Here is the true spirit! Do not repine for the things that are away off and that you cannot have. Take from what you can get, or go resolutely to work to get the more desirable surroundings. But _wherever you are_ absorb that which is _now_ and _here_ presented to you, and thus you will learn to know and appreciate greater and grander things when opportunity places them before you.
It must not be understood that because I am constantly urging my readers to rely upon their own observations of Nature that I do not fully appreciate the benefit books may be to them. Books form a large place in my own life, and I would regret to be separated from them. They bring into my life the inner life of all the observers, thinkers, orators, seers, poets, and prophets of the ages, and yet what are books but the records of men's observations and their thoughts upon those observations? All books are not good. There are books and books. And just as some associates are injurious, so are many books. Do not waste your time on the cheap, the trashy, the useless, and injurious. Select only those books from which you are sure you can absorb those things that will be helpful and beneficial.
Some people say they read simply for entertainment. There are times when it is well to read with this object in view. If one is weary in mind or body, the brain has been overtaxed, trouble distresses one, then it is well to seek entertainment. For entertainment and the forgetting of one's cares, troubles, and weariness will mean rest and recuperation. It is well to be able to absorb such from a book that takes away thoughts from one's self. But even at such times, choose the best books from which you may absorb those things that will enable you the better to take up the battle of life with renewed energy and courage.
Do you try to keep up with all the latest books? Why? Do you read simply to say that you have read, to be able to give expression to the usual fashionable gabble on so-called "current literature"? It is not the amount you read, but the amount of good, ennobling, and uplifting influences that you gain from your reading that makes reading worth while. No person that lives can read book after book in rapid succession and absorb therefrom anything worth while. As well sit down and eat from six o'clock in the morning until twelve o'clock at night and expect the body to be healthful as to read continually and expect the mind to be healthful. It is not eating but assimilation that builds up the body. Just so, it is not reading but mental absorption that informs the mind and strengthens the soul. One book a year, thoroughly mastered, out of which you have absorbed helpful, stimulating, invigorating, health-giving, power-producing thought and action is worth more than a thousand books swallowed whole without thought or digestion.