sting like this: 'His Majesty the King and most
members of the Royal Family ordered copies of this book long before it
was ready for publication, and no doubt to-day, and for many days
following, there will be no other topic of conversation than my book at
Windsor Castle. I should like to call the attention of the reading
public--and who is it that does not read me?--to the fact that this is
the longest book I have yet published. The public will also, I am sure,
forgive me for calling it my best. A mother's last baby is always, in
her eyes, her best.'

At all events, I salute the new criticism. It should greatly add to the
gaiety of nations.

CHAPTER XIX

ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE

There is very little originality in this world. Even among the greatest
thoughts expressed by famous philosophers, there are very few that had
not been heard before in some form or other. It is the pithy way in
which they are expressed by such men as La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere,
and Balzac that made the reputation of these great writers. The
characteristics of man and woman have always existed, just as has their
anatomy, and the dissector of the human heart cannot invent anything new
any more than the dissector of the human body. We all know these
characteristics, but what we like is to see a philosopher present them
to us in a new shape.

Pascal says that the greatest compliment that can be paid to a book,
even to a thought, is the exclamation, 'I could have written that!' and
'I could have said that!' In fact, the author whom we admire most is the
one who writes a book that we 'could' have written ourselves. And we say
'bravo' when a philosopher gives us a thought of our own, only better
expressed than we could have done it, or when he confirms an opinion
that we already held ourselves.

No; there is nothing original, not even the stories that we hear and
tell in our clubs. They have been told before. I forget who said that
there were only thirty-five anecdotes in the world, seventeen of which
were unfit for ladies' ears.

Even the characters of fiction are not original. The novelist is, as a
rule, none but a portrait painter, possessed of more or less originality
and talent. Charles Dickens said that there was not a single personage
of his novels whom he had not drawn from life. Thackeray and Balzac, two
observers of mankind of marvellous ability, said the same. Racine
borrowed of Sophocles and Euripides, Moliere of Plaut