In the advice offered by some very wise men to young and old readers there is much that is amusingly paradoxical. Schopenhauer, like Frederic Harrison, enjoins us to devote our reading time exclusively to the works of those great minds of all times and countries which overtop the rest of humanity. Yet Schopenhauer is giving that advice in a book which he certainly hopes will find readers and which, however great we may consider him, his modesty would not allow him to rank among the works of the greatest minds of all ages. Emerson counsels us to read no book that is not at least a year old. But he is himself writing a book of which he and his publishers undoubtedly hope to sell a few copies before a year has passed. Thoreau tells us that our little village is not doing very much for culture, and then he frightens us away from our poets by one of those “big” ideas with which he and the other preachers of his generation liked to make us children ashamed of ourselves. “The works of the great poets,” he says, “have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them.” Well, Thoreau, whatever else he was, was not a great poet, and yet he seems to have read the great ones and to have understood them while he was still a young man. It is nearer the truth to say that anybody can read the great poets. That is the lesson, if there is one, which this Guide seeks to inculcate. There should be a chapter in this book about the Bible and religious writings. But practical considerations debarred it. The American parent, though quite willing to intrust to others many matters relating to the welfare of his children, usually prefers to give his own counsels as to the spirit in which the Bible should be read and what other religious works should be read with it. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I.--OF GUIDES AND RULES FOR READING 17 II.--THE PURPOSE OF READING 27 III.--THE READING OF FICTION 40 IV.--THE READING OF FICTION (_continued_) 60 List of Fiction 71 V.--THE READING OF POETRY 96 VI.--THE READING OF POETRY (_continued_) 109 List of Books of Poetry 123 VII.--THE READING OF HISTORY 143 List of Works of History 153 VIII.--THE READING OF BIOGRAPHY 164 List of Biographies 172 IX.--THE READING OF ESSAYS 179 List of Essays 192 X.--THE READING OF FOREIGN CLASSICS 204 XI.--THE PRESS OF TO-DAY 217 XII.--THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 235 List of Works on Literature 257