ON THE EE-EEADING OE BOOKS 217 



thetic, forlorn look. In the journey of life there is 

 always more or less pain in going back ; and I sup- 

 pose it is partly because in every place in which we 

 have lived we have had pain, and partly because 

 there is some innate dislike in us to going back ; the 

 watchword of the soul is onward. If the book has 

 given us pain, we cannot return to it ; and our sec- 

 ond or third or fourth pleasure in it will be in pro- 

 portion to the depth and genuineness of our first. 

 If our pleasure was in the novelty or strangeness or 

 unexpectedness of the thing, it will not return, or 

 only in small measure. Stories of exciting plots, I 

 find, one can seldom re-read. One can go back to 

 the " Vicar of Wakefield ; " but can he read a second 

 time " The Woman in White " ? In such books 

 there can be only one first time. Pluck out the 

 heart of a mystery once, and it never grows again. 

 Curiosity and astonishment make a poor foundation 

 to build upon. The boy tires of his jumping-jack 

 much sooner than of his top or ball. Only the 

 normal, the sane, the simple, have the gift of long 

 life ; the strained, the intemperate, the violent will 

 not live out half their days. We never outgrow our 

 pleasure in simple, common things ; if we do, so much 

 the worse for us ; and I think it will be found that 

 those books to which we return and that stand the 

 test of time have just this quality of simple, universal, 

 e very-day objects and experiences, with, of course, 

 some glint of that light that never was on sea or 

 land, — the light of the spirit. How many times 

 does a reading man return to Montaigne, not to make 



