till more lamentable, in
a good many more houses where these books are, they are never referred
to or opened. That is a very discreditable fact, because I defy
anybody to take up a single copy of the _Times_ newspaper and not come
upon something in it, upon which, if their interest in the affairs of
the day were active, intelligent, and alert as it ought to be, they
would consult an atlas, dictionary, or cyclopaedia of reference.

No sensible person can suppose for a single moment that everybody
is born with the ability for using books, for reading and studying
literature. Certainly not everybody is born with the capacity of being
a great scholar. All people are no more born great scholars like
Gibbon and Bentley, than they are all born great musicians like Handel
and Beethoven. What is much worse than that, many come into the world
with the incapacity of reading, just as they come into it with the
incapacity of distinguishing one tune from another. To them I have
nothing to say. Even the morning paper is too much for them. They can
only skim the surface even of that. I go further, and frankly admit
that the habit and power of reading with reflection, comprehension,
and memory all alert and awake, does not come at once to the
natural man any more than many other sovereign virtues come to that
interesting creature. What I do venture to press upon you is, that
it requires no preterhuman force of will in any young man or
woman--unless household circumstances are more than usually vexatious
and unfavourable--to get at least half an hour out of a solid busy day
for good and disinterested reading. Some will say that this is too
much to expect, and the first persons to say it, I venture to predict,
will be those who waste their time most. At any rate, if I cannot get
half an hour, I will be content with a quarter. Now, in half an hour I
fancy you can read fifteen or twenty pages of Burke; or you can read
one of Wordsworth's masterpieces--say the lines on Tintern; or
say, one-third--if a scholar, in the original, and if not, in a
translation--of a book of the Iliad or the Aeneid. I do not think that
I am filling the half-hour too full. But try for yourselves what you
can read in half an hour. Then multiply the half-hour by 365, and
consider what treasures you might have laid by at the end of the year;
and what happiness, fortitude, and wisdom they would have given you
during all the days of your life.

I will not take up your