Reading ought not to be aimless, even though its aim be to while away an hour. And reading when allowed for the merest relaxation is not exempt from the guidance of principles and, if need be, the restraints of conscience. As to habits of reading, and the attitude with which we are accustomed to present ourselves before our book and its author, these are of so great importance that our success or failure in the use of books is determined by them. We are not so stupid or pedantic as to desire to form the reading of two persons after the same model, or to lay down formal rules, for the mechanical adjustment and direction of the mental processes. But we earnestly desire to awaken each person to the dignity of forming his own rules for reading; and of making his converse with books to contribute to and to grow from a character that is individual because it is formed by reflection.

The first rule which we prescribe is: read with attention. This is the rule that takes precedence of all others. It stands instead of a score of minor directions. Indeed it comprehends them all, and is the golden rule. To gain the power and habit of attention, is the great difficulty to be overcome by young readers when they begin. The one reason why reading is so dull to multitudes of active and eager minds is that they have not acquired the habit of attending to books. The eye may be fastened upon the page, and the mind may follow the lines, and yet the mind not be half awake to the thoughts of the author, or the best half of its energies may be abroad on some wandering errand. The one evil that comes from omnivorous and indiscriminate reading is that the attention is wearied and overborne by the multitude of the objects that pass before it; that the miserable habit is formed and strengthened of seeming to follow the author when he is half comprehended, of vacantly gazing upon the page that serves just to occupy

and excite the fancy without leaving distinct and lasting impressions.

It was said of Edmund Burke, who was a great reader and a great thinker also, that he read every book as if he were never to see it a second time, and thus made it his own, a possession for life. Were his example imitated, much time would be saved that is spent in recalling things half remembered, and in taking up the stitches of lost thoughts. A greater loss than that of time would be avoided the loss of the dignity and power which are possessed by him who keeps his mind tense, active and wakeful. It is very common to give the rule thus, "Whatever is worth reading at all, is worth reading well." If by "well" is intended with the utmost stretch of attention, it is not literally true, for there are books which serve for pastime and amusement, books which can be run through when we are more or less fagged or ill,and cannot and ought not to put forth our utmost energies of body and mind. Then there are books which we may look through, as a merchant runs over the advertisements in a newspaper -taking up the thoughts that interest and concern us especially, as the magnet takes and holds the iron filings that are scattered through a handful of sand. But if every part of a book be equally worthy our regard, as the writings of Arnold, Grote, Merivale, Gibbon, Burke, Webster, Milton, Shakspeare, or Scott, then should the entire energy of attention be aroused during the time of reading. The page should be read as if it were never to be seen a second time; the mental eye should be fixed as if there were no other object to think of; the memory should grasp the facts, (i. e.) the dates, incidents, etc., like a vise; the impressions should be distinctly and sharply received; the feelings should glow intensely at all that is worthy and burn with indignation at everything which is bad. For the want of this habit, thoroughly matured and made per

manent, time is wasted, negligent habits are formed, the powers of the mind are systematically weakened by the very exercise which should give them strength, and reading, which ought to arouse and strengthen the intellect, produces, with many, no deeper and more abiding impression than the shifting pictures of a magic lantern, or the fantastic groupings of the kaleidoscope-first a bewildering show, then confusion and vacancy.

There is now-a-days a special danger from this inattention. So many books are written, which are good enough in their way, and yet are the food for easy, i. e. lazy, reading, and they are so cheap withal; so much excitement prevails in respect to them, that an active mind is in danger of knowing many things superficially and nothing well, of being driven through one volume after another with such breathless haste as to receive few clear impressions and no lasting influences.

Passive reading is the evil habit against which most readers need to be guarded, and to overcome which, when formed, requires the most manful and persevering efforts. The habit is the natural result of a profusion of books and the indolence of our natures and our times, which desires to receive thoughts,—or more exactly pictures, many of which are thin, hazy, and evanescent-rather than vigorously to react against them by an effort that thinks them over and makes them one's own. It is the intellectual dyspepsia which is induced by a plethora of intellectual diet, if that may be called intellectual which is the weak dilution of thought. Almost better not read at all, than to read in such a way. Certainly it is better to be forced to steal a half-hour from sleep, after a day of bodily toil, or to depend for your reading on an hour at a midday nooning when your fellow-laborers are asleep, if you but fix your whole mind on what you read, than to dawdle away weeks and months in turning over the leaves of

hundreds of volumes in search for something new, which is feebly conceived, as lazily dismissed, and as stupidly forgotten. Better read one history, one poem, or one novel, well, if it takes a year to despatch it at stolen intervals of time, than lazily to consume twelve hours of the day in a process which wastes the time, and, what is worse, wastes the intellect, the fancy, and the living soul.

But how is the attention to be controlled? How can this miserable passiveness be prevented or overcome? Rules in great number have been prescribed. All sorts of directions have been devised. An ingenious author has advised that each sentence should be read through at a single breath; the breath being retained until the sentence is finished. Some advise to read with the pen in hand; others to make a formal analysis of every volume; others to repeat to ourselves, or to recite to others, the substance of each page and chapter. These, and other devices, are all of service in their way, and some of them we will consider in their appropriate place. But their chief value turns upon this, that they induce an interest or require an interest, either direct or indirect, in the subject-matter which is read. Whatever awakens the interest will be certain to fix and hold the attention. The hired lad in the country who steals an hour from sleep or rest, that he may get on a few pages in the odd volume of Plutarch or Rollin, which, having fallen in his way, has begun to unfold before his astonished gaze the till then unknown history of the ancient world; the errand-boy of the city, who stands trembling at the book-stall, lest the surly proprietor should cut short his borrowed pleasure from the page which he devours; these need no artificial devices to teach them to hold the mind to the book, or to retain its contents. The great secret of their attention is to be found in the fresh interest with which they lay hold of the thoughts of the pictured page, and this remains ever

the great secret of the habit of successful reading even to the mind that has been disciplined to the most amazing feats of application. There are no arts of attention, no arts of memory, which can be compared with this natural and certain condition of success.

Daniel Webster was one of the most earnest and intelligent of readers all his life long. His favorite authors were read and re-read with a passionate fondness. His critical conversations upon the standard poets and essayists and orators of the English tongue are still remembered and quoted by those who were present to hear when the mood and opportunity of discourse were upon him. In one of the last evenings of his life he beguiled the weariness of his attendants by reciting a poem from Cowper. How he came to be so successful and so intelligent a reader is explained in his autobiography. Whatever he read he read so often and so carnestly that he learned to repeat it. "We had so few books," he says, "that to read them once or twice was nothing; we thought they were all to be got by heart." A small circulating library had been established in the neighborhood by his father and other persons, and among the books which he obtained from it was the Spectator. "I could not understand why it was necessary that the author of the Spectator should take such great pains to prove that Chevy Chase was a good story; that was the last thing I doubted." He tells us, "In those boyish days there were two things which I did dearly love, viz: reading and playing-passions which did not cease to struggle when boyhood was over."

The man or boy who reads with attention thus quickened cannot read amiss if what he reads is worth perusing. Of his habits when a student he says: "Many other students read more than I did and knew more than I did. But so much as I read I made my own. When a half hour or an hour at most had elapsed, I stored my book, and thought on