him.

That your taste should approve only the best thoughts of the best
minds is a pretty counsel, but one of perfection, and is found in
practice to breed prigs. It sets a man sailing round in a vicious
circle. What is the best thought of the best minds? That approved by
the man of highest culture. Who is the man of highest culture? He
whose taste approves the best thoughts of the best minds. To escape
from this foolish whirlpool, some of our stoutest bottoms run for
that discredited harbor of refuge--Popular Acceptance: a harbor full
of shoals, of which nobody has provided even the sketch of a chart.

Some years ago, when the _Pall Mall Gazette_ sent round to all sorts
and conditions of eminent men, inviting lists of "The Hundred Best
Books"--the first serious attempt to introduce a decimal system into
Great Britain--I remember that these eminent men's replies disclosed
nothing so wonderful as their unanimity. We were prepared for Sir John
Lubbock, but not, I think, for the host of celebrities who followed
his hygienic example, and made a habit of taking the Rig Vedas to bed
with them. Altogether their replies afforded plenty of material for a
theory that to have every other body's taste in literature is the
first condition of eminence in every branch of the public service. But
in one of the lists--I think it was Sir Monier Williams's--the
unexpected really happened. Sir Monier thought that Mr. T.E. Brown's
_The Doctor_ was one of the best books in the world.

Now, the poems of Mr. T.E. Brown are not known to the million. But,
like Mr. Robert Bridges, Mr. Brown has always had a band of readers to
whom his name is more than that of many an acknowledged classic. I
fancy it is a case of liking deeply or scarce at all. Those of us who
are not celebrities may be allowed to have favorites who are not the
favorites of others, writers who (fortuitously, perhaps) have helped
us at some crisis of our life, have spoken to us the appropriate word
at the moment of need, and for that reason sit cathedrally enthroned
in our affections. To explain why the author of _Betsy Lee_, _Tommy
Big-Eyes_ and _The Doctor_ is more to me than most poets--why to open
a new book of his is one of the most exciting literary events that can
befall me in now my twenty-ninth year--would take some time, and the
explanation might poorly satisfy the reader after all.

My Morning with a Book.

But I set out to describe a morning with a book. The boo