l delights, the content with ideal
possessions, cannot but be good for us in maintaining a wholesome
balance of the character and of the faculties. I for one shall never be
persuaded, that Shakespeare left a less useful legacy to his countrymen
than Watt. We hold all the deepest, all the highest satisfactions of
life as tenants of imagination. Nature will keep up the supply of what
are called hard-headed people without our help, and, if it come to that,
there are other as good uses for heads as at the end of battering rams.

I know that there are many excellent people who object to the reading of
novels as a waste of time, if not as otherwise harmful. But I think they
are trying to outwit nature, who is sure to prove cunninger than they.
Look at children. One boy shall want a chest of tools and one a book,
and of those who want books one shall ask for a botany, another for a
romance. They will be sure to get what they want, and we are doing a
grave wrong to their morals by driving them to do things on the sly, to
steal that food which their constitution craves and which is wholesome
for them, instead of having it freely and frankly given them as the
wisest possible diet. If we cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,
so neither can we hope to succeed with the opposite experiment. But we
may spoil the silk for its legitimate uses. I can conceive of no
healthier reading for a boy, or girl either, than Scott's novels or
Cooper's, to speak only of the dead. I have found them very good reading
at least for one young man, for one middle-aged man, and for one who is
growing old. No, no; banish the Antiquary, banish Leather Stocking, and
banish all the world! Let us not go about to make life duller than it
is.

But I must shut the doors of my imaginary library, or I shall never
end. It is left for me to say a few words of fitting acknowledgment to
Mr. Fitz for his judicious and generous gift. It is always a pleasure to
me that I believe the custom of giving away money during their lifetime
(and there is nothing harder for most men to part with, except
prejudice) is more common with Americans than with any other people. It
is a still greater pleasure to see that the favorite direction of their
beneficence is toward the founding of colleges and libraries. My
observation has led me to believe that there is no country in which
wealth is so sensible of its obligations as our own. And, as most of our
rich men have risen from the