Is it possible that the world has grown virtuous without our
observing it? Can it be that the old stalwart race of book-borrowers,
those "spoilers of the symmetry of shelves," are foiled by so
childish an expedient? Imagine Dr. Johnson daunted by a scrap of
pasted paper! Or Coleridge, who seldom went through the formality
of asking leave, but borrowed armfuls of books in the absence of their
legitimate owners! How are we to account for the presence of
book-plates--quite a pretty collection at times--on the shelves of
men who possess no such toys of their own? When I was a girl I had
access to a small and well-chosen library (not greatly exceeding
Montaigne's fourscore volumes), each book enriched with an
appropriate device of scaly dragon guarding the apples of Hesperides.
Beneath the dragon was the motto (Johnsonian in form if not in
substance), "Honour and Obligation demand the prompt return of
borrowed Books." These words ate into my innocent soul, and lent a
pang to the sweetness of possession. Doubts as to the exact nature
of "prompt return" made me painfully uncertain as to whether a month,
a week, or a day were the limit which Honour and Obligation had set
for me. But other and older borrowers were less sensitive, and I have
reason to believe that--books being a rarity in that little Southern
town--most of the volumes were eventually absorbed by the gaping
shelves of neighbours. Perhaps even now (their generous owner long
since dead) these worn copies of Boswell, of Elia, of Herrick, and
Moore, may still stand forgotten in dark and dusty corners, like gems
that magpies hide.

It is vain to struggle with fate, with the elements, and with the
borrower; it is folly to claim immunity from a fundamental law, to
boast of our brief exemption from the common lot. "Lend therefore
cheerfully, O man ordained to lend. When thou seest the proper
authority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were halfway." Resistance
to an appointed force is but a futile waste of strength.

The Grocer's Cat

"Of all animals, the cat alone attains to the Contemplative
Life."--ANDREW LANG.

The grocer's window is not one of those gay and glittering enclosures
which display only the luxuries of the table, and which give us the
impression that there are favoured classes subsisting exclusively
upon Malaga raisins, Russian chocolates, and Nuremberg gingerbread.
It is an unassuming window, filled with canned goods and breakfast
foods, wr