NOTABLE BOOKS. 



533 



that we can turn to them in a spirit of 

 inquiry for a beauty which we had not 

 caught before. In his own words, " As 

 I breathe all this hushed air again even 

 the more broken things give out touch- 

 ing human values and faint, sweet 

 scents of character, flushes of old 

 beauty and goodwill." 



The father of the bo\ s was de- 

 scended from Irish and Scotch ances- 

 tors, and was born in Albany. The 

 family belonged to society of the first 

 order, so that we get glimpses of many 

 interesting people. Emerson was a 

 friend, Jenny Lind not unknown to 

 them ; in Paris all doors were open and 

 London gave them sights. 



Amongst the quaintest of the pic- 

 tures given us are those of the different 

 "educated ladies" who gave the boys 

 their first lessons. One he pictures as 

 " a stout, red- faced lady with grey 

 hair and a large apron — the latter con- 

 venience somehow suggesting, as she 

 stood about with a resolute air, that she 

 viewed her little pupils as so many 

 small slices cut from the loaf of life 

 on which she was to dab the butter of 

 arithmetic and spelling, accompanied 



by way of jam with a light amplication 

 of the practice of prize giving 



Aunts, uncles, cousins — all have a 

 place in this gallery of remembrances, 

 though in the extraordinary fan-faron- 

 ade of endless words only keen curi< 

 ity and earnesl search will enable us to 

 get anything like so clear a vision of 

 them as is given us of the red-faced 

 governess. Is the mistiness due to the 

 fact that Mr. James is endeavouring to 

 give the reader exactly the same im- 

 pression that places, people, and events 

 gave to him as a boy 



Mr. fames ends his reminiscences 

 when he is about thirteen, and the 

 family at Boulogne economising after 

 a financial collapse. He refers to the 

 little pastry-cook shop which was 

 young Coquelin's home, yet we are not 

 clear whether he ever saw him. The 

 last glimpse we have of the boy is that 

 he had a strange sense that something 

 had begun that would make more dif- 

 ference to him, directly and indirectly, 

 than anything had yet made. This re- 

 solved itself into an attack of typhus, 

 and so we leave him stretched in a faint 

 upon his bedroom floor after labouring 

 towards a bell which may or may not 

 have been reached and rung. 



AN IMPERIAL TRAGEDY. 



My Past. By Countess Marie Larisch. 

 (Nash.) 



To the general public who still have 

 a regard for what is comprised in the 

 word "respectable," it will be somewhat 

 astonishing to find a lady of high birth 

 volunteering to wash in public the 

 ragged and dirty linen of her Royal 

 relatives. But that being the case, the 

 same general public will read with 

 amusement the various tit-bits ot g<>s 

 siping inuendoes or queer anecdotes pre 

 sented to them— very delicately veiled, 

 of course. 



Countess Marie Larisrh is a laughter 

 of Duke Ludwig of Bavaria by his 

 morganatic marriage with the beautiful 

 young actress, Henrietta Mendel Her 

 father had five beautiful sisters, of 

 whom one became Empress ol Austria, 

 another the Duchesse d'Alencon, whose 



regretted death in the terrible bazaar 

 fire in Paris is still remembered. It is 

 notorious ih.it the beautiful Empress 

 Elizabeth had had a very unhappy 

 life ; married to Francis-Joseph, and 

 for love, her heart turned from him 

 when she found that other women could 

 nitliuMn c him. 



Marie was a "lanky little girl " when 

 her Empress aunl first sav\ her, and the 

 story ot the young girl's queer attire 

 on a later presentation is rather bitterly 

 given by her. Be* ause her hair v 

 taw, her father insisted upon it being 

 soaked in oil to darken it; her best 

 frock was a made-over -ilk dress far 

 too long for her, and -he was shod with 

 heaw soled, hobnailed mountain 



il s. 



i n • Empress appear- to have had a 

 tit , ancholia during her visit, and 



