and could not assimilate with if they were placed at our disposal. In
this way a weary, well-read novel-reader, worn out in all lines of light
letters, enters a circulating library, and queruously asks: "Have you
any new books?" She expects a negative answer, and in that case would
suffer a keen disappointment. The man says "Yes," and brings out several
new books. Every one of these is new in every sense. It may be the most
trivial set of pages yet printed in this era of scribblers, or, yet, it
may be a great work, worthy of the attention of the thoughtful, and the
commendation of the pure in heart. Nobody can tell. Then, illogically,
she asks: "Is this good?" or "Is that good?" and upon being reminded
that she wanted something new or nothing, she asks for something by May
Agnes Fleming, or Mary Jane Holmes, and goes off happy, to re-read those
expressions which have so well pleased her in the past.
I think I espy in this exhibition of the working of the mind in a rude
and unsatisfactory state