THE BEST TWENTY-THREE BOOKS
Sta,—As usual, Janus raises a number of interesting points. Of course, everyone who thinks of the matter does so from his own particular outlook, and I feel that the books selected by the working party would not appeal to everyone. For instance, I happen to be one of those heretics who have no taste for Dickens, and hope that I shall not be led out to instant verbal execution for avowing the same. Again, I cannot away with Wuthering Heights, which are much too high for me, and I cannot join with Janus in acclaiming Esmond. Some of us remember that the daring Archbishop Temple, the younger, on one occasion referred publicly in disrespectful language to Milton's Paradise Lost. So one man's meat, Sie. May a humble admirer from his youth of Thomas Hardy's works put in a plea for Far Front the Madding Crowd, which he looks upon with an admiration growing still greater every time he reads its rages.
The fact is that the selection put out by the eminent or not eminent men is not likely entirely to please anyone. Why, by the way, ia toe party been limited to men only? I must not complain, as, if ladies had been admitted, my Hardy would have had no chance at all.—Yours
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