Talks to Young Men. X: On How to Read

TALKS TO YOUNG MEN.

X— ON HOW TO READ. We hear a good deal nowadays about what to read; and this, to be sure, is a vital concern. But, unless I am greatly mistaken, there is something connected with it which is of even more import- ance, and which we rarely say anything about, and that is how to read. The real heart of this question of reading lies here. The person who knows how to read properly has already settled that other question of what to read. Not, therefore, how much we read, nor even what we read, but always and everywhere, how we read. This idea, I trust, will be clearer presently. To begin with, comparatively few people, young or old, know how to read. This may sound strange, but it is none the less a fact. It is no small task for the average person to grapple with written words. Considering the quantity of reading matter that we have access to every day, it is absolutely incredible that so many people go through the world without acquiring the power of getting thougrt from the printed page. Of course, I don't mean by reading merely "getting through" a book or an article, much less pronouncing the words aloud, but rather getting the thought, the whole thought, and nothing but the thought; and a great deal of the feeling as well. Not particularly what is actually said, though we should get that, too; but especially what is implied, what is put so often "between the lines," which we frequently do

not see. In our hurry and scurry way of reading newspapers and stories, we form the habit of reading everything else in the same manner. And this suggests a useful distinction in reading matter which Ruskin has drawn in his King's Treasures, a lecture that every

young man should read. "All books," he says, "are divisible into

two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.

Mark this distinction— it is not one of quality only. It is not merely the bad book that does not last, and the good one that does. It is a distinction of species. There are good books for the hour, and good ones for all time; bad books for the hour, and bad ones for all time." He then goes on to say that to this first class —the books of the hour— the "bright accounts of travels, good humored and witty discussions of questions, lively or pathetic story telling in the form of novel, firm fact-telling by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history" —to this

class of books we should put the proper value. "We ought," he declares, "to be entirely thankful for thpm, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use if we allow them to usurp the place of true books." This is a valuable word and should be treasured. A good many people imagine they are reading if they go through the newspaper or magazine whenever it appears, or manage to get entirely through the printed matter between two covers every now and then; whereas, in fact, they have not been reading at all, be-

cause there was nothing in their hands to read. In this way we sometimes, — shall I not say often? — put the same amount of time on the merest balderdash in the latest piece of fiction that we would place on a real embodiment of a great and genuine book, the human life. This mistake it is fatal to make. Read the news- papers and magazines by all means, but know what you are doing when you read them. That is all. Consider for a moment the years of time and the great wealth of genius lavished upon a great book; for no really great book is produced in much less than a life-time. We have only one volume each given by Homer,Dante,Milton,Shakespeare. Gray was the best part of his life in writing his Elegy. Thackeray, probably the great- est English novelist, had spent years and years in studying eigh- teenth century society and manners— had, in fact, become more familiar with that period than he was with the actual life of his own generation—before he attempted to write what is unquestion- ably the greatest historical novel in the language, if not in any language. And today we have so called historical romances, not

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only by young and inexperienced men, but by men without any con- siderable talent, to say nothing of genius. And what is unac- countably strange, we put exactly the same amount of time on The Crisis, a book that was dashed off by youthful and untalented experience, that we put on Henry Esmond, a work that contains the life's .blood of a genuine man. A good many of us prefer the cheap jingles in the corners of the newspaper, or the "tinkling cymbals" of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, to the Elegy in a Country Churchyard or the Sonnets of Shakespeare the one costs no great- ;

er effort to produce than an ear for rhyme, while the other con- tains the soul of a mighty spirit. It 'is like diliberately choosing

a commonplace person to associate with, in preference to a really great one, or, rather, electing of our own free will to spend the same amount of time with the one as we do with the other. What would you think of a person who should take what he knew to be a bogus coin instead of what he knew was a genuine? Enough has probably been said to impress the fact that there ought to be a juster proportion or emphasis in the matter of reading. But it is still we can not clear, perhaps, how it is that place the emphasis on the great writers; for I do not mean mere- ly reading them oftener; I mean rather putting more time on sin-

gle passages. We may, for instance, read Henry Esmond or Adam Bede or Ivanhoe fifteen or twenty times (and a great book will really bear this) where we read today's "romances" only once. But there is something besides this, not only in novels, but particular- ly in poetry. A great poet manages to put so much meaning into words and phrases. Almost every word is freighted with a world of thought and feeling. Ruskin, in the lecture from which I have already quoted, points out an example of this in the phrase "Blind mouths" of Milton. This combination of words at first seems very nonsensical, but is so only to the shallow reader. The poet has been speaking of the false shepherds who neglect to feed the flock of Christ —bishops and pastors who neglect their duty. "A bishop means a person who sees. A pastor means one who feeds. The most unbishoply character a man can have is, therefore, to be blind. The most unpastorly is, instead of feeding, to want to be fed, —to be a mouth. Take the two reverses together and you have 'blind mouths.' " This phrase, instead of being meaningless,

