only to a single reader. He will be unfortunate, indeed, if he
suit no one. He has the chance, besides, to stumble on something
that a dull person shall be able to comprehend; and for a dull
person to have read anything and, for that once, comprehended it,
makes a marking epoch in his education.

Here, then, is work worth doing and worth trying to do well. And
so, if I were minded to welcome any great accession to our trade,
it should not be from any reason of a higher wage, but because it
was a trade which was useful in a very great and in a very high
degree; which every honest tradesman could make more serviceable to
mankind in his single strength; which was difficult to do well and
possible to do better every year; which called for scrupulous
thought on the part of all who practised it, and hence became a
perpetual education to their nobler natures; and which, pay it as
you please, in the large majority of the best cases will still be
underpaid. For surely, at this time of day in the nineteenth
century, there is nothing that an honest man should fear more
timorously than getting and spending more than he deserves.



BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME {14}



The Editor {15} has somewhat insidiously laid a trap for his
correspondents, the question put appearing at first so innocent,
truly cutting so deep. It is not, indeed, until after some
reconnaissance and review that the writer awakes to find himself