dued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, 5 as come they must, - when the sun is hid and the stars withdraw their shining, we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, Io tree, becometh fruitful." "A fig tree, looking on a fig It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress us with the conviction that one nature wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of 15 Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern. joy, with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses. There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my soul, that which I also had well-nigh thought and said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some pre-established harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and some preparation of stores for their future wants, like the fact observed in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub they shall never 20 25 see. I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know, that as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge. And great and heroic men have existed who had almost no 5 other information than by the printed page. I only would say that it needs a strong head to bear that diet. One must be an inventor1 to read well. As the proverb says, "He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry out the wealth of the Indies." There 10 is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labour and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. 15 We then see, what is always true, that as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato or Shakspeare, only that least part, only the authentic utterances of the 20 oracle ;2 all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Plato's and Shakspeare's. Of course there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious reading. Colleges, in like manner, 25 have their indispensable office, to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us when they aim not to 1 One who finds out new things, an original thinker. drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame. 1 Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus ; and pretension avail nothing. Gowns and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can 5 ΙΟ countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. never For get this, and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, whilst they grow richer every year. as III. There goes in the world a notion that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian,“ · unfit for any handiwork or public labour as a penknife for an axe. The so-called " practical men sneer at speculative men, as if, because they speculate or see, 15 they could do nothing. I have heard it said that the clergy, who are always, more universally than any other class, the scholars of their day, - are addressed as women; that the rough, spontaneous conversation of men they do not hear, but only a mincing and diluted 20 speech. They are often virtually disfranchised; and indeed there are advocates for their celibacy. As far as this is true of the studious classes, it is not just and wise. Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it he is not yet man. 1 Kinds, or qualities, of being. 3 Endowment of colleges. 5 Intelligence, good sense. 7 Deprived of the privilege of voting. 7 Without it thought can 2 Academic costume. 4 Prevail against. 6 One who is always ill. 8 Unmarried life. never ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble1 of thought, the transition through which it passes from the 5 unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not. The world, - this shadow of the soul, or other me, lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which 10 unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech. 15 I pierce its order; I dissipate its fear; I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my dominion. I do not see how 20 any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of 25 action past by, as a loss of power. It is the raw material out of which the intellect 1 That which precedes and introduces. 5 moulds her splendid products. A strange process too, this by which experience is converted into thought, as a mulberry leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes forward at all hours. The actions and events of our childhood and youth are now matters of calmest observation. They lie like fair pictures in the air. Not so with our recent actions, with the business which we now have in hand. On this we are quite unable to speculate. Our affections as 10 yet circulate through it. We no more feel or know it than we feel the feet, or the hand, or the brain of our body. The new deed is yet a part of life, remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life. In some contemplative hour it detaches itself from the life like a ripe 15 fruit, to become a thought of the mind. Instantly it is raised, transfigured; the corruptible has put on incorruption. Henceforth it is an object of beauty, however base its origin and neighbourhood. Observe too the impossibility of antedating this act. In its grub1 state, 20 it cannot fly, it cannot shine, it is a dull grub. But suddenly, without observation, the selfsame thing unfurls beautiful wings, and is an angel of wisdom. So is there no fact, no event, in our private history, which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert form, and astonish 25 us by soaring from our body into the empyrean.2 Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and dogs, and ferules, the love of little maids and berries, and 3 1 The larva, or wingless form of an insect. 2 Highest heaven. 8 A rod used by schoolmasters for discipline. |