The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-06-07
NEWS OF THE BOOK WORLD

A. W. Va AL OVVA WVRAO
Some Things About Books to Make You
Thtnk--A Trend In Literature Shown by
What We Are Looking for In Books
NoWadays-How to Get the Best out Of
Them.
How to Get the Best Out of Books is a
little book big with good advice on the
subject Of reading. 1t contains an even
half dozen essays by Richard LIE Gallienne,
on any one of which reader might we'll
begin the practice Of the principles laid
down therein, and when he had done he
would find himself very considerably bet
ter off for the best he had got out
Of 1t.
The Uneasy Chair for convenience's sake
makes a practice in reading a book, Of
marking by small cross such passages
as it may think of using as samples Of
the good or bad things the book contains.
This little book Of essays contains SO
many of these marks-of good things in-1
tended for use-that it Is difficult to know
just where to begin. The beginning, how
ever. is the best place. The Chair comes
very close to that in this quotation:
"No reading does us any good that is
not a pleasure to u.s.
Listen! Can't you hear the protests?
It rises into a tumult; not a stage tumult,
made by a half-score Of supernumeraries
either. You can distinguish in it the
voice of the fathers who are trying to
force any number Of Johns to read law
when the nustiness Of the stuff chokes
them and they long for a chance at the
book Of nature IN geology or botany or
biology; you recognize the voices of a
host of mothers who are eager that their
daughters should read this or that thing
when those same daughters insist with
obstinate perversity on reading just the
opposite; you hear the voice of the school
teacher and the warning cry of the man at
the sacred desk.
But hear Mr.. LIE Gallienne further:
"Yet, Of course, this does not mean that
all profitable reading is easy reading. Some
Of the books that give us the finest pleas
ure need the closest application for their
enjoyment
It should be remembered also that the
essayist is writing for those who have
enough seriousness of purpose in their
reading to ask the question which forms
the title Of the book To such readers,
Mr.. LIE Gallienne would give this further
latitude: Read only what you want to
it." 90 10y "A'A - "'' - 1e'
But here is something else that seems
at first thought subversive:
"A good reader forgets even more than
he remembers
When the Chair first read that it patted
itself on the back for tremendously fine
reader; it has since come to fear that
perhaps 1t has overdone the forgetting and
UNDERGONE the remembering. Still it has
less to regret in the thought that forget
ting is not always a fault.
AS final injunction in his prescrip-
ton for getting the best out of books,
Mr.. LIE Gallienne urges the thinking over
of what one has read. Meditation" he
says, lis the digestion Of the mind"
It is impossible, having devoted so much
space to the first essay in the book, to
say much about the rest, so it is better
to give what further space may be al
aotted to the book to one of the best
things in it. 1t is in the essay on What
We Look For Nowadays in Books" On
is this from Walt Whitman, which is the
key to the essay:
1.-THE soul,
Forever and forever-longer than soil
is brown and solid-longer than
water GIBBS and f1ows.''
After that one is prepared for this:
'Once more we have been passing thru
| a period, tho a comparatively brief one,
of spiritual eclipse and intellectual ma
terialism; and once more, passing out of
it, we again behold the stars. Material
ism in eighteenth century literature took
( the form of what we might call urbanism
In the nineteenth century It has taken
| the form Of realism. In one case the
eclipse might be said to have come thru
| spiritual Indifference and in the Other
thru spiritual despair. With all the splen.
did literature Of awakening which ha6
| been born Of Its revolt against the eight
zenith century, the nineteenth century
could not fall back into such placid torpol
as that from which it has so nightly
! aroused Itself It's materialism was Of
different origin, and came rather from the
| bad waking dreams Of its too eager watch.
fulness; came, in fact, Of those night.
mares Of science before which for while
| the soul of man has fed shrieking, letting
| fall, as it seemed, all the spiritual gains OF
| the century, and all the natural dreams OF
the heart. Those terrible muses. as
| tronony geology, and especially biology
had come with SO much grim science anC
had applied 1t SO confidently to the human
| mystery, and, with such apparent finalfty
so clearly demonstrated not merely mans
insignifcance, but his utter earthiness anj
kinship to the beasts that perish thai
his old dreams Of himself his noble spir.
| itual warfare, his TRANSFERRING idealisms
| seemed lost to him forever the toys o,
his fanciful childhood.
|
| t'Science has proved no match for re.
| 1igion, after all, and whereas short tim.
ago she seemed so cruel an enemy OF hi!
soul, who knows but that it shall be SHE
who some day shall prove that man Il
indeed a spirit; for more and more thu
new laws of science are confirming tn.
| old laws Of the SOUL"
! The Uneasy Chair.
TIE HEARTS COUNTRY.
Hill people turn to their hills;
| Sea folk sick for their sea;
| Thou art my land and my country
| And my heart calls out for thee.
The bird beats his wings for the open,
| The captive burns to be free;
| But IL cry in the darkness
! For thou art my liberty.
| @ Florence Wilkinson in June McClure's
| In the early autumn Dodd Mead & Co. vii
| issue 1.-THE Correspondence of William Cowper,