going to realise your ambition--and so great, so influential an
ambition!--by spasmodic and half-hearted effort. You must begin by
making up your mind adequately. You must rise to the height of the
affair. You must approach a grand undertaking in the grand manner. You
ought to mark the day in the calendar as a solemnity. Human nature is
weak, and has need of tricky aids, even in the pursuit of happiness.
Time will be necessary to you, and time regularly and sacredly set
apart. Many people affirm that they cannot be regular, that regularity
numbs them. I think this is true of a very few people, and that in
the rest the objection to regularity is merely an attempt to excuse
idleness. I am inclined to think that you personally are capable of
regularity. And I am sure that if you firmly and constantly devote
certain specific hours on certain specific days of the week to this
business of forming your literary taste, you will arrive at the goal
much sooner. The simple act of resolution will help you. This is the
first preliminary.

The second preliminary is to surround yourself with books, to create
for yourself a bookish atmosphere. The merely physical side of books
is important--more important than it may seem to the inexperienced.
Theoretically (save for works of reference), a student has need for
but one book at a time. Theoretically, an amateur of literature might
develop his taste by expending sixpence a week, or a penny a day, in
one sixpenny edition of a classic after another sixpenny edition of a
classic, and he might store his library in a hat-box or a biscuit-tin.
But in practice he would have to be a monster of resolution to succeed
in such conditions. The eye must be flattered; the hand must be
flattered; the sense of owning must be flattered. Sacrifices must
be made for the acquisition of literature. That which has cost a
sacrifice is always endeared. A detailed scheme of buying books