United States or Afghanistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


It is his interest and his business to know far more than they do both of what the library already contains, and what it most needs. It is his to peruse the critical journals and reviews, as well as the literary notices of the select daily press, and to be prepared to recommend what works to purchase.

It is recognised that the work of the literary editor can be economically combined with that of the dramatic editor, or with that of the art critic; or the art critic runs the Saturday supplement, or some such thing. My chief looked in every day or so, and frequently, perhaps in striving for exact honesty I should say regularly, contributed reviews.

It is only at long intervals that one reads this kind of thing in our reviews or newspapers, and I am happy in believing that most English people are affected by it even as I am, with the sickness of dread and of disgust. That the thing is impossible in England, who would venture to say?

If it had only been played at the Haymarket or the Lyceum, it could not have failed. The next three years Hubert wasted in various aestheticisms. He explained the difference between the romantic and realistic methods in the reviews; he played with a poetic drama to be called The King of the Beggars, and it was not until the close of the third year that he settled down to definite work.

We are accustomed, therefore, to look for analyses of these periodicals, and at last we have placed before us a formidable-looking monthly, "The Review of Reviews." After the analyses comes the newspaper notice; and there is still room for the epigram, which sometimes makes short work with all that has gone before on the same subject.

Light takes nine years to come to us from Sirius; those rays which we may see to-night when we leave this place, left Sirius nine years ago; and could the inhabitants of Sirius see the earth at this moment, they would see the English army in the trenches before Sebastopol; Florence Nightingale watching at Scutari over the wounded at Inkermann; and the peace of England undisturbed by 'Essays and Reviews.

The first best-seller I happened to observe in this ignominious position was a novel that came out the same fall that I did. It was six years old to the world, and so was I. I stopped a moment at the counter and opened the book. It had been strikingly popular, with scores of reviews and press notices, and hundreds of admirers. It had made a pretty little pile of money for its exploiters.

There was no rural delivery in those days, and the mail could only be had on personal application, and the result was that the subscribers of these periodicals frequently left them a long time before they were called for. I was an omnivorous reader of everything available, and as a result these publications, especially the foreign reviews, became a fascinating source of information and culture.

During this period he seems to have had some hopes that his principles might be applied. The lawyers had prevented the clergy from expelling each section of the Church in turn: and the decision in the 'Essays and Reviews' cases had settled that free-thinking should have its representatives among ecclesiastical authorities.

We could not do better, in closing this chapter, than to reproduce a part of the character sketch of William E. Gladstone, from the pen of William T. Stead, and published in the "Review of Reviews:" "So much has been written about Mr. Gladstone that it was with some sinking of heart I ventured to select him as a subject for my next character sketch.