as it were, hear him brilliantly stuttering while you read his essays
or letters, then certainly you are in a fit condition to proceed and
you want to know in which direction you are to proceed. Yes, I have
caught your terrified and protesting whisper: "I hope to heaven he
isn't going to prescribe a Course of English Literature, because I
feel I shall never be able to do it!" I am not. If your object in life
was to be a University Extension Lecturer in English literature,
then I should prescribe something drastic and desolating. But as your
object, so far as I am concerned, is simply to obtain the highest and
most tonic form of artistic pleasure of which you are capable, I shall
not prescribe any regular course. Nay, I shall venture to dissuade
you from any regular course. No man, and assuredly no beginner, can
possibly pursue a historical course of literature without wasting a
lot of weary time in acquiring mere knowledge which will yield neither
pleasure nor advantage. In the choice of reading the individual must
count; caprice must count, for caprice is often the truest index to
the individuality. Stand defiantly on your own feet, and do not excuse
yourself to yourself. You do not exist in order to honour literature
by becoming an encyclopaedia of literature. Literature exists for your
service. Wherever you happen to be, that, for you, is the centre of
literature.

Still, for your own sake you must confine yourself for a long time
to recognised classics, for reasons already explained. And though you
should not follow a course, you must have a system or principle. Your
native sagacity will tell you that caprice, left quite unfettered,
will end by being quite ridiculous. The system which I recommend is
embodied in this counsel: Let one thing lead to another. In the sea of
literature every part communicates with every other part; there are no
land-locked lakes. It was with an eye to this system that I originally
recommended you to start with Lamb. Lamb, if you are his intimate, has
already brought you into relations with a number of other prominent
writers with whom you can in turn be intimate, and who will be
particularly useful to you. Among these are Wordsworth, Coleridge,
Southey, Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt. You cannot know Lamb without knowing
these men, and some of them are of the highest importance. From the
circle of Lamb's own work you may go off at a tangent at various
points, according to your inclination. If,