But My Way Of Writing Is Rather

Books, We Are Told, Propose To Instruct Or To Amuse. Indeed! A True Antithesis To Knowledge, In This Case, Is Not Pleasure, But Power. All That Is Literature Seeks To Communicate Power; All That Is Not Literature, To Communicate Knowledge.

Even Imperfection Itself May Have Its Ideal Or Perfect State.

There Is First The Literature Of Knowledge, And Secondly, The Literature Of Power. The Function Of The First Is--to Teach; The Function Of The Second Is--to Move, The First Is A Rudder, The Second An Oar Or A Sail. The First Speaks To The Mere Discursive Understanding; The Second Speaks Ultimately, It May Happen, To The Higher Understanding Or Reason, But Always Through Affections Of Pleasure And Sympathy.

There Is A Necessity For A Regulating Discipline Of Exercise That, Whilst Evoking The Human Energies, Will Not Suffer Them To Be Wasted.

It Is One Of The Misfortunes In Life That One Must Read Thousands Of Books Only To Discover That One Need Not Have Read Them.