but I am afraid."

"Afraid of what, William?"

"That it will turn my head, sir, and make me dislike more difficult
studies."

"It is a reasonable fear, my son; but there is no danger of this
sort, if we will only take heed of one rule, and that is, to take
such books as we take sweetmeats--in very small quantities at a
time, and never to interfere with the main repast. I suspect that
light reading--or reading which we usually call light, but which,
as it concerns the fate of man in his most serious relations, his
hopes, his affections, his heart, nay, his very people and nation--is
scarcely less important than any other. I suspect that this sort
of reading would be of great service to the student, by relieving
the solemnity of more tedious and exacting studies, if taken sparingly
and at allotted hours. The student usually finds a recreation of
some kind. I would make books of this description his recreation.
Many a thick-headed and sour parent has forced his son into
a beer-shop, into the tastes for tobacco and consequently brandy,
simply from denying him amusements which equally warm the blood
and elevate the imagination. Studies which merely inform the head
are very apt to endanger the heart. This is the reproach usually
urged against the class of persons whom we call thorough lawyers.
Their intense devotion to that narrow sphere of law which leaves
out jury-pleading, is very apt to endanger the existence of feeling
and imagination. The mere analysis of external principles begets a
degree of moral indifference to all things else, which really impairs
the intellect by depriving it of its highest sources of stimulus.