and death. With brave heart he explores the boundless wilds of literature in his own department; with sleepless activity of mind he ransacks one work after another; and with the unfailing tact of genius he picks out from each whatever is excellent in thought or manner. All these excellences he then recasts in his own intellect, adds new ideas and beauties of his own, and thus produces a work which is the embodiment of almost everything that is good in that particular walk of letters. He produces what Mr. Ruskin calls a work of Time, in contradistinction to a work of the Hour. Such standard authors form certainly one of the greatest blessings that have been bestowed upon poor perplexed readers. They are like mountains, rising sheer in the midst of a flat landscape, and catching and presenting to the world the imposing gleams and splendors of heaven. They are like well-ordered gardens, containing in one romantic spot the choice vegetable produce of a whole clime. They are the real fixed stars in the Abyss of Time-suns ablaze with heat and splendor; and the other authors are but planets shining with light borrowed from them. They are kings by divine right, the great representatives of the human race, endowed specially with wisdom from on high, and commissioned with an authority, which cannot be gainsaid, to sway the hearts of the multitude. Shakespeare! Bacon! Milton! Gibbon ! Burns! Scott! Carlyle! Emerson! Having mastered them, we have mastered in a concentrated form the whole of English literature.

We would therefore advise young students to study these great classic masterpieces. If you cannot read them all, read at least one, give your whole attention to it, put yourself in the position of the author, follow him intently through all his ideas and feelings, live in his spirit as in an atmosphere, make his whole work part of your own soul. Do not care although you are taunted with not knowing many books. When old Hobbles was asked why he had not read more: "Read more !" he exclaimed, "if I had read as many books as other I would have been as ignorant as other men." "Dread,"

men,

says the Latin proverb, "the man of one book!"' What a formidable antagonist he would be who had thoroughly studied Shakespeare, who had grasped his plots, who had analyzed his characters, who had scaled his highest thoughts, who had sounded his deepest pathos, who had caught the aroma of his most delicate fancies! What a grasp of intellect he would have! What a breadth of sympathy! What a knowledge of human nature! What a command of wit and wisdom and choice sentiments : thoughts that breathe and words that burn!"

Let us suppose, then, that you have studied one or more of these standard authors, and that you are still anxious to extend your acquaintance with books. Our next advice is to confine your reading to that department which suits the bent of your mind. But here the question starts up, "How are we to discover that bent?" This question we shall now try to answer. Your amateur lecturer, descanting upon his pet topic of selfculture, is fond of giving a list of his favorite authors, and telling what effect they have had upon him, and he exhorts his audience to read the same books, in order that they may achieve the same results. He forgets that different men have different tastes, and that possibly the mental food which has made him so self-satisfied and sprightly may leave them still lean and hungry. He forgets, too, that it might not be advisable to have all men moulded after one model, even although that model should be such an admirable person as himself; that such an arrangement might not harmonize with the order of things and the designs of Providence; nay, that it would very likely make the world intolerably dreary and commonplace. Speaking for ourselves, we would be afraid to prescribe to a miscellaneous audience any list of books beyond a few standard authors such as those already mentioned. No! We would rather say to you: Never adopt as a matter of course the favorite authors of any man. Do not jump about from book to book, trying to read what any would-be judge recommends to you. Do not lose yourself in purposeless, des

altory reading to please any man. Your time is precious, and the more precious it is, the more select should your reading be. Carry into your studies the great principle of the division of labor, and confine your attention to that one class of books which suits your capacity best. Make choice of this class of books deliberately and carefully; and in order that you may choose with certainty, let us point out the three characteristics which these books should have. They should (1) interest, (2) call into play the mental powers, and (3) make us more fit for our every-day duties. They should have, not one merely, but all of these characteristics. Let us show how essential they

all are.

First of all, the book which you would choose must interest you. Shakespeare says:

"No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en.

In brief, sir! study what you most affect."

