You remember the tale of the rural parish priest at dinner with his bishop. The host, desiring to poke a little quiet fun, asked him whether it were lawful to baptize a man in soup. “I should make a distinction,” calmly answered the priest; “if it were good thick soup, I should say not; if it were wishy-washy stuff like this we are eating, it would be quite proper.” So long as we do not realize that the same literary consistency is not adapted both to nutrition and to immersion we shall not be able to decide on what are the best books. But is there no general line of division between bad and good books? I can give but a few, but I venture to lay down one or two simple rules for testing. My tests would be-- (1) The test of language. No book can be good that is not written in correct English. By this I mean, of course, that the author himself must speak correctly; his characters may be ignorant persons and he will naturally make them talk accordingly. (2) The test of simplicity and clearness. No book can be good whose author expresses himself in words that are too large for his subject or in sentences that are so involved that they cannot be easily understood. (3) The best of good taste. No book can be good whose author uses words or expressions that would not be used by cultivated people. (4) The test of truth. No book can be good whose subject matter is false; or, in case of fiction, whose manner of telling is such as to make it seem absurdly improbable. The plot of the book may, it is true, lack probability. It may be frankly improbable like a fairy tale, but the author must not seem to lose faith in it himself, and no matter how impossible his foundation the structure that he builds on it must hold together. I venture to say that if a book survives these tests--if it is simply and clearly expressed in good English and in the best taste and is consistently put together--it cannot be a bad book so far as style goes.