You can have excellent literature in journalism, and it will be widely
read. I would say more--I would say that the better literature a
newspaper admits, the more widely will that paper be read, or at any
rate the greater will its influence be on modern Englishmen. But when it
comes to the kneaded and wrought matter of the true Book, neither the
public nor the centres of learning will have any of it, and the last
medium which might make it possible, patronage, has equally disappeared,
because the modern patron does not work in the daylight in the full view
of the nation and with its full approbation, and he is no longer a public
man (though he is richer than ever he was before). His patronage,
therefore, though it is still considerable, is expended in satisfying his
private demand. Private architects build him doubtful castles, private
collectors get him manuscripts and jewels, but Letters, which are a public
thing, he can no longer command.

It might be asked, by way of conclusion, whether there is any remedy for
this state of things. There is none. Its prime cause resides in a
certain attitude of the national mind, and this kind of broadly held
philosophy is not changed save by slow preaching or external shock. As
long as modern England remains what we know it, and follows the lines of
change which we see it following, the Book will necessarily decline more
and more, and we must make up our minds to it.

Of other evil tendencies of our time, one can say of some that they are
obviously mending, of others that such and such an applicable remedy
would mend them. Our public architecture is certainly getting better; so
is our painting. Our gross and increasing contempt of self-government
(to take quite another sphere) is curable by one or two simple reforms
in procedure, registration, the expenses of election, and voting at the