it is lost in the digestive joys of memory. There is no miserable quail
limit to novels--you can read thirty novels in thirty days or 365 novels
in 365 days for thirty years, and the last one will always have the
delicious taste of the pies of childhood.

If any honest-minded boy chances to read these lines, let him charge his
mind with full contempt for any misguided elders who have designs of
"choosing only the best accepted novels" for his reading. There are no
"best" novels except by the grace of the poor ones, and, if you don't
read the poor ones, the "best" will be as tasteless as unsalted rice.
I say to boys that are worth growing up: don't let anybody give you
patronizing advice about novels. If your pastors and masters try
oppression, there is the orchard, the creek bank, the attic room, the
roof of the woodshed (under the peach tree), and a thousand other places
where you may hide and maintain your natural independence. Don't let
elderly and officious persons explain novels to you. They can not
honestly do so; so don't waste time. Every boy of fourteen, with the
genius to read 'em, is just as good a judge of novels and can understand
them quite as well as any gentleman of brains of any old age. Because
novels mean entirely different things to every blessed reader.

* * * * *

The main thing at the beginning is to be in the neighborhood of a good
"novel orchard" and to nibble and eat, and even "gormandize," as your
fancy leads you. Only--as you value your soul and your honor as a
gentleman--bear in mind that what you read in every novel that pleases
you is sacred truth. There are busy-bodies, pretenders to "culture," and
sticklers for the multiplication table and Euclid's pestiferous theorem,
who will tell you that novel reading is merely for entertainment and