Very few of even our best writers can compass a book for the young which shall be all that it ought to be, avoiding on the one hand extravagant sentimentality, and a standard so high as to be outside human nature altogether; on the other, vapid silliness which no grown girl can accept as fitting food for her mind at all, and which irritates, as all pretense and make-believe must. Some American books are, perhaps, the best of their kind for the present generation, leaving untouched our old favorites, which, however, have by this time acquired a certain musty and rococo air, and are not quite in harmony with the times. If we might single out one which seems to us perhaps the best of all, it would be 'An Old-Fashioned Girl.' In this American story there is, beside its intrinsic value as work of art, a certain homely practicality and quaintness that lends it a special charm. Their very diction is as amusing to us as its plot, and things which we should write as humorous caricature is set down in the most matter-of-fact sobriety. The characters of this little book are so lifelike, the story is so pleasant, the morality so sound, and the whole tone and treatment so brisk and healthful, that no one can read it without both pleasure and amusement, while its influence over the young would be, we should say, decidedly powerful as well as useful.
