A generation ago, I found out that the latest review of a book was pretty sure to be just a reflection of the _earliest_ review of it; that whatever the first reviewer found to praise or censure in the book would be repeated in the latest reviewer's report, with nothing fresh added.

Therefore more than once I took the precaution of sending my book, in manuscript, to Mr.Howells, when he was editor of the "Atlantic Monthly," so that he could prepare a review of it at leisure.

I knew he would say the truth about the book--I also knew that he would find more merit than demerit in it, because I already knew that that was the condition of the book.

I allowed no copy of it to go out to the press until after Mr.Howells's notice of it had appeared.

That book was always safe.