原文 (英語)

I “The rarest sort of a book,” says Mr. Bagehot, slyly, is “a book to read”; and “the knack in style is to write like a human being.” It is painfully evident, upon experiment, that not many of the books which come teeming from our presses every year are meant to be read. They are meant, it may be, to be pondered; it is hoped, no doubt, they may instruct, or inform, or startle, or arouse, or reform, or provoke, or amuse us; but we read, if we have the true reader’s zest and plate, not to