hard doctrine," said the god, dully. "If you write for the
people who read, you must submit to their verdict. And the critics are a
part of them."

"A small part. But they pretend to speak for the whole. Permit me to
explain--"

The god politely waited.

"Your critic approaches a book as a lawyer does his
case--temperamentally--not judicially--with an opinion of it in advance
or upon the first pages, which the book must either justify or fail to
justify. The result appears in his published estimate. He states his
view as if it were the only one. And, being delivered ex cathedra, the
multitude take it as they do their preaching--for the gospel of
Literature! But how would you like that in your judge? Who is sworn to
decide upon the evidence adduced alone?

"So it happens that every book is well cursed and well blessed,
according to the humor of the dissector. And the cursing and blessing
are usually about equal."

"There does seem to be something wrong about criticism which can be
unanimous both ways," laughed the god.

"There ought to be some tribunal to which criticism could be referred
upon appeal as lawsuits are," said I. "But," I went on, hastening a bit
to my climax as the god seemed to doze, "the most terrible of all
criticism is the modern humorous kind--"

"I have heard an odious term used to characterize those who make it,"
whispered the deity.

"The man who can do nothing else--and usually he _can_ do nothing
else--can poke fun. It is a peculiarly tasteful form of iconoclasm."

Said the god:--

"If I should sleep, do not forget to stop the clock."

He pretended to do so.

That is his way when I have tired him.

J. L. L.

IMPRIMIS

Four times on earth and once elsewhere Shijiro Arisuga thought the
happiest moment of his life had come.

But you are to be warned, in two proverbs, concerning the peril of the
thing called happiness, in Japan. One has it that happiness is like the
tai, the other that it has in it the note of the uguisu. Now, the tai is
a very common fish, and the uguisu is a rare bird of one sad note,
reputed to be sung only to O-Emma, god of death, in the night, most
often when there is a solemn moon. Which, again, is much the same as
saying that, in Japan, at least, happiness is the common lot, and easy
to get as to catch the lazy perch; but that it has its sad note, which
may have to be sung in the darkness, alone, to death.

For in the East one is taught to be no