This would be the opportunity to fight the battle of the novelists against Mrs. Grundy. But I am not inclined to waste ink on that conceded cause. After the reception of books like _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ and even _David Grieve_, it is plain that the English novelist, who cares and dares, may say almost anything he or she likes without calling flame out of heaven upon his head. There has been a great reform in this respect since the days when our family friend Mr. Punch hazarded his very existence by referring, in grimmest irony, to the sufferings of "the gay." We do not want to claim the right, which the French have so recklessly abused, of describing at will, and secure against all censure, the brutal, the abnormal and the horrible. No doubt a silly prudishness yet exists. There are still clergymen's wives who write up indignantly from The Vicarage, Little Pedlington. I have just received an epistle from such an one, telling me that certain poor productions I am editing "make young hearts acquainted with vice, and put hell-fire in their hearts." "Woe unto you in your evil work," says this lady, doubtless a most sincere and conscientious creature, but a little behind the times. Of her and her race individually, I wish to say nothing but what is kind; but I confess I am glad to know that the unreflecting spirit they represent is passing away. It is passing away so rapidly that there is really no need to hearten the novelists against it. I am weary to death of the gentleman who is always telling us what a splendid novel he would write, if the publishers would only allow him to be naughty. Let him be bold and naughty, and we will see. If he is so poor-spirited as to be afraid to say what he feels he ought to say because of this kind of criticism, his exposition of the verities is not likely to be of very high value. But I should like to ask our friends the leading novelists whether they do not see their way to enlarging a little the sphere of their labours. What is the use of this tyranny which they wield, if it does not enable them to treat life broadly and to treat it whole? The varieties of amatory intrigue form a fascinating subject, which is not even yet exhausted. But, surely, all life is not love-making. Even the youngest have to deal with other interests, although this may be the dominant one; while, as we advance in years, Venus ceases to be even the ruling divinity. Why should there not be novels written for middle-aged persons? Has the struggle for existence a charm only in its reproductive aspects? If every one of us regards his or her life seriously, with an absolute and unflinching frankness, it will be admitted that love, extended so as to include all its forms--its sympathetic, its imaginative, its repressed, as well as its fulfilled and acknowledged, forms--takes a place far more restricted than the formulæ of the novelist would lead the inhabitant of some other planet to conjecture.