Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.  Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.  Some books also may he read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things.

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.  Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral philosophy, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

XCIII.  SURRENDER OF GRANADA. (334)

Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1806-1873, was born in Norfolk County, England.  His father died when he was young; his mother was a woman of strong literary tastes, and did much to form her son’s mind.  In 1844, by royal license, he took the surname of Lytton from his mother’s family.  Bulwer graduated at Cambridge.  He began to publish in 1826, and his novels and plays followed rapidly.  “Pelham,” “The Caxtons,” “My Novel,” “What will he do with it?” and “Kenelm Chillingly” are among the best known of his numerous novels; and “The Lady of Lyons” and “Richelieu” are his most successful plays.  His novels are extensively read on the continent, and have been translated into most of the languages spoken there.  “Leila, or the Siege of Granada,” from which this selection is adapted, was published in 1840. ###

Day dawned upon Granada, and the beams of the winter sun, smiling away the clouds of the past night, played cheerily on the murmuring waves of the Xenil and the Darro.  Alone, upon a balcony commanding a view of the beautiful landscape, stood Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings.  He had sought to bring to his aid all the lessons of the philosophy he had cultivated.

“What are we,” thought the musing prince, “that we should fill the world with ourselves—­we kings?  Earth resounds with the crash of my falling throne; on the ear of races unborn the echo will live prolonged.  But what have I lost?  Nothing that was necessary to my happiness, my repose:  nothing save the source of all my wretchedness, the Marah of my life!  Shall I less enjoy heaven and earth, or thought or action, or man’s more material luxuries of food or sleep—­the common and the cheap desires of all?  Arouse thee, then, O heart within me!  Many and deep emotions of sorrow or of joy are yet left to break the monotony of existence. . . .  But it is time to depart.”  So saying, he descended to the court, flung himself on his barb, and, with a small and saddened train, passed through the gate which we yet survey, by a blackened and crumbling tower, overgrown with vines and ivy; thence, amidst gardens now appertaining to the convent of the victor faith, he took his mournful and unwitnessed way.