The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864, page 210 by Various Authors
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knor & Fields.
We like 'Azarian' better than any work we have yet seen from Miss Prescott. Ruth Yetton, the heroine, is so truly feminine, she might serve as a type of half our innocent maidens from sixteen to twenty. Azarian is real and drawn to the life, a hero who has his counterpart in every civilized city; a man of savoir-vivre, glittering and attractive, but selfish, inconsequent, frivolous, and deadly to the peace of those who love him. Miss Prescott's style is elaborate and florid, frequently of rare beauty, always giving evidence of culture and scholarship. Do we find fault with the hundred-leaved rose? Her fancy is luxuriant, of more power than her imagination. Her descriptions of flowers in the volume before us are accurate and tenderly beautiful. She knows them all, and evidently loves them well. Nor are the fragile blossoms of the trees less dear to her. She reads their secrets, and treasures them in her heart. She paints them with her glowing words, and placing our old darlings before us again, exultingly points out their hidden charms.
THE FOREST ARCADIA OF NORTHERN NEW YORK: Embracing a View of its Mineral, Agricultural, and Timber Resources. Boston: Published by T.O.H.P. Burnham. New York: Oliver S. Felt. 1864.
The author of this pleasant, unpretending little book visited the 'great wilderness of Northern New York, which lies in St. Lawrence county, on the western slope of the Adirondack Mountains. It forms part of an extensive plateau, embracing an area of many thousand square miles, and is elevated from fifteen to eighteen hundred feet above the sea. The mineral resources of the plateau are of great value, immense ranges of magnetic iron traverse the country, and there are indications of more valuable minerals in a few localities. Of its agricultural importance too much cannot be said. The soil is rich and strong, peculiarly adapted to the grazing of cattle. The climate is that of the hill country of New England.'
The reader will see from this extrac