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Show The luereasinK l.ov of (loocl Dooks. H. W. Mabie in the Forum. The lirst and most obvious conclusion forced upon one who looks at the bookf of the year as a whole is that the readers of good books are increasing, and that literary liter-ary skill and the faculty of literary expression express-ion are far more widely diffused than formerly. for-merly. T here are more people to read good books every year, and there are more people to write them. This statement is limited, it must bo noted to good books; books wholesome, intelligent and of sound form. Great books are rare at any time, and are, at this moment, rarer than they have been at other periods in the century. Perhaps the most obvious fact about book' making in this country at present is the ex-pausiou ex-pausiou of literary activity. If there are not, as of old, a few writers of very Iiie'ii rank, whose work as something approaching the touch of Anally, there arc an increasing number of well furnished and thoroughly equipped men and women w hose work, in its range aud sincerity, indicates a general advance in skill, culture nud taste. Xot many months before the death of Mr. Lowell, Lo-well, commented in a private conversation, on the ease with which a ma'riziiie editor tills his pages with well prepared and scholarly schol-arly articles. A quarter of a century ago the same editor found n small group of brilliant men ready to eo-operate w ith him but beyond this circle there was no aid to '. had. |