human nature, to know the needs of the human soul; and they will find this nature and these needs set forth as nowhere else by the great imaginative writers, whether of prose or of poetry. The room for choice is so limitless that to my mind it seems absurd to try to make catalogues which shall be supposed to appeal to all the best thinkers. This is why I have no sympathy whatever with writing lists of the One Hundred Best Books, or the Five-Foot Library. It is all right for a man to amuse himself by composing a list of a hundred very good books; and if he is to go off for a year or so where he cannot get many books, it is an excellent thing to choose a five-foot library of particular books which in that particular year and on that particular trip he would like to read. But there is no such thing as a hundred books that are best for all men, or for the majority of men, or for one man at all times; and there is no such thing as a five-foot library which will satisfy the needs of even one particular man on different occasions extending over a number of years. Milton is best for one mood and Pope for another. Because a man likes Whitman or Browning or Lowell he should not feel himself debarred from Tennyson or Kipling or Korner or Heine or the Bard of the Dimbovitza. Tolstoy's novels are good at one time and those of Sienkiewicz at another; and he is fortunate who can relish "Salammbo" and "Tom Brown" and the "Two Admirals" and "Quentin Durward" and "Artemus Ward" and the "Ingoldsby Legends" and "Pickwick" and "Vanity Fair." Why, there are hundreds of books like these, each one of which, if really read, really assimilated, by the person to whom it happens to appeal, will enable that person quite unconsciously to furnish himself with much ammunition which he will find of use in the battle of life.