Precept and Practice – AUGUST 25 – Books

To fall in love with a good book is one of the greatest events which can befall us.   It is to have a new influence pouring itself into our life, a new teacher to inspire and refine us;  a new friend to be at our side always, and who, when life grows narrow and weary, will take us into his wider, calmer, and higher world….   Do not be distressed if you do not like time-honoured books or classical works or recommended books.   Choose for yourself;  trust yourself;  plant yourself on your own instincts;  that which is natural for us, that which nourishes us, and gives us appetite, is that which is right for us.

We have all different minds, and we are all at different stages of growth.   Some other day we may find food in the recommended book, though we should possibly starve on it to-day.   The mind develops and changes, and the favourites of this year may cease to interest us.   Nothing better, indeed, can happen to us than to lose interest in a book we have often read;  for it means that it has done its work upon us, and brought us up to its level and taught us all it had to teach.

(Professor Henry Drummond)

To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul. 

(Cicero)

oooOOOooo

From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW