"And deserve it too," answered Phil., "if we do not push the argument too far. The present day furnishes us some admirable samples in the department of fiction; but I question much if you will not find, that novels, with a large portion of existing men, and women, make the _business_, as well as the relaxation of their reading hours. The novels of our time are like letters of marque. They are _armés en flute_ for war or merchandize, _alias_ for instruction or entertainment; and if people will not read any thing more serious we must be happy that there _is_ a method of riveting attention by cloathing good sense in the light drapery of fiction. Thousands are led on to better things than they are promised by a pleasant tale; and I rejoice to perceive a growing sense of accountableness in the writers who supply the present rage for new publications. I see a consciousness arising amongst novelists and the editors of reviews and magazines that the morbid diseases induced by _mental_ opium eating (if you will allow me the image) threaten paralysis and, would inevitably lead to dissolution of all intellectual energy, if not arrested in their progress. Several are usefully employed in applying alterations, and endeavouring to bring about a more healthful action of the rational powers. Let us earnestly desire a blessing on every effort of this nature, and give our best individual support even to story, when, like the useful wedge, it is successful in sliding in, what would not find its way into the hands of half mankind unaided by such an instrument." The remark struck me as valid, and I had the grace to say so. Led on from one topic to another, in which this excellent man discovered so much knowledge of life as perfectly to amaze me, I turned to young Bentley, and said, "I have often heard people obtain credit for extraordinary acquaintance with the world, and wherever this has been the case, such skill has been attributed to travelling, and a widely spreading communion with various classes of men; but it sometimes strikes me as matter of surprise to find the acutest sense of all that is doing on the great theatre, in a retired corner of the earth, apparently shut out from all the bustle, vice, and folly, that pervade the world." Bentley replied, "I know not to whom you may apply for information on _this_ head, more appropriately than to my good friend of Lisfarne, who contrives to know mankind so well without going amongst them. Let us ask him how he manages to find them out?"