“Read!—nothing at all—you know that.”
“Well, perhaps so; we have no mess-newspapers here: the fact is, major, I am not very partial to reading—I am not in the habit of it. When on shore I have too much to do; but I mean to read by-and-bye.”
“And pray, when may that by-and-bye be supposed to arrive?”
“Oh! some day when I’m wounded or taken prisoner, and cannot do any thing else; then I shall read a good deal. Here’s Captain Oughton—Captain Oughton, do you read much?”
“Yes, Mr Irving, I read a great deal.”
“Pray, may I take the liberty to ask you what you read?”
“What I read! Why, I read Horsburgh’s Directory:—and I read—I read all the fights.”
“I think,” observed Ansell, “that if a man gets through the newspaper and the novels of the day, he does a great deal.”
“He reads a great deal, I grant you,” replied the major; “but of what value is that description of reading?”
“There, major,” replied Ansell, “we are at issue. I consider a knowledge of the passing events of the day, and a recollection of the facts which have occurred during the last twenty years, to be more valuable than all the ancient records in existence. Who talks of Caesar or Xenophon now-a-days, except some Cambridge or Oxford prig? and of what value is that knowledge in society? The escape of a modern pickpocket will afford more matter of conversation than the famous retreat of the ten thousand.”