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In the best poetry, the felicity of its expressions of thought, joined with their
rhythmical form, makes it easy for the reader to lay up almost unconsciously a
store in the memory of the noblest poetic sentiments, to comfort or to divert
him in many a weary or troubled hour. Hence time is well spent in reading over
and over again the great poems of the world. Far better and wiser is this, than
to waste it upon the newest trash that captivates the popular fancy, for the last
will only tickle the intellectual palate for an hour, or a day, and be then forgotten,
while the former will make one better and wiser for all time.

Nor need one seek to read the works of very many writers in order to fill his
mind with images of truth and beauty which will dwell with him forever. The really
great poets in the English tongue may be counted upon the fingers.

Shakespeare fitly heads the list-a world's classic, unsurpassed for reach of
imagination, variety of scenes and characters, profound insight, ideal power,
lofty eloquence, moral purpose, the most moving pathos, alternating with the
finest humor, and diction unequalled for strength and beauty of expression.
Milton, too, in his minor poems, has given us some of the noblest verse in the
language. There is poetry enough in his L' Allegro and II Penseroso to furnish
forth a whole galaxy of poets.

Spenser and Pope, Gray and Campbell, Goldsmith and Burns, Wordsworth and
the Brownings, Tennyson and Longfellow,-these are among the other foremost
names in the catalogue of poets which none can afford to neglect. Add to these
the best translations of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Dante, and Goethe, and one need
not want for intellectual company and solace in youth or age.

Among the books which combine entertainment with information, the best
narratives of travellers and voyagers hold an eminent place. In them the reader
enlarges the bounds of his horizon, and travels in companionship with his author
all over the globe. While many, if not the most, of the books of modern
travellers are filled with petty incidents and personal observations of no
importance, there are some wonderfully good books of this attractive class. Such
are Kinglake's "Eothen, or traces of travel in the East," Helen Hunt Jackson's
"Bits of Travel," a volume of keen and amusing sketches of German and French
experiences, the books of De Amicus on Holland, Constantinople, and Paris,
those on England by Emerson, Hawthorne, William Winter, and Richard Grant
White, Curtis's Nile Notes, Howell's "Venetian Life," and Taine's "Italy, Rome and
Naples."

The wide domain of science can be but cursorily touched upon. Many readers get
so thorough a distaste for science in early life-mainly from the fearfully and
wonderfully dry text-books in which our schools and colleges have
abounded-that they never open a scientific book in later years. This is a
profound mistake, since no one can afford to remain ignorant of the world in
which we live, with its myriad wonders, its inexhaustible beauties, and its
unsolved problems. And there are now works produced in every department of
scientific research which give in a popular and often in a fascinating style, the
revelations of nature which have come through the study and investigation of
man. Such books are "The Stars and the Earth," Kingsley's "Glaucus, or
Wonders of the Shore," Olodd's "Story of Creation," (a clear account of the
evolution theory) Figuier's "Vegetable World," and Professor Langley's "New
Astronomy."

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