If you have no appetite, your bodily food will not nourish you; and if you have no interest in what you read, your reading will be of no service. If you are not interested, you will not open your mind; and if you do not open your mind, you will take in no ideas. The book may be one of the great master-pieces, full of high ideas and noble sentiments, yet to you it will be nothing but a mass of printed paper. But on the other hand, if, while you read, you find your attention absorbed, then the work has the first characteristic of a suitable book. It has the first characteristic, but not necessarily the others. With all its interest, it may be some inane novel which only kills your precious hours. Mere interest, therefore, is not enough in a work. It must, in the second place, have the power of calling the mental faculties into play. A book, if it is really a genuine work, is composed of the very substance of the author's spiritual being. There, wrapped up in words and sentiments, lie those thoughts that flashed through his brain, and those feelings that tingled in his heart. his very soul, ready to start up when occasion calls.

There lurks

Now if,

while reading a work, you feel your soul come into contact with his―if, in other words, you feel yourself drawn toward him, and entering spontaneously into his ideas and sentiments —then you may conclude that the author is a kindred spirit, and that his book so far suits your capacity. And if the author, like Carlyle or Emerson, scatters through his pages hints of great ideas, which set your mind a-working, and makes it start on a voyage of discovery into the realms of truth, you may conclude that he has one of the most essential qualifications of a great teacher. But even this characteristic is not altogether enough. The book may be a one-sided work, representing the world as a God-forsaken chaos, and man as the victim of pitiless chance, and poisoning the very springs of your being with discontent and scorn. A book, therefore, must have still another requisite, namely, a tendency to make you fitter for your every-day duties. The great end of life, after all, is not to think, but to act; not to be learned, but to be good and noble. Accordingly, the crowning merit of a book must always be its practical usefulness. It may be a work of fiction, diverting your thoughts from the chaos of business, and allowing your mind to recover its elasticity and its tone; or a history, bringing before you high examples for your imitation; or a poem, elevating and refining your taste, and filling your imagination with beautiful forms; or the work of a Christian philosopher, rousing you, as with the blast of a trumpet, from self-indulgence to self-sacrifice. If it makes you more cheerful, or more amiable, or more sympathetic, or more appreciative of what is beautiful, or more resolute to follow what is good and noble, then the highest purpose of a book is gained.

These, then, are the three requisites which every suitable book must have. If in any particular class of works you find not one or two but all of these three requisites, then you may safely conclude that you have come upon your special line of reading. All you have to do is to follow it perseveringly. The region into which you have entered may at first seem

strange and somewhat dull, but it will always be growing more familiar and more pleasant, until you will feel yourself thoroughly in your element. And do not fear lest you should become contracted in your knowledge. Every line of study must meet and cross some other lines; and thus, while you will be acquiring a particular knowledge of your own department, you will be forming a general knowledge of other departments.

II. We have now seen what books each of us ought to read. Let us now see how we ought to read them.

One

Different men have different ways of reading books. man, believing that there is some mystic virtue in the mere printed letters themselves, dozes over a few pages of a volume, and fancies that he gains wisdom by following a plan that is often recommended to those whose brains are perplexed, namely, the plan of "sleeping upon a subject." Another, bent upon making a display, charges his mind with some particular information (just as he would charge a musket with shot), and, when the occasion comes, fires it off, and remains as empty as he was before. Another, a perfect literary glutton, reads books on all subjects and in all languages, and burdens his mind with so many facts of different kinds that it reels and vacillates, and is unfit for the particular duties of life. His friends admiringly call him a " dungeon of learning ;" and indeed so he is, for everything that comes out of him is musty, and mouldy, and useless. He is, in fact,

"A bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,

With loads of learned lumber in his head."

The method of reading that we would recommend is very definite, and consists of several distinct steps.

1. Before you begin to peruse a book, know something about the author. When you read a work written by a person you know, you are far more interested in it than in a stranger's book. You imagine you hear him speaking, and you see more