SEASONS BY ANNIE RUSSELL MARBLE G "To everything there is a season, and a time to BOOKS IN THEIR SEASONS "How many things by season season'd are - Merchant of Venice, v. 1. AVE you had recent occasion to consult HAV the card-catalogue of a large library un der the general theme of books? If so, you have noted, with a sense of mental weariness, the scores and scores of books about books, advice under direct and subtle titles on "What to Read," "Books for Ministers of the Gospels," "Books for the Young," and numerous selected lists of "The Best One Hundred Books for General Readers." This abundant and gratuitous counsel on the choice of books is almost equalled by directions "How to Read," "How to Economize Time in Reading," and many sign-boards showing cross-country paths to mental and spiritual culture. Too much advice, however sage, becomes burdensome and often reacts in reckless independence. The inevitable result of so much solicitude regarding what and how one shall read, so much dogmatism with I scanty allowance for individual tastes and gradual development has been to arouse a spirit of defiance on the part of many readers towards prescribed rules and approved lists. This resentment against the imperative mood in what should be a pleasure, this disposition to break away from wise doctors and test our own inclinations for a time, has been wittily voiced by Miss Repplier in revolt at "a list of books of which I dare say I stand in open need, but which I am naturally indisposed to consider with much kindness, thrust upon me as they are, like paregoric or a porous plaster" ("Essays in Miniature," p. 15). While there is such a profusion of tracts on the proper books and methods of reading, slight emphasis has been placed upon an equally imWhen shall we read certain portant thought, J books, with what environment and mood of humanity, with what seasons of nature will they best affiliate and produce true harmony between author and reader? That mental comrade, so dear to Goldsmith and Thackeray, The Gentle Reader, has been revived for our emulation. by Dr. Crothers. ("The Gentle Reader," 1903). We need to renew acquaintance with this genial, sympathetic ideal who ever read for enjoyment, not for percentages of profit, who awakened in his author a feeling of affection, not the 1 attitude of resentment or cringing apology, which is frequently called forth by the superficial or censorious readers of the present. The Gentle Reader is a delightful model. He is akin to the portraits of the Gentleman and Gentlewoman of the Old School, so happily painted in rhyme by Austin Dobson. The type of reader, however, who is more in accord with the needs and surroundings of present life is The Sane Reader. He may be gentle, he will always aim to be responsive, he must be judicious in both indulgence and self-denial. Nearly two and one-half centuries ago that kindly, wise narrator of "The Worthies of England" (Thomas Fuller, 1662, i. 42) wrote "A Just Complaint of the Numerosity of Needless Books." The Sane Reader to-day, amid the depressing affluence, will first of all apply Carlyle's imagery and separate all books into Sheep and Goats." Such is only a preliminary process. The "sheep" are so numerous, so tempting in their attractive covers, so varied in their appeals to tastes and moods, that dismay seizes one at the thought of ever reading any large proportion of the worthy books of the past, while "to keep in touch" with current literature suggests a race between a slow pedestrian and an automobile at full speed. Many a college graduate, with innate |