Books and reading; or, What books shall I read and how shall I read them?

Front matter

d

BOOKS AND READING;

08,

Chapter I. Introductory

Were a South-sea Islander to be suddenly taken up from his savage home and set down in one of the great cities of Europe, — ^among the many strange objects which he would see, one of the most incomprehensible would be a publio library.

A cathedral he would at once understand. Its vast area would suggest a counterpart in the inclosure which from his childhood onward he had known and feared as a place of worship. Its clustered pillars and lofty arches would bring to mind a well-remembered grove of old and stately trees, "with sounding walks between;'' the dreaded dwelling of some cruel deity, or the fit arena for some "abhorred rite." The altar, the priests, the reverent worshipers, would speak to his mmd their own meaning.

A military parade he might comprehend without an interpreter's aid. The measured tread of gathered legions would, indeed, differ not a little from the wild rush of his own barbarous clan ; the inspiring call of trumpet and horn.

2 Books and Reading, [Chap, l

of fife and drum, blending with all those nameless instruments which make the music of war so splendid and so spirit-stirring, would be unlike the horrid, dissonant noises, with which the savage sounds out his bloody errand; but the object and purpose of the show would be seen at a glance, and would wake up all the warrior in his bosom.

A festive gathering of lords and ladies gay would be quite an intelligible aifair, and the more closely he should look into the particulars of the transaction, the more numerous, it is possible, might be the points of resemblance between the barbaric and the fashionable assembly.

A gallery of paintings, adorned with the proudest trophies of genius, might not be altogether without meaning; for though the savage would look upon the creations of Raphael or Titian with somewhat such an eye as that with which Caliban looked upon Miranda, yet the uses of such a collection, which the price of his own kingdom could net buy, would not be entirely beyond his comprehension.

But a public library would be too much for him. It would prove a mystery quite beyond his reach. Its design and its utility would be alike incomprehensible. The front of the edifice within which the library was placed, might indeed command his admiration: and within, the lofty arches, the lengthened aisles and the labyrinthine succession of apartments, might attract and bewilder him. The books even, rising one above another in splendid lines, and dressed in gilt and purple and green, might seem to his savage eye a very pretty sight; though they would please that eye just as well if carved and colored upon the solid wall, or if, as has been the fancy of certain owners of libraries, the volumes had been wrought from solid wood — fit books for the wooden heads that owned them.

The mystery of the library to the savage, would be the books in it, — what they were, what they were for, and why

Chap, l] Introductory, 3

they were thought worthy to be lodged in a building so imposing, and watched with such jealous care. If he should linger among the apartments for reading, and watch the movements of the inmates, his wonder would be likely to increase. ' His eye might rest upon Dr. Dryasdust, the antiquarian, as with anxious look and bustling air he rushes into one closet after another, takes volume after volume from its dusty retreat, looks into each as the conjuring priest at home looks into a tree or a stone to see the spirit within, and after copying from each in strange characters, stufis the manuscript into his pocket, and walks oif as proudly as though, like the self-same priest, he had caught and bagged the spirit in some fetiQh, amulet, or medicine-bag. The man of science sits for hours unconscious of the presence of the wondering savage, and seems more and more bewildered as he gazes upon a single page. The savage watches the poet reading a favorite author, and marvels at the mysterious influence that dilates his eye and kindles his cheek, and sends madness through his frame. He is astonished at the reader of fiction, looking upon what seems to him a vacant page, and yet seeming to see in its enchanted lines a world of spirits, — living, moving, talking, walking, loving, hating, fighting, dying. Should he seek an explanation of the enigma, the explanation would rather deepen than solve the mystery. Here is a volume, his interpreter might say, by the aid of whose characters the shipmaster can guide his vessel to your island-home as easily as you can follow a forest path. From this volume you can learn the story of that famous white captain who first landed upon your shores, in the days of your great-grandfather, and was there killed and buried; and — mystery above mystery — in this little book which gives an account of the discovery of your country by the white man, will be found the sufficient reason why his majesty, our kinsj, has a right to burn your towns, to shoot

4 Boohs and Reading. [Ghap. i.

down your people, to take possession of your land and bring you hither as a captive; all by authority of discovery, and of a title-deed from some king or other potentate who never saw the country which he gave away.

This lesson concerning the nature and value of books would probably be quite enough for once, and would send the poor barbarian away, well satisfied that a book was indeed a very wonderful thing, and that a collection of books well deserved to be deposited in a dwelling so adorned and so secure.

