to understand any subject whatever, read the best book
upon it you can hear of: not a review of the book. If you don't like the
first book you try, seek for another; but do not hope ever to understand
the subject without pains, by a reviewer's help. Avoid especially that
class of literature which has a knowing tone; it is the most poisonous
of all. Every good book, or piece of book, is full of admiration and
awe; it may contain firm assertion or stern satire, but it never sneers
coldly, nor asserts haughtily, and it always leads you to reverence or
love something with your whole heart. It is not always easy to
distinguish the satire of the venomous race of books from the satire of
the noble and pure ones; but in general you may notice that the
cold-blooded, Crustacean and Batrachian books will sneer at sentiment;
and the warm-blooded, human books, at sin. Then, in general, the more
you can restrain your serious reading to reflective or lyric poetry,
history, and natural history, avoiding fiction and the drama, the
healthier your mind will become. Of modern poetry, keep to Scott,
Wordsworth, Keats, Crabbe, Tennyson, the two Brownings, Thomas Hood,
Lowell, Longfellow, and Coventry Patmore, whose "Angel in the House" is
a most finished piece of writing, and the sweetest analysis we possess
of quiet modern domestic feeling; while Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh"
is, as far as I know, the greatest poem which the century has produced
in any language. Cast Coleridge at once aside, as sickly and useless;
and Shelley, as shallow and verbose; Byron, until your taste is fully
formed, and you are able to discern the magnificence in him from the
wrong. Never read bad or common poetry, nor write any poetry yourself;
there is, perhaps, rather too much than too little in the world already.

259. Of reflective prose, read chiefly Bacon, Johnson, and Helps.
Carlyle is hardly to be named as a writer for "beginners," because his
teaching, though to some of us vitally necessary, may to others be
hurtful. If you understand and like him, read him; if he offends you,
you are not yet ready for him, and perhaps may never be so; at all
events, give him up, as you would sea-bathing if you found it hurt you,
till you are stronger. Of fiction, read "Sir Charles Grandison," Scott's
novels, Miss Edgeworth's, and, if you are a young lady, Madame de
Genlis', the French Miss Edgeworth; making these, I mean, your constant
companions. Of course you must, or