about "getting on with the story." Remember, I have said it is not a story at all. It certainly is not, in any proper sense of the word. There is next to nothing of story in it; and what little there is, is there for the sake of the book, and not the book for the sake of the story—a literary distinction I trust you will not fail to note. The book is a record of talk at Greystones--the talk of Doctor Oliver Oldham. His wife may say something; his friends may chance to get in a word now and then, but the talk will be mostly the Doctor's, which you may take to be specially implied in the mystic

monogram:

It is to be the O. O. book; not the double nothing book, nor the double odd book, but the Oliver Oldham book-a book full of the Doctora book of thought; for the Doctor is always thinking as well as talking; and I shall have to set down his thoughts on all sorts of subjects-books and things, men, manners, life, art, morals, politics, and religion.

66 Story, God bless you, I have none to tell," as the needy knife-grinder' said. You will find it much more a book of sermons than a story. Very queer sermons, too, I dare say you may think some of them; many things in them which Doctor Shallow and Miss Prim will pronounce very nonsensical and foolish, or very irreverent and shocking; and some things, I am afraid, which the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, will all join in vehement abuse of; but nothing for all that which is not true and salutary to those who know how to receive it—as all truth always is. There will be things solemn, and things facetious, and things out of the common way; but I should not be at the pains to put them down, if I did not think they would be read with pleasure and profit by all the people of my parish-the good and the wise, both those that are grave and those that are gay, and especially those that are both by turns, or (which is best but rarest of all) those that are both at once; and if I did not also hope they would help the young to some right notions, free them from some conventional delusions, cants, and shams, and set up some landmarks of truth and righteousness in the great realm of thought.

Do not, therefore, O curious and impatient

reader, talk of story; neither be over eager for explanations concerning the library that contained the table, and the house that contained the library, and the Doctor, who and what he is that built the house that contained the library, etc., etc. Remember the House that Jack built, and remember, too, the sonnet that Coleridge made on it (after it fell to ruins), showing how small things may be made grand by big words and a sounding style-as may also be seen in the sermons of many of the popular preachers of the day.

Here's the sonnet:

And this reft house is that the which he built,
Lamented Jack! and here his malt he piled.
Cautious in vain! these rats that squeak so wild,
Squeak not unconscious of their fathers' guilt.
Did he not see her gleaming through the glade!
Belike 'twas she, the maiden all forlorn,
What though she milk no cow with crumpled horn,
Yet aye she haunts the dale where erst she strayed,
And aye beside her stalks her amorous knight!
Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn,
And through those brogues, still tatter'd and betorn,
His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white.
Ah! thus through broken clouds at night's high noon,
Peeps in fair fragments forth the full orb'd harvest moon!

Thank me for this sonnet or if not thankful for it for yourself, try to be thankful I have put it

here for those who will be glad to see it, and you may be sure there are some such.

You ought to thank me too for the moral lesson I was going to draw from those two straight lines which you cut off. cut off. You cut short a homily which in the compass of a page would have contained more matter for profit to my young and thoughtful readers, than the whole six volumes of Professor Stickinbark's Theological Lectures, or all the Reverend Calvin Grim's awful sermons.

And believe me, O impatient reader, that I never turn aside from what seems to you the straight road, nor ever pause or linger on my way, without good reason,-sometimes for my own pleasure or convenience, but mostly with a view to some special pleasure or advantage which others will find, if you do not. Remember there are others besides thyself, and of more patient mood. Why should the universe be all made over again to suit thy humor? Why all the world be put going sixty miles an hour upon an air-line railway to accommodate thy restless nerves? Why all old country roads destroyed, no more lanes and byways, no zig-zags, no turnings and windings, no resting places, no summer-houses, nor rustic seats under spreading chestnut or gnarled oak beside the

gurgling brook? Is this fair? Is it reasonable ? Is it not rather the height of selfishness? Curb, then, this chafing spirit; think more of others and less of yourself. And if you find no pleasure in these intermediate chapters, try to be glad that there are those that will: so shall you yourself get a gain of inestimable value from this very trial of your patience.

As to the rest, let me assure you that while the main interest of this work will be in what the Doctor says, you may look for all needful explanations sooner or later in the coming chapters concerning the Doctor himself, his personal life, and outward circumstances.