m in which knowledge is presented to the general reader.
The short biographies of historic personages, of which within the past
few years many have been published, have been a great relief to the large
class of readers who want to know something, but not too much, about
them.

What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling
that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only
long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred? Many readers remember
what old Rogers, the poet, said:

"When I hear a new book talked about or have it pressed upon me, I read
an old one."

Happy the man who finds his rest in the pages of some favorite classic!
I know no reader more to be envied than that friend of mine who for many
years has given his days and nights to the loving study of Horace. After
a certain period in life, it is always with an effort that we admit a new
author into the inner circle of our intimates. The Parisian omnibuses,
as I remember them half a century ago,--they may still keep to the same
habit, for aught that I know,--used to put up the sign "Complet" as soon
as they were full. Our public conveyances are never full until the
natural atmospheric pressure of sixteen pounds to the square inch is
doubled, in the close packing of the human sardines that fill the
all-accommodating vehicles. A new-comer, however well mannered and well
dressed, is not very welcome under these circumstances. In the same way,
our tables are full of books half-read and books we feel that we must
read. And here come in two thick volumes, with uncut leaves, in small
type, with many pages, and many lines to a page,--a book that must be
read and ought to be read at once. What a relief to hand it over to the
lovely keeper of your literary conscience, who will tell you all that you
will most care to know about it, and leave you free to plunge into your
beloved volume, in which you are ever finding new beauties, and from
which you rise refreshed, as if you had just come from the cool waters of
Hippocrene! The stream of modern literature represented by the books and
periodicals on the crowded counters is a turbulent and clamorous torrent,
dashing along among the rocks of criticism, over the pebbles of the
world's daily events; trying to make itself seen and heard amidst the
hoarse cries of the politicians and the rumbling wheels of traffic. The
classic is a still lakelet, a mountain tarn, fed by springs that