Read Ebook: The Guide to Reading — the Pocket University Volume XXIII by Abbott Lyman Editor Dickinson Asa Don Editor

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"Well," we say with a sigh, "a man cannot read everything; it is life that has interrupted our studies, and probably the fact is that we have accumulated more books than we really need." The young reader's appetite is largely in his eyes, and it is very natural for one who is born with a taste for books to gather them about him at first indiscriminately, on the hearsay recommendation of fame, before he really knows what his own individual tastes are, or are going to be, and in that wistful survey I have imagined, our eyes will fall, too, with some amusement, on not a few volumes to which we never have had any really personal relation, and which, whatever their distinction or their value for others, were never meant for us. The way to do with such books is to hand them over to some one who has a use for them. On our shelves they are like so much good thrown away, invitations to entertainments for which we have no taste. In all vital libraries, such a process of progressive refection is continually going on, and to realize what we do not want in books, or cannot use, must, obviously, be a first principle in our getting the best out of them.

Yes, we read too many books, and too many that, as they do not really interest us, bring us neither benefit nor diversion. Even from the point of view of reading for pleasure, we manage our reading badly. We listlessly allow ourselves to be bullied by publishers' advertisements into reading the latest fatuity in fiction, without, in one case out of twenty, finding any of that pleasure we are ostensibly seeking. Instead, indeed, we are bored and enervated, where we might have been refreshed, either by romance or laughter. Such reading resembles the idle absorption of innocuous but interesting beverages, which cheer as little as they inebriate, and yet at the same time make frivolous demands on the digestive functions. No one but a publisher could call such reading "light." Actually it is weariness to the flesh and heaviness to the spirit.

If, therefore, our idea of the best in books is the recreation they can so well bring; if we go to books as to a playground to forget our cares and to blow off the cobwebs of business, let us make sure that we find what we seek. It is there, sure enough. The playgrounds of literature are indeed wide, and alive with bracing excitement, nor is there any limit to the variety of the games. But let us be sure, when we set Out to be amused, that we really are amused, that our humorists do really make us laugh, and that our story-tellers have stories to tell and know how to tell them. Beware of imitations, and, when in doubt, try Shakespeare, and Dumas--even Ouida. As a rule, avoid the "spring lists," or "summer reading." "Summer reading" is usually very hot work.

Hackneyed as it is, there is no better general advice on reading than Shakespeare's--

No profit is where is no pleasure taken,

In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

Not only in regard to books whose purpose, frankly, is recreation, but also in regard to the graver uses of books, this counsel no less holds. No reading does us any good that is not a pleasure to us. Her paths are paths of pleasantness. Yet, of course, this does not mean that all profitable reading is easy reading. Some of the books that give us the finest pleasure need the closest application for their enjoyment. There is always a certain spiritual and mental effort necessary to be made before we tackle the great books. One might compare it to the effort of getting up to see the sun rise. It is no little tug to leave one's warm bed--but once we are out in the crystalline morning air, wasn't it worth it? Perhaps our finest pleasure always demands some such austerity of preparation. That is the secret of the truest epicureanism. Books like Dante's "Divine Comedy," or Plato's dialogues, will not give themselves to a lounging reader. They demand a braced, attentive spirit. But when the first effort has been made, how exhilarating are the altitudes in which we find ourselves; what a glow of pure joy is the reward which we are almost sure to win by our mental mountaineering.

But such books are not for moments when we are unwilling or unable to make that necessary effort. We cannot always be in the mood for the great books, and often we are too tired physically, or too low down on the depressed levels of daily life, even to lift our eyes toward the hills. To attempt the great books--or any books at all--in such moods and moments, is a mistake. We may thus contract a prejudice against some writer who, approached in more fortunate moments, would prove the very man we were looking for.

To know when to read is hardly less important than to know what to read. Of course, every one must decide the matter for himself; but one general counsel may be ventured: Read only what you want to read, and only when you want to read it.

Some readers find the early morning, when they have all the world to themselves, their best time for reading, and, if you are a good sleeper, and do not find early rising more wearying than refreshing, there is certainly no other time of the day when the mind is so eagerly receptive, has so keen an edge of appetite, and absorbs a book in so fine an intoxication. For your true book-lover there is no other exhilaration so exquisite as that with which one reads an inspiring book in the solemn freshness of early morning. One's nerves seem peculiarly strung for exquisite impressions in the first dewy hours of the day, there is a virginal sensitiveness and purity about all our senses, and the mere delight of the eye in the printed page is keener than at any other time. "The Muses love the morning, and that is a fit time for study," said Erasmus to his friend Christianus of Lubeck; and, certainly, if early rising agrees with one, there is no better time for getting the very best out of a book. Moreover, morning reading has a way of casting a spell of peace over the whole day. It has a sweet, solemnizing effect on our thoughts--a sort of mental matins--and through the day's business it accompanies us as with hidden music.

