And while we are enjoying this charming story, let us not forget to give thanks to the Harpers for the courage which they have shown in publishing it, for if there is anything calculated to injure them in the eyes of the gas-fitters and paper-hangers it is a novel in which the truth is told in the high-minded, cleanly, and straightforward fashion in which Mr. Du Maurier tells it here. Fancy the feelings of a Christian Endeavorer--the modern prototype of the Levite who passed by on the other side--on finding in a publication of the sort which he has always found as soothing to his prejudices and hypocrisy and pet meannesses as the purring of a cat on a warm hearthstone--fancy the feelings of such an one as he finds the mantle of charity thrown over the sins and weaknesses of the erring, suffering, exquisitely human Latin Quarter model. One need not read more than a single instalment of “Trilby” to realize that its author never learned the trade of letters in either the _Ledger_ primary school or the Dr. Holland academy, for there is scarcely a chapter that does not fairly teem with matter that has long been forbidden in all well-regulated magazine offices, and I know that a great many experienced manufacturers of and dealers in serial fiction believe that it marks a new era in literature. But to return to our sheep--and in the case of Mr. Rhodes the word is an apt one--why was that article about the Latin Quarter of Paris published? Perhaps some of my readers think it was that the Scribner people did not know any better, or because Mr. Rhodes belonged to that “ring of favored contributors” of which one hears so much in certain artistic circles. In reply, let me say that the “ring of favored contributors” is a myth, or at least I have never been able to find reasonable proof of its existence. Magazine editors buy exactly what they consider suitable for their readers, and they buy from whoever offers what they want. If they allowed themselves to be influenced by their small personal likes and dislikes the whole literary system which they have reared would go to pieces, and some dialect-writers that I wot of would be “back on the old farm,” like the slick chaps in eight of the “Two Brothers” poems. As for the Scribner editors “not knowing any better,” let none be deceived. They have always known a great deal more than their rejected contributors gave them credit for, and there was a distinct and vital reason for every important step that they took in building up the magnificent property now known the world over as the _Century Magazine_. Personally I have the highest confidence in the wisdom of the magazine barons. If a barbed-wire fence is stretched across a certain pasture it is with a purpose as definite and rational as that which led Mr. Bonner to reject Jack Moran’s “Stepmother’s Prayer” and pay $160 for the sixteen poems about the two brothers.