Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/157

Rh sweep one most eloquently toward the author's conclusions.

In outward appearance, the Mexican novel is exceedingly unattractive. Like the French and German brochure, it is usually unbound; like many of our own, it is printed in poor type, on miserable paper. It has ragged edges; and it stretches beyond any normal limit, reaching from seven hundred to a thousand pages in almost every case. The books are evidently not intended for summer reading, nor for a people living on the high-pressure principle that obtains in America, which makes the incessant and furious activity of the steam-engine the highest example for human imitation. When illustrated, the cuts are so poor, and of such ludicrous horror, that they would turn the deepest sentiment into ridicule. Above all, they are enormously dear. Such a scale of prices would not be possible in a country which counted a large number of readers of fiction among its population. With the appetite for such intellectual refection comes a garnishing of the dish in which it is served, as well as a cheapening of the cost of refreshment. I am not altogether sure but that the demand for these