The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1903-02-28
WHAT AND HOW TO READ.
instructive Article BY a Noted Irish
Writer.

0ouu SuVS A1uSlS ~ NUtSu 1IlS1
Writer.
Reading is part of the great univer-
sal pursuit of happiness" Also it is
Il sea to drown care and a sword to
kill time. 1t is a pastime, like golf,
only a much better one. l say these
things because, though take reading
seriously, l am not one of those who
speak of it with bated breath. And
l am not apt to be impressed when in
formed that So-and-So is great
reader" until have learned some
thing more about So-lnd.So. l will
not allow reading to he Il cloak to
cover sins of narrowness, prejudice,
and ;lffectation-especially affectation.
Some OF the most offensive persons l
have ever known We're great readers
persons who never went to bed
without reading scene from Shakes
peare, who made an appreciation of
"Marius the Epicurean" test of social
decency, who scorned all modern tic-
ton and poetry with a reference to
the wholesome sanity of Scott" who
were emphatically "up to date" and
whose minds, to be brief, were a CO.
agulated mass of ponderous pretenses.
For myself, l read because l enjoy
reading. l try not to pretend to like
things that don't like-it is difficult!
and when l am bored try candidly
to admit the fact. For example, l
candidly admit that nearly all Dickens
and nearly all Thackeay bore me
acutely. have again and again failed
to get through their masterpieces. or
even to perceive that their master
pieces are masterpieces. Therefore 1
no longer attempt to read them. But
ut the same time do not make II
practice, in my quest of enjoyment, of
discarling every book that threatens
to prove tedious, writes L. p. O'Con-
nor, NJ. F., in the Chicago Tribune.
And here, think, we come to the
main principle which should underlie
the reading of every man who reads
first for the esthetic or intellectual
bliss to he derived from reading. His
perusals should fall into two divisions
tile disciplinary and the purely JOY
GUS. When he is beginning to form
his taste in Imaginative literature his
disciplinary reading should consist of
classical imaginative masterpieces,
say play of Sllakespeare's every
week for three months. Hamlet"
may he the greatest dramatic poem in
the world. but that is no reason why
the reader. raw and unskilled i'll the
appreciation of literature. should ell
JOY it ut the first reading. Indeed. it
is Il reason to the contrary. And |
have little doubt that the first i'm
pressons of nine people out of every
ten who read Shakespeare are not re-
mote from tedium and an inability to
understand why so much fuss is made
over Shakespeare. More lies are told
about Shakespeare than about any
thing. except the weight of trout. Up
on the average, it must take years to
gain even Il moderate insight into the
beauties created by Il great literary
artist, but trying to like IL universally
acknowledged masterpiece will almost
always result in liking it, sooner or
later.
My advice. therefore, to the COM
mencing student of imaginative liter
allure is to lay down a program mot
too arduous) of masterpieces to be
read in period Of, say, three OF six
months. Such IL program might be
designed to occupy half his available
time for reading. And let him con-
sumo the other half in reading exact
ly what pleases his taste, jejune and
Uniformed though his taste be. Let
him avoid the assumption of too
serious pose" in regard to literature.
After ALL his taste is his ia ste, and he
has no right to scorn it. In the matter
of the masterpieces, he should take
care never to begin one Gin the dark"
He should have learned, from encyc-
lopedia or manual, something about
the aims and position of the author,
and lie should know what sort Of
beauties he is to look for. This is ex-
tremely important. For example, if
he is attacking Shakespeare he should
have Prof. Dowden's Shakespeare"
and Hazlitt's "Elizabethan Literature"
to guide him. 1t would be as sensible
to endeavor to find ones way up and
down Shakespeare without a guide as
up and down the Alps.
AS time proceeds, the inexperienced
student, growing experienced, will dis
cover that his joyous reading approx
mates more and more to his discip-
linary reading. He will discover that
the verdict of the ages was right. even
though it did not accord with his own
early views. He will discover that
the reason why the classical writer's.
from Homer to whom you please. are
esteemed and immortal is not primar-
lily because they are deep. and correct.
and restrained, and shapely, but pri-
marily because they give joy, pure
JOY, to the largest number of cultivat-
ed readers. And so it will occur that
he, too will join the noble procession