There are others who prefer to do their reading at night, and I presume that most readers of this paper are so circumstanced as to have no time to spare for reading during the day. Personally, I think that one of the best places to read in is bed. Paradoxical as it may sound, one is not so apt to fall asleep over his book in bed as in the post-prandial armchair. While one's body rests itself, one's mind, remains alert, and, when the time for sleep comes at last, it passes into unconsciousness, tranquilized and sweetened with thought and pleasantly weary with healthy exercise. One awakens, too, next morning, with, so to say, a very pleasant taste of meditation in the mouth. Erasmus, again, has a counsel for the bedtime reader, expressed with much felicity. "A little before you sleep," he says, "read something that is exquisite, and worth remembering; and contemplate upon it till you fall asleep; and, when you awake in the morning, call yourself to an account for it."

In an old Atlantic Monthly, from which, if I remember aright, he never rescued it, Oliver Wendell Holmes has a delightful paper on the delights of reading in bed, entitled "Pillow-Smoothing Authors."

Then, though I suppose we shall have the oculists against us, the cars are good places to read in--if you have the power of detachment, and are able to switch off your ears from other people's conversation. It is a good plan to have a book with you in all places and at all times. Most likely you will carry it many a day and never give it a single look, but, even so, a book in the hand is always a companionable reminder of that happier world of fancy, which, alas! most of us can only visit by playing truant from the real world. As some men wear boutonnieres, so a reader carries a book, and sometimes, when he is feeling the need of beauty, or the solace of a friend, he opens it, and finds both. Probably he will count among the most fruitful moments of his reading the snatched glimpses of beauty and wisdom he has caught in the morning car. The covers of his book have often proved like some secret door, through which, surreptitiously opened, he has looked for a moment into his own particular fairy land. Never mind the oculist, therefore, but, whenever you feel like it, read in the car.

One or two technical considerations may be dealt with in this place. How to remember what one reads is one of them. Some people are blest with such good memories that they never forget anything that they have once read. Literary history has recorded many miraculous memories. Still, it is quite possible to remember too much, and thus turn one's mind into a lumber-room of useless information. A good reader forgets even more than he remembers. Probably we remember all that is really necessary for us, and, except in so far as our reading is technical and directed toward some exact science or profession, accuracy of memory is not important. As the Sabbath was made for man, so books were made for the reader, and, when a reader has assimilated from any given book his own proper nourishment and pleasure, the rest of the book is so much oyster shell. The end of true reading is the development of individuality. Like a certain water insect, the reader instinctively selects from the outspread world of books the building materials for the house of his soul. He chooses here and rejects there, and remembers or forgets according to the formative desire of his nature. Yet it often happens that he forgets much that he needs to remember, and thus the question of methodical aids to memory arises.

One's first thought, of course, is of the commonplace book. Well, have you ever kept one, or, to be more accurate, tried to keep one? Personally, I believe in the commonplace book so long as we don't expect too much from it. Its two dangers are that one is apt to make far too many and too minute entries, and that one is apt to leave all the remembering to the commonplace book, with a consequent relaxation of one's own attention. On the other hand, the mere discipline of a commonplace book is a good thing, and if--as I think is the best way--we copy out the passages at full length, they are thus the more securely fixed in the memory. A commonplace book kept with moderation is really useful, and may be delightful. But the entries should be made at full length. Otherwise, the thing becomes a mere index, an index which encourages us to forget.

Another familiar way of assisting one's memory in reading is to mark one's own striking passages. This method is chiefly worth while for the sake of one's second and subsequent readings; though it all depends when one makes the markings--at what time of his life, I mean. Markings made at the age of twenty years are of little use at thirty--except negatively. In fact, I have usually found that all I care to read again of a book read at twenty is just the passages I did not mark. This consideration, however, does not depreciate the value of one's comparatively contemporary markings. At the same time, marking, like indexing, is apt, unless guarded against, to relax the memory. One is apt to mark a passage in lieu of remembering it. Still, for a second reading, as I say--a second reading not too long after the first-- marking is a useful method, particularly if one regards his first reading of a book as a prospecting of the ground rather than a taking possession. One's first reading is a sort of flying visit, during which he notes the places he would like to visit again and really come to know. A brief index of one's markings at the end of a volume is a method of memory that commended itself to the booklovers of former days--to Leigh Hunt, for instance.

Yet none of these external methods, useful as they may prove, can compare with a habit of thorough attention. We read far too hurriedly, too much in the spirit of the "quick lunch." No doubt we do so a great deal from the misleading idea that there is so very much to read. Actually, there is very little to read,--if we wish for real reading-- and there is time to read it all twice over. We--Americans--bolt our books as we do our food, and so get far too little good out of them. We treat our mental digestions as brutally as we treat our stomachs. Meditation is the digestion of the mind, but we allow ourselves no time for meditation. We gorge our eyes with the printed page, but all too little of what we take in with our eyes ever reaches our minds or our spirits. We assimilate what we can from all this hurry of superfluous food, and the rest goes to waste, and, as a natural consequence, contributes only to the wear and tear of our mental organism.

