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But, if we take these and all other married and unmarried women into consideration, there is still apparently an exaggeration in saying that it is they who make the novelist's reputation. Men read novels a great deal more than is supposed, and it is probably from men that the first-class novel receives its imprimatur. Men have made Mr. Thomas Hardy, who owes nothing to the fair sex; if women read him now, it is because the men have told them that they must. Occasionally we see a very original writer who decidedly owes his fame to the plaudits of the ladies. M. Paul Bourget is the most illustrious example that occurs to the memory. But such instances are rare, and it is usually to the approval of male readers that eminent novelists owe that prestige which ultimately makes them the favourites of the women. Not all men are pressed by the excessive agitations of business life which are habitually attributed to their sex. Even those who are most busy find time to read, and we were lately informed that among the most constant and assiduous students of new novels were Lord Tennyson and Mr. Gladstone. Every story-teller, I think, ought to write as though he believed himself addressing such conspicuous veterans.