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 way-back farmhouses. And I wish there
were a thousand Parnassuses instead of this one. I'd never
give it up if it weren't for my book: but I want to write
about my ideas in the hope of stirring other folk up, too.
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