NCERT Book Class 11 English (Woven Words) Essay 7 Bridges

174 Woven Words

5 What is a Good Book?
John Ruskin

F Look for these expressions and guess their meaning from the context

canaille peerage
fain national noblesse of words

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
whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you.
Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very
pleasant often, as a sensible friend’s present talk would
be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and
witty discussions of question; lively or pathetic story-telling
in the form of novel; firm fact-telling by the real agents
concerned in the events of passing history—all these books
of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes
more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession
of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful 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. Our friend’s letter may be
delightful, or necessary, today: whether worth keeping or
not, is to be considered. The newspaper may be entirely
proper at breakfast time but, assuredly, it is not reading
for all day. So, though bound up in a volume, the long
letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns,
and roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which
tells you that amusing story or gives you the real
circumstances of such and such events, however valuable
for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of