KEEPING THE CREAM OF ONE'S READING.
By Margaret Meredith.
My plan dates from a few delightful weeks which I spent with a girl friend, long ago. We were devoted to poetry and to reading aloud; and in that occupation we had the aid of a brilliant, accomplished young woman. She selected for us from Coleridge, Shelley, and several other authors, whose entire works she knew we would not care to read, all the specially fine poems or passages, and these we read and discussed with her over our fancy-work. It was charming. At last, she suggested that, as I was soon to go away and leave the books and clippings with which I had been growing familiar, it would be helpful for me to write down the choicest bits, and try in that way to keep in some degree what I had gained. This I did, putting the extracts in a school copy-book which our friend dubbed "Snippers,"—from an odd seamstress word which she had picked up by chance.
Other "snipper" books followed when that one, years after, had been filled.
My system is an orderly one. All my books are broad-paged and wide-lined, thus preventing the cramped and crowded writing which often makes such books unreadable. When I find anything which strikes me as worth keeping, I note on a slip of paper, somewhat longer than the book I am reading, the number of the page and make a perpendicular line beneath it, with a cross line indicating the relative position of the sentence which I wish to keep, thus:
If the page is in columns, I make, instead of the single line, a rough parallelogram, and note within it by square dots the relative positions of the sentences chosen for preservation, thus:
This slip of paper I use as a book-mark until it is filled or the book is finished, noting upon it, as indicated, the choicest passages and their positions on the pages. When I have finished the book I go carefully over these selected sentences. Many are discarded; the rest go into my "snippers." Below the first entry and to the right, I place the name of the book and its author, both heavily underscored; below the others, the word "Ibid" or "ditto," underscored. At the top of each page I note the year, and at the head of each batch of extracts the month or day.
Paragraphs cut from newspapers, which are worth saving, are pasted as a fly-leaf to the inner edge of the page, or even slipped under the binding thread.
In carrying out my plan I am always content with hasty work,—but I write plainly, and if possible with ink, as much fingering destroys pencil-marks. I once tried classifying the extracts, but this scarcely paid for the trouble.
I used sometimes to wonder whether these books of selections were of any real value. But I have grown now to prize them greatly. Many a time I go to them for a dimly remembered phrase or passage. Sometimes, too, I read them over, for of course they give me the essence of what I most like and admire in my reading. A short time since I lent one to a literary friend, and was surprised to find she enjoyed it so greatly that she was almost unwilling to give it back.
I am very glad that I began this practice in my young days. It gives very little trouble, and that little is a pleasure.
There is a familiar expression about an "embarrassment of riches." This is the greatest disappointment I experience with my "snippers." For, occasionally, a book has too many good things in it to be easily copied, and then my only relief is to own it and, marking it vol. X, add it to my row of extract-books.
