do not possess the same degree of culture as their fathers, nor any
resemblance to them--nay, they perpetually differ from themselves,
for they live in a state of incessant change of place, feelings,
and fortunes. The mind of each member of the community is therefore
unattached to that of his fellow-citizens by tradition or by common
habits; and they have never had the power, the inclination, nor the
time to concert together. It is, however, from the bosom of this
heterogeneous and agitated mass that authors spring; and from the same
source their profits and their fame are distributed. I can without
difficulty understand that, under these circumstances, I must expect
to meet in the literature of such a people with but few of those strict
conventional rules which are admitted by readers and by writers in
aristocratic ages. If it should happen that the men of some one period
were agreed upon any such rules, that would prove nothing for the
following period; for amongst democratic nations each new generation is
a new people. Amongst such nations, then, literature will not easily
be subjected to strict rules, and it is impossible that any such rules
should ever be permanent.

In democracies it is by no means the case that all the men who cultivate
literature have received a literary education; and most of those who
have some tinge of belles-lettres are either engaged in politics, or in
a profession which only allows them to taste occasionally and by stealth
the pleasures of the mind. These pleasures, therefore, do not constitute
the principal charm of their lives; but they are considered as a
transient and necessary recreation amidst the serious labors of life.
Such man can never acquire a sufficiently intimate knowledge of the art
of literature to appreciate its more delicate beauties; and the minor
shades of expression must escape them. As the time they can devote to
letters is very short, they seek to make the best use of the whole of