Every person of tolerable education has been considerably influenced by
the books he has read, and remembers with a kind of gratitude several of
those that made without injury the earliest and the strongest
impression. It is pleasing at a more advanced period to look again into
the early favourites, though the mature person may wonder how some of
them had once power to absorb his passions, make him retire into a
lonely wood in order to read unmolested, repel the approaches of sleep,
or, when it came, infect it with visions. A capital part of the proposed
task would be to recollect the books that have been read with the
greatest interest, the periods when they were read, the partiality which
any of them inspired to a particular mode of life, to a study, to a
system of opinions, or to a class of human characters; to note the
counteraction of later ones (where we have been sensible of it) to the
effect produced by the former; and then to endeavour to estimate the
whole and ultimate influence.
Considering the multitude of facts, sentiments, and characters, which
have been contemplated by a person who has read much, the effect, one
would think, must have been very great. Still, however, it is probable
that a very small number of books will have the pre-eminence in our
mental history. Perhaps your memory will promptly recur to six or ten
that have contributed more to your present habits of feeling and thought
than all the rest together.--J. FOSTER. _On a Man's Writing Memoirs of
Himself._