Sketcher

Wairarapa Standard, Issue 2067, 13 May 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Sketcher

How to Read Hooks. *■ (.'iincoming hubby horses there is no disputing.” And so of books. Everyone to his taste. In all the discussions published in the newspapers about the books to read, one sees (his diversify of ideas cropping out everywhere. No two of the distinguished writers who have written on the subject agree on what books or how many wo should read in a lifetime. Sir John Lubbock gives a list of one hundred books that workingmen should road. One difficulty with his list is that very few workingmen arc graduates of Cambridge and Oxford, and none else Could intelligently read the tremendous list which he has made up. Ido not pretend to know just what books workingmen ordinarily read, for among them, as among tiie educated classes, there is a great diversity of gifts, opportunities, and attainments. One could read Cicero or Plato even in the original, while another could not read or understand either in any language, even in the vernacular. Few have the time, few the inclination, few the ability, and fewer still the education, to enable them to conquer that portentous list, the reading of which would furnish a complete equipment fur the most talented pr.ifes-ioiial men of this century —with much leisure and a wide and profound acquaintance with the fundamental br.inchcv, of what is known as a classical education to commence with.

Of course there are exc-ptions to all rules. Hugh Miller, Elihu Hamit, and Abraham Lincoln had no education, but they c.jtiKl and did retd and understand all the 1 ooks th-.-v found within reach uf \ their hands. Workingmen of such genius may hope to accomplish the sumo task. Hut to the ordinary mind—to the minds of much more titan three-fourths of mankind, in all ages -such Herculean tasks ate impossible, whether they be college bred or home broth What, then, is the use of setting up ;i standard of reading so far out of the reach of the average intellect of the ao.i ; There are f< tv E,icons, not many Dr. Johnsons or Admirable Crichtons. No ulle of less talent than they had. may hope to road and remember tint literature of all time. lint how shall we read' is a question I. see nowhere asked or answered, though it scans t" me to no the main question. 1 cannot pretend toanswer it. I might tell how I read hooks ami bo laughed at for I my pains, much as those colossal bookworms tell us what books they read ; but after ail that we should bo just where we began. I have scon horses that ran their mile in three minutes ; others that took an hour to limp it tiiat far. One man's moat is another man’s poison. Rtdish is the true stimulus to reading. Books that arc read as a mere task, or because it is popular to be known to have read them, are read slowly, inattentively, irregularly, spasmodically’, like (lie Bible, and to little good purpose. One man is quick of apprehension, and can read fast. Another is dull, and must read slowly. “ Beware of the man of few books,” is an old adage that scents to give the key. Om e reading a book leaves small impression. A hasty perusal leaves almost none. A partial reading- in detached portions often leaves a wrong opinion, a great deal wot so than none at nil. Hive me the reading that is slow, careful, thorough, from end to end, often repeated at intervals through a long life. But a man cannot read many books that way. Yes, but he ivnne.ilir-t.s what he can read. It was thus Ban van read the Bible. One l i"d hook well read is worth a whole library hopped and jumped through, for that leaves no recollection of the contents. 1 would read a. few really good hoiks, and rend them till two or throe times a ye..r for forty years, if 1 lived so long. I should reaiithem until I could repeat them word for word. No other reading is worth anything in my opinion.

A furious Case. 31. L.ifotitc, yi itng, rich, and the happy husband of a pretty wife, whom ho had married against tho wishes of her family, returned home alone one evening. M. and Mine. Lafotitc wont-out early in the afternoon, informing their servants tlffli they would not he homo to dinner. Neither <>n tho next nor on any :>f tho following days did Madame return. Soon this mysterious disappearance was the talk ~t the neighborhood, and public opinion settled down to tho conviction that l.aii-uti had killed his wife. People began to 1..0k askance at him, and one j day a crowd assembled under his window j ami threatened mischief. The connuisj .-ain. of police arrived, and, instead of I dispersing the crowd subjected Lafonto to j an mt.Tiogatoi-y. I ■■ What have von done with your wife'! 1 * | he oked. i 1..t0n10 pi ti ti d that he. had done no- ! thoic '.'..;h iicr. yci lie was :inested and I■■ ;.t. : 1 1 i;; - - (••.biiiet of a judge d'insirnc- | ti-ci, who, being ;>. magistrate ot higher I i.lllthan die cuinmissairL of police, bc-an with - - ' " Vnd so, sir, you have killed your j wire y i I.ati.nte imsworod, * Nothing' of the j Hut his i.ithei in law was summoned, I and a f-nil'll cliarge of murder was itro- : Sent, d. l.af nte w.ts arrested, and in due time appeared before a jury to he tried for his life. The court room was crowded, and as matters began to look serious the a.-.n.-ed consented t i go into tho fuller details on the subject of his wife’s disappearance. Ills story was that on the day in gnestioii, before goin g out of his house to dine, he sat down to write a letter. His wife wished to know to whom he was wilting, and on his refusal to tell her she the, into (it of jealousy, tepmaelicd him With haring married her for her money, j and declared that she would leave him at j once. He answered her coldly, to tho elici t that she might do as .she pleased, and she left the loom in a rage. An hour j later, when he went for Imr to accompany I him to their friend's house, she was not to he found, and siue'o that day he had not sot eyes on her. When asked why he had not told this story to the coinmissairo of police, the , judge d imstu'.e-tien, and the public proseI enter, M. I.afonte answered that had been 1 enraged by the gossip of the neighbors, . and did not think that ns an innocent man it was his place to gratify their enrie'sity. Ihe prosecution was without foundr.‘i;m, and there was not a particle of . evidence .against him before the immi.straTes who had committed him, and he , had made up ,ns mind to stand his trial in : oroer 1.. !m v up the imdeVolrme- ~f his ’ f ? , ' lr ’ r 1,1 h ‘- nn.l the hu-lty wav i„ w hieh ; tho inagi Hales had in\ ti -ated this j ull-cf. 5-ill