rgetfulness, it has also the power
to stir up a subtle emotion while it starts a train of thought--and what
greater force can be expected from human speech? But it is in
naturalness that this declaration is perfectly delightful, for there is
nothing more natural than for a grave City Father to forget what the
books he has read once--long ago--in his giddy youth maybe--were about.

And the books in question are novels, or, at any rate, were written as
novels. I proceed thus cautiously (following my illustrious example)
because being without fear and desiring to remain as far as possible
without reproach, I confess at once that I have not read them.

I have not; and of the million persons or more who are said to have read
them, I never met one yet with the talent of lucid exposition
sufficiently developed to give me a connected account of what they are
about. But they are books, part and parcel of humanity, and as such, in
their ever increasing, jostling multitude, they are worthy of regard,
admiration, and compassion.

Especially of compassion. It has been said a long time ago that books
have their fate. They have, and it is very much like the destiny of man.
They share with us the great incertitude of ignominy or glory--of severe
justice and senseless persecution--of calumny and misunderstanding--the
shame of undeserved success. Of all the inanimate objects, of all men's
creations, books are the nearest to us, for they contain our very
thought, our ambitions, our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to
truth, and our persistent leaning towards error. But most of all they
resemble us in their precarious hold on life. A bridge constructed
according to the rules of the art of bridge-building is certain of a
long, honourable and useful career. But a book as good in its way as the
bridge may perish obscurely on the very day of its birth. The art of
their creators is not sufficient to give them more than a moment of life.
Of the books born from the restlessness, the inspiration, and the vanity
of human minds, those that the Muses would love best lie more than all
others under the menace of an early death. Sometimes their defects will
save them. Sometimes a book fair to see may--to use a lofty
expression--have no individual soul. Obviously a book of that sort
cannot die. It can only crumble into dust. But the best of books
drawing sustenance from the sympathy and memory of men have lived on the
brink of d