Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1879-08-09
READING.
DR., O. W. HOLMES ON THE SUBJECT.
Shall We Read2-What Shall We Read2
His Suggestions to the Boston
Society to Encourage
Studies at Home,
Frnm the poston Advertiser. July 3.


Encourage Studies at Home, which took
place lew weeks since at the house OF
the late Mr.. George TicknOr, has already
been mentioned in our columns. The
students and others present on that oc-
casiOn had the good fortune to listen to
some remarks made by DR.. Oliver Wen
dell Holmes, in his unfailing style Of
speaking, humOr and suggestion. We
are now enabled 10 give our readers
some passages, amounting TO about hall
OF this address:
Life for a man is a sentence of capt.
tai punishment, with a respite OF lew
scores of years. For woman II is the
same, with Imprisonment during large
part Of the period ofresplte. As daugh-
ter, sister, wife, mother, aunt, grand
mother, her work is, in most cases, to a
great extent indoor work. There are
no bars or bolts to her prison, but she
cannot escape from il, as the inmates OF
our Concord State Prison do when tired
OF the place. All prisoners find some
thing To do, or they will feed upon their
own souls and bodies. You may re-
member the story OF the black pin which
the lady wore as a broOch-but 1t will
bear repeating. Her husband has been
confined in prison for some political Of
tense. lie was left alone with his
thoughts to torture him. No voice, no
book, no mplement-silence, darkness,
misery, sleep,eSs seli-tOrment; and soon
it must be madness. All at once he
thought of something to occupy these
terrible unsleeping faculties. He took a
pin from his neckcloth and threw 1t up
on the floor. Then he CROPPED for 1t.
Ii was little object, and the search
was a long and laborious one. The eye
of the Almighty, says the Eastern story
teller, can see the smallest emmett in the
darkest night on the blacklist stone.
But the prisoner had not the eye OF the
OmnisCient, and it took him great
while to find the little object he was in
search OF. At last he found it, and felt
a certain sense OF satisfaction in difficult
" overcome. But he had found Il great
deal more than the pin-he had found an
occupation, and every day he would
fling it from him and lose it, and hunt
for il, and at last find IT, and so he saved
himself from going mad; and you will
not wonder that when he was set free,
and gave the little object 10 which he
owed his reason, and perhaps his life to
his wife, she had it set round with
pearls and wore it next her heart.
IL was never in jail as prisoner my
self, but have been quite as badly off
a. ii | had been shut up on short sent
ence-cOnfned in quarantine at Mar
settles. What can be wore than that p
shut up a. an infected person, supposed
10 carry about with him, not the COM
paratively harmless implements of a
rObber or a burglar, not the jimmy and
the revolver, but the seeds of pestilence
which will decimate cities and devaState
whole countries, which makes one
the enemy Of his race, who may be shot
but must not be touched, whom one
must get to the windward OF before
speaking To him, and from whom beg
gar would not take dollar unless it had
been fumigated. Well, | found myself
imprisoned within four bare walls. |
had one book with me; you know what
that book ought 10 have been, but IL was
not that. Ii was an old Latin book
yillainOus Latin il was written ina
history OF some two or three hundred
rare medical cases by Nicholas TulpluS,
whose portrait some OF YOU have seen IN
a famous picture Of Rembrandt, or a
well known engraving from ii. How |
did read that one book, / was IN my
twenties then, hut | remember many OF
those cases as | 10 not any others that
/ read at that period of my life. | doubt
il any living man knows them as well as
| do. so much for being shut up and
having but one book to read.
a woman in captivity to her duties
il not reduced to such eXtremities as
those Of the untOrtunates | have men
toned. Her household labOrS, whether
OF work or of uperintendcnce, are var
ied enough in most eases 10 avoid unen-
durable mOnOtOny. Every woman has
her needle, at any rate, or had, tor
have been told, hut hope IL Is not true,
that some Young women OF the present
day are entirely unSchOOled in its use.
For the lesser troubles Of life, when 4
man takes to his pipe or his cigar, II not
To some more potent and dangerous an
aesthetic, woman takes To her sewing
or knitting The needle-pOintS are 10
her nervous irritability what the light
niug-rod is to the electricity of the
storm cloud. But the work OF hemming
handkerchieiS or towels, oiknitting nit
tens and even aighans-this and other
household labOrS from which few are
wholly exempted, are not enough To
take up all the mental energy OF the
busiest young woman. What did they
10 before the days Of printed books?
They carried the songs of their tribe OF
their nation the songs which were the
best part of their hterature-in their
memory. Now the rivulet which the
press poured out for centuries ago has
wilened with every succeeding genera
ton, I'LL IL Is no longer stream within
its banks, but an inundatlOn. Books,
reviews. magazines, newspapers come IN
upon us like 4 flood, aud the landmarks
OF our old literature are lost sight OF,
if they are not swept away. There ne yer
was time when Young readers were IN
such need of guidance.
Let me touch very slightly three
questions suggested by this state OF
things
Il. Shall we read-that is, shall we
moke a serious business of reading?
This seems a strange question to ask,
but let me give some meaning to 1t. IL
was at the hospitable board OF this very
house that heard the late Edward Ev-
erett tell story OF Lord Palmerston,
which have never forgotten and often
repeated. Some one asked him, Have
YOU read certain book naming 1t.
i never read printed books, was Lord
PalmerstOn's answer. Mr.. Everett did
not explain or account for this answer,