his favorite portions of Shakspeare a thousand times--of the Bible a
million times. Reading is much more like painting than we think. Go into
a palace car. Do you think this polish was put on the wood with one
application of the brush--with two, three, four? No; it would possibly
be cheaper to cover it with silk plush than to go over it as the skilled
workmen have done. Let us buy less ephemeral stuff, to be set adrift
and stove in when we have skimmed over it. Let us season our reading,
polish it, grain it, varnish it, repolish it and revarnish it, until we
are just like it ourselves--clear, concise, intelligent. How enjoyable
it is to meet an intelligent person!