Were our savage to remain longer among his civilized brethren, and gradually to master the mysteries of their social state, his estimate of the influence of books would be likely to gather strength. To say nothing of their past influence in bringing a nation up to a point at which he could only wonder and be silent, their present power to determine the character and destiny of single individual* might startle and surprise him. A few pages in a single volume fall as it were by chance under the eye of a boy in his leisure hours. They fascinate and fix his attention ; they charm and hold his mind; and the result is, that the boy becomes a sailor and is wedded to the sea for his life. No force nor influence can undo the work l:)egun by those few pages; no love of father or mother, no temptation of money or honor, no fear of sufiering or disgrace, is an overmatch for the enchantment conjured up and sustained by that exciting volume. A single book has made the boy a seaman for life; perhaps a pirate, wretched in his life and death. Another book meets the eye of another youth, and wakes in his bosom holy aspirations, which, all his life after, burn on in the useless flames of a painful asceticism, or in a kindly love to God and man. Another youth in an unhappy hour meets still another volume, and it makes him a hater of his fellow-man and a blasphemer of his God. One book makes one man a believer in goodness and love

Chap. I.] Introductory, 6

and truth ; another book makes another man a denier or doubter of these sacred verities.

These thoughts may serve to introduce our subject and to suggest its importance. Books and Reading are the theme — or rather the themes — on which it is proposed to offer a series of free and familiar thoughts, principally of a practical nature. The importance of the subject is not only great, but it is constantly increasing. Books, as an element of influence, are becoming more and more important, and reading is the employment of a widening circle. Books of all sorts are now brought within the reach of most persons who desire to read them. The time has gone by when the mass of the community were restricted to a score or two of volumes : the Bible, one or two works of devotion, two or three standard histories, and a half-dozen novels. Many intelligent men can recollect the time when all the books on which they could lay their hands were few, and were read and re-read till they were dry as a remainder biscuit, or as empty as a thricethreshed sheaf.

There are ladies now living, who were well educated for their time, to whom the loan or the gift of a new book was an important event in their history, making a winter memorable, and now their daughters or grand-daughters dispatch a novel or a poem before dinner. All the known books for children, two generations ago, were some half a score; whereas, at present, new "juveniles" are prepared by the hundred a year, and the library of a child ten years old is very often more numerous and costly than was that of many a substantial and intelligent household. The minds of tens of thousands are stimulated and occupied with boohs, boohs, boohs, from three years old onward through youth and manhood. We read when we sit, when we lie down, and when we ride ; sometimes when we eat and when we walk. When we travel we en-

6 Books and Reading, ' [Chap. i.

counter a moving library on every railway car, and a fixed library at every railway station. Books are prepared for railway reading, and Railway Library is the title of more than one series of books in America, England, France, and Germany. We read when we are well and when we are ill, when we are busy and when we are idle, and some even die with a book in hand. There is little use for the caution now-a-days, " Beware of the man of one book." If it be true, as it may be, that single books make an impression less marked and decisive than formerly, so that a bad or inferior book may do less harm than it once did, it is also true that bad books and inferior books are far more common than they once were. Their poison is also more subtle and less easily detected, for as the taste of readers becomes omnivorous, it becomes less discriminating. Besides, the readiness with which good men, and men sturdy in their principles too, read books which they despise and abhor, has introduced a freedom of practice on this subject, at which other generations would have stood aghast. In many cases too, if the principles are not corrupted by reading, the taste is vitiated. Or if nothing worse happens, delicacy of appreciation suffers from the amount of intellectual food which is forced upon us, and the satisfaction is far less keen and exquisite than was enjoyed by readers of a few books of superior merit.

The number of persons who ask the questions : What

BOOKS SHALL I READ? AND HOW SHALL I READ THEM?

is very great. Those who are beginning to feel an interest in books and reading, and who long for friendly direction, ask these questions more frequently than they receive wise and satisfactory answers. Intelligent young men, w^ho have finished their education at school — clerks, apprentices, farmers, teachers who are moved by a wise and sincere desire for self-culture and self-improvement — ask the same questions of themsslves and others. If they go

