PREFACE
One or two friends to whom I showed these papers in MS. having
observed that they were not half bad, and some of my relations having
promised to buy the book if it ever came out, I feel I have no right to
longer delay its issue. But for this, as one may say, public demand, I
perhaps should not have ventured to offer these mere "idle thoughts" of
mine as mental food for the English-speaking peoples of the earth. What
readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and
elevate. This book wouldn\'t elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously
recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that
when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this
up for half an hour. It will be a change.