III. What will be the effect on my skills and accomplishments? Will it store my mind full of beautiful thoughts and images that will make my conversation a delight and profit to my friends? Will it teach me how to write with power, give me the art of thinking clearly and expressing my thought with force and attractiveness? Will it supply a knowledge of the best means of attaining any other desired art or accomplishment?
IV. Is the book simple enough for me? Is it within my grasp? If not, I must wait till I have come upon a level with it.
V. Will the book impart a pleasure in the very reading? This test alone is not reliable; for till our taste is formed, the trouble may not be in it but in ourselves.
VI. Has it been superseded by a later book, or has its truth passed into the every-day life of the race? If so, I do not need to read it. Other things equal, the authors nearest to us in time and space have the greatest claims on our attention. Especially is this true in science, in which each succeeding great book sucks the life out of all its predecessors. In poetry there is a principle that operates in the opposite direction; for what comes last is often but an imitation, that lacks the fire and force of the original. Nature is best painted, not from books, but from her own sweet face.
VII. What is the relation of the book to the completeness of my development? Will it fill a gap in the walls of my building? Other things equal, I had better read about something I know nothing of than about something I am familiar with; for the aim is to get a picture of the universe in my brain, and a full development of my whole nature. It is a good plan to read everything of something and something of everything. A too general reader seems vague and hazy, as if he were fed on fog; and a too special reader is narrow and hard, as if fed on needles.
VIII. Is the matter inviting my attention of permanent value? The profits of reading what is merely of the moment are not so great as those accruing from the reading of literature that is of all time. To hear the gossip of the street is not as valuable as to hear the lectures of Joseph Cook, or the sermons of Beecher and Brooks. On this principle, most of our time should be spent on classics, and very little upon transient matter. There is a vast amount of energy wasted in this country in the reading of newspapers and periodicals. The newspaper is a wonderful thing. It brings the whole huge earth to me in a little brown wrapper every morning. The editor is a sort of travelling stage-manager, who sets up his booth on my desk every day, bringing with him the greatest performers from all the countries of the world, to play their parts before my eyes. Yonder is an immense mass-meeting; and that mite, brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner, is the great Mr. So-and-So, explaining his position amid the tumultuous explosions of an appreciative multitude. That puffet of smoke and dust to the right is a revolution. There in the shadow of the wood comes an old man who lays down a scythe and glass while he shifts the scenes, and we see a bony hand reaching out to snatch back a player in the midst of his part, and even trying to clutch the showman himself. For three dollars a year I can buy a season ticket to this great Globe theatre, for which God writes the dramas, whose scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death.[1] But theatre-going, if kept up continuously, is very enervating. 'T is better far to read the hand-bills and placards at the door, and only when the play is great go in. Glance at the head-lines of the paper always; read the mighty pages seldom. The editors could save the nation millions of rich hours by a daily column of _brief but complete_ statements of the paper's contents, instead of those flaring head-lines that allure but do not satisfy, and only lead us on to read that Mr. Windbag nominated Mr. Darkhorse amid great applause, and that Mr. Darkhorse accepted in a three-column speech skilfully constructed so as to commit himself to nothing; or that Mr. Bondholder's daughter was married, and that Mrs. So-and-So wore cream satin and point lace, with roses, etc.