He happened to be in a bookseller's shop when a lady entered
and said, "What is the price of Mr. Blank's works?" "Thirty shillings,
madam." "Oh, that is far too much! I have to dine with him to-night,
and I wanted to skim the books. But he isn't worth thirty shillings!"
Twenty discourses could not exhaust the full significance of that
little speech. The lady was typical of a class, and her mode of
getting ready her table talk is the same which produces confusion,
mean sciolism, and mental poverty among too many of those who set up
as arbiters of taste. A somewhat cruel man of letters is said to have
led on one of the shallow pretenders in a heartless way until the
victim confidently affected knowledge of a plot, descriptions, and
characters which had no existence. The trick was heartless and
somewhat dishonest; but the mere fact that it could be played at all
shows how far the game of literary racing has done harm.
Let us turn from the book-clubs, the libraries, and the swarming cheap
editions of our own days, and hark back for about seventy-seven years.
The great Sheriff was then in the flush of his glorious manhood, and
it is amazing to discover the national interest that was felt in his
works as they came rapidly out.
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