ne
race. "Among the books of the year are Blank, Blank, and Blank," he says.
(But what he means is, "The book of the year is to be found among Blank,
Blank, and Blank.") Naturally he selects among the books whose titles come
into his head with the least difficulty; that is to say, the books which
he has most recently reviewed; that is to say, the books published during
the autumn season. No doubt during the spring season he has distinguished
several books as being "great," "masterly," "unforgettable," "genius"; but
ere the fall of the leaf these works have completely escaped from his
memory. No author, and particularly no novelist who wishes to go down to
posterity, should publish during the spring season; it is fatal.

* * * * *

The celebrated "Dop Doctor" (published by Heinemann) and Mr. Temple
Thurston's "City of Beautiful Nonsense" (published by Chapman and Hall)
have both sold very well indeed throughout the entire year. In fact, they
were selling better in December than many successful novels published in
the autumn. Yet neither of them, assuming that there had been a book of
the year, would have had much chance of being that book. The reason is
that they have not been sufficiently "talked about." I mean "talked about"
by "the right people." And by "right people" I mean the people who make a
practice of dining out at least three times a week in the West End of
London to the accompaniment of cultured conversation. I mean the people
who are "in the know," politically, socially, and intellectually--who
know what Mr. F.E. Smith says to Mr. Winston Churchill in private, why
Mrs. Humphry Ward made such an enormous pother at the last council meeting
of the Authors' Society, what is really the matter with Mr. Bernard Shaw's
later work, whether Mr. Balfour does indeed help Mr. Garvin to write the
_Daily Telegraph_ leaders, and whether the Savoy Restaurant is as good
under the new management as under the old. I reckon there are about 12,055
of these people. They constitute the elite. Without their aid, without
their refined and judicial twittering, no book can hope to be a book of
the year.

Now I am in a position to state that no novel for very many years has
been so discussed by the elite as Mr. Forster's "Howard's End" (published
by Edward Arnold). The ordinary library reader knows that it has been a
very considerable popular success; persons of genuine taste know that it
is a very consi