etween
wheatsheaves. THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, that delightful though anonymous work
of my old friend Austin Absworthy Bearne Feverel. And I should like to
find a place for POEMS, by AURORA LEIGH. Mr. Snodgrass's book of verses
might grace one of the lower shelves. (What is the title of it? AMELIA'S
BOWER, I hazard.) RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LATE LORD BYRON AND OTHERS, by
CAPTAIN SUMPH, would be somewhere; for Sumph did, you will be glad to
hear, take Shandon's advice and compile a volume. Bungay published it.
Indeed, of the books for which I should find room there are a good few
that bear the imprimatur of Bungay. DESPERATIN, OR THE FUGITIVE DUCHESS,
by THE HON. PERCY Popjoy, was Bungay's; and so, of course, were PASSION
FLOWERS and WALTER LORRAINE. Of the books issued by the rival firm of
Bacon I possess but one: MEMOIRS OF THE POISONERS, by DR. SLOCUM. Near
to Popjoy's romance would be THE LADY FLABELLA, of which Mrs. Wititterly
said to Kate Nickleby, 'So voluptuous is it not--so soft?' WHO PUT BACK
THE CLOCK? would have a place of honour (unearned by its own merits?).
Among other novels that I could not spare, THE GIFT OF GIFTS would
conspicuously gleam. As for POMENTS--ah, I should not be content with
one copy of that. Even at the risk of crowding out a host of treasures,
I vow I would have a copy of every one of the editions that POMENTS ran
through.

THE GOLDEN DRUGGET 1918.

Primitive and essential things have great power to touch the heart of
the beholder. I mean such things as a man ploughing a field, or sowing
or reaping; a girl filling a pitcher from a spring; a young mother with
her child; a fisherman mending his nets; a light from a lonely hut on a
dark night.

Things such as these are the best themes for poets and painters, and
appeal to aught that there may be of painter or poet in any one of
us. Strictly, they are not so old as the hills, but they are more
significant and eloquent than hills. Hills will outlast them; but hills
glacially surviving the life of man on this planet are of as little
account as hills tremulous and hot in ages before the life of man had
its beginning. Nature is interesting only because of us. And the
best symbols of us are such sights as I have just mentioned--sights
unalterable by fashion of time or place, sights that in all countries
always were and never will not be.

It is true that in many districts nowadays there are elaborate new kinds
of machinery for ploughing the fi