wallowed, and some few to be chewed and
digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be
read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with
diligence and attention. Some books also may he read by deputy, and
extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less
important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books
are like common distilled waters, flashy things.

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact
man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great
memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he
read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth
not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle;
natural philosophy, deep; moral philosophy, grave; logic and rhetoric,
able to contend.

XCIII. SURRENDER OF GRANADA. (334)

Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1806-1873, was born in Norfolk County,
England. His father died when he was young; his mother was a woman of
strong literary tastes, and did much to form her son's mind. In 1844, by
royal license, he took the surname of Lytton from his mother's family.
Bulwer graduated at Cambridge. He began to publish in 1826, and his novels
and plays followed rapidly. "Pelham," "The Caxtons," "My Novel," "What
will he do with it?" and "Kenelm Chillingly" are among the best known of
his numerous novels; and "The Lady of Lyons" and "Richelieu" are his most
successful plays. His novels are extensively read on the continent, and
have been translated into most of the languages spoken there. "Leila, or
the Siege of Granada," from which this selection is adapted, was published
in 1840.
###

Day dawned upon Granada, and the beams of the winter sun, smiling away the
clouds of the past night, played cheerily on the murmuring waves of the
Xenil and the Darro. Alone, upon a balcony commanding a view of the
beautiful landscape, stood Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings. He had
sought to bring to his aid all the lessons of the philosophy he had
cultivated.

"What are we," thought the musing prince, "that we should fill the world
with ourselves--we kings? Earth resounds with the crash of my falling
throne; on the ear of races unborn the echo will live prolonged. But what
have I lost? Nothing that was necessary to my happiness, my repose:
nothing save the source of all my wretchedness, the Marah of my li