224 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



So that in these places literature is at a standstill. 

 Proceeding onwards to the larger market town, which 

 really is a town, perhaps a county town, or at least 

 with a railway station, here one or two stationers 

 may be found. One has a fair trade almost entirely 

 with the middle-class people of the town ; farmers when 

 they drive in call for stationery, or for books if there 

 is a circulating library, as there usually is. The vil- 

 lagers do not come to this shop ; they feel that it is a 

 little above them, and they are shy of asking for three 

 pennyworth of writing-paper and envelopes. If they 

 look in at the window in passing they see many well- 

 bound books from 5s. to 10s., some of the more re- 

 putable novels, and educational manuals. The first 

 they cannot afford ; for the second they have not yet 

 acquired the taste ; the last repel them. This book- 

 seller, though of course quite of a different stamp, and 

 a man of business, would probably also declare that 

 the villagers do not read. They do not come to him, 

 and he is too busy to sit down and think about it. 

 The other stationer's is a more humble establishment, 

 where they sell cheap toys, Berlin wool, the weekly 

 London papers with tales in them, and so on. The 

 villagers who get as far as this more central town 

 call here for their cheap stationery, their weekly 

 London novelette, or tin trumpets for the children- 

 But here, again, they do not order books, and rarely 

 buy those displayed, for exactly the same reason as 

 in the lesser village towns. The shopkeeper does not 

 understand what they want, and they cannot tell him. 

 They would know if they saw it; but till they see 

 it they do not know themselves. There is no medium 



