SHAKESPEARE 122 GOETHE 126 SCHILLER 129 DICKENS 131 THACKERAY 134 JOHNSON 136 GOLDSMITH 139 GRAY 141 BURKE 143 WEBSTER 146 PLATO 148 AURELIUS 151 BACON 153 CARLYLE 156 RUSKIN 159 EMERSON 162 HEINE 164 PLINY 166 PREFACE "Nowhere so happy as curled up in a corner with a book." So said, or is reputed to have said, no less a genius than St. Thomas à Kempis. And thousands of men and women, boys and girls, still testify to the truth and power of that saying. For of all friends or companions a book is the most reliable--often quite as helpful as any Jonathan to any David. For instance, what could have given Abraham Lincoln more lasting help than those early volumes which he so hungrily devoured over and over again? "Æsop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," "Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography," "The Pilgrim's Progress" absorbed every moment he could spare from his chores and his sleep. Not mere knowledge, but inspiration entered his soul from those oft-read pages; in them he gleaned visions of life, its strain and anguish, its exaltation and thrill; there, too, he caught the secret of that quaint faculty for terse anecdote by which he was to win his way not only to the heads but to the hearts of the hardy, courageous folk of the Middle West, and, later, those of the East as well. It was through this power to read and understand and enjoy that Lincoln learned to penetrate to the very soul of mankind, the deep recesses of the thoughts and feelings of his fellow men.