All books of the better class furnish food for thought and are excellent tools for the man of initiative.  To read means keeping in touch with the big visions.  We cherish these dreams and make them real in plans of our own.  Aspiration is behind the pages of every worth-while volume.  It was the motive power which drove the author to produce it and it should become a part of the forces which drive us on to victory.  Without such inspiration we grope as children in the dark.  We are without a light to guide us on our way.

Books by such men as Marden and Hubbard are great generators of the electricity of doing things.  They have put into words those innermost emotions which are the instruments of success.  They point out a way we may safely follow.  They loan us inspiration which causes us to act for ourselves.  They give us thoughts that are useful and practical which we never would have gained by virtue of our own reasoning power.  They made it a life work to coin into phrases words that inspire.  Out of their large experience came the logical sequences of cause and effect.  Not to profit by their teachings is a crime against our own prospects—­without them we lag behind.  Instead of progressing we look on in wonder at what is going on in the world.  Somehow we cannot connect ourselves with the big enterprises.  And all because we failed to feed our minds properly.

There is much to be gained both in pleasure and knowledge by reading historical novels, and the lives of great men.  The books of Sir Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper are rated among the best in the world.  Grant’s autobiography and the personal stories of other famous Americans provide fascinating material with which to establish and fortify our test for good literature.  The tales of modern American financiers is another field of absorbing interest.

The man with small means can provide himself with a working library for a very little money.  Books are cheap.  The public library is always nearby and there is hardly a town of any size but what has one.  When we purchase a book we should be sure to obtain the best edition and be careful that it is printed from good type and on clear paper.  Books are likely to become warm friends.  We should never purchase an abridged edition.

Binding is not such an important factor, although we like to have our favorite books put up in a handsome fashion.  With Shakespeare, Emerson, Roosevelt, Scott, Cooper, Marden and Hubbard one would have quite a representative collection for a start.  It would be easy to expand the list into many more.  Of course, those collecting a small library who have a specialty, will want books dealing with the subjects in which they are interested.  However, every practical library includes books of inspirational character, and if one makes a study of the books written by great authors it will be found that all of them profited by the reading of books which caused them to think. The Bible causes us to think!—­and no library is complete without it.