The astute dentist says very sensibly: “If there is any money to be made out of me, why not make it myself? If there is any gossip to be told about me, why not tell it myself? If modesty restrains me from praising myself as highly as I should expect a biographer to praise me, prudence dictates the ignoring of circumstances which an indiscreet biographer might drag into the light. I am, to say the least, as safe in my own hands as I should be in anybody else’s; and I shall, moreover, enjoy the pleasure dearest to the heart of man, the pleasure of talking about myself in the terms that suit me best.” Perhaps it is this open-hearted enjoyment which communicates itself to the reader, if he has a generous disposition, and likes to see other people have a good time. Even the titles of certain autobiographical works are saturated with self-appreciation. We can see the august simper with which a great lady in the days of Charles the Second headed her manuscript: “A True Relation of the Birth, Breeding and Life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. Written by Herself.” Mr. Theodore Dreiser’s “A Book About Myself” sounds like nothing but a loud human purr. The intimate wording of “Margot Asquith, An Autobiography,” gives the key to all the cheerful confidences that follow. Never before or since has any book been so much relished by its author. She makes no foolish pretence of concealing the pleasure that it gives her; but passes on with radiant satisfaction from episode to episode, extracting from each in turn its full and flattering significance. The volumes are as devoid of revelations as of reticence. If at times they resemble the dance of the seven veils, the reader is invariably reassured when the last veil has been whisked aside, and he sees there is nothing behind it.