"On Anecdotes"

From Charles Brockden Brown, from the Comments below:

"Anecdotes are literary luxuries. The refinement of a nation influences its literature; we now require not only a solid repast, but a delicious dessert. A physician, austere as Hippocrates; a critic, rigid as Aristotle, are alike inimical to our refreshments. We will not be fooled into their systems. We do not dismiss our fruits and our wines from our table; we eat, and our health remains uninjured. We read anecdotes with voluptuous delight; nor is our science impaired, or our wit rendered less brilliant. It is not just to consider anecdotes merely as means of improvement. They serve also the purpose of utility, and deserve to be classed higher on the scale of study than hitherto they have been."

"Voluptuous delight!" How about that!