- honest thought and simple truth—and in the
serveth not another's will," glorious liberty. For chiefest among the joys of the Life Literary are its splendid independence, its right of free opinion, and its ability to express that opinion. An author is bound to no person, no place, and no party, unless he or she wilfully elects to be so bound. To him, or to her, all the realms of Nature and imagination are entrance-free—the pen unlocks every closed door—and not only is the present period of time set out like a stage-scene for contemplation and criticism, but all the past ages, with their histories, and the rise and fall of their civilizations, arrange themselves to command in a series of pictures for the pleasure of the literary eye and brain; and it is just as easy to converse in one's own library with Plato on the immortality of the soul as it is good-humouredly to tolerate Mr. Mallock and his little drawing-room philosophies. For a book is more or less the expression of the mind, or a part of the mind, of its writer, and, inasmuch as it is only with the moral and intellectual personalities of our friends and enemies that we care to deal, it matters little whether such personalities be three or four thousand years old, or only of yesterday. And to live the Life Literary means that we can always choose our own company. We can reject commoners and receive kings, or vice versâ. The author who is careful to hold and to maintain all the real privileges and rights of authorship is a ruler of millions, and under subjection to none. The position is unique and, to my thinking, unequalled.
There are many, of course, who will by no means
