through the practical ceremony of getting married at the finish, or decline into the most delicately-finished melancholy that resignation, or more properly, renunciation can produce.  Yet the atmosphere in which they dwell is sickly to the sound soul.  It is as if one were placed in an orchid house full of dainty and rare plants, and kept there until the quiet air and the light scents overpowered every faculty.  In all the doings of these superfine Americans and Frenchmen and Britons and Italians there is something almost inhuman; the record of a strong speech, a blow, a kiss would be a relief, and one young and unorthodox person has been known to express an opinion to the effect that a naughty word would be quite luxurious.  The lovers whom we love kiss when they meet or part, they talk plainly—­unless the girls play the natural and delightful trick of being coy—­and they behave in a manner which human beings understand.  Supposing that the duke uses a language which ordinary dukes do not affect save in moments of extreme emotion, it is not tiresome, and, at the worst, it satisfies a convention which has not done very much harm.  Now on what logical ground can we expect people who were nourished on a literature which is at all events hearty even when it chances to be stupid—­on what grounds can the organisers of improvement expect an English man or woman to take a sudden fancy to the diaphanous ghosts of the new American fiction?  I dislike out-of-the-way words, and so perhaps, instead of “diaphanous ghosts,” I had better say “transparent wraiths,” or “marionettes of superfine manufacture,” or anything the reader likes that implies frailty and want of human resemblance.  It all comes to the same thing; the individuals who recommend a change of literature as they might recommend a change of air do not know the constitutions of the patients for whom they prescribe.  It has occurred to me that a delightful comedy scene might be witnessed if one of the badgered folk who are to be “raised” were to say on a sudden, “In the name of goodness, how do you know that my literature is not better than yours?  Why should I not raise you?  When you tell me that these nicely-dressed ladies and gentlemen, who only half say anything they want to say and who never half do anything, are polished and delightful, and so on, I grant that they are so to you, and I do not try to upset your judgment.  But your judgment and my taste are two very different things; and, when I use my taste, I find your heroes and heroines very consummate bores; so I shall keep to my own old favourites.”  Who could blame the person who uttered those very awkward protests?  The question to me is—­Who need most to be dealt with—­those who are asked to learn some new thing, or those who have learned the new thing and show signs that they would be better if they could forget it?  I should not have much hesitation in giving an answer.