foregone conclusion, and matters but little.

One sees throughout the book the strong influence that other minds,
Shakespeare notably, have produced upon this mind; here its attitude
is never merely pessimistic. It does not criticise them, it has
absorbed them.

One last word concerning this novel. It does not seek to formulate, or
to preach directly. Its chief value and the keynote to its motive lie
in the words that Sienkiewicz at the beginning puts into the mouth of
his hero:--

"A man who leaves memoirs, whether well or badly written, provided
they be sincere, renders a service to future psychologists and
writers, giving them not only a faithful picture, but likewise _human
documents_ that may be relied upon."

A _human document_--the modern novel is this, when it is anything at
all. If Mr. Crawford's canons of literary art are true, and we believe
they are, they give us a standard by which to judge; he tells us that
the heart in each man and woman means the whole body of innate and
inherited instincts, impulses, and beliefs, which, when quiescent, we
call Self, when roused to emotional activity, we call Heart. It is to
this self, or heart, he observes, that whatever is permanent in the
novel must appeal; and whatever does so must live and find a hearing
with humanity "so long as humanity is human." If this be a test, we
cannot doubt as to what will be the reception of "Without Dogma."

A few words concerning the novelist himself. The facts obtainable
are of the most meagre kind. He was born in 1845, in Lithuania. The