Now this condition of affairs, which is positively disastrous to all literary art, is brought about by the lack of the one vital point in the modern education of the British and American people,--namely, that they have not been taught “how” to read. As a result of this, they frequently pronounce a book “too long” or “too dull,”--too this, or too that, without having looked at more than perhaps twenty pages of its contents. They will skim over any amount of cheap newspapers and trashy society “weeklies” full of the unimportant movements and doings of he and she and they, but to take up a book with any serious intention of reading it thoroughly, is a task which only the thoughtful few will be found ready to undertake. What is called the appreciation of the “belles lettres” is indeed “caviare to the general.” Knowledge brings confidence; and if it were made as much the fashion to read as it is to ride in motor-cars, some improvement in manners and conduct might be the happy result of such a prevailing taste. But as matters stand at the present day, there are a large majority of the “educated” class, who actually do not know the beginnings of “how” to read. They have never learned--and some of them will never learn. They cannot realize the unspeakable delight and charm of giving one’s self up to one’s author, _sans_ prejudice, _sans_ criticism, _sans_ everything that could possibly break or mar the spell, and being carried on the wings of gentle romance away from Self, away from the everyday cares and petty personalities of social convention, and observance, and living “with” the characters which have been created by the man or woman whose fertile brain and toiling pen have unitedly done their best to give this little respite and holiday to those who will take it and rejoice in it with gratitude. Few there are nowadays who will so permit themselves to be carried away. Far larger is the class of people who take up a novel or a volume of essays, merely to find fault with it and fling it aside half unread. The attitude of the bad-tempered child who does not know what toy to break next, is the attitude of many modern readers. Nothing is more manifestly unfair to an author than to judge a book by the mere “skimming” of its pages, and this injustice becomes almost felonious when the merits or demerits of the work are decided without reading it at all. For instance, Smith meets Jones in the train which is taking them out to their respective “little places” in the country, and says: