What Kind of reader are you?

According to S. T. Coleridge readers may be divided into four classes: a sponge, a sandglass, a strainbag, mogul diamond: none, one or all...So what kind or reader are you? Are there situations you tend to be one and at other times, the other? Let us hear from you...


Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.







Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.










Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.

Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.