destructive criticism. To such, the representative of another's thoughts and feelings always wears the aspect of an antagonist. 'Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?' asks one of the retainers of a belligerent house, the moment he meets any body not wearing his colors. 'I do bite my thumb, sir,' is the reply, and this is sufficient excuse for a fight. Disputatious people will seize still slighter occasions, and deal black eyes and cracked crowns, like wild Irishmen, for the pleasure of it.' Preserve us and our pages from such attentions! We know several persons who have reared, and who sustain, formidable literary pretensions, upon no better foundation than a habit of ridiculing and abusing every book they open. Simple hearers think there must be knowledge where there is so much confidence, and measure the speaker's judgment by his self-complacency; so the fault-finders pass for critics. But, in truth, 'we receive but what we give,' in this as in many other cases. A mathematical treatise requires a prepared reader; so does the most unpretending volume, aiming at no higher destiny than the innocent amusement of a listless hour. On our moods must depend very much the value of any book to us, and of the lighter books most of all. There are moments when this bird's song would be, to the ear that now drinks it in with delight, a mere 'iteration,' to which disgust might apply the harshest adjective. Yonder woody height, with its studs of rock and its thick curtains of evergreen, is to the farmer an image of impertinent hindrance. It keeps the sunrise off his chilly corn-fields two or three hours; it harbors his stray cattle in unapproachable fastnesses; and is, in every way, and for every purpose but the mere article of firewood, a very eye-sore to him. Yet there sits a painter, sketching it with delight; enriching his

portfolio with studies of single stones among its thousands, and thinking himself happy when he can seize the character of one of its mosses. Nature neither placed it there to please the artist, nor will remove it to gratify the farmer. It is for those who can use it, and pursues not those who cannot.

The multiplicity of books is not surprising. There needs many to suit all; and it is this that humble writers think of, if they think of the matter at all, when they venture to call attention and ask sympathy for their private thoughts. Somebody may be ready to listen, to be cheered; even, perhaps, to be a little instructed, sometimes, by another's fancies, or reflections, or experience. The pleasure of being listened to, is very great. There is even a necessity in the human mind to communicate. The silent cell is ever the home of horror, distrust and despair. It is the greatest of human misfortunes to be precluded from speaking; even to be hindered speaking out thoughts of a particular class, has been thought, at no remote period, cause enough of war to the knife, and the risk of all else that man holds dearest. Speech, with reason or without reason, in season and out of season, is one of the necessities; and personal intercourse being limited in a thousand ways, there must be other means of transporting thought. Books, then, become spiritual telegraphs; they annoy none that let them alone; they answer some of the dearest needs of those that use them. If conversation could be universal, there would be less writing; yet there would always be some, for ears weary sooner than eyes. When friends live together, their letter-cases need not be roomy, and posterity asks in vain for their correspondence.' They have had it, be sure; else they had been no friends. Now, books are the correspondence of

friends that have never seen each other. They conquer the limitations of human intercourse, and unite those, who, if personally present with each other, might never really and effectively meet.

For how hard it is to pierce or to surmount that semi-transparent wall of personality, which can only be sapped by long and intimate intercourse, and never thrown down even by that! What is it that keeps us apart, when each would fain meet the other? Here, in these delicious shades where we are writing, with earth, air, and sky preaching love and harmony, numbers of human beings, every one more or less alive to the beauties of scenery and the softening influence of agreeable circumstances, pass each other, daily and hourly, with scarce a look or word of recognition, though there is nothing but good will, or, at worst, indifference, among them. But if by chance there be one among them who has spoken to the world through a book, that one is felt as an acquaintance; the mind-portrait having had a wide circulation, no introduction seems needed. Here, then, is an excuse for books-one of many.

Then look at the groups and solitary walkers, scattered through these grounds; in the park, among the rocks by the stream, under the shadow of yon weeping elm, and on every sofa and lounge in the great house. A book is in the hand or the pocket of each, unless, indeed, as sometimes will happen, the reader has been lulled by the silent friend into the most benign of slumbers, and has let the volume fall. Happy authors to conduce to so much amusement-to such sweet repose! Who would not make books!

Tourists are proverbial for book-making, and certain critics seem to feel annoyed by the propensity; yet how natural is it!

'To travel and not tell,' is superhuman. Now, to recite the thing, with all its particulars, its episodes, its contretems, its raptures, separately, again and again, to each of your friendsit would take the forty mouths of a Hindoo idol. Some attempt this, indeed, but their friends learn to avoid them. If we have been present at a railroad catastrophe, we may tell it once, or even twice, perhaps; but if once we succumb to the temptation to make it our cheval de bataille, we shall easily forget which friend we have displayed it to, and buttons will be left in our hands without scruple, the moment we begin. Now, telling the thing in print is quite safe, and can offend no one, intrude on no business hours, be to no one a twice-told tale. So our mind is relieved at small cost.

Surely those travellers who have nothing to tell are provoking, if not stupid. There are some who will make the most charming tour, be present at the most exciting show, boast of the most delightful visits, yet never let a single particular escape their lips, for the benefit of anxious and questioning stayers at home. They have seen all, enjoyed all, and they are content. An effort of recollection would cost them something, and they do not care enough for your pleasure to make it These are the very people to inveigh against the tourist's bookmaking. Let us revenge ourselves by saying, that their imagination has not strength of wing enough to follow the adventures of another, or even power to draw pictures from experience that shall interpret those of others. They are like that round, shorn, selfish-looking sun in a fog, that has light and warmth enough, but communicates as little as it can, and stares stolidly upon us, without putting down a single ladder of rays

to help our imaginations. Give us the most garrulous tourist rather.

Some stupid people have called books unsocial; they are the greatest of all promoters of sociability. Besides the more obvious use of interchanging, discussing, praising and abusing them, they furnish a circulating medium of ideas, which, though kept in mind-purses, and not carried about openly, really keep society together, too ready at all times to fall apart through misunderstanding. Ordinary, blundering talk expresses our best thoughts but ill, and gives us an insufficient, and often a mistaken notion of each other's powers; but when an author, with a certain air of professional knowingness, says what we have been dimly thinking, we are as much relieved and benefitted as when an accredited M. D. steps in and gravely prescribes the very thing we are doing for our friend. How many conversations has 'the last number of Bleak House' opened! How naturally we test and measure the congeniality or the ability of our acquaintance, by ascertaining their opinion of particular characters! A young lady of our friends says she never makes up a judgment of any body till she has found out whether he understands Thackeray.' Now, what a pleasant office is this of general mediator. Let us rejoice that authors are so numerous, instead of grumbling at the creaking of our shelves. In this short life, a short-cut to sympathy is certainly very desirable, and books are the general revealers.

They reveal us to ourselves as often as to each other. Mirrors they often are to our faults and foibles; mirrors, too, to our nobler selves, less rarely than our modesty may suppose disguised to us by accidental circumstances, such as want of success, association with ungenerous or harsh people, or a lack