Page:The Life of the Fields, Jefferies, 1884.djvu/238

224 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 villagers 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 reputable novels, and educational manuals. The first they cannot afford; for the second they have not yet acquired the taste; the last repel them. This bookseller, 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