The Life of the Fields

the mind turns inwards to analyse itself. If you unexpectedly put a boy with a taste for reading in a lar

ill sit down on the steps at once instead of walking across the room to the luxurious easy-chair. The world of books is to the villager far more unknown than to the boy in the library, who has th

age will reject rice and corn-flour-it will only accept strong meat. The subject must be strong, the manner strong, and the language powerful. Like the highest and most cultured minds-for extremes meet-the intelligence of the villagers naturally approves the best literature. Those authors whose works have a world-wide reputation (though totally

ing out the coast of America. They would rather read these than the most exciting novels. If they could get geography, without degrees of longitude, geography, or rather ethnography, which deals with the ways of the inhabitants, they would be delighted. All such facts being previously unknown come with the novelty of fiction. Sport, where it battles with the tigers of India, the lions of Africa, or the buffalo in America-with large game-is sure to be read with interest. There does not appear to be much demand for history, other than descriptions of great battles, not for history in the modern sense. A good account of a battle, of the actual fighting without the polit

reward. Such profits must of necessity be slow in the beginning, as they are in all new businesses, but they would also be slow in working off. It is a peculiarity of the country to be loyal. If country people believe in a bank, for instance-and they always believe in the first bank that comes among them-they continue to believe, and no effort whatever is necessary to keep the connection. It will be generations in dying out. So with a newspaper, so with an auctioneer-with everything. That which comes first i

books are sold in France at a franc-twopence less than the maximum of a shilling. The paper is poor, the printing nothing to boast of, the binding merely paper, but the text is there. All the villager wants is the text. Binding, the face of the printing, the quality of the paper-to these outside accidents he is perfectly indifferent. If the text only is the object, a book can be produced cheaply. On first thoughts, it appeared that much might be effected in the way of reprinting extracts from the best authors, little handbooks which could be sold at a few pence. Something, indeed, might be done in this way. But upon the whole I think that as a general rule extracts are a mistake. There is nothing so unsatisfactory as an extract. You cannot supply the preced

ot accept shackles. The propaganda should be of the best productions of the highest intellects, independent of creed and party. A practical difficulty arises from the copyrights; you cannot reprint a book of which the copyright still exists without injury to the original publisher and the author. But there are many hundred books of the very best order of which the copyright has expired, and which can be reprinte