The question which confronts the reading public is this: “How far should the law of kindness, which we all profess to follow, influence us in allowing to our fellow creatures the happiness of writing books about themselves?” There is no use saying that it would be impossible to stop them. Nothing in the way of inhibitions is impossible to the United States. “There is no country,” says the observant Santayana, “in which people live under more powerful compulsions.” Americans have so far been inclined to tolerate the vanity of the autobiography, because mankind is naturally vain, and to forgive its dullness, because life is frequently dull. Moreover, they are well disposed towards any form of art or letters that lays claim to the quality of truth; and it is generally conceded that a man knows himself better than others know him. He does not know, and he never can know, how he appears to his acquaintances. The sound of his own voice, the light in his own eye, his accent, his mannerisms, his laugh, the sensations, pleasurable or otherwise, which he produces by his presence--these things, apparent to every casual observer, are unfamiliar to him. But his _naturel_ (a word too expressive for translation) which others must estimate by the help of circumstantial evidence, he can, if he be honest, know and judge. This, at least, is the theory on which rest the lucidity of art and the weight of conscience. Yet George Sand, who was given to self-inspection, self-analysis and self-applause, admitted the dimness of her inward vision. “The study of the human heart,” she wrote, “is of such a nature, that the more we are absorbed by it, the less clearly do we see.” Strayed Sympathies It is probably more instructive to entertain a sneaking kindness for any unpopular person than to give way to perfect raptures of moral indignation against his abstract vices.--ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.