pieces, and are tossed into the waste-paper basket, and thus a habit of
desultoriness and of abstention from books worth styling books grows and
grows, like a noxious and paralysing parasite, over the American
intellect. In this way our pleasant vices are made instruments to plague
us, and the condition of the law, which leaves the British authors at the
mercy of the Aldens and Monros of the States, is beginning to react on
the buyers of goods indelicately obtained. Even newspaper articles are
becoming, it is said, a heavy and a weary weight on the demoralised
attention, and people are ceasing to read anything but brief and probably
personal paragraphs, such as "Joaquin Miller has had his hair cut."

This is a deplorable condition of things, and perhaps not quite without
example at home, where, however, many people still intend to read books,
and order them at the libraries, though they never really carry out
intentions which, like those of Wilkins Micawber the younger, are
excellent. To persons conscious of mental debility and incapable of
grappling even with a short shilling novel, a brief and easy form of
reading may be recommended. They may study catalogues; they may peruse
the lists of their wares which secondhand booksellers and dealers in all
kinds of curiosities circulate gratis. This is the only kind of circular
which should not go straight to its long home in the waste-paper basket.
A catalogue is full of information. It is so exceedingly inconsecutive
that even the most successful barrister, or doctor, or stockbroker (they
are the people that read least) need not be fatigued by its contents. The
catalogue skips from gay to grave, from Tupper to Aretino, from Dickens
to "Drelincourt on Death." You can pick it up where you like, and lay it
down when your poor fagged attention is distracted by a cab in the
street, or a bird in the branches. Then there is the pleasure of marking
with a pencil the articles which you would buy if you could--the Nankin
double bottle, the old novel bound in the arms of the Comtesse de Verrue,