“A great advantage is derived from the occasional practice of reading together, for each person selects different beauties and starts different objections: while the same passage perhaps awakens in each mind a different train of associated ideas, or raises different images for the purposes of illustration.”—_Francis Horner._ 2. “C’est ainsi que je poursuis la communication de quelque esprit fameux, non afin qu’il m’enseigne mais afin que je le connaisse, et que le connaissant, s’il le faut, je l’imite.”—_Montaigne._ [Illustration] DR. ARNOLD. 3. I sat up till half-past two this morning reading Dr. Arnold’s “Life and Letters,” and have my soul full of him to-day. On the whole I cannot say that the perusal of this admirable book has changed any notion in my mind, or added greatly to my stock of ideas. There was no height of inspiration, or eloquence, or power, to which I looked _up_; no profound depth of thought or feeling into which I looked _down_; no _new_ lights; no _new_ guides; no absolutely _new_ aspects of things human or spiritual. On the other hand, I never read a book of the kind with a more harmonious sense of pleasure and _approbation_,—if the word be not from me presumptuous. While I read page after page, the mind which was unfolded before me seemed to me a brother’s mind—the spirit, a kindred spirit. It was the improved, the elevated, the enlarged, the enriched, the every-way superior reflection of my own intelligence, but it was certainly _that_. I felt it so from beginning to end. Exactly the reverse was the feeling with which I laid down the Life and Letters of Southey. I was instructed, amused, interested; I profited and admired; but with the _man_ Southey I had no sympathies: my mind stood off from his; the poetical intellect attracted, the material of the character repelled me. I liked the embroidery, but the texture was disagreeable, repugnant. Now with regard to Dr. Arnold, my entire sympathy with the character, with the _material_ of the character, did not extend to all its manifestations. I liked the texture better than the embroidery;—perhaps, because of my feminine organisation. Nor did my admiration of the intellect extend to the acceptance of _all_ the opinions which emanated from it; perhaps because from the manner these were enunciated, or merely touched upon (in letters chiefly), I did not comprehend clearly the reasoning on which they may have been founded. Perhaps, if I had done so, I must have respected them more, perhaps have been convinced by them; so large, so candid, so rich in knowledge, and apparently so logical, was the mind which admitted them.