New Britain herald., 1916-06-16

able, until it has been read, and re-
 read, and loved, and loved again; and ! marked so that you can refer to the passages you want in it as a soldier 1 can seize the weapon he needs in an armory, or housewife bring the spice she needs from her store. Bread of flour is good: but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in good book"
 Perhaps many have heard but I fear few have meditated upon each word l in this lovely excerpt from Ruskin' $ l essay, entitled Sesame or The King s 1 Treasure.''
 1 During the past year. I was given l this quotation to memorize as. an as signment. At first my only object was to learn it so that I could say it at record speed, thinking thus to de- 1 light the heart of my English teach CT.
 ! But while repeating the words over l and over, suddenly I grew conscious 1 of the deep, beautiful meaning en- 1 closed in what I had heedlessly been m em orizing as mere words and phrases. It suddenly dawned on me why Ruskin applied the word treas l ures,'' to books. For it means some thing both valuable and dear and both of these words are true of worth while books.
 Letting my thoughts meander far ther, I recalled that Stevenson had written of friend as "the most val uable thing in the world" Then by some system of reasoning-whether l strictly logical or not at any rate Io1i ioht n nlJ1ci | brought me--"I decided that the terms "books" and friends" are synonyms. 1 For a good book does for us what 1 a true friend can. For example. the l wise friend advises us at our need. We profit by the advantages possibly 1 of his wider experience-and exper- fence, so the adage has it, is the l best teacher. It is not nice to think 1 that one need not grow old, wrinkled l and grey haired, to attain experience but may reap it's benefits through l simple and entertaining medium of ] good books? For when we read sym l pathetically about the vicissitudeS of l fortune of our heroes and heroines; | about their moral struggles; joys, | sorrows and mistakes-in ina agination we ourselves pass through the same | experiences, and thus learn the store of wise knowledge which life has taught them.
 In real life we may not have
 friends to charm our every mood be-
 cause our friends may be few and ou1
 moods many. But in our world O
 books, there is no such dearth. w
 have the thoughtful friend, to inspir,
 our more serious, pensive moods-t'
 suggest and guide our noble impulses | inc l. ing to us through his "Comus,' ant
 Bryant inspiring us with his Than
 atopsis."
 1 Then there is the merry, resource
 full friend who cheers us when w
 are down-hearted, by diverting tales i Such a one is Mark Twain's hum or 1 ous '"Tom Sawyer"
 When our minds are dull, and Tiff seems to drag along uninterestingl,
 such friends as Shakespeare and Dick
 ems come to coax us out of our un | wholesome mood. What @ world C
 exciting and interesting events the
 tell us about. High School Englis
 has given us a taste of them in sue
 books as "Macbeth,' and "TWelft
 Night" and in the "Tale of TW
 Cities" They set our imagination t
 working and therein lies much of tn ] pleasure in the world.
 They present marvellous, everchang I ing mental pictures to our mind | eye. To appreciate these, our imagin ation must be wide-awake and whe wide-awake, what beautiful picture , may it not learn to fashion, by itself
 Pictures of gay gardens and pleasar ; soothing people to cheer us Whe weary: thrilling battles to arouse ou 7 martial spirit; sunny. prosperou } fields and happy, thriving cities, t delight us; in fact all the loveliness i the world is brought within the focu of the powerful Tense, imagination
 Moreover, books, like all tru
 friends, are ours, all our lives long
 For in childhood, we can all remem
 Der, I'm sure, many happy hour
 spent ''in the shade of the ol
 apple tree" thrilling over such de !ightful stories as Cinderella, Jac
 the Giant Killer and Little Red Rid
 ing Hood And when we grew older
 to our surprise, our book-frlend
 seemed to grow With us
 I do not mean that the material o
 which they were made began to loo
 raggedy and ancient; but our tast
 in reading changed and there wer
 books to gratify it. We no longer de
 sired fairies and elves but stories
 everyday people and everyday hap | penings.
 And when we shall have grow
 really old, we shall still have ou hook-friends. Then no doubt, ou mature iudeu,ep will choose only tn