You may say that they are also always a little boring because they always try to teach a lesson or to prophesy. That is true, but when you have comforted yourself with the firm conviction that prophecies of this kind are invariably and wildly wrong the disturbance which they cause in your mind will disappear. I have among my most treasured books one of the early nineteenth century, called _Revelations of the Dead Alive_, in which the end of our age and its opinions upon _that_ age are presented, and it is all wrong! But it is very entertaining all the same. Most ridiculous but not least entertaining of such books are the Socialist books, the books showing humanity in the future all Socialist and going on like sticks. There is, indeed, another type of mournful Socialist book much more real and much more troubling, in which Socialism has failed, and the mass of men go on like slaves; but no matter. A prophecy (when it is scientific) is always and invariably absolutely and totally wrong:--and a great comfort it is to remember _that_! Yet another sort of Fantastic Book is your Journey to Hell or to Heaven. There is one I have read and re-read. It is called _The Outer Darkness_. I shall never cease to read it. It is a journey to a sort of Hell, and these are as a rule more entertaining than the Heavenly journey, though why I cannot tell. Does the same hold true of Dante? Lastly, and much the most rare and much the most valued of all are the books which are fantastic, though they cling to the present and to things known. In these I would include imaginary people in the Islands and in the Arctic, and even those which introduce half-rational beasts, for such books depend for their character not upon the matter of the fantasy, but upon the manner. There is a book called _Ninety North_, for instance, which is all about a race of people at the North Pole, but the power of the book resides not in the distance of the scene, but in the vision of the writer and in the little irony that trickles down every page. Who collects them or preserves them--the Fantastic Books? No one, I think. They are not catalogued under a separate Heading. They puzzle the writers of Indices; they bewilder Librarians. They must be grouted out of the mass of rubbish as Pigs in the Perigord grout out truffles. There is no other way. Also, in the Perigord, truffles are hunted with Hounds. The Unfortunate Man To all those who doubt the power of chance in human affairs; to all Stoics, Empiricists, Monists, Determinists, and all men whatsoever that terminate in this fashion, Greeting: Read what follows: