ASA DON DICKINSON


The elaborate, systematic "course of reading" is a bore. After thirty
years spent among books and bookish people I have never yet met anyone
who would admit that he had ploughed through such a course from
beginning to end. Of course a few faithful souls, with abundant
leisure, have done this, just as there are men who have walked from New
York City to San Francisco. Good exercise, doubtless! But most of us
have not time for feats of such questionable utility.

Yet I myself and most of the booklovers whom I know have started
at one time or another to pursue a course of reading, and we have never
regretted our attempts. Why? Because this is an excellent way to
discover the comparatively small number of authors who have a message
that we need to hear. When such an one is discovered, one may with a
good conscience let the systematic course go by the board until one has
absorbed all that is useful from the store of good things offered by
the valuable new acquaintance.

Each one has his idiosyncrasies. If I may be permitted to allude to a
personal failing, let me confess that I have never read "Paradise Lost"
or "Pilgrim's Progress." I have hopefully dipped into them repeatedly,
but--I don't like them. Some day I hope to, but until my mind is
ready for these two great world-books, I do not intend to waste time by
driving through them with set teeth. There are too many other good
books that I do enjoy reading. "In brief, Sir, study what you most
affect."

The "Guide to Daily Readings" which follows makes no claim to be