_Á la mode_ Germanorum, With her sentimentalibus lachrymæ roar 'em, And bathos and pathos delightful to see-- the following specimen will suffice: "Here flows the Wissahickon, silent, dark and motionless, as if dreaming of a bygone world and unable to awaken to the bustling present. Many an Indian maiden has beheld her brown visage and sparkling eyes mirrored in its crystals. Yet let no one trust the quiet of that river: a short space farther and the tranquil stream becomes a rushing mountain-torrent, the friendly vale grows wildly romantic, full of gloomy, mysterious beauty. How like is this water to many a human soul, which lives as serene and shut within itself as if it scarce knew what it is to feel, until passion sweeps over it and the whole being is changed and uplifts its voice loud and tumultuous!" Jack. From the French of Alphonse Daudet, author of "Sidonie," "Robert Helmont," etc., by Mary Neal Sherwood, translator of "Sidonie." Boston: Estes & Lauriat. Daudet's _Sidonie_ in its English form certainly received in this country all the praise it deserved. It has now been followed by the same author's _Jack_, which has the additional advantage of its predecessor's success, and shares with it the benefit of careful translation. The story is an exceedingly pathetic one: it describes the career of the son of a frivolous woman, of not even doubtful reputation, from the time of his entering school until his death. This mother is a silly creature with an affectionate heart, who is really fond of her son and tries in her feeble way to do all she can for him. Being rebuffed in her attempt to place him in one school, she thrusts him into another, and leaves him to be first petted and then bullied by a French translation of Squeers and a crowd of his satellites. With one of the teachers, D'Argenton, the mother falls wildly in love, and they are married. Jack runs away from school to their home, and finds himself pursued by the malignity of his step-father, who finally sends him off to work in a machine-shop. The people he sees here are kind to him, but the work is much too hard for his delicate health, and, to make matters worse, he is offered, and accepts in his ignorance, a place as stoker in a large steamship. This is almost his death, but he manages to escape penniless from the wreck of the ship, and returns to Paris. He finds near by, in the suburb where he had formerly lived, the old doctor who had been kind to him, and his granddaughter, with whom he is soon in love. At this point it will be well to stop abridging the story, so that the reader may find out for himself the poor young fellow's subsequent misery. There are occasional slight relapses into the happiness he has at rare intervals already known in his life, and at the last he dies in the arms of the woman he loves; but the general impression is that of great wretchedness.