I know many persons who have the purest taste in literature, and yet
false taste in art, and it is a phenomenon which puzzles me not a
little; but I have never known any one with false taste in books, and
true taste in pictures. It is also of the greatest importance to you,
not only for art's sake, but for all kinds of sake, in these days of
book deluge, to keep out of the salt swamps of literature, and live on a
little rocky island of your own, with a spring and a lake in it, pure
and good. I cannot, of course, suggest the choice of your library to
you: every several mind needs different books; but there are some books
which we all need, and assuredly, if you read Homer, Plato, Aeschylus,
Herodotus, Dante, Shakespeare, and Spenser, as much as you ought, you
will not require wide enlargement of shelves to right and left of them
for purposes of perpetual study.--J. RUSKIN. _The Elements of Drawing._
'There is no book so bad,' said the bachelor, 'but something good may be
found in it.'--CERVANTES.