Of all books it is to be said--of novels as well--that none is great that is not true, and that cannot be true which does not carry inherence of truth. Now every book is true to some reader. The “Arabian Nights” tales do not seem impossible to a little child, the only delight him. The novels of “The Duchess” seem true to a certain class of readers, if only because they treat of a society to which those readers are entirely unaccustomed. “Robinson Crusoe” is a gospel to the world, and yet it is the most palpably and innocently impossible of books. It is so plausible because the author has ingeniously or accidentally set aside the usual earmarks of plausibility. When an author plainly and easily knows what the reader does not know and enough more to continue the chain of seeming reality of truth a little further, he convinces the reader of his truth and ability. Those men, therefore, who have been endowed with the genius almost unconsciously to absorb, classify, combine, arrange and dispense vast knowledge in a bold, striking or noble manner, are the recognized greatest men of genius for the simple reason that the readers of the world who know most recognize all they know in these writers, together with that spirit of sublime imagination that suggests still greater realms of truth and beauty. What Shakesepare was to the intellectual leaders of his day, “The Duchess” was to countless immature young folks of her day who were looking for “something to read.” All truth is history, but all history is not truth. Written history is notoriously no well-cleaner. III. READING THE FIRST NOVEL BEING MOSTLY REMINISCENCES OF EARLY CRIMES AND JOYS