on is like
the roots of some flourishing oak; every fresh fact is, as it were, a
new fibre confirming and strengthening the growth of the tree, and
attracting nourishment from new soil.

'The moment you have a definite aim, attention is quickened, the mother
of memory; and all that you acquire groups and arranges itself in an
order that is lucid, because everywhere and always it is in intelligent
relation to a central object of constant and growing interest.'[103]
Bearing this in mind, we would urge the student to investigate every
unfamiliar allusion which may occur in the course of his reading or
conversation. A fact or subject thus sought out fixes itself more firmly
in the memory than most of those which are merely passed in the ordinary
course of reading.

The use of odd moments should not be overlooked. 'Blockheads,' wrote Sir
Walter Scott, 'can never find out how folks cleverer than themselves
came by their information. They never know what is done at
dressing-time, meal-time even, or in how few minutes they can get at the
sense of many pages.' It is not possible always to have a book at hand,
but any one who will take the trouble to copy out, from time to time,
passages which have attracted his attention, and carry them about with
him to learn by heart at odd moments, may perhaps be astonished to find
how much may be acquired in this manner.

There are some books which by their nature lend themselves to a snatchy
method of perusal, and a few minutes may often be well employed in
reading an ode of Horace, or the disjointed conversations of Dr.
Johnson, but such moments should as a rule be devoted to books which are
already more or less familiar. The habit of frivolously taking up, and
as frivolously casting aside, a book is, however, one which should be
guarded against with the utmost care. It was a strict rule in the family
of Goethe the elder, that any book once commenced should be read through
to the end. Dr. Johnson, on the other hand, considered a rule of this
kind 'strange advice; you may as well resolve that whatever men you
happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep them for life.'

A snare, which did not exist in the time of Goethe or of Dr. Johnson,
presents itself in these days to the reader, in the ever-increasing mass
of periodical literature. But the busy man, who has not time to turn
aside from his own work to the thorough investigation of the topic of
the hour, may sometimes, in the pages