denial of his assertions in his possession before the publication of his criticism! And though a dealer in meat, groceries, and other food stuffs may obtain compensation if his wares are wilfully misrepresented to the buying public, the purveyor of thoughts or ideas has no remedy when such thoughts or ideas are deliberately and purposefully falsified to the world through the press. Yet the damage is surely as great,—and the injury done to one's honest intention quite as gratuitous. From this little incident occurring to myself, I venture to say in reference to the assertion that people do not know how to read, that if those who "rushed" through the misleading criticism of "Temporal Power" had honestly read the book so criticized for themselves, they would have seen at once how distorted was Mr. Stead's view of the whole story. But,—while many who had read the book and not the review, laughed at the bare notion of there being any resemblance between my fictional hero-king of romance and the Sovereign of the British Empire, others, reading the review only, foolishly decided that I must have written some "travesty" upon English royalty, and condemned the book without reading it. This is what all authors have a right to complain of,—the condemnation or censure of their books by persons who have not read them. For though there never was so much reading matter put before the public, there was never less actual "reading" in the truest and highest sense of the term than there is at present.
To read, as I take it, means to sit down quietly and enjoy a book in its every line and expression. Whether it be tragic or humourous, simple or ornate,
