Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/191

 Rh it to the general public, while the additional merit of cheapness endears it to its thrifty upholders. We are all accustomed to talk vaguely about "questions of burning interest," and "the absorbing problems of the day." Some of us even go so far as to have a tolerably clear notion of what these questions and problems are. It is but natural, then, that we should take a lively pleasure, not in the topics themselves, about which we care very little, but in the persuasions and convictions of our neighbors, about which we have learned to care a great deal. Discussions rage on every side of us, and the easy, offhand, cocksure verdicts which are so frankly confided to the world have become a recognized source of popular education and enlightenment.

I have sometimes thought that this feverish exchange of opinions received a fatal impetus from that curious epidemic rife in England a few years ago, and known as the "Lists of a Hundred Books." Never before had such an admirable opportunity been offered to people to put on what are commonly called "frills," and it must be confessed they made the most of it. The Koran, the Analects of Confucius,