"Oh! some day when I am wounded or taken prisoner, and cannot do anything 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 Cæsar or Xenophon nowadays, 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."
"To be sure," replied Captain Oughton; "and a fair stand-up fight between
Humphreys and Mendoza create more interest than the famous battles of—,
I'm sure I forget."
"Of Marathon and Thermopylæ; they will do," added Ansell.
"I grant," replied the major, "that it is not only unnecessary, but conceited in those who would show their reading; but this does not disprove the advantages which are obtained. The mind, well fed, becomes enlarged: and if I may use a simile, in the same way as your horse proves his good condition by his appearance, without people ascertaining the precise quantity of oats which has been given him; so the mind shows, by its general vigour and power of demonstration, that it has been well supplied with 'hard food.'"