Bismarck heard it all, but smoked and drank his beer and gave no sign.  His secretary rushed in with excitement, and said: 

“You must go out and acknowledge the applause of the people, and make a speech.”

“And why,” said Bismarck; “why do they want me to speak; why are they applauding me?”

“Because of your great success in these negotiations,” said the secretary.

“Humph!” said Bismarck, “suppose I had failed?” and turned back to his smoking and his beer.

Bismarck, you see, was too great for applause.

I have quoted the Bible so frequently that it suggests remarks upon one of the great influences of life—­the influence of books.  Like every other power, this should be exercised with judgment.  Let us indulge no immoderate expectations of the results of mere reading.  Reading is, at best, only second-hand information and inspiration.  It is not the number of books a man has read that makes him available in the world of business.

What the world wants is power; how to get that is the question.

Books are one source of power; but, necessarily, books are artificial.  That is why we cannot dispense with teachers in our schools, professors in our colleges, preachers in our pulpits, orators on the political platform.  There is no real way of teaching but by word of mouth.  There is no real instruction but experience.

You see that the German universities have come back to the lecture method exclusively—­or did they ever depart from it?  And they know what they are about, those profound old German scholars.  They have created scientific scholarship.  They have made what we once thought history absurd, and have rewritten the story of the world.

But all this is obiter dicta.  The point is that they know the value of books as a source of power and learning, and they know their limitations, too.  So does the public.  Public speaking will never decline.  It is Nature’s method of instruction.  You will listen with profit to a speech which you cannot drive your mind to read.

It would seem, therefore, that the largest wisdom dictates conservatism in mere reading.  Read, of course, and deeply, widely, thoroughly.  But let Discrimination select your books.  Choose these intellectual companions as carefully as you pick your personal comrades.  Read only “tonic books,” as Goethe calls them.  Yes, read, and abundantly—­but don’t stop there.  Don’t imagine that books, of themselves, will make you wise.  Reading, alone, will not render you effective.

Mingle with the people—­I mean the common people.  Talk with them.  Do not talk to them but talk with them, and get them to talk with you.  Who that has had the experience would exchange the wit and wisdom of the “hands” at the “threshings,” during the half hour of rest after eating, for the studied smartness of the salon or even the conversation of the learned?  But think not to get this by going out to them and saying, “Talk up now.”  The farm-hand, the railroad laborer, the working man of every kind, does not wear his heart on his sleeve.