" and "Quentin
Durward" and "Artemus Ward" and the "Ingoldsby Legends" and "Pickwick"
and "Vanity Fair." Why, there are hundreds of books like these, each one
of which, if really read, really assimilated, by the person to whom
it happens to appeal, will enable that person quite unconsciously to
furnish himself with much ammunition which he will find of use in the
battle of life.

A book must be interesting to the particular reader at that particular
time. But there are tens of thousands of interesting books, and some of
them are sealed to some men and some are sealed to others; and some stir
the soul at some given point of a man's life and yet convey no message
at other times. The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs
without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs
should be. He must not hypocritically pretend to like what he does not
like. Yet at the same time he must avoid that most unpleasant of all
the indications of puffed-up vanity which consists in treating mere
individual, and perhaps unfortunate, idiosyncrasy as a matter of pride.
I happen to be devoted to Macbeth, whereas I very seldom read Hamlet
(though I like parts of it). Now I am humbly and sincerely conscious
that this is a demerit in me and not in Hamlet; and yet it would not do
me any good to pretend that I like Hamlet as much as Macbeth when, as
a matter of fact, I don't. I am very fond of simple epics and of ballad
poetry, from the Nibelungenlied and the Roland song through "Chevy
Chase" and "Patrick Spens" and "Twa Corbies" to Scott's poems and
Longfellow's "Saga of King Olaf" and "Othere." On the other hand, I
don't care to read dramas as a rule; I cannot read them with enjoyment
unless they appeal to me very strongly. They must almost be AEschylus
or Euripides, Goethe or Moliere, in order that I may not feel after
finishing them a sense of virtuous pride in having achieved a task. Now
I would be the first to deny that even the most delightful old English
ballad should be put on a par with any one of scores of dramatic
works by authors whom I have not mentioned; I know that each of these
dramatists has written what is of more worth than the ballad; only, I
enjoy the ballad, and I don't enjoy the drama; and therefore the ballad
is better for me, and this fact is not altered by the other fact that
my own shortcomings are to blame in the matter. I still read a number of
Scott's novels over and over again, whereas if I