The Art Of The Scribe, Elaborated Through Centuries, Had Reached A Marvellous Perfection; The First Printer Copied Them - The Magic Fust Actually Sold His First Books As Manuscripts. Since Printers Have Only Copied Printers, Books Have Steadily Declined In Excellence.

I have been obliged to use the outside to suggest the inside - country readers want that which is genuine, honest, and, in a word, really good; you cannot please them with vamped-up book-making.

Two books occur to me at this moment which would be greatly appreciated in every country home, from that of the peasant who has just begun to read to the houses of well-educated and well-to-do people, if they only knew of their existence and their contents - of course provided they were cheap enough, for country people have to be careful of their money nowadays. I allude to Darwin's 'Climbing Plants' and to his 'Earthworms;' these are astonishing works of singular patience and careful observation. The first gives most fascinating facts about such a common plant, for example, as the hedge bryony and the circular motion of its tendrils. Any farmer, for instance, will tell you that the hop-bine will insist upon going round the pole in one direction, and you cannot persuade it to go the other. These circular movements seem almost to resemble those of the planets about their centre, all things down to the ether seem to have a rotatory motion; and some foreign plants which he grew send their far-extended tendrils round and round with so patent a movement that you can see it hour by hour like the hand of a clock.

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