certain drawbacks, arising out of
the fastidiousness which belongs to the changing man just at this time.
Let him, therefore, be careful what novels he chooses, for of all times
this is the one for fiction, when we are away from the contradictions of
the fierce outer world, and are in an atmosphere all sun and flowers,
and pleasant with generous service and thankful joy. Be careful what
Scheherezade you invite to your couch. By an awful rule of this world's
life, in all its phases, the sharper the zest of enjoyment, the keener
the possible disgusts may be. I recommend Dumas's books at this crisis,
but they should be read with acceptance; as stories, their value lying
largely in this, that no matter who is murdered or what horror occurs,
you somehow feel no more particular call upon your compassion than is
made when you read afresh the terrible catastrophes of Jack the
Giant-Killer.

A delightful master of style, Robert Louis Stevenson, in a recent
enumeration of the books which have influenced him in life, mentions, as
among the most charming of characterizations, the older Artagnan of the
Vicomte de Bragelonne. I feel sure that on the sick-bed, of which he
does not hesitate to speak, he must have learned, as I did, to
appreciate this charming book. I made acquaintance then, also, with what
seems to me, however, the most artistic of Dumas's works, and one so
little known that to name it is a benefit, or may be, the Chevalier
d'Harmenthal.

In the long road towards working health, I must have found, as my
note-books show, immense leisure, and equal capacity to absorb a
quantity of fiction, good and bad, and to find in some of it things
about my own art which excited amused comment, and but for that would
long ago have been forgotten. Among the stuff which I more or less
listlessly read was an astonishing book called "Norwood." It set me to
thinking, because in this book are recounted many things concerning sick
or wounded folk, and those astonishing surgeons and nurses who are
supposed to have helped them on to their feet again.

The ghastly amusement which came to me out of the young lady in this
volume, who amputates a man's leg, made me reflect a little about the
mode in which writers of fiction have dealt with sick people and
doctors. I lay half awake, and thought over this in no unkindly critical
mood,

"With now and then a merry thought,
And now and then a sad one,"

until I built myself a great literary