You will not only love books, but gain from them something of the thoughts they contain.  We might, had we time, talk of classic books, but as we have already talked of classic music we know what the principal thing is.  It is that good thought, out of the heart, be expressed in a scholarly way—­“Great thought needs great expression."[51] This teaches us the necessity for choosing good books for our instruction and for our entertainment.  They present beautiful pictures to us truthfully, or they present truth to us beautifully.  And these are the first test of a written thought—­its truth and its beauty.

If you read good books you will have in every volume you get something well worth owning.  You should bestow upon it as much care as you would want any other good friend to receive.  And if it has contributed help or pleasure to you it is surely worth an abiding place.  A fine pleasure will come from a good book even after we are quite done with it.  As we see it in years after it has been read there comes back to one a remembrance of all the old pleasures, and with it a sense of thankfulness for so pleasant a friendship.  Hence any book that has given us joy or peace or comfort is well worth not only good care, but a place for always; as a worthy bit of property.

In the early days of your music study, it will be a pleasure to you to know that there are many and delightful books about music written, sometimes by music-lovers, sometimes by the composers.  The written word-thoughts of the composers are often full of great interest.  They not only reveal to us many secrets of the tone-art, but teach us much about the kinds of things and of thoughts which lived in the minds of the composers.  We learn definitely not only the music-interests of the composers, but the life-interest as well.  It really seems as if we were looking into their houses, seeing the way they lived and worked, and listening to their words.  Never afterward do we regard the great names in music as uninteresting.  The most charming and attractive pictures cluster about them and it all gives us a new inspiration to be true to music, loyal to the truth of music, and willing to do as we see others have done, and to learn by doing.  The lesson we get from the life of every man is, that he must do if he would learn.

I am sure you will spend many delightful minutes with the Letters of a great composer.  Every one is like a talk with the writer.  They are so friendly, and so full of the heart, and yet so filled with the man himself.  Especially the Letters of Mendelssohn and Schumann will please you.  In truth the Letters of all the composers are among the most valuable music writings we have.  In some way they seem to explain the music itself:  and the composer at once becomes a close friend.  But besides these read the biographies.  Then it is as if we were personally invited home to the composer and shown all his ways and his life.