As an instance,
it is not enough to say: "I will inform myself completely as to the
Lake School." It is necessary to say: "I will inform myself completely
as to the Lake School before I am a year older." Without this
precautionary steeling of the resolution the risk of a humiliating
collapse into futility is enormously magnified.
My third counsel is: Buy a library. It is obvious that you cannot
read unless you have books. I began by urging the constant purchase
of books--any books of approved quality, without reference to their
immediate bearing upon your particular case. The moment has now come
to inform you plainly that a bookman is, amongst other things, a man
who possesses many books. A man who does not possess many books is
not a bookman. For years literary authorities have been favouring
the literary public with wondrously selected lists of "the best
books"--the best novels, the best histories, the best poems, the best
works of philosophy--or the hundred best or the fifty best of all
sorts. The fatal disadvantage of such lists is that they leave out
large quantities of literature which is admittedly first-class. The
bookman cannot content himself with a selected library. He wants, as a
minimum, a library reasonably complete in all departments.
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