There are other encyclopædias, which give detailed information about definite branches of knowledge-such as business and literature-which are equally fascinating; but, to start with, get a standard work dealing with general information, and later on you can provide yourself with those books which cover any special subject in which you are interested.

It is a good thing to know some particular subject well, and make it your hobby. Some men get their greatest pleasure in digging among the secondhand book shops in search of bargains. If you do this, confine yourself to one class of book, say art, or furniture, or china, or poetry, and form a complete little library restricted to that subject. You will then have a definite aim in view and will save yourself a good deal of expenditure which would otherwise be profitless. If you get interested in any branch of learning you will always derive pleasure from adding to your knowledge of it, and you will always find in your little library such restfulness and pleasure as would come to you if you could transport yourself into another world, away from all the doubts and perplexities which beset you in this one.

What I want you to gather from all the foregoing is this: Do not read aimlessly any more than you would work aimlessly; but, in precisely the

same manner in which you work for a definite purpose, so must you put positive force into your reading. Aimless reading is a negative occupation. It leaves the acquisition of real interest, pleasure, and knowledge entirely to chance. Everything that your mind devises for you to do is to be for your good and for the development of your powers. Apply this principle to your reading, and while you will enjoy it even more than if you read for pleasure and relaxation only, you will add immeasurably to your brain power by assimilating, on a systematic plan, the best thoughts of the wisest men who have ever lived, and the records of the most inspiring deeds that the world has known.

CHAPTER XXV

THE RIDDLE OF LIFE

"Into this Universe, and why, not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing :
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

"The Worldly Hope men set their hearts upon
Turns ashes-or it prospers, and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty face
Lighting a little hour or two-is gone."

RUBAIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYẨM.

soon as people commence to think for themselves they begin to doubt. givings about everything.

They have misRobert Louis Stevenson said, "We are none of us infallible, not even the very young." (A charming and accomplished lady once quoted that to me in my salad days, and I have never forgotten it.) There are two sides to every question, and sometimes one cannot tell which is the right side. People who have engaged actively in politics know that a vast majority of voters hold their political convictions by a sort of instinct. They absorb their opinions from the mental atmosphere in which they live. In the City of London there is a large wholesale dry goods warehouse. Certain

departments would benefit greatly by Protection, and others which flourish under Free Trade would be seriously crippled. One would think that the two men at the head of the business would be competent to form an accurate opinion on the merits of this involved subject, yet one is an ardent Free Trader and the other is an enthusiastic Protectionist. If it is difficult to form convictions about the practical realities of life, is it any wonder that certain problems which baffle us cannot be judged on any known principles of scientific knowledge?

All through the ages, what is termed "The Riddle of Life" has baffled men. Those who take their thoughts ready-made from others either accept the conditions of living in a spirit of fatalism or of religious hope. Others, and particularly those who live hard lives, ask themselves, "Why am I here, and for what am I working?" Tennyson said, "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." None can answer the riddle of life for you. Only your own experience can lift the veil of the mystery of existence, and show you the shining promise of the Beyond.

Modern life, with its rush and its stress of competition, tends to breed selfishness. "The weak must go to the wall" is a doctrine of self. The mother who glories in her first-born and showers her self-sacrificing love upon it, has no such doctrine.

In protecting her little one she develops her finest instincts, and the best mothers find part, at any rate, of the solution of the riddle of life in the happiness of their everyday existence.

Logic teaches us that, if certain causes produce certain effects, similar causes will produce similar effects. We argue from the known to the unknown, and whatever there is in life that is baffling and inscrutable can be solved by the spirit of faith and hope arguing from the knowable facts of our everyday existence. Every piece of good work is an achievement. The man who dreams and does nothing may well ask what is the good of living. The man who paints a picture, finds in the achievement a joy which teaches him that every work of his hand and brain will bring him some reward either of success or of power. The man who despairs and says he never has a chance, will never get his chance because he will not go out and seize it. The millionaire creating vast organisations and carrying through big achievements by their aid, does so because he creates his chances. If he sat still and moped he would be so much the poorer. If the head of any big business decided to rest on his oars, his connection would soon be wrested from him by his energetic competitors and his income would go. Rewards in life go by merit alone. They must be striven for, and the reward comes with the first