"Not so fast as you imagine. I could never begin with you in reading books. You have read two to my one, I should think."
"Not so bad as that; and it is a poor compliment if it were true, for too much reading is as bad as too little, I expect. The difference between you and me is very plain; you read and study to have something to use; and I read for the pleasure of it."
"It is true," answered Nat, "that I try to make use of what I learn, though I enjoy the mere pleasure of study as well as you do. But when a person learns something, and then makes use of it, he will never forget it. I might study surveying a whole year in school, but if I did not go out into the fields to apply what I learned to actual practice, it would do me little good; and it is so with every thing."
"There is a good deal of truth in that," replied Charlie; "but there is a difference in the ability of persons to use what they acquire. Some persons have a very poor way of showing what they know."
It was true that Nat did not gorge his mind by excessive reading. Some readers can scarcely wait to finish one book, because they hanker so for another. They read for the mere pleasure of reading, without the least idea of laying up a store of information for future use. Their minds are crammed all the time with a quantity of undigested knowledge. They read as some people bolt down a meal of victuals, and the consequences are similar. The mind is not nourished and strengthened thereby, but is rather impaired finally by mental indigestion.
Coleridge divides readers into four classes. "The first," he says, "may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in, and it runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes every thing, and returns it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and the dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave in the diamond mines of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gem." Nat was a reader of the latter class, and, at the same time, saved every gem for use. He had no disposition to hoard knowledge, as the miser does his gold. He thought it was designed for use as really as a coat or hat—an idea that does not seem to have entered the heads of many youth, of whom it may be said, "their apparel is the best part of them."
It is as necessary to have a fixed, noble purpose behind a disposition to read, as behind physical strength in secular pursuits, otherwise what is read will be of comparatively little service. The purpose with which a thing is done determines the degree of success therein, and the principle applies equally to reading. Nat's purpose converted every particle of knowledge acquired into a means of influence and usefulness, so that he made a given amount of knowledge go further towards making a mark on society than Charlie. The latter usually mastered what he read, and he made good use of it, as the end will show, only it was done in another channel, and in a more private way. He could not have made so deep and lasting an impression on those around him as Nat, with even more knowledge, if he had tried.
"What work are you reading now, Nat?"
"Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," replied Nat, taking up the volume from the table. "It is a splendid work."
"I never read it," added Charlie; "the title is so magnificent that I never thought I should like it. My head is not long enough for such a work."