for never, surely, were books read with greater insight and with more
complete absorption. Indeed, the fruits of this reading were so rich
and ripe that the books from which their juices came seem but dry
husks and shells in comparison. The reader drained the writer dry of
every particle of suggestiveness, and then recreated the material in
new and imperishable forms. The process of reproduction was
individual, and is not to be shared by others; it was the expression
of that rare and inexplicable personal energy which we call genius;
but the process of absorption may be shared by all who care to submit
to the discipline which it involves. It is clear that Shakespeare read
in such a way as to possess what he read; he not only remembered it,
but he incorporated it into himself. No other kind of reading could
have brought the East out of its grave, with its rich and languorous
atmosphere steeping the senses in the charm of Cleopatra, or recalled
the massive and powerfully organised life of Rome about the person of
the great Cæsar. Shakespeare read his books with such insight and
imagination that they became part of himself; and so far as this
process is concerned, the reader of to-day can follow in his steps.

The majority of people have not learned this secret; they read for
information or for refreshment; they do not read for enrichment.
Feeding one's nature at all the sources of life, browsing at will on
all the uplands of knowledge and thought, do not bear the fruit of
acquirement only; they put us into personal possession of the
vitality, the truth, and the beauty about us. A man may know the plays
of Shakespeare accurately as regards their order, form, construction,
and language, and yet remain almost without knowledge of what
Shakespeare was at heart, and of his significance in the history of
the human soul. It is this deeper knowledge, however, which is
essential for culture; for culture is such an appropriation of