of possible friends. You do not need to decide beforehand what friend
you will invite to spend the evening with you. When supper is over and
you sit down by the evening lamp for your hour of companionship, you
give your invitation according to your inclination at the time. And if
you have made a mistake, and the friend you have invited is not the one
you want to talk to, you can "shut him up" and not hurt his feelings.
Remarkable is the friend who speaks only when you want to listen and
can keep silence when you want silence. Who is there who has not been
sometimes bored by a good friend who went on talking when you wanted to
reflect on what he had already said? Who is there who has not had his
patience well nigh exhausted at times by a friend whose enthusiasm for
his theme appeared to be quite inexhaustible? A book never bores you
because you can always lay it down before it becomes a bore.

Most families can do with a few books that are tools. In these days in
which there is a library in almost every village, the family that has
an atlas, a dictionary, and a cyclopadia can look to the public library
for such other tools as are necessary. And we can depend on the library
or the book club for books that are mere acquaintances--the current
book about current events, the books that are read to-day and forgotten
to-morrow, leaving only a residuum in our memory, the book that, once
read, we never expect to read again. In my own home this current
literature is either borrowed and returned or, if purchased, as soon as
it has been used is passed along to neighbors or to the village
library. Its room is better than its company on my over-crowded book
shelves.

But books that are friends ought to abide in the home. The very form of
the book grows familiar; a different edition, even a different copy,
does not quite serve the same friendly purpose. If the reader is wise