2017年北京海天高辅考研英语VIP基础精讲班-赵南望

The greatest advantage of books does not always come from what we remember
of them, but from their suggestiveness. A good book often serves as a match to light
the dormant powder within us. There is explosive material enough in most of us if we
can only reach it. A good book or a good friend often serves to wake up our latent
possibilities. Books often excite thought in great writers, even upon entirely different
subjects. We often find in books what we thought and felt, could we have expressed
our selves. Indeed, we get acquainted with ourselves in books. We discover one
feature in Emerson, another lineament in Shakespeare, an expression in Homer, a
glimpse of ourselves in Dante, and so on until we spell out our whole individuality.
True, we get many pleasing reflections of ourselves from friends, many mirrored
deformities from our enemies, and a characteristic here and there from the world; but
in a calm and unbiased way we find the most of ourselves, our strength, our weakness,
our limitations, our opinions, our tastes, our harmonies and discords, our poetic and
prosaic qualities, in books.
We form many of our opinions from our favorite books. The author whom we
prefer is our most potent teacher; we look at the world through his eyes. If we
habitually read books that are elevating in tone, pure in style, sound in reasoning, and
keen in insight, our minds develop the same characteristics. If, on the contrary, we
read weak or vicious books, our minds contract the faults and vices of the books. We
cannot escape the influence of what we read any more than we can escape the
influence of the air that we breathe.
The best books are those which stir us up most and make us the most determined
to do something and be something ourselves. The best books are those which lift us to