The listlessness and want of sympathy with which most of the works
written expressly for circulation among the labouring classes are read
by them, if read at all, arises mainly from this--that the story told,
or the lively or friendly style assumed, is _manifestly_ and _palpably_
only a cloak for the instruction intended to be conveyed--a sort of
gilding of what they cannot well help fancying must be a pill, when they
see so much and such obvious pains taken to wrap it up.... You will find
that in the higher and better class of works of fiction and imagination
duly circulated, you possess all that you require to strike your
grappling-iron into their souls, and chain them, willing followers, to
the car of civilization.... The novel, in its best form, I regard as one
of the most powerful engines of civilization ever invented.--SIR J.
HERSCHEL. _Address to the Subscribers to the Windsor Public Library._