COUNTRY LITERATURE. 227 



expensive for him. Books of real value are usually 

 dear when first published. If he goes to a stationer's, 

 as already pointed out, for a few sheets of writing 

 paper and a packet of envelopes, he sees nothing dis- 

 played there to tempt him. Lastly, he hears no talk- 

 ing about books. Perhaps the most effective of all 

 advertisements in selling a book is conversation. If 

 people hear other people continually alluding to, or 

 quoting, or arguing about a book, they say, "We must 

 have it ; " and they do have it. Conversation is the 

 very life of literature. Now, the villager never hears 

 anybody talk about a book. 



III. THE VILLAGER'S TASTE IN BEADING. 



The villager could not even write down what he 

 would like to read, not yet having reached the stage 

 when the mind turns inwards to analyse itsel If 

 you unexpectedly put a boy with a taste for reading 

 in a large library and leave him to himself, he is at 

 a loss which way to turn or what to take from the 

 shelves. ' He proceeds by experiment looking at cover 

 after cover, half pulling out one, turning over a few 

 leaves of another, peeping into this, and so on, till 

 something seizes his imagination, when he will 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 the books before him, 

 while the villager looks into vacancy. What the- 

 villager would like can only be gathered from a variety 



