It may fire the heart, stimulate the enthusiasm, and
by directing his efforts into unexpected channels, permanently
influence his character. The new book, in which we form an
intimacy with a new friend, whose mind is wiser and riper than
our own, may thus form an important starting-point in the
history of a life. It may sometimes almost be regarded
in the light of a new birth.
From the day when James Edward Smith was presented with his first
botanical lesson-book, and Sir Joseph Banks fell in with Gerard's
'Herbal'--from the time when Alfieri first read Plutarch, and
Schiller made his first acquaintance with Shakspeare, and Gibbon
devoured the first volume of 'The Universal History'--each dated
an inspiration so exalted, that they felt as if their real lives
had only then begun.
In the earlier part of his youth, La Fontaine was distinguished
for his idleness, but hearing an ode by Malherbe read, he is said
to have exclaimed, "I too am a poet," and his genius was awakened.
Charles Bossuet's mind was first fired to study by reading, at an
early age, Fontenelle's 'Eloges' of men of science. Another work
of Fontenelle's--'On the Plurality of Worlds'--influenced the
mind of Lalande in making choice of a profession. "It is with
pleasure," says Lalande himself in a preface to the book, which be
afterwards edited, "that I acknowledge my obligation to it for
that devouring activity which its perusal first excited in me at
the age of sixteen, and which I have since retained.
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