But to get all the enjoyment out of an author’s imagination, we, who read his books, must ourselves “imagine” with him. We must let him take us where he will; we must not draw back and refuse to go with him. We must not approach him in a carping spirit, or make up our minds before opening his book, that we shall not like it. We should not allow our particular views of life, or our pet prejudices to intervene between ourselves and the writer whose power of the pen may teach us something new. And above all things, we should prepare ourselves to appreciate--not to depreciate. Nothing is easier than to find fault. The cheapest sort of mind can do that. The dirty little street-boy can enter the British Museum and find fault with the Pallas Athene. But the Pallas Athene remains the same. To be Pallas Athene is sufficient. The power of appreciation is a great test of character. To appreciate warmly, even enthusiastically, is generally the proof of a kind and sunny disposition; to depreciate is to be in yourself but a sad soul at best! For depreciation in one thing leads to depreciation in another; and by and by the daily depreciator finds himself depreciating his Maker, and wondering why he was ever born! And he will never find an answer to that question till he changes his humour and begins to appreciate; then, and only then, will life explain its brightest meaning. Of course, when vulgarity, coarseness, slang, and ribaldry are set forward as “attractions” in certain books and newspapers, it is necessary to depreciate what is not the power of the pen, but the abuse of the pen. Such abuse is easily recognizable. The libellous paragraph, the personal sneer, the society scandal--there is no need to enumerate them. But we do not call the writers of these things authors, or even journalists. They are merely on a par with the anonymous letter-writer whom all classes of society agree in regarding as the most contemptible creature alive. And they do not come at all under the heading of the power of the pen, their only strength being weakness. I have already said that I believe the Power of the Pen to be the greatest power for good or evil in the world. And I may add that this power is never more apparent than in the Press. The Press nowadays is not a literary press; classic diction and brilliancy of style do not distinguish it by any means. It would be difficult to find a single newspaper or magazine to which we could turn for a lesson in pure and elegant English, such as that of Addison, Steele or Macaulay. But in the Scott or Byron days, the Press was literary to a very great extent, and as a natural consequence it had a powerful influence on the success or failure of an author’s work. That influence is past. Its work to-day deals, not with books, but with nations.