Possible Clues:

• Strange rite in ancient tongue, mostly for the learned
• Strange rite in ancient language not all learned
• Writers and editors
• Educated book readers
• Well-read and scholarly people
• The well-read
• Bookish types producing American volume at one
• Scholars retail it in translation
• They may take to heart what's found in e.g. Kim, Kipps and Kidnapped
• Great minds fired time and time again, one succeeding