The Quality of Mercy Part 51

Only an artistic hand could have written these stories, and they will make delightful reading.--_Evangelist_, N. Y.

The simplicity, purity, and quaintness of those stories set them apart in a niche of distinction, where they have no rivals.--_Literary World_, Boston.

The reader who buys this book and reads it will find treble his money's worth in every one of the delightful stories.--_Chicago Journal._

Miss Wilkins is a writer who has a gift for the rare art of creating the short story which shall be a character study and a bit of graphic picturing in one; and all who enjoy the bright and fascinating short story will welcome this volume.--_Boston Traveller._

The author has the unusual gift of writing a short story which is complete in itself, having a real beginning, a middle, and an end. The volume is an excellent one.--_Observer_, N. Y.

A gallery of striking studies in the humblest quarters of American country life. No one has dealt with this kind of life better than Miss Wilkins. Nowhere are there to be found such faithful, delicately drawn, sympathetic, tenderly humorous pictures.--_N. Y. Tribune._

The charm of Miss Wilkins's stories is in her intimate acquaintance and comprehension of humble life, and the sweet human interest she feels and makes her readers partake of, in the simple, common, homely people she draws.--_Springfield Republican._

There is no attempt at fine writing or structural effect, but the tender treatment of the sympathies, emotions, and pa.s.sions of no very extraordinary people gives to these little stories a pathos and human feeling quite their own.--_N. Y. Commercial Advertiser._

The author has given us studies from real life which must be the result of a lifetime of patient, sympathetic observation.... No one has done the same kind of work so lovingly and so well.--_Christian Register_, Boston.

By LEW. WALLACE

BEN-HUR:

A TALE OF THE CHRIST.

Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of this romance does not often appear in works of notion.... Some of Mr.

Wallace's writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The scenes described in the New Testament are rewritten with the power and skill of an accomplished master of style.--_N. Y. Times._

Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at the beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and brilliant.... We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; we witness a sea-fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a Roman galley, domestic interiors at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and among the tribes of the desert; palaces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman youth, the houses of pious families of Israel. There is plenty of exciting incident; everything is animated, vivid, and glowing.--_N. Y.

Tribune._

It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage, and there is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography, nomenclature, etc., to greatly strengthen the semblance.--_Boston Commonwealth._

"Ben-Hur" is interesting, and its characterization is fine and strong.

Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is laid, and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to realize the nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Roman life at Antioch at the time of our Saviour's advent.--_Examiner_, N.Y.

The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with unwonted interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional novel and romance.--_Boston Journal._