onest
with oneself is not so simple as it appears. One's sensations and
one's sentiments must be examined with detachment. When you have
violently flung down a book, listen whether you can hear a faint voice
saying within you: "It's true, though!" And if you catch the whisper,
better yield to it as quickly as you can. For sooner or later the
voice will win. Similarly, when you are hugging a book, keep your
ear cocked for the secret warning: "Yes, but it isn't true." For bad
books, by flattering you, by caressing, by appealing to the weak or
the base in you, will often persuade you what fine and splendid books
they are. (Of course, I use the word "true" in a wide and essential
significance. I do not necessarily mean true to literal fact; I
mean true to the plane of experience in which the book moves. The
truthfulness of _Ivanhoe_, for example, cannot be estimated by
the same standards as the truthfulness of Stubbs's _Constitutional
History_.) In reading a book, a sincere questioning of oneself, "Is it
true?" and a loyal abiding by the answer, will help more surely than
any other process of ratiocination to form the taste. I will not
assert that this question and answer are all-sufficient. A true book
is not always great. But a great book is never untrue.

My second counsel is: In your reading you must have in view some
definite aim--some aim other than the wish to derive pleasure. I
conceive that to give pleasure is the highest end of any work of art,
because the pleasure procured from any art is tonic, and transforms
the life into which it enters. But the maximum of pleasure can only
be obtained by regular effort, and regular effort implies the
organisation of that effort. Open-air walking is a glorious exercise;
it is the walking itself which is glorious. Nevertheless, when setting
out for walking exercise, the sane man generally has a subsidiary aim
in view. He says to himself either that he will reach a given point,
or that he will progress at a given speed for a given distance, or
that he will remain on his feet for a given time. He organises his
effort, partly in order that he may combine some other advantage with
the advantage of walking, but principally in order to be sure that
the effort shall be an adequate effort. The same with reading. Your
paramount aim in poring over literature is to enjoy, but you will not
fully achieve that aim unless you have also a subsidiary aim which
necessitates the measurement of y