The Feeling for Literature.


The importance of reading habitually the best books becomes apparent
when one remembers that taste depends very largely on the standards
with which we are familiar, and that the ability to enjoy the best and
only the best is conditioned upon intimate acquaintance with the best.
The man who is thrown into constant association with inferior work
either revolts against his surroundings or suffers a disintegration of
aim and standard, which perceptibly lowers the plane on which he
lives. In either case the power of enjoyment from contact with a
genuine piece of creative work is sensibly diminished, and may be
finally lost. The delicacy of the mind is both precious and
perishable; it can be preserved only by associations which confirm and
satisfy it. For this reason, among others, the best books are the only
books which a man bent on culture should read; inferior books not only
waste his time, but they dull the edge of his perception and diminish
his capacity for delight.

This delight, born afresh of every new contact of the mind with a real
book, furnishes indubitable evidence that the reader has the feeling
for literature,--a possession much rarer than is commonly supposed. It
is no injustice to say that the majority of those who read have no
feeling for literature; their interest is awakened or sustained not by
the literary quality of a book, but by some element of brightness or
novelty, or by the charm of narrative. Reading which finds its reward
in these things is entirely legitimate, but it is not the kind of
reading which secures culture. It adds largely to one's stock of
information, and it refreshes the mind by introducing new objects of