Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 162=202.= Rules for Reading
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Be sure, then, to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on the gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn without asking, in the street and the train. Dr. Johnson said, "he always went into stately shops;" and good travelers stop at the best hotels; for, though they cost more, they do not cost much more, and there is the good company and the best information. In like manner, the scholar knows that the famed books contain, first and last, the best thoughts and facts. Now and then, by rarest luck, in some foolish grub street is the gem we want. But in the best circles is the best information. If you should transfer the amount of your reading day by day from the newspaper to the standard authors.—But who dare speak of such a thing.
The three practical rules, then, which I have to offer, are: 1st. Never read any book that is not a year old. 2d. Never read any but famed books. 3d. Never read any but what you like; or, in Shakespeare's phrase,
"No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en: In brief, sir, study what you most affect."
Montaigne says, "Books are a languid pleasure;" but I find certain books vital and spermatic, not leaving the reader what he was: he shuts the book a richer man. I would never willingly read any others than such.
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=John Russell Bartlett, 1805-.=
From the "Personal Narrative of Explorations," &c.