pleasure to people who know very well what they like, and who will never be converted by arguments into reading what they don't. It is useless to tell a man who is halfway through "The House of the Wolf," and oblivious for one blessed hour to everything in the world save the fate and fortunes of three French lads, that "the romantic novel represents a juvenile and, intellectually considered, lower stage of development than the realistic novel." He doesn't care the value of a ha'-penny for stages of development. He is not reading "The House of the Wolf" by way of mental or moral discipline. He is not to be persuaded into exchanging it unfinished for "The Apprenticeship of Lemuel Barker," because more "creative intelligence" is required to tell a story without incident—when there is, so to speak, no story to tell. What is it to him, if the book were hard or easy to write? Why should he be reminded perpetually by realists and veritists of the arduous nature of their task? He did not put them to work. The one and only thing which is of vital interest to him is the tale itself. The author's point of view, his sense of personal responsi-
