Essays on Life 



distance of Frost. I should probably try this 

 book first, but it has a fatal objection in its 

 too seductive title. " I am not curious," as 

 Miss Lottie Venne says in one of her parts, 

 " but I like to know," and I might be tempted 

 to pervert the book from its natural uses and 

 open it, so as to find out what kind of a thing 

 a moral and religious anecdote is. I know, of 

 course, that there are a great many anecdotes 

 in the Bible, but no one thinks of calling them 

 either moral or religious, though some of them 

 certainly seem as if they might fairly find a 

 place in Mr. Arvine's work. There are some 

 things, however, which it is better not to 

 know, and take it all round I do not think I 

 should be wise in putting myself in the way 

 of temptation, and adopting Arvine as the 

 successor to my beloved and lamented Frost. 



Some successor I must find, or I must give 

 up writing altogether, and this I should be 

 sorry to do. I have only as yet written about 

 a third, or from that counting works written 

 but not published to a half, of the books 

 which I have set myself to write. It would 

 not so much matter if old age was not staring 



