Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1884-10-17
AtmIesa Reading.

Desultory reading is apt to suck one into
fierce maelstrom which browns the life Of the
general reader,' as he is sometimes called.
No one is more truly guilty of idleness, OBJ
served Lord Bacon $50 years ago. than such
an inattentive and indiscriminate reader Nor
more impression is left on the mind than is
left in the sea by the keel Of the ship, or in
the air by the passing bird. There are posi-
tive evils from stufling without the power to
digest and assimiate, fatal to mind as glutto-
ny is to body. Robert Hall said to Dr. Kppis
that he piled SO many books on his head that
his brains could not move. Southey ''gave
so much time to the minds of other men that
he found no time to look into his own" This
intellectual greediness is disease, and needs
heroic treatment. DIR. Matthews pleads for
"a professorship of books and reading" He
well says that Porter's or Pycrofts manual
cannot do the work of living guide. No one
course will do for ALL One must know his
students, and give each plan suited to his
idiosyncrasies. We read in Caxtonia that he
who sails round the world must need put in
at many harbors if not for rest at least for
supplies. You can do more with 100000 a
year than with $4,000. We need wisdom to
spend our capital of time and strength, so
that we may bring home the noblest returns
to God from whom our talents ami opportu-
mites are received
You cannot read all the new books or all
the old. 1t requires some courage to be able
to say Il have not read it, to many inquirers
who may have each his hobby, and wonder
that you have not ridden the same.
Seek, above all, symmetry of mental
growth. The perceptive faculties may be de-
ticient in one, and the reflective in another.
The imagination may be inordinately devel-
oped, as is the case with novel readers In
ptbarc IL ia buriad 10 in ba al atioio,
who saw no beauty in Paradise Lost" be-
cause it ''proved nothing" Chatterton was
melancholy illustration of brilliant but one
sided character, who, had be enjoyed wise tu-
telage, would not have died wretched suicide
at II. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Swift, Cole
ridge, and many other vivid but vagrant
minds illustrate the morbid tendencies of the
mind when the equilibrium of mental health
is lost. Beware, then, of coming under the
power of any one magnetic mind to the ex-
tent of being jostled off your proper balance.
BE not hero-worshippers, but respect your
own individuality. When the head of the
Duke of Hamilton rolled from the block into
the basket, an old Scotch woman remarked
"'TwRs no great head in ITSELF but t was a
great loss to him. Fill to the brim the
measure of your mental life. Know what
you can best do, and prepare yourself to i'm
prove your aptitudes. while you do not forget
" ItphlI lOuI utuCAbuCltb. 1l5hIu lIOul Ill
authors, but do not sink down 'the contented
vassar' of one, and end, at last, as Whipple
says, in. an intellectual resemblance to that
gentleman who only knew two tunes one,
Old Hundred, and the other-wasn't.
Take into consideration your business in
life. As you cannot learn everything turn
your reading to those departments which are
most important to one in your calling A
young man preparing for the medical profess
sion would not spend time in reading up
works on engineering or medical science, and
a lady who aims to be vocalist would not do
well to spend much time in studying comic
sections. If your employments are exacting
during the day, your evening reading should
be for refreshment, such as books of bogra-
ply or travel, occasionally those of humor
and sentiment. The didactic element is not
the whole of truth, just as nitrates, which
make muscles, are not the whole of our bodi-
ly diet. The carbonates are as important for
flesh as the phosphates are for nerves. A
blacksmith and ploughman need different food
from those whose work ties them to a chair
from dawn to dark So the demands made
on our mental strength should, to some ex-
tent, govern the law of supply. Professor
IhUing.