Italian who, after submitting to the heavy hospitality of an English country-house, drew a newly arrived Frenchman into a corner with the eager request: "Viens done causer. Je n'ai pas causé pour quinze jours."
Mr. Lang is responsible for the statement—spoken, let us hope, in the enjoyment of a sardonic mood rather than after dispassionate observation—that the average Englishman or Englishwoman would as soon think of buying a boa-constrictor as buying a book. He or she depends for intellectual sustenance upon that happy lottery system which has been devised by circulating libraries, and with which Americans are so well acquainted,—a system which enables us to put in a request for Darwin's "Origin of Species," and draw out the Rev. W. Profeit's "Creation of Matter;" to put in a request for "Lady Rose's Daughter," and draw out "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come." It is evident that reading conducted on this basis is as sure a path to cultivation as a roulette table is to wealth. It has all the charm of uncertainty, and all the value of speculation. It eliminates selection, detaches
