Before a good knowledge of English forms is obtained, the archaisms are apt to affect the students' mode of expression.

But for the advanced student of literature, I should say that some knowledge of the finest books in the Bible is simply indispensable.

The important books to read are not many.

But one should read at least the books of Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, Esther, the Song of Songs, Proverbs,--and, above all, Job.

Job is certainly the grandest book in the Bible; but all of those which I have named are books that have inspired poets and writers in all departments of English literature to such an extent that you can scarcely read a masterpiece in which there is not some conscious or unconscious reference to them.