My Baronite has made an attempt to read _Lourdes_ in the convenient shape in which Messrs. CHATTO AND WINDUS present it to the English-speaking public. He honestly admits that, finding on a rapid glance through its pages the first chapter was a fair sample of the bulk, he gave it up. M. ZOLA has avowedly set himself the task of minutely describing the pitiful experience of the halt, the lame, the blind, and much worse, who journey to Lourdes in the desperate hope of miraculous recovery. He may at least be congratulated on having achieved his object. Only, the report with all its horrible detail would more fittingly have appeared in the pages of the _Lancet_ or the _British Medical Journal_. Since it has been published in book form realism should have been carried one step further. The volume ought to have been bound in a poultice instead of ordinary cloth. As it is, the leaves turned over fill the room with faint, sickening smell of the hospital ward. _Lourdes_ is certainly not alluring. It is, in truth, _lourd--et sale aussi_. Once again, for the benefit of all brother-scribes who, for a while, or frequently, may have to do their scribbling when journeying, or while compelled by illness to remain in Bedford-under-Clothes,--as was but recently the case with your own Baronius, pains and counterpanes all over him,--the use of "_The Hairless Author's Paper-pad_," _i.e._ "_The Author's Hairless Paper-pad_," issued by the _Leadenhall Press_, on which the author can write with pencil or with pen,--for the blotter is handily placed at the back of the pad,--is strongly recommended by the Ready Writer's and Ready Reader's best friend, THE BLAMELESS BARON DE BOOK-WORMS. * * * * * MEM. BY AN OLD MAID.--If you "look over your age," you won't find anyone else willing to do the same. * * * * * [Illustration: DEEPER AND DEEPER STILL. _He._ "ISN'T THAT MRS. GAYLY SITTING BY THOMPSON? HOW _FAT_ SHE'S GROWN! WHAT A MISFORTUNE FOR A WOMAN TO LOOK LIKE THAT!" _She._ "OH--YOU SHOULD NOT SAY THAT TO _ME_!" _He._ "WHY NOT? OF COURSE I ONLY MEANT WHEN THE WOMAN IS _YOUNG_!"] * * * * * "FOR EXAMPLE!" _Or, an Ex-Radical's Reflections in a Peer-Glass._ ["I say that I, at any rate, am ready to view with favour any reasonable proposal which would add an elective element to the composition of the House of Lords, which would bring them into closer touch with popular sentiment."--_Mr. Chamberlain at Leeds (Times' Report)._] "_They toil not, neither do they spin_"-- Aught but occasional orations! Ah! that was in my days of sin. How time has altered our relations Yes, I _was_ down upon the Lords, When I compared them with the lilies: New Rads remind me of my words; But then New Rads are all old sillies.