understand any subject whatever, read the best book upon it you
can hear of; not a review of the book. If you don't like the first book
you try, seek for another; but do not hope ever to understand the
subject without pains, by a reviewer's help. Avoid especially that class
of literature which has a knowing tone; it is the most poisonous of all.
Every good book, or piece of book, is full of admiration and awe; it may
contain firm assertion or stern satire, but it never sneers coldly, nor
asserts haughtily, and it always leads you to reverence or love
something with your whole heart. It is not always easy to distinguish
the satire of the venomous race of books from the satire of the noble
and pure ones; but in general you may notice that the cold-blooded
Crustacean and Batrachian books will sneer at sentiment; and the
warm-blooded, human books, at sin. Then, in general, the more you can
restrain your serious reading to reflective or lyric poetry, history,
and natural history, avoiding fiction and the drama, the healthier your
mind will become. Of modern poetry keep to Scott, Wordsworth, Keats,
Crabbe, Tennyson, the two Brownings, Lowell, Longfellow, and Coventry
Patmore, whose "Angel in the House" is a most finished piece of writing,
and the sweetest analysis we possess of quiet modern domestic feeling;
while Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh" is, as far as I know, the greatest
poem which the century has produced in any language. Cast Coleridge at
once aside, as sickly and useless; and Shelley as shallow and verbose;
Byron, until your taste is fully formed, and you are able to discern the
magnificence in him from the wrong. Never read bad or common poetry, nor
write any poetry yourself; there is, perhaps, rather too much than too
little in the world already.

Of reflective prose, read chiefly Bacon, Johnson, and Helps. Carlyle is
hardly to be named as a writer for "beginners," because his teaching,
though to some of us vitally necessary, may to others be hurtful. If you
understand and like him, read him; if he offends you, you are not yet
ready for him, and perhaps may never be so; at all events, give him up,
as you would sea-bathing if you found it hurt you, till you are
stronger. Of fiction, read Sir Charles Grandison, Scott's novels, Miss
Edgeworth's, and, if you are a young lady, Madame de Genlis', the French
Miss Edgeworth; making these, I mean, your constant companions. Of
course you must, or will read other books for a