he consideration of it in the light of wisdom and duty.

The distinct consciousness of some object at present before us, imparts a
manifoldly greater interest to the contents of any volume. It imparts to
the reader an appropriate power, a force of affinity, by which he
insensibly and unconsciously attracts to himself all that has a near or
even a remote relation to the end for which he reads. Anyone is conscious
of this who reads a story with the purpose of repeating it to an absent
friend; or an essay or a report with the design of using its facts or
arguments in a debate; or a poem with the design of reviving its imagery,
and reciting its finest passages. Indeed, one never learns to read
effectively until he learns to read in such a spirit--not always, indeed,
for a definite end, yet always with a mind attent to appropriate and
retain and turn to the uses of culture, if not to a more direct
application.

The private history of every self-educated man, from Franklin onwards,
attests that they all were uniformly not only earnest but select in their
reading, and that they selected their books with distinct reference to the
purposes for which they used them. Indeed, the reason why self-trained
men so often surpass men who are trained by others in the effectiveness
and success of their reading, is that they know for what they read and
study, and have definite aims and wishes in all their dealings with books.
The omnivorous and indiscriminate reader, who is at the same time a
listless and passive reader, however ardent is his curiosity, can never be
a reader of the most effective sort.

Another good rule is suggested by the foregoing. Always have some solid
reading in hand; i. e., some work or author which we carry forward from
one day to another, or one hour of leisure to the next, with persistence,
till we have finished whatever we have undertaken. There are many great
and successful readers who do not observe this rule, but it is a good rule
notwithstanding.

The writer once called upon one of the most extensive and persevering of
modern travelers, at an early hour of the day, to attend him upon a walk
to a distant village. It was after breakfast, and though he had but few
minutes at command, he was sitting with book in hand--a book of solid
history he was perusing day after day. He remarked: "This has been my
habit for years in all my wanderings. It is the one habit which gives
solidity to my intellectual activities