yet sometimes, like the dear old Baron in the ``Red Lamp,'' ``I
wonder?''

For myself, public libraries possess a special horror, as of lonely
wastes and dragon-haunted fens. The stillness and the heavy air, the
feeling of restriction and surveillance, the mute presence of these
other readers, ``all silent and all damned,'' combine to set up a
nervous irritation fatal to quiet study. Had I to choose, I would
prefer the windy street. And possibly others have found that the
removal of checks and obstacles makes the path which leads to the
divine mountain-tops less tempting, now that it is less rugged. So
full of human nature are we all -- still -- despite the Radical
missionaries that labour in the vineyard. Before the National Gallery
was extended and rearranged, there was a little ``St Catherine'' by
Pinturicchio that possessed my undivided affections. In those days she
hung near the floor, so that those who would worship must grovel; and
little I grudged it. Whenever I found myself near Trafalgar Square
with five minutes to spare I used to turn in and sit on the floor
before the object of my love, till gently but firmly replaced on my
legs by the attendant. She hangs on the line now, in the grand new
room; but I never go to see her. Somehow she is not my ``St
Catherine'' of old. Doubtless Free Libraries affect many students in
the same way: on the same principle as that now generally accepted --
that it is the restrictions placed on vice by our social code which
make its pursuit so peculiarly agreeable.

But even when the element of human nature has been fully allowed for,
it remains a question whether the type of mind that a generation or
two of Free Libraries will evolve is or is not the one that the world
most desiderates; and whether the spare reading and consequent fertile