lecture, replied, "I have a three-guinea lecture and a five-guinea lecture and a ten-guinea lecture, but I can't honestly recommend the three-guinea lecture." I said that I had only three-guinea lectures in stock and that I could n't recommend them, especially as I should have to charge a hundred guineas for them. No doubt my correspondents thought me mad.

It was Sir Walter Raleigh who suggested that I write a paper on Mrs. Thrale, although my title for it, "A Light-Blue Stocking," is my own. And speaking of Sir Walter, let me tell a story of him, which I have never seen in print, but which deserves to be immortal.

He was to deliver a series of ten-guinea lectures at Princeton University, and was expecting to be met by President Hibben at the railway station. Just at the hour of his arrival, Dr. Hibben discovered that he had a very important meeting of the trustees, or something, which he could not very well miss. There was nothing to be done but call upon one of the younger professors to go to the station, meet the distinguished man, and escort him to "Prospect," Dr. Hibben's residence.

The professor thus called upon was glad to be of service, but remarked, "I have never met Sir Walter. How shall I know him?”

"Oh, very easily," replied Dr. Hibben; "Sir Walter is a very large, distinguished-looking man. You can't miss him; you will probably know almost every man getting off the train from New York; the man you don't know will be the man you are looking for."

With these instructions Dr. Hibben's representative proceeded to the station, met the incoming train, and seeing a large, distinguished-looking man wearing a silk hat, approached him, remarking, "I presume I am addressing Sir Walter Raleigh."

The gentleman thus accosted was much astonished, but, pulling himself together, quickly replied, "No! I'm Christopher Columbus. You will find Sir Walter Raleigh in the smoking-car playing poker with Queen Elizabeth."

The man, as it turned out, was a New York banker; he had heard much of the impudence of the Princeton undergraduate and decided to nip it in the bud. No one enjoyed the story more than Sir Walter himself when it was told him.

In the words of "Koheleth," as my friend Dr. Jastrow prefers to call the author of "Ecclesiastes,' in his delightful book, "The Gentle Cynic," - "Hear the conclusion of the whole matter: 'Much study is weariness to the flesh."" "Much" study, observe. I have given my subject only such study as has produced, not weariness, but pleasure. Books are for me a solace and a joy. We are told that of the making of them there is no end. Be it so. Let us rejoice that, whatever comes, books will continue to be, books that suit our every mood and fancy. If all is vanity, as "The Preacher" says, how can we better employ our time than by reading books and writing about them?

III

LUCK

I AM a strong believer in luck. I know that Emerson says that luck is the refuge of the shallow, but I don't care much what one philospher says; I will find you another philosopher of equal standing who will flatly disagree. Gibbon, in his fascinating "Autobiography," speaks of his life as being the lucky chance of one unit against millions; and in proportion to my deserts I have been far luckier than he; but we can have too much of a good thing. I once heard a story of a man who, walking along a country road, noticed a horse-shoe lying at his feet, and, picking it up, remarked to himself, "I'm in luck." A few yards farther on he picked up another, saying as he did so, "This is certainly my lucky day." A little farther on he came across another, and then another, and he kept on picking them up until he was loaded down with them. Finally he saw, some distance ahead of him, a large wagon full of old, rusty horse-shoes, on its way to the junk-heap, which led him to make the wise observation that too much luck is junk.

In trudging along the dusty road of life, I have picked up symbols of luck just often enough to make me feel sure that they were not falling from an overloaded wagon. I was lucky when my wife picked me

out for her husband and so delicately ensnared me that I thought I was doing the courting. My children have not been a bitter disappointment, and I have been singularly blessed in the matter of a business partner. And finally, I wrote a book, the success of which I feel sure made even my friends admit that I was right, at least once, when I said that my achievements were largely — luck. luck. How my book came to be published was told in the introduction, and need not be told over again. Nor am I now concerned with the impression it made on others; its readers could work their way through its pages and forget it, but its publication had a profound effect upon its writer. It gave him a reputation as a collector so far above that which he merited that, in an effort to live up to it, he has well-nigh ruined himself. We are so constituted that we never care to hear much of the successes of our friends; but their difficulties are very comforting to us, and, properly set down, make very pretty reading; so I continue.

The foolish and ignorant frequently say to me: "However do you find such lovely and wonderful things?" "Lovely" and "wonderful" are the words they use; and when, in reply, I tell them that the difficulty is not in the finding but in the paying for such treasures as I seem to require for my reputation's sake, they think that I am spoofing them, to use a word we have borrowed from our English cousins.

There is, of course, a certain class of literary property to which I have no right- items so far above my means that they make no appeal whatever. I

remember once hearing an old gentleman of considerable means say, in reply to my question why he did not buy such and such things that I knew he would enjoy: "I would like to have them, of course; but if I should buy them, what would the Vanderbilts buy ?" In like manner, assuming that the possession of a pocketful of Shakespeare quartos meant more to me than the possession of wife and children with a tight roof over our heads, and that I should yield to temptation, what would the real collectors do?

But there are countless items in what may be called the second class, which formerly used to come my way and tempt me occasionally, but which now come in close formation. Such defense as I am able to make seems to have no effect whatever. If life is, as life is said to be, just one damn thing after another, what shall be said of my existence, temperamentally fitted to withstand everything except temptation? And the arguments of my friends, the booksellers, are so skillfully brought to bear; they scratch where it itches, and I am so grateful - until the first of the month, when the bills come in.

I had supposed that I could resist flattery. I have been selling something or other all my life. I know something of the wiles of the class to which I belong; but since I first tried my prentice-hand at making a living by selling things, a class has grown up so skillful that I am how does the old phrase go? - but wax in their hands. Be this as it may, my ruin is impending - I know it is; and when the sheriff gets me, as he surely will, and to satisfy my creditors my