man's day is worth a fool's life," and another--though it reflects perhaps
rather the spirit of the Califs than of the Sultans,--that "the ink of
science is more precious than the blood of the martyrs."

Confucius is said to have described himself as a man who "in his eager
pursuit of knowledge forgot his food, who in the joy of its attainment
forgot his sorrows, and did not even perceive that old age was coming on."

Yet, if this could be said by the Arabs and the Chinese, what language can
be strong enough to express the gratitude we ought to feel for the
advantages we enjoy! We do not appreciate, I think, our good fortune in
belonging to the nineteenth century. Sometimes, indeed, one may even be
inclined to wish that one had not lived quite so soon, and to long for a
glimpse of the books, even the school-books, of one hundred years hence. A
hundred years ago not only were books extremely expensive and cumbrous,
but many of the most delightful were still uncreated--such as the works of
Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer Lytton, and Trollope, not to mention
living authors. How much more interesting science has become especially,
if I were to mention only one name, through the genius of Darwin! Renan
has characterized this as a most amusing century; I should rather have
described it as most interesting: presenting us as it does with an endless
vista of absorbing problems; with infinite opportunities; with more
interest and less danger than surrounded our less fortunate ancestors.

Cicero described a room without books, as a body without a soul. But it is
by no means necessary to be a philosopher to love reading.

Reading, indeed, is by no means necessarily study. Far from it. "I put,"
says Mr. Frederic Harrison, in his excellent article on the "Choice of
Books," "I put the poetic and emotional side of literature as the most