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                              Reading



    With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits;

all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers; for

certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike。  In

accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity; in founding a

family or a state; or acquiring fame even; we are mortal; but in

dealing with truth we are immortal; and need fear no change nor

accident。  The oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner

of the veil from the statue of the divinity; and still the trembling

robe remains raised; and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did;

since it was I in him that was then so bold; and it is he in me that

now reviews the vision。  No dust has settled on that robe; no time

has elapsed since that divinity was revealed。  That time which we

really improve; or which is improvable; is neither past; present;

nor future。

    My residence was more favorable; not only to thought; but to

serious reading; than a university; and though I was beyond the

range of the ordinary circulating library; I had more than ever come

within the influence of those books which circulate round the world;

whose sentences were first written on bark; and are now merely

copied from time to time on to linen paper。  Says the poet Mr

Udd; 〃Being seated; to run through the region of the

spiritual world; I have had this advantage in books。  To be

intoxicated by a single glass of wine; I have experienced this

pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of the esoteric doctrines。〃  I

kept Homer's Iliad on my table through the summer; though I looked

at his page only now and then。  Incessant labor with my hands; at

first; for I had my house to finish and my beans to hoe at the same

time; made more study impossible。  Yet I sustained myself by the

prospect of such reading in future。  I read one or two shallow books

of travel in the intervals of my work; till that employment made me

ashamed of myself; and I asked where it was then that I lived。

    The student may read Homer or AEschylus in the Greek without

danger of dissipation or luxuriousness; for it implies that he in

some measure emulate their heroes; and consecrate morning hours to

their pages。  The heroic books; even if printed in the character of

our mother tongue; will always be in a language dead to degenerate

times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and

line; conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of

what wisdom and valor and generosity we have。  The modern cheap and

fertile press; with all its translations; has done little to bring

us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity。  They seem as

solitary; and the letter in which they are printed as rare and

curious; as ever。  It is worth the expense of youthful days and

costly hours; if you learn only some words of an ancient language;

which are raised out of the trivialness of the street; to be

perpetual suggestions and provocations。  It is not in vain that the

farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard。

Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length

make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous

student will always study classics; in whatever language they may be

written and however ancient they may be。  For what are the classics

but the noblest recorded thoughts of man?  They are the only oracles

which are not decayed; and there are such answers to the most modern

inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave。  We might as well

omit to study Nature because she is old。  To read well; that is; to

read true books in a true spirit; is a noble exercise; and one that

will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the

day esteem。  It requires a training such as the athletes underwent;

the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object。  Books

must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written。

It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that

nation by which they are written; for there is a memorable interval

between the spoken and the written language; the language heard and

the language read。  The one is commonly transitory; a sound; a

tongue; a dialect merely; almost brutish; and we learn it

unconsciously; like the brutes; of our mothers。  The other is the

maturity and experience of that; if that is our mother tongue; this

is our father tongue; a reserved and select expression; too

significant to be heard by the ear; which we must be born again in

order to speak。  The crowds of men who merely spoke the Greek and

Latin tongues in the Middle Ages were not entitled by the accident

of birth to read the works of genius written in those languages; for

these were not written in that Greek or Latin which they knew; but

in the select language of literature。  They had not learned the

nobler dialects of Greece and Rome; but the very materials on which

they were written were waste paper to them; and they prized instead

a cheap contemporary literature。  But when the several nations of

Europe had acquired distinct though rude written languages of their

own; sufficient for the purposes of their rising literatures; then

first learning revived; and scholars were enabled to discern from

that remoteness the treasures of antiquity。  What the Roman and

Grecian multitude could not hear; after the lapse of ages a few

scholars read; and a few scholars only are still reading it。

    However much we may admire the orator's occasional bursts of

eloquence; the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or

above the fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars

is behind the clouds。  There are the stars; and they who can may

read them。  The astronomers forever comment on and observe them。

They are not exhalations like our daily colloquies and vaporous

breath。  What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to

be rhetoric in the study。  The orator yields to the inspiration of a

transient occasion; and speaks to the mob before him; to those who

can hear him; but the writer; whose more equable life is his

occasion; and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd

which inspire the orator; speaks to the intellect and health of

mankind; to all in any age who can understand him。

    No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his

expeditions in a precious casket。  A written word is the choicest of

relics。  It is something at once more intimate with us and more

universal than any other work of art。  It is the work of art nearest

to life itself。  It may be translated into every language; and not

only be read but actually breathed from all human lips;  not be

represented on canvas or in marble only; but be carved out of the

breath of life itself。  The symbol of an ancient man's thought

becomes a modern man's speech。  Two thousand summers have imparted

to the monuments of Grecian literature; as to her marbles; only a

maturer golden and autumnal tint; for they have carried their own

serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them

against the corrosion of time。  Books are the treasured wealth of

the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations。

Books; the oldest and the best; stand naturally and rightfully on

the shelves of every cottage。  They have no cause of their own to

plead; but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common

sense will not refuse them。  Their authors are a natural and

irresistible aristocracy in every society; and; more than kings or

emperors; exert an influence on mankind。  When the illiterate and

perhaps scornful trader has earned by enterprise and industry his

coveted leisure and independence; and is admitted to the circles of

wealth and fashion; he turns inevitably at last to those still

higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and genius; and is

sensible only of the imperfection of his culture and the vanity and

insufficiency of all his riches; and further proves his good sense

by the pains which be takes to secure for his children that

intellectual culture whose want he so keenly feels; and thus it is

that he becomes the founder of a family。

    Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the

language in which they were written must have a very imperfect

knowledge of the history of the human race; for it is remarkable

that no transcript of them has ever been made into any modern

tongue; unless our civilization itself may be regarded as such a

transcript。  Homer has never yet been printed in English; nor

AEschylus; nor Virgil even  works as refined; as solidly done; and

as beautiful almost as the morning itself; for later writers; say

what we will of their genius; have rarely; if ever; equalled the

elaborate beauty and finish and the lifelong and heroic literary

labors of the ancients。  They only talk of forgetting them who never

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