Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1879-08-28

PoET ON THE VALUE or READING TO THE
PRISONER IN THE WORLDS CAPTIVITY.

PoET ON THE VALUE or READING To THE
PRISONER IN THE WORLDS CAPTIVITY.
DIR. Oliver Wendell Holmes made
some remarks on reading last week at
meeting of the Society TO Encourage
Studies at Home. Among other things,
DIR. Holmes said:
life for man is sentence Of capi.
tai punishment, with a respite of few
score of years. For woman il is the
same, with imprisonment during large
part OF the period of the respite. As
daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt,
grandmother, her work is in most cases,
to great extent, indoor work. There
are no bars or bolts to the prison, but
she cannot escape from it, as the inmates
of our Concord State Prison do when
tired of the place. | was never in Jail
as prisoner myself, but | have been
quite as badly off rs if | had been shut
up on a short sentence-con6ned in
quarantine at Marseilles. What can be
worse than that-shut up as an infected
person, supposed to carry about with
him, not the comparatively harmless
implements of arobber or burglar, not
the jimmy and 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 touch.
ed, whom one must get the windward
of before speaking to him and from
whom beggar would not take dollar
unless it had been fumigated. Well |
found myself imprisoned with four bare
walls. | had one book with me you
know what that book ought to have
been, but it was not that. Ii was an
old Latin book --villainous Latin it was
written in--a history of some two or
three hundred rare medical cases, by
Nicholas Tulpius, whose portrait some
of you have seen in a famous picture of
Rembrandt or a well.known engraving
from it. How did read that one book
! was in my twenties then, but | remem.
Der many of those cases as | do not any
others that read at that period OF my
life. | doubt if any living man knows
them as we'll as do. So much for be.
ing shut up and having but one book to
read.
"A woman in captivity to her duties
is not reduced to such extremities as
those of the uutortunates | have men.
toned. Her household labors, whether
of work or of superintendence, are vari.
ed in most cases to avoid unendurable
monotony. Every woman has her nee
die at any rate, or had, for | have been
told, but hope it is not true, that some
young women of the present day are
entirely unschooled in its use. For the
lesser troubles of life, when a man takes
TO his pipe or his cigar, il not TO some
more potent and dangerous anGsthetic,
n woman takes to her sewing or knit.
ting. The needle-points are TO her ner.
vous irritability what the lightningrod
is to the electricity of the storm cloud.
But the work of hemming handker.
chiefs and towels, of knitting mittens
and even afghans-this and those other
household iabors from which few are
wholly exempted, are not enough to
take up all the mental energy of the
busiest young woman. What did they
do 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 literature-in
their memory. Now the rivulet which
the press poured out four centuries ago
has widened with every succeeding gen.
Grafton till it is no longer stream
"lluln It's banhH, Oub Ail lHuuuhllOH.
Books. reviews, magazines, newspapers
come in upon us like q flood and the
landmarks of our old literature are lost
sight of, if they are not swept away.
'But how shall we read ! must an.
swer this question very briefly. believe
in reading, in large proportion, by
subjects rather than by authors.
Some books must be read tasting, as
it were, every word. Tennyson will
bear that, as Milton would, as Gray
would for they tasted every word
themselves, as Ude or Careme would
taste a potage meant for king or a
queen. But once become familiar with
subject and you can read page as n
flash of lightning reads it. Learn les
son from Houdan aud his sons practice
of looking in at shop window and re.
membering all they saw. Learn to read
page in the shortest possible time and
TO stand thorough examination on its
contents"