Cheap Knowledge

When at times it happens to me that I 'gin to be aweary of the sun,
and to find the fair apple of life dust and ashes at the core -- just
because, perhaps, I can't afford Melampus Brown's last volume of poems
in large paper, but must perforce condescend upon the two-and-sixpenny
edition for the million -- then I bring myself to a right temper by
recalling to memory a sight which now and again in old days would
touch the heart of me to a happier pulsation. In the long, dark winter
evenings, outside some shop window whose gaslight flared brightest
into the chilly street, I would see some lad -- sometimes even a girl
-- book in hand, heedless of cold and wet, of aching limbs and
straining eyes, careless of jostling passers-by, of rattle and turmoil
behind them and about, their happy spirits far in an enchanted world:
till the ruthless shopman turned out the gas and brought them rudely
back to the bitter reality of cramped legs and numbed fingers. ''My
brother!'' or ''My sister!'' I would cry inwardly, feeling the link
that bound us together. They possessed, for the hour, the two gifts
most precious to the student -- light and solitude: the true solitude
of the roaring street.

Somehow this vision rarely greets me now. Probably the Free Libraries
have supplanted the flickering shop lights; and every lad and lass can
enter and call for Miss Braddon and batten thereon ''in luxury's
sofa-lap of leather''; and of course this boon is appreciated and
profited by, and we shall see the divine results in a year or two. And
yet sometimes, like the dear old Baron in the ''Red Lamp,'' ''I
wonder?''

For myself, public libraries possess a special horror, as of lonely
wastes and dragon-haunted fens. The stillness and the heavy air, the
feeling of restriction and surveillance, the mute presence of these
other readers, ''all silent and all damned,'' combine to set up a
nervous irritation fatal to quiet study. Had I to choose, I would
prefer the windy street. And possibly others have found that the
removal of checks and obstacles makes the path which leads to the
divine mountain-tops less tempting, now that it is less rugged. So
full of human nature are we all -- still -- despite the Radical
missionaries that labour in the vineyard. Before the National Gallery
was extended and rearranged, there was a little ''St Catherine'' by
Pinturicchio that possessed my undivided affections. In those days she
hung near the floor, so that those who would worship must grovel; and
little I grudged it. Whenever I found myself near Trafalgar Square
with five minutes to spare I used to turn in and sit on the floor
before the object of my love, till gently but firmly replaced on my
legs by the attendant. She hangs on the line now, in