There is another variety of literature which I dislike, and which seems to have attained a ranker and more unwholesome growth in this country than elsewhere. I refer to those articles and books whose sole purpose seems to be the exploiting of men and women who are really unworthy of any serious consideration. The Johnsonian period is rich in specimens of this sort of work, and the future historian will marvel at the absurd prominence given in this enlightened age to people who have never accomplished anything in their lives, and who themselves evince the greatest eagerness to transmit to posterity authentic records of their failures. “How I Lost the Battle,” by Captain Runoff, of the Russian army; “Driven out of Asia Minor,” by General Skates; and “Ever so Many Miles from the North Pole,” by Lieutenant Queary, are excellent examples of this style of literature; but a far lower depth was reached about two years ago, when the Harpers burst into enthusiastic praise of a young man named Chanler, who had announced his intention of discovering Africa, and proposed to awe and conciliate the ferocious native chiefs by performing in their presence various difficult feats of legerdemain which he had taken the pains to learn from a professional master in London. What has become of that gifted young man for whom the Harpers predicted such a rosy future? Perhaps at this very moment he is seated in a deep, shady African jungle making an omelet in a high silk hat or converting a soiled pocket-handkerchief into a glass globe full of goldfish. I can picture him standing, alone and unarmed, before thousands of hostile spears. His eye is clear and his cheek unblanched. In another moment he will be taking rabbits out of the chieftain’s ears, and the dusky warriors will cower, in abject submission, at his feet. There is one thing that can be said in favor of Mr. Chanler, and that is that up to the present moment he has not annoyed his fellow-creatures with any lectures or articles or stories descriptive of the wonders that he did not discover during his journeyings in the Dark Continent. His reticence is commendable, and should serve as an example to various windy travelers who “explore” during a period of eight weeks and then talk for the rest of their lives. Verily this is a golden age for “fakirs,” quacks, and intellectual feather-weights, and my friendly advice to all who may be classified under any one of those three heads is to make hay while the sun shines, because, in my belief, the coming decade will see them relegated to the obscurity in which they naturally belong. But our little tuppenny gods and celebrities have kicked up so much dust of late years that they have contrived to obscure the fame of men who are infinitely better worth talking about.