ities for books as for people, but this does
not come at once.

The proper appreciation of the great books of the world is the reward of
lifelong study. You must work up to them, and unconsciously you will
become trained to find great qualities in what the world has decided is
great. Novel reading is not a part of the intellectual life, it is a
part of the fashionable life.

Lamb says that Bridget Elia 'was tumbled early, by accident or design,
into a spacious library of good old English reading, without much
selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and
wholesome pasturage.' And he adds, 'Had I twenty girls they should be
brought up exactly in this fashion.'

Ruskin says, 'there need be no choosing at all. Keep the modern magazine
and novel out of your girl's way; turn her loose into the old library
every wet day, and let her alone. She will find out what is good for
her.'

Mr. Ruskin notwithstanding, there will ever be a large public who will
read nothing unless it has a story in it.

Nearly all readers of books may be divided into two classes, those who
read as students towards some definite end, and those who read for
amusement. The latter class are greatly in the majority, and I have no
hesitation in saying that a love of fiction will always predominate over
a love of research, even in its light form. The student class, among
whom are many critics, usually fail to understand the position of the
fiction lovers, with the result that the fiction readers and fiction
itself get a great many jibes and taunts. To open this question would
involve a long argument, and would bring about no good. All experience
goes to prove that a very large section of the public, not being
students, loves to read the books of the hour, and great pleasure may be
got therefrom. The smaller section, trained to different habits, and
regarding books in a more serious light, put their collection of books
to different purposes, and, I know, get great pleasure therefrom. The
two classes can run parallel together, and one class should not try to
exterminate the other.[20] In country houses the books in billiard-rooms
and in the bedrooms should appropriately be fiction. Not many guests at
a house-party are in the frame of mind to take up serious books, nor are
there the opportunities given for application which such would require.
I think where the general house library is (as is very often the case)
not a living room, there