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be the guardians of the world's mirth; but thinking is a sorry business, and a period of critical reflection, following a period of vigorous and engrossing activity, is apt to breed the "plaintive pessimist," whose self-satisfaction is disproportionate to his worth. Literature, we are assured by its practitioners, "exists to please;" but it has some doubtful methods of imparting pleasure. If, indeed, we sit down to read books on degeneracy and kindred topics, we have no reason to complain of what we find in them. It is not through such gates as these that we seek an escape from mortality. But why should poets and essayists and novelists be so determinedly depressing? Why should "the earnest prophetic souls who tear the veil from our illusory national prosperity"—I quote from a recent review—be so warmly praised for their vandalism? Heaven knows they are always tearing the veil from something, until there is hardly a rag left for decency. Yet there are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth. Granted that our habit of exaggerating the advantages of modern civilization