READING. 
With a little more deliberation in the choice of their 
pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially 
students and observers, for certainly their nature and 
destiny are interesting to all alike. In accumulating 
property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a 
family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; 
but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need 
fear no change nor accident. The oldest Egyptian or 
Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the 
statue of the divinity; and still the trembling robe re¬ 
mains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he 
did, since it was I in him that was then so bold, and it is 
he in me that now reviews the vision. No dust has set¬ 
tled on that robe; no time has elapsed since that divinity 
was revealed. That time which we really improve, or 
which is improvable, is neither past, present, nor future. 
My residence was more favorable, not only to 
thought, but to serious reading, than a university; and 
though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circu¬ 
lating library, I had more than ever come within the in¬ 
fluence of those books which circulate round the world, 
( 108 ) 
