Discretion _is_ needed, and the preservation of health is a duty that comes to the front. Exercise and other essentials to health must not be neglected; and if health fails, the power of mental self-culture will probably fail too. But it is increasingly recognised that cultivation of the brain in reason is excellent for physical health, and that the woman with the best chance of enjoying life is the woman whose mental education has gone side by side with physical culture. So we come back to the point from which we started, and observe that the different provinces of self-culture are in reality closely connected and interdependent, though we deal in these articles with one province only. In our last paper we touched on some books that are almost, if not quite, indispensable to any scheme of culture: books of the olden world, that treat with the dawn of history as we know it, and go on to the period of the most brilliant of civilisations—that of Athens. No attempt was made to give an exhaustive list of the books dealing with the period before the Christian era that should be read; it would be impossible. But a few read and enjoyed will point the way to others. These papers do not constitute a full map of the country to be explored; they simply act as a sign-post, and readers must follow on to explore for themselves. The “guide-post” method is the only way to advise readers, for much will always depend on individual taste and inclination, and to read without pleasure is a hopeless task. Dr. Johnson said very wisely that, for general improvement, a man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompted him to. He continued— “If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention, so that there is but one-half to be employed on what we read.” At the same time, this is only a partial truth. To throw aside everything that does not allure at the outset is not wise. Many books that will charm and instruct are hard to “get into,” and a little self-control and perseverance will reap their reward in study as in everything else. The truth lies midway between two extremes. Do not get out of a library some book because you are told to read it, and at the close of a day’s work force yourself to pore over the pages until you fall asleep. On the other hand, do not confine your reading exclusively to story-books and the lighter magazines because they attract you and require no effort of attention. Girls are by far too prone to do this, forgetting that a taste for deeper books may be cultivated like every other taste. It is true that many of the novels of the present day deal with the graver problems of life, and occasionally require an education to understand them. Still, however philosophical and thoughtful they may be, they should not constitute the sole intellectual food of any mind.