“If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention, so that there is but one-half to be employed on what we read.”
At the same time, this is only a partial truth. To throw aside everything that does not allure at the outset is not wise. Many books that will charm and instruct are hard to “get into,” and a little self-control and perseverance will reap their reward in study as in everything else. The truth lies midway between two extremes. Do not get out of a library some book because you are told to read it, and at the close of a day’s work force yourself to pore over the pages until you fall asleep. On the other hand, do not confine your reading exclusively to story-books and the lighter magazines because they attract you and require no effort of attention. Girls are by far too prone to do this, forgetting that a taste for deeper books may be cultivated like every other taste.
It is true that many of the novels of the present day deal with the graver problems of life, and occasionally require an education to understand them. Still, however philosophical and thoughtful they may be, they should not constitute the sole intellectual food of any mind.
“Why?” you may say. “If I can learn all about early civilisation in a book like Georg Ebers’ Egyptian Princess, about mediæval and Scottish history in Scott’s novels, about the Stuart period in John Inglesant, about music in a story like Charles Anchester, about modern problems of every kind in George Eliot’s, Sir Walter Besant’s, and Mrs. Humphry Ward’s pages—not to go further—why not confine my reading to this interesting and attractive form?”
There is an essay by the late Professor T. H. Green of Oxford, which should be very widely studied.[1] He answers the question “Why not?” in a most forcible and masterly way, and the gist of his reply is this. The novel must perforce reproduce the circumstantial view of life; we are called to look again upon the incidents which day by day distract our attention overmuch from the “unseen and eternal” realities, and are apt to be enthralled afresh by the view that “to marry and live happily ever after” is man’s and woman’s chief end. In other words, the aspect of things the novelist shows us is “merely the outward and natural as applied to the inner or ideal.” He cannot give a complete representation of life; for instance, reproduce its slowness, its discipline by long years of silent waiting and patient labour. Much must be omitted of necessity, by reason of conditions of the craft; much also, by reason of artistic effect, must be so arranged and rounded off as to give the impression of a happiness impossible in life. The lesson of life, then, in its completeness, cannot be taught even by the best novel.
The reading of fiction is valuable in its place, but it is not enough for the mind and heart to feed upon.
We have not, however, as yet to consider the reading of fiction pure and simple. There is much besides to occupy attention, and perhaps this is the place to insist upon the reading of history. To connect the remote regions of classic lore with the present day, history is needed; but it is rather overwhelming to look at the best books of history and see how long and how numerous they are! The primers of history are, however, within the compass of all.
We have already mentioned Sir W. Smith’s smaller histories of Greece and Rome. Plutarch’s Lives of Greeks and Romans—made easier in Plutarch for Boys and Girls, translated extracts by Professor J. S. White—will offer an interesting biographical way of learning history. Macmillan’s History Primers published at one shilling each are most useful. You might begin by C. A. Fyffe’s Greece, or Mahaffy’s Old Greek Life in this series, and work gradually downwards. The “Story of the Nations” Series, published at five shillings by T. Fisher Unwin, consists of a number of volumes, each about a different nation. Your wisest course, indeed, if you cannot command time for the reading of long histories (such as Grote’s Greece, which, in ten volumes, is invaluable to the student), is to obtain from any bookseller a full list of Macmillan’s “History Primers,” or Unwin’s “Story of the Nations” Series, and select what you like, always remembering that to get some connected idea of the history of the world is essential to the enjoyment of the literature of the world.
For advanced students a most interesting volume is Walter Bagehot’s Physics and Politics, treating of the causes that influence progress. Mahaffy’s Twelve Lectures on Primitive Civilisations, and Froude’s Short Studies on Great Subjects, or Carlyle’s posthumous volume of Historical Sketches will be found valuable. With regard to English history you should read The Making of England, by J. R. Green, and his Short History of the English People; also Freeman’s History of the Norman Conquest. A series called Epochs of English History, written by eminent authors, can be highly recommended. Each part costs only ninepence. In fact, helps to the study of history are so abundant and cheap that it is superfluous in these days of booksellers’ catalogues to enumerate them further. Only, if you can read nothing else, read primers, so as to obtain some distinct notion of where you stand in the “long result of Time.”
Although you should not rely for your facts on plays and novels only, it is very desirable, if possible, to read Shakespeare’s plays, or some good historical novel, side by side with the history of the period of which they treat. Thus the dry bones of fact are clothed, as it were, with flesh and blood, and become living.