I was looking through the book shelves the other day in search of a misplaced book which I was wanting, when I came upon a pretentious volume that took me back almost to the beginning of time for me. Gaskell's Compendium of Forms it was called, and a perusal of it was guaranteed to prepare one thoroughly for every line of endeavor, and for every emergency of life. The author was equally at home in science and in literature, in religion and in art, and in all the finesse of social etiquette and poetic expression.
I was fifteen when I bought it, filled with the first impulses to attain a distinct social success in the rural community in which I lived, and yet modest enough to admit that there were many of the graces of society which I had not yet acquired, and many of the exactions of good manners with which I was not familiar. A smooth-tongued college student, trying to earn enough money during the summer to keep him going through the winter, sold it to me, and guaranteed it to give satisfaction or the money would be refunded. The price was $5.5O in exquisite silk cloth and $7.00 in full morocco.
The book contained everything from how to grow beets to the ten commandments; it gave explicit information on the widest variety of topics from how to open a set of ac-
