estimate.

"With regard to the first, I seriously believe that it is an essential
part of the pleasure derived from the perusal of a popular English book,
that the author gets nothing for it. It is so dar-nation 'cute--so
knowing in Jonathan to get his reading on those terms. He has the
Englishman so regularly on the hip that his eye twinkles with slyness,
cunning, and delight; and he chuckles over the humor of the page with an
appreciation of it quite inconsistent with, and apart from, its honest
purchase. The raven hasn't more joy in eating a stolen piece of meat,
than the American has in reading the English book which he gets for
nothing.

"With regard to the second, it reconciles that better and more elevated
class who are above this sort of satisfaction, with surprising ease. The
man's read in America! The Americans like him! They are glad to see him
when he comes here! They flock about him, and tell him that they are
grateful to him for spirits in sickness; for many hours of delight in
health; for a hundred fanciful associations which are constantly
interchanged between themselves and their wives and children at home! It
is nothing that all this takes place in countries where he is _paid_; it
is nothing that he has won fame for himself elsewhere, and profit too.
The Americans read him; the free, enlightened, independent Americans;
and what more _would_ he have? Here's reward enough for any man. The
national vanity swallows up all other countries on the face of the
earth, and leaves but this above the ocean. Now, mark what the real
value of this American reading is. Find me in the whole range of
literature one single solitary English book which becomes popular with
them before, by going through the ordeal at home and becoming popular
there, it has forced itself on their attention--and I am content that
the law should remain as it is, forever and a day. I must make one
exception. There _are_ some mawkish tales of fashionable life before
which crowds fall down as they were gilded calves, which have been
snugly enshrined in circulating libraries at home, from the date of
their publication.

"As to telling them they will have no literature of their own, the
universal answer (out of Boston) is, 'We don't want one. Why should we
pay for one when we can get it for nothing? Our people don't think of
poetry, sir. Dollars, banks, and cotton are _our_ books, sir.' And they
certainly are in one sense; for a lower average o