t I
_did_ once attempt Pope's "Dunciad." And was it really the doom of a
generation of readers to find delight in this book? One must suppose so.
There are those in our day whose hard fate it is to read and to like
James's and Bulwer's novels. But greatly mistaken is the scholar who, for
relief from severe studies, goes to an empty or insincere book. It is like
saying money, after large and worthy expenditures, by purchasing at a low
price that which is worth nothing,--buying "gold" watches at a
mock-auction room.

Indeed, no book, however witty, lively, saltatory, can have the volant
effects we covet, if it want substance and seriousness. Substance,
however, is to be widely distinguished from ponderability. Oxygen is not
so ponderous as lead or granite, but it is far more substantial than
either, and, as every one knows, infinitely more serviceable to life. The
distinction is equally valid when applied to books and to men. The "airy
nothings" of imagination prove to be the most enduring somethings of the
world's literature; and the last lightness of heart may go with the purest
truth of soul and the most precious virtue of intelligence. All
expressions carry the perpetual savors of their origin; and as brooks that
dance and frolic with the sunbeams and murmur to the birds, light-hearted
forever, will yet bear sands of gold, if they flow from auriferous hills,
so any bubble and purl of laughter, proceeding from a wise and wealthy
soul, will bear a noble significance. In point of fact, some of the
merriest books in the world are among the most richly freighted. And as
airy and mirthful books may be substantial and serious, so it is an effect
very similar to that of noble and significant mirth that is produced upon
us by the grandest pieces of serious writing. Thus, he who rightly reads
the "Phaedon" or "Phaedrus" of Plato smiles through all the depths of his
brain, though no pronounced smile show on his face; and he who rightly
reads the book of Cervantes, though the laughters plunge, as it were, in
cascades from his lips, is earnest at heart, and full of sound and tender
meditations.

If now, setting aside all books, whether pretending to gayety or gravity,
that are simply empty and ineffectual, we inquire for the prime
distinction between books light in a worthy and unworthy sense, it will
appear to be the distinction between inspiration and alcohol,--between
effects divinely real and effects illusory and momentary. T