causes of disquiet.  But while we acknowledge that they are all good in their way for people who can attain nothing better, we must be careful not to fall into the mistake of confounding the best of them, viz. mere reading, with intellectual pursuits:  if we do so, the latter will be involved in the depreciation that often falls upon the former when it is found neither to improve the mind or the character, nor to provide satisfactory sources of enjoyment.

There is a great deal of truth in the well-known assertion of Hobbes, however paradoxical it may at first appear:  “If I had read as much as others, I should be as ignorant.”  One cannot but feel its applicability in the case of some of our acquaintance, who have been for years mere readers at the rate of five or six hours a day.  One of these same hours daily well applied would have made them more agreeable companions and more useful members of society than a whole life of their ordinary reading.

There must be a certain object of attainment, or there will be no advance:  unless we have decided what the point is that we desire to reach, we never can know whether the wind blows favourably for us or not.

In my next letter, I mean to enter fully into many details as to the best methods of study; but during the remainder of this, I shall confine myself to a general view of the nature of that foundation which must first be laid, before any really valuable or durable superstructure can be erected.

The first point, then, to which I wish your attention to be directed is the improvement of the mind itself,—­point of far more importance than the furniture you put into it.  This improvement can only be effected by exercising deep thought with respect to all your reading, assimilating the ideas and the facts provided by others until they are blended into oneness with the forms of your own mind.

During your hours of study, it is of the utmost importance that no page should ever be perused without carefully subjecting its contents to the thinking process of which I have spoken:  unless your intellect is actively employed while you are professedly studying, your time is worse than wasted, for you are acquiring habits of idleness, that will be most difficult to lay aside.

You should always be engaged in some work that affords considerable exercise to the mind—­some book over the sentences of which you are obliged to pause, to ponder—­some kind of study that will cause the feeling of almost physical fatigue; when, however, this latter sensation comes on, you must rest; the brain is of too delicate a texture to bear the slightest over-exertion with impunity.[74] Premature decay of its powers, and accompanying bodily weakness and suffering, will inflict upon you a severe penalty for any neglect of the symptoms of mental exhaustion.[75] Your mind, however, like your body, ought to be exercised to the very verge of fatigue; you cannot otherwise be certain that there has been exercise sufficient to give increased strength and energy to the mental or physical powers.