2 MORE POT-POURRI 



critical judgment. Then there were those who said and 

 wrote and need I state that they are the flatterers who 

 come most home to the author's heart, as is but natural? 

 'We have read your book; we like it; we have found 

 it useful and helpful, entertaining or suggestive. Cannot 

 you give us more? ' To these I answered : ' Give me 

 time and I will try. ' The result was that throughout 

 the last year I have been making various notes about my 

 life, things I saw and things I did, exactly as they oc- 

 curred. These very likely will prove less interesting 

 than former notes, which were more or less connected 

 with the life that was behind me. 



One newspaper had it that I must have a very gooa 

 memory. As a matter of fact, I have no memory at all, 

 but from my youth I have kept, more or less continu- 

 ously, commonplace books a jumble of all sorts of 

 things as I came across them in my very desultory read- 

 ing. These notes were often so carelessly kept as not 

 even to acknowledge where I stole the thought that gave 

 me pleasure. This accounts for my having quotations 

 at hand. Another reviewer kindly said that I had a 

 'marked grace of style.' My dear old mother used to 

 say she never considered a compliment worth having 

 that was not totally undeserved ! I never had the slight- 

 est idea of possessing any style at all. But what is 

 style! It is a weary topic when so much is said about 

 'getting style' (like 'getting religion'). Schopenhauer's 

 remarks on the subject are worth noticing. He writes: 

 ' There is no quality of style that can be got by reading 

 writers who possess it. But if the qualities exist in us 

 exist, that is to say, potentially we can call them forth 

 and bring them into consciousness. We can learn the 

 purposes to which they can be put. We can be strength- 

 ened in an inclination to use them, or get courage to do 

 so. The only way in which reading can form style is by 



