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My mother usually attended to the millinery, and my aunt Milly to what might be termed the gentlemen's side of the shop; the remainder of the goods and circulating-library were in the hands of both.
It was well received by competent judges, but a book upon such a topic, even though not strictly a 'law-book, can hardly be successful in the circulating-library sense of the word. Fitzjames, indeed, had done his best to make his work intelligible to the educated outsider.
Not the wretchedest circulating-library novel, which foolish girls thumb and con in remote villages, but will help to regulate the actual practical weddings and households of those foolish girls. So "Celia" felt, so "Clifford" acted: the foolish Theorem of Life, stamped into those young brains, comes out as a solid Practice one day. What built St. Paul's Cathedral?
The hope of perhaps, one day, knowing Sterling, was welcome and interesting to me. Arthur Coningsby, struggling imperfectly in a sphere high above circulating-library novels, gained no notice whatever in that quarter; gained, I suppose in a few scattered heads, some such recognition as the above; and there rested. Sterling never mentioned the name of it in my hearing, or would hear it mentioned.
We traded lesser treasures for them; we swapped them on the basis of two old volumes for one new one; we maintained a clandestine circulating-library system which had its branch offices in every stable loft in our part of town. The more daring among us read them in school behind the shelter of an open geography propped up on the desk.
'A wise man would be at a loss here, said James, casting his eye along the battered purple backs of the circulating-library books. 'Wisdom won't condescend! Ah! thank you, this will do nicely. I'll choose one or two. What is most popular here?
That is why all things die I trust no one will dispute the fact. Christian Science, for instance, appropriated two great things from the parent stock: the word "Christian," and the Oxford binding, which made "Science and Health" look just like the Bible. One could carry it on the street as he went to church without fear of accusation that he was on the way to the circulating-library.
Take any instance you like: it doesn't matter how trivial the pleasure may be the principle is the same. Suppose A and B are reading the same second-rate circulating-library novel.
But the actual popularity of "the old three-decker" continued for quite two generations, if not more, and was unmistakable. Library subscriptions were generally adjusted to it; and any circulating-library keeper would tell you that, putting this quite aside, even subscribers to more or fewer volumes than three would take the three-volume by preference.
The people who hurried by were too busy to do more than to glance at the lame boy who sat in the sunshine against the wall, or to guess that there was a picture-gallery and a circulating-library in the court.
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