Reading As A Mental Stimulus

An eminent French critic said in a lecture recently in New York that "to distrust what we like is the flrst requisite of progress in art and in life." He did not mean that books that are disagreeable are the only books worth reading. But he did mean that a book which opens up a new field of knowledge, a new outlook upon literature or life, is not at first likely to give the pleasure that comes from one which simply reflects the oíd familiar ideas of which we say complacently, "How good and true that is, for I've feit it or said it myself." A book that pata you on tke head or heart all the time is apt to be little more tha a rcilection of your own narrow experience, and you will not learn anything from it. A book that makes one feel ignorant is as mortifying to one's pride as a superior peraou, - "Droch" in Ladies' Home Journal.