seek spiritual wisdom, to ask for guidance, and to occupy with the
talent committed to my charge. I knew the promise, "They that seek me
early shall find me," and more than once I trembled under such
scriptures as the latter part of Proverbs 1; but my Sunday resolutions
vanished before the Monday's dawning light, and I rushed again with a
redoubled zest into the seductive regions of my imaginary world. Oh, how
greatly do they err who think that such studies may be safely engaged in
by the young and excitable mind. Some indeed there are so phlegmatic as
to be proof against all the charms of poesy, insensible to the highest
illusions of romance; but their number is small, and the individuals
hard to identify, because a very cold exterior is often like the snow-
capped heights of Etna, overspreading a hoard of volcanic elements of
which the burst and blaze will some day be terrific. Such seem imbued
with the spirit of indifference, because they are abstracted and silent
when the laugh and merry jest go round among their companions; whereas
this abstraction, from outward things results not from deadness of
feeling, but from the intensity with which the mind is brooding over
some phantom known only to itself. Nor do this class of dreamers always
appear devoted to Books: a little reading goes far with them; and the
quality rather than the quantity of their selections is to be looked to.

I have known many parents and teachers argue that it is better to bring
the young acquainted with our standard poets and prose authors of a
worldly cast, while they are yet under careful superintendence, so as to
neutralize what may be unprofitable by judicious remark, and to avert
the dangers attendant on such fascinating introductions at a riper age,
when the restraints of authority are removed. Against this, two reasons
have prevailed with me to exclude from my book-shelves all the furniture
of a worldly library, and to watch against its introduction from other
quarters. One is; the consideration that we are not authorized to