--Books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good;
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.--Wordsworth.
By the aid of books we multiply our sensations a
million-fold. Often the reader actually feels what he reads. Such
impressions would perhaps never have fallen to his lot in the ordinary
way of getting experience. Our indebtedness, then, to the art of
printing, is perhaps greater than to any other of the remarkable
discoveries which have lent enduring charms to human life. And yet, with
all its progress, the book-reading world is still in its infancy. The
people do not read half enough, they do not discriminate wisely between
good reading and indifferent reading, and they read too much matter of
an ephemeral nature, little calculated to be of the slightest benefit to
them a week after its perusal. If a man lived on the banks of a
beautiful lake, and went down to its shore each pleasant day to take a
ride, and, after an excursion upon the peaceful waters, stove his boat
in, or cast it adrift, he would be actually following the practice of
our people of the present day. The man who owns a library in these
times, is considered either a book-worm or an opulent citizen. And yet
what treasures are within everyone's reach! Suppose you buy and read a
volume. You are