Page:Essays in miniature.djvu/50

 46 smooth. This is precisely the privilege, however, which a too liberal editor is disinclined to allow. He will build you a bridge over a raindrop, put ladders up a pebble, and encompass you on every side with ingenious alpenstocks and climbing-irons; yet when, perchance, you stumble and hold out a hand for help, behold, he is never there to grasp it. He merely refers you, with some coldness, to a remote authority who will give you the assistance you require when you have reached the end of your journey. Mr. Ritchie, for example, who has recently edited a volume of Mrs. Carlyle's early letters, expects you patiently to search for the information you want in Mr. Froude's pages, which is always a disheartening thing to be asked to do. Yet when Jeanie Welsh, writing cheerfully of an inconstant lover, says, "Mais n'importe! It is only one more Spanish castle demolished; another may start up like a mushroom in its place;" an explanatory note carefully reveals to you that "Spanish castle" really means "château en Espagne"—a circumstance which even