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 volumes in our Sunday school library at the rate of two or three a week. I waited with the utmost impatience for the weekly copy of the Saturday Night contributed to the family stock of reading matter by our hired man, and containing the most exciting tales of murder, mystery and adventure. I remember still the lurid title of one of these tales—Bentley Burroughs, or The Skeleton Hand.

I had something on hand to read all the time, and, fortunately I developed the habit of reading. In the course of events the stock of sensational and sentimental and adventurous stuff gave out, but my appetite still had to be satisfied. I went quite naturally to Dumas and Scott and Cooper and Bulwer-Lytton; to Dickens and Eliot and Thackeray. I even read some poetry at my father's suggestion, and I got a good deal of insight into historical works. Before I was grown, I had read pretty widely, far more widely, in fact, than I should ever under any other circumstances have had the time to do. I am thankful every day that thus early in my life I became acquainted with so wide a range of literature, even if some of the books I read are not now contained in the admirable list suggested by President Eliot. I can not now see how I was hurt in any way. I got enough, after a while, of the poorer stuff and ultimately developed an appetite for something solider and better.

I do not believe that my experience is unique. I have asked my friends, many of them, whose reputation for clear thinking and balanced judgment in literary matters