They help us to forget the crossness of men and things;
compose our cares and our passions; and lay our disappointments asleep.
When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have
nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation."
Sir John Herschel tells an amusing anecdote illustrating the pleasure
derived from a book, not assuredly of the first order. In a certain
village the blacksmith having got hold of Richardson's novel, _Pamela, or
Virtue Rewarded_, used to sit on his anvil in the long summer evenings and
read it aloud to a large and attentive audience. It is by no means a short
book, but they fairly listened to it all. At length, when the happy turn
of fortune arrived, which brings the hero and heroine together, and sets
them living long and happily together according to the most approved
rules, the congregation were so delighted as to raise a great shout, and
procuring the church keys, actually set the parish bells a-ringing.
"The lover of reading," says Leigh Hunt, "will derive agreeable terror
from _Sir Bertram_ and the _Haunted Chamber_; will assent with, delighted
reason to every sentence in _Mrs.
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