no end
of her praise, until the end of all flesh.'

With passages such as these, this interesting book draws to a
conclusion. A most singular and original book, worthy to be read,
unless, indeed, the reading of these out-of-the-way volumes were found
to encroach upon time belonging by right of eminent intellectual
domain to Chaucer and to Shakespeare, to Spenser and to Milton. That
_Euphues_ is in no exact sense a novel admits of little question. It
is also a brilliant illustration of how not to write English.
Nevertheless it is very amusing, and its disappearance would be a
misfortune, since it would eclipse the innocent gayety of many a man
who loves to bask in that golden sunshine which streams from the pages
of old English books.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FAIR-MINDED MAN

It is by no means necessary that one be a man of letters in order to
write a good book. Some very admirable books have been written by men
who gave no especial thought to literature as an art. They wrote
because they were so fortunate as to find themselves in possession of
ideas, and not because they had determined to become authors.
Literature as such implies sophistication, and people who devote
themselves to literature do so from a variety of motives. But these
writers of whom I now speak have a less complex thought back of their
work. They do not, for example, propose pleasure to the reader as an
object in writing. Their aim is single. They recount an experience, or
plead a cause. Literature with them is always a means to an end. They
are like pedestrians who never look upon walking as other than a
rational process for reaching a given place. It does not occur to them
that walking makes for health and pleasure, and that it is also an
exercise for displaying a graceful carriage, the set of the shoulders,
the poise of the head.

To be sure one runs the risk of being deceived in this matter. The
actress who plays the part of an unaffected young girl, for aught that
the spectator knows to the contrary may be a pronounced woman of the
world. Not every author who says to the public 'excuse my untaught
manner' is on this account to be regarded as a literary ingenu. His
simplicity awakens distrust. The fact that he professes to be a layman
is a reason for suspecting him. He is probably an adept, a master of
the wiles by which readers are snared.

But aside from the cases in which deception is practiced, or at least
attempted, there is in t