MEREDITH--Sounds a bit like John Stuart Mill.

BENSON--Even so, it may be true. Folks will pay a darned sight
more to be amused than they will to be exalted. Look at the way
a man shells out five bones for a couple of theatre seats, or spends
a couple of dollars a week on cigars without thinking of it.
Yet two dollars or five dollars for a book costs him positive anguish.
The mistake you fellows in the retail trade have made is in
trying to persuade your customers that books are necessities.
Tell them they're luxuries. That'll get them! People have to work
so hard in this life they're shy of necessities. A man will go on
wearing a suit until it's threadbare, much sooner than smoke a
threadbare cigar.

GLADFIST--Not a bad thought. You know, Mifflin here calls me a
material-minded cynic, but by thunder, I think I'm more idealistic than
he is. I'm no propagandist incessantly trying to cajole poor innocent
customers into buying the kind of book _I_ think they ought to buy.
When I see the helpless pathos of most of them, who drift into
a bookstore without the slightest idea of what they want or what is
worth reading, I would disdain to take advantage of their frailty.
They are absolutely at the mercy of the salesman. They will buy
whatever he tells them to. Now the honourable man, the high-minded man
(by which I mean myself) is too proud to ram some shimmering stuff
at them just because he thinks they ought to read it. Let the boobs
blunder around and grab what they can. Let natural selection operate.
I think it is fascinating to watch them, to see their helpless groping,
and to study the weird ways in which they make their choice.
Usually they will buy a book either because they think the jacket