to me that if a few book-buyers would kindly come forward and confess--with proper statistics--the result would be a few columns quite pleasant to read in the quietude of September. JOSEPH CONRAD & THE ATHENAEUM [_19 Sep. '08_] The _Athenaeum_ is a serious journal, genuinely devoted to learning. The mischief is that it will persist in talking about literature. I do not wish to be accused of breaking a butterfly on a wheel, but the _Athenaeum's_ review of Mr. Joseph Conrad's new book, "A Set of Six," in its four thousand two hundred and eighteenth issue, really calls for protest. At that age the _Athenaeum_ ought, at any rate, to know better than to make itself ridiculous. It owes an apology to Mr. Conrad. Here we have a Pole who has taken the trouble to come from the ends of the earth to England, to learn to speak the English language, and to write it like a genius; and he is received in this grotesque fashion by the leading literary journal! Truly, the _Athenaeum's_ review resembles nothing so much as the antics of a provincial mayor round a foreign monarch sojourning in his town. * * * * * For, of course, the _Athenaeum_ is obsequious. In common with every paper in this country, it has learnt that the proper thing is to praise Mr. Conrad's work. Not to appreciate Mr. Conrad's work at this time of day would amount to bad form. There is a cliche in nearly every line of the _Athenaeum_'s discriminating notice. "Mr. Conrad is not the kind of author whose work one is content to meet only in fugitive form," etc. "Those who appreciate fine craftsmanship in fiction," etc. But there is worse than cliches. For example: "It is too studiously chiselled and hammered-out for that." (God alone knows for what.) Imagine the effect of studiously chiselling a work and then hammering it out! Useful process! I wonder the _Athenaeum_ did not suggest that Mr. Conrad, having written a story, took it to Brooklands to get it run over by a motor-car. Again: "His effects are studiously wrought, _although_--such is his mastery of literary art--they produce a swift and penetrating impression." Impossible not to recall the weighty judgment of one of Stevenson's characters upon the _Athenaeum_: "Golly, what a paper!" * * * * * The _Athenaeum_ further says: "His is not at all the impressionistic method." Probably the impressionistic method is merely any method that the _Athenaeum_ doesn't like. But one would ask: Has it ever read the opening paragraph of "The Return," perhaps the most dazzling feat of impressionism