To those who have feared the effect upon Miss Dawson’s powers of time, sorrow, privation and hope deferred, it is a joy to note that her latest and longest story, “A Gracious Visitation”—the one written especially for this volume, the others being from twenty to thirty years old—is the best. It is indeed a marvelous creation, and I know of nothing in literature having a sufficient resemblance to it to serve as a basis of comparison. In point of mere originality, I should say it is unsurpassed and unsurpassable; the ability to figure to oneself a story more novel and striking would, in a writer, imply the ability to write one—which I think the most capable writer would be slowest to claim. The best of the other stories is by no means the one that gives its title to the book. I shall not undertake to say which is best, but shall conclude by quoting the “envoy” of “The Ballade of the Sea of Sleep”; Archangels, princes, thrones, dominions, powers, Which of you dwarf the centuries to hours, Or swell the moments into æons’ sweep? Is it the Prince of Darkness, then, who cowers Below the dream-waves of the Sea of Sleep? 1897. MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF Upon the cover of the English translation of this young artist’s journal is displayed Gladstone’s judgment that it is “a book without a parallel.” That is not very high praise, certainly; it may be said of many books which the judicious would “willingly let die”; and in this case the judicious will hope that a parallel work may be long denied to the taste that craves it. The book from cover to cover is distinctly unwholesome. It has the merit of candor; its frankness is appalling. Yet one can not help suspecting the quality of that frankness. Did this young girl, who began at twelve, and for a dozen years—almost to the day of her death—poured into her journal her heterogenous and undigested thoughts, fancies and feelings with a view to publication and a hope of fame as a result of it—did she after all make as honest a record as she doubtless supposed herself to be doing? It will hardly seem so to one who has written much for publication.