The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-03-20
ON RE-READlNG OF BOOKS.

ON RE-READlNG OF BOOKS.
Have you never envied the child sitting
down to read for the first time some famous
book over which in your own childhood
you have gloated? Have you not in this
envious mood, conjured up in vision, the
sofa on which you sprawied when for the
first time medieval England was opened
up to you in "Ivanhoe," or the corner in
the old garnet in which you stretched out
regardless of all personal discomfort and
explored for the first time in your life
desert island in company with the incom-
parable "Swiss Family Robinson?" Have
you ever known any real joy in literature
equal to that joy of a first reading? Most
of my bibliophilic readers, perchance, will
recall no such moments as these in all their
literary career, will have no such vivid
recollections Of, no such tender affection
for any books as for those read long years
ago and never reopened since.
For my part have no such feeling as
that about reading. The delight have got
from books has not come from one but from
repeated readings. To me the joy has been
not in reading but in re-reading. For, too
often, at the close of first perusal L have
been bewildered with the richness which |
l.
that 1 can take in nothing clearly, and
often the complete whole is shadowy.
have experienced the sensation of one rid
ing in flyer at the rate of fifty miles
an hour who attempts to look at the land
scape. He sees hills, woods and fields,
stream, grove and pasture man and beasts,
in his whirling flight, but he has no COM
plete impression on the retina. In order that
he may have complete landscape he must
go back over the ground and fill up his
general impression with one detail and an
other until the whole landscape stands clear
before him. IS
And SO I am such a stupid reader that
1 cannot, so willful that 1 will not, take
in all of a book at once, but must needs
go back to it again, picking out some choice
morsels here and there to gloat over. OF
course such method of reading, where one
has but little time for that pastime, has
its disadvantages. Think how woefuly such
a reader must get behind the times. He
has been reading for the twentieth time
some favorite classic, now long since out of
date and discarded by the public-library-
frequenting world of readers, and so has
found no time for 1.-The Christian or Hugh
Wynne," or even for "Quo Vads." Or oh
mighty 'bond of iniquity,' he has had the
bad taste to chuckle anew over 1.-The Hunt
ing of the Shark" or Through the Looking
Glass" or has been wandering, as is his
wont once or twice a year, with Miriam and
Hilda and Donatello through the Rome of
1.-The Marble Faun," and so, having but
scant time for reading, has overlooked
Robert Elsmere" at the time when "all
the world and his wife, were reading it,
and the clergymans TRADE or panegyric on
it, or his covert illusions to it in his care
fully prepared Sunday morning sermon fall
on untuned ears and a stony heart. And
so he is disgraced.
Thus have I, the dabbler, being only a
dabbler, been many times disgraced in the
eyes of my literary friends because 1 have
not read some new and wonderful book
which everybody that mysterious critic who
sways the opinion and guides the taste of
men, the immortal everybody is reading or
has read. To-day it is new, fresh. charm
ing, tomorrow it will be old and stale and
faded, and the world will have left 1t far
beyond. And where have I been, say you,
and what have 1 been doing? Hear, and I
will tell you: 1 have been walking once
more in The old world where 1 have but
few acquaintance. whom have seen many
times, and those few choice; holding again
to-day the same conversation 1 held with
them yesterday. and finding in it to-day
many a hidden meaning which was not
there yesterday; admiring anew the rusty
brown suits which my friends have worn
the twenty times and more that I have
seen them; drinking once more OF the same
waters which have so often refreshed me
before, and which are sweeter to the taste
each time I stoop down to drink of them
In short, I have been re-reading the few
books which I love.
Is it not strange? Here in "the making of
many books am ], a man busy with mani
fold other things the chief business of
life, yet withal a bookworm when leisure
marks me for her own" content to read
again and again the same old favorites,
now shelf-worn and showing signs of disso-
luton, while all the reading public about
me are striving to get and eager to talk
about the latest product of genius. anxious
either to tell or to hear some new thing
Well forgive me my queer tastes; l am
chary of my friends. both men and books.
The cid ones who are tried and true I
know, the new and untried shrink from
trying. / am heart and soul. as regards
both books and men, with the poet who
sings:
:" 'Tis an overcome sooth of age and youth,
An it brooks wi nae denial,
That the dearest friends are the auldest
friends,
An the young are just on trial."
To me the concern is not how many men
I know, but how well / know few. And
so am content to be behind the times.
that I be left behind with the few old
friends whom have chosen to keep me COM
pany. while the mad world rushes by us
in the vain wish for something new to
satisfy it's unrest. Let 1t leave us stranded.
we shall regret 1t not a whit
Insure with German Fire Insurance Of In
diana. General Offices % South Delaware
efreaf Fire tnrnafo and enxrn1ognfa