The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-11-06
THE READING HABIT.
BY REV. G. @. CONNER.


La Crosse, Thursday evening" October
IA.
READING is to the mind much what
eating is to the body. We form, of
necessity, the habit of feeding,
whether mental or physical. Habit
should become part of wise order.
1t should be the method of faculty,
the tributary of strength, the servant
of man and woman. 1t should re-
quire at length no thought nor atten-
ton from us. We should be self
regulative. We do not want to ex-
pend our strength in the act of eating
and at the end OF meal feel ex-
hausted. Nor must the effort to keep
ourselves in hand, to follow a line,
to master letters and definitions, de-
mand all our energies. If the valleys
that lead to the sea should absorb all
the moisture the great ocean basin
might be vacant. But the river
bottom is so saturated and glazed
that the whole volume of water flows
over it and is perfect tributary to
the sea. And habits should claim
nothing in the end, not thought,
and should serve us perfectly.
We may cultivate taste for foods
and for kinds of literature. We may
follow inclination when we have be
come rightly inclined. Howells could
say: II have never got any good
from book that did not read law
lessly and wilfully, out of all leading
and following, and merely because l
wanted to read it." And no one
should read from a sense of duty
alone. live are not interested in a
book it can impart nothing to us, as
we shall get no good from viands
which we do not relish. Interest is
sort of mental saliva, without which
digestion or assimilation shall be
poor. And we should early cultivate
a taste for the best. The substan-
tials of truth should be chosen first,
the lighter things secondarily. In
literature is the food of the soul. We
want that which shall strengthen
character, help us to think truly
to live, above all. Thoreau bas ad-
vised, "Read the best books first, or
you may not have a chance to read
them at all"
The best is found in no one class
of literature, accepting what, in ap-
proved fo,m, ministers to the mind !,
to the heart, or enriches the inner
being, the soul. In history, poetry,
fiction, philosophy and science alike
may be found our mental nourish-
ment. our spiritual food. We ought
not to limit ourselves to any one class,
or read one very largely to the exclu-
sion or neglect of other classes. AS
to his body, man is omnivorous, we
are told. He thrives on variety. AS
to his mind, he is a microcosm, re-
lated to the universe which ZEN
spheres him. He should CLEAN in
all the fields of truth. We may get
the food of life in a work of fiction as
certainly as in book of philosophy.
We may study some of the novelists
as we'll as some of the essayists. We
may get helpful ideals from poetry
as surely as suggestive facts from
history. We need only take the ap-
petite for truth to any table to get
both enjoyment and strength, if the
materials are before us; if they are
not there, we shall quickly know it
and turn away.
Should We read simply for enter
tainmentl Rarely, if ever, l would
say. We may take an occasional dish
of ice cream with cake, but we should
not be wise if we attempted to make
it our reguler diet. We may read
once in a while novel for the pleas
ure it gives us; but it might be bet
ter if we were to make it, by the way,
a kind of study of life. No one is
placed here for his or her pleasure
simply. We are to serve. And we
are to ask each thing to serve us that
We may extend the significance of it.
Our reading must be related to NOR
ality as our daily bread has some
connection with work. We should
not hoard truths, but embody them,
live them, dispense them.