a book. A book has to be very puerile indeed if I cannot enjoy it to
a certain extent--even though that extent be merely a mild ridicule and
amusement. I can even enjoy books about books--if they are very well
done, which is rare. I am not particularly interested in
authors--especially the photographs of authors, which usually come upon
their admirers with something approaching shock--because I always think
that the most interesting part of an author is what he writes, not what
he looks like. What he writes is generally what he _is_. You can't keep
everything of yourself out of anything you may write--and thank Heaven
for it! Apart from the story--often indeed, before the story itself--the
most delightful parts of any book are the little gleams of the writer's
point of view, of his philosophy, of his own life-experiences, which
glint through the matter in hand, and sometimes raise a commonplace
narrative into a volume of sheer entrancing joy. And perhaps one of the
most difficult things to write is to write about books--I don't mean
"reviews." (Almost anybody can give their opinion on books they have
read, and tell you something about them--which is nine hundred and ninety
per cent. of literary reviews.) But to write about books in a way which
amuses you, or interests you, and makes you want immediately to read the
book in question--that is a more difficult feat. And sometimes what the
writer about books says about books is more entertaining than the books
themselves. But then that is because of those little gleams of the
personal which are always so delightful to find anywhere.

_Faith Reached Through Bitterness and Loss_

Looking back on one's life, I always think it is so strange that just
those blows of fate which logic would consider as certain to destroy such
things as Faith and Belief, optimism and steadfastness of soul-vision, so
many times provide their very foundations. How often those whose Belief
in a Life Hereafter is the firmest have little reason to encourage that
belief. We often find through sorrow, a happiness--no, not happiness,
but a peace--which is enduring. When the waves of agnosticism and
atheism have broken over our souls, the ebb tide is so often Faith and
Hope. And, as we approach nearer and nearer to the time when, in the
ordinary course of events, we so soon _shall know_, there creeps into our
hearts a certainty that all is not ended with life, a belief which defies
rea