4. Has he heroes and heroines who are not cads and cadesses?

5. Has he personages whose acts and talk correspond with their
characters as described by him?

6. Has he heroes and heroines whom the reader admires, admires, and
knows why?

7. Has he funny characters that are funny, and humorous passages that
are humorous?

8. Does he ever chain the reader's interest, and make him reluctant to
lay the book down?

9. Are there pages where he ceases from posing, ceases from admiring the
placid flood and flow of his own dilutions, ceases from being artificial,
and is for a time, long or short, recognizably sincere and in earnest?

10. Did he know how to write English, and didn't do it because he didn't
want to?

11. Did he use the right word only when he couldn't think of another
one, or did he run so much to wrong because he didn't know the right one
when he saw it?

13. Can you read him? and keep your respect for him? Of course a
person could in his day--an era of sentimentality and sloppy romantics
--but land! can a body do it today?