Wesley Corpus

The method of or shortest way to knowledge seems to be this: (1) to consider what knowledge you desire to attain to; (2) to read no book which does not some way tend to the attainment of that knowledge; {3) to read no book which does tend to the attainment of it, unless it be the best in its kind; (4) to finish one before you begin another; and (5) to read them all in such an order that every subsequent book may illustrate and confirm the preceding. The knowledge which you would probably desire to attain to is a knowledge of divinity, philosophy, history, and poetry. If you will be so good as to direct me how I can be of use to you in any of these, it will give me a very particular pleasure. [See letters of June 17 and Dec. 1.] I am glad you passed your time so agreeably in the country, [Mrs. Pendarves writes to her sister on Sept. 10: ' I suppose by this time you are returned from Stanton.] and doubt not but Sappho would have made it yet more agreeable. Surely you are very just in observing that a country life is in many respects preferable to any other; particularly in its abounding with those beauties of nature that so easily raise our thoughts to the Author of them. Methinks, whenever about us round we see Hill, dale, and shady wood and sunny plain, And liquid lapse of murm'ring stream, [Paradise Lost, viii. 261-3, v. 153.] 'tis scarce possible to stop that obvious reflection: These are Thy glorious works, Parent of good. [Paradise Lost, viii. 261-3, v. 153.] Nor is it hard here, where the busy varieties of a great town do not flutter about us and break our attention, to fix that reflection so deep upon our souls that it may not pass away, like the objects that occasioned it.