On one holiday, Coleridge, as he walked along the crowded street, began to imagine how it would feel if he were swimming the Hellespont with Leander. You know how often we think when we are reading an interesting book that we are living with the people in the story. Being greatly absorbed in his thoughts, Coleridge began to move his arms as if he were swimming. If he had been in a field by himself, or on an empty street, no one would have minded. But Coleridge was on a crowded street, and by and by one of his arms struck a man who was passing, and his hand caught in the man's pocket. The man thought that Coleridge, who was only a boy, was trying to steal from him. However, he asked Coleridge a good many questions, and discovered that the boy had been reading in a book the story of Hero and Leander, and had been imagining that he was swimming across the Hellespont. When the man found that Coleridge loved reading, but could not get the books he wanted easily, {vii} he took the boy to a library, which was not a free library but one where people had to pay a fee, and the man arranged for Coleridge to be allowed to read there. Many stories are told of the different ways in which boys and girls have found famous books which they have read with enjoyment, and never forgotten. Another boy called Samuel--Samuel Johnson--had been looking for apples that he knew were hidden somewhere. He climbed upon a step-ladder to look behind the rows of books in his father's book shop, and while he was looking for the apples he found Plutarch's _Lives_. Very likely the boy Samuel Johnson began reading the book, and forgot about the apples. Another boy once was told to watch a fire, which was burning rubbish in a field, so that it would not spread and burn the fences. He watched the fire for a while, but he had a book in his pocket and presently he forgot to watch, and so the fence was burned. Likely he was punished at the time, but years after his friends used to tell the story, for the boy had become an eminent man. How many of us have climbed into trees to read books in a leafy solitude! Louisa May Alcott was one of the girls, later known for her charming stories, who had a special tree into which she used to climb, so that no one should interrupt her while she was reading. This book which you are reading now is meant to help you to find books that you will enjoy. You may begin at the first chapter; perhaps this is the best way. Or you may look at the list of chapters, {viii} and try the one which seems to you most interesting. But when you have read that chapter, come back to the beginning and start over again. Fairy tales and stories of marvels you will find described in Part III, also stories of heroes, and such stories as _Alice in Wonderland_, Kipling's stories, and Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, a great book telling of knights and their adventures.