"Mental Efficiency And Other Hints to Men and Women"

Toynbee's erudite notes and the extra letters which she has been able to print. The same letter in Mrs. Toynbee's edition would have a higher aesthetic and moral value for me than in the " editionlet" of Messrs. Newnes. The one cheap series which satisfies my desire for size is Macmillan's Library of English Classics," in which I have the "Travels" of that mythical personage, Sir John Mandeville. But it is only in paying for it that you know this edition to be cheap, for it measures nine inches by six inches by two inches.

And in the third place, when one buys series, one only partially chooses one's books; they are mainly chosen for one by the publisher.

And even if they are not chosen for one by the publisher; they are suggested to one by the publisher.

Not so does the genuine bookman form his library.

The genuine bookman begins by having specific desires.

His study of authorities gives him a demand, and the demand forces him to find the supply. He does not let the supply create the demand.

Such a state of affairs would be almost humiliating, almost like the parvenu who calls in the wholesale furnisher and decorator to provide him with a home.

A library must be, primarily, the expression of the owner's personality.

Let me assert again that I am strongly in favor of cheap series of reprints. Their influence though not the very finest, is indisputably good. They are as great a boon as cheap bread. They are indispensable where money or space is limited, and in traveling.

They decidedly help to educate a taste for books that are neither cheap nor handy; and the most luxurious collectors may not afford to ignore them entirely. But they have their limitations, their disadvantages. They cannot form the backbone of a " proper " library.

They make, however, admirable embroidery to a library. My own would look rather plain if it was stripped of them.

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