For indeed it is not possible to name any book out of which a
perverted mind will not draw food for its disease. The whole fallacy
lies in supposing literature the cause of the disease. Evil men are
not evil because they read bad books: they read bad books because they
are evil: and being evil, or diseased, they are quickly able to
extract evil or disease even from very good books. There is talk of
disseminating the works of our best authors, at a cheap rate, in the
hope that they will drive the Penny Dreadful out of the market. But
has good literature at the cheapest driven the middle classes from
their false gods? And let it be remembered, to the credit of these
poor boys, that they do buy their books. The middle classes take
_their_ poison on hire or exchange.
But perhaps the full enormity of the cant about Penny Dreadfuls
can best be perceived by travelling to and fro for a week
between London and Paris and observing the books read by those
who travel with first-class tickets. I think a fond belief in
Ivanhoe-within-the-reach-of-all would not long survive that
experiment.