I selected a common agricultural employment to illustrate my subject, first, because I suppose a considerable proportion of my readers are farmers, and secondly, because it is an employment which is generally supposed to furnish little or nothing worth recording. The latter, however, is a great mistake. Besides writing down the real incidents that occur, many of which would be interesting, and some of them highly important facts, the thoughts, which the circumstances and incidents of an agricultural life are calculated to elicit, are innumerable. And these should always be put down. They are to the mere detail of facts and occurrences, what leaves and fruit are to the dry trunk and naked limbs of a tree. The above specimen is very dry indeed, being intended only as a hint. Pages, instead of a few lines, might sometimes be written, when our leisure permitted, and thoughts flowed freely.
One useful method of improving the mind, and preparing ourselves for usefulness, would be, to carry a small blank book and pencil in our pockets, and when any interesting fact occurred, embrace the first spare moment to put it down, say on the right hand page; and either then, or at some future time, place on the left hand page, our own reflections about it. Some of the most useful men in the world owe much of their usefulness to a plan like this, promptly and perseveringly followed. Quotations from books or papers might also be preserved in the same manner.[10] ]
Perhaps it may be thought, at first, that this advice is not in keeping with the caution formerly given, not to read as we travel about; but if you reflect, you will find it otherwise. Reading as we travel, and at meals, and the recording of facts and thoughts which occur, are things as different as can well be conceived. The latter creates and encourages a demand for close observation, the former discourages and even suppresses it.
11. PRESERVATION OF BOOKS AND PAPERS.
Let books be covered as soon as bought. Never use them without clean hands. They show the dirt with extreme readiness, and it is not easily removed. I have seen books in which might be traced the careless thumbs and fingers of the last reader, for half a dozen or a dozen pages in succession.
I have known a gentleman—quite a literary man, too—who, having been careful of his books in his earlier years, and having recently found them occasionally soiled, charged the fault on those who occasionally visited his library. At last he discovered that the coal dust (for he kept a coal fire) settled on his hands, and was rubbed off upon his book leaves by the slight friction of his fingers upon the leaves in reading.
Never wet your finger or thumb in order to turn over leaves. Many respectable people are addicted to this habit, but it is a vulgar one. Besides, it is entirely useless. The same remarks might be applied to the habit of suffering the corners of the leaves to turn up, in 'dog's ears.' Keep every leaf smooth, if you can. Never hold a book very near the fire, nor leave it in the hot sun. It injures its cover materially, and not a few books are in one or both of these ways entirely ruined.
It is a bad practice to spread out a book with the back upwards. It loosens the leaves, and also exposes it in other respects. You will rarely find a place to lay it down which is entirely clean, and the least dust on the leaves, is readily observed.
The plan of turning down a leaf to enable us to remember the place, I never liked. It indulges the memory in laziness. For myself, if I take much interest in a book, I can remember where I left off and turn at once to the place without a mark. If a mark must be used at all, however, a slip of paper, or a piece of tape or ribbon is the best.
When you have done using a book for the time, have a place for it, and put it in its place. How much time and patience might be saved if this rule were universally followed! Many find it the easiest thing in the world to have a place for every book in their library, and to keep it in its place. They can put their hands upon it in the dark, almost as well as in the light.