their own guidance; their code will be at once strict and traditional.
As they are not necessarily engrossed by the cares of daily life--as
they have never been so, any more than their fathers were before
them--they have learned to take an interest, for several generations
back, in the labors of the mind. They have learned to understand
literature as an art, to love it in the end for its own sake, and to
feel a scholar-like satisfaction in seeing men conform to its rules. Nor
is this all: the men of whom I speak began and will end their lives in
easy or in affluent circumstances; hence they have naturally conceived
a taste for choice gratifications, and a love of refined and delicate
pleasures. Nay more, a kind of indolence of mind and heart, which they
frequently contract in the midst of this long and peaceful enjoyment
of so much welfare, leads them to put aside, even from their pleasures,
whatever might be too startling or too acute. They had rather be amused
than intensely excited; they wish to be interested, but not to be
carried away.

Now let us fancy a great number of literary performances executed by the
men, or for the men, whom I have just described, and we shall readily
conceive a style of literature in which everything will be regular and
prearranged. The slightest work will be carefully touched in its least
details; art and labor will be conspicuous in everything; each kind of
writing will have rules of its own, from which it will not be allowed to
swerve, and which distinguish it from all others. Style will be thought
of almost as much importance as thought; and the form will be no less
considered than the matter: the diction will be polished, measured,
and uniform. The tone of the mind will be always dignified, seldom very
animated; and writers will care more to perfect what they produce than
to multiply their productions. It will sometimes happen that the members
of the literary class, always living amongst themselves and writing for