you can always find something which bears on it--you can borrow an odd
book here and there, or pick up bits in a stray magazine; several of the
books you would want are cheap to buy, and, if you keep a list of them,
you will be surprised to find from what odd quarters they turn up. People
have a way of saying, 'Oh, do recommend me a book,' as if all subjects
were equally interesting, or rather uninteresting, and they borrow the
first that comes, reading it as a duty, quite regardless of the fact that
it does not belong to anything they have read before, or will read after;
but if they had made up their mind on a subject, the lending friend would
take far more interest, and probably hunt up something that bore on the
subject, while the reader would be more likely to get good."

"But if I begin Ruskin here, and then go home, where I may perhaps find an
Italian history, and then go for another visit and find something else, it
will all be so disjointed."

"Yes, it would be nicer if you could go on with art or architecture; but
your reading will not be so desultory as to be useless, if it is all
strung on the one thread of Italy, and then you can group it, as you go
along, in a commonplace book. I should take a large one, and divide it
among the towns I wanted to see, and then subdivide the pages given to,
_e.g._ Florence, under the heads of art, history, famous men,
architecture, poetry, novels, and, as I read anything on these subjects, I
should jot down the substance of it under the right heading, or if it was
a poem, just give the title and one or two of the best lines. And you
could keep up your French and German at the same time--suppose you read
_Corinne_ and the _Improvisator_, they would both help to keep you in an
Italian atmosphere."

"Yes, I could keep up my reading, but how about the grammar?"