MARK TWAIN was solidly dead and dark, I groped down to the ground floor, then turned and counted my way up home, all right. Then straightway my temper went up to 180 in the shade and I began to put it into form. Presently an admir- ing voice said—"When you are through with your pray- ers, I would like to ask where you have been, all night." Truth is stranger than fiction—to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it. If you tell the truth you don't have to remember any- thing. Now that our second-hand opinions, inherited from our fathers, are fading, perhaps it may be forgivable to write a really honest review of the Vicar of Wakefield and try to find out what our fathers found to admire and what not to scoff at. Now what was the accident that brought Shakespeare into notice after two centuries of neglect and oblivion— was it a chance remark of a monarch? An idea there; make kings read all the new (native) books; and once every year proclaim the names—just the names—of the few that particularly pleased them. Truth is the most precious thing we have. Econ- omize it. It takes me a long time to lose my temper, but once lost I could not find it with a dog. He was perfectly frank about it and said he wanted to go to hell: said he had got used to reading the (Paris) N. Y. Herald and couldn't do without it. 240