or quite the opposite—the old thing, the medi- æval decorated hat box, in which there are hounds with waists diminishing like the waist of the hour-glass and deer, both white and brown, and birds and seated people; it may be no more than a square of parquetry; the literal biography perhaps—in letters stand- ing well apart upon a parchment-like expanse; or that which is better without words, which means just as much or just as little as it is understood to mean by the observer—the grave of Adam, prefigured by himself; a bed of beans or artichokes in six varieties of blue; the snipe-legged hiero— glyphic in three parts; it may be anything. Too stern an intellectual emphasis, i- ronic or other—upon this quality or that, detracts from one’s enjoyment; it must not wish to disarm anything; nor may the approved tri- umph easily be honoured—that which is great because something else is small. It comes to this: of whatever sort it is, it must make known the fact that it has been displayed to acknowledge the spiritual forces which have made it; and it must admit that it is the work of X, if X produced it; of Y, if made by Y. It must be a voluntary gift with the name written on it. PICKING AND CHOOSING Literature is a phase of life: if one is afraid of it, the situation is irremediable; if one approaches it familiarly, what one says of it is worthless. Words are constructive when they are true; the opaque allusion—the simulated flight upward—accomplishes nothing. Why cloud the fact that Shaw is selfconscious in the field of sentiment but is otherwise re- warding? that James is all that has been said of him but is not profound? It is not Hardy the distinguished novelist and Hardy the poet, but one man “interpreting life through the medium of the emotions.” If he must give an opinion, it is permissible that the critic should know what he likes. Gordon Craig with his “this is I” and “this is mine,” with his three wise men, his “sad French greens” and his Chinese cherries—Gordon Craig, so inclinational and unashamed—has carried the precept of being a good critic, to the last extreme. And Burke is a psychologist—of acute, raccoon- like curiosity. Summa diligentia; to the humbug, whose name is so amusing—very young and ve- ry rushed, Cæsar crossed the Alps on the “top of a diligence.” We are not daft about the meaning but this familiarity with wrong meanings puzzles one. Humming- bug, the candles are not wired for electricity. Small dog, going over the lawn, nipping the linen and saying