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.
Mark the idioms in Shakespeare. He spoke the words and uttered the
thoughts of hostlers as well as of kings. Observe the common language
in the Bible. It is curious to note the number of the pithy
expressions daily appearing among us which are repetitions of what the
people were saying in the time of Isaiah.
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