“I cannot, of course, suggest the choice of your library to you; every several mind needs different books; but there are some books which we all need; and assuredly, if you read Homer,[A] Plato, Aeschylus, Herodotus Dante,[B] Shakspeare, and Spenser, as much as you ought, you will not require wide enlargement of shelves to right and left of them for purposes of perpetual study.  Among modern books, avoid generally magazine and review literature,[C] Sometimes it may contain a useful abridgment or a wholesome piece of criticism; but the chances are ten to one it will either waste your time or mislead you....  Avoid especially that class of literature which has a knowing tone; it is the most poisonous of all.  Every good book, or piece of book, is full of admiration and awe; it may contain firm assertion or stern satire, but it never sneers coldly nor asserts haughtily, and it always leads you to reverence or love something with your whole heart....  A common book will often give you much amusement, but it is only a noble book which will give you dear friends.  Remember, also, that it is of less importance to you, in your earlier years, that the books you read should be clever, than that they should be right; I do not mean oppressively or repulsively instructive, but that the thoughts they express should be just, and the feelings they excite generous.  It is not necessary for you to read the wittiest or the most suggestive books; it is better, in general, to hear what is already known and may be simply said....  Certainly at present, and perhaps through all your life, your teachers are wisest when they make you content in quiet virtue, and that literature and art are best for you which point out, in common life and familiar things, the objects for hopeful Labor and for humble love.” pp. 847-350.

[Footnote A:  Chapman’s, if not the original.]

[Footnote B:  Cary’s or Cayley’s, if not the original.  I do not know which are the best translations of Plato.  Herodotus and Aeschylus can only be read in the original.  It may seem strange that I name books like these for “beginners”; but all the greatest books contain food for all ages; and an intelligent and rightly bred youth or girl ought to enjoy much, even in Plato, by the time they are fifteen or sixteen.]

[Footnote C:  The Atlantic Monthly was not in existence when Mr. Ruskin wrote this condemnation of magazines.  The saving word for it is “generally.”—­EDITOR.]