Expected, well enough: gone, still better. Such attractions are strengthened by distance." So Hazlitt wrote in his _Farewell to Essay Writing_. There never was such an epicure of his moods as Hazlitt. Others might add Omar's stipulation-- "--and Thou Beside me singing in the wilderness." But this addition would have spoiled Hazlitt's enjoyment. Let us remember that his love affairs had been unprosperous. "Such attractions," he would object, "are strengthened by distance." In any case, the book and singer go ill together, and most of us will declare for a spell of each in turn. What are "The Best Books"? Suppose we choose the book. What kind of book shall it be? Shall it be an old book which we have forgotten just sufficiently to taste surprise as its felicities come back to us, and remember just sufficiently to escape the attentive strain of a first reading? Or shall it be a new book by an author we love, to be glanced through with no critical purpose (this may be deferred to the second reading), but merely for the lazy pleasure of recognizing the familiar brain at work, and feeling happy, perhaps, at the success of a friend? There is no doubt which Hazlitt would have chosen; he has told us in his essay _On Reading Old Books_. But after a recent experience I am not sure that I agree with him. That your taste should approve only the best thoughts of the best minds is a pretty counsel, but one of perfection, and is found in practice to breed prigs. It sets a man sailing round in a vicious circle. What is the best thought of the best minds? That approved by the man of highest culture. Who is the man of highest culture? He whose taste approves the best thoughts of the best minds. To escape from this foolish whirlpool, some of our stoutest bottoms run for that discredited harbor of refuge--Popular Acceptance: a harbor full of shoals, of which nobody has provided even the sketch of a chart. Some years ago, when the _Pall Mall Gazette_ sent round to all sorts and conditions of eminent men, inviting lists of "The Hundred Best Books"--the first serious attempt to introduce a decimal system into Great Britain--I remember that these eminent men's replies disclosed nothing so wonderful as their unanimity. We were prepared for Sir John Lubbock, but not, I think, for the host of celebrities who followed his hygienic example, and made a habit of taking the Rig Vedas to bed with them. Altogether their replies afforded plenty of material for a theory that to have every other body's taste in literature is the first condition of eminence in every branch of the public service. But in one of the lists--I think it was Sir Monier Williams's--the unexpected really happened. Sir Monier thought that Mr. T.E. Brown's _The Doctor_ was one of the best books in the world.