"
Franklin was accustomed to attribute his usefulness and eminence to
his having early read Cotton Mather's 'Essays to do Good'--a book
which grew out of Mather's own life. And see how good example
draws other men after it, and propagates itself through future
generations in all lands. For Samuel Drew avers that he framed his
own life, and especially his business habits, after the model left
on record by Benjamin Franklin. Thus it is impossible to say where
a good example may not reach, or where it will end, if indeed it
have an end. Hence the advantage, in literature as in life, of
keeping the best society, reading the best books, and wisely
admiring and imitating the best things we find in them. "In
literature," said Lord Dudley, "I am fond of confining myself to
the best company, which consists chiefly of my old acquaintance,
with whom I am desirous of becoming more intimate; and I suspect
that nine times out of ten it is more profitable, if not more
agreeable, to read an old book over again, than to read a new one
for the first time."
Sometimes a book containing a noble exemplar of life, taken up at
random, merely with the object of reading it as a pastime, has been
known to call forth energies whose existence had not before been
suspected.
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