A Good Book



A really good book is the one, which we like to read time and again. The test of a great book is whether we want to read it only once or more than once. Any really great book we want to read the second time even more than we wanted to read it the first time; and every additional time that we read it we find new meanings and new beauties in it. A book that a person of education and good taste does not care to read more than once is very probably not much worth. But we cannot consider the judgment of a single individual infallible. The opinion that makes a book great must be the opinion of many. The best of all libraries for a poor man would be a library entirely composed of such great works only, books which have passed the test of time.