Therefore I entreat thee, dear reader, thou who hast the eye of a hawk or of a sea gull, and the intellectual speed of a greyhound, do not content thyself with glancing over this book as an Italian Poet says
Precipitevolissimevolmente.
But I need not exhort thee thus, who art quick to apprehend and quick to feel, and sure to like at first sight whatever upon better acquaintance deserves to be loved.
CHAPTER CLX.
MENTION OF ONE FOR WHOM THE GERMANS WOULD COIN A DESIGNATION WHICH MIGHT BE TRANSLATED A ONCE-READER. MANY MINDS IN THE SAME MAN. A POET'S UNREASONABLE REQUEST. THE AUTHOR OFFERS GOOD ADVICE TO HIS READERS, AND ENFORCES IT BY AN EPISCOPAL OPINION.
Judge not before
Thou know mine intent;
But read me throughout,
And then say thy fill;
As thou in opinion
Art minded and bent,
Whether it be
Either good or ill.
E. P.
I have heard of a man who made it a law for himself never to read any book again which had greatly pleased him on a first perusal; lest a second reading should in some degree disturb the pleasurable impression which he wished to retain of it. This person must have read only for his amusement, otherwise he would have known that a book is worth little if it deserves to be perused but once: and moreover that as the same landscape appears differently at different seasons of the year, at morning and at evening, in bright weather and in cloudy, by moonlight, and at noon-day, so does the same book produce a very different effect upon the same reader at different times and under different circumstances.