again. They comment upon it afterwards with such gusto as to make it quite evident to the merest tyro, that they have learned all its worst details by heart. If they can only revel in the published shame and disgrace of one or two of their very "dearest" friends, they enjoy and appreciate that kind of mental fare more than all the beautiful poems and idyllic romances ever written.
The "million" have long ago learned to read,—and are reading. The last is the most important fact, and one which those who seek to govern them would do well to remember. For their reading is of a most strange, mixed, and desultory order—and who can say what wondrous new notions and disturbing theories may not leap out sprite-like from the witch's cauldron of seething ideas round which they gather, watching the literary "bubble, bubble, toil and trouble," wherein the "eye of newt and toe of frog" in the book line may contrast with something which is altogether outside the boiling hotch-potch,—namely that "sick eagle looking at the sky" which is the true symbol of the highest literary art. But the highest literary art, particularly in its poetic form, is at a discount nowadays. And why? Simply because even the million do not know "how" to read. Moreover, it is very difficult to make them learn. They have neither the skill nor the patience to study beautiful thoughts expressed in beautiful language. They want to "rush" something through. Whether poem, play, or novel, it must be "rushed through" and done with. Very few authors' work, if any, can be sure of an honest and unprejudiced reading, either by those whose business it is to review it for the
