'The tales that charm away the wakeful night
In Araby, romances';
Wordsworth himself came early under their spell. He tells how as a young child
'A precious treasure had I long possessed,
A little yellow, canvas-covered book,
A slender abstract of the Arabian tales;
And, from companions in a new abode,
When first I learnt that this dear prize of mine
Was but a block hewn from a mighty quarry—
That there were four large volumes, laden all
With kindred matter, 'twas to me, in truth,
A promise scarcely earthly.'
And so he makes a covenant 'with one not richer than myself' that each should save up until their joint savings were sufficient to purchase the complete work. But alas!
'Through several months,
In spite of all temptation, we preserved
Religiously that vow; but firmness failed,
Nor were we ever masters of our wish.'
There must be few books in the world from which we may learn so much while being so rapturously entertained. Burton's edition is perhaps the best known to English readers, though Lane's version is much to be preferred. Of the latter there are many editions.[29]
How much has been written on the Art of Reading, and what scanty knowledge of that art have the most industrious of readers! Outside the Universities, reading is apt nowadays to be looked upon as a light form of recreation, generally to be indulged in on a rainy day. 'There's nothing to do but sit indoors and read,' one frequently hears remarked in country houses when the weather is too inclement to permit of motoring. Novel-reading has indeed become a part of our fashionable life.
How often, too, does one come across readers of both sexes who possess, seemingly, a wide knowledge of books, even of the great books of the world. Yet in nine cases out of ten such knowledge is of the most superficial kind, acquired by 'dipping into' such and such an author to ascertain whether he be to his or her taste. Frankly, the great author is almost invariably not to the modern reader's taste; but the scanty knowledge acquired by perusing the first chapter, the headings of the remaining chapters, and the last chapter, enables the reader (save the mark!) to discourse at large on this particular writer among his own coterie. Perchance one of his friends has similarly insulted the great author, and they are enabled to discuss the book for nearly a minute by the clock, each thinking the other a devilish well-read fellow. Truly it has been said that 'just as profligacy is easy within the strict limits of the law, a boundless knowledge of books may be found with a narrow education.'[30]
More rarely one comes across a man who, being the fortunate possessor of a truly wonderful memory, is enabled to retain the bulk of the information which he has acquired by wide reading. There is a story told of a certain don at one of our older universities who, being possessed of an insatiable thirst for knowledge coupled with an excellent memory and an inexhaustible capacity for work, passed as a well-read if not a very learned man. There seemed to be few topics upon which he could not discourse on equal terms even with those who had made that subject their own.
Now it happened that there were two young Fellows at the same college who, wearied of his constant superiority in conversation, determined to take Brown (for such was his name) 'down a peg or two.' So each night at dinner in hall they skilfully turned the conversation to unusual topics, hoping to light upon some chink in the redoubtable Brown's intellectual armour. Once they tried him on the rarer British hemipterous homoptera, but soon discovered that he was a very fair entomologist. Next evening the conversation veered to ancient Scandinavian burial rites, but here again he could give them points. The Byzantine coinage of Cyprus was, of course, well known to him while he had himself worked on the oolitic foraminifera of the blue marl at Biarritz. His experiments on the red colouring matter of drosera rotundifolia had formed the subject of a monograph, and he was particularly interested in the hagiological folk-lore of Lower Brittany.