of their lords. Even that beauty which is of the rounded form, the soft cheek's blooming tinge, the rosy mouth, and pearly lip, owes its debt to health; and that, as has been seen, may profit much by literature. And beyond all this we learn the means of great improvement in our comeliness,—how crooked may be changed to straight, and hollow cheeks to oval; frowns to smiles, and lean or gross to plump; ill-fitting, ill-adapted dress to beautiful attire; a shambling gait to a well-conducted walk,—and even the stupid stare of ignorance be turned to angel glances of indwelling power and interested comprehension.

Accomplishments, too, find help in written works of genius, not merely as affording a record of the best methods of acquiring any given art, but directly as supplying the substance of some of the greatest of all accomplishments,—those of inspiring eloquent conversation, and of writing clear and beautiful English.

Pleasure manifestly is, by all these aids to beauty, health, and power, much beholden to the books we read; but more than this, the very reading of a worthy book is a delicious joy, and one that does not drain but fills the fount from which the happiness of others comes. Plato, Fénelon, Gibbon, and a host of others name the love of books the chiefest charm and glory of their lives.

3. The Quantity and Quality of what we read should have our careful thought. Whoever lives on literary husks and intoxicants, when corn and wheat and milk are just as easily within his reach, is certainly no wiser than one who treats his physical receptacle in the same way, and will as surely suffer from ill feeding in diminished vital force. Indeed, he may be glad if he escapes acquiring intellectual dyspepsia or spiritual delirium tremens. Even of the best of reading there may be too much as well as not enough. More than we can assimilate is waste of time and energy. Besides the regulation of the total quantity we read, with reference to our powers of digestion, we must watch the relative amounts of all the various kinds of literary sustenance we take. A due proportion ought to be maintained by careful mixture of religious, scientific, poetic, philosophic, humorous, and other reading. A man who exercises but one small muscle all his days would violate the laws of health and power. The greatest mind is that which comes the nearest to attainment of a present perfect picture in the mind of all the universe, past, present, and to come. The greatest character is that which gets the greatest happiness for self through fullest and most powerful activities for others, and requires for its own work, existence, and delight, the least subtraction from the world's resources of enjoyment. The greatest man is he who combines in due proportion and completest harmony the fullest physical, emotional, and intellectual life.

4. The Selection of books is of the utmost importance, in view of their influence upon character. All the reasons for care that apply to the choice of friends among the living, have equal force in reference to the dead. The same tests avail in one case as in the other,—reputation and personal observation of the words and deeds of those we think to make companions. We may at will and at slight cost have all the great and noble for our intimate friends and daily guests, who will come when we call, answer the questions we put, and go when we wish. And better yet, however long we talk to them, no other friends will be kept waiting in the anterooms, longing to take our place. Our most engrossing friendship, though we keep them always with us, will produce no interference with their equal friendship with all the world besides. We may associate with angels and become angelic, or with demons and become satanic.

Besides the difference in the nature of books, the very number of them commands a choice. In one library there are three million volumes; in the Boston Public Library about three hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand including pamphlets. In your short life you can read but a trifling part of the world's literature. Suppose you are fortunate enough to be able to read one book a week, in thirty years you would read but fifteen hundred books. Use, then, every care to get the best. If it were in your equal choice to go to one of two reputed entertainments and but one, it surely would be worth your while to know their character before selecting. One might be Beethoven's loveliest symphony, the other but a minstrel show.

5. The Order of our Reading must be carefully attended to. The very best books are not always to be first read. If the reader is young or of little culture, the simplicity of the writing must be taken into account, for it is of no use to read a book that cannot be understood. One of mature and cultivated mind who begins a course of systematic reading may follow the order of absolute value; but a child must be supplied with easy books in each department, and, as his powers develop, with works of increasing difficulty, until he is able to grasp the most complex and abstruse. If you take up a book that is recommended to you as one of the world's best, and find it uninteresting, be sure the trouble is in you. Do not reject it utterly, do not tell people you do not like it; wait a few months or years, then try it again, and it may become to you one of the most precious of books.

6. The Method of your reading is an important factor in determining its value to you. It is in proportion to your conquest of what is worthy in literature that you gain. If you pour it into your mind so fast that each succeeding wave forces the former out before its form and color have been fixed, you are not better off, but rather worse, because the process washes out the power of memory. Memory depends on health, attention, repetition, reflection, association of ideas, and practice. Some books should be very carefully read, looking to both thought and form; the best passages should be marked and marginal notes made; reflection should digest the best ideas, until they become a part of the tissue of your own thought; and the most beautiful and striking expressions should be verbally committed. If you saw a diamond in the sand, surely you would fix it where it might adorn your person. If you find a sparkling jewel in your reading, fix it in your heart and let it beautify your conversation. Shakspeare, Milton, Homer, Bacon, Æschylus, and Emerson, and nearly all the selections in Table III. should be read in this way. Other books have value principally by reason of the line of thought or argument of which the whole book is an expression; such for the most part are books of history, science, and philosophy. While reading them marks or notes should be made; so that when the book is finished, the steps of thought may several times be rapidly retraced, until the force and meaning of the book becomes your own forever. Still other books may be simply glanced through, it being sufficient for the purposes of the general reader to have an idea of the nature of their contents, so that he may know what he can find in them if he has need. Such books to us are the Koran, the works of the lesser essayists, orators, and philosophers. Ruskin says that no book should be read fast; but it would be as sensible to say that we should never walk or ride fast over a comparatively uninteresting country. Adaptation of method to the work in hand is the true rule. We should not read "Robert Elsmere" as slowly and carefully as Shakspeare. As the importance of the book diminishes, the speed of our journey through it ought to