The Arkansaw traveler., 1886-04-03

Renan has characterized this as 8 most amusing century; l should rather have described it as most interesting: pre- sentins Us with an endless vista of ab- sorbing problems, with infinite opportu- mites, with more than the settlements, and less of the dangers, which sur rounded our less fortunate ancestors.
 Reading, indeed, is by no means neces- sarily study Far from it. "l put, says Mr. Frederick EIarrison-"I put the poetic and emotional side of litera- tuse as the most needed for daily use.
 In the prologue to the Legende of Goode Women Chauccr says And aS for me though that konnc but lyte. on bokcs for to rcde me delyte,
 And to him give ieyth and ful crcdence, And ill myn herte have him in reverence. So hertcly. that thcr is game noon
 That fro my bokes maketh me to goon. But vt be Seldome on the holy day.
 save. certynly when that the monthe of May Is C0nen, and that here the foules synge, And that the ioures gynncn for to Sprynge, Farwcll my boke, and my devocon,
 But doubt whether, if he had en- joyed our advantages, he could have been so certain of tearing himself away even in the month of May.
 Macaulav, who had all that wealth and fame rank and talents could give. yet We are told, derived his greatest happiness from hooks Mr ireyclyan, in his charming biography, says that "of the feelings which Macaulay entertained to- wards the great minds of fygone ages il k not fer any one except himself to speak. lie has told Us how his debt to them WaS inralrulablr, how they guided him to truth; how they tiilcd his mlud with noble and graceful images; how they stood by him in all CisSitudcs-confortCrs iu sorrow. nurses in sickness, companions in solitude, the Il who are the same i'll wealth and i'll poverty. in glory. and in ubScurity. Great Hs were the hunur> and posSeS>ions which MaeaulIy acquired by his pen nil who knew him we're well aware titat the titles and reward, which he gnined by his own works, Were aS nothing in the halance IL com pared with the pleasure hc derived from the works ot others.
 There was no society ill London so agreeable that Macaulay would have pre- tcrrcd 1t at break fast or at dinner to the company of Stcrne. of Fielding, Horace Walpolc or Boswell The love ot read ing which Gihbon declared he would not exchange for all the treasures of India was, in fact, with Macaulay a main element of happiness in one of the happiest lives that it has ever fallen to the lot of the hiographcr to record.
 Moreover, books are now SO cheap as to he within the reach of almost every one This was not always so It is quite Il recent blessing.
 Mir Ireland, to whose charming little Book Lovers Enchiridiou. in common with every lover of reading am greatly indebted, tells Us that when boy he was 50 delighted with Whites Natural History of Selbornc, that in order to possess copy of his own he actually copied out the whole work
 Mary Lamb gives pathetic dcscrip- tion ot studious boy lingering at book-stall
 " I saw boy with eagcr eye
 Open n book upon stall.
 And read. as he'd devour il all;
 Which when the stall man did eSpy.
 Soon to the boy heard him Call.
 Nau sir you never buy book,
 Therefore ill one you shall not look
 The huy passed slowly on, and with d sigh lir wshed he never fad been taught to rcad Then of the old ehurl's books he should have no
 need.
 Such snatchcs of literature have. in- deed, special and peculiar charm. This is believe partly due to the very fact of their being brief Many readers, l think, miss much of the pleasure of reading, hy forcing themselves to dwell too long continuously on one subject In Il long railway journey, for instance, many persons take only Il single book. The consequence k that. unless it is a story, after halt an hour or an hour they are quite tired of it. Whereas, if they had two, or still better three on differ cnt subjects, and one of them being of an amusing character thoy would prob ably find that by changing as soon as they felt at all weary, they would come back again and again to each with re newed zest, and hour after hour would pass pleasantly away. Every one of course, must judge for himself, but such at least k my experience,
 quite agree, therefore, with Lord lddcsleigh as to the charm of desultory reading, but the wider the field the more important that We should benefit by the very best books in each class Not that we need conline ourselves to them but that we should commences with them, and they will certainly lead us on to others There are of course some books which We must read mark. learn, and inwardly digest But these are eXcep- tions. As regards hy far the larger mum her, 1t is probably better to read them quickly, dwelling only on the best and most important passages. In this way, no doubt, we shall lose much. but we gain more by ranging over wider field. We may in fact, think, apply to read ing Lord BrouSham wise ,lictum as re- gardS education, and say that it is we'll to read everything of something, and something of everything In this way only We can ascertain the bent of our own tastes, for 1t k general though not of course an invariahlr, rule, that We profit little hy books which we do not enjoy.
 Our difficulty now is what to select We must be careful what we read, and not like the sailors of Ulysses, take bags of wind for sacks of treasure--not only lest We should even now fall into the error of the Greeks, and suppose that language and definitions can be instru- ments of investigation as we'll as of thought, but lest, as too often happens,