Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1866-07-25
READING TO ESCAPE THMKMa.

Il was a true and admirable remark that
was made by an eminent professor the
other day, TOO many read 10 escape
thinking" Persons of sickly, morbid
fancy do this, who devote much time 10
sensational novel reading. 1t Is mot
thought, but feeling and excitement tney
seek, through images exhibited ViVia'y
and with gross and vulgar coloring.
When indeed the mind is overburdeneo
with thinking, especially in any morbid or
exclusive manner in one direction, it may
be the best Amy one can do to read a few
pages OF q well. written work OF fiction, OF
Of fact, to escape the load. But at least
plausibility and truth to nature must
never be lost sightof. In Bulwer's novels
his later ones, we mean-there Is not
only this, but the result Of much deep
thought in PRACTICAL form. But sensation
that does no, lead to any practical and
direct action is always injurious since 1t
prevents the realities Of life from stimula-
ting proper action. Many, therefore, read
rather to give a new direction to their
thoughts. This forms a large share Of the
~proftableness of poetry. A suggestive
poem sets the mind in motion, and 1t runs
on far beyond anything the poet has ex-
pressed. Coleridge said the best poem is
not that which we admire most on first
reading it, bu, that to which we return
with the greatest pleasure after having
read it.
Some readers seek only to follow the
thought of the writer. These often get
the name of being hard students. They
devour books on almost every subject,
have good memories-if not for words, at
least for the substance-and can repeat
the whole Of the thoughts contained in
the volume once read. And yet many Of
these very persons get very few ideas out
Of what they read. They all lie in the
same connection and no other, and can be
repeated, but are not assimilatsd into the
readers own mind, and neither nourish
nor form any new thoughts Of their own.
Il is dead knowledge, not vitalized in the
person who receives it, though contained
within him.
But the highest style Of reader is he who
feeds upon all he reads, retaining the
thought in a well-digested shape to minis
ter to the life of his own mind. In math-
ematics this is most easily illustrated. for
there it is only as the demonstration is
understood and felt to be necessary to
eternal truth by a direct process Of the
mind itself, that it is worth anything.
Suppose it be simply committed to men,
Dry, what would that avail or suppose it
TO be understood as the theory Of the
author Of the work, whether Euclid of an
Gent time or Legendre Of moderns Still,
what would all this avails 1t is when the
conclusion seems to be arrived at as a ne
cessary truth, when the knowledge becomes
assimilated and clearly ones own, and the
opposite is seen to be impossible, that the
| study educates. That is to say, then it
leads out the mind itself. The same thing
is true with every writing in proportion
as i, is a work Of thought; and the in
ward power of perceiving truth and con-
sistency is constantly increasing in the
wise, because all they read awakens the
critical faculty which judges, separating
the true from the false, receiving the one
to increase the stock Of knowledge. and
rejecting the other with equal decision.
Perhaps all our knowledge, finally, has to
60 through this critical process, and every
successful exercise of it renders the mind
more keen and true and just in its con-
illusions.
Sir Walter Scott said. in regard to edu.
| cation, Eyes, cultivate q taste for reading
no matter what-iction or fact, poetry oil
prose. The taste will o improve, and
the grosser creations Of fancy be laid aside
for the more true and life-like." It wal
50 in his own case, but a great many never
get beyond the lowest stage. They read
to escape thinking, and not to learn to
think. In some cases. no doubt the
critical faculty is by degrees thus awak-
ened and there can be little doubt but
that, intellectually, any sort Of reading,
not bad in morality, is better than none.
The high-colored dsubs admired IN child
hood often inspire n love Of drawing in a
youth which in after life leads him to
eminence as a painter, and yet he soon
gets to a point at which he feels that to
continue copying from such distorted
models would render his eye inaccurate
and spoil him from becoming a first-rate
artist. It is the same with reading.
Therefore, read that you may the better
think, and not for the purpose Of driving
away thought altogether.
Too SgSsrrIvE.-The Meadow Lake
Svn "a al,ooe,her too sensitiye about the