Excerpt from Reticence in Literature: And Other Papers The few papers in this little volume which evince anything of a combative disposition were written when the writer was very new to his business and, if they have any quality at all, it is chiefly the youthful quality of freshness or of enthusiasm. The new movement in literature is always challenged, and the challenge does not invariably come from the middle-aged and hide bound. Youth is naturally much more intolerant than maturity. But by the time that a man has learnt to disregard the books with which he is out of sympathy, and to concentrate upon those which he can understand and appreciate, he ought to be able to strike some faint fire of companionship out of that rare reader who Shares his own affec tions, and who possesses also the true bookman's patience, which can bear to listen to another's praise of things which he himself, perhaps, may be conscious of being able to praise to much better purpose. For such indulgent readers, if they are to be found, these gleanings of twenty five years, spent almost entirely among books, have been collected from the old scrap-book described in the dedication. They speak very likely in phrases familiar and even conventional but at any rate they speak from the heart. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.