unreasonableness--a literary taste always begins on some decent
reason, but once started, it is propagated as a fashion in dress is
propagated; even those who do not like it read it because it is
there, and because nothing else is easily to be found.

The same patronage of favoured forms, and persecution of disliked
forms, are the main causes too, I believe, which change national
character. Some one attractive type catches the eye, so to speak, of
the nation, or a part of the nation, as servants catch the gait of
their masters, or as mobile girls come home speaking the special
words and acting the little gestures of each family whom they may
have been visiting. I do not know if many of my readers happen to
have read Father Newman's celebrated sermon, 'Personal Influence the
Means of Propagating the Truth;' if not, I strongly recommend them
to do so. They will there see the opinion of a great practical
leader of men, of one who has led very many where they little
thought of going, as to the mode in which they are to be led; and
what he says, put shortly and simply, and taken out of his delicate
language, is but this--that men are guided by TYPE, not by argument;
that some winning instance must be set up before them, or the sermon
will be vain, and the doctrine will not spread. I do not want to
illustrate this matter from religious history, for I should be led
far from my purpose, and after all I can but teach the commonplace
that it is the life of teachers which is CATCHING, not their tenets.
And again, in political matters, how quickly a leading statesman can
change the tone of the community! We are most of us earnest with Mr.
Gladstone; we were most of NOT so earnest in the time of Lord
Palmerston. The change is what every one feels, though no one can
define it. Each predominant mind calls out a corresponding sentiment
in the country: most feel it a little. Those who feel it much