It is when he comes to criticism--to a job like the present--that he can be so pernicious, because he follows the method of a true scholar without having his equipment. He classes books before he has understood or read them; that is his first crime. Classification by chronology. Books written before 1847, books written after it, books written after or before 1848. The novel in the reign of Queen Anne, the pre-novel, the ur-novel, the novel of the future. Classification by subject matter--sillier still. The literature of Inns, beginning with _Tom Jones_; the literature of the Women's Movement, beginning with _Shirley_; the literature of Desert Islands, from _Robinson Crusoe_ to _The Blue Lagoon_; the literature of Rogues--dreariest of all, though the Open Road runs it pretty close; the literature of Sussex (perhaps the most devoted of the Home Counties); improper books--a serious though dreadful branch of enquiry, only to be pursued by pseudo-scholars of riper years, novels relating to industrialism, aviation, chiropody, the weather. I include the weather on the authority of the most amazing work on the novel that I have met for many years. It came over the Atlantic to me, nor shall I ever forget it. It was a literary manual entitled _Materials and Methods of Fiction_. The writer's name shall be concealed. He was a pseudo-scholar and a good one. He classified novels by their dates, their length, their locality, their sex, their point of view, till no more seemed possible. But he still had the weather up his sleeve, and when he brought it out, it had nine heads. He gave an example under each head, for he was anything but slovenly, and we will run through his list. In the first place the weather can be "decorative," as in Pierre Loti; then "utilitarian," as in _The Mill on the Floss_ (no Floss, no Mill; no Mill, no Tullivers); "illustrative," as in _The Egoist_; "planned in pre-established harmony," as by Fiona MacLeod; "in emotional contrast," as in _The Master of Ballantrae_; "determinative of action," as in a certain Kipling story, where a man proposes to the wrong girl on account of a mud storm; "a controlling influence," _Richard Feverel_; "itself a hero," like Vesuvius in _The Days of Pompeii_; and ninethly, it can be "non-existent," as in a nursery tale. I liked him flinging in non-existence. It made everything so scientific and trim. But he himself remained a little dissatisfied, and having finished his classification he said yes, of course there was one more thing, and that was genius; it was useless for a novelist to know that there are nine sorts of weather, unless he has genius also. Cheered by this reflection, he classified novels by their tones. There are only two tones, personal and impersonal, and having given examples of each he grew pensive again and said, "Yes, but you must have genius too, or neither tone will profit."