“An agony
Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes,
Or hath come, since the making of the world.”
There never was a more beautiful comparison than the following:
“Like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs.”
[189-1] Haec fabula docet means This fable teaches. It is with these words that the “Morals” of the old Latin fables begin.
CHAPTER IX
Close Reading or Study
It is largely because story reading may so easily become careless reading, that prejudice against fiction is found in many minds. In the preceding pages there have been suggested many ways by which story reading may be made profitable, and yet all these methods may be used without calling for that close, intensive reading which we usually call study. You may lead a child to read Rab and His Friends for all the purposes we have suggested, and yet he may have passed over without understanding them many a word, phrase or even sentence. It is possible that there are whole paragraphs that convey little meaning to him. This is certainly not an unmixed evil, for it is well that a child should not exhaust the possibilities of such a masterpiece when he first reads it. In fact, it is a good thing for children frequently to read great literature even when much of it is quite beyond their comprehension. It will pique their curiosity, and some time they will return with wiser minds and broader experience to interpret for themselves the things that once were obscure. It is no sin for a child sometimes to pass over a word he cannot pronounce or does not understand. There could be few more certain ways of destroying his taste for reading than to require him to stop and find the meaning of every new word he meets. Sometimes the meaning will become evident a little later from the context, and in other instances he will understand well enough without the troublesome word.
What has been said does not signify that the habit of skipping new words or of avoiding difficult paragraphs is a good one. It does mean, however, that sometimes the practice should be tolerated, and that close reading should be required at the proper time and in the proper way. In the arithmetic or geography lesson the young must always read very closely, and in their perusal of the classics there are many fine opportunities for exercises of the same character, that should not be neglected. Descriptive passages, arguments, and essays of all kinds require to be read with exceeding care, and often there are passages even in light fiction that repay this kind of study.
Words and phrases are the subjects of consideration in close reading, and the mastery of thought is the object to be attained. The study of words may be made very interesting, and gathering the meaning of phrases may become a fascinating pastime.