himself to the many.  The British public is not seen at its best when it is enjoying a holiday in a foreign country, nor when it is making excursions into the realm of imaginative literature:  those who cater for it in these matters must either study its tastes or share them.  Many readers bring the worst of themselves to a novel; they want lazy relaxation, or support for their nonsense, or escape from their creditors, or a free field for emotions that they dare not indulge in life.  The reward of an author who meets them half-way in these respects, who neither puzzles nor distresses them, who asks nothing from them, but compliments them on their great possessions and sends them away rejoicing, is a full measure of acceptance, and editions unto seventy times seven.

The evils caused by the influence of the audience on the writer are many.  First of all comes a fault far enough removed from the characteristic vices of the charlatan—­to wit, sheer timidity and weakness.  There is a kind of stage-fright that seizes on a man when he takes pen in hand to address an unknown body of hearers, no less than when he stands up to deliver himself to a sea of expectant faces.  This is the true panic fear, that walks at mid-day, and unmans those whom it visits.  Hence come reservations, qualifications, verbosity, and the see-saw of a wavering courage, which apes progress and purpose, as soldiers mark time with their feet.  The writing produced under these auspices is of no greater moment than the incoherent loquacity of a nervous patient.  All self-expression is a challenge thrown down to the world, to be taken up by whoso will; and the spirit of timidity, when it touches a man, suborns him with the reminder that he holds his life and goods by the sufferance of his fellows.  Thereupon he begins to doubt whether it is worth while to court a verdict of so grave possibilities, or to risk offending a judge—­whose customary geniality is merely the outcome of a fixed habit of inattention.  In doubt whether to speak or keep silence, he takes a middle course, and while purporting to speak for himself, is careful to lay stress only on the points whereon all are agreed, to enlarge eloquently on the doubtfulness of things, and to give to words the very least meaning that they will carry.  Such a procedure, which glides over essentials, and handles truisms or trivialities with a fervour of conviction, has its functions in practice.  It will win for a politician the coveted and deserved repute of a “safe” man—­ safe, even though the cause perish.  Pleaders and advocates are sometimes driven into it, because to use vigorous, clean, crisp English in addressing an ordinary jury or committee is like flourishing a sword in a drawing-room:  it will lose the case.  Where the weakest are to be convinced speech must stoop:  a full consideration of the velleities and uncertainties, a little bombast to elevate the feelings without committing the judgment, some vague effusion of sentiment, an inapposite blandness,