compels us, by its very "audacity and pithiness" to look closer at the phrase and remember it. This is a good example of the im- mense amount of thought and feeling which poets often put into their words. In reading, then, in the proper sense, there are two things that we ought to do. There is first the thought that is expressed in conventional black marks which common consent has given cer- tain meanings to. This is, of course, a mere intellectual process. We have this to do before we can do anything further. There is, then, in the second place, the feeling that the reader gets from the words he reads. Now, it requires time for the mind to picture what it reads, and to form the feelings that come to the soul. — These in turn refer back to our own experiences and this is the spirit of literature, the essence of reading.

But perhaps I can make my position clearer by giving two examples and following out, to some extent, the thought and feel- ing suggested by the written words. I know this "sign post"

method is often ineffective, even disastrous; nevertheless I shall risk failure by attempting it. The first is from Shakespeare's Macbeth. Macbeth is about to go to battle against his enemies, with a soul harrowed by thoughts of blood-guiltiness; it is, moreover, his last and fatal battle, for he meets his fate here. His wife at this critical point in his his- tory takes sick. In response to the doctor's report concerning her condition, Macbeth says:

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written tooubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff, Which weighs upon the heart?

No necessity for praising this fine passage. But what a wealth of meaning and feeling there is here! The "mind diseased" —not easy; and well might Lady Macbeth's mind be so, after her bloody deed. The next line conceives sorrow as a plant "rooted" in memory— each day the plant sends its roots deeper down into the soil; and the doctor is requested to "pluck" it out. But there

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is a lavish profusion of imagery here; the poet revels in it. The brain is, in the next line, a tablet on which "troubles" are "writ- ten." Can the- doctor "raze" them out? In the following line

Macbeth asks for something that will make the mind forget! It

may be that the sorrow cannot be rooted out, or that the troubles cannot be erased, but still there may be some "antidote" to make one forget. And then the fifth line: "stuff'd bosom;" what mean- ing is thrown into that phrase, if you have ever been in a room filled with foul air, or in the dusty street where you could scarcely breathe; or, best of all for our purposes, had difficulty in catching your breath by reason of an unutterable filling up of the bosom. I

have spoken only of the things suggested by the words; I might also speak of those suggested, not by the words, but by the thoughts and feelings brought up by the words. This would take us back into the heart of our own individual experiences; but as these are different in different persons, it cannot be done without too much hazzard. But the point is, we should call up these experiences, for herein lies the value of reading. We should call before us, in imagination, the whole past that has a bearing upon the pres- ent moment's enjoyment. Then we should, like Wordsworth, have joy, not only in the dancing daffodils, but in our picture of

them —not only in the pleasure that they gave us, at the time we

looked upon them, but also in the fact that we took pleasure in them! The second example is from the Bible. And here I wish you to lay down this magazine and read John 8: 2-11, that passage about the woman taken in sin. No matter if you have read it a hundred times before; read it now. It is "early in the morning." Does this bring any feeling to you? What feeling? What morn- ings come to mind? Describe one of these. See those men — it

doesn't matter how many — this is not the point. They bring a woman to Jesus, taken in sin. Look into their faces. What do you see there? What have they come for? to learn of Jesus or to entrap him? "Now Moses in the law commanded us" it's all in — these words. Jesus "with his finger wrote upon the ground." They urge him to answer. "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!" Again he stoops down and writes upon the ground. And they "went out one by one, beginning at

the eldest." Does this mean simply that they didn't stay? May be; but that is not a thousandth part of the meaning. Look now into their faces! What change is there? Here is the important point, not whether they went out in single file or two abreast! Stop as you you read, that may bring to bear upon it the thou- sand and one details that concern the subject; and when you do, the picture is yours with all its meaning. One other point. Thoughtful reading will do away pretty nearly with the need of asking, "What shall I read?" Read care- fully and you may be trusted to pick out the good from the bad. You can't easily deceive a thoughtful person by putting into his hands cheap literature; he will detect the false ring. The sensa- tional titles —"The Midnight Marriage," "The Sorrows of Satan," "The Romance of Two Worlds," and other "rose-colored novels" —would have no attraction for him. Such a person would soon find out how fruitless would be his efforts to subject this kind of books, or cheap newspaper rhymes, to the tests of thought which we have seen true writings may be put to. He would discover that there is little else to them than "sound and fury, signifying nothing." But, of course, young people may learn from others what are good books to read; for they do not wish to waste their time. Nevertheless, on the whole, the old books are the best, those that have stood the test of time; it is not for nothing that they have survived. But the test of the old and the new, the good books and the bad, verse or prose, is thoughtfulness in the reading.