As for the lady who
dislikes "light" literature, she is a subject for laughter among the
gods. To see such an one present a sensible workman with a pamphlet
entitled "Who Paid for the Mangle?--or, Maria's Pennies," is to know
what overpowering joy means. Yet the severe and strait-laced censors
are not perhaps so much of a nuisance as the sternly-cultured and
emotional persons who "yearn" a great deal. The "yearnest" man or
woman always has an ideal which is usually the vaguest thing in the
cloudland of metaphysics. I fancy it means that one must always be
hankering after something which one has not and keeping a look of
sorrow when one's hankering is fruitless. The feeling of pity with
which a "yearnest" one regards somebody who cares only for pleasant
and simple or pathetic books is very creditable; but it weighs on the
average human being. Why on earth should a girl leave the tenderness
of "The Mill on the Floss" and rise to "Daniel Deronda's" elevated but
barren and abhorrent level? There are people capable of advising girls
to read such a literary production as "Robert Elsmere"; and this
advice reveals a capacity for cruelty worthy of an inquisitor.
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