Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow-
The test of a great book is whether we want to read it only once or more than once. A really great book is one which we want to read the second time even more than we wanted to read it the first time; and every additional time that we read it we find new ‘meanings and new beauties in it. A book that a person of education and good taste does not care to read more than once is very probably not worth much. But we cannot consider the judgment of a single individual infallible. The opinion that makes a book great must be the opinion of many. For even the greatest critics are apt to have certain dullness.
Carlyle, for example, could not endure Browning; Byron could not endure some of the greatest of English poets. A man must be many-sided to utter a trustworthy estimate of many books. We may doubt the judgment of the single critic at times. But there is no doubt possible in regard to the judgment of generations. Even if we cannot at once perceive anything good in a book which has been admired and praised for hundreds of years, we may be sure that by trying, by studying it carefully, we shall at least be able to feel the reason of this admiration and praise. The best of all libraries for a poor man would be a library entirely composed of such great works only, books which have passed the test of time.
This then would be the most important guide for us in the choice of readings. We should read only the books we want to read more than once, nor should we buy any others, unless we have some special reason for so investing money. The second fact demanding attention is the general character of the value that lies hidden within all such great books. They never become old their youth is immortal. A great book is not apt to be comprehended by a young person at the first reading except in a superficial way. Only the surface, the narrative, is absorbed and enjoyed. No young man can possibly see at first Reading the qualities of a great book. Remember that it has taken humanity in many pases hundreds of years to find out all that there is in such a book. But according to a man’s experience of life, the text will unfold new meanings to him.
The book that delighted us at eighteen, if it be a good book, will delight us much more at twenty-five and it will prove like a new book to us at thirty years of age. At forty we shall re-read it, wondering why we never saw how beautiful it was before. At fifty or sixty years of age the same facts will repeat themselves. A great book grows exactly in proportion to the growth of the reader’s mind.
(i) What is the quality of a great book?
(ii) In which case is a judgment about a book beyond doubt?
(iii) What kind of understanding of a great book is a young person likely to have at the first reading of that book?
(iv) Whose work did Carlyle find difficult to appreciate?
(v) What would a poor man’s library contain?
