Moreover, while cultivating the memory, the reproduction of ideas from the works of writers like Addison, Newman, and Matthew Arnold is valuable in the formation of a clear and simple style. It was by careful reading of Addison and by afterwards reproducing the thought in his own language that Franklin when a boy formed the habit of elegant and exact expression that made whatever he wrote interesting.
CHAPTER IV.
WHAT TO READ AND THE ABUSE OF BOOKS.
Many people live in first-class houses, stay at first-class hotels, travel in first-class steamships and railway trains and then read third or fourth-class books. For them one book is about as good as another.
If one does not care for the world’s great books the fault is in him, not in them, but he must realize the vastness of human knowledge and understand that some of the wisest voices of all time have no message for him.
There are nomadic readers who read as the gypsies live, camping everywhere but for a night without purpose and without profit. Such reading is mental dissipation. Desultory reading jumps from one book to another. You might as well try to drink the sea as to read all books. You must divide in order to conquer. Do not read blindly, know what you are about. Have a definite aim and purpose. Do not read the first book that comes to hand but when you hear of a book that you ought to read make a note of it. By keeping a list of books you may shape your course and make your reading a selection from a selection.
Do not prefer the new to the meritorious; by following Emerson’s advice “read no book until it has been out a year,” you will avoid many loud-trumpeted books. There is uncertainty in reading a new book, but the value of the old books is well known. We need make no mistake.
Many of the oldest books are always new but there are books which were once standards on historical and technical subjects that are now as out of date as last year’s almanac. Be sure that what you read is reliable and the best of its kind. Prefer quality to quantity. Read the great books for yourself and do not be content with reading other people’s impressions of them. Books about books are seldom useful unless one has also read the works of which they treat.
Let the books that you select be those that have the approval of men competent to judge, but bear in mind that the wisest man cannot select the books that will best suit others; each must choose for himself. People are always glad to recommend the books that have helped them but they cannot tell whether such books will help you. You must find out for yourself, no one else can do it for you. Do not be afraid to ask anyone who knows more than you do. There is no information which people are so ready to give as about books, indeed when you ask them they feel flattered. When Franklin wished to make friends with a man that he suspected of hostile sentiments he borrowed a book of him and returned it promptly.
To find out what the best books are is no difficult matter, but to find out what are the best books for us requires a self-knowledge that takes life-long study. In reading we must feel our way, we cannot tell what is best for us all at once. We need to get acquainted with our own minds, to learn what our powers and tastes are. This takes time and thought and, more than all, fair-mindedness in order that we may not form too high or too low an estimate of our abilities. “If thou wouldst profit by thy reading, read humbly, simply, honestly, and not desiring to win a character for learning,” said Thomas a Kempis.
Have a clear view of literature, know what you like and why you like it. Be honest with yourself, do not pretend to like what you do not because other people do. Do not be afraid to be ignorant of many things, it is the price you must pay for knowing a few things well. It is only the stupid who pretend to know what they do not. An educated man is not ashamed to say that he does not know. “The acknowledgment of ignorance,” said Montaigne, “is one of the best and surest testimonies of judgment that I can finde.” To know when you do know a thing and when you do not, is the first step towards the attainment of sound scholarship, and the next is to know where to go for information. “Nothing is so prolific as a little known well.”