There are of course but few histories which have this tonic effect upon the mind and the will, but with these the lover of culture should make himself familiar. Each one must find the book he needs; and though he should find no help in a volume which time and the consent of the learned have consecrated, let him not be discouraged, but continue to seek and to read until he meet with the author who fills his soul with joy and opens to his wondering eyes visions of new worlds. To love any great book so that we read it—or at least those portions of it which especially appeal to us—many times, and always with new pleasure (as a mother never wearies of looking upon her child), until the thought and style of the author become almost our own, is to learn the secret of self-education; for he who understands and loves one great book is sure to find his way to the love and knowledge of other works of genius. He will not read chiefly to gain information, but he will read for exaltation of spirit, for enlightenment, for strength of soul, for the help which springs from contact with generous and awakened minds. He will mark his favorite passages and refer to them often, as one loves to revisit places where he has been happy; and these very pencil-marks will become dear to him as tokens of truth revealed, of wisdom gained, of joy bestowed. The best reading is that which most profoundly stimulates thought, which brings our own minds into active, conscious communion with the mind of the author; and hence the best poetry is the most efficacious and the most delightful aid to mental improvement.
Poetry is, as Aristotle says, the most philosophic of all writing. It is also the writing which is most instinct with passion, with life. It springs from intense thought and feeling, and bears within itself the power to call forth thought and feeling. It is thought transfused with the glow of emotion, and consequently thought made beautiful, attractive, contagious. It is, to quote Wordsworth, "the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science." The poet has more enthusiasm and tenderness than other men, a more sensitive soul, a more comprehensive mind. His wider sympathy gives him greater insight; and his power to see absent things as though they were present enables him to bring the distant and the past before our eyes, to make them live again in a new and immortal world; he stimulates the whole mind and appeals to every faculty of the soul. The greatest philosophers are, like Plato, poets too; and unless the historian is also a poet, there is no inspiration, no life in what he writes. It is as superficial and vulgar to sneer at poetry as to sneer at religion; and they alone are mockers who have eyes but for some counterfeit. To be able to read a true poet is not a gift of Nature; it is a faculty to be acquired. He creates, as Wordsworth says, the taste by which he is appreciated. To imagine we may read him as we read a frivolous novel is absurd; it may well happen we shall see no truth or beauty in him until patient study has made it plain. It often takes the world a hundred years or more to recognize a great poet; and a knowledge of his worth can be had by the student only at the price of patient labor. Wordsworth will attract scarcely any one at the first glance; the great number of readers will soon weary of him and throw him aside; but those who learn to understand him find in his writings treasures above all price. There are but a few great poems in the literatures of the different nations, but he who wishes to have a cultivated mind must, at the cost of whatever time and labor, make himself familiar with them; for there alone are found the best thoughts clothed in fittest words; there alone are rightly portrayed the noblest characters; there alone is the world of men and things transfigured by the imagination and illumined by the pure light of the mind. True poets help us to see, they teach us to admire, they lift our thoughts, they appeal to our higher nature; they give us nobler loves, more exalted aims, more spiritual purposes; they make us feel that to live for money or place is to lead a narrow and a slavish life; and to men around whom the fetters of material and hardening cares are growing, they cry and bid them—
"Look abroad
And see to what fair countries they are bound."
But even the greatest poets have weaknesses, and are great only by comparison. There is not one who however he may enchant and strengthen, does not also disappoint us. The perfect poet the future will bring; and to his coming we shall look with more eager expectation than if we foresaw man dowered with wings. The elevation we forebode is of the soul, not of the body. Progress we have already made. It is no longer possible for a true poet to sing of sensual delights; the man he creates is now no more the slave "of low ambition or distempered love." His theme is rather—
"No other than the heart of man
As found among the best of those who live,
Not unexalted by religious faith,
Nor uninformed by books, good books, though few,
In Nature's presence."
Writing is as great an aid to the cultivation of the mind as reading. It is indeed indispensable, and the accuracy of thought and expression of which Bacon speaks, is but one of its good results. "By writing," says Saint Augustine, "I have learned many things which nothing else had taught me." There is, of course, no question here of writing for publication. To do this no one should be urged. The farther we are from all thought of readers, the nearer are we to truth; and once an author has published, a sort of madness comes over him, and he seems to be doing nothing unless he continue to publish. The truly intellectual man leads an interior life; he dwells habitually in the presence of God, of Nature, and of his own soul; he swims in a current of ideas, looks out upon a world of truth and beauty; he would rather gain some new vision of the eternal reality than to have a mountain of gold or the suffrages of a whole people. The great hindrance is lack of the power of prolonged attention, of sustained thought; and this the habit of serious writing gives. But the habit itself is difficult to acquire. At first in attempting to write we are discouraged to find how crude, how unreal, how little within our control our knowledge is; and it will often happen that we shall simply hold the pen in idleness, either because we find nothing to write, or because the proper way to express what we think eludes our efforts. When this happens day after day, the temptation will come to abandon our purpose, and to seek easier and less effective means of developing mental strength, or else we shall write carelessly and without thought, which is even a greater evil than not to write at all. In the writing of which I am thinking there is no question of style, of what critics and readers will say; all that is asked is that we apply our minds to things as they appear to us, and put in plain words what we see. Thus our style will become the expression of our thought and life. It will be the outgrowth of a natural method, and consequently will have genuine worth. What is written in this way should be preserved, not that others may see it, but that we ourselves by comparing our earlier with our later essays may be encouraged by the evidence of improvement. It is not necessary to make choice of a subject,—whatever interests us is a fit theme; and if nothing should happen specially to interest us, by writing we shall gain interest in many things.
The method here proposed requires serious application, perseverance, diligence: it is difficult; but they who have the courage to continue to write, undeterred by difficulties, will gain more than they hope for. They will grow in strength, in accuracy, in pliancy, in openness of mind; they will become capable of profound and just views, and will gradually rise to worlds of truth and beauty of which the common man does not dream. And it will frequently happen that there will be permanent value in what is written not to please the crowd or to flatter a capricious public opinion, or to win gold or applause, but simply in the presence of God and one's own soul to bear witness to truth. As the painter takes pallet and brush, the musician his instrument, each to perfect himself in his art, so he who desires to learn how to think should take the pen, and day by day write something of the truth and love, the hope and faith, which make him a living man.