destination in the great republic of letters, and yet he hesitated to
look at them. He heard of the curious blindness of authors that made
it impossible for them to detect the most egregious failings in their
own work, and it occurred to him that this might be his malady. Why:
had he published his book? He felt at that moment that he had taken
too great a risk. It would have been so easy to have had it privately
printed and contented himself with distributing it among his friends.
But these people were paid for writing about books, these critics who
had sent Keats to his gallipots and Swinburne to his fig-tree, might
well have failed to have recognised that his book was sacred, because
it was his own.

When he had at last achieved a fatalistic tranquillity, he once more
picked up the notices, and this time he read them through carefully.
The _Rutlandshire Gazette_ quoted Shakespeare, the _Thrums Times_
compared him with Christopher North, the _Stamford-bridge Herald_
thought that his style resembled that of Macaulay, but they were
unanimous in praising his book without reservation. It seemed to the
author that he was listening to the authentic voice of fame. He
rested his chin on his hand and dreamed long dreams.

He could afford in this hour of his triumph to forget the annoyances
he had undergone since his book was first accepted. The publisher,
with a large first edition to dispose of, had been rather more than
firm with the author. He had changed the title of the book from
"Earth's Returns"--a title that had seemed to the author dignified
and pleasantly literary--to "The Improbable Marquis," which seemed
to him to mean nothing at all. Moreover, instead of giving the book
a quiet and scholarly exterior, he had bound it in boards of an
injudicious heliotrope, inset with a nasty little coloured picture
of a young woman with a St. Bernard dog. This binding revolted the
author, who objected, with some reason, that in all his book there
was no mention of a dog of that description, or, indeed, of any dog
at all. The book was wrapped in an outer cover that bore a
recommendation of its contents, starting with a hideous split
infinitive and describing it as an exquisite social comedy written
from within. On the whole it seemed to the author that his book was
flying false and undesirable colours, and since art lies outside the
domesticities, he was hardly relieved when his wife told him that
she thought the binding was very