true, I am doing away with the incentive to righteousness. _Therefore_ I
shall not admit _x_ to be true." There are thousands of these highly
educated poltroons between St. Stephen's, Westminster, and Aberystwith
University, and St. John Hankin was their foe.

* * * * *

The last time I conversed with him was at the dress rehearsal of a comedy.
Between the sloppy sounds of charwomen washing the floor of the pit and
the feverish cries of photographers taking photographs on the stage, we
discussed the plays of Tchehkoff and other things. He was one of the few
men in England who had ever heard of Tchehkoff's plays. When I asked him
in what edition he had obtained them, he replied that he had read them in
manuscript. I have little doubt that one day these plays will be performed
in England. St. John Hankin was an exceedingly good talker, rather
elaborate in the construction of his phrases, and occasionally dandiacal
in his choice of words. One does not arrive at his skill in conversation
without taking thought, and he must have devoted a lot of thought to the
art of talking. Hence he talked self-consciously, fully aware all the time
that talking was an art and himself an artist. Beneath the somewhat
finicking manner there was visible the intelligence that cared for neither
conventions nor traditions, nor for possible inconvenient results, but
solely for intellectual honesty amid conditions of intellectual freedom.

UNCLEAN BOOKS

[_8 July '09_]

The Rev. Dr. W.F. Barry, himself a novelist, has set about to belabour
novelists, and to enliven the end of a dull season, in a highly explosive
article concerning "the plague of unclean books, and especially of
dangerous fiction." He says: "I never leave my house to journey in any
direction, but I am forced to see, and solicited to buy, works flamingly
advertised of which the gospel is adultery and the apocalypse the right of
suicide." (No! I am not parodying Dr. Barry. I am quoting from his
article, which may be read in the _Bookman_. It ought to have appeared in
_Punch_.) One naturally asks oneself: "What is the geographical situation
of this house of Dr. Barry's, hemmed in by flaming and immoral
advertisements and by soliciting sellers of naughtiness?" Dr. Barry
probably expects to be taken seriously. But he will never be taken
seriously until he descends from purple generalities to the particular
naming of names. If he has the courag