makes greatly to his advantage; he is then regarded as a superior
person. So among a school of Anglo-Saxon readers, it is necessary to
a man, if he would gain literary credit, that he should lack the
sense of humour. One or two curious modern examples occur to me of
literary success secured chiefly by this failing.

All these authors are my favourites; but such catholic taste is held
nowadays to be no taste. One is told that if one loves Shakespeare,
one must of necessity hate Ibsen; that one cannot appreciate Wagner
and tolerate Beethoven; that if we admit any merit in Dore, we are
incapable of understanding Whistler. How can I say which is my
favourite novel? I can only ask myself which lives clearest in my
memory, which is the book I run to more often than to another in that
pleasant half hour before the dinner-bell, when, with all apologies
to good Mr. Smiles, it is useless to think of work.

I find, on examination, that my "David Copperfield" is more
dilapidated than any other novel upon my shelves. As I turn its dog-
eared pages, reading the familiar headlines "Mr. Micawber in
difficulties," "Mr. Micawber in prison," "I fall in love with Dora,"
"Mr. Barkis goes out with the tide," "My child wife," "Traddles in a
nest of roses"--pages of my own life recur to me; so many of my
sorrows, so many of my joys are woven in my mind with this chapter or
the other. That day--how well I remember it when I read of "David's"
wooing, but Dora's death I was careful to skip. Poor, pretty little
Mrs. Copperfield at the gate, holding up her baby in her arms, is
always associated in my memory with a child's cry, long listened for.
I found the book, face downwards on a chair, weeks afterwards, not
moved from where I had hastily laid it.