which to educate themselves. But
would it be wise to say so? It seems to me that if we once admitted the
force of any one of Chuang Tzu's destructive criticisms we should have to
put some check on our national habit of self-glorification; and the only
thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise
he always gives himself for doing them. There may, however, be a few who
have grown wearied of that strange modern tendency that sets enthusiasm
to do the work of the intellect. To these, and such as these, Chuang Tzu
will be welcome. But let them only read him. Let them not talk about
him. He would be disturbing at dinner-parties, and impossible at
afternoon teas, and his whole life was a protest against platform
speaking. 'The perfect man ignores self; the divine man ignores action;
the true sage ignores reputation.' These are the principles of Chuang
Tzu.

_Chuang Tzu_: _Mystic_, _Moralist_, _and Social Reformer_. Translated
from the Chinese by Herbert A. Giles, H.B.M.'s Consul at Tamsui.
(Bernard Quaritch.)

MR. PATER'S _APPRECIATIONS_
(_Speaker_, March 22, 1890.)

When I first had the privilege--and I count it a very high one--of
meeting Mr. Walter Pater, he said to me, smiling, 'Why do you always
write poetry? Why do you not write prose? Prose is so much more
difficult.'

It was during my undergraduate days at Oxford; days of lyrical ardour and
of studious sonnet-writing; days when one loved the exquisite intricacy
and musical repetitions of the ballade, and the villanelle with its
linked long-drawn echoes and its curious completeness; days when one
solemnly sought to discover the proper temper in which a triolet should
be written; delightful days, in which, I am glad to say, there was far
more rhyme than reason.

I may frankly confess now that at the time I did not quite comprehend
what Mr. Pater really meant; and it was not till I had carefully studied
his beautiful and suggestive essays on the Renaissance that I fully
realized what a wonderful self-conscious art the art of English
prose-writing really is, or may be made to be. Carlyle's stormy
rhetoric, Ruskin's winged and passionate eloquence, had seemed to me to
spring from enthusiasm rather than from art. I do not think I knew then
that even prophets correct their proofs. As for Jacobean prose, I
thought it too exuberant; and Queen Anne prose appeared to me terribly
bald, and irritatingly rational. But Mr. Pa