Chap. I.] , IntroduGtory , 7

into a bookstore, they are bewildered bj the number and variety of the books from which they are to select, and their chance selection is as likely, to say the least, to be -bad as good. It will rarely happen that it is the best which could be made. The bookseller can tell them what books are popular and have a' run, but this recommendation is of a doubtful character. They may have access to a well-selected library, but still .they are at fault, not knowing how or what to choose for their immediate and individual wants. Students also, who are in a course of education at school or college, or who, having finished their course, would mark out for themselves a generous plan of private reading, are often greatly at a loss for the best answers to the questions which they would ask. Their time is limited, and they pertinaciously inquire : — "What books ought I to read first of all, and what next in order ? In what way can a student form and direct a taste for the highest kind of literature ? How far can he trust, and ought he to follow his fancy; how far should he thwart and oppose his taste, and seek to form it anew ? Are there any fixed principles of criticism, by which the best books may be known, and a taste for them formed and fixed ? Young ladies, too, who are sooner released from the confinement of school-life and the drudgery of imposed studies — who often fix the taste and prescribe the fashion for the reading of the village or the circle in which tliey move — oflen sadly suffer for the want of a little direction. Their sensibility is fresh, their fancy is wakeful, their taste is easily moulded. If guided aright, they might attain to a cultivated acquaintance with those imaginative writers who would inspire the purest and tendcrest emotions and enrich the fancy with the noblest images ; who w^ould elevate their tastes and confirm good and noble principles.^J For the want of such direction, it often happens that swc/i young ladies read themselves down into an

8 Books and Beading. [Chap. I.

utter waste and frivolity of thought, feeling, and purpose. The trashy literature in which they delight, becomes the cheap and vapid representative of their empty minds, their heartless affections, and their frivolous characters. Besides the classes already named, there are heads of families who wish to form libraries, smaller or greater, which may instruct and amuse both themselves and their households, but who often choose books that defeat the very aims which they propose to accomplish, and react with more or less evil upon their children. What books shall they bay and how shall they judge of books ? Above all, how shall they train themselves and others to the best use of the books which they possess and read ?

We would in these papers meet this variety of wants ; not completely — to attempt which would be idle — but in part, so far as our limits will allow. To give a complete catalogue of the best books, even in a few departments of literature, would be quite impossible. Such a catalogue would be dry reading at best — as dry as a volume of statistics, or a report of the census, and of far less interest and authority ; for no man, on such a subject, would blindly yield himself to the direction of any single mind. A partial catalogue with a critique upon each author, would be little better. All that can be accomplished is to furnish^ thoughts and principles which may awaken the mind to wise activity, and illustrate them by examples from books and authors. We would show that the books whi^h we read even carelessly, exert an influence upon us which is far more potent than we are apt to think, and that we ought to select our books — above all our favorite books — with a more jealous care than we choose our friends and intimates. We would also show that readino; is more than the amusement of an hour and the gratification of a capricious fancy : that it is an employment which may leave behind the most powerful impress for good, or

Chap, l] Introductory. 9

which may reduce the soul to utter barrenness and waste, and even scathe it as with devouring fire. We would treat .also of the different kinds of books and tke methods of reading appropriate to each. We hope also to give some direction to the taste, and this without the dry and formal precepts of the schools, or the captious and positive dogmatism of the professed critic. The taste, as applied to books and reading, like the eye for color and form, may be -educated, or rather it may be taught how to educate itself. We would aid in this effort at self-culture ; especially would we indicate what are the methods and ways of reading imaginative literature, which may cause it to yield pure and exquisite delight, to add power to the intellect, and to impart a grace and finish to the character and life.

We are not insensible to the perils which are incident to our attempt. Not a few have undertaken to answer the questions which we have proposed, and have suceeeded very indifferently. Many a young man has asked his respected teacher or trusted adviser " What and how shall I read?" and been put off with tiresome platitudes and solemn commonplaces for an answer, coupled with the titles of half a -score of works, which every person is supposed to be acquainted with, and which are deemed eminently judicious and safe reading. The manuals usually known as " Courses of Eeading," though useful to a certain extent, usually lack the germinant force of fundamental principles in respect to the object of reading and the estimate of authors. The list of books which Dr. Johnson recommended to a clerical friend, is -a good example of most of the catalogues which are hastily prepared even by eminent critics. '^ Universal History (ancient) — Rolling Ancient History — Puffendorfs Introduction to History — Vefrtofs History of the Knights of Malta — Vertofs Revolutions of Portugal — Vertofs Revolutions of Sweden — Cartels

