Page:The Life of the Fields, Jefferies, 1884.djvu/242

228 of little indications which hint at the unconscious wishes of his mind.

First, the idea that he would require something easy and simple like a horn-book or primer must be dismissed. Villagers are not so simple by any means. Nor do they need something written in the plainest language, specially chosen, as words of one syllable are for children. What is designed for the village must not be written down to it. The village will reject rice and corn-flour—it will only accept strong meat. The subject must be strong, the manner strong, and the language powerful. Like the highest and most cultured minds—for extremes meet—the intelligence of the villagers naturally approves the best literature. Those authors whose works have a world-wide reputation (though totally unknown by name in hamlets sixty miles from London) would be the most popular. Their antiquity matters nothing; they would be new in the hamlet. When a gentleman furnishes a library he chooses representative authors—what are called library-books—first, forming a solid groundwork to the collection. These are the very volumes the country would like.

Every one when first exploring the world of books, and through them the larger world of reality, is attracted by travels and voyages. These are peculiarly interesting to country people, to whom the idea of exploration is natural. Reading such a book is like coming to a hill and seeing a fresh landscape spread out before them. There are no museums in the villages to familiarize them with the details of life in distant parts of the earth, so that every page as it is turned