of better men. But this book I'm worrying about now really deserves
to be written, I think, for it has a message of its own."

He gazed almost wistfully across the sunny valley. In the distance
I caught a glint of the Sound. The Professor's faded tweed cap was
slanted over one ear, and his stubby little beard shone bright red
in the sun. I kept a sympathetic silence. He seemed pleased to have
some one to talk to about his precious book.

"The world is full of great writers about literature," he said,
"but they're all selfish and aristocratic. Addison, Lamb, Hazlitt,
Emerson, Lowell--take any one you choose--they all conceive the love
of books as a rare and perfect mystery for the few--a thing of the
secluded study where they can sit alone at night with a candle,
and a cigar, and a glass of port on the table and a spaniel on the
hearthrug. What I say is, who has ever gone out into high roads and
hedges to bring literature home to the plain man? To bring it home
to his business and bosom, as somebody says? The farther into the
country you go, the fewer and worse books you find. I've spent
several years joggling around with this citadel of crime, and by
the bones of Ben Ezra I don't think I ever found a really good book
(except the Bible) at a farmhouse yet, unless I put it there myself.
The mandarins of culture--what do they do to teach the common folk
to read? It's no good writing down lists of books for farmers and
compiling five-foot shelves; you've got to go out and visit the
people yourself--take the books to them, talk to the teachers and
bully the editors of country newspapers and farm magazines and tell
the children stories--and then little by little you begin to get
good books circulating in the veins of the nation. It's a great
work, mind you! It's like carrying the Holy Grail to some of these