Perhaps the simple personage has a taste for dukes--I
know of one young person aged thirteen who will not write a romance of
her own without putting her hero at the very summit of the peerage--or
wicked baronets, or marble halls. These tastes are by no means
confined to women; sailors in far-away seas most persistently beguile
their scanty leisure by studying tales of sentiment, and soldiers are,
if possible, more eager than seamen for that sort of reading. The
righteous organiser comes on the scene, and says, "We must not let
these poor souls fritter away any portion of their lives on
frivolities. Let us give them less of light literature and more of the
serious work which may lead them to strive toward higher things." The
aggressively righteous individual has a most eccentric notion of what
constitutes "light" literature; he never thinks that Shakspere is
decidedly "light," and I rather fancy that he would regard
Aristophanes as heavy. If one were to suggest, on his proposing to
place the Irving Shakspere on the shelves of a free library, that the
poet is often foolish, often a buffoon of a low type, often a mere
quibbler, and often ribald, he might perhaps have a fit, or he might
inquire if the speaker were mad--assuredly he would do something
impressive; but he would not scruple to deliver an oration of the
severest type if some sweet and innocent story of love and tenderness
and old-fashioned sentiment were proposed.
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