It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior
minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in the reach of
all. In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious
thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books! They
are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the
spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to
all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence,
of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am. No matter
though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling.
If the Sacred Writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof,
if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and
Shakespeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of
the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I
shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become
a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society
in the place where I live.
To make this means of culture effectual a man must select good books,
such as have been written by right-minded and strong-minded men, real
thinkers, who instead of diluting by repetition what others say, have
something to say for themselves, and write to give relief to full,
earnest souls; and these works must not be skimmed over for amusement,
but read with fixed attention and a reverential love of truth. In
selecting books we may be aided much by those who have studied more than
ourselves. But, after all, it is best to be determined in this
particular a good deal by our own tastes.--W. E. CHANNING.
_Self-Culture._