our energy. Your subsidiary aim may
be aesthetic, moral, political, religious, scientific, erudite; you
may devote yourself to a man, a topic, an epoch, a nation, a branch of
literature, an idea--you have the widest latitude in the choice of
an objective; but a definite objective you must have. In my earlier
remarks as to method in reading, I advocated, without insisting on,
regular hours for study. But I both advocate and insist on the fixing
of a date for the accomplishment of an allotted task. As an instance,
it is not enough to say: "I will inform myself completely as to the
Lake School." It is necessary to say: "I will inform myself completely
as to the Lake School before I am a year older." Without this
precautionary steeling of the resolution the risk of a humiliating
collapse into futility is enormously magnified.

My third counsel is: Buy a library. It is obvious that you cannot
read unless you have books. I began by urging the constant purchase
of books--any books of approved quality, without reference to their
immediate bearing upon your particular case. The moment has now come
to inform you plainly that a bookman is, amongst other things, a man
who possesses many books. A man who does not possess many books is
not a bookman. For years literary authorities have been favouring
the literary public with wondrously selected lists of "the best
books"--the best novels, the best histories, the best poems, the best
works of philosophy--or the hundred best or the fifty best of all
sorts. The fatal disadvantage of such lists is that they leave out
large quantities of literature which is admittedly first-class. The
bookman cannot content himself with a selected library. He wants, as a
minimum, a library reasonably complete in all departments. With such a
basis acquired, he can afterwards wander into those special byways
of book-buying which happen to suit his special predilections. Every
Englishman who is interested in any branch of his native literature,
and who respects himself, ought to own a comprehensive and inclusive
library of English literature, in comely and adequate editions. You
may suppose that this counsel is a counsel of perfection. It is
not. Mark Pattison laid down a rule that he who desired the name
of book-lover must spend five per cent. of his income on books. The
proposal does not seem extravagant, but even on a smaller percentage
than five the average reader of these pages may become the owner, in