to whose charming little _Book Lover's Enchiridion_, in common with every
lover of reading. I am greatly indebted, tells us that when a boy he was
so delighted with White's _Natural History of Selborne_, that in order to
possess a copy of his own he actually copied out the whole work.

Mary Lamb gives a pathetic description of a studious boy lingering at a
bookstall:

"I saw a boy with eager eye
Open a book upon a stall,
And read, as he'd devour it all;
Which, when the stall man did espy,
Soon to the boy I heard him call,
'You, sir, you never buy a book,
Therefore in one you shall not look.'
The boy passed slowly on, and with a sigh
He wished he never had been taught to read,
Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need."

Such snatches of literature have indeed, special and peculiar charm. This
is, I believe, partly due to the very fact of their being brief. Many
readers miss much of the pleasure of reading by forcing themselves to
dwell too long continuously on one subject. In a long railway journey, for
instance, many persons take only a single book. The consequence is that,
unless it is a story, after half an hour or an hour they are quite tired
of it. Whereas, if they had two, or still better three books, on different
subjects, and one of them of an amusing character, they would probably
find that, by changing as soon as they felt at all weary, they would come
back again and again to each with renewed zest, and hour after hour would
pass pleasantly away. Every one, of course, must judge for himself, but