There is a class of street-readers, whom I can never contemplate without
affection--the poor gentry, who, not having wherewithal to buy or hire a
book, filch a little learning at the open stalls--the owner, with his
hard eye, casting envious looks at them all the while, and thinking when
they will have done. Venturing tenderly, page after page, expecting
every moment when he shall interpose his interdict, and yet unable to
deny themselves the gratification, they 'snatch a fearful joy'. Martin
B----, in this way, by daily fragments, got through two volumes of
Clarissa, when the stall-keeper damped his laudable ambition, by asking
him (it was in his younger days) whether he meant to purchase the work.
M. declares that under no circumstances of his life did he ever peruse a
book with half the satisfaction which he took in those uneasy snatches.
A quaint poetess of our day has moralized upon this subject in two very
touching but homely stanzas:
I saw a boy with eager eye
Open a book upon a stall,
And read, as he'd devour it all;
Which when the stall-man did espy,
Soon to the boy I heard him call,
'You, Sir, you never buy a book,
Therefore in one you shall not look.'
The boy passed slowly on and with a sigh
He wished he never had been taught to read,
Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need.
Of sufferings the poor have many,
Which never can the rich annoy:
I soon perceived another boy,
Who looked as if he'd not had any
Food, for that day at least--enjoy
The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder.
This boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder,
Thus hungry, longing, thus without a penny,
Beholding choice of dainty-dressèd meat:
No wonder if he wish he ne'er had learned to eat.