Tangled Talk: an Essayist's Holiday. (Alexander Strahan and Co.) —This
is a very good specimen of a kind of book which is very popular at present. It is just .what it represents itself to be, "talk "—that is to say, an intelligent man has written down just the kind of remarks on various subjects that he would be able to make off-hand in conversations in which the same subjects were started. As the writer of "Tangled Talk" is intelligent, what he says is always readable, generally true, or at least has truth in it, and is often original, and readers who do not want to be called on to think like books which make no more demand on their brains than a lively companion would- The mischief is that such a writer deals only with half-truths, and is taken commonly to be dealing with truths. He is not safe unless you stop after every second sentence and formulate the remark that you would have made if the same opinion had been expressed to you by an acquaintance. Probably the author would say that this was exactly the way he meant his book to be read, and that he could not be responsible for the indolence of his readers. But the defence is not satisfactory, because he is always writing up to statements of principle which are quite unsound. He is just as careless in writing as he would be in talking. There is, how- ever, as muoh difference between a conversational statement and a deliberately published and printed one as between a price asked by a dealer in open market and the same dealer in his shop. In the one case the remark, like the price, is tentative and interrogative, in the other there is the implied assertion that the remark is sound or the price fair. We will give an instance. "The law is entitled to restrain in his liberty a man who conducts himself exceptionally only when the exceptional conduct is of such a character as would, if he were admitted sane, plainly bring him under the penal grasp of the law." In other words, the author contends that if a man with a wife and children de- pendent on him fancies that he is a great king possessed of millions, and gives a cheque for a hundred pounds to every rogue who plays on his insanity, the law ought to put him under no sort of restraint, but let him ruin himself and his family. And this precious theory is the- outcome of an essay on insanity, and is printed in italics to mark its hn- portance I The fact is the author does not the least mean what he says. He was writing on the case of Mr. Windham, and the prin- ciple he formulates was sufficient to meet that case, so out it mims.
without further thought. If he had said as much in conversation to any one who had considered the subject, the insufficiency of his rule would have been pointed out to him. As it is, he may take in many careless people by the air of philosophic depth with which he propounds this stuff. Subject to this caution the book may be read with profit and pleasure. The writer generally makes some amusing and suggestive remarks upon the subjects he treats, but you must trust him only just as far as your own mind has deliberated on his dogmas.
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