Henry James must yield first honors as a novelist, it may be, to others of his century if not of his generation. As a writer, above all as a writer of fine, imaginative criticism of the intellect as it moves through the complexities of modern civilization, he yields to no one of our time. Whether he has earned his distinction as an American writer I do not know, although I am inclined to believe that he is more American than the critics suspect; but as a master of English, and as a great figure in the broad sweep of international English literature, his place is secure. Samuel Butler's "Erewhon" has passed safely into the earthly paradise of the so-called classics. It has been recommended by distinguished men of letters, reprinted and far more widely read than on its first appearance; it has passed, by quotation and reference, into contemporary literature, and been taught in college classes. "Erewhon Revisited," written thirty years after "Erewhon," is less well known. Mr. Moreby Acklom (whose name, let me assure the suspicious reader, is his own and not an Erewhonian inversion), in a most informing preface to a new edition, makes two assertions which may serve as my excuse for again endeavoring to explain the fascination for our generation of the work of Samuel Butler. College professors, he avers, have an antipathy for Samuel Butler; the chief interest of Butler, he further states, was in theology. Now I am a college professor without antipathy to Samuel Butler, with, on the contrary, the warmest admiration for his sardonic genius. And furthermore Butler's antipathy for college professors, which is supposed to have drawn their fire in return, is based upon a ruling passion far deeper than his accidental interest in theology, a passion that gives the tone and also the key to the best of his writings and which brought him into conflict with the "vested interests" of his times. It is his passion for honest thinking. If Butler's mark had been theology merely, his books would have passed with the interest in his target. He would be as difficult reading to-day as Swift in his "Tale of a Tub."