Excerpt from Brooks's Readers: Eighth Year All books may be divided into two classes, -books of the hour, and books of all time. Yet it is not merely the bad book that does not last, and the good one that does. There are good books for the hour and good ones for all time; bad books for the hour and bad ones for all time. I must define the two kinds before I go on. The good book of the hour, then, I do not speak of the bad ones, - is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as sensible friends' present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels, good -humored and witty discussions of question, lively or pathetic stor y-telling In the form of novel, firm fact telling all these books of the hour are the peculiar possession of the present age. We ought to be entirely thank ful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use, if we allow them to usurp the place of true books; for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.