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 FROM THE READER'S STANDPOINT.

is a serious age in which we live, and there is a painful sense of responsibility manifested by those who have assigned to themselves the task of directing their fellow creatures, not only in matters spiritual, but in all that pertains to intellectual or artistic life. That we need guidance is plain enough; the helping hand of patient and scholarly criticism was never more welcome than now; but to be driven, or rather hounded along the sunny paths of literature by severe and self-appointed teachers is not perhaps the surest way of reaching the best that has been known and thought in the world. Neither is it calculated to increase our enjoyment en route. The "personally conducted" reader must weary now and then of his restricted range, as well as of the peculiar contentiousness of his guides. If he be reading for his own entertainment,—and there are men and women who keep that object steadily and selfishly in view,—if he be