I will pursue the subject no further. Those who read these simple statements may not, I fear, find them as edifying or as stimulating as the happier recollections of more favored souls; but it is barely possible that they may see in them the unvarnished reflection of some of their own youthful experiences. LITERARY SHIBBOLETHS. There is a delightful little story, very well told by Mr. James Payn, the novelist, about an unfortunate young woman who for years concealed in her bosom the terrible fact that she did not think “John Gilpin” funny; and who at last, in an unguarded moment, confessed to him her guilty secret, and was promptly comforted by the assurance that, for his part, he had always found it dull. The weight that was lifted from that girl’s mind made her feel for the first time that she was living in an age which tolerates freedom of conscience, and in a land where the Holy Office is unknown. It is only to be feared that her newly acquired liberty inclined her to be as much of a Philistine as Mr. Payn himself, and to believe, with him, that all orthodoxy is of necessity hypocritical, and that when a man says he admires the “Faerie Queene,” or “Paradise Lost,” or Rabelais, the chances are that he knows little or nothing about them. Now, as a matter of fact, it is seldom safe to judge others too rigidly by our own inadequate standards, or to assume that because we prefer “In Memoriam” to “Lycidas,” our friend is merely adopting a tone of grievous superiority when he modestly but firmly asserts his preference for the earlier dirge. It is even possible that although we may find “Don Quixote” dull, and “The Excursion” vapid, another reader, no whit cleverer, we are sure, than ourselves, may enjoy them both, with honest laughter and with keen delight. There is doubtless as much affectation in the world of books as in the worlds of art and fashion; but there must always be a certain proportion of men and women who, whether by natural instinct or acquired grace, derive pleasure from the highest ranks of literature, and who should in common justice be permitted to say so, and to return thanks for the blessings accorded them. “It is in our power to think as we will,” says Marcus Aurelius, and it should be our further privilege to give unfettered expression to our thoughts.