ng means for robbing from the
aesthetic public the time which should be devoted to the genuine
productions of art for the furtherance of culture.

Hence, in regard to our subject, the art of _not_ reading is highly
important. This consists in not taking a book into one's hand merely
because it is interesting the great public at the time--such as
political or religious pamphlets, novels, poetry, and the like, which
make a noise and reach perhaps several editions in their first and last
years of existence. Remember rather that the man who writes for fools
always finds a large public: and only read for a limited and definite
time exclusively the works of great minds, those who surpass other men
of all times and countries, and whom the voice of fame points to as
such. These alone really educate and instruct.

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad
books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read
what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.

* * * * *

Books are written sometimes about this, sometimes about that great
thinker of former times, and the public reads these books, but not the
works of the man himself. This is because it wants to read only what has
just been printed, and because _similis simili gaudet_, and it finds the
shallow, insipid gossip of some stupid head of to-day more homogeneous
and agreeable than the thoughts of great minds. I have to thank fate,
however, that a fine epigram of A.B. Schlegel, which has since been my
guiding star, came before my notice as a youth:

"Leset fleizig die Alten, die wahren eigentlich Alten
Was die Neuen davon sagen bedeutet nicht viel."

Oh, how like one commonplace mind is to another! How they are all
fashioned in one form! How they all think alike under similar
circumstances, and never differ! This is why their views are so personal
and petty. And a stupid public reads the worthless trash written by
these fellows for no other reason than that it has been printed to-day,
while it leaves the works of great thinkers undisturbed on the
bookshelves.

Incredible are the folly and perversity of a public that will leave
unread writings of the noblest and rarest of minds, of all times and all
countries, for the sake of reading the writings of commonplace persons
which appear daily, and breed every year in cou