ously to heart. I will tell you. It is not, I confess, for patriotic reasons; not that I weep to see England the least among nations in this particular. It is for reasons purely personal and selfish. I love to read criticism. And to deprive me of the chance to do so is to deprive me of a pleasure. I love to discover my own thoughts and feelings about a book accurately expressed in elegant and original sentences by another fellow. When I happen upon such criticism I experience a glow of delight and a glow of pride, almost as great as if I had written it myself; and yet I have had no trouble. Monsieur Anatole France has kindly taken the trouble for me. Well, sir, we have no Monsieur Anatole France in these islands; or, if we have one, he doesn't write for our professedly critical journals. I ransack the serried columns of the Saturday Review, and its contemporaries and rivals, in vain, from week to week, to discover my own thoughts and feelings about books accurately expressed in elegant and original sentences. I discover pretty nearly everything except the thing I pine for. I discover plenty of pedantry and plenty of ignorance, plenty of feebleness and plenty of good stodgy "ability," plenty of glitter and plenty of dullness, plenty of fulsomeness and more than a plenty of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; but the thing I seek is the one thing I never find.
When I went abroad for my holiday, in August, I took with me a bagful of comparatively recent books, all of which I read, or tried to read, while I was drinking the waters and being douched and swindled at Aix-les-Bains. I yearn, sir, to see my thoughts and feelings about these books set forth in elegant and original phrases by another fellow. And herewith I offer a prize. I will indicate very cursorily in a few rough paragraphs what my thoughts and feelings about the books in question are; and then I will offer a prize of—well, of fifty shillings—say, £2 10s. 0d.—to any one,
