, I have a dream at
times that is not all a dream. I seem to myself to wander in a ghostly
street--E.W., I think, the postal district--close below the fool's cap
of St. Paul's, and yet within easy hearing of the echo of the Abbey
Bridge. There in a dim shop, low in the roof and smelling strong of glue
and footlights, I find myself in quaking treaty with great Skelt
himself, the aboriginal, all dusty from the tomb. I buy, with what a
choking heart--I buy them all, all but the pantomimes; I pay my mental
money, and go forth; and lo! the packets are dust.

XIV

A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS'S

The books that we re-read the oftenest are not always those that we
admire the most; we choose and we revisit them for many and various
reasons, as we choose and revisit human friends. One or two of Scott's
novels, Shakespeare, Moliere, Montaigne, "The Egoist," and the "Vicomte
de Bragelonne," form the inner circle of my intimates. Behind these
comes a good troop of dear acquaintances; "The Pilgrim's Progress" in
the front rank, "The Bible in Spain" not far behind. There are besides a
certain number that look at me with reproach as I pass them by on my
shelves: books that I once thumbed and studied: houses which were once
like home to me, but where I now rarely visit. I am on these sad terms
(and blush to confess it) with Wordsworth, Horace, Burns, and Hazlitt.
Last of all, there is the class of book that has its hour of
brilliancy--glows, sings, charms, and then fades again into
insignificance until the fit return. Chief of those who thus smile and
frown on me by turns, I must name Virgil and Herrick, who, were they but

"Their sometime selves the same throughout the year,"

must have stood in the first company with the six names of my continual
literary intimates. To these six, incongruous as they seem, I have long
been faithful, and hope to be faithful to the day of death. I have never
read the whole of Montaigne, but I do not like to be long without
reading some of him, and my delight in what I do read never lessens. Of
Shakespeare I have read all but _Richard_ _III._, _Henry VI._, _Titus
Andronicus_, and _All's Well that Ends Well_; and these, having already
made all suitable endeavour, I now know that I shall never read--to make
up for which unfaithfulness I could read much of the rest for ever. Of
Moliere--surely the next greatest name of Christendom--I could tell a
very similar story; but in a little corner