READING WITHOUT IMPROVEMENT.--"Some ladies, to whose conversation I had been listening, were to take away an epic poem to read. 'Why should _you_ read an epic poem?' I said to myself. 'You might as well save yourselves the trouble.' How often I have been struck at observing that _no effect at all_ is produced, by the noblest works of genius, on the _habits_ of thought, sentiment, and talk of the generality of readers; their mental tone becomes no deeper, no mellower; they are not equal to a fiddle, which improves by being repeatedly played upon. I should not expect one in twenty, of even educated readers, so much as to _recollect_ one singularly sublime, and by far the noblest part, of the poem in question: so little emotion does anything awake, even in the moment of reading; if it did, they would not forget it so soon." So says good, sensible John Foster, whose thoughts are always as clear and pure as rock water. There is another sentiment of his we should like to have read and remembered, too, by those who are soon to be married:-- * * * * * LOVE--HOW TO SECURE IT.--"I have often contended that attachments between friends and lovers cannot be secured strong, and perpetually augmenting, except by the intervention of some interest which is not _personal_, but which is common to them both, and towards which their attentions and passions are directed with still more animation than even towards each other. If the whole attention is to be directed, and the whole sentimentalism of the heart concentrated on each other; if it is to be an unvaried, '_I towards you, and you towards me_,' as if each were to the other not an ally or companion joined to pursue happiness, but the very end and object--happiness itself; if it is the circumstance of reciprocation itself, and not what is reciprocated, that is to supply perennial interest to affection; if it is to be mind still reflecting back the gaze of mind, and reflecting it again, cherub towards cherub, as on the ark, and no luminary or glory between them to supply beams and warmth to both--I foresee that the hope will disappoint, the plan will fail. Attachment must burn in oxygen, or it will go out; and, by oxygen, I mean a mutual admiration and pursuit of virtue, improvement, utility, the pleasures of taste, or some other interesting concern, which shall be the element of their commerce, and make them love each other not only _for_ each other, but as devotees to some third object which they both adore. The affections of the soul will feel a dissatisfaction and a recoil, if, as they go forth, they are entirely intercepted and stopped by any object that is not _ideal_; they wish rather to be like rays of light glancing on the side of an object, and then sloping and passing away; they wish the power of elongation, through a series of interesting points, on towards infinity." * * * * *