self who can defend and clear you of
the charge. But in slighter intimacies, and for a less stringent
union? Indeed, is it worth while? We are all _incompris_, only more
or less concerned for the mischance: all trying wrongly to do right;
all fawning at each other's feet like dumb, neglected lap-dogs.
Sometimes we catch an eye--this is our opportunity in the ages--and we
wag our tail with a poor smile. "_Is that all?_" All? If you only
knew! But how can they know? They do not love us; the more fools we
to squander life on the indifferent.

But the morality of the thing, you will be glad to hear, is excellent;
for it is only by trying to understand others that we can get our own
hearts understood; and in matters of human feeling the clement judge is
the most successful pleader.

[1] "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," Wednesday, p. 283.

SAMUEL PEPYS

In two books a fresh light has recently been thrown on the character and
position of Samuel Pepys. Mr. Mynors Bright has given us a new
transcription of the Diary, increasing it in bulk by near a third,
correcting many errors, and completing our knowledge of the man in some
curious and important points. We can only regret that he has taken
liberties with the author and the public. It is no part of the duties of
the editor of an established classic to decide what may or may not be
"tedious to the reader." The book is either an historical document or
not, and in condemning Lord Braybrooke Mr. Bright condemns himself. As
for the time-honored phrase, "unfit for publication," without being
cynical, we may regard it as the sign of a precaution more or less
commercial; and we may think, without being sordid, that when we purchase
six huge and distressingly expensive volumes, we are entitled to be
treated rather more like scholars and rather less like children. But Mr.
Bright may rest assured: while we complain, we are still grateful. Mr.
Wheatley, to divide our obligation, brings together, clearly and with no
lost words, a body of illustrative material. Sometimes we might ask a
little more; never, I think, less. And as a matter of fact, a great part
of Mr. Wheatley's volume might be transferred, by a good editor of Pepys,
to the margin of the text, for it is precisely what the reader wants.

In the light of these two books, at least, we have now to read our
author. Between them they contain all we can expect to learn for, it may
be, many