Staunton vindicator and general advertiser. (Staunton, Augusta County, Va.) 1858-1860, 1858-09-04
The EyWays OF Literature.

! mo, the lesser arts progress, but the
greater art does not share in the advance
ment. We print great deal better than
we used to, but the matter to be printed
shows by no means a corresponding i'm
provemont. It IS three hundred years, or
thereabout, since we had our Shakespeare,
and such another has not come again. We
can no more produced another Hamlet, than
we can build another cathedral like that at
Canterbury. We can cultivate the lesser
gifts which we have, but we can put no ma
chinery in motion to originate the greater
one, which is not bestowed upon us No
amount of information, no extent Of culture,
can confer the living spark Of genius, on the
one hand, or of understanding on the other.
These workmen hanging on their perilous
scafolds nigh UP yonder among the niched
and ulptured buttresses, where they do
their RESERVATIONS, Pare familiar with host
Of modern conveniences which would have
been little less than miraculous to the old
brothers Of their craft who first, laid these
stones together but we doubt much if the
legends Of the saints were less wholesome
mental fare than the penny papers and pen
in these days It is a fine thing to talk of
the spread Of education, the diffusion of
knowledge, the constantly increasing extent
Of ''reading for the million" IF reading of
itself were virtuous and improving ezer-
else, as innocent people once considered it,
we too might echo the exultation with which
a superficial sentiment regards the extend
h,,I1- b,,t "a
the matter with eyes less arbitrary, we are
)oblige to confess that it inrpresses Us with
very doubtful satisfaction. True, these
gifts Of reading and writing are more likely
to justify Dogberry's conclusion in respect
to them nowadays than ever before. True,
every kind Of publication has increased ten
fold and there is scarcely house or room
in the country, down to the very boundary
line where poverty subsidies into want, or
rather where want meets restitution, in which
something readable is not to be found
This is no small thing to say and it is not
wonderful that theorists, who take this sim
pie fact for foundation, should grow elo-
lquent upon the diffusion Of literature, and
all it's humanising influences. But reading
| 10 lOG always d uuiAduioCl 1uu IL Will
scarcely do to pat our public on the head,
as the old wives used to do the cottage
student of ten who scorched his flax
en- hair by the fire O nights, bent double
over Captain Cooks Voyage or Robinson
Clusoe. Perhaps after all to be 'fond of
its book" is no such astonishing recommen-
dation to our many-headed protege as zone
might suppose at the first glance-perhaps
even peep into the book which this big
reader loves might not be inappropriate, be-
fore we give full course to our raptures. --
In the days when books were ponderous
and readers few, it Was only just to give the
student credit for mental powers more active
and more clear than those Of his neighbors,
who knew no intellectual appetite. Now,
however, a stricter standard is necessary -
There is abundance Of reading in these
days which requires no intellect: nay, we
may 60 farther; to rebuire no intellect is
merely negative; there are publications
popular in this enlightened nineteenth cen
fury which reject the aid Of mind more dis
tinctly still-wastes Of print, which nothing
possessing intellect could venture on-wil-
derness Of words, whore everything resem-
bling sense is lost beyond description or re-
coverv. Let us give the masses all credit
for their gift Of reading; but before we glo-
rify ourselves over the march Of intelligence
let us pause first to look into their books
Buckwoods Magazine,