10 Boolcs and Reading, [Chap. I,

History of England — Present State of Migland — Geographical Grammar — Prideaux's Connection — Nelson's Fasts and Festivals — Duty of Man — Gentleman's Religion — Clarendon's History — Watts' Improvement of the Mind — Watts' Logic — Nature Displayed — Lowth's Fkglish Grammar — • Blachwall on the Classics — Sherlock's Sermons — Burnet's Life of Hale — Dupin's History of the Church — Shuckford's Connections — Law's Serious Call — Walton's Complete Angler — Sandys' Travels — Sprat's History of the Royal Society — England's Gazetteer — Goldsmith's Roman History — some Commentaries on the Bible." This list seems to include works of three different classes. Books of standard authority and permanent value ; books which had happened to please Dr. Johnson's permanent or temporary humor ; books which had happened to occur to his mind when he w^as writing out the catalogue for his young friend. The most exciting and satisfactory comments on books and reading are not usually found in formal treatises, but in such incidental remarks as those which are recorded by Boswell of Dr. Johnson, or are met with in Montaigne's rambling and free-spoken essay " Of Books," or in the essay of Bacon on ^^ Studies" (in Locke's TJioughts Concerning Reading and Study,) or in Charles Lamb's ^^ Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading" or in Hazlitt's many incisive essays and Coleridge's wonderfully stimulating criticisms, or in two or three good thoughts from Carlyle's address at Edinburgh mis-named " On the Choice of Books" or the essay of R. W. Emerson on ''Books" in the volume entitled "Society and Solitude," which is characteristic of the author, even to his remarks about "Jesus " and "the Bibles of the world." -' All manuals entitled "Courses of Reading" must be exposed to the objection noticed by the elder D'Israeli, that they necessarily fall behind the times the raoment they come up to them. A course of reading that

Chap. I.] Introductory, 11

should be complete in one month must begin to be defee^ tive the next.

Courses of reading from an elder adviser or friend to a pupil or protege, even if they are hastily prepared, serve a good purpose as pictures of the times. They cast more or less light upon the culture and knowledge which prevailed when they were written. A very distinguished clergyman of New England, furnishes the following list of books for a young pastor in 1792. " In Divinity, you will not wonder if I recommend President Edwards' writings in general ; Dr. Bellamy's and Dr. Hopkins' ; President Davies^ Sermons; Robert Walker^ s Sermons; Howe's do; Addison's Evidences ; Beattie's Evidences of Christianity ; Ldand's View of Deistical Writers; Berry Street Sermons ; — in History Prideaux's Connection ; Rollings Ancient History ; Goldsmith's Roman History ; do. History of England, or Rider's History of England which is more prolix and particular ; Robertson's History of North Ame^nca ; do. History of Charles V ; Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts ; Ramsay's History of the War ; Guthrie's and Morse's Geography ; Josephus' History of the Jews ; — Watts on the Mind; Locke on the Human Understanding; — Specton tor; Guardian; Tattler ; Rambler; Pamela; Clarissa; Grandison ; Telemachus ; Don Quixote; Anderson's Voyage ; Cook's Voyages ; Milton ; Young's Night Thoughts ; Vicesimus Knox's Essays ; Do. On Education ; — Buchan's Family Physician ; Tissot on Health. — These may be sufficient — but additions may be easily made. The great danger will be of getting useless and hurtful books, especially Novels and Romances which generally corrupt, especially young minds ; beside the loss of the purchase money and the time spent in the reading of them."

Another paper of a later date was prepared by a clergyman, of some reputation for literature, for a young lady, whose mind the writer sought to direct, and, as is veiry

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likely, whose heart and hand he sought to win. It is as follows ; " List of Books for a young lady's Library/' " Cannes small Bible (with marginal references) ; Hornets Paraphrase on the Psalms ; Mrs. Hannah Morels Strictures on Female Education; Mrs. Chapone^s Letters to her Niece; Grove on the Sacrament; Mason on Self-Know^ ledge ; Doddridge^ s Rise and Progress, etc. ; Newton on the Prophecies ; Guide to Domestic Happiness and the Refuge ; Comperes Works, 2 vols. : Young^s Night Thoughts ; Elegant Extracts in Poetry ; Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia ; The Rambler ; Thomson^ s Seasons ; DwigMs Conquest of Canaan ; Washington's Life ; TrumbuWs History of Connecticut, This list of books might be enlarged, and perhaps upon recollection some alteration might be made, but these are well calculated to mend the heart, to direct the imagination and thoughts to proper objects, and to give command over them upon good principles. To read . profitably we should always then have some object in view more than merely to pass away time, by letting words run off our tongue or through our minds. * * * Order and system in any business, and certainly in cultivating the mind, is really necessary, if we would be benefited by study. It is by having a few books well chosen and attentively and perseveringly read, that we fix in our mind useful principles. Books are multiplied without number, and it becomes perplexing to run fr©m one to another, and none are well understood when we read in this manner. The Bible should always stand first in our esteem and be read first daily. It affords every species of reading, — history, biography, poetry, etc., — and shows the heart in its true character.'^

If anything would discourage us from prosecuting the plan of writing upon Books and Eeading, it would be the perusal of this paper of well-meant truisms and well-worn commonplaces. It does not follow, however, because

Chap. L] Introductory, 13

advice upon any subject is especially liable to degenerate into meaningless generalities, that advice should never be given ; nor, because it is comparatively easy to discoui-se safely with uplifted eye-brows about the books we read and the companions we choose, that such counsel should never be given at all. The much-needed pilot-boat must run the risk of being itself stranded upon dangerous fiats and beguiling shallows, if it would preserve the vessel from being ingulfed in the deeper seas, and the more terrible breakers.

