h the sort of disgust excited in us by cannibalism; and
when public opinion shall regard a warrior much in the same light that
we regard a hangman,--I do not see how any fragment of that vast and
splendid literature which depends for its interest upon deeds of heroism
and the joy of battle is to retain its ancient charm.

About these remote contingencies, however, I am glad to think that
neither you nor I need trouble our heads; and if I parenthetically
allude to them now, it is merely as an illustration of a truth not
always sufficiently remembered, and as an excuse for those who find in
the genuine, though possibly second-rate, productions of their own age,
a charm for which they search in vain among the mighty monuments of
the past.

But I leave this train of thought, which has perhaps already taken me
too far, in order to point out a more fundamental error, as I think it,
which arises from regarding literature solely from this high aesthetic
standpoint. The pleasures of imagination, derived from the best literary
models, form without doubt the most exquisite portion of the enjoyment
which we may extract from books; but they do not, in my opinion, form
the largest portion if we take into account mass as well as quality in
our calculation. There is the literature which appeals to the
imagination or the fancy, some stray specimens of which Mr. Harrison
will permit us to peruse; but is there not also the literature which
satisfies the curiosity? Is this vast storehouse of pleasure to be
thrown hastily aside because many of the facts which it contains are
alleged to be insignificant, because the appetite to which they minister
is said to be morbid? Consider a little. We are here dealing with one of
the strongest intellectual impulses of rational beings. Animals, as a
rule, trouble themselves but little about anything unless they want
either to eat it or to run away from it. Interest in and wonder at the
works of nature and the doings of man are products of civilization, and
excite emotions which do not diminish but increase with increasing
knowledge and cultivation. Feed them and they grow; minister to them and
they will greatly multiply. We hear much indeed of what is called "idle
curiosity"; but I am loth to brand any form of curiosity as necessarily
idle. Take, for example, one of the most singular, but in this age one
of the most universal, forms in which it is accustomed to manifest
itself: I mean that of an exhaus