work in a practicable way
within the limits that we must accept. Others expect so much from us
that it seems as if we had accomplished nothing. "What! have you done
only that?" they say, or we know by their looks that they are thinking
it.

The most illusory of all the work that we propose to ourselves is
reading. It seems so easy to read, that we intend, in the indefinite
future, to master the vastest literatures. We cannot bring ourselves to
admit that the library we have collected is in great part closed to us
simply by want of time. A dear friend of mine, who was a solicitor with
a large practice, indulged in wonderful illusions about reading, and
collected several thousand volumes, all fine editions, but he died
without having cut their leaves. I like the university habit of making
reading a business, and estimating the mastery of a few authors as a
just title to consideration for scholarship. I should like very well to
be shut up in a garden for a whole summer with no literature but the
"Faery Queene," and one year I very nearly realized that project, but
publishers and the postman interfered with it. After all, this business
of reading ought to be less illusory than most others, for printers
divide books into pages, which they number, so that, with a moderate
skill in arithmetic, one ought to be able to foresee the limits of his
possibilities. There is another observation which may be suggested, and
that is to take note of the time required for reading different
languages. We read very slowly when the language is imperfectly
mastered, and we need the dictionary, whereas in the native tongue we
see the whole page almost at a glance, as if it were a picture. People
whose time for reading is limited ought not to waste it in grammars and
dictionaries, but to confine themselves resolutely to a couple of
languages, or three at the very utmost, notwithstanding the contempt of
polyglots, who estimate your learning by the variety of your tongues. It
is a fearful throwing away of time, from the literary point of view, to
begin more languages than you can master or retain, and to be always
puzzling yourself about irregular verbs.

All plans for sparing time in intellectual matters ought, however, to
proceed upon the principle of thrift, and not upon the principle of
avarice. The object of the thrifty man in money matters is so to lay out
his money as to get the best possible result from his expenditure; the
object of the