, of incarnate ambition like a branded criminal driven out
before the radiant hosts of heaven--if all the fiction that makes up
the spirit of the novel is included in this _index expurgatorius_ of
eternity, then we may well have a doubt, my friends, whether hell can
hold us all.

It is a curious exercise for persons immersed in writing and study as
an occupation, and possessing a catholic tolerance for all
occupations, to hark back to the time when they were still within the
jurisdiction of the world that acts but does not study. In all the
average towns, hamlets and country-sides of the world human nature
beats with exactly the same pulse. If a change come, it comes slowly
and it changes all together, so that all are still alike. In the small
towns novel-reading has been considered about as contemptuously as
playing the fiddle, though admitted to be less dangerous than family
card-playing. It was estimated that a novel-reader was confirming his
indolence, and in danger of coming to the poor-house; a fiddler was
prophesied to get into jail for vagrancy or larceny; while a
card-player had entered a path that might lead as far as the gallows
and comprehend all the crimes. This opinion still largely exists in
towns and country-sides. We find it maintaining itself even in large
cities, among all sorts of very good people, even among the most
exceptional men of business, of the professions and of the pulpits.
Novel-reading, as a mental vice, according to this opinion, may be
compared with opium-eating as a moral vice. It is thought to enervate
and corrupt by means of a luxurious excitement, purely fictitious and
temporary.

At an annual meeting of members of the public library of a large city,
the librarian read the aggregate number of calls for books of each
class during the year. Let us assume that there were calls for 65,000
works of fiction, 5,000 of history and biography, 2,000 of science and
philosophy, and, say, 75 of theology. One of the trustees, who had
pretentions as to responsibility for the public conscience that would
have dwarfed the pyramid of Cheops, arose and appealed to the members
to suggest a plan for counteracting the deplorable tendency of the
times to the reading of fiction. It did not occur to anybody to
recommend the abolition of the printing press, and so a discussion
began. One of the most distinguished and scholarly ministers and
educators of the world, who was a member, came to the rescue of t