No. 4.] THE ETHICS OF BOOKS. 123 



tion is the hope of something better to be accomplished in 

 the future. Perhaps what we expect to do or be is the 

 power of life ; we are sure it is in a way the motor to all 

 energetic and helpful lives. To the milder soul who does 

 not have this kind of ambition may always come the desire 

 not to allow life to get monotonous, but to keep alive the 

 fire of life by either the grasping of new thoughts or by re- 

 viving old ideas. 



It is not in these matters a question of few talents, or 

 many. A few talents improved are better than many unim- 

 proved. The average person is by far the most numerous 

 sort ; those who go beyond and those who fall short of the 

 average are the exceptions. Neither is it a question of be- 

 longing to this class, or that. Great literary productions 

 have not most frequently been produced by those in high 

 stations. There is nothing to hinder any one, then, from 

 doing any work he or she is capable of doing in this line, 

 and good literature adapted to all may be had for the seek- 

 ing. A good book costs no more than a bad one. 



General reading is not study; systematic reading, for 

 some special object, is the student's method. In my 

 judgment, it is the most successful and safest mode of pro- 

 cedure. Method helps and insures accuracy. To be accu- 

 rate is to be educated in a sense. When once accuracy is 

 established, then everything we read is for our best 

 purpose. 



By system we mean this : if we wish to know England's 

 past and present condition, we read continuously its social, 

 political and religious histories, its intellectual develop- 

 ment and all its relations to other nations. Take up its 

 literature by reading Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Ma- 

 caulay, Carlisle and Ruskin. In the lighter literature 

 Dickens gives a good idea of the lower English classes. 

 Thackeray portrays the higher classes and George Eliot the 

 agricultural people. In this way we get a thorough knowl- 

 edge of one nation and quite an extended knowledge of 

 many others, also a drilling in the best of literature. Is 

 it not much more practicable and sensible than to read 

 perhaps "Trilby," followed by "Ten Years' Digging 



