READING—WHAT TO READ AND HOW TO READ
READING is one of the greatest consolations of life; it is the nurse of virtue; the upholder in adversity ; the prop of independence; the support of a just pride, the strengthener of elevated opinions; it is the shield against the tyranny of all the petty passions ; it is the repeller of the fool’s scoff and the knave’s poison.
Among the questions addressed to us by those who do us the honor to ask our advice, there is not one which we oftener receive than this: What books would you advise a young person to read for the improvement of his mind? It is a puzzling question to answer, when we know nothing of our correspondent’s character and education. Yet it is pleasant to know, that, somewhere in our vast circle of readers, in some secluded farm-house, or work-shop, far from the crowded haunts of men, there is, at least, one young human soul athirst for knowledge.
What shall you read? Read whatever good book you like to read. Reading is, in one respect, like eating it does not do you much good unless you have an appetite for it. The realm of knowledge is so vast, that the most learned man is obliged to leave some of its path untrodden, and some of its great provinces unvisited. What do you want to know ? Respecting what subject of inquiry, has your curiosity been awakened? Read about that.
What shall you read? Read what will enable you to work successfully. Understand your own trade or profession to the bottom. Know the science of it, the history of it, and all the hidden secrets of it, which books reveal. If you are an artisan, read Watt, Stephen son, Ben. Franklin and all other great and glorious Heroes of the Workshop. If you are a farmer, despise not knowledge which books contain respecting your noble and beautiful calling. If you are a man of leisure, the most dangerous of Heaven’s gifts, read and think incessantly till you have learned what to do with it; for you must make it tell on the good of the community, or it will curse you and your children to the third generation.
What shall you read? Read that which will help you to vote intelligently. Read the History of your country, up and down, and cross wise. Read all about it; its colonial history; its revolutionary history; its political history. Read it, till you understand clearly how the United States of the year 186— came to be the country you find it. Read one good general newspaper; for the newspaper is the link which connects each individual with the great Life of mankind. The man who reads no newspaper is a man cut off from his species.
What shall you read? Read beautiful things. Read the high, the sweet, the eloquent words of inspired and gifted men and women; poets, orators, prophets, sages; the noble and the good of all ages and all climes. But above all, read the sacred volume. Oh! yes; read the sacred volume! Read something for the soul every day you live. If you starve your body, stunt not the mind for lack of nourishment.
“In reading authors, when you find
Bright passages that strike your mind,
And which, perhaps, you may have reason
To think of at another season;
Be not contented with the sight,
But take them down in black and white;
Such a respect is wisely shown,
To make another’s sense one’s own.
Imprint the beauties of authors upon your imagination, and their morals upon your heart. With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under ground.
The author of “Waverly” remarks somewhere in that work, that a feeble and indecisive habit of mind is produced by desultory and omnivorous reading. Pliny and Seneca, in giving advice on reading, agreed that “men should read much but not many books.” It is remarkable that many great writers and eminent men seem to have had some particular favorite author which they studied continually. Demosthenes made Thucydides his model in style, and re-copied his history eight times. Lord Clarendon studied Livy and Tacitus. Voltaire’s favorite books were the Athelia of Bacine, and the Petit Gareme of Massilon. Diderot wanted “Moses, Homer and Richard as his authors. Fenelon’s favorite was Homer. Montesquieu chose Tacitus. Bourdalone re-read every year St. Paul, Chrysostom, and Cicero. Grotius studied Lucan. The favorite author of the Earl of Chatham was Barrow. Sir William Jones read Cicero through every year.
Many other examples might be given; and in this era of books it would be a great advantage to real improvement in learning and literature, if women as well as men would select some one author, or some few books to be studied thoroughly, instead of skimming over hundreds of new publications.
Reading without purpose is sauntering, not exercise. More is got from one book on which the thought settles for a definite end in knowledge, than from libraries skimmed over by a wandering eye. A cottage flower gives honey to the bee, a king’s garden none to the but butterfly. Youths who are destined for active careers, or ambitious of distinction in such forms of literature as require freshness of invention or originality of thought, should avoid the habit of intense study for many hours at a stretch. There is a point in all tension of the intellect beyond which effort is only waste of strength. Fresh ideas do not readily spring up within a weary brain; and whatever exhausts the mind not only enfeebles its power, but narrows its scope. We often see men who have over-read at college, entering upon life languidly as if they were about to leave it. They have not the vigor to cope with their own generation, for their own generation is young, and they have wasted the nervous energy which supplies the sinews of war to youth, its contests for fame or fortune. Study with regularity, at settled hours. Those in the forenoon are the best, if they can be secured. The man who has acquired the habit of study, though for only one hour every day in the year, and keeps to the one thing studied till it is mastered, will be startled to see the way he has made at the end of the twelvemonth.” He is seldom overworked who can contrive to be in advance of his work. If you have three weeks before you to learn something which a man of average quickness could learn in a week, learn it the first week, and not the third. Business dispatched is business well done, but business hurried is business ill- done. In learning what others have thought, it is well to keep in practice power to think for one’s self. When an author has added to your knowledge, pause and consider if you can add nothing to his. Be not contented to have learned a problem by heart; try and deduce from it a corollary not in the book. Spare no pains in collecting de tails before you generalize; but it is only when details are generalized that a truth is grasped. The tendency to generalize is universal with all men who achieve great success, whether in art, literature, or action. The habit of generalizing, though at first gained with care and caution, secures, by practice, a comprehensiveness of judgment and a promptitude of decision, which seem to the crowd like intuitions of genius. And, indeed, nothing more distinguishes the man of genius from the mere man of talent than the facility of generalizing the various details, each of which demands the aptitude of a special talent; but all of which can only be gathered into a whole by the grasp of a mind which may have no special aptitude for any.