A Club of One : Passages from the Note-Book of
a Man who might have been Sociable. With Marginal Summary by the Editor. (Honghton, Boston, U.S.A.)—The editor of these Passages adopts the commonplace artifice of pretending that the MS. was discovered in a padlocked drawer, and observes that it is very evident it was not designed for the public. This is a piece of folly that may be excused when a book possesses good qualities, and the reader who takes up this volume in a leisurely and eympathetio mood will find something in it to appreciate. The imaginary writer is an invalid and hypo. chondriao who displays his own selfishness while deploring the selfish- ness of other people. In this there is not much humour, and the chief attraction of these pages is to be found in the writer's discursive gossip about books and men. " My books !" he writes; " what would my life be without them 7 They are my meat and my drink. They employ my mind and lift me out of myself. In hours of mental exaltation I forget my miserable body. I have a book for every mood and every condition." The author has read much, and applies his knowledge with considerable tact, passing lightly from subject to subject, so that the idlest reader will not find it difficult to follow him. Every page is studded with the names or sayings of famous authors, and if there is little novelty in the anecdotes recorded, they have the merit of being aptly used. Whether literary gossip of this kind is beneficial to literature may be questioned, bat the little volume has the merit of sustaining the attention from the first page to the last.
Previous page
