selling. I prophesy for this book, some day, such fame as is now enjoyed by Stevenson's "Travels with a Donkey." It is, in fact, just such a book, although admittedly the plump white horse, Pegasus, lacks somewhat the temperamental charm of R. L. S.'s best-drawn female character, Modestine.

I was in a college town recently, and passing a shop, I noticed some books in the window and at once entered, as is my habit, to look around. But I stayed only a moment, for in the rear of the shop I saw a large sign reading, "Laundry Received before 9 A.M. Returned the Same Day"- enterprise, without a doubt, but misdirected. If the bookshop is to survive, it must be made more attractive. The buying of books must be made a pleasure, just as the reading of them is; so that an intellectual man or woman with a leisure hour may spend it pleasantly and profitably increasing his or her store.

Every college town should support a bookshop. It need not necessarily be so splendid an undertaking as the Brick Row Print and Book Shop at New Haven, over which Byrne Hackett presides with such distinction, or even the Dunster House Book-Shop of Mr. Firuski of Cambridge. And to make these ventures the successes they deserve to be, faculty and students and the public alike should be loyal customers; but it should be remembered that these shops need not, and do not, depend entirely upon local trade. Inexpensive little catalogues can be issued and sent to customers half-way round the world.

Whose graceful verses and charming essays are known to all who love books; for whose first volume, "Parnassus on Wheels," I have prophesied such fame as is now enjoyed by R. L S.'s

64

Speaking of catalogues, I have just received one from a shop I visited when I was last in London, called The Serendipity Shop." It is located in a little slum known as Shepherd's Market, right in the heart of Mayfair. It may be that my readers will be curious to know how it gets its name. "Serendipity" was coined by Horace Walpole from an old name for Ceylon - Serendip. He made it, as he writes his friend Mann, out of an old fairy tale wherein the heroes "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of." Its name, therefore, suggests that, although you may not find in the Serendipity Shop what you came for, you will find something that you want, although you did not know it when you came in. Its proprietor, Mr. Everard Meynell, is the son of Alice Meynell, who, with her husband, did so much to relieve the sufferings of that fine poet, Francis Thompson, and who is herself a poet and essayist of distinction. Is not every bookshop in fact, if not in name, a Serendipity Shop?

I have no patience with people who affect to be fond of reading, and who seem to glory in their ignorance of editions. "All I am interested in," they say, "is the type: so long as the type is readable, I care for nothing else." This is a rather common form of cant. Everything about a book should be as sound and honest and good; but it need not be expensive.

I have always resented William Morris's attitude toward books. Constantly preaching on art and

beauty for the people, he set about producing books which are as expensive as they are beautiful, which only rich men can buy, and which not one man in a hundred owning them reads. Whereas my friend Mr. Mosher of Portland, Maine,― I call him friend because we have tastes in common; I have, in point of fact, never met him or done more than exchange a check for a book with him,- has produced, not a few, but hundreds of books which are as nearly faultless as books can be, at prices which are positively cheap. As is well known, Mr. Mosher relies very little upon the bookshops for the marketing of his product, but sells practically his entire output to individual buyers, by means of catalogues which are works of art in themselves. We may not fully realize it, but when Mr. Mosher passes away, booklovers of another generation will marvel at the certitude of his taste, editorial and other; for he comes as near to being the ideal manufacturer as any man who ever lived.

I would not for a moment contend that a man in the retail book-business will in a short time make a fortune. We are not a nation of readers, but a young and uncultured people. It is not to be forgotten, however, that we graduate every year an immense number of men and women from our colleges. Potentially, these are, or ought to be, readers; they will be readers, if publishers and booksellers do their duty.

If a library is the best university, as we have been told it is, the bookseller has his cue. Let him make