THE ART OF READING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1905, 25 May 1888, Page 9

THE ART OF READING.

lecture Delivered by Mr Scobie Mackenzie, JJ.H.R-. at Cambrians, on "Advantages and Methods of Reading-" A lawyer who is devoted to the law or a doctor who is greatly interested in his profession will bear on his memory huge masses of details, while they could not repeat a passage from Milton or some other author though they had heard or perhaps read it dozens of times. Such m en are as ready as any others to say that- their memories are bad, simply because they do not remember things in which they do not take the slightest interest. We have therefore got so far as to be able to say that every person of sound mind and physically vigorous has a good memory for whatever he takes an interest in. If he can acquire an interest in a book or a subject he will have an excellent memory for the book or the 6ubject as the case may be. Bub of course the memory, like the muscle, is capable of development by exercise and trainjug. If I Bay that a man has a strong arm I don't say that he can't make it stronger ; and in the same way when I say that meu have good memories, I would not imply that they can't improve them. In fact, men have good memories precisely as they have good arms and legs, and it rests with themselves to improve their memories if they think fit. The other day I accidentally stumbled across gome quaint rules for improving the memory SOME QUAINT RULES FOB IMPROVING THE MEMOttY from the pen of good Dr Fuller, who lived and wrote 250 years ago, and who was well qualified to speak, for he appears (though I know little else about him) to have had a prodigious memory of his own. "First," he says, " soundly infix in thy mind what thou desirest to know. What wonder is it if the agitation of business jog that out of thy mind which was there rather tacked than fastened ?" That is to say do not — as we are all so ready to do — be content with loose and vague perceptions of a thing, but clearly and thoroughly understand what you wish to remember, and then, securely deposited in the miud, it will not be easily jolted out as if it were thrown loosely on the surface of ifc. " Ifc is best knocking in the nail overnight aud then clinching it in the morning." This rule of Dr Fuller's comes within the experience of every reader. That which is acquired just before the mind is going to rest appears to make no very doep impression. The awakening of a new day is apb to launch the iudividual into new scenes, thoughts, and impressions, which chase away the memory of what was learned the night before. In the morning, therefore, tho mind, no matter how hastily, bhould recall what it has taken in the night before, by which means it will revivify the subject that was thon just abouh to fatle out of ifc, and thus help to give it a permanent place there. "Overburden not the memory, to mnke so faithful a servant a slave. Remember Atlas was weary. Have as much reason as a camel, to rise when thou hast a full load. Memory, like a purse, if it be over full that it cauuob Vhut, all j will drop out of it." To add a single, word of comment or explanation to this would dimply be to spoil it. It is but a quaint and charming statement of the truth to which I before alluded— viz., that ib is not what the min<l devours, but what it can digest and assimilate, that is of value. " Spoil not thy memory by tbine own jealousy, nor make it bad by 5-tispocting it. How canst thou find that trite which thou wilt not trust ? " There is not a preacher, a lecturer, a politician, or indeed scarce any individual who does not know the truth and appreciate the wisdom of that remark. The memory is like A GOOD FRIEND OR A FAITHFUL SERVANT, it resents being distrusted. It is very apt to play you a trick judb to punish you. A man bays " I know a, , thing I have got to say perfectly well, but I am afraid to trust my memory." Aud he puts it all down on paper. The couscquonce is that his memory will not let him take his <•,> .'s off that paper. He has got to hang on to it for his very life. When a man i.s satisfied that he knows a thing, a bold reliance on his memory will always carry him through; but if he distrusts his memory, his memory will be apt to punish tho distrust by forbnkiughiuu This explains the. fact that what wu may call audacity i*' often so successful an ingredient in public speaking. But if onco a man from distrust of his memory falls under th>) thraldom of hii noteg or written memoranda, he may never be ablo hi emancipate himself. It n oul)' the other day I read in a newspaper of ftdwporatc effort Dr Talroagc, tho American lmui-hcr, had to make to goD rid of a slavish reliance on his MS. "Marshal thy notion's into a handsome method. One will carry twice more weight trussed and packed up in bundles than when it lies untoward, flapping, and hangiug about his (moulders." I take this to mean that it is the heids and salient points that a man should in orderly method get into his memory. Within these heads details lie packed and hidden in such a way that, without taking up much room to themselves, they may still with little trouble be drawn out for use. In reading English history, for instance, you don't require to store up every jact the historian mentions. . There are great leading features, central points round which the details gather — such for instance as the Reformation, the " divine right of kings period," the Revolution of 1688, the Restoration, the Reform Period, tho introduction of steam, and so forth. A. person who works, as it were, round those points gets a good knowledge of history, though l'Prhaps he could not stand a school examination, "Adventure not all thy learning in one bottom, but divide it between they memory and w>y note-books A commonplace book contains many notions in garrison, whence f he owuer may draw out an army into the h«ld on competent warning." There is no contradiction in this. It does not refer to matters which you wi^h to charge your memory for immediate use, but merely to notes taken of your reading as you go along? It is ouly within the last year or two that I discovered tho advantages of a commonplace book But every successful student will tell you that ifc is quite essential to the reader. At tho beginning of this lecture I said th-it there were THOUSANDS OF HOOKS THAT NEED NOT BE READ. * n thtj same way there is a large proportion of nearly every book that need not °s remembered. Shakespeare himself is Vfi ry far from being an exception to the tnle. Thus, than, wo can narrow reading fjown to a comparatively small compass, .ice leading works of a few master minds J Q prose and poetry, re-.d with great care, s o thfi*- leading features and passages I w onid brt f.\ir|y wtil reniambei'od, would enable ! J n m> of quite moderate education and advan**g^ U) stjuid out far in advance of most of his | wllow men in the way of mental culture. In ytOM>, h knowledge or fair insight into Bacon, Addinoii, Swift, Dr Johnson, Burke, Sir Waller Scott, Macaulay, and a few of the representatives of the present day wonld do it. ]

