f children's books, and in its pages the frail boy king,
and his gloomy sister Mary who in her day wrought so much woe for
unhappy England, and the dashing Princess Elizabeth who lived to
rule so well, seem to live again. A friend of Mr. Clemens' once told
me that he said he wrote that book so that when his little daughters
grew up they might know that their tired old jester of a father
could be serious and gentle sometimes.

_The Home Monthly_, May 1897

_William Dean Howells_

Certainly now in his old age Mr. Howells is selecting queer titles
for his books. A while ago we had that feeble tale, "The Coast of
Bohemia," and now we have "My Literary Passions." "Passions,"
literary or otherwise, were never Mr. Howells' forte and surely no
man could be further from even the coast of Bohemia.

Apropos of "My Literary Passions" which has so long strung out in
the Ladies' Home Journal along with those thrilling articles about
how Henry Ward Beecher tied his necktie and what kind of coffee Mrs.
Hall Cain likes, why did Mr. Howells write it? Doesn't Mr. Howells
know that at one time or another every one raves over Don Quixote,
imitates Heine, worships Tourgueneff and calls Tolstoi a prophet?
Does Mr. Howells think that no one but he ever had youth and
enthusiasm and aspirations? Doesn't he know that the only thing that
makes the world worth living in at all is that once, when we are
young, we all have that great love for books and impersonal things,
all reverence and dream? We have all known the time when Porthos,
Athos and d'Artagan were vastly more real and important to us than
the folks who lived next door. We have all dwelt in that country
where Anna Karenina and the Levins were the only people who mattered
much. We have all known that intoxicating period when we thought we
"understood life," because we had read Daudet, Zola and Guy de
Maupassant, and like Mr. Howells we all looked back rather fondly
upon the time when we believed that books were the truth and art was
all. After a while books grow matter of fact like everything else
and we always think enviously of the days when they were new and
wonderful and strange. That's a part of existence. We lose our first
keen relish for literature just as we lose it for ice-cream and
confectionery. The taste grows older, wiser and more subdued. We
would all wear out of very enthusiasm if it did not. But why should
Mr. Howells tell th