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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: Johnson at Oxford in these words: "Young man, ply your book
diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when
years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will
be but an irksome task." The old gentleman seems to have been
unaware that many other things besides reading grow irksome,
and not a few become impossible, by the time a man has to use
spectacles and cannot walk without a stick. Books are good
enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless
substitute for life. It seems a pity to sit, like the Lady of
Shalott, peering into a mirror, with your back turned on all
the bustle and glamour of reality. And if a man reads very
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