Foreword. The compilers of this anthology have tried not to cheat. They have, on the whole, adhered honourably to the underlinings they found they had already made in their own books on the shelves of their separate rooms. They had both been in teh habit for many years of marking passages which particularly pleased them, and of scribbling an index for reference at the end of each book - as every true reader of books should train himself to do. The residue, as embodied in the following pages, thus represents the lifetime literary taste of two persons with somewhat different occupations in life; a taste pursued in each case from adolescence to middle-age; yet so curiously homogeneous in its ultimate result, that in a sudden spirit of amused comparison they decided to pool their book-markings into one printed volume.