the quality of the best work depends.  John Addington Symonds makes a calculation, in one of his published letters, to the effect that his entire earnings for the years in which he had been employed in writing his history of the Italian Renaissance, had been at the rate of about L100 a year, from which probably nearly half had to be subtracted for inevitable incidental expenses, such as books and travelling.  The conclusion is that unless a man has private resources, or a sufficiently robust constitution to be able to carry on his literary work side by side with his professional work, he can hardly afford to turn his attention to belles-lettres.

Nowadays literature has become a rather fashionable pursuit than otherwise.  Times have changed since Gray refused to accept money for his publications, and gave it to be understood that he was an eccentric gentleman who wrote solely for his own amusement; since the inheritor of Rokeby found among the family portraits of the magnates that adorned his walls a picture of the novelist Richardson, and was at the pains of adding a ribbon and a star, in order to turn it into a portrait of Sir Robert Walpole, that he might free his gallery from such degrading associations.

But now a social personage is hardly ashamed of writing a book, of travels, perhaps, or even of literary appreciations, so long as it is untainted by erudition; he is not averse to publishing a volume of mild lyrics, or a piece of simple fiction, just to show how easy it is, and what he could do, if only, as Charles Lamb said, he had the mind.  It adds a pleasant touch of charming originality to a great lady if she can bring out a little book.  Such compositions are indubitably books; they generally have a title-page, an emotional dedication, an ultra-modest preface, followed by a certain number of pages of undeniable print.  It is common enough too, at a big dinner-party, to meet three or four people, without the least professional dinginess, who have written books.  Mr. Winston Churchill said the other day, with much humour, that he could not reckon himself a professional author because he had only written five books—­the same number as Moses.* And I am far from decrying the pleasant labours of these amateurs.  The writing of such books as I have described has been a real amusement to the author, not entailing any particular strain; the sweet pride of authorship enlarges one’s sympathies, and gives an agreeable glow to life.  No inconvenient rivalry results.  The little volumes just flutter into the sunshine, like gauzy flies from some tiny cocoon, and spread their slender wings very gracefully in the sun.

* This sentence was, of course, written before the publication by Mr. Churchill of the Life of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill.