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is natural that men who write books should be the most appreciative readers, and they are moved by their love of reading to tell others the value of books. Often this is done by comparing books with other things. Thus, Theodore Parker, a great thinker, writer, and preacher, compares them with ships, saying: “A great book is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth, with beauty too, It sails the ocean, driven by the winds of heaven, breaking the level sea of life into beauty where it goes, leaving behind it a train of sparkling loveliness, widening as the ship goes on.” Lowell likens the ability to read to a key “which admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagination, to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments.” This would make a book, by the same metaphor, a doorway. Others compare books to treasure-chests—Ruskin, for example, in “Sesame and Lilies”; but the treasure in the chest is grain—sesame—not gold.

Who of our readers will tell us to what else books have been compared?

earlier days the farmers’ boys used to run for the gun whenever a hawk was seen wheeling in the air, and many an innocent bird was slain because some hawks do now and then kill a chicken. But to-day, we hope, the farmers know better, and have taught their boys that most hawks do more good than harm, and that only a few kinds are the farmers’ enemies.

There was a time, not so many years ago, when it was considered by many parents a waste of time to read any but “serious books,” and all story-books were rather frowned upon. Even when Sir Walter Scott was writing his wonderful Waverley Novels, one reason he had for concealing his authorship was the fear that his story-writing would be thought undignified. To-day it has been learned that among stories, as among hawks, there are the harmful and the helpful kinds. Yet still there are some traces of the old feeling, and some children are constantly advised to choose the “serious books” or “solid reading.” A story told of himself by a historian will shed some light on this question, He said that after he had tried for some years to acquaint himself with life in Byzantium, he could acquire only the vaguest idea of it from the historians, but when he read Scott's “Count Robert of Paris” the period seemed to come at once to life in his mind. So much for a good story-writer as compared to historians with less imagination.

of us who are readers are like travelers in the great Land of Literature, and as we go on our journeys we find which roads are best, quickest, and pleasantest. When our small brothers and sisters are setting out in the same magic country, we may save them much stumbling by giving good advice as to how to travel and where to go. We find our reward in their sharing of our pleasures, in repeating the same routes, and thus we renew our own pleasant recollections. Elder brothers and sisters may thus come to have a reputation as good pilots or guides, and in that case their advice will be gladly taken, But they must not assume to direct the smaller readers too rigidly, for individual tastes, like mistakes, occur “even in the best-regulated families.”

should be glad to hear from some of our wise readers upon the question whether it is well to persevere in reading a book one does not enjoy. There seem to be good arguments to be urged in favor of each course. At all events, there must be discretion used. To force one’s self to read a dull and stupid book seems a waste of time; to drop a book as soon as its reading requires a little effort is quite as foolish if the book be a good one. Which is the right course?

just about at the end of our Revolution, Leigh Hunt was educated at the same school as Lamb and Coleridge. He became a writer