I have dwelt so far chiefly upon political journalism, because it is so characteristic a part of modern literature, and illustrates so clearly some obvious tendencies of the time. I must say something, however, of another department of literature, which is sometimes said to have nothing at all to do with morality. The poet or the novelist, it is suggested, has no duties except that duty which Scheherazade discharged at the risk of her neck,--the duty of keeping her master amused. If, instead of telling him stories about genii, she had read him every morning an orthodox sermon or an ethical discourse, the one thousand and one nights would have been diminished by one thousand. Am I to tell our modern Scheherazades to forget the _Arabian Nights_, and adopt for our use passages from the homilies of Tillotson? Some religious persons have taken that horn of the dilemma, and perhaps with some plausibility. When the world is heaving with the throes of a social earthquake, what right have you or I to be lounging on sofas, telling silly stories about young ladies' and gentlemen's billings and cooings? Perhaps the condemnation should be extended to recreations less obviously frivolous. Your philosopher who tries to distinguish or to identify "is" and "is not," and to draw the true line between object and subject, has a very fascinating plaything, but is perhaps as far from influencing the world. Judging from the history of past philosophical cobwebs, he might as well be framing conundrums, or learning how to throw grain through the eye of a needle.