CHAPTER LXXXI

SEEK OUT THE SECRETS OF GRAVE

SENTENCES

1. Books are not absolutely dead things, but do con

THE DANGER

OF THOUGHT

LESS READING

bred them.

tain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that

2. You can never read bad literature too little, nor good literature too much. Bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

3. Just as you can ruin the stomach and impair the whole body by taking too much nourishment, so you can overfill and choke the mind by feeding it too much.

4. Thoughts put on paper are nothing more than footsteps in the sand; you see the way the man has gone, but to know what he saw on his walk you want his eyes.

5.

Who reads

Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and a judgment equal or superior,
Uncertain and unsettled still remains;
Deep versed in books and shallow in himself,

6. Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,

And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge;
As children gathering pebbles on the shore.

7. No book is worth anything which is not worth much nor is it serviceable until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again: and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it, as a soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an armoury, or a housewife bring the spice she needs from her store.

8. Let not the authority of the writer offend you, whether he be of great or small learning: but let the love of pure truth draw you to read.

BE ALERT
AGAINST
FALSEHOODS

9. Books cannot contain knowledge in a perfectly vital form they are rather instruments or materials of knowledge than knowledge itself.

10. Knowledge hardly exists for us till we have destroyed the form which it has in a book.

11. It must be recast in the intelligence: that is, interpreted and criticised bit by bit, till we have made it all of one tissue with our own vital experience.

12. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

13. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously: and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

14. Truth, not eloquence, is to be sought for.

15. He that giveth his mind to the law and is occupied in the meditation thereof, will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients. He will keep the sayings of the renowned men.

16.

17.

We get no good

By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits—so much help
By so much reading.

It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound,
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth-
'Tis then we get the right good from a book.

18. But it is not enough to care for good books, you must be a good living book yourself. Your inner mind should be the reality of these ideals.

SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO HEAR THE

HIGHEST TRUTH

1. We educate the young, steering them, as it were, by pleasure and pain.

TRAINING THE HEART

2. It seems also to be of the greatest consequence towards laying the foundation of the moral character, that men should take delight in what they ought, and hate what they ought;

3. For these feelings continue throughout life, carrying with them great weight and influence on the side of virtue and a happy life; for men deliberately choose what is pleasant, and avoid what is painful.

4. The numerous victims, the incessant struggles, and the life-long martyrdoms of our day, are in a great measure the fruit of the egotism instilled by the weak mothers and heedless fathers, who allowed their children to accustom themselves to regard life, not as a mission and a duty, but as a search after happiness and a study of their own well-being.

5. Speak to them of thy country, of what she was and is, and ought to be. Repeat to them the names and deeds of the good men who have loved their country and the people, and who have striven, amid sorrows, calumny, and persecution, to elevate their destiny.

6. Instil into their young hearts the strength to resist injustice and oppression.

7. Let them learn from thy lips how lovely is the path of Virtue; how noble it is to become apostles of the Truth, how holy to sacrifice themselves, if need be, for their fellows.

8. Let us then not consider how to leave our children rich, but how to leave them virtuous.

9. Let it be the principal part of thy care and labour in all their education, to make holiness appear to them the most necessary, honourable, gainful, pleasant state of life; and to keep them from apprehending it either as needless, dishonourable or hurtful.

10. Especially draw them to the love of it, by representing it as lovely.

TOUCHING

THE
SPRINGS

OF INSIGHT
AND LOVE

11. The great end of instruction is not to stamp our minds on the young, but to stir up their own; not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own; 12. Not to give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth; not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs;

13. Not to burden the memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of thought, to awaken the conscience, so that they may discern and approve for themselves what is everlastingly right and good.

14. We have at the present time a hypnotising system, organised in a most complex manner, beginning in childhood, and continued until the hour of death.