It is largely because story reading may so easily become careless reading, that prejudice against fiction is found in many minds. In the preceding pages there have been suggested many ways by which story reading may be made profitable, and yet all these methods may be used without calling for that close, intensive reading which we usually call study. You may lead a child to read _Rab and His Friends_ for all the purposes we have suggested, and yet he may have passed over without understanding them many a word, phrase or even sentence. It is possible that there are whole paragraphs that convey little meaning to him. This is certainly not an unmixed evil, for it is well that a child should not exhaust the possibilities of such a masterpiece when he first reads it. In fact, it is a good thing for children frequently to read great literature even when much of it is quite beyond their comprehension. It will pique their curiosity, and some time they will return with wiser minds and broader experience to interpret for themselves the things that once were obscure. It is no sin for a child sometimes to pass over a word he cannot pronounce or does not understand. There could be few more certain ways of destroying his taste for reading than to require him to stop and find the meaning of every new word he meets. Sometimes the meaning will become evident a little later from the context, and in other instances he will understand well enough without the troublesome word. What has been said does not signify that the habit of skipping new words or of avoiding difficult paragraphs is a good one. It does mean, however, that sometimes the practice should be tolerated, and that close reading should be required at the proper time and in the proper way. In the arithmetic or geography lesson the young must always read very closely, and in their perusal of the classics there are many fine opportunities for exercises of the same character, that should not be neglected. Descriptive passages, arguments, and essays of all kinds require to be read with exceeding care, and often there are passages even in light fiction that repay this kind of study. Words and phrases are the subjects of consideration in close reading, and the mastery of thought is the object to be attained. The study of words may be made very interesting, and gathering the meaning of phrases may become a fascinating pastime. An illustration may prove the case. Take the paragraph from _Rab and His Friends_ (Volume VI, page 99) in which death approaches Ailie: "The end was drawing on: the golden bowl was breaking; the silver cord was fast being loosed--that _animula blandula, vagula, hospes comesque_ was about to flee. The body and the soul--companions for sixty years--were being sundered and taking leave. She was walking, alone, through the valley of the shadow, into which one day we must all enter--and yet she was not alone, for we knew whose rod and staff were comforting her."