ks is as good as another, but only that
reading is the thing, and, given the impulse to read, the how and the
what can be added unto it; but without this energizing motive, no amount
of opportunity or nurture will avail.

But, having not the desire to read, but only a sense that he ought to
have it, what shall a student do? I will suggest three practicable
courses from which a selection may be made according to the needs of the
individual. The first is to sit down and take account of stock, to map
out one's knowledge, one's previous reading, and so find the inner
boundaries of the vast region yet to be explored. This process can
hardly fail to suggest not merely one point of departure, but many. The
second method is, without even so much casting about, to set forth in
any direction, take the first attractive unread book at hand, and let
that lead to others. The third course is intended for the student whose
previous reading has been so scanty and so perfunctory as to afford him
no outlook into literature, a case, which, it is to be feared, is only
too common. We will consider this method first. Obviously such a student
must be furnished with a guide, one who shall set his feet in the right
paths, give him his bearings in literature, and inspire him with a love
for the beauty and grandeur of the scenery disclosed, so that he shall
become not only able to make the rest of his journey alone, but eager to
set out.

Where shall the student find such a guide? There are many and good at
hand, yet perhaps the best are not the professional ones, but rather
those who give us merely a delightful companionship and invite us to
share their own favorite walks in Bookland. Such a choice companion, to
name but one, awaits the student in Hazlitt's "Lectures on the English
Poets." Of the author himself Charles Lamb says: "I never slackened in
my admiration of him; and I think I shall go to my grave without
finding, or expecting to find, such another companion." And of his books
Stevenson confesses: "We are mighty fine fellows, but we cannot write
like William Hazlitt." In this little volume which the most hard-pressed
student can read and ponder in the leisure moments of a single term, the
reader is introduced at once into the wonderland of our English
literature, which he is made to realize at the outset is an indivisible
portion of the greater territory of the literature of the world.

Hazlitt begins with a discussion of poetry in ge