"0h, not good Reading!" says the publisher.

"Not good Rum, either," says the publican.

Fight it out. It's an even thing between the two of you; Literatureand Liquor, Books and Booze, which can take a man's mind off hisbusiness most effectually.

Still, merely as a matter of taste, I will defend the quality ofMcGuffey's School Readers against all comers. I don't know whoMcGuffey was; but certainly he formed the greatest intellects ofour age, present company not excepted. The true test of literatureis its eternal modernity. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Italways seems of the age in which it is read. Now, almost theearliest lection in McGuffey's First Reader goes directly to theheart of one of the greatest of modern problems. It does not palteror beat about the bush. It asks right out, plump and plain: "Ann,how very very aged are you?"