ust
necessarily choose those subjects, the knowledge of which will make us
better fitted for our work in life. And the mere seeking for knowledge,
which is the sole end of much reading, does not imply, but may even
prevent the attaining that higher end, the cultivation of our nobler
powers, as the imagination and the sympathies, and the gaining the power
of appreciating what is highest and best in literature and life. For
instance, one may be conscious of a total lack of a love for any great
writer. To him Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and their peers are
but names. Now it may be that the best use to which such an one can put
a library is to make at least the attempt to understand and enjoy some
great author. It will be no easy task, but one needing and worthy the
hardest study. To take, as an illustration of one method, a lesser poet,
read carefully and thoughtfully Matthew Arnold's introduction to his
edition of the selected poems of Wordsworth. Whenever he refers to a
poem, read it before going farther and re-read it until the thought of
the poet as indicated by the commentator is reasonably clear. Then read
in the same manner what Coleridge, Shairp, F.W. Robertson, or any other
good critic has written upon Wordsworth. And, above all, sometimes read
the poems as nearly as possible in the same circumstances under which
they were written--in the forest, by the brook-side, in the solitudes of
the mountains, or on a bridge in the heart of a great city. If this fail
to awaken an interest in Wordsworth, try some other author in a similar
way, and it is impossible that of all who have stirred men's hearts
through the ages, no one can be found to arouse your sympathies. And
when the right author is at length found, you live on a higher plane
than before. This great poet, philosopher, or dramatist has become your
friend and familiar companion--a gain far greater than the acquirement
of any mere book knowledge.

The greater part of another person's life may be spent in sordid
surroundings, with companions and in an occupation tending to depress
and degrade the better nature. I can easily conceive that it might be
the highest duty of such an one to remain ignorant of much useful
knowledge in order to quicken the imagination, to enlarge the tastes,
and heighten the enjoyments. So that when the day's work is done, he may
exchange the sordid companions, suggestive only of mean thoughts and low
aims, for intercourse with men o