As it is right to admire and love whatever is good wherever it is found, it needs must be the part of wisdom to seek to know and appreciate all that is true and high in the works of genius, though there, like precious stones and metals in the mine, it be mingled with baser matter. It is but narrowness or intellectual pharisaism to turn from a great author because in his life and works there may be things of which we cannot approve. Shall we abandon God because His world is full of evil, or Christ because there is corruption in the church? St. Paul appeals to pagan literature, St. Augustine is the disciple of Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas of Aristotle, and the culture and civilization of Christendom are largely due to influences which are not Christian. Whatever is good is from God. There is no surer mark of the lack of culture than the use of ill-natured and abusive epithets. To feel the need of injurious words to express one's opinion, merely shows that one is angry, and anger is vulgar. Whatever is inspired by vanity is in bad taste. This is why a showy style is a false style, why fine writing is poor writing. The author yields to the spirit of vainglory, whereas he should be wholly bent upon uttering his thought as he knows it. It is as though he should call our attention to a costly garb when what we want to see is a man. As a plain face is better than a mask, though fine, so one's own style, though inferior, is better than any which is borrowed. True books survive without help or let of critics, by virtue of their vital quality, which attracts kindred spirits with irresistible power. When their worth becomes known, the critics set up a howl of praise, and many buy; but only a few make them their serious study, and learn to know and love them. Truth is the mind's food; and, like that of the body, it is nourishment only when it has been digested and assimilated. It is, after all, but a little while since man began to think. As yet he is learning the alphabet. Take heart then, and apply thy mind. As we grow older the years seem to run to months, the months to weeks, the weeks to days, the days to hours, the hours to moments, until time, like an exhalation, appears to dissolve in the inane, and become the nothing it was and is and will be for eternity. If thought were given us, like house and clothing, merely for our personal comfort, wisdom would lead us to think with and like all the world. They who are eager for the good opinion of others seem to have but weak faith in their own worth. The art of pleasing would better deserve our study were there more who are worth pleasing, or were it less difficult to please without loss of sincerity and without stooping to the service of vulgar interests. Not how much or how many things thou knowest is of import. An industrious reader, of retentive memory, will easily know more things than a great philosopher compared with whom he is but a child.