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After having said so much it seems unnecessary to add that I strongly advise the reader to go out and buy all the books of Edgar Saltus he can find (and to find many will require patience and dexterity, as most of them are out of print). To further aid him in the matter I have prepared a short catalogue and with his permission I will guide him gently through this new land. I have also added a list of publishers, together with the dates of publication, although I cannot, in some instances, vouch for their having been the original imprints. It may be noted that almost all his books have been reprinted in England.[5]

[Footnote 5: Certain books by Edgar Saltus have been announced from time to time but have never appeared; these include: “Annochiatura,” “Immortal Greece,” “Our Lady of Beauty,” “Cimmeria,” “Daughters of Dream,” “Scaffolds and Altars,” “Prince Charming,” and “The Crimson Curtain.”]

“Balzac,”[6] signed Edgar Evertson Saltus (for a time he used his full name) is such good literary criticism and such good personal biography that one wishes the author had tried the form again. He did not save in his prefaces to his translations, his essay on Victor Hugo, and his short study of Oscar Wilde. In its miniature way, for the book is slight, “Balzac” is as good of its kind as James Huneker’s “Chopin,” Auguste Ehrhard’s “Fanny Elssler,” and Frank Harris’s “Oscar Wilde.” In style it is superior to any of these. It is a very pretty performance for a debut and if it is out of print, as I think it is, some enterprising publisher should serve it to the public in a new edition. The two most interesting chapters, largely anecdotal but continuously illuminating, are entitled “The Vagaries of Genius,” wherein one may find an infinitude of details concerning the manner in which Balzac worked, and “The Chase for Gold,” but tucked in somewhere else is a charming digression about realism in fiction and the bibliography should still be of use to students. Saltus tells us that Balzac took all his characters’ names from life, frequently from signs which he observed on the street. In this respect Saltus certainly has not followed him; in another he has been more imitative: I refer to the Balzacian trick of carrying people from one book to another.

[Footnote 6: Houghton, Mifflin and Co,; 1884. Reprinted 1887 and 1890.]

“The Philosophy of Disenchantment”[7] is an ingratiating account of the pessimism of Schopenhauer, a philosophy with which it would seem, Saltus is fully in accord. Two-thirds of the book is allotted to Schopenhauer, but the remainder is devoted to an exposition of the teachings of von Hartmann and a final essay, “Is Life an Affliction?” which query the author seems to answer in the affirmative. One of the best-known of the Saltus books, “The Philosophy of Disenchantment” is written in a clear, translucent style without the iridescence which decorates his later opera.

[Footnote 7: Houghton, Mifflin and Co.; 1885. Reprinted by the Belford Co.]

“After-Dinner Stories from Balzac, done into English by Myndart Verelst (obviously E. S.) with an introduction by Edgar Saltus”[8] contains four of the Frenchman’s tales, “The Red Inn,” “Madame Firmiani,” “The ‘Grande Breteche’,” and “Madame de Beauseant.” The introduction is written in Saltus’s most beguiling manner and may be referred to as one of the most delightful short essays on Balzac extant. The dedication is to V. A. B.

[Footnote 8: George J. Coombes; 1886. Reprinted by Brentano’s.]

“The Anatomy of Negation”[9] is Saltus’s best book in his earlier manner, which is as free from flamboyancy as early Gothic, and one of his most important contributions to our literature. The work is a history of antitheism from Kapila to Leconte de Lisle and, while the writer in a brief prefatory notice disavows all responsibility for the opinions of others, it can readily be felt that the book is a labour of love and that his sympathy lies with the iconoclasts through the centuries. The chapter entitled, “The Convulsions of the Church,” a brief history of Christianity, is one of the most brilliant passages to be found in any of the works of this very brilliant writer. Indeed, if you are searching for the soul of Saltus you could not do better than turn to this chapter. Of Jesus he says, “He was the most entrancing of nihilists but no innovator.” Here is another excerpt: “Paganism was not dead; it had merely fallen asleep. Isis gave way to Mary; apotheosis was replaced by canonization; the divinities were succeeded by saints; and, Africa aiding, the Church surged from mythology with the Trinity for tiara.” Again: “Satan was Jew from horn to hoof. The registry of his birth is contained in the evolution of Hebraic thought.” Never was any book so full of erudition and ideas so easy to read, a fascinating opus, written by a true sceptic. Following the Baedeker system, adopted so amusingly by Henry T. Finck in his “Songs and Song Writers,” this book should be triple-starred.