I say that if daily events and scenes do not constantly recall and utilise
the ideas and emotions contained in the books which you have read
or are reading; if the memory of these books does not quicken
the perception of beauty, wherever you happen to be, does not help you
to correlate the particular trifle with the universal, does not
smooth out irritation and give dignity to sorrow--then you are,
consciously or not, unworthy of your high vocation as a bookman.
You may say that I am preaching a sermon. The fact is, I am.
My mood is a severely moral mood. For when I reflect upon the difference
between what books have to offer and what even relatively earnest readers
take the trouble to accept from them, I am appalled (or should be appalled,
did I not know that the world is moving) by the sheer inefficiency,
the bland, complacent failure of the earnest reader.
I am like yourself, the spectacle of inefficiency rouses my holy ire.


Before you begin upon another masterpiece, set out in a row
the masterpieces which you are proud of having read during the past year.
Take the first on the list, that book which you perused in all the zeal
of your New Year resolutions for systematic study. Examine the compartments
of your mind. Search for the ideas and emotions which you have garnered
from that book. Think, and recollect when last something from that book
recurred to your memory apropos of your own daily commerce with humanity.
Is it history--when did it throw a light for you on modern politics?
Is it science--when did it show you order in apparent disorder, and help you
to put two and two together into an inseparable four? Is it ethics--
when did it influence your conduct in a twopenny-halfpenny affair
between man and man? Is it a novel--when did it help you
to "understand all and forgive all"? Is it poetry--when was it
a magnifying glass to disclose beauty to you, or a fire to warm