As to the devotees of the circulating libraries, I dare not compliment
their _pass-time_, or rather _kill-time_, with the name of _reading_.
Call it rather a sort of beggarly daydreaming, during which the mind of
the dreamer furnishes for itself nothing but laziness and a little
mawkish sensibility; while the whole _material_ and imagery of the doze
is supplied _ab extra_ by a sort of mental _camera obscura_ manufactured
at the printing office, which _pro tempore_ fixes, reflects and
transmits the moving phantasms of one man's delirium, so as to people
the barrenness of an hundred other brains afflicted with the same trance
or suspension of all common sense and all definite purpose. We should
therefore transfer this species of _amusement_ (if indeed those can be
said to retire _a musis_, who were never in their company, or relaxation
be attributable to those whose bows are never bent) from the genus
_reading_ to the comprehensive class characterized by the power of
reconciling the two contrary yet co-existing propensities of human
nature, namely, indulgence of sloth and hatred of vacancy. In addition
to novels and tales of chivalry in prose or rhyme (by which last I mean
neither rhythm nor metre) this genus comprises as its species gaming,
swinging, or swaying on a chair or gate; spitting over a bridge;
smoking; snuff-taking; _tête à tête_ quarrels after dinner between
husband and wife; conning word by word all the advertisements of the
daily advertizers in a public-house on a rainy day, &c., &c., &c.--S. T.
COLERIDGE. _Biographia Literaria._