There are not a few readers who reject all guidance and restraint — some from inclination, and some from a theory that counsel and selection interfere with the freedom of individual taste and the spontaneity of individual genius. Their motto in general is: "of all the sorts of vice that prevail advice is the most vexatious.'^ So far as read'ng is concerned, it is, " In brief, sir, study what you most affect." One person, they insist, cannot advise for another, because one cannot put himself in the place of another. " Read what speaks to your heart and mind ; let your own feelings b6 your guide, and leave critics and advisers to their stupid analyses and narrow or prejudiced judgments. Read that you may enjoy, not that you may judge; that you may gather impulse and inspiration, not that you may understand the reasons or explore the sources of the instruction and enjoyment which you unconsciously derive from the books in which you most delight." There is truth and force in this position, we grant. No man can read with profit that which he cannot learn to read with pleasure. If I do not myself find in a book something which I myself am looking for, or am ready to receive, then the book is no book for me whatever, however much it may be for another man. But to assert that one cannot help another to select and to judge of books is, in principle, to renounce all instruction and dependence on those who are older and

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wiser than we. To be consistent, it would turn every man into a hermit or a savage. Such a position is sometimes silly self-conceit; sometimes simple pride; sometimes it is a voluptuous animalism that would find in literature both stimulus and excuse for sensual indulgence. The wise adviser would respect the tastes of each reader, and would even bid him both gratify and follow them, but he can do something to aid him in discerning what they are, and why, and how far they are to be allowed, or, if need be, restrained. Inspiration, genius, individual tastes, elective affinities, do not necessarily exclude self-knowledge, selfcriticism, or self-control. If the genius of a man lies in the development of the individual person that he is, his manhood lies in finding out by self-study what he is and what he may become, and in wisely using the means that are fitted to form and perfect his individuality.

Others are especially jealous of the use of any moral standay^d in the critical judgments of books, or in the advice which is furnished concerning methods of reading. Such persons would be instinctively repelled from the papers which we propose to write, as they may have already inferred that we intend to use ethical considerations very freely, and perhaps severely. Against this they will inwardly protest in thoughts like these: — What has literature to do with morality? Poetry and fiction, essays and the drama, history and biography — everything in short which we usually call literature — aim to present man and his experiences as they are, and not as they ought to be. It is the aim and end of all these to describe, and not to judge ; to paint to the life, and not to praise or condemn. The reader, not the writer, may judge if he will and as he will. But, in order to be able to judge, one must see all sides of human nature and human life, and these must be portrayed with energy and truth as they are; he must survey every manifestation of the human soul, the evil as

Chap. I.] Introdudory, 15

well as the good, the passionate as truly as the self-controlled. The censor who brings the laws of duty to measure and regulate our reading, who judges of books as he judges of men, interferes with the freedom that gives all its life to literature and most of the zest and value to reading.

There is some truth in all this ; or rather, there is a truth which is perverted into this caricature and error. What the truth is, and how far it may be carried without perversion and danger, we will show as we proceed. For the present, we observe that no mistake can be more serious than to suppose that the law of conscience and the rules of duty have nothing to do with the production and enjoyment of literature, as many modern libertines in the field of imaginative writing would have us believe. Ethical ideals are produced by the same creative imagination which furnishes the poet and the novelist their materials and their power. Ethical truth is but another name for imagination holding "the mirror up to nature," i. e., to nature in man, or human nature. Nature in man invariably prescribes ethical standards, and to these the imagination responds when she sets forth fiction as fact, poetry as truth, and history as reality in its highest import and loftiest significance. Not only is this true, but much more than this can be shown most satisfactorily.

If the lessons of these facts teach anything, they teach that literature must respect ethical truth if it is to reach its highest achievements, or attain that place in the admiration and love of the human race which we call fame. The literature which does not respect ethical truth, ordinarily survives as literature but a single generation. The writer who gives himself to any of the untruths v/hich are known as superficial, sensual, Satanic, godless, or unchristian, ordinarily gains for himself either a brief notoriety or an unenviable immortality. He is either lost, or damned to fame.