In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

Not only in regard to books whose purpose, frankly, is recreation, but
also in regard to the graver uses of books, this counsel no less holds.
No reading does us any good that is not a pleasure to us. Her paths are
paths of pleasantness. Yet, of course, this does not mean that all
profitable reading is easy reading. Some of the books that give us the
finest pleasure need the closest application for their enjoyment. There
is always a certain spiritual and mental effort necessary to be made
before we tackle the great books. One might compare it to the effort of
getting up to see the sun rise. It is no little tug to leave one's warm
bed--but once we are out in the crystalline morning air, wasn't it
worth it? Perhaps our finest pleasure always demands some such
austerity of preparation. That is the secret of the truest
epicureanism. Books like Dante's "Divine Comedy," or Plato's dialogues,
will not give themselves to a lounging reader. They demand a braced,
attentive spirit. But when the first effort has been made, how
exhilarating are the altitudes in which we find ourselves; what a glow
of pure joy is the reward which we are almost sure to win by our mental
mountaineering.

But such books are not for moments when we are unwilling or unable to
make that necessary effort. We cannot always be in the mood for the
great books, and often we are too tired physically, or too low down on
the depressed levels of daily life, even to lift our eyes toward the
hills. To attempt the great books--or any books at all--in such moods
and moments, is a mistake. We may thus contract a prejudice against
some writer who, approached in more fortunate moments, would prove the
very man we were looking for.