one of the wittiest, freshest, most wholesome books in American literature. The humorous genius which irradiated Mr. Warner’s previous volumes, “My Summer in a Garden,” and “Saunterings,” pervades these “Backlog Studies” and lends them an indescribable charm. New York Christian Advocate. One of the finest books of quaint conceit, quiet humor, and delicate sentiment we have read for a long time.... If a richer book in its own sphere has been written by an American author, we are not familiar with it, and this we say despite the genial author’s rebuke of criticism by comparison. From its opening page to its close there is not a dry one in it, and some of its hits at popular fallacies and stubborn dogmas are keen and incisive; while at the same time the delightful humor and kindly spirit which accompany the lancet, make it impossible for one to take offence, be his pet notions ever so much ridiculed. Boston Commercial Bulletin. Who shall say that books have no souls, especially books like this, all aglow with healthful humor, bright thought, and talking right out to you what you were about yourself to say,—only you had not quite thought it yet? A few of these ‘Studies’ have appeared in “Scribners,” but the most are new, while all are fresh and sparkling as a frosty winter morning, and delicious as the company we love for a winter evening. The book is more deeply thoughtful than “My Summer in a Garden,” with an equally vivid play of fancy. It never mocks or sneers, and its sarcasm has no sting. Hoppin has done his part, and the publishers theirs, to make the volume a thing of beauty. ALSO, NEW EDITIONS OF MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. $1.00. Illustrated by Hoppin. $3.00. SAUNTERINGS. $1.50. For sale by Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers, JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston. DE QUINCEY’S WORKS. NEW LIBRARY EDITION, Uniform in general size and style with the Library Hawthorne, Dickens, Waverley, etc. In eleven volumes, 12mo.
This is a compact and very desirable Library Edition of De Quincey. It will freshly commend to all intelligent American readers the varied and brilliant writings of this unsurpassed master of English prose. “Since the English language has been written, we know of nothing comparable to his style, splendor, variety, ease, idiomatic richness, and grace.”—London Leader. THE ROMANCE OF THE HAREM. By MRS. A. H. LEONOWENS, Illustrated. 12mo. $3.00. “When we began to feel that the poetry of the East was exhausted, Mrs. Leonowens opened for us the door into a land of romance as novel, as fascinating, and as splendid as any the Orient has ever shown us. In her ‘English Governess at the Siamese Court,’ we had a somewhat confused glimpse of it; but in ‘The Romance of the Harem’ we have our curiosity fully satisfied.”—Hartford Courant. KEEL AND SADDLE: By JOSEPH W. REVERE. New Edition. 12mo. $2.00. “Of the flavor and charm of the narrative we can convey no fair idea. There is a freshness and genuineness in the story of his travels that will command general admiration.”—Literary World. For sale by Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers, JAMES E. OSGOOD & CO., Boston. 1873 NEW BOOKS IN PRESS Messrs. JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.’S LIST OF WORKS IN PRESS FOR PUBLICATION DURING THE COMING SEASON. Palmetto Leaves. By Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Illustrated. 1 vol. Small 4to. $2.00. (Just ready.) Enigmas of Life. Reprinted from English advance sheets. By W. R. Greg. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.00. The Other Girls. By Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. Companion volume to “We Girls,” “Real Folks,” &c. Illustrated. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.00. (In April.) A Chance Acquaintance. By William D. Howells. 1 vol. Small 18mo. $1.50. American Text-Books of Art Education. By Walter Smith. The Books of Jules Verne, as per the following List: The Adventures of Captain Hatteras. Illustrated. Five Weeks in a Balloon. Illustrated. The Land of the Furs. Illustrated. Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Illustrated. Among the Isles of Shoals. By Celia Thaxter. Lars: A Pastoral of Norway. A new and very striking love-poem. By Bayard Taylor. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. (Just out.) Music-Hall Sermons.—A New Volume. By Rev. W. H. H. Murray. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. PAPER NOVELS. Osgood’s Library of Novels. Not Easily Jealous. An English Reprint. (Ready.) Writings of Emile Gaboriau, as follows:
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