(In Complete detective novel magazine, Nov. 1932)

Would he forfeit the admiration of one philosopher for that of a thousand novel readers?

In this charming retreat she wrote perhaps the most famous of her books, "Coelebs in Search of a Wife,"not much read, I fancy, in these times, but admired in its day before the great revolution in novel-writing was made by Sir Walter Scott.

But it so happened that Herminie, a tall, slim, languid creature that she was, gorged with novel-reading, also proved in her way a distinguished figurehead for the office.

I have a maiden aunt, who once came so near having an offer from a pale stripling, with dark hair, seven years her junior, that to this day she often alludes to the circumstance, with the remark, that she wishes she knew some competent novel-writer in whom she could confide, feeling sure that the story of that period of her life would make the groundwork of a magnificent work of fiction.

Novel readingGreenough's "Geology"The caribooSpiteful plunder of private property on a large scaleMarshall's WashingtonSt.

His commonplace books, on the entries in which and the indexing he was accustomed to spend one whole day out of each week, cataloguing the notes of his multifarious reading and pasting in cuttings from newspapers likely to be useful in novel-building, completely filled one of the rooms in his house.

His sisters, who have as much cultivation as that stone figure, disapproved of novel-readingor of any other reading, I should fancyand he followed suit.

What novel scenery, what natural curiosities and remarkable places, what strange tribes and strange customs, what a campaign, and what a commander you have to describe!

Now even professed students of the novel shrink from reading many of her seventy odd volumes, nor can the infamous celebrity conferred by Pope's attack in "The Dunciad" save her name from oblivion.

The novel stroke was watched and criticised, and an old grad who was regarded as authority declared that the man who set the stroke for that crew was a comer, providing he was built of the right kind of stuff.

Such sentences as "she loved him with an intensity of passion that only the noblest souls know," and "they vowed eternal love; they vowed to live and die with each other," ought to have opened Waitz's eyes to the fact that he was not reading an actual Indian story, but a story sentimentalized and embellished in the cheapest modern dime-novel style.

Margaret Byng, by F.C. PHILLIPS and FENDALL, is a clever sensational story, spun out into two volumes, which can be devoured by the accomplished novel-swallower in any two hours' train journey, and can be highly recommended for this particular purpose.

The world itself Is an ingenious jugglerevery moment Playing some novel trick; exalting one In pomp and splendour, crushing down another, As if in sport,and death the end of all!

No more crocheting or fancy workno novel readingno gossipy letter writing.

Hence it comes about that her novel-children are not good."

She thought she would perhaps send it in for a prize novel competition in the spring, only she felt no certainty of pleasing the three judges, all so very dissimilar.

Ross retained the impassive expression he had been cultivating ever since he read in English "high life" novels descriptions of the bearing of men of the "haut monde."

After three years of university life he ran away, in dime-novel fashion, and nearly starved to death before he was found and brought back in disgrace.

IV The housing question in Belgium confronts us with several novel problems.