The answer to the question, How or what shall I read? must necessarily be as varied as the tastes, the talents, and the circumstances of readers vary. The general aim, however, should be the same in all. We should read in order to do well whatever we have to do in life. Now this implies something more than the reading simply to increase one's knowledge--certainly a worthy aim, but not the highest. The field of knowledge is so broad and the time for reading so short that we must necessarily choose those subjects, the knowledge of which will make us better fitted for our work in life. And the mere seeking for knowledge, which is the sole end of much reading, does not imply, but may even prevent the attaining that higher end, the cultivation of our nobler powers, as the imagination and the sympathies, and the gaining the power of appreciating what is highest and best in literature and life. For instance, one may be conscious of a total lack of a love for any great writer. To him Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and their peers are but names. Now it may be that the best use to which such an one can put a library is to make at least the attempt to understand and enjoy some great author. It will be no easy task, but one needing and worthy the hardest study. To take, as an illustration of one method, a lesser poet, read carefully and thoughtfully Matthew Arnold's introduction to his edition of the selected poems of Wordsworth. Whenever he refers to a poem, read it before going farther and re-read it until the thought of the poet as indicated by the commentator is reasonably clear. Then read in the same manner what Coleridge, Shairp, F.W. Robertson, or any other good critic has written upon Wordsworth. And, above all, sometimes read the poems as nearly as possible in the same circumstances under which they were written--in the forest, by the brook-side, in the solitudes of the mountains, or on a bridge in the heart of a great city. If this fail to awaken an interest in Wordsworth, try some other author in a similar way, and it is impossible that of all who have stirred men's hearts through the ages, no one can be found to arouse your sympathies. And when the right author is at length found, you live on a higher plane than before. This great poet, philosopher, or dramatist has become your friend and familiar companion--a gain far greater than the acquirement of any mere book knowledge.