other, that the people who read and write are on the brink of abysmal destruction. I have heard a lecturer upon one of these august occasions gloomily prophesy that many of the volumes waiting to be perused would "deprave the taste, irritate the vanity, exaggerate the egotism, and vitiate the curiosity of their readers." This seemed an unfortunate result for philanthropy to achieve; but the speaker went on to excite the godless interest of his audience by warning them that romance—of which the new library was reasonably full—would exercise a "bewildering and blinding effect" upon their minds, "filling them with false hopes and enervating dreams." He then defined a good novel as one which should "stimulate a healthy imagination, a sober ambition, a modest ardour, an eager humility, a love of what is truly great;" and left us oppressed with the conviction that the usefulness of our earthly careers and the salvation of our immortal souls depended upon the fiction that we read.
"There is no harm," says Mr. Birrell sweetly, "in talking about books, still less in reading them; but it is folly to pretend to wor-