In poetry, Milton, Shakespeare, Dryden, Wordsworth, Shelley, Burns, and Tennyson. And for anyone who cannot read systematically, or who through pressure of work or otherwise has but little time for reading) there are TWO BOOK'S AS tNTERESTING AS ANY NOVEL, a careful and intelligent reading of which would give a great store of information to any mind. I allude to Green's " Short History of the English People " and Miss Buckley's " Short History of Natural Science." An hour each evening continued for six months would probably be sufficient for mastering them both, and the reading of them would be an excellent exercise for the memory. Perhaps the very best way of all to read is to have a pencil in your hand always— mark pregnant passages as you go along ; and when you are done transcribe them into a commonplace book which you can ultimately index for further convenience. In this way you have the advantage of (1) a careful reading of the whole, particularly noting the most' valuable portions; (2) the transcribing of those portions further fixes them in the mind; and (3; the storing of them away enables you to refresh your memory and draw upon them at any time. I am simply giving this as the experience of a man who has wasted the best portion of his life through not knowing how to read with advantage. Of course people are always on the look-out for some quack nostrum for im- I proving their memories, just as they are for recovering their health when they have lost it ; but there is nothing surer than that there is no royal road to the one any more than there is to the other. Hitherto I have been dealing with reading as it is necessary for supplying information, and therefore with special reference to prose works. POETBY has, I think, a different function, and if I had the time at command and were not afraid of wearying you I should have liked to say something about that branch of the subject. I don't know whether I am speaking correctly, but I would say that poetry is the food of that division of the mind which we call the imagination. And mental health demands the exercise of the imagination as well as the judgment and the memory. Eme;son says that " imaginative minds cling to their images, and do not like them rashly rendered into prose reality." Poetry has the effect of raising up a picture in the miud, which prose is powerless to do ; or it excites and exalts the feelings through the imagination. Tennyson by a mere touch of the poetic presents to the imagination what would otherwise be but a common incident — a girl modestly walking to church with her father and mother — as a charming picture : And in their double love secure A little maiden walked demure. Pacing with downward eyelids pure. I suppose that a whole chapter in a book could never present to the mind so vivid a picture of tho mental perturbation of the mau who is hesitating on the brink of some terrible undertaking as the few linos of Shakespeare : — Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first, motion, all the interim is .Like a phantasina or a hidf-otis dream: The genius and the mortal instruments Are then in council ; and th« state of man, Like to a litUe kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection. Among all the passages that are so often quoted from Burns one never hears an affecting prayer of his uttered in the hour of sickness and despondency, which gives at one and the same moment an appalling picture of his own helplessness aud the power of Omnipotence. It is the cry of a soul iv agony :—: — O thou great Governor of all below, If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee, Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow And still the tumult of the raging sea : With that controlling pow'r assist even me Those headlong furious passions to confine; For all unfit I feel my power to be To keep their torrent in the allowed line : O help me with thine aid, Omnipotence divine. It may be that a man should rely on himself to control himself ; but I take it that a lengthened prayer comiDg from the most devout lips could not touch the heart or raise up such a picture of Omnipotence before the mind as these few lines do. Lastly, through the aid of poetry, lessons that exalt and animate the mind can be got from the commonest objects of nature. A better illustration could no*s be drawn than from Oliver Wendell Holmes' "The Chambered Nautilus" (Portugese man-of-war, I think the nautilus is hometitnes called). The animal lives iv a beautiful spiral shell, divided into chambers, and each year as it grows it leaves the smaller for a larger compartment, which it builds up for itself. Viewing the shell as it lien on the beach, these are tho thoughts and this the exalting lesson suggested to the poet : — Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wreck 'd is the ship of pearl! And fvery chambered cell, , Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, liefore thcelies reveal'd— Its nis'd ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unseal'd ! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil. Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new ; Stole with soft step its shining archway through ; Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Onild of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap forlorn ! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Tritou blew from wreath'd horn ! While on mine ear it rings, From the de9p caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : — Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As tho dwift seasons roll ! Leave thy low vaulted past ! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast 1 ill thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! It is hardly necessary for me to say, in conclusion, that the man or woman who does not read nob only falls behind in the intellectual race of life but loses the most softening, humanising influence that can act upon the human mind. It may be that some of you are past the time when the habit of reading may be acquired, but you can still encourage your children to read. And a youth who masters one good book will do more to raise himself in the social scale find, what is better still, in his own esteem than if he were invested with 50 votes, or had spent his lifetime in that sort of " education " which, in the vile jargon of politicians, is supposed to result from general elections.

— Boarder : "Another cup of coffee, please. And make it as hot as you can.' 1 Landlady : "Wasn't the first cup hot enough?" Boarder: " Yes, that was all right, only I want another just like it. I want to finish cooking that egg I have just eaten." — " Can a mother forget her child ? " asks a sweet poetess in the Home Journal. Birdie, if it is a boy child, four years old, and awake, we will stack up the mines of Golconda against marsh mallows for the crowd that she can't ; no, not for one minute, unless she drowns herself or chloroforms the child.