Do you remember the list of books in Chapter twenty-eight, on Reading for What You Want To Be, many of them biographies? Some day, when you have an opportunity, ask permission to look over the books in the working library of some man or woman who is following the occupation with attracts you most. We can learn a great deal from the attentive study of such a library. Presently, you may begin to collect your own library. The best way to do this is slowly, with taste, discrimination and care. There is great enjoyment in buying, one by one, the books you care for most; and so, almost before you know what is happening, you will have a library of your own. Which book would you choose first to buy for your own library? Sometimes, in looking through the library of a friend, we may find the very first book bought by the owner of the library when he was a {254} boy, or when the owner was a girl, as the case may be. One of the pleasures of reading is to read according to times and seasons: To read books of out-of-doors on winter evenings, as well as books of adventure; to read poetry in summer, when we can spend much time under the sky. But those who love poetry, read it all through the year. We may read essays and biography when we are lonely and long for companionship. Novels are constantly enjoyable; a good novel tells us much about human nature. One of the most beautiful seasons for reading is at Christmas time. Year by year, we may read the story of the shepherds in Saint Luke, ballads of Christmas, _A Christmas Carol_ by Charles Dickens, and Milton's great "Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity". Reading of this character deepens our happiness. By such means as these we come to recognize good reading, and can test all books by the great books we have read. {255} INDEX NDX Abbess Hilda, 185 Abercrombie, Lascelles, 236 Achilles, 86-7 _Adam Bede_, 159, 196 Addison, Joseph, 186, 212 _Aeneid_, The, 134 Aesop, 90-1 Agamemnon, King, 86 Agrippa, King, 168 Ainger, Canon, 210 Aladdin, 94 Alcinous, 88 "Alexander's Feast", 233 Ali Baba, 94 _Alice in Wonderland_, 97-9, 101 Amiens, 40 "Ancient Mariner, The", 228-9 Andersen, Hans, 93, 243 Anne of Austria, 60 _Anne of Geierstein_, 25 _Antony and Cleopatra_, 44 _Antiquary, The_, 25-6 Antonio, 35 Aphrodite, 85 Apollo, 86 Apollyon, 144 _Arabian Nights, The_, 93, 243 Aramis, 60-1 Arden, Mary, 42 Argonauts, The, 88 Ariel, 36-7 Arnold, Matthew, 214, 246 _Around Home_, 196 Arthur, King, 94-6 _As You Like It_, 43 Athos, 60-1 Aunt Polly, 81 Austen, Jane, 154-7, 187 Aytoun, W. E., 123 Bacon, Francis, 211, 250 Bagheera, 104 Ballad of the Red Harlaw, 27 Ballads, 65 Baloo, 104 Balzac, Honoré, 251 _Barnaby Rudge_, 3, 7 Barrie, James Matthew, 107, 187 Bates, Mrs. and Miss, 155 "Battle of Otterbourne, The", 112-4, 166 Baucis, 88 Bayly, Harry, 169 Beatrice, 133-5 Beaufort, Duc de, 61 Beaumains, 95 Becke, Louis, 245 Beerbohm, Max, 252 Bell, 245