This list, disproportionately long perhaps, seems justifiable because Trollope wrote an incredible number of novels not all of which are equally good, and because his books are in the present quarter century not so widely read as they should be. After Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot, who are the highest peaks in the half century (we cannot quite measure Meredith and Hardy yet), Anthony Trollope is easily fourth. And even among the peaks the broad massive plateau of his work seems more and more to have enduring solidity. Like Balzac in France (though little like him, book for book), Trollope has written England’s _comédie humaine_. With him quantity is a quality, for he is a master in large part by virtue of his bulk; no other novelist seems to have told so much about the daily life of his nation. The one thing lacking to make Trollope a very great writer of fiction is that his prose is not eloquent; though it is good, it has no moments of supreme goodness; but few other English novelists have sustained such a level of merit through so many volumes. JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE. _Neighbor Jackwood._ _Jack Hazard and His Fortunes._ _A Chance for Himself._ _Doing His Best._ _Cudjo’s Cave._ _The Tinkham Brothers’ Tidemill._ No other writer of equal ability has devoted himself to books for boys. IVAN SERGYEVICH TURGENIEFF (1818-83). _Fathers and Children._ _Smoke._ Several of Turgenieff’s novels have been translated into English. The English reader should, if possible, read Russian novels in French. ALFRED DE VIGNY (1799-1863). _Cinq-Mars._ This great historical novel is in easy French. It has been published in an English translation. MARY ARNOLD WARD (Mrs. Humphrey Ward). _Robert Elsmere._ An English writer of excellent ideals and deep seriousness, overrated by Americans who seem to think that she is giving them the “true inwardness” of British high life. ELIZABETH CHERRY WALTZ. _Pa Gladden._ Humorous and touching stories of a Kentucky farmer. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER (1829-1900). _A Little Journey in the World._ _The Golden House._ JOHN WATSON (“Ian Maclaren”). _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush._ _The Days of Auld Lang Syne._ EDWARD NOYES WESTCOTT. _David Harum._ An illustration of the fact that a true humorous character will catch the fancy of the world, no matter in how defective a plot it is embodied. KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN (Mrs. Riggs). _The Birds’ Christmas Carol._ _Penelope’s Progress._ _The Story of Patsy._ _Timothy’s Quest._ _Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm._ MARY ELEANOR WILKINS (Mrs. Freeman). _A Humble Romance._ _A New England Nun._ _Jane Field._ _Pembroke._ _Jerome, a Poor Man._ _Silence and Other Stories._ OWEN WISTER. _The Virginian._ _Lady Baltimore._ ISRAEL ZANGWILL. _Children of the Ghetto._ _Dreamers of the Ghetto._ CHAPTER V THE READING OF POETRY