and murmur to himself, "Ah! This is a book to be treated with respect. This is written." Thus, by a discreet appreciation of the value of Pretentiousness, Mr. Hobbes breaks his Pressman-Critic's spirit with his title-page, and has him entirely subjugated about half-way down page i.
But do you imagine that the author's pretentiousness begins and ends here, at the threshold? Far from it. His book is pretentious in every line; I might almost say in every dash and comma. It is linked pretentiousness long drawn out. It is packed with aphorisms, with reflections: it is diversified with little essays, little shrieks, and philosophic sighs: all pretentious. On page 135, for instance: "The weak mind is never weary of recounting its failures." On dirait the late Mr. Martin Tupper—not? On page 23: "O Science! art thou not also sometimes in error?" On dirait the late Mr. Thomas Carlyle. On page 13: "Men should be careful how they wish." On dirait Monsieur de la Palisse. . . . . And then, what shall we say of this? In Chapter IV. Dr. Simon Warre writes a letter; and the author heads the chapter: In which Warre displays a forgotten talent! Oddsfish, the letter one is justified in expecting, after that! What one gets is a quite ordinary, gossipy, rather vulgar, rather snobbish, very pretentious letter; and the only talent Warre displays is the talent of the Reporter, the Reporter for a Society paper; and that talent is unfortunately not forgotten.
Intending competitors for my prize will observe, furthermore, that the story, the plot, of The Gods, Some Mortals, and Lord Wickenham, is exactly the same dear old story that used to delight our nursery governesses when we were children. A good husband—oh, so good!—married to a horrid, wicked wife; a lord; a villain; an elopement. The same dear old conventional story,
