the influence of his early reading but rather that he has attained success and whatever of true nobility there is in him in spite of such influence this was not always so the experience of a few well known scholars will illustrate from my infancy says i was passionately fond of reading and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in the of books i was very fond of voyages my first acquisition was s works in separate little volumes i afterwards sold them to enable me to buy r s historical they were small s books and cheap forty volumes in all my father s little library consisted chiefly of books in divinity most of which i read i have often regretted that at a time when i books for children to read had such a thirst for knowledge more proper books had not fallen in my way since it was resolved i should not be bred to divinity there was among them s lives which i read abundantly and i still think the time spent to great advantage there was also a book of s called an essay on projects and another of dr s called an essay to do good which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life this inclination at length determined my father to make me a i stood out some time but at last was persuaded and signed the when i was yet but twelve years old i now had access to better books an ce with the of enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one which i was careful to return soon and clean often i sat up in my chamber the greatest part of the when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned in the mornings lest it should be the book lover found missing about this time i met with an odd volume of the spectator i had never before seen any of i bought it read it over and over and was much delighted with it i thought the writing excellent and wished if possible to imitate it with that view i took some of the papers and making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence laid them by a few days and then without looking at the book tried to complete the papers again by expressing each hinted sentiment at and as fully as it had been expressed before in any suitable words that should occur to me then i compared my spectator with the original discovered some of my faults and corrected them now it was that being on some occasions made ashamed of my ignorance in figures which i had twice failed learning when at school i took s book on and went through the whole by myself with the greatest ease i also read s and s book on which made me books for children to read acquainted with the little it contains but i never proceeded r in that science i read about this time on the human understanding and the art of thinking by messrs de port royal while i was intent on improving my language i met with an english grammar i think it was s having at the end of it two little sketches on the arts of and logic the latter finishing with a dispute in the method and soon after i procured s memorable things of wherein there are many examples of the same method i was charmed with it adopted it dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive and put on the humble miller that most admirable and self made man relates a similar experience during my sixth year i my way through the shorter the and the new testament and then � by sparks the book lover entered upon the highest form in the dame s school as a member of the bible class but all the while the process of learning had been a dark one which i slowly mastered in humble confidence in the awful wisdom of the not knowing whither it tended when at once my mind awoke to the meaning of the most delightful of all � the story of joseph was there ever such a discovery made before i actually found out myself that the art of reading is the art of finding stories in books and from that moment reading became one of the most delightful of my amusements i began by getting into a comer on the dismissal of the school and there over to myself the new found story of joseph nor did one perusal serve � the other scripture stories followed � in especial the story of and the of david and of the and and after these came the new testament stories and assisted by my too i began to collect a library in a box of books for children to read bark about nine inches square which i found quite large enough to contain a great many immortal works jack the giant and jack and the and the yellow dwarf and blue beard and the sailor and beauty and the beast and and the wonderful lamp with several others of resembling character those intolerable the useful knowledge books had not yet arisen like stars on the horizon to the worlds and shed their influence on the opening intellect of the and so from my books � books that made themselves truly such by their thorough with the mind � i passed on without being conscious of break or line of division to books on which the learned are content to write and but which i found to be quite as nice children s books as any of the others old wrote admirably for little folk especially in the a copy of which in the book lover the only true translation � for judging from 