Atalanta Volume 5

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 Excerpt: ...and villain. M. M. TV /TOST lovers of good literature have already probably read Mr. J. Barrie's Little Minister. (Cassell & Co.) The story has gone through a popular magazine, and, since its publication in volume form, has been widely read and much reviewed. It is now some years since this writer, with his freshness of style and keen preception of humour, came before the public. He wrote a few quiet volumes, which gradually and surely made their way to the front. He was absolutely unknown at the time, and at first his books were dipped into in a desultory fashion. By slow degrees appreciative eyes saw the beauty of his quaint pictures; the circle of his readers widened and widened, and he obtained that place among the foremost writers of the day, to which his talents entitle him. There is nothing more capricious than public opinion; fashion permeates everything, and what is popular to-day is out of date to-morrow. The writers whose books sell in thousands one year, will find that the fickle public are pursuing a new favourite the next; but now and then a writer appears, in whose words there is so straight an appeal to the hearts of his readers that he rises above mere fashion and becomes, to a certain degree, a classic. Mr. Barrie bids fair to occupy a place among the writers whose books live. There is a rugged life among the old Scottish hills, which he can describe with a touch whose pathos moves one profoundly. The very humour of these old folk is akin to tears. Mr. Barrie has a wonderful faculty of getting, as it were, inside his characters; he brings forward their strong points both for bad and good. They have a thousand little foibles and ten thousand good impulses; all are dissected and all revealed by this kindly analyst. The Little Minister is...