Then the doctor took up, each in its turn, the writings and writers whom we had heard commended by the previous speakers. “Tolstoï is all very well,” he said, “if you happen to be fond of Russian pessimism, and are not fortunate enough to be familiar with classic English literature, which contains hundreds of stronger, better-drawn pictures than _Sevastopol_.” He dismissed Hoffmann from the discussion with the contemptuous remark that he was “simply a Dutch Poe, and very Dutch at that.” In speaking of Ibsen he threw his audience into convulsions of laughter by gravely comparing _The Doll’s House_ with Jacob Abbott’s _Rollo Learning to Work_, a book which he assured us not only surpassed Ibsen’s masterpiece in the simplicity and directness of its style, but abounded in dramatic situations that were as thrilling as any that the Northern writer had ever devised. “For instance,” he said, “there is a chapter in that estimable little Rollo book which tells us how the hero was making a woodpile, and, disregarding the sound counsel of the conservative Jonas, insisted upon piling the sticks of wood with the small ends out and the large ends inside against the wall of the woodshed. Do any of you, my friends, recall the scene of the heap toppling over? It is portrayed in Mr. Abbott’s most realistic style, and is in itself an ideal Ibsen climax. “Do you know,” he exclaimed, advancing to the edge of the platform and shaking a long, bony forefinger at his auditors, “do you know--you who call this Scandinavian a dramatist--that perhaps the most thrilling dramatic situation in all literature is found here in this book, _Robinson Crusoe_? If you want to know what a dramatic situation is, read Daniel De Foe’s account of Crusoe finding the human footprint on the shore of his desert island. And then read the whole book carefully through and enjoy its vivid descriptions, its superb English, its philosophy, and the great lessons which it teaches. And when you have finished it ask yourselves if any man ever obtained as complete a mastery of the magic, beautiful art of story-telling as did Daniel De Foe!” When the doctor finished his address he was greeted with thunders of applause, while Fantail, Gnowital, and Mrs. Measel sat dazed at this sudden attack on their stronghold. “Thank Heaven for a little plain, ordinary sense at last,” was the way in which some one expressed the common sentiment of the club. “And to think,” chattered Mrs. Symple, “that we were cultivated all along and didn’t know it! Why, I read the Rollo books and _Robinson Crusoe_ when I was a child, and never dreamt that they were artistic or literary or that sort of thing. I thought they were just stories. The idea of our paying a dollar apiece for Mrs. Measel’s lectures, and muddling our heads with Ibsen and Tolstoï and the rest of them that Professor Gnowital told us were so grand, while all the time we were really cultured and didn’t know it!”