an accident, so in the case of
literary fashion, the origin is a good deal of an accident. What the
milliners of Paris, or the demi-monde of Paris, enjoin our English
ladies, is (I suppose) a good deal chance; but as soon as it is
decreed, those whom it suits and those whom it does not all wear it.
The imitative propensity at once insures uniformity; and 'that horrid
thing we wore last year' (as the phrase may go) is soon nowhere to be
seen. Just so a literary fashion spreads, though I am far from saying
with equal primitive unreasonableness--a literary taste always begins
on some decent reason, but once started, it is propagated as a fashion
in dress is propagated; even those who do not like it read it because
it is there, and because nothing else is easily to be found.

The same patronage of favoured forms, and persecution of disliked
forms, are the main causes too, I believe, which change national
character. Some one attractive type catches the eye, so to speak, of
the nation, or a part of the nation, as servants catch the gait of
their masters, or as mobile girls come home speaking the special words
and acting the little gestures of each family whom they may have been
visiting. I do not know if many of my readers happen to have read
Father Newman's celebrated sermon, 'Personal Influence the Means of
Propagating the Truth;' if not, I strongly recommend them to do so.
They will there see the opinion of a great practical leader of men, of
one who has led very many where they little thought of going, as to the
mode in which they are to be led; and what he says, put shortly and
simply, and taken out of his delicate language, is but this--that men
are guided by TYPE, not by argument; that some winning instance must be
set up before them, or the sermon will be vain, and the doctrine will
not spread. I do not want to illustrate this matter from religious
history, for I should be led far from my purpose, and after all I can
but teach the commonplace that it is the life of teachers which is
CATCHING, not their tenets. And again, in political matters, how
quickly a leading statesman can change the tone of the community! We
are most of us earnest with Mr. Gladstone; we were most of NOT so
earnest in the time of Lord Palmerston. The change is what every one
feels, though no one can define it. Each predominant mind calls out a
corresponding sentiment in the country: most feel it a little. Those
who feel it much express it much;