Such a child has no dear old book-friendships to look back upon.
He has no sweet associations with certain musty covers and time-worn
pages; no sacred memories of quiet moments when a new love of
goodness, a new throb of generosity, a new sense of humanity, were
born in the ardent young soul; born when we had turned the last page
of some well-thumbed volume and pressed our tear-stained childish
cheek against the window pane, when it was growing dusk without, and a
mother's voice called us from our shelter to "Lay the book down, dear,
and come to tea." For, to speak in better words than my own, "It
is the books we read before middle life that do most to mould our
characters and influence our lives; and this not only because our
natures are then plastic and our opinions flexible, but also because,
to produce lasting impression, it is necessary to give a great author
time and meditation. The books that are with us in the leisure of
youth, that we love for a time not only with the enthusiasm, but with
something of the exclusiveness, of a first love, are those that enter
as factors forever in our mental life.
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