In this age of fast presses the world is in danger of swamping in an ocean of printed gab. Every county, and even many a village, has its newspaper, which is bound to chronicle every new corn-crib erected. Then come the city papers, the literary journals, the agricultural and domestic organs, the magazines and the flood of books of all sorts, good, bad, and indifferent. If one sets out to be a reading man in the midst of all this avalanche, his first and imperative duty is to decide what he will not read. Time is not long enough to wade through the columns that are thrust upon him, not to mention those of sedater character for which he has to search.
It is often said that there is not as much good reading now as in former times. When books and papers were fewer, they were read with more attention and more thought. That is what we mean by good reading—the way of doing it and not the quality of the thing read. Nowadays the most of us skate over a vast surface, and pick up a smattering as we go. But the people who are really well read do not thus waste their time. They read comparatively few books; but those are the best and are thoroughly digested. Young people with gluttonous appetites for books will do well to recollect that if they wish the greatest benefit from what they absorb, they must select carefully and read with thought. Gulping down books gives mental dyspepsia. "Few and good" should be the motto.—Sel.