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5.

more real things and to have a closer relation to the real purpose of
literature than mere bookish chatter.

I am not going to give you an address upon the importance
of reading; that has been done a hundred times by far better people
than myself, and it will be your duty to preach that gospel in your
campaign. You can emphasise the practical advantages. Reading makes
a man understand the meaning of society, and therefore makes him an
intelligent citizen. It teaches him the true foundation of politics.
It enables him to examine catchwords and not to be misled by showy
formulae. It enables him to take a balanced view of his own difficulties,
and to be neither too much of an optimist nor too much of
a pessimist. A memory full of good books is the best preventative
against both panic and over-confidence. Then there is the practical
value of reading as a mental discipline, since it encourages that
disinterested intellectual curiosity which is the life- blood of civilisation.
All this has been said before, and said far better than
I can say it.

But I would emphasise today especially the enrichment
which reading gives to our ordinary life, the addition which it makes
to our honest pleasures - what I might call the fun of the thing.
We often hear it said of somebody that he is a "great reader". But
that which is assumed to be so common is, I think, rather rare - the
men and women who are so eager to broaden their knowledge of life
that they read with real ardour and intelligence. I am very far
from advocating that priggish practice which some people favour - a
systematic course of reading by which you confine yourself to the