man or woman, who will, on or before the 31st day of December in the present year, put into my hands a typewritten manuscript containing what I shall admit to be a polished, a considered—in one word, a satisfactory expression of my views. I make no reservation as to the length of the manuscript. It may run to as many thousand words as its writer wishes.
The first book I opened was not, after all, exactly a recent book. It was Mr. Hall Caine's Manxman. I confess I didn't open it with much hope of being able to read it, for past experience had taught me that to read a book by Mr. Hall Caine to the far-glimmering end was apt to be an enterprise beyond my powers of endurance. In early life I had begun his Shadow of a Crime, and had broken down at the eightieth page; when I was older, I had begun The Deemster, and had broken down at the eighth—the fearless energy of youth was mine no longer. However, I had been the owner of an uncut copy of the Manxman for well-nigh a twelvemonth; and I was in a Spartan temper; and I said—with some outward show of resolution, but with a secret presentiment of failure-I said, "We'll have a try."
Alas, at page 41, where the curtain falls—I beg Mr. Hall Caine's pardon—where the curtain descends upon the seventh scene, I saw myself beaten. "The moon had come up in her whiteness behind, and all was quiet and solemn around. Philip fell back and turned away his face." All was quiet and solemn araound! It was the final, the crushing, blow. I too fell back and turned away my face. I closed the Manxman, and gave it to my valet, who, it may please Mr. Hall Caine to learn, said, "Thenk you, sir;" and, a week afterwards, the honest fellow told me he had enjoyed it.
A talent for reading the works of Mr. Hall Caine is a talent
