Surprisingly few thought it worth while to wrestle with the difficult book.

It was the day of the gentle literary public which had a few years before recoiled from _Sartor Resartus_, and which found in the difficulty of a book the strongest presumption against it.
A later generation, leavened by Carlyle, came near to regarding difficulty as a presumption in its favour, and this more strenuous and athletic attitude towards literature was among the favouring conditions which brought Browning at length into vogue..