Books should be real things. They were so once, when a man would give a fat field in exchange for a small manuscript; and they are no less real to-day--some of them. Each age contributes one or two real books to the eternal library--and always the old books remain, magic springs of healing and refreshment. If no one should write a book for a thousand years, there are quite enough books to keep us going. Real books there are in plenty. Perhaps there are more real books than there are real readers. Books are the strong tincture of experience. They are to be taken carefully, drop by drop, not carelessly gulped down by the bottleful. Therefore, if you would get the best out of books, spend a quarter of an hour in reading, and three-quarters of an hour in thinking over what you have read.

THE GUIDE TO DAILY READING

PREPARED BY ASA DON DICKINSON

The elaborate, systematic "course of reading" is a bore. After thirty years spent among books and bookish people I have never yet met anyone who would admit that he had ploughed through such a course from beginning to end. Of course a few faithful souls, with abundant leisure, have done this, just as there are men who have walked from New York City to San Francisco. Good exercise, doubtless! But most of us have not time for feats of such questionable utility.

Yet I myself and most of the booklovers whom I know have started at one time or another to pursue a course of reading, and we have never regretted our attempts. Why? Because this is an excellent way to discover the comparatively small number of authors who have a message that we need to hear. When such an one is discovered, one may with a good conscience let the systematic course go by the board until one has absorbed all that is useful from the store of good things offered by the valuable new acquaintance.

Each one has his idiosyncrasies. If I may be permitted to allude to a personal failing, let me confess that I have never read "Paradise Lost" or "Pilgrim's Progress." I have hopefully dipped into them repeatedly, but--I don't like them. Some day I hope to, but until my mind is ready for these two great world-books, I do not intend to waste time by driving through them with set teeth. There are too many other good books that I do enjoy reading. "In brief, Sir, study what you most affect."

The "Guide to Daily Readings" which follows makes no claim to be systematic. The aim has been simply to introduce the reader to a goodly company of authors--to provide a daily flower of thought for the buttonhole, to-day a glorious rose of poetic fancy, to-morrow a pert little pansy of quaint humor.

Yet nearly all the selections are doubly significant and interesting if read upon the days to which they are especially assigned. For example, on New Year's Day it is suggested that one set one's house in order by reading Franklin's "Rules of Conduct," Longfellow's "Psalm of Life," Bryant's "Thanatopsis," and Lowell's "To the Future"; on January 19th, Poe's Birthday, one is directed to an excellent sketch of Poe and to typical examples of his best work, "The Raven" and "The Cask of Amontillado"; and on October 31st, Hallowe'en, one is reminded of Burns's "Tam O'Shanter" and Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

The daily selections can in most cases be read in from fifteen minutes to half an hour, and Dr. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard, has said that fifteen minutes a day devoted to good literature will give every man the essentials of a liberal education. If time can be found between breakfast and the work-hours for these few minutes of reading, one will receive more benefit than if it is done during the somnolent period which follows the day's work and dinner. It is a mistake, however, to read before breakfast. Eyes and stomach are too closely related to permit of this.

Happy is he who can read these books in company with a sympathetic companion. His enjoyment of the treasure they contain will be doubled.

One final hint--when reading for something besides pastime, get in the habit of referring when necessary to dictionary, encyclopaedia, and atlas. If on the subway or a railway train, jot down a memorandum of the query on the flyleaf, and look up the answer at the first opportunity.

ASA DON DICKINSON.

There is no business, no avocation whatever, which will not permit a man, who has the inclination, to give a little time, every day, to study.

--DANIEL WYTTENBACH.

JANUARY 1ST TO 7TH

No book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all. --THOMAS CARLYLE.

JANUARY 8TH TO 14th

The novel, in its best form, I regard as one of the most powerful engines of civilization ever invented. --SIR JOHN HERSCHEL.

JANUARY 15TH TO 21ST

He that revels in a well-chosen library has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour. His taste is rendered so acute as easily to distinguish the nicest shade of difference. --WILLIAM GODWIN.

JANUARY 22ND TO 28TH

We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another; we give no offence to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly.... --WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

JANUARY 29TH TO FEBRUARY 4th

Borrow therefore, of those golden morning hours, and bestow them on your book. --EARL OF BEDFORD

FEBRUARY 5TH TO 11TH

The scholar, only, knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only retain their steady value. --Washington Irving.

February 12th to 18th

What a place to be in is an old library! It seems though all the souls of all the writers were reposing here. --CHARLES LAMB.

FEBRUARY 19TH TO 25th

A little peaceful home Sounds all my wants and wishes; add to this My book and friend, and this is happiness. --FRANCESCO DI RIOJA.

FEBRUARY 26TH TO MARCH 4TH

A little library, growing larger every year, is an honorable part of a man's history. It is a man's duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life. --HENRY WARD BEECHER.

MARCH 5TH TO 11TH

Books that can be held in the hand, and carried to the fireside are the best after all. --SAMUEL JOHNSON.

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