themselves by that process into what are called "cultivated persons."
The compiler feels that any one who succeeds in reading, with
reasonable receptivity, the books in this list, must become, at the
end, a person with whom it would be a delight to share that most
classic of all pleasurable arts--the art of intelligent conversation.



BOOKS AND READING

There is scarcely any question, the sudden explosion of which out of a
clear sky, excites more charming perturbation in the mind of a
man--professionally, as they say, "of letters"--than the question, so
often tossed disdainfully off from young and ardent lips, as to "what
one should read," if one has--quite strangely and accidentally--read
hitherto absolutely nothing at all.

To secure the privilege of being the purveyor of spiritual germination
to such provocatively virgin soil, is for the moment so entirely
exciting that all the great stiff images from the dusty museum of
"standard authors," seem to swim in a sort of blurred mist before our
eyes, and even, some of them at least, to nod and beckon and put out
their tongues. After a while, however, the shock of first excitement
diminishing, that solemn goblin Responsibility lifts up its head, and
though we bang at it and shoo it away, and perhaps lock it up, the
pure sweet pleasure of our seductive enterprise, the "native hue," as
the poet says, of our "resolution" is henceforth "sicklied o'er with
the pale cast of thought," and the fine design robbed of its freshest
dew.