A proper and judicious system of reading is of the highest importance. Two things are necessary in perusing the mental labors of others;—namely, not to read too much, and to pay great attention to the nature of what you do read. Many persons peruse books for the express and avowed purpose of consuming time; and this class of readers forms by far the majority of what are termed the “reading public.” Others, again, read with the laudable anxiety of being made wiser; and when this object is not attained, the disappointment may generally be attributed, either to the habit of reading too much, or of paying insufficient attention to what falls under their notice.
Hints on Reading

It is recorded of Madame De St?el Holstein, that before she was fifteen years of age, she had “devoured” 600 novels in three months, so that she must have read more than six a day, upon an average. Louis XVI, during the five months and seven days of his imprisonment immediately preceding his death, read 157[81] volumes, or one a day. If this species of gluttony is pardonable in circumstances like those of Louis, it is less so in those of a yo............