book chases another out of memory. Literature is as good as and better
than ever it was in the fabulous palmy days, but it is not so precious
now; and a great work, so far from being treated as a priceless
possession and a companion, is regarded only as an item in the _menu_
furnished for a sort of literary debauch. A laborious historian spends
ten years in studying an important period; he contrives to set forth
his facts in a brilliant and exhilarating style, whereupon the word is
passed that the history must be read. People meet, and the usual
inquiries are exchanged--"Have you read Brown on the Union of 1707?"
"Yes--skimmed it through last week. But have you seen Thomson's attack
on the Apocrypha?" And so the two go on exchanging notes on their
respective bundles of literary lumber, but without endeavouring to
gain the least understanding of any author's meaning, and without
tasting in the smallest degree any one of the ennobling properties of
ripe thought or beautiful workmanship. The main thing is to be able to
say that you have read a book. What you have got out of it is quite
another thing with which no one is concerned; so that in some
societies where the pretence of being "literary" is kept up the
bewildered outsider feels as though he were listening to the
discussion of a library catalogue at a sale. Timid persons think that
they would be looked on lightly if they failed to show an acquaintance
with the name at least of any new work; and the consequences of this
silly ambition would be very droll did we not know how much loose
thought, sham culture, lowering deceit arise from it. A young man
lately made a great success in literature. For his first book he
gained nothing, but lost a good deal; for his second he obtained
twenty pounds, after he had lost his eyesight for a time, owing to his
toiling by night and day; his third work brought him fame and a
fortune. He happened to be in a bookseller's shop when a lady entered
and said, "What is the price of Mr. Blank's works?" "Thirty shillings,