I do not know whether the length of the average _causerie_ was directly conditioned by the fact of its appearance in a daily newspaper[598] instead of a Review, or whether Sainte-Beuve’s experience and instinct combined, induced him to make it rather shorter, but much more uniform in length, than his _Deux Mondes_ articles. This length is pretty exactly twenty pages—a few articles being a little longer and a few a little shorter, but the greater number coming very close to the score of, say, 350 words each. It may be a superstition based on this great practitioner’s practice, but I think the majority of his successors have found that this length—say, from six to eight thousand words—is singularly normal for the treatment of an average subject of the larger literary kind. It ought not to weary the reader; it does not cramp the writer; and it does not tempt him to undue expatiation. Occasionally Sainte-Beuve, of course, doubled or trebled or even further multiplied _causeries_ where the subject demanded it; but at first he did this very seldom, and he never made it the rule. In selecting his subjects he naturally preferred a new book when he could get it, if only as a “peg”: and he had plenty of choice. His rejections, however, were sometimes disappointing, particularly so in the case of M. Egger’s _History of Greek Criticism_, which he had intended to take. He neither specially chose nor specially rejected themes that he had already treated: and sometimes, though not often, he reproduced parts of his old work. As to the treatment, enough has been said of that above, or will be said below. It was almost unique: it is still almost unmatched. As far as any general scheme is extricable, it is the obvious one of a few general remarks—not very seldom expanding into precious tractatules—of more or less abstract criticism; a biographical sketch, anecdoted with special view to literary influences; remarks, with more or less quotation, on books and passages; and sometimes a sketch, usually rather shy and suggestive than peremptory, of comparative “placing”—the comparison, however, having been subtly presented throughout. But the method is never stereotyped: and the variations are of the essence. [Sidenote: _Bricks of the house._]